Monday, December 12, 2011
essay 4
Pete Carper
Dr. Mulliken
Engl 1114
28 Nov 2011
Effects of Violent Video Games
Today video games are becoming more and more popular. Since technology has increased since the Mario Brothers days, video games are becoming increasingly life like. This has sparked the debate on how violent video games can adversely affect the thought process of the teens and young adults playing them. One argument is that violent video games can have positive affects on the people that play them, by providing an outlet for them to explore a violent character. Another argument which opposes the first view, says that violent video games such as Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto can alter the way a person would normally behave in a public setting. I agree with the first argument because violent video games have become more and more popular among teens in todays market, youth violence in reality has actually started to decrease.
On February 11, 2009 CBS published an article titled “Can a video game lead to Murder?” In this article, Rebecca Leung told the devastating story of how an eighteen year old male shot and killed three men, two of them being cops. In the article Leung argues that the main reason why the boy killed these men is because he had played the popular game Grand Theft Auto non-stop for months. In this game people are encouraged to do violent acts to get what they want. For instance, in the game if you see a car you like you should steal it and then try and avoid the cops or even kill them. Although Leung made a very compelling case as to why violent video games should not be played by teens, at the end of the article she reveals why the boy really committed the violent murders. Leung tells the story of how the boy was not raised in a good home and was bounced around in different foster homes. In the boy’s life, he had been abused many times by many different people. This is the reason the boy acted out in the way that he did, not because of the video game he had been playing. This article is just one of many that argue against teens being allowed to play violent video games. Although some of the stories in the articles that are told are tragic, none of them present a clear indication that the violent acts were committed because of a violent video game that was being played. This argument does however lead to the conclusion that teens that are brought up in a violent community are more predisposed to seek out violent entertainment such as popular, violent video games which is exactly what the boy did in this story.
Today video games are making record sales, with some of the more popular titles like Call of Duty, selling upwards of ten million copies. These sales are leading to more and more adults and teens playing them. Ever since the release of the first commercial video game, Pong, it has been proven that the more violent and graphic the game the more popular it will become. For example, in 1976 the first violent video game was released. The game was called Death Race and prompted players to drive a car and hit as many pedestrians as they could in order to win the game. This game sparked media frenzy and its sales increased tenfold in spite of the controversy. From the early 90’s to the late 2000’s video games have almost quadrupled in sales. During that same period of time, crimes caused by minors have fallen over fifty percent. This fact alone should almost eliminate all arguments against violent video games because it is clear that the video games do not have any correlation to youth committing acts of violence in public.
In 2004, Muir Hazel wrote an article telling all the readers about the side effects of the violent video games kids are playing. In this article, Hazel raises the question; is there any scientific data to prove that bloody and graphic video games can increase a child or young adults aggressiveness? Hazel says that although many tests have been done they do not adequately represent what actually happens to a child’s brain as they are playing violent games. For instance, two scientists conducted one experiment over this matter. For their experiment they asked a group of students to play a certain video game that contained violence. Then the scientists asked another group to play a different video game that did not contain any violence. The two scientists agreed that the test showed that the violent video game increased the aggression of the students who were playing it. However, Jeffry Goldstein, a psychologist said that the answer to this complex question is definitely not a simple cause and effect type answer. Goldstein warns that there may be many different things that cause the one group to be more aggressive than the other. Goldstein says, “What's more, the experiments that purport to recreate gaming in the lab and measure aggression fail on both counts. Playing a game because a researcher tells you to does not mimic patterns of voluntary gaming. And blasting with noise is not the same thing as a real intent to injure someone.”
Some scientists and researchers believe that their data is enough to prove that legislature needs to write new laws regarding minors and video games. Although their tests do prove that people playing violent video games have increased arousal and aggression, it is because the comparative groups game is not as exciting compared to the game with violence. When a person is playing a game that increases their aggression levels it is only temporary. That temporary form of aggression does not at all mean that that same person is going to go out and hurt someone. Again, it is an underlying issue in that person that would want to make them go do acts of violence.
In some stories that have been aired on television and published in newspapers people will argue that because the criminal seemed to act out a certain scenario in their game of choice it is the video games fault. Like in the case where the boy murdered two cops, people argued that criminal acted out a part of Grand Theft Auto, because in that game people are encouraged to kill cops. Jeffery Goldstein says the violence does not occur because of the video games. Although the violent games might affect the type of violence that is committed, it does not cause it to happen. With or without violent video games in our society we will still have violence.
