All right, well, welcome everyone to fighting your own demons how to deal with all your wordpress problems at once I will hand this off to our presenter today Kirsten Starcher, and I will stop sharing my screen Nice to meet you all Yes, I will be talking about how to fight all your own demons And solve all your wordpress problems all in one go So that's my lofty goal for the day here Um, who am I? I have been working on the web since there was a web for about, you know, 25 years And I've been working mainly in wordpress for well over 10 of those years I call myself a front-end developer mainly, but I like doing a lot of other things too Um, I obviously really enjoy professional photo shoots So this is not really a very technical talk. I'm not going to show you any code This is more about the mindset and the approach that's helped me for the last few decades And if you're running into the same sorts of problems again and again, or if you're new to it and it's all just sort of an Overwhelming mush, then this might help you. So this is going to be more of an advice column I'll go through some of the scenarios and the approaches that I keep in mind while I'm working on things And once we get through it all we can kind of make it more of a conversation So we're going to look at the different problems that can occur with wordpress sites and a strategy for troubleshooting each problem So You're part of a team setting up a new wordpress site for your business or your art or your dream Maybe you're the client. Maybe you're the developer or the designer Maybe you're tackling it all on your own So you've got all these great ideas and wordpress seems like a terrific way to bring them all to life Maybe your site is already up and running. Maybe it's still in progress but then Something's gone horribly wrong So here's a selection of some of the more common demons that you may find yourself battling Your site may be completely down. Uh, you might be getting a 500 error. There might be a critical error Uh, your site might just be doing something weird The code is buggy. Something isn't displaying the way that you want.  First of all, you're gonna stay calm And I'm gonna go into each of these in more detail in a moment You're gonna retrace your steps You look for the root of your conflict and then you start to troll shoot So let's break these down a little bit here So let's first deal with the feelings of panic and anxiety Whether you're dealing with a minor css glitch or a site that's completely broken or a confrontation with a colleague The same thing applies. Everything is going to go more smoothly if you're not freaking out And that's also going to help the people around you not freak out So remember it's not personal whatever's gone wrong. It's just a thing that's happening It's not happening to you. It's just happening Don't believe everything that you think Often we tile ourselves.  It's just your brain's way of kind of trying to Trying to help you process and it isn't always all that helpful in the moment so Once it once you're a bit calmer You can start looking into the issue So sometimes it's really obvious what caused a problem like maybe you just updated all your plugins and suddenly Your site is gone. So when it's not obvious what's happened You have to retrace your steps, you know a bit like looking for your lost keys kind of when did I have them last? So When do you last know that the site was working and what has happened since then? So have you made any changes recently? Did you maybe update the plugins last week and the problem is only actually visible now? Has somebody else who's working on the site possibly made changes Has something about the environment changed like server updates or a domain name that's failed to renew I mean there is also the possibility of a hack in which case you aren't the one who made the changes In this case your job is to find out what changed and how you're retracing and erasing someone else's steps Other than that the process is pretty much the same So troubleshooting is the process of investigating until you find out the root of your problem If you're dealing with a WordPress issue The conflict might be between bits of code or it might be a conflict between what it's doing and what you expect it to do If you're dealing with human conflict usually that means at least one person has a need that's not being met Often we get anxious messages from users or clients that just say I got an error or the site is down But that's not really all that useful You need to get complete error messages that are specific to what's going on and the exact behavior that leads to the problem So does the problem happen on every page of the site? Does it only happen when you do a certain thing? You want to narrow it down as much as you possibly can If it's someone else telling you about the problem make sure you can replicate the issue yourself Because it's very hard to troubleshoot a problem that you can't see When the pressure is on there is a temptation to jump in and do everything that you think might fix the issue all at once But then if the problem happens again, how will you know how to fix it the next time? It can also have the effect of introducing new problems So I consider a restore backup to be one thing so In a crisis that counts Also, I'm assuming that you have backups and a way of making regular backups and Because that's probably more important than many of my other tips There is nothing like the joy of realizing when something's gone horribly wrong that you can restore a backup It is it is it is such a relief If you think you're going to be experimenting with a lot of different changes You can take screenshots of your settings pages or make a note of what you're changing So you know what you started with and what you've tried already Here's an example of a nasty looking settings page where if you just go in and you know Change a few things you could completely boost track of what you change If you don't do that So if you're new to coding you've probably already discovered some of the things that can go wrong Everyone gets hung up on a mismatched parenthesis or an accidental missing semicolon once in a while If you're not running on a live site, you can turn on php errors so it'll tell you what line is breaking Bad logic means that your code is running But what you think you've asked it to do and what it's actually doing are different So you might be feeding the wrong variables to a function Or you might have put a critical statement in the wrong part of the process So you can leave yourself little breadcrumbs along the way to hone in on why are you going off crack You know display the value of those variables show everything that's going on Um and uh and just put those in at little regular regular intervals Um sometimes it's even something stupid like you're working in the wrong file without realizing it and you keep Making changes and refreshing it and it's just not happening happening And you're sure that your code is correct and it's still not working And then you realize you've been editing the wrong file all along and when you catch yourself doing this Go ahead and fix the problem and then step away from the screen and go for a nice walk outside because You've been staring at your computer for too long and you need to stop Now at this point programming languages are mostly still written by humans And so us humans need to be able to describe what's going on If you're not sure about your logic look at it and read out exactly what it's doing line by line As if it were Just a sentence I mean practically in English This isn't going to help you with something like a semicolon in the wrong place, but it might help your brain trace what's happening If you got a i to generate your code, it's actually even more important that you can follow what it's doing Because sometimes it's not right either So here we've got an example where you know, we've got a some instructions on how to clean the fridge and it's just You know, this isn't code. This isn't going to compile. This isn't going to run But if you look at the actual code that you've written and you sort of think of each line as an English statement or whatever your mental language is then Then you may have a better understanding of where something's going wrong where you might have given it the wrong instruction Now that's now that we have a few tactics for dealing with these demons Let's have a look at some of the situations that can come up while you're dealing with your website Your site is down Um, okay. So first there was that stay and calm Um, so we've got our little reminders in the corner of the screen here staying calming the first one. So First of all, are people actually in danger of dying Unless your WordPress site is running some kind of life support system And honestly, I don't think that's a thing anybody would run in WordPress Probably probably not probably nothing really really major is going to go horribly wrong in the world because your website is down Your client might think so because for the past 20 minutes, nobody has been able to buy their precious widgets And they're really upset because you know, they've lost 20 minutes of widget sales um And it's understandable. They you know, they are expecting a thing to be happening. That's not happening, but still You got to put this into a perspective. Okay. There's a problem, but it is not going to kill anyone So first you need to figure out what the Possible culprits are so you need to get a sense get familiar with what specific types of problems are most likely to appear at each level because there are different there's a different set of errors that are associated with you like your server or your host going down than there are with There being a bug in your theme If Chrome is telling you it can't find your site, you know domain name not resolved Then it's going to be a domain name issue You don't even have to think about your theme or your plugin because that is not the problem So as you get more experienced you you start to learn where is the first place to look But if you haven't found the culprit yet, what can you rule out? Can you prove that it's not the theme or it's not the plugin? Or if you you found out that it is in the theme code that you're working on How can you hone in on what bit of code is causing the problem? If you can't find the answer find everything that isn't the answer So that might mean you deactivate the plugin or you Switch to the default theme see if you still have the problem It might mean you comment out a big section of code to see if that's the problem Maybe something works on one page, but it doesn't work on another. So what is different about those pages? Do they have different? Are they using different templates? Do you have different short codes on them? Are you using different blocks? What is it about that page that you can say? Oh, that's different Yeah, what are plugin conflicts? It could be a plugin trying to Alter the same WordPress functionality as another plugin. It could be that they're using different versions of the same jQuery And and so they're conflicting with each other because one needs one version and one is expecting another it could be that a plugin is out of date and It conflicts with the latest WordPress or it's not up to WordPress standards So there's a lot of different reasons why you could be having problems with one plugin If you can't tell what plugin is causing the issue you can turn off each plugin one at a time and then Reload your site see if the problem disappears And sometimes that's not possible because the functionality that you need to test is an essential part of that plugin or sometimes the problem doesn't appear unless you have two plugins activated together So keep an eye out for that as well If you're getting a white screen of death and you can't get to the dashboard at all You can also temporarily turn a plugin off by renaming its folder using sftp or the command line I got to stop waving my hand so much zoom is thinking i'm giving a thumbs up, but I am Um So if your site is buggy It's pretty much the same approach as uh, if your site is down, but it's a little bit less alarming You're still going to try to break the problem down into smaller parts until you understand the root of the conflict So this could be something as simple as a form that won't submit That's often a problem with the javascript. That's validating the form So you could look where is the javascript coming from your theme or a plugin What message do you get in the javascript console? Can you track it down that way?  