Find an article that relates in some way to the things we have been talking about in class.
- First, summarize the text, explaining how you are understanding what they are saying.
- Second, connect it to our class. Why did you pick it? How does it connect to our class?
Include a link to the text. Should be about 250 words in length.
Some things we have talked about:
- Critical Thinking
- Writing
- Genres
- Ignorance
- Population Control
Professor Ramos' Blog 
1.) The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli introduces a lot of critical thinking. In a chapter he discusses how each choice we make may have a positive and negative consequence. He mentions, if you were a prince and armed your men, it is right to feel secure because they are armed; which is safe to think of the men that are armed are still your armed force. However, if you take the armed force from an individual, they will feel offended. The other person might think you are considering them untrustworthy or a coward. So, you have to slowly find a way to take the armed force away from those individuals in order to remain secure without offending those people that you are taking the armed force from.
2.) I picked this idea from the book “The Prince” because it involves critical thinking. This topic is relevant to our class because we are discussing decision making, problematic situations, solutions, and outcomes. With what I have stated above (1), it discusses the prince making a decision. Also, elaborated what complications might occur with this decision. Nevertheless, includes a solution to a problematic situation that the prince may experience.
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https://www.rasmussen.edu/student-experience/college-life/critical-thinking-skills-to-master-now/
Six critical and essential steps to becoming an exceptional critical thinker has been explained in depth by a short article provided by Rasmussen college. This article thoroughly explained how essential it is to have the ability to think critically, and the negative consequences that may follow lacking the ability. This capability consists of analysis of an issue, or situation, and comparing data/evidence to come to a reasonable conclusion. However, critical thinking is not a simple concept and may be difficult to grasp, this article simplified it into 6 steps: Identify, research, identify bias, inference, determining relevance, and curiosity. Identifying bias is the most crucial step as it is essential for the reader to objectively use their judgment and reason.
Having the capacity to think, and question and analyze will be necessary throughout my college career, I believe finding a deeper meaning to it will benefit me not only during the pursuit of my career, but in this class currently! As the course is partially about critical thinking, I found it useful to gain the best understanding of how to do so early in the semester. Thinking critically is vital for anyone, especially students, when working towards a successful college career- preparedness to objectively analyze and evaluate complex subjects will never lose its significance.
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In class we have discussed population control so I decided to look more into what the U.S. government has thought about it or to see if they have implanted anything about population control. While conducting research I found what is known as the Kissinger Report which was took into effect December 10, 1974 and was authorized by the United States National Security Council , and its subject was the “Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests”.
To summarize the text this article goes over exactly what the Kissinger Report is, and what it is about which is the U.S. governments population control efforts in less developed countries or countries of Interests to the U.S. in order to maintain access to these countries mineral resources. to make it simpler it basically a report on how we can control these countries population to use there resources for the U.S. and its needs. One example of what has been done based off this article is in India they have a continuing forced sterilization program, that is funded by the U.S. and as well as other western governments and foundations. These programs are also responsible for harming and killing women due to unsanitary conditions while performing these procedures
I picked this topic, and I picked this topic because in class we discussed some possible solutions on how we can control population this is how it connects to the class , however we didn’t discuss how the U.S. has population control in other countries to obtain there natural resources for the U.S.. And this made me want to find out more information on what our country is doing to other countries to minimize their population growth.
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The article I chose talks about why critical thinking is important and necessary for students. It leads students to make the best decisions for themselves without the need of others. I completely agree with what the article is saying because critical thinking is one of the most beneficial tools a student can learn. It helps students learn everything they need to think like scientists! I chose this article because when we discussed critical thinking being taken away in Texas it made me wonder why they would take way such an important tool for students? It made me curious as to why someone would think students would be better off without it. I also agreed with the fact that we are so advanced in California as a state and truly other states should keep critical thinking classes and maybe even make them mandatory. Students have the right to think for themselves and make independent choices. Also for job reasons! Having good critical thinking skills can prove that someone is more valuable for a job or a promotion. It’ll show ones boss that they can find solutions to problems or think outside the box and that is very impressive to any boss! Critical thinking is really important for everyone to be able to make the best decisions in well thought out ways. It’s good to question not just things people tell you but things you do as well. Really digging deep into their thoughts and feelings towards situations can help one be more assertive & independent.
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In the 1960’s people in the United States were really concerned with the population boom. A few different people brought the concern to light including Harry Harrison that wrote a called “make room! make room!” People thought that with the increase of population the demand for food would go up and people will starve across the country. Paul R. Ehrlich a biologist thought that England would be gone in England by the 2000’s. Clearly he was wrong that we still exist and it is 2020. As the demand for food went up so did the production of food. This was a big concern in the late 60’s and people will always say the world is going to end soon but in full reality keep living your life till it happens because it could be a long time from now. I chose this topic because it connected to class and over population is a big problem and pretty much no way to solve it with out losing our humanity. We tried to come up with a solution to over population and the only way to do so is prevent people from breading. I don’t believe we solve should solve world hunger or things like cancer because it would sky rocket our numbers and lead human kind closer to extinction. We should allow natural selection to get us in small numbers before natural selection gets all of us.
