beyond freedom and dignity essays

beyond freedom and dignity essays In B. F. Skinners book, Beyond Freedom s point of view. That is, a point of view where man is viewed primarily as an animal, the "being" aspect of a "human being" is dropped from the picture. There is no consideration for a view of man who has mind that observes, chooses, decides and initiates action upon the environment. Basically, Skinner insinuated the idea that man has no personality, free will, responsibility, and that contemporary concepts of freedom and dignity can not be realistically applied to life experiences. I consider the question that if it is the natural stimuli that control the actions of humans, who controls the natural stimulus? Subsequently, if the natural stimuli are randomly occurring, that means that all things experienced by humans are at best, by chance or luck. I will first discuss parts of Skinners theories before I state my opinion on the validity of his work. Skinners entire system of experimentation was based on operant conditioning. While trying to comprehend Skinners explanation of operant conditioning, I visualized a person getting knocked around in a pin-ball machine. This person bouncing around in a pin-ball machine represents the idea of reaction, that is, to everything it would come into contact with. From Skinners point of view, those things a person would come in contact with are the stimulus, or the reinforcers. Specifically, the stimulus has the ability to increase the operant, or the behavior taking place right before the stimulus. Additionally, Skinner believed that the behaviors following the stimulus are consequences. Whether good or bad, those consequences have the ability to affect the tendency for a person to repeat the action. Skinner also discussed a different kind of stimulus, aversive stimulus, or something that is found uncomfortable and ...

Internet Outline essays

Internet Outline essays A. Prehistoric people had trouble communicating 3. Scribbling difficult messages on cave walls. B. Time passed, people organized into communities 1. Patterns of social behavior developed. C. With up-coming civilizations came the urge to become connected to the larger social whole D. People have been creating tools for the development and construction which enable and connect humans E. In the 1800s Samuel Morse invented the telegraph. This is when people started to want to be wired F. From ARPANET to Internet2, we have the tools and capacity to reshape thought, search for renewed meaning, and ensure prosperity. Promote human rights, invest in global economic development relieve the scourge of disease renew our love of art and learning. G. We will see how the Internet has become a ubiquitous (Being everywhere) force in daily life. II. Shaping the Internet age (Bill Gates, chairman, Microsoft corps.) A. Less than 25 years ago, the Internet was an obscure network of large computers used by a small community of researchers. B. The majority of them were found in corporate information technology (IT) departments or research laboratories. C. Now, The Internet is the center of attention for business, governments, and individuals around the world. We are only at the dawn of the Internet age. D. The Internet will have an effect on the way we work, live, and learn. E. The Internet will bring instant and flawless communication and commerce everywhere. To any device imaginable F. The Internet will be a key economic and cultural force in the 21st century. G. First, the Internet was an academic community concept; it is now unique, independent information exchange point. Without a centralized management. And upon common standards. H. From TCP/IP (a technological protocol that is a traffic cop for n ...

File Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words - 1

File - Essay Example For a long time, those who supported Dreyfus had not been able to make any objections but the publication of Zola’s article gave them the much needed boost to challenge the affair. The emergence of two opposing camps definitely had a great impact on the Third Republic. It is rather hard to determine when the Dreyfusard camp came into existence. The truth is that a large section of public opinion, together with a large section of intellectuals, politicians, journalists and writers were sure that Dreyfus was guilty by the time his trial came into an end in 1894. If anything, the court had declared him guilty and the newspapers had broadcasted this guilty sentence. Even though individuals such as Zola were dismayed by the anti-Semitism direction that the trial had taken in dying years of 1894, no one came out publicly to challenge the outcome of the sentence. In addition to this, from the moment that Dreyfus had been arrested, a very small number of individuals were convinced of his innocence. After the conviction, several individuals led by Edgar Demange, a criminal lawyer soon began to see the conviction as a case of racial profiling. Upon the passage of the guilty verdict, Demange held a press conference where he declared that the incarceration wa s a judicial mistake. On the other hand, the anti-Dreyfusard’s were the individuals who were convinced that Dreyfus was guilty of the charges brought against him and was therefore fit to be in prison. For the Dreyfusard’s, their main issue at the beginning of the affair was calling for a revision of the issue. At first, revisionism only meant for the review of Dreyfus sentence but with the passage of time it generated into a larger fight against anti-Semitism, militarism, nationalism, and conservatism. In later years, revision turned into a call for the change in ideology. As the movement grew, Dreyfusard’s started addressing the issue of French anti-Semitism that had not been

