IHSS Blog 2018-2019

IHSS Gabriel Han Mr Roddy The Mighty Potato! The potato. A common vegetable, but it changed the world. It was native to America, with many other tubers. Columbus found America, and with these new foods, changed the cultures. Foods from the other side of the world became staples, and this was called the Columbian Exchange. It was extremely easy nutrition to transport, and cousins like the sweet potato, could even survive floods. The sweet potato was also easy to transport, and amazing nutrition. But the columbian exchange also brought bad things. Diseases, Malaria, and other bad things were introduced to Europe. The Columbian exchange changed the world in both good and bad ways. If we had not found it though, the world would most likely be much worse today, and if not worse, different. Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2018/10/08/christopher-columbus-potato-that-changed-world/?utm_term=.6d4ee96a1329

Gabriel Han IHSS Mr Roddy Interests in Guns, Germs, and Steel My interests in the book so far are about how Diamond talks about societal development, and how he talks about the ways societies develop around technological developments. It provides a lot of insight into how the technology of societies changed as they developed. As a society gains more weaponry that is more advanced than others, the society gains an advantage in multiple ways. These advantages are in all different types of forms, including economic power, trade, conquest and land control, and warfare. There are many more that are more obscure, but these are the main ones that come to mind. These advantages have been generally used in history for ill purposes, including invasion and conquest. I really think this is a cool topic, and enjoy it a lot.

Brooks Farish 12/15/18 IHSS - Blog Does Your Language Influence How You Think? After reading the article covering how languages affect how one may think, I believe it’s safe to say that if language affects the way we think that it probably affects our personality, the way we act and many other things.     The article goes into many word topics, such as the names of colors in different languages and how they can affect the way you think. For example, how we categorize colors like yellow and orange and we might put those into a warm color category in the English language but in other languages, they might not be related whatsoever. Another topic covered is the importance of gender in language and how much different it can be depending on the language. For instance, in German you wouldn't just say teacher, you must differentiate if she is a male or female teacher when speaking. If you apply this idea of language and how it affects thinking into history or modern-day times maybe...

I read the article about pessimism and one thing I noticed is that they only listed the positives or the good things, but they didn’t list the bad things that come from those “good things”; such as the graph that showed that the child mortality rate has gone down, the part they didn’t mention is that now earth is overpopulated and it’s not even a very productive generation especially in the US, I fear that in the future of humanity is in danger because more babies are living, not to sound cold or anything but that's just how it is, we need to find some way to deal with overpopulation. Another thing I saw in the article was that they sort of knocked down pessimist even though you are born more positive or more negative, yes some terrible things can happen in your childhood but that doesn’t cause pessimism it’s just who you are as a person they were also saying that pessimism in our country was caused by the news that's also incorrect, the news drives people apart more than it do...

Throughout the process of reading Guns, Germs & Steel, I have become ultimately more intrigued by what occurred before the events of early history that are generally recorded and taught about. I have always been fascinated by the concept of the earliest forms of human and human behavior, and what specifically varies us from other species of animals. Like most books and articles on similar subjects, Guns Germs and Steel covers a brief overview of what the first signs of hunter-gatherer lifestyles may have resembled, but I feel like there is a lot more research to be done on the topic. The book follows human advancements and our slow climb to "superiority" above other species of animals, and most of the separate research I have done shows that the main things that set us apart from our primate predecessors are communication and fire. This has lead me to become much more intrigued with the concept of early communication, and since there is less point-blank direct answers abo...

Languages develop over time and with the influences of cultures, but the way that people think also evolves with the influence of language. This is evident in many aspects of different languages, from gendered nouns to spatial awareness. Even though some of your perceptions of the world are based on how your language approaches it, language doesn't necessarily determine your position on every subject.  The article briefly mentions how color names in different languages evolve. We all see a spectrum of colors, different languages pick out different areas on the spectrum to categorize. For example, some languages classify blue and green together or orange and yellow together. More developed languages seem to have an abundance of color terms that no one can agree on what specific qualities determines where it is on the spectrum. I've noticed that in English, the different qualities of colors are not commonly specified. In my experience this sometimes leads to complications. I r...