Sometimes it's something in between you and the host So if this is something that's just come up briefly, you know today Then it's it it often just resolves itself Um, if it's an ongoing thing it could be that you have too much traffic or that your host has Some sort of issue going on and then you might want to investigate the hosting I had a scenario once with the A host that was just notoriously slow and I ended up porting the site to another host Just to prove to the client who was absolutely convinced it was a problem with the site um And uh, I showed it to him on another host and it worked extremely fast there same site different host world of difference um It could be that uh You have a plugin or a theme that is bogging something down So again, you go through the same process deactivate switch things out and and test You know one thing at a time same approach Um, maybe you're not getting the sort of traffic that you want. Um, I don't know if anybody remembers this 90s 80s movie god, I don't even know a field of dreams. Um, they had there was this tagline If you build it they will come and you know, like he he decides to build this baseball field in his in his Horn field and then all these ghosts of famous baseball players come and it's all magical um But a lot of people approach their website like that with kind of an if you build that they will come mentality and Have no seo met a strategy no marketing plan um So in those cases, you're not going to get results Uh, you need to start applying your troubleshooting steps to your marketing strategy And you may need to get someone who knows how to do that properly. It's a whole different set of talents and skills and So you will need to work with them to make changes to figure out where to promote your site properly What tweaks need to be made? to You know just to boost that So now we can start to try to apply some of the same principles that we've talked about to dealing with conflict that we're having with other humans Um, now I gotta say this doesn't always work quite as reliably because humans unfortunately are more complex and nuanced than a WordPress site And sometimes two people just aren't a good fit and you can't always just swap them out like themes and plugins and that can be frustrating Um, but here's some thoughts on how to make the best of working together So over those steps again, what does this look like when you're dealing with a problem with people? so Stay calm Make sure in any scenario that you can be grounded and calm enough to be able to listen And hear what the other person is trying to tell you As well as being able to convey what you need to tell them In a reasonable and respectful manner If you don't think that you can do that without getting upset Let them know you're going to need a moment Find a better time to have the conversation when you're calm Do not go into it if if emotions are running high. It usually doesn't help Retrace your steps What is the context? What is actually happening? Does it even have anything to do with you? The root of your conflict don't assume that you know what's going on for them. It may be that the Problem the reason that they're upset with you it might it may be part of a bigger picture It might be that the last developer that they worked with bailed on them and failed to do something And they're they're anxious and worried because they think the same behavior is going to come from you It might be that they have something going on in their personal life That is that means they're at their threshold and they're having trouble with anything that is slightly difficult So look at what need they have that isn't being met right now And what need are you trying to meet? And just like in technical troubleshooting try to understand the situation before you start tinkering with it So if your client is panicking about a problem with the site Let them know you've heard them and you understand how important this is to them Give them a realistic time frame in which you expect the problem to be resolved and then stick to it If you guess wrong just keep updating them so they know you're on the case So if they're unhappy because of your communication time or style, are you taking a long time to respond? Are you giving them too much or too little information? Have you been clear on what you're going to be providing? Are they expecting something from you that You never agreed to deliver? Did you maybe over promise and under deliver because it really needs to be the other way around So maybe instead of a client you're dealing with a frustrating co-worker of some sort Um So some things to think about have you been moving the goalposts? One of the most frustrating situations for anyone building anything is when the parameters keep changing It's really disheartening to have to do work over and over again when you were proud of it the first time and have to redo it Or to have to change direction when you thought you had a clear picture of what was coming up Are you clear on what you're asking for from them? Make sure your project has very thorough and clear business requirements So the people working on the site know exactly what they're building or you might get unexpected results Have you been listening to what they're trying to tell you? If someone has been warning you that there's going to be problems or that they don't have the skills or enough time To do what you're asking and you don't take that to heart You will be surprised when the project doesn't turn out quite right Are you giving them space to work? Keeping track of progress is important, but if you get too involved you can actually interfere with that progress Set dates for check-ins in advance and don't hover let them do the job So setting expectations is best done right at the start of the relationship If you like to block out chunks of focus time while you're working and you don't want to be interrupted You don't want to be reached. Just let people know that's a thing that can happen I often tell that to my clients that I will only I will check emails at a certain point. I will check my phone messages at a certain point But if I need to focus all of that is off If you don't answer the phone, but you do answer emails, let them know That's the best way to reach you you know if you want to phone me then Just send me a note and we'll set up a time Um So yeah figure that figure that out figure out how you like to connect and let them know Some people some of your clients will be more phone people Some of your developers will be more email or text people and you might not have the same style But try to meet in the middle where you can Leave a little wiggle room when you're estimating time always give yourself a little extra just in case you run into trouble along the way People will always be thrilled if you come in under your estimate and they will be angry if you go over Put the odds in your favor Give yourself a little breathing room So also you don't have to be anxious if things run on a little later than you thought and you can stay calm Be realistic about what you can and you can't do If you think you're going to be likely to run into trouble in a particular part of the work Let people know so they aren't broadsided when you come back saying that you're going to need a few more hours or weeks Or have to buy this extra plugin to make it happen so Sometimes a person who's upset just needs to know that you heard them And it can be really hard to not immediately jump into explanations or defensives if you're feeling that you're under attack Reflecting back to them what you've heard from them in your own words can make a big difference If you get it right, you will actually feel them relax or their tone will change And they may be a little more willing to listen to your explanation So that might look something like i'm hearing that you're really worried about slow loading time Are you getting frustrated that the development site isn't looking exactly like the designs? Once they know that We're talking about the same thing Then they they will probably set back and and let you talk Yeah, maybe you're the one who's angry or concerned Um, you want to take more of a collaborative tone? Put things in terms of we instead of you and i or you need to do this Um, bringing it back to we helps reduce the sense of confrontation and it brings the focus back to The goal that we have in common Talking about how is this going to impact the project or how is this going to impact the budget? Like these are things that we you know, we we both want we want to see this succeed um Usually in nonviolent communication We learn ways of describing our emotional state to the person that we're having conflict with in a work scenario the person you're dealing with may not care how you feel and Sometimes getting into your emotions might not be appropriate So you you do need to approach it more from kind of the big picture being the the project the budget What your common interest is so that might sound like i i completely understand that seeing another round of revisions would really be helpful But we would have to delay the launch to fit that in and i know that launching on time is very important to you So you're addressing what you know matters to them Which is the launch and you're acknowledging their wish for you know, yet another round of revisions But just telling them that these are the consequences of that If you bring up a problem, but you don't make a request or a suggestion It kind of leaves the other person hanging and it looks a bit more like A confrontation that they have to resolve and they have to kind of guess at what you want So making a constructive suggestion is a good way to show them that you're interested in finding a solution It's it's better than just a no. It's a no, but here is a thing that we could do instead Um, if you're making a request Be prepared to hear and know and to adapt your own plan if what you are Asking for isn't optional. It's not a request Ultimatums can work to get the job done But they can also damage your relationship with the other person Nobody really wants to be in a situation where they feel that they are under threat um So that might look something like can we agree on a weekly meeting to check in on the site's progress rather than saying I need you to send me your update every thursday So I have a lot more resources here on Sort of the communication sides of things. Um, the um, the the Nonviolent communication approach was developed by a fellow named marshal Rosenberg And it's been used all over the world in all sorts of mediation In all sorts of scenarios and it's really great kind of at the individual relationship level There's a whole world of things to go into Um, one book that I really love on the topic is say what you mean by orange j. Sofer Which also takes sort of a mindfulness and somatic awareness Approach to it as well as giving you great tools for how to Have kind of how to look at how you're communicating Um, the third link here is also uh a It's about nonviolent communication in the workplace and um That yeah, it just has some some good ways of sort of bridging all of this And at this point I Be delighted to Invite any questions, uh, if you don't get to you this time Or if you have anything else that you'd like to chat about feel free to send me a note I'm going to be offering a separate online course Later this year about troubleshooting. I'm just developing it now Um, if you'd like to find out more about that, uh, feel free to sign up there And There we have it. I'll uh Hand it back to you Yeah, thanks kirsten. Um, yeah, I shared a link to the resources