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[Week XI] Argumentative essay - it is better if you turn off your television

Almost everything in the world has its own good and bad effect in the different point of view. This pros and cons things also occurs on the impact of watching television. In this text I'm going to share my opinion about this issue.

Before i cut to the case, I have to admit that television is a great invention that has been used in people's daily life since the late of 1930. We can actually watch many things and activities in the different moment and place through this invention.

But in my opinion, watching television actually bing more harm than good effect for people. My main reason is because the power of television that can trap us to watch them regardless of the contain and lose our priceless time.

There is a term called orienting response, which refers to the response that grabs attention of sudden move which some living things has, including human. So, television basically has its power to amazed us by transmitting its flickering, ever changing colors and shifting contras which in fact, also plenty of sudden moves. And this seems to be the reason why we easily want to keep watching television for so long, even we didn't plan it. This actually gives us more disadvantages, because we would not even care of its content anymore.

TV also decreases one's attention span and weakens one's imagination. It weakens our attention span because we grow used to quick, short bursts of information. As a result, we grow impatient if it takes a while to make a point. TV weakens our imagination because everything is portrayed for us. All we have to do is sit back and observe someone else's imagination. Books are just the opposite. They increase our attention span and help to develop our imagination.

TV also has another bad effect to us, which is draining off our energy instead of reenergizing it. This happens because of the orienting response and swirling TV images that I mentioned earlier result in information overload. This over stimulus of the brain sucks the energy right out of us. Compare this with going to the gym for a workout after a tiring day at the office. Instead of growing more tired, we become energized. So, if you want more energy, far better to engage in some activity than to plop down in front of a TV.

Well, I'am not saying that you cant watch your television at all, i mean sometimes they have some useful show , but now days as I can see there are less useful program as not television invented to be. So it is better to get some activities instead of sitting in front of your TV screen and use your other devices like laptop or phones to access some information that doesnt have much flickering screen like TV does.

[Week XI] ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY

“In expanding the field of knowledge, we but increase the horizon of ignorance (Henry Miller)“

A constant or rather an exponential growth of technology substantially increases the field of knowledge. The term global village itself shows how the current technology enables information revolves quickly around the world, as if America is just a neighbouring village of Indonesia. The essay will examine the effect of the swift expansion of field of knowledge to the horizon of ignorance and discuss the possible sources of the ignorance.

There are many values that classify knowledge, including the focus of study and the knowledge quality itself. It is very dependant on how far one can justify the knowledge or how critical the knowledge has been analyzed. Positively thinking, an expansion of the field of knowledge indicates the advancement of the world. However, to counterclaim, the expansion of the field of knowledge, especially the rapid rate of the growth considerably affects the quality of the knowledge, in such that the current society often find it hard to decide which knowledge should be believed. The ‘information overflow’ elevates negative issues such as the production of abundant false information, thus affect the reliability of the knowledge obtained. However, the horizon of ignorance is intangible and bears different categorizations which include the unintentional ignorance and the acknowledged ignorance.

The case of subliminal or unintentional ignorance can be illustrated through a figure of an expert. An expert, by the word itself, indicates that the person specializes in one small range of domain, yet he or she is capable of knowing the information within the domain deeply. However, an expert in most cases is completely oblivious to the knowledge outside one’s domain range. The unintended ignorance, correlated to the example of an expert, is a type of ignorance which apparently does not increase the level of ignorance of a person as he or she is completely unaware of the knowledge initially. Being unacknowledged of a certain fact in the first place can often comes from a number of factors, both internal and external. An internal factor includes the necessity of acknowledging the information, while the external factor, for instance, can take in a form of the working environment where one works. The requisition of certain knowledge varies from one to another, thus one often obtains knowledge which the subject prefers or needs. This eventually leads one into the state of being unintentionally ignorant. A person, being subjected to many limitations, especially time, often uses his or her reasoning and senses to deduce and decide which knowledge the subject should or should not be focused on. This eventually leads one into the state of being unintentionally ignorant. It does not increase the level of ignorance even though he or she is using senses and reasoning to ignore the unnecessary facts because basically, the subject, being constrained by many limitations, is simply trying to choose the best information perceived to expand his or her field of knowledge. The working environment or the surrounding where one lives is another big factor that directs one to the state of being unintentionally ignorant.

