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One thing I found particularly interesting this week was seeing how people developed the things we learned in class to make the posters. It was particularly interesting seeing that no two groups did the same thing, and although two groups had the same topic their approaches were so completely different that there was practically no overlap at all. It was also very cool to see how greatly people’s other classes influenced the topics of their posters.

In addition to the posters we saw this week, I thought our short discussion of the book was interesting. Talking about the narration and what the style itself tells us was something fascinating to me since I had never thought of what the narration tells beyond the story itself.

This week in class I thought it was very interesting learning about the different presentations and the implications for which they discussed. One of the most interesting ones, personally, was the possibility of creating a habitable human existence on Mars. The colonization of mars would be one of necessity. The group talked about how the treatment and over capacity that earth is reaching-8 billion people by 2050- will create a precarious situation. As a result, an alternative they suggested is mars. Although exotic, they presented quality arguments that showed the ability for such an endeavor to happen. These include already existant life necessities such as water, an atmosphere, and mild temperatures.

There are already private corporations that are exploring the ability for space travel to become more common. Both Space X and Virgin Mobile are helping to enable the public to experience Space. These types of innovations serve as a catalyst for furthered space exploration and travel. In the future, it may be necessary for these corporation to aid in both their technical ability and influence to relieve some of earth’s  planetary strains and allow for an increased capacity of human kind.

While their proposal isn’t one hundred percent practical, they presented a logical argument. In their proposal they supposed that the use of a secondary planet is not necessarily in immediate relocation, but in long term growth. The initial people that inhabit Mars would then go on to reproduce and ease the future burden of those citizens on earth.

Our project focuses on the relation between science fiction writing and science itself. Humanity has always been inventing ways to make life easier, from the wheel to spaceships. But its hard to come up with ideas of things that will benefit humanity. I know personally I try to think of inventions to better society everyday (mainly to get rich but thats beside the point) and I still haven’t come up with a good one. Its so hard to come up with world altering ideas that it makes you wonder how people ever come up with them in the first place. A trend my group is starting to see is that usually someone writes about a world changing idea in science fiction and then years later it turns into a reality. When you think about it this makes a lot of sense. Science Fiction writers write stories of futuristic societies with new inventions no ones though of, and they are able to do this because they don’t care if its realistic or not. Thats what makes it Science Fiction. However, when people read those stories they think it’s really cool and they use those stories as goals for the future. In 2012, the show Black Mirror, came out. This Science Fiction series has already seen some of its ideas turn to realities as well as we saw in one groups presentation this week. Im very interested to look into this idea further.

This week in class I enjoyed listening to everyone’s group presentations. There were some interesting ideas that were proposed and some interesting arguments that really entailed what we have been learning throughout this semester. It showed me that there are many ways that this class can be applied to finding solutions to real world problems of today. The most interesting group was talking about how the human race may have to relocate to a new planet because Earth’s resources are diminishing. This is a clear problem and it’s kind of scary to think that our lives would be dramatically affected.

Another interesting part of their presentation was the ethical part. Someone from the audience asked who would be picked to go to Mars. Like all ethical issues, there are many factors to consider when coming up with a solution, and the solution may not be liked. I think it would depend on the circumstances. If we are able to find a way to survive on Mars in the near future, more people would be able to move. It would be very expensive and I think the elite would be the ones that would take the trip. But, if the human population is threatened and close to extinction because of the dwindling resources, who would be picked to make sure the human race lives on? Would we want the best representative? What makes them the best representative? What characteristics and qualities do we consider when choosing individuals to continue on our legend?

This weeks class we went over a lot of peoples posters and what they will be presenting. There were a lot of really cool topics such as the self driving cars and the ethics behind it. While we already went over some of this issue in class, I think the groups presentation is more specific and goes into depth about this issue. They discussed and researched the cars decision when approaching someone in the street. If the car should sacrifice itself and the passenger in it to avoid the pedestrian, or hit the pedestrian. This brought up a lot of thoughts in my mind especially one of the group members stated that he himself would want to live and not be sacrificed in the car. I would want the same thing. I would want to live even if it meant someone else had to die. I think that is the mindset of almost everyone though. Everyone would choose to live unless the person who is sacrificed is a close family member or someone they know well and love deeply. This is a flaw in the self driving cars because while this may be the majority opinion, it is not everyone’s opinion. Is it possible to program the cars differently to satisfy preference? And is that ethical?

My group realized  after we presented that we should cut some things out of our poster and presentation and go into more detail about price discrimination and why/ how it happens because that is what our audience found most interesting and connected best with. Overall we got a great response and I am excited to move forward with it.