Posts by Chi Chiu Lo
Public Health Problems and Solution
Policies regarding public health affect our lives as closely as the other three topics we had discussed in this class.
One of the main problems regarding public health is antibiotic resistances in human. Antibiotic is widely used around to world to attack common infections found in humans and animals. These antibiotics, when taken correctly, get rid of the specific infections; however, this is usually not the case. People either do not finish the complete supplement or take a few to immediately combat the infections/diseases. With this in mind, the problem is that these bacteria in our bodies will be weakened and not completely killed off. This will give a chance for them to rejuvenate and evolve to attack again. Another way humans obtain other antibiotics in their bodies is through the consumption of farm animals. They are sometimes treated with antibiotic that have no effects in human bodies but can affect the bacteria found inside our bodies.
Another problem relates to the scarcity of primary care doctors which correlates to expensive primary care. Many of our peers or colleagues have a desire to be a doctor and often tend to choose become a specialist either for interest or money. The reason doesn’t matter, but it’s the fact that very few goes into primary care and this is what we need more of in order to take care of the United States population. The raise of primary care also causes health care to be really expensive and hard to acquire for residents in the United States. It’s worse for people who are too rich to be considered to be poor to acquire health care services to help.
Last problem relates to the country’s slow but steady acceptance of marijuana. It has been created legal in several states over the past half of a decade. While it has held the title of either the most commonly used illicit drug or for medicinal uses, it always held a bad connotation. In comparison to alcohol consumption, marijuana is said to be less lethal in many sources; of course, it also depend on the users. The drug is so commonly used that over 45% of the people in the United States have used it before with a certain percentage continue to be frequent users. With the legalization, the sales can be taxed and put towards medical care for either homeless or poor families.
The problem of antibiotic resistance is impossible to tackle, but the others can be simplified. We already have a ton of students in the medical field hoping to become doctors. We should raise the amount of incentive for those who want to pursue a career in the primary care rather than specialization in some fields. Alter the wage differences between specialization and primary care; show that there is the same amount of importance in both sides. One innovative way to also incorporate more people into primary care is to show them the effects they provide with every patient they care. Show them the pathos aspect of the field and let them understand the satisfaction when saving lives. With the abundance of primary care doctors, we will have reduced health care costs for those who do not qualify.
Gender and Economic Growth Solutions
One of the most apparently problems with gender and economic growth lies within a simple concept called the gender wage gap. As I previously mentioned in the post regarding problems, the problem lies in its name. Why do women tend to get paid less when producing the same amount of work in offices? This problem can be alleviated by making gender equality a reality. Some causes cannot be changed such as women being the ones giving birth and the patriarchal society we are living in. From various sources, women make 60 – 80% of what men make in many jobs and vary in the states also.
A proposition by the Equal Pay Enforcement Task Force, established by The White House in attempt to close the wage gap, described an app to educate people about the salaries of different jobs to educate the public about the wage gap and how employers are underpaying some employees. Another effort to close this gap was a release of data by Salary.com to educate people about salaries they should possibly be receiving. I believe educating the general public about the salary of their current job will help them obtain a clear idea of what they should be paid.
Studies also show that unions offer a higher tendency of following the wage gap than those are not part of one. The researches show that the gap differs by about 8% in favor for those in a union. One of the main reasons why unions help reduce the wage gap is exact the same as the purpose of the actions by the Task Force and Salary.com. They reduce wage secrecy to raise awareness of rightful salaries and fight against salary discrimination.
As I said in the very beginning, women should not punished simply due to the fact that they are the ones with the biological capability to give birth. According to an analysis by the Census Bureau, half of the working mothers did not receive a paid maternity leave. About three-quarters of women will get pregnant which means about three-eighths of women in the work force will not get paid for something that is biological.
One solution that struck me was the idea of creating a paternity leave to complete the idea of a parental leave. This allows men to also have a period off work to take care of the wife and the child. According to a source, many firms consider this leave to be a “disability,” which I find outrageous.
