Vonnegut and Technology

“Do you know what a Luddite is? That’s a person who doesn’t like newfangled contraptions. Contraptions like nuclear submarines armed with Poseidon missiles that have H-bombs in their warheads, and like computers that cheat you out of becoming. Bill Gates says, “Wait till you can see what your computer can become.” But it’s you who should be doing the becoming. What you can become is the miracle you were born to work—not the damn fool computer.”

- Kurt Vonnegut

I believe the "damn fool computer" doesn't actually not harm us, but help us. However, Vonnegut has a different opinion. As you can see from this quote of his, he does not like the idea of technolgy. And, he is not shy to share his thoughts with the world. Through his writing in "Welcome to the Monkey House", he shares his ideas through fictional short stories. In “The Euphio Question”, one of his short stories, the technology has negative affects on everyone involved. The machine that is created could posiibly destroy how our world functions. From this story, we can assume he believes that technolgy will lead humans in the wrong direction. There are similar happenings in “Harrison Bergeron”. This story is set in the future, when people have developed technolgy to make everyone equal. but, the people in the story have much lower qualities of life than we do now. This is another example of how Vonnegut feels technology will destroy our way of life. Lastly,"Epicat" is another short piece that he has created. This one consists of humans and computers falling in love, and acting as husband and wife. We obviously think this could never happen, but Vonnegut makes his point. I agree with Vonnegut in a way. I do not believe we should fully rely on computers for everyday needs. But, i also think technology is extremely useful to our world. Without technology, we would have not accomplished many of the things we have today.
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End Of Quarter 3 Feedack and Fourth Quarter Goals

The end of Quarter 3 has finally come to and end, which means it is time to evaluate my progress over the past quarter. My first goal was to fully complete/prepare my assignments for grading, especially for discussions. I believe i succeeded in achieving this goal. On all of my discussion preparations i received 95%, signifying that i was well prepared. My second goal was to study more thoroughly for tests and quizzes. I do not think i fully reached my goal. I have not done very well on my tests and quizzes this past quarter. I still got A's and B's, but I think i could have done better. I will keep working to achieve this goal. My third and final goal for this past quarter was to do better on any of the upcoming research assignments. Seeing as we didn't have many research projects, it makes it hard to evaluate myself in this area. However, we did have to research for the Population Project. We spent tree days of humanities in the library to work on the process paper. I did very well on the process paper, therefor I succeeded in reaching this goal. Overall, I believe I have achieved my goals for this past quarter, but I will continue to work on them in the upcoming quarter.

I have created all new goals for myself for this upcoming quarter. My first goal is to work on my technology skills. I am not very good at creating technology presentations such as power points. I did not do well on my Africa PowerPoint, so I could definitely improve. I also have a goal to continue using the researching skills we have learned in humanities. The Population Project is still underway, and we will be coming up on our research paper soon. I will try my best to get adequate information to complete this paper. Lastly, my goal is to enjoy what time i have left at AES. To complete this goal I will have to manage my time well, and get my assignments done and handed in on time. This will cause my last few months in Delhi to be enjoyable. I have high hopes for myself this quarter, but i believe i can achieve all of my goals.
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Holy War

“Holy War” is definitely an oxymoron because the two words do not fit together properly. Holy relates to religion and means sacred. War on the other hand stands for conflicts on a large scale. These two obviously do not fit together because religion promotes peace and happiness, where as disagreements represent fighting. These two words are commonly used together, but should not be for this reason.
All of the major, world religions forbid killing, yet there are wars over religions across the World. It does not make sense that people fight and kill for their beliefs, which forbid these exact things. But still all over the world there are conflicts over religion. Take the Arabs and the Jews for instance. They have been feuding for centuries with each other over resources and religion. Yet, they continue to battle over the very idea which prohibits killing. Yet another example is the Muslims and the Hindus. They had to create separate countries for themselves to end wars over their disagreements. Another example of religious conflicts is the Catholics and the Protestants. They even stem from the same religion, but they could not get along. You would believe people would obey the religion they protect so violently, but obviously that does not occur. Over and over the world has seen “holy wars” that result in violence rather than peace, but why?

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WWIII?

I do not believe that another World War will take place during my lifetime. First of all, World War one ended in 1918, and World War two began in 1939. There were 21 years in between these two wars. It has now been triple that time since the end of World War, at 63 years. I think this shows us that we have survived much longer without a World War. Secondly, I know that there are organizations in place to promote peace, and stop conflicts before they escalate. The United Nations is one of these organizations. It works all around the world to solve problems, leading the world to peace. These types or organizations have greatly reduced the risk for another World War. Lastly, I like to believe we have learned from past mistakes. As we have had many conflicts in the past, we have fought over anything and everything important to us. There have been wars over different reasons in two main categories; Politics and Economics. Therefore, we understand how to delay, and prevent such conflicts. For these three reasons, timing without a World War, peacekeeping organizations, and learning from mistakes, we should be able to avoid a World War III.

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