Suppose you are a prison guard. 

Your commanding officer orders you to torture someone. 

You won't get in trouble if you did it.

Would you do it?

Suppose your family is suspected of something by the government. 

You happen to be an informant. 

Would you betray them?

-------------------------------

In an experiment done with volunteers, people were asked to ask questions to another person. If the asker got an incorrect answer, the answerer gets an electric shock. 

The test is repeated, with higher and higher voltages. 

At 150 volts,  70% of people were still willing to administer shocks to the other person.

This is quite a shocking result. 70%? That's 7 out of 10 people. 

And I guess if you people were threatened to do so, then 100% of you will willingly administer shocks. 

Even if the people you were shocking were people you care about.

Of course, people are free to control their actions. But why so prone to obedience?

Suppose we did the experiment at school with ordinary students, and a teacher was conducting the experiment. What would the results be?

Also, I believe that in East Germany, many people were willing to spy on their families and friends.

Personally, I am extremely disappointed at such results. It goes to show that people just will not stand up for anything at all when up against authority. They won't even stand up for reason and values, or more generally, principles.

Why do a standard of right or wrong exist? They exist to enhance the interactions, relationships and deals in a society or group of people. 

They exist so that the maximum number of people would be happy in the long term. 

They are meant to reduce the amount of arguments, or fights. 

The code is agreed on by the people and they uphold it.

The thing about values is that they can evoke emotions or the interests of people.  So, you can say that my disappointment at the results is an emotion response. And indeed it is. But there are also reasons for it, and these are backed by practical consequences of actions.

There are many standards and different societies hold different ones to be true. 

I know that there are some values that, if we abide to, makes everyone better off. Hence, the people in a society have an interest in following these values. Their interests are often fairness and prosperity.

morals

Society's code for individual survival.

ethics

An individual's code for society's survival.

The New Lantau Trip planning/gear post

Gear:
just got a lantern. Not larger than your average flashlight.
Interestingly, it uses the same type of LED as my headlight.
We have something to light up our cooking stuff and for someone to lead the way up Lantau Peak.

I am not getting a liner, unless it's so good it can be my sleeping bag. The worst case scenario is I put on everything I see, from the plastic bag to the emergency blanket.
Or, I can make my own...

Lantau trip HKAYP

I though the Lantau trip was in January 11-13... but apparently it gets put forwards.

So no more Bronze AYP practice trip...

Who carries what?

1 tent guy

1 tent guy

1 trangia, fuel guy

1 food, snack guy

I guess if the tents aren't actually that heavy, the food load and fuel load can be shared out.

Also, make sure we all bring hats and hiking sticks. Hiking sticks are good for long marches, because they make walking less boring and shares out some load. Hats are good because you don't want a freezing head. I'm thinking about some reflective cloth belts, so that it will be good for identification at night.

My headlight is marginally powerful, and someone should bring a more powerful flashlight, because it's much better for path-finding at night. If we missed a ribbon in some very nasty bush-wack, we may have to camp out for the night. Which I think would be ideal, but the rest of the group and teachers would find annoying.

Walking 50km in three days is not easy, and especially when we have less people than the other groups. Also take into account of getting lost or taking the wrong paths. 

Be prepared to walk from 0800 am to 2000 pm, because we must cover AT LEAST 17 kilometers everyday. 12 hours should be sufficient, given that we climb the tallest hills, instead of trying to traverse them. Traversing an overgrown/non-existent path is more dangerous than going up an established path.

I wander if we'll be more independent this time. I prefer no teacher, unless they are only shadowing us or good navigators. 

I'm not using matches this time (but maybe as backup), because they aren't windproof nor reliable enough. Lighters are better. I insist on getting the lighter Trangia, because we only have 4 people and it appears to be faster. 2 fuels should be marginally enough for 4 meals and drinking needs.

UV sterilization of water and active carbon filtration would be available, but it depends on how trusting you are to it. Active carbon filtration is necessary to remove any organic toxins that cannot be killed, and particles that may block UV. I am also thinking about double treatments just for safety. You may even choose to add iodine, but that is unnecessary, because iodine is milder than many other treatments. 

This is going to be pretty hard, so group cohesion is necessary, even when we are tired. We can't let members trail behind or get bored or too tired. Fatigue also contributes to errors.