Beef Hormone Issue Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Beef Hormone Issue - Essay Example The use of synthetic hormones has been linked to the onset of early puberty along with a link to an increase in breast cancer cells in pubescent girls that lead to higher incidents of breast cancer masticizing. This paper will not only review the history of how synthetic hormones are required to be used in a safe manner according to FDA regulations, but also in discussing the US/EU debate issue in how this issue relays to the general public using bipartisan discussion. Since the European Union's ban on products containing beef hormones is not supported by scientific evidence, is detrimental to the United States cattle industry, and is detrimental to the over all economy of the United States, the United States is right in seeking an end to the ban. According to the USDA government website, this is an ongoing issue over the past fifteen years between the US and the EU (European Union). The disagreement itself is over the use of hormones in cattle came to a head in 1989 when the EU effectively banned any U.S. exports of beef to their country that have been treated with growth promotants. The U.S. has retaliated with scientific studies, evaluations (EU and CODEX conducted) have supported the U.S. position. The disagreement may have some merit with respect to independent testing of the effects that the synthetic hormones on a particular demographic community, mainly the increase in the onset of puberty in prepubescent girls along with an increase in the instances of breast cancer in females. The beef hormone issue is not specifically segregated to an increase in molecular alteration of cancer cells as described above, but, the increase in consumer awareness of the beef farmers using synthetic hormones with their cattle and the need to have labeling included stating the use of synthetic hormones. Hormones The hormones that are naturally occurring in every human are required for normal physiological functioning and maturation and three of these hormones in question, estradiol, progesterone and testosterone, are naturally occurring in all humans and food animals. The other three hormones, trenbolone acetate, zeranol and melengestrol acetate (MGA), have been made into a synthetic version in order to mimic the natural occurring hormone versions.1 Safety Records The FDA has conducted thorough research on the effects of growth hormones used on beef cattle since 1950 and had concluded there was no danger posed to human health and they concluded that there is "essentially no difference between beef from animals raised using hormones and those raised without their use." There is a world wide consensus is that these hormones when used according to approved veterinary practices are very safe and the USDA web site advises that this consensus is reflected in the 1984 and 1987 Lamming Committee reports-- the scientific expert group commissioned by the European Community; the 1987 Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) of the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations; the Codex Committee on Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Food (CC/RVDF), the Codex

Environmental Security Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Environmental Security - Essay Example Environmental Security Although there are various definitions proposed by the Millennium Project, they have been ranked according to importance, relevance and completeness. Based on such ranking the best definition so far that has approved by scientists is â€Å"Environmental security is the relative public safety from environmental dangers caused by natural or human processes due to ignorance, accident, mismanagement or design and originating within or across national borders† (Chourou, 2011, p.373). In the global level, various aspects have been recognized as potential security threats in the next ten years. Human contribution is a major element since population growth is increasingly creating imbalance in the biodiversity. Similarly, climate change is becoming a grave issue more for negligence by humans than its manifestation. Moreover, overpopulation is rapidly creating food and water scarcity along with contamination of air and oceans (Chourou, 2011, p.373). Environment security has today become a global concern, and it has attracted the attention of the security community. Therefore, the involved actors accomplish the task of risk evaluation and it has been agreed upon that climate change causes potential hazards. The US security community remains engaged in evaluating every contingency and accordingly planning effective solutions. Environment is one major issue that is rapidly gaining prominence in the context of defense planning. The use of military tools for environmental risk assessment is subjected to criticisms since these tools are force oriented.

