8811+Learning+Journal

=8811 Learning Journal=

//**Week 1: Notes, Resources and Activities: How well do we live now? **//
//We live in an age of unprecedented wealth and technological advance. We live lives, at least in wealthy countries, that medieval kings might have envied. Even in poorer countries, general ////standards of living may be as high or higher than at any other time in recorded history. But what does this mean for us as individuals? In this topic we explore our own level of wellbeing to better understand that of others and ultimately of the global community. We also question whether things really have got better and whether they are likely to continue doing so. //
 * Notes: **

This first week is to orientate you into the unit, familiarise you with the new Moodle learning environment and to provide practice on exploring resources, completing activities, posting them for assessment and contributing to a forum (see Activities below). Generally this note section will contain more information and ideas; almost a ‘resource’ in itself.

Most of us studying this unit will be living reasonably affluent, or for some, very affluent lives relative to the billion people living in abject poverty in this world. We tend to take our lifestyles as the norm. But even if we comare our lifestyles with those of our recent ancestors, say of 100 years ago, we might find that at least our material lifestyles are much better. You are asked to reflect on these issues in the activities below. Please also view and reflect on the TED lecture by Matt Ridley. It includes much which may be controversial and much which may be convincing to you. It is a good start to thinking about human lifestyles now and possibilities for the future.


 * Resources: **

==**1) TED lecture by Matt Ridley. **[|**http://fora.tv/2011/03/22/Matt_Ridley_Deep_Optimism#fullprogram**] This lecture including the introductions and questions are well worth viewing in full. The videocast provides an index below the main screen so you can jump to particular sections. Matt Ridley published a full book on this subject: Rational Optimism. You can get an eBook version from Amazon. You can also see the chapter headings and read the introductory pages of each. They are very thought provoking and touch on much of Integrated Human Studies.[|http://www.amazon.com/Rational-Optimist-How-Prosperity-Evolves/dp/006145205X#reader_006145205X] ==

//**Week 2 **////**: How well does the global community live now? **// //Of the seven billion people living on this planet, one billion live in excessive affluence and one billion in abject poverty. There is enormous disparity in personal wealth, access to basic human needs, health, wellbeing and future prospects. This topic explores disparities in material wellbeing between nations, regions, ethnic and other groupings and social and economic inequalities within communities. Are such inequities morally justifiable: do they threaten or dimish us all? //

//Some starting ideas from Neville //**) **

The seven billion (7000,000,000) of us living now as a group are probably living better than at any time since modern humans emerged around 200,000 years ago //(note that I will often repeat key ideas and numbers for IHS).// This view was forcefully put by Matt Ridley (see Week 1). But even if we accept his view, there are gross inequities at global, regional and local levels; inequities that mean hunger and hunger related deaths for many (20,000 per day) and extreme affluence and affluence related disease and death for many. This does not have to be. World resources, even renewable world resources are more than adequate to ensure reasonable standards of living for all. Does this make rational or moral sense and if not should we do something about it and if so what should we do? We will explore these questions by focusing on poverty and just a little on extreme wealth: later topics will cover how we measure and evaluate standards of living, quality of life and human wellbeing. I have chosen four resources for this week that relate to 1) quantitation of world population and poverty levels, 2) an examination of poverty and its implications, 3) morality and poverty and 4) a current politician's view on the super rich and the need for a large and strong 'middle' class.


 * Resources: **//<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">These four resources will take say three hours to examine for this week. You will probably return to them in later weeks. //


