Rebuttal

Posted on April 13, 2023 by saycheese03

The Key to an Easier Life

Money. A bargaining principle, typically in the form of coins and banknotes, is used as a payment for goods and services. Yet, in our world today, it is the main factor, that can collectively be agreed on, and influences the way we live our lives. In today’s society, money has become more prominent, leading individuals to base their emotional state and well-being on income. Although it is argued that money cannot buy happiness, it’s evident that it generates an untroubled and easier way of living. 

The motto “money cannot buy happiness” is commonly thrown around without the perception that financial stability alleviates an area of burden in life. When negative events occur in one’s life, whether financial or personal, there is a form of damage control that is performed to make the best of the situation. Money is a form of control that dictates how someone lives, therefore, the more that is acquired, the more control one has over life events and the solutions that could follow. The article, “Speaking of Psychology: The Stress of Money, with Linda Gallo, Ph.D.” provides the transcript of a podcast with Dr. Linda Gallo speaking on the 2015 American Psychological Association Stress in America Survey. Dr. Linda Gallo highlights the stress that coincides with financials and the long-term effects this stress has on one’s overall health. In the transcript, it states, “APA’s 2015 Stress in American survey tells us that money continues to be a top source of stress for Americans from all economic backgrounds. Now, however, in this last survey, lower-income households reported higher overall stress levels than those living in higher-income households…… First, as we know from the Stress in America survey, financial stress is a very common cause of stress overall and it’s more likely to occur if people have lower incomes.” Dr. Linda Gallo includes the 2015 survey findings supporting that households with a higher income experience less financial stress than a lower income household. With households making a comfortable income, they are less likely to worry about financials such as mortgages, rent, bills, groceries, etc., compared to a household that must take precautions such as budgeting accordingly for basic living necessities. Financial stability gives people the ability to exert energy on other things in life while allowing them to live comfortably, with little stress. 

In addition to financial stress, money is also a big factor in alleviating overall stress levels. For instance, a study done at Harvard Business School by Jon Jachimowicz investigates the effects of financial stability and its correlation to one’s overall well-being. In the study “More Proof That Money Can Buy Happiness (or a Life with Less Stress),” 522 participants, each having different incomes, were asked to keep a diary, tracking their daily events and emotions for 30 days. After 30 days, one of the findings supported that money does and can help reduce stress levels, specifically pertaining to intense stress. The study concluded “There was no significant difference in how often the participants experienced distressing events—no matter their income, they recorded a similar number of daily frustrations. But those with higher incomes experienced less negative intensity from those events.” Although money does not reduce the concept of stress altogether, the amount of income one makes can help fund resources or ways to reduce and undermine the intensity of the stress, whether that is investing in therapy, affording medications, supplements, or even activities such as yoga classes or a gym membership. People with lower incomes are exposed to more stressors and limited to ways in managing that stress, compared to those who experience financial s no instability. 

Aside from stress, money is commonly used as a gateway in legal practice and the law. In the United States, the Justice System revolves around money and money bail, making the system harder for less wealthy individuals and easier for the rich. For example, two people can commit the same crime, but both undergo two different experiences. Someone who is financially stable can afford bail and avoid spending a night in jail, while someone who struggles to put food on the table is going to spend a year in person. In the article “The US bail system punishes the poor and rewards the rich” by Arpit Gupta and Ethan Frenchmen, they compare life in jail in America amongst the poor and the rich. The article includes that the “system unfairly punishes people who are too poor to buy their freedom. In Maryland, for example, between 2011 and 2015, more than 80,000 defendants (pdf) were jailed because they were unable to afford bail. And, like Stanford, more than 17,000 of them were jailed on a bail amount of $5,000 or less.” This clearly shows that money can not only make life easier but can buy you your freedom in instances like going to jail or not. Aside from the money bail system in the United States, money is a gateway out of minor infractions such as speeding tickets, parking tickets, and other minor fines and fees. What seems like a small problem and easy payment to someone who is financially comfortable, can be a major issue to someone struggling monetarily. This issue can lead to increases in fines and court costs, causing financial stress which results in overworking, relationship strains, mental health issues, etc. 

Overall, a constant theme throughout our lives that we subconsciously determine a majority of our decisions based on is money. This thin sheet of paper affects the way we live and go about life, as well as the level of difficulty in living. Without a sufficient amount of money, we not only are limited to the opportunities we can experience yet how we manage certain obstacles and issues. Unfortunately, in today’s society, in order to fix our problems, money will always be involved. Our financial status determines how difficult the challenges we face are, and it is clear through all the research and evidence included that money alleviates financial burden, and stress, and even can help buy your freedom. With that, although the common motto of “money cannot buy you happiness” continues to be debated, it is clear that it can buy you an easier life.

Works Cited 

https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/financial-stress

https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/more-proof-that-money-can-buy-happiness

https://qz.com/900777/the-us-bail-system-punishes-the-poor-and-rewards-the-rich

Posted in Portfolio SayCheese, Portfolio Tasks, Rebuttal Argument, SayCheese | Leave a comment

Definition Rewrite – Senpai Pio

Posted on April 13, 2023 by Senpai Pio

What is a Research Paper?

The purpose of a research paper is for the student to take time researching the ins and outs over a specific topic. Then, using the findings, put together a well-written paper explaining what they found to either explain or persuade their audience. On the outside, that does not seem too bad. The student is able to learn about something new, and it can show the teacher how much they have learned throughout the course of the class. However, that overlooks a large majority of truly what gets put into a research paper. Not only is countless hours put into a singular assignment, the amount of stress for the student and the teacher, and the negative impact it could have on a students future school work could ultimately contradict the entire purpose for the research paper. 

One of the most important parts of the research paper is the number of hours that goes into the paper. Between planning, researching, organizing, and actually writing, the amount of hours spent on the paper is astronomical. The amount of hours spent on school in general has a negative impact on all aspects of a students life. Nadya M. Kouzma and Gerald A. Kennedy of Victoria University worked on a study to see how the numbers of hours spent on homework impacted the students mental health, “Table 2 shows that the number of hours spent on homework was positively related to scores for stress, Depression-Dejection, Tension-Anxiety, Fatigue-Jnertia, Confusion-Bedderment , Anger-Hostility, Vigor-Activity, and Mood Disturbance. Also stress was positively correlated with rated Depression-Dejection, Tension-Anxiety, Fatigue-Inertia, Confusion-Bewilderment, Anger-Hostility, Vigor-Activity, and Mood Disturbance.” The long hours of working on a research paper can be extremely detrimental to their mental health. As stated in the article, there is a correlation between working long hours on schoolwork and stress which would make sense in the paper done by Human Psychiatry Human Dev, “Toero et al. [7] argued that there is a strong link between the pressure to excel in school and suicidal behaviors among children and adolescents. In their study, Toero et al. [7] showed that the number of suicide cases in a year usually peaked during examination periods where children and adolescents experienced a high level of stress in school.” Using the fact that there was a correlation between school work and stress, it seems there is a correlation between school work and suicide rates. This is often overlooked while dealing with research papers. Since that is not the purpose of the paper, people do not think about the side effects. Although research papers are not meant to do that, it seems they can lead to an increase in suicide rates.

