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Epic Universe is massive. Spanning over 110 acres, the new Florida theme park from Universal Studios, which opens today, has created four different themed lands that captivate the imagination and offer a wide array of thrills for park enthusiasts: The Wizarding World of Harry Potter Ministry of Magic, Super Nintendo World, How to Train Your Dragon Isle of Berk, and Dark Universe. That count jumps to five if you count Celestial Park, the hub of Epic Universe, with several restaurants and two big rides of its own. The park is massive financially as well. Universal spent an estimated $6 to $7 billion to create the theme park. Dr. Sean Snaith, director of the University of Central Floridas Institute for Economic Forecasting, estimates it will generate $2 billion for the state of Florida in its first year and create more than 17,500 jobs in year one. Comcast, the parent company of NBCUniversal, saw the divisions theme park revenue drop in the first quarter of 2025 due to the L.A. wildfires. But the company expects to see a big boost from the new Orlando park. A one-day adult ticket runs $139, while children will pay $135 for a single-day pass. (Florida residents do not currently get a discount.) Each of the lands in Epic Universe is painstakingly detailed, creating several different incredibly immersive experiences. But the grandeur of Epic Universe comes at a cost: Crowds. If youre planning on going anytime soon, be prepared to wait. Some lines in previews of the park were more than five hours longand theyre likely to be longer at times in the opening months. If you opt to wait until the lines are shorter (and dont want to spend an extra $140 for an express pass) or simply are looking for something to do besides shop and eat in your downtime, the parks developers have included a slew of Easter eggslittle details and hidden secrets that make the experience even more fun. Here are some to keep an eye out for. Super Nintendo World [Photo: Universal Studios] Learn the secret drink at Dark Universe Head to the DR. H. Jekyll Apotheker in Darkmoor (the village within the Dark Universe portal) and listen closely. Youll hear Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde arguing. Stick around and youll learn the name of an off-the-menu drink, which you can order at the Burning Blade Tavern. Find a key piece of Harry Potter lore If youre willing to shell out $85, you can buy an interactive wand to cast spells at certain locations in Universals Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which trigger effects. One of those in Epic Universes Ministry of Magic will reward you with a look at the Sorcerers Stone, which fans of the books might remember, was in Paris in the time frame of this land (set during the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them period). Look in the area of the Le Gobelet Noir restaurant. The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter Ministry Of Magic at night [Photo: Universal Studios] Try a ride more than once If the lines arent too bad, its worth taking a second ride on several of the coasters, not just to get the adrenaline rush once again, but because the dialogue and soundtrack are often different on different tracks. Hiccups Wing Gliders, for instance, has different dialogue from the dragon trainer, depending on whether you choose the right or left track. Look for nods to other Universal franchises Stardust Racers is one of the best and most intense rides in Epic Universe. Located in Celestial Park, its not tied with any of the themed properties of the portals, but that doesnt mean it doesnt have a link to a well-known franchise. On the back of the coaster, sharp-eyed fans will see a flux capacitor, the device that powered Doc Browns time machine in Back to the Future. Maybe thats what gives the coaster its three incredible bursts of speed through the course of the track. Not a fan of Back to the Future? The Curse of the Werewolf ride has a blink-and-youll-miss-it nod to the classic An American Werewolf in London film, with a replica of the iconic red jacket worn by David Naughton in the 1981 film hung in the barn youll zip through a time or two. Hiccups Wing Gliders [Photo: Universal Studios] Study the bathroom details
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In an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan, billionaire and Trump megadonor Elon Musk offered his thoughts about what motivates political progressives to support immigration. In his view, the culprit was empathy, which he called the fundamental weakness of Western civilization. As shocking as Musks views are, however, they are far from unique. On the one hand, there is the familiar and widespread conservative critique of bleeding heart liberals as naive or overly emotional. But there is also a broader philosophical critique that raises worries about empathy on quite different and less political grounds, including findings in social science. Empathy can make people weaker both physically and practically, according to social scientists. Consider the phenomenon known as empathy fatigue, a major source of burnout among counselors, nurses and even neurosurgeons. These professionals devote their lives to helping others, yet the empathy they feel for their clients and patients wears them down, making it harder to do their jobs. As philosophers, we agree that empathy can take a toll on both individuals and society. However, we believe that, at its core, empathy is a form of mental strength that enables us to better understand the impact of our actions on others, and to make informed choices. The philosophical roots of empathy skepticism The term empathy only entered the English language in the 1890s. But the general idea of being moved by others suffering has been a