Making decisions is a routine in our daily lives, these actions contribute to how we operate in our society. “Why did history take such different evolutionary courses for people of different continents?” was the question that fascinated Diamond to reveal the patterns of human history. According to the professor of Geography at the University of California Los Angeles, Jared Diamond, in his article “Why do some societies make disastrous decisions?” he describes the factors in failures we commit that have led to societal collapses by breaking it down as a road map. The author makes a strong suggest that “First a group may fail to anticipate a problem before the problem actually arrives. Secondly, when the problem arrives, the group may fail to perceive the problem. Then, after they perceive the problem, they may fail even to try to solve the problem. …show more content…
Finally they may try to solve it but may fail in their attempts to do so.” Diamond hopes to understand why groups make bad decisions to help them so in the future they can turn them into the right choices. He gives excellent evidence to support the main claim along the article using persuasive writing style, to get attention and to make it understandable with examples such as personal anecdotes, historical and current events. He adopts a didactic tone in order to educate his audience, because throughout life we as a society have fallen due to our inability to handle oncoming disasters. In this essay, I am going to analyze Diamond’s main claim, support, strategies and his organizational method to determine if he persuades the reader of his position. The professor starts off his article by sharing a personal anecdote to when he first gave a course to undergraduates on collapses of societies. He discusses many famous collapses such as the Classic Maya Civilization in the Yucatan, the Easter Island society in the Pacific and many more; he suggest that the reason of their disappearance is because they destroy all their environment resources on which they depend on. He then expands the example of the Easter Islanders Polynesian people, this society fail to ascend because they got rid of all its forest to build canoes, firewood, make, carve and transport statues transportation for statues, and they even use wood to protect them against soil erosion. This massive destruction led to the extinction of all the tree species that there were. Consequently there was no material to build any more. After stating this example historian Joseph Trainer disagreed with Diamond, were he argues that “It not seemed likely that it might be due to the environmental destruction, because they would never do those mistakes”. But evidence showed that they did those mistakes. For this reason Diamond states his first claim “Groups may do disastrous things because they didn’t anticipate a problem before it arrived” to support this claim he adds as a sub claim “They may have had no prior experience of such problems, and so may not have been sensitized to the possibility”. As evidence he provides a personal anecdote about his summer in Montana. The example talks about the forest fires in the U.S, these fires are a major problem not only in Montana but throughout the Western of United States. People from the Eastern and European are not familiar with them, so he said when people arrived from those parts and saw a forest fire arose their first reaction was to do something to put out the fire. But Eastern people do not know the consequences, if they try to just to put out a small fire this can turn into an enormous one and eventually it would be out of control. Then what should be done is to let the fire burn and it will eventually burn out and most importantly this will not cause a buildup of fuel. Diamond uses as description as strategy. This evidence is strong to the sub claim because as it is stated the people from the East wanted to put out the fire as quick as possible, but they had no previous experience with this type of fires, so if they had done that they had worsened the forest fire. He then, continues with his second claim that says “After a society has anticipated or failed to anticipate a problem before it arises, involves a society failing to perceive a problem that has actually arrived” to support this claim he states “The origins of some problems are literally imperceptibles” as a sub claim.
To proof this, Diamond states an exemplification startegy , he talks about global warming. We all have realized that there have been drastic changes over the years, therefore there is a lot of scientific investigation behind this, so we all are conscious about it; but Diamond emphasizes this “Our president is still not convinced of the reality of global warming, and he thinks that we need more research”. This relates to the main claim because, we all know about the climate changes and how they are affecting us, so we already are anticipating the problem, but the issue is that all these documents and information are not enough for the president, so he is failing to perceive the problem, that actually it has arrived years ago and he still wants more investigations to confirm if we our facing global
warming. As a third claim the professor recites “A societies failure even to try to solve a problem that it has perceived”. In this claim he uses definition as strategy. He then goes in detail about rational behavior that means an assumption in economics that people would rather be better off than worse off and that they only pursuit satisfaction, this relates to the claim because Diamond shares examples about clashes of interest. One to highlight is about the logging companies, it’s a little bit illogic that the ones in charge of harvesting of tropical rainforest are the logging companies. Diamond says in his article “Which lease land in one country, cut down all the rainforest in that country, and then move on to the next country”. These logging companies use their power not to harvest but to take advantage and only get what they need. They know the problem but they are not doing the correct thing, they are just taking advantage of their power and destroying tropical rainforest, Diamond adds that they already took the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Solomon, Islands and Sumatra, they are currently in the Philippines and soon they will be heading to New Guinea. This is a strong evidence for the main claim because along with the strategy he is using he wants to teach that people in this case companies are taking over situations that they should not be in charge off and consequently they are getting things worse, because they think “they are helping”. Professor Diamond delivers his last claim saying “Failure to succeed in solving a problem that one does try to solve”. He shares another example about Montana, “The state of Montana loses hundreds of millions of dollars per year in attempting to combat introduced weed species, such as spotted knapweed and leafy spurge”. This example is a clear strategy of cause and effect, and it is a strong evidence because the citizens know that they lose a lot of money and they do not eliminate the problem, but it is a way to alleviate it because it’s says that pulling the roots by hand is impossible and the chemicals that can control it are very expensive, so maybe the put on a scale what is cheaper and affects less the plants. Throughout the article Diamond successfully makes conscious about the human patterns regarding making bad decisions. He accomplished to break down each one of his main claims to make it understandable with a chronological organization along with different strategy’s such as cause and effect, definition and exemplification. Even though it may seem a repetitive idea, this particular strategy makes us realize that it does not matter if we consider ourselves the most modern society we may be doing the same mistakes and we are not aware of it. So that leaves us to put this into practice, learn from it and begin doing the right choices.
