Media is usually ninety-nine percent of the reason people believe things that are not true. Americans are terrified because the only facts they get are from what the media tells us. No one really knows what Jihad is, besides a “holy war”. So to the majority of Americans, they think that Jihad is a holy war against people of other religions, but in actuality, it is a holy war with oneself. I only know this because of the World in Conversation talk that I participated in earlier this semester. I was like every other American. We are afraid of things we don’t understand. At this point in my life, I realized that it’s pointless to worry about things I can’t change. There is always going to be war. Someone is always going to disagree with someone else. Instead of focusing on all the ways to either avoid conflict or resolve it by taking out the entire human species, we need to focus on how to live with it. Do I believe that the United States and the Middle East will ever be at peace? Absolutely not. I do however believe that we can find a happy medium where everyone wins, or as Charlie Sheen would say, everyone is “winning.” Empathy allows us to understand why other people hate us. We should use it to our advantage. To be empathetic is to understand the world around us. Americans are terrified because they don’t know any better. Who can blame us? As an educated society, we are less than stellar with our knowledge. We all need to take a step back and look at things from a third party perspective. The video makes us Americans scared out of our minds because of our lack of knowledge on the subject. But why would we know about Jihad? I don’t really think the blame can be placed on any group of people in particular. I think the blame should be placed on ignorance, and as a society, we should strive to end it. If ignorance is bliss, I don’t want to be blissfully happy.

This article brings up many social issues that a lot of people deal with daily. We have been talking about empathy in class lately, and I think this is a perfect example of where we need it. No one that reads this article will really feel like Mr. Devoureau did in this situation. This is a very sticky situation though. I understand that some jobs need to be done by a certain gender. When entering concert arenas, females pat other females down, while other men pat men down. These aren’t meant to cause problems. In fact, these rules and regulations are put into affect to keep the discomfort for the general public to a minimum. The situation gets sticky when we have to take into account the feelings of Mr. Devoureau who is technically a female, but had surgery and identifies as a male. Not only must we look at his feelings, but we also must take into account the general public. As a company, you are always looking out for your customer’s best interest. This puts the employer in a horrible situation. What would you do in this situation? As the employer, you would have to take many things into consideration including the employee’s perspective/emotions as well as the general publics view on this issue as well as their individual feelings. If employing this man were going to cause you to lose business, then your natural response would be to not employ him. This however, would be considered discrimination. As the employer, you must find a solution. You can only do this if you embrace empathy and look at each side of the situation. I can only imagine how horrible the discrimination would be towards me if I were a transgender. There isn’t going to be a simple solution until people finally accept the fact that transgender people exist. We have read articles about five genders, but until the world opens up to the idea, and it becomes a “social norm” there is going to be discrimination towards people like Mr. Devoureau. It will be a long and grueling road, but people need to stand up for themselves.

When I hear a war survivor telling their story, I take a moment to thank God that I was born into a life that didn’t have to go through that. I don’t really think any of us could understand what war is like, unless we lived through it. That aside, I can’t help but compare this woman’s ideas to that of a perfect marriage. If you think about it, marriage is a smaller scaled war. (If you look at marriage on the negative side, but nonetheless.) Perhaps I mean divorce more than marriage, but regardless, they can be compared to war negotiation. In this case, I am comparing a marriage to one side of the peace negotiation table, meaning, a single country or alliance. This talk brings up the idea that during war, most countries are at war with themselves, and don’t even know it. To make a marriage work, both people have to negotiate. It has to be even, or a settlement will never be made. Think about it. If you and your partner come up with a plan to fix things in your relationship, but only your partner comes up with the ideas, you are going to end up still being unsatisfied and find yourself back at the drawing table. That’s how peace negotiations are. Without the presence of women, the other side of war, the negotiations are empty and will harvest useless results. We can’t expect things to get better, if the people sustaining life throughout the war aren’t involved in the progress to peace. If you think about it, it makes sense. The problem is, who is actually going to take this idea and run with it? This ties into what we’ve been talking about in class with the budget cuts. Everyone has ideas that would make the situation better, but no one wants to stand up and take it to the next level. I can’t imagine any person that is involved in the peace negotiations welcoming the idea of adding women and the other side of the war for the talking table. Perhaps we could get one woman a seat, but that wouldn’t do much of anything. The negotiators could just drown out the single woman. We would need 50/50. Much like a marriage, if both parties don’t meet in the middle, there is no resolution.

