Week 6 [17.12-23.12] World War 3 has started! Check NOW if you're safe!!!

According to the latest news the war has broken out and Russian soldiers will be there in Warsaw tomorrow morning as you read this.
Haven't you googled it yet? Why not?! Aren't you terrified? What are your emotions? Do you care? How could you not know it yet?!

You don't have to answer - you've just been clickbaited and then fakenewsed.  

Your click, your attention, a piece of your mind, fragment of your life was SOLD. 

That's all what mattered, certainly it was not your dignity.

Sorry, I did not want to offend you, but Facebook treats you like this every day, so I thought that you've already adjusted.

Do you remain passive and scroll down or maybe take some actions? How do you react in such situations?  But it is not just Facebook. 

Every social media platform gathers data about their users and uses it to get to know the best suited advertisements, that are most likely to get clicked on.
It means that you like it. You clicked, didn't you?

We live in an Information Age. Lots of us have easy access to potential knowledge. We're just surrounded by the data and it still grows. Technological revolution has a big impact on our every day life.

"The internet is changing the way we work, spend our leisure time and communicate with one another. 

It is estimated that the number of internet users worldwide reached 3.4 billion in 2016."

Julia Murphy and Max Roser (2018) - "Internet". Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: 'https://ourworldindata.org/internet' [Online Resource]

It's rather big community.

"The internet is the largest community in history as big as the global population in 1960. 

It crosses every border and culture. And enough people are connected that the internet has become a planetary infrastructure for communications and collaboration.

The tools and knowledge of one nation now belong to all nations."

Dex Torricke-Barton (2015) - "How the internet is uniting the world". Published online at medium.com. Retrieved from: 'https://medium.com/@dextbarton/how-the-internet-is-uniting-the-world-36408b457692' [Online Resource]

And that's beautiful! We can (still) share our ideas and opinions freely, communicate freely.

Do you think that the Earth is flat? You will find your proofs - be sure not to check proofs of the opposite camp - they will try to deceive you.

You'll always find a group that confirms your views.

Internet is not an isolated example - there are also the most popular alternatives like press, tv, radio...

I am sure that you will find something for yourself, but will it bring any value?
Journalists, creating reality and ready to serve easy selling pulp, are waiting for your attention.
Do you care that school bus full of children crashed somewhere in the globe? Should you care, since it doesn't make any influence on your life?
If you do, why do you focus on it - there are lots of more important problems in our world. Shame on you.

It's really tiresome - full time playing on your feelings or negative emotions like fear, anger. I sold my TV set.

There are also fake news, maybe you have heard:

A new dimension of propaganda which has always existed, but lately gaining strength due to high access to information.

Can you still trust news?

This all may lead to situation when you are not interested in news at all. 

In long-time perspective it can lead to a dangerous situation, when nobody has access to the truth - governments may use it against us.

Recently I've chosen this way. I am not interested in news at all and I am angry at myself, when I read some, being a victim of a clickbait. 

Maybe I am wrong. What do you think?

I really want to know your opinion regarding questions asked below:

How do you protect yourself against clickbait and fakenews, but still have knowledge about the world you live in? How do you recognize absolute truth?

Do you think, that you know when you're manipulated? Is there any chance to take such possibility out of equation?

Do you track news from your country or world? Or maybe you stopped to do so, because you don't trust anyone?

What if that was the purpose?

What will happen when all of us stop reacting on politicians' actions? Isn't it happening in middle class now?

Week 6 [17.12-23.12] Social media addiction

As of the third quarter of 2018, Facebook had 2.27 billion active users monthly.

In Poland that platform has 16 million active users. Almost every young Polish citizen is using either Facebook or Twitter to communicate with friends. 80 percent of the users are logging in every single day. Including me. We all know that those platforms are using not only our data to earn enormous amounts of money, but also special techniques to catch our attention. For example, Facebook has created a special department for “attention engineers”. Their main duty is to find ways to maximize profit which can be extracted from our attention and data. This race for attention is becoming more and more competitive. How does it affect us? I guess it is not a surprise that we are all being manipulated? And we are aware of it. Unfortunately, moguls are exploiting our basic human characteristics like curiosity or vanity. We love boasting about our successes and keep posting pictures which show how funny, clever, or brave we are. Then we cannot help but check how many people liked it. Furthermore, we are more than interested in learning what our friends posted. And this is how the magical circle of addiction does not cease to spin.