By having educating the public about different salaries for the same or different jobs will allow employees to argue against wage discrimination whether they are part of a union or not. Creating a paid job leave for both parents takes out the “inequality” for men who think women are having through the nine months of pregnancy.
http://rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/how-fix-gender-wage-gap-going-far-beyond-app
http://www.financialsamurai.com/gender-wage-gap/
Questions for Kim Wales
1) How did you personally start up Wales Capital and what would be some advices you would give to others with the same goal?
2) How did you find funds to start up your own company?
Questions for Arielle Kandel
1) Aside from your past non-profit experiences, what ultimately pushed you to found the NWNY?
2) What are your personal goals with NWNY?
Gender Lens and Economic Growth Problem Set
When the words economic growth comes to our mind, we would envision a man, most likely white, in a clean, nice black suit. It is something that is “expected” of the society of our time. No one would think of a woman having a top executive position of a workplace and this is a problem. Women face many problems in the workplace even in the 21st century all over the world. Three of which I am going to discuss are the lack of women in executive positions, the concept of glass ceiling and glass escalator, and the wage disparity to demonstrate the inequality between men and women in the workplace.
Women are holding a little bit over 17 percent of independent directors which is shown to be an upward trend since 2002. This implies that many leadership positions are still behind held by men but is decreasing as time is passing. Many top women leaders such as Sheryl Sandberg and Ann Scott Plante are trying to reach out to women to form support groups and get them interested in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) field. Catherine Wolfram, however, found that women tend to leave their job before getting a raise in ranks and pay. Another simple reason for this problem is the idea of stereotype, because of the patriarchal society we’re living in. This idea favors men which cause the consideration that they are more superior and are the origin of success.
The idea of glass ceiling is where women see the limit in their own career in terms of hierarchy while men can still attain higher. This is generally true with the inevitable concept of stereotypes and patriarchal society. There anther concept called the glass escalator which talks about men in women-dominating careers such as teachers and nurses tend to rise faster than women in men-dominating fields, for example STEM fields. Aside from the stereotypes, maternity leave also can account to these reasons of glass structure that inhibit women rising in ranks.
According to the American Association of University Women (AAUS), women were paid about 22% less of what men were paid in full time positions, 2013. Women experience pay gap across all 50 states and in almost all occupations. The wage gap is even worse for minorities and grows with age. Though education tend to help workers increase their pay, but it does not close out the gender pay gap. Another important point is that it does not matter whether the woman has children or not, they will face wage gap regardless. This is a problem to almost half of the workforce who are women. A report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research on discrimination demonstrates that sex and race discrimination are a huge factor when considering in wage, hiring, and promotion process of workplaces. Overall, these problems affect the economics growth in lessening pay to specific people and prohibit promotions within workplaces.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Women-in-top-executive-positions-are-few-4360451.php
http://women-empowered.com/2013/03/the-glass-ceiling-vs-the-glass-escalator/
http://www.iwpr.org/initiatives/pay-equity-and-discrimination
http://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/
Future of Work Solutions
The idea of limitless advancing of technology taking over simple human tasks is an inevitable problem only to be slowed down by external problems that are either out of humans’ reach or currently unsolvable by humans. The problem of technology advancing is only in the scope of future of work and cannot be solved completely; however, the productivity of traditional office places can be alleviated with some changes. The solution I propose includes the removal of the manager position, bringing the employees together as a team, and have more face-to-face conversations and interactions.
This idea of removing the traditional manager can be seen from the company called Buffer. Buffer is an online based application to consolidate all your social media needs and other RSS (Rich Site Summary) feeds. While Buffer is a relatively new start-up company, they are a “self-managed, self-organized team.” They are a team that is working without a manager or a boss (they do have a CEO); hence, they all hold the same amount of power and their skills make up the company. Each and every employee is encouraged to work on his or her own project and gathered to work together when needed. The CEO, Joel Gascoigne, talks about the importance of sharing knowledge and releasing all the information to your team. According to Gascoigne, these new changes keep the team together, place trust in the team, and bring himself a part of the team.
