en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/2457137 Comments by pabloescobar39 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/26/living-in-the-world-of-spanglish/#IDComment213679376 Since I was 13, I was fluent in two languages. My first language is Portuguese (Brazilian), while my second is English, which I became fluent in when I moved to England. Since then, I have been studying in English, but at the same time, speaking Portuguese at home-- at least up until I moved to the US and out of my parents’ house. I feel like it is kin. of a shame that I don’t get to practice speaking anything other than English nearly enough while living in the US. In addition to these two languages, I also speak Spanish, which was spoken in my household by my grandmother, who lived with us for about 5 years, so even though I don’t speak fluently, I actually have a very good awareness of what is being said. After moving to England, my family decided to move to China where I studied at an American international school and took a few Mandarin Chinese classes. I have experienced “Spanglish” from my grandmother whenever we moved to England and she attempted to speak the language. However, I have also seen many other languages being mixed: “Portunhol” a mix of Portuguese and Spanish, which my grandmother ended up speaking after living in Brazil for over 30 years, “Chinglish” which was spoken by some of the Taiwanese kids at my high school. These two are only examples of the many languages that eventually get blended with others. Switzerland is a great example of languages being blended because of their astounding four national languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh. These languages are widely spoken at least in some areas of the country; because of that, language barriers are created wherever one language ends and the other starts, making people learn each other’s languages to be able to relate to each other (which holds true in a lot of countries in today’s world). This almost always causes people to mix languages in some sense. So yes, this is definitely not exclusive to the US and Mexico. It is only much more televised and therefore more noticeable. I am a third generation Spanish immigrant into Brazil, and as I read the BBC article that talked about the skill level of immigrants in each of the languages they speak and it seems to hold true in my family, since my grandparents (first generation) spoke Portuguese at least with a Spanish accent, if not actually mixing it with Spanish, then my father (second generation) actually speaks both Portuguese and Spanish fluently (as well as fluent English, with a slight and almost inevitable Brazilian accent). Looking at my life in this way, it almost seems like I had no choice other than learning and accepting at least the three languages that are spoken by my parents. Speaking multiple languages is great to be able to relate to different people, and having lived in four distinct places in the world and visited a few others, I feel as though I have a pretty good picture of the world as a whole, with all of its cultures, languages, religions, philosophies, and ideologies that supposedly makes us different. Sat, 29 Oct 2011 01:26:45 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/26/living-in-the-world-of-spanglish/#IDComment213679376 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/20/voices-from-the-classroom-50/#IDComment210715845 I am not completely sure about what stage I am in at this point in my life. I do know, that I have experienced long periods of time where I felt similar to what stage three and four were described to be by Sam Richards and by the guest speaker who was in the first SOC 119 session. I also know that I don't feel like that anymore which leads me to believe I am at least on stage five. However, I can't really figure out if I am on stage five or on stage six. I was born in Brazil, to a Spanish father, but people in Brazil don't exactly discriminate between races as much. I am not saying that there is no racism in Brazil; there is extreme(unspoken) racism against black people. They live in different places in the city for the most part, and have much less opportunities to get good jobs. Because of this unspoken racism, it can be very hard for some Brazilian people to develop their racial awareness, because all people of white, or light skin color in Brazil are considered to be white for the most part. So even though my grandfather's (being unsure whether my grandmother who was from Peru had a Spanish heritage) entire heritage was from Spain and my mother's from Italy and maybe some Spanish(the uncertainty causes me to have doubt) , we were all considered to be white-- or just the same as everybody else- this isn't talked about nearly enough. Moreover, when I left Brazil and lived among white people in England was when I started thinking about race much more, mostly because of their prejudice. I identified myself as Hispanic for a long time, but I have never been completely sure whether a significant part of my heritage was actually from Spain or if it was only my grandfather's family that lived there. In any case, I feel as though I can’t figure out exactly where my ancestors were from just by asking my family because of the complexity of sociological factors that are involved. Having lived in a few distinct parts of the world and having thought so much about race and cultures I feel pretty comfortable talking about race and I notice that there are many people all over the world that are in very low stages of racial awareness. I don’t know where I would be in the racial identity spectrum if I hadn’t left Brazil, but I know I wouldn’t have focused on it quite as early in my life as I did. I feel as though my family is around the same place I am, being that we’ve been around the world together, but honestly, now that I think about it, I can’t be sure how aware of their racial identity they are. Fri, 21 Oct 2011 23:41:01 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/20/voices-from-the-classroom-50/#IDComment210715845 