Legalization of marijuana

A couple states have already passed amendments which legalize the medical use, recreational use, or both of marijuana. It's even a topic in Minnesota now. So the question is, does it have a place in society? I'd argue that it does. Alcohol and cigarettes are, and they provide their own type of "high" (buzz) just as marijuana does. Hell, it's even healthier than those two. I can see how with marijuana people think that it will negatively impact society, but that's why there would be strict regulations placed on the product.

Government use of torture

The U.S. government undoubtedly use torture to extract information from captured terrorists (they've even publicly announced that they do so). But is it right to do so? Torture could have so many adverse affects on the information that the victim gives up. They would lie so that the torture would stop, so how can this possibly be a reliable? They're risking the human rights of an individual for potentially invalid information.

Video Game Content

Many video games these days have controversial content. For example we can look at the "No Russian" mission from COD: MW2, the dirty bomb scene in COD: MW3, and more recently GTA 5 with the interactive torture gameplay. So, do these things have any place in games, even if it's only a game? In both the COD examples they were completely unnecessary, the only reason they were put in the game was for plot movement during the campaign. In the case of GTA, a game with satirical undertones, it does have a place. What I interpreted from the torture was to show how it was hard/sickening to torture someone, even if it was only in a game. Things like this help bring attention to political controversies, especially in a medium with such popularity among youth in America. Because of this, I would say that only in the right applications does controversial content belong in games.

Assisted Suicide

Physician-assisted suicide has been an issue that's popped up in the news every now and then. In many societies it's outlawed as well. Also, those who seek physician-assisted suicide are usually in great deals of physical pain and headed down a path of inevitable death due to their condition. Is it unethical? Undoubtedly so. But it isn't our choice to decide whether a person wants to live or die either, right? One side can argue that a persons will to live can be crushed by off-the-chart levels of pain and that choosing a painless way to die would be preferable to them. But then that raises the question of how you would measure the pain and once that's figured out at what point it assisted suicide would be a viable option. The other side can argue that it's completely unethical in every way and that euthanasia shouldn't even be an option. So, which is more ethical? Letting someone live in pain for the remainder of their lives or let them kill themselves? In my opinion the first option should be allowed only at the last resort, as well as the second option though having better moral and ethical grounds to stand upon, it seems more like selfishness to avoid emotional distress after the death of the individual.

White Lies

Are lies unethical even when they're small and insignificant? I believe not, as long as they were done with no ill intent, or out of good will. Like when you get a really bad gift from someone and you have to open it in front of them, saying "Dude, what the hell is wrong with you. This thing sucks" in front of them is a worse alternative to "Dude, I love this thing.". White lies are only ethical for so long though, eventually they'll grow to be backhanded. Breaking bad reference, when Skylar pieces together all of Walts' lies to figure out he's a drug dealer. All of his little white lies came back and built up into a storm.

U.S. Drone Policy

With the recent talk about U.S. interest in bombing Syria, I thought it would be a good time to bring up drone policy. First, an extremely brief intro to our drone policy. Essentially what we do is gather 'reliable' information on a target (which most of the time is true) and then send out a drone to drop a missile on the target. Now, what could possibly be so bad about this? We get the bad guy and no one gets put in harms way, except for the civilians around the blast radius. Well, some collateral is unavoidable, right? Then again it's not our citizens to be putting in harms way. Like I said, most of the time the information is correct, but when it isn't correct we end up dropping bombs on villages of people. So we put lives that aren't even under our sovereignty in harms way on the chance we'll kill a terrorist. Doesn't seem so bad? But wait there's more! These drone's aren't actually automated, someone has to be pulling that trigger and guiding that missile to the ground at some computer in some obscure place that's probably hundreds of miles away, and therein lies the problem. This person controlling the missile doesn't even see the faces of whoever is underneath them, all that person is to them is a blip on the screen, like in that AC-130 mission in COD. Just imagine how much easier that makes it for the person to pull that trigger. We're essentially taking away their identity as a human when we do this.

Sorry, this was extremely rant like.

Medical treatments and insurance

Recently my sister has changed her career path from working to become a doctor to wanting a different job majoring in public health. She said her reasoning behind this was because of the "politics" involved, saying that the insurance companies wouldn't cover certain medical treatments and that's something she's completely against and wouldn't want to be a part of. But in a question of what's fair and not fair based on a first come first serve basis, can one say that someone who comes first with no money should be treated rather than someone who can pay for the treatment? In an ideal world everyone would get the medical attention required to bring them back to perfect health, but this is not an ideal world. A factor which comes into play is the resources available. For example we can look at a donor list. There's only so many organs which are available to be transplanted. Of course there's already priority for donors on the list, but a patient who does not have the money to pay for the transplant but comes first should not be prioritized over another patient who does have the money to pay for the treatment, assuming that both of their situations are the same. My sister has good intent saying that everyone who needs treatment should be treated, but that's simply not viable. It's like the old "can you weigh two different lives" argument, except with money.

I'm not sure if I did this right by taking a side on the knowledge issue, my bad if that's the case.