Research- Gobirds

Posted on April 20, 2023 by gobirds115

The Banned Substance List Holds the Keys to Better Baseball

Permitting practical, therapeutic, and supervised use of anabolic steroids which are currently banned by Major League Baseball may reduce recovery time and increase fan interest.

Major League Baseball has published a list of every single banned substance that has been revised and re-evaluated over the years. The list is divided into 3 major categories; Drugs of Abuse, Stimulants, and PED’s. Of these three categories I am in full agreement that the stimulants and drugs of abuse that have been banned by Major League Baseball are rightfully banned.

Drugs of abuse, as defined by Major League Baseball are “Any and all drugs or substances included on Schedules I and II of the Code of Federal Regulations’ Schedule of Controlled Substances (“Schedule I or Schedule II”), as amended from time to time, shall be considered Drugs of Abuse” Some of the drugs included in this category are cocaine, codeine, heroin, MDMA, LSD, and PCP. Stimulants are drugs that improve brain to body communication. Amphetamines are the commonly known types of stimulant drugs and are a part of Major League Baseball’s banned substance list under the stimulant category. Drugs under these categories that reside on the MLB’s banned substance list are justifiably there. These drugs are known as addictive and the side effects of these substances aren’t in any way shape or form useful or safe for players to experience while on the field. For example, there is no reason for a batter, pitcher, or fielder to come up to be playing in a game while tripping on a drug such as LSD. There is no benefit of this to the batter, pitcher, or fielder and as a matter of fact there really are only downsides to these drugs as it alters the mind and could induce hallucinations which obviously could become quite dangerous when playing a physical sport with fast moving parts. So now that I’ve made my stance clear on the fact that I’m in agreement with the absence these particular banned substances, let’s look toward the other category of banned substances.

The category that I believe Major League Baseball needs to reevaluate for legalization is the PED’s category. One of the subcategories of PED’s is Anabolic Agents which are defined by Major League Baseball as “Any and all Anabolic Androgenic Steroids included in Schedule III of the Code of Federal Regulations’ Schedule of Controlled Substances (“Schedule III”), as amended from time to time, shall be considered a Performance Enhancing Substance covered by the Program.” Some notable anabolic agents that are included on the list are trenbolone, testosterone, oxymetholone, nandrolone, boldenone, and oxandrolone. The function of these anabolic agents is to increase strength by adding muscle mass. The way that works is by mimicking the functions of hormones like testosterone that our body’s produce. Many of these drugs were used by abusers in the 90’s and 2000’s which led to their ultimate ban. However, I believe that these drugs have a place to be made useful in Major League Baseball by being used for medical and rehabilitation purposes.

I’m not saying that if a player experiences some hamstring tightness that it gives them a free pass to go injecting themselves with all kinds of anabolic steroids and growth hormones. That would be utterly ridiculous and ultimately put the stigma back around PED’s that they’re out of control and too often abused. The problem they experienced in the league already is similar to any other form of drug abuse. Look at opioid abuse for example, a person experiences a painful injury and a as a result they get some opioid pain killers from someone. They weren’t prescribed the drug but now they can’t get enough because they used it improperly without any professional diagnosis just like players did with steroids in previous years.

The elimination of abuse is possible and the implementation of use is made possible as well. Let’s refer to opioids again as reference. A doctor prescribes a patient an opioid and it’s taken correctly, the patient will use the medicine as intended because it’s what they need and it was professionally recommended and administered to them. So now take anabolic steroids into consideration. There will be a specific medical staff responsible for specifically dealing with steroid administration and supervision. Proper administration of anabolic steroids reduces chances of abuse. Proper administration of anabolic steroids will also reduce injury recovery time.

The Anabolic Answer

I fully understand the history of PED abuse in baseball and why Major League Baseball went to the extremes they went to in hopes to prevent the power trips and blatant abuse of steroids that we saw in the 1990’s and 2000’s. But there are cases where these banned substances are a necessary means of recovery for athletes. In “Major League Baseball’s Minor League Drug Prevention And Treatment Program” they have a section dedicated specifically to allowing players to take prohibited substances called “Therapeutic Use Exemption” or “TUE” which allows players to use certain substances if they really must. I believe that MLB should consider easing the process of getting an exemption and adopt a system in which post-injury evaluation system to determine if banned substances could make an impact on recovery rates.

In this system, players would have a baseline test at the start of every season. The tests would monitor their physical capabilities such as strength, speed, agility, and baseball related movements. A big part of these tests would also be drug testing before these tests to make sure players are clean for the baseline along with blood testing to determine levels of certain biological/chemical factors. Once players have a baseline test, they can be evaluated post-injury in comparison to their baseline tests. The league would have to create specific thresholds in comparison to baseline tests for exemptions. What I mean by this is that if a player experiences an injury that doesn’t completely diminish their capabilities but sets them back in a minor way, they may not qualify for use of a banned substance. Where if a player experiences an injury that sets them down quite a bit from their baseline tests, they may have a much higher chance of qualifying for an exemption. A system like this would obviously require major supervision and likely it’s own committee but if it means improving injury recovery and keeping players on the field then it should by all means be considered.

By implementing this program, it would bring a drastically different approach to anabolic steroids in Major League Baseball from the previous steroid era which showed extreme abuse of the drugs. It may sound like I’m stating the obvious, but the implementation/legalization of anabolic steroids would make them something that a team medical staff is able to administer and monitor. If the only allowed use of the drugs is under medical supervision, there is no way that abuse can happen under the rules and regulations of the proposed system. It’s possible that by making anabolic steroids available as a treatment may actually be a way to minimize and get rid of anabolic steroid abuse within Major League Baseball.

One of the key reasons I’d like to see the MLB adopt a system similar to this is because of oblique injuries. In a study done on oblique injuries from the 2011 season to the 2015 season, 259 players at the major league level suffered oblique injuries resulting in 6,132 days missed. Batters/Position Players averaged 3 weeks missed per injury with over an 8% chance of re-injury. Starting Pitchers averaged nearly a month missed with a re-injury rate of around 5% and relievers averaged about 24 days missed with a re-injury rate of nearly 10%. The average days missed on recurrent oblique injuries is also higher compared to the days missed from the primary injury. These injuries are not a day to day type of injury and a statistical analysis of recovery methods shows that some players required injection of a corticosteroid, a legal steroid in Major League Baseball. However, administering the corticosteroid still didn’t speed up recovery process as it took players 30 days to recover post injection.

I think it’s quite interesting that players didn’t have any kind of improvement in recovery rates post injection from corticosteroids. So I decided to take a deeper dive into corticosteroids as a recovery method for sports injuries and stumbled upon a pretty informative article. The article “Recurrent hamstring muscle injury: applying the limited evidence in the professional football setting with a seven-point programme” by Peter Brukner, Andrew Nealon, Christopher Morgan, Darren Burgess, and Andrew Dunn discusses hamstring injuries among football players and the recovery methods used. They mention one player who used corticosteroids as a recovery method and here’s what they said “an epidural corticosteroid injection was performed…Postinjection the player reported a general improvement in his feeling of ‘freedom’ on the right side and felt able to swing his legs through fully…Five days later he started another pre-season game. After 5 min, he sprinted with the ball and crossed the ball with a whipping action and immediately felt some tightness in his hamstring, without an associated feeling of tearing or pain, and was thereafter unable to sprint with confidence.” Quite an interesting order of events as it seems that corticosteroids essentially mask the pain/ease symptoms but might not actually repair muscles.

Maybe corticosteroids may not in fact help with any kind of recovery, so let’s dive into the article “Taking Anabolic Steroids After a Sport Injury” by Samuel Mckenzie from the media outlet News Medical Life Sciences, which studies the effects of corticosteroids vs anabolic steroids in relation to muscle strains/contusion injuries. One specific experiment was conducted on rats who suffered muscle contusions and the results are quite informative. The article states “Initially, the corticosteroid group showed great improvements to twitch and tetanic strength, but later these improvement reversed and resulted in the degeneration of the muscle. The anabolic steroid group showed no initial improvements, but by 14 days showed significant improvements to twitch tetanic strength without the degeneration of the muscle. The authors concluded that that corticosteroids were helpful in the short-term but detrimental to long-term muscle repair and anabolic steroids could improve muscle repair and aid in the healing of muscle contusion injury.” If we know that corticosteroids don’t lead to long term healing and actually degrade our muscles, anabolic steroids need to be heavily considered for treatment. Baseball’s best players shouldn’t be off the field with injuries when we have proven remedies that are readily available to increase their recovery rates.

If we know one thing it’s that times are certainly going to forever change. With the changing of the times we learn from our pasts. I think Major League Baseball is far enough beyond the era of steroid abuse and the advances made in medicine, technology, and overall knowledge could make it so that we never see steroid abuse like we saw in the 1990’s and early 2000’s in Major League Baseball again. We’ve come to a time where we’ve essentially mastered the negatives of these banned substances so we’re probably smart enough to figure out a way in which only the positive effects are used in an appropriate manner.

Abuse Can be a Big Deal but Use is a Way to Heal

There’s an old saying that everything is okay in moderation. There are some instances where that simply isn’t true. However, in the case of circumstantially legalizing certain banned substances in Major League Baseball I think this saying holds true.

In previous decades, we saw players get juiced up on all different kinds of androgenic steroids, anabolic steroids, human growth hormone, and every other kind of extreme drug that would induce muscle mass and cause players to turn into the massive, chiseled, greek god like beings. This obviously caused evident competitive advantages as players who had previously been mediocre became these powerful home run threats at the plate and rise to stardom after being the scrawny role player. The problem that arose during this time period was the blatant abuse of performance enhancing drugs and of course the problem it created with competition.

But because of this time period in Major League Baseball, I believe that not only has Major League Baseball learned how to crack down on steroid abuse but the scientific and technological advances made since then would allow the implementation of these substances as healing agents to go smoothly. Everything can be tracked now for the most part so monitoring players levels of injury, monitoring drug levels, collecting data, and whatever else needs to be done to ensure the program runs correctly shouldn’t be an issue.

If there was a downside to some of these PED’s being implemented into Major League Baseball, it would have to be the risk that some of these drugs can have on an individuals health. The article “Androgenic anabolic steroid-induced liver injury: two case reports assessed for causality by the updated Roussel Uclaf Causality Assessment Method (RUCAM) score and a comprehensive review of the literature” is a case report that assess two people who used anabolic androgenic steroids and experienced anabolic androgenic steroid (AAS) induced liver injury as a result of doing so.

The first person they studied was a 30 year old man with a history of taking creatine supplements for performance but claimed he’d never taken AAS. The man claims to have been experiencing jaundice and diarrhea in the recent past. As the first part of his assessment they measured levels in his liver. The results are as stated “His bilirubin was 181μmol/L, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) 66 IU/L, alanine transaminase (ALT) 257 IU/L and creatinine (Cr) 97 μmol/L.” His levels in ALP and Creatine levels were in a normal range but that’s not the case for his bilirubin and ALT levels. According to UCSF Health, a normal level range for ALT is between 4 and 36 IU/L. If I’m any good at math, he’s quite passed that range by a few hundred. According to Mount Sinai Health Library, normal levels of bilirubin are between 1.7 and 20.5 μmol/L. Yet again, the mathematician in me says these levels are high by quite a bit. His symptoms worsened over the next week or so and he eventually had to be admitted to the hospital where they found chronic hepatitis B. The hepatitis was easily managed but something was still wrong. He admitted to use of an AAS upon further questioning as his liver biochemistry worsened. To make a long story short, his levels kept spiking to dangerously high levels and it took a series of medication, medical practices, and 2 months time for his levels to return to normal after stopping steroids.

