Death Note

DEATH NOTE
I didn't think there was enough information in the series to write it for my paper but I wanted to talk about it because I felt it fit the class.

One of the books I was reading was the manga Death Note. And I found its idea of utopia an interesting, if overly simplistic idea.
 For Those of you who are not familiar with the series Death Note is an anime/manga about a High School student named Light Yagami who discovers a notebook with the words Death Note written on it. On the inside it claims that if you write a person's name and think of their face they will die.

The Rules of the Death Note

 Light is skeptical but decides to try it out on a criminal holding a bunch of kids hostage. To his surprise the Death Note works. He tests it again to double check and again it works. He freaks out realizing that he killed people but gets over it rather quickly deciding that they did deserve to die and he was going to make the world a better place by killing all criminals in the world

And that is the goal of Light Yamagi for the rest of the story. (Besides making even the most mundane action completely over the top)

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However people obviously oppose his actions in killing criminals without a trial or anything similar and they attempt to arrest. This ends up being the main plot of the story where a famous detective known as L tries to discover how the killer (known as Kira in public) is doing the killings and prove his real identity while Light is trying to discover L's real name and face so he can kill him.

What makes this relevant to a Utopia class though is Light's goals. He is actively trying to create a Utopia. And this is interesting because we usually don't see this side of utopias. We either see the hypothetical of how a utopia should be created, or we join one once its already been created. So just seeing it from the creative perspective is interesting.
Further Death Note idea to get rid of bad stuff is simply to kill off all people who commit crimes. This is a somewhat interesting perspective because on one hand you are getting rid of all the people who would hurt others. Most people would not disagree that getting rid of, at least the most violent serial killers, would not be a negative thing. And the novel explores both sides of this idea. On one hand with Light's actions crime goes down substantially, getting to the point where criminals are very rare and do whatever possible to hide their identities. On the other hand the world is not shown as becoming a positive world because of it but still rather darker and more negative as the show goes on. I don't agree myself with this utopia because I see problems where simply killing off criminals would not solve but I believe that some people would think this way. And this is what makes the story interesting.
And at times when Kira disappears the crime rate goes back up again showing that the people were not really changed, but simply afraid to commit crimes. The minute they get a chance to do so they immediately start committing crimes again.
Its a creepy idea and it makes the story itself quite interesting (which is more focused on the mind game between L and Light)

I recommend it both as an interesting read if you like mind games and as an interesting idea of a rather simplistic utopia.

I Think I would rather go to "The Island" than watch The Island

This is not the first time I've seen this movie. and I do not remember it being this bad. I really tried not to nitpick this movie but I CAN'T. This movie was so bad.
Alright to be fair the action was decent if slightly dumb
the acting was actually pretty good
and I did like the visual design.
What did I hate about it? The story. Because it is so dumb.
This movie's story is dumb for an action movie.

(My reaction to this movie) 

It is so over the top, I admit I was laughing quite a bit at just how ridiculous it was.
The evil clone business mega-corporation was so evil I expected to see a scene where they kick a puppy or laugh maniacally while lighting strikes the building.
And the mercenary captain having a Heel Face turn? This was a guy who brutally gunned down people in the street without any thoughts of collateral damage.
If you actually think about it can you imagine the reaction in the real world if a small force did shoot up a bunch of police officers, with high powered weapons, helicopters, and machine gun motor floater cycles?
This would a national emergency. And a business man would want to be even remotely associated with that?
I would criticize the fact that every bad guy walks into punching distance when they have long range weapons JUST so they can get hit by the heroes... but considering their accuracy with those weapons I think its reasonable.
Even the Stormtroopers would be mocking these guys aim.


Now even for the "ethical dilemma  of this movie. I don't even know if we can really discuss it. It so comically dealt with its kind of funny. And so much bullshit and questions? I don't buy that the clones need to be conscious for the transfers to work. NO. NO. Not Happening.
Even assuming that they do need to be conscious why do they need to be educated? And if someone says its to give them something to do I don't really buy that. There is plenty of physical things you can get people to do without education. Hell they had TV and videogames.

And in some ways I do think that is a pity because there are some better stories that deal with a similar theme. One of the more interesting ones is Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go. The book came out about the same times as this movie. The story of Never Let Me Go involves the life of one clone and her experiences. She was different from other clones in that she and her companions had a more privileged life growing up in almost a rich boarding school type setting. But the biggest distinction between this movie and the book is that the clones know what they are and their ultimate fate. They are conditioned so strongly that in the novel they never try to escape it. They do ask for extension from the people they believe to be in charge but they willingly accepted their fate. This was in many ways more creepy and interesting because while the clones did act in many ways like humans they did act slightly different in off-putting ways. It was creepy in the uncanny valley sense.

But most of the ethical dilemmas about organ harvesting cloning are kind of dumb anyways because as we are discovering we can grow/make organs. And it, at a certain point, is easy to make organs than it is to make organs, and the entire support system that uses them.

However as the last movie of the semester, its dumb, its stupid, its hilarious in those aspects, but I can not deny that it is somewhat entertaining. And since its the end of the semester and I honestly have enough to analyze/stress out over/pass/fail over I do appreciate a dumb action movie.

What is Good?

     For many, good may have multiple meanings. When the word good arises in conversation, comparisons to monetary objects generally come about. Plato has a view that gold, silver, and bronze should be the "Standard" for which people's lives are to follow, along with not much room for improvising, or changes. Good takes on many forms, but in particular when it comes to a person's life from birth to death, good can be anything ranging from having loving parents, to just being able to have the basic necessities such as a home, or food.  

    In comparison to Plato's time, the mass media would have one think that good is something such as; having one risk their health in order to fit the beauty ideal, or having an extremely large amount of money to indicate power. In my view good cannot be simply put into general terms, but instead I think that good comes in many forms, and that good has to be determined by the individual, and the individual alone. 

    While society can play a major factor in the defining of good, I believe within self is where the true meaning of good resides. Depending on where you stand on the issue of what is considered good or not, ask yourself the question, then why are some people good, while others are not? Gold, silver, and bronze, to me are not standards to measure goodness or value of self, but instead these are monetary things that could potentially corrupt ones view of good.