informal writing #2

Informal writing #2

I know it sounds unbelievable, but truly, it is my first time to see The Matrix, a very famous sci-fi movie from 1999. Therefore, I do not fully understand the movie, but I have a general idea what the story talks about. This two-choice offer for Neo is actually a big question to everyone that relates to how you should live your own life. My understanding about the blue pill and the red pill is that, if I choose the blue one, nothing will change, and I can still take the control on my life which I am familiar with, although it may not be the true world; if I choose the red one, then I cannot tell what will happen, I might go to a new and dangerous world that I never known before, just like Alice follows the rabbit to the hole and enters the wonderland that does not make any sense.

After thinking for a while, I am sure I will take the red pill just as Neo did.

It is not just because of my strong curiosity. I know a lot of people want expectable and stable lives with not many challenges. However, don’t you think it is boring? Suppose we can live to 80 years old on average, we may spend the first 25 years in school to get education for working in the next 35 years, and finally, spend the last 20 years staying at home, doing nothing, and waiting to die. Whenever I think of this, I feel so sad and frustrating.

I remember when I was a little girl, I always think I am special. I imagine I can be an astronaut, doctor, or president one day. However, as I grow up, I forget about my childish dream. I choose the major that is for me to find a good job easily because I know more about the world. I face the reality. I am clear about it is so hard, almost impossible to be a president. I have my parents and two sisters need to take care of. And I want to have a stable life now just as everyone does. The environment and the people around me tell me what kind of life I should expect. To be honest, this is not the best life I want, but it is the best one I can get with limited choices and I am also contented with what I have now. I have my families and friends with me, I enjoy going to school, and I like my part-time job.

My life is just so predictable as if it is run by a program. Therefore, if someone tells me the world we are living is a digital world run by tons of complicated program by computer, by machine or robots, I might believe that. Human beings always think we are the owner of the world. We believe we are dominating the world because we are the one who create things. We create the house we are living in, we create computers, and we create technology. However, if machine and robots have thoughts and feelings, they might be able to create machines themselves. It is just a time of problem. When technology is getting more and more advanced, in 2199, 3199, or 4199, the world might be dominated by the robots. Do you think human beings are still the cowner of the world at that time?

According to the movie, obviously it is the robots that take control of the real world, and human beings are just under the control of the machines, so all we know is fake and fictitious. Sometimes, when I think about what happened in the dream last night while brushing my teeth in the morning, I might ask myself if it really happened before, or if I am brushing my teeth in my dream right now. And my answer is it does not really matter what is real or what is not, what matters is what happens to me and how I feel about that. If I had a sweet dream last night, I will be happy the whole day although I know it was just a dream. In fact, to say I am happy, I would say I remember the feeling of being happy in my dream. That why i still feel happy. I hope you understand what I am saying. Experience and memories are important. So I prefer challenging and unexpected life over boring life if I can choose. Therefore, I will absolutely pick the red pill if I can make my own decision which can richen and color my life.

IAT posts

I took the weight IAT

This IAT requires the ability to distinguish faces of people who are obese and people who are thin. It often reveals an automatic preference for thin people relative to fat people.

The result is:

Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for Thin People compared to Fat People.

I find it shows what I am really thinking in my mind, what I want and what I prefer.

While I am doing the test, when good words associate with fat people and bad words associate with  thin people or good words associate with thin people and bad words associate with fat people, I have to keep telling myself, "fat is good or thin is bad" in order to press the keyboard as fast as possible. However, once I finished the test, it does not have any effect on my preference on fat and thin people. I do not want to judge that if the test is really scientific and accurate or not, but I completely agree with the result.

I took age IAT as well

This IAT requires the ability to distinguish old from young faces. This test often indicates that Americans have automatic preference for young over old.

The result is:

Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for Young compared to Old.

This is true. I really prefer young more compared to old. Actually, I think not only American have automatic preference for young over old, everyone from other races prefer young as well. Certainly, it is because old means aging, weak and death. So I think the test is useless and reflects nothing.

For both tests:

Although these tests are telling us something we already know or agree with, it has some science in them. When I do the test, for example, I may get the wrong answer more easily when fat people associate with good words, or it may take longer for me to think about it. So when thin people are associated with good words, I can answer faster and more accurate. Which means I think thin is always better subconsciously, so it can tell I perfer thin more. I think that is how the result is evaluated.

informal writing #1

In Kwame Anthony Appiah’s examined life, he shares his understanding about the idea of Cosmopolitanism. According to Kwame, there are two means by Cosmopolitanism. First, we have to recognize that we are responsible for all the people in the world, not just those we encounter. Second, it is okay to be different. I was kind of confused about the statements because I think they conflict with each other. In my mind, cosmopolitanism is similar to universalism or globalism. They all suggest that we, all the human being live together as a whole. We should share everything we have, and be responsible for everything we own. If it is okay to be different, cultural relativism must follow. Then how can we be cosmopolitan?

Later on, I check it out in the internet, I realize that I focus too much on the question about whether we should be the same or different under cosmopolitanism. Instead, it is all about attitude. Cosmopolitanism becomes a recommended attitude when we encounter different cultures and traditions as globalism becomes the new trend in the world. The first sentence “we are responsible for all” means we belong to the world, not just to our own country. The second means even more. I think “it is okay to be different” is the spirit of cosmopolitanism. It suggests that it is important to realize that one’s own culture is just one of various cultures in the world, and we need to know how to understand and respect the cultural difference between each other. Therefore, the essence of cosmopolitanism is appreciating ones’ own culture and compromising others. Let me borrow the words from Kwame, Cosmopolitanism is exchanging ideas about right and wrong. Exchange is a very appropriate word used here, it points out that there is no superiority or inferiority between cultures. We are all equal.

