Ultimus Insula map

Individual Reflection-Sebastian Hurtado

Our society would definitely succeed because since it is starting from zero the mistakes that were made before can be corrected and projects that haven’t existed can be tried in this territory. People will want to work a lot together so that they can be comfortable in their new home and also everybody will have good relationship. Also there would be a lot of people that will like to be the leader and do with the society whatever they want (anarchy). The society will be very free because the government wouldn’t be very strict. Also everyone will be related so if someone commit a crime or do something bad he will be easily forgive depending on the crime. Having few people can be an advantage because if someone has a problem all the society will help him or her. Since their isn’t a president or a central leader people will see some rules as stupid or unnecessary and they will not follow them and, if someone don’t follow a rule the other people will start also to don’t follow them. Being a citizen in this island at first will be fun but then it will be very boring because it will became a routine seeing all the days the same 30 people and doing the same things every day. The most frustrating idea was leadership because some think that one person that controls everything will help a lot the society but others think that the society should be of all the population. I learned from this task that starting a new society from zero can be a very difficult job and that it has a lot of issues that need to be taking in mind. I also learned that biases are very important in an society and every little idea need to be considered.

By: Sebastian Hurtado

       

Unknown Newcomers

Discussion:

When visitors come to this island, they will have a pass and will be recognized as visitors. If they want a piece of our territory, we will give them a 15% of our land. However, this will be the one who is not the best to live in because we have worked so hard to gain something from this island, that is now their turn to work for their own benefit. This is, due to the fact that they will make and independent part and society from ours. After they have produced and improve that territory we can get to an agreement an share some aspects of our land and theirs, we can may be have an economic relationship but they should respect our decisions or at least answer in a calm way because we were solidary to them and gave them an opportunity to have their own way of life. Our method to settle disputes work in this scenario is that they should sign a contract of well-behaving before settling on the territory and one of the rules on it the contract is that they should stay away from our land and if they want something from us they should contact a certain institutions and the leader MUST authorize it. We think our choice is the best for many reasons; first of all, everyone deserves an opportunity to live freely and have their own territory. However, if they misbehave then, they will be asked to exit the land, but this is only on extreme occasions because that is what the contract is about, to avoid incidents and struggles with them.

By: Henry Losada

Reflection:

During the discussion, various ideas surge from the members and some of them were completely different. They ideas were “set on the table” and the two most intelligent and coherent decisions were the “finalists”, then each member of the group voted, each explaining why and giving positive facts and aspects of it.  Then, the idea that had more votes was the idea established and imposed. The main issues were how much amount of land give them and what to use for being sure that they will act correctly and nothing will get out of our hands. Some things my group struggled with was if they become and independent society or had some connection with us. There is where we started having some discussions and got to the method of choosing the decision by votes and preference. A question that still remains is: what will happen if they rebel, will they be expelled or punished? Having a plan about how to handle visitors in a society matters because at any moment it can affect and have a great impact in society and hurt citizens, they can try to dominate the island and result in war.

By: Henry Losada

Impossible to Agree: Cultures Clash in Conflict

         Discussion:

 So far there have been created some set of basic rules so that can the society can work together and accomplished good things. These rules have been chosen by the majority of the society. At the beginning few people disagree with some rules that were established but since they weren’t too many, their opinion wasn’t taken in consideration. Defining who would be the one that will have more power in the society was very hard because it brought an infinite number of fights so; to control all the people and decide who would be the ones that should be the leaders a meeting with every single person in the community was convened. Everyone that wanted to be the leader had the right of giving a speech trying to convince the others why he was a good leader. After everyone had finished there would be an oral election so that only one candidate can win and he alone chooses his assistants that will help him rule the society. This whole election event would be managed by the people that isn’t interested in politics and is only interested of helping the society in general and do not worry about individual success. After concluding the problem of politics the society should start working as the leader demands it. Because the leader was chosen by the majority, most of the people will be happy and comfortable with their roles. In the future if a problem about leadership or property ownership presents it will be the obligation of the leader to control the alone. If this new leader has a lot of people that supports him, he can demand a new election to compete with the actual leader, if he wins he can change the government as he want. Everyone will have the right always to present their ideas freely. The role of opposition in the society will be very weak because it will always will a minority and a society like this majority always rules so the opponents will not represent a thread at all. People that don’t agree in this society should be treated with respect and differences should be solution dialoguing and without violence. If the opponent is being rude and not respecting the laws the leader has the right to punishment him however he want.

By: Sebastian Hurtado

Reflection:

 The ones that will settle the disputes are the ones that do not want to be become leaders they only want that the society success and works the best way possible, also they are the ones that are very peaceful. The main issues that will present in a society are the differences of power and also the fact that some people are communist and others are socialist. The group disagrees mostly on the fact the society will be communist, because this will be a harder way for them to develop. Questions that can be taken in consideration are: What would be the distribution of jobs? , What are some factors a leader should have? , If a big part of the population disobeys the rules, how could this be solved? Conflicts are very important in society because if they are not solution they can bring big problems to the society and, oppositions groups are important because sometimes they can make the society realize about some error they need to improve. 

By: Sebastian Hurtado

Individual Reflection-Maria Virginia Velazquez

 Do you think your society will succeed and be considered a "free nation" on the Map of Freedom? (That is having good political and civil liberties)Explain.

