Counterintuitive Spring 2024

For my research essay I will be examining how society pressures people to be happy.  Society is built on the idea that people will pursue happy lives and in doing so, better the society they live in.  As a result, people who do not are cannot pursue that happiness, are shunned or taken in to be made happy.  If people were happy all the time, would society flourish or change?

A large percentage of people live selfish lives, pursuing happiness without regard for others’.  Therefore if everyone pursued selfish lives and only thought of themselves, then people would become mistrusting and disdainful of one another, undermining the happiness.  Is society’s pressure to pursue happiness destined to fail?

The Economics of Immediate Gratification

Background: People today only act on short-term gains.  Regardless of how we feel about doing well in the long-term, short-term outcomes still govern our actions.  Do people really think about their own actions causing self-control issues in the future?

How I intend to Use It: This article can shed light on the topic of self-awareness in long-term happiness situations.  If people know that a choice will lead to long-term happiness while sacrificing short-term, which will they choose?  Society pressures us to be happy, but do we really choose what is best for us?

There’s More to Life Than Being Happy

Background: Prominent Jewish psychiatrist Viktor Frankl postulated that the pursuit of happiness had nothing to do with leading a meaningful life.   He found that being happy is about feeling good and lacking stress.  A lifestyle of “taking” was typically found to be a happier one.  People who have found meaning in life are usually giving and make sacrifices to happiness in order to benefit others.  The meaning derived from a selfless lifestyle comes from the sacrifice to something greater than oneself.  While happiness is temporary and fades, meaning lasts in life through the past and future.

How I intend to Use It: This article will be used to display the counter-argument for being happy.  People who are not happy may lead meaningful lives but society frowns upon those who do not seek happiness.  Society pressures people to be happy making them live less-meaningful lives.

Let the Happiness In

Background: Despite great strides in increasing the quality of life in developed countries over the last 50 years, people are still not happy.  People are also no longer trusting of one another as society has made people self-centered and caused social problems ranging from depression to the breakdown of the family unit.  However, if people changed their focus on helping and sacrificing for the people around them such as family, close friends, and community, people would be happier and healthier.

How I intend to Use It: This article can demonstrate the negative effects of a self-centered society, and show how selflessness can improve happiness.  By sacrificing some happiness to close friends and family, people benefit and achieve happiness when others reciprocate those actions.

What would make a Happier Society?

Background: There are several specific factors that have an effect on whether a person is happy including Health, Income, Work, and Family.  The analysis of the slow decline in people happiness was shown to be a fall in the religious belief, leading to the increase in individualism.  Previously the unselfishness of man was shown to better fellow man, however the decrease in belief in a higher power undermines man’s obligation to help others.

How I intend to Use It:  This article discusses specifics in societal happiness, shedding light on the potential necessity for happiness in society.  By outlining the specifics, it will be easier to form a counter-argument to better the idea that society should not force happiness on people.

Why do we want to be Happy?

Background: People today have the same goal in life, to achieve happiness.  Happiness is the drive for all actions and goals set by people.  Materials possessions and money do not guarantee happiness, because of the stress and worry they apply on their owners.  Happiness is not something that can be pursued or found, it is with us when we achieve our goals and help others achieve theirs.

How I intend to Use It: The article gives reasons and postulates where happiness comes from.  It can provide support for the idea that society urges us to be happy and better society by advancing socially.  Despite the advancement through material possessions, the happiness is not guaranteed to follow, so society doesn’t always provide a way to happiness.

Connection and Happiness

Background: We need others to make us happy and to improve our quality of life.  Mutual relationships and friendships allow us to fulfill our fundamental social and emotional needs like validation of self worth, security, and assistance in times of need.  The happiness provided by companionship is lasting compared to other forms.

How I intend to Use It: This article primarily makes claims concerning relationships and their relevance to a persons happiness.  I can use the claims and support to reinforce the idea that having greedy social status and material items doesn’t have a lasting effect on happiness.  While the selfless relationships that exist between people allow oneself a greater satisfaction with life.

Love People, Not Pleasure

Background: Just because you aren’t happy doesn’t mean you are unhappy.  A main source for people’s general unhappiness may be that people get too caught up with the search for their own well being.  Reality TV has lead to shows where people are loved, hated, or simply recognized(fame) which allows those individuals to have other care about what they say or do.  This leads to the realization that intrinsic goals for life are more fulfilling that fame can provide.