In my lifetime I have owned and played many different types of games, some violent, some not. I have played them from the time I was six years old, when I got my first Sega Genesis, so I feel as though I have a certain degree of understanding on this issue. When I am playing video games I am only playing for fun and I do not care if I am the best at any of the games I have owned. So I feel as though my opinion will speak for most other people in this situation. Playing video games for me is just a fun thing to do to just relax and not have to worry about anything else in that moment. Even though I play violent video games almost on a weekly basis, it does not mean that I am a violent person. All it means is that it is fun to see what it would be like to be a particularly violent character. The violence for me stops when I turn the game off. I am not going to go shoot a cop or steal a car because my character did in Grand Theft Auto. I know that everything I saw in the game was not real and it was not at all based on what should be done in real life.
The fact is that people are going to commit violent crimes in every society, even the ones with no video games to play. So the criminals in our culture were going to commit the crimes anyway, but it is not because of something they saw on a video game. It is simply because of underlying issue that they have. These few people are the kind of people that need the help of a psychiatrist. These few people should not be able to ruin the fun for everyone else just because they cannot handle what they saw in a video game.
Works Cited
Olson, Cheryl. "It's Preverse, but Its Also Pretend." New York Times (2004). Print.
"Video Games." ProCon.org - Pros and Cons of Controversial Issues. Web. 30 Nov. 2011. <http: Hazel, Muir. "The Violent Games People Play." New Scientist (2005). Print.//procon.org>.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
essay 3
Pete Carper
Professor Mulliken
Engl 1113
1 Nov. 2011
Selling Organs
Many people today feel as though there is an urgent matter in the world today. The problem is that there are to many people that are waiting for someone to donate them an organ. Lewis Smith claims that today there are more than eight thousand people on a transplant waiting list hoping for a miracle. Smith continues by saying that of those eight thousand people, five hundred die every year because of the lack of people willing to donate to them. An M.D. by the name of Lewis Burrows argues that many doctors and surgeons and other medical professionals are now asking for the government to consider legalizing a market for organ transplantation, believing that it would dramatically increase a patient’s chance of receiving an organ in time to possibly save their life. On the other hand, some people argue that an organ market would only pressure financially unstable people to come and alleviate some of their money problems by selling the organs they can live without. Despite the few that would disagree, Smith argues that most people feel that the country would be much better off if a market for organs was created.
In September of 2004 Lewis Burrows M.D. wrote an article titled “Selling Organs for Transplantation.” This article was published in The Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine. In the article Burrows argues for the position that there should be a legal market for organ transplantation. He also states that people should be allowed to sell one of their organs for financial gain because surgeries are relatively safe now. Burrows states “The number and rate of donations have reached a plateau and leveled off following the enforcement of lower speed limits for automobiles and the introduction of seat belt laws” (251). In January of 2011 a journalist named Lewis Smith wrote an article titled, “Sale of Human Organs Should be legalized, say Surgeons.” In this article Lewis also advocates for the position that it should be legal for people to sell their organs to people in need of them. Smith argues that if it were legal for people to sell their organs it would mean that donors are paid like everyone else that is involved in the transplantation process. Smith states “"If someone wants to alleviate a financial problem why shouldn't he do that? It's his choice" (Smith).
When comparing the articles, “Selling Organs for Transplantation” by Burrows and “Sale of Human Organs Should be legalized, say Surgeons” by Smith, we can see that they use different types of ethos in their arguments. In the article by Burrows we read that he has been a qualified M.D. for over twenty years and during this position he was offered a job as surgeon. Burrows’s job would be to transplant kidneys, which would include over two hundred surgeries every year. The foreign doctor that was offering him this position proposed that they should bring donor-recipient pairs from his country to the hospital where Burrows worked to perform the surgeries. These surgeries would pay the kidney donor almost two thousand dollars for their kidney, and that amount of money would drastically affect that donor’s life for the better. Even though Burrows was offered a very good amount of money he rejected the offer. After reading this we can see that Lewis Burrows has proper authority to make claims about how the idea of selling organs is ethically right. That authority comes from the fact that he has knowledge and experience in handling this in his own life.
In the article that Lewis Smith writes you do not get the impression that he has authority to talk about this certain subject. In fact you learn nothing about his background, because he does not mention himself at all throughout the article. Smith often quotes other people like doctors and other medical professionals. For example Smith says “Recent medical advances now make it reasonable to allow a kidney market and perhaps the sale of liver donations, although other body parts remain too risky.” This is false ethos, because Smith obviously does not have any experience in this certain area. Although Smith does not effectively claim authority in his article, he does however establish credibility. To start the article, Smith tells his readers the story of the people all over the world that are on a transplant waiting list. By telling us the story and by backing it up with facts, Smith grabs the readers’ attention and makes them want to continue reading the article.
