Power, What is it?

The main purpose of the Humanities eight class was to understand the meaning of Power. According to Dictionary.com, “Power is the ability and strength to order, accomplish or change.” I agree with this statement because power can be seen in different ways, one can have the ability to accomplish any day to day task, but he can also be at a level where he has the strength to order a major task that can be done by others. From studies throughout the year, major topics such as the Industrial Revolution, Imperialism, World War II, The Russian Revolution, and the "Animal Farm" demonstrate major examples that relate to my generalization of what power is.


Starting off with The Industrial Revolution, The industrial Revolution was the time of early development in technology, it was when machines such as the Spinning Jenny, and the Water Frame began to take the place of man-made products. The Wealthier Cast however, heavily benefited from these machines, and had the power to let these happenings happen. Since the rich had more power, they were at a much higher political levels than the poor, they had the "strength" to "order" more out of the machines. Another Example of power in the industrial revolution comes from the machines itself. By the mid industrial Revolution, the machines had gained so much value over the economy of England and America, that they had the power to alter it's economy depending on it's income. This type of power is quite similar to my first generalization of power, the machines had the "strength" to "change".

Moving onto my second point,Imperialism. The time of imperialism was shortly after the industrial revolution, it was when the Europeans soon began to feel short of natural resources. Considering that Africa is like a bank for natural resources, a conference was held in Berlin where all the countries in Europe would gather to divide the countries in Africa according to how much POWER each country had, taking Great Britain for example,due to the industrial revolution, great Britain gained tremendous power, they had the "ability" to "order". And where capable to obtain the most nourished countries. Another example of power during the time of imperialism was the dehumanization of the slaves. The book, "To Be A Slave", shows many various points of views of how the slaves felt while having to work under another. This follows my second interpretation of the definition from dictionary.com,another master has the "strength" to "order" his slave to an extent where people may not classify the slave as human any more.

Another way to look at power may be with World War II. Shortly after the WW1, the Germans were in terrible conditions having lost a significant amount of money to the allied forces.To support the loss they signed a peace treaty, called the treaty of Versailles.To over throw the government, Adolf Hitler, a strong general in the German army showed up having three goals in mind, uniting all German speaking countries, secretly building the German army, and dominating Germany, all of which succeeded. Adolf Hitler had the power to accomplish all three of his goals,he had the "ability" to "change". After Hitler succeeded on his last goal, he set out on other tasks. In 1934, Hitler built up the power to invade the USSR, and in 1939, he could even disrupt Austria and Czechoslovakia. This uses another form of my generalization of power. Hitler had the "strength" to "order". Another form in which Hitler showed great power was in the midst of forming his supporting "party" called the Nazi's, the Nazi party supported and raised even more power to Hitler,in Hitler's case, he had the "strength" to "change". In my opinion, Hitler was the real reason for happening of the World War 2.

Lastly, the Russian Revolution,and a common novel called "Animal Farm",the events in the book "Animal Farm" run quite parallel to the events in the Russian Revolution. The Russian Revolution started during the turn of the 19th Century, around 1905, when riots broke out in Russia due to a poor monarchy. Tsar Nicholas the second, a greedy king of Russia during the time of the Revolution, only cared for him and his family. However, the power rested in him to deny reforms when the time was right. Tsar nIcholas the second had the "ability" to "order" the denies of reforms so that his family could benefit from it. The book "Animal Farm" showed 2 main sources of power. One, like stated before runs parallel to the Russian Revolution, it is where the owner of the farm, Mr. Jones, treats the Animals in the Farm much like Tsar Nicholas did in the Russian Revolution. He too had the "ability" to "order". Moving onto the other source of power which came from Napoleon, the "unequal" leader later on. Being a pig himself, Napoleon thought that pigs were far more superior than all other animals in the farm. However, many other animals in the book such as Boxer, the hard working horse, worked much harder than all the other pigs put together. And once again, the power rested in him to deny the change. He had the "strength" to deny "change". This source of power follow one of the main theme's of the book too, " Individuals in society aren't treated equally."

To Conclude, power can be seen in many ways, in the case of the Industrial Era, power was found in the wealthier class as well as the machines. In the Age of Imperialism, power was in the rich countries and masters. In the WW2 and the Russian Revolution, the power lay in the wealthier monarchs of the time. To look over the points, power can most commonly be found near the wealthier class, this is because they are at a higher level with which they can "order", "accomplish", or "change".

Work Planning for Population Project

During the week that I get to work on my Population project in my humanities class, I would like to split my work in an order so that I don't end up in a position where I might have to turn my PoP in late.

Monday: On monday, I would like to gather and organize all my information, I would also like to go down to the library to finish any remaining research.

Tuesday: Since I know I have a lot of information, I think I would like to start taking notes on my notecards earlier.

Wednesday: Today, I would like to finish writing my notecards

Thursday: Since my first draft for the RP is due the coming monday, I would like to start writing my thesis statement today and maybe even start an outline

Friday: Today I would probably want to finish my thesis statement if I haven't already, and definitely sharpen the edges of my outline

Weekend: Throughout the weekend, I would like to write my first draft that will be due the coming monday

Even though this plan is a little fast, I think that I will be able to keep up with it's pace, as I will be working during class as well as at home.

PoP Reflection

For population project, I decided to look at gender inequality and girls education. One of the most alarming facts that I had learned during this search was that almost 95% of the girls living in a rural state called Bihar were illiterate which means only about 5% were literate. This is partially because many girls don't want to go to school as there is a shortage of women teachers. Another important fact that I learned was that ancient Hindu myths such as the Ramayana, and Mahabharata often viewed women as a punishment from the gods. Schools in Bihar feared that if women come to school, then bad things will happen to their schools. They became superstitious. I am pretty sure that I will use the information that I have learnt in later life to try and improve the current problem.

