What is power?

If the history of the world is a play, then power is the main character of the plot. Everything in history has changed according to power. Power has many definitions that lead in to one result which is; ability to change. The one who has power can change the view of the society and change the lives of other people. There has been some major events relating to the usage of power and the one who had the power and it started in the 1800’s as the Industrial Revolution began, followed by imperialism and conflicts such as the Russian Revolution

When people realized that key to success was education, their lives changed from slow motion to fast motion. Inventions were created and new ideas were developed. Instead of cottage industry, people started working in factories for more profit and efficiency. Systems such as assembly line and division of labor were developed for commodities. Soon, capitalism came into existence. According to Adam Smith, who wrote The Wealth of the Nations, capitalism is when people act in own self interest and rewarded on what your job is. Even though the wealthy though that the idea was logical, the poor got poorer as the working condition worsened and the wages lowered.

As the competition between the wealthy and powerful countries increased, imperialism began. Imperialism was the policy by a stronger nation to attempt to create an empire by dominating weaker nations. To become more powerful than other countries, the European countries exploited Africa to spread their religion, the steal raw materials and for cheap labor. The term “scramble for Africa” was used when the Europeans started dividing Africa between them, redrawing the boundary lines between countries without asking the natives who lived in the land. The lives of the people living in Africa were completely changed as they had to change their culture and lives according the European countries. The idea of slavery increased along with hatred for each other that had been unsolved by the imperialists still remain in parts of Africa.

However, the competition between the powerful countries never ended. Each country had high nationalism for their own country and made alliances in order to decrease the number of competitors. Sooner or later, World War 1 and 2 started between the two sides; countries that supported capitalism and the countries that supported communism. Unlike capitalism where one is allowed to have personal property, communism demands for equality and no personal property. The capitalists countries ended up winning. After all, communism was found to be full of flaws as even though the main purpose of communism was for equality, Stalin, the powerful leader of Soviet Union who helped the people of Russia to get rid of the Czar, became rich even though the laborers were still suffering from harsh conditions.

What is now is all thanks to power that had changed the course of history along the way. Its capacity to change the value of the society and the view of the world has impacted the world more than anything else. Even though the effects may have been negative, there still were positive effects. The result in power depends on the one who uses it and how it is balanced out.

Power and Control

Power and control are two different things that are actually related to each other. However, I think that control is the big theme for power. In the novel I read called, The House of The Scorpion, the story begins with the procedure of cloning a powerful drug lord called El Patron. During his youth, El Patron had a hard time trying to survive in harsh conditions and poverty. Out of 8 siblings, El Patron was the only one to survive and grow up. However, as he started selling and trading opium all over the world, he became rich and powerful enough to have control over people although it may be illegal and brutal. To live longer, he also cloned himself for 8 times, the main character, Matt is the 8th clone, killing the clones and using their young, healthy body whenever he needed one. Later on his book, El Patron tells Matt the reason why he must sacrifice himself for El Patron which is: he feels that he owed the lives of his siblings and ought to live longer for them but also for his own greed. Even though all these reasons seem bizarre, no one dare try to disobey him and his evil orders. All this is due to the control El Patron has over the people and the workers. He uses eejits to do all the harvesting of opium, who are not able to think but only listen to instructions. Some of the "alive" workers and body guards know that this is not right and know that El Patron's way of thinking is absolutely wrong. However, they have no right to tell El Patron what they think of him and his rules because they "owe" him. In the book, one of the body guards of El Patron tells Matt that he can't help craving for his power and that most of the body guards El Patron has gathered owe him for not sending them to jails. He knows how to gain control over people by making them feel quilty and obliged to serve him.

Feedback - April 27 - May 1 - 7. Most valuable things learned from Population Project

What are the three most valuable things you have learned during the Population Project process? How will they help you in the future?

Firstly, I learned to plan ahead to make sure that you get the tasks accomplished and be organized. By planning, I learned to finish my tasks in time so that I can work on other tasks at the same time. If I hadn't planned what to finish and what to work more on, I could have made big mistakes that could have been solved earlier on. Also, it was a good idea to keep on looking at the calender attached to the Population folder because if I hadn't looked at the due dates and the events happening during the project, it was possible that I had forgot to hand something in or to do something.

Secondly, I learned to use the time wisely; for example when to research my topic, when to stay after school for further research and lastly when to finish each parts of the project. If I hadn't wasted time on researching for more information for my research paper and just looked through what I already had, I could have finished my research paper earlier and could have worked more on my raise-an-awareness poster.

Thirdly, besides the point that I was not well organized, I hadn't really thought about how to design my poster so I had to put on my thinking cap and make sure to finish each task given to me in a short period. I also hadn't thought about how to organize my information that I had already collected and possibly wrote the same things down again ans again. I should have also looked back at what I already had so that I could collect more data that I still did not have.

Net Effect of Globalization

In a minimum of two “good” paragraphs explain the net effect of globalization. Use information from class lectures and discussions, videos, websites and “The World is Flat” as evidence to support your opinion.

Globalization is a new word in the English dictionary which has brought a huge impact around the world after imperialism. Globalization can be referred to “the growing integration of economics and societies around the world” according to the World Banks. According to Thomas Friedman, from year 2000, “the world shrank from a size small to a size tiny and flattened the playing field at the same time.” As described, globalization connects people from different locations and make sharing of ideas and informational over the world. This is one of the positive effects of globalization; communication around the globe. Some of the other positive effects are opportunities for other people around the world to get the jobs through outsourcing, and increase the profit between the countries. For example, most of the companies in America produce their products in China and India where there is cheap labor therefore lowering the price of the products even though the quality may be the same.