While the student is extremely important, the teacher’s mental health cannot be ignored. Similarly to how an overload of work impacts a students mental health, it can detriment a teachers. According to an article going over teach burnout, written by Willy Lens and Saul Neves De Jesus, “Teachers have consistently cited work overload as a major stressor in their job; important factors include excessive paperwork, oversize classes comprising students of heterogeneous academic abilities, imposed time constraints, and the need to teach courses that are outside their particular skill area.” Often overlooked, the amount of school work given can affect the teacher’s stress levels. Someone has to grade the assignments, give feedback, and help out the students in any way. Teachers arguably have a significantly larger workload than the students. Like previously said, there is a link between stress levels and suicide rates which cannot be ignored. 

An issue currently going through many high schools and colleges is dealing with burnout. Burnout can happen for many reasons, but it ultimately prevents the student from the ability of doing any of their work. From an article by the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health,  “A chronic exposure to academic stress can result in school burnout, defined as an emotional state of exhaustion, cynicism and depersonalization.” As seen as before, stress can greatly negatively impact the student. This time, it is burning out the student from being able to complete their school work. Due to the large workload provided by a research paper, it can lead to stress which will burn out the student. 

While burnout does mean an increase of stress, it also can explain the drastic lowering of grades in the student’s future. Written by Daniel J. Madigan and Thomas Curran, they explain, “ Aligned with our hypotheses, burnout did indeed emerge as a significant negative predictor of achievement (exams, grades, GPA). In this regard, total burnout and all three burnout symptoms predicted worse academic achievement. There was also evidence that the instrument used to measure burnout moderated the relationship between the reduced efficacy dimension of burnout and academic achievement.” Caused by burnout, in their study there was a drop in GPA, grades, and exams. This not only explains why burnout can be detrimental to a student, but it also explains the impact it may have on the student’s career. From the workload presented by a research paper, the future of the student can be impacted due to the burnout as a result of the paper.

While research papers are generally thought to help out a student, the majority of people truly do not know the side affects that come along with when writing a research paper. Since research papers have an extremely large workload, it often negatively impacts the students. Working on a research paper almost always ends up becoming an increase of stress, anxiety, depression, and many other negative emotions. These emotions lead to impacting the student in many easy such as burnout, a decrease in happiness, and possibly even suicide. Not only does this impact the student, the same emotions can be felt from the teacher’s perspective. With the increase in work for them, the same effects of a research paper can be seen. Maybe research papers should not be seen as helpful like they are. It seems the negatives extremely outweigh the pros that can come from one.

References

KOUZMA, Nadya M, and Gerald A KENNEDY. “P.rybological Reporis.” HOMEWORK, STRESS, AND MOOD DISTURBANCE IN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ‘ .

Meylan, Nicolas, et al. “What Types of Educational Practices Impact School Burnout Levels in Adolescents?” Internation Jounral of Enviornmental Research and Public Health, 12 Feb. 2020.

Tetzlaff, Leonard, et al. “Developing Personalized Education: A Dynamic Framework – Educational Psychology Review.” SpringerLink, Springer US, 29 Oct. 2020, link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10648-020-09570-w.Tipd, Upt. “Smart Lib: Smart Library.” SMARTLIB, smartlib.umri.ac.id/.

Posted in Definition Rewrite, SenpaiPio | 2 Comments

Causal Rewrite – Senpai Pio

Posted on April 13, 2023 by Senpai Pio

The Fraud

The whole purpose of a research paper is to explain the results found in different studies. In order to help people have easy accessibility for finding different studies, google created a website called google scholar. On the surface, google scholar seems like it would be extremely helpful for students especially when dealing with a research paper. There are millions of studies that already have the work cited written out, results stated clearly, and links to hundreds of other related sources in order to help the student find whatever they are looking for. However, google scholar fails to truly succeed in achieving the overall goal of helping demonstrate research.

While trying to find the first couple of sources for this research paper, I came to attention. I quickly had to change my topic fast. I was originally going to write about how the Phillies would weaken their defense prior to the 2022 MLB season which ultimately strengthened their overall team. This was due to the added players like Kyle Schwarber who is historically terrible on defense, but he was a key addition to the offensive production. When I typed in “Phillies” into google scholar just to see what would pop up, I was shown an article talking about chemistry as the first search. This is because the article was written by Kiril Streletzky and George D. J. Phillies. If you go past that singular article, you are left with hundreds all written by George D. J. Phillies. There may be students ecstatic over finding his chemist work, but personally I was limited in what I could research. If I was limited in what I could research, imagine how many other kids also had the same issues that I had. Unfortunately, I had a topic I would have been extremely passionate about, but I was forced to switch topics due to google scholar limiting coverage. 

Regardless of the limited content, the language barrier on google scholar is often overlooked. While using Google, in order to switch between different languages one just has to change one setting. This then changes every word to whatever language one changed it to. Since Google Scholar is a specialized search engine from Google, it is thought to work relatively the same way. When changing the language in Google Scholar, the settings are changed to that language, but none of the articles are changed. If they are able to change the contents of Google’s articles, it is shocking that Google Scholar does not translate the articles. Of the few articles already on Google Scholar, the language barrier drastically lowers that number. A search engine made strictly for research is limiting how much research one may do strictly based on the language they speak.

Additionally to the language barrier, the accessibility of each article can limit the amount one’s ability to research. The few times that there is an article that one can use, it is often shut down behind the paywall that blocks researchers from the work. Most schools like Rowan do allow their students to access these websites for no additional cost, but that does not include all of them. While testing out google scholar, the first article of “solar system” was written in 1966. It is blocked by a pay wall of $35.95 for 48 hour access for thirteen pages. With an extremely large amount of information learned about the solar system in the past couple of decades, the information in that article most likely has no revelation or truth anymore. For this essay alone with upwards of ten sources, it could cost over $400. With most of the articles not even being used, a researcher without a university will have to break the bank just to support their claim. 

One of the key features of Google Scholar is that it presents you the citation for the article, and the articles show the researcher their works cited page. On paper this sounds amazing, but there is a huge flaw. According to Penn State University, they made an article talking about the pros and cons of using Google Scholar, “No wonder that authors, journals and the numerical-chronological designations (publication year, volume, issue and starting page numbers) are mis-identified for millions of documents. As a consequence, the citation-matching algorithm of GS is equally unreliable, often yielding excessive and obviously absurd numbers of false positives and false negatives.” Although one may cite a website, by citing it incorrectly, it is still considered plagiarism. Many researchers most likely used those citations listed by Google Scholar without even realizing they are plagiarizing. Also according to the Penn State article on the pros and cons of Google Scholar, they followed the number of citations written for one of their other articles. It was reported that the article was cited a total of 57 times. When entering the article, Google Scholar says that that number is actually 55 times cited, but they can only show 53 times. With every number being different, it shows how Google Scholar gives a rough estimate number. The Google Scholar algorithm used to find these numbers are obviously flawed. If the algorithm cannot correctly get the number of citations, the algorithm most likely messes up the other numbers used in the citations.