 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">1) Worldometers: [] **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">This is quite an amazing site, it presents vital statistics in an engaging and informative way. Statistics, no matter how important, can make their subject seem remote. We can undertand and have a mental picture one or two or perhaps a hundred. When we get to thousands, millions or billions the pictures need to be different. As students of IHS, we do need to have a mathematical sense of statistics but also a feeling or experiential sense. The Worldometers can help here. For this week concentrate on the World population, Food, [|Water] and Health meters. You can tab across for more information on each.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">2) **Causes of Poverty Anup Shah**: [] The parent site put together by a single person, Anup Shah is a powerful resource. Again it is worth keeping it on you list of favourite resources. This section on poverty and its embedded larger articles lays out many 'inconvenient 'truths". Essential reading.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">3) **What is Global Justice?** [] This article is written by a philosopher, a philosopher of the world, Thomas Pogge who runs the Global Justice Program [] . The article argues the case for all of us to be involved in seeking to alleviate extreme poverty. He raises the issue that if we do not act we are tacitly condoning death through hunger; we are 'complicit', (a great forum discussion from last semester). He likens it to acceptance or failure to act against the Nazi holocaust. He suggests that it might even be worse. To object to Nazi killing could mean our own death or torture. To object to and oppose a world economic and political system that institutionalises 20,000 deaths daily due to hunger is unlikely to cause our own death or torture. HIs is an important article since it considers 'values' and morality and ethics as crucial to being human.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">4) **The 0.01 Per Cent: The Rising Influence of Vested Interests in Australia** Wayne Swann. [] I have chosen this article for its currency and because it covers a wide range of issues. It has raised some recent controversy and has certainly been missrepresented in much of the media. It compares Australia with the USA and other countries in terms of wealth distribution and suggests that the very rich may be hijacking the social contract that we aswork from.

//<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">**Based on the Worldometers and Anup Shah's website: The key problems of world poverty that you think most urgently need to be addressed** //

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">The majority of world population and nations live in a state of poverty. Beyond the common causes of poverty like poor decisions and government failures, are causes related to globalization. Powerful leaders of rich countries, multinational corporations, institutions, and influential people formulate and influence global decisions, policies and practices, usually at the expense of poor nations without bargaining power and their powerless people.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Poverty is also connected to less access to health, education, nutrition and political representation, as opposed to wealthier people who are usually beneficiaries of economic and political policies.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">More than 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where income differentials are widening. The poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income. About 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s financial assets in 2004.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Some problems resulting from poverty include very high child mortality rates, illiteracy or lack of access to education, poor health, lack of access to clean water and sanitation and the resulting illness and deaths, lack of shelter, deaths from air pollution resulting from use of solid fuels, lack of electricity

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Some causes of poverty include policies by IMF and World Bank like Structural Adjustment, Food Dumping, unfair trade policies, corruption and Foreign Aid.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Instead of reducing poverty the IMF AND World Bank policies have put developing nations into debt and poverty as well as a dependency on developed countries. Policies like Structural adjustment usually used as preconditions for loans and AID impede development by putting priority on debt payment at the expense of things like education and health.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Other harmful policies of IMF and World Bank include, reduction of domestic industry protection, currency devaluation, increased interest rates, elimination of food subsidies, removal of many regulation to attract foreign investment, devaluation of labor, & focus on cash crops for export.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">There policies also encourage undeveloped countries to export commodities and import products, while industrialized countries import commodities and export products. The richer countries benefit by selling capital-intensive (cheap) products for high prices, and buying labor-intensive (expensive) products for low prices. Another disadvantage of producing only commodities is that the importer sets the price and quantity as opposed of manufactured goods. Commodities also generate low-grade jobs, but manufacturing employs skilled personnel for higher wages, creating multiplier effect on employment as the production chain is longer and expands the domestic market.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">I think one of the areas needing urgent attention to reduce poverty is the elimination of debt and total transformation of IMF and World Bank. The debt crisis is far from over, many countries still have to spend more on debt than on meeting the needs of their people. In 2002 both Nicaragua and Senegal spend more on debt service than on primary education or health. In Nicaragua debt servicing absorbed more than two-thirds of government revenue.Expenditure on primary education in Senegal in 2001 was around $64 million, whereas $159 million was spent on servicing debt.

<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">IMF and World Bank policies like Structural Adjustment should also be total removed. These policies have done nothing but sink countries deeper into poverty therefore they sound be changed. New policies encouraging manufacturing of good, technology and innovation should be followed.