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/06/voices-from-the-classroom-35/#IDComment204612439 The modern world is entirely used to being male centered. Men are often believed to be better by many people of both sexes. The reason for this is the power distribution between men and women, the way we look and tend to act towards each other and dynamics between the sexes. In any sense, this distribution of power can lean towards either side, meaning that even though men have been taken to be "superior" and/ or more powerful for thousands of years, this could potentially be the other way around just as easily as it happened the way it has. However, these are the two extremities of the spectrum, therefore the better way to go about it would be to bring this distribution of power to the middle, where it would produce a much more fair society where people are truly equal, not a place where people only talk about being equal without truly believing it as a collective unit. The extreme growth in competition, coupled with the fact that a lot of people (even women) think that men are better, or that at least it is more advantageous to be a man as compared to being a woman in terms of being successful or even just having an edge on top of others in terms of social interactions, turns out to have deep consequences on the women of today’s world. The fact that it seems like an advantage to be a man makes it much more likely that women will be more inclined to more like men. This is also true because of the way humans tend to copy each other in a sort of “herd mentality” that usually leads us to imitate or do things that are similar to that which the people we admire do. Since men look like they have more power, it is only natural that women will tend to act more like men as time goes on and as they realize that if they do things in the same way men do, they might be more successful in specific things that they encounter in their day to day lives. In addition to these things, there is one more way to explain why women (particularly, and almost exclusively in the united states) in today’s world are increasingly leaning towards more of male way of acting. This is because families in the US want to make sure that their children succeed by encouraging and empowering them in the same way for both sexes (this, in a way, is due to the strength of the concept of human equality). This leads to American women being more assertive and powerful individuals who can be just as good as men at what they do. Sat, 8 Oct 2011 02:33:02 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/06/voices-from-the-classroom-35/#IDComment204612439 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/27/voices-from-the-classroom-24/#IDComment201605190 Even though the US contributes to a large part of foreign aid in the world, there are quite a few other very active countries that take part in this (mostly European countries). For this reason, I feel that Americans should realize that they are not the only ones helping and furthermore realize that a lot more can be done. Finally, today’s situation in Africa and the growing concern around the world makes it so African tribes and populations or different areas throughout the continent can receive goods and food from other countries. However, this leads to hinder the African people by damaging their ability, or will of being self sufficient and creating innovation. (part 2) Sat, 1 Oct 2011 04:05:02 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/27/voices-from-the-classroom-24/#IDComment201605190 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/27/voices-from-the-classroom-24/#IDComment201604072 After hearing what Sam Richards said about foreign aid, especially from the US, in addition to the lecture about Haiti with the guest lecturer (whose name I did not catch), I became quite interested in foreign aid, how it really works, and reasons why people chose to do it. This helped me realize that a lot of aid can be largely ineffective in terms of lifting the country up from its current state. Having to do this current Haiti project, we really get some perspective on what type of aid people generally fail to provide to other countries. This includes things that are can help their economy and actually contribute to improve their overall situation. Things like building factories or helping farmers are the things that can actually help people raise out of their situation and poverty by providing jobs and self-sufficiency. This is the only way to actually help people in their situation. Another, possibly unrelated, trend that came to my attention was the way that the US offers foreign aid to other countries; they manufacture whatever goods that are to be sent to specific developing countries in times of crisis inside the US. While this may help populations in extreme poverty, it may or may not be an act of true charity, because it stimulates the US economy instead of the developing country at hand, which benefits the US as well. What should be happening instead is an aid that actually helps build the infrastructure needed for factories that can generate jobs and revenue to stimulate the country’s economy and therefore actually helping the country itself in the long term. Which can really make a difference in people’s lives and the situation that they are in, instead of just giving them something for their short-term benefit. (part 1) Sat, 1 Oct 2011 04:01:03 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/27/voices-from-the-classroom-24/#IDComment201604072 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/13/voices-from-the-classroom-9/#IDComment194349907 It makes sense that a standardized test such as the SAT would show a trend between how rich a kid's family is to how well they do in it. The reason for this, is because the high school kids that are in families that are richer can afford to go to better schools, where they may get a better overall education, but even more importantly, for a test with material as easy as