"The Needs of the Many Outweigh the Needs of the Few" is Not Utilitarianism

I've only seen one of the Star Trek movies once a long time ago. To be honest, I didn't really like it. Despite this, I have heard the quote many times "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". I'm so unfamiliar with the Trekkie universe that I had to look up the quote to make sure I wasn't misquoting. Nonetheless, I still want to address a point that I hear often: Spock's quote describes utilitarianism.

For those of y'all who don't know, utilitarianism is a philosophy which states that the morally correct choice is the one that maximizes utility. Philosophers who worked on the principal such as John Stewart Mill and Jeremy Bentham define utility more or less as the pleasure gained from the action minus the pain it caused. For example, if I worked out every day I would gain the pleasure of a long healthy life and a rocking hot body which gets me all the ladies. I would also lose one hour a day and a fair amount of energy. In the end, the pleasures out way the pains. Thus, according to the principals of utilitarianism, it is correct for me to work out.

With this description of Bentham and Mill's philosophy, you might think that Spock's quote is super utilitarian. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". Doesn't it make perfect seance? Consider this as an example: my friends and I are driving around. I have to go to the mall but all of my friends have to go to a hair salon. The utilitarian thing to do would be to go to the hair salon. More people go to where they want to go. The needs of the many (those who are going to the salon) outweigh the needs of the few (me going to the mall).

Clearly, this is not the case. Otherwise, I would have not titled the post what it is. In reality, the example that I gave is one of many. I could just as well come up with another one where helping one person is the morally correct action to take according to utilitarianism. In fact, let's do it. My friend's and I are still driving around. They all want to go to the hair salon but I'm bleeding profusely. If I don't get to the hospital soon, I'll die. In this case, the philosophy would dictate that we should go to the hospital because my lose is grater than my friend's combined gain.

Spock says that helping the many is always the right action to take. In utilitarianism, one doesn't always have to do what's best for the many. In the example from the previous paragraph, the correct thing to do is help out one person (dying me), not the many (my friends who want to get their hair groomed).

Just to be clear, I'm not saying Spock's actions aren't utilitarian. I have no idea as I've only seen one Star Trek movie and I barely paid attention¹. I'm also not saying that utilitarianism is the perfect moral code. I just though I could address an error that I've heard quite a bit and also teach people a bit about philosophy. I hope it worked. Bye.

¹Please don't be mad at me, Trekkies. I'm sure Star Trek is great, it's just not for me.

The Importance of Defining Words

When I was a kid, like most kids, I liked to look up dirty words in the dictionary. It was so funny seeing taboo subjects explained in such an earnest way. While I'd look up these dirty definitions, I'd stop to read the definitions of other words too. It was fascinating to me how well a short sentence could describe a word so well. Flash forward many years, and I still read the dictionary. I'll admit, I do look up the occasional vulgar vocab because it's hilarious in a sophomoric sort of way. But I mostly pay attention to the way words are defined. Which brings me to my topic: how important it is to define words.

Defining words may seem like a dumb thing to do, but bare with me here. Have you ever been in an argument where you and the other person are convinced that they are right and the other one is wrong? It is possible to say that you're both right. It could be the case that you're both proving different things. Let's say that you and your friend are debating who is the most famous person ever. You say it's Isaac Newton but your friend says it's Jimmy Fallon. The conversation could go something like this:

Your friend: More people know who Jimmy Fallon is because he's on TV all the time.

You: Newton lived long ago so there have been more people to find out who he is.

Your friend: But most of those people are dead so they don't count.

You: Yes, they do!

Your friend: No, they don't.

You two basically at a stalemate here. The problem is that y'all mean different things by "fame". You're defining it as "the quality of having been known by a lot of other people" while your friend thinks fame means "the quality of being known by a lot of other people". In other words, you don't think that having been known by people who are now dead counts as being famous. Had y'all established this in the beginning by defining your words, there would have likely been no argument in the first place.

In order to prevent irony and hypocrisy, I'd like to define the word "definition":

Definition: n. a specific statement of a word, idiom, expression, etc's meaning.

A Pattern That Never Ends, Yet is Always the Same... Eventually

John Conway, a freaking genius when it comes to numbers, tells the story of a time at a party when someone showed him this pattern:

1
11
21
1112
He says that he didn't figure out what the pattern was, so don't be ashamed if you didn't either. The pattern is, starting with 1, the amount of times that a number is shown in the line above. For example, the first line will be 1, then the next line is 11 because the number 1 appears one time. The line after that is 2 1 because there are 2 ones in the line above it, and so on. This is called a look and say pattern, because it requiers you to look at the pattern and say the numbers out loud to complete the pattern.

I thought, what if we were to extend this pattern? It would look like this.

1
11
21
1112
3112
211213
312213
212223
114213
31121314
41122314
31221324
21322314

What I discovered is that 13 lines is the most you can extend this pattern. After that, the pattern repeats itself infinitely or repeats the last few lines. The 13^th line has 2 1s, 3 2s, 2 3s and one 4- which makes the 14^th line 21322314, the same thing as the 13^th one.

