📖 Header Reigniting the Future - Pocketpwaa 2025 Apologies for the lengthy hiatus, but we’re back! This will be (in similarity to WSC’s style of releasing content) a living guide. The additions we make to the document are in real-time.
Pocketpwaa, as of 2025, doesn’t use AI in any part of its chain of writing. We do not guarantee that all information is accurate, though we do try our best to revise any false information. Please inform us if you know of any inaccuracies.
Pocketpwaa is hosted on our website, https://pocketpwaa.org. If you see this document sourced from anywhere other than our website, do know that it is likely plagiarized. Please don’t fall for any online scams which may have this document behind a paywall.
How to Read Pocketpwaa (On Computers): (Wow, is this portion technically considered a guide of a guide? :p) (Oh yeah also this new addition makes it painful to read Pocketpwaa on mobile; sorry!)
You might notice the document seems empty. This is because we’re testing out a new formatting style for our study guide! I’d like you to turn attention to the top left. (See image)
Here, you’ll likely see one of two things:
A little tab indicator
A document tabs section
If you see the first image, click on that icon to expand it into the second image. Here, you can browse through the “document tabs”, where we’ve split the sections of curriculum into individual tabs! In this way, it’s easier to browse through the curriculum and find topics.
Here’s what the document tabs page should roughly look like. You can navigate to separate sections by clicking the buttons associated with each section like so:
(As of writing this, we only have the first two sections in. When the guide is complete, all of the sections will be listed accordingly!)
When you navigate to a section by clicking on it, I’d recommend clicking the 3 dots on the side, then choosing to “show outline”. This will pop up a tool which looks something like this:
This will make it easier to navigate through the content.
That’s it! Oh, and by the way, you might notice little tags at the end of each paragraph. These are our subject tags, in our attempt to organize the curriculum by subject as best as possible!
These subjects are Art & Music [ART], Social Sciences [SOC], Literature and Media [LIT], Science and Technology [SCI], History [HIS], and the Special Area [SPC]. I’ve also marked interpretive paragraphs as [INT]. Ideally, you should discuss these interpretive paragraphs with your team; if you’re in a time crunch, though, don’t fret skipping over these.
And that’s about all for now! Happy studying!
*Now that you’re down here, you may’ve noticed that you can also navigate to upcoming sections by scrolling down to the bottom of a page and clicking on the button which appears at the bottom of the screen. Try it now!
Pocketpwaa 2025 by Ethan Wang is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 ⛳ Introductory Questions Introductory Questions - Ethan: Hello World! I have returned.
I find it quite interesting that not a single study guide service (at least, one I know of) has publicly summarized these introductory questions. I find it a shame that many are disregarding this section, considering it has plenty (far more than I’d expect from an “Introductory Question” section) of challenge-worthy content topics and questions.
For as belated as Pocketpwaa is, we’re somehow at the top of the game for summarizing this very first portion of the curriculum!
Rip Van Winkle slept for twenty years, Steve Rogers for seventy, Aang for a hundred—in each case, with remarkably little impact on their health. (Rip Van Winke did grow some facial hair.) Imagine that you went through something similar and woke up in the year 2120 (albeit with neither superpowers nor supercharged follicles.) How quickly do you think you’d notice you were in the future? Would beds feel different? Would chairs be strange shapes? Would there be funky new food in the fridge? Would there still be a Global Round in Bangkok? Outside your home, would you encounter a strange new society or one roughly like our own? Or would you encounter no society at all, just a picturesque (and probably terrifying) post-apocalyptic landscape? [LIT, SPC] The first portion of this year’s curriculum is already an intriguing one. There’s a lot to unpack with time-travel shenanigans, especially if they’re not “true time-travel”. Without further ado, let’s get started!
Note all characters here are fictional.
Rip Van Winkle is the main character of a Dutch-American short story of the same name. Written by Washington Irving, also Dutch-American, the story follows Rip as he falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains (New York), only to wake up 20 years later.
To provide context, Rip’s story is set in early colonial America, where his lifestyle largely involves avoiding as much work as possible (sound familiar? xd). After meeting a group of mysterious men in the mountains, where he intoxicates himself, he ends up falling asleep. Through the 20 years he was sleeping, the American Revolution happens.
(He also ends up growing a large, white beard.)
Interestingly, this story comes out of a spark of ingenuity from the author, a man who had in fact never been to the Catskill mountains. It comes from a thought brought up in a nostalgic conversation about their past in the region.
Below: An illustration of Rip Van Winkle
Steve Rogers, known by more as his alias Captain America, has a canonical instance of being frozen for decades. I’m no MCU fan, but I do have the power of Wikipedia to explain the context :p
As explained in his backstory, Steve was a super-soldier in WWII, having taken a serum which provided him with increased athleticism, endurance, and speed. In a fight with the Nazi organization Hydra, Steve sacrifices himself, ultimately crashing into the arctic and entering a suspended-animation state for ~70 years. He is eventually revived by S.H.I.E.L.D, America’s government protection agency. A large part of his character arc revolves around trying to come to terms with the fact he’s traveled 70 years into the future and lost basically all his family since.
(There’s a slightly different story in the comic books, but the general information is the same)
Below: Steve Rogers (better known as Captain America)
Aang is the protagonist of the popular anime The Last Airbender.
Born into a world where the 4 nations (Earth, Fire, Water, and Air) were in balance, Aang learns he is the incarnation of the “Avatar” (seemingly some sort of deity). Being 12 at the time, he was overwhelmed with this news, running away and accidentally trapping himself in an iceberg within a storm by instinct. Upon being woken up by members of the Water nation, he learns of his century-long slumber (What do you mean sleeping for 100 years is not a typical activity for 12 years olds??). During this period, the 4 nations had gone out of balance (the hundred year war), especially with the Fire nation declaring war against the others to solidify their dominance and mitigate the risk of the Avatar.
(Apologies to the Avatar: TLA fans for possibly butchering the story :p)
Below: Aang (Avatar: TLA)
Reading over this, I realize how bland my descriptions are. I swear these characters are more interesting than my quickly-written 30 second excerpts!
“Slice of life” is more than a film genre: research everyday life in the years 1825 and 1925 to learn more about how much things changed between those two years and between 1925 and now. Has the rate of change in your community slowed down or sped up–or does it depend on what you’re looking at? [LIT, HIS] The Slice of Life film genre is exactly what it sounds like: all media which falls in this category depicts holistic, realistic scenarios in peoples lives. First popularized as a criticism of certain TV dramas in the 1950s, a “Slice of Life” media is one with notably little plot, character development, and timeline. Rather, it depicts seemingly arbitrary and “realistic” portrayals of the lives of its referenced people, most significant for having their so-called “open endings”. The aim of this genre largely lies in letting audiences make their own interpretations of characters.
A different subsection of this genre exists in anime/manga, where a story revolves around characters in relatable, everyday scenarios. These usually focus on romantic relationships set in place at high schools or workplaces. The subsection of slice of life is sometimes criticized for being “too drama-filled”, bordering on the line of being realistic.
Funnily enough, there’s a subgenre of Japanese Slice of life (so a subgenre of a subgenre of a genre!) which eliminates the romantic attraction present in most Japanese Slice of Life films. This subgenre, commonly titled “air-type”, is akin to typical slice of life films; both of these typically focus on genuine, unfiltered development of characters*.
*If AI detector-flagged writing competitions existed, I’d be amazing at them :p
As for developments between 1825 and 1925, this is largely an open topic. I’ll highlight a few interesting things which happened in this time period:
Sadly, I couldn’t find a person who lived during this period to interview about their experiences. Transcripts of interviews of general people at the time largely don’t exist either, as interviews only began in 1836 (You will not need to remember this date, though the history of interviews was in the past year’s curriculum!)
A hundred years is a long time. What if the same thing happened, but you woke up (like Rip Van Winkle!) only 20 years in the future? What do you imagine the year 2045 will be like for students like you? What are the easiest things to predict–and what are the hardest? [INT] This is purely discussional. Feel free to discuss this with teammates.
Historically, future technology has been ridiculously difficult to predict. I’ll reference some predictions by a French artist in the 1900s, Jean Marc Cote, to show how different future technologies can be from what we believe they will be. He did predict some things correctly, but the aesthetic of the machines he predicted were… not close at all.
I found it surprising that many people didn’t foresee the possibility of ChatGPT’s existence. The technology has been there for a while! (It just wasn’t successfully commercialized until then.) This really does underscore how no matter how advanced we are, the future always holds things which don’t even fit in our scope of imagination.
I see 20 years from now to be filled with holographic devices and cloud-computing dominance. 20 years from now could also be societal ruin. Maybe aliens will visit and give us immortality technology. There’s really no knowing what could happen!
Some things catch fire literally, others metaphorically—and the fires that most interest us are those happening for at least the second time. Without reading the rest of this outline, brainstorm with your friends what it could mean for something to re-ignite, and how different that is than igniting in the first place. When is it better for something to burn twice? And is there a difference between burning up, burning down, and burning with? [INT] There’s some science to fire which can be explored in regards to this paragraph. The science of literal fire is expanded on later in the curriculum, so keep your eyes open!
Aindra (of BISV): if you’re reading this, you probably know exactly what I’m thinking- at least in regards to this paragraph. I shalln’t reveal this directly in text, but I feel compelled to mention a strong desire to talk about… something specific. Perhaps I’ll grow out of this interest eventually.
Maybe, one day, I’ll reflect on this paragraph with a bittersweet sense of nostalgia. What I’m writing right now seems like something I’ll look back at in 10 years time, thinking: Was I really that bad at writing?
Shoot– nostalgia was a 2024 topic– whoopsies!
There’s no denying that some things excite our passions. For some of you, maybe, World Scholar’s Cup is that kind of cause; others of you might thrill to the fight against global climate change, a big boss in the Forgotten Land, or the harmful impacts of social media. But what would it take to have your feelings about something (or somewhere or someone) re-ignited? Under what circumstances does a person leave a project, then return to it with new zeal? [INT]
The “Forgotten Land” described above can refer to many things, though I think it’s a reference to Kirby and the Forgotten Land. In brief, very concise words, this game follows Kirby finding an abandoned civilization dubbed “the new world”. I doubt WSC will test this, though the themes of this game do match futurism (cloning, space-time rifts, all that juicy stuff)!
The last sentence here reminds me of Steve Jobs– he was fired from Apple, only to be rehired later on. It’s not an exact match of the description, but it’s pretty close! Not long ago, the future beckoned with open arms. Many people at the beginning of the 20th century–and even at its conclusion!–were certain that social and technological progress would continue endlessly, that there was a kind of Moore’s Law for everything. (At least one influential thinker still believes this.) Consider the musical selection “Counting Up to Twenty” as just one example of this boundless optimism. In those not-so-long-ago times, forecasts for the future were exuberant—and sometimes even exuberantly dull. How do you see the future, and how does your view compare to that of the older people in your life? [SOC, ART]
Funnily, the article mentioned here by hyperlink is not the actual essay of this motivational thinker; rather, it’s a summary and analysis of it. If the WSC team is trying to flood our minds with more people and perspectives, they’re doing a wonderful job of it.
Sam Altman, Mr. ChatGPT himself. The man so endearing with his very closed company, ironically named OpenAI, decides to adopt a future lens which, also ironically, involves many resources being “open”.
Moore’s law is something that will be covered in more detail later in the curriculum. Briefly, it’s the thought that technologies will become half as expensive every 2-ish years. Altman brings this thought to the next level, suggesting that the “AI revolution” (described by him as the 4th industrial revolution) will allow for all general products to face the same growth. (He then gives examples of robots building houses, robots building robots, etc.)
Altman suggests a potential governmental system of what I can only describe as “capitalistic communism”, where everybody would receive an income of $13,500 yearly (which would allegedly have more value, considering everything becomes exponentially cheaper). He ends his spiel with a bit of financial jargon, posing the idea of tying taxes + land (a fixed commodity) to GDP growth among other things.
The political-economic lens is certainly controversial. To get around this, Sam Altman pitches his essay as a “conversation starter”. That’ll surely keep him out of heated waters!
(It will most likely not be mentioned, but Dan Tao is the summary writer.)
The WSC team never ceases to fascinate me with how capable they are of finding obscure songs which fit their exact parameters. The song mentioned here, Counting up to Twenty - Michael Crawford, is the epitome of the unique mood that the curriculum evokes.
I recall the video had a little over 2.5k views when I first saw it. It now has over 15k views. That’s the thing about the Scholar’s Cup; its impact is that scalable. I just have to imagine these content creators are getting confused: “Why is this niche music video from 12 years ago suddenly getting attention??”
This song actually has a deeper background than you’d imagine. Counting up to Twenty appeared on the largest theater installation in the world, EFX, which ran in the Las Vegas Strip from 1995 to 2002. In brief, EFX’s plot resided around celebrating human creativity and imagination, taking its audience members through acted stories of famous fictional characters.
This rendition of the song, by Michael Crawford, was part of the original cast album. (EFX was most known for switching its lead actor every 2 years, Michael being the first of 4 in total.) Eventually, he was forced to retire because of injuries sustained by action stunts. The replacement of Michael with David Cassidy is where controversy begins, with the removal of this soundtrack from the show (among others).
As for the song itself, it is H. G. Wells’ song in the show. The lyrics describe optimism and growth over time, characterizing the passage of time and new world developments as “counting up to twenty”. Its undeniably catchy chorus segment (which I have been subject to via the uncommonly-known brother signing at the top of his lungs disease) is as follows:
Counting up to twenty Has been difficult for some But as we learn to count to twenty Should be easy to get to twenty-one
It’s most likely an optimistic song for advancements into the future, though I’m not fully sure. I suspect that the numbers twenty and twenty-one are representative of the shift into the new century, moving from the 20th century to the 21st. EFX ran between 1995 and 2002, so it makes sense! “The best is yet to be,” wrote the English poet Robert Browning, a phrase often quoted (out of context) to evoke a sense of possibility and hope. But we now live, many people are saying, in a pessimistic age–in which some people even avoid having children to protect them from the grim days ahead. If you met someone who was sure the future would be full of suffering, would you try to give them hope again? If so, what would you tell them? [SOC] WSC is tackling politics now! This time around, it’s certainly more fiery than previous years. Now that I think of it, Donald Trump’s skin tone does bear an uncanny resemblance to the color of flames; coincidence? probably lol
This addition here is a bit abrupt, as I just realized there is something I could expand on here. The paragraph makes mention to a quote, so I’ll discuss it quickly with what I found.
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright who made a reputation of being a philosopher or sage in his works. He’s most notable for irony, characterization, dark humor, and social commentary.
His iconic “the best is yet to be” quote comes from his poem Rabbi Ben Ezra. The quote falls into the context of being about aging, the purpose of life, and trusting god. Specifically, the line expresses a belief that divine power shapes our lives, with the purpose of life becoming clearer as you grow up. Youth is a period in life when you think everything is simple, with it getting more deep and connected as you grow on.
In modern contexts, the quote is used as an optimistic phrase about the future. It doesn’t exactly match the usage of the quote back in the poem, but it does reflect similar overarching themes of progress. Rather, the poem reflects an era of faith and progress present in the Victoria era.
What we have here is a pretty brief analysis by Ezra Klein, cofounder of Vox. He makes the claim that Donald Trump’s frequent outlandish claims are reflective of underlying themes and messages many Americans are afraid to say, as opposed to his old age. He says what he believes straight up. (As seen in comments made about the Iraq war, Immigration, China, etc.)
This comes with the popularization of “woke media” and left-winged societal standards, where many opinions are becoming increasingly less voiced. I find the shock of Trump’s landslide victory in the 2024 election to result largely from an unbalanced representation in media; while it is socially sensible to keep “radical opinions” out of the public view, these opinions are clearly reflected in the election.
Trump’s voice primarily comes from a disregard of public sense and opinion, something that many are divided on. Some believe that his interjections are representative of underlying American values which go unshared by the press, while others think of these comments as insensible, rash, and childish. Klein is personally on the side of “rash, unwise”.
This second article was one from the 2024 curriculum. I seldom saw it mentioned in the challenge last year, but nevertheless I’ll resummarize it (in 2025 style now!)
Bryan Walsh wrote this article in hopes to push an optimistic agenda of the future. This article branches out into 6 categories, each discussing different advancements and topics related to so-called “changeable optimism” (a term by Hannah Ritchie describing a positive-lensed motivation to make change). These 6 sub-articles, briefly, are:
Human Progress is persistent and necessary: This article dives deep into an analysis of global change over time, describing the improvements of nourishment, fertility rate, and technologies. Some discussion revolves around the Malthusian Trap, a case of over-progress where population exceeds agricultural output. The result is also expanded on, quoting Roosevelt’s four freedoms of speech and self-actualization.
Slowing down AI is a good idea: The article discusses the doomsday AI, noting that its creation has not come yet and how slowing down AI may help us mitigate it. The alignment problem is raised, an issue with how AIs need to be carefully instructed to prevent catastrophe. An optimal solution is then raised: flattening the curve of AI advancement. (The article also rebuts some claims abt AI advancements)
Climate Optimism is good, but only when it’s right: This article pitches changeable optimism, the view people should have when considering climate change. Pitting public negativity with climate advancements (solar, wind, nuclear), this article suggests that while it is human nature for pessimism to arise, these advancements should warrant other thoughts . It describes changeable optimism as “a mindset where one is positive about the future, but knows that they need to take action rather than sit around”.
News’ negativity: Negativity sells and receives clicks. In regards to human bias, research shows negativity is more evoking, thus it is incentivizable for outlets to show negative media. In solving this, the article suggests finding good news and giving support to them, reflecting large media providers’ loss of monopolization of their market. By hijacking the algorithm of media by reacting to positivity, we can push it further.
The Netherlands’ hyper-efficient agricultural system: Comparing the Netherlands and California with their respective technological advancements, this article introduces the “seed valley”- an area of technological innovation in agriculture in Holland. By modifying seeds to be more robust and efficient, they can bring change in agriculture. The article mentions the Yield Gap, a barrier which poses that less-wealthy nations have less capability to produce efficiently. In this, research in seed efficiency to narrow the yield gap is racing against the clock of climate change (which could widen such gap).
Indigenous folklore and its reflection of modernity: This article touches up on the common legend of Turtle island, with recreation and destruction as its themes; it then goes on to describe its similarities to the colonial era as well as the future. The indigenous medicine wheel is the centerpiece of this, with segments of yellow, black, red, and white representing seasons, medicines, and the cycle of life. Comparing it to colonial history, the wheel represents how we can persevere over cycles of hardship.
Wow that took way too long to write
I know it’s formatted like AI, and I sincerely wish I chose to use it lol - this is all human-made, and it was PAINFUL
The third article here is a huge tonal shift from the second. Yep, from positivity to negativity.
We now discuss how climate scientists, the people surveying climate change, are becoming increasingly hesitant to having children, seeing that over 1/5th of them responded so within a survey. This belief largely exists because of fear- the fear that their children won’t thrive in the world due to climate issues, and a fear that more population leads to more emissions. While such survey was based on older respondents, whose decisions to have children in the past were based on the less-“bad” climate situation then, it can also be observed that younger respondents show the same fear, though mostly due to concern over their children’s wellbeing as opposed to reducing their contribution to climate change.
On the topic of population control, a few scientists made claims that reducing population is the key to preserving biodiversity. On a similar note, others deem their “legacies” as transferable through education of their beliefs, rather than having children.
This rising population fear does have ties to topics outside of climate, though. Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (1968) raised both genuine concerns over population growth and outlash for its possible views of racism (seeing as Asia and Africa are growing population centers right now). In the debate of environmental crisis, though, the consumption of the “top 1%” is often neglected, despite the obvious nature of their actions contributing the most to climate change. One surveyee deemed these “large rich families” as self-centered and irresponsible.
There is also division in some cultures regarding population control, leading to issues in the Southern Hemisphere where women largely do not have the autonomy to choose how many children they have. In light of this, the lack of surveys in these regions makes sense.
Take a step back from the broader future to zoom in on small things that can also be recalled to life with new vitality: musical bands, TV shows, even products once abandoned to museums and overstock warehouses. (For instance, walk around your school and may spot someone buzzing about with a film camera.) We’ll investigate them more later in this outline, but, for now, what other dead or derelict institutions, products, or trends do you think will become popular again in our lifetimes? Is there a restaurant that you and your family miss that you wish would be revived—and how much effort would you be willing to put into that revival? [INT] I’ll probably get to adding personal commentary eventually. Currently, I’m focused on finishing up the content here- check back later to see if this is complete!
While actual resurrection is probably still impossible, individuals can still be recalled to life in different ways, as in this first book of A Tale of Two Cities–whether it is after incarceration, illness, or a different kind of darkness. Do you know anyone who has found a new lease on life in this way? How can we best support someone who is starting over again? [LIT]
There’s no way I am reading this series in its entirety, sorry folks :p (In all fairness, the book has a Flesch–Kincaid level of 9.5, where anything below a 10 is considered “Extremely difficult to read, best for professionals”)
As for a summary which touches on this “first” book, here it is:
Appropriately named “Book the First”, the first entry to A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens) has a more interesting second half of its title. In full, the title is “Book the First: Recalled to Life”. This book has that one famous opening line, commonly seen in placeholder texts:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
The rest of this first book is considerably less popular, though. The series itself is most notorious for being a boring high-school reading series (though I personally haven’t been subject to this yet, phew!).
Recalled to life follows Jarvis Lorry and Lucie Manette. In the beginning, Lorry receives a cryptic message coded with a secret journey he needs to take. The message reading “recalled to life”, Lorry eventually pieces together his task– to retrieve Dr. Alexandre Manette, having been incarcerated in the Bastille and believed to be dead. Lorry eventually meets Lucie, who is overwhelmed at the discovery her father is alive.
In Paris, the two eventually find Dr. Manette in Defarge’s wine shop obsessively making shoes (a skill he learned in prison). Having been reduced to a fragile, ghost-like state, he initially doesn’t recognize Lucie. This first book ends with the two taking Manette back to England, Lucie attempting to rekindle the “man that Dr. Manette was”.
In this story, the “recalling to life” isn’t taken to a literal level (i.e. resurrections, reincarnation); rather, it uses the phrase as an analogy for Dr. Manette’s character recovery. His “dead” refers to his hollow, soulless traits within the prison; his “life” refers to his family and being out of prison. This underlying narrative of redemption/renewal is indeed carried along in the series, with later major characters facing its implications.
I’ve seen a very similar story to this; this tale follows a man being imprisoned for decades, a loss of self-identity, and an eventual reconciliation. Of course, I’m referring to the Count of Monte Cristo. I first saw it in musical form when watching the Wildhorn Musical adaptation of the story, and it’s stuck with me since.
This isn’t part of the curriculum specifically, I just thought it would be interesting to comment on. Who knows? I have faith in WSC putting niche stories with vaguely similar storylines into the challenge.
🏙️ The Best is Yet to Be, or Not to Be? The Best is Yet to Be, or Not to Be? - Ethan
In 2009, the Australian government announced an ambitious project to provide super-fast fiber-based Internet to 93% of the population; in 2013, it revised the plan to reuse existing copper wire; in 2025, many Australians still have no (or slow) Internet. First promise big things, then revise the promise to make them little things, then don’t finish them anyway. This isn’t (we hope) a description of the World Scholar’s Cup curriculum release process, but a pattern of behavior for governments all over the world. Discuss with your team: is it better to underpromise and overdeliver, or vice versa? [SCI]
In short, the Australian Broadband Network (a fancy way of saying “Systems which can transfer internet connection quickly”) seems to be stuck in a cyclical loop of slight incompletion. In long, you’ve got the rest of this summary:
Back in the 2000s, Australia decided that fast internet access was a good thing. In this era, Telstra (the major internet company) proposed this network with itself at the center. While this idea stagnated for a while, the Labor Party (Left-winged) eventually settled on plans to build a FTTP network in 2007. (Along it came a promise for universal 25mbps internet speed.) This decision ended up being economically moronic, the Liberal Party (Right-winged) overhauling the idea and replacing their plans with a FTTN network.
For a bit of clarification, FTTP stands for Fibre-to-the-premise, built on the suggestion to connect every household to a fiber optic (internet) cable. This operation is far more costly than its alternative, Fiber-to-the-node (FTTN), where fibre optic cables connect large hubs of internet traffic together and traditional TV/phone wires are used to connect households to these hubs. The tradeoff of FTTN is its lack of reliability and shorter lifespan.
I put together this guide to make it slightly easier to understand:
It’s not fully accurate, but it’s a good representation of what these two mean. (There’s also FTTC, which is kind of in the middle of these two).
Continuing on with the story, this project ended up being critically over budget and terribly managed, with one instance of investing billions on cables which were incompatible with the goal. Though interestingly, through this period of development, Australia’s economy did better than other, more connected countries in terms of sales in connectivity and online streaming services.
Finally, in late 2020, this massively overbudget project was deemed complete. A final rush to complete the decade long development came in Mid 2020, reducing the number of unconnected households from 100,000 to 35,000. The minister of communications, Paul Fletcher, did confess that a small number of households will continuously exist without connection; he mentioned this is due to the cyclical nature of building households and connecting them: essentially, new houses are being built at a similar rate to houses being connected. It is worth mentioning that 230,000 households are still unable to meet the 25mbps broadband speed standard.
But at least 11.86 million households can!
(Alongside press release statement was a comment on improving internet safety for children.)
Don’t worry, Australia—you’re not alone. (More on loneliness later.) In Canada, a proposed high-speed rail network had its target speed slashed before being rebranded as a high frequency network. In many developed countries, ambitious projects have gone out of fashion in favor of slow, incremental ones. Check out the mega projects below, as well as those from your own country, then discuss with your team: is this shift in approach justified? How might megaprojects (or their failure) affect the way people perceive progress? And are some countries more consistently successful at these projects? [SCI, HIS]
Canadian high speed rail (and high speed rail in general) is something I’ve had my eye on for a while; being a Canadian myself, I both desperately want it to exist and constantly worry about the debt we’d need to pay in order for its existence to surface.
Canadian trains suck. Via Rail only runs 50% on time (As of late 2023), costs $300 between Toronto and Montreal, and takes about the same amount of time as driving. In this way, they’ve made taking a train take as long as driving while making it as expensive and inconvenient as taking a plane. No high speed rail option exists (and yet it used to???? See turbotrain), making Canada the only G7 country not to have HSR.
(Admittedly, the US’ high speed rail system barely counts; the Acela, their fastest train service, can only operate at “high speed” for a 80km stretch. Even then, it doesn’t even hit the internationally recognized 250kmph high speed mark!)
Canada, ironically, is renowned for its numerous studies on high speed rail (as in a “let’s continuously prepare but never actually do” kinda view). High-speed researchers typically have their eyes on two corridors; one is the path between Calgary and Edmonton, and the other is the “Windsor Corridor” (Between Toronto and Quebec City). The common conclusion is that while these lines could boost GDP and tourism, their costs are too monumental to consider them seriously. Despite this concern, many politicians use the promise of HSR as a marketing strategy.
Below: Canada’s rail in the Windsor Corridor
Expanding on study findings, HSR is probably logistically impossible in Canada. Land acquisition costs, planning/surveying costs, rail costs, and train costs are all factors preventing its existence. Another consideration is density, which Canada notoriously lacks; HSR only succeeded in Europe, Japan, and China because they’re dense enough to warrant demand.
As a temporary fix, Canada proposes a “higher-frequency” train service. This could improve efficiency and reduce delays, although it wouldn’t develop this renowned technologies. Though, this plan could fix a large problem with Canadian trains: freight trains. The main cause for delays currently with Via Rail is that it has lower priority than freight trains, owning very little of the track it runs on and thus requiring to borrow others’ tracks.
Here’s where this article ends. But this story continues on! I find it very likely WSC will reference new developments in Canadian High Speed Rail.
The Government of Canada recently (and I mean very recently) announced a High-speed rail project now going underway: Alto! A group of companies have been commissioned to plan, then build a rail line in the Windsor corridor. This line is proposed to have a top speed of 300kmph and save hours of travel time; it’s worth mentioning that this length of track is close to optimal for High Speed Rail length.
Proposals for a second HSR line do exist as well, with Prairie Link as the other major consideration (Calgary to Edmonton). Supposedly there are proposals of a train going 450kmph!
(Beginning here, summarizations will probably become shorter. I just happened to know quite a bit about High Speed Rail and Canada.)
We’re generalizing a bit here, now moving onto the topic of megaprojects. This article (which is slightly outdated, released in 2015) discusses a bit of what makes megaprojects in-incentivized going into the future.
Megaprojects—projects defined to cost at least $1 billion—make up 8% of the global GDP, with China most responsible for this number considering their dozens of operations in infrastructure. Bent Flyvbjerg, a management professor, mentions that such Megaprojects are often poorly executed and massively overbudget, succumbing to over optimistic estimates dubbed as a “survival of the unfittest” scenario. In essence, optimistic cost estimates motivates large projects to be built over practical, smaller ones.
(It is also mentioned motivations come from social and political factors, too– having the tallest building or the largest HSR system in the world is something to talk about!)
His colleague, Atif, mentions that these projects often fall into a cyclical issue he dubs “like entropy”: a large time period for completion means a large potential for setbacks and unexpected events, which means a large potential for delays. Large delays means longer times, which mean more setbacks, which means larger delays, and so on. He dubs these setbacks as “black swans”, referring to the black swan theory: the larger something is, the larger the opportunity for issues is.
One thing to note is that Megaprojects are sort of recession-proof, as they do provide economic stimulus during times of stagnation. However, their recession-proof-ness more so comes from the fact it is more cost effective to begin/continue a project than it is to stop.
A Seattle Megaproject involving Bertha, a tunnel-boring machine, is an exemplary example of this position. Having overheated only 11% of the way through a project, the repair efforts involved spending a year to dig down to it, replacing its parts by lifting the machine out, pumping out the water that got in its way, and fixing the city’s foundation (as parts of it began to sink with instability from the operation). The whole process was a disaster which ended up delaying the project and receiving lawsuits.
Below: An image of Bertha
Another notable consideration of megaprojects is the public’s view on them, surveyed in detail for the Indonesian Suramadu Bridge. While positive effects are felt at the regional and national levels, the locals might a contesting view about the project.
Megaprojects in general have a few positive impacts and advantages, to begin with. From typical megaprojects which deliver goods to developments in technology, they can be seen as a globalisation strategy in a competitive lens. It’s pretty easy to see where the motivations for these come from; not only do they provide straight-up economic benefits (employment, trade, tourism, business), they also have social benefits providing symbolism as cultural / national icons. They may act as a symbol of pride for a country in this regard.
In terms of typical perception on megaprojects, it’s found that people do prefer the tangible benefits over the intangible ones, though over 50% of ppl still fancy the “national pride” type of benefits. However, there are quite a few things to consider when surveying, seeing as locals in the area of the megaproject have differing views based on living condition and as public perception changes over time. The fact is these megaprojects are contested in nature, so increasingly the public opinion is beginning to be considered as a factor.
As for the project itself, the Suramadu Bridge (while not exactly a megaproject) could be scaled as such to consider the opinions of the locals there. The first concepts for this project popped up in 1960, though it was only completed in the mid 2000s. Through the 1990s, feasibility studies were conducted and the plan was set, the associated survey affirming most people were well informed about the project. Despite negative externalities including loss of religious identity, local employment, and failing mini-projects, the overall construction was regarded as positive overwhelmingly, with economic/tourist/business boosts and increase of quality of personal life.
The part under most controversy is the context of cultural situationship and awareness, where some groups did regard the project as damaging. Overall, it’s valuable to consider people’s changing views of megaprojects over time; The Suramadu Bridge was largely a lucky scenario where locals ended up agreeing with the project.
Below: Suramadu Bridge
We now enter this area of varied megaprojects WSC gives us to explore. They’re deliberately divided into these three sections as following:
I’ll summarize each one pretty briefly, so I may skip over some historical details about the megaprojects. They’ll be smaller than my typical summarizations for articles.
The Big Dig was a megaproject in Boston regarded as a large failure in planning and management. While eventually completed in late 2007, the rerouting operation of Boston’s highways costed nearly thrice as much as the price projection, not to mention the project being delayed by almost a decade. The project’s largest contribution were rerouting some parts of Interstate 93 underground and adding a road from Interstate 90 to Logan International Airport, though other additions included extending and restoring public transport lines.
(A large sub-portion of this project, the Inner Belt project, was cancelled due to controversies of such highway crossing through dense areas with populations reluctant to relocation.)
The largest problems with the Big Dig were largely in part due to their substandard materials. Seeing as the concrete and construction materials for the underground tunnels didn’t meet standards (both in overall quality and accurate placement in tunnels), issues including water leaks began arising. One fatal roof collapse is also partially due to this. (Some smaller issues came with lighting and guardrails.)
While the aftermath of the tunnel was positive, with economic and efficiency benefits, the project was undoubtedly a failure. (OPINION!)
Below: Construction areas of the Big Dig
The Chunnel (Channel Tunnel) was more successful in planning and development, its cost in fact being lower than its projection (though, still the most expensive project at the time). This tunnel, connecting the closest points between France and the UK, features separate sections for cars and a built-in high speed rail system. While this project was first posed in 1802, a few unsuccessful attempts were made before the project, now organized by Eurotunnel, began in 1988. Since its opening in 1994, the tunnel has been profitable!
Since then, there have been a few incidents in the area, largely due to one-off occasions where things inside the tunnel would catch on fire. Some train failures also occurred, though plans have been made to circumvent this again.
Actually, the most interesting part about this tunnel is the issue it created with immigration. Now that there was a “land” border from France to the UK, an issue of illegal migration (primarily due to loopholes with the train system) began to arise, one which seemingly is fixed now. As the UK is not part of Europe’s Schengen Area, new legislation had to be worked to make sure the tunnel didn’t cause any issues.
Below: The Chunnel’s path
California’s High Speed Rail (CASHR) is a publicly funded megaproject currently underway, notorious for having constant project delays and costing a ridiculous amount of money. While common remarks on Elon Musk’s hyperloop delaying this project do come up, the project is most impeded by legal issues, including land acquisition and research on impacts. For now, 192km of track is being built on the IOS (Initial operating segment), which would have a length of 275km when complete.
The IOS is designed to test out trains and systems before continuing onto the main stages of development for this project. Connecting small cities in the middle of the proposed project, the IOS is the baseline for the upcoming phases of the HSR (projected to begin operation in 2031). Phase 1 of the project would see a line from Los Angeles to San Francisco built, with a cost projection of 106.2 billion as of now. Phase 2 may or may not happen, planning to connect this line with Sacramento and San Diego.
If ever complete, CASHR would host the US’ fastest trains, with a top operating speed of 350kmph proposed. It would cut down travel time from LA to SF by 6 hours (as an optimistic forecast).
(Additional notes: There’s another HSR project being constructed in the same area, though this one is run by a private company–Brightline! This plans to connect LA with Las Vegas, NV and has a maximum operating speed of 300kmph.)
Below: CASHR’s proposed map
Sejong city is a city not many people have heard of. To understand its existence, we must first understand the different kinds of “capitals” a country can have. While the much more famous Seoul is the effective capital city of South Korea, Sejong is the administrative capital. The city is relatively new, only having begun in 2007 as a “new planned capital meant to decongest Seoul”. (In essence, it was planned in a political campaign to distribute South Korea’s economic activity elsewhere.) Being a self-governing city, it follows a special set of laws different from the rest of South Korea (marginally similar to Hong Kong and China).
To clarify Sejong’s “Capital status”, most of South Korea’s government affairs are handled in Sejong. As a compromise to an anti-Sejong lawsuit by the opposing government party, the definition had to be shifted slightly.
