This was a very interesting video. I wonder how accurate its portrayal of war in the last thousand years is. So many of the battles shown in the video took place in Europe, and I wonder if this is really where all the conflict took place or if there was some other reason that it appeared this way (like maybe better track has been kept of the conflict in this area of the world? I don’t know). If this is an accurate portrayal of the conflict of the past thousand years, then I wonder why so much of the conflict took place in Europe. What caused there to be more wars in this part of the world? Was war structured in a different way that caused battles to be bigger and more deadly? Was the technology used in these wars better, causing more casualties? I am not too knowledgeable about history, so I can’t really speculate. It would be interesting to read some analysis or explanation for the video with respect to this (and in general).

It was also interesting how conflict increased in frequency and intensity as time went on. It was actually very striking. World War I and World War II were especially amazing in how much death they caused in such a short period of time. I imagine this trend is mainly due to improved technology, allowing the killing of more people in a shorter period of time? Also, higher population might be a factor. I don’t really know, but it is certainly food for thought. I wonder if this trend will continue into the future. If it does, that does not bode well for humanity. Overall, this video was interesting and depressing at the same time.

Although the message of the video was depressing, I thought that the way in which the video conveyed its message was very clever. The explosions corresponding to the number of casualties illustrated the concept very clearly. It was easy to see the trend in the increasing frequency and intensity of the battles. Basically, I was very impressed with how this video compressed a lot of information into a short period of time.

I thought this was a very interesting article. It sounds to me like Mr. Devoureau was treated very unfairly by his boss. Since Mr. Devoureau has always lived as a man, it seems strange to me that he would not be treated as one. Also, from the picture in the article, Mr. Devoureau looks exactly like any other man, so the people that he has to take urine samples from would almost certainly not know that he is transgender. The way in which he was questioned and then suddenly fired is strange too. Overall, it sounds fairly clear to me that Mr. Devoureau was treated unfairly by his boss.

However, I can see how this would be a difficult issue to deal with in general. For example, if Mr. Devoureau did not look like a man then I could see how the boss might have more of a case. That might be shallow and wrong of me to think that way, but I think it matters in this type of situation. For example, if I were going to a doctor to receive a physical and I requested to have a man do it, I would feel uneasy if the person performing the physical did not look like a man. In this sort of situation I think that the doctor is trying to make the patient feel comfortable, and so this objective might not be fulfilled if the patient is be treated by a transgender doctor who does not look like a man (or a woman in the case of a female requesting a female doctor).

These sorts of conflicts seem difficult to deal with. In the case of Mr. Devoureau I think is sounds pretty clear that he was mistreated, but I can see how there might be more of a gray area in other cases. As more cases like this come up, I suppose some sort of legal precedent will have to be established for how transgender people are to be treated. It’s strange to think of gender as something that will have to be governed by laws and restrictions, but I think that is what will happen eventually.

I thought this was a very interesting video. It sounds extremely depressing to live in Helsinski during the dark months! Like others have pointed out, this video is yet another illustration of how factors and forces outside of our control shape our experience of the world. Just one such factor, in this case the darkness, can completely change the way in which one experiences his or her life. It’s not hard to imagine how living in a place with only a few hours of daylight might make one depressed. I notice that I feel a little less happy during the winter months in State College, and that is nothing compared to Helsinski.

One thought that this video brings to mind is the idea of how we don’t see many of the factors and forces that shape our lives. Daylight is definitely somewhat visible, but it would be easy to take it for granted, and it would also be easy to dismiss it as of little consequence, even though in reality it matters a great deal. When people think about what they need to be happy, they probably do not think of many (maybe even most) of the things that they truly need to be happy. For example, I think that if a person got a job offer in a new place, they would normally not consider the amount of daylight in that place. They would definitely think about the salary of the job and other similar factors, but something like daylight would probably be left off the list of pros and cons. This is interesting for me to think about, because I think it indicates that people can make themselves happier by coming to a better understanding of themselves and their environment. Only once you understand all of the factors and forces outside of your control can you truly make informed decisions. Obviously, you can never understand all of the factors, so you can never have all the necessary information. Still, the better your understanding, and the more factors and forces that you understand, the greater your ability to make smart decisions.