The argument of pathos in both of these articles is very similar. At the beginning of Smith’s article he states the sad fact that there are almost eight thousand people on an organ transplantation waiting list in the UK alone. Smith says that if more organs do not become more readily available soon, more than five hundred of these patients will die every year. This example is Smith’s argument of pathos. He uses this story to draw certain emotions, like sadness and sympathy from the reader so they are more emotionally invested in the story and willing to listen to what Smith has to say. Similarly at the beginning of Burrows’s article he tells the same sad and jaw-dropping facts. Burrows argues that the fact is that most of the patients waiting on an organ transplantation will likely not receive one in time due to the lack of organ donations. These facts that Burrows brings up draw many emotions from the reader, such as sadness. Burrows wants to get people to know how drastic the problem is and provide them with a sense of urgency to help.
Although both of these articles have some arguments of ethos and also some arguments of pathos, their main arguments are made from logos. They both present their readers with good evidence and reasons to believe what they have to say in their article. For example, in Smith’s article he talks about one big reason for creating a market for organ transplantation is the current problem in the black market. The black market for organs creates many problems, one of them being that a lot of the surgeries are botched because they are not performed by capable surgeons, says Smith. He also claims that if the government created a market for organs then it would virtually wipe out the need for patients to look to the black market for help. This argument of logos is specifically using the argument of using reason and common sense. Smith is saying that there is a problem in the world and there is a solution and if you use your common sense you should agree.
Although Smith makes this sound argument and presents good facts to back it up, he commits at least one logical fallacy. He presents the facts and basically says that either the government creates a market for organs or hundreds of people will turn to the black market and will probably die. Smith presents it as though these are the only two possible outcomes. This argument leads to an either/or logical fallacy. It is making the readers think that this is the only possible solution to fixing the problem of organ shortage. In reality it is not, as Burrows suggest one of the other ways of solving this problem is to adopt a “presumed consent” in which families of the deceased have the choice of opting out of donating their loved ones organs. Burrows says if they do not opt out then the organs can be used for transplantation. This method has been adopted by a few countries such as Spain and Africa, Burrow claims, and has doubled the donation rate in those countries. However, Smith fails to consider all of the possible solutions and presents his article as though there are two outcomes to the problem.
One of the arguments of logos that Burrows uses in his article is when he tells the story of when he personally dealt with selling organs. This argument is using Burrows personal testimony of when he experienced this issue. This story that Burrow tells lets the reader logically assume that what he is saying is not made up or distorted, but it is the truth. This is very solid argument that he makes and does not clearly lead into any logical fallacies.
The different ethos in these different articles is probably due to fact that the authors are reaching out to two different groups of people. Since his article is published in a medical journal, Burrows is reaching out to medical professionals and other like-minded people. Burrows’s audience is likely to have knowledge in health care and will be more critical of his statements than the average reader. On the other hand Smith’s article is published in a British newspaper’s online website called The Independent. Since Smith’s article is published in a newspaper, it is generally geared more towards the average reader. Since the majority of the audience is not a part of the medical profession, we can see that the article is explained in a more common vernacular.
In the two articles, Lewis and Burrows make use of some of the same writing techniques like using arguments of pathos to draw the readers in and connect them to what they are saying. Although the articles make the same basic claims, the two arguments of ethos are very different. The arguments are probably different because of who is writing the articles and who the specific audience is. These articles present a very scary and real problem in our world today. They challenge us to think about different solutions to the problem of organ shortage. Although the two authors come from very different backgrounds it is very intriguing to see how they present there arguments in similar ways to make the reader feel what they want.
Works Cited
Burrows, Lewis. "Selling Organs for Transplantation." The Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine (2004): 251-54. Print.
Smith, Lewis. "Sale of Human Organs Should Be Legalized, Say Surgeons." The Independent 5 Jan. 2005. Print.
essay 2
Pete Carper
Dr. Mulliken
Engl 1113
11 Oct. 2011
Job Outlook
In his article “Are Jobs Obsolete?”, Douglas Rushkoff, a writer who primarily focuses on the future of the American economy, argues that technology is replacing jobs. This article is featured on CNN’s online website where it is viewed by a very large number of fans and critiques every day. Rushkoff’s audience is comprised of mostly an older generation with substantial incomes. With that information, we can logically come to the conclusion that most of these people are well educated with a college degree or even higher.