Although Google Scholar in theory is a great idea to help researchers, it is extremely counterintuitive to the extreme flaws it has. The limited number of articles affects the variety that one can research and how in depth they want to get. That number can exponentially decrease when implementing the language barrier which Google does not have. If the language barrier does not affect a researcher, they may be limited by the pay wall that blocks a majority of the websites on Google Scholar. Since most schools do pay for a generous amount of websites, the small chance that one can find a website they could use, the citation listed by Google Scholar could be wrong. By dealing with all the issues with Google Scholar, they can give someone a big thank you by causing a researcher to plagiarize their entire paper.

Works Cited

Author links open overlay panelPeter Goldreich, et al. “Q In the Solar System.” Icarus,

Academic Press, 14 Oct. 2002,

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0019103566900510.     

Jasco, Peter. “Citeseerx.ist.psu.edu.” Emerald Insight, 20 June 2008,

  citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=.

Streletzky, Kiril, and George Phillies. “Temperature Dependence of Triton X-100 Micelle Size

and Hydration.” American Chemical Society, 1 Jan. 1995,

pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/la00001a011. 

Posted in Causal Rewrite, SenpaiPio | 2 Comments

Rebuttal Rewrite — GracchusBabeuf

Posted on April 13, 2023 by gracchusbabeuf

“Pro-Machiavel”: Refuting Gentillet’s Anti-Machiavel

The infamous Florentine political philosopher, Niccolo Machiavelli, has earned a reputation so controversial that his name is used as a slur: Machiavellian. It describes a person, usually involved in politics, who readily deploys underhanded, unscrupulous schemes. These figures behave ruthlessly to achieve their ends, not concerning themselves with morality, even reveling in their supposed immorality at times. In the decades and centuries following the posthumous publication of his most (in)famous work, Il Principe (The Prince), Machiavelli has been a source of inspiration, fear, and misunderstanding for all types of people, from mighty kings to lowly printers. Fundamentally, Machiavelli’s name has been deliberately slandered by successive generations who have lost sight of the nuances of his works. The public consciousness, tragically, is left only with the caricature of Machiavelli his critics have circulated.

Initially, the Florentine writer saw his work published rather unceremoniously — eliciting neither great praise or ire. This changed dramatically in the decades following the publication of The Prince in the 1530s, as Machiavelli’s writings gained popularity concurrently with mounting religious tensions in Western Europe. With his writings in every court in Europe, it was only a matter of time before his unorthodox political philosophy came under criticism, and atrocities like the Saint Bartholomew’s day massacre necessitated the identification of a villain. Machiavelli and his cynical brand of politics proved the perfect scapegoat. After all, Machiavelli broke with the traditional Christian understanding of politics by removing the (public) emphasis on morality and godliness, replaced instead with a focus on shrewd politicking, the ruthless pursuit of power, and the role of fortuna in determining political outcomes. Further earning the outrage of traditionally-minded elements within Europe, Machiavelli was a staunch Republican and, if he did not outright detest monarchy, he at least had an incredibly strong preference for republican governments. With this in mind, it is unsurprising that the first prominent and lengthy denunciation of Machiavelli came from a devout Huguenot and Monarchist, Innocent Gentillet.

Incensed by the Saint Bartholomew’s day Massacre and balking at the influence of the Italian Queen Mother of France, Catherine d’Medici, Gentillet wrote a nearly six-hundred page screed in the 1570s against Machiavelli (who had already been in the ground some fifty years). This anti-machiavellian manifesto, fitting titled Anti-Machiavel: A Discourse Upon the Means of Well Governing, covers in detail Gentillet’s point-by-point refutation of the core arguments presented by Machiavelli in The Prince as well as Discourses on Livy. From this long-winded rant, we can find a scholastic starting point for the thorough misunderstanding and slandering of Machiavelli.

Gentillet’s menacing tome serves as a useful origin for the argument which outlines Machiavelli as a black-hearted “Teacher of Evil”, in the words of Leo Strauss. Within the English literary tradition, the propagation of this conception of Machiavelli the Evil was perhaps done most famously by English playwright William Shakespeare. According to the modern translator of the Anti-Machiavel, Simon Patericke, echoes of the Anti-Machiavel can be found in at least eighteen of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as The Rape of Lucrece. The terms “Machiavel” is used to describe characters who are duplicitous, deceitful, and generally immoral. Shakespeare’s plays’ enduring influence on the English language has unfairly laundered Gentillet’s criticisms of Machiavelli into two functionally identical slurs: “Machiavel” for an archaic audience and “Machiavellian” for the modern.

For Gentillet, Machiavelli represented everything he despised in French politics. A man too pragmatic to be sufficiently pious for his high protestant standards, Machiavelli’s criticisms of Christianity incensed him. Furthermore, Gentillet, rather hilariously, saw Machiavelli as representative of a pervasive and treacherous influence of Italians in France. To quote one of his more racists denunciations directly, he declared that “Machiavelli shows himself a man of very good grace when he says that the Italians are a people of nimble and light bodies; for he cannot more properly note them of inconstancy and infidelity”. The irony in such a declaration is that Gentillet’s most hated Italian, Catherine d’Medici, was a scion of the very family which drove Machiavelli into exile from Florence. There was no great love between Machiavelli and the Medici’s, though a narrow-minded 16th century French nobleman can hardly be expected to understand such nuances. Returning to the main argument as to whether Machiavelli is a teacher of evil, one must concede that he is, in fact, guilty of one of the primary “crimes” his critics levy against him.

Put plainly, Machiavelli does, in fact, counsel evil. He does so without relying on characters like the philosophers of old; he does it in his own name. The critics of Machiavelli are correct: he is an unrepentant teacher of evil. Where they fatally misstep is determining that the “Teacher of Evil” revels in these actions he councils. Gentillet cries that Machiavelli is a man “full of all wickedness, impiety, and ignorance”. This hyperbolic denunciation scratches at the truth, but only does just that: claw feebly towards an actually nuanced understanding of Machiavelli. Rather than a caricature of evil and immorality, Machiavelli is man who would, in the words scholar Narasingha Prosad Sil, “like to live under the reign of virtue”. However, he is unable to find it among people. Therefore, “his cynicism cannot be the the testament of a heartless misanthrope”. Machiavelli is concerned about ideals like “justice”, but he will not allow empty platitudes to interfere with sound political advice.