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The article posted on the guardian written by Colin Fletham open peoples eyes to the hard truth of over population and the ability to sustain our resources. Fletham discusses that population control isn’t being taken serious as to others it may not raise any concerns which places obstacles when solving this issue. In addition he includes possible drastic solutions that may see drastic at first but are a means of a last resort if this situation isn’t fixed. Yet he also manages to show us different examples that give us insight as to why it is getting bad and the reason as to why it’s hard to control. For example it includes ideas of limiting the number of children to assisted sucide to those who have illness.
Which ties in to our class since we were discussing the possible ways that we can help to control the population. In this I was able to broaden my mind on population control and how it could also affect the planet we live on. One way Feltham felt we should deal with the problem is to make sure we are financially able to support the amount of children we have. He speaks on a story of a woman who had octuplets on top of that she was already a single mother with 6 children. Not only would the limit of children help to relieve the carbon footprint we leave behind yet also betters the lives of the children who are brought into this world. Another point that opened my eyes was his discussion that humans are only living longer since medicine is allowing us to live longer.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/feb/27/population-control-climate-change
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The article titled “What Is Critical Thinking, Anyway?” Written by Rob Jenkins an associate professor of English at Georgia State University Perimeter College discusses how the concept of critical thinking is always preached to students by teachers but is never fully put into practice. He then proceeds to share his typical first day of class monologue to students on the first day of class on how and why they need to use their critical thinking skills. He outlines the key components to critical thinking which includes discipline to dig deeper than the initial suit face, being as objective and analytical as possible, and being able to disengage from personal emotions.
I believe this article connected to what we were talking about in class because it not only discusses the key components of critical thinking but also refers to how the concept oof critical thinking is often discussed by educators but is not always but into practice. I chose this article because the concept of critical thinking itself has always been something that I have spent minimal time actually thinking about and although it’s something we do in all facets of our lives, we never take the time to fully diagnose its true meaning. This is why our discussion in class was very interesting to me and opened my eyes to see how symbolic the term “critical thinking” really is to me in my life. From now on I will try my best to be a critical thinker in all I do and not rely on other people formulating my opinions for me.
https://chroniclevitae.com/news/1691-what-is-critical-thinking
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https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-09-12/ignorance-feeds-curiosity-curiosity-cures-ignorance
1. Curiosity drives the lack of knowledge to gain a better understanding of many ideas in the world. Some people are very ignorant leading them to gain knowledge on these things that they may have once been ignorant about. If one knew all there would no longer be a search of understanding the things unable to grasp. Although if one has not been introduced too something they will not be searching to grasp the concept of it. There is a fine line between ignorance and just not knowing something. Ignorance is the lack of knowledge or knowing something , so if you do not know something does this make you ignorant. Not necessarily. What makes one ignorant is trying to explain or prove someone wrong of something they do not have any idea on, or are getting confused for something else. Curiosity of the unknown is a huge factor from what will take you above being ignorant of something. Many individuals are hungry for knowledge and feed off getting to know more information that may benefit them. Sometimes many scientists improvise on stage or on camera with topics they are asked that they are not very knowledgeable about, thus making some believe they are ignorant for acknowledging a topic they do not have a full understanding of , but sometimes to get an understanding of something you have to be challenged and put on the spot to get your full grasp of a topic. Having a conversation about something might be the last key that you need to get the information you need to understand it.
2.I feel this connects to our class because we as individuals may be obligated to answer something because of our knowledge on the topic. Although we may not know, getting involved in the discussion may be able to get us away from being ignorant about the information being provided. At some time in life we will all be ignorant to some extent but it takes acknowledging that you are unaware and getting the understanding of what it is your are ignorant about and changing it. Being ignorant may not always be a bad thing, it can help drive us to become more articulate or knowledgeable about certain ideas or topics. Do not let the feeling of ignorance shy you away from gaining the knowledge needed to take the next step in the direction you are headed.
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https://www.success.com/how-to-develop-critical-thinking-skills/
How to Develop Critical Thinking Skills by Sam Milam is an article that explains why critical thinking is important while teaching people how to develop these skills or improve them. It states that with practice you can learn to make better and more effective objective choices. These tips are categorized into five steps become a self-critic, active listening, analyzing information, nonviolent communication, and developing foresight. Becoming a self-critic means that everyone needs to self-reflect every once and a while, by asking yourself why you believe something. The article suggests that nonviolent communication is important because you must communicate effectively in a productive nonviolent matter. The third tip was to analyze information it’s described as making sure one knows and clearly understands the situation or what the issue is. It’s also about knowing any consequences of the solution. Active listening is when someone is listening to another without thinking about how to react or respond because you won’t absorb the information properly. Lastly developing foresight is looking into the future when deciding and analyze the implications that could occur.
This article was directly related to what we learned in week 1 of English 102 regarding critical thinking. I picked this article because there were many parts that were like what was discussed in lecture. For example, the last tip was developing foresight we had mentioned in class how thinking about the impact of a decision and how it will affect others or ourselves is an important component to critical thinking.