How I intend to Use It: I can use this article to introduce that aspect of fame, money, and shallow pleasure into my paper on happiness.  Where people are recognized and loved, however these small relationships with “fans”, are meaningless and ultimately lead to feeling unfulfilled.  Getting caught up with possessing material items to ensure one’s well being leads to being unfulfilled.

Older Adults are Happiest Americans

Background: Older Americans are happiest because they have learned to lower their standards and accept their past achievements.  Younger Americans have higher expectations where they look forward to a better life and accomplishments.  Older Americans don’t really look forward for big accomplishments and they look back and see that they have lead a happy life which validates their current feelings of happiness.

How I intend to Use It: Looking forward to achieving goals in life and high expectations lead to unhappiness in the younger population.  This can be used in my paper to draw similarities between those with material possessions and how their expectations were too high for their wealth.  People who search for happiness throughout their lives have high expectations for their lives and are more unhappy when the goals are not fully reached.  While those who have low expectations and are selfless are rewarded by happiness when their accomplishments exceed their goals.

How to Be Happy

Background: Living a happier life isn’t about removing unhappiness, its about focusing on positive events and goals in life.  Well being is defined as a state that allows one to thrive and flourish.  Happiness is about attaining an optimist attitude where one focuses on the positives in life than regretting the negatives.  Living a satisfying life is about balance between pleasant, good, and meaningful lifestyles.

How I intend to Use It: This article gives background to the claims that one can be both unhappy and happy in life.  In addition it makes that claim that leading strictly meaningful or selfish lifestyles will result in unhappiness, where it suggests a balance provides optimal happiness.  It also provides a clearer definition for “well being”.

Are you addicted to Unhappiness?

Background: A basic aspect of human behavior is that we seek pleasure to avoid pain, yet people make choices that are intentionally made to cause unhappiness.  There is a shift to complain about their unhappiness and almost seem proud of it.  This behavior is counter intuitive and is supported by findings related to the feelings behind horror movie viewers and people who feel guilty or undeserving of happiness.

How I intend to Use It: This provides a new take of my happiness argument by suggesting that people actually enjoy the unhappiness that they themselves incite.  In addition it provides support for the argument that happiness is a choice.  If happiness is a choice, then why aren’t more people happy?

Euthanasia and assisted suicide are two topics that are seemingly untouchable and unthinkable in the United States, so it is counterintuitive to thing these things could ever be legal. But these very topics are being pushed through legislation in Belgium. In December of 2013, Belgium passed a bill that allowed youths to get euthanized.  While euthanasia in Belgium has been legal for years, it was previously illegal for people under 18 to get the procedure. As it can be expected, this bill has caused a serious backlash from the religious and pro-life parties. Those people believe that life is a gift, one that people should be thankful for.  The idea that someone can choose to end their life despite this gift is absurd to the protesters.  Others embrace the thought that they have the control to undergo euthanasia.  People with terminal illness, and that go through a lot of pain on a daily bases might feel enlightened to have the choice to escape their pain.

So should life be looked at as a gift that cannot be refused? Or should it be looked at a choice, something that can be escaped at any time?

Sources

1.  A deadly conflict of interest: why euthanasia in Belgium is so out of control
2. Belgium extends euthanasia law to kids
3. Belgium: Lawmakers vote for children’s ‘right to die’ euthanasia law
4. Belgium’s parliament votes through child euthanasia
5. Legal Euthanasia for Children In Belgium: Will It Trigger Death Tourism
6. Chilean girl appeals to president to be allowed to die
7. Euthanasia for children is hard to contemplate – but we must talk about it
8. Child euthanasia: Too hard to live, too young to die
9. The world needs to talk about child euthanasia
10. What Belgium’s child euthanasia law means for America and the Constitution

Sometimes it is difficult to “read” children, but parents can learn a lot about a child based on an experiment.  The Marshmallow Test was a study during the 1960s by a professor named Walter Mischel.  This study put nursery students into a room individually, handed them a marshmallow, and told them a simple statement: If the children can wait fifteen minutes without eating the marshmallow, they will be given another one.  This study showed that the same children turned out to be “better at life.”  His hypothesis was that if the children who waited those fifteen minutes have the ability to become healthier, more successful, and have the ability to stay in relationships better.

