Tuesday, September 19, 2006

One Guarantee

I'm not sure how incredibly relevant this is to TOK, except for the fact that it was question I pestered several of my TOK classmates with. They suggested I post it here and see if I could get some responses. So, I pose to you the following hypothetical question:

If you were able to guarantee one thing in your life between now and the age 30, but that guarantee would be guaranteed for only a moment, after which your life would proceed on it's natural course, what would the guarantee be? As this is a rather convoluted question, I'll offer several examples:

If you chose to be happily married to Brad Pitt, then you would be able to guarantee that for a moment between now and when you were 30, you would be happily married to Brad. After that moment, you could continue to be happily married, but you would now have to maintain the relationship, it would no longer be "magically guaranteed." In fact, the next day, assuming you committed a terrible enough offence, you could be divorced, or you could party down on your 50th anniversary.

If you chose to be a pro basketball player, then you would be guaranteed to be playing in the NBA for at least one moment before you were 30. However, after that moment, you might tear an ACL or get cut if you’re no longer up to snuff. On the same line of thought though, you could be the next Michael Jordan, after the one guaranteed moment, the course of your life is once more wholly dictated by your own actions.

What would your guarantee be? Keep in mind answers that are more plausible are generally yield a more interesting insight on human nature.

11 comments:

chelser said...

So let's venture that perhaps I would want my guarantee to be that I would like to be a world famous actress. And keeping within the terms of this so called "guarantee" contract, after I had turned 30 this guarantee would no longer be in place and I would have to rely purly on my own acting skills. Well figuring that I had started about now in my quest for international actress status, that would give me a good 13 years of being in that professional kind of world. So one could assume that after all that exposure I would have gathered enough knowldege to continue on in my "dream job". So yes my "guarantee" cushion would be pulled out from under me, but I would have been able to create my own, in a round-about sort of sense.

Vvyynn said...

Of course, you could be the kind of world famous actress that gets accused for murder, or you could be world famous for being in the worst movies ever.

Alright, now on to the fun part. This should be incredibly obvious, what with my inferiority complex of trying to make myself seem important for my own lack of character. If I could have anything garunteed between now and the time I was thirty, it would be that I would get a really, really cool superpower. Preferibly either control of water or telekinesis. In fact, I'd use those exact words, just so I wouldn't get stuck with the crappy superpower of flying (I'm sorry, but flying is the worst super power ever. Speak to me sometime over it).
On to the ramifications of this garuntee. True, I'd have the power to control water (I'm using this one, because I like it more), however it doesn't necessarily mean that I'd find out about this power. It also doesn't mean that I could control this power, for all I know I could make water fly everywhere (including out of people!), and I'd have no possible control over it. Then there's of course the "supervillain" scenario, where I go mad with power and arrogance, and I use my powers for evil (This is the path that I would most likely take). Then again, I could become a world-famous Awsomologist by day and Super-hero by night 9Stanford has classes on Awsomology, I'm pretty sure I could get in).
Well, there's my superpower rant. If you have a way of making this happen, Peter, it would be quite interesting. Oooh! It would be quite interesting indeed.

Vvyynn said...

Oh. It's Nick. Nick, for now on you're middle name is Peter...an we'll never speak about this again.

ELanciotti said...

I guess that I would want to guarantee that I was happily married to the man of my dreams. And well I agree with Chelsea, lets say that comes true tomorrow, (i know just imagine) and then I would have 13 years to make it work, by then I think it could keep on working because not everyone gets divorced, I think that it takes two people who want to work at it. And well that is a rather shallow guarantee I asked for, kind of funny how people hope their worst fears won't come true. Mine just happens to be that I don't want to be alone, so I guess that shows a little into human behavior; we are afraid so we wish for the things we are not 100% sure we can attain.

Vvyynn said...

And mine is because I like to feel important. That also might answer my own question as to why I continue to post things that have no pertinence, relevence or worth. Well, Please, answer the question!

J.Malone said...

I'd love to see any of you relate this conversation to TOK... not that it isn't interesting.

Jared,givemeagooddisplaynamenow,wolschlager said...

to connect to tok, something like the relative knowledge. Would only you know of your guarantee (acquaintance), what are your stipulations. Now for the fun part mmm.. I well ah, would like to be a super hero... no, be a famous actress, nope never, So what would I be? I would guarantee that between now and 30, that my philosophical memoirs would become a best seller and I would be revered as a god thusly. Sure it would be a lot of pressure, but you could do anything if you were just that religious saviour, but only for a finite amount of time, because I don't wanna go all doomsday, walmart, myspace on my followers. I would want them to understand the leftwing-satirical rightwing-moderately insane, transecendental cultural relativist. There I would want to be god so everyone would be just like me. To be serious though I would want to just survive that time period, life is the single greatest gift, and I would rather be alive for 10 more years than be an actor for 5 minutes. Wow now jared"the cynical deist" sounds appreciative and commpassionate, so I now stop. Thus life=good=god does equal actor.

Vvyynn said...

Okay. Relate to TOK. I can do this. Hmmm. I think that we'd know of the stipulations when given the chance to have the guarantee. Thus, since we would know this we would have to...perception? Hobbs, help me out. You're the one who created this entry, thus you should be the one to relate it to TOK. Ooh! Four V's!

Vvyynn said...

My reply does not change. Super-powers all the way. Yes, I could suddenly realize that oxygen is my kryptonite, but I don't care. I'd still have that fleeting moment where I would have power. Where I would have control, and superiority.

Well, I'm sure I've successully cut myself out to be the next totalitarian dictator, so I'll end.

Vvyynn said...

Oh come on! Have I shut down all conversation here?

Vvyynn said...

Yeah. Yeah I have.