The Art of Choosing Part 1

課堂筆記 Connection is Why We're Here

We talked about this video of Brene Brown at TEDxHouston.

Concluding statments:
This reminds me me of a book I read a long time ago, I forgot the title, there's a statment that impressed me, that made a big impact. The statement was, if we don't feel … you know, at that time, I was a very unhappy person, and because I was like the person she she talked about in the video, you know, 'we numb our feelings' I tried to chase a kind of life, which had no ups and downs. I just wanted a life, like, that was level. I didn't want happiness, I didn't want pain. Which is a kind of numbness.
But I knew I was really unhappy. And I depended, I found out because of that book, I depended on other people for my happiness. If they think you're worthy, you're happy. If you think you're unworthy, you're unhappy. You give your control away. I remember this statement stayed in my mind for a long time. In the very beginning today, at one point we talked about people who think they are worthy. When we talked about that , this statement came to my mind.

Do you feel differently now? About being level, I mean?

Of course, these fifteen years I've changed a lot. But it's hard to describe, I don't know how to say it.

Connection is Why We're Here.

The key statements in the video, as I heard them, anyways, are below.
For our discussion, I was thinking we could go through these one by one and discuss.

Connection is why we're here.
Connection is the purpose of our lives.
We're wired for it in our brains.

The unnamed thing that unravels connection: Shame.

12/2 What changes can you as a mature person make in the world?

We are not just consumers. We do much more than just buy things.
Our lives are not just personal. The decisions we make for ourselves have an effect far beyond our own lives.
Each of us is an adult, and we we make adult decisions in our lives, and these have effect on the people around us, and in the communities around us.
Each of us has a job, and the decisions we make in that job have an effect in the economy and society around us, even if only in very small ways.


In your capacity as a working adult, you can−−

Apple Economics

At the RO Studio one Friday night, five of us sat down to understand two opinion articles written by Darius Guppy for the Independent and the Telegraph, two British newspapers. The articles argue that our banking system is a fraud, because it creates a virtual economy of such runaway inflation that we are forced to produce beyond the means of the resources on this planet.

As we began to read the article, we realized that we didn't really know what inflation was. Fortunately, Fanny, who works in finance, had an example story for us. "If there were five apples on this table," she said, "and each of us at the table had a coin, each apple would cost one coin."

Slide 1

"Now, if each person at this table had two coins," said Fanny, "each apple would then cost two coins."

The amount of money in a system divided by the amount of product in that system equals the price of what is produced. This is a basic principle of economics. The more money you have in the system, the higher the cost of products.

Slide 2

Now we were ready to attempt the articles before us. The first article began by describing banking as it was first conceived:

11/25 What a 7 year old thinks about how women are drawn in comic books.

Why are female superheros drawn like this, but male superheroes never are?

Okay. For today's discussion, first, read this article (It's short and pretty easy):
A 7-year-old girl responds to DC Comics’ sexed-up reboot of Starfire

10/28 Celebration!!

Maggie got her Ph.D., so this Friday, we're celebrating!!

Come to the A-Plus Dining Sake Bar, which serves sake, beer, cocktails, and lovely things to eat, on AnHe Road, Section 1, Number 33. We're meeting between 7:30 to 8:00.

www.aplusdiningbar.com.tw

map below:

10/14 課堂筆記 Play

Final Statements:
I want to say that it's a lot of fun when all of us were talking about what we played when we were young. I feel like we were playing.
Oh, you're right! The conversation really felt different.
The End! (Point made!)

So coming here on Fridays to discuss, it's not playing?
It's diffrent playing.
I think it's playing, because we're very careful not to dominate each other.
The End!

Well, I was thinking about Wang Jienming, he gets to play for a living.
It can't be playing, because he has to win all the time, it's a job!
It's working!
It's a competition, it's not a game anymore!
The End!
So if you're in an orchestra, it's not really playing either, right?

