Robust Verbs

Posted on October 27, 2020 by oaktree1234

In Vancouver, there is a detrimental problem with heroin addicts committing crimes to support their habits. The “free heroin for addicts” program can stop this. Heroine addiction makes it nearly impossible for users to matin relationships, hold a job, and perform everyday activities. Although this solution won’t help to ween these addicts off using heroin, the program will get addicts off the streets, lowering the overall crime rate. This will also keep the heroin users out of the hospitals, making more health professionals available to other treat patients. Giving addicts their heroine in a safe and controlled manner is beneficial for the the individual and the rest of the community.

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Robust Verbs- runnerd4

Posted on October 27, 2020 by runnerd4

original: There is a huge problem in Vancouver with heroin addicts committing crimes to support their habits. The “free heroin for addicts” program is doing everything they can to stop the addicts. The problem is that there is a large crime rate due to the addicts. It is obvious that addicts have a hard time getting through their day to day lives. Daily activities such as jobs, interactions, and relationships are hard to maintain because of the fact that they are using. By heroin users being addicted, they will do whatever they have to do to get their hands on the drug. The types of crimes committed are those of breaking and entering as well as stealing. There are no limits to where they will go to retrieve this drug so that they can feed their addiction. The problem with this program is that it won’t help to ween these addicts off using heroin. It is only trying to save the city from rising crime rates that they’re up to. By providing the drug, these addicts will be off the streets, which in turn will prevent them from committing minor street crimes. This will also keep the heroin users out of the hospital. It is pointless that the hospitals have to deal with people that want to use bad drugs or unsanitary needles and find themselves being unable to afford hospital bills and hard to cope without the drug. This program gives people free heroin in the cleanest way possible. This will in turn fix the city  but not the addiction that these people face.

revised:

Vancouver suffers a high crime rate due to heroin addicts committing crimes to support their habits. Heroin addicts will do anything to get their hands on the drug, including breaking and entering and stealing. Addicts’ usage of heroin makes going about their day to day life very difficult because they are unable to maintain jobs and strong relationships. The “free heroin for addicts” program is attempting to solve issues with the addicts and lower the crime rates by offering free heroin. The program does not help the addicts get off the drug, it simply reduces the crime rate. This program does keeps the addicts out of the hospital by providing them with clean needles to inject the heroin. Avoiding the hospital helps the people who are unable to pay for the hospital bills. The “free heroin for addicts” program will help with the quality of the city, but not with the addiction problem.

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Causal Argument – clementine

Posted on October 26, 2020 by clementine102

Guilt Trauma And Reluctancy With Abortions

            The long process of pregnancy can make a woman go from having a determined abortion to having reluctance on making the decision to have that procedure done. Those women who become reluctant over the course of their pregnancy, inevitably face a phycological process that is natural and can’t go away. It is also undeniable that if you are reluctant to make a decision that can significantly impact your life, especially if you’ve made a decision that you already regret, you experience stress and mainly guilt. Having guilt can be unbearable to live with, especially if you believe you took away a human life. Woman who abort reluctantly in the third trimester are more likely to have guilt trauma. 

            One question that can be answered through research is that to why a lot of pregnant woman would feel reluctant to have an abortion by the third trimester in the first place. When a woman is pregnant, there is a developmental relationship between the unborn fetus and it’s mother. Since the fetus is quite literally attached to the mother, there is an obvious physical connection between them. Surprisingly, there is a psychological connection between the mother and the fetus as well. According to Journal of Reproductive and Infant Phycology, the MFR (Mother Fetus Relationship) grows the longer they are pregnant. Like normal relationships, the more you put into the relationship, the more you are likely to grow and become more attached to it. For example, a woman who treats her body well by eating healthy is subconsciously demonstrating care and commitment for the fetus without her ever having the intentions to care and commit for it. Being able to physically feel the fetus move around their stomach creates intimacy between the two. Furthermore, the saying “Seeing is Believing” is quite true in the third trimester since the article Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms Following Childbirth: Associations with Prenatal Attachment in Subsequent Pregnancies states that more than fifty two percent of woman have more of an attachment to the fetus once she sees her stomach bulging. All of these examples of the MFR are unavoidable when pregnant in the third trimester. When the fetus is displaying signs of life inside the woman, everyone can agree that pregnant woman might have second thoughts on terminating the baby. Woman go through reluctancy mostly because they create a relationship with the baby without ever having the intention to.  There are many more examples of the unavoidable intimacy between the MFR which doesn’t stray away from the fact that woman still go through with abortions even though she creates a bond with the fetus in the third trimester. 

