1. What is your emotional response upon entering the exhibit? Please explain.
Well before entering the Obey exhibit, I didn't really know what to expect, and upon entering, I stared at all the faces and was confused because I didn't really know what I was supposed to be getting out of it, I felt like I was missing the message supposed to be being conveyed. I continued to feel this confusion and vague frustration throughout the exhibit, especially when images of peace were mixed with images of war and I felt partially like maybe it was sarcasm and trying to make a point, but the other side of me was saying NO, it's either peace or war, pick one! Going through the exhibit, I also felt a bit of anger because I felt like I was being screamed at "Do this, so this! Obey, obey!" and I didn't want to be told what to do... by art. I was scared too (fear) by all the strong images and how it seemed that EVERYONE (music artists and government leaders etc. portrayed in the paintings) was involved in this strange movement and I felt like if I didn't follow, I would be... punished?
2. What is your emotional response upon leaving the exhibit? Please explain.
Upon leaving the exhibit, I felt reflective, thinking about how our society is influenced by art and other forms of propaganda, and about war and peace... I was overwhelmed with all the art and talent and effort put into it, and all the things presented in different forms than I'm used to seeing, such as the giant money bill that said "Under a Lesser God". However, I still felt frustration because I didn't fully understand the exhibit.
3. Does emotion interact with reason, sense, perception and language for you in this exhibit? If so, how?
Totally! Since I thought (reasoned) that since this art looks serious and like it was created for a purpose, I became really frustrated that its purpose and message was not apparent to me. What my senses perceived (well, just my eyes, since we were not allowed to touch) influenced what emotion I felt when looking at the painting; when there were threatening (violent) symbols and such bold colors as red and black with a serious image in the painting, I felt threatened and frightened and sometimes angry, whereas with the green money paintings I just felt more amused and intrigued. Language was a huge impact on my emotions in this exhibit; for one thing, the word "OBEY" written on almost everything and connected with every person and image made me feel overwhelmed and wanting to rebel against this mind-control that was being thrown at us with every painting we looked at. On the other hand, the word "HOPE" on Obama's painting made me feel slightly happy and proud, even if I don't agree with everything that that suggests...
4. Is this an American culture exhibit? How might someone from a non-Western country respond to this exhibit? Why?
I don't think so, because there were many universal symbols and concepts like war and peace presented that were not specific to America, and leaders from other countries were also featured in some paintings. There were many many pictures of Japanese people, and I think there was a picture of Stalin, as well as other people from foreign countries. Someone from a non-Western country could be kind of offended if they thought that their leader/past leader (e.g. Stalin) was being made made fun of or made into a villain by being associated with all this "propaganda" or anti-propaganda, depending on how you look at it. With all the Asian-looking people portrayed holding guns and weapons etc., people from Asian countries might feel either proud and patriotic if they think of it as protecting their country, or they could feel offended and angry because of that portrayal of their country, or because they really had fought in war and weren't proud of that fact.
5. Can one appreciate theatre, music and art using only the rational mind or must Emotion play a role? Explain.
Well, seeing as the point of much art (including music and theatre as art forms) are pretty much created with the purpose of evoking emotion in viewers, I think it is very difficult to view art without feeling some sort of emotion, however minor and subconscious it may be. Part of being human is having emotions, and the reason why people appreciate art so much is because they view it as "beautiful" and "sublime" because of the emotions within us. However, I think it is possible to appreciate certain aspects and details of art with a rational mind, such as thinking about the color schemes and brush patterns and other artistic techniques employed in a piece of art, or the chords and timing used in a song, or the exact facial expression worn by an actor, and appreciating the specific use of these elements to creatively convey a message or present an expression of thought to an audience. But generally, when we see a painting or watch a play or listen to a song, we like it because it's "realistic looking" or "has a good beat" or "was entertaining or funny"; most of us are not critics and go mainly on our emotions to judge things' worth.
"this exhibit made me reflect on the existential properties of midgets in relation to zooplankton and the paradigm they submissivly impose on the universe."
-a quote from a friend who also visited the exhibit :)
Friday, May 29, 2009
Sunday, May 3, 2009
ToK Essay (Fallacies and Enron)
Informal fallacies (e.g. Ad ignorantiam, Hasty Generalization, Circular Reasoning, Special pleading, Ad Hominem, etc.) often are used by man to wiggle one's way out of things or twist the truth to be viewed in a certain light, or, for Enron, make lots of money. The use of fallacies - in particular circular reasoning and 'prop hoc ergo hoc', ad ignorantiam, and ad hominem - in the Enron story will be discussed using the film "Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room" and Gladwell's article "Open Secrets". While common, especially in the Enron story, informal fallacies are never "good" or truly justified, even though we may use them ourselves.