So, would the world be different if everyone was playing all the time?
Oh, it definitely would.
And I think kids, they don't know what 'learning' is. What they do is just playing. Like my sister's kid, she can read a lot in kindergarten, but she doesn't think she's learning, she's just playing, she doesn't have this idea that she's 'learning'. She just learns out of play.
Just like I watch a Japanese drama, so I learned some Japanese.
Yeah, my friend learned some Cantonese, just by watching Hong Kong dramas. She watched a lot, so she could understand people in Hong Kong when she went there.
My personal feeling is that you have to be playing at some level, in order to learn. You can't learn when you are forced.
End.
Yes!!! Hahaha

Play

First, two short articles to consider:
Playing Isn’t Just For Young Folks (sorry, I lost the link to this article)
One day I decided to take a break from routine and try a new recipe. The next day at work, when asked what I did on my day off, I responded, “I played”, because that’s what it felt like – having some fun trying something different. To my surprise, that co-worker commented that she felt like she had forgotten how to play. And so began a several-minute discussion between all of us on what “play” means.
One woman described being intrigued by watching her grandson, age three, pour water back and forth from several containers and be absorbed in this play for close to thirty minutes. He was enjoying the wetness, watching what a stream of water looks like, seeing one cup fill up and another empty, learning that smaller cups run over when filled from larger cups. (Of course he also was acquiring skills in co-ordination and spacial processing, but he didn’t know that. He was just enjoying himself.)

9/30 課堂筆記 Occupy Wall Street

Participants: Amy, Maggie, Fanny, Stacy, Angela

Final Statements:
After I read their stories, I was so shocked by the real situation in the US right now. And I realized that how large an impact government policies have, every policy, including economic policy and tax policy and so on. So I think for the government, they have a responsibily to allow people to cleary and easily know what they are doing right now, and every policy they take, the have the responsibility to let people know the pros and cons of these policies. Before, I didn't care so much about politics, I thought I didn't want to waste my time seeing these people doing stupid things. But now I think if I don't care about those issues now, maybe I will have no idea how it will be in the future, and why this bad future will have happened. So that's what I found out tonight.

9/30 任重道遠 Occupy Wall Street

Okay, I've changed our topic tonight, because there's something really important going on in the US right now. We had the 'Arab Spring', and now we're having the 'American Fall'. This is really worth talking about, especially on the heels of our economic discussions. They are so inspiring!

Occupywallst.org

Longer video explaining the situation from occupytogether.org:

9/16 課堂筆記 Writing Exercise Changes Perception

Closing Statements from Writing Exercise Changes Perception discussion:

I think we are all struggling with this stereotype in this society. And I realized all of us are being affected by others expectation or others behavior or words. Therefore, i'm thinking we need to say good for others, do good for others, because any words we say, and any behavior we do, will make a huge impact on others, and we'll never know our effect.
And besides, even though it's hard to live without using stereotypes, but we still have to try to be ourselves.

I would say, and let other people be themselves, too. I think that it's harder. I think it's really hard to remember that the person across from you has all their layers of experience and ideas and things.

After today's discussion, I'm reminded that stereotypes are closely related to what we were talking about a few weeks ago, with normal, and not-normal. Behavior matching stereotypes is "normal", so if you break the stereotype, then you're not normal, and that's weird.

Well, I think stereotype is a kind of predjudice, just like I said about the autistic person, what comes in our mind is a man or a boy.

I just realized, helping people is not just letting them be who they are, but actively figuring out ways to help them, like having women or black people write about their values in class, so that it helps them fight stereotype threat.

You know, how do we help children build their values?

Say good things to them?

That's one way.

Or give them more choices.

I think you ahve to actively support that their judgement is correct.

You know, we say good things about kids all the time, we praise them about everything, but we do it wrong, what we do doesn't help. We have to praise them in a useful way.

Yeah, like only when they've done something worth praising, not like "wow, you caught the ball!" when they like catch a ball all the time. And give them real critique when something could be improved.

I think the point is, you take them seriously, like an adult person, not treat them like some weird small being that has to be managed, like a pet or something.

