Sustainability & OTM 3 (Out With The Old...)

The first part of this post will be dedicated to the sustainability project that we did in class. I was part of the group that discusses the homeless problem. I didn't come up with the idea for our group and how to exactly solve the problem, but I did contribute to group discussions. I helped research different facts and statistics about homelessness, as well as researched the Project Homeless Connect (the non-profit that we discussed during our presentation). I also created the powerpoint that our group utilized to help give our presentation.

I thought that the sustainability project was a great project for us in this class. If nothing else, it created great discussions about how technology and social media can be used for creating wonderful opportunities and solving real world problems. We had discussed in class various problems and troubles that come with social media (like privacy) which made this project a great opportunity to look at the possibilities of social media. I was thoroughly enjoyed by all of the great discussions that we had in class. The discussions about the real world problems and solving those problems through social media that makes me really enjoy this class and the other individuals in it.

The next part of this post will be about the On The Media for this week. I completely forgot to do my third and final on the media post, which is why I hadn't published one until now. The most recent On The Media post is titled "Out With The Old..." and proved to be quite interesting. I learned about a lot of different things that I didn't know before. There are three main sections to this On The Media. The first section discusses the Senate and filibusters. The second section discusses taxes and why filing taxes is a difficult process. The last section discusses our current geological era and the future geological discoveries that would be made about our generation.

I had started this On The Media podcast and was listening to the information being provided, but they kept throwing around the world filibuster. They kept discussing how a filibuster was used by the Senate, but I had no idea what they were talking about. I had to pause the On The Media show for a solid ten minutes while I researched online what a filibuster is. Honestly, I still don't know exactly what a filibuster entails. I read this article from the New York Times that helps explain a little bit of what it is. What I learned though is that a filibuster is a tactic used by the Senate when making decisions. From what I read, it seems like a filibuster is a form of a loop-hole that the Senate can use when trying to get enough votes. Utilizing filibusters seems like an interesting tactic that is beneficial when it works for you and a pain in the butt when it doesn't. The On The Media podcast discussed that a filibuster allows the majority to blame the minority when votes don't happen. It seems like filibusters have been used for many years over a wide variety of government decisions. The reason that filibusters was being discussed on this particular On The Media podcast is because a filibuster was used to include Supreme Court nominations. Another aspect about filibusters that was discussed was the "nuclear option", which apparently is used by the majority to overrule the delaying actions of minorities.

Essentially, filibusters and "nuclear options" seem like a big, giant mess that we call the United States Senate. While these various government tactics can seem destructive, threatening, and/or nonproductive, it seems like this is the way the government is. Those who understand how tactics like this works will love them because they understand it. Someone, like myself, who doesn't understand how these tactics and policies work is, quite frankly, a little scared of them. If there is one thing that I have noticed during the past months dealing with politics is that politics can bring out the worst in people. The sustainability projects that we did in class came to my mind when listening to this part of the On The Media podcast. There has got to be some way to make politics and the government more efficient. I have no idea what that could be, but there has got to be a better way of doing things.

The next section of the On The Media podcast deals with filing taxes. The podcast discusses how filing taxes each year is a complicated system. The podcast seems to address and pretty much talk about their own sustainability project, which would be to provide an easier way of doing taxes. One of the ideas that was discussed on the show would be to create a simple system where the IRS, who already knows pretty much all the information that we tell them during our tax forms, would send out a form or paper that shows how much they think we would need to owe them.

The show then discusses the pros and cons of this type of tax filing system, as well as the unlikely possibility of having it become a real system due to for-profit tax filing organizations. Many tax filing organizations (H&R Block) rely heavily on people using their tax software for making taxes easier to file. If filing taxes became very simple and easy, then companies like this would go out of business. Tax filing companies want people to use their products. They want to be simple enough to stand out among competitors, but don't want a tax filing system from the government that is so easy that would run them out of business. Honestly, having a super simple way of filing taxes would be fantastic. I just got done filing my taxes and having a better way of doing taxes would be very helpful.

The last section of the On The Media podcast discusses our current geological era. I, personally, found this section of the podcast to be quite entertaining and thought provoking. The podcast was discussing how this period of time is creating so many different changes and opportunities that is going to heavily affect the Earth's physical structure. The idea that was discussed a lot during this podcast was "what geological discoveries are going to be uncovered millions of years from now because of our current state of living." Listening to all the different things that were being discussed were quite interesting. Apparently, many of the world's chicken bones find themselves in our landfills since we eat a lot of chicken. These areas of highly concentrated chicken bones will make an interesting discovery someday. It was many ideas, such as the chicken bones, that really made me think about what impact we are having upon the world.

While discussing these future geological discoveries, the podcast talked about how we, as humanity, will one day die away and become extinct. Similar to how the dinosaurs had a large impact upon the world before they themselves became extinct. In referencing the work of one researcher, the podcast discussed 5 different ways that humans are wired to destroy their environment. These different factors are:

1- Humans value their personal interests over other interests.
2 - Humans value the present over the future.
3 - Humans are obsessed by status.
4 - Humans unconsciously copy the behaviors of those around us.
5 - Humans disregard novel environmental threats.

These 5 different ways that humans are wired to destroy the environment really made me think about how applicable these really are. There are many instances (especially numbers 1, 2, and 3) where these different, negative attributes are shown throughout society. While it is kind of strange and fearful to think about what is in store for humans in the future, it still interesting to learn more about what the future has in store for humanity.