Week 14, Last Blog :)

Wow it seems like we just started this semester and it is almost over. First I want to thank you for not making us buy books for the class, so we can save money. Second I want to thank you for the pizza yesterday it was delicious and was a treat to have free food.  Thirdly I would to thank you for opening my eyes to how easily technology can lead to social inequality. I never really looked at technology in that way before the class. I was aware how technology could really advance certain people like the rich getting richer, but never looked at how it affected the people as a whole. My favorite example was the bridge in New York. I found that the class discussion was very helpful on how this process works. It seemed that people did not understand how this could happen, or how people could create this technology that would create inequality. In class we showed how the process could be justified because there are other technologies in place like the boats that were in place and would be available to everyone. Again I want to say that I enjoyed your class and want to wish you a happy thanksgiving and Christmas.

Thank You

Joe Vogt

Week 13: S&T In Emerging Economy, Vietnam+China

In class we discussed China and Vietnam, more like me and Dr. Lim discussed the differences and similarities. I know it is the end of the year, but I feel like nobody was discussing these differences and similarities beside me and maybe two other students. I not sure why nobody finds China interesting, when there is this huge buzz around the election and all that is wrong with our economy. I don’t believe that people actually understand how much China has to do with our current economic crisis.  I think most educated people know that our dept that is National Debt is mostly owed to China. I don’t know whether people do realize that this is a major concern for the future. In class we where talking about how China has become very industrialized country especially in the technology field. This has to be a concern because with the global market there seems to be dominant technologies that create revenue and jobs. The world used to work on mostly natural resources for the countries income, but now in the technological era it seems to be more important to have technology over natural resources. So, to make my point that if China controls our debt and is going to be a technological leader that China will hold power over the United States, kind of like the power the united States holds over other democratic nations, in that we the United States are a world power. This is why I believe that people in class should be a little more interested in China. Moreover, they should be interested how China has become such a world power in the last fifty years. They have the largest population as a country, their technology in many fields is as or more advanced then the United States, and the do not have the labor laws that allow them to create products at a lower cost then the United States. So why in the world are people not interested in China? My answer is that they are not informed on what is going on in the world past their own door step, I could be wrong but even worse I could be right.

Thank You

Joe Vogt

Week 12 Local Initiatives

In class on Thursday we watched a film on local city structures and how they develop. It was interesting that they were showing how mobility helps creates these inequalities in cities. Moreover the film was showing how a simple changing the bus system into a more like sub-system. It is the same system it just makes the system work togetherer from the bus to the subway to any other public transit. It was interesting that the person in the film said that this competition between public transportation is not good. These systems should work together and rely on each other to produce better efficiency and then creating a greater good for all of that particular society.  When these systems work together then they also save natural resources and they cut down on the amount of pollution in the air which is a benefit for the society. He did not claim to have all the answers but it seems to be on the right track trying to cut down on the amount of energy that is wasted by society.

How this applies to class is because it allows technology to not compete but to in fact work together and create efficiency instead of competition. This works to create equality when the system work together instead of competing, because then the citizens are split into groups one that take public transportation and the ones that don’t. If public transportation was more efficient for people that own cars then they would probably take public transportation instead of creating pollution. All together it seems to help the environment and help people travel without having to own a car which is necessary to help inequality.

Thank You

Joe Vogt

Week 11 InEquality in Latin America

On Thursday in class we discussed the nature of technology in the classroom. I thought it was interesting that we talked about ASU, which does not have all the obvious inequalities that some places that are considered not as technologically advanced as ASU. I found that it was interesting that people in the class had good examples of technology at ASU that could create inequality. One example was Internet classes which have benefits and in turn creates inequalities. I am going to create a supposition that people that take Internet class are older people because they are able to take these classes and still keep their full time jobs. Also people that are older have more trouble with new technology because of the generation gap. So the classes that the University provides for people that are unable to attend school hours are on the Internet because that is the technology that is available. This creates a inequality because they younger generation will have an advantage in these class just because they understand how to use a computer better. Now this example does not say that all people that are not under twenty-one do not how to use a computer it is that it was a supposition.