            When having guilt, it is to be described that you are to recognize/believe that your thoughts, feelings, or actions have violated personal and/or moral standards of behavior values, believing one is responsible for the event, perceived lack of justification for behavior, and/or beliefs that the event was foreseeable and thus preventable according to Dimensions of Decision Difficulty in Women’s Decision-Making About Abortion: A Mixed Methods Longitudinal Study. It could be argued that woman who do not feel reluctant to have an abortion does not induce guilt because most who don’t feel reluctant believe that abortion doesn’t violate their own moral standards. For someone who feels reluctant, based on the information that is stated above, inevitably experiences things in their third trimester that might go against their formally established moral standards. However, whether a pregnant woman is in her first or third trimester, they will have internal conflict since the fetus’s intimacy with the mother is already there. To cope with this conflict, the mother either decides if she is the “victim” or “aggressor” of abortion subconsciously. If she is the victim, the mother is already going through traumatic guilt and stress but if she thinks she is the aggressor and wanting to get rid of the baby for sure, she is trying to get it over with and put her feelings aside because the abortion is what she needs to do. Being the “aggressor” will not cause as much guilt as the “victim” because the mother made the decision that it was something she needed to do. Both the “victim” and the “aggressor” will experience guilt, but the “victim” puts the blame on themselves, which ultimately causes more guilt in them according to Post Abortion Stress. About forty-seven percent of eighty who had a third trimester abortion in a phycological test study by revealed that their brain wanted to avoid their guilt as much as possible. You could conclude that the forty percent of woman felt like they were a “victim” in the act of their abortion. A pregnant woman who is reluctant about having an abortion feels like they are a “victim” since she is subconsciously recognizing that she could of prevented the abortion and it was also foreseeable. Whether a pregnant woman is an “aggressor” or a “victim”, they both experience guilt but the differences that the “victim” recognizes things before the “aggressor” does before getting the abortion. The attitude of being a victim pours into the argument that feeling reluctant about going through with an abortion causes massive amounts of guilt. 

            Reluctancy to go through an abortion is caused by the uncontrollable intimacy you have in the three trimester you carry the baby for which ultimately makes the mother go through more guilt trauma. Guilt comes into play even before the mother even goes through the pregnancy if she is feeling reluctant about it. That is shown through the relationship mothers make with the baby without having the intent to. For a mother who is not reluctant to have an abortion in the third trimester, she doesn’t have as nearly as much as guilt as if someone who is reluctant because having reluctancy shows that they could of prevented it from happening. Prenatal attachment and many more MFR factors affects the reluctancy of woman who are planning an abortion which causes intense guilt trauma when they go through with the abortion. 

References 

Barnard, C. A. (1991). Post Abortion Stress. Retrieved October 27, 2020, from http://lifeissues.net/writers/air/air_vol3no4_1991.html

“Dimensions of Decision Difficulty in Women’s Decision-Making About Abortion: A Mixed Methods Longitudinal Study.” PloS one 14.2 (2019): e0212611–e0212611. Web.

Garthus-Niegel, Susan et al. “Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms Following Childbirth: Associations with Prenatal Attachment in Subsequent Pregnancies.” Archives of women’s mental health 23.4 (2020): 547–555. Web.

 Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology (Online). London: Carfax Pub., Taylor & Francis Group, 1983. Print.

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Causal Argument – l8tersk8ter

Posted on October 26, 2020 by l8tersk8ter

Competitive Teamwork Boosts Self-Esteem

Requiring teens to participate in activities where they could potentially come out as losers will help boost their self-esteem. This is because competitive events among all ages, but especially among adolescents, have no real losers. If these adolescents are forced to be on a competitive team, both losing, winning, and just being on a team in general will provide them with social and life experiences that will lead them to thrive. If you have ever participated in a competition and lost there are no doubt negative feelings that arise, but the reaction to those feelings is what becomes important to the mental state of an individual. Adolescents would ultimately benefit both socially and just overall in life skills if they were required to participate in competition with a team of any kind.

In an analysis of adolescent extracurricular activity, Andrew M. Guest and Nick McRee state that around 75% of youths in grades 7 through 12 already participate in at least one extracurricular activity during the school year. This is a large percentage of adolescents that are already on board to be involved, and likely are involved because they enjoy the activities and all that they gain from them. While these activities may not all be of competitive nature these kids are still willing to be involved and will be easier adjusted to competition based extracurriculars. This means only 25% of adolescents in this age range would be joining a competitive team from currently not be involved with school activities at all, which is a pretty low percentage that could possibly oppose.

The most obvious opposition to making adolescents participate in any sort of competition is that the inevitable failures that will ensue will be harmful. However, these failures are the exact reason competition is beneficial to the teenage mind. The Canadian Journal published a Do Youth Learn Life Skills Through Their Involvement In High School Sport? A Case Study. This study followed a boys high school soccer team, players and coaches, through their academics and athletics to see if their sport participation benefited them in their day to day life. The head coach in this study valued the philosophy of developing personal relationships with the players. He found it important to teach them that even when one cannot change a situation, they can change their attitude about the situation. It is this concept that turns failure into success. While the game or match or whatever was taking place may go in the books as a loss, the lessons learned from the failure are positive outcomes in the midst of disappointment. Learning how to find the positives in that situation is a valuable lesson about not dwelling in defeat. Very few people make it through life without experiencing a setback or some type of adversity. When this happens there is always the option to give up and succumb to the failure. If these adolescents are taught through competition how to cope properly and move forward from disappointment then in the future, they will be more likely to keep pushing towards success. Another important lesson from failure is how to improve oneself. If you lose the scholastic competition because you got a few too many questions wrong you will study a little harder before the next one. If you lose the soccer game because you missed a few too many shots then you’ll practice even harder so it doesn’t happen again. Failure drives hard work and effort to improve and avoid failing again.

