This video starts with only a few battles, with relatively small explosions indicating a small amount of death. As the video goes on though the explosions become more abundant and also increase in magnitude. A lot of this growth can be attributed to globalization and in increase in technology throughout the world. I feel like this video does a really good job of putting things in perspective for someone who might not be fully educated on the history of war throughout the world.
I noticed though, that throughout the video Europe has been in more wars in more battles than any other place on earth, with Asia and the Middle East not far behind. Literally for the past 1000 years Europe has been in a constant state of war and destruction. To me, that is somewhat disturbing but it also proves the point that war is inevitable. The world has been in some state of war for the past millennium.
I thought the most interesting part of the video was when all the battles for World War II were shown. For that span of 2 or 3 seconds all of Europe was covered in an explosion, and even though I’ve always known World War II was extremely destructive, this part in the video really helps to put it in perspective. It was also very noticeable to me how much faster the explosions occurred as time went on. Humans are engaging in more wars with more deaths than ever before in history.
So yes, war is inevitable but that doesn’t explain why war happens. I think that as long as humans are around they will have their differences and will strive to be better and stronger than other nations. When a country goes to war it unites them under one common goal and the citizens of that country have a feeling of nationalism and unity. I feel like another reason war occurs so often in todays times is because of our cultural. All the news outlets go crazy over wars when they occur, people talk about it nonstop, and grade school history classrooms are filled with information about wars.

I thought this video brought up a lot of good points about the United States and our military policies. Our annual budget for military spending is 663 billion dollars, which is actually an increase from the previous years. While the Obama administration, as well as anyone who is in favor of this increase, will argue that this much money is necessary for “security” as we talked about in class. I don’t understand how our security is dependent on us having upwards of 1000 military bases overseas in foreign countries. And even if the American citizens’ pleas for a decreased budget aren’t enough of an incentive, nearly every country that we occupy also wants us to leave. So why then, do we continue to spend such large sums of money on “defense” if everyone is apparently against it?
Another good point that I thought this video made was when Ron Paul talked about the United States being an empire. I realize that the US isn’t technically an empire but when you think about all the things that the United States is doing, we’re getting pretty close to that point. We occupy more than 100 other countries militarily and we account for nearly half of all the military spending in the world. This is so completely unnecessary yet we continue to do it. And as Ron Paul said, empires never last, they always crumble and just looking at the US right now we can see that we are on a decline. Just look at all the empires over the course of history, the Romans, the Ottomans, the Mongols, they’ve all eventually fallen. I truly believe that if the United States continues its current actions then we are headed down the same path as those other empires.
The final thing in the video that really stuck out to me was when the Ecuadorian president said the only way that he would allow a US military base in Ecuador, was if the United States let Ecuador build a military base in Miami. Most Americans won’t even consider this proposal, yet the United States forcingly does this to over 100 different countries.

It’s no debate that the oil industry has gained increasingly more power in the recent years. I believe this can be mainly explained by the fact that there is so much profit to be had in the oil and natural gas industry. It hasn’t always been as profitable as it is now but when there are large social scares, the gas and oil companies can use that as an excuse to raise prices. When hurricane Katrina hit the US gas prices skyrocketed and oil companies claimed “a lot of the refineries were damaged”. As a more recent example, when unrest started in Libya gas prices also skyrocketed and then went back down some. Each time something like this happens though prices go WAY up and then come back down a little bit, which results in artificially higher gas prices. Now, its not that the government isn’t aware of this fact, the just choose to do nothing.
Oil companies have slowly and sneakily invaded the United States government and at this point in time they are calling most of the shots. They make billions with these artificially high prices and have to just give a small portion of it to senators and congress men and women. The oil companies still make ridiculously high profits and the government officials get a nice hefty bribe to make sure things don’t change. People are obviously skeptical that our government is doing this, especially since everything going on happens behind closed doors, but think about this. In the last 10 years the US has entered into 2 wars in the Middle East. While the Bush and Obama agenda’s claim that their reasons for going into these countries is to “uphold democracy” and the like, but there are plenty of other countries that need more aid than Libya and Iraq. To me, it’s completely obvious that we went into these countries for oil. There might have been other small reasons that they can tell the public but the main reason is for oil. Oil companies essentially run much of the government behind closed doors. The more you look at the fact the more obvious it is and the more angry it makes someone that this is actually happening in our own country.

The lectures on social inequalitie and wealth distribution were quite disturbing to me. The gap between the rich and the poor is already extraordinarily high and it continues to grow. The top .01% makes close to 900 times as much money as the bottom 90% on average. That to me is truly disgusting and I cringe just thinking about it. Someone in the bottom 90% could work all year and earn a salary of $31,244 while someone in the top .01% could work just one day and make more than twice as much money as that. If someone can live on that lower income is it really necessary for someone to make as much as $27,000,000 a year?
To some extent, those making the grossly high incomes have earned that position and do deserve the money they make. A vast majority though either inherited their wealth through family members, or were born into a family of higher social class, which in turn give them a higher likelihood of also being in a higher social class. What really bothers me about this whole situation is that the government is entirely aware of it and they continue to do nothing.
Tax rates on individuals continue to climb while tax rates on large corporations continue to decline. Congressmen claim that they “have your best interests in mind”. I was not very fond of the government to begin with but these lectures have really help me put into perspective just how screwed up the American system is. Congressmen care only about their wallets and nothing else. Bribery is essentially legalized which allows corporations to do whatever they want and the only people who could possibly change the system are the ones receiving the bribes. Alas we are stuck in an endless cycle where the rich continue to get richer and the poor continue to get poorer.
Eventually the wealth distribution will be so bad that Americans will scream for reform. Congress can’t just expect to keep giving tax breaks for large corporations and tax hikes for individuals and not expect some form of social unrest.