The reason his case is important to mention when discussing potentially implementing drugs similar to the ones he was using back into Major League Baseball is because he’s in a similar demographic to a majority of the league’s players. That demographic of course being men around 30 years old (MLB average player age is 26-30 years old in 2022 according to Statista).

I can’t say for certain players in the league who look at a case like this man’s will be ok with using substances similar to the ones that this man used as it compromised his health. But what I can say is that the man in this case took these drugs on his own without any prescription or any kind of supervision. We know this because when asked about use of AAS use the article states “He used Creatine supplements for performance enhancement but denied AAS use”. This of course was prior to him admitting his use of an AAS after he learned about the severity of his liver biochemistry. He could’ve taken ridiculous amounts of these drugs and had no clue the harm he was doing until he finally was assessed by a doctor.

Before I go any further I want to clarify that I don’t think that a case like this man’s is impossible for a player to experience as a result of Major League Baseball adopting a system as previously mentioned to regulate PED’s. But I do believe that the chances would be quite low considering the amount of time, effort, supervision, technology, equipment, and knowledge that would be backing a program that’s being implemented in a multi billion dollar industry. Let alone the league itself, each team is so incredibly wealthy that staffing a group of people who’s sole priority is to monitor these players during their recovery while using PED’s would be something that owners would be more than willing to spend their money on. Owners spend so much on star caliber players that it is worth every penny to do everything in their power to keep them on the field where they can do what they’re getting paid to do. When the stars of the game are on the field more consistently, it makes it so much more enjoyable for fans to watch games knowing that night in and night out the best of the best will be going at it. What was once a skid mark on the face of baseball (the skid mark being PED’s) could really be a “game-changer” for the future of Major League Baseball.

References

“Major League Baseball’s Minor League Drug Prevention And Treatment Program.“. (2021). Retrieved March 6, 2023,

“Epidemiology and Impact of Abdominal Oblique Injuries in Major and Minor League Baseball Christopher L. Camp,* MD, Stan Conte,†‡ PT, DPT, ATC, Steven B. Cohen,§ MD, Matthew Thompson,|| MD, John D’ Angelo,{ BS, Joseph T. Nguyen,# MPH,
and Joshua S. Dines,** MD. Retrieved March 6, 2023

“Recurrent Hamstring Muscle Injury: Applying the Limited Evidence in the Professional Football Setting with a Seven-Point Programme.” Brukner, Peter, Andrew Nealon, Christopher Morgan, Darren Burgess, and Andrew Du; British Journal of Sports Medicine. BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and British Association of Sport and Exercise Medicine, June 1, 2014. . Retrieved March 29, 2023,

*All sources below accessed on April 12th, 2023*

Androgenic anabolic steroid-induced liver injury: two case reports assessed for causality by the updated Roussel Uclaf Causality Assessment Method (RUCAM) score and a comprehensive review of the literature

Major League Baseball rosters by average player age in 2022

Alanine transaminase (ALT) blood test

Bilirubin blood test

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Research–SinatraMan17

Posted on April 20, 2023 by adamreim

Artificial Intelligence Won’t Replace Human Artists

Artificial Intelligence, again and again, is proving to be a major threshold event in our society’s history. the likes of which could be compared to the invention of electricity, the internet, and the following periods of change that ensued. Within the past 5-10 years, technological advancements in machine learning have paved the way for an exponential increase in the capabilities of artificial intelligence. While many applications of this technology have been recognized as having positive effects on the efficiency of our lives, one particular family of AI has arisen sparking worldwide controversy regarding its future: Artificially Intelligent Artists.

To fully understand the philosophical implications of AI Artists, we must first examine the technological breakthroughs which sparked this investigation, and their strengths and weaknesses. 

In November of 2022, the Artificial Intelligence research company OpenAI released a demo of their latest project, “Chat GPT”, free for use by the public. The site, which as of April 2023 is still free with the addition of a “Premium” tier, represents the largest advancement in written-language generators of its kind. Up until this invention, the written works of A.I. were laughable in their structure and rhetoric and never came close to emulating the abilities of an educated human writer. In the words of Kevin Roose, a technology columnist at the NY Times, “For most of the past decade, A.I. chatbots have been terrible – impressive only if you cherry-pick the bot’s best responses and throw out the rest.” Chat GPT differs from its predecessors in that it produces coherent and intelligent responses and, if prompted, “artful” ones as well. The concept which powers this technology is called “machine learning”, which is defined by IBM as the process in which “[AI] focuses on the use of data and algorithms to imitate the way that humans learn, gradually improving its accuracy.” Similar to the way humans learn from teachings and mistakes, A.I. learns from each inquiry inputted into its system. 

Another form of this AI Art technology is that of the visual arts: A.I. painting and photograph generators. Rising in popularity within the last few years are apps such as “Lensa” and “Wonder: AI”. Text can be inputted into one of these programs and an image will be created based on the commands. For example, the prompt “Mona Lisa in the style of Van Gogh” could be requested, and the A.I. would generate this using a technology known as “Convolutional Neural Network”. In the book Machine Reading Comprehension, Chenguang Zhu, a research manager at Microsoft, defines a C.N.N. as an “advanced and high-potential classical artificial neural network model which can tackle and handle higher complexity data, difficult compilation, and preprocessing of data.” An important takeaway within this technology overview here is that CNNs employ “compilation”, an idea that is prevalent when discussing creativity. Moreover, Zhu sums up the uses of this technology as being “used for image processing tasks that involve image analyzing, image recognition, video analysis, [and] segmentation of image.” Basically, the software blends recognized visual patterns associated with each part of your written prompt and compiles each pattern visually based on its vast database of already existing imagery.

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.”

A fundamental argument against both written and visual art generators is the fact that they are not “creating” anything from scratch. Nothing is an original work of inspired creativity, but rather a vastly complex act of digital plagiarism. But to understand why this is so, the answer to “What is creativity?” must first be explored.

The broad idea of creativity is impossible to completely define, as it is an infinitely complex and individual concept. However, as defined by myself, works of creativity are born from imagination and inspiration and are heavily correlated with their originality. Sometimes creativity occurs through deeply personal emotions and our reactions to them, or the spark of an idea that comes out of an unsuspecting event or experience. Jeanette Milne of the 2020 British Journal of Nursing, points out that “without curiosity, there is little creation. Clearly, both are needed to generate ideas, patterns, and combinations that can lead to new and innovative products and services.” While her insight is referring to products and services, the principal also applies to art. Curiosity and creativity are needed to produce anything that is completely new and original.

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”.

The creative weakness of AI, which is the reason why it will never truly be able to replace the human artist, is that it can never generate a new idea or work of art without stealing from previous works. However advanced machine learning, CNNs, or GANs get in their ability to extract stylistic trends and compile them coherently, they will always be doing SOME form of just that: compiling. Just as an essay whose author copied work from another source, yet changed the language to make it “their own” is considered plagiarism, so too should a work of AI-generated art that does the same. Simply changing the way you express each idea does not change the origin of the idea; the idea is not yours (or AI’s) if it is simply rephrased.

The viewing of art without any context or bias is exceedingly rare. Perceivers of art tend to show some sort of bias when viewing a work, frequently from knowledge about the creator and their reasons for creating. We often look to the creator’s intentionality for the art, which in turn affects how we both interpret and connect personally with the piece. 

This practice of judging art has a brand new application in the world of the 2020s, with the rise of Artificial Intelligence. While the art produced by these non-human creators can indeed theoretically be perceived with 100% objectivity, with regard only to its aesthetic and personal value, and without any influence from its inhumanness, this propensity becoming the norm is a fallacy. Because of the inevitable artist-bias, people have stronger connections to Art produced by living humans, rather than emotionless, intentionless algorithms. 

To understand how viewer connections with art rely heavily on the presence of human emotions within, we must first understand the fundamental relationships between emotion and art. Since the dawn of organized thought in humans, art has been used consistently as a form of emotional expressionism. On cave walls, we expressed our feelings of pain and loss through depictions of battles and bloodshed. Emotions from real-life events and ideas are often what cause artists, of the Paleolithic era and of today, to create the art in which they create.

Because of the artist’s known causation for creating their intentional piece, perceivers can receive more expressed emotion from the canvas than they would knowing nothing about them at all. In the article titled How Does Art Express Emotion the author, Ismay Barwell, argues that “How works of art can be expressive of emotion and thus sad, happy, or melancholy must pose itself as a problem for anyone who believes both that works of art are not conscious entities and that only conscious entities can have feelings and emotions.” Ismay, a philosophy professor at Victoria University in Wellington, is arguing here that works of art could be considered animate objects since they can actively express emotion. While I admit that personal emotion can be found in any art, including AI’s, I argue that the artist’s own human expression is a leading cause for this sense of “animation” in inanimate things.

The Artist Intention theory is a long-debated counterintuitive topic that can never definitively be proven as truth or fallacy due to its deeply personal nature. However, as it pertains to whether or not the artist behind the art matters, it is extremely important to explore further. Literary artist L.N. Tolstoy claims in his book What is Art? that an artist has only created a genuine work of art when he “hands on to others feelings he has lived through, and that others are infected by these feelings and also experience them.” While this can just be written off as one man’s opinion, it’s important to note that L.N. Tolstoy is considered one of Russia’s most significant figures in literature. As an artist himself, Tolstoy openly recognizes the importance of expressing emotions through art, and simultaneously how the presence of artists’ OWN feelings in their art affects its quality, value, and most importantly, relatability. 

The deepest connections we make with any type of art will always be that of seeing ourselves within it. When we look at a certain painting or listen to a certain song, our most profound reactions are always those found within ourselves. When you see yourself in a work of art, the connection is visceral. I argue that this emotional bond between art and self can be tarnished by Artist’s Intentionality. A movie that you resonated deeply with may be irreversibly ruined for you if it is revealed that the filmmaker was abusive to their cast. This contamination of art connection, while a deeply sad truth, is inevitable and ever-present already in our society.

To examine how Artificial Intelligence being discovered as the creator of a work will impact a viewer’s perception of the work, I’d like to briefly make a connection to a string of events taking place in pop culture. The phrase “Separate the Art from the Artist” has been brought to recent spotlight with the rise of cancel culture in our society, most recently and notably with Ye, formerly Kanye West. Previous lovers of the rapper’s art around the world have had their bonds with his music broken because of his recent racist outburst. In the polarized article Separating Art from the Artist is Impossible, student editorial journalist from Virginia Commonwealth University Kofi Mframa boldly claims that “this phrase [separating art from the artist] is just a lazy cop-out that gives fans an excuse to not think critically as to why they continue to support problematic artists… To remove an artist from their creations decontextualizes their work and leaves it devoid of meaning.” It’s important to note this source is opinion-writing and is merely being used as an example of how woke cancel-culturists think. I believe it provides great insight into the minds of those who stand against “Separate the Art from the Artist.” This opinion shows how it is becoming increasingly impossible for people, especially younger generations, to perceive art entirely independently from its creator. 

Since people are already growing less and less likely to be able to separate the human artist’s life from their work, it is safe to say that they will apply this same bias to work that has no human behind it at all. Much like when a pop star is revealed to be a racist, if a recent art sensation, consumed and enjoyed by the masses, is revealed to be completely A.I. generated, I predict its value among many (not all) will diminish.

While it may be possible to view all art without any artist-bias, it is an exceedingly rare practice and becomes rarer each day. The state of our emotional connections to art is influenced by our knowledge of the artist’s intentions, cultural and social contexts, or the complete and utter “lack thereof”. AI-generated art may be visually impressive and individually relatable, but it lacks the emotional depth and intentionality that makes human-made art so much more meaningful and powerful. As a result, AI can never replace the passionate and intentional art of human artists, and our emotional connections to art will always be tied to the human experience.

