Introductory Questions - Ethan:
Hello World! I have returned.
I find it quite interesting that not a single study guide service (at least, one I know of)
has publicly summarized these introductory questions. I find it a shame that many are
disregarding this section, considering it has plenty (far more than I’d expect from an
“Introductory Question” section) of challenge-worthy content topics and questions.
For as belated as Pocketpwaa is, we’re somehow at the top of the game for
summarizing this very first portion of the curriculum!
Rip Van Winkle slept for twenty years, Steve Rogers for seventy, Aang for a
hundred—in each case, with remarkably little impact on their health. (Rip Van
Winke did grow some facial hair.) Imagine that you went through something similar
and woke up in the year 2120 (albeit with neither superpowers nor supercharged
follicles.) How quickly do you think you’d notice you were in the future? Would
beds feel different? Would chairs be strange shapes? Would there be funky new
food in the fridge? Would there still be a Global Round in Bangkok? Outside your
home, would you encounter a strange new society or one roughly like our own? Or
would you encounter no society at all, just a picturesque (and probably terrifying)
post-apocalyptic landscape? [LIT, SPC]
The first portion of this year’s curriculum is already an intriguing one. There’s a lot to
unpack with time-travel shenanigans, especially if they’re not “true time-travel”.
Without further ado, let’s get started!
Note all characters here are fictional.
Rip Van Winkle is the main character of a Dutch-American short story of the same
name. Written by Washington Irving, also Dutch-American, the story follows Rip as he
falls asleep in the Catskill Mountains (New York), only to wake up 20 years later.
To provide context, Rip’s story is set in early colonial America, where his lifestyle
largely involves avoiding as much work as possible (sound familiar? xd). After meeting
a group of mysterious men in the mountains, where he intoxicates himself, he ends up
falling asleep. Through the 20 years he was sleeping, the American Revolution
happens.
(He also ends up growing a large, white beard.)
Interestingly, this story comes out of a spark of ingenuity from the author, a man who
had in fact never been to the Catskill mountains. It comes from a thought brought up in
a nostalgic conversation about their past in the region.
Below: An illustration of Rip Van Winkle
Steve Rogers, known by more as his alias Captain America, has a canonical instance of
being frozen for decades. I’m no MCU fan, but I do have the power of Wikipedia to
explain the context :p
As explained in his backstory, Steve was a super-soldier in WWII, having taken a
serum which provided him with increased athleticism, endurance, and speed. In a fight
with the Nazi organization Hydra, Steve sacrifices himself, ultimately crashing into the
arctic and entering a suspended-animation state for ~70 years. He is eventually
revived by S.H.I.E.L.D, America’s government protection agency. A large part of his
character arc revolves around trying to come to terms with the fact he’s traveled 70
years into the future and lost basically all his family since.
(There’s a slightly different story in the comic books, but the general information is the
same)
Below: Steve Rogers (better known as Captain America)
Aang is the protagonist of the popular anime The Last Airbender.
Born into a world where the 4 nations (Earth, Fire, Water, and Air) were in balance,
Aang learns he is the incarnation of the “Avatar” (seemingly some sort of deity). Being
12 at the time, he was overwhelmed with this news, running away and accidentally
trapping himself in an iceberg within a storm by instinct. Upon being woken up by
members of the Water nation, he learns of his century-long slumber (What do you
mean sleeping for 100 years is not a typical activity for 12 years olds??). During this
period, the 4 nations had gone out of balance (the hundred year war), especially with
the Fire nation declaring war against the others to solidify their dominance and
mitigate the risk of the Avatar.
(Apologies to the Avatar: TLA fans for possibly butchering the story :p)
Below: Aang (Avatar: TLA)
Reading over this, I realize how bland my descriptions are. I swear these characters are
more interesting than my quickly-written 30 second excerpts!
“Slice of life” is more than a film genre: research everyday life in the years 1825 and
1925 to learn more about how much things changed between those two years and
between 1925 and now. Has the rate of change in your community slowed down or
sped up–or does it depend on what you’re looking at? [LIT, HIS]
The Slice of Life film genre is exactly what it sounds like: all media which falls in this
category depicts holistic, realistic scenarios in peoples lives. First popularized as a
criticism of certain TV dramas in the 1950s, a “Slice of Life” media is one with notably
little plot, character development, and timeline. Rather, it depicts seemingly arbitrary
and “realistic” portrayals of the lives of its referenced people, most significant for
having their so-called “open endings”. The aim of this genre largely lies in letting
audiences make their own interpretations of characters.
