Last night's class raised a lot of interesting ideas about revolution and energy. For this post I would like to focus on revolution and get a good dialogue going like we do in class for this blog with a lot of back and forth comments to challenge and question each other.

We developed 4 excellent definitions of revolution:
1. dealt with the idea that revolution is the movement the follows a change in belief of truth/paradigms (I know I don't have all of it here so please feel free to post the actual definition that you guys developed)

2. introduced the idea of revolution being a cradle to grave process that replaces the paradigm of a culture

3. that revolution is an ever changing/growing/adapting term that results from complex interactions between people, environment and ideas to bring something novel

4. dealt with the idea that revolutions can be cyclic, specifically leaving out certain words like novel or culture (I can't remember quite what the phrasing was on this one, it would be awesome if one of your group could post it)

From these definition questions were raised about:

•    the meaning and range of culture: how many people does a change need to reach before it can be a revolution, one? a country?; if a culture can be defined as any group/number of people, what implications does that have on what a revolution is                                                                
• what role does time play into revolutions: cradle to grave? no significance? Immediate change over long term?                                                                                                                                 
• does a complete shift in paradigm have to occur before something is a revolution?                        
• does a paradigm have to be fully rejected before a revolution takes place? does something novel have to be achieved for a revolution? (we mentioned that some social revolutions are chain affects, one country overthrows a dictator and then a neighboring country follows suite, is it still a revolution?  for the 'copy cat' country)                                                                                                                     
• discovering truth vs paradigm shift (same thing or different?)

We began some really interesting discussions on some of these but I would like to open up that discussion again for people to challenge or ask for explanation of an idea or to pose their own opinions. 

The Future of Energy

Assuming our species is around for another few hundred years, there is no doubt that we will at some point in the future completely exhaust our fossil fuel resources. The looming threat of depletion of accessible fossil fuels combined with the effects greenhouse gases have on our climate should indicate to us that it is time to enact a change. To make a successful transition from our current systems to a form of clean renewable energy would require massive amounts of change in a short period of time, and to me this hints at the idea of revolution.

The few options available to us now including nuclear and bio fuel face considerable setbacks, the largest of which is currently cost efficiency. Assuming fossil fuels become too expensive to manufacture in the near future, which of our current options do you think will take the lead?

While making predictions about when, and how we will make the switch is a difficult task, I think speculation is still valuable in spreading forward thinking regarding energy use. How to you think the energy revolution will happen? What do you think the social and economic or even geopolitical implications will be?

Here are some links with relevant information:

http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/pdf/nuclearpower-summary.pdf

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-15/lockheed-skunk-works-team-tackling-nuclear-fusion-reactor.html

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/08/24/us-navy-eyes-biofuels-to-fuel-fleet-of-the-future.aspx

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/issues/2009/april/thebiofuelfuture.asp

Science and Ethics in Revolution

I found this really interesting article about keeping ethics present in scientific revolutions, and how the notion of not prioritizing ethics is unimaginable. Even the most technical scientific ideas have humanitarian elements that cannot be ignored. At first I found this article to be abstract because it was linking ideas such as inertia to human existence and ethical reflections. The article, however, proved to me that these ideas are not that different and integrate together beautifully. The fact that I thought the ideas too different to be joined speaks to the separation of science and humanities present in society today.


Article Link: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2011/10/3933/

Hey guys.

Right now, 100,000 people are meeting in Hungary to protest the taxation of the internet. This is a topic that we didn't bring up during our discussion about human rights. What about the right to the internet without taxation? Should all people be able to access the internet without being taxed by the government? Should internet be free for all and taken out of the hands of private companies?

Edit: There is basically nothing in the declarations of human rights that we read during class. This is clearly a sign that our rights declarations are very outdated. Do you guys think that this movement will add the right to internet without taxation in rights declarations, or should this not be considered a right in the first place?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/28/us-hungary-internet-protest-idUSKBN0IH29M20141028

Our Funding Structure Limiting Scientific Revolution?

Our system of funding science in the United States has always been something that I've been passionate about, and since this week's readings reminded me of the topic, I thought I'd bring up a few broad ranging questions.