that of what is in the SAT (for kids that are planning on going to college, which is the very reason the test is taken in the first place), they have more access to classes focused on the SAT or tutors that can serve enough help to boost someone’s score by at least 100 points, sometimes much more than that. However, this is not the best way to measure how intelligent a person is, or even just their computational skills, the SAT can only be a good measurement for how well a student can perform on a test or an exam. I agree with the fact that families with more money have more opportunities or can create better opportunities for their children to succeed in today's society, and how different races or ethnicities in themselves can serve the same purpose in different ways. Both of these things are constantly affecting everybody in the world who is in society in any manner. But this does not make a person of more wealth or a person of lighter skin more intelligent than another person may be. The things, events and places that a certain person is exposed to, is able to process in their minds, and thinks introspectively about it are what makes a person grow an intellect that may be superior to the one of another. Genes may also be able to transfer a way of thinking or any other way of approaching things that may assist in building onto a person’s intelligence through their life, but in the end, it is only up to the person at hand. Regarding trends between different races; that one(race) might have a better average total score than another may lead people to believe that one ethnic group might be more intelligent than another, which can in turn lead to the spreading of stereotypes about each race. Though it may appear this way, the only cause for these trends appears to be related to how wealthy a certain person's family may or may not be. Stereotypes, therefore, can only sometimes be true: these being facts that some people may hold to be true deep inside their consciousness. Sat, 17 Sep 2011 04:08:53 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/13/voices-from-the-classroom-9/#IDComment194349907 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/26/what-do-you-want-to-know-before-its-all-over/#IDComment189200503 Brazil seems to have a type of “unspoken apartheid” which deeply divides the population and makes it for a sort of barrier in which black people miss out on all of the opportunities that should be available to everybody. When it comes to gender issues, I am aware we haven’t reached the topic yet, but since the President of Brazil is now a woman, and women all over the world have been fighting for their rights for decades now. I am interested in comparing and contrasting the “type of racism” of different countries and the effect they can have on the people as well as comparing gender issues. END Sat, 3 Sep 2011 01:41:10 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/26/what-do-you-want-to-know-before-its-all-over/#IDComment189200503 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/26/what-do-you-want-to-know-before-its-all-over/#IDComment189200473 That would be easy to conclude from simply comparing facts between the two countries and seeing all the similarities and differences that it has. On the other hand, racism doesn’t have to be directly shown or spoken about; most racism in the world today takes place in a much more subtle manner. People today don’t talk as racists or show it in an obvious manner, but definitely act it, be it in a conscious or unconscious way. Furthermore, Brazil displays a type of racial barrier even today. This racial barrier does take place in the United States as well, but here it seems like people of different ethnic backgrounds might live in different neighborhoods or things like that, but it seems like there is a lot more opportunity for people in minority groups here than in a country like Brazil. Sat, 3 Sep 2011 01:41:02 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/26/what-do-you-want-to-know-before-its-all-over/#IDComment189200473 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/26/what-do-you-want-to-know-before-its-all-over/#IDComment189200383 We have been talked about history a lot in the introduction to this class, and we focus a lot of the US for obvious reasons. However, I would like to know more about gender and ethnic relations in South America. As Sam mentioned, most of the slaves brought from Africa to the Americas were taken to South and Central America. If Brazil "adopted" the one drop rule that exists in the US, over fifty percent of the population would be of African race or descent. Moreover, Brazil never had a civil war aimed at abolishing slavery; it was the work of Princess Isabel, who helped ease the transition into a society without slavery. There were people who wanted slavery to stay (mostly for self-interest), however, the people of Brazil did not split into two clear sides and fight one of its bloodiest wars. Instead, it seems, people actually realized how incredibly inhumane it was to put people (of any color) into the conditions that Africans were put into when taken from Africa to the Americas. I would like to know more about how the racism in the US can differ from that of the one that takes place in Brazil. Are American people more racist? Sat, 3 Sep 2011 01:40:37 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/26/what-do-you-want-to-know-before-its-all-over/#IDComment189200383 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/the-cost-of-empire-soc-001-blog/#IDComment145254806 It is common knowledge that the USA invests, by far, the most money into their army than any other country in the world, and therefore, it has the most influential military in the world. All this power comes with a price, like the responsibility to help weaker ally countries in times of hardship or even to invade other countries that "seem" to need external help. Or are those just excuses made in order to put a military base in other countries that can benefit the US by trading or for buying resources. It