Uh, it includes what you just shared in the last slide plus more, uh So, um, check that link out for some more troubleshooting links Um, we actually did not have any questions that came up during your presentation. Um Which means I think it was very clear and very helpful. Um In the chat Martha says terrific presentation. So thank you. Um Just rolling back just to see you know folks, uh Just chatting chatting. Um Yeah, Ed says he likes the nonviolent communication approach It is totally life changing Absolutely, it's like I I kind of thought that I was a pretty good communicator and I started to notice little ways, you know, when I when I get upset about something some of my word choices that Could be improved on like not not even that I'm not like I'm swearing at people or something but Uh subtle ways that we have in our language. Um You know, even like saying I feel patronized is is Puts the accusation on the other person. You are patronizing me And it immediately sets you up for confrontation And as soon as you have that then the other person will get defensive and they don't listen So it's all about sort of how to de-escalate a situation so that you can both listen to each other and resolve things Oh, well, let's see. Well, well, if you have a client who makes the changes and then accuses you of making other changes They didn't ask for but you know, you didn't and this happens over and over again Uh, oh, yeah, um, that sounds like fun So there's a couple of things that you could do if I were in that situation. I would put a Logging plugin on the site And and then it would you would have a simple record that of this audit log and It would say who last saved the page and then you could just very calmly say Oh, okay. Um Yeah, no, I see that that page changed and uh, let me just have a quick look at the audit log Oh, yeah, it looks like a user Oh client name did it last, you know who that might have been And that's probably going to be the last, you know, and again be very non confrontational about it just But be prepared whatever you can do to track changes Um, that should help. Um a logging plugin There's one I think I've used one called WP audit log, but I'm not sure how granular it gets with the Changes Um, so you might want to dig around a little bit Um, okay question about troubleshooting form submissions. How long do you usually wait to assess if you notice no SEO? Uh, if I don't think I'm getting form submissions I jump on that pretty fast and I'll test it and like make any time that I make any changes to Forms or form plugins I'll make sure the form is still working because it's really horrible when you know two months go by and you realize that You your contact form hasn't been working and you don't know what you've lost um So I usually I usually jump on that pretty fast Um, sometimes it ends up being an smtp issue like the mail actually can't go out Um, so I try to use plugins where it also stores the submissions in the WordPress database So if you're using contact form seven, you use flamingo as well and then it saves it online If you're using gravity forms, it saves all the submissions for you So then you know if you're if your problem is with the Form You know the the functionality of the form or if it's with maybe if the problem is actually with the mail That's not getting sent to you. So that helps you narrow it down Turning on php errors that is it's not a plugin. It's something going to be in how your server or your host is configured. So It uh, it basically will show you all the errors It's a setting in your php config file and it'll show you all the errors There are other ways of seeing the errors like php will also give you an error log So depending on your setup and this is going to be, you know unique to Everybody you will look for that php error log and then you'll see where the errors and warnings are in there It takes a bit of digging, but it's essential The topic of more budget needed for paid plugins even with discovery Yeah, I give clients kind of a range of what to expect like we may need some plugins I think we're going to need this one and that one It's possible when we get to something else that we may need to buy another one And it gives again that sort of sense of wiggle room that they are now prepared for the possibility that there might be another, you know 20 to 100 dollar expense down the line Yeah, just in the discovery process being being a little broad about it and and And having that in your contract that any plugins are the responsibility of the clients and client and Maybe additional expenses just so they know so that's the main thing It's the setting expectations and up front this and this can happen How I uploaded a site to another host to test speed. Oh, all I did was clone it Like I just made a backup and restored the backup on the other host so that I had a cloned version of the site And then I could show the client like look, this is the exact same site on your host Test it out and then go to this other place where I've set it up and test it out the The weird thing in that scenario to be honest was that even after seeing the site load You know three times faster on the other host the client it had this he had this Very strong loyalty to his host which Um, and and he still he still wanted to stay with his existing host and Like okay, that's that's your call ultimately if somebody wants to make a a decision about their website and if it's not going to you know be a massive security problem and to hurt anybody then it's their call so But it was sort of a proof of concept at least and it made me feel better that I knew that it wasn't something I was doing wrong with his website so Sometimes that's the best you can do is put your own mind at ease Did I get everybody here? I think so So Yeah, and and you can find ways where Uh Rania says here, uh, some clients are always right and there is a certain element of that that you know, the customer is always right and and there is Like you you definitely don't want to get into a kind of budding head situation where you want to prove them wrong You can usually find a graceful way to be like That yeah, I can I can absolutely see why you'd why you would want to do that And I can understand coming from you know the situation that you just came from and also Here is this other way I I like sometimes to give Uh to give options you can you can stay with the way that you're doing this that would happen Uh, or there is also this other possibility and usually when you spell something out and you let them make the choice um Give them a little time and most clients will come around Not everybody. It's all part of the the joy Uh, I think that's all of the questions. I did have a question that that came up that is Not related to this this content and I was trying to find some information but You know one of our attendees is looking for information on how to get visitor information to your site Like something native to wordpress or even a course about how to add google analytics um And I am not finding anything specific on learn Right now, but um I'll just share in the chat A link to to learn if folks want to Look for more resources Um that are official to wordpress.org. Um, of course, there are plenty of other resources out there. Lots of other educators um within the wordpress community And Yeah, I'd say start there start at learn. Um, and then yeah, just Good old google searches or uh even on youtube. Um I imagine you can find something there There is a world of magic and good stuff at learned at wordpress.org So I am yeah, so Just the broad range of what you've got and uh the dedication. So thanks for Yeah, um I did have just a closing slide here just to Share a little bit more um Yeah, so like we mentioned learn wordpress is the Kind of official educational resources for the wordpress open source project But again, there are there's so much out there Um, lots of folks in the community donating their time and their knowledge to everyone else Um, if you want to keep in touch and like I mentioned earlier, um, we Accept folks that wants to volunteer to share their knowledge with the rest of the community via learn wordpress So, um, we have the making wordpress slack which is at chat.wordpress.org and you can join the training channel there Um, if you do social media things, um, I use mastodon and linkedin. Um, so if you want to get in touch there um And oh, I know that you shared your contact information before but I'll just go back to uh Kirsten's email there if folks wanted to note that as well um And yeah, that is it. It looks like, um I'm just double checking for any more questions at the minute last minute I think we're good. Um, so yeah Oh, you want the email up again? There we go Here, I'll give you a second to copy that. Um, really get a less clicky keyboard for these things Yeah Um, yeah, thank you everyone for being here today and thank you kirsten for Sharing and get another great Um presentation with us Thanks for having me. Yeah All right, we'll see you folks next time


TEFL Jobs in Singapore Located on the tip of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore is a truly cosmopolitan city and has been home to people from all over the globe for hundreds of years. The world's only island city-state, Singapore was founded in 1819 as a trading post by Sir Stamford Raffles and remains an important centre of international trade and business today. Since independence the city has blossomed into highly developed, Asian metropolis where skyscrapers rise above tree-lined streets, Chinese shophouses and British colonial buildings. The legacy of the British Empire in Singapore's multicultural history can be seen in the numerous districts where different ethnic groups settled in the city. The colonial district was the seat of British power in Singapore and is centred on the Padang, a large playing field that is home to the Singapore Cricket Club and is surrounded by City Hall, the old Supreme Court and St Andrews Cathedral. In this district you will find Raffles Hotel, home of the Singapore Slink Cocktail and now a national monument. Chinatown is where many of the original Chinese migrants settled during colonial times and is home to many beautifully decorated shophouses and important temples. The Arab quarter is where traders from Yemen settled in the city and it is now a thriving shopping street selling leather goods, Persian rugs and more. Little India was originally home to Singapore's Indian population and features Hindu and Buddhist temples. TEFL Singapore The TEFL job market in Singapore can be a tough nut to crack but with the right qualifications and a bit of patience, you should be able to find a job that's right for you in one of the private colleges, language schools or tuition centers. There are plenty of opportunities available in the wider Southeast Asia region especially in Thailand and Vietnam. TEFL courses in Singapore The TEFL training school is located in a building right in the heart of Singapore's central business district and is ideally situated for making the most of all this amazing city has to offer. Whether you are looking for exciting nightlife, intense shopping, delicious food or to chill out in natural surroundings, Singapore has it all. You can head to one of the many parks or the botanic gardens for a relaxed time in nature. Clark and boat quays and Sentosa Island are the ideal destinations for entertainment and good food while orchard road is heaven for any serious shopper with a large enough wallet. There are also a number of museums where you can learn about Singapore's fascinating history and the city's excellent public transport network makes getting around to see everything a breeze. For those looking to complete their TEFL training in Singapore, ITTT offers high quality courses from dedicated trainers. On graduation you will receive an internationally recognized TEFL certificate that will open up teaching jobs in Singapore and the rest of the world. By completing the course at ITTT's training center in Singapore you will be ideally placed for jobs here and in the wider Southeast Asian region.


