Saturday, January 25, 2020
The Recent Negative Effect Of Technology On Society Essay example -- e
The Recent Negative Effect of Technology on Society      Ever since the Industrial revolution, technology has been changing at a fast pace. People are always wanting a better lifestyle therefore there is always something new arising so humans can cope with their physical environment. One of the most important breakthroughs for technology was the agricultural system. The agricultural system was the basis for the technology of the future. The agricultural system brought on the need for transportation, workers and even, battles over land. The need for transportation brought vehicles into the market. The need for employees brought mechanical robots into society. Battles over land brought on the need for sophisticated weapons. The agricultural system brought on a revolution. The invention of the television can bring media and other forms of entertainment into your house with video and audio combined. Before 1950, newspapers and radio were the only ways to bring media or entertainment into the house. Mass production and other job opportunities brought many people from the suburbs and farms into the city. We can now have forms of electricity directed into our houses for heating and light. Humans are more reliant on technology then ever before. All of these technological advances sound great, however, there is a negative effect to all this technology. Technology can serve to actually harm humans rather then help them. Competition between companies or even cities can sometimes make lives for humans even worse. Take for example when a city builds better and more roads to attract tourists. This actually creates more traffic, not less. Technology also changes our sense of common purpose. New inventions such as the personal computer and machines can change our lifestyles. Even things we take for granted such as the automobile have negative effects on technology. The oil needed for a car to run needs to be imported and sometimes accidents such as the Exxon Valdez incident spills many gallons of oil into the ocean. All of these examples show how technology has negative effects on society.      First, competition can lead to a negative effect of technology. When a company in the U.S. produces shoes and a company in Great Britain produces shoes as well, they must fight for their market share... ...n conclusion, society has recently seen the negative effects of society. Competition between cities and companies has taken away jobs and brought unwanted and costly projects into pleasurable areas. A change in lifestyle among almost every human being is yet another negative effect of technology. What has happened to people since supermarkets came to town? People do not want to hunt for food anymore. They find it much easier to walk into a store and purchase it. A third reason why technology has a negative effect on society is the advent of highly reliant possessions such as the automobile. Many people count on traveling to work everyday by car. If the car was somehow taken away from people then there would be chaos. It is much too late to take it away. Humans are much too reliant on it. There is not enough mass transit to transport all of the present car users. Hopefully, future technologies will be fully considered. We must look at the advantages and consequences and measure if society will benefit or suffer from the technology. Past technologies weren't fully considered and if they were, there is a chance that the automobile never would have went into production.
Friday, January 17, 2020
Acquiring Knowledge Essay
           Knowledge means power; the whole world craves for knowledge, to know things, to understand, to make accurate calculations and to make wise decisions. But philosophers since ancient times struggle with the question regarding how knowledge is acquired. Is it through the physical senses – of touch, smell, hearing, seeing, and taste? Is it through reason alone? Three great philosophers tackled this question, they are Descartes, Locke, and Kant and all three of them presented three different methodologies when it comes to acquiring knowledge. The pursuit is serious and intense that a whole body of knowledge is dedicated to finding out the answers. It is called epistemology and these three philosophers will serve as guides in the quest to know the truth about knowledge. Descartes            Rene Descartes is said to be the father of modern philosophy. He attempted to break with the philosophical traditions of his day by rejecting the Aristotelian philosophy of the schools which is the authority of tradition and the authority of the senses (Craig, 1998). He developed a methodology on how to investigate nature by reducing complex problems to simpler ones and then analyzed further using direct intuition (Craig, 1998). Therefore, his main argument is that by mere thinking one can discover solutions to problems.            Interestingly Descartes had to die to his old beliefs and everything that he considered truth in order for him to determine once and for all that indeed there is a way to discover truth by mere use of intuition and not the reliance of the senses and traditions handed down from one generation to the next. His first guinea pig was himself, he had to doubt his existence to know the truth, and not simply believe that he exist because society tells him that he does exist. He had what inventors and scientists called a â€Å"eureka†moment or a moment of great insight, when he finally blurted out â€Å"Ego cogito, ergo sum†a statement in Latin famously translated as: I think, therefore I am (Broughton, 2008).  