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https://www-bbc-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-china-51145251
Chinese birth rate falls to lowest in seven decades.
The article was written 1/17/20 bringing the relevance to actual times,
I believed it to be common knowledge, or at least a well known fact that the Chinese government had a one child policy, and even this fact was discussed in our class discussion. The article was written to share that the problem that the country has ahead of them due to limiting population. The article calls it a “Demographic Timebomb”.
The policy was introduced in 1979. I do not recall anyone stating that this was no longer a policy? In the article it shares “ In 2015 the government ended its one-child policy, allowing couples to have two children”
The article then explains how the Chinese birth rate is now lower than the US.
We discussed in class how if families could only have one child that it would be preferred to have boys, and we then discussed how children would be hidden or aborted. Currently the policy is blamed for 30 million more boys than girls from 2019 numbers.
I picked this article over a previous one that I had read that was explaining the population situation indicating that immigrants will be needed. When I came across this article it immediately was more relevant to our class discussion/reading and gave the most facts concerning the one child policy and the real possible consequences.
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Increasing the human population has put a hold on our natural resources, Some believe that the only way to solve the solution is to limit the increase in population in communities. The increasing amount of population has also put pressure on our rate of climate change. Studies have shown that since 1960 our population has more than doubled and it will continue to double all the way up until 2050. Some believe that limiting the amount of population in for neighborhoods will have benefits to sustaining climate control. One solution to decrease in the number of population is educating women on the health risks involved and having mini children along with educating them on the health of the planet for their children.
I believe that this article relates to the class because during class we were talking about pop population control and he affects on our natural resources. This article states the negative effects that increase population has on our natural resources and how educating women maybe one of many solutions to maintain control of natural resources. During class we talked about in groups what solutions we could think of because there are definitely are many. One that I found that would be great is allowing women to go to school and get education to get a great job.
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In “Five Types of Genres in Writing,” Mark Applegate observes some of the different genres of writing that we discussed in class. “Writing comes in dozens of types and styles, depending the purpose of the writer”(Applegate). Writers have many ways of getting their ideas get across. Moreover, having genres helps the writer focus on narrowing down on a certain topic. The five types of genres Mark Applegate discusses are: expository writing, journal and letter writing, narrative writing, persuasive writing, and descriptive writing. Having different types of genres also help examine writing on a more broader scale. Expository writing is very common among schools, this type of writing helps examine an idea or a person in a way that helps the writer understand the topic. Journal and letter writing helps the writer communicate in a less formal method and its more personal as the writer connects with the audience. Narrative writing helps create a story in an attempt to document what has happened throughout their lives. Persuasive writing offers facts that help the reader take a stand on a one-sided topic. It is mostly used for propaganda and political promotions. Descriptive writing is used to express emotion and help the reader appreciate writing as art. Although Mark Applegate only goes through five genres, there are more genres to writing that a writer can explore.
The article that I found helps me connect it to the class discussion because; in class we went over the different types of genres a writer can write about. Furthermore, this article explained to me why we have different types of genres. In class however, we will be focusing on writing proposals, rhetorical analysis, evaluations, and causal analysis. It helps to know that our topics will be based on things we want to write about and not what someone else wants us to write about.
https://www.theclassroom.com/five-types-genres-writing-12148959.html
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In “Five Types of Genres in Writing,” Mark Applegate observes some of the different genres of writing that we discussed in class. “Writing comes in dozens of types and styles, depending the purpose of the writer”(Applegate). Writers have many ways of getting their ideas get across. Moreover, having genres helps the writer focus on narrowing down on a certain topic. The five types of genres Mark Applegate discusses are: expository writing, journal and letter writing, narrative writing, persuasive writing, and descriptive writing. Having different types of genres also help examine writing on a more broader scale. Expository writing is very common among schools, this type of writing helps examine an idea or a person in a way that helps the writer understand the topic. Journal and letter writing helps the writer communicate in a less formal method and its more personal as the writer connects with the audience. Narrative writing helps create a story in an attempt to document what has happened throughout their lives. Persuasive writing offers facts that help the reader take a stand on a one-sided topic. It is mostly used for propaganda and political promotions. Descriptive writing is used to express emotion and help the reader appreciate writing as art. Although Mark Applegate only goes through five genres, there are more genres to writing that a writer can explore.
The article that I found helps me connect it to the class discussion because; in class we went over the different types of genres a writer can write about. Furthermore, this article explained to me why we have different types of genres. In class however, we will be focusing on writing proposals, rhetorical analysis, evaluations, and causal analysis. It helps to know we are going to be choosing our own topics to write about, it makes it more encouraging to write.
https://www.theclassroom.com/five-types-genres-writing-12148959.html
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1) After discussing population control in class on Wednesday, I decided to look into the pros and cons of population control. In summary, because of the Malthus Theory(1798) which states that that world is under constant threat because food production is never as fast as population growth, population control is an issue in many countries. To put it simply, there are not enough resources to go around. So many are suffering from hunger and malnutrition. However, population control needs to be managed properly. Informational and counseling services are needed, along with workers in family planning.