However, another study has be conducted by a graduate student at the University of Rochester named Celeste Kidd.  Kidd made her own version of the marshmallow test with a little twist to it.  She tested the children on their trust.  She entered the room with new art supplies and stickers while splitting up a group of children into two groups with around 14 children in each group.  She purposely was reliable and kept her word for one group but not the other.  She brought new and better art supplies after she told both groups she would, including bringing larger stickers.  Once the students realized that she hadn’t kept her word they did not wait those 15 minutes to receive the larger stickers or the better crayons.  While Mischel’s study focused mainly on determination, Kidd’s study focused on trust.  My hypothesis is that children need to know that they can trust someone in giving their word.  Children who do not have trust tend to lack the qualities the children have now that they are older.

1. The Marshmallow Test Teaches You About Your Children

Background: This article describes the Marshmallow Test and how Mr. Mishcel first came about this experiment.  He first noticed his daughters how they would control their impulses and he could not figure out what would be racing through their minds at that exact moment.  So he wanted to understand and read what they were thinking.  He then relates his perspective of the test and compares it to impulses of adults.

How I Intend to Use It: Walter Mischel compares how children and adults are not that different when it comes to dealing with they natural instincts and compulsions.  The children who show self control are more able to deal with frustration and defeat stress.  Mischel learned and quickly realized the different techniques that children show to delay gratification.

2. Insight on Kids’ Delayed Gratification

Background: There is an updated Marshmallow Test that was performed by Celeste Kidd.  The study included having a reliable source and an unreliable source.  Children who had a reliable researcher before the experiment would wait about four times longer to eat the marshmallow than children who had an unreliable interaction with a researcher.

How I Intend to Use It:  The children who were tested to delay gratification did correlate to higher success in life, including higher SAT scores and lower rates of substance abuse. However, in this article, it also talks about what the study did not show, which is why the children decided to wait or not to eat the marshmallows.  Kidd was volunteering at a homeless shelter in Santa Ana, California when she noticed how a little girl reacted when someone stood her lollipop. The little girl did not react at all, and didn’t say a word.  Kidd said, “If you’re in a place where things get taken all the time, then you get used to things being taken away.”

3. Willpower- Gratification

Background: The American Psychology Association delves into the 1960s study of Walter Mischel. It explains how the study works and Mischel’s reasoning for his hypothesis.  He proposed a system that he calls a “hot and cold” system to better explain why willpower succeeds or fails.  However, the study did not end with Mischel;  B.J. Casey, PhD, of Weill Cornell Medical College, along with Mischel, Yuichi Shoda, PhD, of the University of Washington tracked down 59 participants how took the marshmallow test and as children.

How I Intend to Use It:  The “hot and cool” system explains why willpower does not always succeed.  The cool system is basically a thinking system, where it integrates knowledge about sensations, feelings, and actions or goals, like reminding yourself not to eat the marshmallow.  The hot system is impetuous, spontaneous, and emotional, like putting the marshmallow in your mouth with thinking of the consequences.  The cool system would represent the angel on your shoulder and the hot system could represent the devil.

4. The Importance of Delayed Gratification for Children

Background:  This article describes how delayed gratification is important for children and how parents should become well aware. People who are more intelligence, and are more likely to delay discounting, meaning that those individuals are able less likely to give in to immediate gratification.  This article also mentions how introverted people compare to extroverted people and how they play a role with delayed gratification.

How I Intend to Use It: People usually only see the stereotypes of introverted and extroverted people, but they don’t realize how being one or the other can shape someone’s life.  Parents should understand how important delayed gratification really is. Delayed gratification is linked to the age of the child.  This article also explains different points on how parents should become more aware of this factor and they should cultivate delated gratification.

5. Neurological Aspect of Delayed Gratification

Background: Why would some people be able to delay gratification, while others easily give in? This article goes into the neurological aspect of it.  A new study at the Brain and Spine Institute in Paris have discovered that the brain’s memory help in resisting temptations, including the hippocampus.  Several studies were tested, such as having $10 today instead of $11 tomorrow.  This is a conflicting between a smaller reward today and a larger one at a later time.

