Week 11: Prejudice and Implicit Bias Test

    For this week's topic, we're talking about prejudice and bias. We watched a TED Talk featuring Dr. Paul Bloom again and he mentioned that prejudice is frequently natural, sensible, and virtuous. In my opinion, I always thought of prejudice as people being ignorant because they come from preconceived notions of some or something. But I get Dr. Bloom's perspective where without prejudice we wouldn't have something to intervene with when something goes wrong. He then goes on to quote a famous philosopher, William Hazlitt, that said, "Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way across the room; nor know how to conduct myself in any circumstances, now what to feel in any relation of life." Again, I see this point of view but I just don't agree with it. I could see how it could be beneficial but I just think going about life through this perspective isn't good.

    Dr. Bloom starts to cite data from recorded experiments done before the 2008 presidential election that people voted for white people to be more American when compared to Barack Obama. One comparison with Barack Obama was the British prime minister, Tony Blair, and without knowing his background people voted for him instead of Obama. In another study in 2015, they tested people's racial biases by putting on eBay baseball cards to sell but one had pictures of a white hand holding the cards and the other sale had a black hand holding the cards up. Results showed that the sale with the black hand got much fewer offers than the sale with the white hand holding up the baseball cards. The last example Dr. Bloom showed was comparing two African American prisoners, but he said that the male who was much darker was voted to most likely commit a crime. I also think this is where colorism stems. Colorism is basically assuming things about someone who has a darker complexion within their own race. 

    This video expands my understanding of the nature and source of prejudice by thinking that some people may live life with constant prejudices judging people right off the bat as being cautious. But me personally, it gives off being closed-minded, ignorant, and a bit racist if you do judge based off of race or skin color.

Implicit Bias Test

    For the Implicit Bias test, I took the one about favoring old people or young people. My results showed that I favored young people over old people. I had a feeling this was going to be my result because I feel like I can relate to young people more and I never really grew up with an older family member in my household so I am not used to them. 

Week 10: Human Relationships

    For this week's topic, we were assigned to watch a YouTube video, "Evolution Explains Kindness - Even When it Kills Us", featuring psychologist Dr. Paul Bloom. The main focus of this video is Dr. Bloom discussing Darwinism/evolution and whether it really affects a living creature's kindness. 

    He talks about two ways that kindness can evolve through natural selection which determines a level of kindness within someone or something. The first is 'kin selection,' where other creatures share your genes and this can be developed through community; a place where everyone is closely related. The second way is called 'reciprocal altruism,' which means that if you're in constant contact with somebody else, it can evolve into a sort of practical kindness where you help them and they help you in return. I can see how both ways can affect how kind someone or something is. A big part of how we act or our habits or beliefs is determined by the environment we grew up in or what we were surrounded by most of our lives. We learn to pick up habits/mannerisms or start talking the same/use the same terms when we hang around the same people a lot.

    We have evolved our brains so much and the way it thinks; to look at the smaller things than the bigger picture in life. Dr. Bloom questions why would some humans completely sacrifice their own lives to save a complete stranger. He then goes on to say, "But we're smart enough to have come to the principle of impartiality, some version of the 'golden rule.' Some notion that, from the standpoint of the universe, one person's life is just as valuable as another. From a gut level, an injustice done to me is so much worse than an injustice for people I've never heard of. But when I think about it, I can appreciate that at the level of principles there's no difference. The injustice done far away is just as severe injustice as if it were done to me. It makes us realize that selfishness and parochialness and racism and sexism and all sorts of biases like that are not inevitable." When Dr. Bloom brought this up, it really got me thinking. For most people, a lot of biases like he mentioned can be overridden if it comes down to saving a person's life and that's fascinating to me. I think people like to take on that superhero role because if the roles were reversed they would want someone to help/save them. 

    You don't have to be directly blood-related or share genes with someone to create a great relationship with someone. Great relationships are something that is nurtured by both people and it depends on them how strong the relationship is. But one act of kindness can go a long way for people. 

Group 3 (week 9)- The Music Industry

    I was in this week's group about the music industry and we showed the class this mockumentary, "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping", starring several famous artists and actors/actresses. We follow the life of "Conner4Real", played by Andy Samberg, who broke away from his boyband, Style Boyz, to become his own independent solo artist. He soon finds out that on the release of his second solo album, it receives a bunch of negative criticism and Conner is on the path to finding his way in the music industry because it's not as easy as it may seem to look.