Since I have been thinking about this phenomenon recently (because of soc class), I have noticed a lot of examples of this in my life. For example, recently I mentioned to my dad that one of my friends went to Cancun over spring break. He commented that Mexico is very dangerous and he would be afraid of my friend going to Cancun if he were that friend's parents. I said I didn't think it was all that dangerous, and mentioned that it is probably much more dangerous to drive somewhere than it is to be in a dangerous country. He acknowledged that this was true, but I couldn't convince that it wasn't dangerous for my friend to go to Mexico. I think this goes back to these sorts of fears being based in emotion rather than reason. Even though he saw logically that he was wrong, he still felt that going to a dangerous foreign country was more dangerous than driving. His emotions won out over his reasoning. Based on what we've learned in class, this is what happens all the time that causes people to be afraid of illogical things.

Another factor that causes people to be afraid of stranger kidnapping and other illogical things is the news media. After seeing the news story above, it is not hard to see why people would overestimate the likelihood of a stranger kidnapping their child. The news constantly reports stories of kidnappings like these as well as other unlikely events, such as gruesome murders. This scares people and makes them think that these events occur more often than they do in real life. These people then go on to teach their kids lessons that are unwise. It causes people's sense of risk analysis to be way off. This is negative, but it is hard to stop it. I don't really know what can be done to help people understand risk better. Education is probably one part, but other steps would probably be helpful as well. I don't really know what can be done. The news media probably cannot be made to change, which is unfortunate. People will need to learn to live with a media that promotes illogical fear.

I agree with those people who say that it would be best for people to stop using the word "retarded." It is disrespectful to people who have mental disabilities and it shows a lack of compassion on the part of the speaker. I think it is especially important to end the use of the word since most people with mental disabilities are against the use of the word.

As for the reason that so many people use the word, I think there are a few different reasons for it. For one, most people do not know many people with mental disabilities, and they certainly do not deal with these people on a day-to-day basis, so they are not reminded of the connection between the word as they use it and what it actually means. They don't think about the disrespect they are doing to people with mental disabilities so it doesn't occur to them to stop using the word. Also, until recently I don't think there was a big push to get people to stop using the word. Many people might stop using the word once they are made to stop and think about it. For example, I used to use the word fairly regularly but now I try not to use it. It's not that I hated people with mental disabilities before, I just never really thought about it all that much. After hearing a few people talk about how it is bad to say the word though, I reconsidered and realized that I should stop saying it. I think most people probably fall into this category. They just don't think it's a big deal, but they will realize that they shouldn't say it with a little persuasion and a little time to think about it.

However, I think it will be difficult to ever get rid of the use of "retarded" or words like it, because people will switch to using other words with similar meanings. As some people have pointed out, "retarded" used to be the respectful word to use. Only over time did it become derogatory. If "retarded" is eliminated from common usage then perhaps whatever replaces it as the respectful word to use for people with mental disabilities (I honestly don't know what that is; I should probably know but I don't) will start being used in a derogatory way. I'm not sure what the solution for this is, but I hope that we can find it. I think that the world would be made a little bit better if people would stop using "retarded" and other words like it.

I thought that this was a very interesting speech/video clip, but I'm not sure it was very good. The guy talking goes through many different topics in a very short period of time, and he doesn't provide a very detailed analysis of any of these topics. The speech raises many questions in my mind, but it doesn't give me any answers. This isn't necessarily a problem, it's just that he seems to talk with a sense of confidence rather than a sense of raising questions. When he talks, he gives off the impression that he is answering questions, but really I think he is just raising them.

