Don't be anything but natural

Have you ever thought about what life would be in just ten or twenty more years later? Do you think that we will eventually create super human beings? Well, if you read a book called “Radical Evolution,” then you will know exactly what’s going to happen. I’ve only read the first two chapters in the book, but I’ve already been sucked into it. The book tells us many things that the different organizations are currently doing now. He also gives us examples to better understand what he is talking about.

For example, in the first chapter, he gives an example of a girl that is today your second grade daughter. Fifteen years later, she will graduate and come back for the Holidays. You ask her, “What are your classmates like, honey?” She would probably tell you something like, “They’re all really, really smart.” In fifteen years, we might be able to create “enhanced” human beings. These “enhanced” human beings will not only be faster and more creative, the will also have photographic memories and total recall.

All of them will be almost “immortal” and be able to heal pain within minutes. We might even have vaccinations against pain later. They talk to each other by “silent messaging” and they receive new information by cocking their head a certain way. All of them almost never sleep and they constantly talk about getting rid of their beds. Joel Garreau got me thinking about all of those movies of super humans or advanced technology things.

One movie that sounds similar to the example above is “IRobot” and “Smart House.” IRobot’s setting in the movie is the future. They show humans interacting with robots and commanding them. The robots will do everything for you. This seems very desirable at first, but at the end, the robots end up going haywire and killing people. Watching that movie really altered the way I thought about robots coming alive. It would be great to have them do our everyday chores, but in the end, its humans that become stupid and end up relying on robots to do everything.

“Smart House” is a similar movie about a family winning the new state of the art technology house that does everything for you. It can cook, wake you up, turn on the T.V. for you, and many other things. In the end, however, the house goes haywire and attempts to lock in everyone and not let them out. I think the directors of these movies have some knowledge about what’s going on in our society now. A lot of companies and organizations are on the way to creating the “Super Humans” or “Enhanced” beings.

One of the many organizations and companies that are building our new future include the Defense Sciences Office of the United States’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Their main goal is to further human enhancements. The president of the agency is Michael Goldblatt. The reason that started DARPA is because he has a daughter named Gina Goldblatt that has cerebral palsy. He wants to create more enhancements that will allow his daughter to be normal like everyone else.

DARPA is constantly thinking up new ways to enhance the human body. One thing that Joel mentioned was creating soldiers that have no physical limitations. Goldblatt says he wants to create better humans like “Soldiers having no physical, physiological, or cognitive limitations will be key to survival and operational dominance in the future.” All of what DARPA and the other organizations are creating sounds great. It would be a great leap for the human race if we could invent our own ways to healing cancer and defeating natural death.

If you think about it, what if the chemicals or gene doping don’t work in your body. What if they end up creating illnesses for you instead? There are many things to think about before you decide to put nanotechnology machines in your body or having some serum increase your life span. In my personal opinion, I don’t think that we should do any of these things because they can malfunction.

I believe we should be “natural.” We should be what we are and not try to alter it by “enhancing” ourselves. I don’t mean to say that it’s bad to create super human beings; I just don’t think that it’s right. It’s our fate to either have cancer or die at a young age. You can’t control what happens to you or what gender you are. I would rather have a normal “human being” friend than an “enhanced” friend. At least you can have a better conversation with normal humans than technology made ones. In the future, if super humans really do exist, I guess I can’t do anything but accept it.

Stepping stones of a Revolution

Rebellion has played its part in my life when I was a kid and occasionally now. I remember when I was still young; I would never listen to my grandparents, parents, or any other older relative. They would give me a command, and expect me to do it. I guess I just wanted to be different from all of the other kids, but I never did anything they wanted me to. In the end, I was forced to do it anyways because I didn’t want to get yelled at or whipped.

The readings that were assigned and the film that was shown to us really sparked my interest about rebellions. If I didn’t see the movie or read about the rebellions, I would have thought that the people who were rebelling against an established nation were stupid. There was one essay that really had me thinking about rebellion and suicide. The essay is called “Revolutionary Suicide” and it was written by Huey P. Newton.

After reading it, I learned a lot of new factors about suicide. For example, in the essay, Newton says, “He maintains that the primary cause of suicide is not individual temperament but forces in the social environment. In other words, suicide is caused primarily by external factors, not internal ones.” I always thought that suicide was caused by your internal motions. Newton also listed some external factors about what caused the black Americans to have a higher suicide rate than whites.