1.      In my opinion, our society will be very successful since we have a small amount of inhabitants in the island so we can start building our society since the beginning step by step with the knowledge we already have and experience from living in a large society. Apart from that, we made our society in a way that mixes the ideals of all ideologies, for example, we are applying some capitalism by saying that everyone should be able to own amount of land, but we are also applying some factors of communism by saying that there is a democracy so everyone has the same rights. In a special way, we are saying that everyone has the same rights but everyone is also allowed to own their own things. Politically, we are making a society not completely fascist, nor we are doing our society completely anarchist. In this case, we also attempted to do the perfect balance between anarchism and fascism, by putting a leader that is able to make all decisions, but having that leader as completely managed by people, in the way that they cannot only vote for them, but they can also take leaders out of power if they are not doing their job well. Additionally, we tried to make a leader ideal, and totally controlled by people, so everyone would make the right decisions and by the majority, the leader’s actions would be indirectly controlled.

What do you think it will be like to really live as a citizen on your island? Explain

2.      I think that for a citizen to really live in our island would be a good thing since there are few people so everyone would be able to make agreements since they have a small society to control. Apart from that, we have predetermined a set of instructions in order for the society to have a better balance and organization that what we have nowadays in our actual societies, for there is a mixture of today’s ideas, making the perfect balance for a society to live comfortably in. in a political map, our society would be more or less in the middle, meaning that we are not having any extremes or any balances so there is nothing to be very disgusted with or very pleased, but a middle point so everyone will be ok with the way of managing the island’s society.

Which issues were the most frustrating to decide on? Which created the most interesting discussion? Explain.

3.      The most frustrating issues to decide were the leadership ones, since some students argued in favor of having a leader while others preferred to have an anarchist society in which there was no leader. The arguments for both where strong but it was a more logical idea to have a leader, and the decision of having one was made. On the other hand, the decision in property owning was the one that caused the most interesting discussions since there was a lot of strong arguments on having a communism society and having a capitalism society. Some people said it was better for people not to have differences, while others said everyone deserves the right to have their own things. Finally, we decided to make a capitalism society but not so radical, meaning there were going to be some aspects of communism applied as well, such as democracy, or goods sources, but this theme was difficult to decide and had very interesting ideas and discussions.

                             

What have you learned about creating and managing a society? Explain

4.      From creating and managing a society I have learned that it is very difficult to do this task successfully and to satisfy everyone in the process, since everyone thinks differently and people’s desires are very varied. Apart from that, I have learned that democracy is a very good way of making decisions since everyone wants their own ideas to be taken into consideration and everyone wants their opinions to be valid, so it is better to simply make people vote and the majority wins. Additionally, I have found the job of managing a society very hard since every small detail has to be covered, for there are a lot of aspects in an individual’s life, worse, in a society’s life. Creating a society is also a hard task for trying to guess what will work and what won’t is really hard, and again, trying to please people and make everyone live satisfied is really difficult, almost impossible because everyone has different expectations and it is hard to fulfill them all.  

By: Maria Virginia Velazquez Hammerle

Individual Reflection-Catalina Llano Raffo

     
    1. I think that our society will eventually succeed since we didn’t choose to govern and organize the people in a certain and specific way, but in fact, in a method that combined different elements and ideologies that could easily be adapted to a new society. As well, I believe that a lot of anarchy would be seen in such a type of living. So few people living at one place will result to a non-centralized or lenient government that will ultimately lead to a vast quantity of liberties and freeness for citizens. The previous statement could easily alter the environment, because it makes life for the civilians an easy one, and the dealing of difficulties will be unknown. Probably, the society won’t scientifically and technologically succeed, but in terms of surviving and creating liaisons within the people, it will surely be easygoing and relatively simple to accomplish.

2. I think that to live in such a type of society should be pretty boring and monotonous, however, it would be easy and not much fighting would be seen. My theory is that this wouldn’t be seen as a society, but in fact, more as a community because everybody would be related with everybody and whenever problems would be presented to someone, they will involucrate everybody and probably, every person would be affected by it. I think that everybody will care for every single person, and whenever anyone is having some type of dilemma with someone else, every individual will try to eliminate the hatred environment in order to prevent awkward and unwanted relations in the small area. When I mentioned the anarchy thing I was talking about how everybody would be doing their own business and their own desires all the time. There would be no president or actual government, so why would people follow certain rules that are not very important and inefficient for the development of the society? This doesn’t mean however, that there would be no laws, but better said, there would be elastic ones. If I had to live in a place under these characteristics, I would probably go crazy watching the same people every day and facing unexpected and new things only once in a while. Celebrations, like for example Christmas, wouldn’t be celebrated in different groups like we nowadays do with our families, but everybody would be united and together as one big family in these types of days. There would be as well detrimental aspects, like maybe whenever an illness attacks someone. If one gets a disease, it would be pretty susceptible for most of the individuals to be affected too, resulting then, a big issue for all and not only the first infected with the sickness.

3. The theme that created more frustration was the leader one. Everybody argued because there was equal part of students that desired a non-leader island, whereas the other half thought that it was more suitable to have some type of leader, or even dictator. At the end, the arguments for having a leader were stronger than those who defended a no leader one, so we ended up adapting this type of leadership to our urbanized island. The topic that was the most fascinating and created more discussion was the ownership one. The reason is because both capitalism and communism (group ownership and individual ownership) have both very good and very bad aspects. Both can alter a community in so many ways that choosing between the two without taking into account the other side’s position would be too hard; almost impossible. When writing the discussion, we gathered ideas of each system and transformed them into the most suitable forms of organization for our built community. We tried to have a blend between the two schemes.

4. When doing this project, I learned too many things, not only about group working, but as well when dealing with politics and organization. It was so hard to decide what the best for the island was because everybody thought differently than the other. It is funny to think about the difficulties this brought knowing that we are only five people. It makes me realize how difficult it should be when being part of a government. Last, I learned how the population could be so affective at the time of building up a society. The quantity of people is essential when choosing the most suitable systems and organizations for the individuals; after all, it is not the same to live in a large city like New York City, and in a 35 people population unknown island. Many factors should be considered before building up.      

By: Catalina Llano Raffo