Final Blog Post

 Technology is a wild thing. Something that has had a rapid growth spurt in the world around us and yet doesn't seem to be slowing down in the slightest. I think it is true that society as a whole has a a very strong relationship with technology, expect I'm to say that I believe it is a very unhealthy relationship with a lot of red flags. I believe in this unhealthy relationship because it is truly based off of obsession; obsession with constantly seeing what other people are doing and trying to "one up" the competition, trying to be better than what is seen on feeds, trying to look better than those around you (don't get me wrong bettering oneself is always great, but when it is done with the intention to one up what you see online - which is typically edited - is not the right reason to be doing so), and constantly worrying about what other people are doing and how they think of you. I also believe that because of this obsession of feeling that you constantly have to check in with the world around you, that it takes up TOO much of your time. I heard recently on a podcast (and had to go to google for the numbers of course) that the average person is on their phone approximately 3 hours and 15 minutes a day - thats 22 hours a week, 88 hours a month, 1,056 hours a year. In a year the average person spends 44 days on their phone, thats more than a month. Image all the amazing things that people are missing out on because they are more consumed with things going on far away from them instead of enjoying the present of what is going on around. 

While there is a positive to technology, all the information ever imaginable right at your finger tips. Technology; phones and computers, serve as such an amazing connection to new information that is being discovered constantly. If someone has a question about how things work, google is the place to go. If someone has a concern about an illness, google can serve as a perfect start point to figuring out what is going wrong. If someone has a question about the weather, google can give updates on what the weather is going to be like there or in another country. However, while it can be very beneficial and informative, not all the information is accurate. With the given political condition of the nation it can be hard to figure out if certain news information regarding elections or public figures is correct or if it is partially (or fully) made up to in turn support the opposing side. It also gives a false illusion of what people look like - models and movie stars being falsely portrayed to look good gives the younger generation a false sense of what beauty looks like and very unrealistic unobtainable beauty standards that they will forever trying to reach but will never quite get to because it is completely fake. 

I think older generation are 50/50. There are some people who don't have a smartphone simply because they didn't have one growing up and find no need for it. Then there is another part of older generations that have smartphones but it, like younger generations, have been glued to their hand and trying to have a conversation at dinner is near impossible because they are having to update their facebook profiles on their current thoughts of the world around them (speaking from experience from a girl who's father has zero filter when it comes to sharing his thoughts about Trump and Biden on Facebook - and updates on his grandchildren of course). 

All in all, although it seems from my writing that I think technology and the social media aspect that comes from it is a terrible thing, I think it can be good. It can keep distant family members connected despite state lines and different time zones, and it can help people when they just need to be heard from someone and share their thoughts and feelings that they may not be able to share with family members out of fear of disappointing them. 

#11 EOTO - Presentation

A fellow classmate, Wendell Epps, presented on The Five Eyes. Personally, I have never heard this before, ever, so I didn't know what to expect or really what it was going to be about. Through his presentation I truly learned a lot, granted I didn't have much background. The Five Eyes is a governmental alliance between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, The United States, and The United Kingdom, as one large alliance they share all intelligence information... at first that seems cool, you know large governments working together and helping each other and bettering the nations. Well, upon further explanation, it's creepy. At first it was used during World War II when information was critical as was the importance of gathering intel during such a war, a positive, right? Except, the monitoring didn't stop. Obviously the government invades privacy, we don't always know how or when (if it ever even stops) but we know that it happens. In the beginning the alliance of information was focused on foreign countries to mitigate the possible bad things that could occur, now it's just a spy resource of sorts. With this alliance the US for example can now use the access that Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and/or the United Kingdom has on its own people for its own use... whatever that might entail. Overall, it's creepy knowing that now it isn't only the US that can see my information, or friends, or family, or even complete strangers. 

