Saturday, November 9, 2013

Creating a Perfect World - Your Projects & Presentations

Dear All,

Please share your vision of the perfect world here - and think about how to create it in reality!

gudrun


34 comments:

  1. Here is the link for the presentation on Friday, November 8th:

    https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1T5mXkDsgyrvHWibMX9NdKAWQJel29vENzOt6zN8mjEI/edit#slide=id.g29533cc2d_47

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  2. This is a link to my presentation on Friday Nov 15th
    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pXvYNS1G19fFa36EAczdVLM-KOGjKkBAt1NntTdhCZI/pub

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    1. Richard!
      Your presentation was very insightful, i thoroughly enjoyed it. I think we all should strive to be a Psychonaut. It is as close as any type of "-naut" profession i can get. Astronaut is a bit too far fetched for some, Psychonaut can be a bit more attainable because we are already exploring what we have and what we know, which is ourselves.

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    2. Richard,
      I found your presentation very interesting. I agree that we need to focus on exploring ourselves, technology has advanced at such a rapid rate we neglected ourselves. I think it would be very interesting to see the balance of exploring the external and internal worlds, or see what it would be like had we focused on the internal rather than the eternal. Your presentation really made me think about meditation and how we can get in touch with ourselves and detach ourselves from technology. Great work!

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    3. Hi Richard!

      To be honest, your presentation is definitely one of my favourites so far, mainly because you covered a topic that I personally spend a lot of time contemplating and implementing in my own life. I agree with the ideas you have presented. We really do need to stop and think about ourselves, and most of all evaluate ourselves and our purpose. We DO spend too much time thinking about exploring material advancements that we often forget that it's crucial to explore our own minds. Centuries ago, society played home to great thinkers and and great inventions. Now there aren't as many great thinkers left because our world is so materialistic and competitive. Thank you for presenting! It was definitely thought-provoking and enlightening!

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  3. Bryce & Nicole's Ideal World In A Nutshell:

    Problem:
    Overpopulation

    Why:
    From a biocentric point of view, overpopulation is the worst thing to have ever happened on the planet. It's long term effects have caused wars, pollution, deforestation, climate change, and a depletion of the world's natural resources.

    Our Solution:
    A highly contagious virus is released and failed to be contained. It begins to spread worldwide.

    Result:
    The majority of the world's population has now been erased, leaving behind only the infected who have not succumbed to their symptoms, those who are smart, strong, and fast enough survive. In short, they created Zombies. After the infected die, only a small fraction of the world's former population is left. With the major decline in population, there is no more need to cut down entire forests, pull our oil out of the ocean floor, or poison the earth with chemical of industry. People have now bonded together for survival and no longer see each other as enemies.

    The world has now had what we believe it needs - a clean slate.

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    1. Hi Bryce and Nicole,

      I unable to go to class and attend your presentation but you guys did a great job summarizing your ideas in this comment. The idea of overpopulation is particularly interesting to me because recently, in one of my Sociology classes, I have learned that Canada is underpopulated and we can't expect to maintain population relative to deaths past year 2030 (unless we actively promote immigration). So, seeing overpopulation as a problem is a change of perspective for me. At first, I thought the idea of a highly contagious virus being spread and killing the most of population came off as cruel. However, I tried thinking of other solutions to overcome overpopulation and I couldn't without involving violence. Therefore, I agree with your solution and think the plague idea is quite innovative and probably the most efficient solution without having people get slaughtered by each other!

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    2. Hi Bryce and Nicole

      This is Michelle, I also had thought about humans'overpopulation during one of the bio courses that I took last year. We were learning about how animals should co-exist in this limited-sourced-world, and how an overpopulation of one species can impact the whole ecosystem. It was quite ironic since WE are the most overpopulated species on Earth. I definitely think the human beings have created all the environmental problems by overpopulation, and really enjoyed your idea of plague ( I don't want any sort of plagues to reduce our population but just really enjoyed it). I watched a youtube link that was posted on facebook recently and it was really relevant to you guys' idea but cant seemed find it now :( I'll post it if I can find it. Anyhow really interesting idea. I liked it!

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    3. Hi, Bryce and Nicole. I really like the idea you proposed for you ideal world. I do agree overpopulation on the earth causes a lot of problems too. You catch really points such as natural resources, pollutions, competitive on everything. Those consequences from over population are sort of threaning our world and our daily life right now. Also you have a really great new imaginary solution to it, releasing virus is really a new new thought, and Zombie, it just makes your presentation very interesting and attractive. At the end I have to say, Good job!