The floor may not be in your old mind. Hello everyone, this is Leo here. If you read Darkened Heart, you probably know who I am. If not, let me tell you. I'm just a 5 year old boy living with only a father and one older brother. He's 8 years old, named Terence.  I was diagnosed with cancer, and when I was on a trip to a behind-the-scenes tour of my favorite show, SpongeBob SquarePants, my dad found Darkened Heart. How do you know, you may ask? One thing my dad didn't know when he wrote the story, was that I was also a fan of creepypastas, not just SpongeBob, and when I came across Darkened Heart. And noticed the main characters traits that are too linked to my dad to be considered a coincidence, I instantly knew it was my dad without a doubt. Here are some facts my dad didn't tell you about me. First, I am best friends with a classmate at school named, Ayanna. She also loves SpongeBob, and we had things in common, so I think that we can easily click and be best friends forever. Before I was diagnosed with cancer, I asked her if we could hang out for a SpongeBob watch party, and she accepted. Although because my dad took me on a surprise trip to the hospital after noticing the symptoms, I had to cancel the watch party. Fast forward a couple of weeks after my dad got me into chemotherapy, I was sent to the hospital to get my test to see how my cancer is going. I got the results, and it says that my cancer is finally done. I was excited, and when I got to school, I rushed to my first classroom period, and excitedly told all my classmates that my cancer was gone. They all cheered, and my best friends hugged me. I told them that I planned to host a celebration party, and that everyone was invited. I even told my dad, and he allowed it. Having a behind the scenes tour of my favorite show, and beating cancer, I think I'm probably living the best life. So, we were partying, and we were going crazy. We were playing video games, and we danced to some awesome music. One of my classmates named Aiden, claimed that his father worked at Nickelodeon as a crew member for multiple shows, including SpongeBob SquarePants. I didn't believe him, and thought he said that just to try to be cool, but what he said next changed my mind. Of course I do. I borrowed one of my dad's SpongeBob DVDs, that has some unerrant SpongeBob episodes. He showed the case to us with proof as well. The case had a picture of SpongeBob mopping at the Krusty Krab, and the SpongeBob DVD was named, SpongeBob fixes the environment. I had an old CRT television and a DVD player that connects to the TV through HDMI cables. I put the disc in, and it took me to the menu. It started with the background of Bikini Ital, the island in the intro, and it went down to show the houses of three iconic characters, SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidward. Sometimes, SpongeBob would appear and do anything related to cleaning. I pressed the episode selection button, and it only showed two episodes, Dark and Heart, and Burning Mind. We watched Dark and Heart, and we just didn't feel really scared. Although, one of my friends felt a little chill down their spine. Although, Burning Mind was way different. It started with the intro, and it was normal at first, but when the screen faded to black before going to the title card, I could faintly see some text that said, It's Burning Hot. The title card appeared, but the credits sequence that appeared after the title card was different. First, the clear waves in the credits were gone, just sand and rocks. Next, instead of the text for the credits fading out until it's no longer seen, it disintegrated like it was burned to ash and blown away by the wind. Finally, instead of the usual bubble transition that normally appears after the credits, it was replaced with fire. Flames were flying out to the top of the screen, with smoke appearing on some of the flames. It started with a real-life clip of random people playing on the beach. The French narrator spoke, saying, Ah, it looks like people at the beach are having fun. Playing games, eating ice cream, and swimming in the ocean water. What a great way to spend the summer day. The screen faded to the island that appears in the intro, known as Bikini et al. The narrator said, Ah, I wonder what the creatures in Bikini Bottom are doing. Let's have a look at our favorite little boy, SpongeBob SquarePants. The screen pans underwater to SpongeBob's pineapple, and then it fades to SpongeBob's bedroom. The Foghorn alarm sounded, and after SpongeBob turned off the alarm, he yawned and said, Good morning, Gary. After Gary responded with a meow, the screen went to the outside of his pineapple, with the screen close to his bedroom window. Random cartoon sound effects of what looks like SpongeBob falling down the stairs played, with each noise having SpongeBob saying, The screen pans to the next window. After it successfully goes to the window, the noise is stopped, and a sound effect of what sounds like a toilet flushing plays. After the sound effect finishes, the noises of SpongeBob falling down the stairs continue playing, until the screen finishes panning to the door. Then, SpongeBob starts chanting, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready. while running down to the Krusty Krab.  The screen goes to three anchovies at a table holding paper, one saying, Ten. Another saying, Nine. And the third saying, Ten. The second anchovy taps the third anchovy on the shoulder, and notifies them about the upside down paper. The third anchovy rotates the paper right side up. The screen goes back to the kitchen with SpongeBob in the middle of cooking patties, and after a couple of seconds, SpongeBob starts sweating a little bit. SpongeBob wipes the sweat off the side of his head, and said, Gee, is it just me? Or is the weather getting warmer than usual? SpongeBob shrugged it off, and continued cooking Krabby Patties. After SpongeBob completed one Krabby Pattie, he was about to give Squidward the order, but the Krabby Pattie ran into the freezer. SpongeBob tried to make another Pattie, but it also ran into the freezer once it was finished. Squidward yelled at SpongeBob, saying, SpongeBob, where are the Krabby Patties? The customers are waiting. SpongeBob explained to Squidward about the Krabby Patties going to the freezer, but Squidward didn't believe him. SpongeBob cooked a Krabby Pattie again, while Squidward was watching, and the Krabby Pattie went to the freezer like the others. SpongeBob notified Mr. Krabs about the problem, and he cooked another Pattie to show Mr. Krabs, and of course, the Pattie ran to the freezer. Um, I don't even know why it's happening. Let me think for a second. Mr. Krabs said, a sound of an oven timer plays, and after a couple of seconds, Mr. Krabs gasped in realization as the hypothetical oven timer dings, and he clenched his fists as his expression changed to envy, and he yelled, Plankton! His fists were shaking, and Mr. Krabs' nose poked out with steam coming out. Mr. Krabs dashes to the chum bucket, and the screen goes to Plankton, about to prepare himself some food. Mr. Krabs captures Plankton, and everything went to black. Mr. Krabs turned on a small lamp hanging from the ceiling, and it revealed Plankton, being tied up to a small chair as if he was being interrogated. What did you do to the Krabby Pattie? Mr. Krabs yelled angrily. Nothing, I swear. I was about to prepare myself some holographic meatloaf. Plankton answered with fear, as his body started trembling. Then why are the Krabby Patties running to the freezer? Was that one of your plans? Mr. Krabs asked while retaining his anger. I don't even know. I am telling the truth. Plankton responded. Mr. Krabs turns on another lamp to reveal Karen tied up to a pole.  Karen breaks out of the rope, and punches Mr. Krabs while telling him. Plankton's telling the truth. You wanted to take a break from planning up schemes to steal your precious formula. He felt like he was too humiliated by you to continue making up schemes, and feel even sad. Mr. Krabs calmed down and threw the water bucket off screen, and a couple of seconds later, the sound of a large window breaking plays, while you can hear the iconic quote being spoken. Fine. I believe you. Mr. Krabs says, as he enties Plankton from the chair, Am I the only one who feels like it's getting hotter and hotter outside than usual? Mr. Krabs asked. Actually, no. I'm having the same feeling, too. Plankton responded. The screen does the fire transition back to the kitchen, and SpongeBob is what I would call speed cooking Krabby Patties with each patty running to the freezer. After what seemed like 10 seconds, SpongeBob stopped in frustration and yelled. That's it! SpongeBob dashed to the freezer, took all the Krabby Patties out, built wooden planks cartoonishly fast on the door. SpongeBob started panting and then dusted his hands off as he said. There! Now you bad noodles can't run to the freezer anymore. SpongeBob put the Krabby Patties in a tray and rang the order bell to notify Squidward that the order was finished. Squidward looked through the window and said in a sarcastic tone, Wow! Those patties must be so raw good that I can't even see them. SpongeBob laughed and said, Aye aye aye! Nice one Squidward! Squidward pointed at the tray, SpongeBob looked at the tray to notice that it was empty. SpongeBob looked behind him to notice that the wooden planks that barricaded the door were broken and pieces were lying down on the floor. SpongeBob tries to get the patties out of the freezer, but the doors are locked. SpongeBob walks back to the grill in disappointment. SpongeBob looked upwards and he noticed something weird about Squidward. Ah! Squidward! SpongeBob asked, What?!  