The essay, “The Problem with New Data”, is written by Jon Carroll. In this essay he talks about the human behavior and how humans react differently with others. He explains how humans change their decisions quickly because they are weak. The purpose of this essay is to analyze how humans change their behavior toward certain things. Carroll argues that people belief and government pressure are the main reasons why people do not change their psychology and the way they think. Carroll points out these key points because these are the major issues of our society and what most people are having a hard time dealing with. He argues on the thinking and weaknesses of people and why they do not want to change those things.
Social stability can be the cause of problems. After reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, we are informed that “Bokanovsky’s Process is one of the major instruments of social stability!” Now is it worth it? Is it worth the sacrifice? Questions like those are addressed throughout the book. Huxley wants to warn us of many things, for example the birth control pill, the way that we can colon ourselves and many other things. He wanted us to know that many of the experiments that they do to the caste in Brave New World, we were later going to do investigate more ourselves or start doing them to others. We have all, at a point; come to a point to the question where we ask ourselves “is it worth it? Is it worth the sacrifice?”
The environmental movement in politics is often overplayed causing people to loose interest in the issue, but Jarred Diamond makes it impossible to ignore the issue in his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Jared Diamond hopes to catch as many peoples attention as he can; the name alone, “Collapse”, makes him appear to be an alarmist looking for attention. He has just cause though for blowing the whistle on society. He makes parallels to previous failed societies and to modern societies showing how the practices that we employ are similar to these failed societies. He is suggesting that America, as well as other countries, are headed down the path of ecocide more possible a global ecocide. Through his extensive research and numerous examples he makes it impossible to argue with his thesis. While all of examples seem redundant and like he is over emphasizing the point he does this to show his thoroughness. He also does it to show that he is correct. Diamond does not want to be wrong; he is a major author who gets a lot of attention when he releases a book. People look to discredit Diamond’s work. Due to this he gives ample resources to support this thesis.
In “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility”, Harry Frankfurt attempts to falsify the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. The Principle of Alternate Possibilities is the principle where a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise. A person would be morally responsible for their own actions if done by themselves. If someone else had forced that person to do the action, then the person doing the action is not morally responsible. Frankfurt does not believe this to be true and that the person doing the action is morally responsible. Frankfurt’s objections towards the Principle of Alternate Possibilities shows the refutation of natural intuition and places moral responsibility upon those who deserve it.
Nutrition and health have become more popular in today 's society. Our generation is becoming more and more indebted to the idea of being healthy and eating nutritious meals. However, in “The American Paradox,” by Michael Pollan he argues that our unhealthy population is preoccupied with nutrition and the idea of eating healthy than their actual health. He also mentions the food industry, nutrition science and how culture affects the way we eat and make food choices. While Pollan is right about all these factor that affect our eating habits, there is more to it than that. Convenience, affordability and social influence also affects our food choices making them inadequate.
