人算不如天算
I was asked to make a blog for the NYU IMA Low Res graduate program. (I started with no tangible experience in interaction design.) Math is nature’s poetry, and these are just diary entries.
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I was asked to make a blog for the NYU IMA Low Res graduate program. (I started with no tangible experience in interaction design.) Math is nature’s poetry, and these are just diary entries.
Alter-Instagram
Reel
IMALR-GT-201-02
WHAT: IMALR-GT-201
“A system of intellectual property rights and the corresponding privatization of public goods.”
I'm not quite sure if "aligned with" is how I'd put it, but this system holds one of the stronger anti-GMO arguments in my opinion. I would like to believe that "perfect" capitalism is amoral; however, the human bias for self-interest collectively drives conquests and plundering.
Are GMOs necessary? Or, are we just finding increasingly clever ways to package the ugliness of our greed? After all, the technology doesn't address the root cause of global famine.
When we subscribe to "capitalism," we are incentivized (forced?) to act in a manner that exhibits the traits that will perpetuate the system itself. (I often wonder how is it possible that modern society convinced us that water should be commodified?) We are the feedback loop. As humans, we are capable of deliberately producing to excess, at which point our system offers either "sharing" or "trading" models (in an ideal society, these words would be synonymous).
With the emergence of sedentary settlements, society developed trade in response to scarcity. Following suit, we moved towards monetization and the pursuit of power. I can see the GMO industry shifting from producing sustainable agriculture and food security to producing goods for profit. A select group of companies own patents for the majority of commercially available GMOs (e.g. Bayer/Monsanto). Hooray for more food system gate-keeping, more economic dominance, and more power disparities.
Environmental concerns are frequently ignored by capitalistic societies. The planet is merely a free "resource" for The Monopoly Man. People say we have to "save the planet." It's not that- If we eradicate our own species, Earth will still exist. It'll just be Earth with plastic bags. The question we're really asking is: how do we save ourselves? (Though I don't know if we deserve to...)
If capitalism must exist, how we can leverage greed for good? How can we leave behind what The Land of the Free taught us, so we can be free?
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Using your own topic for research, can you Identify stakeholders with different perspectives, and then describe the system from which they are operating?
[Kinship-Blood]
1. STEM CELLS: a system of cells that can become any specialized cell.
Do I need to become a red blood cell right now?
Stem cells respond to a protein secreted by the kidney called erythropoietin to determine a decrease in blood oxygen level. Once they "know" we need more oxygen, the erythropoietin sends a signal to the stem cells in our bone marrow to produce red blood cells. This is a balancing act of which specialized cells need to be prioritized at any given moment. Once a stem cell "decides" what to become, they must commit until death. If our stem cells copy themselves incorrectly, the new blood cells would "not work properly," resulting in blood disorders or cancer.
2. VITAL ORGANS: a system of tissues joined in a structural unit to serve a common function (e.g. brain, heart, lungs, kidneys, and liver) that keeps our bodies running.
Do I have enough oxygen/resources?
Our vital organs rely on red blood cells for tissue oxygenation. Red blood cells do not have a nucleus, which allows the cell to store more hemoglobin, the oxygen-binding protein. However, this also means that red blood cells cannot undergo mitosis and reproduce. They have finite life spans. Our organs require the self-sacrifice of red blood cells to transport oxygen from the lungs to all other peripheral tissues.
3. HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS: a system of information being processed for us to experience the world around us.
Is everything working in the background, so I can think about and experience things I deem important?
I'll use "we" because I believe this is the systemic level I'm writing from. Without red blood cells, we would not be able to experience the world around us. It's highly beneficial for this to be a running in the background sort of process, so that we don't have to fork over valuable neuroCPU. (I'm not sure if our consciousness does anything for the red blood cells themselves.)
4. SOCIETY: a system that requires our existence to perpetuate its own
Are people alive and healthy enough to perpetuate social relationships, economic opportunities, and political structures?
This could exist on many levels: economic, social, political... Without blood, none of these would exist.