commentary on Essay #2

First off good job on the intro because it drew me in. The summary was very descriptive and it did its job perfectly.  At the end of the summary you asked two questions: "what can we constitute as a torture method? What other method can we use that would be not only a fast and quick method, but also at the most least painful way?". These are good questions but which one is your thesis? Next the paragraph about drowning is very good and puts people in the situation of drowning. The next paragraph is a great continuation of the first and makes for a compelling argument. You seem to be on the right track but you need to add more to the essay. Make it longer and hit about 1200 words (what we have to do basically). Good job so far man. 

eng paper #2 draft

Erik Arndt

Professor Brown

English 1B

March 25, 2013

A Rhetorical Critique of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicholas Carr

            The internet, one of man's best inventions of all time or is it? People use the internet every day for everything. This handy new tool we have created can help us with anything like how to get directions to a friend's house or even help with writing a paper. Sure people had information at their disposal through books for hundreds of years but the internet is so convenient. With this new technology will we see changes in people, Not only in people's behavior but also the way we think and compute data?

            Nicholas Carr an author of a few books and writer for many magazines simply asks his readers "Is Google making us stupid"?  Yes the name of the article and question are one and the same, but he also seems to ask a bigger question "if the internet is changing the way we think all together". In this article he has asked many of his enlightened friends if reading is same as it once was, or can they sit down and deeply think about what they are reading or simply pay attention long enough to even read a book, not just skim it (which is probably what you are doing now). He brings up Historical ideas from Socrates to HAL from "2001, A space odyssey" on how technology makes people think. The biggest part of this article is when Google/ the internet is brought up and how it will change over time to serve us. This all leads up to how/what our new technology will do to us.

            Nicholas Carr brings up many questions about the internet and how it affects us on not only day to day but our actual way of thinking in the long term. He brings up many arguments about how people are changing and has many fine examples from friends/ other intellectuals discussing their own experiences about the subject. Carr is unable to give us facts and only just tidbits of historical data on events that deal in the same realm that he is trying to show us. With his personal experience, interviews/ comments from other writers or people in the academic world and historical remnants Carr has shed the first real light on a growing problem in the world today.

            Carr is a man who has a background in writing, but more specifically he has written about our new age and the technology it brings concerning people. He is the right man to bring the evidence forward and get ahead of this soon to be epidemic. He did a great job showing Ethos in his article by adding words from his friends/ associates whom are dealing with the same problem as he is (whether it is personal or professionally). He uses it because it gives him creditability and this seems to be a subject that few people have really looked into (thus the reason to bring it to light).  “When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having similar experiences… Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun mentioning the phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. “I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader…What happened?” (pg. 2). This is a good quote and from a very good source. He used his connections to demonstrate how someone who works online has been affected, and he was a big reader and Literature major in college too. This was a good strategy and he used ethos.

            To really bring this idea from simply a feeling to an actual fact (via scientific research), Carr presented evidence to strengthen his argument: “But a recently published study of online research habits, conducted by scholars from University College London… As part of the five-year research program, the scholars examined computer logs documenting the behavior of visitors to two popular research sites, one operated by the British Library and one by a U.K. educational consortium, that provide access to journal articles, e-books, and other sources of written information. They found that people using the sites exhibited “a form of skimming activity,” hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they’d already visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would “bounce” out to another site.” (pg. 3). He used Logos in this last quote. The idea that an actual scientific experiment showed that people have changed their reading habits is only the tip of the iceberg. His strategy was perfect in this by giving actual proof of a problem. It was very effective and gave a little background as how long this problem has been building.

            Lastly Carr takes a personal approach at the encroaching problem, by telling us how it makes him feel and how it affects his personal life: “I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. “(pg. 2). This is pure Pathos, his strategy here is plain and simple: get people to relate to how he feels. Yes he does write for some magazines that are for the more “thought provoking mind” but his quote can be felt by everyone. His strategy was effective in my opinion simply because he brought thoughts and feelings to his side.

            The article “Is Google making us stupid?” is a thought provoking and makes people rethink how and what they do online. Yes his argument is flawed simply because of the lack of data but this is just the beginning to introduce people to a new problem. Did people believe the first reports on smoking? No they did not, but look at how we view smoking now (not so good now). You might ask if he is qualified to write such a piece, well he is a writer with a unique perspective on this subject, he has written several books about technology and people. This is better than most people and it’s a new idea with this new techno age were in. Lastly He has put personal stake into this issue (as seen in the last paragraph) and basically made this issue known.

Regarding the pain of others

1) Does a picture do more damage then a bomb?
2) should photographers be on the battlefield? (or some kind person or device that records events on the battlefield?)
3) Should there be pictures of dying/ dead people? And does the place or person really matter? (this includes if the people were enemies, "friendlies", or if it was shot in America or Africa).

