Professionals vs the community

Through high school I was very active on an online video game forum. This was when I first noticed people's tendency to hate wrong information on the internet. People would correct each other over and over and a topic that was left unsolved would always be active until THE right answer was found or the argument turned into a slew of insults. During this time I also noticed tension between the opinions of the members of the forum. Some members believed that the best "strategy" for the game was that which the professional players were using with no possible deviation (or only minor deviations in the right situation) from that strategy. Others believed that strategies they had tried in their games would be useful and they would try to figure out other strategies that should work either mathematically or rationally. These two viewpoints would often conflict with the former side usually saying that if the strategy was good enough the professionals would already be using it. That reasoning doesn't make complete sense though. Professionals, or experts, although very knowledgeable can't know everything. The collaboration between people can sometimes come up with new insights. Bias is also greatly reduced when a large number of people teach compared to one person.

I find communal acquisition more useful than authoritative acquisition usually. In a philosophy class for example, there are multiple points of view for any subject. Although the teacher will try to be objective and present each side equally, it is usually very clear which side the teacher likes the best. The students then don't worry about learning why that side is better for their own reasons but rather why the teacher thinks that side is better so that they can appease the teacher. The same happens in math classes where a particular approach to solving a problem is preferred by the teacher and that is the one that is learned by the students instead of exploration of other methods. Bias can never be completely removed but communal knowledge can greatly reduce it which is what makes communal knowledge so valuable.

What would an apology accomplish?

For this offense I believe an apology would accomplish a lot. For the headline writer especially, a good apology might decide whether he gets another job in the same field as he was working before. As such an unpopular figure currently no company in their right mind will hire him and let him start writing headlines again. After proving his remorse however he could maybe be trusted. For the man who said the racial slur on air, an apology might help restore his image slightly although at the same time a bad apology might further hurt his image. The apology he did issue contained the phrase "My wife is Asian" which was not appreciated by many Asian people. ESPN has the most to gain from an apology. As an entire organization they need to make it clear that this behavior is unacceptable from their employees. They are supposed to be the "worldwide leader in sports" and as so racism can't be a part of their company. Treating the situation well might even inspire admiration and make them more likable than they were before.

ESPN's racist bluders

This scandal involves 2 incidents in which a "racist phrase" was both published and said over the air by ESPN employees. The phrase, "Chink in the Armor," was used to describe a loss for the New York Knicks after the uprising of Jeremy Lin's  fame. The men who said and published the phrase have maintained that they did not mean the phrase in any racist or negative way. Regardless, the company apologized for the statements and released their apology on their website found here. The issue is whether the statement deserved apology, by whom the apology should have been given, and whether the actions taken by ESPN were reasonable and satisfactory. The accompanying video found on that website makes the case for the side that argues that ESPN acted too quickly and the measures they took were too severe while also discussing the over sensitivity of race in America.

Critical Thinking

Important aspects of critical thinking are synthesizing, applying, and evaluating. These skills are important because in order to think critically you need to be able to come up with a wide array of ideas and then apply them to whatever problem or scenario is at hand and finally evaluate which one is the best. Evaluation is the most important of these three because it is what leads to the final result. It is easy to come up with a lot of ideas, they just will probably not all be good ideas. Evaluating which one is the best idea, without bias, will give the best result.

Another crucial part of critical thinking that the readings mentioned is that it has to be self driven and self disciplined. There is no point in knowing how to think critically if you don't force yourself do it and make sure you do it at the utmost quality. For really smart people, from my experience, this is a problem because they're used to always being right and just trust themselves to be right all the time and so although they do know how to think critically they don't always practice it. Practicing critical thinking, and having the drive to do it is what we should probably be teaching students in college but as a student, I know checking my work is boring so I don't know how well that would be received.

Hotel California

I chose "Hotel California" as my song for this essay mostly because I've loved the song since I was a little kid. I don't know when I first heard the song but I do remember my uncle frequently playing it in car rides with my cousins through L.A. living our own California Dream. Back then I didn't know the lyrics to the song, well besides the chorus, and I certainly didn't know what the lyrics actually meant or even what the song was about. I simply liked it because it sounded good. Although I still like how it sounds, it has a very unique style that's not found in many other songs, I've learned more of the lyrics and like the message I think it's trying to convey. When this essay was assigned I immediately thought of this song and how it would be fun, somewhat, to go dive deeper into the lyrics and get a better understanding about what the song is trying to say.

California Dream

The California Dream, aside from the aspirations of fame and fortune, is a search for adventure and excitement. People don't simply want to go to California to get rich. Although wealth was the primary reason people first began migrating to California, it later did not become as important as it was. As cited in our readings, many people who moved to California were not particularly poor. What did attract them to California was the warm weather, the pretty lights, and basically the escape from the monotony of their homes in the Midwest. Winters in the Midwest are hard and dull. Making snow men and snow angels is fun but only for so long. It would be much more fun to be at the beach in the middle of January instead of wearing 5 layers and sitting by the fire. This year-round excitement is what many people wanted.

That is only one aspect to the California Dream however. The more well known "California Dream" is the hope of fame and fortune. Whether this is the "dream" that attracted the majority of people to California is debatable but it is certainly the better documented one. It is more interesting and exciting to read about rags to riches stories or horror stories of failure and depression. Nearly no one would want to read a story about meager living...