The Fun They Had By Isaac Asimov

A Few Good Men portrays the importance of military orders, the reality of the ranking system and how much military leader’s authority can cloud their judgement. Former psychology professor at Yale, Stanley Milgram sought the reasoning behind the blindness of individuals when ordered to perform a task for someone who seems to be an authority figure. His infamous experiment was and is currently being dug through and examined thoroughly. Milgram’s research caught the attention of fellow psychologist Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo conducted an experiment with similar interests in mind. He collected 21 men from newspaper advertisements to live in a false prison and live in the prison for two weeks. The experiment lasted six days due to how quickly the experiment escalated and transformed the “prisoners” and “guards” (Zimbardo 116). Their conclusions from both experiments are that power and stress can transform even the strongest willed people. Zimbardo and Milgram discuss the same sort of entitlement Colonel Jessup presumes to order an illegal code red due to his position on the base at Guantanamo Bay; also the entitlement Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee had over the case due to the position his father once had.

A powerful quote said by pre-socratic philosopher named Democritus says “Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul”. In other words, happiness does not come from materialism but instead from the things money can’t buy. In the article The Secret of Happiness the author David Myers writes directly to Americans about how he believes we need to obtain a new “American Dream” that emphasizes personal happiness instead of materialistic happiness. Myers also believes happiness resides in the soul and he says people that think money is the key to happiness are actually less content with themselves and he uses various ways to prove this point. With that being said materialistic happiness vs personal happiness is an important issue, and Myers made a strong use of Logos by showing surveys and studies, Ethos by showing credibility in his argument but he could have used more Pathos by using more emotion and enthusiasm in his argument.

In society there are still differences in classes such as higher class, middle class, and lower class. In sociology, we observed a film called The Pursuit Happyness, where we witnessed the struggles a father went through to succeed. Chris Gardner, who was played by Will Smith, is living in his apartment with his wife and his son. Due to their struggles, the mother walks out on and leaves Chris struggling alone with his son. In the film Chris Gardner applies for an unpaid internship for a competitive stockbroker company where out of twenty men, only one gets the job. While he is on his internship, we see the hardships of getting kicked out of his apartment to staying at a shelter home to then sleeping in a subway bathroom with his son. Viewing the movie through a sociological lens, The Pursuit of Happyness will be analyzed according to the major three sociological paradigms: structural functionalism, social conflict theory, and symbolic interactionalism.

I selected the book The Geeks Shall Inherit the Earth by Alexandra Robbins because I was interested to read about an adult author’s perception of a modern American high school experience. I also chose the book because the reviews mentioned that it related to a TV series I enjoyed, Freaks and Geeks. As I read through the book, I found that it centered around the theory that if a student is excluded or dismissed in high school for having different traits than what other students considered normal, those same traits that made them different will allow them to succeed in an adult life after high school. As soon as I got about a quarter of the way into the book I was not as enthusiastic as I was at first glance. I did agree that these traits could benefit someone, but they don’t define what you have the potential to be when you’re an adult. This high school cliché, despite the seven heartwarming storylines, is inaccurate in describing what the future holds for high school students because our future is unpredictable, and a book with a little statistic and seven high school experiences can’t solidify someone’s adulthood. I also noticed that there were no counterarguments present in the book, leading me to assume that Robbins may not have heavily researched both sides of her ‘quirk’ argument. Although I had differing opinions than the author, the seven characters, their storylines, and the promise of a young James Franco continued to perk my interest and

In The Meaning of Life, Richard Taylor argues that meaningless lives our lives that consist of a repetitive cycle of struggles that do not give us any purpose. Taylor describes a meaningful life as one that has a purpose, and is creative and unique to that specific person. Also, the meaningful life is lived in a good and just manner. In The Meanings of Lives, Susan Wolf argues lives that are not involved in an activity that brings positive value are meaningless lives. A person that has a meaningless life by the standards of Taylor can still have a life that is going well for them. Their well-being is not dependent on whether they have a meaningful life or not. Wolf believes that meaningfulness is an important factor in a person’s well-being. Well-being is present when a person’s is living a life that is going positive according to themselves. A person who lives a life that is meaningless as a result of being repetitive and pointless can still have a life that is going well for them.

Recently, I was reading an article that is called “The Funny Thing About Adversity” which is written by David DeSteno who is a psychology professor at Northeastern University. DeSteno’s purpose is to convince the reader that experiencing hardship makes a person sympathetic or unsympathetic depending on the case of hardship that person has experienced, and being a compassionate does not occur by chance. DeSteno makes two primary claims: one is by illustrating that if an individual has lived through unpleasant events, that person will be familiar with the difficult situations involved, which would lead a person to be sympathetic. The second claim is that it is incorrect to believe if someone has experienced the same struggle that you experienced, he might not lend a hand due to the fact that there is a glitch in the human’s mind that makes people forget about their own past hardships.