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    4. Hey guys, great presentation. I agree with your idea of achieving the "clean slate". Although this may be scary and hard to accept, it is perhaps inevitable if we are to survive. The "clean slate" is perhaps the only chance for us as a species to fix what we have done wrong. Also, the zombies added a nice touch to your presentation!

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    5. Hi, it is great presentation and interesting idea. Overpopulation is really important cause of many social problems such as poverty and limited nature resources. But I think it’s strange that the poor countries are always have large population, while the population in developed countries increases slowly or even decrease. “Virus” and “zombies” are really interesting idea, but I want to think of the solution more peace. Maybe one-child policy will be a good solution to the third world over population.

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  4. Here is the link to our dream world (Demi, Desha, Jane, And Wiebke )
    http://prezi.com/i5q5hsfpbtqu/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

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    1. Your presentation was great! I really liked that you made it more fantastical, with elements such as dragon planes (which I agree would be great) but also talked about issues in our society today that need to be addressed. I think it was a nice balance. A dream world should be just that, it should have things that might be far fetched (I would want rainbows as a form of transportation) but also have important values and moral incorporated into the society.

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  5. Here is the link to my presentation.

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B92D-t0OSyf8bHB4V0Y5c0FTeWs/edit?usp=sharing

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    1. Hey Michelle, I can totally relate to you in the beginning of your presentation. That is what most asian parents like to do to their children when they are young. They realized that children especially at a young age should be doing productive things instead of sitting at home and watching TV. That is the reason why parents enrol kids in all these academies. I believe that tutors are beneficial to children but excess amounts can most often lead to large amount of stress.

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    2. Hello Michelle, funny and lovely presentation. I really liked the last part where you focused on education and community. These two are interconnected. If there is good education there will be a good community, and if there is a good community, the values that are taught to the next generation will be key to improvement.

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  7. Feel free to take a look at my presentation. It is about how our computing technology would become in the future.

    Here is the link.

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9aDQs62hOirZWh2ZHNnV2ZBOFk/edit?usp=sharing

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    1. Hi, Yizhen. I really like your presentation. The revolution of technology and how it affects us. One of your picture which presents the revolution of human, who sits in front the computer which is really interesting, I love that picture. Also that picture indicates the problem caused by technology to us, such as it supports to help us with communication with people around us, but somehow unfortunatly it opposites its goal. And it is true, sometimes even we meet people face by face, but we still play cell phones instead of only enjoy talking. You catch a really great point, I like your presentation, good job!

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    2. Hey YiZhen, your presentation was great. It really showed that our generation is relying on too much technology. Everything we do, we must have to our technology in our hands and will definitely change our thoughts and activities in the future. Your solution to go back to basics is really crucial and I absolutely think that our society today is losing those simple abilities.

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    3. Hey Yizhen, you presentation is very interesting. At this point in time, technology has already rooted deep into our everyday lives. There is no doubt that it will play a big role in the outcome of our future. Whether it will help or hinder, I believe, is up to us to decide based on how we use this technology.

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  8. http://prezi.com/7kpii6zqvvy3/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

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    1. Hey Mahira, I would like to start off by saying that your prezi looks just amazing! :) Your presentation had very thoughtful ideas and I especially liked the idea where you talked about having a job in your dreams. Of course everyone would be happy and be financially stable, but on the other hand many people will want to become doctors. When we are young, the common jobs that we think about are doctors, police officers, and lawyers. What if we all become one of them? What will happen to the society then? There will be no people providing for food, shelter, and other basic necessities.

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    2. Hi guys,
      Great presentation Mahira, I like how it looks so nice with prezi.
      I definitely agree with you ideas.
      I want to comment on Ray's comment. Of course having a job in your dreams are awesome but, in my opinion, I think what should be done is that everyone should be able to find and pursue job in a field, where they can enjoy doing. Then you would go, who would want to become a farmer or even a janitor? I think it is matter of what value the society focuses on. Think about a society where the number one value is happiness. What would you want to become? My friend actually told me she would become a farmer.

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  9. Ideal World:Education "Free" ( no exams or tests)
    Reasons:making life easier; bring down the stress; choose what we really want to learn, not only for getting a job; we learn the knowledge we eager to learn, not just for passing the course; having more time to enjoy life, not spending most time in the review; also make our professor's life easier as well.
    Solutions: it seems not possible from the current situation, however, we should keep this kind of wish in our head still, don't give up. Maybe someday in the future it could happen. The likely solution could be that we could change our exam into projects, it doesn't lose the way we get tested, also we aren't not stressful for the exams, still have time to enjoy the weather outside.