What I got from this article is simply censorship. How, and, whom and where does not matter; just do people have a right to censor photos of people dying.Its the message being sent to our enemies/ show the people we are strong (from the military) and how people feel about what they see in the picture (whether it makes them sad or sick, or maybe they see someone they knew and they want it taken down). If you hadn't guessed it i'm doing the third question, I just feel that this was the biggest issue of the three questions. Regardless of what we want or want people to see, people will see it. Our world is changing very fast and technology will make most censorship impossible. I'm not trying to say that censorship is wrong or right but should the pictures be taken in the first place and why the whom/where is important. People are dying all the time, it should not matter if the person is in Africa or America or anyplace else, death can happen anywhere anytime. Should there be records of the dead from battles? Sure, records are good for a lot of reasons just don't abuse them. Basically if people take pictures of dead or dying people I just hope there is a reason for it, and they do not exploit the dead for their own ends.

Reflections on essay #1

I will keep this post nice and short:

I changed my first essay from the original draft to the final paper by drastically changing the thesis. The first one was good but I had a lot of information that I thought was important to my paper and I originally did not give it justice with my original thesis. I also added more detail to the reformation part of the essay and gave a bigger voice to other side of the argument. I did forget to change the title which I did not think about till after the paper's submission. But besides all that I believe that my paper demenstrated the basic ideas of my original draft just with a better center overall.

I hate writing about hate.

1. Does hate have a real defined definition?
2. Is hate impossible to overcome in our "new world" of fairness and understanding?
3. Does the use of the word "hate" in everyday context allow "hate" into our lives?

First off i'm doing question #3: Does the use of the word hate in everyday context allow hate into our lives? Well i'm going to say yes just to make it interesting. The first thing I thought about with this article was why the word hate? The article seemed more about racial or group hate than the basic behavior of hate. Everyone uses the word hate for everything: "I hate vegetables", "I hate my boss", "I hate you!". Everyone is guilty and the author did not bring this up. If we start using this word as kids and people don't tell us that hate is a bad thing, then won't people continue to us it and let it evolve into something else? If hate is everywhere and in everyone then if we use it everyday affairs, will it ever leave? The author did bring up hate as a survival mechanism, but do we still need this to survive?  All I can say is this a hot topic, but not for the right reasons. When we hear "hate" we think of racism or being mean/ hurtful to others because of who they are, where they're from or who they choose to be with. I think hate is associated with all those terrible things but "hate" is different things. A child hates eating vegetables, and tells everyone that he/she hates eating vegetables because they taste "yucky" but is you asked the same child if he/she hated the next door neighbor what would she say? yes or no? and why does he/she hate her neighbor? Possibly the neighbor was mean, or smelled funny, or maybe the child does not like the neighbor because they have different a skin color or married to someone with the same gender. This is just one example of how "hate" can have different meaning and those different meanings come from our daily lives. 

susan sontag's 9/11

1. Does the author have a right to be so harsh on event she was not even present for? (she said she was in Berlin, and observed the entire event via CNN/ t.v. )
2.She describes how people in office/ any influence in the U.S. were basically telling people that we are still strong and everything. Why does this topic matter more than say the people who lost their lives or our countries immediate response to the attack?
3. How does the author come up to the conclusion that the attack was based on our "modern world" and not  "righting the wrongs to the Muslim world"?

The question I will be attempting to answer is the the first one. Basically I can understand that people judge and decide to pass judgement on an issue or event. We all do it and I to have done this. But for this topic I found the Judge (aka Susan Sontag) a little to harsh in her judgement. Apparently she was not in New York when the terrorist attack occurred, she was in Berlin. That right there sends up red flags in my mind. First I think to actually to get the feelings of what happened you would have to be at the event or in the same country to get the true feeling of what is going on (people need to see and experience other people with the same risks/feelings. To give an example, when the tsunami hit japan a couple of years ago people here felt sorry for the tragedy, but they did not really FEEL the actual event). She experienced the entire event from a dark room in Berlin (that's across the Atlantic and no where near the event). I do give her credit for going to the event's site when she got back to New York, but she really did tale the argument a little to far when it came to how we were dealing with the issues. Overall she basically stated that our officials and people in high positions were glossing over the "real" facts and telling everyone it was OK  but how do you treat people normally when a tragedy hits? People generally tell people "it will be OK" or "stay strong". She was looking at an upclose and personal attack on the U.S. but from far away and in an unattached fashion, I understand why she did it, but I believe it was way to harsh since she was experiencing it from far away.