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“It’s time to stop gaming the system or face severe consequences.” Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat of New York, has explicitly declared his indignation, which is also the tune repeatedly reinforced throughout this editorial, towards the trade flow between US and China. Such a strong assertion appearing on the NY Times stems from the accumulation of unsolved trading conflicts. More precisely many Americans found the trade deficit against China may be one of the major obstacles for the recovery of US current economy. A bill intending to reverse the flow of the trade was under discussion in The Senate that in some way it speaks out the voice of the sentiment, however, since the demands from public are simply processed into direct short-term solution without a wary study, it could finally intensify the trade conflicts and cause fatal consequences on both sides.

The possibility of some senators manipulating the somewhat ignorance from the desperate Americans on the knowledge of economy should not be overlooked. Even though the charge towards Chinese manipulation over its currencies is legitimate and evident, simple measures like stiff retaliatory tariffs or other punishments should not be expected to solve the entire problem. The senators ought to have been fully aware that they both play an extremely important role in their economy: US is now the biggest trade partner of China with a trade volume of 385.3 billion dollars each year, and China every year spend $65.2 billion on consuming American products. Now the matter of concern is the imbalance between imports and exports. What people in US perceived it was that trade deficit directly leads to jobs loss, however, it is probably not brought on board by the senators that the US-CHINA relationship is like an old Chinese saying: “when lips died teeth would feel cold”, meaning if one of two interdependent things falls the other is in danger. The basic economic rule is that it is always easier to sell goods and services to the bigger market. The China’s domestic market is small compared to the US market. As China’s economy grows, the consumption power of the Chinese grows as well, which means that more US products can be exported to the Chinese market. And many European and American have direct investment in mainland China to produce goods sold in the US market. Even though mainland China has trade surplus on paper, the actual profit from the trade goes directly to these companies based in USA and Europe. So there is a danger to actually hurt US economy if the US government creates trade barriers to curtail trade with China. In addition, the government should understand that free trade always can trigger some job loss in certain industries. This is just how international trade helps the world to reorganize the capital and raw resources to produce goods and services more efficiently. Just as USA has lost some manufacturing jobs due to trade with China, India, Mexico, Canada, Japan, and the rest of the world, at the same time, trade has brought new jobs to the USA in the areas such as aerospace, electronics, entertainment, agriculture, and finances. So, it is wrong to say that free trade hurts middle class Americans as the increasingly annoying Lou Dobbs claims. If free trade hurts middle class Americans, then what about the jobs that are created by free trade. Hence, the charges over Chinese manipulation is not creditable, actually this applies to any countries as long as they are processing free trade. If any strict sanctions were enforced to restrict China’s economy, they would have to face off the counter attacks that current American fragile economy cannot afford and ultimately lead to the collapse of global economy, which whoever does not want to see.

Oct.06.2011

12:00 AM

Berry describes himself as a farmer and writer who loves to write using a pen or pencil and paper. He continues his skepticism of computers toward the end of his essay and makes a list of nine standards for technological innovation in his own way. In my point of view, at the time Berry wrote this article (1980s), the “computers” basically refer to all the emerging technologies when they began to enter every household. His resentment stems from the loyalty towards the ‘old model’ and the fear of the possible loss of interpersonal relationship. His concern is legitimate and sensible, yet in a way overoptimistic. Technology should not be the only blame for disfunction in personal matters.

Home micro-computers are the symbolic product in 1980s that marked the age of information. Its big role in modern life is undeniable. However in Berry’s article generates a sense that he values what is already good to begin with and there is no need for improvements. In the long run, that will not be the case anymore because even ten years later, most farmers rely on tractors to meet supply and demand. Even though Wendell Berry’s essay tells his truth about the way he works, I think his argument works right for him, but not others. Computers have expanded the horizon of human and the capacity of thinking and solving problems. Technology has made a lot of ‘impossible’ things—what we thought—possible, like going to the moon. However, Berry’s statement that technologies can disrupt the way we live is biased. Depending on the city, for example, New York City is constantly crowded with busy people keeping up with the times. The use of computers and any technological tool is crucial in order to succeed to get anything done and even ahead to beat other competitors to make money. For a farmer like Berry, he does not need to worry about that kind of stress. In his case, he does not need every technological innovation to speed his process of work. In his future, he may or may not change his attitude. Yet it is unlikely to be the majority’s choice, since writers nowadays process work at a faster rate with a computer than with a pencil and paper, not to mention that the computer is more organized. Ultimately people cannot seek sustenance from history forever. It is rational to consign the old models to the past, and live in the home we made ourselves.