 * //<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Week 3: What is human wellbeing? //**

//<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">We all want to be in a state of wellbeing and generally want it for others (promotion of human wellbeing is central to the mission of IHS). Wellbeing is one of the simplest concepts to understand from a common sense viewpoint but one of the hardest to understand as a basis for its promotion. This topic explores what constitutes wellbeing what factors contribute to it and how it may be viewed differently by people of different cultures, lifestyles, world views and histories. //


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Notes: ( **//<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Some starting ideas from Neville //**<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">) **

//<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">All humans have the same basic needs, wants and desires that determine many of our behaviours, but these are greatly shaped by our cultures. //

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">This topic, human wellbeing, is central to the mission of IHS, namely, promotion of human wellbeing in a sustainable world. Wellbeing is a difficult concept to define, let alone understand. Like many big issues, there will be many perspectives or views on what constitutes wellbeing and wellbeing for some might be quite different to wellbeing for others. We suggest that you approach this topic sequentially considering (a) an evolutionary and biological <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;"> [|perspective] <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">, (b) your own personal or experiential perspective and finally (c) two influential academic perspectives: these are set out under **Resources**. The key of course is to integrate all three into your own understanding from which you can build guidelines to promotion of your own and others’ wellbeing.


 * //<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">(a) Evolutionary and biological perspectives //**<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Let us start with a working definition of needs, wants and desires. We refer here to ‘needs’ as essential just to sustain life, ‘wants’ as important to sustain life with some degree of surplus or security and ‘desires’ as drives to attain a much greater share of materials or experiences than is probably ‘good’ for us or is likely to make us truly ‘authentically’ happy. I could say that I ‘need’ a bare minimum of food to stay alive, I ‘want’ more food to feel satisfied and secure and I ‘desire’ lots of cream buns to make me happy (or is it just to feed a dominating craving or distract me from other things?).

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">So what can an evolutionary perspective tell us about our needs? Essentially a member of a successful species needs to be able to stay alive and successfully produce offspring that will themselves successfully produce more offspring. This requires certain functions or activities and ‘drives’ (motivating factors) to perform these activities such as eating and procreation. There are of course many more: here is a list that you might like to develop and consider further in relation to needs, wants and desires.

|| **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Activity **
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Drive ** || **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Needs ** || **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Wants ** || **<span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Desires ** ||
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Eating || <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">hunger ||  ||   ||   ||
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Procreation, sex || <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">libido ||  ||   ||   ||
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Procreation, nurture || <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">maternal/paternal ||  ||   ||   ||
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Security || <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">comfort, fear ||  ||   ||   ||
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Socializing || <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">companionship, love ||  ||   ||   ||

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">To the above fairly basic activities and drives, we can add others that made humans so successful in terms of survival and potential for breeding. These might include **//curiosity, inventiveness, language//** and **//‘deep social mind’//** and even from our current activity, **//teaching and learning//**. If we exercise these drives, often our feeling of wellbeing is enhanced.


 * //<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">(b) Personal and experiential perspectives //**

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Evolutionary perspectives are a good place to start although obviously much is speculative. A much more direct perspective is of course your own, based on your real feelings and behaviors perhaps conditioned or to some extent influenced by your family and friends. All of us can generally identify our needs, wants and desires, albeit these may, and hopefully will, change over time. Of course we all ‘need’ food to eat. We may also feel that we ‘need’ (must have) an iPad and this need is so great that we chose to work part time and earn the ‘needed’ money and miss lectures to do so. Is this a real ‘need’? Our behaviour suggests that it might be but how can we relate that to the ‘needs’ explained from an evolutionary perspective? Clearly there is something missing and that thing is of course the influence of culture. Our culture, eg, advertising, can capture our mind and soul and working on our more basic or genetic predispositions, so suggest a want or desire that it becomes for us a real ‘need’.


 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Resources: (c) Academic perspectives **

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Many investigators have explored human needs, wants and desires; two of the most influential are Abraham Maslow <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;"> [] <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;"> and Manfred Max-Neef <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;"> []  <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Maslow, primarily a psychologist, was one of the earliest to systematically consider human needs, wants and desires. Importantly, he developed a hierarchy of needs in which at the base he included physiological needs, essentially those needed for survival and the apex, higher order ‘yearnings’ or personal goals <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;"> [] <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">. His pioneering work, though sometimes now criticized, stimulated much further work in the field and still offers much insight and understanding.

<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">Manfred Max-Neef took a different, non-hierarchical approach. He and others categorized a basic universal set of nine ‘needs’ that need to be satisfied within a cultural context <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;"> []

<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">[|//Maslow's hierarchy of needs//]

<span style="font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; font-size: 13px;">