PeaceFlower1016

    Today in class, we were introduced to the world-systems theory. This theory was developed by Immanuel Wallerstein. Mr. Paterson showed us a graph with Kondratiev waves, when the graph goes up the monopoly of the technology and when it goes down the monopoly ends. This suggests that the world is divided into 3 countries, ①core countries, ②semi-periphery countries, and ③periphery countries. It argues that technology gets passed down through generations; rich countries get to use the new high-tech stuff first and when they are done with it, the poorer countries get to use it, when it's not high-tech anymore. The richer countries don't like it when other countries infringe on their monopoly and they try to come into the "core countries". They don't like sharing so it's very rare for semi-periphery countries to bump up to the core countries. One example was when the US was developing rapidly and becoming a bigger country, Britain, France, and Spain fought in th...

     Today we watched "The Meatrix" in our groups. The Meatrix had three films just like the original explaining what is really going on in the stock farming industry. The film started off with the iconic red pill and blue pill. This showed the message that people need to wake up and not look away from the truth. The film had parts that viewers can laugh at but also had very serious scenes. Putting very important information right after a scene where people laughed is effective when you want viewers to remember them.       I watched the original Matrix movie so it was really funny watching all the parodies that I saw in the original. I knew about the factory farms beforehand, and about rBGH, so the content itself was not surprising but I was amazed to see one film make such a big difference. It gave me a message that one small studio can combat a big organization, small actions can make a huge difference if we work together to accomplish it. The film w...

      Today we learned about how countries enforce laws on each other. We were first introduced to the bilateral treaty. But countries can still break the treaty if they want to so they only  work in a limited way. You can't call the police on countries so the league of nations was created. It consisted of 50 countries, however, the countries were predominantly white. After WW2, the league of nations was reformed into the United Nations, because the league of nations didn't have a good system to enforce laws on countries. The UN was a big meeting ground all countries can participate equally, with one country one vote. However, the UNSC (united nations security council) was formed inside of the UN which had 15 countries; this was unfair because P5, 5 permanent countries of the council had vetos which they can use to change the decisions of the council by their will.       We demonstrated this by doing an arm-wrestling match representing WW2. The P5...

  Today in class we began the class by going in a group of four and testing ourselves if we can trust each other. I've never heard of the prisoner dilemma so it was very interesting. My thought on this "test" is that I would cooperate with my team members. I thought this way because if my team members find out that I tricked them so that I can get a better grade, our relationship would be broken. I also think that if I say I would cooperate with them the other team members would also do the same because they would feel guilty.   If I weigh the relationship to my grade I think the relationship is more important.    Even if it wasn't a bonus grade and a bonus where you become the other team member's boss, my opinion won't change. This is mostly because I would feel guilty and if I become their boss they won't like me and the team won't work efficiently. Things would go smoothly if we had a good relationship. Plus, if I was betrayed then I wouldn't wo...

     Today in class we talked in pairs about how we could implement the techniques given in the documentary to manage our country. The documentary stated that the media tries to manipulate public opinion by showing things that they want people to know and get a strong impression on. I talked with Honami and it was very hard to try to insert these ideas in our we run our country because we thought that utilizing the media to trick the public is wrong. We could only think of using a good-looking politician. This might not have a huge impact on public opinion but it would still give a positive impression on the politician and the government. We thought of this opinion because the governor of the Osaka prefecture was once featured by the media for his looks and how he runs his campaign. His policies and how he runs the prefecture during the Corona outbreak were impressive but some people might have only liked him because he was young and relatively good-looking. If more young...

   Today in our class we watched a documentary "Constructing Public Opinion". The documentary started off with a song by Rage Against the Machine. This band was banned from most of the radios because it was banned from the Clear Channel. 70% of radios were owned by Clear Channel so their songs couldn't be heard from the radio. Then the documentary went on to say things about how the public opinion is mostly liberal; for example, 80% want gun control, and 75% want more money on healthcare. So if politicians reflect these opinions then most social problems would be more looked into, but this is not happening. This is because politicians aren't serving normal people but they are serving rich people. Since they are supported with money, politicians pass laws in favor of them. The documentary also mentioned the fact that people tend to think that the middle ground is the safest and stay away from the extreme.     It was shocking to me that even though the public opinion i...