28. Sep.2011

The proliferation of the smart interactive devices by Apple or Google or HTC may not be fully welcomed by people, especially parents, who are now losing their power and confidence to fully control the various impacts brought by this rapidly updating industry. More highlighted, the adverse fruit that it finally obtain from the younger generations, who are hopefully one of the major potential customers in rich countries, draws the legitimate concern.

Putting aside the inconclusive debate about these products have a greater impact in the good way or the other way round, we should always keep alert and self-regulating or for parents keep the topic constantly open with their children.

Frankly, nobody can deny the great job done by the technologies of making modern life remarkable. Unlike their parents or grandparents, those people, who live in a fast pace city and whose business highly determined by its efficiency, cannot even survive without these tools. Here comes the problem: for those young people whose self-management capacity is doubted, the devices only make it less efficient. From the moment that people switch on their iPhones, various objects begin to jump out on the screen and distract you till so confused that cannot recall the origin aim. Now the books which introduce skills that help people get rid of the waste of time from email, news, Facebook, Twitter or other instant massage applications are increasingly popular. Students may start intending to ‘Google’ some stuff for their study projects whereas ending as unfortunately being involved in some class chat on Facebook. They are not determined enough to strictly carry on their work plan long before those colorful seductive little windows or bubbles stop dancing around their screen. It only results a much longer extra time to get a job done and an extremely low working efficiency.

Rather than socializing people in an unprecedented rate, it is proposed that the new technologies are driving people apart. According to a body of research conducted by www.cybersentinel.co.uk, teenagers spend an average of 31 hours a week online and only three of them are spent on the help of their homework. The tyranny of distractions means less time on physical interactive activities with others. After all, who would bother to walk for some miles purchasing a product while you just need to click your mouse on eBay. So is working, dating or even firing an employee. Almost Everything. A writer once brilliantly described: “Being neighborly used to mean visiting people. Now being nice to your neighbors means not bothering them.” For some older people, they may only bend some traditions of their old rules, but youth are not so lucky. Basically, they were born in such a less-troublesome situation. No more soccer game on the streets, there are FIFA on the internet. Consequently, the removal of physical activities results many young adults nowadays as clueless when it comes to real life problems and lack of team work skills where physical interactions are highly required.

Despite these devices are also used to enhance students’ education, the risk of being exposed to the unhealthy content can hardly evade. The harm is now beyond the waste of time. Human brains especially teenagers’ are very sensitive to the environment. Porn, violence, social bully, they could bring fatal assimilation during young people’s mental construction. It is getting harder for parents to monitor the content their children read since it is much easier for youth to have the access to those websites. One more effective way can be parents keeping communicating with their children on these sensitive subjects before they sink into this mire.

“It is no longer remarkable for child as young as 18 months old to know how to operate a mobile electronic device.” In a way children learned the terrific process of exploring the world outside, however this should not be the reason to let parents exploit the devices as babysitter. In the past, nature used to be kids’ treasure. They played around, not facing a shining LED screen. Hope we are not graving our descendants.

DIY Distractions.

Human beings have always been dedicated on putting the world, which includes whatever objects they could perceive or in other words—all the stuff captured and read by their brain—under an established system and expecting them to run in the way they like. However, the incredible effort does not meet much effect. The most of the world is still running under the same rule, even everything that humans did and thought and wanted were just the outcome of the system which is not founded or controlled or even well understood by us. Everything has been settled long time ago, everything was written in the plan. Humans are not changing things yet, they may merely be the pawn in the chess game, appearing at the right time and position, as long as the orthodoxy of the god—the only way to explain who created and manages such a frenetic world and keep it functioning orderly—was not challenged by us.