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.

If artificial intelligence could somehow possess the ability to create new ideas, it would by definition no longer be an “artificial” intelligence. It would possess a skill known only to living beings: new thought. However close we may seem to this God-like invention, regarding Written-word and Visual Art Generators of the 2020s, AI replacing Artists is STILL, fundamentally and definitively, science fiction. Art of any form is something that is viscerally human and is created by its creator through new thought and genuine inspiration, and while it can indeed be appreciated, AI Art will never fully replace the work made by living, breathing, emotionful humans.

References

Roose, K. (2023). The Brilliance and Weirdness of ChatGPT. The New York Times.

What is Machine Learning? | IBM. (2016). 

Zhu C, Zeng M, Huang X. SDNet: Contextualized Attention-based Deep Network for Conversational Question Answering. arXiv.org. Published online 2019.

Milne. (2020). What is creativity? British Journal of Nursing (Mark Allen Publishing), 29(12), S4–S4.

Barwell, I. (1986). How does art express emotion?. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 45(2), 175-181.

Denner, M. A. (2003). Accidental art: Tolstoy’s poetics of unintentionality. Philosophy and Literature, 27(2), 284-303.

Tolstoy, L. (1899). What is Art?. United Kingdom: Crowell. Pg 50.

Mframa, K. (2022, October 27). Separating art from the artist is impossible The Commonwealth Times. The Commonwealth Times.

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.

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Research – Rowanluver29

Posted on April 20, 2023 by rowanluver29

The Key to Raising a Perfect Serial Killer

Serial killers are known for being inhumane, notorious, horrifying individuals who kill purely because it brings them a certain sense of, well, do we really know what type of feeling a murderer gets after they committed arguably the worst crime? Different serial killers have different motives and senses of comfort they get when they are taking the life of another person, and many do not know or understand the four different types of murderers, or where their motives come from. A lot of it starts from when they were young, and how they were raised. A lot of different traumas and haunting personal experiences can drive someone to become a certain type of serial killer. There are perfect childhoods that can raise a perfect type of serial killer.

The first and most popular type of murderer would be serial killer for power and control. The article “Serial homicide for Power and Control” by Scott A. Bonn, describes why these types of murderers are driven to take the lives of others. The primary motivation for a power and control murderer is simply the joy they get from the entire process of the murder; these murderers choose to prolong the process for their own pleasure. They find it sexually arousing to stalk, capture, and torture their victim, but find it most satisfying when they finish the homicide, because it helps show an expression in the power, they hold over their chosen prey. Murderers find this final step so powerful because they are able to choose under which circumstances, they can torture and kill their victim. To assert their power in a different way, they also tend to rape their victims. Not because of the sexual arousing’s mentioned before, but because this gives them another outlet to feel a certain sense of control and dominance. Lastly, these types of murderers tend to keep souvenirs from their crimes to remind themselves of the achievement they accomplished. The memorabilia they keep helps fuel the killers’ fantasies, and they often give their memorabilia to family members or a partner to display their trophy in a non-cholent, yet public way. As an example, the famous serial killer Ted Bundy once took a necklace from a victim and gave it to his wife. He also took pictures of his victims after he murdered them. When asked why he did such a thing, he responded with: “When you work hard to do something right, you don’t want to forget it.” The FBI classified these types of killers as to have stone-cold psychopathic tendencies, because they are meticulous planners and tend to be charming, charismatic and intelligent. Ted Bundy grew up shy, which led him to become a severe target for bullying while he was in grade school. Explaining why he wanted to assert his power over others. He went on to create normal relationships in college, and was very favored amongst the ladies because of his flirtatious and endearing personality. Yet confessed to 28 murders, but is assumed to have been responsible for hundreds of deaths.

The second type of murderer is called a visionary murderer. Scott A. Bonn states in his article “Visionary Serial Killers Are Driven By Inner Demons” that these killers commit murders because of imagined internal or external voices that are perceived to be real. These killers are mainly suffering from a mental illness, most commonly being schizophrenia. These murderers usually experience some sort of psychotic break that leads them to go crazy and commit such a crime. In many other cases with the other types of murderers, they more commonly have a specific demographic that they like to murder. An example of this would be blonde, short, females. But visionary murderers have their agendas synchronized to whatever their mind is telling them to do at that specific moment. Visionary killers are classified as “disorganized” by the FBI because of their impulsive tendencies, there is almost always no pattern to their killing. Many murderers that fall under this category have claimed that another entity has taken over their body when the murders were committed, usually being “God mandated” or “demon mandated.” David Berkowitz is known as a classic example of a visionary serial killer. Berkowitz shot thirteen people in New York City ranging between 1967-1977, also known as his reign of terror. After his murders and prior to his arrest, he wrote letters to the local police station that stated Satan was ordering him to kill. In the article titled “David Berkowitz” found on Wikipedia, it is found that Berkowitz had a troubled childhood. He was above average in intelligence but was known to be difficult, spoiled, and a harsh bully. He was also associated with petty larceny and arson in his younger years. Berkowitz was also put up for adoption at birth, and never knew who his birth mother was until he was 17. When he was able to connect with his birth mother and speak to her for the first time, forensic anthropologists called that his “primary crisis” and believed it shattered his sense of identity. This shattered sense of identity led researchers to believe this is why Berkowitz committed murder.

The second to last killer is titled a pragmatic mission killer. In the article “Understanding Pragmatic Mission Killers” by Scott A. Bonn, it is stated that these murderers have a diabolical purpose. They believe that their killing is mission oriented and by committing this crime they are improving the world based off of their standards. These murderers usually target large specific groups that do not fit what the killer believes, this can include people of a certain religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Missionary murderers are classified as clinically insane and they’re murders are planned out, quick and concise. They truly believe that each victim is selected for them to kill, and that the victims are grateful to have been selected to get their lives taken. One example of a missionary killer is Joseph P. Franklin, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. Franklin was convicted of homicides that included two black men who had been jogging with a white woman, and an interracial couple. Franklin explained his wrongful doing by saying this statement to the press, “Race mixing is a sin against God and nature… I feel it is my duty as a servant of God to protect white womanhood from injury or degradation.” As we can see, the targeted group of people in this case was men of color with a goal to protect white women, and his reasoning was that it was a sin against his God and his religion.

The fourth and final kind of killer would be considered the hedonist lust killer. With the other types of murderers, sex is a motive for half of all serial killers. But a hedonist lust murderer is the only exception, sex is their primary and only motivation to their killing sprees, whether their victims or dead or alive. For this type of murderer, sex and killing is not the only thing that can solve the need for these murders. Some may actually drink their victim’s blood or resort to cannibalism. One example of a hedonist murderer is the well-known killer, Jeffery Dahmer. Dahmer fantasized greatly over the perfect lover. He wanted them to be beautiful, submissive and eternal. Whilst trying to find the perfect partner, it led him to murder and cannibalize 17 males between the years 1978 and 1991.  Dahmer’s murders started strictly off of sexual stimulation, but the more he murdered, the more he experimented with. Leading him to then partake in experimenting with cannibalism as well as drugs. It is said that he ingested human flesh of the victims he believed he was in love with, so that he can keep his secret lover forever. When Dahmer experimented with drugs, his purpose was to try and make his victims into living zombies with drilling a hole inside of the victim’s head and pouring acid and other chemicals into their brain. In the article “Hedonist Lust Killers Must Feed Their Insatiable Hunger” by author Scott A. Bonn, Dahmer is quoted when he talks about his own motivations as a hedonist lust killer. Dahmer himself claimed the following: “I wanted to see if it was possible to make—again, it sounds really gross—uh, zombies, people that would not have a will of their own, but would follow my instructions without resistance.” He also stated that lust and control in sexual situations were his main drive when murdering someone. When growing up, Dahmer always had a desire for killing. Since 13 years old he had been having thoughts about killing men and having sex with their corpses, these thoughts took up two-thirds of his day. He used to dissect roadkill with his father and put the animals he murdered up on display in the woods by a propped up wooden stick.  But Dahmer’s main motivation was sexual arousing’s, not making it surprising when he was diagnosed with the personality disorder called necrophilia; the sexual attraction to corpses. Dahmer was also severely bullied in school. In the article “Did Jeffery Dahmer Have Seizures, Did He Have Aids?” by author Shraman Mitra, it is stated that Dahmer got bullied in school and only had a handful of friends. He was starved of attention at home and also in school, which gave him the idea to fake seizures to get others to notice his presence.

Childhood trauma paved the way for a lot of widely known serial killers to begin their murder sprees. Researchers have noted that a lot of the most known serial killers came from childhood trauma, or a shaky home. FBI profiler Robert Ressler, had interviewed 36 convicted murderers, in the interviews he conducted he found out about the murderers’ histories, motives, as well as their psychological and behavioral characteristics. He found that all murderers he interviewed had a traumatic childhood involving specific types of abuse. 40% of the murderers he interviewed were physically beaten or abused, while the other 70% had witnessed abuse growing up. Proving that some of the most notorious people to walk the Earth, became the way they are because they were not given enough care in the most vital years of their life.

Robert Ressler is a very prominent researcher and source in the article, “Serial Killers and Child Abuse: Is There A Link?” by Fiona Guy. The following quote Ressler stated sums up a lot of what fellow researchers and readers think about this counterintuitive topic: “Let me state unequivocally that there is no such thing as the person who at age thirty-five suddenly changes from being perfectly normal and erupts into totally evil, disruptive, murderous behavior. The behaviors that are precursors to murder have been present and developing in that person’s life for a long, long time – since childhood.” Along with Ressler, researchers from Radford University in Virginia, Mitchell and Aamodt, continued to further the studies in 2005 about the relation between an abusive childhood and a tendency of serial killing later in life. Mitchell and Aamodt focused their studies on the different types of abuse that these serial killers can encounter, and the probability that related their actions to their backgrounds. The groups consisted of physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse and neglect. After collecting data that compared the general population compared to the serial killers, it is found that serial killers are six times more reported physical abuse during childhood compared to the rest of the general population. The biggest difference between the general population and serial killer population fell underneath the psychological abuse category. When it came to the general population, the rates of psychological abuse were only 2%. But the serial killer group studied was 50%. This shows us that childhood abuse is strikingly more widespread amongst serial killers versus a normal population.

Although abuse can be the direct source (a retaliation against the encounters of their own violence), of serial killers committing their actions, it also can be the first step in a three-step process. This three-step process includes 1.) the inflicted abuse, 2.) the mental illness resulting from the abuse and 3.) the murder tendencies/actions. So not only can child abuse drive children to have violent tendencies and eventually reenact that abuse onto other people, they can also receive mental illnesses because of this abuse, which can cause their actions to be even more savage in the long run. All starting at the root, that being child abuse. In the article “The Dark Psychology of Serial Killers: Unpacking the Factors Behind their Brutal Behavior” by author Dennis Relojo-Howell, Howell states that child abuse can lead to mental disorders including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD), narcissistic personality disorder, and borderline personality disorder. All of these mental disorders increase the probability of a child becoming a serial killer. PTSD increases the violence in a child due to an uneasy and unsafe feeling depending upon different settings and/or situations. Personality disorders also play a role in a serial killer’s development. This includes ASPD, which is characterized by a severe lack of empathy, and an urge to get involved in illegal activities. Personality disorders often cause people to disengage from reality and connect with forms of violent behavior to cope. Sometimes, the abuse that children grow up with do not have to be personal to their physical or mental well-being. Social and environmental factors also can take a toll and encourage the psychological development of a killer. Growing up around violence, whether that be in the home or community, or even watching violent media such as tv shows, video games or movies have been linked to an increase in violent behaviors starting at very young ages. The exposure to violence at a young age makes children think that these actions are normal. Growing up with this sort of mental state that makes children believe it is okay to intentionally inflict pain on others on a day to day, can only get worse as they get older.

