3/2 Killing Us Softly

How does advertising work?
Why does advertising work?

In the video Jean Kilbourne says, "The average american sees 3000 ads every day.
And spends 2 years of their life watching commercials."
Do you think that's a lot?
Do you think Taiwanese watch fewer or more ads than Americans?

"Oh, I just don't pay attention to ads. I just tune them out. They have no effect on me."
Agree or disagree?

課堂筆記 The Danger of a Single Story

What are some of the things that Chimamanda Adichie says about the concept of 'a single story'?
A single story is incomplete.
A single story makes a stereotype about a certain group of people.
I's not enough information.
I guess the danger of a single story is that it leads to bias, so it's dangerous.

Last week we defined 'default' as "something that is set up and recommended for you."
Is there any similarity between the idea of a single story, and the idea of a default?
Well, a single story is set up, but it's not 'recommended'.
Sometimes it is, but it's not part of the definition.
I was thinking about the culture default. Like for instance the other day I read an article about African, and it was like, "Africa, land of darkness", and I was thinking is that like racist code? Because like, Africa is a super bright and hot country, and also has like deserts in it. But every famous novel about africa is like "darkest jungle" and stuff. I feel like any writer (John Locke, Joseph Conrad) can go there and have like two weeks experience touring around and then they think can write a novel and define Africa for the rest of the world. But what I really want to know is, why did John Locke make that stuff up? He's a smart man who wrote lots of smart things about economics. Why the lie?

The Danger of a Single Story

What are some of the things that Chimamanda Adichie says about the concept of 'a single story'?

Last week we defined 'default' as "something that is set up and recommended for you."
Is there any similarity between the idea of a single story, and the idea of a default?

2/17 課堂筆記 The Power of Default

In the TED talk we discussed this week, Dan Ariely is trying to make a point about 'irrational decision making'. But it seems to me that the main connecting idea between his examples is the power that a default choice has upon the decisions we make.

Here are the concluding statements by the people participating in our 2 hour discussion.

I think the world we're living in now is too complicated for me. We're surrounded by ads, commodities, documents… And after today, I feel I cannot trust what people say and the documents I'm going to sign.

[general agreement]

You know, everything is designed.

It's one minute, and make a decision!

Yeah, I think, I never thought that default is so powerful for people, I think, because the choices make us have different feelings about making a choice. so, maybe, that's not about advertisement, or culture or, I don't know how to define it, but I think: Socialization is a kind of default. I'm so impressed by this idea, I never thought I'm in a default, you never feel the default effect.

The Power of Default

In this talk, Dan Ariely is trying to make a point about 'irrational decision making'. But it seems to me that the main connecting idea between his examples is the power that a default choice has upon the decisions we make.

2/10 課堂筆記 The Monkey Economy

Here are the notes to our discussion of the TED Talk Laurie Santos gave on the monkey economy she created to study human economic behaviors.

What are some ways we try to deal with the problem of the temptation to steal(in our real world)?
Teachers and parents tell children that stealing is the worst thing. And if you steal things from others your hand could get cut off.

So, teaching of morals.

Keys! Locking things up.

We don't even think about this, but if nobody stole anything, we wouldn't need to carry keys.

Cameras all over the city. Monitors.

Alarm systems.

Building guard guys. They take packages, sure, but their job is deterrence.

Making Choices in a Monkey Economy

Laurie Santos set up a Monkey Marketplace in a lab to see if, by studying monkey financial behavior, they could find out whether it's possible to change human financial behavior.