15 Matching Annotations
  1. Oct 2020
    1. We are not going to save each other, ourselves, America, or the world. But we certainly can leave it a little bit better. As my grandmother used to say, “If the Kingdom of God is within you, then everywhere you go, you ought to leave a little Heaven behind.”

      Although the world may not be perfect we can still do something even though it may be small. It can make a small difference, but at least its progress. An example that I have thought of is that although currently voting is a stressful situation, and many feel as though avoiding it. Even a single vote can make a small difference.

    2. By decadent I mean the relative erosion of systems of nurturing and caring, which affects each of us, but which has an especially devastating impact on young people. Any civilization that is unable to sustain its networks of caring and nurturing will generate enough anger and aggression to make communication near impossible. The result is a society in which we do not even respect each other enough to listen to each other.

      This explanation made me think of what is being taught to future generations of civilization. Of respecting others and disregarding how others look, culture, or beliefs. That everyone should have equality and a right to speak their own minds.

    3. Their beauty is attacked: wrong hips, lips, noses, skin texture, skin pigmentation, and hair texture.

      This stands out to me because of how people are put into categories. That society blame and stereotype people based on how they look.

    1. Researchers are now building monitoring technologies to track memes across different social platforms. But they can investigate only what they can access, and the data from visual posts on many social platforms are not made available to researchers.

      I am actually curious about this. Isn't each individual app already monitoring their own platforms and what is popular or viral at the moment? or can't everyone already access the popularity of memes from just looking it up on google for example? Why would we need researchers to do this when we all have access to doing so

    2. Bad actors who want to deepen existing tensions understand these societal trends, designing content that they hope will so anger or excite targeted users that the audience will become the messenger.

      I find this interesting and it made me think of some of the actors I have seen in shows, and realizing that it's in a way true. How some of the bad actors would try new things in hope of angering or getting a reaction out of the audience. I wonder if this is how this is how they gain popularity from the audience in the shows.

    3. that humans are wired to respond to emotional triggers and share misinformation if it reinforces existing beliefs and prejudices.

      Technology and social media play such a huge role in how we respond depending on our beliefs and prejudices. That technology shows how people are and who they are. I just think its crazy how much social platforms and technology is what we depend on to make a judgement of who we are and others.

  2. Sep 2020
    1. “I see the picture as unequal lines,” he said. “The goal is not to trust what I think I see. To understand that I shouldn’t believe my lying eyes.”

      This quote is an interesting way to describe an illusion. How there is always more than what you perceive. How i interpret this quote is that there is always more detail and more information to everything compared to just having a first look at it. This reminds me of how we meet people. From what you perceive when you meet someone based on how they look compared to their personality after getting to know them.

    2. Because of the direction of the arrows, the latter line appears shorter than the former, but in fact the two lines are the same length. Here’s the key: Even after we have measured the lines and found them to be equal, and have had the neurological basis of the illusion explained to us, we still perceive one line to be shorter than the other.

      I have seen this illusion and many forms of illusions just like this. It all depends on perspective. I think it is interesting how perception can make two lines look completely different, but it's the same line.

    3. The students who had looked their older self in the eye said they would put an average of $172 into a retirement account. That’s more than double the amount that would have been invested by members of the control group, who were willing to sock away an average of only $80.

      I think this was interesting. This made me think about how older students would put a larger amount of money compared to younger generations for retirement, because the younger generations are more interested in being able to have more money to spend.

    1. Students asked to read a text on-screen thought they could do it faster than students asked to read the same text in print, and did a worse job of pacing themselves in a timed study period. Not surprisingly, the on-screen readers then scored worse on a reading comprehension test.

      Every student is different. Whether they like to have a physical copy of the book or prefer to read the text online. It just depends on how each student works and how they think they process the information better. I think physical and online books are the same it's just the way that you read and use the material.

    2. Comprehension matters, but so does pleasure

      I think knowing the content is great and people tend to read what they know and enjoy, and avoid what is challenging because they don't understand the context. Everyone is different because of what their interests are and what they dislike.

    3. The fear of technology is not new. In the fifth century B.C., Socrates worried that writing would weaken human memory, and stifle judgment. In fact, as Wolf notes in her 2007 book

      What I find is interesting about this is that we write to remember things. I wonder because when the it said "writing would weaken human memory" you would need to know writing to create a reading... and we writing is equally as important as reading but definitely does not weaken human memory.

  3. Aug 2020
    1. The whole point of democracy is that the number of people who participate in an election is proportional to the number of people who will have to live intimately with an election’s outcome.

      I think this is important because it is important that everyone's votes are counted in, but keeping the people who are living with the outcome be counted as equal.

    2. “excluding the bottom 80 percent of white voters from voting might be just what poor blacks need.”

      This quote stood out to me. All equality should be very important and everyone should be allowed to vote. I think from what Brennan stated earlier in this paragraph of how his public welfare is more important than anyones "hurt feelings" wouldn't be a problem if all given an equal opportunity to vote.

    3. About as many are incapable of naming even one of the three branches of the United States government. Fewer than a quarter know who their senators are, and only half are aware that their state has two of them.

      I definitely remember distinctly learning this at the beginning of high school. This should be more important to teach students about the current government system. So they have a better understanding of voting and whats going on with our government.