2) I picked this article because I was interested in population control. This connects to our class because we discussed our opinion and views on population control, and also listed the pros and cons of population control.
https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/04/20/controlling-population-shaping-future.html
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https://www.ziprecruiter.com/blog/why-critical-thinking-skills-are-important-in-the-workplace/
“Why Critical Thinking Skills Are Important in the Workplace” by Jessica Mendez goes into detail on why having critical thinking skills is in an important trait in the workplace. Critical thinking skills comes in handy to being able to come up with new solutions and new ideas to help innovate the company or too remain competitive in the industry. Mendez gives 7 examples on how to effectively use critical thinking skills. This article can relate back to the classroom because everyday students have to use critical thinking skills to complete multiple task like homework, projects, exams, classwork, and even group work along with many other activities. To be a reliable classmate, one must have some sort of critical thinking skills to help contribute to the class so that everyone can get through together when everyone is putting ideas and solutions together. To effectively imply and develop critical thinking skills in the classroom is in essential to graduate and to be successful in the real world.
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2 B R 0 2 B a short story written by Kurt Vonnugut Jr. is a story about a society in which they surpass all things that would end human life, but in return for such luxuries those in charge implement a population enforcement. Such enforcement is, if a live is given, one must be taken. To eliminate a life many people go through the department of termination which uses gas chambers to euthanize the volunteer. The main character Wheling is met with a hasty decision as to who he can find to give up their life so his triplets are allowed to live. Unwilling to allow his great grandfather to give his life for the life of his child he then decides to kill the doctor and a member of the department of termination then turning the gun on himself allotting three vacant positions for his children to live in an never ending paradise.
In reality this story can be connected with many population control scenarios that have happened throughout the course of life. whether it may be mass genocide and or concentration camps for those deemed unworthy of entry in the country. For example, according to an article in the New York Times, an article titling “D.H.S. Inspector General finds no misconduct by officials in the deaths of 2 migrant children” children that were taken and placed in concentration camps with their families waiting an outrageous amount of time to be processed resulting in poor living conditions that eventually killed them. All because the president believes that there is no longer room to accept people fleeing for safety in this great America. The story 2 B R 0 2 B and the article may not have completely identical backgrounds but they do connect on the sole fact that population control inevitably results in the deaths of the innocents struggling to achieve what others take for granted.
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1) In this video (The Science of Thinking) it talks about how most people dont wanna try to think because it takes too much to solve the problems. Then the rest of the video it breaks down your thinking process into a part called Drew who catches the mistakes and thinks, while the other part Gun who process amounts to info and basically filters it out to see what you want. Later on it talks about how Gun will take over our muscle memory and shows us how to activate Drew to really exercise our thinking skills to get the answer right.
2) How I think this relates to Critical Thinking is when we use our thinking system we are keen to solve problems such as population control or solve mathematical terms or puzzles. As we use our critical thinking skills we are able to solve more problematic issues. The reason why I picked this is because I use this to teach others on my sales team to help the people we are selling to use their critical thinking to make the best decisions on the door, it also helps us if they are a buyer or a time vampire. This is what I got from this video
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https://www.rasmussen.edu/student-experience/college-life/critical-thinking-skills-to-master-now/
The 6 Critical Thinking Skills You’d Need to Master Now, by Will Erstad
The author discusses the importance of critical thinking in our society. He stress the value to have critical thinking skills to excel in our careers and not practicing critical thinking skills allow for people to be easier manipulated. He encourages people to be critical thinkers. He begins his article by defining critical thinking as “the analysis of an issue or situation and the facts, data or evidence related to it.” Our goal during the process is to be objective to identify the situation and provide the best possible solution. Will Estrand believes a better way to become a critical thinker is to use these 6 critical thinking skills: identification, research, identifying biases, inference , determining relevance, and curiosity.
Everything we discussed in class to reading the article about critical thinking made me realize I typically don’t want to discuss critical thinking or certain situations because the possibility of confrontation. The tips he provided are simple to follow to become an even better critical thinker. These skills need to be developed and practiced amongst people to create more communication to collaborating in solving problems on a small scale or massive scale.
Thinking about what it means to be a critical thinker is a nudge reminding myself on the ability to identify importantly relevant information in an objective way to offer solutions to problems or to better understand the topic. These 6 tips to critical thinking seems helpful in growing my skills as not only a better critical thinker but a writer.
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https://www.ft.com/content/a245eef4-3a5e-11ea-a01a-bae547046735
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The Importance of Critical Thinking for Students by University of West Florida explains how, in the past, education was mostly about the memorization of facts. Over the years, teaching has evolved by also teaching students how to deal with life after graduation when they are on their own for the first time. In the article, G. Randy Gasten explains critical thinking as “merely the ability to understand why things are the way they are and to understand the potential consequences of actions.” Lee Wananabe-Crockett on the Global Digital Citizen Foundation blog says, “Critical thinking about something means formulating your own opinions and drawing your own conclusions. This happens regardless of outside influence. It is about the discipline of analysis and seeing the connections between ideas”.