This was the breakthrough that he was looking for and he used it as a foundation from where he would build upon his theory of knowledge acquisition.            Descartes’ idea is cutting edge at that time. He was one of the first to establish the principle of gaining knowledge and studying things that are beyond the capabilities of the five senses. There are many aspects of mathematics that can be ascertained not by using the five senses but by the mere act of intuition. Intuitively man has the ability to know the truth; this is the main argument of Descartes. This is strengthened by the concept of prior knowledge. A good example is the ability of a baby to suck from the mother’s breast the much needed nutrients for survival. A baby is almost blind from birth and yet able to perform such actions. Locke The capability to use the sense of sight, smell, touch, hearing, and taste is one major path in gaining knowledge (Hartnack, 2001). It is in fact the ancient way of knowing the environment and the complexities of human interaction such as language and relationships. John Locke is one of the major proponents for this method of knowledge acquisition – that man has the capability of understanding the world around him by observing and utilizing the power of the five senses to harness information. Thus, it can be argued that man can only observe the world through his senses. In this model knowledge is true when it can be measured and observed through the senses. This is also known as empiricism. The significance of this method can be seen in scientific applications of the use of observation and careful measurements. Scientists, sociologists, and even philosophers from all over the world use this technique and it can even be argued that most people use empiricism without even thinking about it. It is just natural for man to use his senses to understand his environment and the stimulus that he receives every waking moment. Immanuel Kant            Kant is a central figure in modern philosophy because he was able to synthesize early modern rationalism and empiricism (Rholf, 2010). But this does not mean that Kant was completely successful in reconciling Descartes and Locke’s views concerning the acquisition of knowledge. Kant’s critics even asserted that he had made it more complicated and therefore making it harder to determine the perfect methodology that can help humans master the ability to acquire knowledge.            Nevertheless, Kant’s major contribution can be summed up in two statements: 1) human beings experience only appearances, not things in themselves; and 2) space and time are noting other than the subjective forms of human sensible intuition (Rohlf, 2010). This is an important conclusion because there are things that empiricism and rationalism cannot cover but can only be ascertain if there is complete understanding of everything – this is knowledge gained after using other people’s insights and breakthroughs.  For example ancient people see the sun orbiting around the earth, rationalism and empiricism will not refute that claim until there is already a capability to improve on that knowledge and modify it because now people know more about the movement of heavenly objects. Comparison            Descartes did not agree that there can only be one method when it comes to knowledge acquisition. The use of the five senses is not enough to know the truth. There are things in this world that can only be understood by accepting the existence of prior knowledge and the use of intuition. There are mathematical equations that proved useful in improving man’s existence but the steps in developing these mathematical equations was not derived by simply observing the world trough the fives senses. These came forth as a result of institution, simply because mathematical truths belong to an abstract world inaccessible by sense of smell, hearing, taste, touch, and sight. In the privacy of thought, a person can apply these mathematical equations and gain knowledge.            Another weakness of using the five senses is that it is very subjective. Kant already pointed this out by stating that the five senses cannot be reliable all the time. For example the refraction of light creates optical illusions. The eye communicates to the self and says that the spoon appears to be bent. But the spoon was only perceived to be deformed because of the effect of the action of light when it passes through water. Another problematic aspect of relying on the five senses is its unreliability when human beings are subjected to harsh conditions. For example, a hiker lost in a desert will succumb to the effects of dehydration and begins to see mirage and other images that seem to be real but are not. Even with the obvious weaknesses of the empirical method of acquiring knowledge, it must also be pointed out that the five senses are indispensable tools when it comes to knowledge acquisition. No matter how subjective the five senses may seem to be it must be acknowledge that human beings can live within a community because people understand each other’s languages and respect the rules laid down by the leaders or the elders. This would have been impossible without the use of the five senses. Moreover, the