The incredible complex correlations among objects and events justify the existence of the god. The god here may not be the image that naturally comes into our minds—a man-like creature with a superbly developed brain and is omniscient and almighty, but may be a sort of program or self-running and self-evolving system with high intelligence which could respond to any situation and therefore rules everything. I personally prefer the latter one. There lies the causal link among things, it is like being put into a program, everything is the outcome of its cause, and is the cause of the things would happen as response. Here we see all the single actions are cumulative and long term effective. It is not responsible to admit the consistence of stochastic cases. These are not the abstraction that people can logically understand, and their incapability explains why people cannot tell the future. Also, this proves the existence of a much more powerful god in charge of this running system.

We always believe that we have the power to change our own and as a whole, the world’s destiny, however, the prerequisite is that there must be such a world that exists, which cannot be thoroughly proved yet. Essentially, our decisions are based on the analyzing of the data or what we call knowledge, and our knowledge is based on what we perceived and learned from the environment. The concept of environment, biologically, is a model that our brain built to justify the information coming outside. We feel the world by our hands and eyes and skin and other sense organs, and ultimately all the information would be transferred into nerve impulse for brain to read. So actually what we believe and the place we live is simply nerve impulse. If the brain perceives something with great clarity or intensity, it will believe that it is real. Even waking consciousness is liable to accept discontinuous or illogical experience as real if presented as such to the brain. The seriousness is amplified while we realized that anyone could undoubtedly control our mind and behavior by constructing such a virtual world. After all, it is hard to refuse to trust our mind. I believe we never doubt the truth of the world around us while we are in dreaming. Perhaps the reality is just a dream. If god does exist, he just keeps sending us signals and watches us being totally convinced and respond in the way he expected. We are god’s puppets until we manage to identify what is the reality and what is the façade.

The only proof that shows we are not living in a totally virtual world is time. Time is the only dimension that cannot be planted in our mind, since time is not a normal feeling; it is as eternal as the seed of light in Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. To be precise, time is a stage that allows everything to perform, to give this world past, now and future, to grant us changes and fun. God must not be the one to create time. If he could, before he had have created it, he could neither move his body nor think. No time, no change, and creating time is a change. According to this assumption, the imperfection of the virtual world (if it does exist) gives us a chance to boycott and fight back. For example, if a person around you never gets older while the other people do, then that is a mistake that god made. Or it could also be your problem, that is, everything truly exists except that person, whom is only hallucination, but that is another story.

Some movies have introduced similar cases. In Inception, Cobb managed to incept an idea—the world is not the reality but only a dream—to his wife, and it affected her judgment so deeply that after she went back to the reality she still firmly doubted the truth of it. I believe we all have witnessed firsthand the power of ideas, and it is not impossible that the fact could be the other way wrong, that we are convinced to be living in a real world while it is not. Another case would be, A Beautiful Mind. The professor John Nash had strong hallucination, includes his roommate, roommate’s niece and mysterious William Parcher, who belongs to the United States Department of Defense, and secret mission which are both visual and auditory. The way that Nash finally found them incongruous was that he realized they never got older. Not only the way out it provides is valuable, but the movies themselves are instructive. You satisfy with the façade, unexamined, lead you to others’ trap. You feel something unknown and could be a threat in the future, explore and examine it, leads you to step closer to the truth.

Some people would proudly say that humans do change things and list the techniques that are applied in the daily life. However while the effect deviated from the technique’s original intention, at least, the change is out of people’s control. And that is the ubiquitous situation that it always goes on. Let’s say people in the 21^st century devote more technology to staying connected than any society in history, yet somehow the devices fail us: Studies show that we feel increasingly alone. The technology is supposed to serve us easily connect with the world, but it just gives the way to spend more time alone. Here what is eerie is that, our product does not function in the way we expected, in another word, we can accomplish what we do not want. Again the cluelessness stifles our prediction and development, but what is more important is that it is hard for people to put our dark side or weakness as a major consideration during the forecasts. Like here the human laziness is one determinant leading us drift apart that was not considered in the very beginning.

However, human is human, being compromised was never the goal. It is just the point where too many people wind up. God also gave us the privilege and competence to play the chess with him—we could think critically on our own. Now the law of jungle is no longer on being physically strong, but getting your mind armed. We get stuck because we stop looking for ways out while we are lost in the labyrinth of this world. We should remember that, like Henry David Thoreau said, live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. The strong will to a real freedom ennobles humans. I shall believe, one day, we could change the world.