This pattern also works if you start with another number. It even works if the 1^st line isn't a one digit number, like the pattern starting with 12:

12
1112
3112
211213
312113
311223
212223
114213
31121314
41122314
31221324
21322314
21322314
21322314

If you're really clever, you would have noticed that the last line is the same in both examples. Note that if a number is not in one line, it won't necessary be in the next one but once a number is introduced, it will be, at least onece, in every succeeding line.

I've tried doing starting with a number that has a zero in it and I got a pattern that eventually repeats the last two lines. I'm not going to show it here because they're too long. But you're welcome to try it yourself.

Anyways, that's what I've found so far. I can't find who told John Conway the original pattern, but here's the interview in which he introduces the pattern. Bye.

How to Change your "my eyes only" Password on Snapchat

This is something fairly simple, yet I couldn't figure out how to do it myself at one point, and I couldn't find any guide on the internet, plus, I've heard people say that Snapchat's newer updates are harder to use. So this is how to change the my eyes only password:

First, you need to go to the my eyes only section. This is done by scrolling up in the camera part of Snapchat. You should now see your memories. Memories are pictures that are saved in the app, but not necessarily in your phone or cloud's memory.

Second, you move to the right twice. The first section is memories, the second one is the photos saved on your phone and the third one is a my eyes only, which should be password protected.

Third, you have to click on the link in the bottom right corner that says "options".

Fourth, you should get a pop up that asks you if you forgot your password or if you want to change it. Click "change passcode"

Fifth, enter your old password and the new one you want twice.

Please note that this method may not work for all phones and all updates, however, I imagine that a lot of them will use very similar methods. Also, if you forget your password, Snapchat doesn't keep a backup.

If you wanted to see my video on Snapchat Memories, click here.

The Paradox of Infinite Happines and Zero Suffering

It can be said that a morally correct action is one that increases net happiness or decreases net suffering. For example, if there is a rich man and a poor man, the rich man is to give enough food for the poor man to survive because the amount of happiness the rich man can get out of having more food is much less than the suffering that the poor man will get from starving to death. I'm not taking credit for this. The idea that morral correctness is based on these two things is often attributed to John Stuart Mill¹ and his ideas on utilitarianism.

According to utilitarianism, if one biologist works his entire life to find a cure for AIDS, they are being morally correct, because, although the biologist suffered from working his entire life, many people will be happier because they don't have AIDS. Since this is true, it can also be said that an entire generation of people can work their butts off to make a better world for all the future generations. Keep in mind that the suffering of the one generation is out weighed by the joy all of the generations to come will have if the one generation worked so hard to make the world a better place. And if this is true, we can also say that two generations can work to make the world an even better place. And three generations can do so too. After all, the more generations that work super hard, the better our science, art, culture etc. will be.

If you haven't caught on to where I'm going with this, let me explain: let's take as a thought experiment that 100 generations start working their butts off to make the world a better place. Surely, this is would be correct according to utilitarianism- the suffering of 100 generations is less than the gain of the infinite generations to come. However, if the 101^st generation stops, they're being morally incorrect because they should be working for all of the future ones. The paradox is this one: if, at any given moment, the living people stop working to enjoy what their predecessors have created, then they are being immoral because they could work to help the people of the future. But, if no one ever stops working in austerity, then every generation is being immoral since they aren't cultivating the potential happiness that the pas generations have worked so hard for. When do we stop?

You might say that we could stop one second past when the world is going to end, but with all of this work on science, we will find out a way to get to a new planet for sure. If we're really working to make the world (or other living place) a better place to live in, we must find a way to prevent life from ending as a whole. A solution to the paradox could be to have half of the population plus one enjoying the work of others. However, that would retard the creation of science, art, culture, etc. because more than half the population isn't working. These are just some counter arguments that came to mind. Please leave your own in the comments.

To make everything clear, I came up with the paradox of infinite happiness and zero suffering on my own. It is possible, though, that someone else has already came up with a similar, or even identical thought experiment already. In that case, I'm not copying you, I've never seen your work. If you wanted to add to my idea, or contradict it, comment below. Also, you can I'm White Xocolate on YouTube and WhiteXocolate1 on Instagram. Have a wonderful day². Bye.

¹Not to be confused with The Daily Show's former host John Stewart.

²Unless you're working in austerity to make the world a better place in the future.

You Don't See Anything

Look around you, you see things¹, there are things everywhere. But you can't see the vast majority of things. Right now, I'm looking at my screen. All I see is the HTML editor of this post. What I didn't notice the first, second or even millionth time I looked at a screen was the aspect ratio- the height's proportionality to its width. The aspect ratio has to be the same across all platforms so that someone looking at a video or picture on a computer will see it the same way as someone looking at it on a phone or on a TV. Have you ever changed the ratio of a picture on a Word or Pages document? It looks wrong. That's what happens without a consistent aspect ratio. Nonetheless, except if you're a screen fanatic, you didn't notice that at all. Furthermore, when I look at my screen, I literally don't see the liquid crystal display. They're these liquid crystals that make your computer work¹ and I don't see it at all. Isn't that crazy?

