Author: AK
TOK 2 Objects
Chernobyl, the HBO drama series
- What constraints are there on the pursuit of knowledge?
On May 6th HBO premiered their five-part miniseries, which was their co-production with Sky. The historical drama retells the story of the 1986 Chernobyl accident that occured in Ukraine, Soviet Union at the city of Pripyat, it is considered one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history.
The miniseries were written and executive produced by Craig Mazin, Chernobyl was also directed by Johan Renck . Main characters were played by Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgard and Emily Watson.
Craig Mazin started his research on the Chernobyl disaster in 2014 by using multiple materials such as books, government reports from inside and outside USSR and first-person accounts. Mazin also learned how a nuclear reactor works from his conversations with nuclear scientists, he also interviewed former citizens of the Soviet Union to gain a better understanding of their culture in 1986.
Even with the shows success of winning 2 Golden Globes and 10 Emmys a question remains, how accurately did the miniseries portray the terrifying event of the Chernobyl explosion?
When I first saw the mini series I had very little knowledge about the history of Chernobyl, I was aware of the miniseries based on it and the approval it received from many people online and in real life. When I got the opportunity to watch the series myself I was trusting the directors vision and believed that it was extremely accurate to the real events, and I based my knowledge on the event from the series.
This however was changed after I watched a video published by Vanity Fair on their youtube channel, it was a review video of the mini series by a Ukrainian medial responder after Chernobyl accident and radiation expert Alla Shapiro. In one of the tragic scenes where a fireman who was a radiation victim was saying good bye to his lover, we as an audience saw the horrible burns he suffered, however Alla Shapiro claimed that the actor looked like he was painted by an artist without any solid knowledge or experience of the event.
This made me realise that it was proven again that when pursuing knowledge one of the most common constraints is bias, and in this case the bias was creating an entertaining story rather than exact replica of the historical event. Bias is human nature, and when obtaining knowledge from one human being it would be impossible for it to be presented without any bias present.
Tubeteika
My dad gave my brother a hat which we call tubeteika, my brother wears it casually but also during his visits to the Mosque. I see it as a cultural and religious symbol. It is not a strictly religious symbol because a tubeteika is not a Taqiyah, which is a cap worn my some Muslim men, it is seen as a form of religious uniform to identify a person who follows the religion of Islam. It still contains a cultural connotation to it since it’s a national headdress in Central Asia.
The history of tubeteika comes from the early ages, in a blog post about the hsitory of the hat Rustam Mizaev mentions that people say that Islam which forbade from walking bareheaded impacted the custom of wearing this cap.
The reason this object asks the question of what constraints there are in pursuit of knowledge, is because it represents how Religion of different kinds can impact the way we obtain information and how we can perceive it.
With metaphysical statements such as “everything was created by Allah” creates a bias against scientific findings and research conclusions, when discussing serious issues such as someones health and them having a serious condition could receive a statement that translates the idea that everything does and will happen by Allah’s choice and decision.
This creates the idea that religious beliefs and values may cause a person to perceive information that will suit them the best, which may not allow them to find out the whole narrative and explanation, instead they only choose the parts that they would want to see.
Citations:
“Emily Watson.” IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/name/nm0001833/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1.
HBO. “Chernobyl: Official Website for the Miniseries.” HBO, 27 Mar. 2019, www.hbo.com/chernobyl.
“Jared Harris.” IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/name/nm0364813/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0.
Mizaev, Rustam. “The Hats of Central Asia The Tubeteika Suits Everybody.” The Tubeteika Suits Everybody, russiantravelcentre.com/Central_Asia/uzbekistan_hats.htm.
