Blog 15: Responding to Genetic Engineering and The Meatrix

·     *   Responding to Genetic Engineering

Genetic engineering is turning the world into an artificial and forced unhealthy life process. Because of the majority of the products that people use to consume everyday are altered for business convenience. The chemicals used are damaging the environment and health. And people are altering the normal animal and vegetative process hurting people’s health and passing over animals rights. 

According to the Generic engineering (GE) issue in www.sustainabletable.org, GE is the process of transferring specific traits, or genes, from one organism into a different plant or animal, called transgenic or genetically modifies organism (GMO). This is implanted into the products we use to consume regularly, such as eggs, vegetables, milk, meat, and so forth, at growing time making them grow fast and accelerate the commercialization. 

Genetic engineering is helping to the world damages through the chemicals used to preserve the product for the plague. Pesticides and/or herbicides are created to protect the plants and animals of the disease which could cause some damage of them. The problem is that the chemicals are harmful to a 100% natural product, even thought they also use that chemicals to preserve their correct grow, the engineered products require much more quantity of that to reach their good fast cycle, causing serious environment pollutions and health problems due to the higher levels of toxins through consumption.

Also, genetic engineering are altering the correct vegetative and animal grow process, and their natural characteristics injecting them genes of one animal or plant to a different one  to accelerate that process and obtain the results that are not natural, as an example given in the article “scientists in Taiwan have a succeeded at inserting jellyfish into pigs in order to make them glow in the dark” and another one is “scientists at the University of Illinois inserted cow genes into female pigs in order to increase their milk production” Is ridiculous the manner of people are trying to infer in the life, passing over the natural process, not only of animals or plants, also the humans life, because our health are being severely affected with that chemicals, that are causing serious illness like cancer, congenital malformations, liver necrosis, and many more, because of this businesses necessity of domain the world.   

Even though that products are created for human satisfaction and every single person consume it; this is an unconscious way to grow the market and the extremely wrong way to preserve the environment, especially now that we are in alert about the conservation of the ozone layer, we can start doing something about it as a consumers, such as buy only organic products which will force the  companies to create new natural market and possibilities to focus their convenience to satisfy the customer, and at the same time conserve the real animals and plants natural process and improve our quality of life.  

* The Meatrix

In the Meatrix, Leo is a pig who is trapped in an illusion world of a family farm with excellent life conditions and is interrupted for Moopheus. Who gave to him the choice to take the blue pill and remain in that fantasy, or take the red pill and know the truth. Leo decides to leave that fantasy and put his paws in the reality. What he saw was disgusting and sad. Then Moopheus starts showing him the reality, of how factory farm corporations took the control upon the animals injecting antibiotics and abusing of them for their convenience. But he always says that is a resistance, and shows him the rest of the group, who will fight with him on this war. Moopheus finished the first video telling to the consumers that we have the real power and recommend us to stop supporting the factory farmer machines.  

* The Meatrix "Revolting

            In the second video “The meatrix: Revolting”. Moopheus took Leo to the ship and is explaining to him that people is now waking up their eyes and start buying organic products, but the sad reality of Meatrix continuous. Here is the moment when Moopheus and Chikity says Leo that he is the One, and they start exploring Meatrix. Leo feels fascinating with the illusion of the dairy farms, so Moopheus shows the reality again which isn't good. Is a horrible place with the worst conditions of life, and a lot abuse of the cows, also appeared the agents that are who injects cows antibiotics to make them grow up fast and rises the amount of milk even though the disrepair of them. Also shows the calf fed for machines since birth, and part of the fed is blood of death cows creating mad cows diseases just for profit. Leo felts disappointed and start fighting with  the agents, then he discover that he is the one when he stopped syringes that agents shot. Finally the agents trap Moopheus. Leo decides rescue him and leave consumers in charge to shot down the factory farms corporations suggesting us buy our dairy in small farms and terminate with this animal abuse.  

* The Meatrix II 1/2

At the beginning is a recount of the two past videos and to give to the viewer an idea of what happened before. Then Leo and chikity arrive to the place where Moopheus was taken for the agents. Which is a factory that process great quantity of cows meat daily for fast food market, with none sanitary precautions, and without care about safety of their employees, just for profit. When Moopheous trying to tell to the agent that his procedures are completely wrong he doesn’t pay attention to that comments and throw him to a hook directly to the blades. But he never though that he will also going to be there because of the intromission of Leo and Chikity. At the end they start fighting in the hooks, and Moopheus is released and the agent is directed to the blades. This short video is trying to make us create awareness of where our consumption products come from. And is showing us a possible reality that we pretend to ignore.  