According to another case study by Pedersen and Seidman, Team Sports Achievement and Self-Esteem Development Among Urban Adolescent Girls, when the teen girls got involved in sports their self-evaluations increased to a more positive nature. The case study focused on adolescent girls involvement with team sports and they had the girls take assessments that measured their personal view of themselves overall. It was hypothesized and proven that the self-perception of success in a team sport can be connected to the global self-esteem of adolescent girls. Their results were a constant finding across various races and ethnicities. It was also evaluated in the context of those with low socioeconomic status. The most important part of their findings is that it’s the self-perceived success that pushes their self-esteem in the right direction. This doesn’t always mean success in the competitive match. There are various ways to find micro successes through team participation and competing. They can set personal goals, such as reaching a certain level of a fitness test, and if this is achieved, they will feel good about themselves. They could answer more questions right during academic club than they did last time, and even if they still get some wrong, they are happy with the success they were able to achieve. Everyone has different measures of success and our goals for ourselves are constantly changing and be met and remolded in a cyclic process. The positive sport self-evaluation led to an increase in general positive self-esteem. There are many other areas to find success that encourage a positive self-image. Positive reinforcement can nurse good feelings about ones participation. Getting into the game and making a play or helping out a team gives a feeling of worth and usefulness. This contribution to the team makes someone feel good about themselves when they know they are helping their team out. Simple pride in ones actions can positively influence the way someone feels about themselves.

In the study A School-Level Analysis of Adolescent Extracurricular Activity, Delinquency, and Depression: The Importance of Situational Context the authors Guest and McRee point out the potential for all the possible benefits of competitive teamwork to disappear if the activities are not properly constructed. While there are benefits in both the good and bad situations, there is still opportunity for negative to take over. This is avoided mainly by the proper guidance of coaches, club leaders and even parents or other family members. They need to be encouraging and willing to teach the life lessons that are available. Constant tearing down of players by the adults around them will harm them mentally instead of help. This can be combatted by aiming focus towards positive youth development. If activities are carefully constructed and supervised, they can maximize the positive outcomes.

References

Guest, Andrew M., and Nick McRee. “A School-Level Analysis of Adolescent Extracurricular Activity, Delinquency, and Depression: The Importance of Situational Context.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence, vol. 38, no. 1, 2008, pp. 51–62., doi:10.1007/s10964-008-9279-6.

Holt, Nicholas L., et al. “Do Youth Learn Life Skills through Their Involvement in High School Sport? A Case Study.” Canadian Journal of Education, vol. 31, no. 2, May 2008, pp. 281–304. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=508035517&site=ehost-live.

Pedersen, Sara, and Edward Seidman. “Team Sports Achievement and Self-Esteem Development Among Urban Adolescent Girls.” Psychology of Women Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 4, 2004, pp. 412–422., doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.2004.00158.x.

Posted in Causal Argument, l8tersk8ter, Portfolio L8terSk8ter | 11 Comments

Causal Argument — SmilingDogTheProfWants

Posted on October 26, 2020 by SmilingDogTheProfWants

Childhood Obesity is a Chosen Lifestyle

Regardless of parents trying their best, if it weren’t for children choosing heavy desires for the most stimulating things like video games, tv, Avoiding situation that could cause insults, and fast food over listening to their parents and playing outside they wouldn’t be obese. A child makes these choices that are common sense, pleasure above all else and that lifestyle has consequences. The reason children are obese is because they want fast food more than other alternatives. A child only wants the sugary, salty, greasy food because it’s appealing to what they love and crave. If the children didn’t cry over the food then most parents wouldn’t get it for them because they know what issues come with it. A parent can’t be held responsible for the desires of their child or how their mind works, so obesity cannot be directly controlled by the parents, but rather, by the child.

The responsibility of a child wanting to watch YouTube over playing outside falls on the child, not the parent. A child may avoid going outside to watch the newest video of something that peaks their interests like any adult would consider doing, but when that becomes a normality then the child’s health is put at risk. YouTube, though entertaining and markets themselves to be appealing to everyone and especially kids in modern day, isn’t to blame, at least not entirely, because There are so many programs and activities for kids that they shouldn’t need Youtube to entertain them and in areas that don’t have funding, there are always some required after school activities that the school must have for them to do. To get a child a hobby at a young age is beneficial in so many more ways than just keeping them active but it’s definitely a great way to stay active and avoid sitting still for so long. The health of a child is important because they don’t know what’s best for them but you still want them to be happy and dealing with obesity due to a lack of exercise is something that if they could grasp, they would thank you for. YouTube attracts the child’s interests but so can playing a game of tag outside, as long as the child has played a game of tag then they will understand that both YouTube and tag are fun things to do and they make the choice of one over the other.