In psychology, there is an ongoing argument that discusses nature vs nurture, and which one has more of an influence in who we are as people. Nature is the genetic and hereditary factor that goes into one’s personality. While nurture are the external variables, that include: childhood experience, family life, social surroundings, etc. When it comes to the mind of a serial killer, we need both 50% nature and 50% nurture to create a murderer. According to Dr. Adrian Raine in the article “From Abused Child to Serial Killer: Investigating Nature vs. Nurture in Methods of Murder” by author Nicole Davies, those with a specific variant of the enzyme monoamine-oxidase are more prone to displaying severely violent behavior if they have had an abusive upbringing. Or those who suffer from mentally illness in general may have more violent actions. But those who have this gene or a mental illness does not mean they are born to be a criminal; it goes hand and hand with their personal environmental factors. Both of these work together to shape a violent person, or a murderer. For example, murderer Richard Ramirez suffered from adolescent deviant behavior. This mental disorder includes antisocial behaviors, antidisciplinary tendencies, delinquent likelihood, and unlawful and self-harming/suicidal actions. Not only did he suffer with a mental disorder, he also suffered severe personal traumas whilst growing up. He endured many beatings from his father, and also had a cousin who would murder women and show Ramirez pictures of deceased bodies. Both of these leading Ramirez to romanticize acts of violence and murder. Ramirez’s case only proves Dr. Adrian Raine’s theory that nature and nurture go hand and hand to create a serial killer.

Although a rough childhood cannot be an excuse to commit a murder, it can be the reason for one.  The topic discussing child abuse and its link to serial killers is a popular and debatable topic. For example, some researchers believe that childhood abuse alone can drive someone to become a serial killer, but another researcher may lean towards a side that claims there needs to be more influences than child abuse to have someone go on a killing spree.

The article “Did an Abusive Childhood Turn Albert DeSalvo Into the ‘Boston Strangler’ Serial Killer?” by author Elena Ferrarin, discusses altercation between whether or not DeSalvo’s actions were influenced by childhood abuse or strictly evil intent. To give a little bit of background, DeSalvo is the alleged ‘Boston Strangler’ who confessed to the murderers of 11 women between 1962 and 1964. When DeSalvo was being interviewed about his times as a boy, it was stated that both his mother and his sister had wished he was dead multiple times. Also, how he and his brother would have to stand in front of their father every night to get hit with a belt, he also once had his father hit him with a metal pipe. Moreover, he had witnessed his father knock out his mother’s teeth and break her fingers. And lastly, his father had sold both him and his two sisters for nine dollars to a farmer, without their mother’s knowledge, leading her on a six-month chase to find her children. However, besides all of the cruel and unusual punishment DeSalvo had experienced, the co-author of an article called “The Incidence of Child Abuse in Serial Killers” chooses to believe that an abusive childhood is not enough to yield a serial killer. Co-author Aamodt states, “If you go through one thing in life-you’re abused, but everything else is pretty stable- it’s not going to have as much effect in terms of you becoming habitually aggressive or violent.” He believes that what builds up to a serial killer is like a point system. Aamodt again states, “But when you are abused and you have neurological damage, from substance abuse, or injury, or because you are exposed to lead, each of those things happened are building up points.” Although DeSalvo did not abuse substance at the time he committed his murders, and it is not confirmed whatsoever that he suffered from neurological damage from drugs, injury, or lead exposure, yet they choose to believe (with zero evidence,) that his childhood abuse could not have been the only factor for DeSalvo’s murder spree.

A murderer that is proven to have zero drug use or neurologically damage, but suffered from child abuse is a man named Carl Panzram. Panzram was an American serial killer, rapist, child molester, arsonist, and robber. He confessed to twenty-one murders, but is suspected to have killed more than one hundred men in the United States alone, and multiple more in Portuguese Angola. He also admitted to more than one thousand cases of rape against strictly males. Panzram grew up on a farm and was one of seven children born. Him and his six other siblings were forced to work on the farm for long hours starting at a very young age. That was until a law was passed that made it illegal for Panzrams’ parents not to send the children to school, this law was called the “truancy law.” The children would go to school during the day and work on the farm all night, causing them to get just two hours of sleep before the following school day started. The abuse Carl and his other siblings encountered ranged from being chained up to being starved as well as severe neglect. As he grew older, his father ended up abandoning the family and his older brothers left him as well, one of them being because he had passed on. Panzram was not very liked by other children; he was a liar and a thief by the age of six and his crimes and personality only got worse as he got older. Due to his love for criminal activity starting at such a young age, his mother decided to send him to the Minnesota State Training School, also known as Red Wing. What went on within the halls of this training school also had an influence on what made Panzram the brutal murderer we know him as. Red wing was not only a correction school, but it was also a place where the boys in their “care” were brutalized and raped. One of the buildings on campus was called the “Paint House.” It got its nickname from the mere fact that the boys walked out of there covered in black and blues from getting beaten by the correction officers. After a year had passed the teachers released Panzram from the school, naïve enough to think he was a changed boy. What his mother found out was that he had not changed, his brothers than took on the role of beating him at home since his teachers were not there to do so. Panzram soon enough convinced his mother to send him back the correction school again, it wasn’t long before he pulled a gun on one of his teachers and in response to his own action, dropped the gun and ran away to become a hobo and ride the trains. That decision ended up being a huge mistake, this choice led Panzram to be gang raped twice on the trains by other men, breaking down his sense of morality even more than before. During his times of abusive from when he was born to his late teens, he was never involved with any drug that could have made him suffer from neurological damage, nor was he in injured in a way that could have caused him neurological damage. He was named America’s most cold-blooded serial killer and the meanest man who ever lived, all because he was raised surrounded by abuse and being a victim of abuse.

So, the next time you see a younger child, whether this may in route to school or if they are your neighbor, give them a smile. Children are amazing at masking what goes on at home when they are in public. Their home environment can be raising them to become the next Ted Bundy, or Jeffery Dahmer. Be careful how you treat children, because a small comment you may make today, can be the reason that same child takes your life in 10 years.

References

The Tragic Story of a Boy who was Abused and Became a Monster | by Sam H Arnold | CrimeBeat | Medium

Carl Panzram – Wikipedia

Did an Abusive Childhood Turn Albert DeSalvo Into the ‘Boston Strangler’ Serial Killer? – A&E True Crime (aetv.com)

Did Jeffrey Dahmer Have Seizures? Did Jeffrey Dahmer Have AIDS? (thecinemaholic.com)

Serial Homicide for Power and Control | Psychology Today

Visionary Serial Killers Are Driven by Inner Demons | Psychology Today

Understanding Pragmatic Mission Killers | Psychology Today

Serial Homicide for Power and Control | Psychology Today

Hedonist Lust Killers Must Feed Their Insatiable Hunger | Psychology Today

David Berkowitz – Wikipedia

Serial Killers And Childhood Abuse: Is There A Link? | Crime Traveller

The Dark Psychology of Serial Killers: Unpacking the Factors Behind their Brutal Behaviour | Psychreg

From Abused Child to Serial Killer: Investigating Nature vs Nurture in Methods of Murder – Psychiatry Advisor

The incidence of child abuse in serial killers | SpringerLink

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Causal Rewrite- blueee

Posted on April 20, 2023 by blueee04

Money Causes Negative Behavior

Greed is a problem whether we want to believe it or not. People are greedy with money, whether they have a lot or little. It causes people to have behavioral problems. Some people don’t even realize the way it affects them because they are surrounded by people that act the same way. Money makes people feel superior and they abuse it which then leads to being rude but being rude is just the beginning of it, there are much worse situations that have escalated to violence. Money should not be as dangerous as it is.

There is inequality globally with everything. There was an experiment held with University students and nationwide, to show how people act in situations of inequality. In the article “The rich are easily offended by unfairness” the author explains the game, “the proposer gives the responder an unfair offer of CN¥2, but keeps the remaining CN¥8 out of CN¥10. If the responder accepts the offer, each receives the proposed amounts; otherwise both receive nothing.” Low income people were likely to take the offer and the more wealthy denied the offer. It’s not surprising given that the money would help them but it shows how important money is in our world. It shows how easily the poor were convinced when money was involved. People have a change in behavior when they have an opportunity to win a lottery.

When growing up we learn to act like those around us. We may not be corrected right from wrong when young but as we get older we learn the difference by observing others. We know who we should associate with and who we want to avoid. In the article “Money attitude-an abridgement” the article explains that individuals may have a negative behavior about money differences due to childhood experiences, high financial and social status. These are all accurate to cause a persons change in behavior but it’s just an excuse for them to act mean towards others. Learned behavior could be changed, if we feel like the way we act isn’t appropriate or mature then we should want to change. No one deserves to be mistreated due to the way we grew up. Poor people tend to be mistreated or belittled by people that are richer. The rich feel like their wealth gives them the right to be disrespectful to the poor.

Companies are even losing out on money due to the employees behavior. It’s not hard to be nice but some people never matured enough to know how to act. There is no excuse for an adult to have negative actions towards customers. The source “Rudeness at work: Impulse over restraint” states that this behavior drives customers away and although being rude isn’t an act of violence it could lead to that or worse. Money isn’t just causing behavior but behavior also causes the loss of money. People need to learn how to be more respectful because you never know what kind of day someone is having. Everyone wants to be treated with respect and kindness. Just because we are having a bad day it doesn’t mean we have to make someone else’s day bad.

Many behaviors can be picked up but we shouldn’t let money effect it. Money should not control the way we act or treat others. This has become a problem without anyone noticing, it’s become normal. It’s not normal to have stingy people or unfairness. We should not be against each-other. We have grown in a world that’s known to be rude, selfish, and needy. This doesn’t mean that it needs to continue to be like this. Just because our peers act a certain way it doesn’t make it right for us to. There is no reason to try and fit in. Disrespect gets you absolutely no where in life.

References

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, The rich are easily offended by unfairness: Wealth triggers spiteful rejection of unfair offers Published, 5April 2017

Taneja, Rimple. Money attitude-an abridgement Published July 2012

Johnson, Pamela and Indvik Julie, Rudeness at work: Impulse over restraint Published December 2001

Posted in Blueee, Causal Rewrite, Portfolio Blueee | 2 Comments

Causal-blueee

Posted on April 20, 2023 by blueee04

Money Causes Negative Behavior

Money is a problem whether we want to believe it or not. Nothing can be done to get rid of it though because it is essential in life to survive. It causes people to have behavioral problems. Some people don’t even realize the way it affects them because they are surrounded by people that act the same way. Money leads to people acting rude because they feel better than others when having a lot or they have grown to be greedy. Being rude is just the beginning of it, there are much worse situations that have escalated to violence. Money should not be as dangerous as it is.

There is inequality globally with everything. The poor are treated more unfairly than the rich are but when the less fortunate are put into positions with money they become greedy. This is expected but it shows how money takes the kindness out of people, it blinds them. There was an experiment held with University students and nationwide, to show how people act in situations of inequality. In the article “The rich are easily offended by unfairness” the author explains the game, “the proposer gives the responder an unfair offer of CN¥2, but keeps the remaining CN¥8 out of CN¥10. If the responder accepts the offer, each receives the proposed amounts; otherwise both receive nothing.” Low income people were likely to take the offer. It’s not surprising given that the money would help them but it shows how important money is in our world.

