Deanna Wong
Hii! I'm Deanna, a 16-year-old high school student from Mauritius. My interest in social sciences has recently flourished by interacting with historical events and researching philosophical and economic concepts to substantiate my creative writing. Indeed, the subjective and interconnected nature of these fields are what I aim to demonstrate on this platform. In my free time, I enjoy playing piano (rage-quitting after every mistake), drafting novels and poems, critiquing news articles from an array of different journals, playing chess, and studying maths and physics (unfortunately).
When asked about the impact of mistakes and plans of the powerful in history, I concluded that history did not make sense. Events are conveniently labelled "plans" and "mistakes" to fit the desired narrative in the given political and geographical background.
Srinjay Mukherjee
Srinjay Mukherjee, is a 17-year-old high school senior based in Doha in Qatar. He is a gifted author, a passionate debater and a skilled pianist. He is also a Star Wars fan and a secret jazz enthusiast who loves listening to Dean Martin, Roberta Flack, Frank Sinatra among others. He enjoys dabbling in world affairs, politics and history and enjoys reading the books of Conan Doyle, Dickens and Dumas among many others. With his multifaceted talents, interests and unwavering passion, he is poised to make a significant "dent on the universe" through his writings and thoughts.
"The question of whether or not to outlaw billionaires is a complex one. Even if billionaires support philanthropy, the development of jobs, and technical progress, issues with wealth disparity, corruption, and civil instability still exist. In addition to addressing societal challenges like inequality and environmental protection, proponents of the prohibition contend that it might result in a fairer distribution of wealth. However, detractors alert us to possible drawbacks, like a decline in foreign investment and charitable giving."
Mary Treb Hibaya
Mary Treb Hibaya is a 17-year-old Filipino student dangling on the rope of political science, linguistics, and psychology in the hopes of empowering those who are meek and awakening those who have feigned ignorance. All pieces lie on the same board of psychology - it has always been a fascinating thing to grapple with and untangle the lines that construct the twisted mind of social sciences. This fascination then comes with interests, including books dipped in dark academia, stories shadowed with mysteries, and the daydreams of science. While she belongs to the calculating field of STEM, she strives to use the accuracy and precision of her writing to fill the world with colors only words know how to paint.
"I handed in three entries for the John Locke Institute Global Essay Competition, in which all of my entries were regarded as an award of Commendation. Though I am proud to have made all of my entries awarded, I am particularly proud of my philosophy entry. The question I answered pertained to one's personal identity: "In what sense are you the same person today that you were when you were ten?". The way that I made my piece for JLI's essay competition was simple enough - it was to connect my being constantly becoming, from 10 years to now, as a symbol of my retaining of my personhood. I am still the same person that I was when I was ten due to the simple concept that I am still the one handling my life - my thoughts, body, and decisions are still mine alone. To support my thesis, I used Locke and Bergson's approach to memory, in which they both indicated the significance of memory in retaining one's identity, whilst combatting the counterarguments on these theories with Partfit's Theory of Survival. I indicated that amidst the loss of particular memories surrounding my childhood, which was one of the counterarguments against Locke's thesis (as Locke associated consciousness with vivid memories, various prominent figures argued back the concept of forgetting - will one lose one's identity if here merely forgets a memory?), the consciousness of which I was already in possession of 6 years ago was mine and is still mine. Regardless of its various forms, may it be associated with forgotten memories or outgrown personalities, consciousness brings people to the knowledge of their freedom and, ultimately, their free will. I am still holding the power of my free will, as I did when I was 10 years old, as I did when I was first brought to the faculty of thinking.
Quoting myself from my essay, "Consciousness always accompanies thinking; her awareness of the world and how she interacted with it, therefore, stayed in a continuous yet progressing form. Continuous, as it survived the waves of time, and progressive, as her perception and understanding of the world varied directly as she grew more mature. This psychological connectedness with herself molded her consciousness and the faculty of her thinking to survive the waves of time, thereby retaining her identity as human even after years. She was and still is a thinking being. She was and still is the embodiment of free will."
Brian Chan
Brian Chan is a Chinese-American high school junior born and raised in NYC. He has written in workshops at Summer@Brown, and writes for his school magazines, Images and The Quill. He has also received a commendation from the John Locke Institute for his writing in philosophy. When he’s not attending school or finishing homework, Brian works on his international creative writing magazine, House of Poetry. In his free time, he plays the bassoon and writes prose and poetry!