Rosso, Porco. Чернобыль Chernobyl. 15 Dec. 2016,https://www.flickr.com/photos/porco_roso/31662698035/in/photolist-QeVB1P-NXyJLd-QeVzoR-NXyJmq-NXyJPu-QeVze2-Q4FyvT-PEZ49N-QeVCrK-NXyJfy-QeVCAc-QeVCfT-PEZ46m-NXyJhY-NXyKmb-QeVDu6-QeVBHR-PEZ4Xb-QeVyHH-PEZ3sN-Q4FxxF-QeVyYH-QeVyUe-PEZ3rq-NXyM63-PEZ4jh-QeVDgk-NXyKcd-QeVzhZ-PEZ5ud-PEZ3MA-NXyJGW-PEZ5TQ-PEZ4gm-NXyK11-PEZ5aq-QeVAVi-PEZ5ym-NXyKAQ-QeVz4x-QeVBS8-PEZ8ao-PEZ5Eo-QeVzqK-PEZ3G5-Q4Fxr8-PEZ5fq-PEZ4ho-QeVAzP-Q4FwiX
“Stellan Skarsgård.” IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/name/nm0001745/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0.
Vanity Fair. “Chernobyl Doctor Fact Checks the HBO Series | Vanity Fair.” YouTube, 20 Sept. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1GEPsSVpZY.
PSE post
This year I would like to develop the skill of being comfortable with my abilities and being more disconnected from social media and other stressing factors. This is important to me because this year is one of the two final years of school and I would like to get good results and achieve the goals I have set for myself, the academic requirements for IB can also be intimidating and if I learn how to disconnect from social media more I would not only improve my time management skills but can also focus more on my image and sense of self.
Social media takes up a lot of my time and can subconsciously negatively impact my mental state due to the different standards people have set for themselves and others. By learning how to slowly reduce its presence in my everyday life I will not only have more time to myself but also benefit how I view myself in terms of looks and situation.
I dislike not seeking perfection because it is one of my main values and what motivates me to do well in school, I have high expectations for myself and by making everything perfect I can feel good about the work I have done even though it may stress me out or cause other negative emotions.
I don’t think that I would like to overcome the trait of being a perfectionist, but I would learn how to cope with it better and build a more realistic approach. I tend to be harsh on myself when I don’t reach the goals I want to, instead I should find ways in a project to make it perfect whilst also avoiding negative emotions. The goal may be perfection but its the process that counts.
I can overcome this by being resilient and using my time management skills to have a rational view and realistic expectations, even though this will be hard to manage it will benefit me on the long term scale.
Meaningful object
Calculators
They present knowledge because they are programmed by someone with different mathematical rules and endless functions that can be used in split second. It also shows how such a small thing can easily replace the jobs of some humans, and change the way we teach knowledge to others,
It is also one of the most obvious examples of how a machine can replace a human by us giving it the knowledge, before in 1070s the term “Computer” was a job profession for the person who computes. A person was performing mathematical calculations, before electronic computers became commercially available. They would have to follow specific rules and couldn’t make any mistakes, something now a calculator can do in milliseconds.
Now calculators are available at hand to all the students in our school, they help us in mathematics and even some sciences. The reason why calculators are meaningful to me is because how much they help me out in everyday life but also helps me realise the power of technology on us. As we keep on using it more and more everyday it will be harder to stop using it if needed, proving how not only how humans are dependant on the technology but it also got the power to take over jobs. It shows that everyone can own knowledge, not only humans but inanimate objects as well, and they may also know more than us.
Dombra
Dombra is a traditional Kazakh instrument, it’s a round instrument equipped with two strings and the long thin neck with the base made out of wood.
I started learning how to play it in Junior school as a hobby, it was enjoyable and also taught me how to be patient with the process. It is something that kept me close to my culture and let me learn something more about it, it represents the knowledge of my ancestors and their nomadic culture and the arts.
This brings in the question of how our values effect our acquisition of knowledge, the idea that our premeditated values already shape our process of gaining knowledge. When I was learning how to play the Dombra I was happy and optimistic to learn about it because I already had a personal investment of my culture, where as someone who doesn’t have the same cultural background of me may be less motivated to learn about the instrument.
Our values and speculations about a specific topic can effect our acquisition of knowledge, and specifically how we approach it. It can make the process more exciting or more tedious, this however doesn’t mean that it cannot be changed.
Bibliography
Altahir, Motaz. Calculator. 29 Dec. 2015.