Apathy is something that I have started to embrace. We all face it, and sometimes it’s just better to let it take control. The country has taken apathy under its wing and given it full control. It may not necessarily be a bad thing though. It may be a healthier root for America. I am fully aware of the bribery that happens on a daily basis but I am also aware that I really can’t do anything to change it. I’ve found that it’s a lot easier to not worry about the things that don’t matter, and not much matters. I’m not saying I don’t care about what happens in this country, I’m just saying that nothing I do or say is going to change the people in charges’ opinion. Putting time and energy into something that I know will not change anything is really depressing. I can’t bring myself to put my heart into something that I know won’t matter. I think that’s how most people in this country are. If everyone’s mindset is anywhere near mine, its no wonder that no one is doing anything. It’s pretty upsetting to think about. Not everyone knows what’s going on, but it doesn’t even really matter. To be honest, I’d rather not know. That way, I don’t have to worry at all about things I can’t change. It’s like worrying about the weather. No one can change if it’s going to rain or snow so why worry about it? All worrying does is make your blood pressure go up and cause anxiety. The more you relax; your life seems to go so much smoother. Again, I’d like to stress that I’m not saying I don’t care about what happens; I’m just saying that I understand that I am helpless and accept my position in society. Sam’s lectures were very insightful, I just can’t seem to bring myself to care. I’m sure there were many students who didn’t know this type of thing was happening in our country, so his lecture was probably very eye opening. But as I said, Apathy has taken over.

Controlling crowds is a sticky terrain. It is “well known” that in a state of emergency, people panic and cause chaos. People in power always try to keep the general public away from a panic when emergencies creep up on us. People are really just semi-smarter sheep and look for someone to heard them. In a crisis, people follow what they are told for the most part. Chaos happens when a free thinker stands up and points out the flaws in the plan and wins over the crowd. The trick is to convince the sheep that your idea is the better idea. That is usually the hardest part. An example is in the movie “ The Day After Tomorrow”. The people that got caught in the tsunami and then blizzard were all following the police’s ideas. The main characters son tries to tell the crowd that if they go outside they will freeze to death. His idea is not convincing though as most of the people believe the police officer that says they need to move. They later find the crowd frozen to death outside. Managing crowds is a life or death situation all the time. It’s much like running a government. Every decision that is made isn’t going to help every single person but is in the best interest of the majority, or it is supposed to at least. It is nearly impossible to plan for an emergency. I feel that if individuals made their own decisions during a state of emergency, things would flow so much smoother. The problem is most people are freeloaders, so it wouldn’t really be possible. To get people to follow your idea, you must prove that you know what you’re talking about and that you are looking out for their best interest. Once you plant an idea in people’s heads, it grows like a disease and they believe it 100%. That’s when chaos could take over. Managing a crowd is really impossible. Even at events like warped tour when everyone is there for the same reason, things get out of hand and people get hurt.

This guy’s biggest problem is that he is trying way too hard. Every time someone tries to seem like they are something they not, they just end up pointing out how much they aren’t that. This guy is clearly a super awkward white guy and his attitude in the video proves just that. It’s like when someone that can’t dance tries to get low on the dance floor. More often than not, they end up looking like a total ass because they are trying so hard to bust a move. I remember in High School my one friend was gay, and everyone knew he was gay, but he refused to admit he was. The harder he tried to act like he was straight, the easier it was to tell he was gay. I’m not saying that you can act “white”, but I’m saying if you embrace who you are, it makes life so much less awkward for you, and everyone else. If this guy had talked about the features without trying to be chill and funny, he most likely wouldn’t have looked like a total white guy that everyone laughs at. My first reaction was questioning what the hell he needed to carry a gun for. He looks like someone that doesn’t even know how to hold a gun, let alone need it to be concealed and in a convenient location. To be quite honest, I’m still not convinced he does carry a gun. They way he handles himself and the gun makes me believe that he is just trying to act like he knows exactly what he is doing. The only thing the video does is undoubtedly show how unbelievably white this dude is. He gets nothing accomplished besides making an extremely awkward video that proves his whiteness. The biggest problem is that he tries to be funny, but says really awkward things like “who looks at your zipper?” The awkward level would have been much lower if he had used the word “crotch” or something along those lines. I don’t know many people that go around saying “zipper” referring to someone’s crotch.

The seasons are most definitely part of the invisible strings that we discuss. People’s moods, eating habits, and sleeping patterns change with the seasons. Regardless of if they want them to. I know personally, when winter rolls around I instantly become negative. No matter how hard I try, everything just seems to weigh so much more on my shoulders and all I want to do is sleep. Simple tasks like getting out of bed seem to be a burden. A lot of people seem to suffer from seasonal depression. There are so many songs written about people “lasting” through the winter and the talk of feeling so down. This leads me to believe that the affect of sunlight on people is not just a personal matter, but also more of an invisible strings idea. Much like how swearing is seen across cultures, seasonal depression is also seen across cultures. I am honestly amazed that that many people live in places where the winter is that harsh when it comes to sunlight. I know how much I am affected and I see way more sunlight than they do. I can only imagine how hard the winter hits the people of Helsinki. I wonder how these people would react if they moved to somewhere, like Florida, if their entire lifestyle would change. I know that if I moved out of western Pennsylvania to somewhere that had a shorter winter and more sun, I would be able to function so much easier. It’s interesting that one thing can change our entire lifestyles and sleeping patterns. Bayside has a lyric along the lines of “If the sun don’t shine tomorrow, we’ll survive” Although we may not physically die, the lack of sunlight really kills a person’s spirit. A man in the video said that you don’t notice the affects of the lamps until you don’t use them. It exemplifies the idea that the strings that cause us to act certain ways are invisible and sometimes hard to identify. The sun is one string that they have become aware of, and are taking steps to make life easier.