We hear more and more about how funding is needed to put forth educational and physical programs outside and inside schools to try to prevent, alleviate, and solve the obesity issues in our youth, yet the only thing that is focused on is the need for more funding and the correct targeted audience. Most programs warn you about the health issues of being obese and the statistics that show high mortality rates and the lack of energy, which are true, but the issue doesn’t just lie with the obese children, but with everyone. If a community is established so everyone wants to eat healthy and exercise then the whole will benefit rather than singling out overweight kids and telling them they might die if they keep eating like they do, because then the kids aren’t going to care because everyday they wake up and feel fine as the issues become apparent into early adulthood when it’s the most difficult time for them to lose that weight. If you send in a representative of a program to talk to kids in a classroom about the issues of obesity and how to fix it most kids are going to ignore it because most aren’t obese, statistically only about 1-4 are in a class around 20 students large. The targeted audience is ignored because the leaders can’t claim a kid is overweight and group him with a bunch of overweight and obese children to talk to them, because other students will make fun of them and parents would be angry that a random person acclaimed their kid is overweight. But these programs are relatively good for the child and should at least be explored, however, the child doesn’t want people to make fun of them so they lose out on their opportunity. (other children may be to blame but it’s still the child’s choice to not exercise or stop eating junk food). If you educate the kids the right way then more results will follow.

For better or for worse, parents can’t force their kids to do too much and children find it more and more acceptable to disobey their parents and go against their wishes as time goes on. These parents don’t have the ability/time to work on a child’s small issues with the complicated world around their children. As a result of this inability and lack of time we find the parents forcing the schools to educate their children on things they might not fully understand. When a child can’t understand the issue or are too afraid of what others think they start to get worried, for example a child who thinks they’re overweight when they aren’t, might start eating less, which to some, would be a good thing as it seems like eating a little is a good diet but a kid shouldn’t have social standards forced on them for no good reason. Weight can be controlled and good eating and exercise can be established early, but that falls to the time that the parents have to encourage their child to do hold to those habits.

References

Committee, O. O. P. P. F., Institute, O. M., & Early, C. O. P. P. (2011). Early childhood obesity prevention policies. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Institute, O. M., Food, A. N. B., & Committee, O. P. I. P. C. (2007). Progress in preventing childhood obesity : How do we measure up?. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Institute, O. M., Board, O. H. P. A. D., Food, A. N. B., & Committee, O. P. O. O. I. (2005). Preventing childhood obesity : Health in the balance. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Posted in Causal Argument, Portfolio SmilingDogTheProfWants, SmilingDogTheProfWants | 6 Comments

Causal Argument-shadowswife

Posted on October 26, 2020 by shadowswife

People worldwide have been more vigilant when it comes to identifying the factors that are being appropriated by other cultures. One of the issues that have come to the attention in relation to cultural appropriation is noted in the music industry. In this area, music artists utilize other music artists’ styles in music without recognition of its historical importance that is particular to that culture. These factors may include concepts in music, a person’s preference in fashion, the food someone eats, neighborhoods, crime, and how language is used. With this in mind, Korean-pop appropriation and exploitation of historical Black music in the United States without recognition of facts has become an issue. In this example, K-pop artists have been noted for the use of Black music concepts, behavior, and language without recognition of its importance to Black artists for self-fame and fortune. Thus, because of this cultural appropriation by K-pop artists, the idea of exploitation has come to be questioned.

To further explain the concept of cultural appropriation, there is a need to define it. Cultural appropriation is the ignorance or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas from other marginalized groups, particularly groups who have even less social or economic power with the purpose of exploiting the culture for economic or social gain, provides the premise for a deeper dive into an oppressed societal structure, unfair practices in economic gains and cultural exploitation. Further, the literature suggests that culture’s appropriation has led to inaccurate depictions of cultures, negative stereotypes, and plagiarism of popular culture and music without attribution. The concept of appropriation and the misuse of power in societal and economic realms have contributed to increasing conflict within cultural subsets. This, in turn, not only undermines cultural relevance, but it is exploitative of subordinated groups.

In a similar manner, cultural exploitation denotes the taking of elements of an oppressed society by a dominant culture without equal exchange, consent, or remuneration. In instances in which cultural exploitation is evident, the lack of choice or control is prominent. Often, the dominant political strength and economic influence render the sending culture powerless. Governments utilize their power to subjugate oppressed societies into submission, such as imposing organized religion on ethnic groups who otherwise may not have subscribed to the dominant culture religious viewpoints. Cultural exploitation can be further observed in current social occurrences as well. As racial tensions continue to escalate in modern society, cultural exploitation permeates in music and fashion. Lyrics and genres, such as hip hop, have met with controversy and hostility. Hip-hop artists, writers, and producers continue to combat the challenges of foreign companies’ misuse of the genre for economic gain without appropriate attribution or respect.