Neil Postman writes, Amusing Ourselves to Death to address a television-based epistemology pollutes public communication and its surrounding landscape, not that it pollutes everything. The book was produced in 1984 in a time where television was an emerging epidemic and other forms of communication that today have taken flight, didn’t exist. It is directed to people who have let television drag them away from their Focus and attention to comprehend as they have lost the ability to bring forth your own knowledge and find meaning. Postman’s purpose to spread the word of this discourse and inform them of how much society is being set back due to the over indulging of television

I did not attend a typical “brick and mortar” high school. The local school district did not meet the educational standards set by TEA (Texas Education Agency) and therefore was rated academically unacceptable. My parents weren’t financially able to send my siblings and I to a private school so we decided, as a family, to attend a “virtual” school. I knew I had to be organized and well-prepared in order to, not only “pass” my classes, but to fully understand the information that was presented to me.

School officials could limit the amount of days that a student could take advantage of online classes per semester. After their allotted time is up, students would have to attend school each day, or face the consequences of an absence. Bad weather would no longer be a cause of countless missed learning opportunities. Maybe a huge snow storm comes through, blanketing the area in snow and ice and causing roads to be inaccessible and unsafe to drive on. With distance learning, classes could still be held without students and teachers needing to brave the dangerous, icy roads to make it to school. Entire school days could be taught from the comfort of a living room; and school could still release early in the year; not halfway through the summer due to snow days and bad weather. Even though an argument could be made that some families could not afford the technology required to attend these virtual classes, schools could easily arrange fundraisers and bring in enough money to allow all students to receive an equal learning opportunity and eliminate bad weather as a cause for an unproductive day. In conclusion, video conferencing and online classes could be a highly valuable asset to schools and

“Master and Man” by Leo Tolstoy is a story that explores the dynamics between a peasant, Nakita and his master,Vasillii Andriech. Andriech foolishly risks both of their lives, when they venture to another town in inclement weather to secure a business deal. Unfortunately, Andreich's impatience and greed ultimately leads to his demise. At the end of the story Nikita dies and is denied the same bliss that Vasillii Andreich experiences in death; in order to solidify the dichotomy between these two men, demonstrate how Andriech cheated Nakita, and he uses Nakita's lackluster death to amplify Andriech's extraordinary passing.

The general consensus in the academic world is that knowledge is power that can solve humanity’s problems. Sometimes, it is clouded by greed, or it lights the way for a better humanity. Scientists experiment to prove new theories, artists sculpt to express emotion and theologians study to provide interpretations of biblical stories. Therein lies the problem, while society is always searching for knowledge, to date there is no singular “foolproof” method of obtaining it. In the movie “The Theory of Everything,” Stephen Hawking has a “eureka” moment when pulling a sweater over his head and seeing flames through the material. In this case, it seemed that serendipity played a role in his search for truth. This led me to wonder, to what extent is the discovery of knowledge a matter of serendipity that can then go on to solve problems? While an exploration of whether knowledge is produced only to solve problems in the Natural Sciences may be more obvious, its application to Mathematics and Indigenous Knowledge may draw some interesting observations.

In the book Life is so Good, George Dawson and Richard Glaubman give a very rare representation of life in the early 1900s. George Dawson, a poor and illiterate black man tells life as it is through his experiences. These many life experiences are portrayed in new stories told chapter by chapter intrigue the reader of the book. This paper will review Dawson’s many stories and his perspective on life at the time, as well as the way his views and mindset compares to the philosophy of African Americans at this time.

Taking online education classes is supposed to be the new cheaper way of learning, but are you actually learning? With online schooling kids are not getting as much social interaction as they would in a normal classroom setting. They simply can not just raise their hand to ask their teacher a question, they have to email the teacher or look it up on the internet. In Alexander Spring’s essay “Online Learning: The Ruin of Education,” he explains how “teachers” are now PCs or Macs and how these online computer classes are ruining the education process for this generation of kids and future generations. I agree with Spring’s opinion that the online learning is ruining the kids education and needs to

Joanne “Jo” Rowling, better known by her pseudonym J.K. Rowling, is one of the most loved authors in the world by children and adults alike. Her most famous works, the Harry Potter series, have sold hundreds of millions of copies and are second only to the Bible in sales. Not only are her novels extraordinarily popular, the film adaptations became a phenomenon of their own. These enormous successes made Jo one of the wealthiest women in the world, even wealthier than the Queen of England herself (Kirk, 2008). However, there was a time in Jo’s life that was far from this great success story and at her lowest point, Jo suffered from Major Depressive Disorder. She was able to overcome her diagnosis and turn her whole life around, becoming a great role model and advocate for de-stigmatizing mental illness.

In the book ”Amusing ourselves to death” Neil Postman is making an argument about the fact that humans could amuse themselves to death in their lives.Even if when we think of death we think at something terrible,in his book this particular term is asociated with ”amusament” which is a quite unusual asociation of terms.At the beggining of the book the author is making a paralel between Orwell and Huxley.What is quite known about these two is the fact that their ideas were different and the book ”Amusing ourselves to death” states this ideas.What Orwell feared were those who would ban books.What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book,for there whould be no one who would want to read one.Orwell feared those who would deprive