9/16 (五) Writing Exercise Changes Perceptions

1. What is a stereotype?
2. What are stereotypes of Taiwanese as a group?
3. Are you personally different from these stereotypes? How are you different?
4. What are stereotypes of women as a group?
5. Are you personally different from these stereotypes? How are you different?

6. What stereotypical groups have you been placed into?
(ex: woman, girl, intelligent/nerd, white, tall, artistic, american, midwesterner, foreigner)

7. Have you ever been told you're not as good as other people? What part of you were they talking about? How did it make you feel?

9/9 課堂筆記 Political Compass

Participants:  Amy, Fanny, Allie, Stacy, Angela

We all discussed each question together, but scored our tests separately.   Here are our results:

You can read the Political Compass explanation of their graph here.

9/9 The Political Compass

Ok, so this week we're going to do an experiment. We're going to take the Political Compass test together, as a class, to see where we as a group fall on the political spectrum.

The Political Compass is a bi-directional graph. One axis measures where power in society should lie, from Libertarian (the Individual is more important than the State) to Authoritarian (the State is more important than the Individual).

The other axis measures how our economic life should be organized, from Left (collective economics) to Right (totally unregulated capitalist markets).

You can read the Political Compass explanation of their graph here.

9/2 課堂筆記 The Apple Discussion

To see the essay produced from this discussion, "Apple Economics" (with illustrations!), go here.

We're discussing Darius Guppy's article in the Telegraph, called Growth: It Ain't Happening.
For the actual discussion we used a summary of the article, found here.

Summary of last week's article, Our World Balances on a Sea of Debt.
Our economy is a fraud. The banks are lending out money that doesn't exist, (the so-called fractional reserve lending), in a bizarre virtual economy.
The exponentially growing virtual economy is forcing the real economy to grow in ways our world can't support. We have to work so hard to increase productivity in order to allow the real world value catch up with virtual value, which is important so that we can avoid inflation. Inflation means that the value of everyone's money would decrease.

So how does inflation work, really?

The apple model, to explain inflation:
Imagine that there are 5 apples on the table, and there are 5 people sitting around the table. If each person around the table has 1 coin, then the way our economy works, each apple will cost 1 coin. If each of us had 2 coins, the apples would cost two coins each. If there were 10 apples, each apple would cost half a coin, or you could buy two apples for one coin.

The apple model, to explain the problem with banking:
Now, if there were a 6th person at the table (a bank), and that person had 25 coins, and the rest of us at the table only had one coin each, then there would be totally 30 coins in the system, and so each apple would then cost 6 coins, because of the total amount of money in the system is 30 coins, and there are only 5 apples. So the cost of the apples rises.

9/2 Growth: It Ain't Happening

Instead of our usual series of questions to think through an issue, this week and the previous week we are studying an article written by Darius Guppy for the Telegraph, a British newspaper, that was published in February, 2010.
I’ve made a summary of the article for us to discuss, as he uses quite complex English to make his points. The original article can be found here.

Darius Guppy was educated at Eton and was a member of the Bullingdon Club, of which David Cameron (prime minister of Britain) and Boris Johnson (Mayor of London) were also members. He was once a close friend of the brother of Princess Diana, Charles Spencer, but later Guppy became angry at him and broke the friendship. Guppy now lives in South Africa. The articles he’s written have been dismissed since he was once put in jail for insurance fraud, but I think they’re the clearest descriptions I have yet read about what is going on in the finance system.

The summary:
We don't grow our economies because we want to, we're forced to do so because of how banks work. In my previous article I argued that because of the fact that banks can lend out 10 times the money that's actually in their vaults--that they can in effect lend out 10 bars of gold for every bar of gold in their bank--is in effect a hidden fraud that separates finance from the real world, and creates a virtual economy based on debt that is bound to implode.