Professor Robert Sapolsky from Stanford University calls this phenomenon the “Magic maybe”. The idea is simple: you look at your phone to check if – maybe – there is a text, or – maybe – there is not. You have no clue when it is going to show up, but when it does, you get a dopamine spike. And we are talking here about approx. 400mg of dopamine, which is roughly the same amount that people get from cocaine. It is pretty shocking. And it is a serious addiction. It seems to be even worse than alcohol or gambling, because it is not required to be an adult to use these platforms!  

The next important thing is that the aforementioned platforms collect and store our data. We are all ‘glass consumers’. The companies know what we like and what we hate, they know our buying behaviors and what we think, hence they can profile ad content to meet our ‘needs’. And they do it with our approval. 

The problem is that there is no remedy. The only thing we can do, is to try to reduce our activity on the said platforms, but it is not easy at all. Social media is always with us, wherever we go.

Here you have a short video about this problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmEDAzqswh8&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2gaoqt_dl3CQtUMkG8HaJIBAN9Wsp_HyoSrhscyp3_DyUMh7SS-pSpy74

1.    Do you have a problem with addiction to social media?

2.    Do you think you can stop using it?

3.    Do you know how much time you spend on social media during the week?

Sources:

1.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmEDAzqswh8&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2gaoqt_dl3CQtUMkG8HaJIBAN9Wsp_HyoSrhscyp3_DyUMh7SS-pSpy74

2.    https://www.bankier.pl/wiadomosc/Facebook-od-10-lat-w-Polsce-Z-platformy-korzysta-dzis-przeszlo-16-mln-polskich-uzytkownikow-7589177.html

3.    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/96/cb/42/96cb42b24ee4ac9878241d0590ef844a.png

Week 6 [17.12-23.12] Cyberpunk

I think most of you have heard about a new project of CDProjekt RED (developers of Witcher III Wildhunt): Cyberpunk 2077.
If you haven’t,  you might see its trailer which was published for E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) below:

Ok, so now you have some idea what I'm going to write about. Do you know much about Cyberpunk itself? The whole idea, the culture that backs it up? Well I'm going to present it briefly.

William Gibson

It all started in 1984 with the release of William Gibson's debut novel Neuromancer, which solidified Cyberpunk as a genre and is considered one of the most important books within it. You can say that the term combines two very influential culture names of that time punks and hackers. Watching this video I think you have no doubt how much punk influences it. When it comes to hackers it might be a bit harder as they usually operate in shadows.

So what image of a cyberpunk comes out of this combination? We've got colorful mohawks, leather jackets and heavy boots. But there is a lot more. What makes Cyberpunk much more than just punk is technology and it developed so much different that one we know. People are literally connected to their computers via direct neural interfaces, they replace their eyeballs with cybernetic implants enhancing their vision (infrared, night vision, etc.) and line between human and machine blurred long ago.
Let’s now focus on style.

Neuromancer cover

Well,  cyberpunks have one major rule, which is: style over substance. Flashy, trashy, trendy, no matter what style it is, it is what matters the most and every action is a way to express it. So Cyberpunk is about pose, what goes after it is not so important as what impression you make. Another thing is they always live on the edge. No matter where one is placed on the social ladder he is always on the edge, one step away from winning the game and one step from falling down into the abyss. Always ready to take a risk and go for a broke. All or nothing.
And that is a brief introduction to the cyberpunk style. If you want to get deeper into it, you should for sure read some works of mentioned William Gibson (Neuromancer, Mona Liza Override, Graf Zero, Johnny Mnemonick) and watch some anime classics like Akira, Ghost in the Shell or find some decent RPG players and get into Cyberpunk2020 with them.




Were you familiar with Cyberpunk culture before?
Do you know any other novels that might be considered cyberpunk?


Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk 
 
Images:
Photograph of William Gibson: https://www.kawerna.pl/biblioteka/felietony/william-gibson-biografia/

Week 6 [17.12-23.12] Quarterlife crisis

As per researches carried out by Guardian, almost 86% of young people (between 25 and 35) suffer from so called quarter life crisis - they are not satisfied with their salary, quality of their life,  bored with their job, feel lonely and not being able to achieve full potential etc.

In your mid-twenties you start thinking more realistically about your life and prospects for future. haunted by very serious questions about sense of the life Frequently you become convinced that your peers achieved much more than you did and you are far behind them. Considering how hard life is for millenials who have to constantly compete with ambitious peer, running into depression seems to be something inevitable.

The good news is that quarter life crisis is not something dangerous in general - it should be considered as experience that helps you to take your life to the next, better level. Certainly it is not something very pleasant - but poses a good opportunity to assess your current life and ultimately improve its quality

Below you can find a couple of hints of how to handle quarterlife crisis effectively:

1) Create your definition of success

Instead of looking all the time at the achievements of your friends - instead try to figure out what is your own concept of success - e.g. maybe you can be inspired to pursue a career as a manager in a big company? Or simply invest more time in your private life - family and friends.

2)Start thinking positively about the future - apparently it sounds like a cliche, but actually may make you stronger.

3) Do not be too hard on yourself

Overcoming quarter life crisis is extremely difficult challenge - no need for you to make this process harder to go through. Be patient with yourself

4) Talk with other people - almost certainly you are not the only one person under the Sun who has to go through this problem.

5) Try to better understand what quarterlifer crisis is - the Internet is the infinite source of information

What do you think - is it possible to turn quarter-life crisis into quarter-life catalyst?

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/may/05/quarterlife-crisis-young-insecure-depressed

https://www.themuse.com/advice/powering-through-your-quarterlife-crisis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddek3gQVt9Y&t=77s

Week 5[03-09.12.2018] TOXIC SUGAR

           The adventure with sugar is like a toxic relationship for people. The stage of blind love is the era of colonial conquests and going into raptures over sweetness on European courts. The red light gets on when science discovers that sugar is the cause of many diseases. Then we’re just trying to get a divorce with it, but it turns out that we are so addicted, that we can't live without it anymore.

David Malan/Getty Images

         Disastrous crush occurred after Christopher Columbus took sugar cane seedlings to the New World during his trip. The climate was favorable for crops. In the Caribbean and Brazil, sugar cane plantations popped up like mushrooms. In that time the trade and processing industry was thriving, along with the slavery. On sugar production, you could earn a fortune. Sugar itself was a luxury good still for decades. Only after the end of the seventeenth century, sugar came with ships from American colonies to Europe. Sugar changed the canons of beauty. The women should have huge shapes – only then she could be considered beautiful. The skinny ones were poor. A hundred years later poor people, could experience the daily taste of sweets. Not without consequences - more and more of them began to fall into an extraordinary disease involving the disappearance of the body whose development was progressive.

However, if the disease developed rapidly, the person died quickly.  At that time, those symptoms were described as diabetes, then people started to think how to fight it. Unfortunately for decades – unsuccessfully. Meanwhile, sugarcane gained a competitor-sugar beet, which sown on thousands of hectares across Europe, had to make it independent of supplies from the colonies. Madness lasted. Diabetes still was an incurable disease. The hope appeared in 1922, thanks to the research of Fryderyk Banting, who discovered insulin. It was produced on the industrial scale by large pharmaceutical companies. And so diabetes from the fatal disease became a chronic one. The struggle continued and the realities after the Second World War were different. Food prices were high and in 1957 Richard O. Marshall and Earl P. Kooi developed high-fructose corn syrup, which was then available in many sweet products. Twice sweeter and twice cheaper than sugar found the use in the food industry. In 1974, the US Food Agency considered as a determinant of quality, gave the opinion that sugar was not a direct cause of obesity, didn't cause diabetes, cancer or heart disease, and there was no evidence for that. The number one enemy became cholesterol. In shops, there were products with it’s reduced content. Unfortunately, to make them taste good - sugar was added. The less fat - the more sugar.