ABSTRACT: In light of interpreting a paradox of irrationality, vaguely expressed by Donald Davidson in the context of explaining weakness of will, I attempt to show that it contains a significant thesis regarding the cognitive as well as motivational basis of our normative practice. First, an irrational act must involve both a rational element and a non-rational element at its core. Second, irrationality entails free and intentional violation of fundamental norms which the agent deems right or necessary. Third, "normative interpretation" is only possible for objects that are both natural events and capable of mental operations which presuppose some freedom of will as well as constructive representation of the surrounding reality. Fourth, there is always a question of whether we strike the best balance between fitting individual mental items consistently with the overall behavior pattern and keeping our critical ability in following certain normative principles which constitute our rational background. Fifth, the paradox of irrationality reflects and polarizes a deep-seated tension in the normative human practice under the ultimate constraints of nature. Finally, the ultimate issue is how we can find the best lines on which our normative rational standards are based-"best" in the sense that they are close enough to limits of human practical potentialities and are not too high as to render our normative standards idle or even disastrous.
In his essay “The American Paradox”, Michael Pollan illustrates his conclusion that Americans who focus on nutrition have a higher probability of decreasing their well-being. Pollan defines the American paradox as “a notably unhealthy population preoccupied with nutrition and the idea of eating healthily.” For most of our human history, our parents and culture have influenced our diet. However, today the idea of what to eat has been based on the opinions of scientists, food markets, and nutritionists. I agree with Pollan’s argument that being preoccupied with what we eat makes us unhealthy, however, we need a balance and a sense of responsibility in what we eat.
The process of making a decision previously held two paths, rational and irrational, with rational having the mind at work to think about what were the choices and irrational with no really engagement. Anything beyond that process of thought was not taken until the topic of System 1 and System 2 along with effects of “Relativity” were expressed in Thinking Fast and Slow, by Kahnemna and Predictably Irrational by Ariely, respectfully. Along with the other readings, the process of our decision making were no longer solely based on two very simplified and underdeveloped ideas, but as series of network and systems of decisions the minds functions through.
In some societies it is the actions of many men that change the environment to which they belong and this in turn makes up history. However in other societies such as the United States and R...
There are some human phenomena, which seem to be the result of individual actions and personal decisions. Yet, these phenomena are often - on closer inspection – as much a result of social factors as of psychological ones.
It appears that we have been investigating the cause and effects of race and racism for quick some time, as a middle age adult in the year 2015, I feel that we have run into a brick wall which seems too hard to break though, too wide to get around and runs to deep to get under.
Humans, since the beginning of our first civilization and throughout the history of mankind, have always strived for a perfect world that would secure our society’s interests. Whether they are beneficial to a small group or the whole society, those interests will guide and shape the future of this new society. As of today, human civilization has never before seen an advancement of as many aspects of our lives from living commodities, entertainment, services, technologies, and so on that seem to reflect a promising world of the future. However, at the same time, human history has also witnessed great turmoil and many setbacks in our society ranging from small-scale problems such as immorality, variant of discriminations, financial crisis to
Jared Diamond makes the argument that when humans decided 10,000 years ago to no longer be hunter-gatherers and made the decision to become sedentary and start domesticating their animals and crops, the result is that the human race has experienced a steady downfall. Diamond makes the point that “with agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and despotism that curse our existence,” (Diamond). While the present system certainly is far from being perfected, Diamond’s various complaints and solutions certainly would not be of much use in the present time either.
Human nature is not simply a measure of our human tendencies. It is both individual and collective. It does not explain why events happen. Instead, it explains the subconscious of each individual in the instant that events happen. The social order that best fits human nature is one where the informed opinions of everyone creates decisions and causes action. Madison’s argument for and against factions, Aristotle’s idea of ultimate happiness, and Locke’s concept of popular government and human rights all offer a significant component to the larger concept that is human nature. While some may argue that we will only fully understand human nature when we are met with death, still we can begin to capture a slight understanding to what governs human nature and the political order that helps it grow.
He talks about how sea levels will rise and will be covering land in places like such as Florida and New York in his article called “Rising Sea Levels Threaten U.S. Cities”. The sea levels rising will cause some people to lose their living area. According to the passage, if we do nothing to stop climate change, over 26 million Americans ' homes might be inundated, and more than 1,500 U.S. cities and municipalities could find the areas where half of the residents live, also inundated. Moreover, the rate of increasing the sea levels is faster than ever. The passage mentions that the sea levels, rise in these 50 years is faster than the past 1,500 years. Moreover, there are more consequences caused by the climate change. According to Climate Central in Princeton, N.J., the sea levels increase might create some new wetland around the Mississippi River and there will be more flooding. Because of these consequences of climate change, the author suggests the US government to take action in reducing carbon dioxide emissions. How much sea levels increase is determined by how much carbon dioxide is emitted. The passage also warns those people who know the fact of climate change but still didn’t take action to prevent it. They will lose some of the land if we still do