subject of philosophical attention for millennia, under labels such as pity, sympathy and compassion. One of the earliest warnings about pity in Western philosophy comes from the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus. In his Discourses, he offers general advice about how to live a good life, centered on inner tranquility and freedom. When it comes to emotions and feelings, he writes: He is free who lives as he wishes to live And who chooses to live in sorrow, fear, envy, pity, desiring and failing in his desires, attempting to avoid something and falling into it? Not one. Feeling sorry for another person or feeling pity for them compromises our freedom, in Epictetuss view. Those negative feelings are unpleasant, and nobody would choose them for themselves. Empathy would clearly fall into this same category, keeping us from living the good life. A similar objection emerged much later from the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche framed his discussion in terms of Mitleid a German term that can be translated as either pity or compassion. Like Epictetus, Nietzsche worried that pity or compassion was a burden on the individual, preventing them from living the good life. In his book Daybreak, Nietzsche warns that such feelings could impair the very people who try to help others. Epictetuss and Nietzsches worries about pity or compassion carry over to empathy. Recall, the phenomenon of empathy fatigue. One psychological explanation for why empathic people experience fatigue and even burnout is that empathy involves a kind of mirroring of other peoples mental life, a mirroring that can be physically unpleasant. When someone you love is in pain, you dont just believe that they are in pain; you may feel it as if it is actually happening to you. Results from neuroscience and cognitive psychology research indicate that there are different brain mechanisms involved in merely observing anothers pain versus empathizing with it. The latter involves unpleasant sensations of the type we experience when we are in pain. Empathy is thus difficult to bear precisely because being in pain is difficult to bear. And this sharpens the Stoic and Nietzschean worries: Why bother empathizing when it is unpleasant and, perhaps, not even necessary for helping others? From understanding knowledge to appreciating empathy The answer for why one should see empathy as a strength starts with a key insight from 20th century philosophy about the nature of knowledge. That insight is based on a famous thought experiment by the Australian philosopher Frank Jackson. Jackson invites us to imagine a scientist named Mary who has studied colors despite having lived her entire life in a black and white room. She knows all the facts about the spectrum distribution of light sources and vision science. Shes read descriptions of the redness of roses and azaleas. But shes never seen color herself. Does Mary know everything about redness? Many epistemologists people who study the nature of knowledge argue that she does not. What Mary learns when she sees red for the first time is elusive. If she returns to her black and white room, never to see any colored objects again, her knowledge of the colors will likely diminish over time. To have a full, rich understanding of colors, one needs to experience them. Thoughts like these led the philosopher and logician Bertrand Russell to argue that experience delivers a special kind of knowledge of things that cant be reduced to knowledge of facts. Seeing, hearing, tasting and even feeling delivers what he called knowledge by acquaintance. We have argued in a book and recent articles that Jacksons and Russells conclusions apply to pain. Consider a variation on Jacksons thought experiment: Suppose Mary knows the facts about pain but hasnt experienced it. As before, it would seem like her understanding of pain is incomplete. In fact, though Mary is a fictional character, there are real people who report having never experienced pain as an unpleasant sensation a condition known as pain asymbolia. In Russells terminology, such people havent personally experienced how unpleasant pain can be. But even people without pain asymbolia can become less familiar with pain and hardship during times when things are going well for them. All of us can temporarily lose the rich experiential grasp of what it is like to be distressed. So, when we consider the pain and suffering of others in the abstract and without directly feeling it, it is very much like trying to grasp the nature of redness while being personally acquainted only with a field of black and white. That, we argue, is where empathy comes in. Through experiential simulation of anothers feelings, empathy affords us a rich grasp of the distess that others feel. The upshot is that empathy isnt just a subjective sensation. It affords us a more accurate understanding of others experiences and emotions. Empathy is thus a form of knowledge that can be hard to bear, just as pain can be hard to bear. But thats precisely why empathy, properly cultivated, is a strength. As one of us has argued, it takes courage to empathically engage with others, just as it takes courage to see and recognize problems around us. Conversely, an unwillingness to empathize can stem from a familiar weakness: a fear of knowledge. So, when deciding complex policy questions, say, about immigration, resisting empathy impairs our decision-making. It keeps us from understanding whats at stake. That is why it is vital to ask ourselves what policies we would favor if we were empathically acquainted with, and so fully informed of, the plight of others. Emad H. Atiq is a professor of law and philosophy at Cornell University. Colin Marshall is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Washington. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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On March 20, members of the World Health Organization adopted the worlds first pandemic agreement, following three years of intensive negotiations launched by governments in response to the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S., however, did not participate, in part because of its intention to withdraw from the WHO. Global health experts are hailing the agreement as a historic moment. What does the agreement mean for the world, and how can it make everyone safer and more prepared for the next pandemic? The Conversation asked Nicole Hassoun, a professor at Binghamton University and executive director of Global Health Impact, to explain the pandemic accord, its prospects for advancing global health, and the significance of the U.S.s absence from it. What will the pandemic agreement do? The accord will bolster pandemic preparation within individual countries and around the world. Countries signing onto the agreement are committing to improve their disease surveillance, grow their healthcare workforces, strengthen their regulatory systems, and invest in research and development. It encourages countries to strengthen their health regulations and infrastructure, improve communication with the public about pandemics, and increase funding for preparation and response efforts. It also includes new mechanisms for producing and distributing vaccines and other essential countermeasures. Finally, it encourages countries to coordinate their responses and share information about infectious diseases and intellectual property so that vaccines and other essential countermeasures can be made available more quickly. The agreement will take effect once enough countries ratify it, which may take several years. Why isnt the U.S. involved? The Biden administration was broadly supportive of a pandemic agreement and was an active participant in negotiations. Prior to Donald Trumps reelection, however, Republican governors had signed a letter opposing the treaty, echoing a conservative think tanks concerns about U.S. sovereignty. The U.S. withdrew from negotiations when President Trump signed an executive order to withdraw from the WHO on the day he was inaugurated for his second term. Why could the lack of U.S. involvement be beneficial for the world? The lack of U.S. involvement likely resulted in a much more equitable treaty, and it is not clear that countries could have reached an agreement had the U.S. continued to object to key provisions. It was only once the U.S. withdrew from the negotiations that an agreement was reached. The U.S. and several other wealthy countries were concerned with protecting their pharmaceutical industries’ profits and resisted efforts aimed at convincing pharmaceutical companies to share the knowledge, data, and intellectual property needed for producing new vaccines and other essential countermeasures. Other negotiators sought greater access to vaccines and other treatments during a pandemic for poorer countries, which often rely on patented technologies from global pharmaceutical companies. While most people in wealthy countries had access to COVID-19 vaccines as early as 2021, many people in developing countries had to wait years for vaccines. How could the agreement broaden access for treatments? One of the contentious issues in the pandemic agreement has to do with how many vaccines manufacturers in each country must share in exchange for access to genetic sequences to emerging infectious diseases. Countries are still negotiating a system for sharing the genetic information on pathogens in return for access to vaccines themselves. It is important that researchers can get these sequences to make vaccines. And, of course, people need access to the vaccines once they are developed. Still, there are many more promising aspects of the agreement for which no further negotiations are necessary. For instance, the agreement will increase global vaccine supply by increasing manufacturing around the world. The agreement also specifies that countries and the WHO should work together to create a mechanism for fairly sharing the intellectual property, data, and knowledge needed to produce vaccines and other essential health products. If financing for new innovation requires equitable access to the new technologies that are developed, many people in poor countries may get access to vaccines much more quickly in the next pandemic. The agreement also encourages individual countries to offer sufficient incentives for pharmaceutical companies to extend access to developing countries. If countries implement these changes, that will benefit people in rich countries as well as poor ones. A more equitable distribution of vaccines can contain the spread of disease, saving millions of lives. What more should be done, and does the U.S. have a role to play? In my view, the best way to protect public health moving forward is for countries to sign on to the agreement and devote more resources to global health initiatives. This is particularly important, given declining investment and participation in the WHO and the contraction of other international health initiatives, such as USAID. Without international coordination, it will become harder to catch and address problems eary enough to prevent epidemics from becoming pandemics. It will also be imperative for member countries to provide funding to support the agreements goals and secure the innovation and access to new technologies. This requires building the basic health infrastructure to ensure shots can get into peoples arms. Nicole Hassoun is a professor of philosophy at Binghamton University, State University of New York. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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