TED talk

First of all, that guy was awesome.

Now that we've got that out of the way...
I agree with what Niall was saying. In my opinion, the West is falling. Though I am only in high school, I feel as though I can see the signs of an aging civilization everywhere. Simply turning on the news, and considering the stories in perspective, can make one's head spin at what is truly going on in this country, and to some extent, in other Western countries. There is one point where I did disagree with Niall, however. I do not think the West can be saved, barring a non-nuclear war. The seeds of lethargy have been planted in America, and the only way to dis-root them is to join the country together to obtain one goal. It has happened before: WWII, the space race, and even the war in Iraq to some extent. Unless we can all join together for one purpose, we will fall. This is why I believe the East, particularly China, is strong. Though not a true Communist state, the citizens of China are tasked with the preservation of the state. The citizens of America are simply concerned with the preservation of the self. I am not saying that Communism is the answer, but if one looks at the current state of our country, the flaws will become clear. What actually works? I don't know, but I bet someone in China does....

...I hope you enjoyed my rant....

Nothing better than a blog post on the weekend

      I believe that the textbook chose to lump together the Safavids, Ottomans and Mughals together in chapter 28 because they all of the civilizations have some things in common, and the textbook has to be economical. There is only so many chapters the book can include, and sometimes they have to lump things together in a seemingly illogical sense in order to save space. I think that it was a good decision, because if you took all of the info from each of the civilizations and made a chapter for each civilization, they would be really lacking. Although it doesn't flow perfectly, I believe that one larger chapter makes more sense than three chapters that lack in info.
      Overall, I think that global interaction is almost always a good thing, including this period of interactions. There are always cons that come with cross-cultural interactions, including disease. Also, the interactions between the Europeans and the Native Americans can be considered almost tragic. But one must look at the big picture. First of all, had Europeans never colonized the western Hemisphere, we would probably not be here today. Also, contact between Western and Eastern civilizations was bound to occur at some point, so the spread of disease is inevitable. In terms of pros, I believe that the spread of food, culture and ideas definitely counter acts the losses. It is hard to determine the value of a life, and it is definitely arguable whether or not the loss of lives in America was worth the ideas that spread from East to West, for example. But I think that, in the long term, it was worth it. (Although, if I was one of the Native Americans, I might have a different perspective) .

Fabian Fucan's attack on Christianity

Fabain Fucan's attack on Christianity reveals an aspect of those who spread Christianity. The aspect is that these who spread the Christian faith were very dense. According to Fucan, it would be impossible to convert Japan to Christianity, and he mocks the missionaries' attempts to do so. Considering that it the conversion of Japan was thought to be impossible, the missionaries were very conceded in thinking that they could. This attack also reveals a social aspect of the time. When Fucan fell from Christianity, he attacked it. This shows the intense competition between religions for support, and how ardently followers would defend their faith. Fucan followed Christianity for 20 years, and rather than say that the faith is simply not for him, he claims that it is a foolish doctrine and only for the "barbarians". People during that time were willing to quickly judge and dismiss any doctrines that did not appeal to them, or they could not understand.

Weekend Project

http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=3I87zto 

^ Here is the link for my showme presentation. Mine was on the Antonian movement, sorry if there is background noise. I worked with Katie, Neil and Paige. We each did something we considered significant to the chapter. If you wish, you may watch the showmes all at once, forming some kind of super showme (warning: not recommended).

Capitalism (part 2)

After doing the assigned reading, my prior beliefs were at least partially affirmed. Like I said in my previous post, Capitalism is a market which is controlled by the private sector; ideally, the government has no hand in the matter. Also, capitalism is  a market in which what is produced is decided by the consumer. Although a business can produce whatever it wants,  it will not be successful if it produces a product that is not desired by the consumer (in theory). Although this system can be skewed. For example, some businesses are funded by the government, so they can produce goods which have no appeal to the consumer and not worry about going out of business. This system can also be taken advantage of by private parties, because in an open market such as this, private parties can obtain huge power, and form a monopoly over a product. In this case, the government might have to intervene. Overall, I believe that capitalism is a good system on paper, but if the government does not intervene, private parties can have too much control and take advantage of the system.

Christianity and capitalism

Christianity is a very Religion which has changed very often. I believe there are several reasons for this. One reason for this is that there is a huge population of Christians, which supports change and personalization of the religion. There are also several points of Christianity which can be debated, such as Jesus's divinity, which can be the center of debate. Another characteristic which supported change was the extreme nature of the catholic Church during the split within Christianity. The catholic church was very greedy during this period, and was even selling what is essentially entrances into heaven. This was very polarizing, and pushed people away from the catholic church, and to the newly formed Protestant church.

I have always thought that, in a perfect world, capitalism is a type of market in which the government plays little to no role in the regulation or production of goods, that businesses could be private and that what they produced and how they produced it could be up to them, but the consumer would decide whether or not the product being produced was worth their capital. In essence, capitalism is a market in which the driving force behind actions of businesses is the consumer and his dollar, not he government