In class, we discussed the benefits of critical thinking. It can help a person form healthier relationships, can help with making important decisions in life, and even help with advancement in their career. I chose this article because I agree that it’s important for students to be taught at an early age how to think critically helping them to become an active learner versus a passive learner. Kids need to be taught how to think for themselves and form their own opinions so they can make informed decisions.
https://getonline.uwf.edu/articles/education/critical-thinking-for-students.aspx
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In 2BR02B by Kurt Vonnugut, the population is controlled under a strict rule; if one person is born, one must die in order to keep the population at a steady number. In the story, if you want to volunteer to die, you are to call the phone number 2BR02B, and the people in purple will take care of the deed by taking the volunteers to gas chambers. At the end of the story, Wehling ends up shooting Dr. Hitz, the lady in purple named Leora Duncan, and then shoots himself so that his newborn triplets could all live.
When I read this story, it immediately reminded me of American Horror Story: Apocalypse. In this season of the show, the main antagonist Michael Langdon wants to create a new world order, so he gathers “The Cooperative” (formerly known as “The Illuminati”) and decides to nuke the entire world minus the few “worthy” survivors that stay in underground bunkers. The main bunker in the show is led by a woman called Ms. Venable and the outpost occupants are to wear purple attire only.
While this show is a more exaggerated, extreme example of controlling the world’s population, there are subtle similarities between 2BR02B and AHS: Apocalypse. You have Dr. Hitz who we know is the creator of the first gas chamber in Chicago and we can compare him to Michael Langdon, the Antichrist who started the initiative to kill off the entire population. Next we have Leora Duncan, a woman who works for the population control department; her words and appearance make her seem large and in charge, but similar to Venable, she plays a small self-fulfilling role that has no real importance in the big picture. And of course the main similarity is the death of many people. In Vonnugut’s story, death came primarily on a volunteer basis and in AHS, death was unexpected and forced, still the main drive behind both situations was to control who lived and died on Earth.
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1. Charles C. Mann Decided to step on stage and give a ted talk about the alarming increase in both climate change and population growth. Mann first starts by giving verbal graphs to visualize, we see the from the graphs that the examples that the line flat lines until the 19th century where almost every factor sky rockets. Mann goes on to refer to this as an outbreak. Out breaks end almost always badly, with death or extinction of the outbreak. Man compares us to protozoa. Mann says by 2050 we will have 10 billion people on earth and we have no answers to climate change or how to provide for this population. He refers to wizards as the industrialists and Profits that are the conversationalists who which to reduce and reuse. Major cities are cesspools of corruption and pollution. Wizards want to make everything futuristic and mega cities, while profits look to have smaller communities more connected with the earth. Mann believes that the only way we can truly come to an answer is to combine both thoughts and solutions from both of the parties. This is difficult because the two parties butt heads.
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I saw this random tweet on Twitter talking about suicide and the person states”Suicide doesn’t end the pain; it just passes it on to others”. When i read this post it made me think of our class on Wednesday when we were talking about Millennials and how people seem to always be depressed and say “I should just kill myself”. It also made me think about they story of 2BOR2B where the father killed him self in order that his children could live, but also shooting two others. In a sad way suicide is a way of population control; do I feel that it is the right way, not at all. I strongly believe in a quote that says “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.” The beginning of the year was a got off to a rough start when my family received news of a family member had taken their life on New Year’s Day. To say that life goes on is hard, but true. Life will go on no matter the way that we end this life an move on to the next phase after death, but i feel that the way that we die can alter the way that our love ones have to cope with our death and suicide is one of the harder ways of dealing with such of loss. We have to take every day one step at a time and be thankful for what we have and be grateful for every breath we take.
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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/thinking-matters-critical_b_6317198?
The article published at the Huffpost, “Thinking Matters: Critical Thinking Is Crucial for Success” talks about education becoming bland and uninteresting, leaving students careless for knowledge and how there must be a way to lead students to education success. The article discusses the underlying issue of education in America, that students aren’t capable of applying critical thought to real-world issues and are not able to imply what they learned to their own lives. It implies that with technological advancements on the rise there would be a shift in focus toward learning what is new rather than traditional education. The thought behind teaching critical thinking to students is to have them take given information to evaluate and analyze to form a judgment. This correlates with what we have learned since we have been discussing critical thinking and how it can impact our decisions, depending on if it is implied or not. We analyzed a text discussing a hypothetical world where population control is solved, and human disease is cured allowing for everlasting life and had to apply critical thinking strategies to come up with alternate solutions to the reoccurring issue of population control. I picked the topic of critical thinking because it is a skill that isn’t taught in schools or isn’t emphasized enough to later be nurtured and developed down the road. It is crucial for students to learn this skill because our decisions shape the world we live in. Often not people tend to forget to stop investing so much time into technology and instead invest more in developing our own minds.