Even though globalization seems to be a solution to many of the world problems that can open up the opportunities to people around the world who are desperate for jobs, globalization has its own downsides too One of the negative effects of globalization is that even though outsourcing opens up more jobs to people in other parts of the world, the jobs used to belong to someone else. For example, while people in India get the job that people in America had, more and more Americans are becoming jobless. Also, so-called “monoculture”, which means one culture, is mixing unique cultures around the world. It could mean a positive situation but actually it is the opposite. Because of the impact Western countries have on countries like India, people are losing their own culture and becoming “westernized”. To focus on India, due to globalization, there is less stability in economics due to outsourcing because they rely on outsourcing too much. When there are strikes going on in India, people might have to stop from working for at least a day. However, the days missed out due to little obstacles cost a lot of money therefore crashing the economy. Lastly, even though globalization boosts up the economy forcing countries like India to change fast like other rich counties when they are not ready, it creates a big gap between the rich and the poor. The rich get richer as they get more access to new information while the poor have to always be poor working for only minor jobs. As one can see, it is not a matter of deciding rather globalization is bad or not, it is a matter of how to benefit from globalization.

Feedback - April 13-17_Blogging cartoon analysis

1. What are the main visual elements?
Some of the visual elements are a woman, a man, and a kid, all together probably a family, sitting at a table eating and the quote at the bottom of the cartoon, probably said by the father talking to his son.

2. What issue is this cartoon about?
I think that the cartoon is about technology and its flaws; the fact that there is no privacy.

3. What is the cartoonist’s opinion on this issue?
I think that the cartoonist's opinion on this issue is that although there are good points about technology, there also are some cliche and flaws in technology that people must know about. For example, if people start relying only on computers for security and information, there could be a chance of people hacking in to their information and accounts; one mistake could cause a life-time damage and ruin ones life.

4. What evidence in the cartoon supports your opinion on how the cartoonist feels?
One of the ways the cartoon supports my opinion and the cartoonist's thoughts is the sentence written at the bottom, which the father, looking stern and strict, is telling his son. It is written, "
Well, yes, we could read your blog...or you could just tell us about your school day.".

5. Why is this cartoon ironic?
I think that the cartoon is ironic that families don't get to "talk" about their day, and rather read each others blogs, even though they are closest to each other and live in a same house.

6. How does this cartoon relate to our study of technology and the future?
I think that the cartoonist is trying to show that "too much" of technology and relying on it can ruin social life as well as other problems. The cartoonist has expressed his feelings through the cartoon about the question, "how much should machines and technology do for us in our daily lives?".

7. What other techniques could the cartoonist have used to make this cartoon more persuasive?
To make the cartoon more persuasive, the cartoonist could have exaggerated the feeling of a family in a same room but using technology to talk and communicate with each other.

Population Project Work Plan

This week is your week to work on your Population Project in Humanities Class. What I would like you to do for this week’s feedback is to create a work plan for using your class time most effectively. Take a few minutes to figure out what you have left to do and then lay out your plan day by day for this week.

Monday:
-research for information and start organizing in on the note cards.
Tuesday:
-Get more information(note cards). Start thinking about the layout of the research paper.
Wednesday:
-Get more information(note cards). and start writing the first paragraph of the research.
Thursday:
-Keep on writing down the information on the note cards and begin writing rough draft of the research paper.

Feedback March 16-20 - Technology?

1. What is technology?
I think that technology is something to do with machinery and electricity instead of man power. It can help people find or do something much easier and faster without having to waste time on something that is not necessary. Technology builds up on the one that has been already there and developes.

2. What are the 5 most and 5 least important technologies used today?
I think that the 5 most important technologies used today are the computers, mobile phones, music players (mp3 players), transportation, and lastly light bulbs. As one can see, the machinery listed above are used almost everyday and are basic technologies to everyones' lives. They all use electricity too. The computers are used every day, everywhere, by everyone around the world. It is a vital source of information and ideas. It is used in schools, hospitals, factories, and even at home. The 5 least used technologies used today are; fans, hair dryers, light-up shoes, automatic or sliding doors, and christmas lights etc. These are used only on special occasions and mostly they have been developed and people use the newly made ones of these techonlogy. For example, people use air conditions instead of fans because it makes the room cooler faster.

3.How do you feel about the amount of and use of technology at AES?
In AES, technology is used everywhere for every subjects; humanities, science, Spanish, art, physical education and algebra. Art, physical education and Spanish will seem out of place but technology is actually used during these classes too. For example, in 7th grade, our class was assigned for homework where we have to figure out what is a normal heart rate for an athlete and normal people. All the information was found by using computer and we even visited the computer lab to share our homework. In art, to make a name card, we had to use scanners and Photoshop in the computer to make more copies of them quickly and perfectly. In Spanish, we use 3-D programmed game to practice speaking in Spanish. As you can see, technology is used everywhere; especially computers. They are the vital source of information where people from around the globe can enter and share their knowledge and ideas. I think that it is true that too much technology is used in AES. Every single studies require some sort of technology. It takes away a lot of money and electricity. It's also a lot of waste.