Is it better to be loved or feared?

Is better to be feared or loved? It depends by what you mean by loved. If you mean loved like you love a teacher who gives easy A's then a leader would be more successful being feared because eventually the teacher realize what he/she or doing is wrong. The teacher will become a more realistic grader and some students will be unsuccessful academically. The students will resent the teacher and if this situation occurred with a leader and his/her followers then the followers would rebel. But if one means love, the way one loves their parents that is a whole different story. A ruler would want to be loved like a parent because your subjects would love you and respect you. For example if your parents punish you for something you did wrong you still love them. And to achieve this a ruler must look after their subjects like children. Always watching out for them, providing them the necessities of life and punishing them when they mess up. This is probably one of the only ways a ruler can be loved with out their own downfall.

European Feudalism

At the beginning of the first millennia europe there was at the dawn of a new form of government. People were living in closer communities instead of camps in the middle of the woods. They were moving in closer so priests or blacksmiths could be closer at hand. This was a net positive for european societies. One reason is that it formed a better community. The second reason is that it formed a better government. It included kings, counts and vassals which isn't a democracy but it wasn't necessarily a monarchy.
Closer knit societies are good for several reasons. One everyone knows more people. Less people are isolated and with more people a community is more three dimensional. Another reason is that blacksmiths, tailors, priests and doctors are easier to access. This way people could have their necessities that could make life easier and sometimes save lives.
The other reason that the new government was a net positive was that it was a clear system of government. There were just three levels and it was all somewhat equal. Everyone was controlling and controlled by someone.

Pericles Funeral Speech

When Pericles made is speech in front of his fellow Athenians he was supposed to make a memorial speech for the soldiers that died in battle against Sparta. And he did. Sort of. When making his speech it was more like a pep talk. He talked about how awesome Athens was and how it was an example to all other governments.  He did not talk directly about the soldiers who died but mostly what they died for. Which was Athens. This made him an effective and good leader because he was able to manipulate peoples emotions for a good cause. He made people feel good about where they lived and made them feel that the soldiers died for a rightful cause.

What would happen if one escaped Plato's Cave

In a discussion with his students, the famous philosopher was confronted with the question about reality. His response was that reality was like a cave. The cave he was describing had a fire in the very back of it with a few people casting shadows on the wall of the cave from the fire. Then closest to the wall there were prisoners who could only see the shadows cast on the wall. The prisoners only reality were the shadows cast upon the wall of the cave. Now imagine what if one of the prisoners managed to escape?

If a prisoner had escaped the cave he/she would see sunlight for the first time. They would be blinded by the light and be outside for the first time. They would then want to help everyone else in the cave see what reality really is. The ex prisoner would return to the cave and tell everyone that their whole reality is false. Now nobody in the cave would like to hear that everything they believe is completely wrong. So they would first deny what the escaped prisoner had said. But knowing truly what reality is the ex prisoner would persist in trying to get people to come outside. They would soon become angry at him and kill him. This is a perfect example on how people in real life for the past five thousand years have reacted to people that try to tell them their reality is wrong. Nobody likes being told that their whole belief system is false so they react harshly. 

Was the East German Government Effective?

When one thinks of the East German government they think brutal, secretive and evil. But was it effective? It depends on how view the word effective. Was it effective in making life easier for its citizens or effective in making a progressive government. Or was it effective in keeping the government constantly in a state of all power. The East German government was only effective in re-ensuring its survival by crushing all independent thoughts. For example in the film The Lives of Others they arrested an artist who was a neighbor to another artist who fled the country. They interrogated him for two days straight until he cracked and mentioned one name. They tortured one man for one name for forty eight hours proving how desperate the government is to maintain it's regiem. 

Who was the most ethical in "The Lives of Others"

In the film The Lives of Others there was a large amount of unethical behavior. People were being monitored in there own homes, artists would be interrogated for two days and people in charge could force women to sleep with them or else they would be thrown into prison or worse. But there was also light in this dark world. An agent for the stassi (Secret Police) named Weisler is the most ethical person in the film. He was assigned to spy on an artist named Dreyman and when he heard about him talking negatively about the government he didn't turn him in. Also when the Stassi was searching Dreyman's appartement Weisler removed the typewriter Dreyman used to write an anti-east germany article.

