Is suffering necessary to our life? via Nietzsche
This was one conversation that sparked at our last meeting that was interesting. I’d like to pitch a view on it in one of the areas I know a fair bit about, through the philosophy of Nietzsche. A recent study may have confirmed the well-known Nietzsche maxim “What...
Annual essay competition
An essay competition might be a good way to get people involved. There’s a few ways we could do this: Simply run it internally within the Philosophy Society. Sponsor a university-wide competition (one of the prizes being free membership to the club, of course). Align...
Debating at the GT Bar
In my suggestion to submit a “Big Idea” to UoN Services, I mentioned that debating at the Godfrey Tanner Bar held a strong vote to be implemented by UoN Services in 2013. I’d need to confirm, but their notice board has already announced debating as a winning candidate...
Let’s come up with a Big Idea and submit it to UoN Services
UoN Services recently launched Think BIG. Submit ideas to UoN Services, and they’ll implement the best ones. In their own words: Think BIG (brought to you by the U) is designed to give all of you UoN students the opportunity to make your ideas come to life! Submit...
Submit articles to Opus and / or Yak
There are two student magazines published on campus, Opus and Yak. Both publish monthly, so would not knock back decent student content. They also seem pretty flexible with the size of articles published. If a handful of us are up for it, we could come up with...
Publish a paperback collection of papers annually
Digital publishing is getting very affordable. I had a look into it, and Blurb do high quality digital printing for pretty cheap. If we had enough material collected, from events and forum posts, we could print it and each walk away with a good copy, and even put some...
Donate $5 each to a charity we choose as a group
We’ve got 72 members and counting, so even if we only throw in $2 each, it’s an ok result. Aside from the good will produced, what I’m interested in is the decision process to settle on the charity (and even the amount). We would all have ready-to-hand opinions about...
Empathy and its Role in Radical Social Change
Check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BG46IwVfSu8&feature=youtu.be So here’s a pretty interesting video on the power of empathy based on the philosophy of Roman Krznaric (and various others). I don’t think we necessarily need to know a lot about...
Batman: Master or Slave?
Ok, it’s the first post on a forum. How could it not be a geeky subject? I just finished watching the latest Chris Nolan Batman effort (The Dark Knight Rises). I’ll admit it now – I see comics as the closest thing modern day has to old school hero myths. They provide...