seems that for as long as the US has had a strong army, they've also had if not the most, a very high amount of resources offered to its people. Moreover, to ensure that its people had these resources, the US has “had” to go into war and has invaded different countries (like Iraq for example), which they struck upon with war and are still in their land and buying oil from them. It isn’t fair that the country with the biggest army gets to have an unnecessary amount of resources, only because that means that other countries will be denied the access to these goods because of the US. This would not be a problem if the biggest consumer wasn’t the biggest waster as well but unfortunately, those come together, at least in this case. The amount of food and water alone that is wasted by the US could feed many other people. If you stop and think about how many other resources they overuse that could be going towards people that may actually need it, that number rises even higher. Moreover, the billions of dollars that the US spends on things like having useless bases in other countries, only ferociously adds to the amount of money that is being wasted by the US and just used to leverage, and to establish that they are the country in power (even though their debt is up to the trillions). Because of such an influential army, the US may never have to pay their debt, which has already seemed like an impossible payback for a while now, because of such leverages that allows them to still buy resources and ask other countries for favors. Sat, 23 Apr 2011 00:38:48 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/11/the-cost-of-empire-soc-001-blog/#IDComment145254806 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/09/the-fricking-frackers-own-my-arse/#IDComment143279391 The US government has, for many years now, been trying to secure future energy needs for the country. They've fought multiple wars for oil, so it only makes sense that they would quickly jump at the opportunity of digging their own energy source, even if it is detrimental to people. In fact, it makes sense that they don't even charge taxes to the big corporations that mine these energy resources and contaminates people's water. The job of a government is to provide for its people, and because the US has been able to deliver so much energy and resources consistently and increasingly to its people, makes them more likely to keep trying to get more and more. It seems President Obama is concerned with the US having a better source for their energy, and ideally this would lead to the US to stop intervening with other countries' business just so they can have someone to buy oil from. However, I believe that the search for energy would probably not stop because of people's tendency to compete for resources and ultimately power. Additionally, these natural gases are already being sold to other countries, which is an act that goes against what Obama said about his concern with the US having energy security in the future. However, companies will try to sell their product whenever there is a demand for it. This leads the elite to grow richer as well as going against the concerns that were voiced by the government to its people. These inconsistencies about what the government says and what is actually happening make it quite hard for people to know the truth about what is going on with their country. Even though Obama seems to have potential for being a great leader, the country seems to be focusing on the wrong things. Even if Obama tries his best to do good to the country, his decisions will be shaped around selfish concerns like keeping himself in power and enabling the elite to profit; widening the social gap. The way the government is set up allows huge companies to make huge profits even if they do cause hardship to others. Sat, 16 Apr 2011 02:15:55 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/09/the-fricking-frackers-own-my-arse/#IDComment143279391 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/03/women-and-war/#IDComment141120203 This is a very interesting video despite how good a job the speaker does and the fact that she seems to be talking from her own experience, but also because of the content. She speaks of growing up in Iraq and being exposed to so much war and violence and initially tries to show that she’s seen many horrible wars and heard many stories that most people would probably not want to know about. She then goes on to show that she is an ideal person to be traveling around and hearing stories about war heroes or people that simply helped others in a moment of need. It is amazing what people can accomplish, but they have to be headed in the right direction. The fact that there have been so many people throughout history that killed others just because they were following orders shows a very bad face of war. Most people fighting in war don't really want to be there risking their lives, they really just want to be safe and in their homes. However, because of the way people are made believe that they're fighting for a good cause, and other sociological reasons, soldiers just conform and go along with their army to do almost anything that is asked of them "for their country". Zainab Salbi also talks about how many stories she has heard of women doing good to the people around them during wars while at the same time, men caused widespread destruction. I believe that women are more likely to help others during a time of war because of the invisible strings around the fact that they can’t serve the military in many countries around the world. They might feel like they don’t have any better way of helping others and actually end up doing much more good than the men who are fighting these wars, and are ultimately doing the exact opposite of good. However, this doesn’t mean that women are the only ones who can help. Men can be just as helpful or heroic as them if they’re just reminded of that; ideally by a woman. Fri, 8 Apr 2011 23:59:36 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/03/women-and-war/#IDComment141120203 