Rushkoff says that because technology is becoming more advanced and user-friendly businesses like the U.S. Postal Service, a corporation employing over 600,000 people, are now in danger of being shut down. Rushkoff explains that since it is becoming significantly easier to send things electronically like emails, bills, and other forms of communication, “people are sending 22% fewer pieces of mail than they did just four years ago.” Unfortunately, Rushkoff explains that the U.S. Postal Service is not the only company in danger. EZpasses are now rendering toll collectors obsolete and this is costing many employees their jobs. These facts that Rushkoff is bringing up are arguments of logos. Rushkoff is connecting the EZ passes and Postal Service to people being put out of work.
Rushkoff uses pathos in a very specific way in he beginning of this article. He tactfully brings up the story about the U.S. Postal Service to make people sympathize for others that might be out of a job. Rushkoff uses this example about the Postal Service to make you more emotionally connected to the story. Instead of just starting off by telling you the facts, Rushkoff uses this story to get the readers interested in the subject matter. Rushkoff knows that you are far more likely to care about the subject matter if you have a story to relate to.
Rushkoff argues that people have worked from the beginning of time but the idea of jobs was only created when the idea of the corporation came about. When people worked in the Renaissance era they only worked for themselves; creating goods and selling them to other people. Rushkoff says since technology has become smarter and more efficient, there are not very many jobs needed to run this equipment. Rushkoff argues, “We need to change our ideas: its not about jobs, its about productivity.” He suggests that instead of making products as a job, we can now have jobs that exchange information-based products. Rushkoff continues by saying we don’t have to rely on big companies to have a job because technology is allowing us to create our own work. This information is another way Rushkoff uses logos. He rhetorically compares renaissance era to newer corporations and says that because the work environment is changing we must change with it.
Next Rushkoff asks the question, “Since when is unemployment a problem?” Most people, according to Rushkoff, do not actually want jobs. People simply want the money and the benefits they provide. Instead of having productivity as a goal, we are now making employment the goal. Rushkoff states that employment is the goal because America is not in need of more stuff: it is able to feed and shelter everyone in it. Employment is the goal because it is a way to distinguish who deserves that stuff. Rushkoff uses logos to create this argument. He provides a theory, which is well constructed and makes sense and to back that theory up he provides specific examples. Rushkoff’s uses the example of America being a productive nation. He says that America is so productive and efficient that it could feed and shelter everyone in it with only a fraction of the population actually working.
Finally at the end of this article, Rushkoff presents his own opinion on how we can change the problem at hand. His suggestion for a solution is to change our whole viewpoint on jobs. Rushkoff says, people usually think of jobs as going to work for a company to create a product and then sell it to customers. He says that instead of that kind of job we are now able to take full advantage of the digital age. We are now able to sell and exchange information-based products. Rushkoff says, “This work is not so much employment as it is creative activity.”
Rushkoff’s arguments are effective through the use of ethos. As Rushkoff writes this article, he seems as though he has his readers, who are generally the middle class, in mind. He is giving them advice and solutions that he feels will help them. As you read Rushkoff’s article he makes it very easy to understand his arguments because he presents them in a clear and understandable way. Instead of lying or exaggerating the facts, Rushkoff presents the facts and leaves it up to his readers to agree or disagree with him. Rushkoff educates his audience on the current economic state and his readers decide what they want to believe.
Rushkoff starts off by defining the problem for his readers by describing the issue of limited jobs. He concludes his argument with his own opinion and suggestions. Rushkoff writes this article in a very simple way that is very effective at educating the readers. The one thing seemingly lacking in this article is proper use of pathos. Rushkoff could have added more emotional appeals to catch the audience’s attention. By using this technique, he may have made his argument stronger. In this article, Rushkoff presents the facts in a way that lets the readers know he is well informed and knowledgeable.
Works Cited
Rushkoff, Douglas. "Are Jobs Obsolete?" Cnn.com. 7 Sept. 2011. Web. 3 Oct. 2011
web presence
I think that my presence on the web is a good one I do not have much stuff on the web that people other than my friends and family can easily view. Basically all i have is my facebook and twitter accounts. On these accounts i really do not post very many things, and when i do they are mostly for positive. I do not just post things to make people mad or try and get likes or comments. I do not think it is smart for people to just post things on the internet without thinking about them first. People are just to willy nillie with all of their information on the internet these days. I am not interested in getting raped by a crazy freak. That is just not my style. People really should be more careful on the internet. They can do this by making their facebook private. they should take their phone numbers off of their page and they should definately take off where they live if they have information available to anyone other than the people that they know.
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