Chicago heat wave precautions

In the heat wave of 1995 in Chicago, hundreds of deaths could have been avoided if a few simple measures were taken. The first measure is that the police and medics made regular visits to houses with the elderly. Second, the city should have issued a state of emergency. Third fire hydrants should not have been used.
The first measure which meant that police would check in on seniors on a regular basis. This would help if an elderly person was sick or in need of medical attention he/she would not die. Police would see that they were not healthy and they would call for paramedics. Since most of the deaths in the heat wave were seniors lots of lives would have been saved.
The second measure would be to declare a state of emergency. Chicago would have gotten more aid and the whole outcome of the situation would have been a lot better then it was.
The third measure is probably the most important of all. People should not have used the fire hydrants. They used a significant amount of water pressure which made sinks and showers in the elderly’s homes unusable, causing them to cook in their own homes. If everyone just stayed at home and just filled up their baths and used that as a way to keep cool, hundreds of people would have survived the heat wave.
Next time a crisis like this occurs these precautionary measures will be taken and we can reprimand the mistakes we made in the past.

The Chicago Heatwave

The Chicago Heatwave was a man made disaster as much as it was a natural disaster. Usually natural disasters should effect everyone. But in the Chicago heatwave, only the poor died or people who lived in high rises. For example in poor neighborhoods where people could not afford air conditioning, families would go out and turn on the fire hydrants to cool down. But unfortunately the water pressure would go down in houses leaving people like the elderly to not have water, killing them their own houses. The rich however have a different story. Contrary to what people have heard from poorer neighborhoods on how surviving the heat wave was a struggle to survive wealthier people only recall the heatwave as being a nuisance. The rich had air conditioning and more running water so they could survive a lot easier than poorer people. These two reasons clearly show that the heatwave was more than a man made disaster then anything.

Industrial Revolution

The industrial revolution has changed the world drastically from farmers and spread out populations to cities packed with millions of people and factories. Life expectancy almost doubled and the quality of lifestyle became better. Coal was the very thing that fueled the industrial revolution. Coal also expelled lots of carbon dioxide in the air polluting it too. Even with all the pollution in the air the other events that happened made up for the dirty air. Overall the industrial revolution was a net gain for society.
The industrial revolution had many positive impacts on society. For example longer lives. With advanced medical technology and better ways to transportation people from different places could get better medical treatement. Another good thing from the revolution was improvement of lifestyle. Factories could make many more luxurious items in less amount of time a person could make them. More people could get access to these things easily since there was so many of them and could be so easily distributed.
Some negative things happened in the industrial revolution too. Pollution. Since all the factories, trains and machines ran on coal it polluted the air. A lot. The content of carbon dioxide in the air grew exponentially making the air a lot dirtier.
In the end the industrial revolution got us technology wise to where we are now making the whole event a net gain for the world.

Disease in Wars

Disease in wars has been a serious issue in the past. Especially in World War I. In WWI battles were usually fought in long holes in the ground that spanned for hundreds of yards called trenches. WWI was so devastating because these trenches were so grotesquely unsanitary. They were unsanitary for a myriad of reasons. The most prominent ones are that the trenches were full of waste and the rain water that filled up the trenches which made it easier to breed bacteria.
During WWI soldiers rarely left the trenches. It was basically where they lived for months on end. They ate, slept, and fought in those trenches. Soon after months of being occupied they began to fill up with spoiled food, human waste and even bodies. All this rotting material was full of bacteria which made everybody near the waste sick.
When one thinks of rain water having a negative affect on the trenches they doubt the thought. Unfortunately they are wrong. The water helped carry debris like waste, spoiled meat, bodies and other vile things.  It also helped breed bacteria also making everyone sick. Overall war and disease should never go together.

Plagues

Plagues have affected the world for as far back as we can remember.A running theme though with diseases is that they have always correlated with how humans have maintained their relationship with their habitat. For example the black death. Humans in europe did not keep their environment clean. They had their trash and feces in one large unmaintained place. This would cause rats to congregate in populated places. These rats had fleas which carried the which killed a large population in europe. When more people were dying due to the plague, people had to put the bodies somewhere. They put the bodies in mass graves close to more populated areas infecting more people.
Before the black plague struck, people in the middle ages in Europe did not dispose of their garbage correctly. It was too close to the main population and people could get sick from it. Soon rats and other rodents would go there to feed. They would go back and forth from the populated place to the dump several times carrying fleas which gave the rats the disease. Soon the rats would venture farther into the populated areas coming in contact with humans. Then the humans would spread the disease and from there the plague spread.

