Author: theshocker69

Stone Money Rewrite-TheShocker69

Talking Money

P1. Money is what makes the world go ’round. We all recognize the importance of money in our capitalist society. After all, we spend over 20 years of our lives receiving an education for what? To earn money. Money is traded blindly for everything from a bag of chips to a house.

P2. In 1991, anthropologist Milton Friedman visited an island called Yap, over 8,000 miles away in a subregion of Micronesia.  The official currency of the island is Fei. The currency is created out of sandstone which is designed in the shape of a donut, ranging from one foot in diameter to twelve feet. These “coins” are typically taller than a man, and weigh more than a car. For the reason that these stones are so large and heavy, one is not required to possess the coins in order for them to be property. After a transaction, the new owner of the stone is broadly recognized, which disposed of the need to equip them. As a result of this, there are situations in which rich families of Yap have never even seen their wealth.

P3. Years ago, relatives of a rich family were hunting for Fei. After the discovery of a massive Fei stone, the family captured it and tied it to their boat in an attempt to bring the money home. Disastrously, there was a violent storm on the night of their voyage home. As a result, the family had no choice but to save their lives and drop the Fei overboard. Once back at the village, they had to testify for their money that was dropped. The family explained the massive size and wealth of the stone, and declared that it was lost through no fault of their own. The family was then permitted to retain the stone as their own with absolutely no loss of value. Now, it is accepted in their village that there is a stone in the ocean that has never been seen yet holds massive wealth.

P4. Does the idea of not actually having your money on-hand sounds trivial? Well the Fei is very close to the American currency system.

P5. Before 1933, American currency was backed by gold. This meant that the trade of dollar bills was a promise of gold which was held in banks. After 1933, the decision was made that we may no longer trade money for gold at our banks. The American dollar was officially unbacked.

P6. As of today, our money is still unbacked and the only true value of the dollar is what someone can buy with that dollar. Further, money is now optionally paperless. The money that is held in bank is utilized to give loans. The money that resides in the bank is essentially a fictional number with no actual cost, money may not even be in the account at the moment. At this point in our society, citizens are trading virtually useless pieces of paper for goods and services. The only reason these pieces of paper have value is because we want it to. We believe it has wealth.

P7. Growing up, I never understood money. However, after my new education on the topic, I’ve recognize that the fictional value we place on money is a necessity. Without money, contrary to popular belief, the world would be chaos. What is the incentive provide services or create and trade goods? We would not have teachers, doctors, lawyers, or even public officials. The blind faith that we hold in our currency, although dangerous, is currently essential.

Works Cited

The Planet Money Team. “The Invention of Money.” Audio blog post. This American Life, 7               Jan. 2011. Web. 23 Oct. 2016.

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” The Economic Journal 25.98 (1991): 281.                   Web.
The Planet Money Team. “The Lie that Saved Brazil.” Audio blog post. This American Life,                 7 Jan. 2011. Web. 23 Oct. 2016.
“How Fake Money Saved Brazil : Planet Money : NPR.” Planet Money. NPR, 4 Oct. 2010.                     Web. 23 Oct. 2016.
Renaut, Anne. “The Bubble Bursts on E-currency Bitcoin – Yahoo.” Yahoo. AFP, 13 Apr.                      2013. Web. 23 Oct. 2016.

Summaries—theshocker69

  1. Who Gets Priority When It Comes To Transplants?

We are raised in a society where we learn that all lives are precious and equal. So it only seems counterintuitive that our hospitals would seem to worry about the lives of adults more than the lives of children.

If a 10 year old child is put on an adult waiting list for an organ, they are automatically put as the lowest priority. Even though she is a deathly ill patient, she is treated as the lowest priority. Why is this age distinction necessary if no one life is greater than another? As of right now, there are over 100,000 people waiting on organ donation lists with a new person being added every 10 minutes. Every day, 79 people at the top of the list receive an organ while 18 people die because they didn’t receive one. So what are the odds that this 10 year old child, at the bottom of the donation list, will receive the organ that she needs?

To choose who get’s priority on the adult list, doctors weigh how physiologically compatible the organ is to the donor, the donor’s medical urgency, and estimate how long they will survive after they receive their organ. For children, priority is chosen by who has been on the list the longest and who has the strongest match.

If we are going to preach equality and talk about how all lives are equal, perhaps we should take the time to practice what we preach.

2. Do Tom’s Shoes Really Help People?

We all know the company “Tom’s.” They sell shoes that will fall apart after a month, but for every pair of shoe they sell, they give away a pair to a child in Africa. This sounds great, until you learn that they’re doing it for their own gain.