Cidette Rice IHSS Mr.Roddy December 5th, 2018 Optimistic Facts & Stats (ft. Charts) I’d like to think of myself as an outwardly realistic person. Humanity can hope for the best, but in the meanwhile it’s better to rely on facts and scientific estimations to guide us and give us emotional support. Seeing the stats didn’t make me feel much better, but it didn’t make me feel any worse either. It kept me in a pretty neutral state (which is better than a bad one). I find that the world as a whole isn’t getting better, just some aspects of it. Rates for global warming is up, so is child negligence (funnily enough, child negligence is one of the few problems I’ll believe when people say ‘it’s because of those silly IPhones, ain’t it?’), and although terrorism (mass shootings, etc.) have quieted around the world, there was a 24% increase inbetween 2016 and 2017 in North America ( Taylor, Adam. “Terrorist Attacks Are Quietly Declining around the World.” The Washington Post, ...

    A power that citizens of different locations from around the world tend to take for granted is the ability to vote. Though one might think their vote doesn't help in the midsts of everyone else’s, there have many locations and situations in which that has been proven wrong, and a few votes could change the course of an entire country. One example in which this premise proves itself true was during the midterm elections of the country of Madagascar. The country of Madagascar was at a crossroads, as it’s ruler, President Hery Rajaonarimampianina had held his position since 2014. Though this is not an unusual length for one to hold their position as president, Rajaonarimampianina had refused to change his styles of ruling, and didn’t comply to the changing times around him. Despite suggestions from other political officials and the country’s citizens, the political systems and laws of Madagascar remained the same way they had during the year 2009. After Rajaonarimampianina...

Does every vote really matter? While I believe that everyone should vote and that there is no reason not to be involved in the current and upcoming elections I can't help but feel that Does every vote really matter? While I believe that everyone should vote and that there is no reason not to be involved in the current and upcoming elections I can't help but feel that in a way, not every vote counts. Due to the fact that most elections held in the United States are not based on a popular vote, how can one single person vote help? When looking back at the 2016 presidential elections Hillary lost but still won the popular vote. So looking at it this way how could one more vote have prompted her to win? In some cases, one vote changes a lot, but unfortunately, this is not an everyday occurrence. On a side note, I strongly believe every individual regardless of whether I agree with them or not, should vote. Age is not a barrier when it comes to elections, while you are unable to vo...

Stories have been created and shared as soon as humans developed a language. They’re a way for us to examine ourselves and/or our world and better understand it. It makes sense why adapting history into narratives would be a good way of understanding it, however, that pathos in which historical narratives are made with can cloud our more logical thinking. My best example would be one that many people go back to time and time again; the Nazis. After WWI, Germany was in devastation. People were poor, and feeling lost and hopeless. Hitler rose to power, and became chancellor through exciting people over a narrative of a great country with strong people, and how it was torn down. He fed the people a narrative in which the people of Germany could see themselves as the protagonists, who had been wrongfully deprived by these greedy Jew who had taken from them. Through this grand interpretation of how and why things had played out, Hitler scape-goated the Jews and was able to rally a great f...

Walls have been in use since ancient civilizations in order to keep “barbarians” out and provide safety to the residents of the city this allowed for more comfort leading to development in the city as “not everyone needed to be warriors” and other development was made. The article talks about the different types of walls and how some are built to  keep people out and some namely the Berlin wall to keep people in. I would argue that some walls were not about people but culture with the great wall not only for the Huns but to stop western ideas from flowing in to keep the empire together. I chose this article because the defensive side of war has always fascinated me as in the case of Constantinople it survived long after the rest of the byzantine empire because of the double walls and there is a historic argument that the need for defense caused the agricultural revolution with a need for defense led to people looking for ways to stay in the same spot to have more permanent defens...

Tyler Holland Mr. Roddy IHSS 3 December 2018 Climate Change The article that I read about climate change was a very interesting article that strengthened ideas of my own that I already had about climate change. There are still a lot of people in the world that don't think that global warming even exists, there are many facts proving these people wrong. You can see that over time the world has clearly been slowly getting warmer, A long time ago there were multiple ice ages that were home to some of the wooliest animals that have ever lived trying to keep warm from the cold. As time went on, the world got warmer, the ice started to melt causing the climate to become slowly warmer. A lot of animals that were big and hairy died off and became extinct because of the fact that they became hot and sluggish and weren't able to survive in their world. Another example that is given in the article is about the affect on the weather that global warming has. When the weather gets...