As compared to the subliminal ignorance, the acknowledged ignorance can be deciphered as a type of ignorance which results in the increase of the horizon of ignorance. Defining from the word acknowledged itself; one who is in the state of acknowledged ignorance has already known the truth, however, he or she does not give any reaction into the information obtained, no matter how biased or blurred the information is. The acknowledged ignorance is most likely to increase due to the rapid expansion of knowledge in the world. A person who has already have the knowledge that a certain issue is too biased or farfetched, often put small effort in giving more analysis of the knowledge obtained, and thus as a result, expanding knowledge, in the above case, increases the horizon of ignorance. The use of deductive logic is essential in many cases; however, overly-deducted information eventually degrades the reliability of the information. Knowledge, on the other hand, is the justified true belief, thus believing in an overly-deducted theory without involving enough justifications is actually another form of acknowledged ignorance.

In conclusion, expanding the field of knowledge often leads to the increase of horizon of ignorance when it is done without deeper attention on the knowledge obtained. It does increase the horizon of knowledge until the extent where one actually has acknowledged that the information is too vague, yet he or she does not dig deeper to analyze and justify the information further. The four ways of knowing, especially the sensual perception and reasoning are very essential in obtaining knowledge as far as reliability or the truth of knowledge is concerned.

[Week XI] Argumentative Essay

Should We Abolish Death Penalty?

Death penalty is an execution to a person that breaks the law and many countries have used it as a form of punishment since ancient times. Countries that still use death penalty for example are USA, China, and Indonesia. Nowadays many countries started to reject death penalty as a punishment for a crime because of various reasons and decided to abolish it. Is this really the right thing to do? There is also a debate whether to abolish death penalty or not. The ones who wanted to abolish death penalty are usually called as abolitionists. In my opinion death penalty should not be abolished because it is still effective as a crime deterrent and punishment.

Crime has been a part of the society and it is impossible to completely suppress it and make it gone. There are various crimes ranging from the minor ones to big ones such as mass murder. Death penalty should be used for punishment in big crimes. Some people would say that death penalty is inhumane and should not be used. If the death penalty is not used the criminal would think that he won’t die no matter what if he commits crime and just be sent to prison. This is why we need death penalties for crime like this. In countries that use death penalty the crime rate is lower than countries that do not use death penalty.

Many abolitionists claim that death penalty is just a cruel murder and not punishment. However, this is not true because nowadays death penalty is carried out with a quick and painless method such as shooting the heart or lethal injections. This is different than ancient times where the method used was painful and slow. Other reason is because death penalty only be carried out to severe crimes and there is a law that regulates it.

The opposing arguments said that death penalty does not bring the murdered victim back to life. However, this is not the purpose of the death penalty. Its purpose is to make sure the crime ended right there and to put an ease to the victim’s family that the criminal has been properly punished.

Some people also said that everyone should be given a second chance and death penalty prevents this. This is true, however people who were put in the death row usually commit a severe crime. Criminals who commit mass murder or other severe crimes usually are not sane anymore and impossible to make them change to a better person. If people like this are released to the society they will just commit more crime and will endanger a lot of people. So it is better if they are just executed because of their crimes.

Opponents of the death penalty point out that there is a possibility of wrongly executing an innocent man. Of course, there is a possibility of wrongly sending an innocent man to prison, or wrongly fining an innocent man, but they contend that because of the finality and severity of the death penalty, the consequences of wrongly executing an innocent person are much more wrong. There has never been any proof of an innocent man being executed, although there are some studies that show in a few cases, there is a possibility that someone was wrongly executed. To avoid this before the criminals are going to be put in the death row, they have to follow a complex process which consists of series of trials to determine if the criminals are guilty or not and if they are deserved to be executed. This way no innocent man will be executed, at least it will decrease the chance of it.

Death penalty is also cost effective because the government does not have to waste the resources taking care of the dangerous criminals. If a lot of criminals that commit severe crimes are being put to prison for the rest of their lives, it will waste the resources and there is a possibility that they will do the crime again when they are out of the prison, also it will not make the prison overcrowded.

In conclusion death penalty should not be abolished because of these reasons. In fact, it is better that a lot of countries legalize death penalty for the good of their people. This is good as long as the death people are being done to the right people and have clear rules that cannot be twisted and interpreted in different ways.

[Week XI] Argumentative essay- Gun Control

Should Guns be banned?