What is the "Net Effect" of Globalization?

According to the World Bank, "Globalization is the growing integration of economies and societies around the world", in short, it is the expansion of companies into other countries around the world. Whether or not this is a good thing or a bad thing, it has been debated world-wide. Globalization allows lower class people who live in poverty to have a chance to earn at least something. It also allows the middle-class citizens to earn more, this is because their jobs have been outsourced into their laps, allowing them to earn more money. This follows the Boom-and- Bust cycle, when people get more money, they buy more products, when they buy more products, companies expand to become bigger, when companies expand, there are more jobs, when there are more jobs, there more people earning more money, when people get more money, they buy more products, and so on. Because of out sourcing, many westernized people often have to work with people who aren't necessarily "westernized", depending with whom this may concern, globalization also reduces the amount of racism in our world. Along with jobs, technology is also a main part of globalization, it is often known THE source to keep in touch with people around the world. Companies such as facebook, MySpace or Skype allow indirect communication with friends in seconds. This source of technology, along with other forms of globalization tends to keep the world in one time, opinion, and speed, it tend to keep our world much more united.

Although globalization has done a lot of good deeds for earth, it also has some negative impacts, using technology for example, technology allows humans to keep in touch with friends, relatives, or even strangers. But according to Thomas Freidman (Author of "The World is Flat"), his tenth flattener stated that an excessive use of technology may lead to a much smaller world. Returning back to jobs, globalization brings in new jobs into a certain company, however, it also has some out sourced jobs. Middle-class Americans lose their jobs because there jobs have been outsourced in to a remote area like India. This increases jobless claims in America, where the government has to pay for the families expenses. The people who have lost their jobs often have to face major mortgage issues where they have to pay the government back before a dead line. Globalization has also effected the annual salary of most jobs, as the rich become richer, the poor also become poorer, creating a vast split in class, because more of the world population is poor, the numbers are increasing rapidly, creating conflict between the rich and the poor. Moving onto Culture, countries such as India, and China have had a major impact on their cultures due to globalization, bringing in changes in eating, clothing, and even behavior. This also relates back to how the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, the rich communicate more with westernized countries, having to wear clothes to fit their culture, much like sonny from the Morgan Spurlock video where Chris's job had been out sourced. While the poor communicated less with the American, and never had to change their culture. This created yet another split in culture, where the rich would be westernized, and the poor would be remain in their old cultures. Overall, globalizations has some key points that can save our world from crisis, however, it also has some key points that can create major conflicts in our world.

Technology and Schools

Q1 This Image has 3 main characters, by the face of it, there's a man, a women, and a boy eating their dinner.

Q2 It's really trying to show that the boy wants his father to read his blog, instead of telling him how his day went.

Q3 People in the world are using technology soo much that they would rather go on the computer, and paste what they are trying to say onto their blog, intead of talking.

Q 4 People do use the computer far too many hours in a day, just like I am doing it right now.

Q5 When I first looked at the picture, I saw a happy family eating, there was nothing about technology, this boyr looked nothing like a nerd, or even a tech person, but when I read the quote, I realized what the cartoonists is trying to say.

Q6 A couple of weeks ago we had a socratic seminar, that discussed whether we were using technology too much or not.

Q7 Maybe, the boy could be talking on his cell phone, or on a laptop at diner time.

Technology, What is it?

Technology would be the advance of daily activities, they cut down the time it would take for one to accomplish a task, they reduce the amount of energy needed to accomplish a task, they are like the outcome of all logic, creativity, and material that we humans have made from the earth. Today, I guess the most important technologies vary by age, an infant kid might think that a fake mobile phone would be most important because they see their parents having one, but for a average middle school student like us, or even all teenagers might think the computer is the most important piece of technology because they can use it to right all the long essays they need to write for in daily classes such as Humanities. Since, a majority of the population in our world is the adults, I think the most important piece of technology would either be their mobile(a real one), or a laptop, these help communicate with the world around us. The Least important piece of technology for an average child, would be a walk-man possibly, because they use, but quite occasionally they are pushed away with yet another advance in technology, and are off with that new toy, thinking that they'll use someday or another, yet they never do. For average teenager, the least important piece of technology, would be a small fixing tool, not many teenager would found handling or even holding a small fixing tool. For adults it would be the car, adult use a car, but they don't really think about it. While using a car, they're either on their phone or thinking about something else! To Conclude, no matter how big or small your piece of technology, it is still needed quite deeply, in our world today.

Am I a Luddite?

“Do you know what a Luddite is? That’s a person who doesn’t like newfangled contraptions. Contraptions like nuclear submarines armed with Poseidon missiles that have H-bombs in their warheads, and like computers that cheat you out of becoming. Bill Gates says, “Wait till you can see what your computer can become.” But it’s you who should be doing the becoming. What you can become is the miracle you were born to work—not the damn fool computer.”

- Kurt Vonnegut

I really think that the "damn fool computer" that we use every day can help us not only to civilization, but it is something we use almost everyday. We need a computer everyday, it helps us communicate and even save paper at times, it cuts down the amount of time we would take to accomplish a task, but while using this "damn fool computer," we never really remember that WE have created it, many people even come to believe that technology , and the "damn fool computer" is like a gift from god. God did not give us technology, god gave us the ingredients to make technology, but he left it to us to cook it. And so we did. But the computer isn't the only one that has deeply advanced into our generation, other technology like the "Euphio Project". The Euphio project was an invented,imaginary instrument that buys happiness. To add to my point, on pg 202, on paragraph 3, Lew states, "That's good-happiness by kilowatt, our motto will be "Buy your happiness the same way you buy you light"
To Conclude, I think that we use our computer so much, we always forget that we are the creators of the computer.