Bias

When looking at a source one has to look for Bias. Bias is someones opinion and when you are writing a paper or essay you don't want someone's opinion in your factual essay. If someone gives you facts but they also have their opinion in it too then you use it in your paper, your supposed factual paper is now tainted with someone's opinion.
Bias can ruin a paper easily. If you have bias in a paper in can warp a fact into a lie. When someone notices that there is a false fact in the paper then your whole piece of work is called into question. Another example  of Bias ruining a paper is when it offends someone. Someone who has an opinion against a certain group of people for example could sneak in some racist material into a fact. When you use that fact you may not notice the hurtful intentions behind it and you may inadvertently offend someone.
Overall one should look for bias when doing research to make sure that when your paper is done it has no ones opinion in your writing and just facts.

Sources for Haiti

Sources: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35623502/ns/world_news-haiti/t/chile-was-ready- - A sight that compares the two countries Haiti and Chili and explains how they both handle earthquakes

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=38141 - This sight has a UN seismologist who talks about how Haiti could have been better prepared for it's earthquake

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1968576,00.html - This sight explains how Haiti could be better prepared for earthquakes like Chili

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/weather/jan-june10/chile2_03-01.html - This sight examines the building codes in Haiti

http://www.npr.org/2010/01/14/122547242/haitis-buildings-werent-fit-to-withstand-quakes - This sight also covers Haiti's building codes

What is a civilization?

When wondering what a civilization is one must look back on past civilizations and see what they all had in common. You should probably see a few things. One, all civilizations contain a large amount of people. And two, it wasn't complete anarchy. There was at least some form of government. Also it had to last a fairly long time. Not a thousand years but a large portion of time. Lastly people had to be united. Had to share a similar culture. There are a lot of variables that put together a civilization but the main ones are people, and unity. Those two things make a culture and civilization last.
With out people, there would not be civilization. There would even be a population or individual. Obviously with out people then civilization is out of the picture.
The second component a society must have is unity. It is what makes a civilization different than an anarchy. When there is unity and peace a society won't have internal conflict and will preserve itself. Also it will allow a culture to develop after a while. Overall it is population and unity is what make a civilization.

Our First Civilization

For our first civilization project my groups society was fairly simple but it could survive easily. Our civilization only had what it needed to survive. It had a source of clean fresh water, a pasture where it could raise livestock to eat, lots of different crops, adequate places to live, a shelter from hurricanes that could come off the coast and a huge fire pit where the inhabitants could cook their food and stay warm.
Our civilization acquired it's drinking water from a river which flowed into the ocean. They could also get both freshwater and salt water fish from the ocean estuaries and river. Having both salt water and freshwater fish helped the inhabitants get a wide diversity of fish.
The citizens of this civilization would not only get their food from the land. They would also get sustenance from the crops they grew which they also had a wide diversity of due to the temperate weather of the regione. When moving to the new area, they brought animals like sheep and cows and chickens and pigs. They used these few original animals to make a large pool of meat to get protein from.
For shelter, the citizens of this area have houses made out of mud and stone, and a panic shelter which is a huge hole/cave dug into the ground covered by two wooden doors. This shelter protects people from the strong winds of hurricanes and the torrential rain as well. It is big enough to fit a majority of the people living in the village but is only used by people who's homes are not strong enough to tough it out through the storms.
Overall our first civilization is simple but strong and resilient. It will use it's simplicity to make it survive the longest by not over fishing or over populating the area with livestock and it will do so by doing everything in moderation.

Humans and the Environment

For the past ten thousand years humans have both benefited from the environment and suffered from it as well. Humans have used their environment to grow crops and sustain livestock. But humans have also been affected by the environment in negative ways as well. For example the black plague, Sumatra tsunami and the Haitian earthquake. These two gargantuan products made by the environment helped or hindered humans.
The environment has been the life source for human beings for as long as we have been on earth. It has provided food, water, air and everything else that humans need to exist. With out the environment we would all be dead so the environment has been the number one factor in the survival of mankind.
The environment has not only helped the human population grow but it has also aided in the depletion of the human race as well. Disasters like black plague which killed fifty million people, the Sumatra tsunami which killed almost three hundred thousand people and the Haitian earthquake which killed over three hundred thousand people. These events show that the environment has a chilling way of keeping the population of humans under control.