Fieldus, Alan. A Dombra Solo. 7 Aug. 2014.
CAS Planner
Top three qualities | Top three
skills |
Top three strengths | Top three areas of growth | Top three interests |
-drawing | -patient | -perseverance | -art | |
-communicating | -passionate | -resilience | -design | |
-leadership | -committed | -motivation | -psychology |
LINKS TO LEARNING OUTCOMES | EXPERIENCE | C
A or S |
Season
( 1, 2, 3, 4) |
1.An experience that will develop strengths | Art studio classes | Creativity | Season 1,2,3,4 |
2.An experience that will be a challenge to you
and where you will learn a new skill |
Her healthy habits | Activity | season 2, |
3.An experience that you will initiate and plan | Dance showcase | Creativity | Season 3,4 |
4. An experience you will show commitment and perseverance | Dance Showcase | Activity | Season 3,4 |
5.A group experience where you will collaborate with others | TechTinkers | Service | Season 1,2,3,4 |
6.Involvement with international projects (either locally, nationally, or internationally) | knit-a-thon | Service | Season 1,2,3,4 |
7.An experience that will involve consideration of ethical implications | PROJECT WEEK |
Creativity
“ exploring and extending ideas leading to an original or interpretive product or performance” |
Activity
“Physical exertion contributing to a healthy lifestyle” |
Service
“ Collaborative and reciprocal engagement with the community in response to an authentic need” |
Art studio class | Her healthy habits | TechTinkers |
Dance showcase | Knit-a-thon |
CREST final reflection
What went well in my project is that I managed to create a good outcome with a good presentation, I tried to complete a high quality piece of work for my project outcome which was a little book. A big challenge I faced in the beginning stages of the project was narrowing down my topic. I was very ambitious on the theme I wanted to investigate which was artificial intelligence, but I didn’t know what specific topic I could focus on and also understand in detail how specific parts of it worked, I don’t have a lot of background knowledge in such topics so when learning how AMI worked took me some time.
During this project I learned how to process difficult and unknown information or big amounts of it, and also simplifying those findings for a viewer. As mentioned previously some parts of the research were hard to follow, but by simplifying the language and following the explanations carefully and slowly I managed to get a basic understanding of it.
The essential goal of my project outcome was to briefly educate people about cyborgs and how they will influence us in the future and it’s important to be prepared for that. My aim is to educate but also spark an intrigue within some of my viewers that would take this knowledge and use it to of their own further research.
The possible improvements in my project would have been the amount of sources I used and narrowing down my question better. My using a limited number of sources I am risking the reliability of the claims I made in my project outcome. The topic i cover is still incredibly broad and by narrowing it down it can provide more useful information
My thoughts about Fahrenheit 451 and response to other group’s audio recording
our group discussion audio link
In the book Fahrenheit 451 we get to explore a city in the far future that considers books illegal and are burnt in sight, however that’s not one big difference between Bradbury’s fictional world and ours. In Guy Montag’s – the main character of the story – world people no longer think differently, have thoughtful conversations or take time to appreciate certain things. What is normal for them is watching television on the only channel they have 24/7, attempting suicide and drive fast for which there are extremely long billboards created for. All of this is the consequence of people being offended over many different pieces fo writing, so much so that all the books had to be burned due to censorship.
The book is the extreme consequence of over loaded censorship and is showing the obvious dangers of it. In my opinion the book serves a good warning and reminder to the potential result for our own world as people are growing to be more sensitive and finding new things to be mad about out of spite.
With the “cancel culture” on social media and censorship in other forms of media, we are already taking the starting steps to ending up in Montag’s world. Cancel Culture is a movement when a person – most often a popular one – does something that people would find insensitive and people quite literally “cancel” them. It was created with the good intent of calling out people with racist behaviour or misogynistic ideas and biases, however now people would cancel influences and stars for the littlest things. A youtuber Jenna Marbles uploaded a 40 minute video as an apology for buying the wrong fish tank from a pet-store even though it was recommended to her by an employee there.