12- Class Discussion

During class on October 5th we talked about how the definition of being a whistle blower has now transformed into the connotation of being a traitor as well. Now more than ever people are coming out about the scary truths the United States Government hides. Now more than before because of the power of media, the dark web where things can be shared and not traced back to the "traitor" who shared the information. We watched a challenging video that, obviously, was kept out of the news, and it showed how U.S armed forces murdered people for the THOUGHT of them having major weapons, such as AK47's..... they had cameras, they were photographers, there were kids. Why wasn't this information ever released? Why wasn't this video ever shown? Let's think shall we. It plainly puts the United States in a bad light, killing innocent people, the U.S? NEVER!!!! Wrong.  Guest Ken Llgunas said that he had seen the video before but had only gotten a feeling of general empathy for those in the video, that was before he had children of his own, now when he watched the same video, this time a father, had a wave of empathy wash over him and he just couldn't believe it. We went over also how one never really thinks about the first amendment rights we have - freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom for religion, freedom of press, freedom to assemble, and freedom of the right to petition the government. Many of us take for granted the freedom of speech on a daily basis, that is until there is a chance it could be taken away. 

#10 - Living in the Age of AI

It is not a new concept to understand that technology is ever evolving. While connections may be getting quicker and there's new versions of iPhones and MacBooks always coming out which is super cool, RIGHT?!? There are also advances in Artificial Intelligence that parallel the advances in technology, we just don't pay attention to AI. When it comes to improving AI of course there are positives, but also there are the negatives as well that can't be avoided or especially ignored.  A positive factor of AI improvement is that it can make things more uniform, in the video it explained how currently things being shipped via ground transportation, drivers can only go for 11 hours straight, when it comes to AI that number increases to 24 hours straight because it is not a human behind the wheel, its artificial intelligence. There can also be a higher rate of productivity. With AI they for starters don't have to be paid. They also don't need breaks for the bathroom or to eat, the only breaks needed is if there is an update with the system. When it comes to the idea of security with AI there are also positives. For example, if someone breaks into your home the AI can use facial recognition in determining who acted on the crime, also your face can be linked with your bank information to pay things which could be good in the moment. However, there are of course the negatives. In the aspect of security and privacy with AI a negative could be that you could receive a fine just for your face, and not have the chance to fight it. Imagine if you get a ticket for speeding, you thought the speed limit was say 45 but in reality it was actually 35, you wouldn't have the chance right when it happens to explain that you were confused. There is also the chance, with any sort of technology, of it being hacked. Imagine if something could access every part of your life... and it gets hacked. All your personal information, financials, and private information can be seen by anyone and shared with everyone. There is also the very probable chance of a higher unemployment rate with AI. Sure getting packages from Amazon in less than 2 days is super cool! But what isn't cool is all the jobs that get lost between creating the item and getting it to its destination, factory workers, truck drivers, postmen, all jobs lost to one single entity. 

In the idea of national security it can be promising. This technology is able to describe people to a T. Their age, height, weight, and who the person is. In, for example, a terrorist attack this technology would be able to identify and place everyone involved and get the bad guys and protect the innocent. But, this technology can also describe the same descriptions about the good people in the world as well, leaving no sense of privacy to anyone. In the grand scheme of things yes being able to find the bad guys is good, but at what cost? 

#9 EOTO Terms and Definitions

Typically, when you think of the word government one would expect that you should be able to trust them as a whole, especially considering that they run... a lot. However, the reality of that statement is that more often than not there is a split, those who trust their government wholeheartedly and those who don't and are skeptical of that. Something that this lack of trust stems from is the idea of disinformation. This is the concept that government organizations spread false information for the sole purpose of wanting to mislead the general population, and this false information is given by the organization to a source of rival power or even the media. What goes hand in hand with disinformation is misinformation, this is the information given to mislead, it is the inaccurate information given with the intent of deceiving anyone who comes across it. Given that disinformation can be provided to the media to share with others, there is not much good this can do, other than build a false sense of hope but with that the truth does come out which then in turn leads more and more people to distrust their government. If people can't trust their government then who are they supposed to trust?

