Month: October 2017

TED Talk Outline: Pulling a Switcharoo

by Jacob Rodesh

******************I’ve actually decided to switch topics because I’ve found limited fringe research on agnosticism but plenty of research on workplace traditions and government allowances for paid time off. I switched topics early this morning as I was working on the outline for the other subject because it didn’t go deep enough.

THIS IS G O I N G TO BE UPDATED AS I FINISH IT

  1. How overworked do you all feel? Does anyone in here currently have a job? Well, it could all be much worse, but luckily things have changed. Hours used to be long, arduous.

Progressive advocates worked tirelessly (ironic) to gain the support needed to pass laws that regulate the hours that employers demand from laborers.

“We need nuclear power to stop climate change,” What I enjoyed from Joe Lassiter’s TED Talk

by Jacob Rodesh

For the TED assignment, I chose a talk by Joe Lassiter entitled “We need nuclear power to solve climate change.”

In summary, he discussed the growing need for more reliable energy sources for the developing world, but also talked about the impact on the progression of climate change that such development would have, and how those two need to be reconciled.

I liked the comparison between the benefits of lifting people out of poverty and in the developed world but also the drawbacks of even more people contributing even that much more to climate change. This theme is both a good setup for the rest of the talk but also something that we know to be factually true.

Lassiter discusses how the Paris Accords are nowhere near enough to reverse what’s already been happening to our planet, as most of the growth in greenhouse gas emissions is going to come from developing countries; the path they choose is going to determine how much pollution they emit.

New power solutions have to pass the “Chindia” test, meaning that nations like China and India must be willing to accept it; and, subsequently, most other developing nations will as well. Nations have to have the choice to switch, as well as good economic motivation. I liked this framing because, while I am an advocate for switching to clean nuclear energy and renewables, there is still an economic angle that shouldn’t be overlooked. No matter how much of a tree hugger I am, I can’t ignore the fact that world governments won’t overlook the economic impact of switching to a completely new system of obtaining energy for their people.

I also enjoyed how he wrapped up his presentation at the end by advocating the changing of the stigma away from nuclear power and how that stigma had grown to be so prevalent in the Cold War and after the public opinion on it dwindled after the major accidents that we know so well. He talks about “new nuclear” with different materials and the fact that new materials exist that are much more controllable and cleaner than those in the past.

Unit II Brainstorming: How Much Discrimination Can I Analyze in Ten Pages?

by Jacob Rodesh

As a start, I’ll mention some ideas that are more widely known and discussed in society, then I’ll mention my ideal topic.

I can discuss the massive shift from neutral attitudes to hostile and genocidal behaviors towards Jews in Nazi Germany, and how the few leaders in the Nazi party managed to convince most of an entire country to unite around the elimination of a ‘race’ of people (among other things). If that idea seems too mainstream and well-known to be interesting, I can discuss the simmering-down of antisemitism in post-World War Two Germany; how the toppled Reich stabilized their economy and religious identities with the support of U.S. funding in the Marshall plan, and how the presence of democracy in West Germany influenced beliefs. In either scenario, I can touch on the prevalence of genuine belief in the Final Solution among different social and economic classes to break down the belief holder’s possible motives.

I brainstormed another idea that is more politically relevant to modern times: rape culture. I can discuss rape culture and the victim-blaming, victimization of the rapist, the socioeconomic disparities in criminal cases, etc.

Finally, and most personally, I can break down how atheism, agnosticism, and secularism (“nones”) became so prevalent in western society. I will have to best analyze the causes of changing poll results, the rejection of religious motivations in government, and the origins of doubters (predominantly in academia, centered in large, wealthy areas; the more objectively independent the person, the more religious). I can analyze the effects of the new largest minority denomination in the United States, and how it went from a taboo position to an “oh, sure, why not?”. Atheists also typically reject religious morality and replace it with common morality, the preservation of fellow humans simply because they’re fellow humans; how has the loosely-defined group of secular individuals gone from having to advocate their mere right to equally exist, to their current state as advocates for reason and the ending of suffering?