Abortion

Abortion is an interesting topic, because there are conflicting interests. 

Babies have the inherent right to life, as given to them by a creator.

Some men and women, under certain conditions, want to get rid of the baby, because delivering it will have major financial consequences.

My solution is not to make abortions illegal, but to make it so that people make their own decisions, at their own cost, with their own minds and money, and the conditions defined. The conditions should be limited to sound medical reasons, substantial risk to lives or sexual assault. The abortion should also take place within the first 3 months. This should make people more aware of the consequences of their actions, which should be a positive outcome for both the mother, family and the child. Finally, this should also compromise a variety of views and interests.

Are babies alive and have human rights? YES! If someone pulled the fetus out of the mother and destroyed it, the person can be sued and put in jail for life for MURDER. The only time it is not, is when the fetus dies or is hurt, has a defect or the mother's life is endangered.

So the fetus/baby has a LEGAL human rights unless it is a danger to others or itself, where other rules overrides it.

Now, to the mother's rights. The baby is in the mother's body, but whether it is part of her body or a sovereign body is up for lots of debate, just as the issue of whether life begins at contraception. For the sake of covering the worst case scenario of this dilemma, I will assume that it is part of the mother's body. This means that the mother has the power to decide the fate of the child. But only if it affects her in a way that can be proven to be endangering or as a result of rape

Abortions as a result of rape can be prevented, should a person choose to do so. Humans have since had the ability to control their own fertility, and it's called birth-control pills. 

Feminists like to think and argue that women are special and helpless. They try to single out issues that concern to women and use those as bases to work outwards. Yet, if you look at women as nothing more than human beings, you realize that feminism was built on a huge mound of logical fallacies and hypocrisy. I hope women would think about this from a human, rather than female point of view and see through the sad, self-pitying crap before it engulfs the world.

One thing I hope everyone can agree on is that government should not, using taxpayer money, help abort fetuses. This is because, no one gets to control what their tax dollars are used for directly, and there are always some who won't agree with abortion.  

If one wants an abortion, people will have to fund it from some feminist charity, insurance or out of their own pockets. 

Suppose someone stole something from a victim. The victim goes over to the police. The thief is caught and charged with theft. But the item stolen was never found. Is it possible to get the police to buy you back the thing that was stolen? No. The police, courts and government don't do that. Why should they bail a woman/human out of a rape case? 

The government is not a savior designed to help everyone at everything. It just never works, unless government is able to create new resources infinitely and indefinitely. But that's never possible, so feminism would fail too.

So, I have arrived at the optimum method for defeating feminism. It is very simple. You leave them alone. Eventually, it would just collapse under its own weight or be overthrown by its once faithful followers, like the Soviet Union. In the meantime, one can speed up the process by getting others to challenge their own opinions.

Proof of God

Suppose before you were born, nothing existed. Nothing at all. The system itself didn't exist either.

Then how did it occur that there is now stuff in the system? 

Science has yet to explain how it is possible to create anything out of a complete void. Therefore, something bigger must have existed before the system. Maybe god.

How do we decide who carries what?

I think this question is better solved by looking at what hiking ability we have. 

Some people may have more skills to offer, but are less physically capable than the others. 

Some may be very fit and active, so can carry more and still keep up with the pace. 

The idea is that everyone is able to do their best and enjoy the trip in their own way. To do that, we must make sure that everyone can keep up and we move as a team.

In the FINAL...

- 2 Trangias

- 2 Tents (poles, covers, pegs)

- 3 bottles of alcohol fuel.

- Food for 5 guys (expendable)

- extra water.

I say that 30 to 40 pounds per pack is good.

The thing we can always do with more is water. If we have more water, we may be able to get away with boiling less water and saving fuel. Food is not an immediate necessity. One or two power bar in between meals is enough, and I didn't even eat any of my own. 

2 tents guys

2 trangia and fuel 

1 food and fuel, and any extra stuff.

We may even be able to rotate, so that people take turns carrying tents. By the second day, the food would be cut down by half, so he should take some of the tent stuff. 

The strategy is to cut down on the "variable weight" - the stuff that is increased in amount as a result of staying for longer time. That's food, snacks and clothes(and dirty clothes) and fuel.