TED Talk...

As a whole, I agree with what Ferguson had to say. He asked many of the same questions that Jared Diamond attempted to tackle and did a good job explaining with examples why he thought the west is more wealthy. I completely agree with what he says in regards to competition and a legal structure contributing to the west's success. I also agree with what he said about the west being caught up to by the rest of the world. Americans are getting lazier while the competition and work ethic is growing stronger in every other country. When we watched the video of what school was like in India and China, everyone in our class realized how good we have it. We are almost forced into education and honestly, not every kid wants to be in school. That genuine desire to learn is what is leading the other countries to catch up with us.
I slightly sidetracked on the work ethic app, but I agree with most of his other apps anyway. The consumerism app I completely agree with. We buy crap we don't need but that is what helps circulate money through the economy. Ferguson gave some good examples of modern day "experiments" dividing countries, but I still believe geographic location has at least some impact on who gets wealthy. Simple things like cash crops, access to trade routes, and natural resources are things that just not every country is blessed with. Modern medicine and the scientific revolution I also agree with, but there were reasons these advances arose in the locations they did and Ferguson did not particularly elaborate on that. For such a long talk this guy did make a few jokes and overall keep it interesting. It is always good to hear some new theories on issues as complex as these, so I enjoyed this presentation. However, I am almost positive this Scottish dude will not re-tweet me if I try to contact him.

The authors put the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals together in the book and I can see their reasoning for it. All three are geographically close, and existed during the same period. Although it made it easy to group these empires together, it also made it easy to mix them up. Overall I think it would have been better to split these three empires up more to focus on each one individually, instead of almost blending them all as one unit. All the names began to sound very similar, and it was hard to distinguish what was happening during respective time periods.
Overall, I think this period of global interactions was a good thing. The exchange of information is what lead to the cultural and economic revolutions which have shaped our society today. Although there are some obvious negatives, such as the mass enslavement of Africans and the essential extermination of many native peoples, I believe the good outweighs the bad. Before this time period, transportation was not advanced enough to really exoplore the entire world. People were largely restricted to their geographical region and what was available there. This is the first time period in which people began exploring an entire new continent, and in just a few hundred years the Americas became some of the most powerful nations in the world. Technology and transportation are what leads to innovation in my opinion. What makes advances happen so quickly today is the ability to transport ideas and supplies. If this revolutionary time period never happened, there might be no U.S.A. or even it could be argued there wouldn't be computers.

Christianity and Capitalism

Christianity keeps splitting up for a number of reasons. In my opinion, it is for power. People interpret what they read in the bible differently, and that leads to people disagreeing. If some new leader comes along with a new form of religion that makes those people happy, they will follow him, thus gaining him more power. Also, part of it is just personal preference. Christianity is so widely followed that there is no way it could be suitable for everyone, yet if people still want to be considered Christian, they just follow a different branch.
As far as capitalism goes, I believe it is the free market economy that allows for open trading and employment. I do not know the dictionary definition, but the United States follows capitalism,mso it obviously has its flaws with its positives. Despite its flaws, I believe in this system and am glad to be a part of it and not communism or some other form of economy.