To take this even further, there are things we don't notice in ourselves! When you look at your body, all you see is your body. You don't notice the tens of thousands of years that it took for us to evolve like this. Every last centimeter of your body took thousands of tries, mistakes and corrections to get it to the way we are now. And that's something none of us can see, even if it's in our own bodies. Something else that you don't see is your insides. Unless you're a doctor, you probably don't know that well how the inside of your body works. You don't know what your insides look like even though they actually live inside you. Damn!

I'm not trying to take too much credit here. Roman Mars explores the design and architectural aspects of this. I thought the concept of not noticing the vast majority of what's around us is interesting and wanted to give my thoughts on it. One of my thoughts is that it that by not seeing what's around us, there's a lot of credit missing. For example, do you have any idea who built the building you're in³? Who designed it? Where did the architects get their inspiration from? Most likely you don't. Many people have dedicated years learning and practicing how to make a building just to receive no recognition from the people who are in it.

Another problem I find is that this phenomenon causes us to not know so many things. Because there is so much that's hidden in plane site, there's so much that's hidden. Not to sound like Tai Lopez, but there's so much knowledge to be unlocked. I mean, every little corner of everything has its history, its creators. There's just so much we can know and we don't.

To be clear, I know there's no way we could know every detail about everything- I have somewhat of a solution to this. My solution helps persons who would otherwise be unknown to get more credit than they would otherwise get, and not make us go crazy by finding out way too much information on everything. My solution is: whenever you get curious about something; who built a house, who did cats evolve from; look it up. That way, the persons who made something get recognition and you're learning. It's not that hard. Use the internet. Just look up what you're curious about. It'll give credit where it's due and make you smarter. It's a double win.

¹Unless you're blind, then you really don't see anything.
²I'm not some sort of screen genius or anything, I'm just going on Wikipedia to make a point about not noticing things.
³Just pick any building you've been in recently if you're reading this outside.

Perks of Staying Up Late

It's 1:15 as I'm writing this. Just about everyone is asleep. I'm probably going to wake up past noon tomorrow. I'm probably not going to go to sleep until around 3 am. Some people might think I'm doing something wrong or that I have insomnia. I, however, love staying up this late. Here are a few of the benefits I find come with being a night own.

Number one: there are no distractions. As I write this post. no one's awake. I can't call a friend even if I wanted to. No one will bother me. This is great for doing work because I won't be interrupted. There's also nothing good on TV (but if you want to watch something, here's my YouTube channel). I can write this post in peace, which means I'll get it done all in one sitting.

Number two, you get to wake up later. This might not seem like the best idea, but hear me out. If you wanted to go outside, you sleep through the morning when the sun is super bright, you won't get a sunburn. Also, when you wake up, you don't have to worry about whether a a location is open. Everything is open when you wake up.

An other perk you get to be the last person on their mind. You can be the last one there at a party. If you have an online presence, you can comment on an event that ends late at night. You don't have to worry about falling asleep when you're trying to buy tickets to something. And how nice is it to be the last person to send your partner a "good night" text. You'll be the last thought they have before going to sleep... awe!

One more thing is that you get the "cool guy" look. People see you in another way if you're used to staying up late. You're cool. Some people might think you have an important job or you're jet lagged from all of your travelling. I'm not advocating to look at people in a superficial way, I'm just saying that it's an added bonus.

To be fair, most of these can also work for waking up early. You can also work early and not have distractions, you can go outside before the intense sun shines, etc. Per contra, it's easier to wake up earlier than one is used to than to stay up later. This is because we, as humans¹, can "programmed" to be awake when there is sunlight. The sun wakes us up. Which means that a tired night owl can wake up, at least a little, just by going outside. And that is something us lateies have on the rest of the world.

It is worth noting that there is a bit of a downside to staying up as late as I do. One thing that I've heard is that it's bad for your digestive system. I don't know if it's true or not, but I have experienced it. It could be a placebo, though. Also, remember the "cool kid" look we talked about earlier? That can be a double edged sword. It could make you look irresponsible in the eyes of some people. I believe these people are a minority, but it's still something you might want to mask if you have a job interview, for example. Just be careful about this, don't pass any limits.

Staying up this late isn't for everyone. Only some people have natural ease for sleeping in. Don't force yourself into doing something your body doesn't want you to. Not to lie to anyone, I don't always stay up this late. It's summertime when this is being written and the days are longer. You might get called a vampire or a werewolf. Nonetheless, I still enjoy staying up this late. Whatever you do and whenever you sleep, just remember to live it at its fullest and enjoy as many of its benefits as possible. Bye.

¹I apologize to anyone other than human reading this. I know little about how other beings react during the day. If you are not a human, please write to me at WhiteXocolate1@gmail.com, I'd love to know more.