What is Sustainability?

Last week we looked at Cuba, and how it was kind of forced into sustainable living in the 1990s because of the loss of its lifeline, the Soviet Union. Through our discussion, we came up against the realization that actually, we're going to have to learn how to live sustainably as a planet within our lifetimes! It turns out, we personally are going to have to figure it out sooner or later, so maybe now is a good time to start.

So, if we're going to face up to sustainability, the next step is to visualize just what sustainability means to us. To help us understand this, tonight we're going to do a visioning workshop. We're going to use the power of the group to answer this question:

What are the qualities of a sustainable action/product/system?
What defines something as sustainable?
This workshop is going to be a little more active than our usual discussion.
We're going to write down things with markers! And stick paper on the wall with tape! We might even draw things! So, come prepared to have fun!

討論逐字稿 How Cuba Survived Peak Oil

We discussed how Cuba survived a kind of peak oil. Here's the transcript of most of the discussion:

Okay, what's the main thing you understood from the first 10 minutes of this video?
The production of oil goes down year to year, but on the contrary, the consumption of oil continues to increase.
We have a certain amount of oil, but the population is growing, even big countries like China, they need to consume more oil, much more than before, and that's a problem, how to survive.
Oil is limited. And we need to find other alternatives.

What does 'peak oil' mean?
The oil that we have found now is it, there's no more that can be found.
In the beginning, the whole production of oil can be consumed maybe over twenty or thirty years, but in the time of peak oil, we just can only use oil in a short time period. In the beginning it's a kind of bell curve, but now it's more like a spike than a curve.
Basically, no more oil can be found than is already found, and we're already halfway through it.

How Cuba Survived Peak Oil

看”古巴怎麼樣存活石油峰值“的討論逐字稿

Normally, when we talk about change, we're talking about personal change. Personal change is very worthwhile, because we truly only can change things outside of ourselves once we ourselves have changed.

At the same time, personal change can only go so far before you run into conflict with the structures of society, one example being capitalism.

So in looking at the Cuba movie, one thing I want to explore is, what happens when society as a whole is forced to change?

Another question I had, watching this movie is, "How do Cuba's base values influence the decisions they made when confronted with a crisis of this magnitude. For example: Cuba's education systems and medical systems are completely free. During the crisis, this was not changed. What I want to know is, how does that come about? How many people have to participate in this decision for it to hold up? How many people have to oppose an idea like this for it to fall apart?


The whole movie is about an hour long. We won't look at all of it, just these segments:

Basic Background
10:05 It explains the basic story of what Cuba went through, called 'The Special Period'.

How Cultural Narratives Influence Perception

This kind of silly video is a great example of how 'framing' an idea can really affect how people then perceive that idea.

Narratives are constructed not only about ideas, but about products, political parties, minority groups in society. Parents construct a narrative about their kids, and that narrative affects their kids' perception of themselves.

Basically, the stories we tell influence our thinking as much as or more than the subjects of the stories do.

Like last week, we're going to practice using our critical faculties and intuition. As we watch the video together, we'll share the thoughts that occur to us, and create the discussion together.

Video Transcript:
Here are definitive scientific facts that prove that cats are better than dogs.
Here's a picture of a dog after a grueling and demeaning day working the pole at a local strip club.
Here's a picture of the cat after only five minutes, at the same club.

Coding a Better Government

Today we're going to try a little experiment. We'll watch the video together, and I'll keep my hand hovering over the 'pause' button. The instant anyone has a question or comment we'll stop the video and talk about what they have to say.

8/25 討論逐字稿 Competition

We discussed "Competition".

This corresponds to how I think society should work.
How so?
People are supposedly natural-born communitarians, based on scientists studying how people arrange resources.
How do people arrange them?
People who major in economics tend to try to monopolize all the resources.
What were some of the proofs that people were communitarian by nature?
They gave children 100 dollars. They tended to equally divide into two parts.
And the economists were like here, give me all the money and I’ll invest it for you!
The economics students would take 98% instead of 50/50.
98?
Or 99.
Wow.

Professional or Human Being? Can we be both?

For today's discussion there are three ideas to explore. The first area has come out of our 8/21 discussion of Aliens vs. Robots:

"Professionalism is about controlling emotions to appropriate expression.
Emotional expression is sometimes a burden on other people, and at the same time sometimes it's the most respectful thing."

For the following questions, I want to understand two things:
What's the standard cultural opinion as you understand it?
Do you have a different opinion on this than the standard cultural opinion?

When is emotional expression 'drama', and when is it 'authentic'?
When is emotional expression 'appropriate'? When is it not appropriate?
When someone can't avoid emotional expression in an 'inappropriate' situation, what is the person's responsibility in that situation? What are others' responsibility in that situation? Meaning, what is the appropriate way to handle it?

8/21 討論逐字稿 SuperBetter

We discussed Jane McGonigal's two TED talks about gaming.

