In sickness and in Wealth + Nabil Hassein

In sickness and in Wealth

Key words:

• -Health
• -Wealth
• -Social Status
• -Unnatural causes
• -Stress
• -Income
• -Racism
• -Inequality

• we are determined by our genes
• we carry our history in our bodies
• constant interaction

Is inequality making us sick?

• US has highest grows national product in the world
• $2 trillion per year on medical care
• 30th in life expectancy
• high percentage of babies die on their first year of life
• 47 million people has no healthcare coverage
• behaviors determined by economic access (social determinants of health)
• identical twins end up with different health status disregarding symmetrical growth

Dr. Adewale Troutman:

• 700,000 people responsibility for health in Kentucky
• details in data (data maps)
• excess death, premature death

-‘at what age, at what degree of suffering, with what degree of preventable illness?’

Louisville:

• population spears over 26 neighborhoods
• distinct health profile
• the more east the more affluent communities become
• Jim Taylor (CEO of hospital makes 6 figures, income is in top 1% American)
• Does having more money make you more healthy?

Michael Marmot (researcher):

• how social influences affects disease
• over 30 years their teams charted the health of 29,000 British civil servants
• 1970s research
• lower grade of employment higher risk of heart disease
• Britain everyone has healthcare
• smoking, blood pressure, cholesterol, overweight, sedentary livestyle = quarter of social gradient in mortality

US health gradient 70% very good to excellent health

• $20K only 37% have good health/excellent
• $40-60K only 56% have good/excellent  health

Diabetes:

• people with low income (less than $20K) twice rate of disease
• middle people still almost twice rate

• similar pattern for stroke and heart disease = excess
• death

• direct correlations between social conditions and health

• college graduates have a life expectancy of 2 1/2 yrs longer than high school graduate

• average household US income is $48,000

• availability to more resources depending on districts will shape life expectancy

Mary in district 5:

• 3 children
• disabled husband
• $200 grocery budget = choices are limited – impacts health
• heart attack, thyroid problem, constant medication

• your life expectancy, should not be dependent on resources accessible to you

What does social class mean?

• power
• confidence
• sense of security
• education
• health access

Stress response:

• biological response
• adrenal glands
• cortisol improves memory
• cortisol can impair immune function, brain can shrink
• accelerated aging

• neither chronic stress nor its health effects are equally distributed on a hierarchy

Macaques:

• high stress
• high heart rate
• high cortisol
• same chemical response than humans
• negative effect on tissue and cells

Cold study:

• swabbing people to see cortisol levels
• socioeconomic is a dependent variable for getting a cold
• people with less stress are less likely to get a cold

• contrary to stereotypes most of the poor people in US are white

• the more years their parents own a home the less likely they are to get a cold

weak foundation = subjected to more disruptions

African-americans:

• die earlier than white people despite income
• higher rates of many chronic diseases
• 83,000 excess deaths
• study by Dr. Troutman

• 100 years ago average American death mortality was 48yrs

“when we improve economic circumstances and narrow the economic gap, we improve the health… so we can potentially interviene or potentially see a world in which, while we do not eliminate hierarchy, we constrain the way in which hierarchy affects human beings.”

• 1980s went in opposite direction

Warren Buffett: “In a country that prides itself on equality of opportunity it is becoming anything but that as the gap the super-rich and the middle class widen in dramatic fashion.” – Senate Finance Committee Hearing 2007

Forbes400:

• 20yrs ago total wealth was $220 billion
• now $1.54 trillion
• tax-law changes have benefited this group
• wealth inequality reached a record low in 1976

Individual self-self interest:

• “If I live in a just society, I’ll benefit”
• “economist will tell you is inefficient to have people who could otherwise contributing during their productive years to the overall benefit of society caught up in hospitals that create a net dependance on society, rather than producing resources down from society that benefit society as a whole”
• costs $1 trillion a year that low class is not productive, therefore general unnecessary cost
• damage control

Spain: https://www.redaccionmedica.com/la-revista/noticias/desigualdad-en-el-acceso-a-la-sanidad-ya-no-es-un-tema-de-ricos-y-pobres-7143

US: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200331-how-to-eat-a-healthy-diet-when-work-from-home-coronavirus