Blog 14: Reflection of Media Unit

I find the media unit enjoyable. Watch the movies and find another point of view are interesting, although it wasn’t easy, I have to say that is a good method to help us to think deeply and not just watch the movie from the surface.  I confess that I did not like the kind of movies of Matrix. When I saw it a few years ago I felt bored because I couldn’t understood the real meaning, but now because of the hidden meaning that it has, I felt anxiety to watch the other two movies and give them the kind of interpretation that Dr. X shows as in class.

Actually I feel that I was better at the beginning at the course, because I could interpret easily the topic we discuss in class, and now I feel that I’m like in the clouds, maybe is because of the kind of subject was a little hard to catch  at the first time. About the writing I feel that I’m better, even though I still fighting with my big enemy “grammar” I hope that my writing advance would be true and not just my view. The strategy summarize and response that Dr. X gave in class as a suggestion for the CATs, was so useful to me, I used it in the CAT # 2 and it gave me better results, that in the first one. I hope so. At least it help me to develop my ideas faster.

The exercises we do in class, such as groups, the google docs, find the claim, reasons and evidences on the responses, summarize, annotate are like useful weapons that Dr. X put in my hands to enforce, polish and use in my successful future. I know that I need to enhance a lot, but I also know that I improved since I started in La Guardia. The English language is the big nearest challenge I put in my life to start opening doors and achieve my goals, and I feel that I’m walking in the right way.

Writing is painful, but I’m aware that is one of the most essential skills that people needs to succeed, so I’m able to learn whatever would help me to reach my goals, and I’m a little more comfortable writing than before, which means that this simple methods are working as weapons, as I said before, which will help me to succeed, killing my fears, limitations and frustrations the English create on me.    

Blog 12: Red Pill or Blue Pill: Is Ignorance Bliss?

           The article Red Pill or Blue Pill: Is Ignorance Bliss? Christine Cornell and Patrick Malcolmson show the comparison between Neo, the protagonist of The Matrix movie, and Alice, the little girl of wonderland, taking as a reference their strange experiences in a new world which is like a dream where both are confused about what is real, an example could be when in the story of Alice, the caterpillar asked her about who are you? And she just answer - “At least I know who I was when I got up this morning”, showing us the magnitude of the confusion that she has in that place. That kind of feeling is completely comprensible after experiment the changes of her body in gigantic and ridiculous proportions because of the cake and the magic drink she ingested. The same thing happened with Neo on the Matrix, when he makes the decision to ingest the red pill in order to acquire the knowledge and he found a strange reality, kind impossible to understand and of course to face. He felt confuse and was believing that the Matrix world was a kind of dream because it gave to him the possibility to do such impossible things which in real life are completely ridiculous just to imagine it; Like fly or jump between two skyscrapers.

Cornel and Malcolmson also compare The Matrix with the famous account given by Socrates through of the Plato’s The Republic book "The allegory of the cave", because Neo awaking parallels as the slave who leave the cave and found the real world, and living a painful experience; The slave as Neo, felt eyes hurt because they had never used them before, even though both stories are talking about different type of light that open their eyes, the situations is kind similar because the light is the representation of a knowledge acquired due to the exploration of a new view. Those stories do not run far of the reality; because most of the people are looking go away of the ignorance, with different type of explorations, since mental such as the philosophy to physical with the anthropology and anthropology, but as in the reality also there are people who are not agree or comfortable with the reality and prefers to remain in the cave with shadows and illusions pretending avoid the real, and intend to persuade people who are following the idea to find the true, to quit and still in them.

I'm talking about Cypher, who is the traitor of the Mopheus' crew and was disappointed about the real world and decide to do something to go back to live in the illusion of matrix. Not everyone is able to understand the real meaning of the knowledge and what kind of the benefits could carry, as him who prefers to live in a unreal world and name the imaginary things the real bliss.  

Back to the question: Is Ignorance Bliss? I think not, because when you get the knowledge you are able to find a way to walk and cross the road. There is not an endless rabbit hole, always there is an exit that peoples would find to expand their ideas and create doors which will be wide open to improve the knowledge and avoid chose the option of quit as Cypher.