This general idea still has four rules for the people to follow through: 1) how to make decisions, 2) how to give each other feedbacks and improve on them, 3) what is the compensation for work, and 4) what is the purpose of work? The idea of removing the manager allows the employees themselves to make the best decisions among themselves and try to make the best of it. Though the other three questions are still being tackled by this company, this is a general rule that can allow this idea to go through a final phase.
This idea of having a team without a manager allows for more human to human interaction – the idea of working together and giving each other feedbacks allow room for improvement. According to Susan Pinker, a psychologist, face-to-face interactions allow us to build strong relations through the release of oxytocin, the cuddle chemical – which bonds women and their babies while breastfeeding. Oxytocin is often released through handshakes, a pat on the back, and simple conversations and can promote feelings of trust which in turn cause greater collaboration among team members. There is also a study of 25,000 people which concluded that employees that had socialization with co-worker produced higher performance. While technology and social media exemplifies speed, cost, and convenience, employees are not getting the satisfaction, productivity, and joy they can with face-to-face interactions. Pinker also gives another example of face-to-face contact which exists in a very technical company, Google. Their environment is based on social interactions and has social rooms that encourage people to socialize which in turn caused higher productivity.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3040947/the-future-of-work/what-its-like-to-work-without-managers
http://www.fastcompany.com/3036935/the-future-of-work/why-you-need-to-actually-talk-to-your-coworkers-face-to-face
Questions for Debera Johnson
1) According to your profile on FIT, you wanted to bring some changes to academics. what do you think is the least sustainable aspect of academics?
2) Aside from NYC, where would you like to bring the incubator to?
Future of Work Problems
The idea of traditional work has many problems which are not as apparent as those that were in policing. Many of which I have identified relates to the productivity of work which we have discussed in class. Regardless of what job you have, productivity is defined by your efforts and the amount of work you actually produce your workplace.
The first problem that relates to the productivity is the rise of technology over the past decades. Humans are developing more and more technology; sometimes it’s a great thing and it creates more jobs, but to create thousands and millions of, for example, an iPhone takes a lot of meticulous movements that the human body might not be able to cope with. Technology, in this specific case, is an efficient, cheap, and most importantly, fast, way to combine small materials into this one cellphone. Erik Brynjolfsson, professor at MIT, and his collaborator, Andrew McAfee, concluded that technology boosts productivity, but eliminates the need for many types of jobs. Technology is advancing too fast for people to catch up in terms of skills and productivity. There are also some evidences in terms of graphs and anecdotal evidence in the first link where robots and automatons are taking over the jobs from lower class people. A future innovation, such as the Google’s driverless car, delineates how technology has no limit and can eventually take form of human intelligence and emotions.
The productivity at the workplace can be affected by many things and in this case, I am discussing the “distraction” of co-workers and social media. Social media is of our everyday lives now and it’s inevitable for us to avoid keeping in touching with friends and family. One such example of co-worker in our workplaces is the manager, who has power over you. The idea of meetings being called by managers often abruptly alters the working schedule of workers and disrupts their original goals and productivity according to Fried. According to the 2015 Workplace Flexibility Study, 45% of employees wanted more time for personal life and only one in five employees spend over 20 hours outside of the office per week. Above all, many employees claimed that their managers also expect them to be reachable and ready for work outside of the office. The expectations of the managers are too high and it rots and rips the productivity from the employees.
The last problem relates to the ability to have the valid and convincing skills to acquire a job. The lack of preparation by colleges is another problem. Unemployment has always been an issue all over the world. The current unemployment rate (5.6%) is almost half of what it was half a decade ago. In newer generations, skills are never acquired in college itself and it usually stems from internships. More and newer internships are starting to adopt unpaid internships for experience and I believe that hurts lower class college students. Unemployment is also extremely prevalent in adults; many are hunting for jobs every day, but lack the necessary skills and cannot acquire a degree due to the lack of funding. http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/515926/how-technology-is-destroying-jobs/
http://www.fastcompany.com/3041908/the-future-of-work/the-surprising-gap-between-work-life-balance-beliefs-and-reality
http://www.ted.com/talks/jason_fried_why_work_doesn_t_happen_at_work
Questions for Centre for Social Innovation
I cannot make it since I have class at 5:00PM.