For Machiavelli, the reign of virtue, ultimately determined to be unattainable, must be instead replaced by the rule of necessity. The chivalrous Prince will find himself deposed by a “Machiavellian” figure, unscrupulous and scheming. Machiavelli’s advice is as follows: fight fire with fire. The prince who wisely and pragmatically utilizes the teachings of Machiavelli’s transgressive pamphlet has the requisite tools to fight off the most evil-hearted and opportunistic of men. Concerns of morality and virtue are a luxury for a successful prince to consider: the upstart prince must first wrest control of their polity by any means necessary. Machiavelli argues, through this, that the ends justify the means. Irregardless of if one agrees with his analysis, he can not be, in good faith, written off as some immoral monster. A tolerance for amoral actions is not an endorsement of wholesale immorality.

References

Gentillet, I. (2018). Anti-Machiavel: A Discourse upon the Means of Well Governing. (S. Patericke, Trans.). Wipf and Stock Publishers.

SIL, N. P. (1985). POLITICAL MORALITY vs. POLITICAL NECESSITY: KAUṬILYA AND MACHIAVELLI REVISITED. Journal of Asian History, 19(2), 101–142. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41930582

Lukes, T. J. (2001). “Lionizing Machiavelli”. The American Political Science Review, 95(3), 561–575.

Posted in GracchusBabeuf, Portfolio Gracchus Babeuf, Rebuttal Rewrite | 13 Comments

Rebuttal — GracchusBabeuf

Posted on April 13, 2023 by gracchusbabeuf

“Pro-Machiavel”: Refuting Gentillet’s Anti-Machiavel

The infamous Florentine political philosopher, Niccolo Machiavelli, has earned a reputation so controversial that his name is used as a slur: Machiavellian. It describes a person, usually involved in politics, who readily deploys underhanded, unscrupulous schemes. These figures behave ruthlessly to achieve their ends, not concerning themselves with morality, even reveling in their supposed immorality at times. In the decades and centuries following the posthumous publication of his most (in)famous work, Il Principe (The Prince), Machiavelli has been a source of inspiration, fear, and misunderstanding for all types of people, from mighty kings to lowly printers. Fundamentally, Machiavelli’s name has been deliberately slandered by successive generations who have lost sight of the nuances of his works.

Initially, the Florentine writer saw his work published rather unceremoniously — neither eliciting great praise or ire. This changed dramatically in the decades following the publication of The Prince in the 1530s, as Machiavelli’s writings gained popularity concurrently with mounting religious tensions in Western Europe. With his writings in every court in Europe and atrocities like the Saint Bartholomew’s day massacre striking fear in the minds of people across Europe, it was only a matter of time before his unorthodox came under criticism. After all, Machiavelli broke with the traditional Christian understanding of politics by removing the (public) emphasis on morality and godliness, replaced instead with a focus on shrewd politicking, the ruthless pursuit of power, and the role of fortuna in determining political outcomes. Further earning the ire of traditionally-minded elements within Europe, Machiavelli was a staunch Republican and, if he did not outright detest monarchy, he at least had an incredibly strong preference for republican governments. With this in mind, it is unsurprising that the first prominent and lengthy denunciation of Machiavelli came from a devout Huguenot and Monarchist, Innocent Gentillet.

Incensed by the Saint Bartholomew’s day Massacre and balking at the influence of the Italian Queen Mother of France, Catherine d’Medici, Gentillet wrote a nearly six-hundred page screed in the 1570s against Machiavelli (who had already been in the ground some fifty years). This anti-machiavellian manifesto, fitting titled Anti-Machiavel: A Discourse Upon the Means of Well Governing, covers in detail Gentillet’s point-by-point refutation of the core arguments presented by Machiavelli in The Prince as well as Discourses on Livy. From this long-winded screed, we can find a scholastic starting point for the thorough misunderstanding and slandering of Machiavelli.

Gentillet’s menacing tome serves as a useful origin for the argument which outlines Machiavelli as a black-hearted “Teacher of Evil”, in the words of Leo Strauss. Within the English literary tradition, the propagation of this conception of Machiavelli the Evil was perhaps done most famously by English playwright William Shakespeare. According to the modern translator of the Anti-Machiavel, Simon Patericke, echoes of the Anti-Machiavel can be found in at least eighteen of Shakespeare’s plays as well as The Rape of Lucrece. The terms “Machiavel” is used to describe characters who are duplicitous, deceitful, and generally immoral. Shakespeare’s plays’ enduring influence on the English language has unfairly laundered Gentillet’s criticisms of Machiavelli into two functionally identical slurs: “Machiavel” for an archaic audience and “Machiavellian” for the modern.

For Gentillet, Machiavelli represented everything he despised in French politics. A man too pragmatic to be sufficiently pious for his high protestant standards, Machiavelli’s criticisms of Christianity incensed him. Furthermore, Gentillet, rather hilariously, saw Machiavelli as representative of a pervasive and treacherous influence of Italians in France. To quote one of his more racists denunciations directly, he declared that “Machiavelli shows himself a man of very good grace when he says that the Italians are a people of nimble and light bodies; for he cannot more properly note them of inconstancy and infidelity”. The irony in such a declaration is that Gentillet’s most hated Italian, Catherine d’Medici, was a scion of the very family which drove Machiavelli into exile from Florence. There was no great love between Machiavelli and the Medici’s, though a narrow-minded 16th century French nobleman can hardly be expected to understand such nuances. Returning to the main argument as to whether Machiavelli is a teacher of evil, one must concede that he is, in fact, guilty of one of the primary “crimes” his critics levy against him.

Put plainly, Machiavelli does, in fact, counsel evil. He does so without relying on characters like the philosophers of old; he does it in his own name. The critics of Machiavelli are correct: he is an unrepentant teacher of evil. Where they fatally misstep is determining that the “Teacher of Evil” revels in these actions he councils. Gentillet cries that Machiavelli is a man “full of all wickedness, impiety, and ignorance”. This hyperbolic denunciation scratches at the truth, but only does just that: claw feebly towards an actually nuanced understanding of Machiavelli. Rather than a caricature of evil and immorality, Machiavelli is man who would, in the words scholar Narasingha Prosad Sil, “like to live under the reign of virtue”. However, he is unable to find it among people. Therefore, “his cynicism cannot be the the testament of a heartless misanthrope”. Machiavelli is concerned for ideas like “justice”, but he will not empty platitudes interfere with sound political advice.

For Machiavelli, the reign of virtue, ultimately determined to be unattainable, must be instead replaced by the rule of necessity. The chivalrous Prince will find himself deposed by a “Machiavellian” figure, unscrupulous and scheming. Machiavelli’s advice is as follows: fight fire with fire. The prince who wisely and pragmatically utilizes the teachings of Machiavelli’s transgressive pamphlet has the requisite tools to fight off the most evil-hearted and opportunistic of men. Concerns of morality and virtue are a luxury for a successful prince to consider: the upstart prince must first wrest control of their polity by any means necessary. Machiavelli argues, through this, that the ends justify the means. Irregardless of if one agrees with his analysis, he can not be, in good faith, written off as some immoral monster. A tolerance for amoral actions is not an endorsement of wholesale immorality.

