The Masterminds of Video Games

I have never understood why my brother likes to play video games so much. Everything revolves around the game. Finishing his homework early, good behviour, good grades, are all basically done so that he can put on his ear phones, grab the remote and play. 

When Camilo starts playing, its like he has entered another world. There could  be an earthquake and he probably wouldn't  realize it because he's to busy stealing a car. I speak to him and I'm invisible.

 I always thought of video games as a distraction or just a pass time, but after reading what Steven Johnson has to say about playing video games, my perception has changed. My parents always worry that my brother is going to become stupid or develope a criminal mind because of playing Grand Theft Auto, but this wont be the case. As Johnson says, "playing video games is a congnitive challenge" (28)meaning that as Camilo is trying to steal the car, or kill a man, his mind is on a roll. He is analyzing all the possibilities and moves, that sometimes even brings him to do some research online so he can accomplish this mission. It's just like Johnson says, "Your ultimate goal is to rescue your sister. To do this, you must defeat the villain Ganon. To do this, you need to obtain legendary weapons. To locate the weapens you need the pearl of Din. To locate the pearl of Din, you need to cross the ocean." (50) This is an inmense list which demonstrates the analytical perception teens must have to accomplish the game's goal. They don't only have one mission, they have a lot, and in each mission a myriad of things can happen that will change the outcome of the game. 

So now I am actually proud that my brother has passed so many levels, and won games. He is a mastermind just like millions of other teens, that if our world would be a video game, they would take over it. But I still think that if my brother put as much dedication as he does to his video games to school, he could probably take over the school.

When Will Video Games Be "Good"

 As soon as I saw the red book on Mr. Tangen’s bookshelf titled “Everything Bad Is Good For You” I knew that that was the book that I wanted to read. “Bad” and “Good” are very broad terms, which everyone has different definitions for them. What may seem good to some may seem bad to others. So I guess that I grabbed this book because I was intrigued of what “good” and “bad” topics were going to be spoken about. What was it that Steven Johnson considered to be “good” and “bad”. All my life I have lived by the rules and values that my family has taught me, so I wanted to explore how these bad things that my parents taught me could be seen as good things.

As I started reading the first pages of the book I was immediately hooked. I have read books that have some controversial ideas, but this one is one that critiques a common stereotype of my generation. The common commentary towards my generation is that “the mass culture follows a steadily declining path toward lowest-common-denominator standards” (6), meaning that each time we are getting dumber. But what Steven Johnson has to say about this is that it is the complete opposite, “the culture is getting more intellectually demanding, not less.” (9) For example, video games work as a “cognitive workout” (14) because children are being exposed to reality. People from older generations normally critique my generation to be the victims of “dropping our cultural senses” to only be thinking about violence and sex, but what Steven argues is that these are parts of reality in which we all must be aware. Not only the good things about life should be aired on TV, it should be life as a whole, which is what is being done, which will actually make us ready for reality.

My favourite part about what Johnsons says, is when he writes about how “old fashioned ways” are always seen as the best. Grandmothers, and parents normally suggest a kid to go and read a book instead of playing video games for three hours, that’s how its with my brother. But I had never asked myself why was it that they said this? It just came up to me as an obvious recommendation because I have heard it my entire life. But as Johnson says, just because reading has been on our world longer than video games, doesn’t mean that its better. I love it when he makes up the scenario that video games came before reading, and that older generations would be criticizing reading instead of video games. I guess that video games, TV, and the social networks are criticized because they are things that are undiscovered and that people have to get used to. People don’t like change. I wonder what will be in the future that will make video games seem good and the new creation bad?

Nurturing Crime

After reading the article “Crime and No Punishment” by Carlos Puig I couldn’t stop thinking about how Colombia’s security was twenty years ago. Puig speaks about how Mexico is getting more and more dangerous by the second, and specifically narrates the case of “Jan. 30, 2010, in the border city of Ciudad Juárez...A group of about a dozen barged in shooting and ended up killing 15 people and wounding 10 [at a birthday party].” But Puig’s main point isnt to talk about this event, he uses this case to back up his point of view that Mexico isnt doing much to improve the secutriy of Mexico, instead its making it worse. Similar to how our countries situation was in the 1990’s.

Violence is something that horrifies all people, good or bad. It causes fear which is what has allowed violence to obtain its power. Some people say that the braves ones are the ones that strike back, and others say its the opposite, but if you ask me I dont know. Unfortunatelly, Colombia has suffered a Civil War for more than fifty years, and it has all been due to violence. We have been used to see that violence is combated with more violence, and only a few times has it been able to stop by using words instead of guns.

Puig makes it clear that Mexicos government is having a hard time with the violence of the country, especially with “Ciudad Juarez which was the most violent city in the World” in 2010. Now Mexicans do not admire the government and many even hate their president, Felipe Calderon. The governments lack of imporance towards the homicides that are being held in Mexico is whats making this problema bigger each day. For instance, “earlier this month, the interior minister told the Senate that of more than 103,200 drug-related arrests during the Calderon administration, between 2006 and 2012, only 3,000 cases reached sentencing.” This is demonstrating that more than 100,000 cases were not sentenced, and that these people are going around the streets. Seeing these big numbers startle me because one would think that sentecing 3000 drug/murder cases is a big number, but when one compares it to the total amount of cases it blows my mind away.