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/30/so-what-your-take-on-those-inequality-classes/#IDComment139274198 These graphs display a lot of provoking facts. In today's world, the top 1% of the population makes the most money and decisions. Since being in the government is a great way to control the country and its economy, a lot of the money is put into politics. A lot of money put into politics leads elections, to having vote-buying, bribery, and any other types of corruption that will almost always lead to the victory of whoever is able to allocate more money into their campaigns to positions in office. Because of this type of election of people in high positions, leaders tend to make decisions based on their own good, instead of the good of the whole population. The fact that the top ten percent of the population of the United States controls two-thirds of the money of the whole country shows the amount of power they have over the majority of the population. Moreover, people tend to stay in the same social class they grew up in, if not only one class up or down. Rarely, do people skip a class up or down; it is a re-occurring trend. All of these things happen in most countries in today’s world, but the in United States, these problems are very big. For example, the combined net worth of the 10 best-paid members of congress is 2.8 billion dollars. Congress members have 1 out 2 chances of becoming a millionaire. There is no reason for people to wonder things like why does the elite in America is always gaining total annual income, while the bottom 80 percent of the population gets paid less and less, or why does corporate tax always drop. Big corporations are what most of the American market is made up of, it only makes sense that they be positively affected by taxes, which area chosen by the people in the elite who seem to be constantly getting more and more successful. All this happens while the unemployment rate raises, people get robbed of their money, and the elite makes it seem like people should be thanking them. There is probably no way for the systems we use today to change, because ultimately we tend to stick with our own systems and blindly following our selfish leaders. Sat, 2 Apr 2011 02:50:01 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/30/so-what-your-take-on-those-inequality-classes/#IDComment139274198 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/24/religion-in-the-future/#IDComment137616118 It is very cool to be able to see trends in society and what should happen if the trends remain the same. On the other hand, it is impossible to know what will actually happen in the future. Nevertheless, all studies can potentially be helpful to people. This study can be There are many ways in which these trends can be could be, for example a new and very charismatic prophet that quickly gains popularity in one of these countries. Even more likely, would be if a government started to believe that the people in their country need more faith and tried to reverse this process. These are two out of an infinite amount of things that could either slow down, or completely reverse this mathematical trend. The assumptions made by the people who drove this study seem to be the correct ones to make, but who is to say that they should have made many other assumptions? Or would these assumptions hold true in the real world? These are only speculations made by a group of bright mathematicians, so they could easily be untrue or faulty in some way. In any case, these types of trends and studies are very useful to give people a notion of what is happening in the world today. Moreover, studies like these can serve for people to see how trends form and what types of trends might happen in the future. With that type of knowledge or estimate, people are bound to find useful ways to apply it. I am an atheist myself, and as much as I have noticed the wide growth of the number of people that are not affiliated with any religion; I don’t think that this will happen in too many countries. In the occurrence that it does, I believe that a lot of people would need faith to keep them from the randomness and chaos that is the world as we know it. Therefore, I believe that in the unlikely scenario that people do stop having faith in religion, they would also need to find something else to have faith in. Sat, 26 Mar 2011 02:10:21 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/24/religion-in-the-future/#IDComment137616118 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/01/lighting-our-way/#IDComment135959799 It is very interesting to think about what it would be like to live in a northern country. The drastic change in the amount of sunlight that is offered in all the different seasons has got to be unsettling. The people in these countries get the extremes of having either too little or too much light. Not only do they suffer from depression or lack of energy in the winter, but the excessive amount of daylight in the summer can also disrupt people's sleeping habits. With respect to sociology, this is just another factor of our lives that we ourselves cannot control. There are many things that can be altered in people’s personalities depending on where they’re from. The environment around a person can really help shape them. A simple example of how settings can affect the people in them are the differences between the people in cities as opposed to people in rural areas or less populated areas. These man-made groupings of people can really speed up a person’s daily life. Another example would be just how a person that lives in the tropics as compared to a person in Scandinavia and what different their daily lives are. As for freedom, it is interesting to think about how the amount of light that people are given affects their lives directly. It is a type of constraint that might be connected to the prosperity and order that the Nordic countries have. It could be that the constraint of light can affect the people in a way that may make