Regarding the cultural appropriation and exploitation of music, Black music artists have endured misused of their music concept by other cultures. African Americans are credited with developing not only hip hop but also jazz, blues, and rock and roll. Artists like Muddy Waters, Skip James, and Howlin’ Wolf are noted for their significant contributions to the music industry. While these and many other Black artists have received recognition for their contributions to the music industry in the United States, other artists have received negative publicity for exploiting Black artist’s music. One group, in particular, is K-pop artists who have utilized popular parts of hip hop culture and music yet do not understand the implications of racism and oppress black artists have been through. American hip-hop has been portrayed with exaggeration and stereotypes of Black Americans, such as “gangstas” and rowdy behavior. In addition, their body movements and clothing accessories are exaggerated to portray a hardcore gangster look. K-pop artists managed to adapt and modify this portrayal of American hip-hop culture to be more toned down for their own style in K-pop.

The idea that K-pop appropriation of Black music is a single-minded idea created by the artists themselves seems to be multifactorial in the application. Korean music industry moguls are actively soliciting to collaborate in hip hop influenced Korean music, yet do not compensate inadequately to artists who represent the genre. There are numerous successful songs in K-pop that have been written and produced by Black Americans. However, despite K-pop being heavily reliant on hip hop and black culture, they give little to no support towards black lives. Korean music companies would look for inspiration from the west and take anything that can be useful in appealing to the audience. Coincidentally, they took an interest in black culture and attempted to take anything from it without giving them the credit they deserved.

K-pop culture and music has continued to benefit economically without providing the appropriation to the hip hop genre’s culture and history. South Korea has been notorious for taking things from what they have observed and adapting it into their own style. In fact, various artists in the industry have been lucky enough to get away with appropriating black hip hop culture, yet can have detrimental outcomes. Despite artists such as BTS and CL being greatly favored internationally, their tendency to appropriate black culture and remix the hip hop genre can lead to tension with other hip hop artists. Consequently, this can lead to economic, social, and political ramifications.

Despite controversy and inequities which continue to persist, there also is a movement promoting inclusivity, respect, and understanding of other cultures. Education is crucial in comprehending the differences in appropriation and appreciation. In appreciating cultural or cultural appreciation, one honors and values another culture and its customs as a way to gain awareness and respect. Whereas if practices or use of cultural items exploits another culture or reaps, the economic gain may be perceived as appropriation. Misuse of items such as chopsticks other than for eating can be deemed as appropriation. Cultural appreciation allows for deep-rooted respect, in instances where there is a genuineness to appreciate other ethnic groups, asking permission to use cultural things, utilizing the object specifically as they are intending, researching the culture, asking questions, and acknowledging the limitations in knowing the culture.

References

Dreher, B. (2019, October 24). Here’s What ‘Cultural Appropriation’ Actually Means – and Why It’s Wrong. Retrieved from https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/g28400114/cultural-appropriation-definition-examples/

Luna, E. D. (2020, July 20). ‘They use our culture’: The Black creatives and fans holding K-pop accountable. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/jul/20/k-pop-black-fans-creatives-industry-accountable-race

Oh, C. (2014, September 23). Performing Post-Racial Asianness: K-Pop’s Appropriation of Hip-Hop Culture: Congress on Research in Dance Conference Proceedings. Retrieved from https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/congress-on-research-in-dance/article/performing-postracial-asianness-kpops-appropriation-of-hiphop-culture/A494315072BD5609BB1B19AC8C19D0B2

There would be no K-pop without cultural appropriation. Is that bad? (2018, October 17). Retrieved from https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2168815/k-pop-ultimate-cultural-appropriation-or-south-korea-improving?utm_source=email&utm_medium=share_widget&utm_campaign=2168815

Rogers, R. A. (2006, November). From Cultural Exchange to Transculturation: A Review and

    Reconceptualization of Cultural Appropriation [PDF]. file:///C:/Users/Jet2019/Downloads/

    From_Cultural_Exchange_to_Transculturation_A_Revie.pdf

Posted in Causal Argument, shadowswife | 4 Comments

Causal Argument – gooferious

Posted on October 26, 2020 by gooferious

The Journey of Trauma

Trauma comes in many shapes and sizes. Trauma can lead to self-destructive decisions or one-sided friendships. What occurs to us when we are children or as we are transitioning into the real adult world, that hurt and pain follows us and sometimes never dissipates. Take for example, the child who witnessed their father aggressively beating their mother everyday for as long as they can remember. Every hit, smack and grunt is permanently stuck in that child’s brain. As they grow older, violence seems to be the answer to everything. That kid who took your toy train while you were in the bathroom, simply hit them when the teachers not looking because that’s what they were taught. Taught to be silent when it came to abuse, the child believes it to be okay almost normal. How this trauma would effect the child later in life cannot be described. So many different possibilities that could come out from this abusive childhood experience; many horrible, few pleasant. One way to save this child from a life filled with rage and anger is to be sent to therapy. Not many agree with therapy but it may be the only solution to the problem. Of course, as the children age they will believe nothing is wrong with them but that’s up to the therapist to decide as they are professionally trained in this field of work. Forcing young adults into therapy rather than the voluntary choice will increase the likelihood of them becoming outstanding members of society.