The information that Newton got about black Americans was from Dr. Herbert Hendin. Hendin’s study of black young men were all deprived of dignity, crushed by oppressive forces, and denied their right to live as free human beings. Due to all of these external factors, the black men were overwhelmed and condemned to helplessness which left them no choice but to die. He includes another example that compares a beggar to a very poor man.

He tells us that beggars are totally demeaned and immobilized by fear and despair that leads them to self-murder. Newton gives two types of suicide. One is called reactionary suicide and the other one is called revolutionary suicide. Reactionary suicide is what the beggar went through and revolutionary suicide is what the black Americans went through. Revolutionary suicide is the belief that it is better to oppose the forces that would drive people to self-murder than to endure them. People die for revolutionary suicide because they want to live with hope and human dignity. If they can’t have those two elements, then they would rather choose death over living.

I know of a lot of people that chose to die because of many reasons that I may think are stupid, but to them, it means everything. For example, a friend once told me about this girl that died because her boyfriend dumped her. Initially, I thought that that was a really stupid reason to lose your life for, but after I heard the whole story, I can understand why she did it. The couple has been going out for about 3 years and one day; the guy tells the girl that he wants to break up. The girl reluctantly said yes and cried over it for a long time. However, later she finds out that the guy has been cheating on her for more than 5 months with another girl. She was so devastated that she found no point in living and decided to end her life.

I would call this reactionary suicide because the girl was so sad about her boyfriend dumping her because of another girl. She probably couldn’t live knowing the fact that he has been cheating on her for more than 5 months. It still might seem like a stupid reason to us, but to her, it probably meant a lot. It seems that anyone who rebels against the government or society often gets jailed. One of the people that got jailed for rebelling against the government include Nelson Mandela.

He was jailed by the government because he was spreading his beliefs with other protesters. Just like in the movie, “The Edukators” the man that was telling the woman in the shoe store where the shoes were made was arrested. They arrested him because the government didn’t to fight against a rebellion, so they decided to take some of small fry out so it would scare the big crowds. Some people wonder why there are still protests even though they know the consequences.

“The Edukators” helped me answer this question. One of characters in the movie said, “Don’t let fear take control.” The quote is pretty self-explanatory, but it means, people shouldn’t let fear take control of what they do. One good example of this, are political protesters. Even though the political protesters know the consequence of protesting, they still do it because they want to get what they want. They are not letting fear control their actions. It’s like a spirit that never dies in rebellions.

Rebellion is something that is thought of by everyone. Like in “The Edukators,” one of the actors said, “Every heart is a revolutionary cell.” Everyone thinks about rebellions and new revolutions that start a new society. They all want to live in a world that they think is perfect when others may not. I think this quote means that everyone thinks differently about what, so that’s why every heart is a revolutionary cell. If people were to rebel in today’s society, I think they would most likely fail. They would probably end up like the people in “The Edukators.” They all might get arrested and then not be able to do anything about it. Besides, in my personal opinion, I don’t think our society needs to be changed in any way.

Some people like I said before might think differently because we all have different opinions. We all have different thoughts and beliefs so that’s why we have so many rebellions even though some people really don’t care. For example, I don’t really care nor have a say about anything in our society because I think it’s all pretty well organized. My friend however, thinks that our society is totally unorganized because of the existence of George W. Bush.

She joined almost all of the protests that were held against him. One of the most recent ones included “The Walkout.” I didn’t know what it was all about until she told me. Rebelling in the society today will be probably less violent than the protests back then. The government is more willing to listen to new ideas than they were before. Even so, rebellions are protests are less likely to succeed. If I really wanted to change something in our society, I would first try to get rid of the existence of pornography.

Pornography is a sad excuse for some men to claim as pleasure and fun. It is also a total embarrassment to the community. Pornography has no serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. You do not need it to survive so I think that we should just get rid of it as soon as possible. I’m usually a person that doesn’t really care about what happens in the society, but if there was a rebellion to get rid of pornography, I know I would join it. I think it might also be successful too because I know a lot of people that share the same thoughts about it as me.

