The Matrix

“You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes,” Morpheus explains to Neo, who has no clue what will be coming to him if he takes the red pill. But, being someone who thinks that he has nothing to lose, Neo has to satiate his curiosity. How would he know that he’d wake up in such a hellish future? I’d say he was tricked by Morpheus, who almost had too much faith in Neo (who thankfully IS “The One”). Now, would I take the blue pill or the red pill if I were put into the same situation as Neo? Obviously, taking the blue pill wouldn’t change my lifestyle one bit. On the other hand, let me predict what will happen to me if I take the red pill.

Although taking the red pill is just what Neo did in The Matrix, first off I must be realistic and say that I may not be as fortunate as Neo if I do the same. After all, he is the hero of an epic story, which might not necessarily be me. As seen from the film, taking the red pill will kick me awake from ignorant bliss and into a world where I am nothing but a battery. What will come then is bewilderment, shock, and despair. It is not until Morpheus and the others allow me to understand me their “fight” and my part in that fight that there will be any hope left in my heart. Their lifestyle is one of hiding, eating disgusting vitamin goop every day, living in a claustrophobic ship and nonstop life-threatening missions. The red pill doesn’t sound like a good deal to me at all. Even if I knew that I were to become “The One,” I’d still hesitate putting such responsibility upon myself. Plus, Neo loses Trinity and supposedly dies at the end of the trilogy... he is a hero, yes, but in truth, who really wants to be a martyr?

On the contrary, assuming that I didn’t know what would happen if I take the red pill, I would probably take it, based on my personality. Although “ignorance is bliss” and I may feel better off living in a situation like Plato’s “Cave” or North Korea (I just had to add this in), since I can be happy as long as the world is what I believe it is, I would rather know the truth than be a slave. Thinking back to what Morpheus said, and how I wrote that he tricked Neo into eating the red pill, I now actually kind of know where he is coming from.

Life can be tough though, and people often try to escape it with actions like watching movies, taking drugs, or even denial. Not all these temporary escapes are bad, but if one tries to escape too much they typically end up ignoring too many things and arrive at where they don’t want to be. Then again, the Matrix is something that probably many would rather be than face a world run by robots. The film explores controversial subjects not only such as human beings dabbing in and creating AI; it also explores the definition of “reality.” People are unknowingly part of a simulation system and can “thrive” within (based on what they feel, not what they physically are – a battery), and even for those who know the truth about the Matrix, some such as Cypher would rather return to living in the dream.

Slavoj Zizek in Examined Life- "Ecology:" the conservative way of thinking

As difficult as it was to keep up with this man's speaking accent and abstract thoughts, Slavoj Zizek’s casual speech about his so called “ecology” is still a huge eye-opener.

I believe that he defines “ecology” as a common ideology of the masses, that like religion used to be, “ecology” now is the abstract voice that rings in our heads and puts meaning in the unexplainable and unseen as the highest authority. Zizek explains that this type of thinking is very conservative. To quote Zizek’s words, “one of the elementary ideological mechanisms I claim is what I call the “temptation of meaning.” People unconsciously attach meaning to the not obvious, such as calling AIDS “God’s punishment.” In a way it may give us a sense of reassurance, but people should really be thinking more critically.

Zizek says that people believe that nature is perfect and balanced and is only disturbed by human influence. On the contrary – he claims – it is rather filled with unimaginable catastrophes. One example he used was “oil,” one of our main energy sources, which is derived from ancient remains of animals and plants. In order for oil to form, some genocidal “catastrophe” must have occurred. I think that nature is too often idealized as something beautiful, and that rather a lot of its primitive cruelty is ignored. It is hard to define good and bad, and it should be even harder to blur morality with the random events that is nature.

“I know very well, but I act as if I don’t know,” is Zizek’s take on what people think of global warming. He says that human beings are not “wired” to imagine the urgency and consequences of such disasters. It does seem that way; when I go outdoors on a beautiful day and look at all the trees and singing birds, I strangely feel that everything is okay. Because of this, Zizek says that we should cut off our “roots from nature” and “become more artificial.” I believe this is true, now that I think about it, as alienation instead of having an idealized view of the world should give people a more objective and practical view of things.