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On Twitter a man posted an angry post seemingly to be an attention grabber looking to start a conversation. Upon first glance I processed it as sort of annoying with the intent to keep scrolling, however, to me it felt as if his thought process was shortsighted. So I scrolled back up and kept reading, taking a moment to ponder his idea. When someone takes time to take a stand by posting a bold opinion on social media that would seem to solve an issue are they trying to be an activist and solve the issue or are they just venting? I interpreted the post to have the meaning that poster himself felt as if taking away people’s legal access to guns would limit deaths. As we learned with the prohibition on alcohol taking away something all together only means that people who really want it will just use different channels to obtain it. Those most likely stopped by removing the item altogether would often be the citizens who will not go through the illegal channels to obtain illegal weaponry. These would be the people who in my opinion are not the ones shooting up schools which is what the poster was speaking about. He compared school shootings to population control and added what I interpreted as a snarky comment about removing guns. School shooters are kind of population control they often say their intentions are to have revenge for being treated un fairly or being ignored but the children and teachers lives they are taking were generally not the ones responsible for the reasons the shooters have a feeling of misconduct. The tweet reminds me of an example given in class about Thanos whose goal was to limit everything in half no matter who or what it was so the universes resources would not deplete as quickly. The reason I chose to journal on this persons opinion was the connection to population control which I do agree is population control since it is not effecting the intended victims.
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SJW’s Ruin Movies and Entertainment
SJW’s and political correctness is ruining the film and comic industry. Instead of good story writing and characters that are well developed , writers and producers are pandering to SJW’s or throwing in their own political agendas that turn out plots that make no sense and Mary Sue characters who are all powerful female characters with no flaws no one cares about , disrespecting past characters and established lore ,and dividing the fan base. This has been going on with Marvel with characters like Captain Marvel , and also has destroyed one of the most popular franchises of all time Star Wars. Those who speak out or do not like the film or comic are called racist , nazis , sexist, among many other names by not only these SJW’s but the producers and other people in charge. I personally do not want political agendas in my entertainment i want a good story. I don’t care if the characters are male or female as long as they are well written ones i can connect to. I don’t want the characters of previous stories to be written out of character to prop up new ones with bad story line and poor development and no plot such as in the case of Luke Skywalker in the Disney Sequels and Marvels Iron man who is now a young black female . I don’t care if there is enough diversity or LBGTQ representation for i simply am looking to be entertained , to escape the pressures of the real world , to be thrown into a world of fantasy, fiction , sci-fi and thrillers. I also do not want as a paying customer to be attacked if i don’t like the story lines and characters. i’ve been a fan of Star Wars for over 30 years and since Disney took over the franchise in 2015 , the fan base was divided and Star Wars was destroyed by political and SJW agendas lead by Kathleen Kennedy , horrible story writing and no planning and no accountability. http://mattwilson32.wordpress.com/tag/sjw/ . This blog called The Tropes Of SJW Writing by Matt Wilson describes the different character traits SJW writers create such as how a white man or black women is written . He talks about how plots with well developed characters who are flawed or fail or have a redemption arch are avoided in pursuit of ones who are loved by everyone , overpowered and perfect and have it easy always winning and be female,ethnic minority or gay person of color usually. A good example is Rey from Disney Star Wars. She never trained and was able to defeat a Jedi master and trained dark side force user from the start , knew how to do everything, never failed or struggled , was liked by all other characters . I could not relate to this character and did not care about what happened to her or the new characters . In my opinion SJW and political agendas are destroying the entertainment and literature industry and even education and i respect those like the fandom menace and many others who take a stand and speak out on these issues.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/01/15/rainbowcakewhitefieldacademy/
This article by The Washington Post was brought to my attention as I was scrolling through my twitter feed. “Christian school expels teen after she posed with rainbow birthday cake, mother says”. In summary the article explains, a fifteen-year-old female student who attended Whitefield Academy had been expelled for wearing a rainbow-colored sweater and having a rainbow-colored theme birthday cake. Whitefield Academy is a private Christian school in Louisville, Kentucky. Kayla Kenney was a freshman who had been attending the school. Her mother had uploaded a post on social media of Kayla with her wearing coincidental matching sweater to her themed birthday cake in December at one of her favorite restaurants. Kayla’s mother, Kimberly Alford was later emailed by the school with the attachment of the picture and explained Kayla is terminated from the school for multiple violations, but the school failed to elaborate those violations. Whitefield Academy’s parent student handbook, informs, “the school seeks to work in tandem with children’s families to “Mold students to be Christ-like.” “This includes, but is not limited to, sexual immorality, homosexual orientation, or the inability to support Biblical standards of right and wrong.” Kayla’s mother is upset, due to the fact her daughter is not making a statement on symbolizing LGBTQ community, but it was just coincidence that she had been wearing a sweater that matched her cake. Alford informed Kayla had relocated to a new public school where she seems to be adapting. Questioning the Whitefield academy’s conduct, Alford wondered, “who determines what’s Christ-like?”.