8/26 課堂筆記 Our World Balances on a Sea of Debt

Participants: Amy, Maggie, Fanny, Stacy, Angela

Concluding statements:
I must say what I learned in this article. This article made me have more orgainzed clear idea of how the monetary system works, and solves some questions of why bank failed, gvt failed, and why our economy becomes so terrible. And the most interesting thing I learned is the story of Jewish law, how the Catholic Church made interest illegal, and so that's one reason why some people hate Jewish people so much. (because the Jews were the moneylenders, and charged interest)


I think I'm so surprised that the money base and the circulating money is 10 times of the money base, because I never thought about this question before. I always thought, yes, the bank and the gvt will have so much money to circulate in the economic system. so I know that why the economy will collapse, or decrease, because they created a virtual economy system, that's not equal to the real money, or real economy. So I'm very shocked, and I learned about that. The other thing is, I still have some question about the, how do we know that the value of the currency. Because I wonder if the US gvt printed more and more money, how wouldn't that solve things!

But Fanny answered that question!

8/26 (五) 7:30pm Our World Balances on a Sea of Debt

Who creates money?
Is our economy based on the actual value of goods and services exchanged?
Do governments have any real control over the economy?
How does economic ‘growth’ actually work?

Instead of our usual series of questions to think through an issue, This week and next week I would like to study two article written by Darius Guppy for the Telegraph, a British newspaper, that was published in February, 2010. The points he makes are quite similar to an idea brought up earlier this year when we were discussing Time Banking, the idea that if your economy is based on interest, it means that it is based on permanent growth, which is ultimately unsustainable, considering that the planet has a finite amount of resources.
I’ve made a summary of the article, as he uses quite educated English to make his points. The original article can be found here.

8/19 課堂筆記: Redefining Normal

Closing Statements:
Well, I think it's always hard for people to change, because of the fear, we are not sure about the change afterwards, if its going to be better or worse. But in my own experience and in my friends' experience change usually gives us a better life. just like one of my friends quit her job for over one year at the age of 40, that takes courage, and actually she had a very good job. But now she already started her new job, and after this one year of refreshing herself, I think her life will be different. and from my own experience i have the same feeling. Before you change, you feel so scared, it's too hard for people to change, but it's always worth the effort, and the struggle, if you want to change, I mean.

Just like she said, if we want to change, we will be scared, or uncertain, so actually I don't like to change.

I don't think anybody does.

But I think some people, they like to change their style often.

But that's minor.

But how do we define the change, if it's minor, that's okay, but if it's a big major change it matters, i think. Actually, when I moved near the school, that led me to do my experiments, but then I can't sleep in my soft bed. Because now where I live, I don't have a fridge, it's very inconvenient, but I'm getting used to this lifestyle, so maybe the change is not so bad for us, but we fear the uncertainty of the change i think. So if we conquer the difficulty of the, it's hard to say, but maybe it's not so difficult to fact the change itself.

8/19 (五) 7:30pm Redefining Normal

Discussion Question: When you’ve made a change, what’s the best way to help it become the ‘new normal’?

Questions to Think About:
1. What is normal?
2. What are some of the things in your everyday life that you consider normal?
3. What do you normally talk about with people you know?
4. What sorts of things do you normally see in the media?

5. What are some changes you’ve chosen to make in your life?
6. What are some changes you’ve been forced to make in your life?

7. When you’re dealing with change, who do you talk to about it?
8. What are some of the things you do when you’re faced with a sudden change?

8/5課堂筆記 When being who you are challenges the norms

Closing Statements:
I don't want to get married, and society can't accept this. Also my family will not accept this. I told my mom that I will probably not get married in this life, and she's always like, "oh, you will be alooooone." And i say this is okay, and she's like, this is not okay. And my aunties and cousins think it'll be good for me to get married. But I think it's okay to be alone. I've got friends! And my sister says she'll push my chair when I get old.
I think for society and for the traditional part, I'm not okay in the marriage problem.

Can I suggest something evil? The next time your mom says you'll be alone, then why don't you ask her, "Aren't YOU alone?"

Ohhh! you're evil!! But it's true, even if you're married, you can be alone, or lonely.

8/5 (五) 7:30pm: When being who you are challenges the norms

Discussion Question: What about who you are is hard for society to accept?