This raises the issue of people becoming too sensitive to anything that is happening, As stated in the audio if every single person on Earth has their own strict ideas and requirements for any piece of media, it would be impossible to cater to everyone and make everyone happy.
In conclusion we should take the warning from Ray Bradbury’s book and look at the warning sings that are already present. This doesn’t mean we should allow people to be racist and have dangerous ideologies, but we should create rules or guidances towards approaching topics.
I reviewed Group 4’s discussion about the book. I like Shreya’s description of the world, saying that “What a lot of people would imagine to be a perfect world, but it also shows how it’s not ideal at the same time.”, because in theory a world were people don’t have a reason to be mad sounds good, in practice ti wouldn’t be able to accomplish that. Eeshan’s point of the similarity between the short attention spans in the world and Fahrenheit 451 and now are signs of symbolism. Raniyah also brought up a point of the political climate when the book was written, how communist ideas and any liberal thoughts would be censored, how it is still similar to the current climate when people are trying to always being politically correct. I agree with Izy’s proposal of how instead of censoring a piece of media we should be taught about it and it should be down to us if we would like to consume it. Overall I agree with their points and think that their proposals were clear and the similarities they drew were very obvious and easy to understand. They have a similar view to our own.
Fahrenheit 451
It is a dystopian novel set in far future where censorship reached its full potential that caused the burning of books and making it illegal to read one. In the novel the protagonist is Guy Montag a firefighter, but in this story instead of putting out fires as we do now, they set fires to the books they find.
The big reference for this plot is the McCarthyism effect, it was in place during the cold war after world war 2. The movement of the McCarthyism was a movement to “clean out” U.S.A. of any people identifying themselves as communists. Communist came in place in the Soviet Union, the enemy of U.S.A during the Cold War, hence the stigma against that ideology. Many people lost their jobs and had their lives ruined for having opinions or saying something that had any resemblance to a communist ideology, such things as having a mixed racial group would get you into trouble. This effect targeted and ruined many people without having any credible evidence to accuse them of being a communist.
It could be said that this movement was driven by the fear of the Soviet Union somehow secretly inserting itself into the American society and ruining their chances of winning the war from the inside. While this started as an understandable measure it still took a darker turn and was used as a tool of abuse and prevented people from having their own opinion. Which is ultimately the milder version of the world that Fahernheit 451 is set in.
Free speech?
With the recent years of social media and online presence, there were multiple debates about what should be allowed to be presented to everyone on the platform. Such things as censorship and freedom of speech are often mentioned.
Some of the benefits of free speech in a world wide context is the safety of everyone. In the light of recent events, COVID-19 shows the importance of the ability of expressing opinions and statements. A Chinese doctor Li Wenliang tried to warn his colleagues in the early days of the outbreak, posting a message alerting to the new disease which now is a global pandemic in late December. Security forces came to his house four days after the public warning and accused him of making “false comments” and acting illegally to disturb social order. He signed a statement agreeing to not discuss the disease further. He later died on 6th of February due to coronavirus.
One known drawback of freedom of speech is the unfiltered violence, such as cyber bullying of enforcing violence and hate against people immorally. Such things as hate against a specific group of people is often expressed on social medias, where many impressionable children are present.
CREST Reflection #1
What helped me choose my project theme are the current events going on in the world. Artificial intelligence advanced really quickly and seamlessly inserted itself into our every day lives. It is also a controversial topic making it more interesting to study and understand all of the perspectives included.
My initial approach to the project is active since I am curious of the opportunity we were given and the things we could learn within the time given to us. It gives us lots of independence and responsibility giving us a rare opportunity to teach ourselves about a topic that can be helpful in every day life and a chance to explore topics you are more interested in.
I want to demonstrate creativity by making my project in a visual medium, either by a poster or a guidance booklet filled with images instead of too much text. It is also innovative since it allows readers to understand the information easier.
There can be challenges in expressing ideas and topics in ways that my readers can understand. Timing is also very important because we don’t have a lot of it to produce a high quality piece of work. Overall I am looking to learning new things and having time.