them conform, or simply be prone to order, structure and following their government. The lack of light ultimately restricts the amount of time that people stay outside, because of their inclination of using a conventional light, or ideally one of those bright lights that were shown in the video. Not only does the darkness keep people indoors for longer periods of time than when brighter, but also how extremely cold it gets in these countries. These two things together are a definite source of depression for at least a small part of the population (which may in turn, make them easier to control as a people). Sat, 19 Mar 2011 02:19:11 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/01/lighting-our-way/#IDComment135959799 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/28/the-lottery-as-a-blessing-or-a-curse/#IDComment134356130 The vast majority of people around the world have the solid idea that winning the lottery is surely a good thing; even a sure-shot at happiness. By no means does winning the lottery assure happiness to anybody. In any case, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that money isn’t the sole source of happiness in life. There have been many people throughout history that have tried to get across to other people the idea that money doesn’t bring happiness; other things do. There are many things that can go wrong with winning the lottery. These things are only ever more likely to happen because the people that win the lottery are usually lower-class, meaning that they do not know how to manage their money as well as they should whenever they come across a large amount of money. This happens because these are the people who are not educated enough to recognize the odds of actually winning the lottery. The most common thing that can go wrong with losing the lottery is to simply waste all the money early on and not get to enjoy it for a long period of time, or even just wasting it on the wrong things. On the other hand, when the forces that can go wrong are from external sources, there is a limited range of things a person can do to stop the envy that can be found in other people all around us. Even though winning the lottery doesn’t assure happiness, it is a very good shot at it. People that know how to go about investing money and being smart about whatever they purchase are the ones who can potentially get the most satisfaction out of winning the lottery in the long run. Spending money on things that don’t only satisfy one in the present moment can really increase a person’s level of happiness in a prolonged manner. Moreover, connections to other people are much harder(if not impossible) to control, since it is an external force. In any event, happiness is different to everyone and money is far from being the only thing that can affect it. Sat, 12 Mar 2011 03:59:29 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/28/the-lottery-as-a-blessing-or-a-curse/#IDComment134356130 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2010/04/11/want-to-learn-chinese/#IDComment130742991 Personally, I speak 3 languages fluently: English, Portuguese and Spanish. As well as some mandarin. I can't remember any point in my life when I was not taking a foreign language course or learning a new language. This taught me that it is almost impossible to learn a language fluently without other people to practice with. The best way to learn a language being going to where the language is spoken of course. But the fact that the chinese government is subsidizing the costs for chinese national chinese teachers that can speak english means that it will be much easier for kids in the United States to learn this incredibly fast-growing language which was largely unavailable in the past because of the distance between the two countries and the lack of instruction for these kids. Moreover, I've been learning English since grade school in Brazil, so I can surely attest to the fact that starting to learn a language from childhood can really improve the chances of reaching fluency in a new language. Schools should definitely require students to take at least 2 classes worth of credits throughout high school and even preferably, in middle school and kindergarten. A raise in the amount of children that learn a foreign language at least at some point in their lives might hopefully decrease the amount of narrow-mindedness that americans can be affected by because of the lack of information they are given and the fact that they might not care enough to search for information about other countries. Learn a language thoroughly involves not only just learning the dialect, but also understanding the people and their culture at least a little bit. Socially, people that are have an extensive knowledge of the world usually get along with others a lot better than those who are not as well rounded. In today’s world the USA is starting to accept that the faster growing country are now China and India, and that it is advantageous for people to learn a language that more people speak; the same way so many people have been learning English as a second language for decades Sat, 26 Feb 2011 02:03:08 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2010/04/11/want-to-learn-chinese/#IDComment130742991 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/06/empathy-might-be-our-natural-drive/#IDComment129046303 My base knowledge on how humans are imperfect leads me to understand the reason why people feel empathy and why it is useful. On top of that, I would begin to better understand what emotions humans are and aren't supposed to have according to the video, therefore I would be more likely to be peaceful and ignore the other useless feelings like aggressiveness and violence. The way humans are soft-wired to feel good emotions more so than bad ones would make me have a better outlook on life in general. There would be several things I would try to change in my life; these include treating people differently, turning into a vegetarian, trying to contribute to charity events and helping