Was Haiti prepared for it's earthquake?

Given the history of disasters in Haiti, should the citizens of Haiti have been more prepared for the earthquake? Yes they should have. Due to political corruption in Haiti it was almost impossible to make advancements in government or even building safety. Even the presidential palace crumbled in mear seconds into the earthquake showing how impoverished the country is.
After a History of earthquakes, storms and hurricanes Haiti should have probably been a little more prepared. Haitians should have adapted to where they lived and built more disaster proof buildings. They should have learned from their past like Japan or New Zealand where almost all their buildings are made to withstand disasters.
In the end Haiti should have had more disaster proof structures but it would be hard to fund them to the political insecurity and corruption

The Press
Christchurch New Zealand
January Sixteenth 2010
Haiti, Earthquake, Prepared

The Haitian Earthquake

The Haitian Earthquake was Similar to Katrina on numerous fronts. One example is that both disasters occurred in the last decade with all it's new technology and ways to help people but both fronts were clogged up by each countries government.
In Haiti millions in dollars of aid was pouring in from all over the globe to help disaster relief. With so much aid flying in and the haitian government still recovering from the earthquake no one set organization was really handling all the donations coming in. Soon aid was not reaching the people affected by the earthquake because the government could not pull itself together and help it's people. A similar problem occurred a few years prior to this event in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit. A few days after the hurricane FEMA and Homeland Security argued about who's job it was to help the victims of Katrina in New Orleans. Both Haiti and the U.S. system of government had halted themselves on helping its people.

Why Columbus should replace slavery in epoch 3

An artifact I thought should replace the scrap of cloth in epoch three is a whip to represent when columbus came to the Americas. The whip would represent the genocide that columbus committed against the inhabitants of the Americas and how he usually sold the people he met into slavery. This should replace the scrap of cloth because the whip represents a broader topic then just a scrap which just represents a slave's clothing. A whip represents the torment and torture against the population of the Americas not just what they had warn.   

How Katrina Affected Society

Katrina affected society in mostly negative ways. Especially New Orleans. In the days before the hurricane struck several warnings from different organizations and people which caused people to be frightened. Also Katrina had already killed six people in Florida which made people fear for their very lives. This soon turned to most of New Orleans population to flee the state, leaving homes and properties vulnerable to the elements. A little less than of a day before the hurricane struck the mayor of New Orleans and the governor of the state of Louisiana had issued a mandatory evacuation of the area. This had never happened in the history of the state of Louisiana. Soon a second exodus left Katrina just in time before the hurricane struck. Yet after the advised evacuation by the president and the mandatory evacuation issued by the mayor and governor people still stayed in their homes to ride out the category five hurricane. It seems insane that they would ride out a natural disaster of this magnitude. Was it because they had to stay in New Orleans and take care of their property or did they just not want to make the trip leaving the city? I am a little confused on this issue and why people would risk their lives for something as minor as property damage.

How World War 1 affected society

World War One affected society drastically both in terrible ways and in it actually helped in other ways. For example WW1 actually helped established world powers like America and helped them progress into the powerful countries they are today.
The war was mainly caused by the growing world and conflicts over territories in Africa. When the war started countries competed over who get the most advanced weapons. America benefited from this arms race because they used there new factories to make weapons for both sides of the war. Soon Americas economy was booming all because of World War One and the arms race.
Not all countries benefited from the war. Most actually suffered heavy casualties because of the new weapons like gas and machine guns. Soldiers mostly died because the outdated fighting strategies conflicted with the cutting edge weapons which resulted in a massacre for both sides. So mostly countries lost whole generations of young men to the war leaving a lot less workers to work at factories which set back certain countries economies.
The country who took the worse blow from WW1 was probably Germany. They were the losers of the war and were blamed for starting it so they had to pay for the war.  The crippling debt destroyed the German's economy leaving them angry and full of resentment. This was the perfect opportunity for a revenge seeking dictator like hitler to gain power. Soon this would lead to world war two which occurs later in epoch four.
WW1 affected society from giving certain places a booming economy and in other places, crippling theirs. But over all every place and every country suffered from the same thing.  Millions of young men from all over the world giving their lives for in some ways a useless and fruitless war