How I Intend to Use It:  The Brain has many skills, however not many know the abilities that the different memory systems.  The hippocampus does not only play a role in your long term memory, but it can resist temptations as well.  The smaller reward and larger reward conflict Scientists have concluded that the dorsolateral part of the prefrontal cortex is important for making the choice to delay immediate gratification.

6. http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304185104579439580036429524

Background: The marshmallow test claims that it can provide information about the brain development in children just as well as a multimillion dollar machine can.  The way children delay their gratification and hold back can tell us a lot about the functionality of each of the children’s frontal cortex in the brain which is central to impulse control.  The frontal cortex is part of the brain where is takes the loges to mature and is the last, which is around the age of 25 years old.

How I Intend to Use It: The article further discusses a second factor that affects the development of the frontal cortex.  Stress is a major factor in the lives of the impoverished which then makes stress a major component on a child’s brain development, specifically to their frontal cortex.

A study has been conducted on rats where the rats have been exposed to stress hormones causing their neurons in the frontal cortex to shrivel making the rats make bad judgments impulsively.

7. http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/on-retirement/2012/05/15/why-the-wealthy-are-healthy

Background: The article compares and contrasts the different lifestyles and effects that low income families have versus high income families.  Psychologist Sheldon Cohen tried to predict people’s susceptibility to disease by performing an experiment.  he injected a cold visrus into their noses and waited a few days and the results came out to be that more people became sick after they answered “no” to this question: “Did your parents own their own home when you were a child?” A lot less people got sick after answering “yes” to the same question.

How I Intend to Use It:  The article mentions low income people suffer a lot more from stress because they have to deal with their jobs, being unemployed, or being stuck in debt.  The article also mentions the ability to delay gratification.  Children with more self control were less likely to develop health problems in the future, and were less like to smoke or commit a crime.

8. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-marshmallow-test-suggests-trust-matters/

Background: In a more recent version of the Marshmallow Test, Celeste Kidd wanted to see if the reliability of the person had an effect on the children’s decision to take what they were given or wait and receive more.  She wanted to test if the children had trust or not.

How I Intend to Use It:  The researched found interesting that the children put in the unreliable group waited three minutes and two second before eating the marshmallow, while the children in the reliable group waited 12 minutes.  Just one child in the unreliable grip waited the full fifteen minutes and 9 children in the reliable group did not snack the first time.

9. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2219052/Scientists-test-trust-affects-ability-young-children-resist-temptation–promising-marshmallows.html

Background: A new study has been conducted in comparison to the marshmallow test.  This tests if willpower is correlated to or influence by trust as a natural ability. “The robust effect of manipulating the environment, concluded the authors, provides strong evidence that children’s wait times reflect rational decision making about the probability of reward.”

How I Intend to Use It: This experiment is an example of nature and nurture both having a role.  Temperament is inherited because infants behaviors differ from that at birth. “’But this experiment provides robust evidence that young children’s action are also based on rational decisions about their environment.”

10. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/books/review/how-children-succeed-by-paul-tough.html

Background: This article shows both sides of socioeconomic spectrum leading children to miss out on essential experiences.  For the wealthy and elite children are protected from misfortune, starting from the baby-proofed nurseries and continuing to their financier adulthoods kept by their parents.  While poor children have challenged all through their life and does not have an end to this misfortune, starting with poor nutrition and medical care to dysfunctional schools and neighborhoods.

How I Intend to Use It: It compared the Marshmallow Test to a story about Kewauna who was about to get into college and work hard.  She didn’t know any business ladies with briefcases and didn’t know any college graduates except for her teachers.   The choice was that she could have one marshmallow now or she can work hard for four years saving up, sacrificing, struggling, and then getting two marshmallows.

My

In 1929 a new amendment to the Dominican Constitution was made, which stated that in order to be Dominican at least one parent had to be Dominican regardless were we were born. Nonetheless, after stating who was Dominican in the constitution, the government kept giving documentation to anyone born in the country of undocumented parents. Many Dominicans of international descendent, which parents without documents thought that giving birth to them in the Dominican Republic automatically provided Dominican citizenship to their children, now are being considered “stateless” individuals by the sentence TC 0168-13. Denationalized citizens face lack of opportunities and deportation to their ancestral native country because by law they were never Dominicans. Now, jobs, education, health insurance, getting married, the right of ownership are privileges taken away. The most prejudiced citizens by the sentence are the Dominican of Haitian decent, who without knowing anyone in Haiti, many don’t even speak the Haitian creole, are going to be deported.