The Construction Of The Great Wall

The Construction Of The Great Wall The construction of the great wall arose throughout the Warring States Period (403 to 221 BC). The Great Wall is a fortification alongside the northern and northwestern boundary of China, running from Shanhaiguan on the Gulf of Bohai on the east to the vicinity of Gaodai, Gansu Province, on the west, with an inner wall consecutively southward from the vicinity of Beijing almost to Handan. Shi Huangdi, first emperor of the Chin dynasty founded the biggest portion of the wall as a defense against raids by nomadic peoples. Organized work on the wall was begun about 221 BC, after Shi Huangdi had united China under his rule, and it was completed about 204 BC. Small segments of the wall were probably already in existence, but Shi Huangdi is thought to have had some nearly 1,200 miles of the wall erected during his reign. 300,000 men several of them political prisoners whose bodies are thought to be buried in the wall (not essentially true) were put to work joining the segments into one h uge rampart of stone and earth. In later times, chiefly during the period of the Ming dynasty (AD 1368-1644), the Great Wall was fixed and extended by reinforcing it with cement and stone. The fortification finally reached a length of about 1,500 miles, ensuing the course of rivers instead of bridging them and conforming to the contours of the mountains and valleys in its path. The wall is built of earth and stone, faced with brick in the eastern parts. It is from 15 to 30 feet thick at the base (about 20 feet on the average) and tapers to some 12 feet at the top. The height averages 25 feet exclusive of the crenellated parapets. Watchtowers about 40 feet in height are placed at intervals of approximately 200 yards. Several hundred kilometers of the Great Wall remain intact in the eastern reaches. The amount of brick and stone working to construct the Great Wall might limit the earth with a barrier eight feet high. From the 6th to the 14th centuries, the wall proved to be an effective barrier against strong-minded invaders, who revealed that bribing the lookouts was their most effective weapon. The Chinese Emperors aided in this cause by failing to pay there army troops, usually a bad mistake. If you dont pay your army, someone else will. Scholars guess that the Great Wall with all its divisions once stretched for 6,200 miles, from the Yalu River in the northern east to Xinjiang in the northwest. Today it measures 6,000 miles. The Great Wall has suffered serious damage from wind and water erosion, as well as man-made destruction. In the past it has been a treasure store of stone for many a poor farmer. Between 1870 and 1974, the 8th Route Army stationed at Gubeikou destroyed 9,840 feet of the wall to use the stone to erect some barracks. Later in 1979, the State ordered the same army group to tea r down their barracks and rebuild the wall. In 226 the armies of the Chu Dynasty and the Qin dynasty met in a great final battle. The victor would get the prize of the richest and most technologically advanced nation of the world. The Qin Emperor needed to defend the country from the marauding bands of nomadic horsemen of the north. These bands of horsemen who raided the rich farmland came from the barren land of the north and were forced to become marauding nomads. It was a clash of farmers against warriors. The group would be difficult to defeat. The strength, stability and prosperity of the new empire were threatened by these marauding hordes. To preserve Chinas borders the Qin set about building a huge defensive barrier in 221 BC. Wall building became the chief defensive strategy to repel the enemy from the north. This was in the age before gunpowder and cannons. The first Great Wall was a massive undertaking. It was the equivalent of building 30 of the great pyramids of Egypt. To build this great wall of 3,000 miles the Qin Emperor chose his most able general Ling Qia. He was given an army of over 300,000 men. They had to build roads, and the infrastructure as well as the wall. Much of the wall was built of beaten clay. Rock was not always available, so tamped earth became the first choice. Dirt was designated from at least four inches below the surface so seeds and grasses could not germinate and thus undermine the strength of the wall. Consuming first a form made of wood, earth was piled and was pounded into a layer of four inches thick. Following layers of this would produce a wall twenty feet high that would still be standing some 2,000 years later. The wall stretched from the borders of North Korea across the northern border to the far reaches in western China. In ten years they built a wall across the entire northern border of China in lands that included marshes, quicksand, deserts, and altitudes of 8,000 feet. They built twenty-five miles a month that is almost a mile a day. One section is across 60 miles of a mountain range. This section was built entirely of native stone with the flat face placed on the outside to face the enemy. This dry stonewall was built 20 feet high with 26-foot high beacon towers. The Qin army invented new weapons to exploit thei r advantage of their new wall. The most deadly of these was the crossbow that could hurl an arrow 250 yards with amazing accuracy. Other weapons included iron casting techniques to produce double edged swords which would not be known in the west for some 1,300 years later. The soft bronze swords of the enemy were no match for the double-edged iron swords of the Qin army. All of this was achieved at great economic and human costs. The emperor thought the wall would bring peace to the nation but the nation was weakened by the heavy cost of the construction. Ditches along the wall were filled with the corpses of workers who died building the wall. Deaths of wall workers are estimated to exceed one million. Some have claimed that the dead workers were entombed in the wall itself. Later investigations proved this untrue. Also decaying bodies would have weakened the structure and would not have been allowed. No society could sustain such a terrible burden. Taxation became heavier and heav ier. Some 3,500,000 people were involved in the building of the Great Wall. That was 70% of the total population