As if countries like Canada and the United States weren't already scared of China's capaibilities and plans for the future already, it has come to the attention of many superpowers that China is starting to become more friendly with many nations in Africa.
So why exactly are countries going to be crapping themselves because of this? China is a country known for it's brutal human rights, which despite many countries protesting against the way they treat their own citizens. Many countries in Africa have had human rights issues (Genocide in Rwanda for example) and if China helps these African countries out with their national debts and gets to their natural resources and helps these countries becme more efficient, not only will China become even more powerful than ever, but African, quite possibly the poorest continent in the world can become a superpower as well.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Human + Robot = Marriage?
That is probably one of the most ridiculous concepts I have ever heard of, but apparently a scientist in The Netherlands believes that in a little less than 50 years, this could be a plausible concept. According to this scientist, he believes that if one person were to, for example, post an article in a magazine such as Cosmo, stating that they had incredible sex with a robot and that everyone else should do it too, that everyone truly would do it as well.
At first I found this hard to believe. Who on earth would want to get married to a robot? How would the robot have children? How would you be able to combine your DNA together to make a child? Not surprisingly, since I had my Urban Economic Geography midterm last week, the thought of how birth rates in countries like Canada are already extremely low, to the point that deaths will eventually overtake births came into my mind. By 2050, will we still be having children? Will be having limited amounts of children?
Back onto the topic, I thought about how exactly such an idea would spread. Through word of mouth? This seems hard to believe as this would take forever and the phenomena of having sex with robots wouldn't spread as quickly as the scientist would have thought. Clearly some sort of Mass or Public Communication technique would allow this to spread easily.
If posted in a magazine such as Cosmo, People or even Time, the articles could be written extremely eloquently, to the point where people are automatically convinced, especially weak minded or naive people, not to say that the latter three magazines are read by not-so-bright people but you never know.
For example, take this infomercial parody of Facebook, an extremely popular site where you could basically find old classmates, currently classmates, chat up on someones wall, join groups, find the latest events in your area and more. If I didn't know what Facebook was, I would have been easily moved by this infomercial and would have been like "Wow, I'm going to go find my friends right now!" but instead, being a heavy Facebook user myself, I found this to be a hilarious interpretation of Facebook. Through the right communication techniques, the smartest person in the world can be convinced to believe the most outrageous things.
At first I found this hard to believe. Who on earth would want to get married to a robot? How would the robot have children? How would you be able to combine your DNA together to make a child? Not surprisingly, since I had my Urban Economic Geography midterm last week, the thought of how birth rates in countries like Canada are already extremely low, to the point that deaths will eventually overtake births came into my mind. By 2050, will we still be having children? Will be having limited amounts of children?
Back onto the topic, I thought about how exactly such an idea would spread. Through word of mouth? This seems hard to believe as this would take forever and the phenomena of having sex with robots wouldn't spread as quickly as the scientist would have thought. Clearly some sort of Mass or Public Communication technique would allow this to spread easily.
If posted in a magazine such as Cosmo, People or even Time, the articles could be written extremely eloquently, to the point where people are automatically convinced, especially weak minded or naive people, not to say that the latter three magazines are read by not-so-bright people but you never know.
For example, take this infomercial parody of Facebook, an extremely popular site where you could basically find old classmates, currently classmates, chat up on someones wall, join groups, find the latest events in your area and more. If I didn't know what Facebook was, I would have been easily moved by this infomercial and would have been like "Wow, I'm going to go find my friends right now!" but instead, being a heavy Facebook user myself, I found this to be a hilarious interpretation of Facebook. Through the right communication techniques, the smartest person in the world can be convinced to believe the most outrageous things.
Are We Ready To Vote?
Though I am not very involved in Canadian politics, I do hear about the occasional important election in Ontario or even Canada. Since I can remember, my parents been supportive of the Liberal Party, with the earliest person I know that they supported being Jean Chretien.
These past elections didn't really affect me in the same sense that they affected my parents. When these elections came around, parents were likely thinking about which party would lower taxes, lower tuition rates (since now that I'm in my first year of university, tuition rates actually matter to my parents) and possibly better health care. On other hand for myself and my friends, some of us were actually thinking about voting, since many of us, not including myself, were turning 18, the legal voting age to vote here.
To adults, the generation associated with my age group is likely known to be very tech-savvy and extremely lazy. We spend most of our time on our butts instant messaging friends, going to the movies and other otherwise pointless activities. But because we're such a large group of people, and in the case of the election, we're such a large group of potential voters, they need to find a way to motivate us to vote. This is where several different forms of communication, such as public or mass come into play.
