Hot Or Cold

The other day I gave my students this scenario: you work for the UN and one day an alien spaceship comes down. They give all of humanity the choice between one of these powers:

• Never sleep
  
• Never get sick
  
• Turn green, human photosynthesis
  
• Don't feel hot or cold
  
• Fly
  
• Perfect Memory
  

The groups are assigned one and they have to argue why it's the best with other groups. It's pretty fun.

But the strangest thing was that the "never feel hot or cold" group assumed their gife included "never get sick" because after all, you only get sick because you feel hot or cold. I'm glad a few other students disagreed and mentioned things like aids, cancer etc.

I played dumb and say things like "yeah, that's why nobody ever gets colds in the summer" and "that's why everyone is sick all the time in winter".

People attribute colds to going out without a jacket, or sleeping without enough covers. And to not eating right. The american view is more like "if it's hot, take something off, cold put something on, if you're hungry, eat, if you're sleepy, go to bed". I think it comes out of our rejection of the idea that people have an innate human nature. We prefer to see ourselves as above the flesh.