Reflection

You did it! You are infinitely smarter now than when we first met 180+ days ago. You persevered through a rigorous trial but you still have challenges ahead. Hopefully now you can answer the question we asked at the beginning of the year (Why are you here?). For our final blog post I want you to consider each of the following and write a few sentences about each.

1. reflect back on your first year and share a moment or two that you remember most fondly
2. what was your most difficult challenge
3. and finally, share with us what your plans are for the summer

It was a pleasure working with you all and I will miss you. Good luck on your finals!

Mr. T

The Power of Blogs

In the last post we discussed how a community of readers gives new life to a blog. The great thing about blogs is that they can be about anything and it is a fresh perspective from outside the mainstream. Do you love to travel? Start a travel blog and it becomes your unique view on the topic. For this post I want you to pretend this is your blog. Write a post about a recent experience you had with something you have a strong opinion about. It can be negative or positive. Your post should be 6-10 sentences at a minimum. Compare and contrast what you are writing about with other things similar to your topic. For example: If you are writing about a record from a particular artist, compare it to similar artists or the artists earlier work. Same for restaurants, etc. See examples for ideas. The key is to be passionate

Ideas: 

1. Movie review
2. Music review
3. Travel experience
4. Restaurant review
5. Fashion review
6. Technology 

Examples: 

Travel blog: http://roam-magazine.co

Food blog: http://culinarybackstreets.com

More travel blogs: http://petitepassport.com,  http://ourwildabandon.com

Fashion: http://whatiwore.tumblr.com

Tech: https://techcrunch.com

Zoltan vs. Zerzan

http://bigthink.com/articles/10-human-body-modifications-you-can-expect-in-the-next-decade

"Transformative technologies have always been accompanied by optimistic and pessimistic visions of how they will change humanity and society. Socrates worried that the invention of writing would have a deletrious effect on the memories of young Greeks who, he predicted, would become : the hearers of many things and will have learned nothing."

"But it is clear that we are heading in a direction that has no broader comparison in terms of it's impact on humanity as a species itself. For instance take Zoltan Istvan. He wants to live forever. Not in the metaphysical sense (books or memories) but in a very real, practical sense. And he believes technology will soon make it possible. Zoltan is planning to upload his brian and all its billions of unique synaptic pathways to a computer server. He's part of a growing community of people who believe technology can make us physically, intellectually, even morally better. They call themselves transhumanists. Transhumanists seek the continued evolution of humans beyond its current form."

Now meet John Zerzan. "He's one of the world's most famous anarcho-primitivist who believe that technology is at the root of many, if not all, of today's social problems. He wants to jettison Facebook, computers, telephones, electricity, steam-powered engines and more. He believes technology tends to distract us from our natural state, pushing us further away from what it really is to be free humans."

For this post I want you to research Transhumanist and Anarcho-Primitivism and inform yourself on the debate. Then write about which side of the debate do you find yourself. Provide a link to one of your sources that you found convincing.

Credit: The Dark Net, Inside the Digital Underworld. By Jamie Barlett