            Today it is present everywhere. From tobacco products to medicine under 56 names, and in 1957 it was classified as a poison by Dr. William Coda Martin. We can't imagine life without it anymore, and also…… still, don't want to realize how much evil it brings.

You have some information about toxic sugar in this movie. Why do we gain weight? Why do we feel bad?

1. Do you think that the legislator should regulate the sugar content in food products with the relevant regulations? If so, which ones?
2. What ingredients do you pay attention to of bought products?
3. What substances besides sugar do you consider dangerous to health and why?

Sources:https://www.saveur.com/sugar-history-of-the-world

http://www.sugarhistory.net/who-made-sugar/sugar-timeline/

https://studylib.net/doc/8954006/in-1957--dr-william-coda-martin-tried-to-answer-the-quest...

Week 5 [03-09.12.2018] Social Credit System

Social Credit System

Did you ever heard about Chinese Social Credit System? It’s a program that rewards people for good behaviour and impose restrictions on those who aren’t model citizens. According to China State Council the project should be adopted in 2020. This system will process data from various sources, including surveillance monitoring, to create our profile. And just like a private financial credit scores, a personal social score can move up and down according to users behaviour. This idea was first announced in 2014 under the slogan „keeping trust is glorious and breaking trust is disgraceful”.

Currently the system is run by city councils and private tech companies like Alibaba. It is still unclear what specific technology will be used in the fully implemented system. As of now, only proof of concept have been tested. However Business Insider reported that some regions are already participating in various social point programs. As a result, poor behaviour can result with a ban for flying, booking trains or ordering video games. For example almost 10 million citizens with low scores have been blocked from buying tickets for domestic flights. Internet providers can throttle your connections speed. There are even cases where kids were keep out of the best schools. In 2016 there was a government notice that encourages companies to use a blacklist for troublesome employees. It is worth mentioning that such list already exist. People are notified by courts before they are added and have 10 days to appeal against the decision. 

On the other hand there are rewards for scoring high number of social points. Some of the benefits are discounts on energy bills, possibility to rent items without a deposit or even better interest rates at banks. 

So how to score points? According to Bloomberg citizens can gain points by paying bills on time, donating blood or doing volunteer work. Interestingly even shopping habits are rated. Meanwhile violating law will lower our score. However one of the most alarming thing is rating people based on interpersonal relationships. Our choice of friends will be assessed and our points will be tied to people we know through social media. As a result, a bad citizen will drag the score down of those around them. For example if I would say something controversial about the government on facebook, it will affect all my connections including families and friends. This might actually create social ostracism out of fear for punishment.

At this moment it is impossible to say how this will turn out. Constant monitoring, data harvesting and behaviour rating might change how the society works. Black Mirror, a TV series, show how this concept might look like in the future. Life might become an endless popularity contest, with us fighting for the highest rating that only a few can attain.

Sources:

1. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/chinese-government-social-credit-score-privacy-
   invasion
   
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System
   
3. https://www.techspot.com/news/77533-beijing-moving-forward-controversial-social-
   rating-system.html
   

Questions:

1. Do you think that this system should be adopted in Europe?
   
2. Is it healthy for the society to be constantly monitored?
   
3. How do you think it would affect our daily life? 
   

Week 5[03-09.12.2018] The Value Of Gold

The Value of Gold

Over the centuries gold has acquired symbolic value which very often has equate not only with the richness but also with eternity, divinity and knowledge. Aside from the gold symbolism it has served as the payment medium and because of their characteristic it was applied also to industry. In this article, I would like say a quick word how much gold is there in the world and why it is so precious.

