The Meta-Post

     So, this was an interesting requirement for a class to have. Blogs could sometimes be fun, but it was occasionally stressful trying to meet the one per week requirement in addition to doing everything else. That said, I really enjoyed it. My blogs weren't the most read that's for sure, but hey maybe someone found something useful at some point.

     A few of the assigned videos/blogs were a little confusing, but hey everything has its downsides. Believe it or not, the hardest part was coming up with ideas once a week. I don't like thinking that often it's way too much pressure on my brain. That's also why my final blog is this boring, and why some of the other ones were occasionally small-scale and "bleh" for readability.

     In any case, it was mostly fun, pretty creative, and way more interesting than most of the other assignments I've had.

Capitalism's biggest Isuue

Notice: I'm not a Communist, but nothing is perfect.

"Better, Faster, Harder, Stronger"

     Daft Punk sums up the goals of most capitalists pretty well: build everything we can better, build it faster, and make it harder and stronger at the same time. And, frankly, that's fantastic for progress. It puts people on the moon, it creates computers, it created the internet, the smart phone, the yada-yada and the blobbity-blabbity. In a time period where discovering things has become far harder than ever, we humans have been able to keep pace at least partially in thanks to it.

Notice 2: Yes, the USSR made it to space first. Yes, they were (extremely technically) communist. However, the actions of the USSR were in competition with the USA, and competition is definitely a concept that applies more to capitalism.

However, capitalism has (in addition to some obvious human rights problems it's caused) a major issue as a concept. 

Here's a chart from my favorite industry:

That chart shows a few problems. Most importantly, it's similar to the beginning of this chart

Recognize the importance of that title? (Notice: It's the number of employees because this is the graph that fits the timeline I'm looking for) The crash of the automobile industry in Detroit. OK, stay with me for one more chart:

     Other than agriculture and goods that absolutely require replacement over a certain time, every industry in America has followed this trend. 

     So, what does this mean? It shows that industries push production much further than demand holds. One of the causes of the Depression, the overproduction of crops, was exactly this. Businesses in capitalism are encouraged to maintain constant growth instead of simply maintaining the delicate balance of supply and demand. Instead of simply holding production steady, business invest massive amounts of marketing to try to appeal to more people. Where this wouldn't be a problem if these products only lasted a short time, it becomes a massive problem when products last the entire lives of their users or even longer. 

Normally, signs of the inevitable failure of production are about the same no matter what the industry: limited real advances in the product (occasionally in comparison to other companies: in the Detroit collapse a big factor was the higher fuel efficiency of competing brands that produced elsewhere), slowing growth of sales (this should be expected, but almost always comes as a surprise somehow), and consumers continuing to use older products from the same category instead of upgrading to obtain the newer products.

Why does this matter? Because somewhere around 90% of all production follows these unsustainable growth charts, and the world economy is definitely not in the best state right now.  

First Woman to Enter the Boston Marathon

I really...don't have a reaction to this. I realized sexism was and is a massive problem, but I also know we have progressed pretty far from the former crappiness of society. I was surprised that the runners themselves were apparently nice until the weird ogre dude tried to chase her down to be honest. In any case, huzzah for women's rights.

None of this surprised me. I was glad the runners were nice, the bad treatment wasn't anything unexpected from the time period, her feeling pressured to make it to prove women can is a typical reaction to anything like that. I'm not a very emotional person, but this really didn't have any particular impact on me.

Are Humans Good or Bad?

     To answer very simply: No.  

  I definitely hate that there's no "middle ground" when we write or discuss something in school. Seriously, conflict resolution does NOT work like that, stop teaching us how to bicker and fail at working things out like every past generation did and congressmen do now. Anyway though, that's a topic for another time.

     So, humans, are we good or evil? Everyone has a different take on this, because no one can objectively say what good and evil are. Let me answer this question with some more questions: Is a dog panting to cool down good or evil? Is a panther eating some cute fluffy thing evil? Is the common cold evil?

