I love how he uses this phrase to characterize what kind of change needs to be made. "Business as usual" seems to just how the American governments, at all levels, it feels like, as in they never change their minds or even widen their perspectives. There's a sense that our leaders and government are a "they", and not an "us", to us citizens. As in, they are separate from us and have their own agendas, and that we're not really all a team. To someone like me and I think most people would agree - change never happens here!! And when it does, it is glacial, or it is brought on by tragedy forcing a change.

I checked the Social Progress Index site, and compared the most current scores for the U.S. and Costa Rica, as I really don't know much about this countries policies at all. Based on what Green says, I was surprised to see that its' overall score was slightly lower than the U.S., at 83.01/100 compared to the U.S.'s of 85/71/100, which is still very close, but it had a lower ranking overall, and a much lower GDP PPP per capita. However, as I looked at the specific categories, like access to quality education, Costa Rica ranks #41 in the world for its citizens, while the U.S. is much further behind at #91. They also ranked much higher in access to quality healthcare, environmental quality, inclusiveness and more. This drastic reduction in GDP for its people compared to how much its' citizens get in social protection really shocked me, and honestly, it leads me ultimately to thinking about how us Americans often view "taxes" as the enemy, and yet - look at our quality of social programs....

https://www.socialprogress.org/

So, I could very well be misunderstanding this concept, because economics is most certainly not my forte, but from what I understand and the context, GDP per capita here is supposed to be a calculation of the average income a person has to live on per year. Looking at this number of $14,000, and even the projected increase to $23,000 15 years later from 2015 - all I can think of is how sad (as in, pathetic) that is, because that is NOT sufficient for the average person in the U.S. to live off of in a year, considering how outrageously inflation occurs these days. As an American part-time student/part-time worker, my first thought is, there's no way social policy improves can come about for us soon enough for us to be better helped like in countries with better social programs, like Costa Rica and the Scandinavian countries. And yet, he is primarily pointing out in this presentation how social progress is what will bring bring countries closer to the Global Goals targets later, which shows me how different my thinking is to what Green is saying. I guess I'm saying, he's making me think about where I should place my priorities, to alter how I typically think of what it is that I as a citizen, and my country, actually should be focusing my efforts on.

So a few years ago, I was attending a college whose whole learning process was in a seminar-style, and based on reading works, and meeting together to discuss our interpreting our interpretations, and ultimately kind of arguing to defend your view. It used the Socratic method, mainly, and I actually mainly found it to be extremely tense, and sometimes even hostile. It was like a fight to get a chance to speak, and then mostly the most charismatic students were given praise by the teachers for their ideas - but these were just the louder students, who interrupted others and pushed their voices over others. At least this is how it was for me, and is ultimately one of the reasons I'm no longer attending said school. Anyways, I bring this up because reading here about the principles from The Charter of Compassion and the overall guidelines for communicating with each other for this class, and I'm guessing, and good principles across having academic discussions, because this feels like the opposite of that past seminar experience I had. Which is good! I'm very much looking forward to a more respectful experience, plus I think this online format will help keep us more thoughtful with what we say.

As I read this article, I just kept thinking about how the language and wording used seemed to be making me feel a sense of responsibility to watch my words, and consider how they may make another feel. But then again, a major part of this class is going to be communicating with each other, it seems, so it's unavoidable in some ways that some people's comments are going to impact me, and vice versa. Of course, the goal is that these impacts will be positive in a way that helps each other understand content of the class better. This sentence then struck me because, for me, the best way I learn is in this way - by making connections. Connecting to my prior knowledge, experiences, concepts, even to the songs I listen to while I study. (That's just a little quirk I have while I study - I remember the content I read often when I hear the music again that I heard while initially reading it.)

I'm probably over-thinking this, as this article is overall sharing the importance of keeping compassion in mind as we move forward in this class and through reading this text together, but the language of this article is interesting, and strong. When it states that we should "refrain empathically from inflicting pain", I really considered that, because it brings up that how our words affect others, in ways we don't always consider. I hadn't thought how that could be relevant when communicating in a class, necessarily, because the main content discussed should be related to the class's subject, and not really anything else. But it reminds me that harm can be done with our words and statements, both intentional and thoughtless, and I need to consider this each time I post.