When growing up we tend to act like those around us, we may not know right from wrong when young but as we get older we learn the difference. We know who we should surround ourselves with and who we don’t want to be like. In the article “Money attitude-an abridgement” the article explains that individuals may have a negative behavior due to childhood experiences, education, financial and social status. These are all accurate to cause a persons change in behavior but it still doesn’t give them the right to be mean. Learned behavior could be changed, if we feel like the way we act is wrong then we should want to change. No one deserves to be mistreated due to the way we grew up. Poor people tend to be mistreated or belittled by people that are richer, they feel like they have a right to act disrespectful due to the amount of money they have.

Companies are even losing out on money due to the employees behavior. It’s not hard to be nice but some people never matured enough to know how to act. There is no excuse for an adult to have negative actions towards customers. The source “Rudeness at work: Impulse over restraint” states that this behavior drives customers away and although being rude isn’t an act of violence it could lead to that or worse. Money isn’t just causing behavior but behavior also causes the loss of money. People need to learn how to be more respectful because you never know what kind of day someone is having. Everyone wants to be treated with respect and kindness. Just because we are having a bad day it doesn’t mean we have to make someone else’s day bad.

Many behaviors can be picked up but we shouldn’t let money effect it. Money should not control the way we act or treat others. This has become a problem without anyone noticing, it’s become normal. It’s not normal to have stingy people or unfairness. We should not be against each-other. We have grown in a world that’s known to be rude, selfish, and needy. This doesn’t mean that it needs to continue to be like this. Just because our peers act a certain way it doesn’t make it right for us to. There is no reason to try and fit in. Disrespect gets you absolutely no where in life.

Resources:

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, The rich are easily offended by unfairness: Wealth triggers spiteful rejection of unfair offers Published, 5April 2017

Taneja, Rimple. Money attitude-an abridgement Published July 2012

Johnson, Pamela and Indvik Julie, Rudeness at work: Impulse over restraint Published December 2001

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Rebuttal Rewrite – Clevland brown

Posted on April 20, 2023 by clevelandbrown03

Police in School

Some will argue that the presence of police officers in schools creates a hostile and intimidating environment for students. However, this argument fails to consider the positive relationships that can be built between police officers and students. This will teach students later in life to be less likely to be hostile to law enforcement, and more likely to know and be comfortable with the protocol done by law enforcement if they were to be stopped by law enforcement. It is important to recognize that police officers in schools often must undergo specialized training to work with young people effectively.  This training will specialize in de-escalation, officers will work with trained negotiators that will teach them how to use their words to solve most problems. And will also have classes by trained martial artists that will show officers how to disarm a student with a weapon without using excessive force and causing unnecessary harm. 

This will help ensure that police officers in schools are able to create a positive and supportive environment for students. While there are certainly valid concerns about the presence of police officers in schools, the benefits of having a law enforcement presence in schools far outweigh the potential drawbacks.  For example ((4) Police Officer Slams S.C. High School Student to the Ground – YouTube). This video shows a student that was having an issue with their teacher, the teacher had called the police on her but she still wouldn’t follow the officer’s instructions. The officer then uses brute force and overpowers the student out of her chair and arrests her in class. 

And this is the exact reason why these officers will have different training. Officers that protect high schools, will have the training that will emulate situations like this. In addition to that as a part of the training we will have the students vote on officers they want or officers, they don’t want in the school. In the fall, for officers to fully complete their training, the students have to feel comfortable around the officer and if the students say that the officer didn’t pass then they will not be eligible to work there. This is a good method because it will show students that their vote matters.(Poll: Why 80 Million Americans Didn’t Vote In Year Of Record Turnout : NPR). In this article, it says that 80 million eligible voters did not vote last year and their reasons for not voting were not being registered to vote 29%, not being interested in politics 23%, not liking the candidates 20%, feeling their vote wouldn’t have made a difference 16%, and undecided on whom to vote for 10%. So when the students graduate high school and are able to vote, hopefully, their experience with voting for police to protect them will encourage them to go and vote in the real world and lower the number of non-voters in the next election. 

(Keeping Schools Safe: Case Studies and Insights – Google Books). This article talks about how security wouldn’t work in school, but their argument is terrible for the simple reason that their version of security is just having cameras in the school. And my policy is that police will physically be there to keep the kids safe from gunmen and other harmful things.  Another way that we will keep schools safe is by using metal detectors this will prevent students from sneaking in weapons and other objects they can use to harm students. 

As a way to educate students who have a negative view of law enforcement, there will be a class that students will attend to educate them on how to deal with certain situations. For example on how to deal with an aggressive cop and educating students on their rights as citizens and minors. This will keep students from getting taken advantage of by corrupt police and not being intimidated by the badge. And we know this is important by looking at the Central Park Five case. This case is about a lady who was raped in Central Park at night, and five African American boys who were in the park that night would be accused and pressured, by corrupt police into making up a false story about how they raped the lady. They would go on to spend their adolescence in jail with grown men where they would go on to be taken advantage of by the prisoners and the system. They would later have to admit that they did the crime to be released, well all except one his name was Korey Wise. He never admitted to the crime because he never did it, the man who actually did it years later came out admitting his crime, and Kory was released. (Central Park Five: Crime, Coverage & Settlement (history.com). All of this is to show how important it is to be educated in the system, and also one of the many reasons “citizens” mainly the African American community don’t trust the police. Hopefully having police in school will show students that not all police are bad and that they can trust them, but also be aware that there are corrupt police and we need to know how to safely deal with them. The debate around police officers in schools has been raging for years, with some individuals arguing that their presence is unnecessary and even harmful. However, the fact remains that police officers play an essential role in ensuring increased safety around schools. These professionals are trained to respond quickly to any situation, making them an invaluable asset during emergencies.

One of the primary arguments for having police officers in schools is their ability to respond quickly to threats. In the event of a school shooting or other dangerous situation, time is of the essence. Having a police officer on-site can significantly reduce response time and increase the chances of minimizing harm. This means students and staff members can feel safer knowing they have someone who can step in immediately if needed. Moreover, having police officers stationed at schools provides an added level of security that deters potential perpetrators from committing violent acts on campus. In conclusion, Police officers in schools will help keep students safe, build positive relationships between law enforcement and young people, and work with administrators and teachers. Officers in schools are not there to be a warden or somebody that is just there to be security. They are there to make a difference teach young people the importance of having good officers in the community and most importantly keep everyone in school safe.

References

(4) Police Officer Slams S.C. High School Student to the Ground – YouTube).

(Poll: Why 80 Million Americans Didn’t Vote In Year Of Record Turnout : NPR)

(Keeping Schools Safe: Case Studies and Insights – Google Books)

(Central Park Five: Crime, Coverage & Settlement (history.com)

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  Rebuttal – Clevland Brown

Posted on April 20, 2023 by clevelandbrown03

Some will argue that the presence of police officers in schools creates a hostile and intimidating environment for students. However, this argument fails to consider the positive relationships that can be built between police officers and students. This will teach students later in life to be less likely to be hostile to law enforcement, and more likely to know and be comfortable with the protocol done by law enforcement if they were to be stopped by law enforcement. It is important to recognize that police officers in schools often must undergo specialized training to work with young people effectively.  This training will specialize in de-escalation, officers will work with trained negotiators that will teach them how to use their words to solve most problems. And will also have classes by trained martial artists that will show officers how to disarm a student with a weapon without using excessive force and causing unnecessary harm. 

This will help ensure that police officers in schools are able to create a positive and supportive environment for students. While there are certainly valid concerns about the presence of police officers in schools, the benefits of having a law enforcement presence in schools far outweigh the potential drawbacks.  For example ((4) Police Officer Slams S.C. High School Student to the Ground – YouTube). This video shows a student that was having an issue with their teacher, the teacher had called the police on her but she still wouldn’t follow the officer’s instructions. The officer then uses brute force and overpowers the student out of her chair and arrests her in class. 

And this is the exact reason why these officers will have different training. Officers that protect high schools, will have the training that will emulate situations like this. In addition to that as a part of the training we will have the students vote on officers they want or officers, they don’t want in the school. In the fall, for officers to fully complete their training, the students have to feel comfortable around the officer and if the students say that the officer didn’t pass then they will not be eligible to work there. This is a good method because it will show students that their vote matters.(Poll: Why 80 Million Americans Didn’t Vote In Year Of Record Turnout : NPR). In this article, it says that 80 million eligible voters did not vote last year and their reasons for not voting were not being registered to vote 29%, not being interested in politics 23%, not liking the candidates 20%, feeling their vote wouldn’t have made a difference 16%, and undecided on whom to vote for 10%. So when the students graduate high school and are able to vote, hopefully, their experience with voting for police to protect them will encourage them to go and vote in the real world and lower the number of non-voters in the next election. 

(Keeping Schools Safe: Case Studies and Insights – Google Books). This article talks about how security wouldn’t work in school, but their argument is terrible for the simple reason that their version of security is just having cameras in the school. And my policy is that police will physically be there to keep the kids safe from gunmen and other harmful things.  Another way that we will keep schools safe is by using metal detectors this will prevent students from sneaking in weapons and other objects they can use to harm students. 

As a way to educate students who have a negative view of law enforcement, there will be a class that students will attend to educate them on how to deal with certain situations. For example on how to deal with an aggressive cop and educating students on their rights as citizens and minors. This will keep students from getting taken advantage of by corrupt police and not being intimidated by the badge. And we know this is important by looking at the Central Park Five case. This case is about a lady who was raped in Central Park at night, and five African American boys who were in the park that night would be accused and pressured, by corrupt police into making up a false story about how they raped the lady. They would go on to spend their adolescence in jail with grown men where they would go on to be taken advantage of by the prisoners and the system. They would later have to admit that they did the crime to be released, well all except one his name was Korey Wise. He never admitted to the crime because he never did it, the man who actually did it years later came out admitting his crime, and Kory was released. (Central Park Five: Crime, Coverage & Settlement (history.com). All of this is to show how important it is to be educated in the system, and also one of the many reasons “citizens” mainly the African American community don’t trust the police. Hopefully having police in school will show students that not all police are bad and that they can trust them, but also be aware that there are corrupt police and we need to know how to safely deal with them. The debate around police officers in schools has been raging for years, with some individuals arguing that their presence is unnecessary and even harmful. However, the fact remains that police officers play an essential role in ensuring increased safety around schools. These professionals are trained to respond quickly to any situation, making them an invaluable asset during emergencies.

One of the primary arguments for having police officers in schools is their ability to respond quickly to threats. In the event of a school shooting or other dangerous situation, time is of the essence. Having a police officer on-site can significantly reduce response time and increase the chances of minimizing harm. This means students and staff members can feel safer knowing they have someone who can step in immediately if needed. Moreover, having police officers stationed at schools provides an added level of security that deters potential perpetrators from committing violent acts on campusIn conclusion, Police officers in schools will help keep students safe, build positive relationships between law enforcement and young people, and work with administrators and teachers. Officers in schools are not there to be a warden or somebody that is just there to be security. They are there to make a difference teach young people the importance of having good officers in the community and most importantly keep everyone in school safe.

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

Research—goodmusician440

Posted on April 20, 2023 by goodmusician440

Music and Health

Music is everywhere in our lives, and many people listen to it. Many people love to listen to music and even play music sometimes if they are musicians. People use music all the time when doing everyday things like studying, working, relaxing, dancing, and many other things. It is something that is used all the time, and often times, it is viewed as a great thing. Many people see it as a great thing because they say that it can reduce a lot of anxiety and depression. They also say that music can also improve your overall mood. However, there are people out there that stand by the fact that music actually does the exact opposite. Music can actually decrease and ruin people’s overall health, especially in the physical, mental, and emotional areas of your health.