Nowadays, some people think that the world is quite peaceful compared to the ages when there are still kingdoms that always fought in wars in order to expand each of their territory, people had to obey what ever the king said, and many nations are still fought to gain their freedom. However, this time is actually more furious than before due to the fact that deadly technologies such firearms are spreading rapidly in the society. Although it is true that people get their freedom, but it does not mean that the use of guns is not limited, that is why not every nation allow the use of firearms in the society. For example, Australia allow their people to use gun, but the use of guns must have a logical reason such as hunting and target shooting, but self-defense is not acceptable to be counted as a reason for Australia to give the license of owning or using a firearm. On the other hand, there are also nations that do not permit people outside the military to use guns such as China, and there are also nations like the European union that adopted gun control laws to prevent the wide spread of guns. The matter of guns control is still debated by the side which support the use of firearms and the other side which oppose it. Even though both sides have good arguments to support their statements I think it is better to ban the use of guns because of the following reasons.

First of all, people ,especially the ones who own at least one gun, said that the use of guns actually decrease the number of crimes. Based on statistics, this statement is true, however what we should see is the number of victims not the number of the crimes. The number of victims of one crime is not the same with other criminal cases. For example, case A resulting 10 dead victims and only one victim from case B. The number of crime is decreasing, but the crimes that are still spreading are consuming many victims. In fact, the increasing number of access to guns actually brings many victim, more teens and children die from gun wounds. During a year, 5000 teen and children died from gun wounds in the USA, and in Great Britain, where gun ownership is very restricted, 19 teens and children died from gun wounds. We can see from the statistic below that the number of victims is influenced by the use of gun, and we can conclude that the spreading use of guns actually brings more victim.

Secondly, as we all know, guns are designed to shoot whether it is to shoot a living thing or a non-living thing does not matter, but it surely is a tool to destroy something. Well, yes it is true that the one that kills is the user and guns do not kill people, because guns are just dead tools, however, guns are the tools that trigers people to kill. Firearms also allow people to kill from a certain distance and it enable to kill more than one living thing in a time. When ever people see a gun, they think that this is the tool to defend themselves, and by defending means by shooting on the threat.

Finally, guns are not primary needs for people who do not have any relation to the military. Guns are not made for hands of amateurs, because if it falls to the wrong hands, unnecessary things could happen. From my point of view, the ones that need to use guns are people who are already trained and they use it for something with a good aim such as the military. In unwanted situation amateur people do not think clearly, panic,and frighten, and in this kind of situation, people with a gun will surely pull the trigger. For people like ourselves it is better to learn something else, there are many better ways to defend ourselves like using martial arts and we do not need to 'kill' the threat.

In conclusion, people only see the decreasing number of crimes, while what they really need to see is the increasing number of victims. Although the number of crime is reducing with more access to guns, but the number of victims that died because of gun wounds is increasing. Guns also a tool to 'destroy' something, and even though people who are killing people, guns are the ones which triggered people to kill by using it. Guns are not a primary needs for us, so it does not matter even if it is ban and we can live without it. To sum up, it is better to ban guns because it is not necessary and guns only bring more victims.

[Week XI] Argumentative Essay

As we know, our earth is getting hotter and hotter. Experts that said our earth temperature increased 0.18°C per year since 20-th century. We caused all of them so if we don't want start to prevent global warming our earth will lead into bigger disaster. There is a quotation that represent what we can do for our earth and it sound “Which one do you prefer Earth in pieces or peace in Earth”. In my opinion that quatation already force us to make our decision since now, do we want to prevent it or not. As the young generation we must prevent the global warming not only for our better future but also for other peoples. Prevent global warming is not as hard as it sounds, it just need some passion from ourself. Some simple task that anyone can do is enough to prevent global warming which are throwing garbage in the right place, saved some energy, and using alternative fuel.

First step to prevent global warming is throwing garbage in the right place and seperate it. Why it is really important to do it? Because by seperate it into the non-organic and organic trash it will make people who care more about global warming to recycle the trashes. Non-organic trashes is non biodegradable so it's really hard to destryoed, some examples of non-organic trashes are plastic, paper, marker, etc.Do you know how many years that take plastic to be destroyed and become one with the ground, it takes 50.000 years that plastic is fully destroyed. Instead by wasting so long time to waited plastic fully destroyed in ground why don't we recycle it into something useful. Nowadays many people recycle trashes into something that is beautiful and worth to sell beside it save our earth it's also another alternative to make money. Not everyone can recycle trashes into something useful so to anyone who can not recycle trash to something useful for the example it is me, better to reduce or reuse plastic so our earth will not covered by plastic trash that was hard to destroyed. Another way if we don't want to reduce, reuse, or recycle plastic trash, we can replace it with organic bag beside it is environtmentally friendly it can be used several times. On the other hand organic trash like leaf, grass, etc is easy to destroyed and organic trash also can be recycle into something useful such as organic bag as the replacement of plastic bag.

