• June 25, 2013

35. Is embryonic stem cell research ethical? (proposed — Bill)

Embry­on­ic stem cell research may offer rev­o­lu­tion­ary med­ical treat­ments because the embry­on­ic stem cell is the only cell we know of that can dif­fer­en­ti­ate itself into any oth­er type of cell, and can repli­cate itself indef­i­nite­ly. How­ev­er, embry­on­ic stem cell research is con­sid­ered con­tro­ver­sial because some con­sid­er that a blas­to­cyst (a fer­til­ized egg), from which…

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34. Is English the most important language in the world? (proposed — Soon; discussed 23 August 2013)

Is Eng­lish the most impor­tant lan­guage in the world? Is all lan­guage trans­lat­able? Which parts of which lan­guages are incom­pat­i­ble with oth­er lan­guages and how do dif­fer­ent groups of indi­vid­u­als deal with that? Will glob­al­iza­tion accel­er­ate the loss of cer­tain native lan­guages? What are the con­se­quences of focus­ing on learn­ing the dom­i­nant lan­guages and not…

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33. What’s beyond democracy? (proposed — Soon) discussed on 13 July 2013

Is there any alter­na­tive gov­ern­ment struc­ture bet­ter than democ­ra­cy? What’s beyond democ­ra­cy? Is it impor­tant to have everyone’s voice being heard or is it the major­i­ty opin­ion that counts? Does the whole vot­ing sys­tem rep­re­sent a nation? What if vot­ing is not com­pul­so­ry in Aus­tralia?

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32. Do the arts matter? (Proposed — Soon)

Do the arts mat­ter? What does Arts Edu­ca­tion means to Aus­tralians and how do the Arts for­mu­late the char­ac­ter of a Nation? Can the arts inspire change, pro­voke thoughts in human life or are they a com­plete waste of time? Is it just extra mon­ey spent sat­is­fy­ing our need for enter­tain­ment? Is Arts edu­ca­tion as…

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29. It is OK to use animals in research if it benefits humans. (Proposed — Mandy Patterson) discussed October 5, 2013

It is OK to use ani­mals in research if it ben­e­fits humans. A read­ing list for this top­ic is at http://thormay.net/unwiseideas/DiscussionTopics/Animals-in-research.htm

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28. It is fortunate that most people will never know much about public affairs (Proposed — Thor)

Only a tiny per­cent­age of any pop­u­la­tion will ever be knowl­edge­able about pub­lic affairs. This is a good thing.

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27. Multinational corporations are outside of national government control (proposed — Thor)

Many multi­na­tion­al busi­ness­es have tran­scend­ed effec­tive con­trol by nation­al gov­ern­ments.

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26. International joint ventures require a compromise on ethics (Proposed — Thor)

It is impos­si­ble for Aus­tralian busi­ness­es to enter into joint ven­tures in many inter­na­tion­al juris­dic­tions with­out com­pro­mis­ing ethics.

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25. Segments of the medical profession are compromising public health by peddling drugs (Proposed — Thor )

Seg­ments of the med­ical pro­fes­sion are com­pro­mis­ing pub­lic health by ped­dling drugs. Is this true? In pub­lic sur­veys of trust, doc­tors are always rat­ed the most trust­wor­thy mem­bers of soci­ety. How­ev­er, an exam­i­na­tion of the his­to­ry of med­ical ethics yields results that are far from reas­sur­ing. What is going on here? In a way, patients…

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24. Visual arts, music or performance skills are often needed for vocational success (Proposed — Thor)

Visu­al arts skills, music or per­for­mance skills are crit­i­cal for the voca­tion­al suc­cess of very large num­bers of stu­dents, so should not be regard­ed as option­al extras in edu­ca­tion fund­ing.

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23. Economies need a high level of government interference (Proposed: Thor) — discussed on 10 August 2013

The most eco­nom­i­cal­ly suc­cess­ful soci­eties have always depend­ed upon a high lev­el of gov­ern­ment col­lu­sion with com­merce and indus­try, if not con­trol. This argu­ment is a way of say­ing that the “invis­i­ble hand” of the mar­ket is not enough to main­tain an effi­cient mar­ket, at least beyond vil­lage lev­el. There has to be an inde­pen­dent…

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22. Democratic societies are less likely to make war than dictatorships (Proposed — Thor; discussed September 21, 2013)

Demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­eties are less like­ly to make war than dic­ta­tor­ships”. What is the evi­dence?