References

Gentillet, I. (2018). Anti-Machiavel: A Discourse upon the Means of Well Governing. (S. Patericke, Trans.). Wipf and Stock Publishers.

SIL, N. P. (1985). POLITICAL MORALITY vs. POLITICAL NECESSITY: KAUṬILYA AND MACHIAVELLI REVISITED. Journal of Asian History, 19(2), 101–142. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41930582

Lukes, T. J. (2001). “Lionizing Machiavelli”. The American Political Science Review, 95(3), 561–575.

Posted in GracchusBabeuf, Portfolio Gracchus Babeuf, Rebuttal Argument | Leave a comment

Rebuttal Rewrite–SinatraMan17

Posted on April 13, 2023 by adamreim

Human Art Is NOT In Danger Of Extinction

It seems each day a new technology is released or a new concept unveiled that shatters our preconceived notions of what’s possible in this world, and Artificial Intelligence is currently at the forefront of this. Many people believe that the up-and-coming A.I. technology of the 2020s shows potential for replacing jobs and roles formerly thought to be requiring a Human. They cite the ever-improving model of “Machine Learning” as proof that, after vast time collecting knowledge of our world, the day of A.I. taking over is not a work of science fiction. 

The most counterintuitive implication of this new technology is that A.I. will one day replace the role of the Human Artist. AI is able to outperform humans on nearly all tasks that it is assigned, what makes art so different? All claims about Art are controversial by nature, however, the rebuttals made by those who support the “A.I. Artist takeover” are founded on fundamentally erroneous concepts. 

The direct rebuttal to my claim, that A.I. will replace Artists in the future, is founded on the false concept that artists are something that is even replaceable in the first place. In the International Journal of Education and Management my opponent, author Rubio Yang, points out that “according to John Pugliano, an American investment finance expert and author of The Robots are Coming, ‘any routine and predictable job is likely to be replaced by artificial intelligence in the next five to ten years.’ Some artists expressed concern about this phenomenon, they pointed out that maybe artificial intelligence will replace artists in the future.”

AI is by far not the first time a new technology has threatened previous art forms. To name two out of a vast list of examples: the invention of photography threatened painted artwork, and the advent of streaming music threatened the physical music medium. These inventions both disrupted the status quo and caused artists and art purveyors to be up in arms, much like people predict about A.I., however, we see now that the threat of these technologies permanently replacing their predecessors has been proven false. There will always be appreciation for painted artwork despite the inventions of photography and moving images, according to Google, as of 2022 there were “somewhere in the region of 15,000 art galleries in the US.” Photography and Paintings now coexist in the world of art, each having its own special value. There will also always be a following for physical media despite the digital revolution. According to the U.S. 2022 Luminate Year-End Music Report, “In 2022, sales of albums on cassette tape in the U.S. increased by 28% to 440,000”. Taylor Swift recently released an album on cassette tape, thought to be an absolutely dead and “replaced” medium of art. Technology will always advance with time, but art has proven again and again to be resilient against obsolescence. The focus shifts from time to time to different art forms, but none ever seem to be fully eradicated, which my opponents suggest AI will do.

Scientists and scholars alike contest that artificially intelligent artists can produce work that exhibits originality and true uniqueness. Those who argue this, claim the algorithms are so advanced now that A.I. work is NOT simply a compilation of previous art, but is the byproduct of “true” creation, indistinguishable from that of humans. In an essay published by the University of Guelph in Ontario titled GAN Computers Generate Arts, the author explains how “Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) use deep learning archi-tectures to facilitate generative modeling. In this approach, the goal of the model is to generate new examples of data that would not be distinguishable by humans as data coming from the real set. This is achieved upon successful training where the adversarial network can identify patterns in the data and learn the distribution of the dataset.” Author Sakib Shahriar is telling us that A.I. Art algorithms, referred to as “GANs”, are technologically capable of producing “new examples of data”, otherwise known as “new art”.

While the technology is scientifically proven, the originality of A.I.-created works is a heavily debated topic, especially among human artists who believe their intellectual property is being directly stolen and compiled without their consent. Within the past few months of 2023 artists and art platforms have gone as far as to take legal action against A.I. companies regarding this issue. In January 2023 Getty Images, one of the world’s largest media hosting companies containing 477 million human-created assets, filed a lawsuit against the art generator company Stability AI. In a press release directly from Getty Images on the day of the filing, the company stated that “Stability AI infringed intellectual property rights including copyright in content owned or represented by Getty Images. It is Getty Images’ position that Stability AI unlawfully copied and processed millions of images.” The company goes on to say how they’ve already given several A.I. companies legal access to their database for the purposes of training their algorithms, in an effort to further A.I. research. However, in this case, “Stability AI did not seek any such license from Getty Images and instead, we believe, chose to ignore viable licensing options.”Just like if a music artist uses a sample of a previous song in his track, any art that contains direct elements of previous intellectual property must be used legally and with credit given to the original creator. An example of this can be found in MC Hammer’s bold use of Rick James’ Super Freak in his own U Can’t Touch This, which contains a repeated line of music from James’ song. Rick James filed a lawsuit against MC and eventually settled the dispute outside of court when MC agreed to credit James as a songwriter. The use of A.I. involves performing the same task, admittedly on a much larger scale with abundant data, which raises the question of whether it is actually creating anything new or if it is simply compiling human creations, acquired legally and sometimes illegally. The resulting works may be indistinguishable when mixed using A.I., but “indistinguishable” is just A.I.’s disguise for “not original”.

References

Shahriar, S. (2022). GAN computers generate arts? a survey on visual arts, music, and literary text generation using generative adversarial network. Displays, 102237.

Getty Images Statement. (2023, January 17). Getty Images Statement. Getty Images Press Site – Newsroom – Getty Images. https://newsroom.gettyimages.com/en/getty-images/getty-images-statement

Yang, R. Are the Artists no Longer Needed in the AI Age?. International Journal of Education and Management, 274.

Ana Santos Rutschman. (2018, March 15). Stephen Hawking warned about the perils of artificial intelligence – yet AI gave him a voice. The Conversation.

‌

Posted in Portfolio SinatraMan, Rebuttal Rewrite, SinatraMan | 10 Comments

Rebuttal–SinatraMan17

Posted on April 13, 2023 by adamreim

Human Art Is NOT In Danger

It seems each day a new technology is released or a new concept unveiled that shatters our preconceived notions of what’s possible in this world, and Artificial Intelligence is currently at the forefront of this. Many people believe that the up-and-coming A.I. technology of the 2020s shows potential for replacing jobs and roles formerly thought to be requiring a Human. They cite the ever-improving model of “Machine Learning” as proof that, after vast time collecting knowledge of our world, the day of A.I. taking over is not a work of science fiction. 

In addition to the possibility of redundant human tasks being replaced, the most counterintuitive implication of this new technology is A.I. replacing the role of the Human Artist. AI is able to outperform humans on nearly all tasks that it is assigned, what makes art so different? My argument that Art is something strictly bound to humans and that A.I. can never fully replace human artists is an increasingly controversial one in today’s society and faces a strong rebuttal, however, the claims made by those who support A.I. Artists are founded on fundamentally erroneous concepts. 

