Illusion of choice

Today I encountered an illusion of choice. For bio lab this week we went out into the glen to measure trees and collect leaves and dirt. We all met in front of the glen before we dispersed into two different sections of the glen. My professor said to us that there were going to be two groups, a shorter-walk group and a longer-walk group, and that we could choose which we would prefer. Then, he said that also there would be different professors leading each group, so we could also factor that into our decision. I was prepared to pick the group with the shorter walk because I wanted lab to last as short as possible. But then my professor told us that since the class was already basically split evenly, he would just split that into two groups. I got stuck on the longer walk group (#bummed) (…not really, it wasn’t actually a long walk). Sarah was in my group and we got a little bit excited because we realized that it related to our class and the illusion of choice. We then proceeded to spend the next two hours measuring and sticking nails into trees. The moral of this post is related to how in life, we are often given a choice or an illusion of choice but then it is taken away from us.

Manipulation Through Beauty

During class on Friday I related a lot of Kylies mediated artifact. There are so many influences on us to be pretty and skinny and perfect. There are so many manipulative things around us telling us to look a certain way, when we have no control over that. Recently in Bio we have been talking about the microbiome in our stomach. If you were born with a certain microbiome, you’re going to absorb more nutrients from you food than others, and therefore be fatter. Our bodies naturally want to look a certain way and we have no control over it. But people will starve themselves to look like how society wants them to.

            The thing that hits home the most for me when it comes to trying to be beautiful is hair. Interesting fact, curly hair is the dominant gene. You’d have no idea when you looked at girls today. I guess it’s just the way style trends go but someone out there said that right now, straight hair is in. So any girl who doesn’t have pin straight perfect hair, straightens it. Girls have been so manipulated to think that they’re not pretty and they have to change their hair to look prettier. It’s crazy how many people have said to me, you look better with straight hair. It’s the most back handed compliment I’ve ever received. It all comes back to what Kylie was saying, there is a definition of pretty and we’re supposed to change ourselves to fit that profile. Unless magazines, TV, movies, and almost everything around us drastically change, this is going to continue to be a problem for a long time.

Manipulation in the SCCT Fishbowl

During my now constant quest to notice and analyze manipulation around me, I found myself noticing manipulation in the use of signs in the science center fishbowl. Since most science theses are yearlong, most of the science majors are now writing/finishing their theses, and due to the nature of some projects, they need to use the computers in the fishbowl to accomplish this. Some of the senior projects require using the computers for long periods of time to crunch numbers to determine viability of protein folding patterns or binding sites. For these applications, students will often put a sign on the computer that says, "experiment in progress" in order to keep other people from using the computer and messing up their data acquisition. Others, however, just need to use the computers for typing their papers or for briefly sending data off to the local supercomputer for analysis.

I found out today from one of my friends that someone who is using the computers for the latter reason has been using an, "experiment in progress" sign despite the fact that it is not actually true. This manipulation was undergone simply because the student didn't want anyone else messing with their computer even though they weren't using it themselves. This made me think about the fact that personally, I often don't question the validity of signage. I think that this is probably because with a sign rather than a person, there is nothing to argue with. You can't carry on a conversation with a sign, and therefore I at least tend to trust them. In this case, a sign was telling me a blatant lie, but I had no grounds to disagree, and therefore took its truthfulness for granted.

escape

This class has allowed me recognize manipulations that face me every single day, from when I wake up and get dressed to when I floss before I go to bed. Now I am aware, but where do I go from there? Is there anywhere to avoid manipulations and live life simply for myself, and not be compressed by outside societal and familial factors? Would going to the wilderness and feeling the naked earth under my bare feet save me?