Sometimes they argue that the digression of people’s health when listening to music is very apparent when we look in the mental health area, specifically, when we look at people with depression. Most people will say that music is a perfect coping mechanism and treatment for people with anxiety and depression. They say that music tends to calm down stress hormones, which in cause helps people relax a lot. When people relax, anxiety is reduced down by a whole lot, and since anxiety is down, depression, as a result, will also be reduced. However, as counterintuitive as this will sound, music is actually a terrible coping mechanism and treatment for people with anxiety and depression because by having them listen to music, this will do the exact opposite for them. Depression will actually increase and anxiety will also increase for them, and by both of those things increasing, their overall mood will also deteriorate as a result. This sounds very counterintuitive, but you have to think about it. When people have depression and/or anxiety, they feel really sad and really stressed out. When those people are feeling those kinds of feelings and emotions, they don’t want anything else and it is difficult for them to feel anything else. When we have them listen to music, they will most likely pick music that sounds sad or depressing, and if the songs are not instrumentals, they will most likely have sad lyrics in the songs. In turn, their depression and/or anxiety is not really going away. Instead, the music is actually acting as an additional stressor and as a result, their overall health is not getting better, but it is actually getting worse. By giving these people the ability to listen to music as a treatment or a coping mechanism, they are not getting the proper help that they need. They need to find something else as a good treatment or coping mechanism for their depression and/or anxiety such as being active or socializing with other people for example.

They also argue that music can also affect you physically as well, especially to the ears. There are two ways that people love to listen to music. It is by either going to loud concerts or by listening to music using earbuds or headphones. Our ears can only but handle so much music at a loud volume, and sometimes, if we listen to music in these kind of ways for a long time, we can sometimes experience hearing loss. This is especially true today towards the younger generations as many young children these days require headphones for school work, and often times, they listen to lots of music while working. Young teenagers also go to lots of concerts put on by many famous musicians and singers, and with amplification and technology these days, concerts keep getting louder and louder, and that can be damaging to the ear sometimes. The problem is that younger children’s ears are still developing when they are young, even until their teenage years. They can’t handle so much loud music or music with headphones for a long period of time, and yet, due to certain circumstances, they go through with that.

Also, they say that sometimes, music can be harmful and affect those in their emotional health, especially those who went through traumatic experiences. Music is a really powerful tool that can sometimes unlock memories or even remind you of memories in the past. It can sometimes be reflective and either bring back good memories or bad memories. According to an article from “Psychology Today”, there was a man who really loves music, and he listens to music all the time. However, he had recently lost his wife, and he said that he can no longer listen to and enjoy music anymore because all the music that he loves to listen to remind him of his wife. The memories reminded through the music really affect the man negatively and he can no longer enjoy music. Unfortunately, he is not the only one, and there are many people that have been emotionally haunted by music because of past experiences or former memories. Music can emotionally haunt people simply by being sad or slow and having a message or having some certain lyrics that remind people of past memories like a loved one or a traumatic experience like an illness or an accident. Sometimes, this can even increase stress, and as a result, increase anxiety as well.

When you consider the evidence and the facts, it is easy to see that even though many people see music as a wonderful tool to help improve people’s overall health, people stand by with that fact that instead of improving people’s overall health, music actually declines people’s overall health. Music declines people’s physical health, mental health, and emotional health. It can cause anxiety to skyrocket really high as well as hearing loss for younger folks. Depression can also be increased really high because of music’s overall ability to add stressors to people’s lives and cause them to feel really sad. Music can also bring unwanted memories to those who are feeling really sad or traumatized, especially to those who have went through major experiences or have lost loved ones. People still will stand by the fact that music is a terrible way to improve your overall health, however, they are wrong.

Music is a very wonderful thing. It is a universal language that is part of everybody’s lives. People listen to music every single day, and they use it for various things such as performing with instruments or singing or even just listening to it while doing activities such as reading or studying. Places such as stores, sports stadiums, and restaurants also use music for the customers. Music is everywhere. A lot of people love to listen to music. On the contrary, there are some people who don’t really care to listen to that much music. They just don’t enjoy music as much as other people might enjoy. For those who don’t listen to music that much, it may sound kind of counterintuitive, but in a way, it is actually harmful not to listen to that much music.

Here is the thing. A lot of times when we listen to music such as classical, jazz, or even country to an extent, us as humans tend to get that feeling of feeling calm or relaxed, and that is totally normal. That is what must happen! As humans, we have a lot of stress hormones, and as college students, we have a lot of stresses happening such as classes, tests, food, finances, and other things. As a result, these stress hormones are constantly active. By listening to calming music, these stress hormones can actually be calmed simply by listening to calming music. Don’t use music like heavy metal because that can raise up stress hormones by a lot due to its aggressive and hyper nature. By calming the stress hormones, you actually lower blood pressure at the same time because blood correlates with stress. For those with high blood pressure, this is a really good tool to use to lower blood pressure. This is also a good way to avoid heart problems.

Music can also reduce and treat anxiety and depression. When people have anxiety and depression, there is usually a lot of stress built up in their lives that they have to get over. Again, we learned that music can help calm and reduce stress hormones. As a result, music can help people be calm and stop thinking lots of negative thoughts. Most of the music has to be calming or slower music. This is because you don’t want the music to be too uplifting or too aggressive or too fast. You also want that is easier to relate to. Music such as classical and country should be just fine for that.

In addition, music is known for helping people sleep. According to some studies, there were some students who listened to classical music for 45 minutes before they slept, and they reported sleeping really well and waking up way fewer times throughout the night than before. This is also correlated with reducing stress and anxiety. By using music to help sleep better, it can help our bodies rest better and actually regain healthiness overnight. Rest is very important for the body because it can actually help the body recharge itself and the mind so that way, we can be more productive throughout the day as well as actually being safer.  

As I said before, music can also help us be very productive. Many people like to listen to different music while doing their day to day things. Some either like classical, jazz, pop, heavy metal, and others. Coming from a musician myself, I personally like classical and jazz music. The reason why is that I find them really relatable for me because I really like the complex chord progressions and the harmony of the music, but at the same time, the instrumentation is really nice and the dynamics and the music overall sound really pleasant to the ear. Not everyone may like that. Some people might prefer the aggressive sound of heavy metal or simpler stuff like pop or country. 

Music can also help us with our mood and emotions. When we do every day things, we can feel certain kind of ways, mostly happy. This is because when we do the things we love, there is a chemical called dopamine that is released to the brian, and it brings pleasure. When we listen to music, it provides different kinds of levels of dopamine into the brain because of the different genres and moods or feel of the music. The faster and more aggressive the song, the more dopamine there will be, and if there are songs that are a little bit more on the slower side, then there will be less dopamine released. Either way, people will feel tons of different emotions from music. 

Now, there are a couple of big reasons why there are some people who don’t really listen to music all that much, and they do exist in the world. One is that one person might have something called “music anheodina.” It basically means that people don’t really get any drive or pleasure from music. That is a neurological disorder. The other thing is that when we are young, sometimes we are exposed to a certain kind of music often, or even multiple kinds of music, and sometimes, that will dictate what kind of music we are interested in. Sometimes, people might not even be exposed to a lot or even any music, and as a result, they just don’t feel like listening to music all that much like other people do.

Overall, people should definitely listen to more music. Not just because music is really cool and that it is fun and that you all will enjoy it, but also because music is actually really good for you. It can help lower blood pressure and decrease your anxiety and depression levels, and it can even help you sleep. Your moods and emotions will definitely be affected in a positive way by music, and you can even be productive with music. Music is a universal language, and it needs to be used often from every single person.

Music is a very wonderful thing. It is a universal language that is part of everybody’s lives. People listen to music every single day, and they use it for various things such as performing with instruments or singing or even just listening to it while doing activities such as reading or studying. Places such as stores, sports stadiums, and restaurants also use music for the customers. Music is everywhere. A lot of people love to listen to music. That is a really good thing because by listening to music, music can bring a lot of good benefits to people’s lives. They can cause a lot of great improvements in your overall health, especially your physical health and your mental health.

The brain and music are basically connected to each other. According to Harvard, the brain is the one that collects soundwaves, and the waves go right to the eardrum. When the waves strike the eardrum, the eardrum vibrates, and that leads to tons of other chain reactions in our brain that cause us to perceive musical ideas like pitch, melody, harmony, chord progressions, chords, and other musical ideas. With these chain reactions, we are able to combine all of these ideas into what we call “music.” This is important to know here because it shows just how interconnected the brain and music really are. Because they are interconnected, it gives music the opportunity to really improve your health, especially in the mind. For example, the fact that music and the brain are interconnected allows music to calm down stress hormones. This is really helpful especially for those that have anxiety and/or depression. It is especially prevalent when we use certain kinds of musical styles such as classical music and jazz. Not all musical styles would be able to do that for obvious reasons. Some styles such as rap, heavy metal, rock, and some forms of pop would definitely not be able to calm down the stress hormones in your body because those kinds of music are so lively and so chaotic sometimes, that instead of being able to calm down the stress hormones, not only would they not calm them down, they would instead aggravate them and/or even create new ones. Classical and jazz music are definitely genres that can reduce stress hormones significantly because of their more relaxing and instrumental nature.

Listening to causes a lot of benefits to the body as far as physical health goes. In Shanghai University, the scientists were able to prove that music does indeed cause fatigue to be significantly reduced. They also proved, according to healthlin.com, that when the people were engaged into doing a repetitive task over and over again, the music helped them maintain good muscle endurance. There has even been proof of music actually boosting your overall performance on working out. It has been shown to help work out much more efficiently as well as much longer than usual. This is because of the fact that music can really help you relax and get rid of those stress hormones in your body. It kind of makes sense. We see tons of athletes listen to music all the time when they work out. They especially love to listen to high intensity music because it is very fast and intense as far as the tempo, rhythm, and the chord structure goes. If they listened to something like classical music, the vibe would not fit in. It would not help them workout more efficiently, but rather, it would help them work inefficiently. However, with fast songs that are very intense such as some pop songs, rock, and others, they will help a lot more due to the nature and feel of those songs.

Music also causes our emotions to be heavily affected. Certain songs and genres have certain styles and feels to them that do different effects to other people. This is important to note especially for those that have depression. Some songs will not work well for those with depression because they will be too sad, and those kinds of songs will just lead them to more sadness, which is obviously what we do not want. Rite of Spring is an excellent composition to use as an example of what not to show to a person with depression. The song is very chaotic and confusing. There are so many things that happen in that song as far as the harmony and rhythm goes, that it would simply confuse them, and drive them into insanity. Sad songs with sad lyrics would definitely not be good. The songs should have a positive theme in them or sound very happy and positive. Pharrell William’s “Happy” is an obvious example of a very happy song. The lyrics show a very positive message, and the song is in a major key, which helps it sound happy. 

Overall, it is very clear that listening to music causes many great effects to occur to a lot of people. Sometimes, certain genres are very good for improving overall health while others do not. Sometimes, songs might sound too sad or sometimes too crazy or insane, whereas some songs sound a lot happier and might take a more relaxed approach in order to get its message across. Music and the brain are very well connected, and as a result, when music is heard by the human ear, it can cause that person to experience tons of great side effects. Music can help you in your overall physical health, especially when you are working out and especially when you are listening to fast music because fast music is really fitting for the type of environment and feel that working out is. It is also known for helping those with depression and anxiety because the stress hormones are able to be calmed down. Music is a wonderful tool to have in your everyday life and it is not only something used to enjoy yourself, but it is also used to actually improve the health of oneself.

