Blog 12

In class we have read the essay “The Man on the Moon” by George J. Annas. We also have watched the film Gattaca. The two works of media have both their similarities as well as their differences. The topic in comparison is genetic engineering and the view of “the other”.
A quote from the essay states: “The new ideal human, the genetically engineered ‘superior’ human, will almost certainly come to represent ‘the other.’ If history is a guide, either the normal humans will view the ‘better’ humans as the other and seek to control or destroy them, or vice versa” (236). In response to this hypothesis, I believe that it is true.
In the movie Gattaca, all of the people that were alive at the time were actually genetically engineered. Anyone who was not engineered would never actually be considered human. Therefore, those particular people who were not engineered were basically considered “the other”. They were to never be accepted in the current society.
In response to the quote; however, today’s society seems to have various values on what is considered “the other”. I agree that if there were a genetically engineered “superior” human, people would try to find a way to harness that power. Perhaps even control it.
In various other movies, I can’t really pinpoint which ones. (Primarily Science Fiction.) there were people who would try to harness and control the power of certain animals or certain people. The experiments ended in failure and people were killed in the process.
There is honestly no way that a person, or any other animal for the matter can be fully genetically engineered with out any long-term problems. The problems could be very little or extremely apparent. The human society that we have will result in trying to destroy them. There is no sense of equality, when everyone tries to make something “superior”.

Blog 11, The Other

There are several opinions in which people have of “The Other”. While there are some circumstances in which some people see things normal. There are particular instances in which someone would see another person as “the other”. There are various things in which I see certain people as “The other”. However, the one the one group I cannot have common ground with no mater what, are religious groups that try to force their religion onto you. It’s pretty common on the train, or in the middle of the city. I remember there was one guy on wall street that preached about it. The way of religion. It’s also not just any religion, but Christianity. There are so many people preaching about god and the like. They wouldn’t accept any other religion at all, only theirs. They really start to aggravate me. Especially on the train. On the J train to be exact, there is a woman who pretty much screams damn near the top of her lungs about the word of Jesus. Telling people to repent and everything like that. I cannot stand those people. I have no religion, myself (I was born a catholic because of my parents. I personally do not care for religion. I just stopped believing). But when someone tries to force it on you it just makes me hate it even more. I hate those kinds of people. I feel so much opposition towards it because I feel that it really wouldn’t be beneficial. It is one thing to have a religion, I have no problem with you but if you try to force it on me, you are only making me resent you and the religion in general. Before I say something that could offend a person who is reading this. I personally just don’t feel anything towards religion. The people that try to preach about a particular religion in public it shouldn’t. The world isn’t just one religion. Therefore, it is my honest opinion that these people are “the other” to me, I feel strongly about it, and that’s the way it is.

Blog 9

I DIDN'T DO IT YET

Blog 10

1.)There were a lot of things that had taken time to get used to in this course. First of all this is the first time I really used blogs (I typically can’t stand them). However, the way that the professor made this class turned out to be somewhat helpful. I do enjoy the concept of using sci-fi movies to get this point across. The matrix screening was pretty fun. On the other hand writing about it proved to be more difficult than I thought because I had to elaborate more on it. I would like to have known more about the concept of knowledge. I think that the term of ignorance is bliss is about too played out. We’ve done it too much already. I don’t think there’s much more to do anymore. Illusion and reality is pretty interesting as well. I find it amazing how many people cannot decide between the two.

2.)I am having a bit of a problem as a writer with these blogs. I would rather do more written work than blogs because I still need to get the idea of MLA format completely. I find it a bit discouraging. I think it’s just me needing some constructive criticism on my writing. Therefore, if I had more assistance with that maybe I could do better. I can pretty much do a thesis and a topic sentence quite well. I do have some problems annotating, I still need to learn more about that. It’s not too easy. And the biggest problem I am bound to have is this LaGuardia archives project. I am still very unsure about it. I don’t think I have a clue exactly what to do for this assignment. I’m going to try the best I can to succeed in this. However, I fear I might have some errors because I need more direction with my writing. Hopefully by the end of this semester I can be able to write a lot better than I was in the beginning.

Blog 8

The tale of Oedipus has several similarities to The Matrix. The concepts are: ignorance is bliss, and knowledge. Oedipus had been under the impression that he was happy with his wife Jacosta. However, he had no idea that Jacosta was actually his own mother. This shown that his ignorance made it completely acceptable. However, once he found out, life became a train wreck for him. He resulted in gouging out his own eyes so he can not see his children that he had conceived with Jacosta.
In The Matrix, the concept of ignorance is bliss comes from the fact that the characters in the matrix already know that everything is fake. However, they make it feel like its real so there are certain things that they feel are real even though they are not.
Another concept in relation between the two pieces of media is Knowledge. Both had made it seem like knowledge is power. In Oedipus, being unenlightened had been a great disadvantage. There were many things that he did not know. For example, the fact that he had no clue who his real parents were. And he unknowingly filled the prophecy in which he kills his father and weds his mother.
In The Matrix, the oracle had given Neo the knowledge that he was not the one. However, she also mentioned he could be, perhaps in a better life. The knowledge of that had been unexpected at first. However, it turned out that Neo became the one after he returned from the dead.
These examples are two of many more comparisons between The Matrix and the tale of Oedipus. Ignorance is bliss, and Knowledge is power.