Another thing I found interesting is how we take technology for granted. I made the example that our table was technology and I was not understood completely. That the table has plugins for power and the Internet. Ours chairs have levers and wheels what people in America take for granted and I just wanted to make my point clear.

Thank You

Joe Vogt

Week #11 Extra Credit “Election 08″

The day that all of us have been waiting for the no more George Bush era. This has been a long time coming for allot us political people, and when my day started I was very unsure how the days events were going pan out. My day started with me going to Ray road and the 101. This church is the place where I voted for the first time in Arizona. It was an all around good experience, however I don not like to wait for anything much less to cast a vote in such a technological world. The wait was close to an hour and then my duty was over. I joke about this but so times it feels like people are more concerned if people vote more than if they know anything about the candidates. I understand the reason that people think you should vote, but I think there is undo pressure put on people to vote that really either don’t care or don’t know why they should vote. So I am done voting and feeling a little patriotic and ready to watch tonights events. I show up to ASU and it seems the campus is very alive, people are talking about voting and their experiences.

Its later in the day now and the voting poles are closing all over the east coast and there are many states that I feel are very interesting to watch tonight. A couple states that are very interesting are Pennsylvania and Ohio the news has been projecting a close race for presidential candidates. Ohio is a very important state to the republicans they have needed this state to win the white house. It has 20 electoral votes and has predominantly been a red state and was very important to Bush in 2000 and 2004. Obama is now leading with 105 votes and I believe that are about to call who won Ohio. I have never really been into the elections like I feel this year, for some reason after eight years of George Bush any one would be a nice change. It is official that Obama won Ohio and Pennsylvania. Wow this means that 99% sure that Obama is going to win it is 8:49 and the race is Obama 207 and McCain 142. The reason this race seems to be over is that Obama is projected to win most of the west coast which includes California and its 55 electoral votes.  The magic number is 270 to win the election and if Obama wins California which I believe he will then this election is all but over.  While I was writing this Obama won Virginia, this is such a huge moment in history because they are going to announce Obma to be the first African American to be President of the United States. Nine p.m. in Arizona they announce that Obama is the President Elect. I have this proud feeling for Americans and especial African Americans. This shows for Americans that we are all going to be in this crisis together black white no matter.  

Before I get on my soapbox and go pro-Obama. I would like to say that McCain was a very good prospect for a President of the United States. He is a war hero and I truely believe that he has but his country first in his life. I do believe that Mr. McCain is a good person, however I believe he made some very crucial mistakes. The biggest mistake he made was to recruit Palin to the ticket. From my personal experience everyone I talked to that were McCain supporters had problems with Palin. One major reason is because McCain is getting older at the age of 72. People believe that his health could be an issue and that Palin did not have the experience or intelligence to lead this country in these difficult times. 

So now we have Obama as our President and I am very glad that he won. I did think that this election was going to be closer than it was which is nice after the last two elections. Nobody wants the courts to decide who the future President will be, but when these races are so close somebody has to. Well now its time to see if Obama can be the man that I hope he is. However this is still politics so nobody knows what is really is going to happen in the future but it seems that it is the Democrat’sturn. They have the majority in the house and the senate so they have no excuses to get bills past. So now it is only time that will tell what the future holds, but I have this new feeling about the outcome of this country. I am going to be up all night watching these other house and senate races. I am very happy with the outcome from tonight and Obama is about to make his speech. I am going to close with that it seems that the younger generation did get out to vote and may have changed the election. I am happy that the youth in America are getting involved with our future because there are going to be some difficult decisions to make with our economy, oil, health care, and other issues that have to be resolved.