POPULAR PERCEPTIONS OF HAITI AND THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

Background: The conflicts and cooperations among the Dominican Republic and Haiti come from the colonial times when the Europeans had the control of the Hispaniola (name of the island formed by Haiti and Dominican Republic).

How I intend to use it: My intentions with the material is to illustrate how political forces from the Dominican Republic and Haiti have contribute to the ideology of discrimination between the two countries.

Q&A ON THE RULING TC/0168-13

Background:  This is a document of the regulations that the ruling TC 0168-13. This document provides information about who is a Dominican, to whom the law is directed, and clarifying that being born in the country does not provide citizenship. In addition, a solution to the statelessness is given in this document.

How I intent to use it: This document provide the purpose of the law and the solutions it brings; therefore, it will provide the opportunity of giving an opposite argument.

A TIMELINE OF DENATIONALIZATION

Background:  A timeline of how the dominican republic Electoral Central of Council had been planing a Denationalization for foreigners’ children for more than 10 years.

How I intend to use it: my purpose is to illustrate the bad situation of the undocumented citizens in the Dominican Republic before the TC 0168-13.

The Dominican Government Is Cementing the Foundations of Apartheid

Background: An illustration of how Dominican of Haitian decent are the main target of the law and are the ones who suffer the most with the provision of education, marriage, property ownership, freedom of movement, and political participation. In addition, testimony of real victims of the TC 0168-13 is provided.

How I intend to use it: In this article estimation of Haitian decent Dominican are given, I will be able to show the purpose of the law and how is discriminatory act.

Preliminary Observations from the IACHR’s Visit to the Dominican Republic

Background:  This article provide the dangers that Dominicans who are against the law face. Communicators that stand up for the rights of others are categorized as “traitors” and receive deaths threats from followers of the ideology of separation of both countries in the Dominican Republic.

How I intend to use it: my purpose with this article is to show that the law TC 0168-13 affects the Dominican Republic as well.

What earns RD with agitation against Haiti?

Background: This is a video from one of the journalist, Marino Zapete, who are being threaten and labeled as as traitors of the Dominican Republic by his opposition to the ruling. Zapete talks about the Dominican businessman who are starting to feel the consequences created by the dilemma between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Furthermore, Zapete discuss how political groups in both countries are being responsible for the response of both countries; now,  Haiti does not have a Dominican Embassy in function. In addition, the trades and life of people on the border are unprotected. Zapate also talks of the mass-hysteria produced in the countries by political parties and who are getting the benefit from the present problems among both countries. For closure, the journalist gives examples of how the Dominican Republic is and will be affected by violation of the human rights.

How I intend to use it: This video has a lot of material, which give a lot of support to my thesis that states that the Dominican Republic will suffer from the decisions that international organizations will take against the violation of human rights at the Dominican Republic.

Marino Zapete: Thunders before hanging of Haitian park in Santiago

Background: Henry Claude Jean “Tulile” was a Hatian national who recently was killed and hanged at a park in Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic. The day before of the slaughter a group of masked Dominicans gathered and burned the Haitian flag. The journalist Marino Zapata shows the images of the hagged Haitian National and the video of the disrespectful act against the Haitian flag. Additionally, Zapete gives the point of view of the “nationalists” and the reasons why Haitian nationals did  not kill Henry Claude Jean; in addition, the message left by the slaughter of the Haitian national. Zapete talks about the preventives taken by the government and the reason why Haitians migrate to the Dominican Republic.

How I intend to use it: The action of the “nationalists” are prove of how the Dominican government does not take preventives against violence and discrimination towards Haitian nationals. Therefore, I intend to illustrate how the government is not taking action in the problems that are taking part in both countries.