Questions to Think About:
1. What is a tradition?
2. Do you enjoy traditional things?
3. Which traditions do you enjoy? What’s your favorite tradition?
4. Which ones irritate or frustrate you? Which one bothers you the most?
5. How do you know something is ‘traditional’?
6. Is there a difference between ‘tradition’ and ‘this is how we’ve always done it’?
7. Do traditions evolve? (i.e. barbeque at moon festival) Which ones tend to stay the same, which ones tend to evolve?
8. Does the evolution change what the tradition is about? Does it change the essence?

7/29課堂筆記: The Power to Choose

Final statements:
I'm a six on the scale. I'm easily affected by others, like my mom, my father or my sister. I think I have some choice by myself, but I'm not so confident about my decision, I will seek help, ask my mom, my sister, and what they say will affect my choice. So I think it depends on the people, and their character. Just like we talked about accurate and complete information needed to make a decsion. I think if we have more choices, we won't be so eager to seek power. It's true, but not universal.

I want to talk about my own experience. If you have choice out of your own free will, you'll feel powerful. If you think you have no choice but to follow what other people tell you, you feel powerless. this is my own experience. This also means you don't want to take your own responsiblity--you always have someone to blame, when the situation goes bad. I think choices always come together with responsiblity. People who want to have choices need to be willing to take responsibility, because you can only accept the consequences, no matter what, whether or not it's good or bad.

7/29(五)7:30pm 思，英語4: The Power to Choose

Discussion Question: What's your power to choose, on this scale of one to ten?

Article Excerpt (source)
Having power over others and having choices in your own life share a critical foundation: control, according to a new study published in Psychological Science.

The paper finds that people are willing to trade one source of control for the other. For example, if people lack power, they clamor for choice, and if they have an abundance of choice they don’t strive as much for power.

7/22課堂筆記: Zero Ｗaste

Where do you store food?
in the fridge
in a drawer
fruits and vegetables go in containers on the floor in the kitchen and everywhere

How to keep food fresh?
in my stomach.
this is not my work, that's my mom's job
only the fridge
sealing (bread, for example) in plastic boxes
sealing it in bags
putting it in a bowl on the counter and eating it on time,
put it where i can see it and eat it before it's bad
my mom wraps vegetables in newspaper in the fridge
cook larger portions and set some aside for later in the freezer

How's your kitchen?
very large! (lots of room for veggies on the floor)
small but still fits everything
do-able.

Garbage and recycling goes where?
on the balcony/laundry room
my mom puts the food we want to throw out in the fridge to wait for the garbage truck it's less stinky and no bugs. but it pollutes the fridge
my friend, who often works late, stores her food garbage like bones, in the freezer.

7/22(五)思，英語3: Is zero waste a reasonable idea?

7/15課堂筆記: What would our culture look like without the packaging?

When you look at the question, what images or ideas come to mind:
wrapping, too much plastic, boring, everything is covered with information, it's hard to figure out what's true and false. a culture without packaging would be more simple, pure and transparent.

what does food look like on television:
delicious shiny inviting want to buy it, attractive, shiny, light, large, smiles on everyone's faces. Juicy, fresh, just-cooked, tidy, colorful,
you can hear:
crunch, sizzle, ckch!, delicious sounds, pouring sounds, opening a soda

what do new apartment images look like:
expensive, unaffordable, luxurious, imagined pictures, strolling people hand in hand on the street, beautiful views of Danshui river, sunset, sunrise. it looks like it's the only building in the whole city. lots of trees. everyone looks happy. interiors looks like hotel. clean toilet. show you good feng shui.

images of new clothes or makeup:
perfect, flawless, they don't have any pores

difference between images and reality:
not so shiny, not so juicy, not so useful, they look normal, ordinary,

does that mean that once you own the thing, it's not that attractive anymore? It's more attractive when it's unobtainable.

it's unobtainably attractive in the ads. it can never be a talking barbie doll, the perfect juicy hamburger
the ads are our hopes and our dreams, show what we hope for,
i think that's why they're effective.

7/15(五)思，英語2: What would our culture look like without the packaging?