A single ounce of gold is roughly the size of a sugar cube and currently sells for nearly $1200. Gold has been part of the world's many monetary systems for thousands od years and banks still hold gold reserves as a store of value, as an asset and as financial insurance should they hit economic turmoil. Before I talk how much gold exists Firstly I'll talk about what gold is and why it is so valuable. At the world exists much more another metals but what gold has, it's superior chemical properties. Gold cannot be destroyed by water, as it doesn't rust. Gold is also uniquely malleable because it spreads without cracking, it is ductile, as it stretches without breaking and most important gold is very rare. It's estimated that all gold ever found is about 177 000 tonnes. So, if we would gathered all available gold together we would receive a cube with side length of 21 meters. It would look like to more or less as below

Gold protect us also from the inflation and let us to hold spending power over the long term. For the example, over hundred years ago a new model of Ford T could have been bought for about 20 ounces of gold. Today it 20 ounces is worth a little over $25000, so for the same count of gold we could also buy a new Ford.

On over the world gold is considered as the most secure investment and treasure a protection against of economic bust, inflation, exchange rate fluctuation especially in the restless times as nowadays. What is more, frequent turbulence in the financial and geopolitical markets and most of all terrible events in the world like spreading of the terrorism does not affect on reduction of gold value but keep it value on very high level. Together with gold you acquire international currency which you can monetise anytime as you want.

Well, these few facts shows us, gold isn’t only beautiful treasure and shining metal but also underestimated insurance policy of your private assets

1. What do you think about gold and the future of this raw material?
2. Do you think gold can defend us against the economic and geopolitical turbulence? Does it a good way to defend against inflation?
3. Maybe, you disagree with above article and gold does not at all so valuable I had written?
4. Do you know any physical material which has similar or even more powerful properties than gold?

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ5sNSTNLL0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RuklTqr02U

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/31-incredible-gold-facts.jpg

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25255957

https://www.hardassetsalliance.com/blog/why-is-gold-valuable-the-5-reasons-most-investors-overlook

Week 5 [03-09.12.2018] The Witcher

The Witcher

source

Andrzej Sapkowski, the author of the saga about The Witcher, a Polish fantasy writer, born in Łódź in 1948. If it was not for him, we would not be able to meet the famous Geralt of Riva in books or video games and see his adventures.

When CD Project, a Polish computer game producer, engaged in applying to Sapkowski for the sale of the copyright of Geralt, he decided to sell it for PLN 35 thousand, not believing in its success, although the CD Project offered a percentage of sales profits to the writer. The game turned out to be a phenomenon and a huge international success. In 2015, the company had PLN 798 million in sales revenues and PLN 342,4 million in net profit, in 2016 - PLN 583.9 million in revenues and PLN 250.5 million in profit, and last year PLN 463.2 million of proceeds and PLN 200.3 million of profit. Even a small percentage of these sums translates into millions of incomes.

source

Polish law has a provision in relation to copyright, which allows you to renegotiate the remuneration for the sold copyright, if the difference between profits and the amount paid for the copyright is grossly large. That's why Andrzej Sapkowski decided he demanded more money. His lawyers have sent a letter to the CD Projekt in which they demand PLN 60 million from the company (6% of profits on the sale of games) and suggest that it is better to settle amicably because the publicity of the case may harm them. The company published the letter, which resulted in a decrease  in the percentage of shares, but after some time the exchange rate normalized. As a result, the value of the company's shares decreased by PLN 300 million.

After the premiere of the last part of the game, he mentioned that he did not play in “Wild Hunt” and he knows few people who played because he "turns among intelligent people" and the game hurt his work more than it helped.

Netflix announced that it is starting production of the series based on the witcher's character. On the Internet, it boiled when it was announced from an unconfirmed source that Ciri, one of the heroines of the Witcher series, could play a black actress. On all portals, users began a discussion about the pros and cons of such adaptation. In my opinion, this rumor has caused everyone to start talking about the show and now the fans are waiting impatiently for the first episode, which is going to be released in 2019.

Netflix invited the author of the novel to collaborate on the show, but he refused. Andrzej Sapkowski says that he prefers nothing to do with the production, explaining that he signed a contract with Netflix, and disclosure of any information about the series would result in gigantic fines.

●       Do you think that Andrzej Sapkowski should demand money?

●       Do you think that the CD project should give Andrzej Sapkowski money? Why?

●       What do you think about the gossip about the actress playing Ciri? Producers should cast a woman from an ethnic minority in this role? Why?

●       Did you read the saga or did you play the game about The Witcher? Did you like it?

