Sapiens Part 2, Lesson #3: Capitalistic Greed and Hasan Minhaj’s Hot Take on Amazon
3-5 Homework #5: Read Sapiens, pages 305-349, and write a 3-paragraph essay that explains how trust in the future is required for banks to flourish.
3-7 Homework #6: Read Sapiens, pages 350-416, and write a 3-paragraph essay that explains the causes of the collapse of the family and the community.
3-12 Explain the collapse of the family. See Harari video “The Future of Humanity.” Homework: Write a preliminary or tentative thesis.
3-14 Look at students’ thesis statements. Look at 5 types of thesis statements. See Harari’s video “Why Fascism Is So Tempting.”
3-19 Peer Edit for Essay #2
Essay #2 Due 3-26-19
Minimum of 2 sources for your MLA Works Cited page.
Choice A
Watch Netflix documentary Ronnie Coleman: The King. Considered to be the greatest bodybuilder of all time, Coleman is now on crutches, faces a lifetime of excruciating pain, must take opioid pain medication, may have to be consigned to a wheelchair, and by most accounts the abuse he took to become a champion bodybuilder is the reason for his condition. The film celebrates Coleman’s life principle to persist in doing what he loves, but doing what he loves comes with a price: excruciating, life-altering injuries. Is doing what we love worth it? In this context, develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the notion that in order to achieve exceptional success, we are justified to make sacrifices of our body, minds, and souls. Is Coleman’s current condition justified by his success and his heroic drive to do what he loves? Answer this question and be sure to have a counterargument section. You need to cite two sources, the Ronnie Coleman documentary and Bourree Lam’s Atlantic article “Why ‘Do You What You Love’ Is Pernicious Advice.”
Option B
Watch Netflix Black Mirror episode “Nosedive,” and listen to the NPR Hidden Brain episode “Why Social Media Isn’t Always Very Social,” and watch Sherry Turkle’s Ted Talk video, “Connected, But Alone?” Then in the context of those 3 sources develop an argumentative thesis about the way the social media misuse creates psychological dissolution, depression, and thwarted emotional development.
Choice C
Take an episode from Hasan Minhaj’s Netflix news show Patriot Act and develop an argumentative thesis that addresses one of Minhaj’s topics.
Choice D
In Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, read Chapter 9 “The Arrow of History” and write an essay that applies Yuval’s notion of cultural inconsistencies and contradictions (164) to a contradiction you see in contemporary life.
Choice E
Based on Chapter 9 in Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, develop a thesis that argues that money is in many ways a form of religion.
Choice F
Based on Chapter 16 in Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, support, refute, or complicate Harari’s assertion that the free market is a dangerous cult that results in “Capitalist Hell.”
Choice G
Based on chapters 18 and 19 in Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, develop an argumentative thesis that addresses Harari’s notion of “imagined communities” and the human quest for happiness and meaning.
Choice H
Based on Chapter 20 in Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, develop an argumentative thesis about the viability of the “Frankenstein Prophecy.”
Choice I
Watch Yuval Noah Harari’s Ted Talk video “Why Fascism Is So Tempting” and write an argumentative thesis that addresses his claim.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHHb7R3kx40
Videos
“Will the Future be Human?” (30)
“Is Fascism Back in Fashion?” (8)
“Where Does Power Really Lie?” (8)
“Scientific Revolution,” Part 1
“Scientific Revolution,” Chapters 17 and 18
Study Questions for 305-349
Chapter 16 The Capitalistic Creed and Chapter 17 The Wheels of Industry
One. Why does Harari claim that the modern economy “has been growing like a hormone-soused teenager”?
He observes that in 1500 the global production was $250 billion. Today it’s around $60 trillion.
Banks grow exponentially through loans because we have trust in the future. He writes, “This trust is the sole backing for most of the money in the world.”
Trust in the future encouraged credit, and credit propelled economic growth on an exponential level.
Having money used to be a zero-sum game in which winners took money from losers, but in a credit economy everyone could join the party of wealth (308, 309).
Trust, and credit, were the first two causes of growing economy.
Then came the Scientific Revolution.
Harari writes: “Over the last 500 years the idea of progress convinced people to put more and more trust in the future. This trust created credit; credit brought real economic growth; and growth strengthened the trust i the future and opened the way for even more credit” (310).
Two. What is Adam Smith’s Greed Is Good Principle?
The richer one becomes the more one is compelled to employ more people thereby bolstering the economy. “By becoming richer, I benefit everyone. Egoism is altruism.”
My getting rich is a “win-win.”
For Smith, wealth was a sign of goodness, thereby making capitalism a religion.
Capitalism is “money, goods, and resources that are invested in production.”
Wealth is an inferior thing to capitalism: Wealth is wasteful extravagance like investing in a “non-productive pyramid.”
Three. Is there evidence that the rich industrialists and techies who are for wealthier than medieval nobility really believe in their Capitalism Is Great credo?
These rich magnates might spew the capitalism creed, but they appear to know the terrifying truth:
For one, wealth is being amassed by a smaller and smaller few: them.
For two, they can see economic disparity and all the world’s geopolitical problems that aren’t being solved are on the verge of blowing up into full-blown apocalypse. We see evidence of this in the tech billionaires who are spending millions reserving luxury condos inside bunkers for the apocalypse.
For three, with few exceptions like Bill Gates, no one, not private enterprise or government, shows faith or trust in helping the poor. There is no investment in poor schools or poor neighborhoods because the rich have dismissed the poor as a lost cause.
Four. Does Harari advocate for the free market?
No, because “avaricious capitalists can establish monopolies or collude against their workforces.”
The free market is rife with evil. For example, “10 million African slaves were imported to America.” There were no government controls on the slave trade.
Look at the rising power of Amazon in Hasan Minhaj’s presentation on Netflix’s Patriot Act.
Five. What is at the heart of the Industrial Revolution?
In a word, energy.
Even today, engineers will tell you, “It’s all about batteries.”
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