Relationship with technology

 My relationship with technology is ok, but I wish I took advantage of the opportunities that technology can give. Technology governed by a disciplined mind and pure morals can be extremely beneficial, but also can do the exact opposite. It can be used as a drug to numb out pain, a place to spread false information, a place to cyber cyberbully, a place to keep you distracted from unlocking your full potential, a place to compare, and a place to feel fearful and anxious over time. 

I believe that social media specifically can be extremely beneficial to show the world what you are truly about and spread the truth of Gods word through the way you live your life. It can be used as a platform to lead people to Christ, through the unique gifts so many people possess. It can be used to spot an agenda, expose it, and show people truth that can be backed up with Gods word. That is, if it does not get taken down or you do not get canceled. 

Going into technology to use it as a tool rather than a toy is essential. Becoming fully equipped with the truth thats found in Gods word, your personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and the holy spirit vibrant in your life are three things that I believe are key to establish before you go into any usage of technology. When you are lead by the spirit, you can go into things like different social media platforms and use it to honor God. 

The ability to find valuable resources that are reliable can be tricky, but one method that I like to use is the SIFT method which stands for Stop, investigate the source, find trustworthy coverage, and trace any claims. We stop, slow down our minds and ask our self if the source we are looking at is feeding to my biased beliefs. We investigate the source by doing a deep search. I like to call it gem hunting. Look for clues on what the message is actually about. 

The truth always will rise to the top. We then find trust worthy coverage regarding the topic that we are looking at. Backing the topic up with other reliable sources you have found in the past. Really research and go out of your way to look at all the options. Then lastly, trace claims. Trace the claim back to the hub of where its coming from. Find where the root of the topic is coming from, and attack that idea with whether its intention is truthful, or deceitful. 

When I was 14 years old, I got my first Iphone. With the phone came the digital communication via calling and texting, then moved into instagram, twitter, and snapchat. I still remember the feeling I would get when I would post something on either platforms and get positive or negative responses. Looking back at it although I could not see it at the time, I would compare my self to other people, the reactions they would get, the followers and likes they would get, the feeling that they portrayed, and wished I could be more like them. I thought that if I could have what they had then I would feel the way they portrayed to feel. Happy and satisfied. I chased that feeling, and with that chase came FOMO, a distracted mind, comparison, ungratefulness, and anxiety. I craved community, acceptance, and love. 

Social Media has a very evil way of attaching a need we all desire to have met with a twisted lie that brings a temporary satisfaction. In other words, instead of getting to the root of what we really crave, we take a hit of a distraction that will make us feel better in the short term. We all crave community, we all crave acceptance, and we all crave being loved. If social media shows that their can be so much evil beneath the surface, then the question to ask is "why is this baiting me rather than giving me what I really crave?" 

The answer to that would be in Genesis 50:20 which says "you (the devil) meant evil against me, but God meant it for good." This verse honestly is all you need to know about social media, technology, and honestly any kind of medium in the world. The truth is, God is the creator of Good, and The devil is the creator of evil. When something like social media has so many different possibilities, someone like the devil (the schemer) will try to deceive people into using it according to his rules. his rules lead to bondage and slavery which eventually leads to a dead life. 

The devil uses 99% truth that God gives, and he twists it with his 1% lie. that 1 % lie is just enough to get you out of bounds. He wants you to operate out of Gods boundaries. This shows the truth that social media within boundaries can be extremely beneficial. Life itself, within boundaries, will be life. That is how life is supposed to be lived. Life within Gods boundaries. Social media, and technology in a whole, can be used for evil in the most sinister way, due to the complexities that lie beneath the surface. 

The amount scheming that goes into all of it brings almost endless possibilities, but at the end of all those possibilities, there lies a truth and a lie. The truth leads to life, and the lie leads to death. That is why fully equipping your identity in Jesus Christ is so important in this world. Jesus will lead you, but in order for him to lead you, you must take his hand. You have to reach out and grab his hand. At that moment, you will be able to transcend all of the bondage that the devil gives, and back in oneness with the one that is the truth, God.

Classmate: Cutting the Chord

Cutting the Chord was a topic that stood out to me tremendously because I still remember the day that me and my family went from wired to wireless television sets. It was when I was around 8 years old. Me and my dad went to best buy with my uncle Tim where both of them were overly excited to get a new tv for our house. 

Cutting the Chord is a term essentially used when someone gets rid of their cable boxes and joins wireless television which holds an unlimited amount of programs. These programs have digital terrestrial tv , internet protocol tv, and satellite tv. Digital terrestrial is basically television transmitted from the radio, Internet protocol is when tv programs are streamed through the internet, and satellite tv is literately tv through a satellite. 