REFLECTION

I have always considered myself a thinker. The deeper I try to understand how inequality keeps growing not only in the US, but around the world I keep on coming to this thought of how we measure happiness depending on our environment, self-development and economic status we hold in society. People say money cannot buy happiness, but in my opinion what it can buy you is time. The more time you have and you realize you have this automatically lowers down your stress. As we have learned, when having high peaks of stress we produce high levels of cortisol and therefore depending on this they can make you (ex. memory enhances) or break you (compromising your immune system, brain capacity and accelerated aging) automatically placing you into a hierarchy scale that will define your present and future. The article I chose from BBC ‘How to avoid overeating when working from home’ is a clear example on how we can take control of a big part of our lives and mentally place us at a higher level on the ‘hierarchy’, although it is a clear example on how families with no economic power or stability would ever have the chance to be in charge of this choice as they cannot afford or have access to any of these options, leaving them static basically forever. This article also shows a clear targeted public, by only those with internet access, smartphones, english speaking, and self-centered environment. A healthy and balanced diet is a choice of living for those who can afford it, but not even a possibility for the ‘poorer’ who even if they wanted to have could never. We have created a society in which ‘organic eating’ is way more expensive than fast-food access and I don’t believe this to be a coincidence. The worse your diet, the more it will affect your cholesterol levels, energy, and overall mood as it not getting enough nutrients will lead to depression, in which in a long term can even make you develop serious mental and physical illnesses. I directly see a very rough correlation between healthy eating + expenses in contrast to healthcare accessibility. The ‘elites’ of the society are already deciding by this factor who deserves to live and who deserves to die. If you have enough economic status to afford a healthy diet and healthcare, that means you will automatically live longer, as if it is otherwise, you will most likely not live the amount of time you should deserve. I think that who decides to live and die is completely against human rights. In the video, they are already trying to manipulate your way of thinking “economist will tell you is inefficient to have people who could otherwise contributing during their productive years to the overall benefit of society caught up in hospitals that create a net dependance on society, rather than producing resources down from society that benefit society as a whole” by how we should see these people as a waste of $1 trillion per year… meaning the system we live in, don’t perceive as humans, but instead money loss and numbers. Moreover, the article I chose from Spain ‘Inequality in the access to healthcare: it’s no longer a topic about being rich or poor’ at the end of the page there is a rectangle that states ‘Although it may contain statements, data or notes from institutions or health professionals, the information contained in Medical Writing is edited and prepared by journalists. We recommend the reader that any questions related to health be consulted with a professional in the health field.’ my thought is… How are we able to trust the media when they are presenting us with retouched information by people who are being paid to write what their bosses tell them to portray to society? What they are trying to dissolve is independent thought process about how society is being ruled. Unfortunately our personal income taxes go to paying for our country’s infrastructure, social services, military, etc. is inaccurate, to say the least. Our personal income taxes first are collected by the US Treasury via the Internal Revenue Service, which sends the funds to the Federal Reserve, which is not a federal bank of any sort. The privately owned Federal Reserve (should be owned by the US), which is owned by the Rothschilds and, to a smaller extent, other banking families, then sends our tax dollars to its own Bank of England, which is located in the sovereign area of London called The City of London. The City of London has its own laws, security forces and military, completely independent of the rest of London and the entire United Kingdom. It is considered the most elite banking and economic center in the western world. The Bank of England, again, owned by the Rothschilds, sends our tax dollars to other central banks, all privately owned, and located in Europe. So, why pay this illegal personal income tax, that our own government can operate without? Because our government borrows heavily from the Rothschilds and must pay interest on these loans. Our personal income tax offsets these interest payments. Just to put the cherry on top, this is why Warren Buffett comes out in the video stating how the richer become richer and the poor become ‘poorer’, because the system is made to have inequality, instead of fight against it. Racism also exists, for people to look at differences against each other instead of working together as a society, and not as a ‘white race’, ‘black race’, or ‘asian race’ etc.

Computing, Climate change and Relationships

Key Words:

• -Relationships
• -Oppression
• -Communication
• -Technologies
• -Energy
• -Population/Community
• -Climate Change
• -Inequality

social roles – coffee shop example

‘how are all of your relationships?’

• balance the positive and negative on relationships
• relationships with strangers

who is ‘we’ in our relationships?

• lone ranger and tonto (native American assistant)
• mainstream press – manipulation in grouping even if you don’t feel involved
• Involved in same system

community of technologists

different backgrounds but also different treatment in present day

besides differences we are still caught up in the same systems

‘we’ is Global North Technologies:

• global north –

14% population

73% income

• global south –

86% population

27% income

• walled world – racism (united states with mexico), israel and palestine, cynical weaponization (UN allowing african migrants to drown in mediterranean trying to reach europe), asylum (australia)
• UK

is the biggest contrabutor to global change

-according to UNHCR by 2050 200 million climate refugees

-7/10 countries most affected by climate change are in Sub-Saharan Africa

climate change is a racist crisis

who is benefiting from climate change?

• EXTRACTION OF FOSSIL FUELS AND CARBON POLLUTION

what kind of foundations do WE technologists build on?