Tom’s says that their shoes promote education. In most Somali schools, you are not allowed to enter unless you have shoes. Tom’s makes it sound like without them, these children would not be able to attend school. However, these schools also hand out shoes to children, a majority of who already own shoes. Upon first glance, Tom’s seems like they are doing the right thing, but upon closer inspection, it is quite clear that the company only wants your sympathy for sales.

It seems counterintuitive for a company to lie about the charity that it delivers. However, although it may not be ethical, the technique that they utilized definitely is the reason they are where they are today.

3. Belgium: Senate Approves Measure Allowing Doctors to Euthanize Children

It seems counterintuitive that we would allow governments to make decisions regarding our own body. You must believe that you don’t own your own body and that the government has better insight into what you should and shouldn’t do. It’s not illegal to eat nails, but that can kill you. It is not illegal to drink battery acid, but is that what is standing in your way?

It also seems counterintuitive that we would take healthy people who have never been in the shoes of the painfully, terminally ill. This is like a real-life fallacy of authority. When it comes down to it, there are many terminally ill people in the world and they’re not all above 18. The representatives in Belgium are so caught up on the length of time the patients have been in the world. They don’t think about their quality of life, or even how close they are to death.

When we think of age, we think of how many years it has been since the day we were born. However, what if we were able to know when we will die and we based our ages off of that? These children’s quality of life are extremely low, they’re very close to death, and they have healthy people telling them to deal with it. Age is merely a number, no matter your age, you can still feel the same pain as someone older than you.

Moving Image—theshocker69

0:01

The scene begins and we observe the legs of an individual playing on a spring horse at a playground. Judging by the size or the legs and the amount of hair, we can safely assume it is an adult male. This is slightly odd, usually when we see someone playing on a playground it is a child. He is wearing slightly dirty shorts, plain black shoes, a plain blue hoodie, and white mid-calve socks. He is not dressed well, whatever is going on here is a mystery so far.

0:03

The camera directs upwardly and we can see for a fact that it is a grown man on a spring horse, playing on a playground designed for children. Based off of the giant smile on his face, we can see that he is enjoying himself thoroughly. We now can tell that the man is not intending to do harm.

0:06

The camera changes direction and we see a woman at the same park, sitting on a bench with her child in a stroller. The woman makes eye contact with the man on the horse and then looks down and grabs her stroller to bring it closer to herself. Off of her actions, we can come to a rational conclusion that the woman finds his actions to cross the social norms and make her uncomfortable. Why does this make her uncomfortable?

0:07

New setting. All we see is an older man pressing his nose to the clean glass of an unknown store, making strange faces. He is a well-presented man, he doesn’t seem to be crazy. Clean-cut hair brushed to the side with a vest and a button up shirt beneath. It is apparent that the man may have a reason to take care of himself. Perhaps he has a job, maybe he is just single. His motives are unclear at this point.

0:07

A few moments later, we see the man change the direction of his childish gaze.

0:08

Immediately after changing his eye direction, we see the man jump back and pretend he wasn’t doing anything. The man makes an expressionless face which expresses his embarrassment.

0:09

The camera then changes perspective and we see there is a black man watching the man-child. He looks at him through his black rimmed glasses; a look of utter seriousness. The man conveys a look of “leave” to the man-child.

0:10

New scene again. Now we are given the image of a man bouncing with the the sky behind him. It seems like a beautiful, clear, cool day. Perfect weather to jump on a trampoline. The man is wearing a short sleeved, business casual outfit. Obviously, this man has a job, perhaps he also has a family to provide for.

0:12

The man gives a wave, with a clear genuine smile on his face.

0:14

At this angle, we see the female neighbor watching the man enjoy himself on the trampoline from over the fence. The shot captures a feeling of judgement and confusion shared by the neighbor, while we can clearly see the man enjoying himself. However, from this view, we can only see the man jumping. The fence cuts off the view of the actual trampoline itself.

0:15

Here is a new character entirely, a child! We see the young child smiling behind glass. Not a regular smile, but a smile resulting from laughter. From the angle and setting, it seems that the child is in the same store where the man was rubbing his nose on the glass.

0:16

It was! As it turns out, the man was making faces in the window towards the child in a hot dog shop. Who is this man to the child? Is the man making his daughter laugh? Or is he trying to just be playful?

0:18

The child makes a playful face back at the man. She places her thumb on her nose, wiggles her fingers and laughs.

0:18

The camera turns to show the man who expressed annoyance to the man before. He now seems to be happy, almost influenced, by the actions of the man. With a slight smile on his face, the viewer is able to decode a message from this moment. The man recognizes for a second, his mortality. He is working in his hot dog shop, and sees a man acting like a child and is able to perceive the happiness this induces in both of them. The man recognizes the increase of happiness if you let loose when you can.