Thank You

Joe Vogt

Week 10 J.W. Smith

Wow what a presentation, I thought that Dr. Smith was very enthusiastic in his words to the class. Although I did not understand everything that he was talking about I did think that it was an interesting way to look at the economy. However, the part on property rights was a little out there I believe. I have had many Justice classes and we have examine how property rights’s in fact create inequality amongst its citizens, but I do not see any way around this dilemma. I heard that it could save us a lot of money but what is the alternative that the United State government would own the land, this sounds like socialism to me. I am not against socialism I just think that socialism can cause problems just like capitalism. One problem that it would encounter would be the people that worked very hard for the land they earned and would not give it up without a fight. Two this seems to create injustices when you just give someone else hard earned land to someone that did absolutely nothing for it. Three capitalism has shown to work com paired to communism which tries to create a state with out any competition. Overall I think that Dr. Smith had some good ideas but I don’t know if he had any probable solutions for these problems. I do enjoy guest speakers and will enjoy the next one if there is.

Thank You

Joe Vogt

Week 9: Nuclear & World Politics

In class we have been discussing nuclear power and weapons In the case of nuclear power it seems to be a good source of power without all the pollution problems that coal does to the environment. Although nuclear power seems to be much cleaner than coal it has it problems also. What most people believe that it is the chance of meltdown that should be feared, but I believe that the nuclear waste and these products from going nuclear that should be feared more than the chance of meltdown. When it comes to nuclear waste it scares me that we really don’t know the power of this waste. What I mean is that if these containers that hold this substance were to start leaking that it would be a devastating event. Another problem with nuclear power is that it has to be guarded because of the devastation that it could do to our citizens that live near these facilities. I believe that nuclear power is helpful to the pollution problem but its risks are to high in this world that terrorist will use our own technology to kill us. Like the act of flying planes into our own building killing many people. I just believe that with solar, tidal, and wind power just seem to be the better choice over nuclear. Even if these alternative power sources do not produce as much as nuclear that these innovations can be improved over time.

With the account to nuclear weapons it is a necessity to have theses weapons of mass destruction, for the intimidation factor. If seems with invention of these weapons that it will never end since these weapons are so feared. These weapons changed the course of WWII, because Japan would have never surrendered and this would have costed even more America’s to die in that horrible war. I believe that weapons are needed because if we don’t have them other countries will not be scared to use them against us.

Thank You

Joe Vogt

Week 8 for extra credit on Global Warming

In class this week we discussed the impact of global warming and who is to blame. What I found very interesting is how much the US emissions are much higher than any other nation. I believe this is obviously due to the technology we have compared to other nations. In America people are very individualistic this pertains to our culture and how we operate. For example there are many different way to get to work or school like car pooling, the bus, and now light rail. Until the current outrageous prices of gas people did not want to use public transportation. Now this lead to everyone driving there own cars and emissions are very high. I believe with the “go green” and current gas prices that these emissions will fall because money reasons and there is more conscious effort to keep our air clean. People seem to have to be forced to change on this topic one reason is because people do not believe in Global Warming they think of it like evolution that there are different theories on the topic.

What people do not realize is that climate change is very sutle and we need to change our ways before its to late. There are just so many reason why. One if the temp of the earth rises there will be floods that will lead to famine. Another reason is that global warming can change the climate so drastically that there will be different growing seasons for the farmers witch will lead to more economic failure. Unfortunately with all the problem that the US is dealing with like the war, the economy, people morgages, and Iran that global warming has been taken out of the public spotlight.

Week 7 extra credit disscusion

In the readings for this week we looked at the impact of DNA and the justice system. I found this very interesting because I did a large report on Gary Ridgway. Who is a serial killer that operated in the Seattle area for 25 years. Gary was better known as the green river killer. His MO was to abduct Jane’s or prostitutes by soliciting them for sex. When these young women were in his truck he subdued them and then killed them. He then later went to a remote area that was a nature park around the green river, and dumped these bodies after he had sex with them. A weird thing that Gary did was to shove rocks into the orifices of these women one to weight them down, two he did not want anyone else to have sex with these dead bodies. These bodies were turning up and the police didn’t have in incriminating evidence against Gary and he was getting away with murder. Remember that DNA evidence was not used until 1991. The ironical thing about the way Gary violated these women was the fact that these stones were preserving valuable evidence to convict him later. Even though the police started questioning Gary in the Early 1980 they could not convict him until technology caught up to the standards there are at now. So how this affects people is that 70-90 young women died because we did not have the technology to put Gary’s DNA in these women. The good thing that came from this is that if that technology DNA was known of then maybe Gary would have used a condom or another way to clean these bodies. So since the technology didn’t exist it helped because to Gary did not know not to leave his DNA since the technology was not there.

