English 102 Blog #6

After learning about the technological advances in the future, in order to reduce the impact of unemployable people, I feel that we should just slow down on new discoveries as far as technology goes.  We may not realize right now how big of an impact these types of technologies will have on our future.  We are too worried about giving ourselves a name or giving the people something positive to look forward to, when in reality this will eventually have a negative effect on the lot of us.  If we decide we do not want to slow down and continue to advance then maybe we need to figure out a way humans can easily collaborate with the technologies without any conflict.  We will need to make things fair just as it would be if it were human-to-human collaboration.  In a lot of my classes right now we are learning the importance of collaboration.  We need to remember in the workplace we do not work alone at any point in the day.  If we ever have a question or concern we ask the person that knows and this is collaboration.  We need to find a way to do this even when there is not human-to-human collaboration but human-to-technology collaboration.  I feel that that is the most logical way to resolve this issue even before it gets out of hand and we begin to stress about what to do next. 

English 102 Blog #5

Other jobs that may no longer need people to perform could be the school system (as in faculty and staff).  In the future I feel even students will not have to physically attend school but there may be a device we use to learn.  Like a headset or a computer program.  Eventually we may not even need to go to school at all.  If robots are going to be doing our jobs for us we will not have anything to do.  A negative point to that would be how much time we would now have on our hands.  We would not have to go to work every day so we would eventually just do nothing at all.  Of course we would go out to dinner and maybe even go out dancing but eventually there will not be any room for all the people that would have free time.   I feel like we would become more irresponsible and lazier if this were to happen.  Maybe at first we might see this as a great thing.  We will not have to stress about work, dread getting up in the morning or even complain about that annoying coworker in the cubicle next to us, but in time we may become antsy and bored leading to total chaos.  Maybe we will get rid of our money system all together and have a different form of currency for when we need something.  This reminds me of the Pixar movie Wall-E.  Their homes was completely destroyed with all the litter and mess created over the years so they were forced to move away from Earth.  If we do not slow down our technological advances, we will eventually be in the same boat as the people in Wall-E.  But, we will not know this for sure until, and if, it happens.  

English 102 Blog #2

In his speech, Senator Obama used arguments based on emotion (pathos).  For example when he chose not take his colleagues advice about brushing off what Mr. Keyes said about him being elected because, "Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama. Christ would not vote for Barack Obama because Barack Obama has behaved in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved." (Connection between Faith and Politics) Senator Obama did the complete opposite and did take that statement to heart and he uses this life story to show how he felt and to get a reaction out of his audience members by making them feel how he felt.  Another good rhetorical strategy used by Senator Obama is his use of arguments based on facts and reasoning (logos).  When he throws out numbers and gives statistics such as saying that about 90 percent of Americans believe in God that is a great way of catching the audience's attention and keeping it.  When people are given numbers and statistics to be shown a point, I know for me, it really catches my attention and I want to learn more whether the statistics really make sense or not.  When I find out I am not the only person who loves bacon but that "x" percent of other American's love bacon as well it makes the world feel much smaller than it really is.  It's a way to make others feel not so alone.  Using these types of strategies in any type of speech really aides in creating a successful speech.  

Blog #1- Obama's Speech

In The Connection between Faith and Politics, Senator Obama makes the point that there needs to be more faith associated with politics.  That does not mean it has to be all about the faith but we need to have a balance between the two subjects.  He uses many examples from his own experiences that aide in him making his point.  One of these examples used was him running in the Senate General Election against Mr. Alan Keyes.  He goes on to explain how Mr. Keyes says "Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama. Christ would not vote for Barack Obama because Barack Obama has behaved in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved."  Senator Obama’s colleagues told him not to take this to heart but it was very difficult to listen to their advice.  Later on Senator Obama makes a statement saying “we live in a pluralistic society, that I can't impose my own religious views on another, that I was running to be the U.S. Senator of Illinois and not the Minister of Illinois.”  That was the end of that.  Throughout his speech, Senator Obama gives many examples of how religious views playing apart in politics could be beneficial.  He uses many statistics about how many people in the U.S. are religious and what religion they practice.  He also adds in many personal stories about his family and how his parents were not very religious and neither was he as a kid.  But, later in his life is when he found the faith and chose to become Christian.  He goes back and forth between our government and now and our government back in the days where religion did play a huge part in politics which gave his speech oomph.