Your References absolutely DO NOT COMPLY
with APA style.
https://compclass2021.com/citation-mechanics/

Sources:

https://www.bettersleep.com/blog/how-classical-and-instrumental-music-affect-mental-health/

The Science Behind Why Classical Music Is Good for Mental Health

https://www.wqxr.org/story/15998-how-music-therapy-helps-ease-clinical-depression/

https://www.flexispot.com/spine-care-center/8-health-benefits-that-will-make-you-listen-to-classical-music-more

Can You Hear the Music?

https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/music-and-health-what-you-need-to-know#:~:text=Yes%2C%20according%20to%20a%20growing,sensation%2C%20movement%2C%20and%20emotion.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-musical-self/201408/5-problems-music-can-create

https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/music-and-health

https://www.healthline.com/health/benefits-of-music#mood-boost

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/11/music

Posted in GoodMusician, Portfolio GoodMusician, Portfolio SP23, Research | 2 Comments

Research- Doglover846

Posted on April 20, 2023 by doglover846

The Truth About Zoos
and What They Do for Endangered Species

Through the years the world has been struggling to protect endangered species. That being said, there has been an upbringing of Zoos throughout the nation. However, Zoos have been one of the biggest controversial topics when talking about endangered species. And many people have different points of views on if zoos actually help or worsen the population of these species. An image is placed in minds where zoos hold animals captive and never let them be able to live their life to the fullest, but not all cases are like that. Seriously endangered species need to be watched at all times to ensure they won’t go extinct. They also need to have research done so that zoologists and other scientists have more knowledge to prevent them from going extinct. Yes, Zoos can help in that aspect but they also hold animals that aren’t endangered, so why would they hold them in captivity?

There is a subsiding slope of the endangered animal population, with a result of some species going completely extinct, meaning that species will never exist again. In fact, The World Wildlife Fund estimates that somewhere between 200 and 2000 species go extinct every year. We as a community have tried multiple ways to prevent species from going nonexistent. Examples being, protecting the wildlife habitat, nature reserves, and lastly research and knowledge. By providing “safe habitats, medical care, and a nurturing environment for their animals,” zoos and nature reserves are the best defense we have against a continuing loss of species, according to staff of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Zoos provide a safe place to salvage endangered animals temporarily, but the more permanent solution is to translocate the species to environments that can sustain them permanently. Zoos, aquariums and nature reserves help increase the population of different species and protect endangered animals through different research, funding, translocations, conservation areas and breeding. 

As we know the wildlife population has been substantially decreasing day after day. The declining number of species is putting the world into a biodiversity crisis. What that means is, a loss of biological diversity as a result of the global extinction of various species and the local reduction or loss of species in a particular habitat. In spite of that, conservation translocations could help reverse this situation by rehabilitating small populations or allowing new ones to start. Conservation translocation intentionally moves and releases plants, animals, or fungi into the wild in order to save them from extinction. According to Conservation translocations: a review of common difficulties and promising directions, by Oded Berger-Tal, he states that, “The most common types of conservation translocations (hereafter, translocations) are reintroductions, where organisms are released into areas where the species previously existed but has been extirpated, and reinforcements, where organisms are released into areas with existing populations of conspecifics to enhance the viability of the extant population”. However, to be successful when pursuing this process there are an abundance of factors that become involved. This consists of “wildlife managers must possess extensive knowledge of the released species’ ecology and behavior, gain the support of local communities, secure continuous funding, coordinate activities among numerous stakeholders and monitor outcomes in an adaptive management framework” (Berger-Tal). 

One of the most well known attempts of conservation translocation is Richard Henry’s attempt to save flightless birds back in 1895. He did this by relocating these birds from New Zealand’s mainland to a predator-free Resolution Island in the Fiordland area. Even though his attempt failed, his effort to save the birds led to countless numbers of conservation translocation throughout the world. However, these practices weren’t popular until the 1970’s and 80’s. That is when the amount of conservation translocations started to increase and gained the reintroduction of eminent species. Many zoological organizations have evolved conservation management. This causes them to strengthen and broaden their activities, decreasing the result of wildlife population restrictions. With that being said, “species are becoming ‘conservation reliant’ each requiring a variety of conservation approaches for their continued survival,” according to Tania Gilbert and Pritpal Soorae in The Role of Zoos and Aquariums in Reintroductions and Other Conservation Translocations. 

On the flip side, many studies show that conversational translocation can result in the species becoming overwhelmed and stressed. Having the animal being captured, transported and relocated into an area that has never been seen before or are not comfortable with can put a lot of stress on a wild animal. One of the biggest risks to the success of conservation translocation is losing local adaptation. A local adaptation is the process by which populations gain traits that increase their chances of surviving and reproducing in their immediate environment compared to those in other environments. This is accomplished by the spatial alignment of adaptive genetic variation with environmental variation. By removing the animal from their local adaptation can cause stress that could lead to a variety of major changes consisting of biological, physiological and behavioral changes. Examples of these characteristic changes would be the animal having a hard time hunting or just completely cut out eating and their relationships with the others in their population. Since animals depend on each other when it comes to hunting and protection, translocation can potentially hinder their routine of these sorts. 

On the other hand, conservation translocation is not the only way zoos try to help the endangered species. They have plenty of different strategies to prevent extinction of species who aren’t capable of surviving in their own habitats. A tactic that is popular is captive breeding. This is where animals are being bred outside of their natural habitat in restricted areas such as farms, zoos, and aquariums. The goal of captive breeding is to grow the population enough to the point where it can be controlled and become stable or where the species is healthy. With this, in Saving Endangered Species: A Case Study Using Global Amphibian Declines, Emily Croteau makes a claim: “These objectives ensure that populations will exhibit a healthy age structure, resistance to disease, consistent reproduction, and preservation of the gene pool to minimize and/or avoid problems associated with inbreeding.” When the captive conservation programs perform these types of breeding they have to be cautious that they aren’t affecting the genetic diversity within the specific species. Now, with every generation random genetic drift causes the diversity to decrease. It is important to maintain the diversity because, with smaller populations the loss of diversity occurs more frequently rather than larger populations. 

 An example of a successful breeding in captivity would be the black-footed ferret. In 1979, the black-footed ferret was announced to be extinct, but before they were, there were over several thousands of them. They were found in the grasslands of North America hunting little prairie dogs as their main meal. However, their population began to suffer when a wave of disease, persecution and their habitat was destroyed. But, there was a discovery of a small population of ferrets in 1981. From there the captive breeding began, which led to their population spread throughout North America. Black-footed ferrets were near extinction and with captive breeding were able to increase their population. The obvious challenge of captive breeding is the small number of mating pairs, a limitation that can result in lower reproduction and growth rates, higher mortality rates, and hereditary abnormalities. Bigger wild populations don’t suffer the same limitations, so, to limit the side-effects of having so few surviving animals to work with, zoos isolate and nurture explicit pedigrees to sustain genetic diversity and improve survivorship. In the admittedly rare cases when heroic efforts to save a species result in a successful relocation, the beneficiary animals can return to the wild and live their life as they would if they had never left. 

However, while captive breeding can help different populations, not everyone follows that criteria. Their priority is to provide entertainment for those who visit the zoo with baby animals that they bred in captivity. Realistically, their intentions were never to help the species, instead to help the zoos get more profits and exposure. Doing this, the baby animals are never going to be able to see the wild and live out their life without being held in captivity. Even if they do get a chance, the zoos wouldn’t be able to prepare the animals enough for them to survive in the wild. In the long run, captive breeding can hinder the population’s success because over-time the animals become more adapted to our man-made environment. Not only could the chances of the offspring being let out in the wild be slim to none, there are also side effects that can be caused by captive breeding. On the other hand, when captive breeding, zoos have to be cautious because it can lead to inbreeding. Causes of inbreeding are lower reproduction and growth rates, higher mortality rates and frequency of hereditary abnormalities. To contradict that from happening, zoos try to prevent this by relying on explicit pedigrees to sustain genetic diversity long term. With captive breeding most of the animals aren’t able to return back to the natural environment, however it isn’t impossible. 

Not only does captive breeding help grow the species population, there are a lot of benefits that come with it. For instance, it can help educate the people about the different animals and their habitats which can create funds for research and shelters. Education and public awareness is important to helping endangered animals because we can learn how to rescue them and raise money towards funds so more research can be done. Zoos and aquariums are major benefits when it comes to raising public awareness by allowing younger individuals to learn and become interested and appreciate wildlife. Scientists say that the best way to help endangered species from going extinct is to take matters into your own hands. Zoos and nature reserves can only do so much with giving you information and a better understanding of the different types of animals. Most zoos and aquariums contain information about each species, stating where their habitats are, what they eat, how long they live for and different facts about them. Having this information on display gives the people knowledge on their local environments or environments around the world. This can help citizens to acknowledge the fact that they need to protect and clean the environment around them so the animals can live in safer areas and help volunteer that their local wildlife refuge. This then can prevent the animal’s population from decreasing as well as helping the environment stay clean so that in the future the animals will have more space to roam and create new habitats. 

In the end, it is going to be a hard and long process for endangered animals to reach a point where their populations will be strong enough to repopulate on their own. Even though, it seems like zoos strip not only endangered species, but all animals from their natural habitat and hold them in captivity with little to no knowledge of what the outside world looks like. Zoos are doing the most they can to help the endangered species. There will also be challenges to overcome as well, examples being, “habitat loss, over-exploitation, the impact of invasive species and climate change”. However, zoos, aquariums and nature reserves have an enormous role in helping this come true through protected areas, translocations, captive breeding and public awareness. Animals are going to die, it’s inevitable. But it’s the circle of life.  Us humans shouldn’t try to take that away from them, but  they need exposure and help from the human population. And zoos and aquariums are the best way to get public awareness.  Regardless of the incline of endangered species, the slope would be tremendously steeper without the help of zoos and nature reserves. Ultimately, By various forms of study, funding, translocation, conservation areas, and breeding, zoos, aquariums, and nature reserves contribute to the growth of various species and the protection of creatures in risk of extinction.

References

Gilbert, T., & Soorae, P. S. (n.d.). Editorial: The role of zoos and aquariums in … – wiley online library. Retrieved March 7, 2023, from https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/izy.12164

Staff, A. (n.d.). How zoos and aquariums protect endangered species. Association of Zoos & Aquariums. Retrieved March 6, 2023, from https://www.aza.org/connect-stories/stories/how-do-zoos-help-animals?locale=en 

Croteau, E., & Mott, C. L. (2011). Saving Endangered Species: A Case Study Using Global Amphibian Declines | Learn Science at Scitable. Nature.com. https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/saving-endangered-species-a-case-study-using-19445898/

Williamson, B. (2020, October 15). Keeping Wild Animals in Captivity Is Not Conservation. Here’s Why. | World Animal Protection. Www.worldanimalprotection.us. 