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21. The limits of education in a complex society (Proposed — Thor)

Our com­plex soci­eties are approach­ing the lim­its of edu­ca­bil­i­ty for large num­bers of cit­i­zens (e.g. “func­tion­al” lit­er­a­cy hov­ers at around 50% in most “advanced” soci­eties). Even those select­ed in schools for high intel­li­gence (e.g. many doc­tors) seem unable to absorb, retain and use crit­i­cal­ly all of the knowl­edge nec­es­sary to prac­tice their pro­fes­sions com­pe­tent­ly. With…

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19. Large country = weak democracy (Proposed — Thor)

The larg­er a coun­try is, the less effec­tive its democ­ra­cy becomes.

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18. The Films, Avatar Vs The Titanic (proposed — Lucy)

I’m into movies in a big way so may­be we could dis­cuss this: was Avatar a bet­ter movie than The Titan­ic? It brings up lots of issues eg rela­tion­ships, revenge, respect, tragedy and hon­our! One oth­er, the big one: God v evo­lu­tion. One more, I can’t stop now!!: Do we suf­fer more ill­ness­es (eg virus­es)…

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17. Is anything possible if we put our mind to it? (proposed — Stephen)

Is any­thing pos­si­ble if we put our mind to it? For exam­ple flight, sub­mari­nes, space trav­el, inter­net etc Do we man­i­fest what we think?

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16. Rape — whose fault? (proposed — Beth)

Last year a UK offi­cial made the com­ment that some­times when a rape takes place the female vic­tim must accept the real­i­ty that her actions may have trig­gered the attack, at least in part. Is this a fair state­ment? What impli­ca­tions does it have for both vic­tims and per­pe­tra­tors? What impli­ca­tions does it have for…

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15. Abortion (proposed — Beth)

In the recent pres­i­den­tial debates in the USA the Repub­li­can par­ty expressed their wish to make abor­tion ille­gal once more, with an excep­tion for cas­es where preg­nan­cy was the result of rape or abuse. Do you think this line of rea­son­ing makes sense? Is it enforce­able? Is this even an issue that war­rants the government’s…

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13. Wilderness protection (proposed — Bill)

Should our remain­ing wild areas be pro­tect­ed at all costs? Or should they be open to com­mer­cial devel­op­ment, min­ing, farm­ing, wood-chip­ping, etc.

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11. The concept of alternative universes (proposed — Bill)

The con­cept of alter­na­tive uni­vers­es is a pop­u­lar top­ic in sci­ence at the moment. If an alter­na­tive uni­verse exist­ed, would it have dif­fer­ent phys­i­cal prop­er­ties to those of our uni­verse? Or would the phys­i­cal laws nec­es­sar­i­ly be the same?

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10. Photography is both the easiest and the hardest medium (proposed — Bill)

Pho­tog­ra­phy is pop­u­lar because it’s the eas­i­est medi­um in which to be com­pe­tent. But it’s also the hard­est medi­um in which to devel­op a unique artis­tic vision and sep­a­rate your­self from the crowds of com­pe­tent pho­tog­ra­phers. (para­phras­ing Chuck Close)

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9. Is artificial intelligence a real possibility? (proposed — Bill)

Will com­put­ers ever be able to trans­late com­plex sen­tences? Is arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence a real pos­si­bil­i­ty? Or is it sim­ply an imag­i­nary con­cept?

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7. Poetry (proposed — Bill )

Poet­ry, as an activ­i­ty and an insti­tu­tion, used to be cen­tral to civ­i­liza­tion, but is much more mar­gin­alised now. Why is that?

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6. What is the purpose of dreaming? (proposed — Bill) discussed 29 June 2013

What is the pur­pose of dream­ing? (i.e. what evo­lu­tion­ary advan­tage would a dream­ing crea­ture have over one that does not dream?) There are many exist­ing the­o­ries, such as emo­tion­al reboot, build­ing neu­ral net­works for visu­al pro­cess­ing, etc., but there is no gen­uine con­sen­sus on the issue.

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5. Intelligent life elsewhere in the universe — already discussed

Debate top­ic: Is there intel­li­gent life else­where in the uni­verse? Or was the devel­op­ment of life on earth a com­plete fluke, a once only event, which hap­pened again­st all odds, and is nev­er like­ly to occur again any­where in the uni­verse? Is the search for life else­where in the uni­verse a waste of time, mon­ey…

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4. Depression and treatment of it — already discussed

Debate top­ic: Are anti­de­pres­sants over­pre­scribed by doc­tors? Are they mask­ing a person’s true prob­lems? What about the seri­ous side effects? Should they be given to chil­dren as young as 5 years old? Can we trust phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies to do their own tri­als? Why is it gov­ern­ments are not pro­vid­ing more mon­ey to rela­tion­ship edu­ca­tion, emo­tion­al…

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