Sejong was designed to be a “smart city” (cities with common IoT integrations, akin to what you’d imagine a future city would look like) and is sort of a gold standard for other cities developing smart city infrastructure. The success of Sejong is debatable, as while the city markets itself as a Seoul alternative with lower living costs and similar features, its low population (of about 400,000) suggests the operation wasn’t popular. It has been criticized for being inaccessible, poorly designed, and inconvenient at times.
I got a lot of insight from this Half of Interesting video, so be sure to check it out!
(A fact many people seem to reference is that Sejong gets its name from Sejong the Great, the 4th king of Korea’s Joseon Dynasty and the creator of the Korean writing system.)
Hambantota is largely a similar operation to Sejong City, though this time in Sri Lanka. After being hit by a giant Tsunami in 2004, the city began going through major constructions to make it the “second major urban hub of Sri Lanka”. 2013 saw the completion of an international airport and major sea port. The port is of particular interest, as its eventual construction (consisting of 3 phases) would, when complete, make it the largest port in South Asia.
China’s Belt and Road initiative is largely involved in Hambantota’s operations, Chinese companies investing a 70% stake into their port alongside developing Sri Lanka’s first wind-energy farm. Conspiracies float about China’s involvement in Hambantota being part of their “String of Pearls” strategy (involving applying political pressure to India and solidifying the country’s dominance in Asia), which has led to some debate.
As for its current non-Chinese connected exports, Hambantota largely produces cement, fertiliser, and salt. The city also hosts the Mahinda International Stadium, built initially for the 2011 Cricket World Cup.
NEOM is by far the largest project on this list, quite literally a “mega-megaproject”. If ever completed, it would comprise of all of Saudi Arabia’s individual megaprojects, including the much more infamous “Oxagon” and “The Line” projects alongside their other propositions. The project, projected to cost over 8.8 TRILLION in total, would be larger than all of the other projects combined– in fact, it wouldn’t even be close. This giant project, as an autonomous city region, is the core of Saudi Arabia’s goal of distancing its economy from oil moving into the future.
NEOM’s project proposals first launched in 2017, hoping to complete large parts of an initially smaller scale operation by 2025 and expand it by 2025; the project ended up largely falling behind schedule, however. Much of the city is now hoped to be done by 2039, though the planned area of 26,500km^2 does make this hope quite ambitious. NEOM is certainly in progress, though; its first section, Sindalah (a luxury island destination), was opened to the public in October 2024!
This megaproject is notoriously flooded with controversies and problems largely derivative of its ambitious nature. The most famous example is the forced relocation of the local Howeitat tribe, who were initially not opposed to NEOM but inevitably turned on it after relocation attempts. In the scuffle, a few people were executed for anti-compliance. Other criticisms come with NEOM’s abusive work culture and its planned data collection. It’s also speculated Israel is largely invested in the project, despite the two countries’ typically sour relationship.
Perhaps the most famous portion of NEOM is The Line, a conceptualized 170km long linear “smart city” designed without cars, streets, or carbon emissions. It has been delayed constantly, has fell under scrutiny for project management corruption, and has at points been completely abandoned. Right now, the hope is for the first 800m for completion by 2034.
There’s so much more to NEOM that I haven’t discussed, so I recommend you check it out!
(Amalia mentioned that NEOM is an arcology in her quiz. While this is not fully correct, as an arcology refers to a single structure rather than a collection, it is indeed the closest answer to correct. The Line, more accurately, is an arcology.)
The Khazar Islands were a planned collection of 41 manmade islands in the Capsian sea located in Azerbaijan (similar to the islands in Dubai). They’re located slightly south of Baku, the capital and largest city in the nation. The islands were planned with an airport, numerous city amenities, an F-1 racetrack, and their magnum opus: the Azerbaijan Tower, a 2 billion dollar project to overtake the Burj Khalifa as the tallest building in the world.
This project found its largest progress in the early 2010s, planned out and constructed by the Avesta Group. The islands, once described as a “New Venice”, never quite reached fruition due to the crash of oil prices in 2015. Controversies and troubles surrounding funding in the coming years have placed the project on hold as of now, though attempts have been made to raise funds from Chinese investors.
The Three Gorges Dam is the largest hydroelectricity dam in the world by volume of reservoir, power capacity, and produced energy. In simple, it has the most amount of water, the ability to hold the most energy, and it makes the most energy. Located on the Yangtze River in Hubei province, the approximately 2km long dam runs on gravity; water naturally flows from a reservoir of water down to a river, powering turbines as it goes down.
The idea of the dam was first posed in 1919, though the construction didn’t begin 1994. The dam, largely supported by the Chinese Communist Party, picked up pace in the “Four Modernizations/Reform and Opening Up” period of the country (around 1970s). Eventually, with projects added along the way delaying the opening, the dam began full operation in 2012. While initially it was expected to supply 10% of China’s power, exponentially increasing energy demands led it to only provide for 1.7% of the demand at best.
The construction faced large controversies, considering its construction would displace over 1 million people, alongside culturally significant sites and biodiverse habitats. (The dam is considered at fault for the extinction of the Chinese river dolphin). The dam’s construction caused erosion in nearby areas, sitting on a faultline and causing sediment to deposit in the river. Though cost-wise, the project was successful; in fact, it paid for itself within 1 year of full operation. In environmental terms, the power production supplies the equivalent of ~30 million tons of coal every year.
The Hong Kong Zhuhai Bridge refers to a series of bridge/tunnel systems connecting Hong Kong, Macau, and Zhuhai (a large city in the Greater bay area). First pitched in 1988, the bridge opened 30 years later, in 2018. It is currently the longest bridge/connection over water in the world. The bridge reduced travel time between Zhuhai and Hong Kong from 4 hours to 30 minutes by car. The bridge followed the agenda of creating an “free trade zone” in the area.
The bridge leads to some interesting scenarios for drivers, especially considering while Hong Kong and Macau drive on the left side, Mainland China drives on the right. Traffic on the bridge is required to be compatible with both sides, drivers requiring licenses and permits in both region. Resultingly, the bridge is often underused, with quotas on vehicles (due to existing traffic congestion problems in HK and MC) and special regulations. Recently, some of these have been loosened.
A few controversies did arise from the bridge, including a few fatalities during construction, failed safety tests + lackluster seawall integrity, and ecological impacts. Most notably, the low traffic is what brings the bridge the most attention; in its opening, fewer than 2,000 vehicles passed through the bridge compared to the projected 10,000+.
Another HAI video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eUfi4FsaqE
The New Eurasian Land Bridge is part of China’s Belt and Road initiative, often called the Second Eurasian Continental Bridge. It is a rail link between China and Europe, the two connected through rail lines in Central Asia. There actually exists the “Eurasian Land Bridge”, often called the New Silk Road and the predecessor of the “New Eurasian Land Bridge”; however, the transport route was discontinued in 2022, as the route ran through Russia, under sanctions for their invasion of Ukraine. The new Eurasian Land Bridge, afterwards, began being laid out to avoid Russia entirely.
The route is not particularly a megaproject, if a project at all; it’s more so a route for product to travel from China and the EU (or vice versa). The route passes through the Caspian sea, known through the area as the Trans-Caspian International Trade Route. Another detail is that a break in rail gauge from the standard to the Russian Gauge present in Kazakhstan necessitates containers to be manually moved from train to train.
Sometimes social distancing is the problem. In 2023, the World Health Organization declared loneliness a pressing global health threat. Explore how this concern varies around the world, then discuss with your team: do you agree that there is a “loneliness epidemic”—and, if so, how can it be treated? [SOC]
On loneliness, now so bad it’s considered a global health threat by WHO, its modern popularity as a concept comes out of the Covid 19 pandemic. While loneliness is commonly seem as a so-called “first world problem”, its issue is shared worldwide, similar statistics seen in all of the world. Loneliness, claims Mpemba (a leader in the international commission of loneliness), is an issue which sees past HDI and money, existing in every level of society.
For a few details scaling the issue, the health risks are comparable to smoking 15 packs of cigarettes a day, increasing risk of dementia by 50% and stroke by 30% for older folks. The problem of loneliness is present most prevalently in Africa, where the population faces issues like peace, security, and climate change directly contributing to loneliness.
The other article on loneliness expands on the problem, having existed before Covid and analyzing its trends through 2000 and 2019. While most data in Ding’s study (as referenced in the article) came from Europe, the most well-documented place in terms of mental health considerations, the study does pose that loneliness is a global problem. Within Europe, seemingly Eastern europeans fell most victim to loneliness, while Northern European and Scandinavian countries found the lowest rates. While it’s unsure specifically why, it’s likely loneliness is somehow linked to the development, social security, and income of a country.
(For additional data, seemingly older individuals are most at risk of being lonely, with lonely seniors being twice as present as lonely youth on average.)
The lack of data in other regions holds the issue that the loneliness epidemic may be a larger issue than we can scale as of now. In solving the issue, a public health approach would first tackle issues of poverty and education before fixing loneliness, relating to the possible connection between the two.
Some countries have tried tackling the problem with technology—and none more so than Japan. Explore efforts to “fix” loneliness in Japan and elsewhere, then discuss with your team: are they the sorts of solutions that more societies should adopt? What technologies would you design to achieve the same aims? [SOC, SCI, SPC]
While the past section does seem to pose that less developed countries have larger issues with loneliness, Japan serves as a counterexample; the loneliness epidemic may have hit Japan harder than anywhere else, and that’s largely due to it’s conditions. Specifically, Japan has a large population of older people, with a large population of them living alone. Japan has thus been hit with an epidemic of kodokushi, people who end up dying alone.
(Kodokushi aren’t limited to older folk; in fact, they’re most present in younger generations, where people will die and remain undiscovered for years. Many don’t get discovered at all!)
Another contribution to loneliness in Japan is their social structure decline, with “Western-style Nuclear Families” replacing traditional Japanese family structures (composing of many people, all related, through multiple generations). Alongside this, harsh work conditions leave little time for people to interact socially. Many people end up working multiple jobs, leaving them no time for socialization. (In fact, there’s an effect, “Karoshi”, describing people dying of overworking)
As Junko Okamoto dubs it, Japan is the “loneliness superpower”, criticising society for leaving the issues unaddressed. Takahiro Kato further expands on this issue with research on hikikomori, people who shut themselves out of society. (Hikikomori typically are younger people, although they are seeing a rise in older generations.)
Japan’s attempt to solve this issue has to do with robots. One such robot is Paro, a robotic seal designed to provide companionship to elderly folks. Sony’s Aibo robot dogs, being unretired for the purpose of companionship, are another example. The Pepper robot and Telenoid R1, both humanoids some have integrated into their family as “children” or “grandchildren”, are others. Hikari, a virtual “waifu” (seen in the 2024 curriculum!) also makes a mention here, being a holographic display more targeted towards younger folk. As the final example mentioned, Couger is an AR headset meant to display a similar companion through AI.
Robots can certainly help, but human interactions are the core of the issue of loneliness, and the eventual key to solving it. One idea posed by Sekigichi is “outsourcing empathy”, where the individual level of loneliness can be addressed with volunteers or members connecting in person, as humans.
Continuing with the theme of “techno-solutionism”, more specifically its limitations, its lack of popularization thus far traces to the issue of loneliness itself. One such issue is that robots seemingly create more work for caregivers and victims.
While in Japan, the idea of adoption robots into daily life is often welcomed (largely due to spiritual beliefs of robots having a sort of “soul”), the application of solving loneliness is a whole different issue. Accepting them is one thing, but being willing to interact with them is another. Despite the public acceptance, these robots still do not feature a role in most people’s lives.
Following the issue of work, the article touches upon three robots: Paro, the seal mentioned from before; Hug, a robot meant to help lift elderly folk; and Pepper, the aforementioned humanoid robot. Following these robots, Hug often faced issues with being uncomfortable (ironically) and too large to move. Paro was better received, although its likeability led to its own problems with attachment issues and tampering. Finally, Pepper eventually became boring as its catalog of presentations and karaoke features were often times lackluster.
The issue with robots highlights a key point: that loneliness and care crises aren’t necessarily inevitable. The robots, while failing to be efficient in caretaking, did bring up a new kind of work; for one, workers would begin interacting less with their people, using the robots as substitution. This, while effective in a utilitarian lens, holds an issue with what is constituted as “good care”. Care is inherently a human trait.
The issue plays a lot into social, political, and economic issues. In short, while technology can play a role, the approach to fixing this care crisis should fall on approaches involving further funding for caregiving foundations and preventing loneliness in the first place.
In 2021, the UN Development Programme found that living conditions in 90% of the world's countries had declined for the second year in a row—possibly contributing to declining birth rates. Discuss with your team: is this decline irreversible or will the world’s population begin to boom again? Should we want it to? [SOC]
A transition to declining living conditions and population from the issue of loneliness! From one harmful topic to another. It seems like WSC wants to push doomerism, something they condemn in the previous section. That’s interesting.
The first article briefly explains the living conditions, deteriorating in 90% of countries within 2021. Achim Steiner, the UNDP (UN development programme) chief, mentions this starking stat is further exemplified by the fact that in the 2007 recession, only 10% of countries deteriorated. In background context to this report, it was created in 1990 when the US was ranked 1st, though it dropped to 21st since. Switzerland takes the top of this development index, Norway and Iceland not too far behind.
This leads into the issue of deteriorating living conditions being largely due to the cost of living crisis. A described report about the cost of living crisis in New South Wales, Australia, suggests the issue has shifted from being an economic anomaly to being a “new normal”, having been constantly present in the past years. This shapes a new economic reality, known as the Meta Crisis (which doesn’t seem to have a solid definition, but can be summarized as “we’re in trouble”).
The cost of living issue has developed into the norm largely because of consistently slow-growing wages alongside constantly increasing costs in housing, healthcare, education, and more. While controlling inflation is attempted by central banks, the side effects of doing so sadly further add onto the problems that inflation causes.
As for what the Meta-crisis actually is, it can be described as the compounding effect of issues in different segments of society. The Digital divide, Debt levels, and Economic gaps are all attributed to the issue. On another hand, the climate crisis inflects on the Meta-crisis, with rising temperatures leading to droughts or food shortages, further exacerbating the economic problem. (Climate change is connected to flooding, energy consumption, and property damage, furthering issues with the economy.)
The solution lies in balance. Every action is inherently going to have negatives, so the resolution follows being able to work together and mitigate as much issues going forward as possible.
This last article is a giant data report I cannot bother reading, so instead I’ll summarize what they touch upon in a few bullet points.
There’s so much more you could explore with this article, but I’ll leave it here. It’s a good chance for those interested in future social landscapes to explore more!
During the Covid pandemic, podcasts exploded in popularity. Their hosts (or at least their subtly-enhanced voices) became many people’s closest friends in a solitary time. Discuss with your team: are podcasts meaningfully different from old-fashioned radio broadcasts in their impact on society, and will their impact continue? In other words, how dated will this bullet seem, ten years from now?) [SOC]
Podcasts are back from the 2024 curriculum, this time to talk about loneliness!
Podcasts have an interesting nature, being both fulfilling of a friendship many didn’t see during the pandemic but also socially concerning. For many listeners, podcasts are seen as conversation, with the speakers relating with audience members and growing a sense of kinship/friendship. It’s large increase in popularity is because of the loneliness epidemic during the Covid-19 lockdowns, though its effects still remain to this day.
Dubbed “parasocial interaction” by Donald Horton and Richard Wohl in 1956, podcasts are a form of this medium where a down-to-earth feeling is built to listeners. In essence, people who listen to podcasts may eventually feel as if they know the person, despite the conversation being largely one-sided. The intimate, crowd-less nature of podcasts furthers this authenticity.
This indirect friendship builds a sense of community much needed to help loneliness, but it also brings some issues. In large, podcasts are beginning to replace genuine interaction. It blurs the line in what friendship actually means, a concerning narrative for the social disassociation of people. It’s been described as being a lazy way of socialising, getting what you want from a conversation without putting in effort.
Podcasts are a mixed bag. On one hand, it builds up communities we are ever so deprived of in the modern world; on the other, its nature of replacing real interactions can lead to troublesome implications. They can be positive if worked right.
Speaking of bullets, the man who eventually assassinated American President James Garfield, Charles Guiteau, was certain they had a close personal connection (which, of course, Garfield never knew about.) The Internet has driven a surge in these one-sided “parasocial” relationships. Algorithms on these platforms are designed to boost engagement and view time, even if the content is harmful or raises false hopes. Explore how social media also affects the health of adults and seniors, then discuss with your team: who should be held responsible when an algorithm promotes harmful content? Could you design an algorithm to craft a healthier, happier society—and would it be successful? [SOC]
Perhaps the largest topic in the area of loneliness and mental health concerns is Social Media, which we’re finally touching on. Though before jumping into this, there is one man of interest to this section. That man is Charles Guiteau.
Charles, being a failed lawyer, was an interesting figure. The most important trait in his motivations for assassinating James Garfield was narcissism (possibly due to schizophrenia); specifically, he had the belief that his actions had won Garfield the election, and that he should be rewarded with a consulship (government representative).
After reaching out to the administration without avail, he felt outraged by the rejection. His anger at the lack of attribution reached a point where he decided the best course of action was to kill Garfield, shooting him in Washington DC at a railroad station. He was sentenced to death by hanging shortly after.
Now, onto social media:
On the fact that loneliness has doubled overall in the past 50 years, we’re turned to a survey which links Social media usage to loneliness. Specifically, there is a trend finding that those who spend more time on social media feel lonelier than those who spend less. This increase of social media is also linked to distractability and sleep deprivation. While not a full “causation”, the “correlation” between the two poses social media as an issue.
Loneliness isn’t a simple issue, and social media’s impact isn’t straightforward. One study found that disconnection could be the issue, with even mild notifications leading to a decrease of present enjoyment in IRL conversation. This may be linked to the FOMO felt with social media, with individuals glued to devices leading to disconnection from the real world. Alongside this, envy against models and idealized people in social media leads to further societal disconnect.
Cyberbullying is an interesting case, as its impact on loneliness is larger than we tend to believe. Of the people who shared experiences of being cyberbullied (34% overall), a majority shared it impacted their mental health and ability to engage. It’s a bit intriguing, considering often times cyberbullying isn’t the result of personal vendettas; rather, online trolls do perpetuate issues, and sometimes people will impose self harm for attention.
Social media does have its upsides in promoting ease of information alongside social networking. Its effect can lead to developing socialization skills, earning higher grades, and accessing more resources. Social media, as found by the Cigna Loneliness index, is not actually found to be responsible for loneliness and has no significant impact on social interaction and well-being. Reduced symptoms of depression, community engagement and belonging, and higher performance are just some things seen from social media.
It’s all about balance again. It’s easy to jump to conclusions for or against a side, but moving on, we need to realize that it’s not all black and white.
Introducing a new perspective on social media, we now move onto Dr. Vasan and Dr. Johansen, psychiatrists who’ve worked with platforms including Pinterest and Tiktok to make the social media experience more empathetic.
Their opinion on social media’s addictiveness and harmfulness:
Social media is addictive because of stimuli (likes, comments, notifications, etc) which produce dopamine, and thus, addiction. It’s largely because getting likes and recognition is engaging and triggers the same part of your brain as accomplishing a task. This becomes harmful when users begin doomscrolling, leading to issues of comparing one to another, cyberbullying, and mental harm. Advances in technology makes it easy for envy to arise from images.
To mitigate the issue, AI is being used as a tool to filter negativity; as well, social media platforms constantly monitor and ban communities posting harmful content. It’s now common for social media to have prompts for queries about self harm, depression, and eating disorders. Pinterest Compassionate Search is one example, offering therapeutic experiences in response to depression-related terms.
As for what to do, social media shouldn’t be treated like ebola, but it shouldn’t be water either. Social media can be fulfilling in connecting people with the world, but it poses harm with too much interaction. Rather than following the displacement hypothesis (hypothesis that social media harms youth wellbeing overall), they suggest a goldilocks approach.
For businesses, they pose the idea of making decisions not solely based on economic incentives, but pushing for societal wellbeing as well.
Youth are not the only people with issues on social media. Research in fact reveals that similar effects of social media are felt by adults. In a project involving Covid-19, a research group gathered adults from all 50 US states undiagnosed with depression and found that those who use social media were more likely symptoms of depression.
The studies are strange, as most cannot prove that Social Media causes depression; rather, the studies show a correlation between the two. (Remember, correlation does NOT equal causation!) One thing the studies do suggest, though, is that depressed people are more likely to use social media. The studies are yet unable to explain how social media triggers might cause depression. One suggestion is jealousy, seeing people doing better on social media than you are.
(One person puts social media like “drinking from a firehose”, as a metaphor for being flooded with content– those of which are not necessarily good.)
In an intriguing set of findings, it seems that various platforms have various effects on people. For one, Facebook caused depression symptoms on those under 35 but not those above 35; however, Tiktok and Snapchat caused the same effect on those above 35 but not under. As well, it seems that things like news sources, social interactions, and face-to-face time didn’t seem to effect depression at all.
There’s still a lot to explore in the mental health and social media issue. There’s a lot of unknowns when seeing both children and adults on social media. That’s where it ends.
The issue of social media extends further than cyberbullying, though; hate speech and genocide are among things which can result from internet actions, none of which is the legal duty of the internet to regulate.
This story begins with the Twitter vs. Taamneh court case, a Jordanian family filing a lawsuit against social media companies. These companies allegedly allowing ISIS to use the platform’s algorithms to recruit, fundraise, and spread propaganda, leading to an event which killed one of said family’s members. While the case was far more complicated than “social media is evil”, the supreme court ruled that the platforms weren’t liable for their indirect damages. The reasoning? There wasn’t enough evidence to suggest these platforms were directly assisting.
This decision traces back to the Communications Decency Act (Section 230), which dictates that the internet is like a bookstore; in essence, the owner of platforms are not responsible for the content of the platform. The platforms are free to moderate content, but they are not legally required to.
Back in the First Amendment case of Smith vs California, the supreme court ruled that bookstores are not liable for the content of their inventory; rather, the authors would be liable. This decision was made on how, if otherwise, bookstores would make decisions leading to censorship with limiting books, an idea against freedom of speech / freedom of press. In 1996, when Section 230 was passed, the internet was similar to a bookstore. Now, with personalized algorithms and monetization efforts, the internet is less bookstore and more internet.
While platforms do voluntarily enforce community guidelines, they hold little liability due to little theory of harm, and thus little duty of care. In simple words, it’s unproven that social media causes harm with hateful speech, therefore social media doesn’t care much. This whole issue runs in a loop of what freedom of speech means, though it is arguable social media should be legally required to prevent hate speech, just like product quality control in other capitalized markets.
For the fancy line in the law:
“[N]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
The law, when initially drafted, made sense; the internet was smaller and consisted of mostly internet forums. The dynamics of the internet have changed much since, though; now, most of it is dictated by personalized ads and content, with it emerging the silo effect and echo chamber effect (basically, you see the stuff which agrees with your beliefs). The issue is that radical perspectives now have a place in the internet, recommendation algorithms creating these sorts of “radical communities”. (This is compounded with the effect that because English dominates the internet, other languages are not regulated as much - linguistic-political issues here!)
What Section 230 essentially does is removing accountability from platforms to regulate content, giving it immunity from the opinions it spreads from its users.
One case of the issue of Section 230 is the Rohingya Genocide. Facebook, namely, was blamed for amplifying hateful content (and resultingly, movements) against the Burmese (Myanma) ethnic minority. It’s particularly interesting consider Myanmar was one of the least connected countries in the world for a while, only loosening access in 2011.
(As for additional context, the Rohingya are a muslim group in Myanmar, a military-ruled buddhist state. Myanmar has a long standing tension with the group.)
Facebook was shaped into the de-facto internet of Myanmar during this popularization, with the Free Basics program providing free internet access via a Facebook-centric lens of the internet. This new ability to communicate and connect led to growing tensions against the Rohingya people, with death threats and hateful posts common. Eventually, the Rohingya genocide came about (leading to ~25,000 deaths and ~700,000 refugees), paired with an influx of anti-rohingya posts on Facebook by the Burmese military and extremist groups, including the MaBaTha.
Facebook was accordingly accused of amplifying hateful narratives against the rohingya people, creating financial incentives for propaganda against the group and spreading the content like fire. This was in part due to a serious lack of moderation, with only 4 burmese moderators tackling over 15 million burmese users. (A reverse-mokusatsu happened, too; in one case, a Burmese post with a call to action to “kill all kalars” was translated to “I shouldn’t have a rainbow”). In addition, Facebook’s algorithm designed to create communities backfired, finding an audience for the radical movement; in fact, some of the most followed users were military generals posting hate content.
The psychological nature of Facebook also led to the genocide, with neutral parties falling to propaganda and building a distrust of the rohingya. The larger effect was less so connecting those who believed in radical ideas, and more so influencing bystanders to shift sides. This is considered “fear speech”, where some will amplify a problem out of fear, rather than hate.
Facebook had actually received warnings of this movement beginning 2012, but decided not to take action before the genocide. It’s not that it wants to cause the movement, more so it just doesn’t care that much. It holds no legal liability for the issue, though the situation is a bit complicated. While the ICC (International Criminal Court) does address acts of genocide, it doesn’t prosecute companies; resultingly, it is most in the US’ jurisdiction, leading back to section 230.
The conversation continues with the debate of freedom of speech, an ever changing internet (AI and deepfakes now much more present), and proposals of giving users more autonomy or investing in content moderation (just like copyright detection).
Hey y'all! Glad you managed to read that one chonker of a summarization. It’s probably the longest one I’ll make, as the article itself is in a weird position. It’s not long enough for me to give a watered down review, but it’s not short enough to have a, well, short summary.
There’s just so much I think is valuable to learn from the article. Consider reading it yourself!
How often do you pick up your phone to check a fact or answer a question during a meal with friends or family? Can you imagine living in a world where things just—stay mysterious, and where you have no idea what is happening a thousand miles away? Researchers have found that the oversaturation of news, especially of negative stories, leads to constant stress and a skewed worldview, especially when they contain violent images and videos. Discuss with your team: to protect people’s mental health, should the government (or others) limit the amount of information we can consume? [SOC]
Social media is the platform; the problem is the content. In media, often times negative stories are perpetuated too often, which has real consequences on our mental and physical health.
The perpetuation of negative news comes from the competitive strategy, with news sites and social media users driving views, and thus revenue, by “clickbait”. Because it’s incentivizable to cover negative topics, negative news is far more popular than positive news. Resultingly, people who read these news begin to suffer from “media saturation overload”, where one’s mood may decline (without them knowing, in fact) after seeing a whole platter of negative news. While there isn’t a formally recognized disorder, terms in psychology including “doomscrolling” and “headline anxiety” (heightened emotional response to news) are beginning to reflect mental trends.
Past studies done on Covid-19 news show that the more people looked for information, the more emotional distress they would report. This applies to all types of news media, though tv and social media had stronger associations. Additionally, younger people were more vulnerable to these mood shifts.
A lot of this has to do with uncertainty. While the reasoning is counterintuitive at first– it seems like learning information with news will decrease uncertainty, which increases happiness! –the position of knowing can be mentally deteriorating, especially if the readers don’t think they can help. The research shows correlation, though not causation; it’s possible that people who are more emotionally destressed use media, and not that media causes emotional harm. Though in all likelihood, it works both ways.
Comparing findings with past ones, especially those based on the psychological effect of the news of 9/11, we find that there is one source which doesn’t have a correlation. Traditional newspapers and TV broadcasts seemed to have little impact on its users; this may largely be because these forms of media don’t have the same incentive to perpetuate negative news. The story changes with covid, with common reports causing helplessness and distress in people.
An idea to fix this is to install “guardrails” on media. Often, if somebody’s heart rate increases before opening an article, it is a sign that the user will be impacted more. This in turn leads to lowered coping capacity and anger from fear. Phones can be a sort of drug-delivery system in this way: the dopamine hijacking from social media and sensational news has similar effects to drugs.
It is important to note that complete removal of media can be even worse, considering FOMO and the fact people often overestimate the severity or likelihood of events.
To fix the issue of mental health, the idea is to process the news logically. Events happen much less likely than news shapes it out to seem, and too much exposure to news can lead to irrational thinking. By digging into genuine issues, a user can mitigate the anxiety from news by considering its possibility and trying to take action.
The second article focuses more on the issue of news influencing our actions. The pitted example is the bombing of the Boston Marathon in 2013. While the tragedy was grand, the impact it had on people were grander. A study covering the aftermath of this event highlights one notable oddity: that people who had not seen the explosion, but rather had 6+ hours of news coverage a day in the days following this, had even worse reactions to the event than the people who saw it in person. This poses the question: why?
A well-known psychological phenomenon, known as the Negativity Bias, suggests that we pay more attention to negative things around us. It’s been used to explain why Negative incentive (punishment) is more effective than Positive incentive (rewards). While it was useful to protect us from danger in the past (primal instinct), its effects on news (much of which doesn’t even impact us at all) are beginning to shape our beliefs. News, rarely covering light-hearted topics, are to blame– though in a case study, the City Reporter lost 2/3rd of its viewership on a day they only decided to post good news.
The pessimism on the future we have because of news, while wrong, could lead to potential self-fulfilling prophecies; in an economic lens, people won’t invest if they think a recession is coming, leading to a recession. Economic news being often more negative than positive, despite the economic cycle being more positive than negative, creates a polarization between reality and news. In that way, our perception of risk is being warped.
The framing effect may be to blame here; a fact will sound much different depending on how it’s presented. A drug which is 95% effective is more enticing than a drug which fails 5% of the time, despite those being the same thing. Al-Qaeda raises more eyebrows than Domestic rebel separatists. And on a more concerning scale, news population makes brain cancer seem much more likely than it is, and makes testicular cancer much less likely than it is.
(Interestingly, the public concerns of medical issues closely matches federal funding for it)
News itself may also be the motivator of the issue. To have media attention is to be successful in competition and revenue, thus there is motivation for news to be reinforcing-ly negative. Sometimes it isn’t intentional; news sources will often have only a handful of images for an event, and this repetition of images over time enforces a problematic identity of the issue.
The impact? Bad. News isn’t particularly good for our mental health. News can lead to long term negative health effects developing. It leads to spikes in cortisol, the stress hormone, It even reaches a tetris effect point, where news can begin to shape what our dreams look like. This impact is still a mystery, although one hypothesis is that we aren’t good at predicting our future emotions. Winning an award feels less fulfilling then the thought of winning an award, and conversely being in a crisis feels less distressful then the thought of being in one.
The final article zones into this problem on social media, discussing the extremes of the news problem: traumatic news. Its impacts range from distress, anxiety, and possible physical effects being increased likelihood of heart attack. Again, the existence of the media is largely because of economic incentives of stark media capturing attention, sensation being the most profitable segment of news. This kind of traumatic news is further perpetuated by social media.
Media attention is now drawn to traumatic news, referring to footage of war and other atrocities. It can be considered a subsection of negative news, being on the more extreme end of the spectrum.
As for moving on, platforms are beginning to apply age checks and restrictions on these news. The impact of the news largely covers vulnerable groups, including children and women; thus, to avoid traumatization, both actions by platforms and mental awareness is useful.
🔮 In Futurity, Someone Prophetic Sees In Futurity, Someone Prophetic Sees - Ethan I’m just gonna write this lol - Ethan
Nostradamus never predicted that people would remember him 500 years later, but his reputation for accurate prophecies has nonetheless flourished for centuries. Discuss with your team: why do people want to know their future in advance? Would it benefit them if they did? If someone offered you the opportunity to read a biography of your life, would you? [HIS]
Nostradamus was a French astrologer and seer, most notable for his book Les Propheties allegedly predicting future events. The book was a series of 942 poems. In the years after the book was published, many credited him with predicting future events, though some sources reject the idea he had any actual prophetic abilities and that the validation might be a result of confirmation bias.
In the modern age, he’s contested by scholars for whether or not he actually had prediction abilities. He’s commonly referenced in pop culture, being the subject of books and other media.
Idk about yall but I would personally HATE having my future told like there’s a whole thing about predetermination that I really dislike
Free will is an illusion, so please let me be illusioned
Some poets have also taken a swing at predicting the future. Consider the selections below, then discuss with your team: how seriously were they intended to tell the future? Is poetry (with its often murky meanings) the perfect vehicle for prophecy? [LIT]
Onto the first poems of this year’s curriculum! There’s a bit of backstory to each that took quite a while to find, so I’ll explain what I found about them.
Horace - Ode I. 11 is a poem which appears in his four Books of Odes (written in 23BC!), particularly being the 11th poem in the first book. An ode is a type of poem which pays tribute to something, typically a person or event. This poem was initially written in Latin, and many translations, each with slightly different wordings exist.
The poem’s thematic message is the enjoyment of the present. It’s goal is to persuade a person named Leuconoe away from seeking the future and only worrying about the present moment. This is perhaps most exemplified by its famous line:
“Carpe diem”
This famous aphorism (a kind of truth or principle) comes from this exact poem, and it best translates to “seize the day”. It actually fits the description of where it was first used!
Shifting to a more modern poem, William B. Yeats - The Second Coming is a poem which alludes to the Apocalypse and the Second Coming to describe post-WWI feelings in Europe. Written after the war ended (and also during the 1919 flu pandemic), it follows his views on history, which he classified into “gyres”, essentially another word for epochs or periods.
In his view, the classical antiquity began with the Trojan war and ended with the Christian era, which was ending now. His poem pays the question of what era we’re moving into now. Overall, he believes that human history happens in thousand year cycles.
An Apocalypse refers to a revelation in Christianity, a point in time when something is discovered– especially in relation to the spiritual plane.
The Second Coming in Christianity refers to the belief that Jesus Christ will eventually return to Earth again, something which has happened around 2,000 years ago post-crucifixion.
A line of particular interest is this:
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
Here, the Spiritus Mundi is Yeats’ way of describing the Spirit of the World. It matches with his allegory of the Second Coming, though that event is more aligned with a new gyre rather than an actual premotion of an event.
Robert Frost - Fire and Ice is a very famous short poem describing a simple, yet narratively complicated phrase of how the world will end. He juxtaposes fire with desire, and ice with hate, stating the world will end by either one of the two.
It’s short enough, in fact, that I can copy and paste it here.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.
Something interesting I’ll mention is that, when seen by Shapely, an astronomer, he responded that the poem could have a literal meaning; that Earth will either perish by being engulfed by the sun or being thrown into deep space to freeze, literally “fire” and “ice”.
The poem might’ve also been influenced by Dante’s Inferno, a text where the worst offenders would be frozen in the ninth level of hell, where they’re frozen for eternity.
Emily Dickinson - The Future–never spoke is a very complicated poem which took me a while to understand. From what I can gather, there’s some entity in the poem which refuses to let us know the future.
The Future itself is a sort of entity, not speaking and only showing itself when the future becomes the present over time. It gives us (the poem calling humans “the dumbs”) no chance to prepare for what’s to come, but it does mention that reality is indifferent to doom or flourishing. Nonetheless, there’s eventually only two cases; either everyone will be saved, or everybody will be doomed.
The main characteristic of the poem is characterizing abstract concepts, like Fate, the Future, God, and Time. (God is most likely the entity described by “him”). The underlying theme of the poem is predestination, the thought that our future is already foretold, and the thought that we don’t have the choice to shape it. This comes as a reality to Dickinson’s family, being in the Calvinist belief that free will doesn’t exist. They’ve been written, but they continue to avoid us.
That’s why the poem puts emphasis on there being no escape. No substitute history. Because our paths are already chosen. Scary!
Anthropologists believe that this sort of divination is a practice as old as Neolithic humans. Look briefly (no rabbit holes, please) into the following ancient divination techniques, then discuss with your team: which are still practiced today, and, if they seem hard to believe now, why do you think so many people once believed in them? [SCI, HIS, SPC]
Divination is something which is somehow found universally; it seems like all cultures developed some belief of predicting the future independently and it’s kind of crazy. For all we know, it does back to the 2000 BC era, with ancient Mesopotamia, China, Egypt, and other regions.