A different subsection of this genre exists in anime/manga, where a story revolves
around characters in relatable, everyday scenarios. These usually focus on romantic
relationships set in place at high schools or workplaces. The subsection of slice of life
is sometimes criticized for being “too drama-filled”, bordering on the line of being
realistic.
Funnily enough, there’s a subgenre of Japanese Slice of life (so a subgenre of a
subgenre of a genre!) which eliminates the romantic attraction present in most
Japanese Slice of Life films. This subgenre, commonly titled “air-type”, is akin to typical
slice of life films; both of these typically focus on genuine, unfiltered development of
characters*.
*If AI detector-flagged writing competitions existed, I’d be amazing at them :p
As for developments between 1825 and 1925, this is largely an open topic. I’ll
highlight a few interesting things which happened in this time period:
- The creation of the Telegraph, Phone, and Planes
- The slavery abolition act and American civil war
- The development of the theory of evolution
- The second industrial revolution
- The development of train and car industries
Sadly, I couldn’t find a person who lived during this period to interview about their
experiences. Transcripts of interviews of general people at the time largely don’t exist
either, as interviews only began in 1836 (You will not need to remember this date,
though the history of interviews was in the past year’s curriculum!)
A hundred years is a long time. What if the same thing happened, but you woke up
(like Rip Van Winkle!) only 20 years in the future? What do you imagine the year
2045 will be like for students like you? What are the easiest things to predict–and
what are the hardest? [INT]
This is purely discussional. Feel free to discuss this with teammates.
-
Historically, future technology has been ridiculously difficult to predict. I’ll reference
some predictions by a French artist in the 1900s, Jean Marc Cote, to show how
different future technologies can be from what we believe they will be. He did predict
some things correctly, but the aesthetic of the machines he predicted were… not close
at all.
I found it surprising that many people didn’t foresee the possibility of ChatGPT’s
existence. The technology has been there for a while! (It just wasn’t successfully
commercialized until then.) This really does underscore how no matter how advanced
we are, the future always holds things which don’t even fit in our scope of imagination.
I see 20 years from now to be filled with holographic devices and cloud-computing
dominance. 20 years from now could also be societal ruin. Maybe aliens will visit and
give us immortality technology. There’s really no knowing what could happen!
Some things catch fire literally, others metaphorically—and the fires that most
interest us are those happening for at least the second time. Without reading the
rest of this outline, brainstorm with your friends what it could mean for something
to re-ignite, and how different that is than igniting in the first place. When is it
better for something to burn twice? And is there a difference between burning up,
burning down, and burning with? [INT]
There’s some science to fire which can be explored in regards to this paragraph. The
science of literal fire is expanded on later in the curriculum, so keep your eyes open!
Aindra (of BISV): if you’re reading this, you probably know exactly what I’m thinking-
at least in regards to this paragraph. I shalln’t reveal this directly in text, but I feel
compelled to mention a strong desire to talk about… something specific. Perhaps I’ll
grow out of this interest eventually.
Maybe, one day, I’ll reflect on this paragraph with a bittersweet sense of nostalgia.
What I’m writing right now seems like something I’ll look back at in 10 years time,
thinking: Was I really that bad at writing?
Shoot– nostalgia was a 2024 topic– whoopsies!
There’s no denying that some things excite our passions. For some of you, maybe,
World Scholar’s Cup is that kind of cause; others of you might thrill to the fight
against global climate change, a big boss in the Forgotten Land, or the harmful
impacts of social media. But what would it take to have your feelings about
something (or somewhere or someone) re-ignited? Under what circumstances does
a person leave a project, then return to it with new zeal? [INT]
The “Forgotten Land” described above can refer to many things, though I think it’s a
reference to Kirby and the Forgotten Land. In brief, very concise words, this game
follows Kirby finding an abandoned civilization dubbed “the new world”. I doubt WSC
will test this, though the themes of this game do match futurism (cloning, space-time
rifts, all that juicy stuff)!
The last sentence here reminds me of Steve Jobs– he was fired from Apple, only to be
rehired later on. It’s not an exact match of the description, but it’s pretty close!
