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Contents contributed and discussions participated by Alexis Schomer

Alexis Schomer

Seeing Like a State - 4 views

    • Alexis Schomer
       
      I don't see how the "satisfaction to the king" relates to the varying perspectives later stated. The idea of things in the polis is interesting because it takes physical ideas and turns them into concepts.  The example of " the actual tree with its vast number of possible uses was replaced by an abstract tree representing a volume of lumber" shows what i mean. I thought the concepts were very confusing though and did not understand most of this reading.
Alexis Schomer

Bystanders to Genocide - Samantha Power - The Atlantic - 5 views

  • s. It reveals that the U.S. government knew enough about the genocide early on to save lives, but passed up countless opportunities to intervene.
    • Alexis Schomer
       
      I think the U.S. needs to step it up. The president is too worried about intervening with the "wrong" countries because he is concerned about losing trust or priveleges with other countries. This cowardice to step up and do the right thing has killed hundreds of thousands of people. I personally talked to a survivor of the genocide mentioned above and the terror he and his famil went through is not okay. The U.S. government also fails to announce the Armenian Genocide as the president does not want Turkey to put the U.S. on their bad side. People should take a step back and look at what is happening to the world around them. Although it may be more pragmatic to make certain decisions, the morality and "rightness" should also be a key role as we are all humans and have a level of compassion and urge to do the right thing and help others in their time of need. It would have been right o defend the Tutsis who were a minority and could not defend themselves. 
Alexis Schomer

Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation | Video on TED.com - 6 views

    • Alexis Schomer
       
      This Ted Talk is really interesting and relates really well to the idea of incentives and punishments. I definitely can see how incentives kill creativity. I've seen it in school! When students get an assignment to read, they often read it in its entirety but when they get an assignment with questions to answer, they simply search the text for the answers and skip a lot of the other parts (unless they don't read the text at all). The idea of incentives and rewards does work against its motive.
Alexis Schomer

Dan Dennett: Dangerous memes | Video on TED.com - 2 views

    • Alexis Schomer
       
      It is crazy how he talks about memes as viruses that infect people and influence others. Our ideas are not our own but are passed down by others and influenced. I think in the beginning when he is talking about evolution he is saying that human "evolution" is actually not benefitting us the same way an animal's evolution benefits it. 
Alexis Schomer

President Obama's Executive Power Grab - Newsweek and The Daily Beast - 3 views

  • “reject[ing] the patience of politics required by the Constitution he has sworn to uphold”
    • Alexis Schomer
       
      This is somewhat true in the sense that Obama did not go through the lengthy process required to pass laws or other proposals. Instead, he just passed them on his own. He lacked the patience of waiting through the process which was set up to ensure fairness, equality, and promote checks and balances
Alexis Schomer

Edge: WHAT MAKES PEOPLE VOTE REPUBLICAN? By Jonathan Haidt - 9 views

    • Alexis Schomer
       
      The beginning of this  text seems like a biased attempt to make sense of republicans. Haidt makes it seem like republicans are illogical and only carry o their republican ideas because of tradition. His article gets interesting when he talks about the experiments and how a majority of the people found harmless acts to be wrong. This shows that many people react without thinking, they react based on their emotions. 
Alexis Schomer

What Makes Us Happy? - Joshua Wolf Shenk - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • Exhaustive medical exams noted everything from major organ function, to the measure of lactic acid after five minutes on a treadmill, to the size of the “lip seam” and the hanging length of the scrotum. Using a new test called the electroencephalograph, the study measured the electrical activity in the brain, and sought to deduce character from the squiggles.
    • Alexis Schomer
       
      This is an extremely detailed research and I wonder what all of these small aspects have to do with the overall purpose about happiness.
Alexis Schomer

Does the Invisible Hand Need a Helping Hand? - Reason.com - 8 views

  • "By pursuing his own interest (the individual) frequently promotes that of society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it."
    • Alexis Schomer
       
      Self interest creates competition which makes the market more efficient
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