For the IA project, I chose to create a pedal-powered charger. I didn’t know anything about the subject, so I had to talk to an expert on mechanical engineering for him to guide me along the planning and creating stages of the project. I looked in the internet and found a project by the Mall Aventura Plaza in Santa Anita and Bellavista, where they provided people with machines that had nothing but a seat and a set of pedals, like a really comfortable bike. People went there, pedalled for a while, and the energy they created through pedalling was stored in a huge battery. That energy would be then used to project a cost-free movie. I really liked the idea of this project, and managed to meet with one of the mechanics in charge of the project.
During that meeting I learned a valuable lesson; appearance is king. People and companies nowadays only care about how the rest think of them, and their true appearance is a mystery to those in the outside. Well, I went to the meeting and the mechanic revealed a secret about the project. It was all a great lie; all the pedals worked for was that when they were moving, electricity could pass from the wall to the battery, and when the stopped, so did the flow of electricity, meaning that the only reason for the project was to make people think that, as a company, they had a green initiative and cared about the environment. The mechanic tried to convince me to do my project this way, but I feel it is the same thing as plugging in your phone with a regular charger.
Another example of this occurring on a day-to-day basis happens on Facebook. To start, many people post photos of them that have been edited to make them look better. Others have thousands of friends in Facebook, and in many cases, they don’t know them all, but by having more friends sends out the message to others that they are more popular. And then, I have noticed that everyone posts photos of the happy moments in their life, which I’m not saying is wrong, but others think that everyone else’s life is packed with happy moments, when in the end that is not entirely true, because everybody goes through tough times as well. However, nobody posts photos of themselves when they feel depressed because, obviously, they will look worse than what they’d look like when they were having a great time. This is all a way to ‘shape’ the way others think about them.
I feel it all comes down to the image we give to others. No matter the cost. People will say they got a higher grade than they did to come out as smart, or say they did things that they didn’t do just for others to think better of them. Huge corporations excessively care about this as well, and I think that is a big problem of today’s society, as now everyone feels that what is in the outside is what matters the most. Most of the times the self-consciousness we have on the image we give to others is caused by pride, and this awareness is what leads us to telling people only the good parts of who we are and either evading the bad parts, or covering them up with lies. So I guess that it is pride that makes us self-conscious.
During that meeting I learned a valuable lesson; appearance is king. People and companies nowadays only care about how the rest think of them, and their true appearance is a mystery to those in the outside. Well, I went to the meeting and the mechanic revealed a secret about the project. It was all a great lie; all the pedals worked for was that when they were moving, electricity could pass from the wall to the battery, and when the stopped, so did the flow of electricity, meaning that the only reason for the project was to make people think that, as a company, they had a green initiative and cared about the environment. The mechanic tried to convince me to do my project this way, but I feel it is the same thing as plugging in your phone with a regular charger.
Another example of this occurring on a day-to-day basis happens on Facebook. To start, many people post photos of them that have been edited to make them look better. Others have thousands of friends in Facebook, and in many cases, they don’t know them all, but by having more friends sends out the message to others that they are more popular. And then, I have noticed that everyone posts photos of the happy moments in their life, which I’m not saying is wrong, but others think that everyone else’s life is packed with happy moments, when in the end that is not entirely true, because everybody goes through tough times as well. However, nobody posts photos of themselves when they feel depressed because, obviously, they will look worse than what they’d look like when they were having a great time. This is all a way to ‘shape’ the way others think about them.
I feel it all comes down to the image we give to others. No matter the cost. People will say they got a higher grade than they did to come out as smart, or say they did things that they didn’t do just for others to think better of them. Huge corporations excessively care about this as well, and I think that is a big problem of today’s society, as now everyone feels that what is in the outside is what matters the most. Most of the times the self-consciousness we have on the image we give to others is caused by pride, and this awareness is what leads us to telling people only the good parts of who we are and either evading the bad parts, or covering them up with lies. So I guess that it is pride that makes us self-conscious.