Society has a way of making those with mental illnesses appear to be bad, some would even go as far as to say dangerous. Who in their right mind would believe their child to be capable of performing unspeakable acts against another human being? It’s been proven that those who go to therapy come out with a better sense of self. Young adults who go into therapy come out rehabilitated and are ready to explore their new found ideologies. What exactly leads a person to go to therapy though could be one of many things: either a traumatic abusive childhood, a vehicle accident that permanently scarred someone, overwhelming long periods of stress and list goes on. Various authors came together to write the article titled: Delivering Cognitive Behavior Therapy to Young Adults With Symptoms of Depression and Anxiety Using a Fully Automated Conversational Agent (Woebot): A Randomized Controlled Trial. In said article, it is stated that up to 74% of mental health diagnoses have their first onset before the age of 24. The human brain doesn’t even finish developing until the age of 25 and already almost 3/4 of those who have mental health disorders are experiencing emotions which lead to disastrous decisions which in turn cause the not finished developing brain to damage or stunt growth in development. Among the young adults who are in college, almost half have said that they have experienced anxiety and depression symptoms so severe that they had difficulty functioning. Imagine being along at college and not being able to do basic necessities for yourself such as cooking, bathing or even getting a good night’s rest. Therapy while not everyone’s first choice has for the most part been successful in rehabilitating those who have experienced upsetting life events. Even if one believes therapy is not the option for them, research shows that for the most part it very well likely could be the answer that they are letting fly over their heads.

The result of trauma is most of the time but not always, anxiety and depression. According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), anxiety disorders are the most common mental health illness in the United States effecting an estimated 40 million adults aged 18+. Going based off their statistics and research, anxiety disorders can be very well treated yet only 37% of those effected receive treatment. While some factors include: not having a therapy center nearby or cost of treatment; most of the time those effected don’t attend because of the stigma and shame they believe comes with having a mental health illness. There is of course nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to having a mental health issue but knowing that there are options out there for treatment and refusing those options simply because one is afraid of what society will think of them should be deemed shameful. In the ADAA’s article titled: Facts & Statistics, one of the leading causes of anxiety disorders arise from life events to be specific, traumatic life events. One way of life that could result in developing a mental illness comes from childhood trauma which leads to rebellion during the teen years which leads to substance abuse which then leads to substance dependency and at this point it’s significantly harder to accept the fact that therapy and rehabilitation are the answers to those suffering’s prayers.

Untreated anxiety and depression can lead some to a life filled with pain, suffering and misery. Imagine hating what you have become from the result of what has happened to you earlier in life. One could place the blame on the perpetrators that caused such ill natured experiences but after a certain age, it becomes the responsibility of those effected to seek out professional help should they need it. The article Characteristics and one-year outcome of untreated anxiety and depression written by I.M.J van Beljouw and P.F.M Verhaak used information from a study conducted by the Netherlands Study of Anxiety and Depression (NESDA) regarding untreated anxiety disorders among patients. From the study which had a huge patient experimental number of 743 patients drew the conclusion that 43% of those diagnosed received no form of treatment. Of those untreated patients: 1/4 of them did not perceive themselves as having a mental problem, another 26% stated no need for care and the remaining 49% expressed a need for care which was not met. These are people who were told they needed professional help and either willingly decided to ignore the diagnoses or simply could not obtain the professional help provided due to factors such as cost and no nearby therapy groups/centers. The study also concluded that the untreated patients with a perceived treatment need expressed higher levels of loneliness and suffered from severe symptoms than the other two control groups: the treated patients and the untreated patients who did not want therapy.

Posted in Causal Argument, gooferious, Portfolio Gooferious | 5 Comments

Casual arguments- Sonnypetro29

Posted on October 26, 2020 by sonnypetro29

Self Driving cars or Human drivers

In a world changing very rapidly there are many new things coming in the near future. The word autonomous doesn’t really ring a bell in most peoples heads most people know the other word for it, “self driving”. Self driving cars have been in the works for many years and many people are excited for it and can’t wait for them to come out, should you be excited or worried?

Autonomous vehicles are the thing of the future and they seem like they will be amazing and have so many benefits to our world today. The thing is not many people think about the smaller questions that these automotive manufacturers don’t seem to have the answer yet because there is not been enough research done. There are many moral questions that play into getting into a self driving car, is the car going to protect you because you paid for the car and it’s supposed to do everything in its power to protect you? What if your driving down the road and a kid jumps out into the street, is the car going to swerve away from the child into oncoming traffic to save the Childs life meanwhile risking your life and maybe a car in another lane or is the car going to hit the kid saving your life and the car in the other lanes life? Small decisions like this are huge when thinking about getting a self driving car. In a case of an emergency will you be able to take control of the wheel in a split second? Probably not.