If I were jailed because of a rebellion, the spirit inside me would never die. I know that I might be like Nelson Mandela and try to bribe the warders to let me read newspapers. That way I would know that the outside world is still having the same beliefs as me. I would know that they have not forgotten about me just because I am jailed. I would know that my peers and followers are not afraid of government abuse. If I were set free, I would continue to climb the hills of the rebellion like Nelson Mandela, “But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom come responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.”
There are many things in the world that I would like to see change for. One of these many things include the racial discrimination that still exists today. Some people may think that racism doesn’t exist any more, but in truth, it does. A black friend of mine has noticed that whenever she went to Downtown, Seattle, she would receive hateful glances from white people. Sometimes, when she gets on the bus, the bus driver would make a sly comment like “Here comes another one of those people.”

Things like this don’t happen all the time, but it does once in a while. Some actions that I think people should take to reduce the amount of racial discrimination include talking to those individuals that hate or resent blacks or any other race. If we are able to persuade one of them to change their minds, then we can probably get all of them sooner or later. Just like in “The Edukators,” we can “Reach one, Educate 100.”

Another thing that I would also like to see change in our society is the environment. We have a lot of pollution in the atmosphere and it is damaging the Earth more and more. All of the gases from the factories are ruining all of our homes. I want to see more community centers and parks that are actually clean and safe for kids to play around in. Every time I take a stroll in the park, I always see more than 10 pieces of trash lying on the ground. Individuals can actually go out to parks or community center grounds and pick up trash or volunteer to cleanse the place. It would not only help the community, but also yourself.
As for air pollution, I would recommend protesting against the government because they are the only ones that will have the power to stop those factories. We can take steps just like the people in “The Edukators.” Their steps were: Step One: Recognizing injustice. Step Two: Action. Take the first step alone. Find allies for the second. Anyone that wants to rebel or thinks that the government is unfair about something should follow these steps. It can actually work.

Week 3 Discussion Assignment

As a child, I was never allowed to eat any type of fast food for some odd reason. Whenever I would ask my parents to get me a Happy meal or a Burger King kid’s meal, they would stare at me for a while and tell me flatly, “No.” Of course I would cry and scream at them, but in the end, I still don’t get what I want. Finally, when I was about 11 years old, my mom finally got me my first Big Mac. I was shocked about this because she has finally bought me the thing I wanted ever since I was a kid.

I asked her why she didn’t buy it for me back then and she told me that I didn’t want to see you as fat as your cousin. I never understood that until last year when I watched a documentary called “Super Size Me.” “Super Size Me” starred a guy named Morgan Spurlock who was supposed to eat from McDonalds everyday for a month. They were doing this to prove how bad McDonalds can be to any person’s health. The point of this documentary was to show how many Americans were suffering from obesity due to eating at McDonald’s periodically.

After watching the documentary and reading Ritzer’s essay, I agree with his definition of “McDonaldization.” In the essay, he mentioned that a study has found that immigrant children’s health tend to deteriorate after they come to the United States because they are adopting the ways of American children. Now I fully understand why my mom didn’t let me eat Happy Meals when I was a kid. She wanted my health to stay good and not turn into my cousin, who was eating Happy Meals every other day.

I agree with Ritzer about how fast-food restaurants alter the way people eat and think. They manipulate the way we are supposed to act with their store appearance and settings. I feel that whenever I walk in to a McDonalds restaurant, I would always have to eat quickly and go back to doing whatever I was working on. This is like something that has already been pre-set for me. It’s like I have been taught this way ever since I was a kid.

I would see people go in there for fifteen minutes at the most and walk right back out. When I’m at home or at a restaurant eating dinner, I would take my time and eat as slowly as possible. I remember this one time, when me and my family went to the Rainforest Café to eat, I was so interested in the crocodiles and fish tanks that I didn’t even pay attention to the food. It may sound crazy, but I stayed in there for almost one and a half hours just staring at the way they organized the café.

When I left, I knew I definitely wanted to come back again. I know that these are simulated surroundings, but I still couldn’t stop looking at them because I thought it was amazing how they could be created in the first place. Those simulated surroundings made sure that I would come back to eat even if the food was horrible. Nowadays, the people are all being rationalized and following whatever ways they are given. For example, one of the things that the system has rationalized is the way people dress.

People watch television and fashion shows to see the latest trend and then dress exactly like them. Manufacturers then design the clothes and ship them out to places like Old Navy, Macy’s, JCPenny, and etcetera. By having a constant cycle, the system has made sure that it will always win. So in the end, just like what Ritzer said, “Each of us is colonized.” We all act like how the system wants us to.