0:22

Back to the trampoline. It appears that the fence that was in the shot before left out the man’s son! The man is playing with his son on the trampoline. The father is rolling over his head while his son is bounding right beside him. It seems like the dad is enjoying himself more than the kid is!

0:24

Back at the playground, we seem to be moving backwards. We see another child on the same spring horse as the man in the beginning. The child is wearing jeans, a white hoodie, and a blue t-shirt underneath. The child is obviously enjoying himself with the most infectious smile a child could have.

0:25

The camera turns and we see the man from the beginning! He is bonding with his son on the playground. The father is watching his son on the horse, while being on another horse himself. Like father, like son.

We see the father smiling as he watches his son smile and enjoy himself. The genuine happiness that is expressed on his face extends the connection the father feels for his son to the consumer.

This advertisement clearly represents the relationship between father and son. Throughout the video, they were sure to show the happiness in both father and son, but they also showed adults peering in and judging the father for being so childish.

Although the father’s in this video were clearly being judged, the fathers always continued their efforts to make their child happy. In return, the father was filled with genuine happiness because they are able to go back to being a child, and because they are making their children happy.

This video is very effective in expressing the importance of adult engagement in children. There are no unnecessary distractions within the video which allows the message to be carried without confusion. The director’s obvious use of smiling, angle shifts, and lighting allow emotional expression to be picked up on by the consumer.

Stone Money—theshocker69

Talking Money

P1. Money is what makes the world go ’round. We all recognize the importance of money in our capitalist society. After all, we spend over 20 years of our lives receiving an education for what? To earn money.

P2. In 1991, anthropologist Milton Friedman visited an island over 8,000 miles away in the subregion of Micronesia called Yap.  The official currency of the island is fei. The currency is made up of large sandstone donuts ranging from one foot in diameter to twelve feet. These “coins” are typically taller than a man, and weigh more than a car. As a result of the size of these stones, you are not required to obtain the coins in order to possess them. After a transaction, the new owner of the stone is recognized which disposed the need to carry it around and hold it. As a result of this, there are situations in which rich families of Yap have never even seen their wealth.

P3. Years ago, relatives of this family were hunting for fei. After the discovery of a massive fei stone, the family captured it and tied it to their boat in an attempt to bring the money home. Disastrously, there was a violent storm the night of their voyage back to the village. As a result, the family had no other choice but to save their lives and drop the fei overboard. Once back at the village, they had to testify for their money that was dropped. They explained its massive size, the wealth it held, and declared that it was lost through no fault of their own. The family was then allowed to keep the stone as their own with absolutely no loss of value. Now, it is accepted in their village that there is a stone in the ocean that has never been seen yet holds massive wealth.

P4. Does the idea of not actually having your money on-hand sounds trivial? Well the Fei is very similar to the American currency system.

P5. Before 1933, American currency was backed by gold. This meant that the trade of dollar bills were promises of gold which was held in banks. After 1933, the decision was made that we may no longer trade money for gold at our banks. The American dollar was officially unbacked.

P6. As of today, our money is still unbacked and the only true value of the dollar is what one can buy with that dollar. Further, is now optionally paperless. The money that is held in the bank is utilized to give loans. The money that resides in the bank is essentially fictional numbers with no actual cost, the actual money may not even be in the client’s account at the moment. At this point in our society, we are trading virtually useless pieces of paper for goods and services. The only reason these pieces of paper have value is because we want it to, we believe it has wealth.

P7. Growing up, I never understood money. However, after my new education on the topic, I recognize that the fictional value we place on money is a necessity. Without money, contrary to popular belief, the world would be chaos. What is the incentive provide services or create and trade goods? We would not have teachers, doctors, lawyers, or even public officials. The blind faith that we hold in our currency, although dangerous, is currently essential.

Works Cited

The Planet Money Team. “The Invention of Money.” Audio blog post. This American Life, 7          Jan. 2011. Web. 23 Oct. 2016.

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” The Economic Journal 25.98 (1991): 281.                  Web.
The Planet Money Team. “The Lie that Saved Brazil.” Audio blog post. This American Life,             7 Jan. 2011. Web. 23 Oct. 2016.
“How Fake Money Saved Brazil : Planet Money : NPR.” Planet Money. NPR, 4 Oct. 2010.                   Web. 23 Oct. 2016.
Renaut, Anne. “The Bubble Bursts on E-currency Bitcoin – Yahoo.” Yahoo. AFP, 13 Apr.                 2013. Web. 23 Oct. 2016.