Hopefully Mexico will find ways to combat these terrible cases without violence, because although I don’t know which is the best way to end violence, I do know that fighting violence with more violence, equals more violence. Mexico must try to fix its parliamentary budget to improve its security or else Mexico will be living the same thing Colombia experienced with Pablo Escobar.

NO Soup For You!

As I read chapter 20 I noticed techniques that screen writers use for their scripts to make them funny and interesting. Idioms, speak arounds, surprising endings, are all what make a good show, but as an audience we don’t realize it. We just receive these fantastic tricks and laugh them away. I never thought about how much work it takes to create a good comedy. There is a point in which I forget that actors are actors and I just think of them as funny people who always know what to say to make me laugh. But the truth is, is that making people laugh can be one of the hardest things to do, so I applaud those who make me do it.

Congratulations to Jerry Seinfeld, and all the people who help him make me laugh because they definitely do a great job. Making people laugh is one of the hardest things to do because it is something that most people should find funny. In Seinfeld they have to make the audience laugh every 30 seconds. How can they do that?

After I read chapter 20 I saw how things that Heinrichs said appeared on the show. I saw the episode of Seinfeld, called Soup Nazi. It’s about how Jerry and his friends all want to get a taste of the best soup in town, but the man that makes it has a terrible temper. With just one thing that a person says that he finds irritating, he’ll say “NO soup for you!” The episode revolves on how Elaine, the only person that didn’t get soup does everything to get it. She robs his recipes and blackmails him so that he will give her soup! As I watched the show I realized how Seinfeld uses speak arounds by saying “soup Nazi.” It’s a made up combination of words, that at the end have a humorous meaning as well as his use of repetition, when the chef says “NO soup for you!”.

There is much more than just having good actors on a TV show to make it funny. It takes good writers, with the sufficient amount of skills to make the audience laugh. Some of the techniques, as I learned earlier, y are easy to identify, but difficult to create. Bravo Seinfeld! 

Seeing It In Real Life

After reading chapters 15 and 16 of Thank You For Arguing, I discovered that what Heinrich’s says is true, and most importantly it is seen through out every day lives, we just don’t realize it.

Heinrich’s states, just like his old friend Aristotle, that the best way to win an argument, or better yet persuade others is to use the deliberative argument, or the future tense. But just using a deliberative argument doesn’t make you win, it’s a whole set of things. For example, using logos, ethos and fallacies such as the fallacy of power, help get the job done.

As I was watching the video of “Bill O Reilly vs. Jon Stewart Over Muslim Terrorism” I realized that just in the first thirty seconds these two men were using the tips that Heinrichs made. Bill O Reilly uses logos when Stewart gives the scenario of the one Muslim attack, which makes Stewart speechless. He couldn’t argue, because as Heinrichs says, he would be  “arguing the unarguable” and you cant do that. Facts are facts. Bill O Reilly made Stewart seem stupid because he was using a dumb argument. O Reilly says “I’m just doing the math here.” But later Stewart uses his future tense, that he is going to go on a mission to the Middle East, and that he is going to do good work there, so O Reilly can’t say much because he has no logos to use against Stewart. So since both of these men used rhetoric in a strategic way there wasn’t really a winner or a loser, instead it just ended in laughs, but they both were able to say their arguments.

Many times there will be people who know the same arguing techniques as you, but that just makes it more interesting because one has to strategically chose what tactic it is that one is going to use. Or one will be lucky and have an opponent who doesn’t know much about arguing and one will win. Either way one must always be prepared, and that is why I will continue to read Thank You For Arguing.

Brighter Isn't Better

I’ve never been the most intelligent kid in my class. I have to work hard to get good grades. I’m not Einstein. Answers and formulas don’t simply pop up in my head, nor do I always know what I’m doing. But after reading chapter 7 of Thank You For Arguing I now  know that it’s not a problem. I just have to pretend that I know what I’m doing.

In my high school there are many different types of students, those that are geniuses, goof balls, dedicated, or ones that always slack off. But something that I have seen is that its not only the geniuses that succeed in life, many that succeed are the ones that slack off because they have that special something. That something that is able to convince people, and after reading this book I understand that persuading others is what’s most important. Of course I know that being able to do calculations and knowing important figures and dates is a great advantage, but if a person doesn’t have practical wisdom or as Aristotle says, phronesis, they will have a tougher time succeeding.

Unfortunately not everyone has practical wisdom. They don’t have the power of making others believe “that they know how to solve the problem at hand,” (67) and this can be a problem for them. My Dad’s best friend is one of the brightest people I know. He was always the best of his school, as well as in college, but he had no people skills. He wasn’t able to sell himself as a confident person, and if one does not seem confident others will not follow. With his professors he felt comfortable, but when he got into the real world he wasn’t able to demonstrate how intelligent he was. He wasn’t able to sell himself. Instead everyone saw him as a shy, small and dumb person. He studied marine biology and has an MBA from El Inalde. One would think that he is more than ready to get a good job, but instead he packs a truck with potatoes of Frito Lay. Jose didn’t have the power of making people believe in him. He relied only on what his diplomas said, but he never relied on himself.

This proves to me that what Thank You For Arguing says is true. Of course there have been geniuses who do not have practical wisdom and are successful, but there are few. And also to the ones that aren’t valedictorian, don’t worry we still have a shot. We just need to work on our decorum and practical wisdom. It sounds easy which worries me, and it probably isn’t. But its probably easier than changing how our brains function.