how is the internet changing the way we live?

Have you tried googling yourself? It is actually funny that you can google anything nowadays. Even the most specific thing, you can google. I wonder if you can google “google.” What I am delivering here is that almost everyone everywhere has access to the internet that anything that anyone might have thought of is in the internet. And since information is power, through the internet which has unlimited amount of information, anyone everywhere anywhere anytime has the power to influence, inspire, sell, buy, flirt, court, and do whatever through the internet. And the best thing is that you only need fingers and even without fingers anyone can use the internet because of the new technology. But just like any other thing in this world, there is a negative in the internet. Here anyone can share their vices, can abuse people, can steal identities, money, can scam, can kill, can practice violence, and can even damage a person through the internet. Small children can be exposed to violence early on because of the internet that can break their futures and cause them to develop psychological disorders.

The internet have had been the reference of students nowadays but are everything in the internet true? Well since everyone in the net can write anything, how can you trust the internet? Well it is good now that there are trusted sites but still the fact that anyone can write anything and access the internet makes it untrustworthy. How can we be sure now that what students learn is genuine?

The internet provided a very fast way of communicating that made it easier for Filipinos to communicate with their loved ones who is working abroad. This is probably one of the best traits of the internet because this made having a family while working abroad easier. Also this gave way to new ways of knowing people, finding friends, staying in touch with friends and such. Also, the fast way of communicating business transactions so that developing countries like us can compete internationally.

The internet among other uses also gives entertainment to the people. Games, shows, videos, tutorials and such are among the things that I use the internet for entertainment. This gives people from all over the world quality entertainment wherever and how remote their location can be.

I cannot even imagine or remember life before the internet. I can’t think of a way how my parents searched for information, data and other stuff when there was no google yet, even if there was already the internet. But as I think of this, I cannot think of a way how thinking this is a good thing.

how does the nation-state work?

My understanding of a nation-state is that it is a community with a diverse culture that is not of the state as a whole but is all governed by one government. An example that I could think of is the Philippines. It is actually hard to get a grasp on the idea of a nation-state but having the Philippines as an example would make it easier to digest. On what I understood, it is like here in the Philippines where we have different identities like the Ilocanos, the Bisaya and such where all of these are under one government.

For me, globalization is exactly what a nation-state needs. It is a very diverse identity that all these identities needs one medium in which they are all equal and can trade, communicate and share. It has been that the different identities in this country didn’t really got along well with each other and now that the Philippines is starting to become globalized, this is starting to change for the better. Through the new ideas, technology and perspective that globalization has, the different identities’ strengths have had been bonded together such that this country might progress. It is in that one governing body that this country’s downfall came, but in my perspective, this country can go the distance.

A nation-state works just like what I have just mentioned, well at least according to how I understood it from the example the Philippines. The differences each of the identities have in the Philippines have had given due respect and understanding where these differences was used as an edge for the betterment of everyone in the country. Although these identities have now had been disperse all around the country, they still retained their culture, beliefs and practices. Not only are these identities been scattered around the Philippines, but also around the world still retaining the Ilocano, Bisaya, Pangalatok, and the Filipino way. Which kind of makes the whole world a big nation-state because of globalization.

why do we obey?

To whom do we obey? Or are we even obeying a person? We might just be obeying a faceless government. In my course, I would say that we obey because we have been conditioned to obey. Like if we obey we might get rewarded or if we do not obey we get punished. Using reinforcements like these will condition a person to obey. But there is a deeper and way different reason we obey.

The law would say do not steal. For an example, there is this person who wants to have a new gold watch. Stealing it would reward him/her but then the law says do not steal. That person would likely obey the law. This is one reason that we obey. Maybe, in some ways, not the law but a person of authority, but essentially we obey the law. For me, I feel that obedience to the law is the oil of a country. Without people obeying the government’s law, what power does this government have and is it really functioning as it should be? People obeying is the exact function of the government. To find order and equality, the government exists and the people should obey the government to achieve this purpose. The government is also looking after the people’s backs, to keep them on line and prevent harm to them. It is then logical to obey to the government because it is for everyone’s good. So is obeying the government all it is to it in obeying?

