Tonight at the Ideas Cafe, we had a great discussion about our attitude towards sex and why we are uncomfortable talking about it.
Both Shula and Mano mentioned that part of the reason may be that our sex organs are close to our waste organs and as children growing up, we were taught that our waste organs are dirty and our sex organs may become dirty by association.
Lisa said that it is all about context. That we should not be uncomfortable about discussion sexual education with children or talk about sex when there is a reason to. It is just not the time and place to talk about it in general conversation before we get to know someone well.
We compared to discussing sex with discussing food. How we can openly discuss good food preparation but do not discuss improving our sex techniques.
Shula also mentioned that there is a parallel with food in that with very religious Jews, they do not use the word "pork" as something they do not eat but refer to it as "white meat". The word "pork" is too unmentionable to them much like some of us who do not want to use words like penis and vagina but substitute it with other words instead.
Gerry said that sex is sacred between two people in love and it is a feeling that defies description. To discuss it is to demean it and to reduce it to a pleasure experience is desecrating the experience. There is no word or description that can adequately describe it.
Raffi and Shula disagree in that anything we can attempt to describe with language is on its way to describing the feeling and experience. It may not completely describe it but we have to try and to figure out what is inadequate. To not do it is to give over to the religious authorities and to give up on trying to understand something.
There were various examples of different cultures that have different sexual rituals than ours illustrating that our attitude towards sex is rooted in our culture.
At the very least, we should be able to discuss sex more openly so that we can all improve our experience. Joseph mentioned that this is not an issue with the younger generation and that there is no performance anxiety of not talking about sex for fear of not measuring up.
There was discussion of the changing social attitudes towards sex. How some years ago, it was not possible for one of the married partners to complain about being raped, how it was illegal to have interracial sex before, and certain sex acts were prohibited.
Rafi mentioned that sex is too strong a motivator to be passed over by organised religion and political leaders. It is difficult to control food as the masses need it everyday but sex is something that can be suppressed and manipulated to the advantage of those in power.
Most at the cafe feels that we will become more and more comfortable talking about sex and that attitude will continue to change to make it more acceptable. Shula said prostitutes should be made therapists and have proper training for therapy as there is obviously a demand for their services.
The same applies to pornography and drugs.
My take from the cafe is that the more we talk about it the more comfortable we will be about it and will demystify it. While Gerry has a point about love making sex a more spiritual experience, that also make sex more of an unapproachable topic that defies understanding. We need both the technique and feeling.
There was discussion monogamy versus polyandrous relationships and how they arguably have their good points but that is for another cafe.
Somehow, I feel like I am not capturing the lively spirit at the cafe. Feel free to add comments as I must be leaving quite a few things out.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Outsourcing the military
Yesterday we discussed the considerations for outsourcing the military.
There are arguments for outsourcing government services to improve efficiency. Why not the military?
Summary of the ideas;
1. We already outsource parts of the military, they buy trucks and equipment instead of making it all themselves. They use civilians to construct military buildings even though they have their own engineers who can build bridges. So they already outsource to some degree. We may be more talking about the soldiers who actually carry out combat duties, the ones who put their lives at risk.
2. When a country move from mandatory conscription to a voluntary army, the combat duty is already "outsourced" to professional soldiers instead of military service being part of civic duty. These professional soldiers sign on to take the place of other citizens in return for the pay and benefits offered by the military.
3. Outsourcing the military detach military action too much from political decisions. It is easier to send an "outsourced" military to action overseas but a conscripted defense force is much more motivated to protect their country as it is their own land but would hesitate to intervene a foreign situation.
4. The military serve to deter outside aggression by just being there. Having a military at the ready on standby with active patrol duty signals to a potential aggressor that they are up against a difficult task when invading. Having a big war chest with ready funds to hire mercenaries don't quite achieve the same affect.
5. Military action involve situations where the scope of work is ill defined. This makes it difficult to contract the task to some other entity. Contracting out is better suited to well defined work with agreed objectives.