SpongeBob told Squidward, Squidward looked down and he screamed as he ran to the freezer. Squidward starts to pant after entering the freezer and he notices the Krabby Patties sitting still. Squidward started adjusting his nose as if it was modeling clay and he asked the Krabby Patties, Alright! Why did you run to the freezer? The screen zoomed into the Krabby Patties and they were silent, so silent that crickets were chirping in the background. Squidward repeated the question and the screen went to the Krabby Patties again, with crickets starting to chirp again. Squidward sighed and said, Whatever! I'm just talking to a pile of Krabby Patties! Soon, the Krabby Patties ran out from the freezer back to the kitchen and Squidward was confused. Now the Patties are running out of the freezer! But why? Am I really that hideous? Then, a grotesque close-up painting of Squidward appeared for a couple of seconds and a sound effect of a woman screaming in disgust played. He had barnacles on his face, some pimples as if he had acne and eye bugger is showing up. The screen enters Squidward's point of view and fog starts to appear in front of him. A couple of seconds later, it looked like someone emitting yellowish orange light was inside the freezer behind the fog and the light was getting bigger and bigger as if it was coming towards Squidward. Before it was able to get out of the fog, the scene goes back to the third person point of view and Squidward tries to get out of the freezer, but the door is locked. After Squidward's failed attempt to open the door using the doorknob, he started banging on the door and the light that was emitted by the unknown unseen creature started to shine on Squidward. Squidward looked behind himself and the scene went back to the kitchen with SpongeBob and after a second, Squidward started screaming as the phraser door window started flashing as if there was lightning inside and SpongeBob looked at the phraser door without even going inside. After Squidward screamed in agony, Squidward successfully opened the phraser door and he looked like he was burnt by the sun. SpongeBob raised his mouth to ask a question, but before SpongeBob could even say a single word, Squidward, in a grumpy mood, said, Don't even ask about it! as if he experienced it often to the point he had just gotten used to it. SpongeBob decided to cook another patty and surprisingly for him, the patty didn't run away. Mr. Krabs enters the restaurant again and notices SpongeBob holding a tray with a Krabby patty. Looks like you got him working, Boyle. Ready to continue the job? Mr. Krabs asked. SpongeBob yelled. A time card appeared, saying, One hour later, the screen goes to two fish sitting at a table. They look like a married couple and the male fish starts to sweat. Geez, it's really hot out there. The male fish says. The female fish responds, You're right. It's so hot out there that my drink turned into lava. She opens the drink lid to reveal actual lava inside the cup. Another fish dashes to the table, saying, I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking that it's burning out. All the fish start to murmur for a couple of seconds until a fish next to the crusty crab window yells out, Guys, look! The fish points to the window and the screen pans to reveal the chum bucket with a huge sign pointing to the structure. The sign said, Free air conditioning here. The husband of the married couple sitting at the table said, Free air conditioning? Let's go to the chum bucket, everyone. All the customers run out to the chum bucket and Mr. Krabs exits his office after all the customers have left. Where are you all leaving? Mr. Krabs asked. He looks out the window and notices the air conditioning sign at the chum bucket. Okay, that's it. SpongeBob! Mr. Krabs said. SpongeBob dashes at Mr. Krabs and yells, Yes, sir. His arms made the gesture of obeying an army captain's commands. I want you to go out and figure out the cause of Bikini Bottom turning into a giant underwater sauna. Mr. Krabs said. In Squidward. Squidward? Mr. Krabs says, as he notices that Squidward is not in the cashier boat and there seems to be a sticky note on the back of the cash register. A close-up of the sticky note appears and it seems to say, I'll pass with Squidward's signature on the bottom. The screen fire transitions into Sandy's tree dome and it looks like the sun is about to set. SpongeBob finished telling his problem to Sandy and she had a solution. I see. I felt like it was getting hotter too so I just decided to invent a heat mapper. It will track every surface temperature in a 75-mile radius. Sandy said. She handed the gadget to SpongeBob and he responded. Thanks, Sandy. This is going to help me so much with this investigation. No problem. See you later. Sandy said. After a while. SpongeBob responded as he ran to the door and left the tree dome. The screen fire transitions into jellyfish fields with SpongeBob walking and its sun is about to set. The heat mapper was looking normal until SpongeBob gasped. There seems to be a red circle that is moving in a running motion. SpongeBob starts running as well to chase that red circle and it looks like the red circle is starting to make a U-turn. SpongeBob follows that red circle until it leads to an unknown city. SpongeBob felt a sense of familiarity until he realized what it was. A flashback of a clip of SpongeBob finding the same city in dark and hard appeared for a couple of seconds. SpongeBob noticed a shadowy figure running and he was about to check the heat mapper when he noticed that it was missing. He decided to enter the city to see if the unknown running heat source was hiding there. He was about to open the door to a house when a voice startled SpongeBob. So, we need again SpongeBob. The voice said. SpongeBob looked behind him and noticed a familiar face. Hey! You're the nameless hat guy that I saw yesterday. SpongeBob said. But wait! If I saw you yesterday then how am I still here when the black void consumed me yesterday? SpongeBob asked. The black void? There was no black void. After you defeated the Garbanzer gang, they fell unconscious and were arrested and then you collapsed on the floor. You must have had nightmares about that void. The anonymous hat guy said. Oh! Alright! But one more question. Why are you anonymous? Why don't you reveal yourself? SpongeBob asked. The hat guy sighed and then he said. Fine. You want an identity? The scene zoomed into the hat guy's face and his low-poly eyeballs started to shake into intense fire and flame. His voice shifted to an angry tone and he sounds like he was grunting while speaking. I'll give you an identity. The hat guy said and the screen zoomed out to his entire body. He started to scream like a battle cry. The screen started to shake a little and white cracks started to appear in his body, slowly growing. Before the cracks take over his entire body, the scene goes to SpongeBob watching and light starts to shine on SpongeBob as he squints to avoid getting blind and a couple of seconds later the screen fades to white for a couple of seconds until the screen fades back to normal. The hat guy was no longer wearing a hat and he looked different. His body was made of fire, actual fire. While his eyeballs were steel shapes, they were less straight and more curved. He was wearing a tuxedo and the screen goes to a closeup of his name tag, saying Harry Fortimer. SpongeBob slowly reads the name tag out loud and to give you an easy idea of how it's pronounced, sounds like Harry Fortimer. Yes, that's my name and identity. Are you happy now? Harry asked. Yes, Harry, but wait a minute. Were you the one who increased the temperatures? SpongeBob asked. SpongeBob received a response, but not from Harry. He's not the only one you mourn! The unknown voice said. The screen goes to Plankton, flying on his jetpack and he lands on Harry's shoulder. Let's just say I added fuel to the fire. Plankton said. We devised a plan to run crabs out of business by heating the sun with my invention to change the temperature of any object it connects to and then use my air conditioner to attract the customers to the chum bucket. After Plankton revealed his plan, Harry responded to him, saying. Yes, and it's not we anymore pipsqueak. Wait, what? Plankton asked. I just Plankton into the air, the same way Mr. Crabbs launches Plankton. I'll get you later, traitor! Plankton yelled as he flew into the middle of nowhere. So wait a minute. I thought you were dead yesterday. SpongeBob said. No. I faked my death. The Garbanzer gang has short-term memory and they only remember the major moments, hospitalizations included. I played dead to trip the gang into thinking they'd already beaten me to death. Harry said. Ah, alright, but I have one more question. Why are you doing this? Isn't there a better solution than burning the world? SpongeBob said. I will tell you my reasons in the form of a song. Now get ready and follow along. Harry said. The song started and after about 40 seconds, Harry started to sing. Here are the lyrics if you want to know. Once upon my burning mind, all my memories rewind back before your