of China at that time. For each worker working on the wall, six were required to feed and support them. Construction of the Qin wall became the most loathed imperial plan in Chinese history. In 209 BC, Only a year after the death of the Qin Emperor, millions of laborers rose up and ended the tyranny and bloodshed of wall building. The Qin Dynasty had fallen, brought down by the building of the great wall. Within ten years much of the wall was a neglected ruin. Once again the northern border was at the mercy of the northern invaders. After three years of civil war in 206 BC the first Han Dynasty was formed under the Gao Di Emperor, Liu Bang. At first he attempted to appease the northern invaders with gifts and increased trade but peace was sporadic. A massive force of the Han army attacked the invaders and forced them back across the northern borders. To consolidate their victories they began to mark out their new extended borders. In many areas they simply restored the old Qin wall. In order to build walls in the desert of the west, new methods of construction had to be devised. Here the soil consists of a gravel of sand and small stones. They used alternating layers of red willows and the gravel and lots of tamping. This produced a wall that has survived for some 2,000 years. Using these techniques and hundreds of thousands of people, the Han were able to build the wall far into the Gobi desert. And where clay was used as a skin or coating it made the wall difficult to scale and protected it against the erosion of the weather. The Han leadership knew to have a strong frontier they not only needed to build a strong wall but they also needed crack troops to defend it. They developed a force of light cavalry that could foray into the enemy territory to check on the enemy movements in his own grounds. They had many victories against the Xiongnu. They then employed renegade Xiongnu horse masters to set up horse breeding stables and to train their troops in horsemanship. By the time of the sixth Han Emperor Wu Di some 66 years later, they had crushed the Xiongnu and the wall was extended some 300 miles into the Gobi Desert. The wall now extended across the principle trading routes and if you wished to trade with the Chinese you needed to enter through the gates in the wall. Around these gates towns were established and became the trade centers of the area. At most gates foreigners were not allowed to go past the gates so these became the portals of trade into China. One flawless example is the stunningly preserved Jade Gate. Built in 101 BC, it is 28 feet high and 66 feet square. Close by they built a fort for the Han soldiers defending the wall. This piece of the wall is 453 feet long, 115 feet wide and 23 feet high. The wall became more than a trade route and a barrier to keep out the enemy, it turned out to be vital for communications. Along its ramparts messages can be sent at incredible speeds from one end of the empire to the other. All along the northern border beacon towers were built every 15 to 30 miles. They formed a communication network, which ran from outposts deep into enemy territory to the ancient capital in the east. From these towers the Han troops used smoke by day and torches by night to send messages along the length of the wall. They burnt wood, and straw mixed with wolf dung, which produced rich black columns of smoke. Statutes firmly governed the code of these signals. One column of smoke indicated a n impending attack by a force of less than 500. Two columns showed an attack by a force less than 3,000 and four columns indicated an attack by a force of up to 10,000.China would wait another 1,300 years before embarking on its greatest period of wall building. The Ming Dynasty built much of what remains today. They were driven by desperation to build the ultimate defense and lock the northern frontier once and for all. The Ming renovated the old Qin and Han walls and extended them. The Ming wall stretched some 4,500 miles from the Korean border at Dandong to the city of Jayuguan in the western desert. Today that fort is one of the most impressive, ornate, and sophisticated military constructions in the history of China. The Ming Dynasty came into power in 1368 inheriting a nation crushed by 100 years of rule by the Mongols. The mighty Genghis Khan had united these tribes in 1206 and had pushed their way through China. Ultimately they fell from within. A peasant revolt spelled the defeat of the Mongol empire. The leader of this revolt was Zhu Yangzhong who was installed as the first Ming Emperor. He immediately took up the challenge to begin building the great defense again. The enthusiasm in which the Ming emperors embraced this ambition was staggering. They built more wall than any other dynasty. The Ming wall was typically built with a stone facing over tamped inner clay. This wall was almost indestructible. The Ming bricks were a marvel of engineering holding up to a pressure of over 1000 pounds per square inch. The mortar was of super strength. The mortar was stronger than the bricks themselves. The puzzle of this super strength has now been solved. The mystery ingredient was rice flour. With innovations like these, the Ming was able to build spectacular monuments. A feature of the wall was water drainage systems that channeled the water to the Chinese side and withheld the water to the enemy side and thus inhibited plant growth and so denied cover to the attackers. Warning towers were built in enemy territory. These spurs were built out from the main wall and permitted the Chinese to attack the marauders from two sides. The armies were controlled from watchtowers that were built every 200 yards along the Ming walls. Locks and bolts secured the doors and windows from within creating a formidable fortress. From these towers the defenders could unleash arrows and spears from heavily protected slits. Later cannon were used. Having discovered gunpowder, the Ming was also the first to use hand grenades and mines. Stones were also pushed through special openings to create man made avalanches to crush the enemy. If the attackers succeeded in scaling the wall, the defenders could retreat to the guard towers. These guard towers were only accessible by retractable ladders.