The direct rebuttal to my claim that A.I. could never replace artists is obvious: Yes, A.I. indeed DOES show potential for replacing human-created art as a medium. In the International Journal of Education and Management, author Rubio Yang points out that “according to John Pugliano, an American investment finance expert and author of The Robots are Coming, ‘any routine and predictable job is likely to be replaced by artificial intelligence in the next five to ten years.’ Some artists expressed concern about this phenomenon, they pointed out that maybe artificial intelligence will replace artists in the future.” A more doomsday outlook is heard from arguably one of the smartest scientists in history, Dr. Stephen Hawking, who once said future developments in AI “could spell the end of the human race.” But in relation to specifically AI Art replacing Human Art, I find this to be erroneous. 

This is by far not the first time a new technology has threatened previous art forms. To name two out of a vast list of examples: the invention of photography threatened painted artwork, and the advent of streaming music threatened the physical music medium. These inventions both disrupted the status quo and caused artists and art purveyors to be up in arms, much like people predict about A.I., however, we see now that the threat of these technologies fully replacing their predecessors has been proven false. There will always be appreciation for painted artwork, according to Google, as of 2022 there were “somewhere in the region of 15,000 art galleries in the US”. There will also always be a following for physical media despite the digital revolution. According to the U.S. 2022 Luminate Year-End Music Report, “In 2022, sales of albums on cassette tape in the U.S. increased by 28% to 440,000”. Taylor Swift recently released an album on cassette tape, thought to be an absolutely dead and “replaced” medium of art. 

Scientists and scholars alike contest that artificially intelligent artists can produce work that exhibits originality and true uniqueness. Those who argue this claim the algorithms are so advanced now that A.I. work isn’t simply a compilation of previous art, but is the byproduct of “true” creation, indistinguishable from that of humans. In an essay published by the University of Guelph in Ontario titled GAN Computers Generate Arts, the author explains how “Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) use deep learning archi-tectures to facilitate generative modeling. In this approach, the goal of the model is to generate new examples of data that would not be distinguishable by humans as data coming from the real set. This is achieved upon successful training where the adversarial network can identify patterns in the data and learn the distribution of the dataset.” Author Sakib Shahriar is telling us that A.I. Art algorithms, referred to as “GANs”, are technologically capable of producing “new examples of data”, otherwise known as “new art”.

While the technology is scientifically proven, the originality of A.I.-created works is a heavily debated topic, especially among human artists who believe their intellectual property is being directly stolen and compiled without their consent. Within the past few months of 2023 artists and art, platforms have gone as far as to take legal action against A.I. companies regarding this issue. In January 2023 Getty Images, one of the world’s largest media hosting companies containing 477 million human-created assets, filed a lawsuit against the art generator company Stability AI. In a press release directly from Getty Images on the day of the filing, the company stated that “Stability AI infringed intellectual property rights including copyright in content owned or represented by Getty Images. It is Getty Images’ position that Stability AI unlawfully copied and processed millions of images.” The company goes on to say how they’ve already given several A.I. companies legal access to their database for the purposes of training their algorithms, in an effort to further A.I. research. However, in this case, “Stability AI did not seek any such license from Getty Images and instead, we believe, chose to ignore viable licensing options.”

Just like if a music artist uses a sample of a previous song in his track, any art that contains direct elements of previous intellectual property must be used legally and with credit given to the original creator. An example of this can be found in MC Hammer’s bold use of Rick James’ Super Freak in his own U Can’t Touch This, which contains a repeated line of music from James’ song. Rick James filed a lawsuit against MC and eventually settled the dispute outside of court when MC agreed to credit James as a songwriter. The use of A.I. involves performing the same task, admittedly on a much larger scale with abundant data, which raises the question of whether it is actually creating anything new or if it is simply compiling human creations, acquired legally and sometimes illegally. The resulting works may be indistinguishable when mixed using A.I., but “indistinguishable” is just A.I.’s disguise for “not original”.

It’s clear to see how art forms and methods are very often threatened but prove to never fully be overtaken. The truth will be the same for Human Art, as it is threatened by A.I. Art.

References

Shahriar, S. (2022). GAN computers generate arts? a survey on visual arts, music, and literary text generation using generative adversarial network. Displays, 102237.

Getty Images Statement. (2023, January 17). Getty Images Statement. Getty Images Press Site – Newsroom – Getty Images. https://newsroom.gettyimages.com/en/getty-images/getty-images-statement

Yang, R. Are the Artists no Longer Needed in the AI Age?. International Journal of Education and Management, 274.

Ana Santos Rutschman. (2018, March 15). Stephen Hawking warned about the perils of artificial intelligence – yet AI gave him a voice. The Conversation.

‌

Posted in Portfolio SinatraMan, Rebuttal Argument, SinatraMan | Leave a comment

Rebuttal Rewrite—QueenRandom

Posted on April 13, 2023 by queenrandom04

The Police Create Crime

The police cannot continue to exist. They were created on irredeemable values and goals; like reenslaving escaped slaves and enforcing unnecessary terror and violence within communities. Slaves no longer exist, though the police continue the tradition of robbing humans of their own autonomy through the system of keeping people incarcerated. Police presence wreaks havoc on lower-income communities. Our modern policing is just a reframed version of what slave patrollers were told to do hundreds of years ago, which the police continue to create and support through the prison system.  Support for the police stems from the fear of crime. The belief is that when the police are present crime will decrease. An unfortunate truth though is that the places with the highest police presence do not have the highest crime rates, they have the highest white population. Police presence in one community is not the same as the other, over-policing and highly surveilled life has become far too often a common occurrence. If supporters of the police that support law enforcement believe that police presence decreases crime it is simply not true. I’d go further to say that police presence is less of an indication of crime and more of an indication of control. Control of the neighborhood and its inhabitants, a show of power to Latinx, black, and indigenous people of color.   When the police are present crime doesn’t cease to exist, where can we continue to find justification for their presence? Admitting that the police don’t prevent crime means we as a society must admit to ourselves there is a bigger reason we are so reluctant to let go of this branch of government that continues to abuse its citizens. 

Incarceration supporters subscribe to the idea of ‘out of sight out of mind’ when it comes to incarcerated persons. Many continue to subscribe to the rhetoric of ‘The War on Crime’ that created the circumstance of increased police presence across America. According to conservative scholar Arthur Rizer, within Nixon’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention in 1968, he used the words law and order over 21 times. From our knowledge of history, we know that this is simultaneously occurring with the rise of the civil rights movements that occurred from  1965-1977.  I suggest to my conservative reader to see this as not a coincidence but as a methodical effort of increased policing and incarceration through the dehumanization of black communities.