Brian argues in his John Locke Institute Philosophy essay that taxation, as a consensual and overall beneficial system, is not theft. However, such a system that violates either consent or benefit, or both, can be seen as theft. He asserts this claim by providing the definition of theft itself: "the physical removal of an object that is capable of being stolen without the consent of the owner and with the intention of depriving the owner of it permanently" (Britannica). Brian argues that the definition of tax, like the one provided, highlights the problem of consent and benefit, which both the victim of theft respectively did not provide, and was not provided. Furthermore, he also deconstructs misconceptions and stigmas surrounding classes and those affected by unfair taxation. He imagines a fair taxation system, however, and uses that to justify his claim. As he says, "when recognizing the full effect of prosperity from a fair taxation system, tax is not theft."
Julie Nakamura
My name is Julie Nakamura, and I am a 16-year-old girl from Japan. Currently, I live in Tokyo; however, just a couple years prior, I was on the back end of what would be my 7th year living abroad in various countries. During those 7 years, I was exposed to a vast array of cultures, education systems, ways of thinking, and sometimes even conflict.
I aim to make use of these these experiences, paired with my interest for psychology, by providing simultaneously open-minded and scientific views on current global issues.
"In surveys conducted in the United States, significantly more than half the respondents reported that they believed themselves to be more attractive than the median person in their country. How might we account for this?"
This mathematically impossible occurrence can be explained by three psychological phenomena named self-enhancement, illusory superiority, and the mere-exposure effect, as well as the country the surveys were conducted in.
Self-enhancement is a phenomenon observed as a result of the long-standing evolutionary advantages of being confident. Being confident makes one seem more attractive, and being attractive leads to more reproductive success. Thus, self-enhancement is the brain’s method of boosting confidence by over-estimating our positive attributes; in this case, physical attractiveness.
Illusory superiority is another psychological phenomenon which elevates our own self-view above reality. However, unlike self-enhancement, this phenomenon is a cognitive bias which occurs because one can judge others from a more neutral standpoint than what it would be if it were for one’s own self. Intentions, desire, influence, decisions and emotions get in the way of rationality in terms of self-reflection, which is why humans are more inclined to believe that their positive attributes outweigh others’. This can explain why, in the surveys, respondents believed themselves to be more attractive than the median person in their country.
The mere-exposure effect is another trait developed in evolution that once provided the brain with a rest from its state of constant vigilance by cataloguing familiar stimuli as amicable and safe. Now, it is the reason why people often dislike their faces in pictures, and find that they look better in mirrors. Because the most common way one will see their face is in a reflective surface, they grow familiarised with the view of their reflected faces, even growing to find it attractive; more attractive than the unfamiliar faces of strangers.
Additionally, the country in which this survey took place also had a role in producing these results. The United States is known to value confidence more than other countries and their cultures, and so the psychological phenomena mentioned above would be amplified by encouragement from American society. Moreover, this encouragement allows people to express their positive self-views without having to feel like they are being vain. Had the survey taken place in another country, such as Japan, the results would’ve most likely been different.
Marcell Borbély
Hello there! I’m a journalist of The Social Canvas located in Hungary. In my writings I aim to explore social, political and historical phenomena. My historical articles will mostly focus on the states “Beyond the Iron Curtain” since I feel them underrepresented in our historical studies (and because I love Chinese food). Furthermore, the sheer size of influence, for instance, the PRC and the Russian Federation have in modern political discourse make them inherently important to know in order to understand our world in the 21st century. I must warn everyone, including the poor editors who have to deal with me, that my analyses will include arguments derived from literature and theatre as these two subjects had an irreversible effect on me.
My JLI essay was regarding a world governed by the People’s Republic of China. Hence, I created a parallel universe where China became the world hegemon, somewhere in the beginning of Xi Jinping’s rule, arguing that while China would be the dominant voice in diplomacy and foreign trade, it’s domestic policies would not change significantly.
Elijah Guevara
Elijah Guevara (Grade 12) is a prospective pre-law student living in the United States. He spends his free time singing in choir, working in construction, performing Shakespeare, playing Minecraft or basketball with his brothers, writing essays, and finding a thousand ways not to write essays. An avid student leader and journalist, he has committed immense time to bringing together his scholastic community through the arts, but also to dividing said community through his opinions.
"My essay for the John Locke Institute argues the resolution "Tax is not theft" to the given prompt, "Is tax theft?" By constructing his argument based on the philosophers Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, he establishes his thesis for the justification of taxation in a democratic state: That 1) Taxes must first and foremost serve the public good in fulfillment of the social contract, 2) The state must levy taxes reasonably within their prerogative, and 3) They should not be levied for the interest or benefit of any other nation or people."
Dorine Benedict
Hi, I’m Dorine I’m 17 years old from Tanzania! I love reading (currently reading the hungry and the fat by timur vermes) and baking! I’m hoping to pursue economics and international relations in the future; I love understanding how our world works and I feel as if economics and international relations can be used to explain all the different parts of the world.
Basically, my essay was about how the impact of billionaires on society is both positive and negative as they are needed for the economy, but from an ethical sense we would be better off without them.
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