Questions to Ponder:
1. What sorts of commercial images do you usually see of food on television or print ads?
2. What do images of new apartments for sale usually look like?
3. What do images of new clothes or makeup usually involve?

4. What are the differences between these images and the products you eventually use?

5. Do you enjoy advertising images?
6. Do you enjoy watching commercials on TV?
7. Do you like looking through catalogs or fashion magazines?

8. Do you remember the first time you bought fast food from McDonalds or some other fast food chain? Did the food you unwrapped look the same as the food in the pictures? What was your reaction? Did you care?
9. When you buy toys or products that have been beautifully photographed and presented in commercials on the box, what do you feel when you see the actual product?

7/6課堂筆記: Who Tests Better?

kinds of tests: mid-term finals SAT, ACT, TOEFL, GRE, TOEIC, National Licensing Exam, LIen Kao, Graduate Entrance Exam, Drivers License, Job Interview Test, Job Exam

passing a test represents: successful, have the ability, qualified, happy,

a standard is a kind of scale
represents a certain ability
it's about being the same as others
a general formulation

7/6(五)思，英語1: Who tests better?

Questions to Ponder:
1. What are some kinds of tests you have taken? What are their names?
2. What does passing a test represent?

3. What is a standard?
4. What is a standardized test? Is it different from any other test?
5. Ｗhat do standardized test scores measure?

6. What are typical questions on a Taiwanese test?
7. What are some of the questions on the French test?

8. Do you feel testing people is important?

9. Do you feel it is important to have a standard?
10. Do you feel it is important to measure up to a standard?

Some notes from our discussion about guilt

Some definitions of guilt:
You feel you must apologize to sb
You feel blamed by somebody
You feel you owe somebody
You feel you must give them something back emotionally
You feel responsible to them for something
It's a tool (used by person A) to make another person (person B) do what the tool user (person A) wants them to do.

Guilt is used to motivate people to cooperate.

6/17 (五) 思，英語討論會 12: Guilt

Discussion Question: Why is guilt such a common emotion in our society?

Questions to Think About:
1. What is guilt?
2. What is guilt for?

3. What do our parents/teachers use guilt for?
4. Do religions make use of guilt?
5. If so, which ones?
6. Do they use it in the same way?

7. Is guilt used to motivate people?
8. Is it an effective motivator?
9. What is it usually used to motivate people to do?

6/2 (五) 思，英語討論會 11: Knowing what’s nice

Discussion Question: What is happiness?

Questions to Think About:
1. Who or what in your life make you feel positive?
2. Who or what in your life makes you feel capable and strong?
3. Who or what in your life makes it feel easy to be alive?

4. Who or what in your life make you feel inadequate?
5. Who or what in your life makes you feel pessimistic?
6. Who or what in your life makes things feel too complicated to deal with?

Competition

Discussion Question: Is competition inhumane?

What’re some other ways to say “competition”?
What are the benefits of competition?
What are the disadvantages?

What is praise?
What is humiliation?

What makes you want to do work?
What makes you want to be your best?
What do you need to do your best work?
What is ‘motivating somebody’?
What motivates you?
What tends to discourage you from doing things you want to do?
What tends to encourage you to your best work?
What tends to encourage you to be your best self?

What is ‘getting ahead’?
What does ‘competitive’ mean in these sentences.
“Some say women aren't aggressive and competitive enough for the sport.”
“We need to make our company more competitive.”
“Competitive prices”
“Easy Scholarships and Grants - Success in Today's Competitive World “
“competitive disadvantages”

5/20 (五) 思，英語討論會 9: Words and Deeds

Discussion Question:
Is there a difference between saying something and doing it?

Questions to Think About:
1. What is an action?
2. What is a threat?
3. What is a joke?
4. What is an insult?

5. Is it possible to say something without meaning it?
6. Is it possible to do something without meaning it?

7. How do you feel when someone makes a joke in which one of the characters gets hurt?
8. How do you feel when someone makes a joke about someone being made to have sex they didn’t want?

5/20 (五) 思，英語討論會 9: Words and Deeds

Discussion Question:
Is there a difference between saying something and doing it?