For example, when he talks about ADD he makes a variety of different, fairly provocative claims. He says that ADD is a "fictitious epidemic" and cites as evidence for this data that shows that ADD medication is prescribed more often as you go east. He says this indicates that there is not really an epidemic, because if the rates of medication prescribed are different then that indicates that the epidemic does not exist. I'm not totally clear why he draws this conclusion, but I think he is saying that because the rates of prescription of ADD medication are different then they cannot reflect the real rates of ADD. However, it's not clear that he acknowledges that ADD is real. Overall, I found this section of the speech (like the rest of the speech) to be very unsatisfying. He didn't articulate clearly what he was trying to say and, more importantly, he didn't provide sufficient evidence to support the claims he makes going forward. I think he could have easily given a whole speech just on the topic of ADD. He also could have given a whole speech about the topic of divergent thinking. I think his speech could easily be divided into 5 or 10 different speeches, and each of these individual speeches would be good, but as one huge, fast-moving speech it is just bad.

When we watched the video about the negative consequences of choice in class, the speaker laid out his problem and then at each step in his chain of reasoning he provided large amounts of evidence to support his points. For example, when he introduces the idea that we are faced with a tremendous amount of choice, he provides many different examples of situations in which we are faced with a massive quantity of choices. Only once he has clearly established this fact does he move on to discussing it. He is establishing a chain of of conclusions, and he makes sure that each link in the chain is strong, because otherwise the speech is a failure.

This speech does not provide strong evidence for its (numerous) claims, and as a result I think it is not good. The speaker draws a long chain of conclusions, but he doesn't bother to make sure that each of the links are strong enough to support the rest of the chain. In fact, he doesn't really make any of the links strong. He just strings a lot of them together very quickly to give the impression that he is giving a strong speech, when actually he is not.

I think there are probably several reasons why men are poorly educated about women’s menstrual cycles. As some people have pointed out, sex education for guys does not focus on the menstrual cycle. I am a guy and I don’t think I’ve ever learned anything about menstruation in school. I probably learned that it happens but that’s about it. I think this is probably the number one reason guys aren’t informed about it. They never learned about it in school, and most guys probably don’t feel the need to seek out information on menstrual cycles, so they just never learn about it. Schools should probably provide guys with a bit more information about the menstrual cycle than they do. Hopefully in the future schools will provide a more well-rounded sex education curriculum that includes more information on periods for guys.

Another reason that guys are ignorant about menstrual cycles is probably because there is a bit of a taboo on discussing menstrual cycles. “Taboo” is probably too strong of a word, but it is not a topic that is brought up all that often. I think that over time this topic will probably become less taboo and people will discuss it more. For example, my (female) friends talk about periods from time to time and they don’t feel that the topic is too taboo or uncomfortable to talk about. Also, my girlfriend discusses her period sometimes, and she has educated me a little about the menstrual cycle. I think this will probably be more of a trend going forwards. People will become more open, and knowledge about menstruation will become more widespread among guys.

As for the tampon question, like many other people have said, tampons would definitely not be free if guys menstruated. That just doesn’t make sense. Condoms aren’t free, and those are used exclusively by guys, so I don’t think tampons would be free just because guys started bleeding all of a sudden. People will always want to make money, and when there are opportunities for that, they will always take advantage of that. I am probably taking the question too literally (I think it was probably just asked to get people thinking), but whatever. Sorry.

This video was very funny and aso very interesting. The reactions of the people in the video really show how strong the impulse is to conform. Several of them try to maintain their individuality for a brief time, but they all eventually conform. The struggle that these people put up and the looks on their faces make this situation more relatable to me. I'm sure that I would do the same thing as these people faced with the same situation. Sam talked about the idea of groupthink in class, and I think this situation is somewhat related to that. The people in the video feel the social pressure to agree with the others, and they decide that conforming to this social pressure is more important than thinking for themselves. This video also reminds me of the line length experiment we watched in class, in which a test subject goes along with the group when the other people (actually actors) in the experiment give a certain (wrong) answer.