aforementioned weakness of the empirical method can be easily corrected using a third-party that will help verify the information. For example a person hallucinating in the middle of a desert can be rescued by paramedics. And the perfectly healthy rescuers can help the disorientated person to gain his or her bearing. If two people disagree with regards to the exact height of the Statue of Liberty, they need not quarrel, they only need to ask an unbiased participant to measure the statue for them and settle their dispute. Thus, empiricism has only one valid weakness and it is the inability of man to know more than he should and therefore making conclusions without first knowing the big picture or having a complete understanding of the scientific law that governs a particular phenomenon. In this regard Kant’s ideas will be of great help. Conclusion            Descartes’ view that there is indeed prior knowledge is an important first step in knowledge acquisition. The world is so complex and at the same time working like a well-oiled machine. However, it is not enough to simply say that knowledge can be gained by mere intuition. One has to agree with Locke that the five senses are indispensable tools when it comes to understanding the world. There is a need to observe and to measure in order to know the truth. But even so there are limitations so that it is important to take into consideration what Kant said regarding the inability of the mind to make sense of everything. For example the movement of the earth and sun could never be completely understood by mere intuition or observation alone. There is no perfect methodology in epistemology; there is a need to use each method to know the truth. References Broughton, J. (2008). â€Å"Self-Knowledge.†A Companion to Descartes. MA: Blackwell            Publishing. Craig, E. (1998). Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. New York: Routledge. Cicovacki, P. (2002). Between Truth and Illusion: Kant at the Crossroads of Modernity. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Hartnack, J. (2001). Kant’s Theory of Knowledge: Introduction to Critique of Pure Reason. IN: Hacket Publishing, 2001. Rohlf, M. (2010). â€Å"Immanuel Kant.†Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accesed 27 July 2010. Avaiable from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/#TraIde           Â
Thursday, January 9, 2020
Effective Stage Combat Techniques
Conflict is the essence of drama. Onstage, many characters will fight with words only up to a certain point before physically expressing their frustration on something or someone. Most plays include some element of violence: a slap, a punch, a stab, or just attempts at these types of strikes. Some plays, especially classics, have complicated sword fights and mass battles. To present such scenesâ€â€called â€Å"fight scenes†â€â€on stage so that they look realistic, but do not actually harm the participants, actors learn and practice stage combat. No matter the number of moves in the fight sceneâ€â€one move or fiftyâ€â€stage combat is the term used for any act of violence done or attempted on another character. Armed and Unarmed Armed stage combat involves weapons, any type of weaponâ€â€rapiers, daggers, broadswords, quarterstaves, knives, guns, or found weapons. (Found weapons are exactly as they soundâ€â€an actor uses whatever is in reach to threaten, defend, or attack. This includes anything from a cushion to a clip board to a broom.) Unarmed stage combat refers to any and all moves that do not involve weapons: punches, kicks, slaps, grappling, and falls. Actors and directors often mishandle unarmed moves because they appear less dangerous than armed attacks. Unarmed fight scenes, however, are where most injuries occur. Slaps in particular have earned themselves a reputation as the most dangerous move in stage combat circles. In the hands of untrained actors, they can hurt when performed hand to cheek and leave giant red marks on faces. Just as with armed stage combat, behind each punch, kick, and slap, there are whole sets of moves and methods developed to produce a believable act of violence on stage. A fight director is someone who has studied and trained in all or most of the stage combat disciplines. Fight directors can evaluate the actors, stage or performance space, and audience angles to plan and teach the best way to provide a realistic scene or moment of violence. Like a choreographer who brings dance expertise, a fight director brings realistic looking combat moves and safety to stage performances. The most dramatic and poignant moments in a play often involve elements of stage combat. A good fight director can heighten those important climatic scenes and keep the audience thoroughly engaged in the dramatic action. Without the guidance of a fight director, two actors in a heated debate may be too obvious as they pull their punches (not hit as hard as possible), the actor who performs a crucial stabbing can clearly miss his mark, or an actor who has been shot in the back can fall the wrong way. Fight directors know how to blend these combative moments believably into the audience’s experience. Stage combat is a fascinating and fun element of theatre. Like many other aspects of theatre, its rich background and methods require study and dedicationâ€â€all of which go completely unnoticed when a fight scene is done well!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)