Final Blog Post

 Technology Good or Bad?

In modern society, technology has become a part of everyone's life, no matter where you go or what you do you are interacting with technology in some shape or form. Technology has helped the world but is also hurt it, without technology we wouldn't be able to have the vaccines we have and could still be dying from the black plague today. It helps us get around with cars, helps us keep our food safe for a long period of time with refrigerators, and heat them back up with microwaves. 

This technology has also hurt a lot of America, people have become addicted to social media and don't interact in real life as they did before. Between 2009-2017 depression and suicide rates have skyrocketed and went up 70% from social media for kids between 12-21. This is all because of the way we use social media, today social media is to show the best of people's lives and to make everyone like you live a better life than they do. People's happiness depends on how many likes they get and not getting enough could ruin their day, there's instant gratification that comes with it and now everyone just expects to derive happiness from social media. 

Suicide and depression rates

I recently watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix that really shined a light on how evil social media companies are and how they want to make the people using them get addicted. These companies use colorful images and the need to have other people like you. they make it so every time you haven't used your phone in a while the app will send you a text to make sure you're pulled back into it. The movie takes employees from these companies that make the social media and the employees talk about how they feel like the villains and that a lot of the bad things came from their creation. They also have algorithms that will read what posts you look at and make the next post to pull you in and get you stuck down another rabbit hole. These companies make a report about you and can dictate what emotion you feel that day or if your an introvert or extrovert. These algorithms know more about their clients than the clients know about themselves. 

For myself, I believe that social media is actually hurting me but I can't really stop. Social media feels like the only way you can connect with people today. I have a 1,750-day streak with one of my friends on Snapchat and I feel like I have to keep it going which makes me feel addicted and stuck. Due to Covid last summer I feel like I have become addicted to my phone and spend at least 4-5 hours a day using it, I also get super stressed when my phone dies or I forget it somewhere because I could be missing something or someone might need me while it is off. 

In conclusion, I believe that technology and social media have become very important to society and are generally a good thing but only in moderation. People should know they have a life outside of social media and the internet and watching a sunrise in real life is better than watching it online. 

Blog Post #11

 EOTO Project Pt. 2

Disinformation 

Disinformation is defined as information that is used to be misleading of falsified to confuse a group of people, the main example of this would be Propaganda. It is used to change the views of a group of people, this is on purpose compared to misinformation which is false information on accident. 

The biggest use of disinformation in today's world would be fake news. I feel like wherever you go online someone is talking about fake news or they are spreading it. With so much information about different movements today and covid news people don't look up information and just believe what other people post. This has affected America a lot because no one truly knows what their talking about and everyone just thinks their right without doing enough research to truly know. 

There is a lot of disinformation in the news today, news outlets never tell the full stories on things that might not make a certain group look bad. A recent example of this was Fox News not putting out the story of Hunter Biden just because it would make President Biden look bad, they don't post real news on news that help their ideologies. All of this disinformation has lead to the people not trusting the news and not trusting the government too.

Fox News

On the topic of disinformation of the government, like with Daneil Ellsburg who exposed the Pentagon Papers which were lies about the US government involvement in the Vietnam war and how they were actually more involved then they were telling the people. 

Blog Post #10

 Whistleblowers 

When I first picked whistleblowers for my second EOTO project, I thought it would be about snitches or rats and how they try to screw over their companies for money. After doing some research I found out it was so much more. Whistleblowers are not the bad guys in this situation but they are actually trying to get rid of illegal activities within their companies. The definition of a whistleblower is, is someone who exposes a person or company who is doing illegal activities. The word whistleblower comes from the 19th century and when law enforcement would use whistles to inform other law enforcement where criminals are.

83% of whistleblowers tried to go to their higher-ups but nothing was done about the problem. What this tells me that the whistleblowers are actually in the right, they were just trying to make their companies better but were overlooked so they had to go to the media or the cops. Whistleblowing is a difficult lifestyle because only 20% of whistleblowers actually make a difference and stop illegal activities. In private institutions, there is a high chance that you will be fired if you whistleblow and there are no laws to protect the whistleblowers from not getting in trouble. If the whistleblower works for the government there is a law that protects them from getting fired or getting a pay cut. The law is called The Whistleblower Protection Law of 1989, this protects anyone that exposes fraud or corruption within the American government and they protect from demotions or pay cuts. 

whistleblower laws

There are many examples of whistleblowers in the world but I found two that affected our lives and changed the way Americans looked at their country. 

The first one is Daniel Ellsburg, Daniel was the one to tell the American people about the pentagon papers. These papers showed America's increasing involvement in Vietnam, it showed the people that America actually had tons more troops in Vietnam than people thought we did. It was also shown that America was also bombing North Vietnam without the people's knowledge. This example shows that whistleblowers are more than snitches and that helps exposes the problem in the government.

(Daniel Ellsburg)

The second example of a good whistleblower is Edward Snowden. Endward changed the was use Amerian live today and have changed things for the good. Edward Snowden was the one to leak government papers saying that the NSA was gathering illegal information on the American people. Snowden was an employee of the CIA when he whistleblew. He also did not want to become famous from this and did not want the attention, he just wanted to help the American people. Even though he did not want the fame Edward Snowden had two movies about him, the first one is called Snowden and he was played by Joseph-Gorden Levitt. The other one is called Fifth Estate and he was played by Benedict Cumberbatch. 

(Edward Snowden)

In conclusion, Whistleblowers are not just people who snitch on their companies but are really people trying to change the world for the better. 