Not long ago, the future beckoned with open arms. Many people at the beginning of
the 20th century–and even at its conclusion!–were certain that social and
technological progress would continue endlessly, that there was a kind of Moore’s
Law for everything. (At least one influential thinker still believes this.) Consider the
musical selection “Counting Up to Twenty” as just one example of this boundless
optimism. In those not-so-long-ago times, forecasts for the future were exuberant
—and sometimes even exuberantly dull. How do you see the future, and how does
your view compare to that of the older people in your life? [SOC, ART]
Funnily, the article mentioned here by hyperlink is not the actual essay of this
motivational thinker; rather, it’s a summary and analysis of it. If the WSC team is trying
to flood our minds with more people and perspectives, they’re doing a wonderful job
of it.
Sam Altman, Mr. ChatGPT himself. The man so endearing with his very closed
company, ironically named OpenAI, decides to adopt a future lens which, also
ironically, involves many resources being “open”.
Moore’s law is something that will be covered in more detail later in the curriculum.
Briefly, it’s the thought that technologies will become half as expensive every 2-ish
years. Altman brings this thought to the next level, suggesting that the “AI revolution”
(described by him as the 4th industrial revolution) will allow for all general products to
face the same growth. (He then gives examples of robots building houses, robots
building robots, etc.)
Altman suggests a potential governmental system of what I can only describe as
“capitalistic communism”, where everybody would receive an income of $13,500
yearly (which would allegedly have more value, considering everything becomes
exponentially cheaper). He ends his spiel with a bit of financial jargon, posing the idea
of tying taxes + land (a fixed commodity) to GDP growth among other things.
The political-economic lens is certainly controversial. To get around this, Sam Altman
pitches his essay as a “conversation starter”. That’ll surely keep him out of heated
waters!
(It will most likely not be mentioned, but Dan Tao is the summary writer.)
The WSC team never ceases to fascinate me with how capable they are of finding
obscure songs which fit their exact parameters. The song mentioned here, Counting up
to Twenty - Michael Crawford, is the epitome of the unique mood that the curriculum
evokes.
I recall the video had a little over 2.5k views when I first saw it. It now has over 15k
views. That’s the thing about the Scholar’s Cup; its impact is that scalable. I just have
to imagine these content creators are getting confused: “Why is this niche music video
from 12 years ago suddenly getting attention??”
This song actually has a deeper background than you’d imagine. Counting up to
Twenty appeared on the largest theater installation in the world, EFX, which ran in the
Las Vegas Strip from 1995 to 2002. In brief, EFX’s plot resided around celebrating
human creativity and imagination, taking its audience members through acted stories
of famous fictional characters.
This rendition of the song, by Michael Crawford, was part of the original cast album.
(EFX was most known for switching its lead actor every 2 years, Michael being the first
of 4 in total.) Eventually, he was forced to retire because of injuries sustained by action
stunts. The replacement of Michael with David Cassidy is where controversy begins,
with the removal of this soundtrack from the show (among others).
As for the song itself, it is H. G. Wells’ song in the show. The lyrics describe optimism
and growth over time, characterizing the passage of time and new world
developments as “counting up to twenty”. Its undeniably catchy chorus segment
(which I have been subject to via the uncommonly-known brother signing at the top of
his lungs disease) is as follows:
Counting up to twenty
Has been difficult for some
But as we learn to count to twenty
Should be easy to get to twenty-one
It’s most likely an optimistic song for advancements into the future, though I’m not
fully sure. I suspect that the numbers twenty and twenty-one are representative of the
shift into the new century, moving from the 20th century to the 21st. EFX ran between
1995 and 2002, so it makes sense!
“The best is yet to be,” wrote the English poet Robert Browning, a phrase often
quoted (out of context) to evoke a sense of possibility and hope. But we now live,
many people are saying, in a pessimistic age–in which some people even avoid
having children to protect them from the grim days ahead. If you met someone who
was sure the future would be full of suffering, would you try to give them hope
again? If so, what would you tell them? [SOC]
WSC is tackling politics now! This time around, it’s certainly more fiery than previous
years. Now that I think of it, Donald Trump’s skin tone does bear an uncanny
resemblance to the color of flames; coincidence? probably lol
This addition here is a bit abrupt, as I just realized there is something I could expand on
here. The paragraph makes mention to a quote, so I’ll discuss it quickly with what I
found.
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright who made a reputation of being
a philosopher or sage in his works. He’s most notable for irony, characterization, dark
humor, and social commentary.
His iconic “the best is yet to be” quote comes from his poem Rabbi Ben Ezra. The quote
falls into the context of being about aging, the purpose of life, and trusting god.
