Posts

The pressures of "That Girl" ?

  The pressure of “productivity” in today's digital age has become a growing trend in recent times. Media apps and platforms have become a forum for influence as popular content creators have shared their lifestyles and daily routines in aesthetically pleasing and idealized ways that imply a pressure for self-care and productivity. Similar to the arguments presented in Melissa Greggs book Counterproductive, influencer media content has increasingly moved towards the self help genre in which these “guru-style leaders assume the role of guide or donor in the quest to find greater productivity.” (Gregg, 2018, p.53) Most recently, this idea has taken shape in the form of a viral media trend labeled as “That Girl”. Described as a person who wakes up early, meditates, makes their bed, eats only healthy foods, journals daily, goes to the gym often, walks 10,000 steps a day, drinks 2L of water a day and naturally has their life together, the “That Girl” lifestyle has grown in popularity as...
1 comment
Read more

Risks and Rewards from Rotten Apples to Symbiotic Ecosystems

  The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs Private Sector Myths  by Mariana Mazzucato argues that the overall success of the United States economy is due to public, and government-funded investments in technology and innovation. Chapter 8 of the book is called Risks and Rewards from Rotten Apples to Symbiotic Ecosystems   and speaks about the relationship that the state has with risky investments in technology and innovation as well as the state’s initial investments and ties in/with Apple.  Mazzucato states that “risk-taking has been a collective endeavour while the returns have been much less collectively distributed” meaning is that the only return that the state sees for their risky investment is the indirect benefits in the form of higher tax receipts which ironically enough are a result of their initial investment.  The point that Mazzucato is trying to get at is that to the average person there seems to be lots of talk of an equal partnership betwee...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Fetishization of Dropping Out- Adrian Daub

  In Adrian Daub’s book,   What Tach Calls Thinking  he examines the ideologies that exist within Silicon Valley. The first chapter of the book discusses how society specifically tech society has fetishized dropping out of Ivey League/elite universities and colleges in order to pursue their start-up to eventually become the next big CEO. He argues that this idea has become fetishized by society and allows the common individual to believe that dropping out of school to pursue your dreams is the way to do it because individuals such as Bill Gates did the same therefore the “if they can do why can’t I” mindset is created. This ideology creates a need or urgency to always be trying to find the next best thing and not to waste one’s time receiving an education however this fails to realize that Bill Gates was a part of the top one percent in which he received an abundance of help from others however this is not the case with the average individual. This is also an ideology tha...
1 comment
Read more

Silicon Valley Mindset

 While reading the first few chapters of Wendy Liu's, she explained how silicon valley is a place where the only thing that matters is the results of the work you put in. Either it takes you 40,50,60 or 70 hours in a week, the only thing that anyone pays attention to is the end result. With this in mind, I thought about why people seem to love Silicon Valley and continue to want to get a job there. It is still considered the dream job location for loads of people. I came to the realization that our school system is geared in nearly the exact same way as Silicon Valley. At school, the only thing that really matters towards completing your degree is the grade that you get at the end of your course. The process to complete assignments and exams is often overlooked by professors and future employers, as they are only looking at your grade to determine how good of a student you are. Students spend different amounts of hours on their assignments and exams, but as long as they have the kn...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Rise of Tech in Florida

Image
  Throughout the first year and a half of the COVID-19 pandemic, it seemed like the whole world had been put on lockdown with severe punishments being implemented to discourage people from going outdoors. However, the state of Florida is one of the locations that has been extremely soft on covid-19 regulations ever since the beginning of the pandemic. For that reason, large numbers of people have traveled and moved there in order to enjoy the weather and the relaxed covid rules. However, the location has become a huge draw for tech startups because a lot of people have seen how great of a place it is to live in. There are thousands of entrepreneurs, investors, venture capitalists, and founders living in that region. Tech startups can also find an increasing number of events where all these people group together looking for the next big thing. When analyzing how ecosystems are created during class and the readings, the actual weather and attraction of a location were never very big ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Finding Solutions? Critical Thinking!

Image
  In the reading from David Stark titled "Heterarchy: The Organization of Dissonance" Stark discusses the concept of "research". In a basic explanation research is when one looks for a solution without knowing what the answer is. What I find interesting is how you can relate "research" as a term or concept with critical thinking.      John Dewey who was mentioned in the reading posed a scenario explaining what he meant with the term research and how it can vary in different scenarios.   1. Where someone looks for a solution to a problem but you may not know where or what your looking for. 2. Where someone looks for a solution knowing where the problem and potential answer is.      These two scenarios are very different and Dewey would even argue that the first one would be considered a "situation".      The argument I am getting at here is I believe critical thinking is involved in research or a "situation" and D...
Post a Comment
Read more

Elon Musk Purchasing Twitter?

Image
In recent news Elon Musk has made multiple attempts to purchase the entirety of Twitter. Just a few weeks ago Elon Musk purchased 3 billion dollars worth of shares on Twitter making him the largest shareholder. But clearly this was not enough for Musk as he made his second attempt to buy Twitter.      What could be the cause for Musk wanted to be in full control of Twitter? He recently tweeted out that Twitter is the center spot where everyone in recent times get there news and information or at least the majority of people especially the younger generation. He also believes that there is too much censorship on Twitter and since it is the main place where people get their news it should not have much censoring of information. It is most likely that if Musk does end up getting control of Twitter it would be clear that he would try to reduce the censorship of information that big tech is known for allowing free speech in the platform.  Thi...
Post a Comment
Read more