    In my group's presentation, we discussed capitalism, privilege, racism, sexism, fame, and mental health aspects of the music industry. The section that I covered was racism and I talked about how the Grammys has a long history of showing bias or racism towards their nominees. Only eleven black artists have won the Album of the Year award. From 2012-2020, statistics showed that black artists received only 26.7% of nominations for the award show while they represented over 38% of all artists on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. A good example of the Grammy's failure to nominate a popular artist was The Weeknd and his popular 2020 album "After Hours" and its single "Blinding Lights". This received a lot of backlash because the track set numerous records, including spending 40 weeks in the top 10 in the US, 4 of which the song was at number one, and spending 28 weeks in the top 5. When I was researching this topic, the most surprising fact that I found out was that Frank Ocean's "Channel Orange" lost to Mumford and Sons. This was shocking to me because I feel like if you ask anyone, they'll know at least more than two songs by Frank Ocean from "Channel Orange" compared to asking about songs by Mumford and Sons.

Capitalism, Creativity, and the Crisis in the Music Industry

    This article is about capitalism in the music industry. The article mentions a lot about how the musicians in the music business are the losers and the listeners are the winners. The author writes, "A commodity always depends for its status and its value on its relative scarcity; once the reproduction and distribution of that commodity become effectively free, then it necessarily loses that value and that status. This is great news for consumers of music, but for producers, it means, quite simply, that they suddenly have nothing of value to sell." This reveals that artists barely make a lot when they release new songs so they promote it so much to make a lot of people stream their music on repeat. For example, Spotify only pays its platform's artists $0.003 to $0.005 per stream. Other ways that artists make money is by selling their own merch or they sell tickets for concerts.

We Need to Talk About Money: Musicians without Financial Privilege are Being Pushed Out

    This second article, it talks about how musicians who weren't rich before their musical careers, have connections to big names in the industry. This basically talks about nepotism babies, which by definition are those with the power or influence of favoring relatives or friends. They are only big and well known because of their connections and I think a great example of a nepotism baby is Clairo. Clairo had the rags-to-riches story by posting music on YouTube before signing to a label, but it turns out that her father was the co-founder of the label that signed her. The author says, "We have created a field where instead of reliably being paid for your work, you need something external to allow you to afford to work in it. And so the people we lose are, often, those from lower socio-economic groups - those without a financial cushion, without spouses or significant others to lean on, with dependents needing additional care and resources, without family that might provide in extreme circumstances a temporary alternative to homelessness (or at least the freedom to not worry about homelessness and instead devote that time to building a creative career)." In my opinion, if you don't have the right connections, if not a lot of people know about you or your music, or if you invest so much time and effort into music/merch that doesn't even sell; you're not going to make it big. It would be impossible to be financially stable from doing music alone. You would need income from non-music-related things.

Fitter Happier: The Psychological effects of Fame on the Creative Process

    This last article talks about if the psychological effects of fame like pressure can affect an artist's or celebrities' creative process. This change in lifestyle of being famous has its pros and cons. Yeah, you become famous with all the money and get invited to special events, but at what cost of being paranoid all the time if someone is following you/stalking you, not being able to go anywhere you like without being recognized, and paparazzi taking your picture and making up drama for the tabloids/media. Plus the added on pressure for constant approval from their label, management, and fans because they have expectations to be met once you get this famous reputation. The article talks about Nirvana, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Radiohead. The author writes, "While for the Red Hot Chili Peppers notoriety represented a spur to evolve their music style, both Nirvana and Radiohead were under the impression that their creativity was threatened by the higher expectations on their follow-up albums. This suggests that fame constitutes a noteworthy component in the creative process of popular artists. This contribution increases the understanding of the relationship between popular musicians and compositions." Nowadays anybody's song could go viral through social media like TikTok or Instagram, which can be the determining factor for aspiring artists. Some psychological issues following fame that celebrities can experience are isolation, de-personification, self-awareness, creative anxiety, and damage in their relationships. I feel bad for children who are born into the spotlight because of their parents or family, like the Kardashians, because they'll never experience a normal life like the rest of the population.

Week 9: Why Do We Choose to Suffer?

    The podcast that was linked to this week's topic, 'why do we choose to suffer?', was an interview with Kim Mills and Dr. Paul Bloom. They talk about why people choose to go through situations that cause them to suffer and if people grow or learn from these traumatic experiences. 

    Before listening to the podcast, the question posed in the title really caught my attention because it seems absurd at first but then once I started thinking about it more I started to see what causes us to suffer in life. I went on to think some people like eating really spicy food, but that causes them pain and why do people choose to raise kids when it's only bringing on more responsibility and hardships. I'd like to believe that people grow and learn from these non-ideal situations, but that's if it occurs out of your control. But I think people choose to go with situations that come with pain and suffering to feel something, like a little escape from reality or a change of pace. It also gives our lives purpose because we feel accomplished/triumphant after completing a hardship.