Questions to Think About:
1. What is an action?
2. What is a threat?
3. What is a joke?
4. What is an insult?

5. Is it possible to say something without meaning it?
6. Is it possible to do something without meaning it?

7. How do you feel when someone makes a joke in which one of the characters gets hurt?
8. How do you feel when someone makes a joke about someone being made to have sex they didn’t want?

Videos Explaining Monetary Systems, including Ripple

What is Ripple?


Understanding Money on the Social Network pt 1

5/13 (五) 思，英語討論會 8-3: Ripple Monetary System

We're continuing to explore the idea of Time Banking. This week we're going to read the Wikipedia entry for the Ripple Monetary System, and explore the links or do our own searches.

Here's some videos explaining the Ripple System.

4/29 & 5/6 (五) 思，英語討論會 8: Time Banking

Discussion Question: Do you think this could work in Taiwan?

http://www.timebanks.org/get-involved.htm

4/8 (五) 思，英語討論會 7: Ownership addicts

Discussion Question: Are we too concerned with material possessions?

Questions to Ponder:
1. Do you own a lot of stuff?
2. Is it hard to manage?
3. Does organizing your stuff take a lot of time?
4. Do you like buying stuff?
5. Do you use all the stuff you buy?

4/1 (五) 思，英語討論會 6：Home

Discussion Question: What is home?

Questions to Ponder:
1. Are you emotionally attached to one location on this planet? Or more than one?
2. Do you feel attached to one place as home? Is it related to where you grew up? Is it different than the place you live now?
3. Is your city your home? Your country? The world?
4. How do you decide what you are attached to?

3/25 (五) 思，英語討論會 5：Shadism

Shadeism from Shadeism on Vimeo.

Discussion Question: How does shadism impact us?

3/18 (五) 思，英語討論會 4：Eve Ensler on Security

(press 'view subtitles' button for English or Chinese subtitles)

Discussion Question: How do our concerns about security affect our lives? As women (or men), as citizens, as human beings?

3/04 (五) 思，英語討論會 3：Wael Ghonim

Discussion Question: Today we’re just going to go through the questions and statements one by one and discuss our reactions to the statements.

2/25 (五) 思，英語討論會 2：Waste = Food

The Video: Waste = Food

Discussion Question: Today we’re just going to go through the statements one by one and discuss our reactions.

Statements made in the video:
1. Waste is food for growth.
2. All waste from a factory should be safe to go back into the soil, so it can literally be used to grow food.
3. Design everything to become a nutrient.
4. Materials that don’t become food for the biosphere should become food for the technosphere.
5. We don’t actually recycle products. We downcycle products, they lose quality as they’re used. True recycling means they can be used to make the same thing, or something higher quality.
6. It’s time for humans to think of themselves as one of the species on this planet, and make the other species on the planet happy that we are here.
7. Less bad = no good. Defining environmental protection as destroying a little less, is misusing the term ‘protection’. Destroying less doesn’t protect anything.

2/18 (五) 思，英語討論會 1：Dumpster Dive!

Discussion Question: What should be done with expired food?

Questions to Ponder:
1. Have you ever heard the term, “freegan”?
2. What images from the video have stuck in your mind?

3. What are some concerns stores might have about distributing their expired food?
4. Do stores have legal liability if someone ate spoiled food?
5. Would it cost stores money if people took this food home?
6. Would it leave stores open to con-men trying to get money from them?

2/11(五) 思，英語討論會：Future Trash

Discussion Question: Do you believe there’s a way to create an economic system that doesn’t produce trash? What do you suppose it would look like?

Questions to Ponder:
1. Do you ever think about the sanitation workers who pick up your garbage?
2. How are sanitation workers treated in Taipei City? Are they respected?

3. Do you like taking out the garbage?
4. Do you think touching garbage is disgusting?
5. Would you pick up discarded furniture and bring it home, if you liked it?

6. What does ‘disposable’ mean?
7. What’s the difference between a ‘disposable’ product and a ‘keepable’ product?