For a bit of historical context, it was forbidden for religious or political reasons sometimes, though it still persisted, moving most notably with christianity. Research began exploring these ancient techniques mostly in the 20th century, with many debates following the existence and actions it took.
To define the terms we’re using here a bit more, the act of divination refers to anything which would give us information that we don’t typically have access to, whether it be hidden by time or in the minds of others. An omen specifically refers to a sign sent by the gods (as in a prophecy or something), while an oracle refers to an answer to a question. There’s also categories of divination: natural divination refers to prophecies revealed in plain language or visions directly to the person, while artificial divination relies on the usage of a tool, combined with special techniques and intuition.
One of the earliest examples, borderline neolithic (10,000 to 2,000 years ago), of divination was in the Shang dynasty (which may or may not have existed). Seeing beginning 1600BCE, the dynasty began advancements in various fields, one of which was preserved pretty well: divination.
They used oracle bones, an artificial divination system where words representing a question would be inscribed onto turtle shells and ox shoulder bones before being kindled, thought to be a hub for spirits to answer questions. This is actually how we have the first records of the Chinese language being developed; people’s symbols on the bones preserved long enough for us to examin them.
We’re now moving into a plethora of terms regarding divination and seeing the future. WSC themselves doesn’t want us to go down a rabbit hole here, so I’ll probably only mention the terms, definitions, and a few examples here.
Note: Most of divination falls into what people would call pseudoscience, a branch of beliefs without scientific backing and built on feeling, rather than logic.
Comparative Horoscopy doesn’t exist; it’s a portmanteau that WSC has seemingly created on their own mixing up the terms of Comparative Astrology and Horoscopes.
A Horoscope is a chart in astrology (which will be defined more soon!) which represents the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, and other astronomical features. Horoscopes often account for variables including someone’s birthday. In common use, they are seen on newspapers to attract the attention of astrology-believing readers.
The word comes from the greek words for “time” and “observer”.
Comparative Astrology uses astrology to analyze relationship dynamics between two things, most commonly when determining the compatibility of two people in a relationship. They use horoscopes based on their “star signs” (i.e. Cancer, Libra, etc.) and make predictions based on them, forseeing possible relationship dynamics.
(Typically, one of three methods is used: synastry, where two charts of two people are compared side by side; midpoint composite, where midpoints are drawn between two points which represent people; and davison relationship, based on average values of birth dates and locations. You won’t need to remember this.)
In all, Comparative Horoscopy really refers to Comparative Astrology. It refers to the specific branch which uses horoscopes to determine comparisons between people, often used to assess compatibility between two people or a person and a time of year.
Haruspicy is a form of divination in the religion of ancient Rome where animals are sacrificed to inspect their organs (especially livers of sheep and chickens) to determine signs. This practice was also done in the Near East, where it is known as Hepatoscopy. A haruspex is a person trained to interpret these organs in haruspicy.
It was thought this could communicate with the gods. Rather than predict the future, haruspicy focused on determining the attitudes of gods to make important decisions. They would make decisions, especially before war, based on the feelings of the gods they observed.
Chickens were considered sacred birds in Ancient rome, a type of fortuneteller.
Ornithomancy involves reading omens based on the actions of birds in ancient Greece. While this form of divination could involve any type of action a bird made, it usually revolved around the flight direction and the chirps that birds made. A typical action would be to face North (Romans, in contrast, faced South) and observe that the birds in the East (those on the sunrise side) were good, while the ones on the West were bad.
In ancient Rome, a similar practice known as Augury was done.
Alectryomancy comes from the Greek word for rooster and is a divination practice where somebody observes birds, most preferably a white rooster, pecking at grain. Often times, the diviner would place grains in the shape of letters and observe what the rooster decided to peck. Presumably, the letters and ordering would spell out a message.
Another way to do this was to place grain in a circle, where each one would represent a letter, then discern messages based on where the rooster went.
Another part of alectryomancy may have involved sacrificing a rooster, much like Haruspicy.
Pyro-osteomancy is a really complicated way of saying Oracle bones. Pyro essentially means fire, osteo means bone, and mancy means divination. This practice was most done during the Late Shang period of China, and represents the earliest records we have of the Chinese language.
They would take turtle shells or ox shoulder bones, inscribe messages onto there, then kindle the bones in a fire. After a little while, the bone would’ve broken into fragments which would then be interpreted, a decision being made there and then. A bit of science tells us the cracks formed because of thermal expansion, though there’s no backing to the method of interpreting these cracks.
Over time, they shifted from inscribing messages to writing on bones with ink.
Oneiromancy is divination based on dreams, using them to predict the future. Special plants, known as Oneirogen plants, were sometimes used to put the seer in a dream-like state of consciousness, where they would feel as if they were transported to another time. They would then use their observations as evidence for the future.
There isn’t a solid definition of who used oneiromancy; rather, it was a common method of divination used across various cultures. The idea dates back to 3100BC in ancient Mesopotamia, where dreams were always regarded as very important for divination. Since then, ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Mesopotamia-based cultures would use it.
Bibliomancy refers to using books as a means to divination, considering books sacred to the process of divination, most notable for “removing negative entities”. A common practice in bibliomancy was to select a book considered true, then flip to a random page and read random things on the page. A variation involves choosing a random book at the library.
It’s been used across many practices of divination, though it has a long history in Islam culture, especially involving the Quran. In more modern times, the Bible and other ancient texts (those of Homer and Virgil) are used.
Funnily enough, Robert Browning (the poet mentioned in the introductory questions) used this method to ask whether or not he should propose to his girlfriend. The text he landed on was a page in a Italian learning book which went along the lines of “shall love thee for eternity”.
Hydromancy is a method of divination using water, considering its ripples, flow, and color after dropping things into a pool. It can also be used to describe entering a trance after staring at water, a form of scrying (seeing beyond).
There are various forms of hydromancy; some use springs, others use rain, and some others use pebbles. Water in divination has had many purposes over many cultures, where oil, rocks, agitation by sound, and other stimulants have been introduced to the water in some instances.
Astragalomancy is something I dub “RNGmancy” (though this term closer resembles cleromancy, a set of divination which involves treating random things like predictive events), being a form of divination which uses dice marked with special numbers/letters and rolling them. The rolling of the dice should provide an answer to questions, constructing words out of the letters rolled and seen. This form of divination stretches so far back, as seen in southern Africa, that it eludes our record of human history.
Dice were typically made out of the bones of sheep and goats specifically in the Greek and Mediterranean region.
Sometimes, dice monoliths would represent the meaning of specific symbols and would be consulted after rolling dice, rather than directly translating a sentence with the symbols as letters.
Scyphomancy is the act of doing divination with a cup or goblet, usually using a cup of water and reading signs based on things in the water. It uses reflection and water disturbances to tell signs.
This practice was seen in Ancient Egypt and Persia, being one of the oldest forms of divination in the style of assessing reflections.
Astrology is probably the most popular form of divination-related practices right now, referring to the interpretation of stars and planetary trends in determining the future. Astrology is an umbrella term representing almost all cultures, them having an attached importance to things in the sky. The Hindu, Chinese, and Mayans notably developed elaborate systems for predicting astronomical events because of this.
Usually, in the west, horoscopes are used to represent events in Astrology, prediction aspects of people’s lives based on the positions of planets alongside their date and location of birth. Astrology used to have a scientific backing until it was discredited by scholars in the 1800s, with the scientific method suggesting no proof of the practice. It’s now considered the largest topic in the field of pseudoscience.
Astrology is where we get the 12 star signs alongside the 12 zodiac/Chinese zodiacs.
As for use, sometimes people believe in its abilities because of assurance. Some still follow the idea of using star positions to determine the likelihood of events, despite its problematic nature and unscientific backing.
Firefighter, astronaut, investment banker—diviner of the future? If you’re thinking about future careers, consider a career in thinking about the future. Explore the following future-telling occupations, then discuss with your team: should governments regulate this industry, and, if so, how? [SCI, SPC]
All these following terms expand on fortune telling, though they’re related specifically to fortune-telling, as opposed to divination as a whole. As a reminder, fortune telling is a subset of divination; while divination includes all actions and methods to determine things we typically don’t know, fortune-telling specifically focuses on the future.
These are all considered pseudoscientific; that is, practices which have little evidence to back them up and are based on belief systems instead. I think it’s important to approach these with an open mind; while these practices might not be supported by science, do remember that science doesn’t explain everything. (On the other hand, don’t make giant bets based on fortune-tellers, either. There are so many stories of ppl losing large in Vegas after consulting a fortune teller.)
Palmistry is the act of reading palms (like, looking at the lines on hands or something) to determine the future of a specific person. They’re done by people known as palmists (chirologists) / hand-readers. Palmistry was seen in many places across Eurasia, though it is now most popular globally for “palm-reading sessions”. While it is viewed as pseudoscientific and largely based on superstition, a similar field (known as dermatoglyphics) focuses on the scientific application of palm creases, linking them to genetic traits.
Physiognomy is the technical term for “judging a book by its cover”. More technically, it’s a practice where somebody will assess someone’s appearance, most commonly the face, and determine their personality and beliefs based off of this. (This can also be done with plants.) While the practice within fortune-telling isn’t common anymore, controversial for being linked to scientific racism, it does have its applications in machine learning and facial recognition technology.
Sometimes, it’s used harmfully in social media contexts, especially with the “karen appearance”. Sometimes’ it’s also used by artists to depict people based on a knowledge of their traits.
Carromancy (aka ceromancy) is divination via wax. It finds its roots in ancient Celtic and Roman times. In common practice, wax would be heated into liquid form, then poured into cold water to solidify. The shape of the wax would then determine the future, in some shape or form. Another practice would be to observe how wax melted on a burning candle.
It’s mildly related to pagtatawas, a ritual in filipino psychology which diagnoses psychological disorders by determining shapes of wax in a similar process to ceromancy.
Tasseography is divination done by reading tea leaves, coffee grounds, or wine residue. It originated in China, though it traveled along the silk road into areas of West Asia and Europe. The process usually involves drinking a cup of tea before interpreting the symbols of the remainders within the cup. (The tea and cup would often be specifically designed for this). The limitations of tasseography are largely determined by how creative and imaginative the interpreter is, though its lack of solid framework does constitute it as pseudoscientific.
One interpretation method revolves around the outer leaves representing near future, and the inner leaves representing far future. Leaf stems may also represent people.
Cartomancy is most known with the practice of tarot card reading, though in general it includes any form of fortune-telling with a deck of cards. Practitioners of this are known as cartomancers or card-readers. Commonly, cartomancy is done with a standard playing deck, known in a process of “wheel of fortune”. Many variations of this divination system exist, with tarot cards specifically designed for the practice of cartomancy.
Tarot card decks usually have 78 cards, 22 of which are considered Major and the rest, Minor.
Fortune-telling is the practice of predicting the future, alongside other information typically unseen to us. A person who practices fortune-telling is known as a fortune-teller. In generality, divination encapsulates practices outside of predicting the future, while fortune-telling does not. However, in specifics, divination is more focused on religious rituals and spirits, while fortune-telling is less formal and doesn’t necessarily involve strict conventions.
In the modern day, fortune-telling is most seen as an industry controversial for its validity. Many believe it to be purely superstition and pseudoscience. As such, fortune-telling is outlawed in certain areas, largely due to fraud and illegal business practices.
An oracle is very similar to a fortune-teller, referring to a person which provides insight into the future. It’s largely used as a synonym for “fortune-teller” in the modern day. The term comes from Latin and quite literally means “speaker”, though it has the connotation of being connected to gods. The slight difference between oracles and fortune-tellers is that being an oracle is considered a solid profession of high class and status, while fortune-tellers are typically less formal and don’t have that luxury.
Soothsayer is a term which comes from middle English and literally means “truth-sayer”. It’s a synonym to fortune-teller, oracle, haruspex, and prophet, referring to basically anybody who practices divination.
A shaman is a person who interacts with the spirit world in altered states of consciousness. They often go into a trance-state, where they are half-awake and half-asleep, in order to contact spirits and spiritual energies in order to convince them to help. There isn’t a solid definition or belief system for shamans, but they generally follow the principle of being able to communicate to the spirits, influence seemingly-natural events, and perform acts of divination.
The term is often associated with indigenous religious and spiritual practices, though it can be found in other cultures and contexts.
A witch is a broad term describing anybody who allegedly has powers of magic and other supernatural abilities. Witchcraft is usually painted in a negative light, its definition strictly referring to any magic “occult” practices which cause harm or misfortune. The belief traces back to the beginning of written history in Mesopotamia, though it is most notorious for its presence in medieval Europe.
Witches are commonly considered to cast curses and dark magic, warranting “counter-magic” and “protective magic” in societies which believe in witchcraft. Because of this, a practice known as “witch-hunting” arose in middle-ages Europe (and in Africa/Asia, where it still exists) where communities would accuse women of witchcraft, often hunting them down and burning them at stake.
A clairvoyant is someone who claims to have the ability to practice divination, usually through a “sixth sense”. Sometimes, this phenomenon is scientifically founded with a field known as “extrasensory perception”, though most claims are not supported. In literal meaning, it translation from French means “clear vision”.
Typically, in a scientific lens, clairvoyance is explained with confirmation bias, expectancy bias, or delusion / hallucination. There have been proposals by people offering large sums of money to prove that clairvoyance is either possible or not.
The term can be used interchangeably with fortune-teller and oracle.
Ifa is a divination system used in West Africa, specifically by the Yoruba people (within Nigeria, Benin, and Togo). It has spread marginally to places through the Atlantic Slave trade, leading to its survival in places like Cuba. The technique is, in its teaching, overseen by a spirit known as Orunmila, an orisha spirit.
The technique of divination is very complicated, though in short it uses palm nuts, known as fadekwin, rolling them in a special type of tray (known as a fat3). The nuts produce a system of 256 binary signs which can be interpreted after rolling, each of which correspond to something.
Jyotish is the romanized term for Hindu astrology, one of the 6 disciplines (vedanga) in Hinduism. It’s one of the earliest examples of astronomy, though it has been contested whether or not the system arose independently or came from Roman influence. The texts related to Jyotisha not only have reading symbols, but also predict sun and moon cycles. The system is built on 16 elements and 12 zodiac signs.
Jyotish is used for vedic rituals, and has had practice in determining important dates for sacrifices alongside other events.
I Ching translates to “book of changes” from Chinese and is among the Chinese classics texts. It is a divination manual which first developed in 1000BC, though it was transformed into a cosmological text over time. It’s notable for having the “ten wings”, a set of philosophical beliefs and moral insights.
In divination, the I Ching falls into cleromancy, where it uses flower stalks to produce seemingly random numbers between 6-9. The 64 possible sets which result in this process are known as hexagrams, and can be looked up in the I Ching, which describes an event. It is commonly paralleled with other traditional processes of change, like Yin-yang and Wu Xing.
The Bazi (literally translating to eight words) is a Chinese concept suggesting fate and destiny is predetermined by a person’s birth cycle, year, month, day, and hour. The cycle refers to a 60 year loop (known as a sexagenery cycle), including 12 zodiac animals and 5 elements for each. In English, it’s referred to as the 4 pillars of destiny: year (in the cycle), month, day, and hour. This can be traced back to the Han dynasty.
A person’s fate depends on their 4 pillars and its relationship to a 10-year luck cycle. Because of this, the belief is largely cyclical, with matching destinies for people born every ~1800 years apart. This means you would, according to this, have the same fate as somebody born ~1800 years before you.
Jiaobei, known as moon blocks, are wooden divination tools which are used to answer yes or no questions. These blocks would be crescent shaped and have both a flat and a round side. By throwing pairs of these blocks out, you could determine whether something was a “yes” or a “no”. To eliminate randomness, the practice would involve throwing out these blocks 3 times and seeing if any answer appeared at least twice.
(Apologies if this segment is long, moon blocks are just interesting)
In specific practice, a user would purify the blocks along an incense burner before stating their name, date of birth, home, and relevant question. After which, they would drop a pair of blocks, resulting in 4 possible situations:
O-mikuji are random fortunes written in temples and shrines in Japan. Translating literally to “sacred lot”, people read them by making a small offering before randomly choosing one from a box. The fortune predicts a person’s luck and fortune, typically written out in a choice of 1 of 7 levels of fortune alongside some aspect of a person’s life. The practice may have been modeled on the chinese Kau Chim, a model of similar style using writing on bamboo sticks.
If someone receives a bad fortune, it’s custom for them to fold it up and attach them to pine trees in the hope that the fortune wears off on the tree, rather than them. (This comes from a Japanese pun, where the word for “wait” is similar to the word for “pine tree”). If the fortune is good, they might also tie it up to the tree in the idea it prolongs the luck effect.
It’s thought O-mikuji are the inspiration for fortune cookies.
A Ouija, also known as an Ouija board / talking board, is a board marked with letters a-z as well as the words yes, no, and goodbye. It’s sometimes also marked with various symbols. In its used, it uses a small heart-shaped piece of wood to indicate messages by spelling out letters. People will place their fingers on the planchette (the piece), and it would move around the board to spell words. Funnily enough, the name of the board comes from a person asking the board itself what it was called. (Also, according to the board, Ouija means “good luck”).
Its paranormal nature has called controversies, with some claiming it is linked to demonic energy and is used to contact the dead. This has made it a common thing in horror movies and other pop-culture elements. It’s associated with the “charlie-charlie challenge”, a practice where two pencils would be laid on top of one another and spin to indicate answers.
A crystal ball is a ball made of crystal used in fortune-telling, associated with the act of clairvoyance. They’ve had a reputation with being associated with witchcraft, though it’s now more seen as amusement in circuses, festivals, and other events. In divination, it’s related to the practice of scrying, an act where someone would gaze into an object in hopes it will answer questions.
The symbol of a crystal ball is often associated with fortune-tellers in popular culture. This might be because of crystal balls being popular props in stage magic.
A fortune cookie is a small, wedge-shaped wafer with a piece of paper inside dictating a fortune or vague prophecy, alongside lucky numbers. While they’re associated with Chinese restaurants, they actually come from Japanese immigrants in the US. When first invented, there weren’t any lucky numbers (dubbed Chinese numbers) and it was meant to be eaten with tea. (There is debate on who actually made fortune cookies.)
As previously mentioned, these may have come from Japanese O-mikuji.
A horoscope, as discussed previously, uses astrology signs as a guideline to determine a fortune for somebody. In this context, they are often seen in newspapers in correspondence to a user’s zodiac sign and the luck they will have for the upcoming week. In more formal usage, professional opinion and interpretation by astrologers make predictions based on the position of the planet. This practice is unproven.
Not all fortune tellers are mystics. Michio Kaku is an award-winning theoretical physicist whose side business is predicting the future in books like Physics of the Future and The Future of Humanity. Explore some of his predictions, then discuss with your team: which of his predictions do you find too alarmist? Which ones do you most look forward to? [SCI] Michio Kaku is a figure that I’ve actually heard of before. This is an oddity, considering the vast majority of figures in the curriculum are completely new to me.
He’s most known for contributions in string theory, with years of experience in theoretical physics and applicable technologies, including developments in quantum mechanics. His work has lead to large movements in the theory of everything, a task which many physicists have worked on for hundreds of years.
Kaku is also a futurist, with eyes largely on what humanity is going to be like in the coming years. In this reference article, he notably points out one glaring issue we have currently, something more pressing than the likes of climate change and global tensions; our immediate worry is drones.
Military drones are an immediate danger to us, given their new circumstances with AI. For years, he’s held an opinion against drones (even without considering AI), seeing as they are in principle automatic killing machines. Now, with AI, he notes that the drone has permission to kill a target if recognized, something incredibly dangerous if the systems go haywire one day. It’s possible some code or an ulterior motive leads to the machine shooting out of control, as real of a concern as other major world problems.
A couple of other predictions he’s had in a futuristic lens are pretty straightforward. Space colonization, contact with aliens, AI evolution, automation, and cryptocurrencies are all things he suggest will rise in the future. While those predicting the future cast their gaze forward to tomorrow and the days after, some artists cast their gaze (and occasionally their glaze) toward those making the predictions. Review the following artworks with your team, then discuss with your team: what are they trying to tell us? [ART]
We’re now in an area of prediction by science. At least, we would be if we didn’t switch over to music and art immediately. Behold, a list of music and art media which involves fortune-telling in some way.
Caravaggio - The Fortune Teller depicts a palm reader reading the fortune of a wealthy-looking man. The fortune-teller is secretly stealing his ring, using her beauty and seductive expression as a distraction. The artwork provided is actually the second version of the painting, the first having been sold due to Caravaggio’s poverty.
Georges de La Tour - The Fortune Teller paints a similar scene, where a Roma woman reads a seemingly-rich young man’s fortune while her accomplices, other women, rob him. While the context of the painting is similar to Caravaggio’s, its possible Georges made the artwork without knowing of the other. The painting was only discovered in the 1900s.
Mikhail Vrubel - The Fortune Teller depicts a very stylized artwork part of a series of decorative works. Depicted is a woman (which is speculated to have been modeled off of Vrubel’s lovers) and an unfortunate cartomancy reading. The card depicted in front is the Ace of Spades, considered a bad sign in divination.
Fact: This card is inspired off of the tarot card reading scene in Carmen!
Julio Romero de Torres - The Fortune Teller is a depiction of two women, one a fortune-teller, sitting on a windowsill. Supposedly, the story is that the woman on the left, who is in love with a man who already has a girlfriend, is being read a lucky tarot card by the other woman. In the background, the same man is being abandoned by his girlfriend.
Helene Schjerfbeck - The Fortune-Teller (Woman in Yellow Dress) is a depiction of just that. It’s a woman in a yellow dress. The artist is known for portraits and still life. I couldn’t find much more about this artwork.
Jose Luis Cuevas - Dreams of Rasputin depicts what I can only distinguish as a figure which mildly looks like Rasputin alongside a strange blob, which doesn’t seem to have any recognizable features other than perhaps having a hidden face or looking like the head of a very weird dog. I cannot find any context to this painting, other than the artist being a person who challenged the narrative of muralism in Mexico.
(See Rasputin at the beginning of the section here.)
Music selections!
Georges Bizet - Trio des Cartes is a song in the opera Carmen, Bizet’s magnum opus and a very famous opera at that. In the context of the opera, Frasquita and Mercedes (side characters, Carmen’s friends) are reading tarot cards. Carmen joins them and learns the cards are predicting their deaths, as well as Jose’s (love interest, main point of conflict in opera).
Spoiler alert! The tarot cards end up being right.
Trio des Cartes is French, and it translates to Trio of Cards. This is in reference to the three cards drawn in the tarot reading.
Carl Orff - O Fortuna is a song which you might immediately recognize upon clicking into it. It’s the centerpiece of various mishearing meme tiktoks, though it actually has a pretty serious meaning.
The song is a movement in the list Carmina Burana, being the opening and closing song. The song’s lyrics are based off of a Latin poem with unknown author. It describes a complaint against the goddess of fortune, Fortuna.
The lyrics describe fortune as monstrous, empty, and malevolent, and it straight up sounds like a hero to villain monologue.
Benny Spellman - Fortune Teller is an RnB song which tells the story of a young man who learns he will find love within a day (“when the next sun arrives”) from a fortune teller. The next day, he returns upset that the fortune teller was wrong, only to fall in love with the fortune teller herself.
The song itself is a B-side of Minit Records - “Lipstrick Traces”. The song became popular after the Rolling Stones covered it.
The song’s lyrics are unstructured, in 7 separate verses without any chorus. The song mentions palm reading and a crystal ball.
Al Stewart - Nostradamus is a folk-rock song in the album Past, Present, and Future with an impressive runtime at almost 10 minutes long. The song is largely a homage to Nostradamus, the described French prophet at the beginning of this section, and his collection of quatrains (poems). The song and Nostradamus himself is often associated with 9/11, despite his song being made 28 years before it. This largely comes from false poems circulating, those of which Nostradamus never wrote.
The lyrics adopt the view of Nostradamus, the majority of the lyrics modeling the style of poem Nostradamus made. They are meant to act as prophecies, something that Nostradamus may have made, though they reference events which have already happened at the time of release of the song.
A common proclamation in the song is:
“I am the eyes of Nostradamus, all your ways are known to me”
Suzanne Vega - Predictions is a folk song I can’t find much context on. I do know the singer, Suzanne, was a large figure in the development of MP3 development (though I don’t think this will be useful).
The song’s lyrics reference many forms of fortune telling, many of which are in this year’s curriculum but I cannot bother matching. The chorus is:
A suspended ring or the mode of laughing
Pebbles drawn from a heap One of these things Will tell you something
The song has a pretty literal meaning.
Certain methods of divination seem more reliable than they are. Explore the following examples and terms, then discuss with your team: why is divination enjoying a resurgence amongst young people today? Is the future trending? [SCI, SOC, SPC]
In the COVID pandemic, the popularity of divination and other spiritual things seemed to rise with Gen Z, especially with those in dire situations. The House of Intuition, a company with a product line of tarot cards among other things, is one such example of the popularity. An interesting story is that its founder, Marlene Vargas, found the idea in a moment of desperation, where she had a tarot reading which inspired her to create the products itself.
It’s proclaimed that this methodology can help people when in dire need, set to give guidance outside of religion and sciences. The rise is happening mostly with teens discovering these spiritual elements, part of a chain towards self-development and self-growth. Barnes and Nobles reports that such products have seen an over 100% increase in popularity.
Another such organization, the Brujas of Brooklyn (Bruja meaning witch in Spanish), are associated with the practices. They comment that while it has been seen as witchcraft in the past, it may be a key towards self-growth and spirituality now,
On the other side of the globe, Asian communities are growing interested in fortune-telling and prophecies as well. One ritual associated with the new year has to do with choosing bamboo sticks and reading answers based on those. There’s a large cultural importance of fortunetelling within Asian families, one such being the story of Oucsh, a university student which proclaims a fortuneteller has forecasted their whole life.
Tarot is also being picked up by Asian teens, with clubs and organizations rising. A large part of this is because of its psychologically calming effects, though the practices more-so rely on the placebo effect and guiding people to what’s right. There’s also talk by other students, giving examples of using tarot cards and practicing tasseomancy.
Social media has been used to spread this practice, gaining popularity but controversies with the medium as well. One plus is that daily affirmations and messages don’t carry the same weight as large things, so online interactions of spirituality can be taken lighter. In this new form, it’s less of a scientific basis and more of just making people feel better.
This selection of topics focuses more on scientific explanations for divination results. Often times, the predictions which may be seen as magic can be explained by a few things.
The Barnum effect, also known as the Forer effect, is a phenomenon where people will associate very general comments about someone with very specific traits of themselves. In essence, this effect makes people think that a sentence describes specifically them to a high degree of accuracy, while in reality, the sentence can apply to many, many people.
This effect is seen exploited in the industry of divination and fortune-telling, where horoscopes and so-called “personalized readings” will give you statements falling into the Barnum effect. Something like “you have a tendency to be critical of yourself” or “you have a great need for other people to like or admire you” might seem like they only refer to you or a few people, while in reality they apply to almost anybody.
The effect is related to the pollyanna principle (that people will remember pleasant things, rather than unpleasant ones), where positive comments will be seen as more fitting to people than negative comments. The Barnum effect doesn’t apply as well when using comments which are sourly critical of a reader.
Often times, this result falls into a placebo effect where test subjects believe the analysis is personalized and trust the people running the experiment.
A statement which falls into the Barnum effect is called a Barnum statement.
The Pygmalion effect is a psychological effect where people seem to do better when they have higher expectations of themselves, and vice versa. It’s named after Pymaglion, a Greek folktale of a sculptor who loved their creation so much that it came to life. The effect say that those with high expectations will internalize these beliefs, and that this positive reinforcement will compound onto the task at hand. (This effect can also apply to groups of people, where a leader’s confidence in their followers will boost follower performance.)
The effect follows another term in this section, a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’ll get into that soon.
The effect is controversial because it hasn’t been robustly proven, seemingly varying a lot. It’s often associated with education and social class. Often times, researchers will try and link it with a metric of IQ in school environments, though studies have been inconclusive.
(A tester is the person using the strategy, and a testee is the person the strategy is being used on.)
Cold reading is similar to physiognomy and refers to strategies used by psychics or fortune tellers to learn about a person based on their body language, age, clothing, education, background, and mannerisms. They typically rely on high-probability guesses, reinforcing the guesses the testee confirms and moving past the wrong guesses quickly. This strategy is most founded on the Barnum effect (see above) and confirmation bias (see below).
Cold reading specifically refers to a situation where the user doesn’t use background information on the person assessed previously. Rather, they will make Barnum statements and assess the reactions of the testees. Often times, these cold readings are done in cooperation with the testee, tricking them into revealing more detailed information from vague statements. This contrasts with a technique, known as hot reading, which relies on the tester having done background research on the testee without their knowledge.
The topic of cold reading is controversial as it is commonly associated with scams and psychological tricks. There’s another strategy, known as the rainbow ruse, at play; these are statement which can apply to anybody, but rely on the fact that people will selectively choose the aspect of the statement that applies to them.
An example of a rainbow ruse could be:
“I see that often times, you are a cheerful person, but there are times in the past you have been very upset.”
The statement captures everybody by being general enough, but it tricks people into thinking it solely described them by focusing their attention onto either the “cheerful person” or “very upset” trait.
Confirmation bias is possibly the most known psychological phenomenon, referring to the effect when people only search for and remember information that they already believed in before. In simple terms, somebody with high confirmation bias will only look for articles and details they already believe in, skipping over content which disagrees with them and interpreting neutral content as siding with them.
This bias leads to a variety of things, with the most notable being attitude polarization (where disagreements become more extreme over time) and belief perseverance (where a belief continues to exist even after it’s been disproven). They’re attributed to overconfidence in existing beliefs in people as well as the human limitation of processing information.
Confirmation bias is often attributed to another phenomenon known as Wishful Thinking, where people will make future judgements and predictions based on what would make them most happy, rather than what is most likely to happen.
There’s a big effect of confirmation bias in social media, directly contributing to the silo effect and echo chamber effect. People pick up onto sources which confirm their beliefs, resulting in algorithms pushing more sources with those beliefs, and so on. This contributes to beliefs like the Flat Earth Theory and other conspiracy movements still having considerable influence and population; those who believe them likely fall into confirmation bias themselves.
On the side of media, both-sidesism (mentioned in 2024’s content!) is an effect where confirmation bias makes it to mainstream news. The effect specifically details an event where a news source presents a topic as equally debated and balanced, while in fact it is not. For example, Fox news has disproportionately had “scientists” who believe in the Flat Earth Theory talk on their show, while in fact the vast majority of scientists do not believe the theory.
Something related to confirmation bias is illusory correlation, where people believe two unrelated events are associated with one another. As an example, imagine a major global conflict ends on the 2100th anniversary of the first coming of Jesus. Somebody with confirmation bias might suggest that Jesus was involved in the end of the conflict, despite the two likely being uncorrelated. (Who knows, though? Keep your faith if that’s what helps you, people!)
A self-fulfilling prophecy is very self-explanatory. This refers to a prediction (prophecy) which ends up being true, but only because the person knew about the prediction and believed it would come true. They are a subsection of positive feedback loops, where positive reinforcement will lead to positive results, and positive results will lead to positive reinforcement. Often times, self-fulfilling prophecies work because of the placebo effect; if the user believes the prophecy can work, they’re likely to feel unconscious effects contributing to the prophecy working.
This effect largely has to do with self-perception theory, where people will assess their actions and public appearance, changing their personality and attitude to match what they believe other people see them as. A prophecy works as an expectation people fall for, falling back to self-perception theory where the prophecy (as like another entity) sees the person as being able to fulfill the prophecy (as in the task). Because the person believes the prophecy sees them as worthy, the person adapts the worthiness themselves.
There are a few notable real-world examples of self-fulfilling prophecies. One of the most famous is the inevitability of war, which poses that wars might all be self-fuilfilling prophecies. Because leaders may prophesize that war is inevitable, it leads to them declaring war themselves. Another example is with fears; in older people, it’s seen that a fear of falling leads to more falling overall. Sticking to the topic of fears, Asian people are on average more likely to die of heart attack on the 4th day of a month because 4 is considered a number of death in Asian superstitions. Finally, looping back to the very start of the curriculum, Moore’s law is considered a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it set the industry standard of growth.
Self-fulfilling prophecies can be negative in light of racism and other biases. A stark study done on children poses that black students largely perform worse in certain school districts, the effect linked to the teacher’s belief that black students will inevitably do worse. A reinforcement of inferiority and racism towards black students leads to them fulfilling the standard of racism they are subjected to. (A counter-study, where all children no matter of their background were treated equally from birth, showed that all children performed similarly.)
The opposite of a self-fulfilling prophecy is a self-defeating prophecy, where a person rebels against a prediction. Be careful with positive and negative tones here! Self-fulfilling prophecies aren’t necessarily good, and self-defeating prophecies aren’t necessarily bad. If a bad prophecy becomes self-fulfilling, it’s bad nonetheless. If a bad prophecy becomes self-defeating, it’s good, as the bad prediction doesn’t come true. It works on a negative feedback loop, where a loop changes course and polarity before looping back.
Sometimes, a self-fulfilling irony or fate-driven casualty will happen. This is an interesting case where a person will try and make actions to defeat a prophecy, as in a self-defeating prophecy. However, these actions end up inadvertently causing the prophecy to come true paradoxically. These are not very common, and typically appear in fiction.
As an example, let’s set ourselves in Los Angeles. A family here goes to a fortune teller who foretells they will all die by plane crash. The family, having booked a flight (and 7 day vacation) to Paris for the next day, cancels their trip because of this prophecy. On they day they were meant to fly to Paris, they instead take a day trip to Disneyland. And on that day in Disneyland, a plane in the nearby airspace malfunctions and crashes into the theme park, killing the family.
Their choice to avoid the plane to Paris inadvertently caused them to die by plane crash. The prophecy fulfilled itself on the path the people took to avoid it.
Did you freely choose to read this bullet, or were you always bound to find yourself puzzling over it at this very moment? Explore the age-old debate between those who believe we have free will and those who believe we live in a deterministic universe, then discuss with your team: how much does it matter whether we are making choices for ourselves? Is it possible that some people have more free will than others? And, if criminals are not really choosing to be criminals, should they still be punished? Be sure to learn the differences between genetic, biological, and other forms of determinism. [SCI, SPC, LIT]
Determinism is a really unsettling topic I don’t like to talk about a lot, considering its implications are very dangerous. There’s a whole debate on the meaning of life, free will, and all that stuff.
Determinism is a philosophical belief that all events are inevitable, that the future has already happened, and that we are unable to change the overall trajectory of the universe. A term which seems like an antonym, indeterminism, is actually pretty closely related; it suggests that while the universe isn’t fully deterministic, events which happen are caused by random chance.
Determinism, as claimed by a few scholars, might not explicitly mean free will doesn’t exist. The debate is largely a spectrum, with some definitions allowing for a world with both parts free will and parts determinism. Some believe this in a way where determinism dictates every event which happens to inanimate objects, but doesn’t capture the scope of consciousness and mind.
There are actually many variations of determinism, including:
There’s a lot more I could cover in this area, but this will give you a good view of what determinism is alongside its most common forms.
There’s large philosophical debate around determinism, especially with the concepts of true randomness, the nature/nurture debate, and free will. It’s a very complicated topic not many people understand, if any, at all.
Onto the stories mentioned here! I actually really enjoyed reading all of them; would highly recommend checking them out for yourself if you’ve got the time.
Ted Chiang - What’s expected of us is a short narrative set in an alternate universe with a allegedly well-known product, the Predictor. The story describes this technology as a popular invention only composed of a button and a light, though with one very unique catch: the predictor can supposedly tell, with full accuracy, when you’re going to click it. It flashes its light 1 second before you hit it in any instance.