     Whether you take God out of the equation or not, every cell, virus, and organism adapted to live in its specific environment, and takes the actions best suited to ensuring its survival in that environment. Every individual human instinctively does what they (through genetic experience) feel is the best way to survive: such actions can neither be classified as good or bad.

     One of the most common(ly criticized) statements that "proves" humans are bad is that unlike every other animal, we have nuclear bombs and flamethrowers and napalm and other things that explode or make fire and that we use them on each other, but animals don't. To counter this, anyone who has seen a video about nature knows that animals almost always compete with each other for resources. Even if we don't need the resources of another human we are currently fighting, humans don't like taking risks. Anything added to the dragon horde ensures another winter or two, and that is the unbeatable subconscious justification every human who seeks war has.

Now, typically, the biggest argument for humans being good is that we often have charities and try to fix our mistakes. After all, the fact that we develop concepts of "good" and "evil" in our own perspectives means that we at least try to be good right?

Maps of human populations counter this easily. Humans are "herd" animals; we stick together to keep faster and stronger animals from kiling us. To have a herd; however, at least some number of people need to stay alive. So, we care for each other with the expectation (at least subconsciously) that it will benefit us.

Humans. We're mammals. We compete for resources, try to survive through the winter, and try to keep the herd alive so that we all survive. There's nothing good or bad about it, it's just the way life is.

10 Interesting Things About Shakespeare

1. No one knows Anything about His Personal Life

Shakespeare is and was this super-duper famous dude, so we definitely know everything about him right? Yeah, turns out we don't know anything about him. We know when a William Shakespeare was baptized, but can't even guarantee it's the same William Shakespeare. Pretty much everything we know about him is based on the smallest amounts of evidence.

2. He and His Team Tore Down and Moved Their Entire Theater

There were three Globe theaters total before the Puritans made life awful and ended it. Due to a dispute between the builder of the first one and its landlord, Shakespeare and company had to tear down and relocate the entire structure while the landlord was away for Christmas.

3. We probably Spell Shakespeare's Name Wrong

Shakespeare's signatures never had the exact spelling that we think of nowadays, and other people referred to him with over eighty different similar names. People currently believe parts of it mean "brandish" and "spear" and refer to someone who is very confrontational.

4.  Shakespeare Wrote his Own Epigraph

Shakespeare is buried in the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford, his hometown, and he left an epigraph that cursed anyone messing with his bones. Surprisingly, it's worked so far, and no one has disturbed it. Here's the epigraph.

5. Shakespeare was a Good Businessman

Unsurprisingly, Shakespeare made some serious moo-lah from his plays. Surprisingly, he didn't blow all of it. He apparently owned a large amount of property, and even formed a joint-stock company with his actors so that he would make more money from his plays.

6. Shakespeare Invented Swag(ger)

Hate everything modern? Yeah, you can blame swag on Shakespeare. The first time swagger appeared was in Henry V, and it became shorter with time.

7. Shakespeare is Technically Responsible for an Airplane Crash

A long time ago, a Shakespeare fanatic named Eugene Scheffelin brought every bird that happened to  in Shakespeare's plays to Central Park, and when a plane tried to take off, it flew into a cloud of them and crashed. So it's at least partially attributable to Shakespeare.

8. Shakespeare's Wife was Pregnant When he Married Her

Anne Hathaway, Shakespeare's wife, was in a definite hurry to get married, as she was 3 months into her preganancy when the wedding happened. Shakespeare had to be scandalous in every way didn't he?

9. Shakespeare was Nearly Arrested

Even though his plays probably faced some legal issues occasionally, Shakespeare got in trouble for more than that. He apparently traded in wool and, even though he wrote The Merchant of Venice, he also lent out money illegally.

10. One of his Relatives was Executed

One of Shakespeare's relatives, William Arden, was arrested for plotting against the queen, thrown in the Tower of London for a while, then executed. Apparently scandal runs in his blood.