Ritzer tells us that “And one of the ways you control people is by rendering them awe-struck, speechless.” This is one of them main things that I agree with the most because I have experienced it. I’m sure that everyone has been to Disney Land at least once and still wants to go back for the rides. The simulated beings and rides had me wishing to go back all the time. Ritzer’s thoughts and ideas really had me thinking about what the system is and how it manipulates us. From now on, I’ll try to act as myself and not have anything alter my actions.

Vivian Thanh Ta

Discussion Forum Assignment

ENG 101

Jan. 14, 2006

Discussion Forum Assigment

1. Does the perception of "imposed" structure help or hinder the writing and creative process for you? Does the five paragraph essay structure format help or hinder your writing? Is it "good" or "bad?"

To me, I think that the five paragraph essay can help and hinder writing. It helps at some points because sometimes, you will have to write things that you either don’t know anything about, or you just don’t like it at all. At times like this, the structured essay helps me a lot. If the structured essay didn’t exist and I was writing about a topic that I don’t like or know nothing about, I would probably just scribble things down and have it go all over the place. On the contrary, if I use the structured essay format, I can write whatever I want and then organize into the paper later.

This format can also hinder writing when you have a lot of stuff to talk about. It almost feels like your being limited to write only five paragraphs when you can write ten more. It may also make your paper lose important ideas and messages to help the reader better understand it. When my group discussed this question during class, almost all of us thought that it could help us with writing because of its advantages. The group members were Dane, Nina, Matt, and Brenda. All of us agreed that it would help the writing process except for Matt.

Matt says that he doesn’t like the structured format because he likes to free-write and he has different thoughts about things. He quotes, “I like to be artistic about it.” Dane thought that the structure format helps you organize things and put thoughts together while Nina and Brenda thought that it was good because you can have a universal structure where everyone can understand it.

2. How would you write and what would your writing be like if written differently than the standard essay format, if written exactly as you wanted to write? (Does that mean your writing would be "unstructured" or wouldn't it have its own structure?). Do "structure" and "form" really exist or do we make them up to help the creative process?

For this question, our group had similar thoughts. Nina thought that if she could write anything she wanted, her writing would be everywhere. It wouldn’t make sense because they aren’t organized in the structure format. Dane had the same opinion, he said he has always used the structure format, and if he was to write differently from it, it would be hard to understand. My group only through half of the second question before the fire drill. In my opinion, if I was to write differently from the structure format, my writing wouldn’t make much sense either because I tend to jump around subjects.

3. What are some examples of creativity in writing that make either writing something or reading something an interesting or even exciting experience? What do you want to see more of in your fellow writers' work this quarter? What makes "good" writing?

A good and interesting paper requires a lot of elements. First of all, the paper has to make sense because no one wants to read anything they don’t understand. Second of all, the paper must not have any grammatical or misspelled words. If I was reading a paper that had tons of mistakes and misspelled words, I would spend so much time correcting it and trying to understand it that I would lose the interest to go on. Third of all, all of the information in the paper must flow and be organized because the reader would be easily confused if your paper jumps around subjects. Besides all of these elements, I think the most important thing to include in your paper is your voice and enthusiasm. If your paper sounds just like a history book, I can almost guarantee that the person that is reading it would immediately put it back down. If you don’t have enthusiasm, then your paper would be just like any other boring history book. “Good” writing, would include all of these elements.

4. The Basics vs. The Art of Writing: Discuss the difference between these two explanations of certain aspects of the art of writing in the English 101 Reader: which one works best for you and why? Which one most effectively explores ideas about the art of writing?

From my opinion, I think “The Basics” work best for me because it sort of gives me instructions to work from. I follow instructions better than doing things on my own, so I think “The Basics” would help me the most. It gives me examples to work from and to better improve my paper. Even though I like “The Basics” better, I still think that “The Art of Writing” effectively explores ideas and improves the writing. “The Art of Writing” helps make every sentence in the paper stronger and more effective so it can get to the reader in the way the author wanted.

The Art Of Education

Vivian Thanh Ta

English 101

Greg Bachar

January 7, 2006

From my point of view, I think that Robert Henri’s thoughts on the essay “On Education” were very true. In his essay, he said, “It is up to the student whether he becomes a school-made man or whether he uses the school as a place of experience where there are both good and bad advices, where there are strengths and weaknesses, where there are facilities, and much information to be had from the instructors, and much to be gained by association with the other students.”