In my opinion, we cannot just obey the government. We should also think about what we are obeying. But in reality, this is hard since the government has the authority to apprehend you for not obeying. But what if the government was really wrong. Can they force you to obey? Sadly, there is a way to force people to obey. An example of which is former President Marcos’ martial law. He forced everyone to follow his dictations. But then again, are people really obeying in the sense of true obedience? What is obedience then? In the dictionary definition of obedience, it is a dutiful submissive behaviour. But were we submissive in that martial law? I think not. We were, at least people then, were not submissive to this law since they eventually revolted. Although there were people who were submissive to it, there were more people who fought against it. So what does this say about obedience? Maybe this might add that we obey because we believe that what we are obeying at is true and is right. But this would make obedience subjective and how will a government govern if people subjectively obeys the law? So maybe there is a way to obey objectively or maybe not. In the Christian perspective of obedience, Christians obey because of their love for God. That if they love God, they would obey His commandments. As I thought about this, I realized that this is actually not a bad idea. If we love our country, we will obey and do according to what will benefit it best. This actually changed my perspective in obedience. At first I thought of obedience in terms of an authority versus the obeying party, where as here, they go together and have a common not opposite paths. Maybe this is the way of obedience, not saying that everyone should do what I say and obey God, but get this way of obeying and applying it.

What is then the role of obedience in globalization. For me, globalization actually makes obedience harder, because people now in this globalized world would feel puny and would think that they are not that big of a part in this world that why should they obey? neither do they think more so love the world that they would sacrifice personal wants to do anything for the world. This kind of makes it seem that globalization is not that good at all, obedience wise, but then again, with globalization, the authority can be more effective in implementing the laws so that people are more afraid of not obeying, but to put it in a more positive light, through globalization, the temptation of not obeying is reduced so that people can trust and obey better.

who do we think we are?

We say that who we are depends on who our friends is. How we interacted to the world around us. But these things still are dependent on who we are in the world. We cant see through race, even if we say we can. We cant see through language, even if we say we can. We cant see through nationality, even if we say we can. And we cant see through age even though we say we can. Sure, we are varied because of our interactions with other people and the world. We may be a race different from the common race in our country. We may not act our age but what we see in paper matters. Yes, there are people with a less cloudy perspective on equality but as I see it, there are more people that still are enslaved by their biases, prejudices and stereotypes. But then saying this, it is possible to infer that the world is uniformly like this. Like having one culture, as the hyperglobalist would like. It is like the matrix movie for the hyperglobalist, they want a global society where the limitation of geography ends.

There is this stand up comedian named Russel Peters said a joke about how everyone is racist, it is just that every race is racist in a different way. He would also joke a lot about how different people’s cultures vary that it is funny. The anti-globalist or the sceptics on the other hand want to preserve the differences in culture and does not want a unified culture for the whole world, preserving these identities like the jokes from Russel Peters.

One more approach in this matter is the transformationalists. For them, they want the cake on both parties. They want both hyperglobalist and anti-globalist. They would like to keep both the identity of the cultures and unify them at the same time. For me, this is particularly hard to understand because of the messy-ness. If one would look at where this would be going, one might say “who knows?” and maybe this is why they do it. At least here, a better future is possible.

In my opinion, who we are now, in this time, is a choice. We can now choose who we want to be because of technology. Like the movie surrogates, people can choose on how they would look like and this crossed barriers that can not have had been crossed ever did that not happen. But as the movie went, we might regret having this technology. This made me realize that who we are is imperfect, wanting perfection that we cant have, as we always want what we cant have. Ultimately, in the most basic sense, we are human.

what can we do to stop people from harming othes? (revised)

What can we do to stop people from harming others? This seems impossible. How can we control what others do? Do we need to control them to stop them? Why do the do it? What is it?