Dominican Government has been unable to stop the racists in RD

Background: The chancellor Andres Navarro is being portrait as a national figure in the Dominican Republic by his reaction against the burning of the Dominican flag in Haiti, according to Marino Zapete. However, Zapete look at Navarro response as counter progressive because Navarro makes the dilemma between the Dominican Republic and Haiti a sign of a Haitian invasion. Nevertheless, Zapete provides, but does not defend, reasons why the Haitians are acting aggressively towards the present problems related to the ruling and racism in the Dominica Republic. Zapete, once again, points the case of  Henry Claude Jean “Tulile” and give new assumptions made by the Dominican police. Then, to finalize, Zapete comes with a solution to the problem among the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

How I intend to use it:  Some of the violent acts towards Haitians and how the Government makes the problems look at the Dominican Republic are provided in this video and will be of good use to show how the ruling is against Haitian nationals.

Journalism and Migrations

Background: In this article by the Haitian priest Edwin Paraison, the contributions from Dominican journalists are recognized. The journalist are for the most part in the side where the human rights are being respected, and as a country of people in international countries, the Dominican Republic have been in controversies when Dominicans are harmed in international lands. Nonetheless, international journalists defend the rights of Dominicans in their country.

How I intend to use it: When people from a country have their rights violated in another country, movements and controversy are always made and the Dominican Republic has been part of those movements. Therefore, I will provide evidence of how the Dominicans have been in opposition of the violation of human rights and how support from journalists is in favor of the damaged individuals.

In the insular peace

Background: Edwin Paraison comes with a solution to the relationship between the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Paraison sees the situation as easy to win in international courts, but he thinks that an agreement among both countries will come to the end with all the violence produced by the mass-hysteria produced in the two countries by the government.

How I intend to use it: This article provides a good solution for the problem, in addition it provides a reason that might be good to debate during my investigation.

Annotated Bibliography – Albert

In this era of technology, Apple has been a big contributor in technology sophistication and made all of its devices user friendly. We are very dependent on their expensive devices to go through our daily routines but is it the device or the brand that makes us more attracted to it? I would certainly say it is brand.

Many people including me use iPhone as their cellular device, it’s not their only choice but it is very the “norm” to me and the people I hang out with. Apple is everywhere in classrooms, workplaces and at home. The product is good but there are other products with the same quality, cheaper and with more freedom.

01 Benefits of using apple over android

Background: The first benefit of apple device is the easiness to use the features, where the apps are shown with a big icon and its description under. The interface is the same on apple devices too only adds to the ease of use that makes Apple so popular. Apple devices are the best looking in the market, they have an allure

How I intend to use it: Since I will be talking about the dependency on apple products, a motive for our actions should be included. At least a quick explanation on why we reason that way.

02 Legal and Ethical

Background There are many legal and ethical issues related to Apple products, New York police says that the theft of iPhone and iPad has increased at a rate ten times higher than any other crimes.

How I intend to use it I’ll use this to talk about how Apple products have gained so much value that we commit crimes in order to get a hold on one.

03 Security and privacy

Background Apple devices sync all of our documents into the clouds, our home computers and tablets in an organized and readable fashion. Which also can make one wonder where else can these documents can be transferred to, since it is very easy to access your stored information from a different apple device.

How I intend to use it I’m using this piece to dig in farther on the limit of privacy apple users have and if we should be worried about our information being held by them.

04 Social problems

Background As millions of people across the country line up to purchase the new iPhone , one phone is not only a person’s problem, but also become a social problems. Based on predictions of Apple sales, GDP goes up. Also in February 2014 a report released by the Economic Policy Institute mentioned the labor abuses that still persist in factories where the apple products are made.

How I intend to use it I’ll include this in my paragraph where I’ll attack the subject of apple workers and the social injustice.

05 Apple Product Alernatives

Background For each item on the Apple roster, there’s a non-Apple alternative that comes close, and, in some cases, even performs better and costs cheaper. A good example would be the iPhone 3GS when it first came out everyone had their eyes on it but now most the people own one. But for $20 cheaper we could afford a Google Nexus One which just like the iPhone, Google’s flagship phone is a slim, speedy, powerful touch screen slab with a great Web browser and thousands of apps.

How I intend to use it I’ll be using this to talk about how we don’t have to waste so much money on Apple products to get the same services from other corporations.