I have come to the realization that there is no way to escape the confines of societal manipulations. In fact, there are very few people who live free from manipulations. I guess you could argue that Timothy Treadwell, better known as Grizzly Man, defied expectations of society for his duration in Alaska. However, as seen in the documentary, it was highly likely that he had ulterior motives for his journeys, such as fame and approval. In Environment and the Society, we learned about “uncontacted tribes”. These groups of people live completely separate from the luxuries we have today. No cars, no oil, no electricity, no plumbing…the list goes on. These groups are not inhibited by the structure of modern society. They have not been contacted by the outside world. However, lately, oil and logging companies have started infringing on their communities in aim of exploiting their resources. However, were these people barren to manipulations before these companies started closing in?

It can be argued that in any society, there are manipulations. So, does that mean the only way to escape manipulation would be to be completely isolated? Well that sounds awfully lonely.

Here is a website with information about uncontacted tribes if anyone is interested…

http://www.uncontactedtribes.org

Pick a Class, Any Class

A huge selling point for Hamilton is that you can take any class you want because the student body is small, and the curriculum is open. However, I've found this "choice" to be a manipulation, especially today. This may be due to the fact that I had an 11:15 registration time, but so many of the really cool classes I wanted to take only had a select number of seats for rising sophomores, or were capped at 20 in order to keep the small class feel. I completely understand the reasoning behind capping classes, as that is a very important characteristic of a small school. However, I found that it tied back to our discussion in class about how we are given choice, but we are also given parameters. These parameters are based on our class year, previous classes taken, and a randomly assigned class registration time. Even though we are told to explore all the classes we want, our choices are limited due to availability. It's a small school with small classes, but a large school has large classes; it's all relative.

Its my Roommate's Birthday

Birthdays parties are weird. They are humanity’s manipulation of a natural biological process into a social event. Birthdays are also a bit narcissistic—a day dedicated to the celebration of one’s emergence and existence. Its a completely arbitrary, man made invention which i guess is designed to make us feel worthy and admired. They're used to mark another year of age, which is yet another form of manipulation. Aging is another biological process of which we mediate with numbers. Socially, people are constantly judged and defined by the number of years they have been on this earth. We use age as an indicator of ability by having laws restricting people of certain ages from driving, voting, drinking, etc. Age, however, is truly just a number of which society manipulates us to think of as a defining characteristic. This also relates to time in general of which we discussed is actually meaningless. These indicators of age and time still seem to be necessary for society’s progress. It normalizes the billions of people on earth, giving them a common scale to base their lives around. There are stages people must be in at certain ages which adds up to a sort of formula for an average humans life: childhood, school, college, work, family, the end. Even though these scales of time are manmade and manipulative, they force people to think of time and lives linearly, which instills a sort of pressure for progress, ultimately driving the force of civilization.

Self-Manipulation

We've talked a lot about how we are manipulated in our everyday lives just by our surroundings and the society we live in. But I also think that we often choose to manipulate ourselves. Even though the word ‘manipulation’ seems to have a bad connotation, I think it can definitely be useful.

            One of my friends here says that sometimes when she is writing a paper she sets the clock on her computer ahead by two hours. That way when she looks at the clock she thinks it’s much later than it really is, making her work that much harder. Even though she knows that it’s actually two hours earlier, this self-manipulation of time makes her more determined to get the work done. I can think of many times throughout the day that I manipulate myself. To get myself to exercise I try to view running as a study break, rather than something I have to do. This way I make it into something I should enjoy and look forward to rather than dread. It doesn’t always work… but it definitely helps. Even while I’m running, if I’m really tired I’ll tell myself that I’ll get to walk if I reach some landmark (mailbox, telephone pole, driveway, etc.) up ahead. But then when I get to that landmark I’ll tell myself I can make it to the next one and the next one, until I end up forcing myself to run much further. In all of these examples we are aware of how we are manipulating ourselves, but it doesn’t lessen the ‘good’ that comes out of it. These daily manipulations can be helpful.