Many studies have been done with trying to figure out what people would want the car to do when faced with different types of situations that are very challenging and require a lot of thinking. When you are buying the Self driving car are you buying that car knowing that it is going to make the decisions for you and should you be allowed to say what the car should do in those types of situations. In an article from the Washington Post it talks about this difficult study they sent out. “The study, published in Nature, identified a few preferences that were strongest: People opt to save people over pets, to spare the many over the few and to save children and pregnant women over older people. But it also found other preferences for sparing women over men, athletes over obese people and higher status people, such as executives, instead of homeless people or criminals. There were also cultural differences in the degree, for example, that people would prefer to save younger people over the elderly in a cluster of mostly Asian countries.” These studies proved that people will tend to save younger peoples lives rather than an older person because they have more of a life to live. Also people chose to save animals and would rather swerve off of the road and maybe hitting a pole on the side. What would you want to do if you were driving? You would probably choose to spare the life of the animal and try and slam on the breaks or even swerving off of the road.

Volvo a new competitor in the Self driving car market have come out in an article published to scientific America saying this ” Self-driving pioneers, in fact, are starting to make the switch. Last October, Volvo declared that it would pay for any injuries or property damage caused by its fully autonomous IntelliSafe Autopilot system, which is scheduled to debut in the company’s cars by 2020. The thinking behind the decision, explains Erik Coelingh, Volvo’s senior technical leader for safety and driver-support technologies, is that Autopilot will include so many redundant and backup systems—duplicate cameras, radars, batteries, brakes, computers, steering actuators—that a human driver will never need to intervene and thus cannot be at fault. “Whatever system fails, the car should still have the ability to bring itself to a safe stop,”. Therefore no human can be at fault for a crash this should be implemented in every single self driving car manufacture, crashes are pretty much inevitable and no matter what safety protocols are put in place there will always be some type of crash or accident.

In a perfect world every person would wish they could have a safe road with no crashes but we do not live in a perfect world and with the making of these self driving cars is a closer step to making our roads safer. In a report to Consumers Report it was stated that ” In the far distant future, there’s little debate that self-driving cars have the potential to drastically reduce, or possibly even eliminate, crashes. In the interim, as self-driving cars navigate traffic alongside unpredictable human drivers, things will be murky.” This will be a big factor with self driving cars if everyone in the world was in a self driving car it would be almost impossible for crashes to happen but with self driving cars on the road with human drivers there will still be accidents. Most crashes are a result of human error and until all cars are self driving and everyone is in one the roads will still not be as safe as they could be. The algorithms in the car predict what the other cars around them should be doing but if someone not in a self driving car swerves at an unpredictable time it will cause a crash. If there are all self driving cars on the road they would work on the same wave length and they would be able to know what each car was going to do because they have same algorithms and can predict each other.

When it comes down to getting a self driving car you should know what you are buying into and how your car will protect you. You should not buy something and not know how it will protect to you. To have the safest roads you need to know that your car will keep you safe and those who are in your car safe.

Reference : Johnson, C. (2018, October 24). Self-driving cars will have to decide who should live and who should die. Here’s who humans would kill. Retrieved October 26, 2020, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/24/self-driving-cars-will-have-decide-who-should-live-who-should-die-heres-who-humans-would-kill/

Monticello, M. (n.d.). Will Self-Driving Cars Make Our Roads Safer? Retrieved October 26, 2020, from https://www.consumerreports.org/self-driving-cars/will-self-driving-cars-make-our-roads-safer/

Posted in Causal Argument, Portfolio SonnyPetro, sonnypetro | Leave a comment

Causal Argument-ComicDub

Posted on October 26, 2020 by comicdub

What Really Makes Car Accidents So Deadly

When German inventor Karl Benz patented his invention of the first ever automobile back in 1886, he most likely never even entertained the idea of car-to-car collisions. Now, over one-hundred years later, according to the CDC, car accidents are the leading cause of death for children and young people 5 to 29 years of age. This is a very “hard to swallow” statistic as people rely on vehicles practically everyday and will continue to even after now knowing that everytime you step into one, you are putting yourself in danger of one of the leading causes of death for young people. One piece of knowledge that may help to put your mind at ease when entering a vehicle now is to learn of what really causes car accidents to be so deadly in the first place.

Just like almost all things that are fatal, there are numerous different factors that make it so, though there is usually one main underlying factor. In the case of what makes car accidents deadly, that main underlying factor is the disparity in the sizes of vehicles. Anyone with the understanding of high school level physics would be able to make the connection between different sized vehicles and the fatality of car accidents. To put it in the simplest way possible, heavy objects moving at the same speed as lighter objects have more energy. In terms of vehicles, this means that a large vehicle that is heavy, moving at the same speed as a smaller vehicle that is lighter, will exert more crushing force on the smaller vehicle in the occurrence of a car-to-car collision. 