06 Apple Tied With Samsung

Background After the release of the new iPhone 6 and 6 plus, Apple has reached the top and in tie with Samsung. Apple had a 46% increase in their shipment compared to last year while Samsung faced a 13% decrease. Samsung is facing big problems because of Xiaomi dominating the Chinese market and Apple leading the premium market worldwide.

How I intend to use it As seen before Apple keeps growing and now caught up to the biggest manufacturer. But the irony of this is that Apple did so after the release of the iPhone 6 and 6 plus, which are phones with bigger screen and skinnier body than the previous iPhone. It is ironic because Samsung was the first to distribute phones with wide screens and skinny frame, which was later criticized by many for its size. I’ll be comparing why did people chose the big iPhone over the Samsung Note or S5.

07 Apple Ecosystem 

Background Apple sat up an OS ecosystem, which makes it easier for every Apple user to communicate with each other, share videos and photos. Features like iMessage that allows Apple users to text each other with only the need of wifi or FaceTime which lets consumers make video calls with, iPhone, Macs and iPad.

How I intend to use it This is an important part when it comes to brand loyalty. Apple made sure that it differentiates itself from other brands, a text received from an OS device to another shows up as blue while others are green. I’ll be talking about Apple this strategy as a constant reminder to consumers that “we are a unity.”

08 Apple is winning the battle but Samsung might win the war

Background Apple and Samsung have been fighting lawsuits back and forth about copying each others’ patents, both companies had wins and loses in different countries.  —–But despite the unsettled lawsuits, Samsung is becoming technologically efficient and with features similar to Apple.

How I intend to use it As the Galaxy S with growing features similar to the iPhone, the future in this market will be based product longevity. Apple keeps coming out with very elegant phones but very fragile meanwhile Samsung is manufacturing decent designs but very rigid products. I can compare the Galaxy S5 which is water proof to the iPhone 6 plus which can easily bend.

09 Apple survival strategy

Background In the future Apple will be more focused on selling only premium products. Therefore it has to specify its market to: publishing, education, and science.  But this will only make the company a trend influence instead of its ambassador.

How I intend to use it I don’t have anything specific for this one yet.

10 Samsung might not be the only Apple competitors in this Mobile Device Era

Background In the long run, Google is considered as the biggest competitor of Apple. This explains why Apple is cooperating with Yahoo and less reliance on Google. As of now Google makes by charging consumers of its premium products, which Apple might have to switch into in the near future because it is getting harder to innovate hardware. Despite the big advances of both Google and Apple, Samsung is also its own ecosystem; it will that triangular competition.

How I intend to use it It will help me on talking about why the survival strategy of Apple might be in jeopardy, and if it chooses to switch strategy, other competitors will already occupying that market.

I am choosing to research the massive amounts of potential projects done over the web with varying amounts of large participants; participants ranging from hundreds of thousands to as high as hundreds of millions. These are projects that are so time-man-and-resource consuming that the only practical way to achieve their goals is to use a massive amount of people and there is no way more practical than through the use of the internet.

Methods which utilize massive online collaborations are tried an true, though underrated. Most projects usually don’t inform the “workers” because they’d feel an obligation to be formally paid rather than a simple exchange of services. For example: reCAPTCHA is able to digitize 200,000 books a day by using the input of humans to read something a computer can’t. Paying a team of people to read and translate “analog” text to digital text is much more cost-expensive than the free service of millions of people who would use their 10 seconds anyways, but putting the 10 seconds “wasted” to a bigger and better use.

1. “reCAPTCHA”

Background: While it isn’t exactly an article, I thought it’d be appropriate to start with my prime example’s homepage. This page discusses the project mention earlier, reCAPTCHA, and gives a brief description, and evidence, of what I claimed the project to accomplish.

How I intend to use it: I can use this as reinforcement when mentioning reCAPTCHA as a “tried and true” project.

2. “Massive-Scale Online Collaboration”

Background: Back the roots, I will use the original documentation as a source. This article reinforces the purpose of CAPTCHA and how reCAPTCHA turns 10 seconds of “wasted” time into endless applications of productivity.

How I intend to use it: The provided page is chock-full of evidence supporting my topic’s idea and can be used to further strengthen the argument for these projects.

3.  “FAQs About Online Collaboration”

Background: This is a FAQ page which sheds some light on general online-collaboration. While not focusing on massive-scaled collaborations, it describes with detail the benefits and advantages of online collaboration.

