Week 8 Responses

1. One of the first sections I read sparked a realization for me about new vs. used cars, a debate I have argued with friends and family about for as long as I've been able to drive. My 98' civic gives me more of a sense of security and trustworthiness than any other car I have driven, presumably because it's the car I've spent the most time in and tending to. The fact that cars change in style and design every year is only to gain advantages in sales over other car brands, and only a few minor things change in performance adjustments every few years.
The section on dieting, calories, and eating disorders interested me as well. It's true that food companies have promoted convenience and good taste instead of nutrition and healthiness, making our conscious food-purchasing no longer enjoyable or free. Why go to the grocery store and prepare the food you buy yourself when you can take the easy car ride down the street to McDonalds and pick up a hot pre-made meal.
Thirdly, ecological economics is a worldview that I myself have studied, from classes in college to books explaining the movement, and I really believe that this is what we need to change the direction the United States and the world are heading in. The expansionists, or classical economists, put their trust in technology to save us in the future from depletion of resources and such disasters, but they don't realize that we are already consuming at a rate faster than the earth can handle.
The section about the evolving definition of the word "cool" is interesting because the people who may believe they're cool are in fact the ones that are controlled by corporations and taught to follow trends. The people who are legitimately "cool" nowadays are the ones who rebel against these corporate giants and their tag lines. Americans are now lazy and can do things with the push of a button, unlike the old definition of cool, where people actually had to have physical talent in a certain area to excel in it. Cool is no longer a part of knowledge or academia, it's how well we can coincide with consumer culture.
Finally, an observation of the section on memes led me to realize that I support every one of the culture jammers' arsenal of metamemes. Although I haven't joined rallies and marched to city halls to debate these views, it feels good to be a part of the movement to fix the global economy.
My question to the media conglomerates is whether or not they realize they're destroying the world as we have known it and do they have a backup plan if their work comes crashing down on them?
2. The movie has opened my eyes to how much wrong can be done in the world without anyone noticing it. The fact that companies would rather pollute and pay the fines when they get caught as opposed to not polluting and greening their companies astonishes me. There is also the fact that there are countless numbers of companies that do this, and the large name brands we have heard of only scratch the surface of the list. The section which reveals that Phil Knight, the Nike CEO, has never even visited the factories he has built in developing countries, let alone visit those countries, should be a crime. The worst part is that the developing countries actually view these sweatshops as opportunities to enrich their lives, because even the meager pay they receive is more than they would have gotten without the factory work.