Manipulation in the Blog

This week we were tasked with writing about manipulation seen in our everyday lives. One of the devices that I've been thinking about over the past few days has been deadlines. Especially in school, deadlines do not need to be when they are. They are arbitrary dates imposed by the professor, or in rare cases the students, for when work should be handed in. The implications of instituting deadlines early on in life seem obvious. By making students used to having due dates for their work, students not only learn a sense of accountability for their work, and when it must be done, but also they are being prepared for the rest of their lives where they will likely be forced to follow deadlines in their work with much higher penalties than in school.

While this manipulation may be helpful for some, it is also making the assumption that all students want to go on to work in jobs where deadlines are a reality. This assumption does not allow for those who would prefer to live their lives off the clock, and so it perpetuates societal definitions of success at a subconscious level. By posting this a day late, I have made at least a small attack on the prevalence of deadlines in society. Although this is certainly not enough to change anything, it at least shows that while deadlines may seem at times that they are make or break, they can in fact be inconsequential.

Illusion of Class Registration

I want to start my post with apologizing for it being late. I could come up with some excuse, like I was just so traumatized by the bomb threat or I’m not going to be manipulated into doing something on time. But really I just forgot, sorry. Today all the sophomores picked their classes for next semester. This is always an extremely stressful process. Everyone wants to get into the same easy classes and ends up scrambling when they don’t get in. My biggest issue with this is the show that Hamilton puts on about it. On the tours you always hear about the open curriculum and how this gives you so many different options. This is supposed to be one of the great defining characteristics of Hamilton. So why does it feel like I have no options every time I go to register? You need a prerequisite for this class, this one has 20 spots but only 2 for juniors, and this one is only offered for specific majors. It’s such an illusion of choice. You’re supposed to be able to learn whatever you want in college, but really it’s limited to those certain classes that the college has chosen. And there are so many limitations that you really don’t have many choices at all. Another illusion here is the fact that you have so much time to take a lot of different classes. At my first advisor meeting I was told I had 32 classes to take while here, and it sounded like so many. I remember being worried I would run out of easy classes to take. When you factor in going abroad, your major, maybe a minor, and maybe pre-med or pre-law requirements you don’t get to chose any of your classes anymore. For my last semesters here at Hamilton I will be able to pick 1 class, all the others have been decided for me by requirements. I chose to do this, so this is fine, I’ve accepted it. However, it is completely unfair that we market our school in a way that gives people such an illusion of choice when there is very little choice at all.

The Parameter of Choice

After Friday’s discussion on the child’s “choose your own adventure” books, I found myself in a state of déjà vu. As a child, I was a big fan of the Goosebumps collections and ironically, especially the ones where you got to choose what action you wished to character to take. However, just as Professor Schwartz described in class, the reader doesn’t have a really large selection of choices. In other words, the reader is not able to do ANYTHING and choose whatever they want to do. Instead, the author forces the reader to select a choice out of a choice of 2 or more. As a child, I always though that the reader never really got the freedom to choose and select exactly what they wanted to do. Once again as Professor Schwartz noted, in context to the course, this intention in which the author made the story was practically a manipulation technique. By allowing the reader to choose out of a small parameter of choices, a sense of control and power is given to the reader. However, in reality it is the author’s manipulation to make the reader think that they are in control. As always, I though of this idea and tried to relate it to something that we encounter everyday. Also mentioned in class, I found that the car example to be the most revealing of manipulation. From our car dealers today, we are made to believe that a car was made for us and that we have the full choice in what car to choose. However, when going to a dealership, we aren’t really choosing the car that is made for us but instead selecting the car that we think is best fit for us. I found this to be another example of modern day manipulation in the everyday market.

The Panopticon

I recently read a book that mentioned something called the panopticon. I don’t know if anyone knows what that is but basically it’s a type of building design that was created by the Jeremy Bentham. The layout of the building was designed so that a single watchman could observe the inmates of a prison without the inmates being able to tell if they were being watched. The idea that at any moment they could be watched would make the inmates behave constantly.