In today's world we are surrounded by so many negative things, telling us that everything is all negative. But it's not all bad, there are some things that have been improving, for one extreme poverty has fallen, globally, so that's good. Another notable positive thing that the article provided is that global life expectancy is rising, however I have found other sources that say while in other places life expectancy is rising, the life expectancy in America has actually been decreasing over the past few years, this is because of a large increase in the death rate of people aged 25-34 due to increases in overdoses, while the death rate has increased among this age group in America, that of people over the age of 65 has continued to decrease. The main one that stood out to me was that the supply of nuclear weapons is down, and that's great because now there's less chance of us all nuking each other out of existence. I think that even though there's all these...

John Mazziotti December 2nd, 2018 IHSS Mr. Roddy Zoom into Sagittarius A Sagittarius A is the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy, also known as, The Milky Way. This black hole keeps all of our 200 billion stars and planets together in a fantastic style. The video provided a zoom into the galaxy itself and helped the viewer identify the strange anomaly in the center. It shows a star strangely orbiting a seemingly invisible object with another star involved. The video is then changed to infared where the black hole Sagittarius can be visible with the illumination and gasses that are ripped from the 2 stars. This originated as a random radio source that was detected by a Southern European observatory. This is a rare and great discovery, that contributes to the field of study. This is very interesting how a random signal from the outer edges of space, could show the anomaly center of our galaxy. This is also a great example for everybody who doesn’t have an i...

Clark May II Mr. Roddy IHSS December 2 2018 Optimistic Future I was extremely surprised to see a lot of these statistics and I was shocked to see all of the things that are going well in the world. I believe that in today’s society, we are constantly consuming news which mostly talks about bad events happening around the world which is one of the reasons we don’t hear about these good statistics. I read an article from BBC which talked about how although we claim we want to watch “good news” we really don’t. In short, they did an experiment that showed that when people were given the choice to read any article they wanted, they leaned towards reading negative ones about problems rather than happy stories. I was not surprised by this because I believe that news stations know that controversy draws viewers in and now, due to all of the coverage of negative news, we naturally drift towards it. While I do not have any evidence to back it up, I believe that in an era in which the ...

My argument is that every vote matters because, as shown in the article, a lot of the winners of these elections from all the way back in 1829 to now, in 2018, were decided by a difference of only one vote. So, if that one person or two people who didn't vote did vote, they wouldn't think it, but it would have made a lot of a bigger difference in who would've won and who would've lost. My argument also goes hand in hand with how people now think that their vote doesn't really matter because it's in a batch with many other people, ultimately ending up in them not voting at all. But this article shows that they could be that person that would turn around the elections, with just single vote they casted, they would make a big difference, which is really a way that they could feel like their vote matters, and they could go out and vote. Some examples from this article to support my argument are: In 2016, a  Vermont state Senate Democratic primary was  deter...

Luke Kirchner      After reading the article about potatoes, I have to agree with the author and say the Potato is one of the most important crops. It allowed for major expansion, trade and food production. When the potato arrived in Europe, I brought a new nutrition that was easy to haul long distances.      The Columbian Exchange connected Africa, The Old World, and The Americas to share ideas, technology, and resources. One of the leading exported items was the pepper, along with the potato, which was a beneficial factor in Population changes. New pathogens in the Americas led to a decrease in population and in Europe they were quickly domesticated and spread- Therefore raising population. The Columbian Exchange also added chocolate and tomatoes to more people's diet.      Sweet potatoes also proved to last in other places, such as China. The sweet potato could survive flood which were frequent in some areas. Because farmers blamed t...

        The article I read talks about the effects (mostly negative) of reading narratives, especially the ones about history. The article has an interview and talks about the theory of mind, and how many narratives are merely speculations and guesses. I think the article makes some great points about how some people may rely too heavily on these narratives to be their history teacher, but I disagree because I think it is extremely important for people to read and express there own opinions. Simple writing or thinking about narratives is expanding creativity, you are thinking about ideas, mostly based off of facts. More and more commonly people are not reading and reading is extremely important, especially for children in the development of their brain. Being able to express creativity in different ways is very important. The way this article is written, seems biased against the readings of narratives, especially from the perspective of the man being interviewed, alt...

     Climate Change has been a topic that has been talked about since the 1970s. Today the effect of it is much more clear: lakes are drying up, forests are burning up, and floods are becoming more common and devastating. The most recent U.S climate change assessment shows that climate change is affecting the country more than ever and that if we don't change our ways soon, it'll just get worse. So, what's making everything so bad? Firstly, the United States is 2nd in the world for most carbon dioxide emissions, behind China. However, it's not just the carbon dioxide that contributes to the world's problem, it's also methane. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is a lot stronger than carbon dioxide, and the places where it is most abundant is America's cattle ranches and Siberia's Permafrost. The Great Plains of the United States is host to one of, if not the largest, the largest cattle population in the world, and those cows produce a lot  of methane. In S...