DNA is good because it helped convict criminals, but more importantly it helps set the innocent free when they are wrongly convicted of a crime.

Any comments let me know.

Thank You

Joe Vogt

Assignment #6

In Class we talked about different ways to run a government. The one that I really am interested in Libertarianism. I believe that many people misunderstand the difference between these thoughts on how a government should be ran. So I looked up the definition of what a libertarian is, One definition was that a libertarian is thought of as very liberal. This means that libertarians believe in more government to make all citizens more equal. How the government would do this is to create more tax for the rich. Then in turn the government would use this money to give free health care, or something that would help the low income families in the United States. Another belief of libertarian’s on the military use of power most libertarian’s believe that military should be at home, they do not believe that we should be these world police. Most libertarians believe that we should keep at military at home, unless the worst case scenario. I believe that our military should stay at home also and is very important issue to me. Another strong belief of libertarians is to be self sufficent. These means that all the things that Americans need would be produced here in the United States. This would allow the United States to become less involved with countries that have all this oil. Since, the United States has oil reserves they would uses this oil for self consumption instead of keeping it until everyone else runs out. This type of government also has its flaws, and is hard to switch from a global market to a self sufficent one. This is why every one is able to choose what type of government they want. I will give a link to Ron Paul’s web site he was a presidential candidate this year and has some interesting thoughts on how we should take care of these issue’s that the United States is going to encounter in the next twenty years.

This is one of Ron Paul’s websites.

www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12224561

Assignment #3 Societal Construction

I was very interested in the article about the qwerty system of typing.  I have studied this subject before, of why the USA has not switched to the easier Dvorak system. The reason or premise of this other argument is because people do not want to change the way they have already learned. People are so set in their ways that they would rather type slower than learn a new keyboard. 

I understand the original reason that a typewriter could not keep up with the consecutive strikes one hundred and twenty years ago. This is not the case with particular technology’s history however. It seems to be true that the qwerty system originally solved the problem of typewriters from jamming. Then this particular technology was predominantly an American technology and people were not apt to change. I am sure people thirty years ago have heard of the two different keyboards. They probably also have heard of the greater productivity. They didn’t change then which would have been drastic cost with the invention of the computer and the existence of so many typewriter still out there. Many people speculate why we have not changed to quicker Dvorak system. Some people believe it is because of huge corporations political pull to stop this sort of change. Other, people believe that is because people are set in their ways and don’t want to change. An example of this would be his reference to the metric system compared to our complicated pound and foot system.

I believe that people have not switched over to the more productive Dvorak system because we are lazy and people improve their our own typing skills every time  they type for long periods of time.  I will take me for an example, I know for a fact that I could get the Dvorak keyboard to go over my keyboard and then switch the keyboard function on my computer. This whole procedure would probably cost under ten dollars and would greatly increase my productivity but I do not change it. I do believe those previous reason were probably what got us to this particular predicament of the qwerty system, but I do not believe that is why we are not using the Dvorak system today.

Thank You

Joe Vogt

Assignment # 4 Technological Momentum & Path Dependency

I read the article, The Electrification Of America: The System Builders this article explains the process in which Thomas Edison brought artificial or incandescent light to America. In this particular article is explains that Thomas Eidison was thinking more than just how to bring light to America but to also allow him to profit from the process. The profit would then in turn allow the the citizens of the United States to get electric light.