    At one point in the podcast Dr. Bloom says, "People who do good but enjoy it and gain something from it, we don't think they're as good people. We like our people who do good to suffer." I can understand what Dr. Bloom was talking about because in the end, it's kind of like a reward earned through hard work. Or you know that all the struggle and suffering that you had to endure for that short period of time; it'll be worth it because the end goal or the reward is achieved. When one sacrifices something in order for another person to benefit, it just gives the action so much more meaning. My personal experience with this concept is practicing extra hard for basketball, suffering with all the running and conditioning, and waking up early to work out but it was all worth it in the end because we won the championship.

    Sometimes suffering is not in our control/not many people choose to suffer. But when we experience illness, poverty, or the death of a loved one sometime in our lives; it shapes the person that we are. Dr. Bloom may have mentioned how he doesn't believe that people grow from these experiences. But I think that these situations that cause so much suffering or hardships make you a better person and you learn/grow from it.

Group 2 (week 8)- Climate Change and Environment

    So climate change is long-term shifts in temperature and weather patterns that are usually caused by human activity. Some of the things humans do to contribute to climate change are by generating power through fossil fuels, manufacturing goods, and cutting down forests. There are way more activities that humans do to harm the earth but these are the main ones and a lot of it has the same outcome, it generates a lot of carbon dioxide emissions released into the atmosphere. The plants on the earth could only take so much, but a lot of it could have been taken in by the forests being cut down by construction companies. Natural earth stuff like the temperature of distinct ocean currents change, wind and air masses heat up while air pressure lowers, global temperature rises, sea level rises, and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rises. Then this causes a lot of problems for humans, and it's just an endless back and forth of humans hurting the earth while the earth poses major problems for humans to live with.

    Going forward I hope people realize and try to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emissions being released into the atmosphere and protect wildlife/plant life by not destroying ecosystems/deforestation. It also keeps animals alive and well because we would not want them to become extinct. Some possible solutions are to save energy at home, walk, bike, take public transportation, eat more vegetables, think about really going out somewhere, throw away less food, reduce, reuse, repair, and recycle. 

Impacts of Climate Change

    The first article, "Impacts of Climate Change", discusses different effects of climate change on different ecosystems throughout the world. It tells us how it could make the earth worse than it currently is and how the ecosystems and all living things are forced to adapt to these drastic changes. In the article, it says, "Global average temperature has increased about 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit from 1901 to 2016. Changes of one or two degrees in the average temperature of the planet can cause potentially dangerous shifts in climate and weather." I feel like all of us living in San Francisco noticed that there were some major changes in the temperature. Recently it has been either really gloomy and cold or really sunny and warm. Usually, San Francisco is not like that, so I feel like a lot of people were also getting sick from the sudden weather changes even though it was nice having warm weather in San Francisco for a change. But if places where it's supposed to be cold, aren't cold that's a problem because what if that same thing is happening out in the artic. We need those glaciers to not melt. 

Understanding Climate Change

    In the second article, "Understanding Climate Change", scientists from NASA share with us their climate change research in the lab while focusing on cold regions, water circulation between sea, air, and land, greenhouse gas emissions and absorption, and ecosystems around the world. Their research focuses on the world's ice and how all the land ice on earth is melting, meaning that sea levels would rise. As I mentioned before, it would not be good if meant to be cold places started to become warm. It would harm wildlife, throw off the ecosystem, and it would affect humans living near the water. We literally live right next to the bay, so we would be the first ones to go if sea levels continue to rise. 

    Movies like 'Don't Look Up'. 'The Day After Tomorrow', and 'Wall-E' make up these scenarios or another version of how life would be living on the earth and still continuing the path of contributing to climate change and environmental harm. In the movie, 'Don't Look Up'. we learn that scientists have been warning us for years about climate change and that our world is in danger but barely anybody in our society cares about it because we tend to ignore anything that threatens our lives. Leaders in our society like the government and rich people place their own interests above those of the people who have trusted them to lead so they have no interest in helping the climate change cause. Another great example is 'Wall-E', and we saw how the earth could turn out to be if we don't reduce, reuse, and recycle our things. If we're not helping the earth, we're not helping ourselves. We get so fixated and dependent on technology and that's what the movie show. Movies like these show us simulations or made-up scenarios so we would want to do something to prevent them from becoming a reality. 