career starts when I was everyone's fry-cook star. That must be fun for you. Now just tell me what you do. Tell your story about your experience with the Krusty Crew. I loved to grill. It was my skill. When I felt famous, feeling happy, cooking food, feeding the hungry. Why were you gone? Where did you go? I guess you weren't like me. But what happened that made you take off? I finished one burger and I stepped in some grease. I fell down and fire appeared right next to me. This fast food chain was set ablaze and I can only just gaze. Then, soon I got fired and all my problems were tired. Can't go with the flow when I feel the war. I can't do this anymore. Harry cried. Time to end this world once and for all. Harry whistled and a clip of a cargo ship carrying oil that suddenly fell appeared and then the screen went back to the usual animation. Harry wore a helmet and oil started pouring. He carried a fire extinguisher and a lighter. He lit the lighter and said his last words. Good riddance, SpongeBob. I will never see you nor Bikini Bottom again. He used the extinguisher to end himself and the screen zoomed into the lighter in slow motion falling until it gets the oil in the ground. Then, the screen zoomed out to the entirety of Bikini Bottom and a couple of seconds later, it was covered with fire. Blood curdling screens can be heard and the screen went completely black. The credits show up, but the background was completely different. The background looked like it was torn down and set on fire. The torn background was dark and the color was more brownish. The ambience of a forest fire started playing and the music can be faintly heard. Although, the instruments sounded like it was decaying and it was attempting to play. The speed of the music was really slow and the tune was way off. The screen was distorted in a way that when you view it, it looks like a heat phase. The days lasted until we got to the United Plankton Pictures Incorporated logo. Although, it was different. The water background was replaced with flowing red hot lava. All the plankton were replaced with piles of ash, implying they were severely burnt and charred beyond recognition. The text was in red and the screen goes to the McTunes logo, all normal without any changes. After watching the episode, all my friends and I have made it clear that the writers went too far. But I wasn't surprised. I've seen some dark episodes that passed through. But knowing how I've encountered two lost episodes, I might start a lost episode club called, The Brand Intiser Expended Media Obtainer Club, or, The Beemo Club. Knowing that my family is like a lost media magnet, I wonder what tape, flash drive, VHS, or video file will come forth to me next.


There's just something I really enjoy about being in a heavily wooded place. It appeals to my inner lord of the rings. So we're dealing with utilitarianism. The last video was an explanation of utilitarianism. Now we're going to ask some serious questions about utilitarianism. What are some of the issues? What are some of the problems? So remember that utilitarianism has two real main key components. Consequences and consequences. So what matters for moral action, the only morally relevant reasons for utilitarianism, are the consequences of action and whether the action produced happiness. So for utilitarianism, the moral act is the act that produces the most happiness. Now this sounds really great up front, but actually utilitarianism runs into a host of problems. Utilitarianism has two main components, happiness and consequences. The first real kind of issue that comes up with utilitarianism is what does it mean to be happier? What is happiness? Some real kind of ready or early answers as to happiness is just to equate happiness with pleasure. And again at first glance it seems right because we really like pleasure. It's fun. It feels good. Why? What's the problem here? Well, you know there's lots of things that cause pleasure which we don't equate with happiness. I mean if the point is just to experience pleasure all the time, the most intense amount of pleasure all the time, well we can do that. It's called heroin. You might have worries about coming down and getting addicted to heroin, well the answer is just to have some more heroin. Your life will be short, okay, but for that period of time you can have a really intense pleasurable life. Marijuana is another case. There's a reason why people really like marijuana. It feels good. I'm not saying I know this by experience, right? The reason why I know is because I've known people who really enjoyed their marijuana. And you know, it's not like they were evil people or I wouldn't even necessarily call them weak, right? You know it's kind of a fallback position to think of people who are addicted to drugs to be weak. It's like no. So I've known several counselors who work with people with addictions and one of the things that they told me is that it's not a matter of whether you can be addicted to something. It's just a matter of what. So again, we're real tempted to say that all addiction can be explained by weakness. It's just not true. Or unless you're willing to say that we're all weak, in which case, okay, I guess maybe you can go that route, but then it's just kind of a trivial answer. There's a reason why people like their drugs is because they feel good. If happiness just is pleasure, then for the utilitarian, they're doing the right thing, but it doesn't look like it. And not all utilitarians agree upon this. I mean, one of the classic distinctions when we deal with utilitarians and when we deal with happiness are different kinds of pleasure, okay? So yeah, there are the bodily kinds of pleasure and yeah, these are good things, you know? You know, food is good. Physical intimacy is good. Intimacy is good. You know, having fun, these things are good. But the question comes up when these things start interfering with what are called higher pleasures. So intellectual knowledge, contemplating the universe, reflecting on your own self and understanding your relationship to other things. Now this is, yeah, this does feel good in a sense. It's not like, you know, it's not like the all-you-can-eat buffet, right? It's a different kind of pleasure. But there's still something there that, you know, we call this pleasure, this feeling good. Now the question then becomes then, it's like, well, okay, if there are different kinds of pleasures, is there one that's better and why? And this can raise some serious questions. Now to be fair, utilitarianism is not the only one that's stuck with this problem. We saw this problem pop up with virtue ethics and we saw this problem pop up even with the ethics of care. We're dealing with what's the good, what's the happiness. And we saw how there were some kind of like circular issues about that and you say, well, so we start off with say, well, what's goodness? It's happiness. Well, what's happiness? It's pleasure. Well, what's pleasure? Well, we've got physical pleasure and then we've got higher pleasures. Well, how are they both pleasure then? Because they both feel good. Okay, well, what's good? It's happiness. And we kind of start all over again. This is one issue that utilitarianism has to deal with and like I said to be fair, utilitarianism is not the only one that has to deal with this. Now a question of trying to answer what is happiness? Really old, really old. We've been asking that question for a long time. You might wonder, you might ask yourself, suppose we do finally answer this question of what is happiness, you might wonder then what might actually be the significant difference between views like utilitarianism and virtue ethics and ethics of care. So the first issue really dealt with trying to figure out what happiness is and utilitarianism has two main parts. That's the happiness and the consequences. Now for utilitarianism, the moral act is the one that produces the most happiness. Well this has an interesting consequence, namely there is no minimum amount of happiness that you produce in order for your action to be good. You produce only the most amount of happiness in order for your action to be moral. That's really extreme, you know? If you're going to apply this to yourself, that means that you have to be absolutely giddy every day, right? Or at least you're striving for that, that you're striving for this happiness every day. If you don't produce that, you're not doing something that's moral. Relatedly to, you know, this kind of ties in with the next problem as well. The next problem about utilitarianism, we're dealing with consequences, is that it doesn't matter whose happiness is produced. Doesn't matter whose happiness is produced, it doesn't matter if it's your happiness or other people's happiness. What matters is whether happiness is maximized for all. Well that means that, you know, since you have to produce the most happiness, that means that every action you perform can't just be for yourself, right? It has to be for everybody. So, you know, think about this when you go to lunch, right?  