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    1. Hey Biwen, great presentation. I completely agree that the current education system is in an imperfect state.I believe that it is much more indoctrinating than a good number of us may think. Many students are lead to believe that a formula in a physics textbook, or numbers in a statistics table is reality itself rather than being a symbol for reality. Students are more likely to memorize than learn, because we think that as long as our minds holds certain information, it will trade to something in the real world. The culture is one that can recite mathematical equations and write essays on abstract ideas, without really understanding the meaning behind these things. Then in the end, somehow our identity becomes entangled with the numbers and marks we are assigned. We are not exactly encouraged to question what do those numbers really mean and under what circumstances did we earn them.

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    2. Hi Biwen, I also had a presentation regarding our current education system.
      Definitely I agree that our education system is wrong. I, however, have some different opinion in marking process. I think projects have the same effect on me to exams. I am stressed more because of the huge projects than to midterms. I think our current education system is fundamentally wrong and should be changed from the beginning. I think the education system should encourage students to enjoy what they are learning instead of throwing unreasonable amount of information and ask us to memorize.

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    3. I hate to be a party pooper, but I'd like to play devil's advocate and support the opposite side. I definitely think there is much merit in memorization, or the current curriculum. Though many say memorizing things is useless since you can look up everything online, memorizing isn't just a method of remembering information, but a process of internalizing the information. Though I might have completely understood phonics in theory, if I had to look up the how to pronounce "-ough" words each time I want to say them, I wouldn't consider myself to "know" how to speak english at all. That being said, some people simply cannot memorize well. This is because the most widely accepted method of internalization (reading, writing, and repeating the words) does not suit them. Some need to do a physical task to learn kinaesthetically, while others can stare at sentences for a long time and say "I got this."

      Thus, I think the solution isn't to completely overturn the curriculum (though of course it could be modified in many aspects), but to see that standardized learning/assessment is inefficient. In doing so, we can accept that it is not the students who "fail" or are "failures", but that the system being employed on them has failed. Then, that should lead to no punishment for bad marks, since how can you blame the students for doing badly when it's not their fault? By taking this first step, no one has to feel less worthy, or superior due their grades. Then we can start more radical improvements to the education system from there.

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  10. Hi All,

    Thank you for summing up and/or posting links to your presentations! Great ideas and comments! Please continue this highly inspiring conversation!

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  11. Hi all, here is the link to my ideal world presentation.

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7chtu2fSJpeb1FXX2tkZWdUWm8/edit?usp=sharing

    Essentially I began with the abuse of power in the natural world by humans and showed an example of pollution that is destroying our Earth. In my ideal world, humans would find themselves among nature in cooperation and without selfish exploitation of living creates and systems. Which led me to discussing the super innovation of Earthships and the sustainable principles it operates on. By reusing materials that would've otherwise contributed to the billions of tonnes of waste we create each year, Earthships stand on the idea that our homes can be 100% self-sustainable. I wanted to share this invention because it's not very well known but it could be our future. Hope you enjoyed hearing about this :)

    There is a documentary named "Garbage Warrior" that tells the story of the Earthships inventor and his struggles to make this sustainable idea be known. It's very interesting and I highly recommend it!

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  12. Here is the rough script of my presentation for whoever would like to refresh themselves on it or wasn't present that day and would like to learn about it:

    http://sdrv.ms/1ey4J1V

    This is shared document that should be viewable to everyone.

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  13. Thank you all again for sharing your presentations and for discussion some of the issues. I think what you have done is excellent - and a great starting point for changing the world. I will add one more post in which I will invite you to share some good sources you have come across in your research about what's wrong with our current world as well as what some organizations are already doing to make a difference. I hope that having our own little "research library" about this topic might be really useful for future projects! Thanks again to all of you for sharing your excellent ideas about a better world!

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  14. I would like to thank you Gudrun as well as my fellow classmates for the opportunity to express myself which facilitated in me moving forward in life. Although I didn't have the chance to get to know each of you personally, I am grateful to have met you all in sharing the wonderful experience of the English class. All of you made a positive impact in my life regardless. Below is the link to the video I made for my presentation and I hope that all of your ideas towards a perfect world will not only be a vision for a better future but a reality soon enough.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpLNO-nTJLo&list=LLOHLpJBNt8Obrqmc576DRXA&feature=mh_lolz

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  15. I think this activity yields very interesting results. After listening to everyone's opinions, we find out everyone has their own definition of a perfect world. This goes to show that people are truly different. Although we have grown up in similar environments, we do not think exactly alike. Our opinions are based on who we grow up interacting with, what we watch and read. I think its great that people are different, and we all think differently. This adds variation and excitement in our lives. After all, this variation is the source of entertainment and art. Just try to imagine a world where everybody thinks alike, how monotonous would it be!

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