• machine learning
• cultural biases of the ASCII character
• Ramsey Nasser (programmer) … created arabic programming language called Alb for coding
• computing resources
• Fairphone 2 supply chain: Kongo metals contain in cellphones (cobalt for batteries) terrible labor condition (childs)
• from Kongo to Asia (terrible worker conditions)

computing contributes to climate change

• how energy efficiency might go in 2015
• 8% global energy associated with communication
• prediction within 2 years electricity usage will surpass aviation or shipping by 2020

internet comes from a research project funded by the US government

density of connections in global north is huge

• Edward Snowden:

survelliance such as NSA or GCHQ use for keeping tabs on internet users

• bitcoin:

-bitcoin uses more electricity than Nigeria

– 0.5% OF ALL GLOBAL ELECTRICITY

• Nigeria:

-186 million people

general distribution of resources:

• at least 20% of food is wasted globally while a billion or more go hungry
• empty homes outnumber homeless people 6 to 1 in US
• richest 1% are wealthier than the rest of the world combined
•   inequality between the richest and poorest nations increased from 33x to 134x from 1960 to 2000

who will you appeal to?

• Exxon knew about climate change half a century ago

book pedalogy of the oppressed by paulo freire

• “dialog cannot occur…between those who deny others the right to speak their word and those whose right to speak has been denied them”
• “whatever is good for the oppressor has got to be bad for us”

– Jeff bezos interests – space

– there are no purely technical solutions to political problems

what can a technologist do about climate change?

• -Bret Victor
• -clean energy
• -“it’s the role of technologists to create option for policy-makers”
• -create options for people, not mobilize as if for war

which side are you on?

• -65 million refugees
• -“if you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” by Aboriginal activists group, Queensland 1970s
• -“The coalition emerges out of your recognition that it’s fucked up for you, in the same way that we’ve already recognized that it’s fucked up for us. I don’t need your help. I just need you to recognize that this shit is killing you, too, however much more softly.” but Fred Moten

Grist:

• Ice apocalypse
• carbon emissions
• 11 feet of sea level rise if melted by 2050 flooding cities (Dhaka, Mumbai, Ho Chi Minh, New York

• -“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”

What is to be done?:

• Organize among ourselves against imperialism (ex. google workers against Project Maeven)
• Countering and sabotaging high tech surveillance and repression
• Building social computing spaces to change our relationships
• Design technology with ecology in mind
• Reduction in consumption by well-off classes
• Financial subsidy to all the movements, e.g. Cooperation Jackson
• Diversity and inclusion? Inclusion in what type of system?

Spain: https://www.elmundo.es/tecnologia/2020/03/31/5e830590fdddff09a88b4613.html

The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/03/14/cdc-manual-crisis-coronavirus-trump/

(reflection on next page)

REFLECTION:

My views about this video adding more information based on the articles make me realize that regardless of technological advances being extremely crucial in social development and that at least they should serve in adding into a better quality of living, in reality it is compromising our dignity, privacy and the way we communicate amongst each other. Adding to this, 5G technologies and artificial intelligence, although it is offering us a huge source of new information and efficiency in our every day lives, they are very powerful weapons that can be used against us bearing in mind by who is in charge of us. Big organizations such as Bill Gates foundation, UN, or most of mass media enterprises are controlled by that 1% with all the wealth in the world, that have publicly announced previously how we are overpopulated, manipulating us with climate change strategies, when in reality climate change has always been there and just because the poles are melting doesn’t mean it is a negative attribute. The same way the human race keeps on growing and evolving, so does nature, and mother earth. Bill Gates wants to implement a new way of interaction amongst masses with the new ID certificate to make sure you don’t have the virus. Masses get manipulated into this easily, because that same 1% are the owners of all the news companies in which we call ‘reliable’ but are just seducing you into a way of thinking, instead of letting you develop your own, oppressing new possible ideas of thinking. The newspaper article from Spain explains how having your location can be a positive thing to see if you are following the rules of the government by staying at home, but what you are really giving up is your privacy. As we can appreciate in the video we come across how global north technologies are connected and we can see how messages travel through the whole world and what ‘hands’ they pass by such as intelligence agencies to make sure you are cleared up and don’t fall into any outcasted or compromised group that might be sensitive to society. Communication we have stablished within each other I don’t believe to be organic or raw, eventually affecting future generations and their relationships, interactions, etc… It seems that the more years that go by ‘your background’ is not as judged or put under a light anymore as it would before, although racism is still a very sensitive topic to some. Backgrounds have always defined people for they are, however, what seems to be more important than that is how to control us in big groups that can be easier to move, what I am trying to explain is how that ‘we’ is basically based on owning a smartphone and ‘agreeing to terms and conditions’ when giving them access to your information. Moreover, in the Washington Post article when bashing Trump about his actions taken towards this health crisis is very bias, as they are also publishing how great the ID certificate is, knowing how damaging that is going to be for society, but so beneficial for metal factories, battery factories, etc… I just don’t take seriously anymore a source in which just by having a recognizable name means they are letting us know ‘what is best for us’ as if you dig a little deep and look up who funds and owns all these companies end up being the same funding UN, the Vatican, communist parties in certain countries etc… In which end up being that 1% of the population, who own all the resources, and are not really trying in sharing with the 99% of us because it would never be beneficial for their own interests, showing once again how inequality is just a resurfacing topic that seems to be foreshadowed in many countries.