It's like, okay, we don't think there's anything wrong with that decision. Well utilitarianism will step in and say, no, no, wait, wait, wait, you have to think about this. Sure, you want pizza, but what about other people, right? And I'll not talk about whether they want you to have pizza, although that could absurdly enough be an issue. For some reason it might take offense to you having pizza as pizza, who knows. But the issue is that, you know, pizza for what you get is kind of expensive, right? You can be spending that money on, you know, purchasing and supplying food to people who are starving. So when you're doing this calculus for your lunch, you're considering not just what you want, but you're also considering what you can do with the money for everybody. Well, you're trying to think, well, what does this mean? So what big deal? Well, hold on. You know, for, and this is, you know, it's looking at a lot of consequences here, right? For the money that you spend on the pizza, let's say, I don't know, I don't know what they charge for the pizza in the food court, but let's say it sounds like nine dollars. That's for bread, cheese, tomato sauce and meat. Well, that's pretty expensive for the resources that are being used. A lot of resources were devoted to producing meat. Lots of grain, lots of land, lots of water, lots of feed was devoted to producing that meat. So you can get, you know, here the utilitarian comes in and says you can get the same and better nutrition when you deal with products that are not meat, right? So soy, right? Soy is remarkably cheaper to produce compared to meat. A few resources are devoted to it. And you get all the protein.    You make sure that there are people who are starving out there and, you know, they actually get some food. And to push the point even more, when you consider their hunger versus your satisfaction with that, with that meal, you can be satisfied. You have to kind of balance it out. You got this person with extreme hunger and you with that meal, right? If we're going to start balancing it out, if we start comparing food to food, well, then you should probably go a little hungry to ensure that they get enough to avoid that abject, abject starvation, that complete emptiness of the belly and the disastrous health consequences that go along with that. So utilitarianism in demanding this really high standard for moral action that you have to maximize happiness means, you know, we're not just dealing with you, we're dealing with all people and animals, anything that can experience pleasure or happiness to an end degree. And your actions have to make sure that it produces the most happiness for all. And if you do anything less than that, you've done something immoral. That's a really high standard. Now kind of on a related note, when we're dealing with this really high standard with utilitarianism, it's not just your happiness that matters. It's also not just, for instance, your family. With utilitarianism, you cannot consider your family and your friends to be more important than other people, right? So what matters is producing overall greatest happiness. Well, not only, you know, this means that not only should you deny yourself pizza and have a soy patty with some fresh fruits and vegetables, water, no Coke, maybe not even juice, right? Because all the nutrition from juice you should get from eating the raw vegetables and the fiber, a lot of resources go into producing juice. So you should probably just have water, probably no milk, right? Because that, again, takes a lot of resources to produce milk.   It applies to your friends.  You should be soy patties with fruits and vegetables. And you should take the balance of that money. And all of you take the balance of the money that you would have spent on that and make sure that other people are eating. So this high demand is not only just for yourself, but for your personal relationships. In effect, your personal relationships have no relevance at all when you're, well, it might have relevance when you're dealing just with one-on-one and the consequences of how you interact with each other. It's like, okay, that's when relationships matter. When we talk about things like food, we're talking about how you spend your resources, your family gets no special preference, right, not to your friends. Another problem or issue, yeah, maybe it's a problem, maybe it isn't, that comes up with the utilitarianism is this issue of conflicting values. So since we're dealing with consequences and we're dealing with happiness, it's not easy to think of scenarios where the consequences of an act are done in a way that conflict with other values such as honesty, such as justice, such as rights, right? So we're dealing with the poor, and we're talking about the people who are starving across the world. I'm not saying any utilitarian is necessarily committed to this idea, but a utilitarian wouldn't necessarily be opposed to it either. You suppose, you know, we say, look, and this is just a very real fact of the world where something like 85% of the world's resources are concentrated in something like 15% or 10% of the world's population. You know, the numbers I think are off, but you get the idea where the overwhelming majority of the world's resources are concentrated in one very small group of people. Well, a utilitarian, you know, wouldn't necessarily be opposed to the idea of, say, you're just redistributing all that wealth, taking it from the people who own the wealth, who have that concentrated wealth and resources, and giving it and distributing it to everybody else. Now, if we're dealing strictly with a numbers game, right, we're looking at something like this, say, yeah, that small group of people would be really pissed. Now, we're not going to just leave them in misery and poverty, right? We're going to redistribute the wealth to make sure that everybody has at least a minimal amount of food and shelter and clothing, and they can be with one another, and they can have happiness with one another. So, the idea is that, you know, the people that you take the money away from the resources away from them, they'll be pissed, and that's kind of a negative in the happiness calculus. But all these people, the vast majority of people across the planet who are living in abject poverty, who are starving, who are freezing, who are dying of heat exhaustion, the dying of malnutrition and dehydration, those people will be happier, right? So, everything will even out more. Yeah, yeah, the small majority will be pissed, but you have the vast majority now. The small majority will be pissed, but the vast majority now will be happy, and the calculus will even out. Now, we very quickly say that this conflicts with justice because we're taking property away from people and we're giving it to others for no, you know, for reasons that don't have to deal with giving a person what's due to them. Now, again, that's not necessarily what a utilitarian would argue, but, you know, you can construct a utilitarian argument that way. Utilitarianism can conflict with justice. Utilitarianism can conflict with honesty. We all know this happens a lot, telling the truth sometimes hurts people's feelings, right? And there are plenty of times where we just simply lie in order to make people feel good. Well, I suppose we did that all the time. Well, you probably have some real issues there. You know, you could think of, you know, so we talk about friends, you might think, well, that's a harmless case of lying. Well, consider government cover-ups, right? We talk about the phenomenon of government cover-ups all the time. Well, it's a very real reason why the government cover-ups because you're less upset when the truth is hidden from you. Why bother telling everybody the truth if it's just going to make them angry?  And so, yeah, the consequences of the act would outweigh, would outweigh the, you know, the consequences of the act, namely happiness produced, would outweigh this value if there isn't any value for the utilitarian, but this is value of being honest. We can start, you know, we can start thinking about more, and we can start constructing really bizarre examples where the utilitarian, and it might be bizarre, right? But the utilitarian would say, yeah, there's just no problem in that case. So, this is another significant problem for utilitarianism is that this idea of the consequences, and only consequences matter, conflicts with some of the other values that we have, justice, rights, honesty, and so on. So, some utilitarians try to solve this problem of consequences by slightly modifying utilitarianism. They modify it by appealing to rules. Now, these rules are not like the absolute moral rules that we talked about in early chapters. There's some similarities, but there's some significant difference. They're still trying to appeal to consequences, but the idea is with real utilitarianism is you follow those rules such that following the rules would produce the most happiness. So, remember one of the problems with the consequences was this really high-demanding standard for all of your actions, and there still would be a high demand, but at the very least, you wouldn't have to think about it all the time, and hopefully everybody else is doing the same thing. So, with real utilitarianism in place, likely if you go to the food court, there wouldn't be the pizza. There would just be a selection of soy patties. Maybe they're seasoned with fresh fruits and vegetables and the various kinds of, maybe different kinds of water, something like this. But that would be a rule that everybody's following, and it would be easier for all people to be fed. Same thing with rules regarding family, regarding personal relationships. So, if everybody followed these rules to maximize happiness, the idea is like, yeah, nobody's personal relationship necessarily gets any special treatment, but everybody's taking care of, because we're all following these rules that produce the greatest overall happiness. And some of the same things apply when we're talking about the conflicting values, the utilitarian things, that following these rules actually would result in these values just for perhaps a different reason. So, the idea with real utilitarianism is that they're trying to avoid this problem of consequences by saying instead of doing the act that produces the greatest overall happiness, you follow the rules that produce the greatest overall happiness. So, while real utilitarianism is not the same thing as the absolute moral rules that we looked at before, they encounter some of the same problems. It's just not hard to start thinking of cases where we're gonna wanna have exceptions to these rules. As much as the utilitarian might like to, the rule utilitarian might like to think that these rules would allow us not to worry about personal relationships so much, well, just as a matter of fact, you're gonna.  