As a student who has been diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 20, I completely agree with this video. It is so ridiculously easy to get prescribed Concerta or Adderall. As someone who has taken Concerta for a year, I can say that it completely strips you of the person you are. I haven’t taken it in over a year (I’m now 22) because of the horrible side effects. The video says that the medicine we are given for ADHD makes us lose our creativity and I completely agree. When I was taking my medicine I was the most mundane person in the world. It makes you loose interest in absolutely everything. Our educational system seems to be out to do the exact opposite of what it’s meant to do. I know for me personally, I was much better at retaining information when I was younger and had more of an imagination. Now I feel like I can only see things black and white, right or wrong, and nothing in between. We are bread to be narrow-minded and think in the box. When we try to think outside the box we are told that’s the wrong way to think and are forced into medication. The people that are changing the world and thinking outside of the box are usually the college dropouts. They realize that they need to stop wasting their time with classes and ideas that are just holding them back. We should all look to them for inspiration. I once saw an ad for Apple and it was talking about how they embrace the “misfits” and applaud their ideas. This could be a reason as to why Apple’s technology is soaring. Regardless, our education system is completely corrupt. How can anyone expect us to be innovative if they shove conformity down our throats for 12+ years? By the time we graduate college or even high school our creativity is basically gone. All we can do is what we’re told. It’s almost like we are being brainwashed by our professors and teachers. I just can’t see innovation moving forward with our education system regressing.

This song is hilarious. Besides it’s hilarity, it is so true. People demonstrate the song’s ideas almost daily. People break up, people move on. Almost all of us have been in a relationship and said things like “I can’t live without you” to our significant other. Funny thing is, most of us have broken up with said person, and we’re still alive. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in love but I don’t believe that that one person is “meant” for me and that I won’t be able to go on without them. Relationships are meant to end. People aren’t made to be our soul mates; they are here to help us along our journey. I do however believe that social pressures and expectations tend to shorten the length of most of our relationships. Our expectations of how things should be are so high; we make it nearly impossible to stay happy with one person. I’m not saying that people don’t care for each other in relationships, because that’s not true. After relationships end, most people tend to go back and forth between missing and hating the person. A huge part of the “love” we feel is us growing closer to the person due to seeing them all the time; not because we will cease to exist without them. Hooking up for at least six months seems to ensue. It’s not because we “can’t live without” them. It’s more because it’s a familiar setting. People get married, people get divorced, and people get remarried. This song exemplifies these ideas that maybe we aren’t made for one specific person. Rather, every relationship we have shapes us to be the person we are. If we hadn’t come to Penn State, we wouldn’t have met the people in our class. We would however have gone to a different university, and met different people in our classes there who would potentially be our “soul mates”. In the song he talks about how if something had been different earlier in his life then he would be living a life tangent to his current one. Meaning that he would be in love with a different person, but still be happy.

I’ve always considered myself more of an apathetic than empathic person. I think that society has made me this way. I’ve found that it’s much easier to just accept things the way they are and move on than to question and push for improvement. Relient K says it best with their song “Forget and not Slow Down”. It wasn’t until I watched this video that I realized how ridiculous the idea of apathy is. If no one cares about anything, how will be progress? I think that everyone needs to watch this video. It really puts our lives into perspective. I usually try not to think of mortality or why we fight wars. I’ve just accepted the fact that there are different people and they are always going to be fighting. After watching this video, I start asking myself “why?” about just about everything that’s going on in the world. We empathize with people of our own kind, but aren’t we all the same in the end? Gender, race, sexuality, weight, height, and religion aside, we are all human. We share the same traits and all got to be on this Earth the same way. Technology has brought us closer than ever, but has also pushed us away from an empathic society. We no longer have to sit down and talk to someone to know who they are. Thanks to the Internet and sites like Facebook, we can gather as much information we need about someone without actually meeting them. This allows people to jump to conclusions about other people, which causes a lot of unneeded strife. As long as judgment can be made so quickly, it is nearly impossible to step towards a complete empathetic society. In the end, we are our worst enemies. I think this video is the first step in making people realize that we are all the same and there is no reason to hate each other. However, the issue is getting people to open up and to watch the video and truly accept the things this sociologist is pointing out. Until then, empathy will not progress.