Specifically, the line expresses a belief that divine power shapes our lives, with the
purpose of life becoming clearer as you grow up. Youth is a period in life when you
think everything is simple, with it getting more deep and connected as you grow on.
In modern contexts, the quote is used as an optimistic phrase about the future. It
doesn’t exactly match the usage of the quote back in the poem, but it does reflect
similar overarching themes of progress. Rather, the poem reflects an era of faith and
progress present in the Victoria era.
-
What we have here is a pretty brief analysis by Ezra Klein, cofounder of Vox. He
makes the claim that Donald Trump’s frequent outlandish claims are reflective of
underlying themes and messages many Americans are afraid to say, as opposed to his
old age. He says what he believes straight up. (As seen in comments made about the
Iraq war, Immigration, China, etc.)
This comes with the popularization of “woke media” and left-winged societal
standards, where many opinions are becoming increasingly less voiced. I find the shock
of Trump’s landslide victory in the 2024 election to result largely from an unbalanced
representation in media; while it is socially sensible to keep “radical opinions” out of
the public view, these opinions are clearly reflected in the election.
Trump’s voice primarily comes from a disregard of public sense and opinion, something
that many are divided on. Some believe that his interjections are representative of
underlying American values which go unshared by the press, while others think of
these comments as insensible, rash, and childish. Klein is personally on the side of
“rash, unwise”.
This second article was one from the 2024 curriculum. I seldom saw it mentioned in
the challenge last year, but nevertheless I’ll resummarize it (in 2025 style now!)
Bryan Walsh wrote this article in hopes to push an optimistic agenda of the future.
This article branches out into 6 categories, each discussing different advancements and
topics related to so-called “changeable optimism” (a term by Hannah Ritchie
describing a positive-lensed motivation to make change). These 6 sub-articles, briefly,
are:
1. Human Progress is persistent and necessary: This article dives deep into an
analysis of global change over time, describing the improvements of
nourishment, fertility rate, and technologies. Some discussion revolves around
the Malthusian Trap, a case of over-progress where population exceeds
agricultural output. The result is also expanded on, quoting Roosevelt’s four
freedoms of speech and self-actualization.
2. Slowing down AI is a good idea: The article discusses the doomsday AI, noting
that its creation has not come yet and how slowing down AI may help us
mitigate it. The alignment problem is raised, an issue with how AIs need to be
carefully instructed to prevent catastrophe. An optimal solution is then raised:
flattening the curve of AI advancement. (The article also rebuts some claims abt
AI advancements)
3. Climate Optimism is good, but only when it’s right: This article pitches
changeable optimism, the view people should have when considering climate
change. Pitting public negativity with climate advancements (solar, wind,
nuclear), this article suggests that while it is human nature for pessimism to
arise, these advancements should warrant other thoughts . It describes
changeable optimism as “a mindset where one is positive about the future, but
knows that they need to take action rather than sit around”.
4. News’ negativity: Negativity sells and receives clicks. In regards to human bias,
research shows negativity is more evoking, thus it is incentivizable for outlets to
show negative media. In solving this, the article suggests finding good news
and giving support to them, reflecting large media providers’ loss of
monopolization of their market. By hijacking the algorithm of media by reacting
to positivity, we can push it further.
5. The Netherlands’ hyper-efficient agricultural system: Comparing the
Netherlands and California with their respective technological advancements,
this article introduces the “seed valley”- an area of technological innovation in
agriculture in Holland. By modifying seeds to be more robust and efficient, they
can bring change in agriculture. The article mentions the Yield Gap, a barrier
which poses that less-wealthy nations have less capability to produce
efficiently. In this, research in seed efficiency to narrow the yield gap is racing
against the clock of climate change (which could widen such gap).
6. Indigenous folklore and its reflection of modernity: This article touches up on
the common legend of Turtle island, with recreation and destruction as its
themes; it then goes on to describe its similarities to the colonial era as well as
the future. The indigenous medicine wheel is the centerpiece of this, with
segments of yellow, black, red, and white representing seasons, medicines, and
the cycle of life. Comparing it to colonial history, the wheel represents how we
can persevere over cycles of hardship.
Wow that took way too long to write
I know it’s formatted like AI, and I sincerely wish I chose to use it lol - this is all human-
made, and it was PAINFUL
The third article here is a huge tonal shift from the second. Yep, from positivity to
negativity.