I feel this article connected to our class, it reminded me when we were discussing ignorance and critical thinking. The school expelling the young girl l due to her coincidentally matching aesthetic, which made me question why does Whitefield Academy assume this is a violation and that she is breaking code of conduct policy? As well as I believe it is ignorant that they feel she is sending a message with the colors she has with her in the photos. It made me think critically as we were disclosing in class why is it okay to expel her without the full knowledge or potential of what is actually going on with this photo of a young fifteen year old, who is posing with a rainbow colored cake and similar colored sweater. This made me question and think critically just as the mother did, Who and what determines what is Christ-like, and what if she is symbolizing LGBTQ, who gets to decide that is wrong?
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https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-plans-1-million-people-to-mars-by-2050-2020-1
Elon musk says he plans to send 1 millón people to Mars by 2015 by launching three starship rockets every day creating a lot of jobs on the red planet. The starships that would be designed would be the most powerful launched system ever created each one of those starships would pack enough to send more than 100 tons of items needed to live there. And 100 people into orbit at a time. Musk didn’t specifically say What exactly the Rockets would need to carry to Mars but a lot of water food building materials tools and advanced life support. He states that a total of 1000 starships could hypothetically transport about 100 mega tons of stuff to Mars that’s the volume musk has said he hopes to send to the red planet per year. In addition he also suggests he planned to capitalize on a brief window of time that the orbits of earth and mars align which comes about every 25 months, that allows spacecraft to spring off earth rotations and set them selves on the low few journey towards. He’s hoping to send the first flight in hopefully 2-3 months.
I think this connects to the class because we were discussing about population control sending 1 million people to the red planet would be a way of controlling population. I am sure most of you know that this was in the works but this is all new to me and I did not know that this was a possibility I think it would be a great way to control population. I find it very interesting.
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After discussing critical thinking and the lack there of in the Texas education system, I was curious to see what other sources might think of it as well. I came across an article called, “The Importance of Teaching Critical Thinking” by Lee Watanabee-Crockett, in which Lee clearly describes the benefits of teaching critical thinking. He started off by giving several definitions from differing sources that all basically sum up critical thinking into a few words: analyzing, questioning, and evaluating. Watanabee followed this by explaining how this particular concept can be intimidating to teach as well as learn. However once learned, it can help improve the quality of ones life by simply questioning and evaluating day to day things. It teaches to problem solve, to question what is right and wrong, to not make assumptions, to question not only others thoughts, but your own as well, and much more.
After reading this article and recalling our in-class discussion on critical thinking, I can better understand the importance of the topic and why it is crucial to teach throughout the education system. Critical thinking is not just another class/subject that you take once, barely pass, and forget about. It helps you understand why things are the way they are and if you don’t favor the way they are, to question how you can improve or change them to better suit yourself and others. For example, it can help everyone to make better political decisions to improve the future of our country by rather than voting for something/someone that sounds intriguing, to question the logistics behind them and take every consequence into consideration from several points of view in order to come to a sensible conclusion. Overall, I think Texas is wrong for excluding critical thinking into their educational system due to its importance in our society demonstrated by Lee Watanabe-Crockett.
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In the article “Too Many People: The Case for Population Control” Felix Martin talks about population control. What I learned from this article was that Felix believes that every country needs some type of population control, meaning either bigger, smaller, or constant populations. Felix also talks about the science behind populations and how only so many people can live on earth which is reasonable but you can’t take away people’s reproductive rights so that is where the problem starts. Felix believes the only solution is “a policy of Laissez-faire is the best we can do.”
I chose this article because it talks about population control and I was interested in what a mans perspective of population control was. This topic ties into class because it is a topic that we covered as a genre on critical thinking. This article kept me interested mainly because it was a mans perspective and normally men feel like they cant speak on this topic but I feel like they are apart of the growing population and they shouldn’t be afraid to speak how they feel about population control. I thought it was interesting that his conclusion was just for people to think about it and that he didn’t have much of a solution to the problem.
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https://newrepublic.com/article/114969/too-many-people-case-population-control
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/01/15/rainbowcakewhitefieldacademy/
The Washington Post released an article this week informing, “Christian school expels teen after she posed with rainbow cake, mother says”. As I was scrolling through my twitter feed, this article was brought to my attention. In summarization, a young freshman student in high school had turned fifteen in December, the student, Kayla Kenney attended Whitefield Academy, which is a private Christian school in Louisville, Kentucky. Kenney’s mother, Kimberly Alford had taken her daughter out for her fifteenth birthday to one of her favorite restaurants. Kayla coincidentally was wearing a rainbow-colored sweater that matched to her rainbow-colored birthday cake that her mom (Alford) had ordered for her. Alford had publicly released a photo of her daughter with the cake on Facebook and was later emailed by the school. The email from Whitefield academy contained an attachment of the picture she had put on social media of her daughter along with a message that Kayla is expelled from Whitefield Academy, due to her violations. The school exclaimed that “the decision was a result of two years of conduct violations but failed to elaborate.” Alford acknowledged she is aware that the rainbow sign is a symbol of LGBTQ community, but she made it a point that her daughter’s cake and sweater were a coincidence and meant nothing more. Kayla believed she had done nothing wrong. The Whitefield academy’s handbook for students and parents includes, “the school seeks to work in tandem with children’s families to “mold students to be Christ-like”. This includes, but is not limited to, sexual immorality, homosexual orientation, or the inability to support Biblical standards or right and wrong.” Alford said that her daughter transitioned to public school and she “seems to be adapting.” Alford questions the Whitefield Academy’s policy and wonders, “Who determines what’s Christ-like?”