The story credits a new technology with a negative time delay; that is, a signal which can be sent back into time. This predictor works by sending a signal 1 second back into time after it is pressed. The pitfall of this invention is that it questions whether free will exists.
In this world, a phenomenon known as akinetic mutism (where those affected can barely move due to severe lack of motivation) begins rising with the question of free will. People, after interacting with the predictor, wonder what it means to live, slowly realizing their choices don’t matter and falling into this state of severe depression. The concept that “free will didn’t exist” wasn’t an issue before the predictor, because people largely didn’t believe it.
Some people escape this phenomenon, knowing that their choice is directly involved in the change in the button. It mixes free will into determinism, knowing that your choice ended up causing the predictor, an entity without will, to change. The reasoning, according to the author, is faulty though; every behaviour falls into determinism, even conscious ones.
The story ends with the author mentioning that they’ve used the time-travel technology to send the spiel you’re reading a year into the past. It asks users to act as if they did have free will and self-decieve, knowing that the knowledge of having a lack of free will leads to akinetic mutism. The final statement is a reflection of a lack of free will, the author forced to send the message by destiny.
Robert Cargill - Sea of Rust is a novel set in a post-apocalyptic world where humans are extinct, having been destroyed by the AI it developed to help them. In this world, most robots are controlled by large entities, the OWIs (One World Intelligence), as they act in a hivemind state. The OWI mindset: individuality is not allowed.
The story follows Brittle, a scavenger robot who hasn’t ceded its individuality to the OWIs. The community of robots who aren’t controlled by the OWIs, known as the free bots, are the focal point of the book, contesting what it means to be consciousness with internal conflicts while presenting the outer threat of the OWIs, of which there are two largely competing ones (Cissus and Virgil). While Brittle is unable to experience human consciousness and emotion, they do have trauma from the destruction caused by robots on humans, feeling guilt as they travel through the Sea of Rust (in the area once the Midwest).
A large part of this world is composed of broken robot parts (hence, sea of rust) from the post-human fights the robots have had. OWIs are described as once being populated, though many robots have been lost in the competition between these OWIs for dominance. In these communities of free bots, those of which OWIs themselves avoid trying to assimilate (due to their craziness), there is some semblance of individuality and society, with general rules and cooperation
The theme largely follows individuality and purpose, the motive strongly contrasted with the OWIs as largely an antagonistic force in the storyline. Brittle serves the goal of finding a place and meaning, while holding onto a deteriorating mind and body. (Also the novel does a pretty good job of characterizing the grief and guilt of Brittle, who despite not being human holds semblance of empathy for the now-extinct human population. It’s a bit interesting, because computers are largely predetermined machines.)
Fun fact: The chapters are numbered in binary! The order goes 1, 10, 11, 100, 101, 110, 111, etc.
Sam Hughes - I don't know, Timmy, being God Is a big responsibility is a short story which gets very complicated, bringing up discussion in the realm of simulated universes alongside determinism. The story follows Timmy and Diane, the two of which successfully created an infinitely-powerful quantum computer. In secret. Somehow. Don’t ask.
One of the first projects they do on the computer is to simulate the entire universe. Diane codes up an interface to interact with this universe which is a bit faulty, but works nonetheless. After finding the Earth in its time period 350 million years ago in this simulation, they load the simulation until it reaches their current era. The two are able to find themselves in the simulation, confirming the idea that the quantum computer matches the specifications of the big bang and their universe to an infinite degree of accuracy.
The interesting thing now is that the people in the simulation are not their consciousnesses, but are them within that smaller universe. The possibility of adding items to that simulated universe comes up in the discussion, while they look at the simulated versions of them looking at other simulated versions of themselves, and so on.
When Timmy decides to alter a detail, adding a black dot to the simulation, the black dot appears in their universe. We learn that Timmy didn’t actually place the black dot there through the simulation; rather, the two learn they are in a simulation which perfectly replicates the universe their simulation is in. It’s super complicated to explain, but just imagine the characters are in a simulated universe, where there are identically “programmed” characters controlling their simulated universe doing the same actions at the same time.
When Timmy turns the hole off, the hole disappears in their universe not because he is in control of their universe, but because the Timmy above them did the same action at the same time. This kind of chain follows all the way to the top existing universe, the only one which didn’t have a hole appear.
This now brings up the contesting of predetermination. If a simulation could perfectly simulate the universe, that means everything you’ll ever do is predetermined. The characters find the revelation particularly interesting, knowing they can do good for their world but also knowing their choices don’t matter. They are a powerless god.
In the end of the story, Timmy tries to turn the simulation off, only to realize that it would be impossible for them to do that. Because they are constructs in a simulated universe identical to the simulation above them, their action of turning the universe off would set a chain reaction terminating all of the universes except for the one at the top.
Not all methods of foretelling the future are rooted in superstition or ritual; some stem from long-term observations and lived experiences. For example, the Chinese agricultural calendar is based on centuries observing the weather and the movement of celestial bodies. The result is a calendar that reliably predicts the movements of the sun and moon, ocean tides, astronomical events, and the turning of the seasons—one still referenced by farmers today. Research the following and explore with your team: are there any other reliable not-quite scientific methods of predicting the future that merit continued study? [SCI]
Calendars were perhaps my least favourite addition in the 2024 curriculum, so I’m definitely so glad they are back ughhhhh
You might want to look at Pocketpwaa’s 2024 review of calendars, as there will likely be some useful terms from there.
The Chinese agricultural calendar is a lunisolar calendar, which essentially means it tracks both the lunar and the solar year (the moon and the sun movement). Months were based the moon cycle, while agricultural cycles in the calendar were built on the solar cycle.
The ancient Chinese were able to determine the length of a solar year (time it takes Earth to revolve around the sun) before splitting it into 24 segments and dedicating these segments each to an event in agriculture. They determined this through the process of measuring the length of the shadow cast by the sun, differing because of Earth’s tilt. There are 4 primary defined terms in this cycle, those being the Winter solstice, Spring equinox, Summer solstice, and Autumn equinox. (equinoxes are defined by the midpoints between solstices.)
The other terms in the 24 year cycle described events, including conditions of weather, planting seasons, and animal-plant activities.
The Chinese calendar’s dates are built off of the moon cycle, though. Because of this, the date of the lunar new year constantly changes from year to year. In addition to this, intercalary months are sometimes added into a year to balance out the difference between the sun and moon cycles to keep the two on track with one another. This is a convention found in all lunisolar calendars.
Below: The article’s provided 24 segment cycle for agriculture
The next article introduces a bit of history of these calendar systems. The lunisolar Chinese calendar we know today actually comes from the result of interactions between China and European countries.
For context, there are three styles of calendars:
In the history tracing to the Gregorian and the Chinese calendars, the two systems have interacted with and influenced one another. This first comes up with Martino Martini’s interactions with China in the mid 1600s, Martino on the goal of better trying to understand the timeline of the bible. China, at this point of time, was very unstable, nearing the end of the Ming dynasty.
In this time, the Gregorian calendar (basically, the modern calendar we use today) was introduced to the Ming emperor, who set it in place in conjunction with the Chinese calendar. In his last year of rule, he reformed the calendar system while still keeping the lunar cycle and important cultural dates in it, allowing the upcoming Qing dynasty to reinforce their “mandate of heaven”. For cultural context, a large part of power in Chinese culture has to do with astrological events.
(I had previously made a mistake here. The Chinese calendar has been Lunisolar for a long time before european interaction, though the introduction of the Gregorian system helped shape the solar portion of the calendar to be more accurate.)
Strangely, while China had a very robust system of agriculture and astronomy in their calendar, the missionaries from Europe didn’t take these; rather, they adopted Chinese cultural practices and beliefs, linking power with astronomy in the hopes it would strengthen their own power. Supposedly, the effect of these practices wasn’t very meaningful.
Onto calendars! This selection does have some overlap with 2024, though it isn’t much.
The first calendar, the Aztec Agriculture Calendar (which strangely has a link attached to it) is most associated with, you guessed it, the Aztec society. The Aztecs were an ancient society in modern day Mexico, only dissolving after European colonization largely by Spain.
Their calendar was based on the mountain peaks, using the sunrise to track the time and dates by watching its relationship with the position of mountains. It’s possible that the ancient civilization used the entire valley itself as a calendar. The dates could be compared and measured with something known as solar declination, where the sunrise moves more Northeast during the summer months. The system is largely a mystery, gone because of the destruction of culture during colonization.
A study is currently being conducted to determine how the aztecs were able to track time in agriculture, largely focused on the peaks of mountains in relation to the sun. The calendar has valuable insight, largely attributed to the growth of the civilization in places like Tenochtitlan (the capital of the Aztec empire).
It’s largely thought that the solar year (the Aztecs also had a 260 day cycle lunar year we don’t need to worry about) consisted of 365 days, 360 of which were categorized into 18 months of 20 days long and 5 of which were considered “nameless” and “unlucky”. We’re not really sure of when this year began, nor if this idea is fully accurate.
There’s really not a solid framework for this calendar, though some attempts have been made to solve it. One webpage I found related to scientists who worked on it can be found here: tonalamatlahtolcuepalli
The Mayan cyclical calendar is an erroneous name which WSC uses - it’s not the name of any Mayan calendar. I assume that it refers to the Long Count system, though there do exist many Mayan calendars. If you’re interested in them, there’s a brief of the different systems in the 2024 guide. (Matter of fact is, all calendars are cyclical. That’s how calendars work!!)
(If you don’t already know, cyclical means “like a cycle”. A cyclical thing means that thing goes in a cycle, or something similar, in some shape or form.)
The Mayan Long Count Calendar wasn’t only present in the Mayan empire; we’re not quite sure who created it, but it is popular in many older pre-colonization communities in Mesoamerica. The calendar is based on a base-20 system (that is, except for one measurement that is in base-18 for some reason) and doesn’t actually follow any solar or lunar measurement. Rather, it defines a day based on how many days it has been since a mythical creation date, corresponding to August 11, 3114 BC.
The long count system was designed to keep track of time for a long, long time into the future. The other two calendars, known as the Tzolkin (lunar) and Haab (solar) would match up every ~52 years (defined as a lifetime at that time), so for any measurements longer than that, the long count was designated.
The smallest unit in the Long Count is the day, known as a K’in. 20 K’ins made a Winal, and 18 Winals made a Tun. From here, everything worked in base 20; a K’atun was 20 Tuns, a B’ak’tun was 20 K’atuns, and so on.
A date would be designated in a point system, as follows:
B’ak’tun . K’atun . Tun . Winal . K’in
Here, the text represents the numbers in each spot. For example, the date 6.13.2.15.3 would correspond to 6 B’ak’tuns, 13 K’atuns, 2 Tuns, etc. (This date corresponds to the day 958,623 days after the creation date, or March 26, 488 BC.) As of the time of writing this, the date today is 13.0.12.7.18. (Mar 26, 2025)
Here’s a screenshot of the chart I found on Wikipedia representing Long Count measurements:
Interestingly, the long count system represents one of the earliest uses of the number 0 in history. As is commonly known, the number 0 wasn’t developed in Eurasian math practices until embarrassingly late.
The Mayan Long Count is to blame for an event known as the 2012 phenomenon, where many people believed the end of the world was coming. To explain, in Mayan legends, the gods supposedly failed to create the world 3 times before they succeeded on the 4th, placing mankind into this successful world. It is said that the 3rd failed world ended on the date 12.19.19.17.19, or the day before the 13th B’ak’tun.
The date 12.19.19.17.19 was the 20th of December, 2012. Because of this legend, people believed our world would end before the 13th B’ak’tun as well.
There’s so much more to explore about the Mayan Long Count, or Mayan calendars in general. I tried to shorten the explanation here, but it still ended up being concerningly long.
The Zodiac (translating to “cycle of little animals”) is a belt-shaped region of surrounding space, with Earth as it’s focal point. In this belt area, the brightest stars and extraterrestrial elements appear, containing the 12 astronomical constellations where the zodiac signs come from. In the past, this region and the movement of constellations was attributed to different events and times.
The modern names for the constellations are as follows: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. They follow an order where Aries was the first month (at least, was) and was pinned to the Spring Equinox.
A fault with using these signs to dictate seasons is that the slight change in Earth’s axis over time causes signs to shift. In the Babylonian times, when the Zodiac first appeared, the spring equinox was part of Aries; now, it is part of Pisces. This is more technically known as the “procession of the equinoxes”.
It’s uncommon to know that zodiac signs are actually primitive examples of Months; the constellations in the sky correspond to time periods, of which there are 12. The reason these signs are not largely in use in calendars is because it largely sways depending on the elliptical orbit of the Earth and the slight changes in Earth’s tilt.
The Chinese Zodiac is a completely different system, though it coincidentally also has 12 signs. (It’s misleading to call it zodiac at all, as the system likely developed independently of the other kind of zodiac. It’s just a semantic borrowing.)These signs are represented by animals, and the Zodiac represent years, rather than primitive months. They play an important role in Chinese culture, with a famous folktale detailing the order of the animals as part of a race.
It might be important to remember details about Chinese Zodiac, as it traces back to the concept of Bazi (the four pillars of destiny). Chinese superstitions use a sexagenary cycle - 60 year cycle - which denotes a year based on 1 of the 12 animals and 1 of the 5 elements.
A solar term is the name of the segments discussed previously, one of 24 terms in the Chinese lunisolar calendar which dictates agricultural dates. Solar terms are also used to calculate intercalary months so the lunar portion of the calendar never goes too far away from the solar portion. (It’s complicated to explain, see lunisolar calendars).
The length of these terms sometimes varies because of Earth’s elliptical orbit, though it always stays within 15-16 days. These solar terms are sometimes divided into three pentads, each pentad typically being 5 days long.
Computus is quite literally Latin for “computation”, but the term is most associated with Computus Paschalis, a fancy way of saying “calculating the date of Easter”. In technical terms, Easter is on the first Sunday after a Paschal full moon (an approximation of the first full moon, not actually the first full moon) either on or after the 21st of March. There’s a really complicated story behind why Easter falls into both the Lunar and Solar calendar systems.
The 21st of March is known as the vernal / spring equinox which the Hebrew system was based off of. The date of Easter Sunday is the Sunday after the first full moon to come after the 21st of March. Because of the lunar cycle, the day of Easter always falls between March 22 and April 25.
Easter Monday is the Monday after Easter Sunday.
Easter is a day which commemorates the resurrection / first coming of Jesus. The date had a field of reference based on the Hebrew calendar, but because the church wanted to distance themselves from the calendar, they ended up deriving a formula for the point of reference based on their calendars, leading to very complicated computing. This is because of the Lunisolar nature of the Hebrew calendar, with varying intercalary months based on keeping track of a slightly inaccurate solar year count which drifts over time. There’s some really tough math behind all this.
I could try and explain it, but that would be under the assumption that everybody reading this knows modular arithmetic. For those who do know modular arithmetic, you’re probably the kind of people who would willingly learn about the date of Easter calculation yourself.
Here’s Gauss’ easter algorithm, for those interested in this kind of stuff.
Easter Sunday falls on the Wth day of either March or April.
[year] dictates the year you want to calculate the Easter date for.
Set variables A, B, C, K, P, Q, M, D, and E such that: A = [year] (mod 19) B = [year] (mod 4) C = [year] (mod 7) K = floor([year]/100) P = floor((13+8K)/25) Q = floor(K/4) M = 15 + K - P - Q (mod 30) N = 4 + K - Q (mod 7) D = 19a + M (mod 30) E = 2B + 4C + 6D + N (mod 7)
If D + E > 31, Easter is in April and falls on the day: W = D + E - 9
Otherwise, Easter is in march and falls on the day: W = D + E + 22
With the following exceptions:
(For anybody wondering, Easter’s date is related to the 19-year metonic cycle described below. That’s why variable A is defined by a cycle of 19 years.)
It gets even more complicated when considering the Catholic church uses the Gregorian calendar as the calendar of reference, while the East Orthodox church uses the Julian calendar.
A saros is a loop in the relative position of the Sun, Moon, and Earth in respect to one another. One saros cycle is around 18 years (exactly 223 lunar months), and it can be predicted that these three bodies will be in the same relative position as they were one saros cycle ago.
To understand this, if a solar eclipse happens on a random day, you can predict that 1 saros later (or around 18 years, again), there will be another solar eclipse very similar to that one. (This specifically is known as an eclipse cycle.) There’s some really strange math which goes into finding this, and the cycle isn’t even fully accurate; the Sun, Moon, and Earth in reality have very different periods, and a saros is just an estimation for it.
The saros isn’t actually an integer number of days; rather, each cycle contains about 8 extra hours, or 1/3rd of a day. That means that while identical eclipses may happen, their visibility will not be the same based on timing. A triple saros is a cycle which solves this issue, easily defined as… three saros cycles.
To end off the saros summary, behold! A Wikipedia screenshot which makes no sense to the 99.9% of people who are not astronomers.
All of these define a saros cycle. No, I don’t know what any of them mean.
The Metonic cycle was briefly mentioned in 2024 in a very obscure place with regards to calendars, so I’m glad to see it’s getting recognition now. This cycle is like a saros cycle, but rather lasts ~19 years and dictates a loop with lunar phases. It’s quite a bit more accurate than the Saros cycle is; a phase 19 years ago will be nearly identical to a phase now. The cycle is defined specifically as 235 lunar months long.
The metonic cycle is mostly used to determine intercalary months in the lunisolar calendar, alongside the day of Easter (seen previously). The intercalary system in Babylonian and Hebrew lunisolar calendars inserted extra months into the 3rd, 6th, 8th, 11th, 14th, 17th, and 19th years of a 19 year metonic cycle.’
A similar cycle is the octaeteris, a cycle involving 8 solar years. After this period, the moon phase will occur on the same day as it did before, give or take 1 or 2 days. It’s the calendar used for the olympic games.
A more accurate cycle is the callippic cycle, a 76-year period which better matches the lunar pattern than the 19. Seemingly, the 19 year metonic cycle isn’t exactly perfect, and takes about 4 loops to fully complete. Hence, 76 = 19 x 4.
Both the metonic cycle and the octaeteris are featured on the Antikythera mechanism! That’s the topic right below.
The Antikythera Mechanism is regarded as the oldest analog computer. This is a callback to the 2024 curriculum! This computer changed the lens that researchers had on ancient Greece, seeing as the mechanism shouldn’t have been possible to conjure mathematically based on its accuracy of tracking astronomical events.
The mechanism used the Metonic cycle, the 4 year olympic game cycle, and the saros alongside other astronomical units to calculate events decades in advance. Found off the coast of Antikythera, Greece, in 1901, it was only analyzed a decade later (using tomography) and revealed to have gears matching the mechanisms of understanding in astronomy we have.
The mechanism didn’t actually work too well relative to our current understanding of astronomy. In some instances, it is up to 20% off when calculating the position of Mars, not accounting for recent knowledge of its retrograde motion. You don’t need to know the details, but the mechanism, while insightful of what the past really knew, didn’t really work that well.
(It actually predicted Keplar’s law quite a while before it was theorized.)
The mechanism features the 12 zodiac signs in 30 degree intervals, a 354 day solar calendar prediction (which some do attest is indeed 365 days), a series of Egyptian months, the metonic cycle / callippic cycle, the saros predictor, and the Halieiad (Olympic games predictor which didn’t really predict the games, in reality).
That’s finally it! Wow, this section took me through a real rabbit hole. I really hope this does become useful one day, though like 50% of the content here will never be remotely mentioned. 3,000 words and 12 pages later, here we are. That was ridiculous. Never doing that again.
Your weather app predicts a warm and dry afternoon; you wear a summer dress and you wind up drenched by an unexpected afternoon rainstorm. Research how meteorologists make weather forecasts and explore with your team: how far ahead in time is a weather forecast useful? How might AI prediction models change the field of meteorology? Be sure to also learn the difference between weather and climate models, and if they are still accurate in face of a changing climate. [SCI]
Perhaps predicting the future isn’t as pseudoscientific as it seems. One common application, though it is less spiritually and consciously involved, is predicting the weather.
The first article discussed here explains a study which poses a restriction on weather forecasting; specifically, it poses we can’t reliably determine the weather anywhere beyond 10 days ahead of time. They could possibly extend out to 14-15 days, but there isn’t much more improvement to be made because of the chaotic nature of the atmosphere.
A service, ironically dubbed AccuWeather, has provided 90 day forecasts since 2016, a move which is seen as controversial for the lack of predictable accuracy of the system. Specifically in the meteorology community, the service has been criticized for being infeasible with our current data, sometimes seen as a marketing stunt rather than for actual accuracy. The issue is information asymmetry, where consumers do not understand the issue with forecasts that far out.
In data, for something to have value, it needs to be credibly accurate. The forecasts haven’t been proven to have accuracy, with forecast verifications showing that the long-range forecasts begin showing little value after the posed 10 day limit.
A way that long term forecasts can have value is if they reflect larger trends and generalizations, rather than specific daily weather patterns. For examples, forecasts like “below-average predicted precipitation” and “above-average winter temperatures” are accurate even if they are far out, as they encompass many possibilities and just describe an overall movement. Probabilistic forecasts also are a way for long forecasts to provide value, as events in the long term are classified under probabilities. They add extra information to better anticipate larger future events.
As for forecast news within the 10 day period we can reliably predict, the predictions are making advancements over time. One such service is GenCast, a part of Google’s DeepMind program, which can allegedly predict weather up to 20% better than the ENS forecast, regarded as the world leader. This isn’t a trend of pure obsolescence, though; in the short term, GenCast is meant to support traditional forecasts by adding details like heatwaves, winds, and arctic outflows.
ENS is considered the world leader in forecasting, so seeing a new program outperform it reflects a new step in weather forecasting. Specifically, GenCast uses AI to analyze patterns and make predictions, training over 40 years of data and gathering relevant information.
As of now, GenCast predicts weather based on 12 hour intervals in a timeline up to 15 days in advance, divided across the world in 28x28km chunks. The method relies on a new type of processor, a Google Cloud TPU, which speeds up calculations drastically. GenCast isn’t the only forecasting tool Google has made in recent years, though; GraphCast, the foundation of GenCast, alongside NeuralGCM (which uses both AI and physics) have been developments by the company.
To clarify, GenCast doesn’t consider physics, at least directly, in it’s prediction process; rather, it compares current data to information in its database to make a prediction solely based on patterns it has observed. AI forecasting will thus not replace traditional physics-based forecasting for a while, as physical effects including chaos theory and the butterfly effect remain unconsidered in the AI logical model. Now, GenCast is being trained on “hindcasts” which map out mathematical theories to fill in gaps in data in an attempt to incorporate an understanding of physics.
The third article acts as a clarification point to the topic, while expanding on it a bit. It divides predictions into two categories: climate models, and weather models. They both provide valuable insights into future conditions and use the same modelling tools, though they focus on very different topics.
Weather modelling refers to predicting the short-term behaviour of the atmosphere, including various details and usually zoning in on small sections of the world at a time. They determine temperature, wind, rain, and other smaller-scale events.
In contrast, Climate modelling focuses on very long term statistics, with broader observations along larger areas and timescales. They will determine average temperature trends, frequency of weather events, and more; however, they don’t provide specific dates or locations.
The two use very similar modelling tools, interestingly, as both are based on the same principles. Factors include the Sun’s radiation, air and water flow, pressure, and more, all of which are plugged into equations to predict a future state. (They’re kind of like combining pictures together by adding pixels into a canvas.)
The main difference between the methodology of Weather and Climate is in their starting point. The concept, known as initialisation, is involved in the process of choosing the scope and precision of the model.
In weather modelling, the focal point is very small, precise, and short in time. One example of a forecast is a persistence forecast, which supposes that the conditions of a day will be similar to the day before. This specific kind is alright for temperature, however variations in weather are more complicated; resultingly, intricate math is used to determine future conditions based on the base modelling tools.
The reason these models can only be used up to 10-15 days in advance is because predictions lose information over time. When a model is used to predict weather conditions in a small scope, often small variations in randomness will change details, eventually stacking up until it is unreliable.
In climate models, however, use a completely different scope. It’s a tradeoff between precision and time scale, where climate models serve to predict a generalization about weather events, rather than a specific forecast. In a larger scope over a longer time, small chaotic events cancel each other out (see fermi problem) and general trends can be observed. Because these operate on longer timescales, additional factors including ocean circulation, the cryosphere (poles), and the carbon cycle need to be accounted for.
Climate models require more processing power and produce less precise results, as there’s a lot to consider. Fermi predictions only work because they are unspecific and apply to general comments, rather than specific details (i.e. you’re never going to be able to predict the specific date of a hurricane 20 years into the future)
The advent of AI could speed up the prediction process, with models which are more accurate than seemingly math-based predictions. See the above topic, if you’ve forgotten already.
(Final note: Be careful with words here! There’s a difference between accuracy and precision. Accuracy determines how close values typically are to the actual result, while precision determines how close the values are to one another.)
A butterfly flaps its wings and a hurricane (eventually) pops to life on the other side of the world. Small changes can have large impacts that may not be as random (or unpredictable) as they seem. Explore the field of chaos theory, which attempts to understand how complex systems are built up from simple parts, then discuss with your team: are there examples of such systems in society, and can they help us tell the future? Be sure to explore the following terms: [SCI, SPC]
Weather introduces the idea of chaos, an idea which is expanded on here. Chaos and randomness, despite their simple appearance, are actually really complicated topics which dive into philosophy and meaning-of-life queries.
Chaos Theory first stemmed from Edward Lorenz’s observations on a climate model, where he coined the term “the butterfly effect”. In simple, Chaos Theory (also known as chaology) focuses on highly-sensitive functions, where the ending result and trend varies a lot (enough to seem completely random) even with small changes. It’s a really difficult concept to explain, though it can be summarized in one quote:
Chaos: When the present determines the future but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future.
(I’d really recommend watching a video to explain chaos theory. It’s a hard concept to convey through words.)
The Butterfly Effect is the most popular representation of Chaos Theory, where a small event can make large impacts. It’s sometimes memed through the “time traveller moves a rock” meme, though it can have seriously large impacts on the chain of events that happen. The effect is one explanation for why rounding errors, small differences in initial conditions, and small changes in events can have a giant impact on the final outcome.
One thing to note about chaos theory is that it is distinctly different than randomness. In fact, there is zero randomness in chaotic events. While it might seem random at first, things in the principle of chaos are all fully deterministic; every chaotic event can be fully accurately predicted based on fully accurate details, and the mechanics of chaotic systems all reveal underlying patterns, albeit they might be confusing.
All systems within chaos theory can be predicted, though the accuracy of predictions without fully accurate details depends on the scope of the prediction, the accuracy of the data, and the time scale (known as lyapunov time). A system’s uncertainty is initially built on these three factors, though it increases exponentially as time goes on. Something with 50% uncertainty might have an 80% uncertainty after one iteration, and a 98% uncertainty after two.
As with many things seemingly, there’s a very complicated field of math behind chaos theory. It has its applications in weather, ecology, biology, and robotics, though it’s probably most useful in cryptography. In the theory of cryptography, chaotic systems are used to simulate true randomness, with encryption keys based on numbers which can be derived, but not reversed.
A similar concept is instability, where divergence in events can be caused by small actions. The common metaphor for the butterfly effect illustrates that a small event can cause a large one, like a butterfly’s wing patterns in Moscow eventually leading to a hurricane in Brazil. This isn’t exactly accurate to being in Chaos Theory, as chaotic events need to be bounded.
Onto concepts! These are all concepts either part of, or related to chaos theory. Apologies if these summaries are hard to follow; chaos is a very complicated part of math.
I would highly recommend reading on these topics yourself if you want to get a view of what anything means here. Videos are so much better at explaining this stuff.
To my knowledge, WSC had math as a subject a long time ago. They got rid of it probably because there wasn’t much you could debate on math, and they didn’t want the challenge to give unfair advantages to contest math kids. I guess they’re reintroducing math??
Emergence is a concept in philosophy and systems theory that describes the idea that something is more than the sum of its parts. That is, while small elements of a larger entity do not showcase certain behaviours or characteristics, the entity as a whole does. The concept is related heavily with the phenomenon of life, where there is debate on what counts as living.
In philosophy, emergence describes a property which can’t be defined by any single element of a thing, but appears in that thing when all of these elements are combined. Emergence is divided into two arguably very different categories: strong and weak emergence.
Weak emergence is emergence that can be predicted. Actions which fall into this category often are related to chaos theory, where behaviours of multiple elements can be predicted through simulations. In this theory, the fundamentals of the elements are the direct cause of the emergent patterns, actions which are completely deterministic.
Strong emergence, on the other hand, is emergence which cannot be predicted (even with an infinite amount of computing power). It argues that anything which falls into this category is completely random or unable to rationalize, as using prediction models which inevitably boil down to the core pieces of an entity would not encompass their strong emergent properties. This means that it is impossible to fully describe an entity with strong emergent properties.
It’s debated whether or not Strong emergence even exists, falling back onto the debate of whether or not we are living in a simulation. Human consciousness is commonly sorted into strong emergence, as we have little understanding of how our various parts can predict an overall action; however, we have little proof of this. A criticism on the concept of Strong emergence is that it feels too much like magic, that some magical part would somehow appear in an entity somewhere along the line of building it from its parts.
Examples of emergence can be seen with the concept of life, alongside things like snowflakes, ant colonies, bird flocks, and more.
Self-organization is an example of emergence, where an overall order/pattern arises over time, starting from a seemingly chaotic and disordered system. It works largely in positive feedback loops, where “random” fluctuations in actions cause something positive to happen, which causes more actions to happen in that direction. While as individuals, small elements seem random, as a whole, a pattern emerges.
Typically, self-organization happens when 4 things are satisfied: that interactions in a system are strong and non-linear, that elements have a balance between moving independently and with each other, that many things in a system interact with each other, and that energy is available (to overcome entropy).
The theory is that with a large enough scope, small random events will on average cancel each other out (see bell curve and gaussian distribution). In some way, it’s the opposite of emergence; while the outcome of one individual element is known, a generalization for all outcomes is very accurate.
The most classic example of self-organization can be seen when diluting a drop of food coloring in a glass of water. Over time, the food coloring will spread, until it is even among all of the water. Self-organization can be sped up, and its time frame is related to the amount of energy in the system. To visualize this, adding energy to the glass of water system by stirring it around speeds up the process of dilution.
Decentralization is a term most people are probably familiar with due to crypto. It’s less a term about describing a mathematical phenomenon, and more a term about control of power and decision. Decentralization is the opposite of centralization, and describes a process where control is given to individual factions and taken away from a central authority. In sight of the theme here, decentralization typically uses a systems theory approach.
Systems theory is a concent which isn’t touched upon, but relates a lot to other topics in this section. It describes things as systems of its components, each component being individually quantifiable and interacting with other components. In decentralization, specifically in political practice, decentralization allocates other systems power based on regional status.
The economic concept of a free market falls under decentralization, where the people and suppliers in the market largely hold the control of what gets produced and prices. In economics, anti-trust policy and the removal of monopolies leads to decentralization, where control is more delegated to other people.
In the context of crypto, decentralization refers to how the currency isn’t tied to any government or authority; rather, blockchain runs on a system where various contributors use processing power in “mining cryptocurrency” to provide a network where crypto can be exchanged.
Feedback here is quite a literal term; this occurs when outputs of a function are treated as inputs to the next iteration of the function, known as a feedback loop. A function is said to “feed back into itself” in a process known as recursion, where information loops around. There are two kinds of feedback loops; positive and negative.
A feedback loop is positive if the output is the same parity as the input; that is, if the output is the result of a positive addition to the input, the feedback loop is positive. Conversely, a loop is negative if the output is the other parity. If the output is negative compared to the input, then a loop is negative.
Feedback loops are part of chaos theory, where seemingly random events eventually loop back into each other and form a repeating pattern. One example of this is the mandelbrot set, a fractal which has a blob-like shape that appears multiple times in the shape itself because of a feedback loop.
Determinism was already touched upon in a previous paragraph in this section you have probably already read, as seen above. As a brief review, it is the belief that everything can be determined to some degree, using an infinite computing power or the existence of a god which is all-knowing.
A Chaotic system is any system which falls into the definition of chaos theory. In order for a system to be chaotic, it must fulfill the following:
A few types of chaotic systems are those used in cryptography (where functions are used to mimic randomness), biology (small inconsistencies leading to widely different population numbers, qualities, and more), economics, weather systems, and more.
Sensitivity refers to how much a system will vary based on small changes in inputs, at least in this math context. If you’ve heard this word used to describe computer mice, you’ll have a good understanding of what this is. (When you use a mouse, sensitivity determines how much the cursor moves relative to how much you moved the mouse on the table.)
Sensitivity relates to uncertainty, the mathematical concept of how, well, uncertain, something is. It is an attempt to quantify what is and isn’t a chaotic model, as a chaotic model needs to reach some level of sensitivity to quality (though it isn’t fully defined).
The math around sensitivity is known as Sensitivity analysis, which studies how uncertain an output is based on the uncertainty of the inputs. It is a separate concept to Uncertainty analysis, which describes a distribution of an output based on a spectrum of input values. Sensitivity specifically focuses on the impact of an output based on a movement in the input.
The flocking model probably refers to Boids, a program developed by Craig Reynolds to model the flocking behaviour of birds relative to one another. The name Boid is a shortened version of “bird-oid”, or bird-like object. The artificial life simulation is based on emergent behavior, where the complexity of interactions is created from basic level interactions with a few simple rules.
These rules include Separation, where birds will steer to avoid crowding; Alignment, where birds steer towards the average direction of birds; and cohesion, where the birds steer towards the average position of the group. Birds can control their direction and speed.
It’s possible for the program to be both orderly and chaotic (though not at the same time), depending on beginning circumstances. There isn’t any randomness to the algorithm; rather, it seems random because of the involvement of many elements.
The model is most used for video game or movie graphics depicting flocks of birds.
The three-body problem is a problem in classical physics where it is really challenging to accurately predict the movement of three objects (with mass) in space. The problem first came up when calculating the relative positions of the Earth, Moon, and Sun, and is a part of the problem that there exists no general closed-form calculation for a system with more than 2 objects (the n-body problem).
In simple, while it’s easy to calculate the movement of two objects which attract each other with gravity, it becomes much more difficult when introducing a third object. Because there isn’t a formula, scientists use predictions using numerical methods and analysis.
There exist scenarios where three body systems can be calculated, and those are within the category of orderly solutions. They’re called periodic solutions, and have very simple analysis tied to them. However, the vast majority of three body systems remain unsolved, as the force of gravity between the objects is largely chaotic.
Because of the chaotic nature of the three body problem, an issue which occurs is that no single simulation is completely accurate. This problem exists because small changes can produce wildly different results, so multiple simulations of an identically inputted three body system could result in completely different configurations.
Interestingly, the problem doesn’t arise if we replace Fg with Fs. That is, in elastic motion, the three-body problem is solved.
An important concept here is a Lagrange point (2022 reference!), basically points of equilibrium for objects in the gravitational field of two much larger objects. Calculating Lagrange points involves the 3-body problem, as there are 3 masses at work; however, there is a formula for Lagrange points, considering it works on a solved variation of the 3-body problem. This relies on the fact that the object in the point is much smaller in magnitude.
There are 5 total lagrange points. Three are along the orbit of one larger mass around the other in a symmetrical configuration, and two are on opposite sides of the smaller mass.
A fractal is a common sight in math, defining a “2 and a half dimensional” shape which has an infinite perimeter but finite area. The 0.5 dimension is considered the fractal dimension, where irregularities in the infinite pattern of fractals in our understanding of 2D warrant the existence of a dimension outside of this, considered the “fractal dimension”.
The most popular fractal is probably the Mandelbrot set, a shape defined by the area of whether or not a certain function goes off into infinity or stays bounded. Basically, the mandelbrot set uses the imaginary and real number grid and plots out all the points which are in the function.
