You should of beat the kid in the race - it would have made him hungrier and work harder. It’s what the Spartans and Mongolians would have done.

However, I don’t think the Spartans and Mongolians were expert swimmers. So, what do I know? Haar.

Finally, I applaud you on eating the whole burrito! Sigh, I only eat 1/2 burritos at a time or make my own again, nowadays. Sigh. The good old days of whole burrito eating and no consequences.

UC Santa Barabara Alumn
30yrs Old

While there is the issue of gender, for example, I don’t care if a 5′2″ 110 lbs woman is a firefighter; she just better be able to execute the job of running into a burning building and saving my life just as the paradigm of a firefighter would be able to.

Similarly, I don’t think anyone would want me as an NASA astronaut or an NFL wide receiver due to my native vision and non-paradigm height, respectively.

I think the key is to dissociate potential with gender. Forget the firefighter example. Think of a mathematician. There is no reason why a woman could not be as great mathematician, if she has the potential to think abstractly for higher order mathematics.

With that said, I have met some women who could definitely fit the paradigm of a firefighter, with the requisite strength needed to pull a person out of a building, etc. They tended to play volleyball or softball or field hockey and were quite athletic. They had the strength, which probably came from a higher density of muscle fibers than the average female, and perhaps the average person. More importantly, there was something else: the ability to push oneself, to excel, to compete.

If you forget socio-economics, there is only one limitng factor - genetics. We are inherently born not equal. So the very notion of treating unequal people equally is not optimal.

Schools should do a better job of identifying where a person’s potential lies instead of treating everyone equal, because people are not created equal. Do I hear “Gattaca”?

The movie Gattaca illustrates while providing a counterpoint to my notions.

To assess the will, the desire of an individual is an incredibly difficult task to accomplish. The only way you can determine such an attribute is to place kids in situations where their mettle is tested. In that movie compare Ethan Hawke and Jude Law’s character.

Desire/determination/will vs. Genetics.

So therefore, I assert there are two factors. Genetics and “Ganas”/Desire/Will.

Through science we are getting a better idea about genetics, but will we ever be able to find out what lies in the heart of a man or woman or to find out if a person has the ability to push oneself to one’s potential?

BUT, I will go as far to argue that perhaps the determination is a personality trait, which may indeed be influence by one’s genetic code. That is another discussion, however.

Haar. One thing is for, professional sports scouts would love to find that magic formula!

:P

It was pretty awesome when they all literally blew into the sanctuary to get communion though…. like a burst of lightness and joy.

I speak with firsthand knowledge to the levels of awesome Hayley was as a labmate!

HAAR!

I think we need to look at exactly what it means to be a believer in order to really get at what it means to not be one. Does it entail believing in EVERY aspect of your specific religion? If so then what percent of the population can be considered to be believers? I would say that many Christians (and Jews and Hindus etc.) sin or otherwise break with their religious beliefs (strict interpretation of those beliefs at least) in some way and may believe that what they are doing is perfectly fine (sex before marriage, eating shellfish, drinking wine or whatever) - does that mean they are not TRULY followers of that religion? Where is the line between believers and non-believers and who defines it? Until you define what it is to be a believer then you can’t define what it is not to be one and therefore you cannot draw a distinction between any of us (along those lines at least). Maybe believing that our ways of living just fall along a spectrum of valid belief systems would be a better perspective for all of us to have anyway. How else do we stop acting like OUR beliefs are superior to everyone else’s?