Suggested Answers to the First Short Quiz

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johnkarls
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Suggested Answers to the First Short Quiz

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Suggested Answers to the First Short Quiz entitled "Overview of The Human Network"


Question 1

Does a child born in Pakistan have a better chance of escaping poverty than an American child born in poverty?

Answer 1

Yes, per studies reported in The Human Network.

Question 2

Does the U.S. even have double the immobility of, for example, Canada?

Answer 2

Yes, per studies reported in The Human Network.

Question 3

Nevertheless, do studies show that Americans’ perceptions of mobility are radically different than reality?

Answer 3

Yes, per studies reported in The Human Network.

Question 4

Has our author, Prof. Jackson, been studying human networks for a quarter century?

Answer 4

Yes.

Question 5

What is “homophily”?

Answer 5

Please read Question 6.

Question 6

Is “homophily” racist if it is defined as “the general tendency of people to interact with others who are similar to themselves”?

Answer 6

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 7

In other words, segregation based on such matters as gender, ethnicity, religion, age, profession, educational level, etc.?

Answer 7

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 8

Did Prof. Jackson discover that “homophily” exists among hunter-gatherers in Africa’s Great Rift Valley – based on such matters as height, weight and strength?

Answer 8

Yes.

Question 9

Do you think that such “homophily” represents nothing more than human selfishness to leave behind anyone who is not “pulling her/his own weight”? With those left behind by the top group exhibiting the same human selfishness in leaving behind anyone abandoned by the top group who is not “pulling her/his own weight” in the second-best group?

Answer 9

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 10

BTW, did we discover years ago that Asian societies typically expect their older members to commit suicide when they “have become a burden” to the group? That honor is all-important and committing suicide in such circumstances is the honorable thing to do?

Answer 10

Yes. Yes.

Question 11

If, per Q-9, “homophily” is nothing more than human selfishness causing segregation into groups of similar ability, does it remind you of “Lord of the Flies” – a chilling 1954 novel by William Goldring that was made into two Hollywood movies by the same name in 1963 and 1990 – a novel that we probably all read back in high school?

Answer 11

Well does “homophily” remind you of “Lord of the Flies”???

Question 12

Was “Lord of the Flies” about a group of British upper-class boarding-school boys who are stranded on a deserted island after their airplane crashes killing all of the adults? Do the boys quickly organize themselves into separate homophilic groups? Do the separate groups actually commit torture and murder against members of other groups? And is one boy being hunted by another group with the intention of killing and, perhaps, eating him? Are the boys rescued by adults just “in the nick of time” so that we are spared the question of whether they would have actually engaged in cannibalism? While having the point driven home that “civilization” is only a thin veneer that is easily lost?

Answer 12

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Question 13

Did William Goldring win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983 "for his novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world of today” (quotation from the Nobel Prize citation)?

Answer 13

Yes.

Question 14

Did Prof. Jackson discover in studying pairs of homophilic groups that destructive behavior can easily cascade in one group without affecting the other if there are few connections between the two groups? While adding only a few connections between the two groups can prevent the destructive behavior from cascading in either group? Is this an argument for integration?

Answer 14

Yes, destructive behavior can easily cascade.

Yes, adding only a few connections between the two groups can prevent the destructive behavior from cascading in either group.

Re whether this is an argument for integration -- What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 15

As technology enables us to choose our relationships from a much larger pool and homophily encourages us to search far and wide for those most like ourselves, are we eroding the local clustering that is crucial to community health and equality of opportunity?

Answer 15

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 16

Putting aside Prof. Jackson’s network theories as they operate in other societies including hunter-gatherer societies in Africa, are Americans even more likely to form homophilic groups because, as we have studied in recent months, K-12 school districts in America are financed primarily by local property taxes and parents “try to do the best they can by their own children” by purchasing a home in the best area with the best school system that they can afford?

Answer 16

What do you think??? Let’s discuss!!!

Question 17

Does all of Prof. Jackson’s work result in any “silver bullet” recommendations for solving societal ills resulting from homophily/segregation?

Answer 17

No.

Question 18

Or does Professor Jackson concede that “making dramatic changes in people’s networks is likely a losing battle” – pointing out that “large-scale social engineering has a history of disasters” and offering only a handful of modest suggestions?

Answer 18

Yes.

Question 19

Can you think of ways to make dramatic changes in people’s networks that would be successful?

Answer 19

IN ADDITION TO your own ideas or ideas of others of which you are aware, it is respectfully suggested that there are at least two ways of making dramatic changes in people’s networks --

(1) Our 6/3/2020 Six-Degrees-Of-Separation E-mail Campaign entitled “Addressing the Cause of Racism (vs. a Mere Symptom)” which called for educating the children of America’s 30% Permanent Under-Caste in “magnet schools” whose excellence in terms of faculty, programs, facilities, etc., would cause affluent parents to want their children to attend even though their admittance and continued enrollment would be conditioned on the affluent parents and their child tutoring and mentoring a classmate from America’s 30% Permanent Under-Caste. Details are available at viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1925&sid=686d6f45e ... 81af592c07.

(2) President Obama’s 7/16/2015 HUD Regulation which appeared to be aimed at forcing suburbs to construct “affordable housing” (aka “low-income housing projects”). It was repealed by the Trump Administration on 8/7/2020. This program will be the subject of the Second Short Quiz and information about the program will be posted in the “Reference Materials” portion of this website for our 10/14/2020 meeting.

So what do you think??? Let’s discuss!!! Especially your own ideas or ideas of others of which you are aware!!!

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