Arthur Zimmer and Laus Trautman are conservative scholars who believe in conservatism but are also able to recognize incarceration as an issue that advances political beliefs in their article, The Conservative Case for Criminal Justice Reform, even though they are able to recognize the alarming issue of incarceration has created for us as a society. They say, “ Over the course of almost half a century, this war on crime helped to quadruple America’s incarceration rates.” If the government is waging a war on crime, should the goal not be for the crime to cease? In the same article they state,  “363 in the 1960s, then rose further to 548 in the 1970s, then to 663 in the 1980s ‘, about violent crime within the United States. They use this statistic to find justification that the creation of the war on crime was justified but I believe it does the opposite. There was crime that existed before the mobilization of the police but in the efforts of depleting the crime that existed it increased.  If the war on crime is not about decreasing crime we can only conclude that its goal and the goal of the police furthermore is to increase incarceration not prevent crime from happening.

According to J. David Hacker at the National Library of Medicine, at the height of slavery the most people ever enslaved was, “approximately 10 million slaves lived in the United States, where they contributed 410 billion hours of labor.” In 2023, not including those experiencing so many different forms of incarceration, like halfway houses or parole, according to the Prison Policy Organization there are 1.9 million people incarcerated. From Alexi Jones at Prison Policy, “4.9 million people are arrested and jailed each year, and at least one in 4 of those individuals are booked into jail more than once during the same year.” If the point of prison is retribution what is the point if once they get out they are all the more likely to return?   It is understandable why supporters of the police hold the belief that criminals are criminals that just continue to do crime. Looking at the history of the police being figures that recaptured enslaved people, this notion cannot stand as an inalienable fact. Incarcerated people continue to get incarcerated because the police have been grandfathered into a system where they go after people they have already caught.  

In the same stride of the slave patrollers being tools of the master and the system, police have continued to be a tool of white supremacy. Conservative reporter and avid police supporter, Sean Hannity, talked about the quick response the police had to a mass shooting in Nashville and said, “amazing response from law enforcement, you know what, tonight, we don’t know the exact motives, but these guys saved the day” this is the common belief held by conservatives and law enforcement supporters alike, that the police are saviors. Supporters, more specifically white supporters use the police as knights in shining armor calling them whenever they see fit. In areas of mass gentrification like Denver, according to USA Facts, whose white population was 52% in 2010 and rose to an astounding 55% by 2021, within that time police calls and police presence increased exponentially but the crime did not. Five points, a historically black neighborhood in Denver had a black population of 2,011 in 2010 by 2017 this number swindled to 1,724 within this time Black people continued to be 3.4 times more likely to be arrested. 

Police Score Card is an organization connected to the Denver police department that keeps track of its budget including statistics of how much is spent per resident per police officer. From the Police Score Card, we can see that in 2010 the police department’s budget was 202.4 million and in 2020 the budget has ballooned to $279,169,00 from the drastic increase in the budget a supporter would assume that crime increased to the same degree. But from Macro Trends we learn that within these ten years, crime rates went from 542 crimes per 1000,000 to 730. A difference of 188 comes out to each crime being worth a $408,000 increase to the police budget. From a supporter’s perspective if the money is flowing into the police should crime not be decreasing? In this endless loop of supplying police departments with massive budgets crime does not decrease. When does it stop?

White people move into black neighborhoods without checking their bias and project it onto the community around them through the police. Research from Braden Beck shows that “For every 5 percent increase in property values, neighborhoods experienced a 0.2 to 0.3 percent increase in discretionary arrests.” It’s not that crime is increasing. Just that now the population living within this environment is seen as something needing to be controlled, kept, and patrolled. Though the police are controllers of the entire United States population, the police continue to be a burden the Black community has to bare. Generational relations between the black community and the police have not changed. They cannot change. No longer enslaved, we live as free people, why I ask do we allow ourselves to live in a society where we are recaptured and patrolled? 

Refrences

Beck, Braden, As Neighborhoods gentrify, Police presence Increases, 2015 

National Library of Medicine, From ’20. and Odd’ To 10 Million: The Growth of the Slave population in the United States. Accessed 2023 

Crimes, Denver, Compare Denver Neighborhood Crime Rankings,2022 and 2013, Accessed 2023 

Trautman, Laus and Zimmer Arthur, The Conservative Case for Criminal Justice Reform, 2018 

Card, Police Score, Police Scorecard, Denver Co, accessed 2023 

Trends, Macro Denver, Co Crime Rate 1998-2018, Accessed 2023

Policy, prison, How Many people are locked up in the United states?, Accessed 2023  

Facts, USA, Denver County, Co population by year, race and more, Accessed 2023  

Staff, Fox News, Sean Hannity: We need to Armed security at every school in the country, 2023  

Sagner, Wendy and Peter Wagner, Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2023, Prison Policy, 2023  

Posted in Portfolio QueenRandom, QueenRandom, Rebuttal Rewrite | 2 Comments

Rebuttal Essay- Queen Random

Posted on April 13, 2023 by queenrandom04

Police create the Crime

The police cannot continue to exist. They were created on irredeemable values and goals; like reenslaving escaped slaves and enforcing unnecessary terror and violence within communities. Slaves no longer exist, though the police continue the tradition of robbing humans of their own autonomy through the system of keeping people incarcerated. Police presence wreaks havoc on lower income communities. Our modern policing is just a reframed version of what slave patrollers were told to do hundreds of years ago, that the police continue to create and support through the prison system.  Support for the police stems from the fear of crime. The belief that when the police are present crime will decrease. An unfortunate truth though is that the places with the highest police presence do not have the highest crime rates, they have the highest white population. Police presence in one community is not the same as the other, overpolicing and highly surveiled life has become far too often a common occurrence. If supporters of the police support law enforcment believe that police’s presence decreases crime it is simply not true. I’d go further to say that police presence is less of an indication of crime and more of an indication of control. Control of the neighborhood and its inhabitants, a show of power to latinx, black, and indigenous people of color.   When the police are present crime doesn’t cease to exist, where can we continue to find justification for their presence? Admitting that the police don’t prevent crime means we as a society must admit to ourselves there is a bigger reason we are so reluctant to let go of this branch of government that continues to abuse its citizens. 

Incarceration supporters subcribe to the idea of ‘out of sight out of mind’ when it comes to incarcerated persons. Many continue to subscribe to the rhetoric of ‘The War on Crime’ that created this increased police presence across America. According to conservative scholar, Arthur Rizer, within Nixon’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention in 1968, he used the words law and order over 21 times. From our knowledge of history we know that this is simultaneously occurring with the rise of the civil rights movements that occurred from  1965-1977.  I suggest to my conservative reader to see this as not a coincidence but as a methodical effort of increased policing and incarceration through the dehumanization of black communites.

