Economic universals are three issues that all economies want to solve. Regardless of where the economy is (in North America or Asia), it has to deal with these universals.
So, I’ve been reading up on anthropology a lot lately. More specifically, economic anthropology.
Anthropology is the study of humans –culture, biological development, and social development. Ethnography is a way to study humans and cultures.
Anthropology was a course that I wanted to take in college. Every semester, I would try to sign up for a class, but the availability never matched up with my schedule. As a result, I never got the opportunity to take a course.
But a few years ago, I came across a book called Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. I was at the book store one day and picked it up to see what it was all about. I skimmed through it, looked at some of the pictures, and was interested.
The first couple of times reading it was overwhelming. It’s a big book with big ideas, and I’m a slow reader. I would complete a chapter and see that there are still hundreds more pages to read.
But the book is thought-provoking. And that’s why I kept reading it.
Harari does a good job of explaining human history and the various theories of it.
After completing the book, which is a blend of history, psychology and anthropology, I wanted to learn more about the latter topic (remember, it was a course I wanted to take).
I felt like Sapiens was a good intro to the social science, but nothing in-depth. There weren’t any anthropological theories in it, even though it talked a lot about history, culture, and society. Continue reading “What is Anthropology? And What’s Ethnography?”
Want to understand economics better? Here are 7 must-know economic concepts that will help you with just that.
In my previous blog post on economics, I talked about what this social science is and what the differences between microeconomics and macroeconomics are.
However, if you somehow forgot (or, tsk tsk, didn’t read it), economics is the study of the economy.
It is split into two sections –microeconomics (or the study of the economy at the individual level) and macroeconomics (or the study of the economy at the national level).
I also used Target’s expansion to Canada as an example to explain the two different facets.
As I was doing the research for that (and this) article, I realized that economics is a complex social science.
I totally forgot that. It has been a few years since I took an econ class.
What is economics? It is a fascinating science that studies how production and distribution affect the economy and vice versa.
Are you wondering what economics is? It’s the scientific study of the economy. It analyzes the growth of (or lack thereof) the economy by studying the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services habits of a nation.
What are lazy words and why shouldn’t we use them in our writing?
I was watching a Tim Ferriss video the other day and the term “lazy words” came up.
Even though the topic of the video was about reading, Ferriss called himself out for using the word “interesting” to describe a book, saying it is a “lazy adjective.”
This caught my attention (yes, I know I’m a nerd for it).
I thought to myself, “What constitutes a lazy word? Are they words that have little value to a sentence and/or don’t fully describe something? What’s wrong with “interesting?”
Then, after a quick pause, Ferriss changed “interesting” to “thought-provoking.” I now had my answer.
Globalization affects society by letting cultures spread around the world. This has mainly had positive effects on communities. But it has affected some negatively.
Have you ever heard of the phrase “this land was built by immigrants”?
It means that nations like the US and Canada were created by many, many cultures and traditions.
Growing up as an Asian-Canadian, I was exposed to multiple cultures.
I practiced Vietnamese traditions at home, western traditions at school and at McDonald’s, and a multitude of other ones when I went to my friends’ houses (I had a diverse group of friends).
And I was able to experience all of these different traditions in one place.
Smartphones, the internet, nuclear, and oppression are all terms that can be used to describe the interconnection between globalization and technology. Can you see how they are related?
In the late 90s, my family and I moved away from our hometown.
We moved to a whole different province, actually. I had just hit my teen years and had to leave all of my friends, friends who I knew for many years.
But even though we were over 1000 km apart, we were still able to keep in touch, thanks to technology.
There was this app called ICQ back then (all my 90s kids know) that I used to chat with all of my faraway friends.
We also talked on the phone too.
But if it weren’t for all this new and innovative tech, we wouldn’t have been able to do this; we wouldn’t be able to easily communicate with each other.
I would have had to send handwritten letters just to see if my friend watched the latest wrestling match.
Nowadays, technology allows you to get in contact with anyone in the world.