Epoch Two Artifacts

For epoch two's time capsule our group wanted to choose artifacts that represented the silk road, enlightenment, democracy founded by the Greeks and the printing press. All of these things and ideas a significant impact on society in epoch two. The artifact our group chose to represent the silk road are spices. Spices stand for the silk road because they were traded from places like India to European countries. The silk road also connected places and countries that had never before seen outsiders too which made the world just a little more globalized.
Our group's second artifact is a light bulb to stand for enlightenment. When people found out that government is not invincible they were enlightened. They realized they could rebel and the government did not have some divine power on it's side. With this knowledge society began to rebel and form new governments which would change the world for forever.
For our groups tertiary artifact we made an election poster representing democracy which was founded by the Greeks. With out democracy the world would probably be the opposite of what it is now. The election poster shows how everyone (All adult males though) had a say in everything and had an opinion.
A newspaper is our final artifact for epoch two. It represents one of the most important inventions in the world. It aloud exact copies to be made of pieces of literature and later in history art. This way more people could educate themselves which meant there were more people in the world who were able to help innovate society.

How was society affected by 9/11?

9/11 affected society in many ways. Mostly in fear and paranoia. For example the anthrax scare. There was never an anthrax attack and no substantial evidence there was going to be one but still when people experienced 9/11 society asked its self: Why not an anthrax attack? Although the events of September Eleventh frightened people beyond belief they also led to some outstanding examples of working together for a common goal. I find it amazing that the world leaders recognized the threat of Al Qaeda posed and lead a swift attack on the Taliban which was accused of hosting Al Qaeda. But after that there was another case of paranoia in society. America invaded Iraq accusing them of developing nuclear weapons yet found them but still occupied Iraq for several more years. 9/11 had produced an enemy without boundaries and who had access to cutting edge technology from the fifth epoche and society reacted with panic and with the determination to find it's enemy and neutralize them.

Epoch Three

Epoch Three was rightfully named the epic of interactions. These interactions had an affect on many different cultures. Mostly because a lot of these cultures had usually never made contact with the outside world. When these different cultures met, for example when the Spaniards found the Americas instead of just gracefully meeting the culture they brought disease with them and decided to kill the natives as well just so they could use the land for resources. Another example is when Europeans landed in Africa and kidnapped the natives there and turned them into slaves. This theme of meeting and killing new people and shutting up new ideas is a prominent theme in epochs two and three. In epoch two Christians from Europe started the crusades against Muslims who's new religion Islam was a new idea to the world. After seeing two huge similar incidents occur in two completely different times and places I wonder if it is a part of human nature to react negatively to new things or new ideas. Even today I see it. For example Christians react to the the theory of evolution by denying it and saying who ever thinks that is true is going to Hell.

In Epoch Two I noticed that there were far more advancements then Epoch One. I also noticed that society was downgraded as well. Specifically in Europe in the middle ages. I wonder why this happened? Was is because of the lack of government? Also why did Europe experience great downturns in technology? What stopped the small kingdoms from advancing further with technology?
Epoch Two did not just have a lot of technological advancements but also a fairly large amount of religious advancements as well. This epoch gave birth to two of the most influential religions in the world. Buddhism and Islam. What I thought was interesting was both new religions were received in a negative way.  Buddhism had it's teachings affect minimized by east Asian Governments as soon as it gained attention and Islam was attacked by the crusaders trying to regain there holy land. This sheds some light on issues even facing us today on how personal biases can lead to conflict.

Epoche 1 Reading

I find it fitting that Epoche 1 is called the "Epoche of Origins". The title makes sense because basic forms of society were founded in that time period. I was especially interested in Hammurabi's code. It was one of  the first real publications of law. I also found it interesting was that it was made because of the increased population. Increased population means that there are more people and less land so people would argue over who's land was who's, which then meant a need for a form of government. This could mean that every large society does need a certain form of government to thrive.
          When I was reading about the dynasties in China I noticed the text said these governments or dynasties arose fairly quickly. This confused me a little bit. I wondered how and why these forms of governments came to be quicker than other forms of governments. My hypothesis is that these governments had a connection between church and state. If people found out that these rulers claimed to have a direct connection with heaven (Like the Shang dynasty) they would want to follow who ever carried the word of God. This could be both good or bad. It could be good because everyone would be united together with the same ruler and if the ruler was a good person he would try to make the country better. This could be bad too because if the leader was greedy he could rig the country for his own profet and not help rule the country.

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