Author: MatthewY

In her Ted talk about ADX Florence, a supermax prison outside of Denver, Colorado, Laura Rovner talks about the effects that solitary confinement has on people. Like her, I believe that the people in the prison, no matter what they have done, should be treated better.

People might argue that this is the only way to keep prisoners contained, but it’s not. There’s a maximum security prison in Norway called Halden Prison, and it has none of those features. Every prison cell is 10 square metres(110 square feet), and has a television, desk, and fridge. In the common area, there is a kitchen where inmates can cook their own food, and a living room with a video game console. Inmates are locked inside their rooms for twelve hours a day, but they are encouraged[read:paid with 53 korner($9)]to leave their rooms the other twelve hours. The prison offers woodworking, cooking, and music classes to the inmates. The prison also has a library and a gym with everything you’ll normally expect at a normal library and prison. The guards in the prison are also normally unarmed and are encouraged to spend time with the inmates. This is called dynamic security, where the government tries to prevent bad intentions, rather than bad behaviour, and it works. The recidivism rate, the rate in which someone will commit the same crime again, is 50% times lower than traditional prisons once the inmates are released. It also saves Norwegian law enforcement and the Norwegian government more money because there is a lower crime rate and less people reliant on government aid programs.

Prisons are places where people are supposed to be re-educated and corrected from their past acts, and it has been proven that dynamic security prisons work. We’ve already taken away inmates freedoms by locking them up in jail, we don’t need to take away their will to live as well.

In the article New satellite maps show dire state of ice melt in Antarctica and Greenland by Brandom Specktor of Live Science, he talks about the large amount of ice melting in Greenland and in Antarctica. Between the two places, they have lost an average of 300 gigatons of ice, enough to fill three hundred thousand Olympic-sized pools, and contributing to a rise of 14 millimetres in sea level. If we act quickly to slow down the rate of global warming, there will be immeasurable consequences.

One way that a person can contribute to controlling global warming is by eating a more plant-based diet. This is because animal products use more resources to make as animals need more water and more nutrients than plants. Also, the gases that animals pass, mainly methane, contribute to global warming, and eating a more plant based diet can help reduce that.

Another way to control global warming is to drive less. Cars produce around 20% of all gases that contribute to global warming. Also, if you drive less, it will help reduce traffic congestion and the time that other people spend on the road(and producing greenhouse gases).

These are just two ways a person can contribute to slowing down the rate of global warming. Hopefully, as time progresses, more and more people will come to understand the effects of global warming and contribute to slow it down.

In the story A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury, a group of hunters travel back in time to hunt dinosaurs, but unconsciously changed the future when one of them stepped on a butterfly. This highlights one of the themes of this story, that time travel can have immeasurable consequences. I think that time travel couldn’t ever be invented, and even if it could, it shouldn’t.

There is a great likelihood that time travel could not be invented, because the very concept of time is human-made. The units used to measure time(seconds, minutes, hours, months, years, etc) are all man-made, based upon certain needs, like a day is based on how long it takes for the Earth to rotate once. Since the concept of time is human-made, it would be impossible to travel through time because time as a thing doesn’t exist. Time is, by physics, what a clock reads. It is not a tape that can be rewinded and played again.

Putting aside if time travel can even be invented, it should not be, because as the story described, there is the butterfly effect, in which if one small thing is changed, the future might be altered beyond comprehension. Something similar to this is in the food chain, when one primary consumer consumes a small amount of toxin, that toxin will be magnified tenfold in secondary consumers, because they consume a significant amount of the primary consumers, and the toxin would be magnified hundredfold on tertiary consumers, since they consume a significant amount of secondary consumers. This same situation can be applied to time, where small changes are magnified over time, and it is impossible to control. If time travel is made available, even to a small amount of privileged people, they would be tempted to change the past, and that could be catastrophic.

Right now, we can only hope that time travel won’t exist in the future. Time is not something to be dealt with lightly, and we should be wary of the effects of our actions.

In today’s video called The Truth About Graphene-what’s the hold up? on Undecided with Matt Ferrell, Ferrell talks about the material graphene, its uses, and why it’s not being widely used. This led me to think of a common phenomenon in our world, the development of technology in wartime compared to peacetime.