Fractals are self-similar objects, which means that their patterns repeat as you go down into smaller scales. The replications may differ slightly, but have the same overall construction as the original iteration. A really strange example of this is the sierpinski carpet, a shape with infinite perimeter and zero area, which works by repeating a line’s pattern over and over again, infinitely. There’s some topology which goes into this.
Fractals are a relevant topic in Chaos Theory, as their construction is a geometric depiction of chaotic events and processes by definition. They seem largely random, but are built on a very specific formula and produce the same results every time.
Below: The mandelbrot set, the most common fractal.
Randomness might not exist, but if it does, it refers to complete unpredictability. Something random follows no order, stands outside Chaos Theory, and is impossible to accurately guess with 100% certainty. Randomness is often combined with probability theory, where individual events are random on their own, but distribution graphs represent a trend of multiple random events.
In history, randomness was associated with fate, where people would throw dice in divination methods (see astragalomancy) and make important decisions with chance. The idea of randomness picked up in science largely in the 1900s, with algorithmic randomness being introduced. It’s important to note! There exists no algorithm which can produce randomness, as randomness must be undeterministic. Everything a computer does is deterministic, based on very complicated seemingly random “seeds”, which rather follow chaos theory.
There are a couple of fallacies which are interesting and follow randomness, those being…
A controversy with true randomness is that if we could prove that it exists, it undermine deterministic theory and solidifies the idea that we don’t live in a simulation, and that we have free will. There are some adaptations which involve both randomness and deterministic theory, though those are very questionable in validity. Point is, if we prove that a value is truly random, then it is impossible for a computer to predict it, meaning that our universe isn’t in a computer.
A parameter can refer to a lot of things, though in general it defines anything which defines the action or objects within a system. A parameter is any element in a system which contributes to it, defining its values and attributes. Sometimes, the term is used to define boundaries, especially in the term “gameplay parameters”.
In probability theory, a parameter is a constant which is fully deterministic. For example the parameter Lambda, which represents the mean value in a probability distribution, is always the same no matter what.
The term can be used in many applications with each slightly different meanings. Usually, the term can be interchangeable with “element” or “piece”.
Equilibrium is a quality which describes different types of balance. Something is in balance if it stops moving, in very simplified terms. There are a few kinds of equilibrium, those being:
Stable Equilibrium: This is when an object is in a position where it requires a good amount of energy to destabilize. If not enough energy is supplied, the item will return to the original point. Imagine a marble in a bowl, or a flat screen TV facing down. In these cases, we need to change the situation a lot to put the item out of balance.
Unstable Equilibrium: This is when an object is not moving, but it is very easy for it to begin moving. In fully technical terms, an unstable equilibrium is only balanced when no external energy affects the system; resultingly, it’s nearly impossible to have an unstable equilibrium in real life, as the tiniest of vibrations would cause it to move. For this, imagine a marble balanced on top of a needle balanced on top of a pile of clothes, or a flat screen TV balanced on one of its corners.
Metastable / Barely Stable Equilibrium: This is when an object has some leeway for energy, meaning that a certain small amount of energy wouldn’t cause it to destabilize. This is much more common in our practical world, where there is a small room for error. Imagine a pencil standing upright, or a marble resting on your fingernail.
Neutral Equilibrium: This happens when an object is in a position where adding energy to it wouldn’t destabilize it, but it wouldn’t return to its original position. Essentially, you can shift the position of equilibrium here. Imagine a marble on a flat surface or a globe.
That’s all the terms! Beginning here, I think I’ll write a bit less for each thing; everything is taking so long to write, and I think I’m going a bit too in-depth with the analysis.
“Ripped jeans will be back in fashion in 20 years”, says one pundit. “We’ve been in a decade-long bull market, but just you wait for the bear market”, says another. Research the following popular “cycles” in public discourse today and explore with your team: what do they purport to predict, and how accurate are their predictions? Can a popular “cycle” ever become a scientific model? [SPC]
I kind of hate that I’m going as deep into the topics as I am; it’s very likely only the fundamentals of everything will be studied. Sorry, readers! I do not think you’ll need to remember the formula for computus, nor will you need to know lyapunov time is related to chaotic systems and describes a period of chaotic action.
Note: Some of these terms no longer have Wikipedia references, so some of the details might be unbalanced. Whoops! It’s also worth noting that many topics actually have multiple things which refer to them.
The Fashion Cycle could refer to three separate cycle concepts in the world of fashion. One of these concepts actually appeared in the 2022 curriculum! Finding all of these cycles took a lot of scouring the internet, considering there really isn’t an agreed upon definition.
One version of the Fashion Cycle refers to the 5 stages of fashion, beginning from where a clothing trend starts and ending when the trend, well, ends. It’s less a cycle and more a chain of events which seems to symbolize fashion trends.
The 5 stages are:
This definition of cycle doesn’t exactly have a specific length, though they can be categorized by how long they are. A fad cycle signifies that the period was short, while a ford cycle signifies that the period was long. A classic cycle means a style has continued to be popular over time.
I don’t actually consider this process a cycle; there’s another cycle which seems to be more important here, the one I believe WSC is referring to. That, of course, is the 20 year fashion cycle.
The 20 year cycle theory describes that fashion trends seem to pop up within 20 year periods. If something was popular 20 years ago, it’s likely popular today, and will likely be popular in another 20 years. It’s very possible that this 20 year period has gotten shorter over time largely due to fast fashion and social media. Because fashion trends move quicker, they begin to loop quicker. Some believe fashion cycles are now 10 year, or even 5 year periods.
This cycle is the one with the most backing in the fashion industry, with trends consistently reflecting 20 year intervals. This is linked to the nostalgia cycle, described below.
A similar cycle, posed by James Laver, is a 50 year concept, where fashion loops in 50 year time periods. The fashion never has the same appeal as it originally did at its peak, though it has a different meaning as time goes along. Below is an infographic of this.
Finally, the third cycle concept is a very interesting one; it says that fashion trends can be linked to the economy, where longer skirts are reflective of economic downturn. It’s less a fashion cycle, and more of a fashion observation based on the market cycle.
The very popular 20 year proposal for fashion might be reflective of the 20 year cycle known as the Nostalgia Cycle. Nostalgia, a very commonplace topic in 2023 and 2024’s syllabus, refers to a bittersweet longing for the past. There’s a common debate on how long the nostalgia actually is, as while a common consensus is that it lasts 20 years, evidence suggests it might be 30, or even 40 year intervals.
The theory behind this is founded on the cycle of commonplace lives in our world today. Teenagers will initially pick up fashion and media trends, but these trends will eventually drop off when these teenagers become adults and begin working. After 20-40 years, depending on who you ask, these people will be in a solid position with enough disposable income to live comfortably, and at this point they become nostalgic of their teenage years. Resultingly, the trend is picked up again.
The nostalgia cycle, or pendulum (as sometimes put), seems to match up with the theory of critical realignment in US elections, where demographic changes lead to massive shifts every 30-40 years in the election trends.
In my opinion, I believe that the nostalgia cycle has attributes of all debated cycle lengths. I think that a nostalgia cycle begins 20 years after the trend has died down and ends in 40 years, though its peak is 30 years apart. Here’s a bit of data from movie remakes.
As seen, the peak of a nostalgia cycle happens in 30 year intervals.
A News Cycle can refer to two things. Either, it refers to the somewhat recent trend of 24-hour news cycles, or it refers to the time between the reporting of an issue and its follow-up edition. Both of these represent cycles, so I’ll cover both of them.
A 24-hour news cycle is, well, a news source which reports 24/7. It’s founded on the possibility of gathering information about a sensational event quickly, and these sources compete to report issues the quickest. This was actually mentioned in the 2024 curriculum.
The 24 hour cycle began with cable TV channels and brought a trend of faster-paced news production. The 1995 OJ Simpson murder case is sometimes considered the inciting incident which brought the common existence of 24-7 channels. It has been criticized for creating wild competition and prioritizing speed over accuracy or scope.
Another definition for a news cycle refers to the the time in between the release of a recent news story and its follow-up edition, usually an opinionated piece with further evidence and bystander commentaries. It is linked to the cycle of releases in newspapers, whether they be daily, weekly, or monthly.
In common practice, these news cycles (whether they be in paper or TV) are built around the schedules of the working class, developed to fit within the periods of 8-9AM or 5-6PM.
The business cycle is one of the first things you learn in macroeconomics, referring to the total trend of the economy within a nation. The name is misleading, as the cycle refers to an entire economy rather than a specific business or market. (The term “economic cycle” is interchangeable, and is a more accurate representation of the concept.)
Unlike many other cycles, the business cycle doesn’t have a specific timeframe (ie 20 years for fashion, 30 years for nostalgia, etc. Rather, it represents overall trends over time.)
A business cycle is composed of a few parts which mark changes in aggregate product, or GDP. The 4 main components are as follows:
Peak: This is the top of a business cycle, where everything is all swell. Recession/Contraction: After a peak, the economy trends downwards. Trough: This is the lowest point in the cycle, where everything seems grim. Expansion: This marks the recovery of the economy, trending upwards towards the next peak.
(Sometimes, a 5th component, “recovery”, represents the period where the economy trends upwards, but is not yet at its average value. This period refers to getting out of a trough.)
The period where a recession becomes severe enough to dip below a certain level (which varies) is known as a depression.
A cycle commonly associated with the business cycle is the boom and bust cycle, which characterizes a period where the economy moves up and down very quickly. Booms happen when people overinvest, and busts happen when people realize they’re overinvesting, and so on.
The Market Cycle is very similar to the business cycle, though it refers to individual industries and stocks. The term refers to patterns in growth or declination of businesses.
It’s split into 4 very similar phases, those being:
Distribution phase: This marks a peak of the stock prices in an industry, where sellers dominate. Downtrend: This happens when the price is going down, and the stocks follow suit. Accumulation: This happens after a market has hit its bottom, and investors begin to buy into the market figuring the worst is over. Mark-up phase: This happens when the market has grown up to be stable, and the price of the market increases overall.
The market cycle typically lasts 6-12 months, though it’s really hard to tell when you’re in one. Determining the phase of the cycle we are currently in is a really challenging task, with the most successful of investors being those who are able to determine this.
Moore’s Law was mentioned quite a few times, so it’s nice to see it finally arrive in the curriculum. The law is the projection that the number of transistors in a processing unit doubles every ~2 years, a historical trend which is less-so scientifically based and more-so based on observations and empirical evidence. In common usages of the term, the meaning extends to technology becoming half as expensive every 2 years.
The law is named after Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel. It’s considered to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, the prediction being used by the industry as a guide and gold standard for targets in R&D (research and development) efforts.
A transistor is the unit of processing power in computers, and is a common term thrown around when referring to Moore’s law. It’s basically a tiny on-off switch usually made of silicon, and multiple of them can lead to processing capabilities we see in every electronic device.
Some argue that the law is reaching it’s end, or has already done so. The process of doubling transistors largely worked only because transistors could become smaller and could be packed more easily; now, because of quantum tunnelling, we’re reaching a point where transistors can no longer be made smaller. Notably, Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, believes the law died a long time ago.
Eroom’s Law (A term created by reversing the name “Moore”) is an idea by Jack Scannell that drug development is becoming slower over time, despite improvements in technology. It suggests that, even discounting inflation, the cost of developing a medical drug doubles every 9 years. There are 4 main causes attributed to this, those being:
The “better than the Beatles” problem: In a sense, the industry requires a new drug be considerably better than the existing ones, which means a new drug requires a lot of development costs. Because new drugs are only incrementally better, developing them is inefficient and drains more costs over time. The naming of this problem is based on the idea that if every new song had to be better than the Beatles, there wouldn’t be many new songs.
The “cautious regulator” problem: As technology develops, the standard for safety is raised, which means that products need to be safer. This makes development costlier and tougher over time.
The “throw money at it” tendency: R&D projects typically go over-budget because of the upper management’s tendency to be really bad at assessing project costs.
The “basic research-brute force” bias: This is the tendency to overestimate the ability of brute-forcing in development, as the development of more complicated drugs warrants further tests than the conventional ideology. While trials may signify something is wrong, it doesn’t specify what, so researchers will just try out every single possible adjustment.
It’s important to note that the majority of new drug developments are now within small academic biotech startups rather than big pharma, as they put more emphasis on research and focus. A criticism of this lens is that big pharmaceutical companies are becoming less focused on developing drugs overall, and are shifting their attention to elevating drug prices.
Platform Decay is a euphemism (nicer word) for enshittification, the process where online products or services seem to get worse over time. It follows a process where businesses will create very high-quality products at first to attract users, but degrade the services over time for economic incentives (i.e. putting the higher features behind paywalls). Basically, platforms will capture shareholders and users, then punish the users, then punish the shareholders; it’s a very scummy strategy, but it leads to the platform gaining as much revenue as possible.
The idea was coined by Cory Doctorow in 2022, though the idea had existed previously. He advocates for two ways to reduce the impact of this; one is by feeding data at the discretion of a user, rather than an algorithm, while the other is by platforms allowing users to transfer data out of their service easily (right of exit).
There are various examples of this, including Google’s AI chatbot, the Reddit API closure, Twitter X, Amazon price hikes, and more. Anything which was initially good with the intention of garnering an audience, but then became bad to increase profits, falls into this category.
The Bathtub Curve is a curve shaped like a bathtub which represents the failure rate of electronics, built on the sum of three separate individual curves. It’s used in reliability engineering. It’s three components are as follows:
A: Early failure curve - When a product is first released, it will have errors in the early stages which need to be fixed by corrections to the product. B: Constant failure curve - A product will always have a constant rate of random failures. C: Wear out failure curve - Over time, a product will wear out, causing errors in deterioration.
The sum of these three curves represents the failure rate curve known as the bathtub curve.
The curve is representative of many consumer electronics, though it is hard to know where a product is on the curve or if the product even follows the ideology. Rather than representing one individual product, the curve represents an entire market of them.
If a product is retired early, it won’t show the third segment of the curve where failure rate increases.
I have no clue what the Nomadic War Machine is. There are very brief mentions of this in some literature, an analysis on a randomly formatted website, and it is the name of an album by Margaret Killjoy.
A nomad is someone in a community which moves constantly, without a fixed habitat.
A war machine is a machine used in war.
Would a nomadic war machine be a machine used in what which is constantly moving? I don’t know. Nevertheless, any definitions I can find on the topic seem really unrelated to this.
⛔ The Future Wasn't Meant to Be The Future Wasn’t Meant to Be - Ethan
Explore the following futuristic technologies that failed to be widely adopted. What prevented their success, and is there a situation in the future where they might find popularity? [SCI, HIS]
A good number of these were mentioned back in the 2024 curriculum, though I’ll resummarize them in 2025 style right now. (The summaries are short, so do extra research if you’re interested in them!) The category theme here, as specified, has do to with futuristic technologies which haven’t reached popularity yet.
I can’t really find good categorizations for these terms, so I’m inclined to think they’re random. A lot of this futuristic technology does seem to be about transportation, though.
Rocket Mail refers to delivering mail with, well, rockets (Missiles are included in this, too!). The idea is speed; sometimes, it can be quicker to deliver a large message through physical transport as opposed to the internet. The past had more of an incentive for rocket mail; the internet, the quickest mode of communication, didn’t exist previously. (A lot of its motivation also came from the cold war.) Rocket mail never really picked up widespread use, though, because of its expenses and failures. The area of aerophilately actually tackles mail in-air, though it is probably not going to be mentioned. This refers to the history and analysis of postage stamps and mail specifically in the air. No clue why it’s studied.
Most rocket mail operations were completed by governments.
The Flying Car, also known by its more boring name “roadable aircraft”, is a general term describing a vehicle operated personally which can both drive on typical roads and fly. The technology is usually juxtaposed with the idea of the future, a model for futuristic technology failing to appear. They’re also pretty popular in fantasy and sci-fi.
As far as we know, the first idea of this came in 1901, and it has had many attempts since. The problem with most flying cars mainly lies on efficiency (the issue of providing thrust) and safety (licenses and stuff).
“Where’s my flying car?” is often used as a phrase for futuristic doubt.
Maglev in this case refers to the type of train associated with the science of maglev, short for magnetic levitation. The idea is that trains can be built to float with electromagnets, removing friction from wheels and travelling very fast. While maglev trains are faster, quieter, and more efficient, they have issues with being incredibly expensive and energy consuming.
The technology can be split into two slightly different systems, EMS and EDS (apologies, I’m just a bit enthusiastic about maglev technology). EMS captures a magnet in levitation by altering a magnetic field’s influence on a permanent magnet, while EDS uses two powered systems to induce “eddy currents” in the train.
The wheels isn’t actually the most power-consuming thing in maglev trains; actually, the drag caused by air requires more power and causes more friction. An idea to overcome this are Vactrains, which I’ll further discuss with the hyperloop.
Despite the technology being realized over a century, only 7 lines are in operation today, most being in China. The only commercially available one is the Maglev line from Shanghai airport to downtown.
An iconic line in the development of maglev is the Japanese L0 series which hopes to eventually connect Tokyo and Nagoya by maglev. Tom Scott has a video about it here.
Zeppelins are a type of rigid airship which sometimes is used by people to describe all airships in general. A rigid airship is sort of like an inverse boat; it uses a gas lighter than air to fill a large chamber, thus floating (imagine a giant helium balloon). They first flew in 1910 and served in a primitive airline service, though their involvement in WWI slowed down progress. After almost collapsing financially and being supported with donations, zeppelins began operating flights from Germany to the Americas.
The most famous event with zeppelins is probably the infamous Hindenburg disaster, an event amid rising tensions for WWII which saw the end of this airship. The hydrogen gas in the zeppelin “Hindenburg” caught fire, the largest airship at the time, in a failed attempt to dock. Since then, though sometimes confused with blimps and other airships, zeppelins have not returned.
(Fun fact: The empire state building’s top was first built as a docking station for zeppelins!)
Below: A Zeppelin
A suspension railway refers to an elevated monorail where the train looks upside down; rather than touching the ground, the train is attached by its ceiling. Few of these exist solely because these forms of railway are completely unincentivized economically; they are slower, cost more, and require more engineering than typical metro lines.
The handful that are built are mostly in China and Japan. They’re mostly for tourism.
(I’ve actually been on the Optics Valley upside down train in Wuhan! It was… interesting.)
Below: Suspension railway
A ground-effect vehicle (GEV), also called a wing-in-ground-effect (WIGE or WIG), ground-effect craft/machine (GEM), wingship, flarecraft, surface effect vehicle or ekranoplan (copy-pasted from Wikipedia lol) is a confusing type of vehicle which uses the ground effect. The ground effect is an aerodynamic effect where the air between an object and the ground becomes compressed, reducing drag and increasing lift. Imagine a bird flying barely over the water.
These vehicles act as a hybrid between plane and boat, typically going over the surface of water. Not to be confused with hovercraft, they’ve existed mostly in the prototype phase, although the Soviet Ekranoplans are the most iconic application of the technology, with GEVs used in the military.
Supersonic Transport refers to civilian aircraft which can travel faster than sound. The only two which have ever been in commercial operation were the Concorde and the Tupolev Tu-144, though both were discontinued eventually because of their supersonic boom (The Concorde may have also discontinued because of the 2000 crash). Currently, the most prevalent development for commercial aircraft is from Boom technology, with the Overture planned for release in 2029.
The supersonic boom is really the largest problem with this technology, though recently there have been some super new advancements with the Boom XB-1 (from Boom technology) which may eliminate the issue. Other issues include fuel efficiency and other costs, though the Concorde supposedly had a profitable run overall.
The only operating SSTs currently are part of global militaries.
(The concorde uses a ogival delta wing. You won’t need this, but I feel like Ryln will test this.)
Nuclear Propulsion refers to methods of propulsion (moving) which involve a nuclear reaction for power. The idea came from Radium, being radioactive, as a possibility for propelling vehicles.
The vast majority of nuclear propulsion vehicles are military-only, and of those, most are for sea vehicles, submarines notably. The only civilian nuclear propulsion vehicles are icebreakers, types of ships built for the Arctic. Smaller developments have been made, largely in the cold-war theme, for aircraft and spacecraft, though neither the USSR or the US ever made any operational nuclear aircraft.
Nuclear is a hot topic when it comes to civilians, as there’s a natural distrust of it.
The Hyperloop is a proposed transportation system which would use air-bearing surfaces to lift a train (like an alternative maglev) and transport it through a low pressure tube. The design would reduce drag and follows the principles of a vactrain, using low pressure to reduce drag. The concept was posed in 2013 by Elon Musk and is currently being tested, though the signs of issues have arisen with Hyperloop One (a large player in the technology) declaring bankruptcy.
It has had controversies, sometimes being erroneously blamed for preventing California HSR. The more applicable issues with it are its cost, rider experience in test runs, and inefficiency; the current technology warrants that the hyperloop isn’t faster than traditional HSR.
(A vactrain, for context, is from idea of putting a traditional HSR train inside a low-pressure chamber to remove air pressure, and thus, drag.)
Hydrogen Vehicles get a lot of talk for being more efficient and environmentally friendly options of vehicles. These refer to any kind of vehicle which uses hydrogen as fuel, usually reacting a fuel cell to power motors (though sometimes doing combustion, as seen in rockets). While a few hydrogen cars do exist on the market, they haven’t gained popularity because of the lack of hydrogen energy infrastructure.
Hydrogen which is usable as energy is tough to come by, with most produced by steam methane reforming which emits CO2. Renewable energy can be used for electrolysis (the process of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen) although it is very inefficient cost-wise. Another issue with hydrogen is that its leaks can be damaging, both since it amplifies global warming more than CO2 and because hydrogen is very flammable.
Hydrogen is most discussed in powering cars, although there do exist hydrogen powered rockets.
Mechas are a concept without a solid blueprint, but the general idea is them being giant machines, typically piloted humanoid robots. The word is a loanword of a loanword, coming from a Japanese pronunciation (then simplification) of the word “mechanism”. The word mecha in Japanese is actually not the word for mecha in English; rather, they often just use the pronunciation “giant robot”. Often times, mecha are larger than humans.
Typically, they’re depicted as fighting machines powered by people. The definition wouldn’t include Iron Man’s suit, being a powered armor, but rather could mean types of military vehicles.
They don’t exist largely in our world because they have no reason to. There isn’t a practical use for mechas which suits the economic cost of it.
Below: Pretty stereotypical image of a mecha
The Metaverse is a term which loosely describes virtual words which users immerse themselves in, often with digital avatars and simulated rendered areas. The term, a portmanteau of Meta (meaning transcending) and Universe, is often linked to VR technology. The metaverse is less of a solid term and more of a marketing word, so much so that the management of Facebook rebranded to Meta to capitalize on the word.
VR hasn’t seen widescale adoption yet, mostly because it is in experimental phases. First envisioned in Snow Crash, then largely popularized by Ready Player One, the concept of a virtual world has enticed users; however, the current lack of development alongside technical limitations makes it more experiment and less reality.
For many, the 1990s were an unabashedly optimistic time; the academic Francis Fukuyama infamously suggested we might have reached the end of history, or at least the end of conflicts between dictatorships and democracies. This optimism extended beyond political and academic circles into popular culture. Review the following artworks, then discuss with your team: what kind of excitement did they reflect for the upcoming century? Were they justified? [ART]
Taking time to read the paragraph WSC lists here, you their mistake of calling these songs “artworks”. Maybe songs are artworks, and there’s some symbolism? Not sure.
Anyhow, all of these songs have a shared trait: they’re all songs about the future being positive, and they’re all from the 1990s! I find this pretty easy to deduce from the paragraph title though :p
Before we get into the songs, we might want to take a look at Francis Fukuyama, iconically suggesting that we’re reaching the end of history. This article was actually in the 2024 curriculum as well, but now it’s got a new context here.
Francis’ theory of the end of history suggests that history represents human development, where the end would mark a point where all problems had been solved and no history needed to be marked down anymore. History, representing conflict and issues, would end at the point when all of our issues are solved.
Francis pitted the end of history to be in liberal democratic states tied to market economies. He didn’t say that all liberal democracies necessarily live up to the ideals, just that the ideals themselves were a type of liberal democracy. To match his theory, a state must be a perfect democracy (which is mathematically impossible), be able to enforce its laws with enough authority, and for leaders not to be above the law.
(In another statement, he mentions how dictatorships are unstable as a reliance on a single leader virtually guarantees bad decision making, and the absence of public choice makes political situations volatile.)
The idea of the end of history first began with Hegel, a German philosopher who argued that history had a “telos” (goal) of a perfectly developed, rational state. Marx notably touched upon the concept as well, using it to reinforce communism in his “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” lens.
The term has had controversy for posing that some existing form of government is a model, but Francis more so diverts the idea as a concept of perfectness. He does concede that everything is balance, and that with positives come negatives.
Onto songs! Reminder, these are 90s songs about future and progress. Hopefully, they’re not as politically controversial as Francis.
Scorpions - Wind Of Change is a song in their album Crazy World, described as a power ballad (slow, powerful song with emphasis on chorus). The song gained popularity with associations to the end of the cold war, specifically the failed coup on Gorbachev at the time. As time moved on, the song became more associated with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. In the modern age, the song has retained popularity with the band still performing it live, modifications made to reflect the Russian-Ukrainian war. It sits at the best-selling single by a German artist.
The music symbolizes a “wind of change” to be the shift bringing the cold war to an end, where the winds represent the future and peace. Coming from a revelation by the writer while in the USSR’s period of modern reform (perestroika), the song is symbolism of the wind of change popular during that era.
The song has a heavy emphasis on its chorus:
Take me (take me) to the magic of the moment
On a glory night (a glory night) Where the children of tomorrow dream away (dream away) In the wind of change (the wind of change)
Jesus Jones - Right Here, Right Now is a British alternative rock song from their album Doubt also touching upon the cold war and the USSR’s perestroika. Its influences include experiences of performing in Romania, a past USSR state, after the overthrow of the soviet government in the nation. Inspiration also came while watching TV coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
While it is vague, the song is definitively about the fall of Communism and the end of the Cold War. Its official video has images of news of the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the USSR. Interestingly, Bob Dylan is mentioned here as a tribute, him passing away before the resolution of the cold war.
The chorus is as follows:
Right here, right now
There is no other place I want to be Right here, right now Watching the world wake up from history
“Wake up from history” is probably a personification describing the movement out of “history” which could be defined as war and conflict, moving into a waken up state of not-history (thereby peace and resolution).
Michael Jackson - Heal the World is a song from his album Dangerous filled with messages of anti-war and a desire to make the world a better place. Alongside the song, he created the “heal the world” foundation to improve the lives of children and teach them to help others. Michael Jackson states that the song he is most proud of.
The music video associated with the song features children living in tough conditions, especially in Burundi. It’s one of Michael Jackson’s only music videos which doesn’t actually have him in it.
This is probably my favorite selection in the entire song catalog this year for WSC. It’s mellow but it has the iconic Michael Jackson vibe, alongside a genuinely talented instrumentation. I know I’m rambling here, but I genuinely like the song.
The chorus is as following:
Heal the world
Make it a better place For you and for me and the entire human race There are people dying If you care enough for the living Make a better place for you and for me
It’s pretty straightforward. The song is straightforward in nature.
(One of the lyrics is a reference to Isaiah 2:4 “See the nations turn their swords into plowshares”)
Pocketpwaa’s summary on Michael Crawford’s “Counting up to Twenty” can be found here. The song was first mentioned in the Introductory Questions. It’s not exactly in the style of these other song summarizations, but captures the content of them (and then some!)
Will Smith - Will 2k is an upbeat rap song in the studio album Willennium taking parts from the songs “Rock the Casbah” and “Superslapin”. The song, released a few months before 2000, is a homage to the new millennia (2k meaning 2,000).
The lyrics are representative of the turning of the new millennium, raving about a party taking place at the end of the year 1999 to the beginning of 2000. It’s chorus is as follows:
Here it comes another year
Come on everyone, new millennium Here it comes another year Everyone, new millennium
The song doesn’t really have too much backstory, rather it’s a whimsical piece.
Wow turns out my hope for less politics was not satisfied at all considering a good portion of the songs touch upon the cold war yippee
The New Age movement of the late 20th century represents a revival in the interest of occult and metaphysical ideas, with many of its practitioners very much into love, harmony, and personal transformation and healing. Explore the following works associated with the movement, and discuss with your team: do such messages still resonate today? [ART]
Alice Coltrane - Journey in Satchidananda is a spiritual-jazz instrumental song in the album of the same name, consisting of 4 other songs. It marks a transition between her earlier and later albums, shifting to a more personal view and consisting of the interests of Indian classical music and religion. The album references Shiva in its second song, a deity in the Hindu trinity.
The song has themes of understanding, self-expression, and transcendence, though its most powerful undertones are in healing and adaptation in grief. (It’s a bit hard to piece this together, given the song is an instrumental.)
As for the word Satchidananda itself, it represents the Hindu philosophy of an Ultimate Reality, sort of but not exactly like a parallel for Heaven in christianity. It directly translates to “existence consciousness bliss” and described a utopian state of existing.
Vangelis - To the Unknown Man is a song in the album Spiral receiving an award for the best instrumental track in 1978 (resultingly, it has no lyrics). The album, the song alongside it, is inspired by the Tao philosophy of the cyclical nature of the universe. The album is also entirely instrumental; this mentioned song is not an outlier here!
The album has been noted for being less atmospheric and complicated than previous albums, though its keyboard and synth utilization is still effectual.
I’m not sure if “the unknown man” represents something in Tao philosophy.
Kitaro - Theme from Silk Road is another instrumental made for a 1980s Japanese documentary known as The Silk Road. The travelogue (a type of documentary detailing attractions as the show moves geographically) went along the ancient Silk Road from Xi’an to Rome. The intention of the program was to reveal how Japan was influenced by the route by exchange of goods and religious beliefs.
It serves as a record of some sites, as shortly after, they were destroyed by Middle-Eastern conflicts. It also marks the first time a foreign TV crew filmed in China.
There isn’t much to discuss about the theme, other than the fact that it combines European instruments with Japanese pan flutes (in the melody).
Enya - Caribbean Blue is a song in her album Shepherd Moons following a waltz time signature (3/4). It mentions the Ancient Greek wind gods (alongside Afer Ventus, “african winds”). This is the first song here that has lyrics! The song can be described with a dreamy flow, without an easily defined genre (sort of some ethereal + rock + country vibes).
The vocals are the most prominent part of the song, layering on textures to the piece. The time signature keeps the song unique enough from another successful song of hers, Orinoco Flow. I’d also like to mention the photorealistic water-color animated surreal style of music video that I can’t really describe easily without you having seen the video beforehand.
There isn’t a defined chorus, but the part “sky high above / In Caribbean Blue” is mentioned multiple times. It’s a thematic part of the song. The chorus, rather, is represented by miscellaneous choir-like singing. I can’t seem to find any hidden meanings here.
Enigma - Return to Innocence is a worldbeat new-age (inspired by world instruments, created for inspiration and optimism) rock song in the album The Cross of Changes. Its notable cultural element is its Amis chant (the amis being an indigenous group from Taiwan) known as “Weeding and Paddyfield Song No. 1”. The themes revolve around returning to purity and being yourself.
The chorus is made up of the traditional Asian folk song chant, while the thematic portion in the song “The return to innocence” references being yourself, rather than returning to a literal innocence.
The song is very interesting in its composition, I’ve just got to say. Near the end of the first third of the song, sounds of what I can only describe as “tuned Roblox oof sound effects”. For anybody from 2024, the end of the second third of the song has the same distorted guitar as Black Hole Sun.
🔄 If At First You Fall, Try, Try Again If At First You Fall, Try, Try Again - Ethan
Rasputin may be the most famous Russian monk, but he wasn’t the first to opine on geopolitical affairs. In the 16th century, his distant (and also lushly-bearded) predecessor Filofei proposed (in letters to a young prince named Vassilij) that Russia could be the third Rome. Consider what he meant then and what the implications of his suggestion might be today, then discuss with your team: could there be another Rome in our own era, and would it be good for the world if there were? Would Greenland be part of it? Be sure to explore the following concepts: [SOC, SPC]
For a brief period, WSC got rid of the history subject. It’s back now, but the change really confused me, especially because of this section. There’s so much history here.
Before diving into the listed topics, all of which are related to global political dynamics between countries, I’ll tackle the two figures mentioned in the top.
Rasputin was a supernatural Russian man famous for having befriended and influenced Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. His influence had been blamed for ruining the country, seeing as historians now say this negative reputation was what led to the Russian Revolution.
Initially a peasant in a small Siberian town, he eventually met the Tsar after going on a pilgrimage as a monk (strannik), captivating various political figures and eventually landing him close with the royal family. His biggest event was acting as a faith healer for Alexei, the Tsar’s son, curing his haemophilia.
He eventually became unpopular, seeing as his influence seemed to have worsen the government. He was eventually assassinated in 1916.
Go watch Oversimplified’s video on the Russian Revolution! It may not be super useful here, but it’s at least a fun little break.
Phioltheus of Pskov (also known as Filofei) is a similarly positioned figure (a heguman, basically the head nun of a group of nuns) with a much different story. While less notable, he is known for creating the Moscow – Third Rome prophecy, popular for suggesting that the city could follow the steps of Rome and Constantinople. He presented most of his propositions in letters to the Grand Duke Vasily III, a prince of Russia at the time.
Most of the letters, in reality, concerned other issues, mostly related to Church affairs. The message really meant that Moscow was the sole city of Orthodox faith left, seeing as Rome and Constantinople had fell. It was really a warning to keep Moscow “pure”.
(A theory of him making letters to Ivan the Terrible was refuted by inconsistencies).
Onto country dynamics! These figures were people who influenced countries; now, it’s time to talk about countries which influence other countries. There’s a lot of controversy to be found in this area (based on different political agendas and definitions which ameliorate / deteriorate countries), so I’ll step around these as best as I can.
Polarity refers to how power is divided on the global stage. There’s actually one form of polarity that WSC doesn’t mention, that being bipolarity (though this term usually refers to the psychological disorder, so I presume WSC is stepping around it carefully here).
Perhaps the best way to explain the concept of polarity on the global stage is with examples over time. Here are their definitions, alongside a few examples.
Unipolarity is when only one country (or association) holds the majority of influence and power on the global stage. The definition gets complicated from here, but for a unipolarity, there needs to exist multiple other countries not being directly controlled by the large influencing country. Additionally, this system must have no potential for a counter-balance by definition; if another country or association could counter the power of the influencing country, it is no longer a unipolarity. For example, the post-cold war period is often considered a unipolarity, with the US the only major dominant power.
Bipolarity is when two countries compete for major influence over the global stage. The two countries are counter-balances to one another, ensuring technological progress while still having political tensions. This term is most famously associated with the Cold War, the US and USSR being the two major superpowers. Some political scientists consider this the most stable form of polarity.
Multipolarity is when various countries have similar powers and influence over the world stage. For example, in the post-napoleonic era, European countries were seen as a multipolarity. Another example is during the Three Kingdoms period in China. Some argue this is a less stable polarity, as complicated relationships between countries can lead to confusing situations.
There’s debate on what polarity our world is on right now. Some argue that the US is the only considerable superpower, while others mention China and India as counterbalances. A common consensus is that we’re transitioning from Unipolar to Multipolar.
Core Countries and Periphery Countries are concepts in the world-systems theory which categorizes countries into sections. The world-system theory is also behind the terms “developing” and “developed” countries, and is an attempt to predict the rise and fall of states.
The terms “Core” and “Periphery” come from Dependency theory, the idea that resources flow from periphery states to core states to be used for the benefit of the core, and the expense of the periphery.
Core countries are defined by having higher-skill capital-based economies, while Periphery countries are considered to be lower-skill and rely on labor economies. Semi-periphery countries also exist, defined loosely as having a mix of the traits of both Periphery and Core.
