This quote from the article: "These images are so ingrained in our imagination, most people that haven’t been to the continent believe that all of Africa looks like this, adding to the colonialist generalisation of Africa as “one country” was really interesting. Why? Because this view of Africa as this one homogenous place is one that is passivley accepted, even though it is inaccurate. Just because we see this voluntourism (a term, I have not heard of before, but I find extremley interesting), constantly through charities etc. It paints a picture, one that isn't quite reality. What is even more interesting is that the people behind these photos (for the voluntourism aspect) aren't necessarily doing it in bad intention either, in some way they are being a bit ignorant, although that is subjective. Overall, I just found this article to be really insightful as the topic isn't one that me an American wouldn't think about too often, but has an impact on how we see the world.

This thought instantly came to my mind. Although I see utilitarianism as a helpful framework in some cases, I see it as a harmful one in this case. Why? I think it could be extremley subjective, with major consequences. With things like generative AI, a utilitarian perspective may see the benefit (utility) of AI outweigh the negatives, such as the loss of critical thinking skills in students. Just because generative AI might help with efficency, doesn't mean its consequences should be ignored either.

I found this really interesting. Although I was young at the time this film was released, so I wasn't thinking about botting on social media, I never would have imagined that over half of the online hate for it was not "authentic." I wonder what the socio-political benefits would have been for the author(s). Why put all that man power into trolling/hating a star wars films. I also found it interesting that Russian trolls could have played a major role in it, and that brings the same question: Why? The article highlights it could be to sway people's values, or atleast sway their values against those presented in the film. Overall, this is extremley interesting and could highlight alot about the social media sphere (especially with dog piling, etc, as it could be mostly bots doing it, which reminds me of dead internet theory).

My experience is in line with that final remark. Often, I find these help bots just helpful enough to keep talking to them, but not useful enough to actually solve the problem (or get the help I need). The more I think about this though, the more I ask: are these limitations purely technical, or are they intended too? If these companies gave too much power to the bots, such bots could run rampant, and could be a liability to the company. I find it an interesting thing to think about, but obviously bots (espically older ones) have their technical limitations.

From what I understand about Confucianism, it has a societial focus. If all individuals are seeking to become better people, society will also become better because of it. Additionally, this description fails to specifically define some of these key concepts in Confucianism, like filial piety, ren, and Li (the one that is missed out mostly in the description). In particular, Li (the ritual and proper conduct aspect) plays a huge role in Confucianism as it provides the structured (and almost daily) behaviours that distinct it from other frameworks.

Over time, I've heard this phrase get utilized less and less, but it still is relevant overall. In conversations regarding Instagram especially, people talk about how whats portrayed on there is not real. In a lot of ways, I agree with this train of thought. What we tend to portray on social media apps (specifically like Instagram) is a better version of ourselves-- its almost (but not really) "fake." Ultimately, I do hear this phrase in most conversations regarding social media, and especially when adults are talking about it to kids.