Biggest Problems with English Classes

1. Outdated Works

     A specific work I can remember from English class is "Success is Counted Sweetest" by Emily Dickinson. Long story short, the meaning is that people who don't have certain things know the things better than those who have them. Meanwhile, the song "Let Her Go" by Passenger expresses the exact same concept through a medium that teenagers, the people required to take the classes, actually care about and would listen to. Sure, in many cases, there aren't many options to express certain points, but why is it that we haven't looked at a single thing written within the last forty years? People haven't stopped making art or writing books, so why have the programs stopped being updated with the times?

2. Lacking Types of Works

Actually, we haven't ever gone over any songs in English class. It's not like they're written in French or Chinese, and a lot of the time they have some interesting points. Admittedly, I am a fan of 80's music, so my first specific thought for this was "You Can Call Me Al" by Paul Simon. He made the song in direct violation of the UN's attempts to prevent the spread of culture from South Africa during Apartheid, and the song very clearly has meaning. A newer example, "Little Talks" (one of those "know it when you hear it" songs) might or might not tell the story of a woman slowly losing her memories. The exact notes of a song don't usually need looked at to understand its meaning. I won't go into detail on TV shows or movies, but some things are better expressed in these mediums. A character's facial expression is worth a thousand words describing how they feel. 

3. Teaching That Compromise is Bad

Students usually think mock trials and debates are the most fun (or at least interesting) parts of class, but even these hold some massive issues. These teach students that the way to figure out the best solution to a problem is not by calm compromise, but by using various methods of propaganda and loud voices to "prove" that their point is correct. This is what congressmen do right now, and it obviously does not work. At all. Being the more persuasive speaker shouldn't matter, working out problems in a way that actually works should. Even in essays, students frequently have to pick one side of an argument and ignore the negatives of that side instead of trying to fix them. 

4. Massive Differences Between Teaching Levels

Though this may only occur at some schools, it remains a massive issue (and I've accepted that this blog likely won't become massively famous in the future). As someone who has tutored various people in various classes, I feel justified in saying that the difference between honors and other levels of English classes seems massive compared to other classes. Where the difference between my current math class and the Level II classes is around a month's worth of materials, and history classes simply seem less in-depth at lower levels, proofreading essays for lower levels feels like I'm looking at essays from people who skipped entire years of school (I've read essays from younger honors students and from fairly dedicated level two students). The worst part is that even considering this, guidance doesn't seem to have anyone looking for tutors in English. In addition, I've never seen any Level II students win any essay competitions, in all seven years I've known about them (though again, ). The readings different levels do vary massively; the level two class reads books in ninth grade that honors students don't read until much later, and vice versa. This likely has some explanation, but if so no one has ever told me what it is.

    

Fictional Characters I Relate To

Two words: Awkward. Nerds. Even if it's gradually changing, that was my personality for a long time, so those are the characters in anything that I relate to. The biggest ones are probably Dipper Pines (from Gravity Falls) and Doctor Doom (He's a different type of awkward). So, let's go over why.

Dipper

If you have seen the show, you probably think I'd go with Mabel (she wears cat t-shirts), but I think Dipper is more fitting. For those of you who haven't seen the show, Dipper is pretty much made to be relatable to nerds. He's a twelve year old with a crush on a fifteen year old, a very smart kid everyone ignores because he always sounds crazy/stupid, and he constantly tries to fit in with a group of cool kids. Like I said, he's written to be relatable, and his awkwardness around girls specifically is almost a perfect match.

Dr. Doom

No, I don't want to conquer the world, and no I don't mean him in any of the awful movies. In the comics (the ultimate nerd phrase amirite?), Doom is a super genius who has time and dimension travelled to literally every single possible timeline with human life. What he saw? There is no version of earth that is happy unless he is the absolute ruler. That said, he really doesn't have to be such a jerk about it. Anyone who's ever worked with me on anything ever will likely support that I don't trust anyone else to do any work, but to be fair I don't kill anyone who doesn't agree with me, and I can't time travel. He's still the most relatable character in any comic universe I've come across, because frankly in such a position I'd likely act the same way.