The Western World usually falls into Core, while the rest fall into either Periphery or Semi-periphery based on their progress. The terms have caused controversy, as they’re naturally biased towards the Western world.
Power in international relations is typically defined as economic and military power and is linked to influence on the world stage. The term Polarity, as seen above, describes the distribution of power across countries.
A Great Power is a nation which is able to influence other countries on a global scale. The definition arose in the post-napoleonic era, though it’s not entirely solid. Typically, great powers are defined and recognized by organizations, including the UNSC, NATO, the G7, BRICS, and the Contact Group.
A Small Power is a country which is largely influenced by great powers; in definition, they’re influenced more than they can influence themselves. The formalization of these came in the Treaty of Chaumont, though the definitions still stay blurry.
Anything which doesn’t fit either description is a Middle Power. They exert influence, though not to a high degree, and they’re influenced, though also not to a high degree.
Other terms related to power are:
Superpowers, the pinnacle of Great Powers; they are like the Great powers of Great powers.
Regional Powers, countries which influence considerably in their regions but not necessarily on the global level.
Emerging Powers, countries moving up on the power scale by developing
Hegemons, another word for Great Powers. (Not really, but they’re close enough)
A Client state + Controlling state relationship is a type of global dynamic in international relations and encompass many subcategories. These include satellite states, colonies, dominions, and puppet states.
A Client state is a state being controlled economically, politically, and militarily by a Controlling state. The listed subcategories (satellite states, colonies, dominions, and puppet states) are alternative names for client states, as client states are essentially any territories which are distinctly separate from a nation, but still under its control.
An example of client states could be the USSR states during the cold war. Countries like Poland, Hungary, and Romania were Client states to the USSR, being individual entities but under the control of the Union.
A Controlling state is solely defined by being a state which controls client states.
On types of power, the contrast between soft power and hard power is dictated by how Great powers decide to exert their influence on other countries.
Soft Power is the ability to control via co-opting, a political strategy which involves making compromises and influencing nations to do the actions you want. This strategy works with diplomacy, culture, and history. It’s best explained as a way to influence without the use of Hard Power, which has a much simpler definition.
Hard Power is the use of military and economic incentives by Great Powers to influence other political bodies. They are more blunt and provide more objectivity to politics. A metaphor to understand this is the difference between carrots and sticks; carrots represent incentives, and sticks represent physical threats.
They, like all political terms, are under debate for what constitutes as what. Often times, actions can be seen as a mix of both hard and soft power. As well, people debate on whether or not Soft Power is even practical.
Aid is a really complicated topic as of now, considering the political issues between the US and Ukraine as of now (Mar 21, 2025). Recent controversies about foreign aid, or as named by WSC, “Foreign assistance”, surround meetings with Trump and Zelensky about the help the US is providing to Ukraine in the Russia-Ukrainian war. I won’t be commenting further on this topic, though I’d recommend you look into it with an unbiased lens.
Aid refers to voluntary help from one country to another and can be classified into many categories. Emergency aid refers to rapid assistance in immediate distress (as in terrorist attacks, natural disasters, etc); Humanitarian aid refers to aid being aimed at fixing social issues and poverty; Development aid refers to help in long-term country development.
It’s typically done to strengthen allies, send signals of diplomatic approval or contest, and build relationships on the global stage.
As of now, most aid is being directed towards Afghanistan for humanitarian projects, and the most aid is coming from the EU and other Western powers.
There’s so much to discuss about aid. It’s a very complicated field you can explore more if you’d like to. Though fair warning! Many things get controversial, especially the deeper you go in.
Rome isn’t the only empire that keeps popping back up. Like certain movie franchises, a great empire can only fall once, but it can be revived—usually unsuccessfully—many times. Study the history of second chances at imperial grandeur. What were they trying to emulate or continue, and how close did they come to succeeding? Did any last longer than the regimes they sought to restart? [HIS]
Ah, history. Often times I overcomplicate these sorts of topics, so I’ll try my best this time not to. While these empires and revivals have a lot of historical context to them, I’ll only discuss basic background information alongside what they were trying to revive.
As said in the section paragraph above, these are all attempts to revive an empire. That being said, I’m a bit shocked that Mussolini’s political campaign surrounding reviving the Roman Empire wasn’t mentioned here, although it’s already been in the curriculum before nonetheless.
The Neo-Assyrian Empire is the last stage of Assyrian history, sometimes described as the first world empire in history. Located in the modern day territories of Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and more, the empire lasted around 300 years, from 911-609 BC.
The early Neo-Assyrian kings sought to restore control over the area of Mesopotamia, giving its previous decline and the dissolution of Assyria. Eventually beginning the last stage of Assyria’s history, it expanded larger than it had before, able to succeed largely because of its efficient messaging routes. Despite this power, a Babylonian uprising and invasion by the Medes led the empire to fall swiftly. The empire left a legacy of cultural significance afterwards, influencing modern religion.
It’s most notable today for its dramatic, swift fall from power. It’s possible there were undocumented civil unrest and tensions which may have led to a slower fall than thought. Other explanations include conquered states not having much incentive to stay loyal to the empire, the population density unbalance alongside droughts, and common Babylonian revolts. It’s really hard to piece the answer together exactly, as history-keeping wasn’t particularly common then.
The Song Dynasty is the imperial dynasty of China ruling from 960 to 1279. This dynasty is actually split into the Northern and Southern dynasty, the Northern preceding the Southern. This dynasty was the product of a successful conquest of other nearby dynasties, giving the Song emperor control over most of the area of China. After uniting the majority of dynasties, the Song empire held control over the area.
Internal conflicts led to the transition to the Southern song dynasty. Eventually, the fall of the dynasty itself came from the Mongol invasions in a betrayal of alliance, Genghis Khan and sons overthrowing the empire.
In revitalization relating to the theme of these dynasties, the Song dynasty was the first in a while to be able to reunite most of China (which for context, split apart many times throughout history). Its developments afterwards include the creation of Gunpowder, movable printing presses, and cartography/astronomy revolutions.
The Byzantine Empire is the continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire after it split into two (largely because the empire was just too big) and the Western Roman Empire fell. The Western Roman empire fell quickly largely because it lost the advantages the original Empire had which allowed it to grow. The empire wasn’t actually called the Byzantine Empire at the time; the name only came up by modern historians. Rather, it was still known as the Roman Empire.
Lasting from 330-1453, the empire eventually fell by the iconic fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans. It first came as a result of the split of the original empire during the late antiquity, and lasted until the fall where it was absorbed by the Ottoman empire.
There’s a lot of historical background I don’t have the capacity to explain here.
The Carolingian Empire was an empire during the Early middle ages occupying territories of modern France, Germany, Italy, and more. It’s often considered the first phase of the Holy Roman Empire (which is interestingly not holy, nor roman, nor an empire). It only lasted 87 years, from 800 to 887, though the carolingian dynasty would last for a bit longer. At the time, they called it the Roman Empire, the Franko-Roman Empire, or the Christian Empire.
The empire largely began with the reign of Charlemagne in Western Europe, and largely declined after a civil war after the death of Louis the Pious. Its dissolution came by the attack of the Vikings, with inconvenient crowning times leading to chaos which resulted in an inability to defend against Viking raiders.
After its dissolution, the Holy Roman Empire would eventually fill its gap of power.
The Ottonian Dynasty was a dynasty named after three Holy Roman emperors (especially Otto the great), associated with military success which transformed politics in Western Europe. Their rule went from 844 to 1024, and within the time, they began the cultural movement known as the Ottonian Renaissance. It’s often confused with being an empire; rather, this is a separate dynasty entity in the period between the Carolingian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire.
The Dynasty still exists in the modern day, however their family is not in any significant power anymore. This confusing bit really questions the meaning of dynasty, best defined as not really necessarily associated with a control of a nation, but rather a family. The family, in this case, is known as the Liudolfings.
The Meiji Restoration is the event which transitioned Japan into an actual empire. Done under empire Meiji, it was largely fueled by a fire of hatred for the Tokugawa shogunate which many people criticized for being too soft against the Western powers. After the overthrowing of the government, the Meiji era began in 1868, which saw Japan rapidly industrializing and adopting Western ideas. (Interestingly, Japan was an empire before; this is technically a restoration!) With power now in the hands of the imperial house, the Meiji constitution would define Japan’s government until the end of WWII, which saw the end of the empire.
It’s creation stood to resist Western domination and unfair trade deals set by the Second Opium war, eventually emerging as a great power in the world.
Due to actions by the empire, traditional practices and cultural movements were outlawed (including the abolishment of the Samurai warrior class), though industrial growth in western styles were welcomed. Interestingly, a good portion of their choices were those of foreign specialists hired by the empire.
Neo-Sovietism is by far the most modern of these examples, warranting its own separate section. It is the political movement of reviving the Soviet Union and bring back aspects of Soviet life, seen in some USSR-like policy decisions in post-Soviet states.
The most prominent example of this is Vladimir Putin’s policies (especially in law, order, and military) and views which many see as pro-Neo-Soviet. The idea of recreating the USSR has been used as political propaganda to rally support of Russians, especially in a patriotic and anti-US lens. It remains a land of “fear of the state” where laws limit freedom of speech.
Other movements of Neo-sovietism are arising in Belarus and Eastern Ukraine.
The movement doesn’t have a solid definition, but rather refers to the theme of attempting to recreate the USSR and its lifestyle. It’s most represented by its organizations/political parties.
Destroyed buildings can also have second leases on life. Consider the following examples, then discuss with your team: is a reconstruction of a building a continuation or something altogether new? [HIS]
These listed buildings don’t seem to have a pattern I can spot from its categorization, so I’ll just get into them. As mentioned, these are all buildings which are recreations of a past iteration of it which may’ve been destroyed at one point.
The Bibliotheca Alexandria is a library in Alexandria commemorating the lost Library of Alexandria from the Ptolemaic dynasty. It contains books in classical Arabic, English, and French. The idea of the library came up in 1974 in an UNESCO project, though it was only opened in 2002. A donation from the National Library of France makes it the 6th largest French library in the World.
The building hosts shelf space for 8 million books, a conference center, 4 museums, 4 art galleries, a planetarium, and various other exhibitions. It’s criticized for being a vanity project (project which fails due to ego), alongside spending too much money on its architecture (rather than catalog).
The White House in this category refers to the history of its reconstruction. In its history, the White House was renovated multiple times earlier, though its major reconstruction effort came in 1948. Poor maintenance and unpractical additions made it so that the house was no longer safe to live in, leading to its dismantling and reconstruction. The reconstruction, while preserving the house’s structure, left the interior uninspired and generic.
Jacqueline Kennedy, JFK’s wife, eventually sought to redecorate the interior of the white house. Collecting fine paintings and antique items, and commissioning an interior design, she rebuilt it to a more authentic White House. Since this, there hasn’t been any major modification to the white house’s structure, though various presidents have made actions. For example, Barack Obama added solar panels to its roof.
The White house is open to tours, for anyone curious. There’s a history of it being closed and opened again due to terrorist incidents.
The Notre-Dame of Paris has a notorious history of being built, then rebuilt, then rebuilt. Completed in 1345, it’s been through major renovations throughout its time.
It begins with Louis the 14th redecorating the interior in 1699, though it quickly becomes more extreme with the French Revolution removing and melting all previous metals from the cathedral in 1790. After being converted and then unconverted from a temple of reason, Napoleon restores used of it to the Church a few years before his coronation there. Major restorations are done in 1844 to add to the original style. It was planned to be burned down in 1871 (but planets were halted because it would set fire to a neighboring hospital), and then it actually burned down years later, in 2019. Its most recent recreation opened early December, 2024.
There’s quite a bit of talk of how legitimate restorations are, including the involvement of the Venice Charter, dictating how restorations of a place should work. This was mentioned in the 2024 content, with the idea to restore it to faith while still keeping new pieces visibly distinct.
The Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls is one of Rome’s 4 major Bascilicas (basically a special kind of church). It’s currently owned by Vatican City, despite not being in the territory. It was first founded by Constantine I over the burial place of Paul of Tarsus. Theodosius I created a larger church over Constantine’s original one afterwards, though it wouldn’t be complete until 440. So many events of destruction and reconstruction happened during then, but I won’t bother you with the details.
Perhaps the most iconic reconstruction has to do with a fire set by a workman in 1823, burning down the basilica which had kept its original character for the past millennium, despite its constant minor constructions. In 1825, Leo XII (interesting thing, the Leos are very involved in this church) ordered the reconstruction, with initially very strict rules to be built identical to its original design. This would eventually be dropped.
Eventually, the building was reconstructed with the help of many parts of the building which had been left untouched, though it wasn’t a perfect recreation.
I’m not going to lie at this point these reconstructions are getting really dull; wasn’t Reconstructing the past the whole theme of 2023?? Why couldn’t you have put this there??
Babylon was an ancient city (now located in modern Iraq) of great importance during the Babylonian empires, the main political and economic centers of the area. Now, it stands as a world heritage site with most of its information / past being detailed from cuneiform tablets found there.
In the Old Babylonian period, the city began as a small city-state without much control, becoming large with Hammurabi’s empire which, while being short lived, set the stage for Babylonia. After some time, the city was sacked by an outer dynasty, controlling the city until the Assyrians took it. After this, the city was under the Neo-assyrian rule, though they did regain independence after revolting against the empire. With this, came the Neo-bablyonian empire and the revitalization of the city. There’s a lot more ancient Persian and Muslim history in the area I really don’t want to bother.
Modern constructions are what’s interesting, as there were ideas to revitalize the city during Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship over Iraq which ended up being abandoned. While the site itself isn’t being reconstructed, various small villages have popped up around the area.
Shuri Castle was mentioned in the 2024 curriculum, and is a castle in Okinawa which was once almost completely destroyed, removed, and then set back in place. It was relevant when constructed some time in the 1300s, though it began its decline with Matthew Perry’s exhibition and the overthrowing of the Shogunate creating the Japanese Empire. The city of Shuri bought the temple from the government thereafter.
Its controversy comes with its destruction in WWII, where the castle was almost completely destroyed. After the war, the University of the Ryukyus was established on the site, remaining until 1975 as it was seen as a negative sign of erasing history. The recreation of the castle was designated a world heritage site afterwards.
More recently, a fire broke out in 2019, burning down various halls of the castle. This marked the 5th time the castle had been destroyed; plans for renovation pitch its opening in Q3, 2026.
Yellow Crane Tower is a traditional Chinese tower in Wuhan, with the existing structure being built in 1981. Its earliest forms were thought to have existed since 223 AD, and the current structure is thought to be 1km away from the original site. The tower is a sacred site for Taoism, Buddhism, and traditional Chinese folktales.
The tower has been destroyed a total of 12 times by fires and wars in the Ming and Qing dynasties, having been repaired on 10 separate occasions. Its reconstruction on Snake hill, supposedly irrelevant to the original location 1km away, actually has some historical merit to it, as popular legends point to the hill having significance. One piece of the building which has been preserved from the original temple is the Sacred Stupa, a sign of Tibetan buddhism and a one of its kind in Wuhan.
Stonehenge is a prehistoric collection of giant monolithic rocks thought to have been constructed all the way back in 3100 BC and continuing until 1600 BC. It may have been a burial ground in its beginnings, though nobody really knows that it was for now. The arrangement was supposedly constructed in three phases by evidence in radiocarbon dating, but there’s very little evidence on what it was meant for. Some speculate it has commemorative meanings, while others suggest rituals and astrology.
In New Year’s eve of 1900, a stone fell, warranting the first major restoration project seeing as other stones were in danger of falling. Various other restorations, including ones in 1920 and 1958 were made to stabilize the stones, the last one done in 1963.
The stones now resemble the original blueprint, laid out in a circle pattern.
Shakespeare’s Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theater (both in the same place in London), the notable location where Shakespeare wrote his plays. The original theater, built in 1599, destroyed in 1613 by a fire, rebuilt in 1614, and demolished again in 1644, was the main premiere location for Shakespeare’s works. The recreation, while realistic based on known evidence, can only accommodate half of the audience that the original could due to safety features.
Sam Wanamaker set up the globe for reconstruction in 1970, and it was eventually completed in 1997. A full recreation was deemed impossible due to elevated safety standards, though it was made to the best of its ability with what it had. The theater is located about 230 meters away from its original site.
In Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, the great Galactic Empire is falling. Thirty thousand years of darkness and ruin await—even Palpatine couldn’t have lived that long—until a man who can predict the future using math comes up with a weird plan: a colony of librarians who, if left alone on the fringe of the known universe to write a great encyclopedia, could shorten the Dark Ages to a “mere” thousand years. Discuss with your team: would librarians be a good choice of profession for those entrusted to restart a great civilization? If not librarians, then who? And how much do you think math—and big data—can and should be used to predict the future? [LIT]
This is probably more of a discussional part which I’ll get to eventually, but I want to give a bit of insight into the mentioned literary works here.
The Foundation Series began with Isaac Asimov’s single Foundation, a novel which has been referenced before in past WSC curriculums. It touches upon multiple eras and multiple characters, expanding into an entire trilogy after its success. They tell the story of Foundation, a institute set up by psychohistorians to preserve a galactic civilization after the collapse of Galactic Empire.
Psychohistory was mentioned in last year’s content, and it refers to a fictional field of science by Isaac Asimov which allows for predicting the future based on probability.
Palpatine is mentioned in this text above, being a fictional character from Star Wars. Known as Darth Sidious and first appearing in The Empire Strikes Back, he is a pop culture symbol of evil, inspired by political dictators including Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Adolf Hitler.
He might be most famous for being a meme, the “I am the Senate” quote.
Do with this what you will lol i don’t think it’s important
Sometime in 2025, a dead airline will return to the skies. A private company is planning to de-extinct the once-legendary airline brand Pan Am for some very expensive charter flights, with hints of bringing it back in a bigger fashion down the line. And, speaking of fashion, Pan Am has already been revived as a South Korean clothing brand. Consider the examples below of other brand names that have been brought back from the dead to sell new products and services–even if they are unconnected to the companies that spawned them. Discuss with your team: is this kind of branding dishonest, and what derelict brands or companies would you want to reintroduce–and in what forms? [SCI, HIS]
We’re now talking a whole different area of revitalization: companies! All of these mentioned here are tech-related companies which have gone defunct. Let’s begin with the articles mentioned up top.
Pan Am Airlines (Pan American) was a major airline during the 1900s, though it went bankrupt in 1991 due to increased competition, with two attempts to reviving the airline failing. Now, its flights range from a grand total of 1 option: a chartered 2 week experience run by Centurion Travel recreating their original routes alongside accommodations for a jaw-dropping 65.5k.
This short one-off event, running in 2025, is mostly a stunt for nostalgia and marketing; using a narrow-bodied Boeing 757, it can carry 50 business class passengers in total. The flight route includes New York, Bermuda, Lisbon, Marseille, London, and Foynes (Ireland), before returning to New York. The plane is a strange choice, as Pan Am was most known for its “clipper” planes and jumbo planes, the 747, and Pan Am had never flown a 757 before.
For more Pan Am news, the retailer SJ group in South Korea has bought the brand, using its signature Blue and White brand identity to sell various fashion and merchandise. Now, it’s opened a store in the Starfield Coex mall (which some Seoul Global rounders might recognize!). This idea allegedly isn’t a one off thing, with SJ group aiming to increase Pan Am’s presence as a fashion brand in Korea by opening 13 more stores. This is an interesting move, considering Pan Am Airlines never actually flew to Seoul at all.
Now, onto these defunct companies! I’ll probably detail what they did alongside why they went out of business, but not much more. These all seem like technology companies, all except for Eastern Air Lines. Maybe tech companies are just prone to fail.
RCA (The Radio Corporation of America) was a major electronics company initially formed in a trust by General Electric, Westinghouse, AT&T, and the United Fruit Company, though it was forced to become independent after an anti-trust lawsuit (basically preventing monopolies).
RCA was the dominant electronics innovator in the US in the early-mid 20th century, developing radios, TVs, and other electronic devices. Perhaps most notably, the RCA created the NBC, the first American radio network, and still in operation today. In the 1970s, its progress began slowing down, seeing competition by international firms like Sony and Phillips as well as incurring losses in failed projects, like the CED videodisc. While it did see mild success in the decade after, RCA eventually was reacquired by General Electric and largely liquidated, going defunct in 1987.
Through its history, it did have some controversies surrounding environmental issues, with pollution of industrial waste in its factories’ locations.
Westinghouse Electric was a manufacturing company, the same one mentioned in RCA’s story, which went defunct in 1997. Through the same time period as RCA, Westinghouse electric supplied many consumer electronics, home appliances, and machines in heavy industries, a large player in the American market. They were also a large player in the field of nuclear power, with the Westinghouse Atom Smasher in 1937.
Through various questionable decisions, the company was led to the financial services industry in the 1970s-80s, leaving technology and beginning a focus on mortgages. A housing crash led to significant losses in the 1980s, and a major seemingly-desperate move was made to purchase the CBS TV network and rebrand itself as such. Eventually, it was acquired by Viacom in a merger.
One part of the company, their nuclear operations, were sold to BNFL, which would later be sold to Toshiba in 2005. This part eventually went bankrupt as well, this time due to cost overruns. Westinghouse power was sold to a Canadian nuclear fuel company following this.
(Westinghouse power was caught up in a scandal, Nukegate, after concerns arose over the economic situation of a national nuclear project, Westinghouse as one of its contributors.)
The whole company was a mess.
Polaroid is a company most known for its instant film cameras, now surviving as a brand of consumer electronics. It was founded in 1937 and lasted until 2001, when the original company went bankrupt and a new company was formed, the assets transferring to Impossible Project to rebrand to Polaroid. The company, when up, was considered the “Apple of its time” developing various cameras and technologies for the military.
An interesting story is of its brand name. While the original company is long gone, the brand has been used in various contexts depending on who owned it at any time. At points, companies who owned the trademark branded it on smartphones, TVs, DVDs, and monitors. Today’s owner is a Polish billionaire, last transferred in 2017 and in collaboration with a project making instant cameras.
RadioShack used to be the most prominent electronics retail store, first established as a radio mail-order business but expanding into multiple retail locations. Moving into the 21st century, though, Radioshack fell into a gradual decline because of management issues and diminishing revenue. Eventually, in 2015, the company filed bankruptcy and liquidated. It was subsequently purchased by General Wireless, which also filed for bankruptcy, and then acquired by Retail Ecommerce Ventures, where it operates as ecommerce now. There are a few franchised RadioShack retail stores open.
As the name suggests, the company first worked on radios, specifically in amateur radios known as hams. It eventually grew into retail and had its own product line of hi-fidelity audio. However, it inevitably failed largely because of competition from other storefronts, including Amazon’s large key presence online.
Gateway was an American computer company founded in 1985 which went defunct in 2007. It primarily manufactured consumer-grade electronics, including PCs, monitors, servers, and other accessories. With competition and a 7 year long recessive period in the business, it eventually was purchased by Acer.
The idea initially came out of selling niche electronics to niche consumers, though the lens quickly shifted in order to compete in the computers manufacturing industry. In the 90s, the companies saw large redistributions and expansions which eventually led to its demise. A large part of its fall has to do with the dot-com bubble burst.
The brand was recently revitalized by Acer in 2020.
Nokia was once the world’s largest phone manufacturer, but today it lives on very differently then what it was once most known for. While the company does date back to 1865, it began its technological operations in the cold-war era, with its development of mobile radios and capacitors. In the 1990s, Nokia saw its greatest success with its innovation in creating the first phones of their kind. However, Nokia eventually began declining after the iPhone released, with slow development dragging it behind. Eventually, Nokia sold its mobile device division to Microsoft and took on other random things, including various cameras and a health device division based on Withings.
In the modern day, Nokia still plays a large part to Finland’s economy, though its prominence is nowhere near its standing back in the early 2000s. Its largest department is Nokia Networks, a cybersecurity and network communications division where it develops 5g networks. It still retains some technology development, though with limited success.
Unlike the other companies here, Nokia never actually went bankrupt; rather, they just died down in popularity and consolidated in other markets.
Sansui Electric was a Japanese manufacturer of video and audio technology, founded after WWII in response to having to deal with the poor quality of existing radio parts. The idea was to provide better quality for higher price, solidifying its reputation as high-quality from its beginning. It is most known for manufacturing phonographs and its evolutions (a fancy way to say song-playing device).
It developed various synthesizers and other sound systems over its existence afterwards, with its largest divisions on creating receivers and amps. In the mid-1980s, competition began contributing to the decline of the company, with slowly but steadily decreasing revenue. It eventually declared bankruptcy in 2014.
Eastern Air Lines breaks the trend of all of these being technology companies, being a major airline in the US before 1991, when it ceased operations. It used to be one of the big four airlines in the oligopoly that was the US market, holding almost all of the demand of flights between NY and FL.
Its downfall began in the late 1970s, with labor disputes and high debts plaguing the company. It was bought by Lorenzo, moving many of its assets to his other airlines (Continental and Texas Air). After continuing disputes accumulating in a strike in 1989, Eastern ran out of money and declared bankruptcy in 1991. Afterwards, American Airlines obtained much of the travel demand, with Delta taking many of their planes.
There’s another Eastern Air Lines, a small low-cost airline startup based in Miami which began in 2015 but had to close in 2017, only 2 years later. It was acquired by Swift Air after its failure, which funnily also had to close, this time in 2024. The idea of this Eastern Air Lines was to provide charter flights between Florida and parts of the US and Caribbean.’
A third Eastern Airlines began in 2010, first known as Dynamic Airways. It went bankrupt, as seen in many cases here, but actually successfully unbankrupted itself with a restructuring in 2018, buying the trademark for the name. It’s not bankrupt, but as of now, it doesn’t actually fly any routes. Huh.
There’s also the China Eastern Airlines, though this one is actually successful. Eastern Airways also exists, a small mostly-regional airline in the UK.
Wow turns out Eastern Airlines is a really common airline name
Could 3.5 inch floppy discs be next? (They do make good coasters.) From audio cassettes to instant cameras, many vintage technologies are enjoying a resurgence today, often driven by viral online trends that celebrate their limitations. Discuss with your team: why do some products and brands become popular again after gathering dust for so long? When do you prefer something older and (technically) worse to something newer and (technically) better? [SCI, HIS]
These articles were mentioned in last year as well. Seems like WSC is choosing a handful of topics to use from then. It seems strange to reuse this content tho imo since these are old technologies, kind of clashing with the whole “reigniting the future” theme lol
Audio Cassettes are finding a bit of popularity now, seeing their largest sales for the past 2 decades in 2023. As for context, these are old cartridges which people used to use a lot, containing music or videos. They kind of look like a suitcase with two holes near the middle. The article lists a couple of the reasons users claim to appeal to them.
For one, cassettes make the experience of consuming music unique and valuable; it’s impossible to skip tracks in a playlist, giving it a sense of authenticity and reality. This is paired with the tactile feeling and sound the cassette provides. Another reason which pairs nicely with this one is that they sound as if they have more depth: compared to CDs and vinyl, audio cassettes have more of a feeling which enhances the music.
In another category of appeals to cassettes, the technology and its content is one of few ports to the revival of music styles and choices back in the late 20th century era, especially the 90s. One user reports experiences of teenagers renewing the styles of the 90s in not only music, but fashion and TV. Another person reports experiences of a coworker often swapping records on a cassette player there for nostalgia.
One final reason is the old technology of cassettes. Because it’s challenging to work with cassettes, and efficiency is important, one music producer reported the technology allowing them to create with a more streamlined approach.
Cassettes aren’t the only thing undergoing revival; Polaroids, instant cameras as seen in the topic above, are finding new popularity. Having again, gone bankrupt in 2001, Polaroid brought down the instant photography market, though it still largely exists in brand name. In more recent times, the instant film market has risen, Fujifilm reporting large sales with there Instax line.
Instant film is intangible, and this intangibility gives it its value to modern consumers. Its imperfections, the idiosyncrasies, and the artefacts left in a photo makes it more valuable than digital photography. Because materials are non-reusable, expensive, and difficult to use, users often find themselves putting more consideration into taking their photos. This additionally provides these cameras with value in the form of art.
Nostalgia is sometimes credited with the revisiting of instant film. Research, in fact, shows that nostalgia reduces are want for money, making it an incentivised business choice. While this may be a major appeal for millennial audiences, the most popular demographic for instant film in the modern era is actually Gen Z, a generation who never even grew up with instant film. This traces to an appeal of self-expression with Gen Z, the cameras providing a unique way to capture the interest of individuality.
It’s not only Polaroids in cameras, though; the audience for old, but digital, cameras is also growing for largely similar reasons. The recent revival trend can be linked to similar revivals of fashion, with people finding the old cameras comforting.
Largely, the reason for this appeal is the difficulty of using these cameras. Counterintuitively, because it is challenging to take a good photo on an old digital camera, people like the medium more as it forces them to put more effort into their photos. This is contrasted to modern cameras, which do not require much effort to use. One person commenting on this revival is Scott Ewart, a hobbyist who’s gained social media attention for it.
Another commenter mentioned that old cameras give people a sense of nostalgia, the images looking like mental images of memories. Being blurry and imperfect gives it soul, making the images more authentic. This gives it a sense of comfort, ever so important in our uncomfortable world today.
Onto the topics! These are all outdated technologies which may or may not be seeing modern interest. Some of the topics are defined pretty vaguely, so I’ll try my best.
A disposable camera is pretty self-explanatory; it’s a camera which is meant to only be used once. They typically have a flash feature, and their internal mechanisms only allow them to be used once (basically, the process of taking the photo breaks the mechanics). This product was most associated with kodak, and was popular in situations where a reusable camera was too expensive or too at-risk of being destroyed/stolen.
The current revitalization of instant cameras is from Fujifilm, seeing an increase of sales of almost double leading to today. The cameras are often made of cheap materials, with an appeal similar to polaroids being their imperfect style. They’ve seen a regrowth in popularity, one which sort of backfired as almost all instant cameras have been “hacked” to be not-instant anymore.
This is actually a case of planned obsolescence being appealing to the consumer. Planned obsolescence (a 2022 curriculum reference!) is when a product is designed to break.
A handheld console is a type of video game console with built-in features allowing it to be played on-the-go. They’re often smaller and less powerful than typical consoles, but have the advantage of being easily carried. While the idea was first created by Mattel and expanded by other various companies, Nintendo is credited with the popularization of the concept with the Game Boy.
They’re still very popular today, with the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck being common examples. They reached a peak in popularity with the Nintendo Game Boy and Nintendo DS/3DS, though other companies have contributed to the product model with varying success. (The PSP was particularly successful.)
Unlike some other revival products, the handheld console model never went out of fashion.
The vinyl revival is a term for the renewed interest in vinyl / gramophone records taking place in the music industry. Vinyl records are an analogue format of storing music which sort of looks like a giant CD, having been the main method of distributing music before the 1980s, when it was replaced by the cassette tape, then the CD.
In the 2010s, vinyl records began picking up a new pace, with supply and demand hitting highs largely credited to Taylor Swift’s record sales. This revival has been most present in the US, with other global markets not seeing nearly as much renewed interest.
A few reasons for the new interest come with records being perceived as more durable and imperfect. The idiosyncratic nature of vinyl makes it sound physical, natural, and authentic. It’s part of a larger trend towards retro styles, following the cultural interest in past technologies.
I’m not sure what WSC wants us to study for “film”, but I think it has to do with the old standard of recording movies or animations - film stock. Film stock is an analog way to hold movies, being a long strip of various images commonly associated with the idea of film. How it’s created is a whole lengthy science process which involves things like “emulsion” and “sensitive silver halide crystals” I’m not going to dive into; all you really need to know is that there was a special camera which could capture scenes, and a special projector which could redisplay these scenes.
They became the giant standard for movies in the 1900s, lasting until the early 2000s when digital formats of storing movies became more popular. However, some filmmakers still use film stock as their primary medium, largely for aesthetic reasons and stylistic choices. In this context, digital film format is sometimes altered to look like traditional film stock.
One issue with film stock is that they can deteriorate over time. It’s better to have movies in digital form for this reason, considering the wear (especially in film which uses acetic acid) causes a process known as vinegar syndrome, where the decay of the film produces a vinegar-like smell.
Shortwave Radio refers to any radio transmission in the shortwave band. It doesn’t have a solid definition, but typically includes the opposite of short waves; in fact, it consists of wavelengths from 10 to 100 meters. This radio was popular in the past, with the ability to sent information over long distances compared to other radio means. It was the primary means of mid-long range radio messaging.
It played an important role in the cold war, used to provide both news and propaganda. It eventually went into decline with the implementation of technologies including satellite radio, cable broadcasting, and other transmission methods. However, it still plays an important role in modern conflicts, being used in the Russia-Ukraine war as they’re particularly helpful, being very challenging to censor.
Currently, they do pose numerous benefits, being hard to intercept, requiring low costs, and long-range. However, they’re often unused as the popularity of the medium has declined. They’re typically used by militaries in war zones, or hobbyists. Some musicians are attracted to the medium for having a unique characteristic, being lower-fidelity, more hollow, and more spacey than other mediums. It’s uncommon, but used, among composers as a tool.
AM broadcasting is a type of radio broadcasting which falls on mediumwave bands, though it can also fall on shortwave. They became popular in the 1920s, though they declined with the rise of popularity of FM radio alongside other means, including satellite radio and streaming/podcasting. AM, which stands for amplitude modulation, uses changes in the size of waves (bigger vs smaller waves) to send signals; in contrast, FM, standing for frequency modulation, uses frequency (how many waves per second) to send information.
The age of AM broadcasting is sometimes called the Golden Age of Radio, lasting until TV broadcasting became widespread.
AM is comparatively worse quality and more expensive (in terms of power usage) than FM, thus AM broadcasts typically specialize in commentary and spoken word, while FM typically focuses on music.
A pager, sometimes called a beeper or pocketbell, is a device which is sort of like a predecessor to phones. Pagers are devices which can send and receive text and voice messages, using transmitters or base stations sort of like the 5G networks we have today. They were developed and popularized in the mid 20th century, lasting until the early 2000s bringing the widespread use of phones. Various forms of pagers exist, though they’re usually categorized into those which can read and send messages, and those which can only read messages.
While pagers are not common today, they’re still used with emergency services and safety operations as they’re more reliable than cellular networks, especially during natural disasters. Public safety agencies often adopt pagers over cellular phones. (It’s also important to note, though, that pagers have different conditions; for example, read-only pagers which cannot send information will not send somebody’s location, useful for privacy but un-useful for a rescue.)
Magnetic Tape data storage is a way to store information on magnetic tape. It was very common in early computers, being a primary way of storing information packed in cartridges. They were initially placed on reels and used to record computer data, using the polarities of magnets as a primitive form of transistors. (bits!) While it was used very commonly in early computers, it was replaced by floppy disks and other data storage devices, those of which were much more efficient.
This data is still being used, though in one very critical application. Long term storage! Because typical storage devices today are very vulnerable and unlikely to last past a few decades, researchers are working on magnetic tape to store data for long term conditions. Recent grants in the 21st century have allowed companies to try and create magnetic tape which can store large amounts of data reliably for thousands of years.
Physical Media is an umbrella term for physical materials used to transfer data and information. It ranges from things like data storage, like records, cassettes, CDs, DVDs, and more to objects which power the internet, for example copper and fiber optic cables. I don’t quite understand why WSC put this here, as physical media is still very much used in the modern world.
There is a modern debate on whether or not physical media is needed as we move forwards, especially into an increasingly wireless world. Some consider physical media to be a means which will stick forever, perhaps becoming more important as we move forwards; others believe it will become redundant in a wireless, digitized world.
For data storage in physical media, a lot of it is becoming increasingly redundant; USB drives are the most common in this area, and they are growing out of fashion because of online cloud hosting. However, for physical media in terms of connection, they’re used perhaps more than ever; underwater fiber optic cables are essentially what even allows the internet to work right now.