So, there's always the problem of exceptions. And the solution might be to try to build the solutions and build the exceptions into the rules. So, you know, you shouldn't. So, if we're talking about the painkiller case, we're talking about the two children, or we're talking about children with the painkiller case.  Well, the question is whether, you know, the question of the situation is dealing with my children or somebody else's children.  All right, so that's where you start trying to build in these exceptions. Well, by the time you start building in all the exceptions, there's no real difference between rule utilitarianism and act utilitarianism. It looks like there are exceptions all over the place and you have a very long and complicated set of rules. So that's gonna be a real huge issue. Another problem is, is it's just not hard to start building rules such that they're gonna conflict. So, you know, we're talking about the case where, you know, we're talking about redistributing the wealth and we're talking about, you know, taking away from the portion of the people on the planet who have the most wealth and redistributing it. One, you know, that seems to be a rule that rule utilitarianism would endorse is that we should redistribute wealth to ensure that all people have a minimum standard of health and comfort. But also a rule would be not to take resources away from other people because you get really upset about that. Well, now you have a conflict of rules. And again, you might try to avoid the conflict by building in the exceptions, but before long, you've got something that's just, you start loading an exception after exception, after exception, after exception. There's no real difference between rule utilitarianism and act utilitarianism, and you have the same issues all over again. So for what we've seen so far, looks like there's, you know, there are these issues with utilitarianism. But one way to kind of cast all these issues is to say that the problem with utilitarianism is that it conflicts with common sense. We don't think that all pleasure, all the time is really what leads to happiness. We don't think that consequences, greater happiness can override concerns about justice and rights and honesty. We don't think that, what are some of the other issues? You know, we had these problems, we actually had the problem in general with talking about consequences as justifying actions. We have that great phrase, the ends do not justify the means. And this is actually the complete opposite position of utilitarianism. In fact, the ends do justify the means. If the greatest happiness is produced overall, then that's what justifies however you're gonna go about doing it. You know, common sense is, well, utilitarianism is really demanding. And you know, replying on part of the utilitarian, some utilitarians look at these complaints and say, well, utilitarianism conflicts with common sense. And their answer is, well, too bad for common sense. Too bad for common sense. If common sense was really, if we're really thawed it out in terms of common sense, then in fact, common sense would reach the same conclusions as a utilitarian. And now we might think, wow, that's kind of a strong position. And you know, an initial reply might be something like this. Or you know, initial question for the utilitarian would say, well, look, hold on a second. We just got finished saying that happiness is not the only thing that really matters. I mean, excuse me, pleasure, or even happiness is not the only thing that really matters. What really matters are some of these other values like justice and rights and honesty. A utilitarian might say, well, no, of course, happiness overrides all of these. Because the reason why you care about justice and rights and honesty is because you care about happiness. What justifies these values, namely justice and rights and honesty, is happiness. This reply might sound a little familiar. The ethical egoist took the same approach before where we're talking about common sense morality. The ethical egoist says, well, the reason why common sense morality is in place is because we're really concerned about fulfilling our own interests. Utilitarian is taking kind of a similar approach. And say, well, the reason why common sense is in place is because we really care about happiness. Another issue we have with utilitarianism is how it handles some of these unusual cases. So, even just something like the painkiller case with your kids, right? It's just gonna be a highly unusual circumstance in which you have to choose between giving painkillers to your kids and giving painkillers to some other children that belong to some other parents. That's a really unusual situation, especially around here when we, in fact, most people carry at least some kind of painkiller with them at some time, to deal with headaches and things like that. So, the utilitarian says, yeah, it's an unusual case. And you may now think our answer is the right one that you ought to consider who has the greatest amount of pain or who can handle the pain the least and give the painkiller to that person. You haven't considered that using common sense because it is so unusual. But if you sit down and you look at the reasons, then yeah, the utilitarian answer is correct. And just imagine the situation where there are two kids in front of you and your kid has a headache and there's another child with another parent who has a headache. And you can tell that this other child is suffering more. Are you sure you wouldn't be attempted at all to give the painkiller to this other child? You know, there's room to think that you would, in fact, give painkiller to the other kid. And the reason why you would be tempted to do that is because you're worried about happiness overall. So, so far the utilitarian is trying to handle these replies. I mean, the first reply is that, you know, the first reply in talking about conflict with common sense, the utilitarian says, well, what justifies common sense, the reason we have common sense is because it produces overall happiness. So we gotta listen to the utilitarian. The second deals with these unusual cases. And the utilitarian says, yeah, common sense can't handle the unusual cases because they're unusual. Common sense deals with the usual situations. Another complaint we can have with the utilitarian is, you know, this emphasis on consequences. This is emphasis on consequences. So when we're dealing with redistributing wealth, right, we don't agree with the utilitarian with common sense. We just think, well, you know, I earned this money. I've earned these resources. So I'm the one that keeps it. You know, I've earned it. This is a matter of justice. So the utilitarian would say, well, the reason why you reached that conclusion is because you haven't considered all the consequences and you haven't considered it in other situations. You know, there are cases now, you know, just within our own country where we do think that the wealthiest should help support the poorest, right? There's already this attitude and the reason why we had this attitude is because of the consequences. When we've looked at situations in the past where there is such a gap between the rich and the poor, then it led to the crumbling of the society. So you should consider the consequences. The utilitarian will say, if you think that the consequences don't really matter in this case, well, you haven't thought them through enough. You haven't seen all the consequences. So at the end of the day, the utilitarian looks at these complaints from common sense and says so much the worst for common sense, right? Common sense, isn't that sensible? If you really thought it through, if you follow the consequences all the way through, if you looked at what justifies consequences, if you thought about these unusual situations, then you would side with the utilitarian. In fact, Rachel's comes out, comes right out and agrees with the utilitarian and says, common sense can't be trusted. Now he isn't necessarily endorsing utilitarianism, but he is agreeing with the utilitarian on this point that common sense can't be trusted. You might wonder about that. After all, it's common sense that led us to think about ethics to begin with.