Human-Wildlife Conflicts. (n.d.). https://www.aphis.usda.gov/wildlife_damage/reports/Wildlife%20Damage%20Management%20Technical%20Series/Wildlife-Translocation-WDM-Technical-Series.pdf

Berger‐Tal, O., Blumstein, D. T., & Swaisgood, R. R. (2020). Conservation translocations: a review of common difficulties and promising directions. Animal Conservation, 23(2), 121–131. https://doi.org/10.1111/acv.12534

Weeks, A. R., Sgro, C. M., Young, A. G., Frankham, R., Mitchell, N. J., Miller, K. A., Byrne, M., Coates, D. J., Eldridge, M. D. B., Sunnucks, P., Breed, M. F., James, E. A., & Hoffmann, A. A. (2011). Assessing the benefits and risks of translocations in changing environments: a genetic perspective. Evolutionary Applications, 4(6), 709–725. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-4571.2011.00192.x

‌Naomiwentz. (2018, November 1). Captive Breeding Programs: Beneficial or Harmful? Conservation Biology News. https://conservationbiologynews.wordpress.com/2018/10/31/captive-breeding-programs-beneficial-or-harmful/

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Research Argument-Queen Random

Posted on April 20, 2023 by queenrandom04

A Radical’s Plea

The justification of my existence is that I exist to keep you, the citizens, safe. Ancient and modern history has shown time and time again that this is not the case. But, by definition, I am an employee of the state. My goal and purpose are to be a servant of the people. I am a private citizen with political power. I am meant to be most beneficial to the people I serve. Who am I? Politicians like police, are private citizens with political power. The difference between the two is accountability.  There is a system in place that makes sure politicians are able to be held responsible for their actions; be it checks and balances, federal prosecution, or simply not being reelected. The political power and control politicians crave end up being the reason politicians so often look out for their own well-being, interests, and motives. Politicians, motives of control need to be executed, unable to perform the tasks, a tool was necessary, a tool found within the mobilization of the police. Politicians need police, and police need politicians. This symbiotic relationship has made the perfect conditions for the power police hold to only be kept accountable by their fellow officers. Policing has become more than a job, being a police officer is a lifestyle that completely indoctrinates any person that partakes in any role in the system that has been created. There can be no good or bad cops when the act of being a police officer inherently corrupts any cop’s sense of morality. 

In order to go through training the police develop an overtly strong sense of camaraderie rallying themselves against the people they have, apparently, been created to serve. The training environment creates a mentality within police officers that separates them from the people they serve. So, when they are serving they hold an Us Vs them or even us or them mentality. Pitting cops against the people they are ‘by design’ created to serve. The mentality created is one that changes law enforcement’s role from a servant serving the law and its people. To a role where they become the law, abiding by a higher jurisdiction where they create the rules they want to follow. If we look further into the history of police and how they came to be we can make the conclusion that this was no accident. Police are, by design, created to abuse and terrorize. Gary Potter, a social justice professor at the University of Eastern Kentucky, he had the same questions I do when it came to the development of policing in the United States, he said this, “ Slave patrols had three primary functions: (1) to chase down, apprehend, and return to their owners, runaway slaves; (2) to provide a form of organized terror to deter slave revolts; and, (3) to maintain a form of discipline for slave-workers who were subject to summary justice, outside of the law, if they violated any plantation rules.” From this quote alone we can already see the way this mindset has been adapted to modern policing. They were told to deter slave revolts in the modern day, they brutalize protesters. They create and inspire fear. We as a society can fool ourselves into a false sense of morality when it comes to the police and lie about why they were made and why they still exist but the police’s own actions incriminate themselves. 

People can hold the claim that it’s just a few bad apples that give policing as a career a bad reputation. I believe a tree with rotten roots can only ever produce bad apples. It’s been established that the ideas and expectations the police were created to continue into the modern day. From the National Law Enforcement Officer Fund, “Slave patrols were no less violent in their control of African Americans; they beat and terrorized as well. Their distinction was that they were legally compelled to do so by local authorities. In this sense, it was considered a civic duty—one that in some areas could result in a fine if avoided.” It was not only encouraged but expected of the police to be terrorist to the Black community. Terrorizing normal black people or even our most prominent figures, like Martin Luther King Jr., whose assassination  has been confirmed to have been executed by law enforcement.  

The police’s modern abuse of power can be traced back to the guidelines set by slave patrollers also, “-subject to summary justice, outside of the law-” In the times this quote was written the justice would be subjecting the escaped enslaved people to beatings, maulings or worse: death. In today’s times this mindset has only continued to be exasperated and utilized by government officials, police brutality in any form occurs because the police are making themselves the judge, jury and executioner. Most often times when someone has been killed by the police there is justification given that they were committing a crime beforehand in the case of George Floyd, according to the APD News George Floyd was arrested, “about a possible counterfeit $20 bill being used at a corner store” It is a purposeful and deliberate endless chain of terror enacted by the police. It’s not a mistake of the lack of morality they’ve been trained to have when it comes to policing. 

Trained individually within separate departments around the country. The issue of being inhumane is one that plagues the entire country, not just a few departments. Training is not the issue, it is the system itself. Within that system, the police are the only tools of the government. An extension of the politicians they are believed to be so separate from. Within the 13th Amendment, there is a clause that strips a person of their citizenship if they become a felon. People increasingly become felons as a byproduct of over-policing and surveillance. Police aren’t able to take up half the country’s public spending budget on accident. Those budgets were created and agreed upon by politicians, who benefit from the power they hold by using the police as a tool. 

The idea of policing is one that continues to keep so much of this country in a wonderland. Full of false hope and dreams of the police being the country’s Knight in shining armor. The reality of police and the way they function is a much more grim truth. One that, I hope, would change your perspective on policing in this country permanently. Modern policing tactics and belief systems have been adopted and accepted from Slave Patrollers. People whose entire mission was to keep people enslaved. The police of the modern day continues on with the same mission of those that came before and shouldn’t continue to be able to exist. The police are brutal, inhumane and violent.

America, Home of the brave, land of the free. This is the ideology we’ve been taught throughout the existence of the United States. A motto of the American Spirit. Home of the free in a country that created its wealth over generations of slavery, how is that brave at all? Within mainstream education curriculum, there have been unmistakable efforts to create a false history of the United States always being the good guy. It’s forced us to never truly reconcile with the reality of America’s actual past. In the article written by Khushbah Shu, 400 Years Since Slavery Timeline, it’s revealed that, despite many people’s first recollection of the British colonizers’  migration to America being the Mayflower, “- a year earlier, 20 enslaved Africans were brought to the British colonies against their will.” This is the first of many instances where enslaved people’s reality, what is simultaneously  American History, gets erased. 

A reason for this erasure is the belief that black people aren’t slaves so slavery shouldn’t continue to be acknowledged in the modern day. Slavery is over, that is a fact.  Slavery being over provides a nice cocoon of deniability, allowing White Americans and the American government to cast away and deny the very obvious links between slavery and modern policing. Deniability has far too often been the excuse for minimizing the influence slavery has had on the United States as a whole. An argument we can all agree on is that slavery was bad, but how can we reconcile the systems that have been created as a consequence of slavery, if we don’t fully accept how detrimental slavery was, in and of itself. People only find comfort in acknowledging slavery within the fact that it’s over. Its being over isn’t justice enough for the systemic issues that have resulted because of practices started while slavery was still ongoing. Slavery cannot turn into an issue of the past if descendants of enslaved people continue to suffer the same ways they did hundreds of years ago.

Saying slavery is inhumane isn’t enough to recognize the complete lack of humanity’s presence for actual centuries. To truly get the correct understanding of how inhumane slavery was we must first look at how we define what it is to be humane. The best way to do that is to look at what our county defines as the freedom to our quality of life. Humanness in the face of commodifying actual humans seems redundant. The rationalization is that enslaved people weren’t people. They were slaves, and the violence they faced was a byproduct of the time. But even within the time period slavery existed, there were still people who saw the lack of humanness and knew it wasn’t moral. People like Samuel Wood.  Injured Humanity Graphic Arts is an article written by Julie Melby. Here we are able to find out that Samuel Wood was a Quaker and a New York Printer. In the midst of the political warfare that would eventually end in the criminalization of the Atlantic Slave trade; Wood, wrote Injured Humanity. 

It was his attempt to shine light on the injustices endured by enslaved people during their transportation from Africa to America. He wrote an article; its title which is an argument in itself is,  Injured Humanity; Being A Representation of What the Unhappy Children of Africa Endure from Those Who Call Themselves Christians. Here we can find first-hand accounts of the quality of life enslaved peoples were granted, “ to divide them into different classes: the first consisting of those bought for the use of the plantations: the second of the in and out-door slaves. The field slaves are called out by daylight to their work: if they are not out in time, they are flogged.”  There is nothing human about being forced to live outside, being reduced to a location, and knowing that at any moment in time, you can be beaten. From our very own government, the United States states on the OECD Better Life Index, “Housing is essential to meet basic needs, such as shelter, but it is not just a question of four walls and a roof. Housing should offer a place to sleep and rest where people feel safe and have privacy and personal space; somewhere they can raise a family.” They were deprived of housing. They were deprived of safety. From Injured Humanity, “ but husbands and wives, parents and children, are parted with as little concern as sheep and lambs by the butcher”. Enslaved people were denied the most basic of our principles of what we define as being human in this country. 

Samuel Wood in Injured Humanity wasn’t even advocating for the eradication of slavery as a whole, only the advocation to stop stealing people from across the world. This was the violence they faced before even stepping foot on American soil and truly experiencing chattel slavery. Which is its own beast. Jeniffer Hallem paints a gruesome look at the day-to-day lived experiences of enslaved people in her article, The Slave Experience, “ The female slave was, moreover, faced with the prospect of being forced into sexual relationships for the purposes of reproduction. Perhaps more harrowing, she might be witness to her daughters suffering the same fate.” The violence of chattel slavery is something that can’t be fully understood without being experienced. It’s a violence that has been passed down through generations and still affects us today. In the article, The Legacy of Trauma, written by Tori Deangelis, it’s stated that “The legacy of slavery continues to affect African Americans in a variety of ways. For example, research has shown that African Americans are more likely than other racial groups to experience poverty, unemployment, and incarceration.” This is a direct result of the lack of humanity given to enslaved people during their enslavement.  

With the evidence provided it is undeniable that slavery was inhumane, corrupt, and violent. Proceeding with this philosophy we can also come to the conclusion that anything that was created in response to, or because of, slavery is also inherently inhumane, violent, and corrupt. Further into the course of slavery when the country was divided into the Northern free states and the Southern Slave States it became more of a common occurrence for enslaved people to try to escape. In some cases, they’d go free, in others they’d be caught by ‘patrollers.’ A definition of their duties from the National Law Enforcement Officer Memorial Fund, “Slave patrols served three main functions.’(1) to chase down, apprehend, and return to their owners, runaway slaves; (2) to provide a form of organized terror to deter slave revolts; and, (3) to maintain a form of discipline for slave-workers who were subject to summary justice, outside the law”’ this comes from Slave Patrols: An Early Form of American Policing. Slavery and having the mindset to be overtly violent is ingrained in the DNA of law enforcement in America. Therefore it should not exist. 

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, in 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 the 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 crimes. 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 as 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? 

References 

Deangelis, Tori, The Legacy Of Trauma, American Psychological Association, 2019 

Hallam, Jennifer, Slavery and the making of America. The Slave Experience Men, Women, and  Gender, Thirteen.org, 2004 

Melby, Julie Injured Humanity- Graphics, Princeton, 2009

NLEOMF- Slave Patrols: An Early Form of American Policing

Shu, Khushbah 400 Years Since Slavery- Timeline, The Guardian, modified 2021 

States, United Better Life Index- OECD, OECD, 2023 

Wood, Samuel Injured Humanity; Being A Representation of What the Unhappy Children of Africa Endure from Those Who Call Themselves Christians, Published by Samuel Wood., 1805

National Law Enforcement Officers Funds, Slave Patrols an Early Form Of Policing, NLEOMF.org, Accessed 2023

News, APD, Timeline of Events since George Floyd’s Arrest and Murder, 2022 

Potter, Gary, The History of Policing in the United States, Eastern Kansas University, 2013 

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 

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