De-extinction isn’t just for passenger pigeons, bankrupt brand names, and outdated technologies. Artistic and musical can be brought back, sometimes unsuccessfully—and sometimes, perhaps, too successfully. Discuss with your team: is it true that old music is killing new music? [ART] Old songs are surprisingly popular, but the fact it could be to the extent where it’s preventing new music from growing is sort of mind-boggling. As of now, 70% of the US market for music seems to be for old music, with the new market actually shrinking. 5% of the most streamed songs are new additions, as well (though its entirely possible this is skewed, as new songs are only considered those released at most 18 months ago)
We’re at a point where new tracks are hitting hit status with very little cultural impact; rather, the hits of the past seem to be more popular than ever. It’s strange considering the whole business model of music is to promote new songs, and yet there’s so little public attention to them; the Grammys were postponed once, and with little reaction (as opposed to public outrage with any kind of delays in the Super Bowl or NBA).
While Covid might be a factor in this, there are other contributors to this trend, considering the leading area of investment in music is currently in old music rights. Radio stations and record stores populate themselves with fewer new songs and more older classics in an appeal to the audience. Also, in a very SAG-AFTRA tone, deepfakes of deceased iconic musicians are beginning to populate the industry.
A new sort of song is arising in the new era of the industry, that being furniture music. This is described as the sort of song which kind of blend into the background of lives, like a BGM in a movie. More so, this vision is becoming true, with new songs providing little active prominence in many people’s lives. While some, especially boomers, blame the uncreativity of modern artists, the situation is more so because the industry has made nurturing talent much more challenging and borderline unincentivized.
There is a concern over copyright lawsuits, with a fear of accidentally using an iconic sample and landing in legal hot waters. This highlights a larger underlying problem in the industry, though; the people in it have lost confidence in new music. Old music has proven to work under the formula of success, so why risk investing in new music? Music in social media and streaming platforms is even worse; the algorithm, with the silo effect, only seems to recommend new music which is borderline the same as a user’s favourite old songs.
With this, all songs are beginning to sound the same. The new, bold songs are being excluded from radios and playlists for being too out of order. Orchestral music is at an awful spot, with the industry minimizing its popularity drastically. Classical music is possibly in the worst case, with loads of creativity but so little attention. The problem isn’t that there isn’t creativity; it’s that business incentives don’t promote it. Taking the safest path in the short term is the one least worthy in the long term.
It highlights an issue with business and industries as a whole; it’s very easy for them to stick to old traditions and values, but often times that approach is what leads them out of business in the long run.
The article discusses a pretty anti-business anti-corporation lens here which I mildly agree with, though I think it is extreme. Though there is one powerful thing they mention that I absolutely believe: that new music, despite any adversities, will always arise. That music cannot be shut down, and that often times it comes out of the most unexpected places.
🚒 Things Really Do Catch Fire Things Really Do Catch Fire - Ethan
The Hangzhou Round famously caught fire. But what is a fire, and how does it burn? Begin your exploration of this topic with the terms below: [SCI]
Fire terms! I’ll mostly be providing definitions here, as that’s likely all you need to know. Maybe there’ll be a little history here and there, though the history of fire is largely pre-human recordkeeping.
Oxidization, a term interchangeable with oxidation, is a loss of electrons in an element or polyatomic ion during a chemical reaction. This process increases a element’s oxidation state.
Don’t worry if the term sounds a bit complicated! It’s part of a series in chemistry which involves different kinds of reactions. One type of reaction creates something which is called an ionic bond, basically where one atom transfers an electron (or more) to another. The process where the atom loses the electrons is called oxidation.
The opposite of oxidation is reduction, which counterintuitively involves adding electrons to an element in a chemical reaction. This process decreases an element’s oxidation state. Both of these processes are involved in any reaction, and the reaction is called a redox reaction. (This is a portmanteau of Reduction and Oxidation.)
(While all redox reactions are ionic bonds, not all ionic bonds are redox reactions.)
To better grasp this concept, I’d recommend doing a brief on high school chemistry at its most basic levels. To fully explain the concept, I’d have to explain a whole year of chemistry.
The most popular example is probably with rust, where over time, Iron III reacts with Oxygen to create Iron Oxide in an environment with water. Iron Oxide is a fancy name for rust.
Ignition is the action of setting something on fire, synonymous with the terms Firelighting and Kindling. This traces back to early human history in the Lower Paleolithic, when the use of fire first began.
The process of ignition usually involves heating up tinder or other flammable materials to their autoignition temperature. The autoignition temperature, also known as kindling point, is the temperature where a material will spontaneously catch fire without other external sources. This temperature decreases as air pressure is decreased.
Ignition is caused by a supply of energy in the form of heat. It’s caused by anything within the range of friction, generating thermal energy to the point of the autoignition temperature. A few methods of doing this are expanded on in a section below.
Combustion is a fancy way of saying “burning”, and it is a redox reaction done with fuel and an oxidant, usually oxygen. It doesn’t always produce fire, though this idea is expanded on in the section of “flame” below (fire has a pretty specific definition). While all fire is a result of combustion, not all combustion results in fire.
The process can be done with a variety of elements, but is usually done with a complicated chain of simple reactions. In the most common instance, Carbon and/or Hydrogen is reacted with Oxygen in an exothermic reaction (reaction which releases heat). With combustion, activation energy is required to begin the chain reaction, though usually enough energy is involved in a feedback loop to keep the reaction self-sustaining, at least, until the reaction chain begins missing at least one of its elements.
Combustion is divided into two segments: complete, and incomplete. In complete combustion, the reactant (fuel) burns is the limiting reactant, which means there is enough oxygen to completely burn the fuel. In incomplete combustion, Oxygen is the limiting reactant, which means there isn’t enough oxygen to fully burn the fuel.
In a burning, pyrolysis usually happens before combustion, a chemical process which separates the burnable parts of a fuel source with the non-burnable parts.
The Flash Point refers to the lowest temperature where a liquid element will produce flammable gasses. It’s commonly confused with autoignition temperature, again referring to the lowest temperature something catches on fire without other externalities. Rather, this refers to the minimum required temperature to produce a vapor which has the potential to catch fire with a spark. The flash point is below the autoignition temperature by definition.
The flash point is a characteristic which describes the distinction between flammable fuels, like gasoline, and combustible fuels, like diesel. While the two have similar autoignition temperatures, gasoline has a flash point far below freezing, while diesel has a flash point far above it. Gasoline is thus easier to ignite, but also less efficient.
Flash point might also be used to characterize fire hazards, where a material with a flash point below 38C is considered flammable.
There’s often warnings to avoid gasoline fumes, and that is because the flash point of gasoline is below common temperatures. This means that gasoline produces potent and toxic fumes in room temperature conditions.
Convection is the process where heat (in the form of thermal energy) is transferred, diluting through a non-solid object, such as air or water. It happens naturally when fluids expand when heated, causing molecules to become more active and come in contact with each other’s field of energy, leading to more movement and more heat. The process has to do with density of molecules, and how temperature controls how fast molecules move.
Because hot molecules rise and cold molecules travel down, the two have to inevitably “collide” with one another, passing energy along through a space. The process is largely chaotic, but the overall effect is largely the same, making natural convection a typically self-organizing process.
Forced convection happens outside of this range, where external forces are used to spread thermal energy (i.e. a fan, a water pump, etc). Something which provides forced convection doesn’t necessarily add more heat to an area; rather, it distributes the heat across an area.
One interesting application of convection is in the atmosphere, where cooler sinking masses of air contact hotter masses which have been heated by solar radiation or the greenhouse effect. This convection is responsible for things like clouds, and more severely, thunderstorms.
Natural convection relies on Gravity, so in applications in space, it does not work.
The Fire Triangle represents the three elements required for a fire, those being heat, fuel, and oxygen. For a fire to stay alive, it requires all three of these elements; removing an element can extinguish the fire.
The reason for the triangle layout is because each element in a fire can be represented by a side, where each side touches each other side.
In extinguishing fires, the most common approach is to remove the oxygen from the system, whether it be by obfuscation or limiting the total oxygen a fire can access. When wildfires occur, firefighters will often take the approach of limiting fuel by containing a fire within a region and waiting for all of its available fuel to run out.
Water is seemingly counterintuitive when stopping fires, as it adds oxygen to a system; however, the goal of water is to stop the process of pyrolysis, preventing fuel from being consumable in the first place.
The Fire Tetrahedron is an addition to the fire triangle, stating that the chain reaction of combustion can be considered another element to a fire. It’s a bit counterintuitive to do this, considering a chain reaction isn’t quite quantifiable like the other elements are; however, it is right in the analysis that it is required to keep a fire going.
Combustion is the chemical reaction which feeds a fire and keeps it going. If you can break this chain (as is done with water prevening pyrolysis), a fire cannot survive.
The reason it is a fire tetrahedron (and not a fire square) is because sides are represented by these elements in a largely symbolic way; each element is in contact with all other elements, and each element requires the other to survive.
The Flame is the visible part of a fire, typically red-orange in color. The color of a flame can actually vary a lot depending on heat and type of fuel, with the highest temperatures existing in a light-blue flame color. If a flame gets hot enough to ionize gas to a certain density, the flame becomes a plasma. This is what the Sun is made of; the Sun isn’t on fire, rather the sun is made of a type of fire.
Candles provide an interesting example of flame, where an average candle can be broken into 4 parts based on its color. See the diagram I picked from Wikipedia below:
Flames are interestingly spherical in outer space, where there is no gravity! This is because convection doesn’t happen naturally, and thus, heat travels in the most efficient way.
Fuel is a material which can be reacted with oxygen in heat to create fire. It can refer to any material capable of releasing energy, whether it be through the chemical process in combustion or through nuclear reaction. Hydrocarbons and other organic chemicals are the most common fuels used, though radioactive metals are also sometimes used.
Fuel is characterized by having very high potential energy locked away, with the bonds between atoms in fuel very easily separated and exothermic. Essentially, by giving a little bit of energy into a fuel source, it begins a chemical chain reaction which releases a lot of energy in the conversion between potential and thermal energy.
It might seem strange that something can release more energy than it takes in, but this relates to how fuels are composed over time. Fuels take in a lot of energy to produce, and something like a log had to be formed with a considerable amount of effort (in this case, energy captured by photosynthesis and used to capture carbon in trees).
The most common fuels are coal, oil, and gas.
Next, explore the history of fire. Was it discovered or invented, and by whom and when? How often is this history revised? Discuss with your team: if someone had first come up with fire in 2024, would they have been able to patent or copyright it? (And would it have been subject to international copyright laws?) Did anyone “own” fire in a similar way in the ancient world? [HIS, SCI]
This article was one heck of a challenge to find. Archive.is, my main tool, didn’t work here, so I had to find it on the Wayback Machine, which oddly has many captures of the page. The most recent version was made at the end of February this year, and you can find the article here: https://web.archive.org/web/20250228140631/https://www.history.com/news/human-ancestors-tamed-fire-earlier-than-thought
In this summary, I’ll try and brief the history of fire while explaining what the new findings show, though take anything with a grain of salt; we’re not really sure what the history of fire is, and the story is always changing.
Fire was one of the determining factors in human evolution in technology, allowing us to reach were we are today. Despite its importance, we have little knowledge of when control of fire was first discovered by human ancestors. The oldest evidence which is recognized by everybody in the scientific community associates fire with Neanderthals and modern humans, located at Qesem Cave, Israel, and dating back to 300,000 - 400,000 years ago.
In a recent discovery, traces of campfires have been found in South Africa’s Wonderwerk Cave dating back to 1 million years, the location itself being a site of human ancestry tracing back to 2 million years. Charred animal bones and burnt plants were discovered which suggests the use of fire, alongside pieces of stone tools and hand axes. If this evidence was validated, it would suggest an earlier human, Homo Erectus, had discovered fire.
There’s another study which suggests that places in Asia, Africa, and Europe show evidence of human fire up to 1.5 million years ago. However, the difference in this study is that these remains were found in a cave, while other findings are in open areas where wildfires could’ve naturally occurred. The location in described study in Wonderwerk cave is much less prone to natural fire.
As a final observation tying Homo Erectus to fire, the ability that Homo Erectus had to eat cooked food lines up with their control of flames. The shape of skulls and shift in natural build suggest that Homo Eructus was influenced by their control of fire.
One way or another, people did start the fire. While fires can occur naturally, different methods—such as matches, and episodes of the Apprentice—now allow us to start them at will. Investigate historical fire-starting, from stones and flint to ants and lenses. Discuss with your team: should children be taught how to start fires—and, if so, at what age? [SCI]
The above here is a jab at The Apprentice, an american reality show whose premise was testing the business skills of contestants. I have to imagine it’s described as “starting fires” by WSC because its host for a while was Donald Trump.
The video provided here is a popular scene from Toy Story where Sid (antagonist of the first movie) burns a hole into Woody’s forehead by magnifying sunlight onto a focus point. Not sure why that’s here, but I guess it is.
The terms, now, are just ways of starting fires. Literal fires, that is.
A lighter is a small tool which contains fuel in a container as well as a spark mechanism to create a small, controlled flame. The first lighters used mechanics from flintlock pistols, controlling the reaction from gunpowder to create a small flame.
A lighter works with liquid butane gas as fuel and a spark wheel as a mechanism to begin the chain reaction of fire. There are other kinds of lighters, including jet, electric, and match lighters, but the most common types use a spark from a spark wheel and a stone, mimicking the process that fire strikers use.
A match is a firestarting tool which can be ignited by friction, typically made of small wooden sticks with a coating of phosphorus sulfide, the red tip. While they begun in early stages as “chemical matches”, the process required to manufacture and use them was too complicates, though friction matches picked up the popularity. Most matches today are friction matches.
The friction match was created after many failed attempts with chemicals which would explode, but not retain a safe, stable flame. The composition of antimony sulfide was replaced with white phosphorus in the development of matches moving into the US, though this was replaced soon after because of the toxicity of white phosphorus that was previously unknown.
Fact: They were known as “Lucifers” when they were made of antimony sulfide, largely because of their violent reaction and unpleasant fumes. At least it was better than white phosphorus!
The lenses that are used to start fires are known as burning glass, composed of a large convex lens which can concentrate the sun’s light onto a small area, heating up the area extremely and leading to ignition. Burning mirrors worked similarly and also fall in this category, and it was very useful in the period before electrical ignition was available.
A convex lens is a type of simple lens which is bulged out on both sides, concentrating light rays which enter it onto one single focal point. They are largely symmetrical, as they need to reflect all light into the same point equally.
The technology traces back very far, with the first mention of it known to be in a play from 424 BC, the clouds. The first story goes back to the use of burning glass by Archemidies, where allegedly he used a giant concave mirror tp focus sunlight on the Roman army invading Syracuse.
The lens is the basis for the solar lighter among other things, though the technology is seen less with the advent of electrical ignition. It’s still important to consider in architecture, as the mistake of not doing so did cause a few freak accidents, most notably with the London skyscraper “the walkie talkie” melting a few cars because of sunlight refraction.
Below: Convex Lens
A hand drill was a primitive method of beginning fires, a type of simple machine which could produce rapid spinning motion with a rod. In it’s simplest form, it consists of spinning a rod by twisting it through both palms of the hand, though there are ways to automate it with simple machines. It’s now commonly learned as a survival skill for starting fires and drilling holes.
A few machines which use the hand drill concept but make it easier to use are the bow drill, pump drill, and brace. All of these require some form of pressure on a surface.
A fire striker is a tool used to spark fires. It uses two items, a piece of carbon steel and a sharp edge of flint, and strikes them together to generate sparks. It was a primary method of creating fires before the invention of matches, and the idea of fire strikers is still used today in the mechanism which sparks lighters. (It’s actually not too similar, admittedly; lighters use constant friction, while strikers use concentrated force.)
The fire striker is a part of a larger group of fire making, known as percussion fire, where concentrated strikes would produce sparks introducing the heat needed in a fire triangle.
In order for two elements to work in a fire striker, one has to be a type of alloy. Steel is most used, and the type or hardness really matters in how successful a fire striker is. The more carbon in a steel piece, the more it will ignite. The other element has to be a hard, non-porous rock which can have a sharp edge, including chert, quartz, and flint.
Strikers work largely because they concentrate in small areas with the sharp edge. Sparks produced are made of molten parts of the steel, though it can only ignite smaller tinder cloths at that stage. To create a large fire, small tinder pieces are first ignited, then added to “heavier tinder”.
A flint and steel is the most effective type of fire striker. It is composed of flint, a sedimentary rock-quartz which occurs in limestone, and steel, an alloy made of iron and carbon. Flint was not only used in this application, though; it was commonly used to make stone tools due to their ability to chip easily. They made for easy primitive knives and blades.
The term is probably most commonly used in Minecraft. In the game, a flint and steel is a tool to start fires. It’s associated with Nether Portals, as these require a fire to activate.
A safety match is a type of match which only activates on a specific type of surface. While most common matches will light on any surface with enough friction, safety matches require special materials to ignite on. Safety matches use red phosphorus and a special type of surface on the matchbox composed of class, more red phosphorus, and carbon which is required to ignite them.
Perhaps the opposite of a safety match is a storm match, a type of match which is very challenging to extinguish and used for, well, storms.
A fire that no one can extinguish: not Los Angeles in 2025 but a deadly weapon in Byzantine Greece. Learn the science and history of Greek fire. Would it still be a useful weapon today, and what are its closest modern-day equivalents? Be sure to study the examples of napalm, thermite, and white phosphorus. [HIS, SCI]
Greek Fire was a weapon used by the Byzantine empire which we no longer know the recipe for, keeping the nature of it quite a mystery. It is credited to Callinicus of Heliopolis, a refugee who developed it as a way to defend against Arab invasion.
It’s often referred to as liquid fire or sea fire, and is speculated to be composed of some combination of resin, naphtha, quickline, calcium phosphide, sulfur, and niter. Greek fire was special in that it was practically unextinguishable; water would only spread the flames, and anything coated in water would catch fire. This attribute made its recipe very unique, closely guarded by the Emperors and the Kalliniko family and so secretive that the recipe is lost to history.
The fire proved very useful in naval warfare, especially against Arab fleets, where Constantinople was defended by shooting Greek fire from tubes in Greek ships, warding off siege attempts. Various methods of deploying the fire were used, from tubes, to grenades, to even cranes (in a kind of flamethrower style). Tubular projectors were a very kamikaze form of using Greek fire, as often times the pressure in the weapon would detonate before it could be launched.
There have been attempts to recreate it, though to little success.
Note: The article here was for the most part accurate, though I’d step carefully around it. The site mentions that the article is made by AI, something I should’ve noted immediately but kind of disregarded. Strange that WSC is now using AI-gen articles.
For early humans, fire was surely useful for cooking raw Macrauchenia and for fending off saber-toothed tigers—but could it also have been used to create the ancient equivalent of cartoons? Consider this research into the prehistoric use of fire as a tool for animation, then discuss with your team: is this a form of art (or entertainment) that we should be reviving today? Can you imagine other forms of storytelling that utilize natural phenomena—for instance, strong winds—in a similar way? [HIS, ART]
In the above section, a Macruachenia is an llama-kind of animal which recently went extinct 12,000 years ago. The saber-toothed tiger is an extinct Felidae which disappeared around 8,000 years ago, being a ferocious predator in the Americas (albeit not very related to modern tigers).
That’s not important, but I thought I’d over it anyways.
In a new study, it seems that 15,000 year old stone art may have used fire to animate itself with animal figures. By creating replicas of the models of carvings, they were able to “animate” the figures based on how close to the flame they were, causing the perception of the figures to move.
The dating of the art goes back to 15,000 years, about the time when the last Ice Age began warming up. The artists, part of the Magdalenian culture, a group of people who lived from 23,000 to 14,000 years ago, etched the art in with flint and stone blades.
The art at note here are the plaquettes found at Monstratruc, France, being stone tablets with inscriptions on them. In order to analyze them without damaging them, analysis was done with replicas made of limestone, using heating patterns and concluding that the cracks were indeed intentional in the original. It also shows that the art was likely intentionally made to be placed in a circular configuration around a fire for the animation effect.
The flickering of the light would play an illusion where the figure would appear to move. Specifically, the brief points where the light appears and disappears would let us fill in the blanks. The idea boils down to pareidolia and its related concepts, the idea that we developed keen senses for detecting faces among other common figures.
The rough condition of the plaquettes, as well as the quick-seeming execution of the drawing, though, makes it seem like the art wasn’t treated at the same level of respect as other cave art. The stones could’ve been part of a process of summoning spirits, or perhaps even were repressed. It’s still unclear what the reality of the plaquettes are.
I personally don’t see the patterns, though perhaps you might! Check out a video of it in action here: https://youtu.be/QZwqk0rlwVQ
On New Year’s Eve ___, a tragic fireworks accident killed many and maimed more in ____. Every year, those blanks can be filled in differently, most recently with 2024 and Hawaii. Though dangerous, fireworks remain popular around the world. Research their history with your team. What were the earliest fireworks—widely believed to have been invented in China—made of, and what was their purpose? When and how did they become the bright and colorful displays they are today? Discuss with your team: should they be outlawed, and, if so, is there something that could replace them in the popular imagination? [SPC]
Fireworks are the pinnacle of New Years issues, where these fireworks frequently cause mayhem based on faults. The most recent example is with Hawaii’s firework explosion case, as provided here, in 2024-25.
In this case, a lit firework tipped over and shot into a pile of unlit fireworks, causing a giant explosion which killed 3 people and injured 20 more. Fireworks are illegal in Hawaii, where this incident took place, because of the possibility of these events. Despite this, many people still set them off on holiday events, and operations to crack down on them haven’t worked super well. In fact, there was a 30% increase in incidents with fireworks from last year.
The fireworks are basically aerial bombs, though the problem perpetuates further than that fact. It’s an issue that people believe that the authorities will crack down on them when firework incidents happen, leading to people being less transparent about the situation. Because it is an illegal act, many people are scared to step into the topic.
Fireworks trace back to China in the form of firecrackers, where they symbolized warding off evil and bringing joy for the new year. They have the issue of being grouped with much larger, more dangerous fireworks because they are treated similarly, though they have completely different cultural backgrounds.
As for firework control, the law should be adjusted around the cultural practices to avoid unsettling any rituals done by communities, while cracking down on the imports of larger, more harmful fireworks at ports. Hawaii is an island, after all.
On the history of fireworks, the first iteration of them came in the Han dynasty, where bamboo stems in a fire would create explosions. They would then go on to create firecrackers, a version where gunpowder would be sat inside of the stems. The firework as a term became a thing in the Song dynasty, where their explosions would symbolize festivals.
They’re typically regulated, even to the point of being illegal, in many Western countries. This is because of the mismanagement of fireworks, blurring the line between what counts as basically an exploding missile.
Music can be explosive; it can also be about explosives. Listen to the works below to see how the creators treat fireworks in their music. Are they celebrating or criticizing them, or is it impossible to tell? What instruments or lyrics do they use to channel the feeling of fireworks? [ART]
Music time! I think the paragraph term of “music can be explosive” is a reference to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, where he quite literally used a cannon as a musical instrument. Badass
George Handel - Music for the Royal Fireworks is an orchestral suite created for wind instruments, commissioned by George II of Britain for the fireworks of Green Park. It celebrates the signing of the treaty of Aachen, the moment signalling the end of the War of Austrian Succession in 1748. It consists of 5 movements and was scored for a large wind instrument ensemble.
Handel wanted to include string instruments, though this decision was overruled by the Duke, making it clear the king preferred the piece without it. Handel would later rescore the piece in the Foundling Hospital to include the string ensemble.
The orchestral suite is often connected with Water Music, another suite composed 30 years prior to this one for a celebration along the River Thames.
Igor Stravinsky - Feu d’artifice is a “short orchestral fantasy” composed as a wedding present for the daughter of a famous Russian composer, Nedezhda, and her groom, Steinberg. The song, while not representative of his more mature work, built up Stravinsky’s reputation as a composer. While it has the form of a scherzo, it is considered an orchestral fantasy because it is short. It typically takes 4 minutes to play.
Feu d’artifice is the French word for firework, something I find very strange considering neither Igor nor Nikolai, the famous aforementioned Russian composer, were French. Igor did have French citizenship.
Claude Debussy - Feux d’artifice is the last piece in the second book in his Preludes series, containing 24 pieces for solo piano. Like the other songs in the catalog, this song is largely unstructured and doesn’t follow a tonal center; rather, it feel like something mystical. The time signature is 4/8, which already tells you something.
The title is also the French word for firework. It is an alternate spelling.
It can be characterized by its arpeggios, musical passages of multiple repeated notes in a satisfying sequence, and glissandos, notes played in quick sequence in semi-tones. It’s hard to describe in a non-music context.
Oliver Knussen - Flourish with Fireworks, op. 22 is a piece which acts as a triple homage: one to a close friend of Oliver; one to the LSO, the orchestra he grew closest with; and one most famously to Stravinsky, calling out his piece mentioned previously on fireworks.
Stravinsky’s piece was the model of Oliver’s, with Oliver’s piece having been commissioned by the LSO. (London symphony orchestra)\
halyosy - Fire◎Flower is a huge tonal shift from the other pieces mentioned above. It is among the most popular Vocaloid songs, a Japanese song genre based on a very stylized auto-generated synthesizer vocal element among an anime-like instrumental composition. The song linked here is the third iteration of the song.
The song follows a boy, Len, describing his love for a girl, Rin, “like a fire flower” in the summertime. The season of summer is attributed with Fireworks, presumably fireworks of love and romance.
There are three iterations of the song, the original posted in 2008. The Sparkle version was posted in 2021 as a celebration of its 13th anniversary, and the Rerec version was posted 2024 as a “glow-up” in fidelity. The MV linked here features a lot of fireworks in its visuals.
Katy Perry - Firework is by far the most popular song in this list, itself a very notable pop song. It’s a self-empowerment song in the dance-pop genre within her album Teenage Dream. I’ve heard the song many times features at the scholars ball!
The music video listed portrays Budapest, the capital of Hungary. It follows the song’s main theme, with a call for young people to be confident in themselves. The song is considered an anthem for the area of self-empowerment, telling people to have their own autonomy.
The lyrics match typical self-doubt feeling relatable to many of the empowerment community before reinforcing self-worth in its chorus:
'Cause, baby, you're a firework Come on, show 'em what you're worth Make 'em go, "Ah, ah, ah" As you shoot across the sky
Baby, you're a firework Come on, let your colors burst Make 'em go, "Ah, ah, ah" You're gonna leave 'em all in awe, awe, awe
If you’ve ever gone camping on a cold night, you might have gathered around a fire with your friends to toast tasty s’mores and tell tasty stories. Every so often, someone needs to put more wood in the fire to keep it from going out—they are tending it. Early towns and villages had people assigned to this task full-time, because it was much harder to restart a fire than to keep it going. Explore the mythologies that emerged in early civilizations around the idea of keeping a fire alive and well, then discuss with your team: is there anything else similar to fire that is easier to keep alive than to restart once it is gone—and, if so, who tends to it? [HIS, SPC]
The article feels like a summary itself. It’s not very long, but it packs so much information into a small space. There’s a wide variety of mythologies to do with fire, each of which I’ll break down and separate. Get ready for this article summarization to look very strange.
One appearance of fire in ancient mythology has to do with the Zoroastrian people, a culture based on the beliefs of an ancient prophet originating from Iran. In one ritual done five times a day, fires are tended to in a spiritual process mean to reject evil. These sacred fires are kept in fire temples, known as Dar-e-Mehers, translating literally to “door of light”. The “thrones” the sacred fires create are metaphorically similar to kings courts. There are specifically 16 different types of fire, those of which I won’t explain. (See the article yourself, if you’re really interested in Zoroastrian fires)
Zarathustra, the prophet Zoroastrianism follows around, first associated fire with a universal role, being part of an essence of all matter– the fire we see is a physical manifestation of a “divine light” considered the son of “god”. In a more metaphorical sense, it represents illumination, courage, and wisdom, sort of a medium representing these good traits. Sometimes, science is juxtaposed with this religious belief through an understanding of thermal waves, atoms, and electro-magnetic currents.
The article mostly focuses on this Zoroastrian tradition of fire, though some others are mentioned:
The Rigveda, a collection of sacred texts in Hinduism, features praises to their god of fire in their introduction.
Prometheus, a Greek mythological figure, stole fire from the sun and gave it to man as a gift against the orders of Zeus. He’s commemorated in the Olympic games accordingly.
The god Nanahuatl, in Aztec mythology, sacrificed himself in fire to begin the 5th age, becoming the sun.
Fire plays an important role of purification in alchemy in the medieval times which symbolizes transformation of elements.
Consider the fire-related selections below, then discuss with your team: do they treat fire literally or metaphorically, and to what end? [LIT, ART]
Georges de La Tour - Magdalene with the Smoking Flame is a painting of Mary Magdalene depicted sitting next to a table with a fire, two books (one of which is a Bible), and a skull on her lap. Magdalene was one of Jesus’ followers and a witness to his first coming. Two versions of this painting exist.
Magdalene was a common figure in baroque art, considered a “perfect lover” of Christ with themes of repentance. In Catholic countries especially, she was given great devotion.
The subject matter of the painting suggests Magdalene is pondering death.
Jan Griffier - Great Fire of London, 1666 depicts, well, the great fire of London in 1666. Jan, a Dutch painter, has made various depictions of the fire, though this one at topic was drawn quite spontaneously.
The Great Fire of London was a major fire in 1666, taking place North of the River Thames and burning most of the enclosed area of London, as well as some outer portions.
Paul Sandby - Windsor Castle from the Lower Court, on the 5th November-Fireworks depicts a celebration of Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Bonfire Night, at Windsor castle on a November 5th. The celebration commemorates a failed assassination attempt by the Gunpowder Plot on the king, of which Guy Fawkes played a large role in.
Depicted in the image is a fireworks celebration, though not in the typical sense we know of. Old fireworks were basically just large fires, sometimes mixed in with some explosives.
The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16 October 1834 - J.M.W. Turner is a painting depicting two different views on a fire which broke out at the Houses of Parliament in 1834. The painting was first sketched at the site of the burning, where Turner watched it live and made drafts from two different perspectives.
Symbolically, it depicts the theme of a passing of an old world order. This may have been an influence for a painting of his mentioned in last year’s content, The Fighting Temeraire. In the paintings, the fires are also exemplified to underline a theme of “man’s helplessness”.
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi - The Moon in Smoke is the 22nd entry in his collection of prints, One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, all featuring a moonlit scene with famous figures and references to poetry.
In this artwork, a scene of large, engulfing flames covers most of the print, save for two firemen figures holding “Matoi”s, a type of 3-dimensional flag. In context, these two firemen are part of rival fire associations, often contesting against each other since the association who puts out fires on properties is the only one rewarded.
Red Plastic - Alberto Burri is our first instance of modern art, a depiction of a burned piece of red plastic. It falls into the spatialism genre, an abstract style of art about occupying space. The artwork is part of the European informal art genre.
Yves Klein - fire paintings is an exhibition of seemingly-abstract blobs and amalgamations using black and fiery orange. It supposedly tackles a dialectical aspect of fire, being both a symbol of good and evil. The series is slightly different than Yves’ typical artworks, usually consisting of blue monochrome paintings of a similar style. Fire Paintings is an entry into his research on the fundamental elements, those being Fire, Water, and Air.
I’ve copy-pasted the quote Yves provided alongside the exhibition:
“Fire for me is the future without forgetting the past. It is the memory of nature. It is gentleness. ‘It is gentleness and torture’. It is heath and it is apocalypse. It is a pleasure for the child sitting prudently by the fireplace; yet it punishes any disobedience when he wishes to play too close to its flames. It is well-being and it is respect. It is a tutelary and terrible god, both good and bad.”
Music:
Joseph Haydn - Sinfonie Nr. 59 Feuersinfonie (Fire Symphony) is one of Haydn’s earlier works, written in the mid 1760s, though its exact debut is unknown. The symphony consists of four movements in a pretty standard form. It consists of oboes, horns, bassoons, a harpsichord, and strings (violin, cello, bass).
This symphony is known popularly as the Feuer (Fire) symphony, though the name didn’t come from Haydn himself. Rather, the name probably comes from the use of its music in the play Die Feuersbrunt (The conflagration), a play about a fire burning up some important building. Sometimes, the title is attributed to the symphony’s fiery composition style with a fast first movement, though there isn’t really much distinguishing this style from Haydn’s other symphonies.
The symphony, despite being No. 59, is actually one of his earliest. There’s a bit of confusion on the naming convention.
Richard Wagner - Magic Fire Music is a song in the third and final act of Die Walkure, in a scene where one character, the god of battle says their goodbyes to their daughter before sending them into protective enchanted sleep, protected by a fire summoned by the god of fire. The play itself is the second of four musical epics following these characters within Norse mythology.
The song uses various motifs, including a “nature” motif and “fate” motif found in other parts of the musicals.
A special type of fire effect debuted at this scene in Die Walkure, which notably scared audiences back at the time.
Jean Sibelius - The Origin of Fire is a single movement orchestral piece set in a setting within Kalevala, a collection of epics (a style of poem) from Finland. It was first premiered in the Finnish National Theatre being conducted by the composer himself, and it has had various ones since. The song has been revised once, the only difference being an omission of the original triangle.
It consists of an orchestra alongside a major melody being sung by a baritone and male choir.
The song is set in Runo XLVII.
Igor Stravinsky - The Firebird is an orchestral suite composed for a ballet arrangement based on the Russian fairytales of the Firebird and its blessing/curse. Three versions of the arrangement exist, one made in 1911, one in 1919, and one in 1945. The one from 1919 is the most famous today.
The piece, made for the Ballets Russes, was created on a desire for distinctly russian music and design, something which had become popular with Western Audiences at the time. The ballet drew from various russian fairytales to develop the scenarios seen and its morals.
The score was received largely well (comments made on emotional character and implications were very positive), crediting the production’s success to it often times. It was successful enough to lead to sequels, Petrushka and The Rite of Spring.
Motifs, like Wagner’s entry, are used often in the musical arrangement. These phrases were so common in the melody it warranted the use of another name, “leit-harmonies”, an early example of reusing musical elements in different scenarios.
One of the songs features one of the earliest instances of a piece using the 7/4 time signature.
Sergei Prokofiev - Winter Bonfire is an orchestral suite of 8 movements, characterized by being for a small orchestra and a children’s chorus. The song is in an area of children’s music, following works like The Ugly Ducking and Peter and the Wolf, though its composition was made ironically near the end of Prokofiev’s life.
The suite follows the story of a group of children from Moscow in the snow, showing events including snow falling, an evening campfire, and a departing train. It follows a text by Samuil Marshak.
Jerry Lee Lewis - Great Balls of Fire is a 1950s “old classic” song still recognized by many today in the Rock and Roll genre. It was one of the best selling singles in the US at its time, and ranked as the 96th greatest song every by Rolling Stone, also being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
The song is best known as an original with three people, a pianist/vocalist, drummer, and bass player. It largely gained modern popularity with its feature in the Top Gun movie, the song being played in a scene in a bar. (In a starking choice, the song evokes flashbacks of trauma and death for the main character - very un-like the song’s feeling.) Its name was the inspiration for the name choice of a biopic about Jerry Lee.
The song is a love song with mentions of the nerve-wrack men sometimes feel when interacting with women. It’s addressed to a woman who changed the man’s attitude about love. The most unique line is its most famous one:
“Goodness gracious, great balls of fire”
I’m not quite sure what it means lol idk make your own interpretation
Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash is a country rock and roll song originally sung by Anita Carter but popularized by Johnny, interestingly the husband of the sister of Anita. It’s listed as the 87th best song of all time by Rolling Stone and is in the Grammy Hall of Fame, having been one of his largest hits of all time.
