Logical Fallacies

Were you ever in a situation where you either couldn't win an argument because it has gone way too extreme or someone said something that had nothing to do with the actual argument? If your answer was yes, then you actually dealt with logical fallacies before. There are three types of logical fallacies: Ad Hominen, Slipper Slope, Bandwagon Fallacy, and Straw-man. Ad Hominen is when your character or personal traits are being attacked instead of the actual argument. You probably experienced this when arguing with someone younger than you. This actually happened to me because this young girl that I was looking after wanted to see my earrings and when I said no, she said "well you don't look good in them anyways". Slippery Slope is when a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitably of the event in question. This usually happens when arguing wit your parents. For example, today is Friday November 25, Black Friday, and I headed out this morning and my mom basically said, don't buy a lot of things because you'll end up living in the streets. Upon further examination, her assumption was that if I bought a lot of things, I would've ended up being broke and wouldn't be able to afford anything, thus I'll end up living in the streets. Of course, these two aren't the only Logical Fallacies that we see but these are the ones that we see the most often. In my opinion, Logical Fallacies can be illogical because if you're arguing with someone, attacking their personality or their traits wouldn't help you win the argument. Anyhow, that's all for this week. 

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Social Media - "Nosedive"

A new app was launched recently and it was called "Peeple". This app allowed its users to rate people using a star system. A clip was made based off of this app called Nosedive and this clip showed everyone using this ranking system and everyone saw each other's ranks when they see their face. A person with a high rank would be friendly to those lower than her rank and would be awkward around those with a higher rank than them. Now, the question is if our society would end up like the society in Nosedive. Many believe that the representation of society in Nosedive is pretty close to society today while other believed otherwise. In my opinion, I believe we as a society is moving closer to the society represented in Nosedive but it wouldn't dictate our life like how it was in the clip. It is true that everyone is "ranked" with their likes and followers and two real life examples would actually be Instagram and Facebook. Everyone judges each other behind the screen but I don't think that it would be so bad that these likes and follows would affect how people treat us on a daily basis. Although we have apps that allow us to like and follower whoever we choose, I don't think apps like Peeple is practical since everyone has a different opinion and no one should be basing their action off of their status. A guy in the Nosedive clip had a ranking of 3.5 and bought everyone drinks but people were still talking behind his back. It was as if only the ranking matters and not the personality.

Why Do Drug Dealers Live With Their Moms?

When people mention drug dealers, do you have positive or negative connotations? Most people think of drug dealers and drug dealing in general as a really bad thing however, for people living with drug dealers, this is a very glamorous profession. This week in class, in order to prep for a podcast, we read about why drug dealers live with their mothers and the dangers to drug dealing. According to Freakonomics, foot soldiers earn approximately $3.30 per hour which is less than the minimum wage. Readers can infer from this fact that foot soldiers can't afford to live by themselves since they earn so little. In this particular article, the researched neighborhood had a "median income... about $15,000 a year, well less than half the United States average." This shows that most drug dealers actually earn less than the median amount but they choose to do it anyways. Since people in those types of neighborhoods are not exposed to office jobs, they see being a drug dealer as a profession that can earn them respect. To them, respect and making a living to support their family is more important than to find a job that is not detested by people. If I happened to be born in a really poor neighborhood and I had no opportunities to be anything more than a drug dealer, I would probably take the job. Also,another reason why a person would be living with their mother would be if they were earning a lot and they can't afford the government to be suspicious about where the money came from. 

That's it for this week, have a great day everyone !