Going down the chain, we can look at what causes such a disparity in the sizes of vehicles on the roadways in the first place. This may seem like a pretty obvious one but it is mostly caused by an increase in the popularity of larger cars, specifically in the United States. According to Steven Overly at the Washington Post, in an article about the recent rise of SUVs in the US, “…sales of crossovers and SUVs took off at a quicker pace than for cars. Then in the last two years, Americans continued to buy more of every category of light trucks while car purchases declined.” This unquestionable growth in the popularity of larger vehicles, in the case of the United States, is due to a multitude of reasons. One of the reasons can be traced all the way back to the fact that America is not as old as many other countries. According to George Kennedy, “In Europe and other areas there are very old infrastructure and small streets in five to seven-hundred-year-old cities… [making it] difficult for larger vehicles to get around.” On the other hand, America was founded right around the time of the industrial revolution causing there to be need for larger and more extensive roadways. Because the roadways in America are much larger and expansive than other countries, they lend themselves to larger vehicles. The next reason for larger vehicles being popular has to do with the fact that gas prices are relatively cheap in the US compared to most other countries. This means Americans can afford to own gas guzzling SUVs and trucks without spending all of their money on gasoline. Another reason that large vehicles are popular is that they are safer, but as previously explained, they are only safer for the driver of the vehicle and more dangerous to the driver of smaller vehicles. 

So looking back at this causal chain again, growth in popularity of large vehicles caused a greater disparity in vehicle sizes on roadways which, inturn, caused greater fatality rates of car-to-car collisions. There is one very important link missing from this chain that is essentially the main supporting point for my thesis. The missing link lies between the disparity in vehicle sizes and the fatality rates of accidents, and it is the crash compatibility of vehicles on roadways. That means the complete version of this chain sounds something like: growth in popularity of large vehicles caused a greater disparity in vehicle sizes on roadways causing poor crash compatibility which, inturn, causes greater fatality rates of car-to-car collisions. Defined by the authors of the article, VEHICLE COMPATIBILITY IN CAR -TO-CAR FRONTAL OFFSET CRASH, “Vehicle [crash] compatibility is defined as the ability of a car to protect both its own occupants and partner car’s occupants.” Vehicle crash compatibility in itself has a couple factors that go into it but, as one can guess from the causal chain, the main factor as defined by the NHTSA, is vehicle mass. In other words, vehicle size is the main cause of crash compatibility, meaning the closer a vehicle is in size to the other vehicle in an accident, the better compatibility they will have. This then implies pretty much my whole thesis, that different sized vehicles have poor crash compatibility which causes car-to-car collisions to be more fatal. This is not just some random claim with nothing to back it up either, there have been tests upon tests and studies upon studies that have proven this to be true. One example of a statistic that proves this point the best comes from a crash accident report from FARS, the Fatality Analysis Reporting System. According to their report, in the occurrence of a van to side car collision, the driver’s death ratio is about 1 to 23. Your immediate thought might be something along the lines of, “oh well that’s to be expected of a frontal to side collision between vehicles”. That thinking is completely wrong as the van to side car death ratio of 1 to 23 is nearly 4 times the car to side car death ratio of only 1 to 6. The statistic is alarming enough to make me even nervous now when seeing a large van or truck driving near me on the road. And to think, all of this unnecessary unease as well as unnecessary fatalities on the roadways can be traced back to something seeming as harmless as bigger vehicles gaining popularity.

References

Road Traffic Injuries & Deaths: A Global Problem. (2019, December 18). Retrieved October 26, 2020.

Salomon, S. (2015, June 25). Why Americans buy bigger cars than the rest of the world. Retrieved October 26, 2020.

Bae, H., Lim, J., & Park, K. (n.d.). VEHICLE COMPATIBILITY IN CAR -TO-CAR FRONTAL OFFSET CRASH [PDF]. Korea: Hyundai Motor Company.

Overly, S. (2019, April 17). Americans have fallen in love with little big cars. Retrieved October 26, 2020.

Posted in Causal Argument, comicdub, Portfolio ComicDub | 2 Comments

Visual Rhetoric-profs22

Posted on October 26, 2020 by Jessicariccio

The scene starts out closing in on a young man watching tv on the couch in what seems like his house or apartment. The young man appears to be alone and is eating a massive bowl of nachos and seems to be happily enjoying them. The window indicates that it is nigh time because it is dark out. It seems the filmaker wants us to infer that the young man is probably staying in for the rest of the night.

The frame shifts which indicates a change in time. The young man is in a bar with standing next to two people. One girl and one guy who seem to be his friends or acquaintances as they are casually talking with no physical gestures. Each of them has a drink in hand which we can assume contains alcohol because they are at a bar.

The man then begins to zone out of the conversation with the two other people and begins to look at his phone. He is receiving a text message likely from a coworker as they congratulate him on a presentation. He then begins to send back heart emojis and a misspelled word.

The mans smile quickly turns into a frown. He appears to become very concerned as he looks up from his phone. The filmaker but this display in to let us know their is a shift of mood and something as changed. It seems as if something is wrong. Looking back on the frames before, judging that he is at a bar and misspelled a word, we can infer that the man has had too much to drink.

The scene then cuts back to the man in his home watching tv and happily enjoying his nachos. The ad does not show what happened after the bar scene but we do know that he was intoxicated earlier and that he is now safe in his home. It leaves us to wonder how he got there. Maybe he walked, or someone drove him, or he got an uber. We know that he most likely did not drive because he is home safely.

This last scene wants us to recognize how the man got home from the bar on our own. As we inferred he did not drive which leads us to believe by the end of the video that this is an ad for drunk driving prevention.

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