Disinformation with misinformation given to the public can affect society as a whole because then everything trickles down to not being able to trust local government, then moves to state government, then piles up to not being able to trust the entire government as a whole. Imagine if something were to happen in the United State, and the people can't trust their government, then what happens? Does all hell break loose? If we cannot then trust our government who are we supposed to trust and how do we know who exactly to trust? 

Being misled, in my opinion, would most affect the lower and younger classes. The rich have too much money to really care about the truths and lies of the government, if anything were to happen they truly could hide away with their money or in all honesty escape in a sense. The older generation, as morbid as it sounds, are going to die and won't be around much longer to care for the lies or feel the affect of it, if anything for the older generation they just might be upset considering how things were back in "their time". The younger generation is still malleable, true solid opinions might not be formed yet and they, including me, are very impressionable and getting the idea to not trust ones' government doesn't leave a good taste in anyone's mouth especially at a younger age. And the poor are more affected because a lot of people rely on jobs for, you know, money. If people start not trusting the government general spending will more likely than not start to decrease because the government is the one who "makes" money in a sense. And when people don't spend money, people don't make money because jobs get cut and decrease across the nation. 

Not being able to trust the government, honestly, I don't know how it would affect me. I could sit here and think of all these things on how it would affect me but I honestly wouldn't know until it came to the day of. If anything it would affect my family slightly because they're grown and know how the real REAL world works, I'm not there yet. I do think it would affect my generation as a whole because we are the up and coming and if we don't trust the government what are we supposed to do? However, as much as I want to say we have the chance to rebuild so much, there is such a separation of thoughts and ideas that stems from generations before us and if we can't get over small differences such as party affiliation, there is no chance we can truly rebuild something so broken. 

#8 Progressive Era

 It's crazy how the media so heavily can portray one side of things and not the other and how it can convince SO many people that something is true when it very well might be the furthest thing from the truth. It is also interesting how all wide spread (key word here) news outlets more often than portray similar things of each other, while they might not be agreeing on what is being said they're reporting on the same general concept. Now on the other hand, there are a few not so wide spread news sources that are not as publicized because they don't agree with the general public. The two websites shared (Anti War and American Conservative) are very clearly not what the main stream media likes to share. 

People may have their own thoughts about the war and talk about them amongst friends and family but it is not very common to read articles on how the Kabul had bomb attacks at a Mosque memorial service that ended up killing truly innocent people or how in Asia people were killed in a Framers' protest... the people of this nation like to stay "informed" on what suits them. Not on the general and very clear bad things going on in the world on a daily basis. I think we as a nation can handle bad news of terrible events but only in micro doses as to not to upset the general public TOO much because then, people might start thinking their own ideas and we all know that would cause its own storm of issues to arise. 

I think the reason people have to seek out this not so popular websites in order to see and hear the antiwar voices across the globe for two reasons. The first being the general public is too lazy to search for anything and so the more publicized sources get onto the main stream news because its what the people want. And because of the laziness it causes the second being that they are so covered because of the main stream sources its hard to find and is not broadcasted on general television. 

#7 EOTO - Presentation

 Learning about new technology is always interesting because more often than not, I personally, have no idea how it ever originated. During our class every single person was able to select an item of technology and explain how it came about in a sense. What was interesting to me was the type writer. Now granted not many people use them anymore if at all BUT, it gave way to me typing right now on my computer. It just evolved. 

In the beginning it was very bland in a sense, only writing in uppercase and sat on a big stand by your feet, that was until Thomas Edison was invited by the creater Christopher Sholes to see the creation. Edison came in with his electricity hat and decided it needed electricity to really make it. Edison went on to create his own with the use of electricity which then was sold and bought by Mark Twain. It is interesting because without anyone thinking of the idea of creating a type writer who knows how set back the world would be if it wasn't until decades later someone thought of and acted on the idea of being able to type the words typically hand written or spoken.