The section we read from the structure of scientific revolution posed three "types" of science: solved problems, partially solved problems, and unsolved problems. Most science falls into the middle section according to Kuhn, while revolutionary problems typically (but not universally) fall under the third category. As such, the majority of academic science funding (>50%) comes from the NSF, with other governmental agencies providing substantial sources as well. While I think nationally funded science is fantastic and something every country should be doing at large scales, I see a few problems with the system. Grants are by nature competitive, and therefore beg applications from Kuhn's "middle" category, in my opinion. The stakes of failure are so high in the third category of untouchable problems with a small chance at success. However, partially solved problems provide enough merit to make a career out of and are a much safer option in terms of funding your research.

Therefore, is our system designed in such a way that limits scientific revolution? Not quite. Revolutions in science and technology continue to happen. I have no idea on where to get data for examining how the rate of "revolutions" has changed over time as its speculative in nature, but I might look into it anyways. That being said, I think the system discourages young scientists from pursuing the "big questions".

Diversifying funding and providing extra incentives for revolutionary ideas might be one direction towards improving the situation, but I'm interested in hearing the class' opinion. Is the system working? What can/should be done? Is science behind where it could be? Is taking the "comfortable" path something to be ashamed of?

Gay Blood Donation

Hello All!

At the end of my presentation last week there were some questions about gay blood donation (or the lack thereof). I hope to answer some of those questions.

But first, a story. My senior year of high school I wanted to give blood for the first time. I was finally of age (over 16, I was still 17) and I met all requirements, so I thought. I signed up for my time slot and naturally got really excited. It was my first time to really do something good for someone else. Heck, I may even save a life. When my time came I went to courtyard and started the process. I filled out some paperwork and then got asked a line of questions. I passed everything except the last question. They asked if I had had any sexual contact with a man since 1975. In order to answer honestly I had to say yes. They then asked me to leave.

I wasn't old enough to vote, but I was old enough to face direct discrimination.

Now, the facts. In 1983 the FDA implemented a ban on gay blood donation in the United States. Any man who had any sort of sexual contact with a man since 1975 was no longer able to donate blood. Their reasoning surrounding the HIV/AIDS scare that was then labeled as the 'gay disease'. The ban still stands today. Since, at the time, gay men had a higher chance of having any sort of STD/STI then their blood was seen as too risky. This disregards the premise that all blood is tested for STDs/STIs and that more STDs/STIs are transferred (percentage wise) through heterosexual couples than homosexual couples nowadays. Even with many different marches (especially from college students), medical pushes, and protests, the FDA has yet to lift the ban.

In the United States, gay sex means a lifetime ban on blood donation. This discrimination is not unique to the US though. Countries form all over the world either completely ban gay blood donation or create deferral periods. Either way, the countries law directly discriminates based on stereotypes and cultural norms.

It is incidents like this that prove that the queer rights revolution means much more than just marriage and protection. The overall lack of awareness on this issue (and others like it) shows how far the movement needs to go. Whenever a donation happens on campus, it alienates certain sects of the population. Personally, each blood donation sign doesn't show me the way to help, but instead it shows me how I am secondary to my peers. This laws makes me not only vulnerable because I constantly have to admit something about myself, but also dirty to the practitioners I must deny.

P.S. A note on the 9 million LGBTQ+ people statistic: it is true that there is no way of predicting how many LGBTQ+ people exist in the United States. Gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, romantic orientation, and sex all exist on a spectrum of sorts. Because of this, it is impossible to label how many people within the community exist because of not only the breadth of identities (and the impossible ability to put a point on where the direct line exists) but also because of the fluidity of the spectrums. I put this statistic up to show that there has been an increase in people identifying as LGBTQ+ since Harry Hay started the revolution. I am sorry if I created any confusion.

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/15/gay-blood-donors-ban_n_3932001.html
http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/02/25/fda-blood-donation-ban
https://news.brown.edu/articles/2014/07/adashi
Blood Donation Questionnaire: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/BloodBloodProducts/QuestionsaboutBlood/UCM272981.pdf

Throw back Monday to our discussion of Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" and specifically to our discussion of Shakespeare's sister.

3 disgusting ways independent, talkative women were tortured and shamed in Shakespeare's England

This article gives a little more insight in to how Shakespeare's sister would have suffered for expressing the same creativity and independence of thought as Shakespeare during this era. This article also points out the irony of how this harsh repression took place during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a revolutionary, unmarried, independent, and outspoken woman.