Blog 11: The Perfect World versus the Real World

        Some people wake up in the morning expecting changes which change their lives. And another people just fight day by day with the reality which carry with it problems, sadness, happiness, suffering and so forth, but all of that are unpredictable situations which make the life a game that everyone learned to play in their own better ways. But when the game is not controlling for us that world become a disappointed reality as happened in the movie The Truman Show, with the supposed perfect world created by Cristoff which in the movie is the director of the biggest reality TV show ever.       

That perfect world was a huge lie, which consisted in an artificial town in a huge TV set, where Cristoff shows Truman as a perfect kind of human in a perfect society, with perfect neighbors, friends, wife and so on. Cristoff was presenting to the real world how the entire society should be, with white, beautiful, helpful, friendly people, available for each other all the time, in a clean town, pacific, without homeless, without poor people, with spectacular sunshine. Really far of the reality, everything created to deceive Truman, and achieve audiences’ increases and the biggest popularity of the reality show. Everything for Cristoff's convenience who banned to people let to Truman know the truth because could be affected his projects and ideals. Maybe there are somebody who could choose to live in that world, without risks that will teaches the important things of the life, without their own domain of the different situations since the most simply like make a phone call, to the complex ones like get married with the right person, in a completely fraudulent world which the danger isn't relevant, when the truth is that the real and unexpected life doesn't exist, but at the end, all people who maybe could wish to live in this perfect world someday will wake up in the morning as Truman expecting much more of their lives and hoping run away of all this illusions of perfection to experiment the risks to live looking for real world, actually I wouldn’t like to live in a Cristoff’s world, I prefer to face the reality with the weapons that the experience of real life are giving me every day.

Even that perfect or unreal world isn't my choice to live, I have to admit that our society in contrast with the Cristoff's is dangerous caused for the risks taken, such as the huge percentage of violence around the world or just the lie habit as the own Cristoff was doing to Truman. Some people in the world doesn't live in harmony in their same family, neighborhood, company, and so on, becoming this in another reason of the sad reality on our society, but also I have to mention that not everything is wrong, our society has many lovely people with great attitude every day, with the arms wide open to help others, with dreams of a better lifestyle for everybody, there are many people against with the lies, deceives, abuse, unfairness, and many other kind of wrong behaviors and focused on find methods to fix it forever, or at least for minimize the peoples insensibility.

Cristoff was trying to persuade Truman when he knew the truth, saying that there is no difference between the town and the entire world. In the town he will find the same kind of situations that outside, with the difference of the danger which he won't experience in their town if he remains there, trying to eliminate for Truman the desire of explores the yearning to fly free from place to place knowing new people and find his love which was Sylvia. that behaviors  wasn't fare because everyone is entitled to be happy and look by his own the possibility to find their own future.

 Truman is an example of life, despite the overprotected situations on him his attitude was always the best, without anger and bad mood. The last part of the movie when he knew the truth could be the correct moment to be anger because of the disappointed, but he just bowed with a smile to the audience as an actor at the end of the act and walk away to live his own real life. Is great when we can realize that and anybody should intervene in the decisions make in our life, the difference we make it ourselves taking care of our own enrichment of consciousness, which is something that every single person has the obligation to find by their own, defending their points with attitude that is the first step to succeed as Truman did at the end of the movie. The option to leave our minds in the air or in the real knowledge of the truth is just our own decision, which means that must be respected as the idea to live by ourselves, too.

Blog 10: Reflexion on Skills

What do you think you have learned in terms of writing skills?

Every single class of my writing course was really useful, since the annotation which helps me a lot when I was creating the blog 8, to summarize the ideas of the article that I was looking for, and identify the claim and thesis are great strategies to use at writing time. “The Allegory of the cave” was a excellent, interesting, and useful method to makes me think deeply in what could be the other authors point of view. I really really like to do that; find the hidden meaning of the story or situation. Actually I felt that I learn a lot, but also I feel that I need much more, that it’s not enough.

What proves that you have learned what you say you have learned?

My blogs proves if I learned or I don’t. I’m aware that I need to learn too much more, also that I constantly make many mistakes especially in grammar, that I try to fix, but I found so hard fight to a foreign language. I find so productive the class, because while I´m receiving the information about how could be a good writer, I’m fighting whit my number one enemy “the grammar mistakes”

What of the material we have covered is still unclear or confuses you? 