6. The military have special rules of conduct in war which civilian contractors are not obligated to. This led to the example of torture by outsourced contractors. Whether the military intentionally use contracting out to distance themselves from these undesirable practices, the laws needs to be changed to cover the contractors as well and the contractors needs to be under the same obligations.
7. Loyalty is a big factor and the French foreign Legend use French officers even though the soldiers are paid foreigners and it is only used for action outside of France.
8. While the ancient Greeks take pride in looking at military service as part of civic responsibility, we also have to keep in mind that they are land owners protecting their own land and not everyone have a vote. Therefore the make up of civic voting group is not the same as it is today.
9. Outsourced contractors may have a conflict of interest in wanting to prolong a war or promote conflict in order to generate more business for themselves.
10. Constantly training to be ready is the military's routine. Is it possible to place our nation's trust on some outside contractor to maintain this readiness? Perhaps while they are maintaining the same readiness for a possible future enemy?
In the end, morale and motivation is a big part of military action. War is also about dealing with an enemy that may not follow rules. All this makes it a difficult issue to define for outsourcing. Once bits of it is defined, it can be outsourced. Should the military outsource the manufacturing of their own bullets? I would say yes as it seems like a defined issue. Should the military outsource its intelligence gathering? I would say no as it seems a fluid issue with a lot of judgment calls required.
There are arguments for outsourcing government services to improve efficiency. Why not the military?
Summary of the ideas;
1. We already outsource parts of the military, they buy trucks and equipment instead of making it all themselves. They use civilians to construct military buildings even though they have their own engineers who can build bridges. So they already outsource to some degree. We may be more talking about the soldiers who actually carry out combat duties, the ones who put their lives at risk.
2. When a country move from mandatory conscription to a voluntary army, the combat duty is already "outsourced" to professional soldiers instead of military service being part of civic duty. These professional soldiers sign on to take the place of other citizens in return for the pay and benefits offered by the military.
3. Outsourcing the military detach military action too much from political decisions. It is easier to send an "outsourced" military to action overseas but a conscripted defense force is much more motivated to protect their country as it is their own land but would hesitate to intervene a foreign situation.
4. The military serve to deter outside aggression by just being there. Having a military at the ready on standby with active patrol duty signals to a potential aggressor that they are up against a difficult task when invading. Having a big war chest with ready funds to hire mercenaries don't quite achieve the same affect.
5. Military action involve situations where the scope of work is ill defined. This makes it difficult to contract the task to some other entity. Contracting out is better suited to well defined work with agreed objectives.
6. The military have special rules of conduct in war which civilian contractors are not obligated to. This led to the example of torture by outsourced contractors. Whether the military intentionally use contracting out to distance themselves from these undesirable practices, the laws needs to be changed to cover the contractors as well and the contractors needs to be under the same obligations.
7. Loyalty is a big factor and the French foreign Legend use French officers even though the soldiers are paid foreigners and it is only used for action outside of France.
8. While the ancient Greeks take pride in looking at military service as part of civic responsibility, we also have to keep in mind that they are land owners protecting their own land and not everyone have a vote. Therefore the make up of civic voting group is not the same as it is today.
9. Outsourced contractors may have a conflict of interest in wanting to prolong a war or promote conflict in order to generate more business for themselves.
10. Constantly training to be ready is the military's routine. Is it possible to place our nation's trust on some outside contractor to maintain this readiness? Perhaps while they are maintaining the same readiness for a possible future enemy?
In the end, morale and motivation is a big part of military action. War is also about dealing with an enemy that may not follow rules. All this makes it a difficult issue to define for outsourcing. Once bits of it is defined, it can be outsourced. Should the military outsource the manufacturing of their own bullets? I would say yes as it seems like a defined issue. Should the military outsource its intelligence gathering? I would say no as it seems a fluid issue with a lot of judgment calls required.
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