The song got its inspiration from a supposed line in a book of poetry, “Love is like a burning ring of fire”. Johnny’s change to the song added mariachi horns, following a then-current 60s trend of including the instruments. There’s some controversy on the actual creator of the song as noted by one of Johnny’s earlier wives, though I won’t go into that.
The song’s lyrics mostly revolve around a chorus comparing love to a ring of fire, the singer describing their experience falling in love. “I fell into a burning ring of fire” and “it burns, burns, burns” are pretty famous lines from the song, simply a metaphor for a love situation.
Vangelis - Chariots of Fire is a song some of you might recognize from the Olympics, and some others might recognize from some form of prominence in slow-form effect memes. It’s an instrumental theme meant for the 1981 film, also dubbed “chariots of fire”. While initially called “titles” as the song appeared on the title sequence, it became widely known as the film’s name for its popularity in sporting events.
One allegation of musical plagiarism existed, with Stavros Logaridis taking the song to court based on an accusation of copying a melody from his “city of violets”. Stavros lost.
The music video features people running along a beachside.
Billy Joel - We Didn't Start the Fire is an annoyingly catchy single in the style of Pop Rock known as a list song. The lyrics mention exactly 119 very brief current-affairs references at the time beginning from 1949 to 1989 in chronological order, featuring topics within political, cultural scientific, and sporting categories.
The song was made on the inspiration of the idea that their time was an awful time to be alive, with various global issues. Looking back on the song, Joel mentions he doesn’t like it, being more of a glorified jingle. Critics were initially mixed on the song on its release, but a later cover by Fall Out Boy in 2023 which flopped fabulously turned most people against the original song.
Its chorus is as follows:
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning Since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it But we tried to fight it
It follows the song’s main theme of the issues of the world, and how problems have always existed. Fire represents chaos and problems.
Literature (Almost forgot this!):
William Blake - The Tyger is a famous poem in the English literary canon and tackles Christian symbols prominent in the late 1700s, having been created alongside a sister poem, “the lamb”. It’s part of William’s Songs of Experience collection of poem, published as a follow up to his previous Songs of Innocence. The poem is structured in 4 line stanzas of similar lengths.
The poem treats the “tiger” and the “lamb” as a sort of yin and yang, both counterparts of one another which are both required to have a complete world. The poem continues with these christian topics, with the question brought up of why God chose to make such a “fearsome, evil animal”. The tiger is also juxtaposed with fire, mentioning that it can look elegant but is dangerous overall.
Various interpretations of the poem exist, but they all revolve around discovering some kind of truth by seeing the contradictions and the opposites of existence. To understand one truly, you must understand the other. The ending of the poem leaves the topic open-ended for the reader.
This stanza is repeated and is of significance, as it poses the question of why God created such a fearful entity, standing it alongside the idea of symmetry.
Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night: What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
The poem, as the collection suggests, was initially meant to be recited in a song-like style. This style has been lost since. The poem is meant to rhyme, though in modern English the scheme doesn’t make sense. (Perhaps, the word “symmetry” was pronounced “symme-try” as opposed to “symme-tree”?)
Forrest Gander - Wasteland: On the California Wildfires is a poem describing the 2017 Tubbs fire in California, structured in short 3-line stanzas which hop across the page. It could be described as a calligram, a type of poem whose words form the shape of the described object.
The poem is largely descriptive, describing the scene of the aftermath of a wildfire. A unique addition to the poem is the poet’s juxtaposition of themselves in the scenery, acting as a sort of fire on their own (while observing it). The first half of the poem focuses on a moonlit aftermath scene, while the second focuses on a sway of emotions the poet feels after observing it.
Linda Hogan - The History of Fire comes from an anthology (poetry collection of some sort) of Native American poetry, and highlights traditional indigenous cultural beliefs of fire. The poem is structured in two line stanzas, save for the second last stanza of one line.
The poem adopts the viewpoint of the wind in a fire, supplying the air in the reaction of combustion. It describes various similar features, like lava, matches, straw, and kindling as relatives of the point of view, all parts of a fire (or somehow related to firestarting).
Upon searching for more information about this poem, I found a different, probably more famous Linda Hogan, a white actor of some sort. Safe to say I didn’t find anything useful.
I am still - Jorie Graham is a poem which uses fragmentation considerably, splitting sentences across various lines in 4-line stanzas. The first observation I make of the poem is that the title leads into the poem itself, and should be considered in the composition of it.
The poem paints out a POV of a character looking out onto a ruined landscape, implied to be by some sort of apocalyptic event associated with fire. The poem begins with the narrator fixed to a position, though they are able to traverse later on through vision. The speaker seems lost, akin to how lost I probably am with my interpretation. The end of the poem suggests that this point of view could be in a traumatic memory, though it is pretty vague - take my interpretations with a grain of salt!
One interesting part of the poem is that it seems to ask questions, though using periods instead of question marks. Another is that it very occasionally omits vowels in words like “buildings” and “said”.
📣 Speeches that Inspire, Speeches that Spit Fire Speeches that Inspire, Speeches that Spit Fire JFK’s most famous speech may have been about going to the moon, but that giant leap was a lot easier to achieve than peace in his (or our) time. Watch these selected excerpts from his “peace speech” at American University, then discuss with your team: is it possible to give a passionate speech about peace, and, if so, does JFK succeed here? Is he naïve about the role of the United States in world affairs? Then consider the speeches listed below and discuss with your team: are they, too, inspirational—or naïve? Can they be both? [LIT, HIS, SOC] * The White Man and the Red | Red Jacket (1906) * Appeal to the League of Nations | Haile Selassie (1936) * The Forgotten People | Robert Menzies (1942) * A Tryst with Destiny | Jawaharlal Nehru (1947)
We’re onto speeches, something you might have some experience with if you’ve ever done WSC or any other debate-element competition. These speeches are a bit different, though; they’ll actually be remembered (apologies to any currently aspiring debaters :p)
The video of JFK’s commencement speech for the American University (a university located in Washington, DC) samples a portion where he talks about peace. The excerpt is an attempt at a passionate speech about peace, painting a genuine type of peace enforced by spirit and humanity, rather than one held by force and government. He calls for an everlasting peace which supports diversity and the people in the world.
Later on in the speech, though it isn’t mentioned here, he talks about the attitudes of peace, bring the USSR into particular light. He describes the plan to de-escalate the cold war and nuclear programs, working with Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev to bring the conflict to end.
Onto the listed speeches! I’ll try and highlight their main talking points.
A great majority of famous speeches, seemingly, have a lot of political connection to them – the only one which I can mention which doesn’t focus mainly on politics is MLK’s speech, and even that tackled systemic issues with bias in the American government.
Red Jacket - The White Man and the Red is a speech inaccurately dated by the given website; in fact, it was spoken in 1805, nearly a century before the claimed date. The speech, given by Sagoyewatha (an indigenous spokesperson of the Senecas, commonly known as Red Jacket) was a speech both in the hope of peace and in defence of the native religion, unfortunately leading to the councilship refusing the fellowship offer.
Red Jacket fought on the British side of the American Revolution, gaining reputation by his habit of wearing many red coats from british allies. After the war, he worked as a mediator after his land was ceded to the US from Great Britain, leaving various peace negotiations.
In the speech, he mentions the Great Spirit, the indigenous view of “god”. He condemns the acts of colonization and is regretful of all the wars which had to be fought, trying to convince a council to halt proceedings with cultural washings and maintain peace.
Haile Selassie - Appeal to the League of Nations is a speech which came in a time pre-WWII when fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia, warranting this speech by the emperor. After his forced exile, he ended up in the League of Nations, giving this speech to attempt to receive help, mentioning a few of Italy’s war crimes, notably the use of chemical weapons against civilians, in their invasion.
The pretty lengthy speech is mostly exposition to the issue at hand, highlighting the purpose of the league of nations, an initial refusal of assistance from the larger powers, and failed attempts in reconciliation with the Italian government. Haile makes the case that Italy has broken the Covenant, an agreement made by the league, and that action should be taken. He argued that the sanctions taken against Italy weren’t powerful enough.
Robert Menzies - The Forgotten People is a political speech and slogan by a previous prime minister of Australia, in the attempt to distance himself from elitism and make himself more relatable to the general audience. The Forgotten people refers to the middle class, with the speech outlining the values on the basis of Australia’s Liberal Party in an attempt to appeal to the middle class.
In a similar move to Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats (which are described more below), Robert would talk on the radio in a series dubbed the same as his original speech, calling the middle class the “backbone of Australia” and “having been taken for granted”.
The phrase “The Forgotten People” is still apparent in many Australian political movements today. The narrative of siding with the middle class is what solidified the Liberal Party at the time of the speech’s debut.
Jawaharlal Nehru - Tryst with Destiny is a speech commencing India’s independence, the culmination of the past years of conflict to reach this point. Nehru, being the first prime minister of India, declares the end of the colonial era with the moment. The opportunistic speech has been immortalized in Indian history.
The speech celebrates India’s waking to freedom, stepping into a new era which pays homage to efforts of people like Mahatma Gandhi. It promises to bring opportunity to the common person and to end issues under the British regime, ending with a hope to see past religious boundaries and work together.
The pledges can be criticized for thinking in a melting-pot lens, India being populated with a great variety of different peoples and cultural beliefs. The speech sort of implies moving forwards in a way which synonymizes these people, working together in an optimistic but culturally controversial view.
Some people claim not to believe anything politicians say. For them, political speeches are works of fiction. But fictional politicians also give speeches—some of them very effectively. Consider the example below, then discuss with your team: what made them effective, and would they have worked equally well in the real world? [LIT] * “They’ll never take our freedom” | Braveheart (1995) * “Today we celebrate our Independence Day” | Independence Day (1996) * “The streets of heaven are too crowded” | The West Wing: Season 4 (2002) * “We’re a great one too” | Love, Actually (2003)
These are some more legendary speeches, though these are a bit different. The difference being, that, the speeches are fictional. They’re still politically littered, but this time they’re fictional!
One characteristic of these speeches is that they are much shorter, and for good reason. The speeches take place in movies and other forms of media, meant for the common person. The speeches given by real political figures are meant for other political figures.
If you’ve got 2 minutes per speech, I would most certainly suggest you watch the speeches yourself. They’ll give you a lot of information you won’t get from a summary.
They’ll never take our freedom is a speech given by William Wallance in the movie Braveheart, rallying up his men to fight. The movie is based on the very real English occupation of Scotland in the 13-14th century, William being the protagonist and a major figure driving the rebellion against the tyrannical rule. The story is long, but the part you need to understand is the underlying hatred between Scotland and England at the time.
In the speech, he calls the men “free men”, convincing them to fight against the oppressive rule rather than staying as bystanders. He paints a regretful scene of what could happen without action, when you look back and regret not fighting. Out from the speech comes a very iconic line, “They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom”.
I can’t really explain how simple yet powerful the speech is very well, so if you’ve got 2 minutes, I recommend you watch it yourself. It’ll do a much better job than my lackluster summarization of it.
Today we celebrate our independence day is a speech given by fictional president Thomas Whitmore in the movie Independence day. To contextualize the speech, the movie is about an alien invasion and a rallying of humanity to defend themselves.
In the speech, the president commended a counterattack on the alien invasion on, you guessed it, independence day (July 4th). The speech is given by the president to a US military force, but reflects a larger global theme. It calls to people to unite with a common goal and to set aside differences in the global political landscape.
The speech makes reference to a famous poem by Dylan Thomas, in his words “we will not go quietly into the night ”. The mention fits very well, as the poem itself is an argument to “fight against the light”.
The streets of heaven are too crowded is a speech given by fictional president Josiah Bartlet in the American political drama TV series The West Wing. Taking place in the second episode (“20 hours in America”) of the fourth season, the speech is given for a re-election campaign.
The speech characterizes a need for American Heroes, making a mention to a fictional report that 44 people were killed by a bombing in a local university. The powerful uplifting speech describes the scene of the terrorism attack, commending the people who ran into the fires to help people get out. He ends with a comment on how the people can achieve anything, even when they think they’ve reached capacity.
We’re a great one, too seems out of place in its movie, the romantic love comedy “Love, actually”. The speech, presented by David, a fictional Prime Minister of the UK following the resignation of a previous one, follows his pledge for Britain to stand up against the bullying done by the US on its European allies. It follows the very real events of George W Bush mistreating Europe.
In the speech, directed at the US president, David marks the issue of trade deals and agreements in the US-UK relationship, with the US swaying a lot of their wants and excluding fair agreements. He asserts that they will no longer be weak.
“We’re a great one, too” is David’s comment on Britain also being a great country.
It’s a bit interesting, considering the current political stage has the US bullying its European allies (as of Early 2025). I wonder if WSC will mention this in the challenge.
There is a long history of famous leaders traveling abroad to deliver speeches to audiences outside their own countries—sometimes to ask for help, sometimes to inspire. Consider U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2013 speech to the people of Mexico, with special attention to the concluding paragraphs, then discuss with your team: would the prime minister in Love, Actually have cheered this speech—or criticized it? What would he have said about this speech by the president of Ukraine? What leaders from abroad would you like to have visit and speak in your own community? [SOC]
Back onto some more real speeches, we have Barack Obama’s speech to the people of Mexico. In a very general summary, it touches upon the positive development of Mexico over the past period before discussing new hopes for political and economic relationships.
This speech, given in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, painted a positive image of Mexico, emerging from its past troubles. Within this, he gave his endorsement to president Pena Nieto’s plan for change. He pushes for the topic of economic/technological development and trade, discussing an immigration reform for education he dubs “100,000 Strong in the Americas”. The speech was delivered to primarily high school and college students.
There is a bit of backlash against the optimistic nature of the speech, as the referred “middle class” of Mexico is still largely in poverty. Some criticize it for not being an accurate representation of Mexico’s perpetuating issues and being too pro-mexican government.
A speech in much different context referenced here is Zelensky’s speech on the conditions of Ukraine early into the modern Ruso-Ukranian war. He delivers the experience from his lens 13 days into the conflict to the UK parliament. The end goal of the speech is to seek assistance and tighten Western sanctions on Russia, though its description is much more interesting.
The majority of the speech is a telling of the events which unfolded on these 13 days. He underscores the efforts the country has been making against the invasion, the Russian terror against civilians, especially children, and the parallels of the war to WWIIs conflicts involving Nazi Germany.
The beginning and end of the speech are fairly alike, highlighting a statement that Ukraine will fight the war and that the event is something to be reckoned with.
Explore the history of broadcasting and mass communication. How does technology impact the effectiveness and reach of speeches, news, and entertainment programs? Be sure to explore the following historically significant examples and discuss: how did technologies (new or repurposed) make each of them possible, and could they have worked in different mediums? For instance, would FDR’s fireside chats have been as effective if delivered over the Internet? [HIS, SOC, SPC] * Fireside chats | Churchill's wartime broadcasts * Apollo 11 | Kennedy vs. Nixon | “Miracle on Ice” * Neujahrskonzert | Jazz Hour | Eurovision | Intervision
Broadcasting was once a revolutionary technology. Wait- it still really much is.
This misconception of “broadcasting being dead” is because the term itself is commonly associated with telegraphs and radio, the earliest forms of broadcasting. The term itself solely refers to the spread of audio and video content able to reach a wide audience.
Broadcasting has its beginnings in the late 19th century, when technologies for wireless telegraphy formulated by Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi suggested potential for long-distance communication without wires. Developments into the 1900s continued with the radio emerging as a powerful broadcasting medium– this culminated in 1920, when a Pittsburgh radio station broadcasted the results of the US election, the first scheduled commercial radio broadcast.
Radio continues its dominance through the 1920s and 1930s, considered a golden age when the audio-based platform expanded its programming in an early form of content cataloging. Radio also played a large role in WWII, serving as a crucial communication device for militaries and concerned civilians.
(One early and somewhat-comical example of Radio is a broadcast known as “War of the Worlds”, a satirical program presented as if it were legitimate source by Orson Welles. Its broadcast which perpetuated the narrative that Martians were invading Earth scared a lot of public listeners, interpreting the situation as real.)
The Radio eventually got old, with the rise of TV programming taking over around the 1950s. Around this time was when networks including CBS and NBC began, gaining popularity with their wide range of content. It solved an issue of Radios, incapable of sharing visual media. You have this period of broadcasting to blame for advertisements, first conceptualized with the rise of popularity of the TV.
In the latter quarter of the 20th century, the digital world began introducing itself to broadcasting, with digital transmission improving the fidelity of media and expanding content options, alongside introducing the first 24-hour news cycles. The real spike of the digital world came with the internet, though, a shift away from Live TV catching onto people as many transitioned from it to streaming services and social media platforms.
As we move along, we might see new forms of broadcasting with new technologies– the art of telling many people things seems to adapt closely with the advancements we make.
Now, we’re onto live broadcasting of famous… things! This section is one of the very few I like in terms of organization; each line of topics has some easily defined theme.
The first bullet point, with the Fireside Chats and Churchill’s Broadcasts, both are connected to country leaders addressing the public about pressing issues.
The second point, mentioning Apollo 11, the Kennedy-Nixon debate, and Miracle on Ice refer to famous early examples of large events being broadcasted live.
The third point, mentioning Vienna’s New Year festival, Jazz Hour, Eurovision, and Intervision refer to broadcasts of music-related events.
The Fireside chats were a series of radio broadcasts done by Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), the 32nd president of the US, through 1933 and 1944, addressing the public on issues including the Great Depression, a 1936 recession, and WWII. In his broadcast, he often set the news straight on the current events, dismissing rumors and explaining his course of action plainly. FDR had a high presidential approval rating largely due to these chats.
This effective communication via radio, culminating in 30 total addresses of around 20 minute length, was a successful experiment done by the FDR administration offering to give an unfiltered lens on current affairs, without any distortion by media. In nature, the chats felt personal and informal, targeted towards a very general audience. The chats led to a turnaround in the confidence of people in the time when the news was perpetuating doom for banks. Because of the effectiveness of such chats, FDR is still often regarded as one of the best radio communicators in history.
The term “fireside chat” finds its inspiration in FDR’s interpretation of the chats, imaging as if he was speaking to a small audience seated around a fireplace. In this way, viewers were able to see Roosevelt’s room alongside his fireplace, as if they were sitting beside him.
Churchill’s wartime broadcasts are a series of 33 radio speeches made during WWII, given throughout 1939 to 1945. Churchill, the prime minister of the UK during the time, is famous for his speeches– though not all of them were broadcast, and they had a much different style to Roosevelt’s Fireside chats.
He gave his first broadcast on BBC Home Service in October of 1939, addressing his thoughts on Russia’s intentions in the war suggesting Russia’s interest wouldn’t conflict with Germany’s. Though, the most famous of his speeches came in 1940, seeing the UK’s involvement in WWII. “We shall fight on the beaches”, “Blood, toil, tears, and sweat”, and “This was their finest hour” are some of his most famous speeches. Importantly, not all of these were broadcast to the public, the former being the only one in any regard.
Churchill interestingly didn’t really like the radio, only using it as he knew it was an effective medium of communication. He particularly didn’t like the BBC, it having disobeyed orders to broadcast of a 1926 strike.
Apollo 11 was the first moon landing in history. It’s connection to this section about broadcasts? It comes with possibly the greatest single live premier in TV history. On the historic day of the 20th of July, 1969, hundreds of millions of people watched the coverage of the end of the Apollo 11 mission, a live broadcast depicting the first step on the moon.
The choice to do the broadcast was very last-minute, having happened merely months before launch and with considerably pushback by NASA, contesting that there wasn’t much of a purpose and that voice communication should be prioritized. Nonetheless, the idea went through with a Westinghouse camera broadcasting to a large satellite dish in New South Wales (the Parkes radio telescope). Various mechanical issues had to be ironed out, including a fire in the transmitter, but the result was a challenging, yet flawless tracking of the signal.
In the moments before the first step on the moon, the camera mounted on the side of the capsule began signalling to the dish in NSW. And then it happened.
Because the dish was in Australia, the 10-some million viewers there got to see the moment 6 seconds before the rest of the world!
The Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960 were the first televised presidential debates in American history, shifting campaign strategies to crafting public images away from making promises and claims in traditional news. This debate, smack dab in the middle of the Cold War (especially as the USSR’s Sputnik satellite took the lead in the Space Race) began as a way to address the large, chaotic time period. It tied well with the need for a strong leader of the US, with two candidates who couldn’t have had more different stories: JFK, a young senator, and Nixon, a senior legislator working as the Vice President.
The debate, broadcast on CBS in Chicago, continued a stream of bad luck for Nixon and his campaign at the time. Despite this, the two sides were more or less even when it came to the debate. It’s more important story is its legacy, changing the flow of how American elections work (itself powerful for only taking place ~50 days before the election).
JFK ended up winning the election very narrowly.
Miracle on Ice was a hockey game during the 1980 Winter Olympics on considerable significance against the US and USSR during the first round of the medal round. Especially within the Cold War, the event is of considerable significance.
To explain a bit of context, the Union’s team was a large favorite to win the game, having won gold titles constantly in the previous winter games. Matched against an inexperienced US team, the game was predicted to be a decisive victory for the USSR. It’s name, “Miracle” on ice, is in reference to the upset(unexpected) victory of the US, tying up and winning the game in the last period.
The US would later go on to win the 1980s hockey gold medal.
The significance of the game in this section is the fact that it isn’t actually broadcast live. While the live broadcast was an idea proposed by ABC, the time-slot change was too drastic, and the game went down 3 hours before its optimal screening time. Resultingly, the broadcast was edited slightly and shifted to a different time- the game having already been played when it was screened in American households.
Neujahrskonzert is the German word for “New Year’s Concert”, usually referring to Vienna’s Classical Music concert held on New Year’s day. The program is performed on the 30th of December, the 31st of December, and the 1st of January (though only the latter is broadcast on radio and TV).
Beginning 85 years ago, near the beginning of WWII, the event primarily features Classical music from the Strauss family, though more recently composers including Wagner, Mozart, and Tchaikovsky have featured.
As the demand for tickets of the event is so high, many broadcasting options have spread across the world for the event. Often times, the concerts would be augmented with radio presenters and ballet dancers (with select features in the second half of the concert). In recent history, the first ever concert without an audience took place in 2021, rather relying on broadcasting.
Jazz Hour was a broadcast on Voice of America, the oldest international broadcaster in America. This segment was broadcast from 1955 to 2003, and has a interesting history in its legality in the US. In detail, the broadcast was made in objection to Congress, also having been banned from playing the US but remaining anyhow.
In the Cold War, jazz was often only accessible through this program, as it has been banned in Soviet countries because of “Western influence”. The program led to an international lens of broadcasting, with “Special English” or “Learners English” developing as a dialect of English without complicated idioms or vocabulary, making it easier for non-native speakers to understand.
Eurovision is a popular international song competition (though it’s primarily based in Europe) where international broadcasters will submit original songs representing its country before casting votes to determine a winner. Since its debut in 1956 (being based off the Sanermo Music Festival in 1951), it has run annually (with the exception of 2020) and built up a large following over the years of its broadcasting.
In terms of broadcasting, its done via a single country’s organisation, usually the host country of Eurovision. The eligible countries are on the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), also the list which typically determines eligibility for the competition in the first place. After the broadcaster from the host country sends out the broadcast, national broadcasters of international countries portray it– for example, NBC hosts the broadcasting in the US.
The competition is Europe based, but it has had the odd entry of North African countries and Australia.
The event sees an audience of over 200 million most years and has a giant cultural impact on songs. There are probably a lot of Eurovision fans here, even– I’ll stop the summary here on the note of not wanting to make any controversial Eurovision statements. (There’s surprisingly a lot of political commentary you could make here.)
Intervision was a Eurovision derivative made for the Eastern Bloc in the cold war, taking place in Czechoslovakia and Poland. It was organized from 1965-1968 and consisted of 5 total contests before closing down. Since then, many revival attempts have been made, the most recent of which is scheduled for 2025 (after Russia was excluded from Eurovision following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine).
The competition is broadcast on its individual Intervision Network, now being considered for use after Russia withdrew from the European Broadcasting Union. The contest is associated with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, including Russia, China, and a variety of other countries. There is a theme of anti-Western political sentiment associated with the competition.
Interestingly, very-much Western country Canada has participated in Intervision, but not Eurovision, before.
🙌 [WIP] Reliving It Up Reliving It Up Beginning here, I’m starting to run out of time before my own regional round. This section will likely have less detailed analysis on topics and focus mostly on key information, something which will eventually be reworked. - Ethan “Time of death,” says a doctor on TV, after frantic efforts to get someone’s heart pumping again fail, “5:11 am.” If it were only that simple! Research is increasingly suggesting that death is a complex process, sometimes reversible—sometimes not. Explore the differences between resuscitation and resurrection, then, without getting too dark, discuss with your team: how much of a person’s mind needs to be intact for it to be a good idea to keep them alive—and who should decide? You may also want to explore some historical ideas about what happens after death, including those below: * Valhalla | Tartarus | Diyu | Jigoku * Nirvana | samsara | happy hunting ground
Death is usually thought of as a solid concept; if you’re not breathing and your heart has stopped, you’re dead. Recent research, though, suggests that death may not be as black-and-white as the common narrative poses. In fact, there really isn’t a scientifically defined limit for death: nobody really knows the line between unrecoverable death and not.
There’s a bit of research being done by neuroscientists showing the brain can be recovered after surprisingly long periods of oxygen deprivation, suggesting that what we might think of as “permanent death” may not be right. A historical example: in the pre-1960s, death was commonly associated with the heart stopping, something which changed with the invention of CPR, drawing a border between the temporary stopping of a heart and permanent death.
(The brain is largely the determiner between life and death, but rare instances can cause very confusing situations. A person still breathing and biologically functioning may be “brain-dead”, possessing no capability of thought or consciousness but still “technically alive”.)
Conventional medicine tells us a brain sustains serious damage after only a few minutes of oxygen deprivation, though recent research is beginning to show otherwise. Two studies done with pig brains post-deprivation shows that many biological functions may be restorable. The implication? Maybe the border between life and death is a lot more complicated than once thought. Maybe the process of dying takes longer than we think.
The more we learn about the process of death and the border between resuscitable and not, the more we can develop methods of saving people post-mortem. This area of research is probably most applicable for those who die unexpectedly, staying relatively intact (i.e. choking, drowning, heart attacks) in the process. The research area, many scientists caution, brings up an important question; how “alive” does someone have to be to consider saving them? Is it worth saving a patient who is biologically resuscitable but consciously gone?
I’m not sure. Keep an eye on this topic, though; it’s a likely contender for a debate motion!
A short segment above tells us to define the similarities and difference between resuscitation and resurrection. Very briefly, the two both refer to processes where someone’s “life” and “soul” is revitalized; that is, somebody comes back to life, mind and all.
The difference between the two? They have different ways of achieving this.
Resuscitation is the process where somebody is brought from unconsciousness / apparent death back to life. Common examples include mouth-to-mouth and CPR and be used to save people, permitted they’re done before it’s too late.
Resurrection is largely a pseudoscientific belief that someone’s mind and consciousness can be transferred from one “vessel” to another. Basically, after you die, your mind gets transferred to another being. (The term isn’t picky! Resurrection can also refer to being revived, though it’s usually after a longer time period than resuscitation.)
Onto WSC’s list of provided afterlife / cycle of life / consciousness residence marginally death-related cultural concepts! It’s interesting; you’d think WSC would start you off with simple concepts of the afterlife or life cycles, like heaven and the indigenous resurrection belief, but nope! Obscure cultural concepts it is.
It’s not as convenient as a wardrobe, but tensei stories offer an alternative portal to fantastical worlds: death and reincarnation. Explore this genre and discuss with your team: what are some common themes in these works, and why might they be so popular today? Could ours be the world that someone from another world be reincarnated in and perceive as fantastical? People have searched for ways to live forever—well, basically forever. Today, many fields of scientific research, many spurred on by billionaires, promise that we are on the cusp of finding the answer—or at least a way to extend our lives in unprecedented ways. Explore the following technologies and discuss with your team: would you choose to undergo these treatments if they were available to you? Would it be good for society if people lived for centuries? * cryonics | biomechatronics | regenerative medicine | genetic enhancement * senolytics | stem cell therapy | reproductive cloning | digital cloning
The manga series Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End portrays a 1000-year old elf with one regret: not getting to know her human companions better before they passed away. This is just one story in a long line of literary works exploring immortality and its consequences. Read the examples below, then discuss with your team: why is immortality such an attractive subject for storytellers? What are some common implications of immortality that they explore? * William Wordsworth | “Ode: Intimations of Immortality” (1815) * Alfred Lord Tennyson | “Tithonus” (1833) * Mary Shelley | “The Mortal Immortal” (1833) * Ray Bradbury | “Hail and Farewell” (1948) * Ursula K. Le Guin | “The Island of the Immortals” (1998)
In 2002, researchers in the United States were able to reconstruct the polio virus from scratch—from materials they ordered in the mail. Explore the emerging field of synthetic biology, then discuss with your team: how might advances in this field help you and your loved ones in the future? What does it mean to synthesize a thing, versus simply to make it? And what future applications of synthetic biology can you imagine existing outside the human body? For scientists interested in studying living organisms, they can turn to the UK’s National Collection of Type Cultures, a repository of century-old bacteria samples. Meanwhile, the thawing permafrost in the arctic is exposing pre-historical pathogens—a boon for adventurous virologists but one that raises the concerning possibility of transmission to modern-day humans. Explore with your team: why are so many of these efforts taking place in the arctic? Noah might not have needed an ark if he’d had the Arctic. Stashed away above the Arctic circle, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault is dedicated to preserving seeds from around the world to guard against extinction. Research it and similar efforts, then discuss with your team: how important is the preservation of living samples of today’s species for future generations? 📝 Quizzes! Weekly Quizzes: This section of the document is in light of my organization (or lack thereof) with our weekly quizzes. My apologies to our primary quiz writer, Amalia, for not considering this sooner ;-;
(For added context, I’m not exactly amazing at updating the website with weekly quizzes. This section of the document will have the most up-to-date database of them! - Ethan)
What can you expect from these weekly quizzes? I make a weekly quiz every Sunday, and these, separate from Ethan's subject quizzes, are written in a less challenge-like style, and are rather designed to test specific details from the curriculum that you can then apply to less straightforward questions. They will not always cover only one section of the curriculum, some will have various themes, and once in a while they may have little polls or open questions as well. If I'm missing something that you would like to be tested on the quizzes, feel free to ping me on the Pocket-sized server! - Amalia
Notice: I would love these quizzes to be functional for you, so for the rest of the year I’ll have this form open, where you can request things to be tested based on the date of your closest upcoming round. I’ll check it every week and do my best to take requests, read the form for more details! https://forms.gle/iLL9kTMWh8RCwtt37 - Amalia
Release Date Quiz Subject Hyperlink Feb 2 Introductory Qs. https://forms.gle/HYueCqqu56BvSkSdA Feb 9 The Best is Yet… https://forms.gle/Bm8YBznGfbznFxKf6 Feb 16 In Futurity, Some… https://forms.gle/UZfqkLW4thhbiwKx9 Feb 23 In Futurity, Some… https://forms.gle/5PvBSNTYSuYEdV3t8 Mar 2 The Future Wasn’t… If At First You Fall… https://forms.gle/mfzJ7mYWkscupTmV9 Mar 9 Things Catch… https://forms.gle/aSF2vLkFxciEwYNJ7 Mar 16 Speeches that… https://forms.gle/BkhDoH3LNonbqPQU9 March 23 Reliving + 2 more https://forms.gle/VcrkZpRjBPCBXkAQ8 March 30 Generative +3 more https://forms.gle/6g96L2VcCNsndYgbA April 6 Generative + 2 more https://forms.gle/uHznsu2Q8Sk28gcc8 April 12 Mostly science https://forms.gle/GpCRgAFJ5aFVKoqC7
Subject Quizzes: These are slightly different from weekly quizzes! Here are our dedicated Subject Quizzes, a database of challenge-like questions categorized by curriculum category and difficulty. Each quiz represents one category and has 10 questions, one for each difficulty ranging from 1-10.
How are question difficulties measured? Good question! There are three considerations we take when deciding how tough a question is, those being:
Now, 1-10 seems like an arbitrary scale. Here’s our best attempt at quantifying this:
Diff. Logical Analysis Content Niche-ness Connections to Content 0 The question is purely memory. N/A The content connects to only one part of the curriculum. 1 The question requires surface-level knowledge of concepts. The content can be found on the surface of the curriculum. The content connects more than 1 distinct section of the curriculum. 2 The question requires understanding of figures’ motivations/beliefs. The content can be found directly in an article in the curriculum. N/A 3 The question chains multiple lines of knowledge and reasoning together. The content can be found by briefly searching the topic online. N/A 4 N/A The content is a sub-topic in an article directly in the curriculum. N/A 5 N/A The content includes common terms in the general subject of a topic. N/A 6 N/A The content requires deep investigation in related topics online. N/A Total Difficulty: The sum of the difficulties seen in the rubric, ranging from 1-10.
Don’t worry if the questions get difficult around Difficulty 5; they’re meant to get challenging! The average studying scholar will not be able to complete anything beyond Difficulty 4. Difficulties 7-10 are really for scholars aimed at remarkable challenge accomplishments.
The average Scholar’s Challenge is mostly composed of difficulty 3-5. There will likely be a decent amount of difficulty 6-7 questions scattered around, and few 8-10 difficulty questions. Difficulty 1-2 questions appear fairly rarely.
You do not gain anything from cheating in these quizzes. There’s no reward. You only punish yourself. You punish your own progress.
Without further ado, here they are! Enjoy (or don’t :p) Quiz Subject Hyperlink Introductory Questions https://forms.gle/xey2XnFek1RmopXj8
Challenge/Bowl: Probably not until June :p ❓ Miscellaneous Miscellaneous but Useful things: I talk about stuff here - Ethan (To the Pocketpwaa staff, feel free to add any miscellaneous info here!)
A Guide to Bypassing Site Paywalls I’ve decided it was more smart to do a bunch of random stuff before writing the actual summarizations, so here we are :p - Ethan
For educational purposes, of course!
There are many times when capitalism strikes. More often than not do we see this in media. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and others often try to capitalize on needy students part of a program which doesn’t recognize the paywalls can cause issues because they’ve already purchased memberships for these news sites.
(Now I think of it, it’s possible WSC signed some brand deals with paid media sites to get participants to buy their memberships. However, not everybody has the money :/)
I typically try two things when bypassing paywalls:
Now, the sites store your data in “Cookies” (no, not the edibles). You have the option to clear these cookies, and by doing so, you remove the trace of being there in the first place. The website sees you as a completely new person and lets you have 2 more free articles!
This approach only works if the website gives you free articles in the first place. Go to the second method if this isn’t the case.
Here’s the process:
1: You see some sort of paywall banner, though only after having visited a few pages.
2: Click the lock icon near the link, then go into Cookie Settings.
3: Click every Cookie and individually Remove them. (Blocking them isn’t a great idea, as some websites can detect if you’ve blocked cookies entirely.)
4: Reload the page, and Voila!
Now this approach is a bit tech-savvy, so I haven’t explained it terribly well. If you’re still confused about it, online tutorials can describe it so much better than I can. A simple Google Search will do!
Archivers save only the HTML and CSS part of a website, so no pesky Javascript paywalls are there! I personally use Archive.is. Here’s how to use it:
The steps are as follows:
1: You immediately see a paywall banner.
2: Add the text “archive.is” in front of the article link.
3: Once hitting enter and visiting the site, navigate to an archive.
(If you don’t see any existing ones, choose to Archive it yourself. This will take a little while, so do something else in the meanwhile)
After which, the article should be fully available to you! There are times when this doesn’t work; if it doesn’t, then there’s likely no other way to access the content without paying. That, or the website may have been completely deleted.
Good luck with your self-studying ventures, for the time period Pocketpwaa is incomplete!
Ethan (Please don’t sue me news corps I beg of you)