Harm is defined in the dictionary as physical or mental damage. For me, to be able to think of something do to prevent people from harming others, we have to know why do we ourselves hurt. So I asked my self, why I harm others. For me, if I ever need to harm others, it is because of survival. To prevent others from harming me in anyway. Survival of the fittest, as they say. A sort of last resort. I would do it to protect myself. So to harm is to survive. Answering this question makes it more and harder to think of a way to prevent others from hurting other people.

I realized that someone actually thought of a way to do this. Religion. If we all believed on a good God, who loves us and would protect us, there won’t be a need to harm other people. But this again is faulty. I then realized that there were instances in the past where religion brought pain. Wars even! But maybe in the first place, religion was not the best way to handle God. And this is why people still hurt others. How to handle God is another matter all together, which I think wont and shouldn’t be handled in this blog.

So what do we do now? Maybe heaven is the only place, if it exists, is where harm is not happening. All we can do is pray.

As I think about this topic, finding hope to solve, if solving would be the right term, even is a far shot to what can be attained. But humans are remarkable on how we can find ways even in the most hopeless cases. There are actually acts to prevent harm, even in the most specific things. I saw this site: http://www.ihra.net/ which deals with lessening the harm done by people who take drugs. Specific. But harm is still not eliminated. I also found another site which prevents as much harm that could be inflicted to children in the school context: http://thearcsf1.blogspot.com/2010/01/call-to-prevent-harm-to-children.html. Specific, yet still deals with prevention.

Maybe stopping harm is a big dream altogether. But if you would look at it in another light, these simple acts of trying to stop harm is actually STOPPING harm. Meaning it is stopping harm in the action sense. This action may not terminate harm altogether NOW, but who are we to say that harm wont stop. It may stop at infinity, by these small simple and specific actions.

But then, need we handle “harm” in a very general way. Maybe we can handle harm in the simplest way. Thinking of this, I thought of how our discipline office prevent harm. It is funny how students look at the DO’s office. Some of them look at it as if it is the enemy of fun. Some look at it as the police and would even want to be part of it. It is said in the DO’s overview webpage that they the Discipline Office (DO) is responsible for promoting student discipline, for ensuring the safety and welfare of the students, and for maintaining peace, order and cleanliness in the University. It seeks to prevent, rather than correct, unseemly student behaviour (dlsu website http://www.dlsu.edu.ph/offices/sps/do/). The student handbook is their set of laws and this is how they would prevent harm. A set of laws can prevent harm they can also be harmful. They can be legal but not legitimate. Being legal is following the laws and being legitimate is justifying and action to be situational-ly correct, well at least in my understanding. An example of which is pleading for self-defense in the act of killing which is against the law. This way the law can at least provide a fighting chance in preventing harm to people from other people. But the thing is, this is still subject to human judgement and biases. People will still decide on this and how can we prevent these people from harming anyone? What if the are corrupt and have personal interests in mind and not fairness? This issue is currently the baseline thought of Filipinos when it comes to the Philippines law. Well at least this is what I commonly hear from people I talk with whom have had been wronged by someone but does not want to do something about it because they lack faith in the government.

So how do we handle this? A biased government not able to function its purpose, as how these people would think. It is good that the Philippines allow globalization, because through globalization, laws from other countries or even international laws can be implemented. Meaning outside influence can help people think better of the government. Examples from people from different countries might give the filipino a new perspective in doing part in preventing harm to other people and themselves.

why does politics turn to violence?

One of the Ten Commandments is “thou shall not kill.” I wonder how people thought how serious this commandment is to be able to justify doing it. It is a commandment from God and yet people who claim to believe in God is able to justify doing it by using an argument that came from human cognition. I wonder how they were able to sleep at night where they disobeyed a God because a human told them to. Well maybe humans are innately evil or at least more susceptible to perform aggressive tasks just like what Milgram’s experiment showed. If so, then maybe what one would commonly hear from people that people in power are alligators, capable only of caring for themselves and shedding a tear here and now to greater DEMONstrate how selfish they really are. Well, maybe they are just unique that way. All are motives are selfish anyway. Or is it?