1) How many ideas are dumped during your work process of work-connect-create-transform? Does that make you feel discouraged?
2) If your New York office is deemed to be successful, which city would you spread your influences to next?
Policing Solutions
The first problem that came to me a week ago was the problem of police discrimination. Of course, discrimination has been around as long as humans and this is a problem that is out of out reach, but can be lessened with the idea of body cameras. The idea of body camera is attaching cameras to the uniforms of police officers as a mean to monitor their behaviors on their patrols. It has been enforced in some cities or states in the United States such as Ferguson where a fatal shooting happened to a young African American boy. Body cameras are a great way to monitor both the behaviors of patrolling officers and the civilians in that patrolled area. According to a research conducted by the Police Foundation Executive Fellow, Chief Tony Farrar, it was evident that the body cameras caused a 50% reduction of excessive force and after the 12 months of experiment, the citizens’ complaints have gone down by 90%. Through this study in California, the usage of body cameras can significantly impact the behaviors of police officers to be more kind and gentle rather than the rough bullies they are depicted to be. Although it may change their behaviors, they are still enforcing the law onto us the same way with less force.
Body cameras can promote fair analysis of “suspicious” targets that are colored minus the discrimination when these targets are going through airports or areas where they do body checks. Some people are critically offended when they are being searched and others will waste a lot of time for the judgment of the officers. With cameras on the police force, prejudice will be reduced and the body searching or luggage searching will solely be on the level of suspicion that the suspect is showing or search every other 5 people coming through.
Another problem that I came up with was police brutality, which also can be helped by the usage of body cameras. Body cameras will monitor the level of force the officers use to prevent future cases of police brutality. According to same research above, there was a huge reduction of police office using excessive force. With police officers monitored by higher ups, they will be more likely to act with less discrimination and a more justified level of force.
In addition to body cameras, streetlights can also have cameras to capture videos of the surrounding areas. I believe video evidences are the most solid evidence there is and can be used to prevent people from committing crimes at specific spots and officers can avoid those spots on their routinely patrols. Some may argue the idea of body cameras and cameras in the streets to be an overwhelming amount of power for the government to have and have eyes on us all the time. The people of the neighborhoods can elect people they trust to work for the government to monitor these cameras to have an involvement in their community, but of course the government will monitor those that were vouched by the communities. The cameras will help us reduce crime rates and police brutality.
http://www.policefoundation.org/content/body-worn-cameras-police-use-force
Comments by Chi Chiu Lo
"I really enjoyed reading your problems and solution set. I am somewhat conflicted about your first problem. Although it doesn’t really relate to us in New York, but rather to people that are living in the country sides with a lack of quick access to fresh foods. In the long run, I am pretty sure many families do know that they spend a lot less cooking and eating at home and it might just that they are too lazy or they do not have the time to purchase these fresh goods after a long day of work to finance their families. I also wrote about the problem of the misuse of antibiotics leading to the evolution of different bacteria; I do enjoy your better description of such process. By ugly foods, do you just mean that they just look horrible or discolored? You never really explain what it was but just gave us the idea behind this approach."
--( posted on May 7, 2015, commenting on the post
Public Heath Problems and Solutions )
"I really like your first problem with a bit of background reinforcing your point. I learned something new from your very first point in that a cigarette company lobbied almost 10 million dollars towards the congress a few years ago. It seems you stated only one problem rather than three; it’s great that there is a lot of information to support your problem. There is a lot of information towards your problem of choice. Wouldn’t having one insurance still allow hospitals or health service providers to milk them? Is there an example of this plan of a single state insurance working elsewhere in another part of the world? You solution is somewhat vague and based on your personal assumptions it seems."