During wars, technology is developed faster and on a greater range then technology in peacetime. Many technological breakthroughs have been made during wars. Technology that might have not existed otherwise were developed during wars or for military purposes. Jet propulsion and rocket technology were both invented and made operational during World War II. Nuclear fission was discovered just before World War II, and was greatly enhanced to make the atomic bomb. The Global Positioning System(GPS) and the Internet both began as military projects under the U.S. military that were later given to the public domain. These are all examples of technological advances made in war.

The reason for this phenomenon is quite simple. In wartime, no expense is spared on any type of technology that might be instrumental in winning the war, and there are two parts to that. One is developing better technology than that of your enemy, and the other is developing new technology that nobody else has. In peacetime, however, technological development is mainly driven by consumer demand and very little new technology is developed.

Not all of our technology was born in war, however. It is certain that our world would look very different if we never waged war at all. It is my wish that the pace of technology would not be restricted by warfare, and that we would be able to be just as productive in peacetime as well.

In Colonizing Mars may require humanity to tweak its DNA by Mike Wall of Space.com, there is a debate about whether humans should terraform the planet of Mars to suit human survival. The side for this argument says that terraforming Mars is safer for humans and more productive. Also, if this technology works on Mars, it could be used to terraform other planets as well. The argument against it says that, as we don’t fully understand what Mars’ ecosystem is like, it would be safer to wait until we understand it before we drastically alter it.

I believe that we should fully comprehend Mars’ ecosystem before we make a decision as drastic and as far-reaching as redesigning an entire planet. Humans have explored Earth for centuries and we still don’t know everything about our own planet. Presently, less than one percent of Mars’ surface has been explored, and that doesn’t include the subterranean features. To act before we comprehend what Mars has to offer would be a major misstep with astronomical consequences that might be irreversible.

Across the board, terraforming Mars right now will be unrealistic, but with enough knowledge and improvements to technology, we will be able to objectively say whether terraforming Mars would be a good idea. Humans have always made decisions with enough knowledge of the consequences of their actions, and this should be the same.

In The Lady, or the Tiger? there is a test in a kingdom. The test is if a person committed a crime that is noticed by the king, he or she will be placed in an arena, where there are two doors. Behind one door is a tiger, and behind the other is a lady. If the person chooses the door containing the tiger, he will be mauled to death. If the person chooses the lady, the person would get to marry the lady and live happily ever after. The princess of this kingdom has a lover, and when the king discovers the affair, he orders the lover to be put to this test. The princess, using her power and influence, finds out what is behind each door. To her horror, she discovers that the lady that is chosen is a member of the court that she deeply despises. She spent days thinking about what she should do, and eventually, she chose the right door. But we don’t know what is behind that door. So what would you have chosen?

If I had been the princess, I would have chosen the door with the lady. The first reason is that if I truly loved the man, as is implied in the story, I would have wanted what was best for him. If he had the choice of which door he would have chosen, I think he would have chosen the door that would allow him to survive, and if that is what he would want, I would want that as well. 

The second reason is a little darker. As the story says that the princess is the “apple of his eye” of her father, the king. There is every reason to believe that after he dies, she(I) would inherit the throne, and along with it, absolute power. Once that happens, I would be able to take my lover back. Even if I don’t inherit the throne, I will still, as a princess, have a great deal of power and influence, and I would still be able to take him back by marrying him if his wife, the lady, had died, or if she was still alive, by waiting for her to die(or by speeding up the process). 

Overall, it would have been a lot better if the king wasn’t that backward and barbaric, and this whole situation wouldn’t have happened, and the princess got to marry the man she wanted to marry. This is what I would have done if I were her. What would you have chosen?

In A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner, Miss Emily was a lady that lived in the town of Jefferson. She was a stubborn and reclusive lady that lived beyond the control of law in the town, despite plenty of complaints about her by the townspeople. During her isolation, the only person who had contact with her was Tobe.

Tobe was Emily’s cook and gardener. He was the one who left the house to purchase things needed. He was also very loyal to Emily, as he remained at her side throughout the thirty plus years that he was in her service. He also didn’t disclose any information about Emily to the townspeople during her isolation, despite their many attempts to make him.

Even though Tobe was very loyal to Emily, there is also evidence to suggest that he dislikes her. After she died, he let the townspeople into her house, then left and was never seen again, instead of staying to mourn her and to attend her funeral.

