Christin's Profile

As Lenddo’s approach is very fascintating, it has its risks, too. And here I will take a controversial standpoint.

Of course, analizing data of social networks and other online websites is tempting in order to achieve different goals whether they are goals of the company or goals of their clients, but, it can also have negative impacts on these clients.

This might be a very drastic example but a possible one. In the 1920s, Munich (Germany) collected a lot of data of its Sinti and Roma with which they were able to be identified easily. This was not a big problem until Adolf Hitler came to power in the 1930s. With the National Socialist German Workers’ Party trying to eliminate different groups of people (e.g. Jews, Bible Students, Homosexuals, mentally ill people, dissidents, Sinti and Roma), the complete eradication became a big goal. With the precise and systematic registration of Sinti and Roma by Munichs officials it became easy to find and deport them.

I do not want to say that companies like Lenddo are comparable to this, instead I want to say that the collection of our data has an impact on our future, we might not know yet.

For further information, please have a look at this interesting website.
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/romasinti.html

An interesting point mentioned in this article is assortative mating, which is highly discussed among researchers of different disciplines, as the article of Richard R. Reeves describes.

As great it is for partners to be similar, as problematic it can be to the society as a whole. The danger of this kind of relationship for example as Reeves states is a growing social and economical gap which could lead to education, success and wealth linked to heritage and ancestry once again. Inequality will grow and discrimination could become worse.

There is an interesting article, worth of reading.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2016/04/08/the-rich-marrying-the-rich-makes-the-income-gap-worse-but-its-not-our-biggest-problem/

This is a very interesting point of view, which I would like to expand by discussing two other aspects worth thinking about:

First of all, I wondered whether the rise of the feminism had an influence on pornography as the sexualization of women is a popular topic in feminist debates. A magazine, which generates revenue from thematizing sexuality could have problems with this. After researching a bit in the Internet, I found this article of Carrie Pitzulo who describes the rising progressivity of Playboy in terms of feminism:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/30114220.pdf

Another aspect worth discussing is how the general shift from pornography magazines to the internet affects problematic topics like forced pornography as the demand is steadily growing.

The problems, magazines comparable to Daily Mail are facing, are more serious than the ones, other magazines or even newspapers are facing because of the difference in the target audience.

People, who are reading these kind of news are likely to consume without paying online, so the magazine could lose their audience by installing a paywall, while quality journalism is more likely to be paid by their audience.

Possibilities for these magazines could be to broaden their core product and install components, you have to pay for. After researching their new online audience, they could add features, this audience is interested in. Such a feature could be for example a mobile game in which you can buy items which help you to succeed earlier.

This article is really interesting. I would have never thought about apes using technology.

I could not resist but think about how this could enrich and change our understanding of animals and their way of thinking.

Is it possible to teach them a kind of language tom communicate with us or to help them being understood and improve their living situations in the zoo? The second suggestion could be easily achieved by letting them tap on a picture (could be food or anything else) resulting in a mechanism which provides this specific object or food or anything to them. You could also let visitors give them the ordered item.
Also: would it be possible to teach the animals some games visitors can play with them online after donating some money to the zoo?

I am so amazed by this incredibly interesting use of technology – there are plenty of ways, the zoo could make further money with it in order to not only benefit but also to improve living situations for the animals.

There is also a woman who dedicated her live to living and working with apes to understand them better. See http://www.janegoodall.org/

This article clearly changed my view on the production of flowers sold in the European Union. I could never believe that flowers are brought by air to the European continent. Why do the Netherlands have such a high carbon footprint so that producing and flying flowers from Kenya has even less climate consequences? What do they actually do wrong? My question is also how the Kenyan flower industry has actually evolved so that shipping/flowers to Europe was a logical step? Isn’t this absolutely illogical based on the constraints of fresh water supply? Weren’t there any other possibilities of producing something that could be sold inside of Kenya or to some of their neighbor states? Is the procurement power in Europe so much bigger that it is profitable to send the flowers from Kenya to Europe? Would people still be so happy about getting roses, if they knew where they are actually from? Does that not contradict their actual meaning? For almost my entire life I picked flowers in my mother’s garden in order to make a person, I like or love a little gift. But isn’t it too big now to give flowers from Kenya? I am confused.

Very interesting to see that the trend of using biofuel now starts in the aviation industry. It’s a hopefully promising technology. For me there are several questions, which come to my mind, when I think about using biofuel from algae. Where does the biofuel come from? And which impact does the harvesting of algae has on human beings and our environment? Is there a special way of harvesting algae so that biofuel for aviation engines can be produced? Hard to imagine how much algae need to be harvested in order to fuel so many airplanes.

I wonder whether there is a certain space on our planet, in which the production of algae is. I am sure it will not be in our industrial nations, but more in the poorer regions in our world. It would be interesting to see which impact this new business has on the economies and whether established industries are forced out in order to have enough space available. Another interesting questions is, what happens with the oceans, the fish and the fishers. I am certain that with these developments agriculture will change in the future too and certain chemicals will play a role in the harvesting process.

Overall, I am quite curious about the development and progress of using biofuel for the aviation sector. Is it sustainable for human beings and the environment, who will benefit from that trend and who will suffer? Hopefully we will find out in the near future.

After reading this great article, one question arises: Who has the duty to take actions steps? According to the article, the Malidives do a lot in order to help stopping the climate change, but in the end it is them, who suffer from the consequences of a climate change, which is mainly caused by other nations. Isn’t that absurd? But actually is it the fault of the Chinese government or the fault of any other government? Or is it the fault of the companies who pollute? But now my questions is, who can actually be blamed for? States, governments, companies, the consuming population, the consequences of the colonial times or the thinking of ‘More and more and always cheaper’?
The articles nicely brings up the question of ‘Whose fault is it and who should deal with the consequences?’. The Maledives are a great example, because the climate change is absolutely not mainly their fault, but in the end, they are the ones who have to bear the consequences.

I really enjoyed this informative article. Especially its structure was clear and easily understandable. That the climate change leads to the spread of disease is undeniable and I see how Sanofi finds a way to produce new vaccine to fight these diseases. But why does the pharma industry not build alliances dedicated to fighting dangerous diseases? Why are so many companies developing their vaccines alone? Is it the competition and the goal of maximizing margins that that prevents company of working hand in hand together? When I read this article, I was questioning whether the human health is the stimulating factor in the development of new drugs/vaccines or how much influence profitability has? In my perfect world there would be pharma cooperations working on the most pressing health problems with shared costs and shared profits and faster development cycles. But as I feel, this is not possible and so, I hope that there are companies such as Sanofi which continue their great work and help fighting the consequences of climate change.

Very interesting article. I never thought about the catholic church, when I was thinking about climate change.
The big advantage, the catholic church has, is that it acts on a suprational level. It’s true, the church can use their warning message, in order to make their people take actions against the climate change. On the other side the catholic church can use this message in order to regain their prestige, because they actively are involved in fighting climate change (Whether it is equally effective in all countries around the globe, is another very interesting question). In that way more people feel closer related to their church.
Now, for me, there’s the question, what Pope Francis can actually achieve with his message. How can he strengthen it? It is certainly not enough to speak about climate chance, more there have to be concrete actions: For example providing entities like rooms, money, people (who research or have influential positions).