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Critique: To analyze, assess, and give a careful judgement.
As we discuss the dreams about society reflected in sci-fi and speculative literature, let’s hear your voice!
For the forum post this week, choose 1 of the following:
Option 1) Read and react to a classmates’ revised news article. Discuss how well you think their revision made their desired points. Consider whether you think you would enjoy living in their world, or prefer the original. (please choose an article that hasn’t been reviewed)
Option 2) For the article you revised, find an article or some public discussion (social media, etc) about the same topic that directly conflicts with or challenges your desired alteration. Give a link or screenshot for context, and discuss what you think the “utopia” from that perspective might be, in relation to yours.
For Jacob Wells article revision, I like the creativity and thought behind it. It does sound very believable and good until it leads to a dystopia. There have been instances where companies monopolized their market. I do not think I would like Google to run advertisements on television and almost controlling every aspect of my life. In this dystopia, if Google did want to run a society by going to different countries and seeking out help and eventually controlling the government, is a smart move. In conclusion, this creates a society where citizens have little to no freedom and are controlled by Google.
Another thing I would like to add is that the creative aspect of this assignment that I liked was recreating the news article to make it sound believable, but also shed light on the issue. In a sense, I thought it was interesting to see how Google could save itself by supporting small businesses to enhance innovation. What stood out to me the most was the fact that this reminded me of a similar situation with Amazon. There was an investigation from the White House that determined Amazon was heading towards a monopoly because their market share was estimated at “50% or more.” (CNBC). There have also been instances of monopolies in the late 1800s with John Rockefeller with the oil, and Andrew Carnegie with his steel company. I feel like huge companies could contribute to a dystopia by gaining a lot of power by making huge profits from their products and reducing innovation. This could reduce innovation by executives telling the workers what new products to work on. Since there is only one company that would work on new products, there would not be competition from others and this would lead to people buying that product. Lastly, Google advertisements would not be a bad idea, but it would become a problem if they were the only company making technology and ran advertisements on tech products because it would entice people to buy their products and thus, Google would become more powerful due to the money that they earned.
Link to the Amazon Article: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/06/house-democrats-say-facebook-amazon-alphabet-apple-enjoy-monopoly-power.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54275649
This article is of the same issue but instead of following my revised story where South Korea had reacted quite softly, they highlight the harshness and demanding nature for apology from North Korea. The way that I revised my article was as if I were Winston from “1984” in North Korea trying to wipe away the negative news against North Korea. The real situation that challenges my revisions is that they don’t take anything lightly from North Korea. Thinking along the lines of how South Korea’s article utopia might be is that all relations are cut from the evil of North Korea. They may represent a utopia that completely removes North Korea and banishes or downgrades any contact with the North. In this way they may live peacefully without any conflict from their neighbors. In my perspective I really chose the side of North Korea in trying to become a utopia within themselves. This article could be revised more easily so that South Korea could show great hate toward North Korea. We always think of a utopia as something good and positive, but in this case perhaps the good and positive would be writing an article that removed North Korea from South Korea’s line of sight. Similar in fashion to sweeping the dust under the rug. One might also argue that this would create a dystopian feeling to the situation, but in most people, I know at least for myself, if I don’t like something or it causes me pain or negativity then I want it gone. In a way, a utopia created from this article would portray those same characteristics.
Adam, you found a really interesting counterpoint article! It’s always super interesting to read news from “outsiders” like the BBC or US news commenting on North – South Korea relations, because it usually reflects the utopia that *that* country wants, rather than how Koreans actually feel. I saw an article that said the North did apologize after all, which is shockingly rare.
My original article was about militia groups gather at the polls because Donald Trump encouraged people to watch the polls for fraud. Even if the groups do not intend to cause trouble, people with machine guns standing outside your voting location can be scary. If you plan to vote for Biden, Trump supporters with rifles may scare you off. My fantasy of this was that the militiamen would encourage others to vote by mail. This utopia would be one where the freedom to vote is still fundamental.
This other article talks about the same issue. In a few states, it is illegal to carry weapons at voting sights. This country has already made against the law to deter voters. This was a big problem in the Jim Crow South. If militiamen were to deter voters, it would lead more toward a dystopia. The groups of people would cast away people who want to vote for a leader who is against the militias. Then the political spectrum would lean in a specific direction. In Russia and North Korea, it is impossible to have a righteous leader. Eventually, the U.S. could be more of a one-party system ruled by Trump. If the people are encouraged to watch out for voter fraud or suppress an opposing party’s supporters, they will. Far-right Trump supporters will fight for the President. They literally drove through Berea in convoy flying their flags. You do not see any flags for other presidents. Germany tried to fly Nazi flags on their building, and maybe we would be flying Trump flags the same way.
My utopia supports voting for the best leader without the fear of getting harassed.
Levi, you make a really good point about the historical nature of “patrolling” polling places. Even if the stated purpose is to somehow prevent fraud, just the suggestion that there may be an armed presence is enough to deter someone new to voting or who doesn’t want to be in close proximity to assault rifles. There’s actually a marketing concept called FUD, “fear, doubt, uncertainty” where if you can just get people to question whether something is good or bad, then they’ll act out of fear rather than basis in reality.
