How to buy happiness

This week the talk performed by Michael Norton,  an Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Marketing Unit and Marvin Bower Fellow at the Harvard Business School, brand me a new point of view on spending money. in his point of view money is able to exchange happiness. He shares fascinating research on how money can, indeed buy happiness -- when you don't spend it on yourself.
Can you accept the concept that happiness can be trade?  my answer is no. as we all know happiness is the deepest feeling originated in your soul. it is priceless, and there exist countless examples show that money, actually, brings sadness more than happiness. The example in the talk, for instance,  the lottery winner's social net works were destroyed after his wining the $5,000,000 lottery. It is a strange phenomenon. when you got large sums of money, you can fulfill all your material needs, and then the satisfactions may rise the happiness. But we often over romanticized this material satisfactions, together with the wealth, old friends' envy and prejudices came. It is a human nature,and it is not a bad thing, we are born to be "selfish".(sorry, I believe that people have the sin, but i am not a christian) it is inevitable.
From this aspect, money can not buy happiness. Nevertheless, just as Michael said, if you spend money on others, you will gain extra happiness! His experiments  well support his point, which make me changed my mind. It seems that people do get happiness from money! After a thought, i realized that it is not the money give the happiness ,but the way you spend it. Sometimes the phenomenon eclipse truth. we spend money on our friend, and we feel happy. it is because our action benefits our friend,and then let us realize our value. it is a kind of self achievement. what's more, i think Michael's intention is to tell us to view a thing in a new aspect, and we may have some new discoveries.
http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_norton_how_to_buy_happiness.html

let's put birth control back on the agenda

It was a busy week to me, and during this week I have read several TED talks. One of the most attractive talk is the one brought by Melinda Gates, the co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The talk is about Contraception, a controversial topic in recent year. Just as the talk told me that now a days, in terms of contraception issue, most governments and the society focus on women’s ability to control their birth rate instead of on the women themselves. This point of view gave a new aspect to look at the birth control policy.

When we are talking about birth control, the first place come to my mind is Africa and Asia, especially my home land China main land. In my country, the policy of birth control has been carried for 30 years, and the outcome is really amazing that we slowed down the pace of world population growth. The policy seems really effective, but during these years we just focused on the birth rate control. What we neglected the basic right of women, the freedom the will and the ability to control their future. Under the pressure of world population, we do need the birth control policy, but we should consider this problem in terms of humanity and feminism. Before the birth control, can we know the opinions of women first?

Many times we do a just thing, such as birth control, in a wrong way. As far as I know, in some outlying villages governments terrify women to use contraceptive methods. Although it is effective, it twisted the will of women! It violated the basic right of women! Why can not we just use a gentle way to do that? Why not just convey the opinion that give all the best to your child to them, I think, under the nature of mother it will be more effective. As far as I am concerned, we should do everything in the name of humanity!   

http://www.ted.com/talks/melinda_gates_let_s_put_birth_control_back_on_the_agenda.html    

The virtual dissection table

This week I have watched the movie We were soldiers and the TED talk On The Virtual dissection table. Both of them are really cool to me! The movie We Were Soldiers told me a story of the war in Vietnam. It is because that I am not familiar with this history, I will not talk more about the movie.

So I will focus on the TED talk On The Virtual Dissection Table. Child of a medical as I am, I used to dreaming of becoming a doctor as my mother, uncle and grandpa. Nevertheless, the dissection lesson frightened me. Consequently, I give up the dream that one day I can hold s scalpel fight against evil diseases. Although I quit pursuing being a doctor, I still pay much attention on the technology development of medical. It is today that I realized that we will no longer use a dead body to do dissection. The present of dissection table help student to know about the human body and saves a lot of money for hospitals and medical colleges. The most important thing is that the dissection table solved an ethical problem, the feeling of guilty when students dissecting a body. It allows students to make mistakes when they are doing virtual surgery, and this means that when they are doing a real surgery they will make less mistakes. Consequently doctors can protect more people form the shadow of death.

However, dissection and surgery is not like playing a game that every patient is the same. As we all know every disease on every person the symptom will not be 100% same. In other worlds the virtual dissection table has its own disadvantage-it can not 100% reflect the real situation of doing surgery. As far as I am concerned, the Virtual dissection should be improved, but in rapid progress we can invent a more efficient machine to help us to train sophisticate doctors.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jack_choi_on_the_virtual_dissection_table.html  

Connected, but alone

This weekend i have read several talks on the TED.com, and one talk cast a profound influence on me. The talk is from Sherry Turkle, a professor of social studies of science and technology at Massachusetts Institute of technology. The talk is about ow technology is shaping our modern relationship.

As what sherry said, in the talk, that now a days, although technology, cellphone text and email for example, brought us a lot of convenience when communicating, yet this technology, at the same time, enlarge the gap between each other in the society. Even in a family! parents text or email while their children complain about not having their attention, and children text all day long being together while not being together. I think it is strange that people communicate with each other without using their mouth, eye contact and heart.

As far as i am concerned, it is a symptom of a crisis of believe. It's seems that people no longer believe in each other. They rather trust a machine than a real person. If things go on like this, the society will be freezing cold that is not what i want to see in the future. The lack of trust and the deepest loneliness within together will cause a endless loop- a person who is lack of sense of trust will feel loneliness easily and then he/she may seek for the comfort from the machine, such as cellphone. the more the person use machines the more he/she relies on machines and then the more he/she feels loneliness......Just as what sherry said we expect more from technology and less from each other. This is a world that i do not want want to live in. In my mind the world is filled with love, laughter and languages instead of the cold hard words on the screen.

http://www.ted.com/talks/sherry_turkle_alone_together.html