We now discuss how climate scientists, the people surveying climate change, are
becoming increasingly hesitant to having children, seeing that over 1/5th of them
responded so within a survey. This belief largely exists because of fear- the fear that
their children won’t thrive in the world due to climate issues, and a fear that more
population leads to more emissions. While such survey was based on older
respondents, whose decisions to have children in the past were based on the
less-“bad” climate situation then, it can also be observed that younger respondents
show the same fear, though mostly due to concern over their children’s wellbeing as
opposed to reducing their contribution to climate change.
On the topic of population control, a few scientists made claims that reducing
population is the key to preserving biodiversity. On a similar note, others deem their
“legacies” as transferable through education of their beliefs, rather than having
children.
This rising population fear does have ties to topics outside of climate, though. Paul
Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb (1968) raised both genuine concerns over population
growth and outlash for its possible views of racism (seeing as Asia and Africa are
growing population centers right now). In the debate of environmental crisis, though,
the consumption of the “top 1%” is often neglected, despite the obvious nature of their
actions contributing the most to climate change. One surveyee deemed these “large
rich families” as self-centered and irresponsible.
There is also division in some cultures regarding population control, leading to issues
in the Southern Hemisphere where women largely do not have the autonomy to
choose how many children they have. In light of this, the lack of surveys in these
regions makes sense.
Take a step back from the broader future to zoom in on small things that can also
be recalled to life with new vitality: musical bands, TV shows, even products once
abandoned to museums and overstock warehouses. (For instance, walk around your
school and may spot someone buzzing about with a film camera.) We’ll investigate
them more later in this outline, but, for now, what other dead or derelict
institutions, products, or trends do you think will become popular again in our
lifetimes? Is there a restaurant that you and your family miss that you wish would
be revived—and how much effort would you be willing to put into that revival?
[INT]
I’ll probably get to adding personal commentary eventually. Currently, I’m focused on
finishing up the content here- check back later to see if this is complete!
While actual resurrection is probably still impossible, individuals can still be
recalled to life in different ways, as in this first book of A Tale of Two Cities–
whether it is after incarceration, illness, or a different kind of darkness. Do you
know anyone who has found a new lease on life in this way? How can we best
support someone who is starting over again? [LIT]
There’s no way I am reading this series in its entirety, sorry folks :p
(In all fairness, the book has a Flesch–Kincaid level of 9.5, where anything below a 10
is considered “Extremely difficult to read, best for professionals”)
As for a summary which touches on this “first” book, here it is:
Appropriately named “Book the First”, the first entry to A Tale of Two Cities (Charles
Dickens) has a more interesting second half of its title. In full, the title is “Book the
First: Recalled to Life”. This book has that one famous opening line, commonly seen in
placeholder texts:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it
was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of
incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the
spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we
had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going
direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that
some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil,
in the superlative degree of comparison only.”
The rest of this first book is considerably less popular, though. The series itself is most
notorious for being a boring high-school reading series (though I personally haven’t
been subject to this yet, phew!).
Recalled to life follows Jarvis Lorry and Lucie Manette. In the beginning, Lorry receives
a cryptic message coded with a secret journey he needs to take. The message reading
“recalled to life”, Lorry eventually pieces together his task– to retrieve Dr. Alexandre
Manette, having been incarcerated in the Bastille and believed to be dead. Lorry
eventually meets Lucie, who is overwhelmed at the discovery her father is alive.
In Paris, the two eventually find Dr. Manette in Defarge’s wine shop obsessively
making shoes (a skill he learned in prison). Having been reduced to a fragile, ghost-like
state, he initially doesn’t recognize Lucie. This first book ends with the two taking
Manette back to England, Lucie attempting to rekindle the “man that Dr. Manette was”.
In this story, the “recalling to life” isn’t taken to a literal level (i.e. resurrections,
reincarnation); rather, it uses the phrase as an analogy for Dr. Manette’s character
recovery. His “dead” refers to his hollow, soulless traits within the prison; his “life”
refers to his family and being out of prison. This underlying narrative of
redemption/renewal is indeed carried along in the series, with later major characters
facing its implications.
I’ve seen a very similar story to this; this tale follows a man being imprisoned for
decades, a loss of self-identity, and an eventual reconciliation. Of course, I’m referring
to the Count of Monte Cristo. I first saw it in musical form when watching the Wildhorn
Musical adaptation of the story, and it’s stuck with me since.
This isn’t part of the curriculum specifically, I just thought it would be interesting to
comment on. Who knows? I have faith in WSC putting niche stories with vaguely
similar storylines into the challenge.