How I Intend to use it: This page can help me address the finer points of the perks massive online collaboration has to offer by proving that even a smaller-scaled online collaboration has heaps of benefits.

4. “Collaboration project defeats explosives threats through enhanced detection technologies”

Background: Los Alamos launched a new collaborative program called LACED to provide a better and move advanced detection of explosives. They plan to use the collaboration of industry and federal government to achieve the common goal.

How I Intend to use it: This is solid evidence in the making that massive collaboration poses a great advantage when dealing with either an ever changing/evolving environment or time sensitive-goal; just like bombs becoming more compact/devastating and the possibility for the next attack being now.

5. “How online gamers are solving science’s biggest problems”

Background: As off-topic as it sounds, this is an article useful to my cause. The linked page gives way to a few “sub-articles” or pages where the reader can participate in any mentioned projects. The projects described in this article all use the guise of gaming to “coax” users and/or gamers into solving “real world” problems.

How I Intend to use it: Although the article never explicitly praises “massive online collaboration”, what it describes is the same exact thing and can be used to further press the importance of using the resources of millions of people and the single-most important tool, the internet, to complete monumental projects for the better of humanity and the rest of the world.

6.  “Seven Wonder of the Ancient World: Khufu’s Great Pyramid.”

Background: A reliable source proving and supporting the fact that an amazing feat such as the pyramids could only be done with a massive worker-base, and even with such workers the pyramids took long periods of time.

How I Intend to use it: This source will be used to reinforce the hypothesis that massive collaborations have been beneficial throughout human history. The pyramids, among other architectural and engineering wonders, would never have been completed if it weren’t for large work forces. It further helps that aforementioned work forces barely had any incentive, if at all, and were almost always oppressed and unpaid workers.

7. “Number of worldwide internet users from 2000 to 2014 (in millions)”

Background: A precise graphic displaying the amount of internet users over the years. It provides us with not only how many users are surfing the web today, but how many have been surfing over the years. This is used to further prove that the amount of people who use the internet increases exponentially.

How I Intend to use it: With this statistic, I can make my argument more sound by putting a number to the “limitless” workforce of internet users.

8.“Google Finally Puts Captchas to Good Use” 

Background: A source to further solidify a previous source (see “reCAPTCHA”) with actual writing. This article discusses Google’s use of Street View images in the reCAPTCHA programs.

How I Intend to use it: The previously stated source is only the introduction of Google’s plans for reCAPTCHA. This article further solidifies Google’s intended application for the human-verifying software.

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Verbal Abuse

As the video goes on, two adults are seen arguing in a living room, a male and female but the female figure is not well shown and walks away. Right after the woman walks, their is another person shown, it is a girl who’s spectating the scene triggered by the two adults; those might be her parents. But why are they yelling? Now that the woman is gone, the male is pointing finger at the girl as a sign of culpability and he is also saying some mean things to her. When guilt makes her look down, she sees the phone, which can be used for help. Then we are taken to another scene, there is a boy with a big smile and a girl with a less glamorous face in a room very cozy, it’s more like a room for a girl.

The boy looks happy because he is keeping the little book away from the girl who owns it and is she trying to snatch it from him? Yes she is. When the girl steps back from the boy, we see that she has a drained face like an expression of giving up, not being able to fight anymore. But the boy keeps smiling, he is mocking the girl. Does the notebook contains something the girl doesn’t want the boy to read? Yes, the book is personal, so she yells “Stop it!,” hoping to gain sympathy from the boy, but it doesn’t work. He repeatedly screamed the word “pathetic”at her until it was scripted on her back.

The next scene is a woman looking fiercely at a boy that seems to be her son, whom looks down to the floor. She must be angry at him. The woman is standing in his room and is very close to him, which means that the woman has no respect for the boy’s personal space or that  he must have done something very bad. She’s emotionally humiliating him, calling him a worthless idiot until the words physically appear on him. The boy is looking at himself in the mirror, but next to the mirror, a poster says, “Change the empire, liberate the nation, change the world.” This a very strong message, but to whom?  Now we can see that the message is for every abuser and every victim of verbal abuse. If we talk about what we are going through, we can change the world. All it takes is a phone call.