I think the class is completely clear, the materials, pages, blogs, teacher, homework, explanations, exercises.  Just sometimes the vocabulary used in some articles at reading time confuses me a little bit, but I’m aware that I should learn it to use them later.

Would you say that overall you feel more confident about your understanding of basic writing skills, less confident, or about the same as when we started class?

Seriously now I feel that I’m improving my writing skills, I know that the grammas is killing me most of the time, but the idea of how to prepare a composition I think I already got it. (I hope so; the last word belongs to Dr. X.) What makes me feel this way?  Because now I´m feeling more comfortable at writing time.

Anything else I should know about?

Yes, that you are the best teacher I ever had. Thank you so much for be so patient with me. And please be completely honest and sincere about my works. :D 

Blog 9: Reflexion on Paragraphing

What have you learned from the paragraphing class?

I learned the strategies or the step to create a good paragraph using the information that Dr. X gave in past classes, such as annotation, summaries, claims, thesis statement and put all this things together to be understandable.

How do you know that you have learned it?

Actually, I´m still doubting if I really could create a good paragraph with my language limitations, which make my compositions’ kind non understandable, but the basis of what paragraphing is and how make it, I think I learned “I hope so”

Can you describe how you learned it? 

I cannot describe how I learned. I just can say that practice is the better way to know if I really learned the lesson.

What helped your learning?

In the class I said some ideas which some of them were wrong, but Dr. X, Spicy Mom, and Spicy Boy gave me some extra explanation that helps me to understand the idea.

What made it difficult?

Well paragraphing is not difficult. My difficulty is to find the correct words and the correct way of how to use them to create a composition in a foreign language.

How do you feel after today's class? 

Despite writing it’s hard. This is my favorite class, because is really funny, interactive, and not stressful. Writing is one of my favorite hobbies “but in Spanish” because I can express what I´m feeling, and I already know what kind of appropriated words use in my works. But it doesn’t mean that I would not open to learn the English language and then enjoy writing as much as in Spanish.

Blog 8: Paragraphing "I know the truth, so don't bother me with facts"

According with the article "I know the truth, so don't bother me with facts" of Jeffrey Kluger. People are being tricked about the truth, and sometimes they know it, but they decided to ignore it. And I’m completely agreed with him, because humans are constantly believing in rumors and lies, are not paying attention to the contradictory evidence or facts, and don’t accept being called wrong. They are giving to unscrupulous liars the big opportunity to play with their feelings.

Rumors of lies are the main reason of the fakes. Regularly, people believe in it because that lies has logical arguments and are really organized with too much time invested calculating how to convince naive people to believe and defend their criterion. In some aspects of the life’s people are being tricked such as economics, religious, political, cultural. But I want to make reference to the economic, because it’s not strange see somebody who we knows or on TV programs different situations respect to the issue. As an illustration I´m going to present a situation in when people is constantly deceived most commonly in underdeveloped countries, and I´m talking about the  clandestine lottery, which the seller offers better prizes to players than the legal’s one; and people due to their money necessities, or just anxiety of win, spend their money in this kind of business which at the end the seller just disappear, and the naive who was looking for solve some economic problems, just find another problem trying to recovered the lost money.

Despite to whatever contradictory evidence could be found in the arguments of the lie, people is willing to look for another reason which will justify the negative fact because of the magnitude of their beliefs, that is already ingrained in people´s mind. In many cases, the same people ended believing again in the same kind of tricks, because it has other arguments most logical and secure than the first one. As it could be happen in the example above of the lottery. Everybody is free to select the better way to live; or in what kind of thing put their trust, but when the fraud is obvious and people is trying to avoid the true is when the society denies the possibility of letting them continue to believe blindly on it and starts acting. That´s why Isn´t strange find some TV commercials which warns everybody fall back in fraud. But humans are like the insects than more we take them out of the house more they want to be in there.

People usually stick to biases more strongly, and simple obstinacy is one of many other reasons of why people end doing once and again the same nonsense several times. and I takes again the example above as reference of this stubbornness, there is not logical reason that people do not accept to be called wrong, it could be ego or arrogance, but the result would be the same; they still believing in lies because it is their free decision.

Even though the obvious facts of lies are in front of the humans eyes as a big billboard, people will still believing and supporting their own ideas and beliefs’, and with obstinacy giving the less appropriated answer to others "I know the truth, so don't bother me with facts".