--( posted on May 7, 2015, commenting on the post
Revamping the Health Care System )
"You have an interesting idea that allows more opportunities in the future for women. I really like it in that it tackles the problem of gender inequality and our current mindsets of the gender roles. I have a similar solution in which it attempts to nullify this inequality as a mean to provide a paternity leave as well as the current maternity leave. I do enjoy the fact that you emphasize that boys were also to be present in these elementary school programs, since some other solutions I have read only thinks about boosting women’s place in society. It always makes me think what if women take over the CEO jobs or are benefited by the wage gap? Wouldn’t we have the same problem over again with men being the victims? I like how your solution is pretty simple in which it pretty much encourages women into “male” sports and allows this equality to nullify in attempt to generate gender equality and hope it will affect women in the workplace later on in life."
--( posted on Apr 27, 2015, commenting on the post
Gender and Economic Growth Solution )
"It seems your solution to the wage gap is to promote STEM field related careers to women. Your first sub-solution is to provide more scholarships and funds to women; wouldn’t that be really unfair to men? I would want more funds/scholarships too regardless of my race or gender. I personally feel like the inducing interest is much like manipulating women while they are young. Do you think there should be more STEM related courses should be taught for the simple purpose of motivating women to join those fields? You proposed an initiative to change the image of women in STEM fields without a solution. I don’t see any related solution regarding to that, but I personally feel like the only way to solve that is to involve more women in the STEM fields."
--( posted on Apr 27, 2015, commenting on the post
Gender Solutions )
"I completely agree with you that gender inequality is the big picture problem which contributes to the smaller problems that happen at the workplace. These small problems build up on a personal level in every individual to add up to be an economic problem. I also wrote about the gender wage gap since I do see it as an important aspect of economic growth where women are paid less than men for same amount of work. I do like the fact that you bring up that no matter what the occupation is women are generally paid less. It’s as if even if women rose higher in rank, they will still be paid less solely for a reason they cannot control. Although I did not discuss about maternity leave to be a problem, I only see it as a problem when it causes women to lose their job. Job security is so important to women during that stage of their lives since they have increased their burden with a new life."
--( posted on Apr 2, 2015, commenting on the post
Gender Inequality Problems )
"I also wrote about gender wage gap in my sets of problems and I feel like that is the biggest problem thus far regarding gender and economic growth. The problem is literally in its name and why would women get paid less for the same amount of work? I totally agree with the point that equality is an important aspect in the workplace in the wage aspect. I believe there is not a specific solution to gender equality and dominance so there is no way of solving that directly. I don’t see how fewer women are not partaking stem field to be a problem since I feel career choice should be depended on self-interest and motivation. Many perceive the intervention while women are young to be the solution of this “problem.” By intervening into women’s lives while they are young, it doesn’t matter if they lack the abilities to pursue success in that field. I do see the problem with women having to leave work because of pregnancy. It is not women’s faults to be biological capable of carrying a child and having to leave due to that. I do agree that the connection between gender inequality; this causes women to have less success compared to men in the workplace which correlates economic growth."
--( posted on Apr 2, 2015, commenting on the post
Gender and Economic Problems )
"Your first problem of office space relates to the idea of freelance work and I don’t particularly agree that it’s a problem aside from it “taking” jobs from regular employees. People should expect to not have benefits and job security; otherwise, they would be informed. As you said, these people can make more money in a short term and this is what people want, the relaxing schedule and free time. It’s only a problem when something bad happens and people will be looking for blames. I also wrote about technology’s advancement over the decades will affect the employment rate of people all over the world. Automatons will be able to perform work as quick, if not faster, than people and will be more meticulous. The only place where human can be in this assembly line career is at the end where they inspect the products and even so, people are so intelligent that they can code a machine to do the same the human is doing. I discussed your last problem in my post as well. The pressure of looking for a job immediately after graduating is overwhelming with the lack of certain skillsets and experiences. In my opinion, this problem can be alleviated if these experiences and opportunities were part of our college education."