In our class we try to examine how technology affects society. There are many different ways that technology can be used to help society and technology that only helps certain people usually the inventor. So the issue that is presented in this article is whether or not incandescent light helped society or helped Thomas Edison or both.

The main issue presented in favor of the tecnology helping Edison is that the filament that was being used at  the time was carbon based and didn’t need a lot of electricity consumption for it to work. This posed the problem that currently people were using gas lanterns and the cost of gas that was needed was more economical feasible than electric light because this carbon based filament was not consuming enough electricity for Edison to make a profit. So Edison could not of made a profit with this carbon based filament and looked at metals that would consume more electricity, therefore allowing his company to make a profit. Of course the metal filament was more luminous which turned out to be good thing, at the time they changed the filament to make a profit. If Edison would of used the carbon based filament the company would not have made such a huge profit in turn it would of been cheaper for the ordinary citizen to light up there house. This carbon based filament would not have been as bright as the metal filament, but people at the time were used to lanterns so this would not have been a problem.

In conclusion I believe that Edison used the metal filament because he had foreseen the incredible cost that his company was initially occur before any profit was coming in. He had to build the power plant and then the conductors and then all the copper for wires. There was huge start up cost and for his company to grow profits were going to have to be high. This presents a problem today with how high due the profits really have to be before its a burden on the consumers. Do you think that Edison just wanted to make a profit or do you think he was trying to progress our society by giving artificial light to the United States? If you have any comments please let me know your opinion.

Thank You

Joe Vogt

Assignment #5 Outline for Final Paper

For my final paper I would like to investigate into the relationship between technology and how it effects the work force in the United States. I am interested in how technology is replacing peoples jobs with either machines, computers, or other types of technology. After I find some examples of technology replacing jobs, I would like to investigate into how this affecting the American work force. Some of my inquires will pertain to how these particular fields of employment are affected. What these people are doing now that lost there jobs to technology. If these people are better off now; not just financially but whether or not it seems to be helping the working class. Moreover, if these technologies are helping the American work force or whether they are hurting the American work force. On the other side of the argument I would like to inquire into whether or not it seemed that society was going to need this technology. What I mean here is that if America did not adopt to this technology would we have been at a loss in the global market.

Some of the technologies I will be investigating are.

I. CAD, Computer Aided Drafting

The brief history of CAD

      1. Why or why didn’t people in the architectural world changed to CAD and its immediate effect on the work force. 

      2. Who did the Technology help?

           a. Architects

          b. Computer Industry

          c. Society

          d. The inventors of CAD or anyone at all

      3. If CAD was needed in the architectural world or not to keep up with the world market?

          a. One argument for the technology

          b. One argument against the technology 

II. Farm Industry

The breif history in the changes in agriculture in the last 50 years

      1. Who has industrial farming affected?

          a. Farmers

          b. Industries

          c. Society

      2. If industrial farming was needed to keep up with the world market?

          a. One argument for the technology

          b. One argument against the technology 

 III. Manufacturing of Automobiles

The brief history of car manufacturing in America

     1. What happened to the people that lost there jobs to this machine technology

           a. What are these people doing now

           b. Are the laborers better off now as a hole

     2. Who is benefiting from these machines

           a. the automobile companies

           b. the machine inventors

           c. society

   3. If machines manufacturing automobules is needed to keep up with the world market?

          a. One argument for the technology

          b. One argument against the technology 

 

Conclusion

In my conclusion I would like to briefly look at these three particular industries and see how they affected the middle class workers. I want to examine all three industries separately and gather data on three levels. One how it effected the people in that particular field. Two who is benefiting from this technology. Three whether or not society needed this technology to keep up with the world market. Then this will allow me to compare these three levels of inquiry to each other. This will hopefully illustrate how technology has effected these three industries and whether or not there is any correlation. My guess now is that there is a correlation to technology and how it effects these middle class workers. Since I am guessing I think these three industries are going to have very similar outcomes.

Prepared by:

Joe Vogt