This was a very interesting video that put in perspective just how much money that we put into our military. However I do think that spending so much is necessarily a bad thing, I mean yes peace or less necessity for weapons would be ideal however that is just unrealistic and in my opinion i feel that if we were not such an overwhelming military superpower then we would be in dangerous arms races with other nations that could compete. Another cold war would not be what we want. Plus if we are going to be involved in overseas conflicts throughout the world would you rather us spend enormous amounts of money to get the best technology to keep our soldiers alive and give them best the best chance of survival. I do not believe you can put a price tag on someone's life. On the other hand the United States is no doubt looking out for our own interests overseas in conflict areas. Resources are scarce and to remain a superpower we need an enormous amount of resources to do so. And to remain a superpower we need to have an enormous military, I do agree that compared to other countries we are spending less on education and public services but the people who are in charge of making these defense budgets are not just picking some arbitrary number and buying whatever they feel like. So much thought and and decision making goes into making these defense budgets based on what we really need. If we did not need it we would not buy it. People need to understand this concept. As with all new technology compared to old, it is going to be more expensive and to stay on top we need to ante up and pay it. Thats just how it is.

This article really hits home to me. Being in rotc it is without question that I will be deployed somewhere, most likely a military hot spot such as Afghanistan if I commission as an officer. Now granted that the majority of these ptsd sufferers are primarily the enlisted soldiers on the front lines, it no doubt affects officers as well. It is eye opening that this magnitude of our American heroes are suffering from such a terrible, ruthless disorder. And the fact that many of them do not receive much in the way of benefits after returning home does not it make it any easier. War no matter how you look at it, no matter how many rules of engagement and laws to make it more civil will always be ruthless and destructive, physically and emotionally. When it comes down too it, you do whatever it takes to survive which in many cases is some of the most brutal of times which probably contributes to a lot of the ptsd cases. I am very surprised at the sheer number of sufferers though. I knew it was high but I did not think it was over 30%. That is just crazy. We do not want our current Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to get the same reputation as many of the Vietnam war veterans had and many of them suffered from severe cases of ptsd as well. I feel like essentially ptsd is unavoidable as a whole in war, its always going to happen. There needs to be more research towards treatments to such disorders, there is no reason that those who sacrifice everything over there to protect us should have to be emotionally destroyed for the rest of their lives. They have already given enough.

Inequality is completely necessary in society, or at least a society that intends to stay around long and not collapse in on itself. The Soviet Union intended to create a society where everyone was equal and there was no inequality. This sounds great in theory but the fact is, it does not work. How is it fair if someone who works an assembly line at a factory is getting the same salary and benefits of that of a surgeon or engineer, its just not, which is one of the many reasons the Soviet Union collapsed. People will always feel the need to have that distribution of wealth, not because they are greedy or selfish, but because its what is fair. Now it is true that too much distribution of wealth is also bad. I never knew just how huge that was in the United States until we had the lecture on it. I was astounded at how extreme it was. However what I was not astounded by was the fact that it is not hard to predict that the children of those in a certain social class will end up being in that same class or relatively close to that as they become adults as well. This makes perfect sense, I mean yes there are the extremely seldom cases where there are the incredible stories of those who grew up with nothing making it big but that is not the case for 99.99% of those who are in such classes to begin with. It is just like the lecture on the poor lower class people we talked about in class who stole money and bought a huge mansion, yet they took out all the luxurious upper class items and stocked it full of what they grew up with. This is a prime example of how the "apple doesn't fall far from the tree." The point is we will always have social inequality and distribution of wealth however I do not see how it would work any other way.

I feel like the disappearance of religion, or at least the decline in religious belief. We are constantly making strides in science and the study of the beginning of the universe and theories on how everything was formed. Religion was formed based around the unknown and unexplained. People needed a way to understand why everything is the way it is and why everything happens and where people as a whole came from. Before the modern science that we have today, this was all up to ones individual belief, or a sociological belief that people were raised to believe. However, now with our ability to study the universe and its origins more and more scientifically as time goes on, more of these mysteries of the unknown become science fact which seems to disprove religion more and more. It is no surprise that many of these leading European countries are seeming to fall away from their religious beliefs, I feel the United States is becoming the same way even though it is not studied here. I do not believe however, that religion will disappear completely but it will definitely decline. This change is already clearly visible. Churches are always looking for new members and new people to live the life of a preacher, nun, brother, etc. yet there are less and less people going into this life annually. I myself have found myself to become less religious after beginning to understand the studies of modern science and how the universe started etc. and there is no way that it is wrong, or at least highly unlikely. I am not saying there isn't some higher power out there somewhere but religion as we know it, the same way it has been for hundreds of years is no doubt outdated and in many instances wrong.