Sources:

1.      https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD_Projekt

2.      https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrzej_Sapkowski

3.      https://www.newsweek.pl/biznes/andrzej-sapkowski-chce-60-milionow-za-gre-wiedzmin-od-cd-projektu/t445q4c

4.      https://www.spidersweb.pl/rozrywka/2018/10/02/andrzej-sapkowski-wiedzmin-pozew/

5.      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSIQvDEOGo4

6.      https://aszdziennik.pl/124355,sapkowski-chce-60-mln-zl-od-cd-projektu-ale-prawdziwym-zlotem-jest-list

7.      https://www.spidersweb.pl/rozrywka/2018/01/15/sapkowski-serial-wiedzmin-netflix/

Week 5 [03-09.12.2018] How to understand abstraction?

How to understand abstraction?

We all know what art is - music, paintings, performance etc. but can we understand it? Especially modern, abstract one? Recently I stumbled upon a lecture by Masza Potocka – an art critic and director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow (MOCAK).

The title of this lecture was “How to understand abstraction?” – You can find it on YouTube (I can’t post link because it is in polsh). This lecture made me think again about the meaning of art itself and when art is really art and when it isn’t. I am sure many of you heard plenty of times about some new shocking performance or painting. You have definitely seen paintings that looked like scribbles of a 2-year-old kid or it just seemed like anybody could paint it. An example of the painting that can cause such thoughts can be “Painterly Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions” known as “Red Square” by Kazimir Malevich.

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Square_(painting)

In her lecture Potocka demonstrates varied examples of abstract paintings e. g.

                          

 2 Cy Twombly. Leda and the Swan          

                                                   

3 Otto Zitko (unfortunately I didn’t found painting from lecture)

I’m wondering - should we be delighted by these paintings?

Here I can ask again – what is art? What, or maybe who, decides whether something can be defined as art?

When I saw the connoisseur, Masza Potocka, delighted by such work of art showing how deep and meaningful it is, I remembered a scene from a movie The Great Beauty (La grande belleza) by Paolo Sorrentino (worth watching, by the way) which I think can be a great polemic of it.

Please find and watch on Youtube video called “Marina Abramovic scene (The Great Beauty/La Grande Bellezza)” published by user Debad. It’s in Italian with English subtitles and it’s only 4:20 min long.

Going back to the lecture – the first lecturer’s thesis is to refute the word “understand” when it comes to the art. She argues that the art does not suit rational thinking and that in relation to the art you can only talk about some kind of connection with message that the work of art is. That the connection does not consist of understanding but of some kind of thought and emotional provoking identification in some kind of structure, meaning or message. Furthermore, she argues that the highest achievement in reception of art is sense that you DO NOT understand it. Instead, the message of that piece of art is what YOU, in some way, would like to express not exactly knowing what this expression is.

I would like to comment on this by citing a story called Sokal Affair.

In 1966, the article by the physics professor Sokal entitled "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity” was approved and published in the Academic Journal “Social text” and soon caused a heated discussion. Later Sokal revealed that the article was an experiment. It examined the scientific rigor of the journal and exposed the intellectual laziness of the academic left who would publish anything that sticks to their ideas and beliefs – such as not scientifically proven, meaningless patchwork of random words which the Sokal’s article in fact was.
In my opinion what Potocka says in her lecture is equivalent to Sokal’s fake article – for me it is a mixture of random words with no meaning behind it. 

What do you think about Potocka’s way of perceiving art? 

Would you also reject the term “understand” in the art-terms dictionary?

And what do you think about the abstract art and its creators – are they artists for you?
What decides whether something is a piece of art? 

Can it be objectively determined?
And how can we identify intellectual imposture?

Sources:

1.       https://www.moma.org/collection/works/80083

2.       https://www.dorotheum.com/en/auctions/current-auctions/kataloge/list-lots-detail/auktion/10043-contemporary-art/lotID/1582/lot/1498552-otto-zitko.html

3.       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Square_(painting)

4.       https://youtu.be/ffDV9IGd_4A

5.       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMjovG2PqZM