--( posted on Mar 12, 2015, commenting on the post
Problems with Work )
"The idea of freelance work employed many more people with a more relaxing schedule and I see that as a good thing. While these jobs often do not offer benefits and securities, the employees themselves should have an understanding of this and proceed with their own level of caution. I personally don’t agree freelancing work as a problem other than an alternative to the current available resources; for example, Uber and Lyft to the taxies. I see your first problem originating only from the safety aspect. I completely agree with you that technology is being a distraction to the workers of this decade. Though it is inevitable that almost everyone in this era to have a cellphone, there are still people that don’t use it at work. These employees can still be distracted by other means. I also believe in certain jobs there will be compensation for overtime work unless there was a set deadline. I also wrote about the uncertainty of acquiring a job with necessary skillsets. I really enjoyed your idea of this “paradox” between job and experiences."
--( posted on Mar 12, 2015, commenting on the post
Future of Work Problems )
"I disagree in the point that you claim the three policies you mentioned are well-intended, but ironically harms to the community. It just happens to be “harms” in the subjective sense where civilians feel like they are harmed emotionally or physically by the police officers. I completely agree with your reasoning as to why those three policies are not exactly the best thing out there. What will these magnetometers detect and what about false detections? What if there are undetectable threats? This is another post with the idea body cameras and I really enjoy that idea being a solution to be able to get rid of discrimination at an everyday life level. I do believe laws that enable past criminals to acquire jobs easier, but maximum time in prison to 1 year is way too little. Prison provides many jobs as well as keeping criminals in check. But 1 year for a murder or severe crimes will be too little. You claimed one year to be maximum time to be prison, but you posed the idea of execution if repeating a crime? You went from soft to maximum punishment too quickly, I feel."
--( posted on Mar 1, 2015, commenting on the post
Solutions 1 )
"I also discussed a possible solution against police brutality, but it has already been implemented to monitor police with body cameras. While I do agree with your point that having education is important, I still believe monitoring police officers to be more efficient, your last solution. What kind of education do you think will be beneficial for police officers to acquire on this job? You moved onto another idea of body armor, but I feel that doesn’t relate to lowering police brutality in my opinion. You moved onto a financial solution to generate more funds which I assume relates to the body armor. I don’t think having more protection will lessen the likelihood of police using excessive force on civilians. Your last solution is what I wrote my solutions on and I believe body cameras will create a movement toward a higher level of honesty in officers without bias."
--( posted on Mar 1, 2015, commenting on the post
Policing Solutions )
"I can see how your point of targeting small crimes can be a problem because of how the consequences outweigh the crime significantly. It’s only a problem just for that reason because there has to be some form of punishment to all crimes, no matter the size, to cause awareness and prevent people from doing it again. I don’t understand the tie between how this concept is affecting communities where people with fewer privileges reside or the LGBT community. Your next problem, the STPP, I can only see it as a problem for people that are in bad neighborhoods where this is all relevant. Typically the highest punishments I have seen are suspension but for obvious reasons like physical fights rather than bringing cellphones or skipping class. Again, I only see the problem to be disproportionate consequence for insignificant crimes. Your last problem, the stop and frisk, is somewhat relevant to me since I encounter it every day when I am about to board the Staten Island Ferry. It’s not exactly frisking, but you’re being sniffed by a dog under suspicion. Of course, this involves discrimination the moment you step near them and it’s an unfair situation. Though this can possibly save people from some incidents, but what if the officers check the wrong people?"
--( posted on Feb 19, 2015, commenting on the post
Problem 1 )
"I completely agree with your first problem of police officers exercising excessive force on minor crimes. I also used the example of Eric Garner in my list of problems since I also think is a great case with video evidence that is all over the web for us to see. Garner’s case stood out to be specifically because it happened right here on Staten Island, where I live. Though it didn’t affect me as much as others, I also agree on the point that you made about the people losing trust in the police force and feeling insecure in their own neighborhoods. I like how you tie together the police brutality into distrust in the task force which ultimately creates the rifts between the mayor and the people of New York. Although I feel like there has been also a rift between the past and current mayors and the people of New York, the mayors are still trying to work with the police force to create a safe environment for us. The opposition from the people isn’t going to change that, but it would not speed up the process. I also agree with your problem of prisons being a paradox which it’s used to keep people out of trouble and reset people’s lives, but it also holds them back in the future with horrible written records."
--( posted on Feb 19, 2015, commenting on the post
Policing Problems )