It really baffles me why we don’t just have a voting app that everyone downloads or that you can access at your local library or clerk office. I mean really, we can bank, date, receive medical advice, and be convicted of a crime through our phones but we can’t check a box and be assured that it gets counted correctly? :\
For Levi’s post, I believe that his revision makes his point very well. The only way I could think to improve it would be to add some more detail on how the militia groups would encourage mail-in voting, but other than that I can think of no improvements. I would enjoy living in Levi’s utopia, because his utopia is just our world but better, and that was my utopia. More specifically, I want people’s right to vote to be upheld, so I would enjoy that specific part of Levi’s world as well.
Adam, your response is well written. The language and comparisons you used made the situation you address much more comfortable to follow. I would like to first comment solely on your article adaptation, where you imagined yourself as Winston “1984” trying to wipe away any negative news against North Korea. This approach is exceptionally creative, and as I cannot find the link to your adapted version, I will assume that you tried to wipe away the negative news from the world – not just North Korea. I am inclined to think that this approach might create a temporary utopia for the rest of the world but would not make a utopia for the neighboring countries. This approach fails to address the negative relationship between the two, and this approach keeps the conflict quiet from other countries. A situation may arise where North Korea may launch a nuclear attack the rest of the world does not know of because they do not know about the tensions between the two countries. Because of this, I would not like to live in your imagined, utopian world. I believe that Orwellian activity can only harm those that it affects.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/21/justice-department-google-lawsuit-congress/
This link above leads to a news article regarding the recent announcement of the Department of Justice to pursue a lawsuit against Google and its monopolistic practices. When I wrote my revised article I made it out where the government had been pursuing a suit against Google, but Google in an attempt to avoid this suit and possible break up begins supporting smaller tech startups and companies. This would lead to more innovation and competition possibly opening the way for even more support of the human race through technology. However this article posits that in the act of pursuing this lawsuit the government may be putting itself in a bad spot. It sounds to me like they are suggesting that if the DoJ loses this case America could turn into a dystopia where the tech giants rule and control the populace. They state that if we lost the case the tech giants like apple would become emboldened by Google’s win and would double down on their monopolistic tendencies. This is a far cry from what I had been imagining as a utopia where the tech giants could fuel change and innovation that could lead to saving lives and helping the Human race. It seems like their idea is far more possible than mine, after all money begets money, and its unlikely a money making company would begin giving away their money. But one can hope, and its not like it is unheard of, with say Bill Gates who donates and gives money to the betterment of human kind. The dystopia this article pictures honestly reminds me a lot of this series of books I read a little while back. It was kind of similar to ready player one, but it was basically all of these gaming and tech companies were siding with governments to compete with the other companies for resources and opportunities. The people lived a sad life and almost every aspect of life was advertised or connected to a company, they even had aerial billboards that encircled almost every part of the globe, preventing view of the night sky. If I can remember the name of the series I will post it, it was really good.
Another thing I wanted to add to my post: a way that militia groups could encourage mail-in voting is through advertising or videos that show how to use mail-in ballots and make sure they are properly counted. I also wanted to specify that I really like the particular revision this article had, namely that the militia would help encourage mail-in voting, because I feel like that isn’t a particularly obvious change to make, so I appreciate its inventiveness.
I read Adam’s utopia creative #2 and honestly found it relatable to the real world and terrifying. It is very much possible that one country can scare another into submission so much so that the media down plays serious events. In my option, neither the truth or the make believe in this situation is a utopia and if it was an option for me to change world’s, I’m not sure I’d want to.
In this article, it discusses the same issues of the ever increasing surveillance on China’s people but from the perspectives of Chinese people. Instead of having western people write about how bad this surveillance is, this article focuses on what Chinese people think about it all. The way I revised my article, I made the surveillance of specific ethnic/religious groups outlawed and surveillance in private places was outlawed as well. There would be no more social credit system and the AI facial recognition would only be activated if someone had an active warrant and was seen in public by one of these cameras.
But Chinese people seem to be fine with this social credit score and AI facial recognition. In fact, most see it as a positive to bettering society. A lot of this is due to the false stories heard by them, stating that this social credit system already existed in the west, so there is no way it can harm society. But there is no system in place here, and never will be (hopefully). Chinese people are fine with more security and less privacy, seeing as better humans make for a better society. If you are always being watched and under scrutiny (your social credit score can be lowered by littering, jaywalking, etc.,), then you are going to be a better person. Only good people get to do things in their society like buying airplane or train tickets. Those who aren’t deemed as good because their credit is low, are put on a blacklist. This is the utopia for China and their citizens seem fine with it.
For this post, I read Darius’ post and have to agree that it is a scary thing to know that Dr. Fauci is receiving threats from Russia. Especially when it is something as huge as COVID-19. I hope he is able to go forth and be able to educate more on COVID instead of being told to hide in the shadows. As for Trump getting Covid, HA.
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