Banksy: The Line Between Art and Vandalism

A break from more arduous subject matter.

Are you familiar with Banksy?
www.banksy.co.uk

I was flipping through my copy of Wall and Piece a compilation of many of Banksy's more famous works. Incidentally it makes a great coffee table book. It made me wonder: What is the line between art and vandalism?

Personally I consider Banksy's work to be art. It's beautiful and it always makes a statement; however, there are many people who would say otherwise. Banksy's work has garnered criticism from local authorities, animal rights activists, and everyday citizens who appear to lack any sense of humor. Some people cite individual works of his as being in bad taste; for instance his Elephant in the Room exhibit in LA. Banksy's work is defacement of public property in a very literal sense, but if it's an improvement on the original wall is it vandalism? It isn't any less illegal. And even if we do decide Banksy's graffiti qualifies as art instead of vandalism, where is the line? Wouldn't it be different for each person? We all have different definitions of what is beautiful.

In short my questions are:
- If some graffiti is removed and some is allowed to stay, who should decide and what should be chosen?
- Is it acceptable to alter someone else's property to make it more beautiful? Are there any exceptions?

I feel like there are more questions I want to ask, but I can't think of anything that doesn't sound really dumb and/or pretentious. Please comment back with any thoughts or additional questions you think I missed.

Is Population Control Realistic/Viable/Acceptable?

Is not having children an acceptable tactic to fight to climate change?

If you have a moment read this: http://crunchychicken.blogspot.com/2008/06/no-child-left-behind.html

Orson Scott Card presents the argument for having children in simple and eloquent terms during his novel Ender's Game:

"Nature can't evolve a species that hasn't the will to survive ... the race as a whole can never decide not to exist."

This is indisputable fact. A species with no will to survive and procreate would fold within a generation. An organism can't wake up in the morning and be ambivalent to its own survival. If every living thing isn't working as hard as it can to eat, drink, and reproduce, the entire foundation of life on this planet would collapse. Evolution would cease to be "survival of the fittest" and start being "survival of the least lethargic".

Unfortunately the above argument is not complete because humans are not like other organisms. Because we have conscious, self-aware minds we are capable of removing ourselves from the process of evolution. We give eye glasses to those with bad vision and wheel chairs to those who can't walk. I'm not suggesting either of the aforementioned activities are harmful, only that they remove or at least decrease the effects of natural selection. Humans are also the only species who make a conscious decision to remove themselves from the gene pool through suicide. We have enough mental power as a species to stop our own reproduction, but should/would we?

Even if we were to curb all of our carbon emissions, Earth has a "maximum occupancy". Eventually we will run out of arable land, water, or habitable places. Maybe a combination of any of the above. If left unchecked the population will grow until it so large that the Earth cannot produce enough of what is necessary to maintain it. Then the population will be regulated by shortages of food.

The questions are:

-Is it better for people to self-limit now, or should they wait until natural population pressures take hold?
-Is the environmental impact of a potential child a legitimate reason for not having kids?
-Would the population at large be willing to succumb to a limitation on the number of children? Would people's consciouses allow them to reject 3.6 billion years of evolutionary hardwiring?

Please respond with your thoughts on any of the above questions, or any other questions you feel should have been raised.

"Conservapedia is a wiki-based web encyclopedia project written from an Amercentric social conservative and Conservative Christian point of view."
-Wikipedia on Conservapedia

"Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia founded by entrepreneur and athiest Jimmy Wales and philosophy professor Larry Sanger on January 15, 2001. Despite its official "neutrality policy", Wikipedia has a strong liberal bias."
-Conservapedia on Wikipedia

Since the advent of the internet, online sources have slowly replaced printed works as the common source for research. Many would argue that the culmination of this gradual transformation is Wikipedia, a online source controversial for allowing its information to be edited by its users. In cyberspace where anonymity is ubiquitous and pseudonyms are the norm, it is impossible to enforce responsibility in posting accurate information, and therefore it is easy for Wikipedia to be flooded with misinformation (a la Stephen Colbert's infamous elephant hoax).

On the other end of the spectrum is Conservapedia, which boldly proclaims itself "The Trustworthy Encyclopedia". Despite claims to be more open than Wikipedia, all of Conservapedia's top 5 articles cannot be edited by anyone outside of the 31 mysterious Administrators. As a result Conservapedia's articles on Evolution, Homosexuality, and Atheism contain misused data, flawed logic, quotes taken out of context, and even bold faced lies. Although Conservapedia touts the contents of these entries as undisputed fact, a quick trip to the "talk page" of one of these articles will show that there is anything but consensus on the issue.

The question is this:
-Does Wikipedia's ability to be edited by anyone and everyone add to or take away from its credibility. On the one hand, there is no accountability for an individual to post accurate information. Conversely, by allowing everyone a chance to contribute, information must be widely accepted by the public.


For those who would like to debate the credibility of Conservapedia, I am perfectly willing to discuss it. However, it would be greatly appreciated if discussion and comments were focused on the above question.