Bram Stokers Dracula vs. Miyazakis Princess Mononoke :: essays research papers

Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, as well as, Hayao Miyazaki’s animated feature, Princess Mononoke, deal with the prevalent theme of good verses evil. On the surface, both stories seem like typical hero verses villain tales, but once their plots are more closely analyzed it is evident that there is not a bold line between the two extremes. Both pieces explore the idea of evil being in the eye of the beholder and being interpreted completely differently from contrasting perspectives. Princess Mononoke is the tale of a young prince, Ashitaka, who battles a demon bore, only to become possessed with its evil spirit. Ashitaka then travels to Irontown, seeking to find the reason for the bore’s anger and thus, a cure for himself. When he arrives, he finds that the citizens of the town, under the rule of Lady Eboshi, have been mining iron from nearby mountains and, in turn, disturbing the animal Gods of the forest. The animals and the humans have been in a constant battle over who has the right to the land and both have been lead to believe that the other species is purely evil. Ashitaka believes that the humans and the animals can get along peacefully through compromise and finds himself in the middle of their conflict. From each side’s perspective, the other seems inherently evil, but from Ashitaka’s perspective, and the perspective of the audience, neither side is truly corrupt and they are both just feeding off of each other’s anger. Alt hough the animals seem evil and barbaric to the humans, they are just being protective over their land and are acting off of their fear of the humans. On the other hand, the humans are seen as evil by the animals because of their selfish use of resources, but they are just trying to financially support their community. For example, Lady Eboshi, the leader of Irontown, is seen as evil for orchestrating this exploitation of resources from the animals, but the humans see her as a compassionate, God-like figure. She does many positive and kind things for the human community, such as taking in women from the streets and brothels and giving them a place to live and work. Even though she is, in essence, destroying the animal’s habitats, she is saving the lives of many humans while doing it. The animal characters are also portrayed as compassionate in many respects. For example, when the leader of the wolves finds an abandoned baby, she takes her in and raises her as if she were her own daughter. Bram Stoker's Dracula vs. Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke :: essays research papers Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, as well as, Hayao Miyazaki’s animated feature, Princess Mononoke, deal with the prevalent theme of good verses evil. On the surface, both stories seem like typical hero verses villain tales, but once their plots are more closely analyzed it is evident that there is not a bold line between the two extremes. Both pieces explore the idea of evil being in the eye of the beholder and being interpreted completely differently from contrasting perspectives. Princess Mononoke is the tale of a young prince, Ashitaka, who battles a demon bore, only to become possessed with its evil spirit. Ashitaka then travels to Irontown, seeking to find the reason for the bore’s anger and thus, a cure for himself. When he arrives, he finds that the citizens of the town, under the rule of Lady Eboshi, have been mining iron from nearby mountains and, in turn, disturbing the animal Gods of the forest. The animals and the humans have been in a constant battle over who has the right to the land and both have been lead to believe that the other species is purely evil. Ashitaka believes that the humans and the animals can get along peacefully through compromise and finds himself in the middle of their conflict. From each side’s perspective, the other seems inherently evil, but from Ashitaka’s perspective, and the perspective of the audience, neither side is truly corrupt and they are both just feeding off of each other’s anger. Alt hough the animals seem evil and barbaric to the humans, they are just being protective over their land and are acting off of their fear of the humans. On the other hand, the humans are seen as evil by the animals because of their selfish use of resources, but they are just trying to financially support their community. For example, Lady Eboshi, the leader of Irontown, is seen as evil for orchestrating this exploitation of resources from the animals, but the humans see her as a compassionate, God-like figure. She does many positive and kind things for the human community, such as taking in women from the streets and brothels and giving them a place to live and work. Even though she is, in essence, destroying the animal’s habitats, she is saving the lives of many humans while doing it. The animal characters are also portrayed as compassionate in many respects. For example, when the leader of the wolves finds an abandoned baby, she takes her in and raises her as if she were her own daughter.