Roku is probably the most efficient and popular streaming service on the market, and might be the best bang for your buck. They sell physical Roku HDMI plug-in chips that connect straight to your tv for around $40. Roku offers 350+ free live streaming platforms which holds movies, tv shows, live tv, sports, apps, and really anything you are interested in. In 2014, Roku started created Roku tv's which are television sets that already have Roku built in to the tv. This created a whole new market where they decided to sell different sized television sets with different offers that best suit the customers needs and able to meet their personal satisfactions. 

Youtube tv is a streaming service subscription that has changed the ball game for a lot of live television users. With youtube tv, you are given the luxury of streaming live and local sports, news and shows. Youtube TV has complete local network coverage in over 98% of US television households. 

This really has changed the television industry tremendously with so many people "cutting the chord" in todays society, it really is the best option for television users. The advertising industry benefits greatly from this, and with bigger payments to the streaming services, you can have those ad times be cut down some, allowing both parties to benefit from screen time. 

https://www.youtube.com/@youtubetv

https://www.roku.com/products/roku-tv

https://uniguest.com/what-is-iptv/#:~:text=Internet%20Protocol%20television%20(IPTV)%20is,signal%2C%20and%20cable%20television%20formats.

A.I.

Artificial Intelligence has the ability to completely change our society. As of right now, it is for the most part used for un harmful, time consuming practices. The problem however is just that. It saves time. If we look to A.I. for our everyday lifestyles it can completely take away our ways of living by leaving us stranded in not having anything productive to bring to the table. Think about a world where all our blue colored jobs where taken over by AI.

I liked "in the age of AI" because it showed all the possibilities that could come about in the next 10 to 15 years. It also goes in depth about what AI is doing right now. China has so much data on individuals through surveillance that it has the ability to right away identify a person and everything there is to know about that person. Corporate surveillance has invaded so much privacy in these other countries. A game called go is a board game over 4,000 years old where there is a huge amount of different move possibilities. 

An AI generated playmate took on the worlds greatest Go player and ended up winning, creating a new move that no one had ever thought about before. AI had the ability to learn data at an incredibly fast rate and was able to actually create new possibilities based on its abilities to adapt to the game. This is a blue print of what AI could be come in our ever day lives, bringing people to unemployment. 

"We thought we where searching google, little did we know google was actually searching us". This is something that was mentioned in the video and I found it super interesting. AI has the ability to learn us due to the accessible amount of data it is ingesting. It has gotten so far, that it has the ability to predict our future decisions. This is when it can become evil. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dZ_lvDgevk

Spiral of Silence Theory

 The Spiral of Silence Theory is the theory when someone has an opinion on a specific subject, but does not want to go in depth on their own personal beliefs because they are afraid people might disagree with them, leaving them isolated. This often times happens when new government policies, politics, and religious beliefs are widely spread. 

This theory was studied in the 1960s by German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann when she studied a people by giving them topics to go in depth about with other people around them. Those people around them where in on the experiment where they would make body gestures implying that they disagree with their opinion, leaving that person afraid to go in depth regarding their opinion. As the experiment went on, slowly by surely that person would grow silent and even second guess their beliefs.

In 1974 the study became a theory as we all know as the spiral of silence theory. Elisabeth found that the main issue with this theory is the fear of isolation, and this fear becomes so outwardly noticeable that it can paralyze peoples thought process regarding their own personal beliefs.

This theory if activated in peoples way of living can be detrimental to our society as a whole. The inability to be courageous for what you believe in is operating out of a state of fear, which will hold back our true potential not only in our own personal beliefs, but as innovators to discover new things within our resources around us, and more importantly our minds. 

This has the ability to affect virtually everyone, but specifically goes after people who are afraid of rejection and isolation. If that is the case, everyone at some point in their lives needs to be careful not to fall into this trap, as it can sneak up on you when most vulnerable. This is mostly targeted with an agenda behind it to accomplish something good or bad, but because the root results in fear, we know that is a very evil tactic.

If you dive even deeper, this fear driven agenda can cause even bigger issues. Think about a nation that is entirely to scared to talk about their views due to isolation. The surface level belief on a specific topic can bring people to not wanting to go deeper into it, bringing agreement on something that has serious tangled wires beneath, which can bring people to agreeing with something they don't actually agree with, just to keep their resume with others acceptable. The idea everyone is "agreeing" with becomes a monster, and brings confusion and hierarchy that is unwanted. 