What is love? I agree that with Zizek that love is accepting and cherishing something for all its perfections and imperfections. Zizek expands his definition of love by adding that true love of the world means recreating poetry and spirituality in the dimension of abstract materialism (where there is nothing but mathematical formulas, technical forms, etc.) instead of idealizing something. He points out that instead of “becoming one with nature,” one should find beauty in things like trash itself. I believe that he doesn’t actually mean that we should necessarily all love our waste and trash and shit, but that people should be more liberal in their thinking and accept change, think rationally, and have a critical eye for everything, even nature itself.

I think Zizek’s whole speech can easily be misinterpreted as that “we should not love or care about nature.” It is more related to how people are enslaved by their own lazy thinking in the form of idealizing nature and ecology almost religiously. Overall the video was very enjoyable and I agree with Zizek’s thinking (assuming that I really understood his point). On the other hand, although “ecology” is largely idealized, perhaps not enough credit was given to the “balance” of nature.

I mentioned earlier that I think of nature more like a series of random events, but the world that we live in is more “in balance” than it was millions of years ago. For example, Darwin’s theory of evolution suggests that all the organisms have survived until now have adapted and now supposedly “fit” within their respective place. Ecosystems such as rainforests for example have come a long way in stabilizing itself and thus a huge number and species of animals and plants thrive within them. Humans, on the other hand, have disturbed their “balance” by acts such as deforesting. Now the big question is that whether or not human disturbance is “bad”. I think although Zizek suggests us to think outside of the box, problems such as large-scale deforesting and global warming shouldn’t just be ignored or accepted. I wonder what Zizek would say…

Implicit Association Tests

Gay/Straight results: "

"Your data suggest a strong automatic preference for Straight People compared to Gay People."

First of all, I know that this statement does not mean that I prefer straight people over gay people. It is simply saying that I more easily link "gay" to "bad" and "straight" with "good." Based on this, I think the IAT did a pretty good job. However the test has its flaws, since (I presume) it ranks your preferences based on how quickly you answer a question, and since the test uses a similar structure throughout, the pattern becomes more and more obvious and speeds up response time.

The website states: "Most respondents find it easier to associate Gay people with Bad and Straight people with Good compared to the reverse."

I believe the main reason for this is that peoples' cultural and social backgrounds give the word "gay" and its synonyms a bad connotation. That's right, the word. So, when dealing with actual people, I think most people don't really prefer a person of a certain sexual orientation over another of a different orientation (unless they are also unconsciously romantically or sexually attracted to one of them, in which case it puts he/she at an advantage over the group you don't feel attracted to based on your sexual orientation). When dealing with the word "gay" though, your mind more easily associates it with negativity, because of certain stereotypes that you have learned.

Asian American / European American Results:

"Your data suggest a strong association of European American with American and Asian American with Foreign compared to Asian American with American and European American with Foreign."

This time around, I can definitely feel that it is easier (and faster) to press the same key in where Asian American and Foreign are grouped together or where European American and American. Both consciously and unconsciously I feel that there is a stronger association with the USA and people of European & Caucasian descent. It was an eye-opening experience.

Scavenger Hunt Thoughts

I think Elsa Maxwell's scavenger hunt is a great way to start people off into knowing and then befriending each other. Truth is, most people are easy to get along with, it's just difficult for two individuals to begin a friendship. People fear the unknown. For example it is not always easy to just start a conversation with someone you have no clue about. The scavenger hunt - however - gives groups of people a purpose, and not just any purpose, but one that is fun and causes people to cooperate and talk to each other.

If I were to do the scavenger hunt differently, I would head straight to the library (which we did, but we had to come back to the library towards the end due to poor organization) and utilize google images to complete the "harder" objectives, such as the duck/goose, De Anza President and someone named April/Apryl for points. Other than the ones that are improbable to find though, I had a lot of fun searching and improvising for the other hunts, so I wouldn't do that part differently. All in all I would just try to allocate our time for more efficiency (and not assume that it would be easy to find two Civics parked next to each other).

We did a good job though, completing most of the objectives. The aspect of the hunt that really sparked our creativity was that "Professor Berney won't be able to tell." For example we didn't really happen to find someone sleeping in the library, or someone that knew a legitimate dance move, but that wasn't important, because our pictures "proved" otherwise. At the end I enjoyed how this assignment made us think outside of the box.

Scavenger hunt pics part 3

Tried to teach us to moon walk!

April Margera close up

April

de anza president

creative minds blog!

Scavenger Hunt pics part 2

museum

bus stop

coke bottle!

converse

I have seen Tron

Elsa Maxwell's Scavenger Hunt

Jamba Juice

Nap time

Duck