Come to think of it, politicians are actually smarter than what most people think. They actually were able to do things they want to do, without even doing it. They have people do it for them. People they fool and persuade into doing things that only a person with a twisted mind would do on their own. If these politicians want oil, they just tell their armies to attach the middle-east. If they want land for their people, they’ll just invade a neighbouring country. Or if they feel paranoid that they might be invaded next, they start a world war. Politicians make people do these stuff by using any means that they can use. They’ll use knowledge the wrong way to get their way. They know that people can be manipulated easily if this came from an authority (from an article by Bourke in Edkins’ book), so they use their authority. They would make people think that if they don’t kill their “enemy,” their enemy will kill them (from an article by Bourke in Edkins’ book). And how do they cover up? They would make it seem that they are against killing and “fight” against those people who find pleasure in killing whenever these politicians can.

In an article by Bourke, she mentioned about how technology dehumanizes violence, since through technology, violence can be done by people without having being there. People can remotely do violence with a push of a button.

There is this idea that I remember from one of my chemistry classes. That behaviour of chemicals would follow the path of least resistance. Where it is easiest, is the best way to go. Violence now is so easy and subtle that it is scarier than ever. There might come a time where violence would be the easiest way out and people will choose this path. maybe that is why politics turn to violence.

how can we end poverty? (can we?)

Being a psychology student in one of the countries most expensive schools, I would often think on how other people see me. My course’s purpose is basically to help people live a fuller life, in contrary to the common notion that we only handle ‘crazy’ people, and when I thought of how other people think of me being a student in one of the countries most expensive schools, I realized that I might actually be at a handicap. That who needs most help belongs to that population under the poverty line. But then I remembered what one of my major classes’ professors told his class. He said that the Filipino population that are under the poverty line are actually mentally healthier provided that they have a supportive neighbourhood who shares their status of poverty. But the thought that the people who needs help most would look at me and might not let me help them since they might think that I am working for my own benefit, bothers me since this would mean that I might not be as effective to help them. I want to help them change their lives, not to give band-aid help which is what politicians give to them most of the time.

But to end poverty, one needs power. A person of no influential power can only do so much as to perform what I call “damage-control” of poverty to people and not give long term help.

While thinking about how to end poverty, I realized that I do not even know what that means. To end poverty. What would that be? Everyone will be rich? Everyone will be satisfied with their living? Everyone will be secure? Ending poverty seems to be impossible. The article of Pasha in the book by Edkins, even said that ending poverty is impossible in the foreseeable future. That despite certain campaigns and movements by different groups of people to fight poverty, no notion is perfect and often these notions does not serve effective to everyone in the world who is labelled poor.

As I write this entry, I can overhear one of the politicians commercial. This politician claims that he was once poor and under the belt of poverty and that he knows how to help these people. He said that if he wants to be richer than he is, he would just remain as a businessman and not enter politics at all, to counter the accusations that are against him saying that he only entered politics to be richer. In my opinion, he really understands how is it to be poor. He takes advantage of this knowledge! The way his campaign is designed would attract these people who are suffering from poverty. He knows that at least 30 percent of his country’s population cannot but what is needed for survival (according to nscb.gov.ph) and this is only those that can not buy what is basic, how much more if we factor in those people who just manages to sustain their lives in the most bare way, where their lives are stagnant and is not improving. When I listen to the news, the issue of inflation would often scare me because I would think of people who can only manage to maintain a stagnant sustainable living. The costs of the common needs would increase, these people would not be sustainable anymore, and they would be under the belt of poverty. And this politician knows all about this. And yet with this knowledge, he still has exceptionally luxurious properties which he tries his best to hide. How can this person say things like he can help the poor when his way of life shouts the opposite. How can people actually trust such a being? And yet according to statistics mentioned in the news, more people are still voting for this politician and what I think is that most of these people are poor. How can poverty end with such things happening to this world?

Maybe ending poverty is just a dream and we can do is act and act and act until there is no more hope. But then having hope is what pushes us to act on this issue and without action, how can we end a problem? So maybe, the cure for poverty is hope. It may not seem effective, but because of hope, we developed initiative to act. We were able to think of possible solutions and maybe, in the future, one of these solutions, campaigns and movements might just end poverty. I truly hope so.