Closing Statements
Firstly, when I saw this topic, I was a little bit shocked, because I used to play console games when I was a kid. I enjoyed myself. But I did my homework, actually, and I would finish as quickly as possible in order to play games. When I grew up, again, I used to indulge myself in Sudoku games, I played this a lot. So, the first time I saw this video's title, I think, it's totally a waste of time, playing games! Because I really didn't do anything, and I really spent most of my time on it. So it shocked me that she can see things in this way. So the most impressive part of the video is maybe the final part. She wants to design a real world into a game world.
I think she wants to make the world into a game.

After she explained the difference between the reality and the game, I think it's really cool to think this way, if we really can do so, it's brilliant, totally. And, but at the same time, I just wonder that, why people can trust each other easily in the game, is there something different from the game and the real world we are living in? Or it's like, people just get rid of their sense of embarrassment when they are in the game?

8/18 課堂筆記 Aliens vs. Robots

Concluding statements:

Today we talked about professionalism, the first thing that came to mind is related to doctors.  In addition to being a music educator, I’m also working on projects related to medical ethics, so this really interests me.  I think there's a lot to talk about in medical ethics, how we train doctors to become empathic to human beings, and also not to lost professionalism, when they are treating a patient, and trying to communicate with them.  But from working on these projects, I find it's hard to teach ethics, in a widely accepted way.  And so this topic becomes quite interesting.  But I deeply believe that, being a doctor, since I work with a lot of doctors, and try to help them, and as a research assistant try to help them build medical ethics, I think a professional doctor, it's not mutually exclusive to be a good doctor and a good person.  And sometimes, it's interesting to see how doctors from older generations, in their time there were no medical ethics, in fact, but they were great doctors, and they care about their patients as much as young doctors do, even though the were not taught medical ethics, they just do things based on their experience.  So I think, yes we should teach this, but it's also not something you teach, you just expect doctors to be this way.  We should carefully select those who want to dedicate their lives to medical practice.  It's the person that makes him or her be a good doctor. 

I was thinking about a high school friend.  He used to be a very smart person, in 7th grade, he was one year younger than us because he skipped ahead.  He was a genius and he always ranked at the top, and in 9th grade he skipped again, and then got into medical school.  Lots of people go to medical school if they have high grades.   But he didn't become successful like I thought, he turned out to not really become a doctor in the end.  He said he was not perfect for it.  He liked medicine, but he felt he was not suitable for it.  So he studied neuroscience, to be a researcher instead of a doctor.  He's in medicine, but not treating patients. I would say he's a very professional person.  It's kind of that he was professional, to choose what he knew he was suited for. But it still kind of surprises me.

It seems to me that everything I said today related to not trusting professionals, so I will continue in this vein.   Well, I tend to think that the empathy thing, or being caring of 

SuperBetter

8/21課堂筆記在這裡

Today we're discussing both of Jane McGonigal's TED talks, "The game that can give you 10 extra years of life" and "Gaming can make a better world" I feel the points she is making in each talk is related. Each quote below links to the talk it originally came from.

If you can manage to experience three positive emotions for every one negative emotion over the course of an hour, a day, a week, you dramatically improve your health and your ability to successfully tackle any problem you're facing. And this is called the three-to-one positive emotion ratio.

Notes to TED Wed 8/8, The Power of Being Embarrassed

What does it mean to practice?
Doing something consciously, noticing the details, with an eye towards improving it.
Making you more familiar with what you're doing.
Broaden your comfort zone.
Trying new things in order to broaden your skills.

Is there a difference between practicing and doing?
Practicing and doing should be the same thing. Some practice is for a habit, and some doing is for real life.
Practicing is an ongoing thing, but doing is now.
Two aspects to practice:
It's a scheduled thing, you do it without consciousness.
Do it enough, it becomes part of your life, it becomes doing.
Practicing is about having a goal, but doing has no goal.
"do the dishes" = you get it done.
Practice doesn't end.
To get something done, you have to practice endlessly first.

Robots vs. Aliens

We're going to discuss Tonee Ndugu's talk. Here's the challenge, we're not going to discuss so much what he said, as how he presents it. Well, we're also going to talk about what he said, because it relates. But, if you look under the Youtube video of his talk, you see all his credentials of what he's started up and done. But if you look at how he presents himself, it's strange and weird and doesn't fit in to how a presentation, a TED talk! is 'supposed' to be. So this presentation of his, brings up some questions:

What is professional? Professional behavior?
What's the difference between an amateur and a professional?
Why is it considered good to be professional?
What are the advantages? Drawbacks?

Why is emotionalism, leaping around topic to topic, talking about oneself, or even literally leaping around on stage, suspect?
Why do we have to show a dour and reasonable demeanor?

When does being a person interfere with being a professional?
When does being a professional interfere with being a person?
Is it possible to be both?

Why is it easier to regularly have one's face looking scowly and busy than to smile at each other on the street?

Tonee Ndungu says robots vs. aliens is the greatest fight of you against you. So, what are the characteristics of an alien, according to Tonee Ndungu? A robot?
Do you know people who fall into these categories?
Are you comfortable with this characterization?