4) Julia sweeney: letting go of god - What is the age of reason?

7. when you’re able to commit any and all sins against God and man. - The message of her talk

Everything is relative. We’re used to what seems conventional to us, but we forget to be in the place of smb else – form their point of view that would be different.

5) Navigating our global future

- What’s xenophobia?

Unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange.

- What’s globalization? What are its driving forces?

Process of international integration, interaction, communication. Driving forces – urbanisation, integration.

- What’s eugenics? What are the practices of it? Where and when was it spread?

It’s practices used to improve the genetic composition of a population. Was popular in the beginning of the XX century with Nazi Germany especially, that’s why now it had negative associations. Practices – in Nazi Germany expetiments on people, killing of those with ‘not suitable genetic code’ like jews.

- What’s population pyramid and why is it turning into population coffin in developed countries?

Graphical illustration that shows the distribution of various age groups in population. Coffin – in developed countries people tend to live longer, so the number almost doesn’t reduce, that’s why it forms kind of coffin picture.

- What are systemic risks?

Risks of the system collapse. What happens in one place quickly affects everything else due to globalisation. Examples – pandemic flu, financial crisis. - What is brain drain? What are the reasons for it? People tend to look for better place to live and to work. The main reason is little financing from the Government (in Russia)

- What’s urbanization? Its main reasons? Consequences?

People are moving from the villages to towns for a job or to receive an educatoin. Main reason – globalization. Consequences – overpopulated cities, high rates of unemployment, lack of workers in agricultural sector.

6) The story of stuff - What’s materials economy? What kind of system is it? Why is it in crisis?

When stuff moves along the stages – extraction to production to distribution to consumption to disposal. It’s linear system, it’s in crisis because our planet is finite, and you can’t run it indefinitely.

- How does extraction happen?

It’s natural resources expoitation – chopping down the trees, blowing up the mountains to get metals inside, using up all the water, wiping out animals. Consequence – we’re running out of resources.

- Describe the production

We’re using energy to mix toxic chemicals with natural resources to get contaminated products. Toxics in, toxics out. Nature is wasted and also people are wasted.

- What is externalized price? How do producers do that?

Someone else pays for the product you buy (you don’t pay the real cost). They pay with clean air, with their future (children on the factory, they quit school in order to work). Company transfers some of its moral responsibilities as costs to the community or to degradation of environment.

- What’s planned obsolescence?

‘designed for the dump’

- Perceived obsolescence?

Convinces us to throw away stuff that is still perfectly usable. Example – fashion.

- How do we dispose of rubbish?

It gets dumped in the landfill or 1^st burnt in the incinerator. It leads to extration of contaminants into the air etc. (dioxine) - What about recycling? Does it help?

Not always.

1. not everything can be recycled

2. it doesn’t get to the core of the problem. While we’re recycling, there’re many more products made, so we won’t be able to recycle everything.

- What happened to the national happiness rate? Why?

In US in declined during to the opinion polls. It peaked in 1950s, when consumption mania exploded. Extract from the text (about consumption mania):

Shortly after the World War 2, these guys were figuring out how to ramp up the [U.S.] economy.

Retailing analyst Victor Lebow articulated the solution that has become the norm for the whole system. He said: “Our enormously productive economy . . . demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption . . . we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.”

And President Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisors Chairman said that “The American econo-my’s ultimate purpose is to produce more consumer goods.”

- What’s sustainability? Conscious consumption?

Sustainability – capacity to endure. Concious consumption – not mindless.

7) CRIME AND PUNISHMENT 1: FEUD GLORIOUS FEUD - Who were the first known invaders of Britain? When did they come and leave?

- Who were the next? How did they settle legal disputes?

- When did Christianity come to Britain? Who brought it? What was the impact on legal system?

- What was a hundred court?

- What was trial by ordeal?

- Where and why did they use to hang criminals?

- Who were the next invaders in 780 AD (8^th cent.)?

- What Alfred the Great did about the way the law was enforced / how he organized his courts

- The way his laws were written and why

- How did Alfred the Great change the blood feud law?

- What was hue and cry? How did it work?

- What happened if the criminal evaded capture altogether