Blog Post #9

 The Diffusion Theory 

Advanced wrist wear has become a huge hit in recent years, companies like Fitbit and Apple have created smartwatches that can track steps and take phone calls. This product worked because it was an apple product and it made life easier. You could count your steps, it would tell you how many calories to burn and give you goals to make yourself healthier. It worked well with kids too, back in high school I remember a ton of kids had them and would play games during class on it and they could also text on it making it without being caught.

I was one of the early people to have the apple watch, me and my brothers I all had the series 1 apple watch. The watch became popular fast and there were a lot of early adopters and the watches seem to be everywhere within a couple of months. The first watch came out in April of 2015, I would say the late adopters happened are mid to late 2016. Now the apple watch market is oversaturated. I say this because there are now six different series of apple watches and one of them being a collaboration with Nike. 

There are many positives to these watches, they are really health conscious and help with people's health. Like I said before there are activity rings that help people reach their daily goals for burned calories, minutes exercised and time spent standing. Another pro to them is that they help with daily tasks, you can set reminders on it and set timers. It can also make phone calls off of it and send texts too. 

Blog Post #8

 Carrier Pigeons 

The thought of people using pigeons to send letters and information around really intrigued me, so I decided that I was going to write about it. The pigeons were first used in Greece back in 1450, but there were most known for being used during the world wars. 

It was stated that the carrier pigeons were most reliable and effective than telegraphs and telephones at the time, it was the best form of communication to people at the front lines. The pigeons worked so well that after WWII 32 different pigeons won Dickens Medal for their use in the battle. 

The thing that fascinated me about the pigeons is how well humans can domesticate animals and how they help in different ways. The pigeons were so effective in getting to their delivery location because of the special neurons that they have in their brains. These special neurons were able to find other pigeons in their area. 

It is crazy to think that these birds that everyone just thinks are pests helped our ancestors fight in the biggest battles to this date. they are now seen as garbage-eating pests that just annoy people but they really help make our nation the way it is today, without these legendary birds we might now be living in this amazing country right now. It parallels how we treated a lot of the veterans that came back from the war, that being that we tossed them aside and did not praise them like we should have. 

Blog Post #7

 Anti-War Voices 

I feel like I am a well-cultured person and know a little bit about a lot of things but I have never heard about the anti-war campaign, the last time I heard about this was back during the Vietnam war. This has me wondering why you never hear about this and if people are trying to make it so you don't. 

The main reason I believe that we have not heard a lot about anti-war lately is because of all the other movements that are taking place in America, mainly BLM and stop Asain hate. These big movements have taken over America because people stopped worrying about people from other countries and started trying to fix their own country. 

Another reason why this is not talked about because the movement died back in 2001. I say this because this was when America was brought together from what happened during 9/11. America was okay with war then because the people wanted justice for what happened and since there have not been and major wars since there is nothing to fight against. 

I believe that anti-war could have a comeback if they change the way they promote it. if they could make their movement theme to anti-violence then they could talk about current problems to their advantage. They should start to fight against police brutality and for gun control. These are smaller fights and could be used to fight against the bigger anti-war problem. 

The last reason why the anti-war campaign is not a mainstream movement is that people seem to be anti-American if you're anti-war. It makes people look like they are against veterans and do not have a love for people who gave their lives for us. 

Why Anti-war is not known

Blog Post #6

 EOTO #1

The postal service is a very important part of any modern-day culture and has helped humans advance a lot. The postal service was used before we had technology like our phones and was the only way to communicate with people very far away. Instead of being able to instantaneously message someone people would have to wait weeks for their first message to even show up to their receiver and they would have to wait even longer to get a message back. The word postal service comes from the Latin word "ponere" which means to place or to post, making the postal service a service that takes things and places them somewhere else.

The postal service comes from the Chinese in 900 BC during the Chaing of Xiang dynasty, it was created so that government officials could send information around the empire and could get letters to other government outposts. His postal service reached 1,200 Km and was relatively fast even though they did not have automobiles to get from place to place.

The next use of the postal service was in Roman time back in 100 AD. Since ancient Rome was a giant empire they had to find a way to communicate to small villages on the other ends of the empire. The Romans were an advanced empire and so was their postal service, they used series of forts and stations throughout the empire to make the service fast. Their posts and uses of roads made their system better than any other in the ancient world. Their postal service was called the Cursus Publicus and was the biggest compared to all other ancient empires.

(this image shows the old Roman buggies delivering letters)

The postal service is a big part of America and has been used since the signing of the declaration of independence. Back in 1775, Benjamin Franklin brought the postal service to America. Benjamin Franklin became the first Postmaster General in American history and is the reason we have the USPS today. He greatly improved the American postal service, while he was in office he was able to get a reliable postal route from Florida all the way to Maine. 

The postal service was improved when the pony express branch was implemented into the service. The pony express was a series of mainly different posts and towers throughout America making it easier to move mail. This was a lot like the old roman's Cursus Publicus with the way the mail was moved showing how advanced the Romans were for their time. The pony part of the pony express was thousands of horses that would constantly be moving from post to post. 

The postal service has come a long way from the old Chinese system, today there are around 31,000 USPS stores in America and have almost 5 half a million workers. Unlike the old days, we don't use horses and buggies to get mail across the country, today we use planes and trucks to deliver people's mail. Yearly the USPS sends around 10 billion letters to all 50 of the states. 

History of America's Postal Service

Pony Express facts

Quick Facts on Postal Service