Week 8: Prison- Compassion Trauma Circle

    This week's topic is the prison compassion trauma circle. It's an experiment done with inmates of a prison and they're asked a series of questions that had to deal with the first 18 years of their life, basically their childhood, and they took a step forward if they answered yes/experienced the questions. Fritzi Horstman is the founder of the Compassion Prison Project and she explained later on in the video that she probably shared the exact same experiences as the other inmates. Horstman said, "I was abused as a young girl. I was beaten by my mother. I was verbally abused by my mother. I was sexually abused by another man. My father was an alcoholic. My mother was a rageaholic. I've driven drunk. I've sold drugs. I was a juvenile delinquent. Probably my story's similar to most of your stories in here. I'm white and I'm female, and nothing happened to me. So I got a get out of jail free card and so I'm here now because I see myself in every one of you." When Horstman mentioned that she was a white female and avoided jail so easily it clearly shows that the justice system has a bias and that if you are especially white, it gives you that privilege. Out of the group she was talking to after the circle experiment, most of the inmates were people of color. This small group that Horstman was personally talking to were reflecting on their personal experiences and the questions asked during the circle experiment. Out of their discussion one of the inmates admitted to not taking a step forward when he should have for one of the questions and he felt guilty or he was a coward for not having the courage to admit that the question did happen in his life. He felt guilty that he was not up a step forward with his 'friends and brothers'.

    I feel like this social experiment with the prisoners was a good eye opener for not only the audience watching this experiment be done, but also for the inmates themselves who participated in it because they realize that they're not alone/the only ones who experienced childhood trauma. Research shows that a lot of inmates share the common problem of having mental illnesses that most likely stems from childhood trauma. In my opinion, I feel like how a person is, how they act, and their decision making comes mainly from their childhood experiences and the environment they were raised in. 

    My preconceptions on inmates are usually very cautious when around them because I don't know what they're serving time for even when there could be a possibility that they were wrongfully accused or their charge wasn't even serious. But I don't want to automatically assume things because if I were in their shoes, I wouldn't wanna be automatically judged because of stereotypes. I bet that the inmates who are trying to change their life are tired of being turned away immediately for their past actions and serving time in prison. I feel like people end up incarcerated because they're caught selling drugs or stealing something because they have no money or their close to poverty. They can't afford the essential resources that they need to live so they try to make/earn money in extreme ways that could get them caught and put into jail.

Week 7: Race and Identity

    This week's topic is race and identity. Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. In my opinion, I think that race is limiting because society has deemed the white race superior to people of color; so that's why they made the term white privilege. White privilege is the inherent advantages possessed by a white person on the basis of their race in a society characterized by racial inequality and injustice. This has created a lot of biases, so this is why race can't be emancipating. Race defines our identity by giving a person cultural values, beliefs, and principles. I think that the concept of race is just a myth because we are all just human beings; the only difference is physical characteristics. I feel like my outsides don't reflect who we are on the inside because not all race's fit the stereotypes and biases that come with judging someone based solely on their race. A good example of this is the model minority. 

This Is Who You Are

    I think that giving a different perspective on race with the lightbulbs is a good way to look at race and why racism/discrimination is dumb. Prince Ea says, "Do you know what people and light bulbs have in common? We both express different colors, different shapes, and different sizes. We're manufactured in different places... We appear to be very different on the outside, but the thing about these lights is there is one current running through each bulb and in the same way there is singular energy running through each person on this planet. Doesn't matter what you look like, doesn't matter your race, gender, and nationality." I agree with the way he explains who we are because what we look like doesn't define who we are; it's our actions and personality, which come from the inside. 

The Myth of Race

    This video, it interviews multiple people talking about how race is a social construct/ a tangible idea. They talked about the origins of the term/idea of race and that race is biologically based and there's DNA evidence. In the video, one of the people interviewed says, "Humans have far less genetic variation than chimpanzees do, and yet, those chimpanzees look the same to me," Geography is a good factor as to why people have different skin tones. Slavery was based on these differences and it has divided society ever since.

Why Are People Racist?

    In this video, Onyeka Nubia talks about his own, and people close to him, experiences/encounters with racism. Onyeka says that the key to getting rid of racism is to be able to understand it so I guess you could see where he's coming from. Onyeka talks about his childhood growing up in Britain and how a lot of people around him would be really racist to him by calling him racial slurs. I think a lot of racism comes from people being ignorant because they're not educated enough about history and how to prevent it from repeating it again because they're not setting up good examples for future generations to grow up around. I feel like kids nowadays are growing up thinking that being racist or sexist is a form of comedy and this is really common within the gaming community. I believe that people should at least try to be more open-minded to being more educated.