            Bentham created a design that could manipulate people into behaving because of the paranoia it set in that an authoritative figure would always be watching. As a result, only minimal watching needed to happen solely because of this idea that they could be watched at all times. The inmates would basically become self-governing, hardly needing any authority at all. In the book I read, the main character compared her boarding school to the panopticon, stating that everyone followed the rules because they felt like someone would somehow know if they didn’t, no matter how impossible. For example, the students were not allowed to leave campus, a rule that everyone followed despite the fact that the only thing stopping them from leaving was a low stonewall. This idea of always being watched also affected how they interacted socially with one another.

            “Someone is watching you. Or, someone is probably watching you. Or you feel like someone’s watching you. So you follow the rules whether someone is watching you or not” (Lockhart).

            This idea can definitely apply to many of my everyday thoughts and I think it can be applied to a lot of social situations. For example, maybe I don’t take that extra cookie from Commons after dinner because somehow someone will know that I already had one at lunch. Obviously that’s an extreme example and it wouldn’t be breaking any rules, but still I would be manipulated by the idea of someone seeing me.

            Basically this asks the question whether we follow rules (social or other) because we just think we should, or because we have this idea that someone would know if we didn’t.

#Subtweet

So, after about the 2nd email we received yesterday telling everyone that there was a lockdown and shelter-in-place, a friend who will remain anonymous said in a group chat "where are you guys? I'm outside commons in the sun". what?! uhh...theres a bomb threat and possible shooter on campus...but uh ok..

This, among other things yesterday, made me think a lot about choices. Like Lily said in her blog post, I was also thinking about the choices people made yesterday of whether to leave the lockdown or stay where they were. I was in the science center for 7 hours yesterday, and I decided not to leave until they sent out an email lifting the lockdown. Lily brought up two possible reasons people could have made the choice to stay where they were. Honestly, I think both of her reasons were accurate for me. I was genuinely still scared, and I was also scared of getting in trouble because I heard people were getting written up for going outside. Although in some cases we shouldn’t have to do or not do things because of a fear of authority, in this kind of situation, I don’t think it was a bad thing. The authority on campus yesterday were faculty, campus security, and all the police forces on campus. Their number one concern was for everyone’s safety. I think some people took that for granted yesterday when they decided to disobey authority and leave the lockdown. Yes, there was no real danger- but what if there was? Things of these sorts have happened at many other campuses, leaving many people killed or injured. I am so grateful that we got so lucky. Personally, I do not think it is worth the risk.

“Drove to work in an 80,000$ Mercedes, I’m driving home in a prop car from the Fast and the Furious.” -Ari Gold, Entourage Season 2 Episode 13.

Despite the fact that I think Entourage may be one of the best shows ever made, this classic Ari Gold oneliner always struck me as funny. SPOILER ALERT: Some context: Ari has just been fired from his job at a major Hollywood agency, and his company car was reclaimed by said company. Therefore, he gets a ride home from his assistant, Lloyd, who is driving a souped up street car.

What I find interesting is that while Ari’s Mercedes may have cost more than Lloyd’s “prop car,” why should that make any difference? I have personally seen lowered Honda Civic’s (not nearly in a Mercedes’ price range) that are faster or have better acceleration than Ari’s car. Furthermore, as someone who is familiar with the Fast and Furious franchise, I also happen to know that some of the cars to which Ari is referring to are described to have more than 100,000$ of aftermarket modifications, making them far more pricey than 80,000$ in the long run.

So why does Ari seem so down on the idea of a Fast and Furious prop car? This has manipulation on two sides, as both Ari has been manipulated by his car’s company, and Ari is counting on his car’s company to manipulate others. He has been manipulated into thinking a Mercedes shows off wealth and a lavish lifestyle, and is counting on that manipulation, and the widely advertised high price a Mercedes emblem carries with it, to carry on to others. Therefore, I think that this one line shows just how subconsciously manipulation can affect not only our decisions but our judgements (which car you buy vs. how seeing what someone drives effects your view of them).