The sad thing is that the ideology is too idealistic to accomplish. No everyone would like to be open-minded to other cultures. Although some people move to other country, they still live the way they used to live. For example, my whole family immigrated to the United States in 2008, my parents still refuse to learn English for they say it is not their language. Another example is travelers are not always interested in studying the cultures of foreign countries in a deeper way. People who leave their hometown and work abroad just want to earn more money, and send it to their families in order to give them a better life. In other words, still, all they care about is the country where they are from. Therefore, there are not many people who are cosmopolitan in the world, but they play very important role in the progress of globalization.

I am not professional in Philosophy and there is still a lot for me to explore about cosmopolitanism, but I can say it is good. At least there will be no more wars under a cosmopolitan world. For those anti-cosmopolitans who argue that the national identity of each one is very important, I have a question for them. Why do they care so much about their race or nationality? If you have a white mother who is from Europe and a black father who is from Africa, how do you define yourself? Therefore, national identity can mean nothing. What we should care about is the whole world, what we can do to contribute all the people and how to make the ultimate benefits for everyone. It is not hard to get started, just try to know more, learn more and open your eye to see more. You will be pleased to find out that there is a lot of fun learning about others’ cultures. And it will be a shame not knowing anything about other countries in the world where you are living in.

Blog post 1: Scavenger Hunt

5. a student sleeping in the library

8. the creative minds class blog

12. someone who has seen Tron in 3D

4. Euphrat Museum of Art

2. Bus stop

9. Coke bottle in Bookstore

11. Someone wearing Converse tennis shoes

 14. Someone who knows a popular dance move and who can teach that dance move to group members

 10. Two Honda civics of the same color, parked side by side in the parking lot

1. a duck

3. A copy of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time.

6. Jamba juice cup

7. De Anza President Brian Murphy

Blog post 1: Scavenger Hunt

1.      The first feeling I had when I heard we needed to play the game in the freezing evening was “WTF”! I did not understand how Scavenger Hunt was related to the class. However, for completing the game to get the extra credits, I partnered with Tony and Zi Ai and started playing the game once it was started. It seemed like a game for little kids for searching things, but it turned out that it was an activity required some techniques and skills such as organizational ability, creativity and physical strength and it can be quite challenging under stressful restriction of time. Instead of saying it is a game, I would say it is an experience of problems solving.

2.      I want to answer #2 at the end of the post.

3.      When we were playing the game, we did not pay attention to the rules. It did not say that we had to take the picture of the actual thing, so other teams just searched the pictures of the things on the list on internet while we really planned to go to the KC center (classroom for environmental science) to see if there were ducks. So what we did was we first eliminated the things we were impossible to get without using the pictures from the internet, such as De Anza president Brian Murohy, someone whose first name was Apryl/April, and a duck. Then we planned the route for the rest on the list. We started from library, bookstore, bus stop to parking lot and then back to the classroom. We still believed Scavenger Hunt was looking for the actual things, but not just searching the picture. We got 9 of the 14 on the list while we still had 15 minutes left. Although we did not complete all of them, I think we did a good job already.

4.      And 5. We did have some problems during the hunt. The 1^st problem must be running outside under the thrilling and freezing weather, but after we kept running to look for the targets, we got warmer and warmer. The 2^nd problem was we did not know it was so difficult to find two Honda Civics parking in the parking lot. Luckily, one of our team member Tony had a grey Civic, so we just needed to find one more and then tony parked his one next to the other one, so we solved our 2^nd problem. The 3^rd problem was our carelessness, I could not believe three of us did not see item #3 which was a copy of The Fire Next Time, which I believed could be found easily in the library. However, once we got the sleeping person in the library, we just left right away and forgot to ask the librarian for the book.

6.      The hunt fully showed individuals’ characters. For example, Tony was the one who offered ideas about what we could do to get the targets. I listened to Tony’s ideas and then organized them together to decide what we were going to do step by step. Zi Ai was usually the 1^st one who could see our target quickly. I would say Tony might be the most creative in us, which might be also related to his major. Since his major was business and I believed business majored student should be always resourceful and creative. I was the director and organizer in our team. I agreed that I might be good at planning and organizing since my major was Math. And Zi Ai was prompt and smart. He saw things in details.

The hunt did not only reveal individuals, but also revealed society somehow. Such a game requires other people’s help who might be strangers. For example, when we were looking for someone who wore Converse tennis shoes, we needed to ask someone we did not know to help us to take pictures together. Luckily, our De Anza students are nice enough to help us. We are just like freinds helping each other. De Anza college is like a small society and I would say it was a harmony society. 

going back to #2. After we noticed  that other teams just looking for the pictures on the internet, we did so since we had 15 minutes left. With internet, we easily found a duck, the copy of The Fire Next Time, Jamba juice cup and De Anza president rian Murtphy. Although I still believed that searching the stuffs from internet was not the spirit of the game when Else Maxwell created it, we just did so anyway. Again, it was just because we had time. I think we will not do the same thing again when we play the same game next time.