Robert Moses

I live on Long Island and grew up knowing the name Robert Moses. It is a very popular beach in the area. During high school I learned that he was also responsible for the three highways that ran across Long Island, the Long Island Expressway, the Northern State Parkway and the Southern State Parkway. These are the only roads that can get you on or off the island and if you ask me they work out just fine.

Others have a lot of complaints about the road systems, saying they cause congestion and are poorly planned. An interesting fact about them is that he built them purposely to keep out the lower classes. All of the overhangs are extremely low so trucks cannot go on either parkway. He did this to keep it so buses from Manhattan could not come out to the beaches. He felt that if they could the homeless and lower classes would use the buses to invade the island and take away from its beauty. He was extremely partial to the upper classes and built the highways so they could more easily commute. He was a good friend of Henry Fords and was trying to help out the production of the automobile.

Moses may have a lot of haters but either way he had great influence upon the cities of America. he is viewed as a master builder who structured the way Long Island runs. He may have doomed Long Islanders to constant congestion but he also provided us with some of the prettiest beaches in the country, I think thats a fine trade.

Technology: Speeding up the World

Technology has become necessary to life in today's society. The other day I wanted to order food from dominoes. I was just going to call in and order but my boyfriend wanted to see the menu. I explained that we didn't have a menu handy and he would just have to deal. He than got on his phone and ordered pizza without even making a phone call! He simply used a new technology that I had never heard of called mobile ordering, he texted in his order. I simply could not believe it, everyday there is something new that can be done via email, phone, or text. Technology is beginning to rule the world, making things easier and quicker but also desensitizing the human population.

I look back to when I was a kid and I didn't even have a computer until I has 6 or 7 years old. Today children that age have cellphones, sometimes nicer ones than I do. Today they have DVD's and BluRay when I had VHS and before me there was nothing. Children today play with the WII and XBOX when I was struggling to get my Sonic to work on the Sega. Times are constantly changing and technology is advancing in leaps and bounds.

All these advancements have made everyone operate quicker. Business especially has sped up. It no longer takes snail mail to deliver messages but email and cellphones. Money can be transferred at the drop and the hat and that means that the global economy has also sped up. Everything moves so quickly and changes occur so rapidly throughout the world. None of this would be possible without all the advancements being constantly made in the technological world.

Panopticism

In today's technology filled world privacy has become somewhat relative. With computers, cellphones, the internet, and youtube everyone is constantly connected every minute of every single day. This lack of privacy even extends to the government, which is constantly usurping rights and slowly taking away all of our right to privacy.

For instance camera surveillance has become an imperative part of security. Cameras are everywhere, at stop lights or tolls, or outside of buildings, or even looking over your neighborhood parks. The jobs of these cameras is to moniter the public and make sure all rules are being followed. They have their eye on us at all times, which is kinda creepy. However sometimes you may think you are being watched when actually you are not.

This is called panopticism, which stems from the prison design theory Panopticon. It creates the illusion of being observed and therefore makes the person behave accordingly. It therefore does not matter if you are actually being observed as long as the individual internalizes the belief that they are being watched. The government can than use dummy cameras or not actually watch the footage because the cameras are there basically for the effect. They make a person believe that they are being watched and the person will than follow the rules because they do not want to get caught.