I think that this is very true because any person can go to school, but whether or not they make good use of it is their choice. Henri’s essay also includes many other true thoughts about education. Another one that I found says, “The self-educator judges his own course, judges advices, judges the evidences about him. He realizes that he is no longer an infant. He is already a man: has his own development in process.” This quote states that the “self-educator”, otherwise known as the “student” must learn to do his own things, figure out which advices are the best for him, and judge evidence about him.

The “student” is no longer an infant and must decide decisions on his own and develop the process of becoming a man. Henri’s essay mentions a lot about students knowing what is good for them and what is bad for them. They need to learn how to do their own things and accomplish their own goals by educating themselves instead of being educated. Just because they are attending a school doesn’t mean that they are going to be smart. To be smart, you need to educate yourself and learn to be a self-educator.

He mentions that, “The man who goes into a school to educate himself and not to be educated will get somewhere.” He says that a person going to school that is educating himself will get be successful, while the others who are waiting to be educated will never improve. I think the main idea of Henri’s essay is to encourage students to educate themselves and not expect to be educated all the time. They need to learn to rely more on themselves instead of others.

There are more differences than similarities between Henri’s essay and Daumal’s “Notes found among the Author’s Papers.” Daumal’s essay describes learning by action. He says “Art is here taken to mean knowledge realized in action.” This quote means that if you want to learn how to do something, then you must learn by performing it. Daumal also mentions that even though there are professional books done on Alpinism, it is still better to learn from experience. The quote to prove that goes like this, “Unquestionably their writings are more methodical and more complete, but they are difficult to follow until one has at least a bit of preliminary experience.”

The two authors are expressing their thoughts about education in their own ways. They both give examples of what they are saying and have different opinions. Henri is telling the readers that its best to become a self-educator because you won’t need to worry about whether your going to a good school or not. As a self-educator, Henri says that you won’t need good teachers to help you, all you need is the materials provided by the school so you can learn on your own.

The ones that had already become self-educators have already went through the fears of school. They should have learned what the schools have to offer, how much, and how little. Henri says that a school is a place of strengths and weaknesses. There are things that the school focuses on and there are things that are too little for the school to remember. Lots of advices appear in school too. Some advices help people in specific while they do nothing for others.

Daumal is telling the readers that you have to learn by experience and action. He expresses his idea by giving an example of a mountain climbing. He says that even if you read a book with unquestionable writing, you would still find it difficult to comprehend until you have at least had a little bit of preliminary experience. In other words, he is saying that it is better to learn by actually performing the activity than reading about it.

Daumal’s purpose of writing this essay is to help a beginner acquire the preliminary experience that is needed to learn about mountain climbing. In his essay, he briefly talks about thinking with your shoe and walking with your head. I think this phrase is telling climbers to be careful where they step in on the mountain because one false step can send them falling down the mountain.

He also tells us that if you slip or have a minor fall, you should get up immediately instead of lingering there until the pain goes away. Sometimes, the pain wouldn’t go away because your mind is concentrating on it. So if you get up immediately after the fall and start walking again, then you wouldn’t be thinking too much about the pain because your mind is already thinking about the top of the mountain. Daumal tells us that the body is constantly trying to get you to notice it and pity it.

It will try to alert your mind by its shiverings, breathlessness, palpitations, shudders, sweats, and cramps. If you don’t respond to any of these things, then the body will realize that it is not getting any attention and it will come into line and act more obedient. In his poem, he sounds like he is contradicting himself. First, he tells us that one can’t stay on the summit forever, then he says that after one climbs up the mountain, they will have to come down again, so there was no point in the first place. Second, he tells us that one can climb and see the from the top of the mountain, and one can then descend and see no longer, but one has still seen.

He sounds like he is contradicting himself because in the first part, he tells us that there is no point in climbing the mountain because all you do is climb up and down. Then in the second part, he says even though one has to climb up and down, you still get to have the memory of the view of the mountain. In the end, he says that even though you can no longer see, you can still remember. Every single person has his or her own opinion about the art of education. I agree with both author’s points of views. I think education should be first taught by someone. Having self-education is good, but it would be better to have someone that already knows the material to teach you.

That way, if you don’t understand something from a book, you can always ask someone else to explain it to you more thoroughly. Learning from experience is also a good way for the art of education. It’s just like having good memory. For example, if your teachers made you do beginning algebra in 12^th grade, you would be doing all of that through memory because your math teacher wouldn’t teach it to you anymore. They would expect your 6^th or 7^th grade teacher to teach it all to you already. So overall, I think self-education and learning from experience is good.

umm...testing? XD