Ashwin Dev Mr. Roddy IHSS 2 December 2018 The Theory of Mind and Narrative Article This article begins with a philosopher named Alex Rosenberg who, in short, says that historical narratives are a threat to people being able to understand history if theory of mind is applied. I'm not sure as to why the philosopher in the article assumes most people apply theory of mind to historical narratives. As long as the reader knows it's a historical  and non-fictional narrative, I don't see why one would even begin to apply theory of mind in the first place. You can't really apply theory of mind to a historical narrative mainly because the information in a historical narrative is factual. Even if you did go on to apply theory of mind to a historical narrative, it would most likely be wrong. You can definitely do this with a fictional narrative because the narrative wouldn't be real anyway. The end of the article asks the philosopher whether or not narratives have a ...

I chose the article about how our addiction to stories is keeping us from understanding history. While I somewhat agree with this statement, I feel as if it is too general. While there are many stories out there that do brush over or cover up major events in history, I feel as if there are some that are written to educate is in a captivating way. Although not a story, The Newsies is a movie, about the newsboys strike, and it tells the story in a historically accurate way, it just used different names for each of the characters. Other examples could be Gettysburg, Lincoln, and Apollo 13, which are also movies, but are telling stories of events in history. I do agree with the author of course, that many of these stories can be more harmful than positive with helping us try to understand the play-out of history. But, if one is able to find a historically accurate story, it could help one find an interest in history, that couldn't have come out of reading a long article.  

Perjhing Mardani December 2, 2018 Alpha Males In a TED Talk from primatologist Frans de Waal, he discussed the similarities in how humans choose their alpha males and how chimpanzees choose their alpha males. The biased standards for choosing an alpha male is someone who is strong, courageous, and confident. These traits are important, but they are not how an alpha male is always chosen. With humans, to become an alpha male you need to be intimidating and dominant. Showing that you can stand above others and lead others to strive under your power. Although like Frans stated, unity is very important as well. Whilst being the alpha you are seen standing higher than the rest, but you understand and work with everyone else. Without unity we would all be divided and ignorant towards each other . Stance is also a trait that humans and chimps share. Chimpanzees show they are alpha males by standing taller than the rest with their arms broad. Humans tend to do the same wit...

As stated in this video, people think of the term “alpha male” as someone who is dominant, strong and controlling. While this is sometimes the case, I want to cover the differences between this concept and reality. In the lives of chimpanzees, alpha males generally share similar traits. Chimpanzee alpha males are usually selected if they are empathetic, unbiased and consoling. Unlike the human idea that an alpha male has to be strong and dominant, alpha males don’t need to display physical power as long as they have the right qualities and the right friends. Chimpanzees also campaign like humans when trying to gain these positions of power. A male working to become an alpha male will become generous, he will share his food and play with the infants. He will also show empathy towards other chimps and console them when they’re in need. Humans display many of these qualities when trying to gain a position of power such as a presidency. Like chimpanzees, humans ...

Recently I read an article by Domenico Montanaro on NPR. He wrote about several instances in history where just one vote determined the victor. One of the instances was over sixteen years ago. It was a state House race where Kevin Entze lost by one vote out of the 11,700 cast out. One of his fellow reserve officers had forgotten to send his vote out and it had cost Entze the race. This is just one of the multiple times that one vote had been the game changer. Another example was in 2016 where a Vermont state House seat was given to someone who won by just one vote out of 2,000. During that same year, a New Mexico state House seat was won by two votes out of 14,000. Montanaro was obviously trying to get the readers to understand that their vote matters. I think that everyone who can vote, should. We always talk about how we wish our voices can be heard, and voting is a good way to get our thoughts out there. While I think everyone should vote, I don't believe in making it mandator...

Climate change as we all know has caused us to rethink many of the things that we do every day that create long-term effects on our climate and weather. Even though we have started to implement more policies and started actively working to reduce our emmissions, climate change is still consistently getting worse. The new U.S. Climate Assessment shows us this. Temperatures are still rising, sea levels are steadily rising as ice caps in the Arctic melt, and more and more cities and countries are facing extreme weather. Many of the predictions and theories from previous Climate Assessments are now proving to be accurate. Flooding has become a larger problem in the past few years for many places in the U.S. and other countries in Europe and Asia. All of these factors are connected and are going to keep getting worse. Since the U.S. pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord in 2017, there have been many changes and rollbacks to policies on climate. The reason for this is because, during the 20...

