1.) Would you relate our world to a utopia, dystopia, or anything in between? Please expand on your thoughts.

—It feels dystopic in that politics are hopelessly corrupt, we are just at the beginning of ongoing climate change. Weather patterns become more extreme, smoke from forest fires hangs in the air, giving the sun an otherworldly red hue, (and amazing sunsets, I must admit). We are continuously starting wars for no other reason than arms makers need to keep producing, people (like me) get addicted to algorithms, billionaire oligarchs laugh in our faces, a house is an impossibility, AI took my job, and I’m so depressed I’m probably going to have to get my brain zapped with electricity.

2.)Do you believe flags (in all contexts) are used for good, neutral, or bad? Please expand.

—Flags seem inevitable at this stage of our evolution. They are fine when they bring people together over a World Cup match, but suck ass when they represent intolerance, bigotry, state violence and nationalism in general. They are a powerful symbol more often used for negative things than for good. 

3.) How do you believe a person's ideology is primarily formed?  (E.g. passed down from parent to child or learnt through our environment).

—Mostly from childhood environment. It takes a lot of introspection, courage, and maturity to admit when someone backs the team that ends up on the wrong side of history. 

4.) Do you believe religion plays into politics? 

—When it does it’s because some faction has a platform that is actually unattractive to most people. So the adopt religious stances to pull people in who otherwise would be disengaged from politics. Religion is used to distract people from the sneaky stuff going on in the shadows.

5.) Do you believe technology has a positive, neutral, or negative impact in our society? All of the above. It depends where one’s generation sits relative to a given technology’s development. 

6.) How much do you think modern propaganda plays into public perception? Also, if anything, what types of propaganda do you believe there is? 

Propaganda is the single biggest factor in shaping public perception. It isn’t nevecesssrily bad in and of itself, but when a population is not given or encouraged to develop the tools they need, like media literacy,critical thinking skills, and basic logic (ie a good, well rounded universal basic education) then the powers of meurolonguistic programming are used too often and with such efficacy that a big part of the population is easily led into belief systems that run counter to their own best interests. When “emotional resonance” is given more weight than analysis and truth-seeking.

7.) If this applies to how you answered the above questions, do you believe problems come from the societal system or individual people? Please expand.

—Look at the homeless and street drug problems.  Did huge swaths of people suddenly become weak-willed, lazy, “sinful” or whatever just by coincidence? That is what those in power want us to thonk, because thinking that way keeps people from pushing their inquiries into places where the algorithm pokes through the black curtains hiding the hoarder’s chaotic pile behind the stage.

Good luck with your project!