It is undeniable that the sun is crucial and essential to life on earth, but I feel that many people do not realize how important the sun is to their mental health as well until they actually experience it like the people of Helsinki, Finland experience it annually every winter. Its been obvious even at Penn State last week when the sun came out and people seemed to be generally in a better attitude compared to earlier that week and through the winter in general when it was bleak and grey 90% of the time. I think its extremely interesting how the citizens of Helsinki use artificial lighting to brighten the moods of the citizens and keeping their morale up. I feel that it is very necessary to do so. This is very similar to what happens in Alaska every winter, their is very little sunlight, depression rates go up which correlates to the suicide rates inclining as well. As far as I know they have made no improvements such that Helsinki has made to boost morale and keep depression away but I feel that this would be very helpful in Alaska. I think that we in the continental U.S. take this for granted because we do not experience this at the level of the areas of higher latitudes and Its very interesting to see how these people deal with such an issue in their lives.

I am not surprised at all that parents and guardians tell their kids not to talk to strangers, I was told this as a kid and I grew up in a rural area where nothing significant ever happened. If I have kids in the future I would tell them the exact same thing and to only talk to those who I know and trust. Even though there may be 99.99% of people out there who would never do such a thing as displayed in the video, the fact is, is that there is that 0.01% of those who are dangerous and would attempt to abduct a small child and not even think anything of it. I think the media rightfully so portrays stories like this in the sense that they do, I feel it is completely necessary and is a reminder to parents to keep these ideas strong in their children's minds to never approach someone they do not know or get into their car, etc. Parents are definitely not giving their kids bad advice by telling them to avoid strangers, even if the statistics do not agree. If something were to happen to someones child because such rules to avoid strangers were never put in place then who is to blame? who is the bad, irresponsible parent? And when they are asked, well why would you never tell your child about such dangers, and their response is, well statistically 99.99% of strangers are safe, trustworthy people, is that actually a reasonable excuse to why their child is now in danger and their where-abouts unknown? I think not.

This video is very funny yet very true at the same time. When we are in a group we lose all sense of individualism. No matter how hard we may try to keep it, the urge to conform into what the group is doing is much more powerful and overwhelming for us to ignore or not go along with. This was also seen today in class in the line test video where clearly the lines of the equal length were quite obvious yet because the whole group of actors were answering the questions wrongly the test subject unwillingly did too. I don't believe that it is only just because people wish they could fit in, I think that it has to be some time of instinctual force as well where we must be part of the group no matter what it takes. Everything we do can be related to this because as a group we do nearly everything the same way, whether its eating, speaking, walking, it does not matter, its all the same because that is what everyone else does. We do this because this is how our culture conditioned us to do it and if done otherwise essentially you are different from the rest of the culture and in a way separated from the group, which our instinctual need to be in the group and the "invisible strings" would never allow us to do.

It is hard to even fathom that this many people in Japan are committing suicide and that the suicide rates of the country have risen so sharply in the last few years. The most shocking part is that a large percentage of them are within the 18 to 24 age group. For me, it is hard to imagine doing such an act to myself. A decision like that is something that I do not believe anyone can understand unless you are in that same position. The only good thing that I see that comes out of these suicide forests is that some people reconsider and thanks to many selfless people of Japan, saving the lives of many of the desperate others and rescuing them. I understand that suicide is deeply rooted in Japanese culture, death before dishonor, however how could such ritual still exist in our modern culture. I mean, could you imagine if people here at Penn State would have to go on a suicide watch after midterms or finals? It is crazy that this has to happen in Japan and even crazier that this is not something out of the ordinary there. To me, it really is a miracle that there are the lucky few who survive the suicide forest and even more amazing that many of them returned to teach others of the values in life and have completely turned their lives around as well. I mean you would think that for most of those who attempt suicide they could never fully recover from such an event and it is possible they never do. To commit suicide and the thought process to it is something that I and everyone else who is not suicidal could possibly never truly understand. It is the end of all that they live for, all that they know, and themselves in general. To make a choice like this is just unreal in my mind. All I can hope for is that the suicide rates in Japan go down and that there are more of the suicide forest survivors who speak out to those who are in this mental turmoil and help to save lives.

Soc 001

Like many of the other comments have mentioned, it is very easy to take a great deal of the freedoms in our life for granted. Until I read the list of the freedoms the prisoner mentioned in his letter, it was almost as if I had completely forgotten to even recognize many of the listed activities as freedoms because I experience them everyday. It is so true that until such things are taken away from you, you do not even think twice about them. I am not saying that I feel bad for the prisoner for receiving life in prison, because obviously whatever he did to get such a sentence must have been deserved. However, it is extremely unfortunate that he will never experience such freedoms again. I feel that now I am going to pay more attention to the little things in life that define what it means to be free instead of blindly going through my day, not thinking even giving a thought to how fortunate I am to pick out my clothes for the day and to walk to class with my friends and go out on the weekends. It is hard to believe that this prisoner feels that he is now more free today than he was before being sent to prison. In fact you would think that it would be the complete opposite. Yet in a way he is right, because he recognizes that no matter if he is locked away for life, they can never take away all his freedoms, especially the freedom of thought, which I feel is one of the greatest freedoms that we have. Even though we discussed that nearly all our actions are learned and that we may overestimate how free we actually are, is it not true that an essential freedom we have is the freedom to make even the smallest choices? And this freedom to make all these choices is based on our thoughts and the freedom to think, which essentially cannot be taken from us.