I think this is probably partly a demonstration of how people rely on the knowledge of others. This is normally a very rational thing to do. For example, if you are trying to find your way to some heavily attended event, following the crowd will almost always get you there. It would be rare for a crowd of people to all have the wrong idea with a problem like this, so it makes sense to follow. Perhaps the man in the elevator assumed there was a reason all of the people were facing a certain way, so he adjusted to be the same as them. This is one of the rare instances in which the crowd is wrong, and so the people in this video look very silly.

It's interesting to me to think about how one could resist the pressure to conform. Being aware of the impulse to conform is probably a good first step, but I'm sure that I would still act the same way as the man in this video did. No matter how hard you try, it is probably still very, very difficult to resist the pressure to conform.

I have never been a woman, so it’s impossible for me to compare the pressures on men to conform to a societal image with the pressures on women to conform to a societal image, but I think there is probably at least a little pressure on guys to conform to a certain image as well. I imagine the pressure on men is much, much less than it is for women though.

Guys try to be masculine because I think as a society we view it as negative for a guy to be too feminine. There are many different ways in which guys try to be masculine. For example, guys try to dress in a masculine way. If a guy’s jeans are too tight this is viewed as feminine or gay. I think that if there were no societal pressure to be masculine, guys would say that too-tight jeans look bad or unflattering, rather than gay or girly.

Also, guys try to speak in a masculine way. When guys talk about girls for example, they do it in a masculine way. An example that comes to mind for me is a scene in the movie 40-Year-Old Virgin in which a group of guys is sitting around discussing times they had sex. One guy talks about a time when he and his girlfriend had sex and it was “like their souls merged together” or something like that and all of the other guys make fun of him for his girly sex comments. I think this sort of pressure to be masculine when speaking exists in real life as well, not just in movies.

Some people might say that guys try to work out to meet a certain societal standard, but I’m not sure how true this is. It is probably partly true, at least in the cases of guys who have really huge muscles, but I think it is probably naturally more attractive for guys to have at least a little muscle as well. I wouldn’t say that societal pressure is not involved, but I think it’s a factor rather than the sole driving force.

There are definitely pressures on guys to conform to a certain masculine societal standard. With that being said however, I think the pressures for guys are probably much less than they are for women. I don’t know exactly how strong the pressures are for women, but I am pretty confident that they are stronger than the pressures for men. It is like Sam said in class, you can’t see the water if you’re a fish.

For me this letter connected strongly with the points that Sam made in class when he talked about freedom. He discussed the idea of what it means for one country to be freer than another and how we tend to focus on only a very small subset of the freedoms available to people, such as freedom of speech or freedom to bear arms, when there are so many more freedoms that we don’t even think about. He talked about the daily decisions that one makes and how there is so much freedom in all of these small choices. This point connects with what the inmate is saying because this inmate has been deprived of all but the most basic of these small freedoms.

Sam also talked about North Korea in class, and how North Korea is one of the least free countries on Earth (probably the least free country on Earth), yet a person living in North Korea still has many small day-to-day freedoms. It occurred to me that an inmate has almost none of these day-to-day freedoms that are available to a person living even in North Korea, the least free country on earth.

When Sam talked about the daily freedoms that we all take for granted, the point did not really hit home for me in the way that it did when I read the inmate’s letter. When Sam talked about the issue I was thinking about the idea of daily freedoms from a more intellectual, theoretical standpoint. I wasn’t really considering the idea that I could be deprived of these freedoms. When I read this letter from the inmate though, the point really resonated with me. After reading the letter I stopped and thought about all of the freedoms that I take for granted and how these freedoms give me so much happiness that I don’t even think about. Having read this letter, I want to try to remind myself of how amazing all of these freedoms are on a more regular basis. When I’m feeling bad about something, I will try to just think about all of the freedoms that I have and how lucky I am to be so free.