Anna Siegel Mr. Roddy IHSS 2 December, 2018 The Alpha Male: Chimpanzees vs. Humans In human society, basic governments and rules of leadership are established within different communities around the world. As people who research animals, we typically assume ourselves as part of an elite society, with more advanced mental capacity than those of animals around us. However, in a TED talk titled “The Surprising Science of Alpha Males,” speaker Frans de Waal utilizes examples from chimpanzee societies to show that we are more similar to animals, specifically our primate predecessors, then we might instinctually believe. One major common device that ties together both humans and chimpanzees is that members of both species tend to rely on a leader, typically someone who assumes the position of Alpha Male. As a viewer, I initially assumed that the roots of an alpha male in animal societies like that of the chimpanzee, the biggest, meanest, representative of the species would be selec...

The article I read by NPR discussed many different times in history in which a vote came down to the wire, and the victor only one by a handful of votes. The author was very clearly trying to send the message that your vote does matter because, and that elections can be incredibly close when people go out and vote. While the voter turnout for the midterm election this year was historically high, it has typically been low with the 2014 midterms being the lowest in 70 years. Along with that, so many people didn't vote in the 2016 election, that if not voting was a candidate it would have won the election with 46 states. I think Personally, I think that everyone should vote, and there should more policies in place to make people vote. For one, I think we should make voting a mandatory thing, and also have election day be a national holiday so everybody will have the time to do so. While both of these things may sound strange to us Americans, they are both widely practiced with 2...

Well-known food brands that make and sell organic products, for example Annies and Kashi, are essential to the conservancy and increase in the number of true organic farms. Being able to partner with a known brand allows for more money to go towards hiring and paying the numerous employees crucial to the organic farming process along with the expansion of land for organic farms. After all, organic farming requires a ton of strenuous labor and proper pay is crucial to maintaining these employees. Although there are millions of acres of farmlands in the United States, a very small percentage of this acreage consists of true organic farms and this needs to change using the help of well-known food brands. After all, I believe that less organic farms are far more important for our environmental future than many chemical based farms. If an organic farm is partnering with a popular food brands, they receive more encouragement in producing all natural produce Partnering with a brand also all...

      Based off of what this article discussed, I believe that a lot of the history that we know is a twisted, biased reality. A way around that, to have a completely unbiased story of history is, I think, near impossible. The argument that I will make is that there are very few ways in which all of history can be told in an unbiased manner, that we can all agree upon. Most of history we know of is through documentation of what happened. These documents are all written by humans and therefore have a natural bias. Even with a conscious effort to be unbiased, it is still extremely difficult. I think one reason why narratives and stories are told in history is that they are so much more fun and interesting to hear. For example, when you’re a little kid, you are more likely to listen to a story than plain facts without any emotion behind them. I feel like this goes back to a natural tendency to try to have empathy and try to put one’s self in the shoes of another, and that ca...

Charlie McGill Mr. Roddy IHSS 12.2.18 The Federal Government's New Report on Climate Change The federal government just released a new report on climate change, which they do every 4 years. This report on climate change is actually a good one, and shows that the government might put more of a focus on regulating factories and industries, instead of just ignoring the issue completely. The report stated that climate change and the risks of future disasters “could pose a profound threat to Americans’ well-being.” The main issues it talked about were wildfires and floods. The report cited the previous 2014 findings, which stated that the West was at a much greater risk for wildfires because of rising temperatures, which we all know is the case, considering the incredible amount of wildfires that California has been hit with. It also brought confirmed predictions that had been made in previous studies, many to do with flooding. The report talked about how high tide flooding ...

Izabella Curtis Mr. Roddy IHSS 1 December 2018  Climate Change        The article I read was about America's Climate Report. Which was actually really interesting, so apparently every four years there is this scientific report which Congress mandates. Then after they analyze it, the report goes to federal agencies then goes to our president (Donald Trump). This report is published by the National Climate Assessment and this articles tells the reader about the most current climate changes in America.        So apparently the climate report isn't looking great. Shocking, I know. Isn't it crazy ignoring the problem didn't change anything? The 2014 report indicted in the years after their would be: temperatures are still getting higher (aka wild fires), America' sea levels are still rising (flooding), As well as, the weather being very bi polar. Now tell me, have we experienced these changes in the past years? Crazy! the report was actually r...