I think this video, along with the lecture in class raises some very good points about modern day education. Kids are told all their life to do well in school. At a young age its to do well in elementary and middle school so you can go to high school. Then your told to do well in high school so you can go to college, and then the same thing in college and possibly grad school, all for one purpose: To be able to get a degree and job. Herein lies part of the problem. Kids today are often taught that doing well in school is the only thing that matters, and yes it does matter but these kids are losing their sense of individuality and aren’t given an opportunity to learn about the things that truly interest them.
The video also mentions that the system of education that is currently in place has been around for almost 300 years; of course it makes sense that this system is no longer working. They try to treat education as a business or an industry but for education to work it needs to be so much more than that. You have to spark a desire and an interest to learn in students. You can’t just use this ‘assembly line system’ where everyone goes to school; everyone takes the same classes, the same standardized tests. How can you try to fit all the adolescents in America, and incredibly large demographic, all into one program? While this system may work for some, it obviously does not work for everyone.
Each child has specific needs, unique learning styles, different interests and desires. The problem with the system is it tries to make generalizations about students, which unfortunately leaves many left behind. The point that the man in this video is trying to make is that we are constantly trying to push this idea of conformity and standardization, but in reality that is the exact opposite of what we should be doing. I think that students need to be given more choices about their education. They should still be required to learn about certain subjects and material but they should also be given some discretion. We should be asking them what they want to learn, not telling them what to learn.
Unfortunately the process of reform is very long and tedious, and we are just now beginning to fully see this problem. It will probably be many years before there is some kind of reform done on the current system but I honestly see it as an inevitable change.

This video makes some really good points. I think the main message is that if the human race wants to continue to industrialize and advance then people need to set their differences aside and work towards common goals. It makes a lot of sense for us to eventually extend our empathetic ties to the entire human race, especially when you consider the trend for the last 150,000 years. At this point in time the human race is at a very bleak point in its history; Violence terrorism and hate run rampant all over the world, more than 3 billion people survive on less than 2 dollars a day, more and more countries with radical leaders are gaining access to nuclear weapons... According to this video humans are wired to be empathetic, if more people would just realize this then we could all start working together and increase the quality of life for the entire planet.
If I were to truly accept what this man was saying I would change my life in several ways. First I would start donating my time to helping others. I would help out at homeless shelters, do community service, or possibly habitat for humanity. I consider myself a very fortunate individual and it would be easy for me and beneficial to other for me to do things like this. Watching this video just makes you want to get out there and do something to change the world, because if things continue the way that they have in the past decade then I don’t seeing the human race making it.
I think the main message of this video is that change needs to happen, and it needs to happen now. The man in the video gives us every reason for change. Our brains are setup for empathy and to care about other people. If every person on the planet could extend these feelings of empathy towards every other person on the planet then it would be a better place for everyone. If we stopped all the hate, the killing, the discrimination, and all the social injustices of the world then the world would be a different place and the human race could continue to advance into the future.

There are several different 'invisible strings' influencing the decisions of these people trying to kill themselves. The video said that in Japan your occupation is highly important in your life and plays a big role in your social status. Being unemployed in Japan probably gives people a feeling of loneliness and helplessness. With the worldwide recession comes higher unemployment in all countries, including Japan. It makes sense if you think about it: The recession leads to unemployment, unemployment leads to more people feeling lonely and helpless, and that leads to more people thinking about, or actually committing suicide. We already talked in class about how unemployment predisposes someone to be likelier to commit suicide. This factor is only magnified in Japan due to the societal role played by one’s occupation in Japan.

There is another possible invisible string playing a role here as well. Historically in Japan and most eastern countries suicide was considered the worst sin you could ever commit. People would not respect your death and it would bring disgrace to your family. More recently however, suicide rates have been climbing rapidly in Japan and I don't think it's impossible that an increase in suicide leads to more increases in suicide. The more often it occurs, the more 'normal' it seems, making it more likely for other people to consider the thought of suicide. If you have more people thinking about suicide then you’ll probably have more people following through as well.

The third and final invisible string that plays a role here is the high-stress lives that Japanese children are facing now. They spend their entire childhoods and teen years studying vigorously for high-stress exams. Their entire lives are based around doing well in school and ultimately getting a good job. They have such high expectations set for themselves and it only sets them up for failure. This failure leads to depression and stress which predisposes Japanese people to be more likely to commit suicide. I think these three factors together can explain the large discrepancy that exists between Japan’s suicide rates and the rest of the world.

soc001

It's not surprising to me that people who are in or have been in the military have statistically higher suicide rates than those who have not. From a sociological standpoint you need to think about what kinds of people join the military in the first place: adrenaline junkies, people with suppressed rage and anger, people with nowhere else to go. Many people join the military because they have no job, have no family, no house and use the military as a last resort. So to begin with, people who are joining the military are most likely already predisposed to have higher suicide rates. Then when you add in the fact that they are living low-quality lives, are surrounded by killing daily, and are in a high-stress environment, it is very believable that they have higher suicide rates.