One way we can avoid this is to be open minded individuals with one goal in mind. Seeking truth. If we can seek truth with everything we have and make that our passion, when an issue rises up where we need to speak on, our passion will overdrive our fear and we will be acting out of a state of courage rather than fear. We are created in the image of God who knows no fear. Fear is something the devil tries to get us caught up in because it has the ability to paralyze us, which is what he wants because he is afraid if we operate out of a spirt of courage, we will break down barriers and strong holds. He wants us in bondage, but God wants us free. 

https://noelle-neumann.de/scientific-work/spiral-of-silence/

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2014/08/26/social-media-and-the-spiral-of-silence/

The Government Knows You

 It absolutely blows my mind how there is so much information about each and everyone one of us that can be accessed to the government due to the amount of cameras, cookies, social media, etc.. I never really think about it, but it is crazy that the government knows how I tend to act based on the decisions I make through digital interactions and social interactions. 

It is not something that bothers me because in a weird way it keeps me honest to myself to be the best version of myself because I don't want to become a public figure one day and get black mailed for the benefits of others. However, I do find it creepy. 

I think all these "tools" can truly be "tools" for the betterment of our country, but the problem is that there is just way to much power within the system that can benefit the government with an unbelievable amount of money. Think about the advertising possibilities. If they know what decisions you are prone to making at a specific time then why would they keep it solely for criminal justice?

 I found it super interesting that the telephone was created first for surveillance, then secondary for communication. Our conversations with our loved ones can be easily accessed through wire tapping that can be accessed to the government. The surveillance system can be hacked to either our government, a different government, or a hacker. However, there is encryption tools which allows unauthorized access to digital information to be prevented. 

This is a great way to prevent people from invading our private property. The problem is that crime activities that take place over the phone can do this same thing, and now the people that are left having their phones monitored are the people who are unaware of knowing how to do this. 

You would think the people that know how to do this the best are the criminal that are trying to hide things from the government, which leads to many citizens getting their information exposed for the betterment of other people and organizations. It is a twisted system.

https://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_soghoian_how_to_avoid_surveillance_with_the_phone_in_your_pocket?language=en

Can't We Get Along?

 I find it super fascinating that we can not easily access these anti war articles online, which I believe the big reason is because the government does not want us to have easy access to all the different wagers they are participating in. They do not want rumors to form or do not want the truth to get all over the internet at a rapid pace, so they use the algorithms of SEO (search engine optimization) to favor their tactics in keeping it out of the hands of American citizens. Or at least, limiting it. I saw this article on antiwar talking about how the government is keeping a Russian billionaire's yacht captive which is bringing them to paying 7 million dollars a year in obtaining it. 

Whether it be smaller issues with other countries, or much bigger ones, The government does not always feel like having every single wager, conversations, or threats at the hands of every web user. I kind of understand their reasoning behind it because people can easily twist things and it might get back to the other countries government which could cause misunderstanding regarding the actual wager at hand, but at the same time I feel like there can be a better way of going about this topic. It makes us feel like the government is hiding things by trying to do their own thing, which is wrong  due to our not only our right, but our duty to critique the government. 

Reagan and Gorbachev had a great relationship and even went on a 1 hour walk alone and talked out personally how they could bring peace between the two countries. Its funny that Biden has not talked to Putin in 3 years, it shows a sign of laziness regarding what is truly needed at this moment in time. 

https://www.antiwar.com/

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/biden-to-nation-no-problems-here/

Netflix

 I liked learning more about Netflix which was what Chris did his presentation on. Netflix was created by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in 1997. What I found super interesting is the reason why these two created Netflix in the first place. Reed was fined a hefty fee for not returning his VHS tape rental in on time, and it ended up sparking the vision to create a monthly subscription for people to rent movie dvd's. It was not short after when They decided that their idea was going to be a big hit, but they needed to figure out a way to create some sort of an online streaming algorithm that could allow customers to do the same exact thing, expect instead of renting discs they would rent the online version. This would lift their business up drastically because not only would it be incredibly convenient for the producer and consumer, but it would create a whole new world of possibilities. 

What I find interesting is that this innovation was formed out of a negative experience that Reed experienced personally. It seems like a lot of inventions step from a negative manor of some sort, kind of like how Samual Morse created Morse code because of his inability to communicate fast that ended up leading the to death of his wife. Now obviously a VHS fee is much smaller than the death of a human being, but you get the point.

In 2010, Netflix opened their online streaming platform and in 2016, Netflix was able to go global and have their platform streamed in nearly 190 different countries. In 2021 Netflix has had over 200 million subscribers. Going back to 2013 was when Netflix started creating their own content as we all know to be "Netflix Originals" and there are over 2,400 Netflix originals up to date. 

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Reed-Hastings