I feel the article connected with our class because of the critical thinking skills that are presented in it and the ignorance. The mother and the daughter both questioned the school. I questioned the article myself, why does this school assume it is okay to expel this young freshman girl because of what she was wearing and the color of her cake? Why is this okay? I feel the ignorance towards the school for believing the student is perpetuating unethical behavior. What really brought my attention is when the mother used critical thinking towards the school, questioning, “who determines what’s Christ-like?”, I couldn’t agree more.
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In the article that I have picked, it goes over a list of 10 important reasons as to why we should educate the young population about sex, The list of 10 also goes over the reasons why we should support sex education in schools. There are studies presented to us about the Youth Risk Behavioral Surveillance Survey, or YRBSS, in 2015, 41% of high school students had had sex at least once. Eleven-and-a-half percent had had four or more sexual partners. Fifty-seven percent of sexually active students had used condoms the last time they had sex, but only 18 percent had used birth control pills. The article touches on how its important to educate our kids on being safe and to do so they need to know how to take care of themselves and taking care of themselves if there sexually active in reality is beneficial for everyone they come encounter with. Also just teaching to say no to sexual acts doesn’t help those who say “yes”. Comprehensive sex encourages abstinence, not ignorance !
I chose this article because of the population control conversation we sparked up in class and what we should do to help prevent over population. I really believe that if there was a real sex education course required in schools there would be less pregnancies at a young age and sexual transmitted disease passed along from young adult to young adult. Having the young public informed eliminates risk of over populating and also cuts out the embarrassment of possibly catching an STD and not asking for help (which prevents STD spread). In another article that I read about young teen pregnancies I found some reasoning that connects a bit more to the consequences of having a child so young. https://www.kidsdata.org/topic/60/teen-births/summary?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIoLaw7eqX5wIVUR6tBh3mzwl1EAAYAiAAEgIi__D_BwE it is estimated that adolescent births cost society billions of dollars annually, due to lost productivity and costs related to health care, foster care, and incarceration.
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http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/noam_chomsky_spells_out_the_purpose_of_education.html
1. This text explores and summarizes a speech made by Noam Chomsky, a world renown philosopher, who talked about the importance of education. In the article, the author describes the distinction between education and indoctrination. He states that education is the process of learning to think critically, to be able to use logic and reason to objectively asses information. He states that indoctrination is becoming more prevalent in the school system. Indoctrination is the opposite of education as it is, rather than thinking critically, following orders and doing what your told. It’s believing information not because of individual, critical thought or assessment, but purely because that’s what your peers told you to believe. Noam Chomsky discusses that it is imperative we diminish the use of indoctrination and encourage education, critical thought. He says that the purpose of education is for a person to cultivate their own point of view. A person should learn the skill of creating sound and well informed beliefs. They should challenge authority, tradition, and the status quo. Chomsky then discussed the nature of technology in today’s learning. His views on this were quite neutral as he states it’s largely up the individual using it if it will prove to be a benefit or detriment to their learning process.
This article connects to our class extensively. The article discusses the necessity of critical thought. The class is literally called critical thinking. Chomsky, if nothing else, validates the existence and importance of this class. He shows that ignorance is never the answer. He shows that we must question everything we come in contact with. We must form thought for ourselves and learn how to logically reach those thoughts. We must question the world, those in authority, and ourselves.
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https://www.wabisabilearning.com/blog/critical-thinking-benefits
In the article above, it explains 6 ways critical thinking is an important thing to do. The way I mostly understood the article is that, if you want to know multiple ways to solve a problem, then you should thinking about it from a numerous amount of perspectives. After that, you should pick the perspective that seems to be the best one in your opinion. Everybody has a problem that they want to solve, and that’s the reason they go out and do things. If they do things out of love, then that’s amazing and there should be no expectations around love. However, the reason people go out and do things is because they want something they don’t have and they venture out to get it. Critical thinking helps you get there in so many different types of ways. It allows us to learn what worked, what didn’t, and what should be. Critical thinking is an essential life skill and without it, we would all be robots.
I picked this article because it’s what this whole class is about. Critical thinking. Every time this class meets, I am mentally drained because of the amount of critical thinking that is required to understand everything that was lectured about. And it’s a good thing! Usually when we’re tired we resort to being negative and moody but we all eventually recharge at some point. I chose this article mainly to highlight the benefits of a great skill. A specific topic did not come to mind when trying to choose an article. It also worries me that in some areas, students are being taught to not think critically.
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