The City

Lofland goes on and on about how people perceive the city in such a negative sense. Like when she asked a class of students to all write down words that came to mind when she said the word city, everyone wrote down words that had ultimately negative connotations. As she continues on about the negative aspects of cities such as the amount of crime and bums, I could not stop thinking about one obvious factor about cities, the large population. If cities are so terrible and dirty and filled with crime, why are the populations of these areas so large and still growing every day?  Now there may be people living in the city for reasons they cannot control such as finances or their job. But there are millions of people who you could never take out of the city because they love it so much. The way she presents the information just seems like she is ignorant to the fact people do love the city and there are parts of it that draw people to it. One example is that she brings up that no tourist brochures ever have cityscapes on them or mention cities. She of course thinks this is because cities are dirty and no one would want to go to one. But a more logical reasons would be either that people looking for a getaway are already living in the city and want somewhere to escape to that is unlike where they live. Also because it’s a smart advertising attack for a state to advertise their country or things people don’t always do daily because that will draw in the most tourism. Most people already know about the cities everywhere and what is in them and what to expect so they don’t need a brochure to lure them in if they want to go. Cities are hectic and sometimes dirty but a lot of them are actually magnificent places to be, so Lofland’s stance is slightly irritating.

Legal Age for Blogging

In all of the articles we have read this week, the idea of privacy was somewhat touched on. Mostly centered around having privacy, or a lack there of, on the internet. The way I see it is in any situation you have as much privacy as you want. No one is making anyone post anything on the internet, so why is it someone else’s problem if your information is taken from there and used elsewhere? Someone going through your mail and stealing your identity is a breach in privacy, not someone getting your home address off of facebook. With the fact that most of these issues with internet privacy are among younger kids who are having run-ins with child predators, it almost makes it seem like there should be a legal age to be on the internet at this point. If parents are so worried about what their children are doing and putting on the internet then they need to take control of that situation and put limits on what their children do. This all reminds me of being in high school. There would always be new rules being added and it would be because of that one kid who was an idiot and did something stupid so they now had to enforce a rule about it. People who are stupid enough to enter in all of their information on websites and or talk to strangers are giving these things a bad rep and making us all look bad. No one should complain about their privacy online because truthfully it is not the place to put yourself out there and have secrets. The internet is so intertwined and can be saved on any ones computer, meaning whatever you write might just be around forever. People need to go back to hand written diaries. Giving people the right to drink at 21 is a test of responsibility, you can go out and get hammered or you can drink responsibly. The internet almost runs along those lines, without a definite age limit..or at least one that can be successfully monitored. You can either be responsible online and watch what you click and what information you give out, or you can put your life on the web and never get it back.

To Infinity and Beyond

“A fair defense can be put forward for the view that the world is infinite; or that we do not know that it is not. But, in terms of the practical problems that we must face in the next few generations with the foreseeable technology, it is clear that we will greatly increase human misery if we do not, during the immediate future, assume that the world available to the terrestrial human population is finite. "Space" is no escape”

Garrett Hardin was trying to provide a wake-up call of sorts to the human population, so we all start to realize we are all screwing ourselves over. A very simple idea that has been said many times before, this time in an almost pretentious voice, but correct none-the-less. He talks about how we go through our daily life using resources as if they are going to forever replenish themselves and we can just sit back and not worry about it. But the cold hard truth is our populations, industries and use of resources grows everyday and our planet is not growing with us. It is an unfortunate reality that our planet is finite and we need to act accordingly. It seems to be a common thought process ( I personally have this mindset occasionally), that we as individuals will not make much of a difference so we do not have to change the way we live. But obviously if everyone has that mindset then nothing is being changed and things continue to get worse and diminish. As he said in the last bit of the above quote, “Space is no escape”. There being talk about what planets are possibly inhabitable for the future is so aggravating to me. Where do humans get off  thinking that we can take over a planet, run it dry of its resources, leave it in shambles and continue on to another planet? That being said, is there even a planet that we could live on successfully? Earth has always gone and corrected itself in times when there were extremes, but it has also always led to mass extinctions. Humans have made it a long way since we were first placed here, but with all of this careless destruction of this great planet its honestly looking like we are on a road leading to our own self-created extinction. People need to open their eyes and take those small steps each day to live a greener life. Asking people to not have a certain amount of children is ridiculous; we all just need to live more responsible lives. And anyone who goes into this argument with the mindset that they won’t be around when everything goes downhill is both ignorant and just heartless really. Wake up humans, the earth was here first and it can do just fine with us not around, don’t give it a reason to get rid of us.