Second step to prevent global warming is saved some energy. This is the step that is need our passion more than others step because this step is depend on us whether we want do it or not. For the example, we know we didn't use our computer or tv but we left it turn on. It is caused electrical pollution and it's one things that caused global warming. Electricity causes pollution in many ways, some worse than others. In most cases, fossil fuels are burned to create electricity. Fossil fuels are made of dead plants and animals. Some examples of fossil fuels are oil and petroleum. Many pollutants (chemicals that pollute the air, water, and land) are sent into the air when fossil fuels are burned. Some of these chemicals are called greenhouse gasses. Joining earth hour is another way to save energy because by turn off our electronic deviced for several hours already make a big differences for our earth.

Thirdly is by using the alternative fuel such as; bioalcohol, biodiesel, biomass, etc. Nowadays, those alternative fuel is still unpopular and hard to get not like the fosil fuel that can be found everywhere but alternative fuel really help us to reduce the carbon dioxine from our vehicles.Those alternative fuel not only made from organic things but also can recycle carbon dioxine from our vehicles. For this method many people still meet many problems such as; this kind of fuel is still rare, lack of knowledge for this kind of fuel, and it's quite expensive. In my opinion, that is really good to know more about this alternative fuel and the price itself will decreased if that kind of fuels is already world wide.

In short, to prevent global warming is not as hard as it sounds, it's only need some passion from ourself by changing our life style a little bit. I believed by do those three steps, it is already a big help for our earth to survive and recovered a liitle by a little. Starting from throwing garbage in the right place, don't leave our electronic deviced turn on when we don't need it, and try to used alternative fuels that is really good for our environment. Let's start now before it's too late for our earth.

[Week XI] Argumentative Essay

EUTHANASIA

Euthanasia is ending one's life if one has a terminal disease is an incurable condition, and is done by a lethal injection. Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide began in ancient Rome and Greece. They believed that it was okay in certain situations to allow a person to die or to help a person die. This was often the case with the elderly in these cultures. Certain religions are against euthanasia. The Christian, Jew, and Islamic religions all cling to the fact that life is sacred and should not be taken away. In some cultures, helping someone to die is the same thing as homicide, and is treated so in a court of law. When people heard about this term, they will catch it as a suicide decision. It is easy for normal people who have never got a deathly illness so that they mention euthanasia as a suicide and a stupid deed to be made by the person, on the other hand for people who got incurable illness, euthanasia is the best option to solve their inner problem by the patients or the family. There are several reasons why the patients or the families want to choose euthanasia as the key to end their life.

The first reason choosing euthanasia is because the patient could not stand anymore to his or her illness. It is a good choice for them because they have less sufferance. When the patient want to do euthanasia as their decision, it will be better for the family to appreciate about his or her option because the patient has suffer to much pain like cancer or other illnesses and cannot continue to live anymore. Choosing euthanasia for the patient by the permition from the family like that could reduce the long painful for the patient.

Another reason is euthanasia could reduce the family's sufferance. When patient choose this decision sometimes several families do not allow to do euthanasia, it is a nature reflection for them because the patient is their child so that they try to save their child's live. On the other hand this family decision could make the patient suffer more than before so that when the patient choose euthanasia the family should support him because it is better to do it rather than to see their child suffer day by day, besides that it could reduce the family's sufferance and the patient also because when seeing their children suffering, this family will feel hurt too.

Incurable illness will spend a lot of money, although the family has a lot of money to pay for the treatment and the medicines to longer the patient life but It also give the patient suffering more in the rest of his or her life. The family who has not much money to pay for the treatment, it will make them to owe a lot of money. For example a patient who suffer cancer this illness will spend a lot of money for the treatment and also the treatment could hurt the patient body. When the patient dies, the relatives have to live paying all the debts. It could sound materialistic but when the patient has decided and there is not option, euthanasia is the last chance to stop the sufferance.

There are many people who disagree with euthanasia because it is a kind of suicide or a murder done by human. Euthanasia also considered as a good choice to shorter your suffer when you realize that you do not have a long time to live anymore because of the illness like cancer and other diseases that make you very suffer in life. Euthanasia should be allowed in all countries because it will give the patient a choice to end their live because of the sufferance.

There are many good reasons to choose euthanasia as the options to end his suffer of the illness besides that it will also help to minimize the parents’ financial problem. The choice of the patient to do euthanasia should be accepted by the family and other people although some people against it. Some countries permit euthanasia to be done and I think it is ok for to allow this term "euthanasia". If I were sick like getting cancer I would consider it first to do euthanasia because it is a high risk decision.