I went on Youtube and simply searched for Liberal Party of Canada Advertisements. I came up with this simple 30 second one: http://youtube.com/watch?v=zFdeO7bE70E. In my opinion, it was to the point and was basically just a few people stating why they were voting for the Liberal party. What was the problem with this ad? It was boring, at least to someone my age. It is important to make advertisements that can be targeted at different age groups, including teenagers. Quite frankly, we do not care about having taxes cut, because the majority of us don't realise how much of an impact taxes have on us. Why not have advertisements that talk about having tuition fees cut or maybe a new math curriculum?
A few weeks ago a politician representing the area that McMaster inhabits of Hamilton came into our communications class, either to convince us to vote, to convince us to vote for him or possibly both. This is when my friends and I asked ourselves this question: Are we ready to vote? I think at our age, we're still quite naive, and if someone much older and experienced than us, especially a politician, tells us to vote for them for such and such reasons, I think we would do it.
In conclusion, I truly know nothing about politics and until I feel I reach the point where I mature quite a bit, I don't plan on caring too much.
These past elections didn't really affect me in the same sense that they affected my parents. When these elections came around, parents were likely thinking about which party would lower taxes, lower tuition rates (since now that I'm in my first year of university, tuition rates actually matter to my parents) and possibly better health care. On other hand for myself and my friends, some of us were actually thinking about voting, since many of us, not including myself, were turning 18, the legal voting age to vote here.
To adults, the generation associated with my age group is likely known to be very tech-savvy and extremely lazy. We spend most of our time on our butts instant messaging friends, going to the movies and other otherwise pointless activities. But because we're such a large group of people, and in the case of the election, we're such a large group of potential voters, they need to find a way to motivate us to vote. This is where several different forms of communication, such as public or mass come into play.
I went on Youtube and simply searched for Liberal Party of Canada Advertisements. I came up with this simple 30 second one: http://youtube.com/watch?v=zFdeO7bE70E. In my opinion, it was to the point and was basically just a few people stating why they were voting for the Liberal party. What was the problem with this ad? It was boring, at least to someone my age. It is important to make advertisements that can be targeted at different age groups, including teenagers. Quite frankly, we do not care about having taxes cut, because the majority of us don't realise how much of an impact taxes have on us. Why not have advertisements that talk about having tuition fees cut or maybe a new math curriculum?
A few weeks ago a politician representing the area that McMaster inhabits of Hamilton came into our communications class, either to convince us to vote, to convince us to vote for him or possibly both. This is when my friends and I asked ourselves this question: Are we ready to vote? I think at our age, we're still quite naive, and if someone much older and experienced than us, especially a politician, tells us to vote for them for such and such reasons, I think we would do it.
In conclusion, I truly know nothing about politics and until I feel I reach the point where I mature quite a bit, I don't plan on caring too much.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
The Non-Existant Marriage
I'm only 17, so in all honest, when it comes to marriage, I really have no opinion of what it's all about. Though, with all the affairs and scandals going on the lives of my friend's (technically, theri own parents) and even celebrities, I found this video made by CBC to be quite interesting.
Am I surprised that the number of married adults in Canada are going down? No, not really. One may ask why I feel this way. Well tying this in with what we have learned from communications class, I feel this ties in with Time and Space Binding societies, in the sense that technology may be playing a part in why people feel that they don;t need to have many children and don't need to be married to enjoy the pleasures of life.
Though technology has allowed many parents to stay at home with their children since they are now able to care for their children at home while working, it also creates more jobs and makes the term "Global Village" even more prevelent then it was before. For example, take a job like a Chartered Accountant, which is what I would like to be someday. As a chartered accountant, you have specialized in a career which is not just prevelent in Canada, but can potentially lead to job oppurtunities all over the world. Back in the day, one would remain a CA but would still be the typical soccer mom or hockey dad. Now it seems in accordance of the trends of less people being married, which one may assume means they don't have children as well, people are living their lives to the fullest by travelling, making money and fulfulling their dreams at the same time.
Whether this is the reason less people are married in Canada or not, I don't see how this would benefit or make society worse off.
Am I surprised that the number of married adults in Canada are going down? No, not really. One may ask why I feel this way. Well tying this in with what we have learned from communications class, I feel this ties in with Time and Space Binding societies, in the sense that technology may be playing a part in why people feel that they don;t need to have many children and don't need to be married to enjoy the pleasures of life.
Though technology has allowed many parents to stay at home with their children since they are now able to care for their children at home while working, it also creates more jobs and makes the term "Global Village" even more prevelent then it was before. For example, take a job like a Chartered Accountant, which is what I would like to be someday. As a chartered accountant, you have specialized in a career which is not just prevelent in Canada, but can potentially lead to job oppurtunities all over the world. Back in the day, one would remain a CA but would still be the typical soccer mom or hockey dad. Now it seems in accordance of the trends of less people being married, which one may assume means they don't have children as well, people are living their lives to the fullest by travelling, making money and fulfulling their dreams at the same time.
Whether this is the reason less people are married in Canada or not, I don't see how this would benefit or make society worse off.
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