 Arthur Zimmer and Laus Trautman are conservative scholars who believe in conservatism but are also able to recognize incarceration as an issue that proceeds political beliefs in their article, The Conservative Case for Criminal Justice Reform, even they are able to recognize the alarming issue incarceration has created for us as a society. They say, “ Over the course of almost half a century, this war on crime helped to quadruple America’s incarceration rates.” If the government is waging a war on crime, should the goal not be for the crime to cease? In the same article they state,  “363 in the 1960s, then rose further to 548 in the 1970s, then to 663 in the 1980s”, about violent crime within the United States. They use this statistic to find justification that the creation of the war on crime as justified but I believe it does the opposite. There was crime that existed before the mobiliztion of the police but in the efforts of depleting the crime that existed it increaseed.  If the war on crime is not about decreasing crime we can only conclude that its’ goal and the goal of the police furthmore is to increase incarceration not prevent crime from happening. Acordding to J. David Hacker at the National Libary of Medicine, at the height of slavery the most people ever enslaved was, “approximately 10 million slaves lived in the United States, where they contributed 410 billion hours of labor.” In 2023, not including those experiencing so many different forms of incarceration, like halfway houses or parole according to Prison Policy Organizition there are,  1.9 million people incarcerated. From Alexi Jones at Prison Policy, “4.9 million people are arrested and jailed each year, and at least one in 4 of those individuals are booked into jail more than once during the same year.” If the point of prison is retribution what is the point if once they get out they are all the more likely to return?  

Works Cited 

National Library of Medicine, From ’20. and Odd’ To 10 Million: The Growth of the Slave population in the United States. Accessed 2023 

Trautman, Laus and Zimmer Arthur, The Conservative Case for Criminal Justice Reform, 2018 

Policy, prison, How Many people are locked up in the united states?, Accessed 2023 

Posted in Portfolio QueenRandom, QueenRandom, You Forgot to Categorize! | Leave a comment

Rebuttal Rewrite – Water

Posted on April 13, 2023 by Water

Yes, but NO

What if facial recognition actually worked and could properly record or relay information without it being able to misidentify what’s in front of the camera. Would this be beneficial or would nothing change? Facial recognition has a constant problem of not being able to make out what it’s looking at, so when it tries to give an answer it tends to give a response that is not accurate to what the person may go by. One could make the claim that facial recognition in fact is pretty stable and could be reliable and safe, famous companies such as Amazon support this idea.

Amazon has a subsection dedicated to facial recognition. It talks about how it works, and the use of the programs or devices, on its website they state “Facial recognition algorithms have near-perfect accuracy in ideal conditions. There is a higher success rate in controlled settings but generally a lower performance rate in the real world. It is difficult to accurately predict the success rate of this technology, as no single measure provides a complete picture.” There’s a flaw with this statement, not only did they make the claim facial recognition has near-perfect accuracy they then disprove their claim by saying it has a low-performance rate in the real world. Does this imply that it only works in certain locations and could be a liability if used in the real world. For example if used on security cameras and they were used to find anyone who either went past the speed limit or involved in a crime would it just be a blur due to the lighting and resolutions being bad or will it be able to have a clear picture of the person. A flaw like this really defeats the purpose of having facial recognition, I mean it could really be something incredible for the future but if a simple problem such as poor lighting or understanding facial features can be detrimental for safety or data collecting.

Developers say that they have made changes and improvements to these kinds of programs, but could they be lying or just simply trying to impress those companies who use the program. According to an article from Innovatrics titled “How the accuracy of facial recognition technology has improved over time” in this article they claim, “The first is “education” – the better the dataset that the neural network is trained on, the better are the results. To help the machine learn better, the datasets have to be labeled correctly and checked for mistakes. The other avenue is to rely on improving computing power. Neural networks can be more precise and their outputs can be tested repeatedly to find and repair their blind spots.” This makes sense to a certain degree. If you add more diverse pictures about people from all parts of the world and store them in a dataset, they mention education but they didn’t include what groups or other forms of information they would add to strengthen the accuracy. One main problem of facial recognition and trying to identify a person is they don’t have groups that involve societal changes such as people part of the LGBTQ or other respected groups. To be accurate must mean you have to include everything, inclusion presents external problems such as gender or racial bias, which have been proven to be an issue for these datasets as some had pictures with those of similar features and no diversity. It has even brought up the talk of either banning these kinds of programs.

Activists have been demanding lawmakers put a ban on facial recognition. The reason why they feel like Facial recognition should be removed is that they claim that photo-matching technology is inaccurate with respect to photos of women and minorities. The argumentative article by the security industry association titled “What Science Really Says About Facial Recognition Accuracy and Bias Concerns” tried to disprove a paper published by a grad student researcher at MIT Media Lab in 2018 who would disprove the function of facial recognition and misidentifies mainly people of color. The article tries to disprove their claim by saying, “the paper is frequently cited as showing that facial recognition software “misidentifies’ ‘ dark-skinned women nearly 35% of the time. But there’s a problem: Gender Shades evaluated demographic-labeling algorithms, not facial recognition.” Race has as much to do with facial recognition, facial recognition can’t go off facial features they have to base them off skin color because people could have similar shades of skin color but they could be from any part of the world, information such as region is crucial when determining one’s identity. Identity isn’t just gender or height, it’s everything used to categorize one, this includes sex, race, orientation and more.

Furthermore, in the article, the author tries to provide more information regarding facial recognition improvement as a whole and how the research paper had flaws regarding the experiment run on the accuracy of the software program.The American Civil Liberties Union conducted a test on amazon’s recognition program on the people of congress back in 2018 it was stated, “it created a database of 25,000 publicly available images and ran a search against official photos of the 535 members of Congress, returning “false matches” for 28 of them. The ACLU claimed that since 11 of these matches, or 40%, were people of color, and only 20% of Congress overall are people of color, this is evidence of racial bias in facial recognition systems” this proves facial recognition is unreliable in some instance but after the publishment of the experiment amazon reran the test but this time they had 850,000 images to run for matches and they found zero “false matches”. This simply means that with more images they could be able to pinpoint an accurate match.

Finally, in the year 2019, statistics regarding facial recognition came out and the stats were different compared to before. In the statistics, it declared that “According to data from the most recent evaluation from June 28, each of the top 150 algorithms are over 99% accurate across Black male, white male, Black female and white female demographics. For the top 20 algorithms, the accuracy of the highest performing demographic versus the lowest varies only between 99.7% and 99.8%” This would be interesting to see but if you think about it, they never included or mentioned other groups. They failed to mention how people from Asia or South America compare when out into these facial recognition programs. Overall leaving with the idea that facial recognition could be something if they either had more information or it could just be that facial recognition isn’t trusting and has too many flaws to correct.  

Sources

Amazon | What is Facial Recognition? | published online | Amazon

Innovatrics | How the accuracy of facial recognition technology has improved over time | Author: Barbara Rusnáková | Published online

Jake P., Senior Director, Government Relations, SIA, and David R., Chief Operating Officer & General Counsel, Rank One Computing| What Science Really Says About Facial Recognition Accuracy and Bias Concerns | July 23, 2022 | Security Industry Association

Posted in Rebuttal Rewrite, Waterdrop | 1 Comment