less fortunate people. I would evidently feel more empathy towards the people around me and the lack of other feelings, after I get used to ignoring all the other feelings that I believe are not useful to human nature, I might turn into a much more pleasant person. This belief would also me believe that I have a better understanding of the world which would then make me have a better attitude towards life and what we are in earth for. My strong beliefs on empathy would lead me to care more about not only humans, but also animals. The shift in beliefs would therefore make me feel the need to stop eating animals because I would think that I am supposed to feel empathy for any animals that we as a culture are accustomed to eating. The belief that people are supposed to feel empathy towards all other people would make anyone feel more inclined to help other people that need it. For this reason, I might start contributing to helping other people a lot more than I currently do, and actually going out of my way to do it; which would be a very good outcome to society as a whole. As a whole, the ideas that are presented in the video would make it for a much better society. Sociologically, people’s coexistence would be much improved because we would find that the trends in what people do would be much more humane than that of what we have in the world as it is. Sat, 19 Feb 2011 04:53:02 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/06/empathy-might-be-our-natural-drive/#IDComment129046303 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/04/the-not-so-invisible-structure-that-shapes-us/#IDComment127468772 The facts and numbers displayed by the article are startling when in relation to other countries. the apparent reasons given by the article are not all valid. Specifically the one about American people having shorter vacation periods than people in other countries. This happens for the very reason that the majority of the American society itself tends not to want to travel abroad for various reasons, not this one. A big reason for the American population as a whole not to have a good impression of other countries is the media. The news that actually make it into American news stations from foreign countries are usually bad news, and even at that it is hard to find anything about other countries on the TV news(in relation to other countries). This widespread rejection, that comes from the media as well as other things, of traveling to other countries is made even more dominant by the sociological strings that shape the people in the USA. This is made possible by the various geographical traits that are available to people around America. However, people should be culturally and globally aware. In today's world, we are surrounded by people of different ethnic and/or cultural backgrounds than that of our own. Having knowledge about other cultures helps us further understand the reason other people might do or say something we don't understand or have never been exposed to. The reasons people might not want to leave their own country can vary, but be it ignorance of other cultures or simply not wanting to go through all the logistics and work that traveling to another country involves, this is not an example of free-will being exercised. The society as a whole rejects other cultures and stays within its own bubble in order to stay in its own comfort zone. Society shapes people into thinking this way, and therefore creates a trend in its population where the people tend to choose not to travel outside of their own country. There are reasons for this type of xenophobia, but the reason people don't get to choose for themselves is because of how society shapes our actions. Sat, 12 Feb 2011 03:54:07 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/04/the-not-so-invisible-structure-that-shapes-us/#IDComment127468772 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/30/conformity-rules-the-day/#IDComment126022087 The humor of this video relies on the fact that this could have happened to most people and played out exactly the same way. Moreover, Most people don't realize that their reaction would probably be very similar. This is because we don't really understand the power society has over us. The fact that the subjects all ended up conforming at one point or another shows that they wanted to be liked by the rest of the group, and what better way to be liked than to act the same? Comforming is just another form of agreement, which we humans are always in search of when in a group; which is why it makes sense that the subjects in the video do what they do. This all happens because human beings are social creatures, and are especially affected by society. The video shows people facing the same way everyone else was facing in the elevator, but another irrational thing that humans do (and it shows in the video) is dressing up as a uniform whole. This video merely displays two examples of one of the many irrational things that humans do because of societal forces that are exerted on them. The fact that we are social creatures forces us to act the way we do, and therefore stops us (in many cases) from making free decisions. On the other hand, the reason why we do unexplainable things is for rational societal reasons. People usually want to be part of a group and don’t want to be singled out and noticed by the rest of the group or even somebody else. It is completely rational to want to be part of a group and to try to avoid conflict, but some of the actions people take towards this main goal may sometimes seem irrational. It is not so bad to want or not want to be part of a group, since conformity can lead to good and bad things. There is no real reason why people should stay together, yet we all choose to do so anyway. This may either be because we know grouping to be the best way to go, but it is most likely because we have a predisposition to be this way. Fri, 4 Feb 2011 23:48:33 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/01/30/conformity-rules-the-day/#IDComment126022087