In his TedxCERN talk, Sinan Aral talked about how the world could remain safe in the face of misinformation. During his talk, he mentioned the Russian interference in the 2016 United States presidential elections. This is one of the many problems that plague the world, the intervention of countries in the domestic affairs of other sovereign states.

The earliest intervention of a country in another country’s domestic affairs is probably the Opium Wars, when the United Kingdom invaded China in response to a Chinese crackdown on opium smuggling. Since then, many countries and their respective intelligence agencies have interfered, militarily or otherwise, in other countries’ domestic affairs. A few examples would be the 1953 Iranian coup d’etat, the Cambodian-Vietnamese War, and the Russo-Georgian War.

Countries, especially the world’s superpowers of the United States, Russia, and China, must stop trying to influence and interfere with the affairs of other sovereign states. Every country has the right to govern and control its territory, and that should not be affected by another country’s desire to control the world.

In A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift in 1729, in which he describes the poor condition of starving beggars in Ireland, and then proposes to people that poor people should sell their children as food to rich people.

The one of the main questions was who was responsible for putting Ireland in this situation. Swift argued that both the Irish and English governments and the people of Ireland were responsible for their situation. In my opinion, the English landlords who owned land in Ireland and the British government should be blamed for the situation in Ireland. The landlords who owned the land lived mostly in England, and some would only visit their Irish estates once or twice in their lifetimes. The agents who collect rent for the landlords were terrible. They were described as “land sharks”, and they did anything to gain more money from the tenants renting the land. The landlords also encouraged the Irish to live on potatoes, because they wanted the tenants to eat food that they would be able to grow themselves. This led to there being no other food in Ireland when the potato crops failed in 1845 and led to the Great Famine. The British government also knew about the situation in Ireland, and established over 114 commissions and 61 special committees to try and find a solution to the problems that Ireland faced. Many sympathetic Prime Ministers did try to pass laws that would help Ireland, but Parliament voted them down. Being pro-Irish wasn’t a popular thing in England, and several Prime Ministers lost elections due to their support of the Irish.

In the end of the proposal, Swift wrote two actual proposals for how to improve the situation in Ireland, and here is the analysis for how the proposals might have changed Ireland. The first proposal was that Ireland should buy more goods produced at home than important. In 1815, when Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the British parliament passed the Corn Laws, which were meant to protect British products. Because of the Corn Laws, Ireland was unable to import much food from other countries when the Great Famine struck. Over a million people died in the Great Famine.

The second proposal was for Ireland to become more independent from England. There had always been anti-English(and later anti-British) sentiments in Ireland due to the difference in religion, as the British were Protestant and treated the predominantly Catholic population of Ireland as second class citizens. In 1800, Ireland lost some of its autonomy, and became part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Later, after the Great Famine, there was a great surge in support for Irish home rule. In 1886 and in 1893, British Prime Ministers in support of home rule put a Irish home rule bill before Parliament, but neither passed. In World War I, the Germans, who were at war with the British, supported the Easter Uprising. When the British government militarily suppressed the uprising, anti-British sentiments in Ireland reached a new height.In 1919, the Irish War of Independence broke out, and lasted until 1921, when the British and Irish reached an agreement for home rule in Ireland as the Irish Free State.

Everyday Use is a short story by Alice Walker about a family consisting of the mother and two daughters. The older daughter has had “traditional” education in the United States, but she comes back embracing her cultural identity by changing her name, and she wants to take some artifacts from their traditional home to put on display. This is an example of a growing problem in the modern world: cultural assimilation and the loss of minority cultures.

As the world has settled into nation states, one of the greatest disturbing factors of the world has been ethnic tensions. Many times those tensions have turned violent such as the Rwandan genicide. In an effort to prevent such things from happening in their own countries, many countries have conducted the process of assimilating minorities into the culture of the majority population(such as China, Brazil, and the United States), or creating one central culture for the entire nation(such as Tanzania). This has led to a massive loss of traditional culture in many parts of the world.

In my opinion, governments and people should work to preserve the traditional culture of all ethic groups in their country. Culture is something that has been passed down through the generations by our ancestors, and it should be treated just as we treat artifacts from the past, to be preserved and valued, not destroyed.