Informal fallacies are often plausible and convincing because of a few different factors. It is easier and less time-consuming to believe a fallacy that someone has told you than to go and do the research and find the real answer out yourself. Also, in Enron's case, the people formulating the fallacies can appear to be so smart and we so ignorant that we naturally trust their authority (as a justification of the "truth"). Many times we assume that government, large corporations, etc. will tell us the truth because that is their job, and if they twist the truth, that is wrong, so obviously they must be telling the truth. If Enron says they are making money, and their books show it, they must be right. However, in Enron's case, this was not the case.
Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling used circular reasoning and the fallacy 'propter hoc ergo hoc' with their accounting books, using mark-to-market accounting to make Enron's money. As Gladwell says, "With mark-to-market accounting, you estimate how much revenue the deal is going to bring in and put that number in your books at the moment you sign the contract." Enron used mark-to-market accounting to say they had money from deals before they actually got it, and then the price of their stock went up on the basis that they were already high and therefore Enron must be making money. Enron's view on these things was: "we made the deal, we WILL make the money, so it's like we already have that money to use, and therefore we're doing well, so therefore stock prices should rise." 'Propter hoc ergo hoc' combined with Enron's circular reasoning to lead to the idea that because they had money in their books, they were making real money and they must be a good, prospering company worthwhile for investment in stocks.
A fallacy not really formulated by the company but rather a product of the circumstances and society/human nature, was how the public avoided questioning Enron because of the fallacy known as "ad ignorantiam". Because the company wasn't actually doing bad then and their books said they were still making money, noone thought there was anything wrong, and because there was nobody waving Enron's false deals in front of the public's face, nobody suspected any false dealing or thought to ask how Enron was making their money, their real money. "We went on the information that was available at the time", said the stock analysts from Wallstreet in the film "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room". The stock analysts trusted the integrity of the company and hence fell prey to the thinking "since there is no evidence of Enron's false dealings, that must mean there is none." Gladwell says, "the prosecution said... Senior executives withheld critical information from investors." Stock analysts, investors, and the like thought (after the fact) that the situation was a 'puzzle' and they were not being told enough and did not know enough, and that was why they hadn't acted and questioned Enron, when in reality they just needed to start asking questions and interpreting the information they had differently.
The "ad hominem" fallacy was used multiple times by different people in the case of Enron. When Jeff Skilling was asked why Enron was the only company that couldn't produce a balance sheet, because he didn't have a good argument to attack the opposing argument, Skilling instead attacked the man, calling him an "asshole". People fall back on this technique when they know they don't have anything valid to say, but it doesn't accomplish anything, as Skilling found out when they brought up his little name-calling episode in court. On the other hand, Skilling used "ad hominem" tactics to boost his own image in Enron ads, and used the support of himself and the other men rather than the goodness of the company itself, emphasizing that they were very smart people, not necessarily that they were making good deals and money. Ken Lay sort of did this too when, on a CNN interview he reiterated the fact multiple times that his father was a Baptist minister from the time Ken was little, implying his own holiness and inability to do wrong. Furthermore, Enron commercials on TV showed Enron representatives shaking hands with representatives from countries like China, emulating the so-called "integrity" with which Enron supposedly treated all its customers. Because they had no real foundation of positive traits and success for their company to stand upon, Enron (owners) used the ad hominem approach to boost themselves up when they had no real integrity to stand upon, and to attack the "askers" when they couldn't tackle the questions.
I don't think the use of informal fallacies is ever justified because it is the responsibility of authoritative figures (e.g. large businesses, politicians, etc.) to present the truth to the public in an understandable and non-misleading manner. I think when the case is very obviously misleading and the "consumer" ought to be aware, it is the viewer/consumer's fault as well. If a campaign gives a really backwards or circularly reasoned example of why you should donate to them and yet you let yourself fall pray to this fallacy, obviously you are to blame for your lack of common sense and logic, as well as the company for their lies or misrepresentation of the truth. As Gladwell says, "Because if you can't find the truth in a —even a mystery shrouded in propaganda—it's not just the fault of the propagandist." The implications of this are that it is not fallacy-formulating companies like Enron who are to blame, it is the consumers, who have the responsibility to "do their homework" and research if what those companies saying is correct. This would mean that perhaps Skilling and the rest of his gang shouldn't have been punished and tried in court for "lying" to everyone, it was the investors and such who had been punished for their lack of intelligence and initiative to ask "why". It was their job to "say 'no'" and and ask the questions, and it's not Enron's fault that they didn't do so. However, the counterclaim to this is that A) companies and other figures in society have the responsibility to tell the truth openly and maintain the trust of the public, and B) consumers do not always have the means to ask "why" and to find their own answer, so they should not be blamed. If an uneducated people is being told something that, according to the knowledge they possess (some people have less educational opportunities available to them), does not sound way out of wack, or if something that the average person is not capable of interpreting or researching is told them, and they fall prey to it, that is unjust and I don't think the people should be blamed for their ignorance in their circumstances. Also, if the company/figurehead is presenting the "correct" information, but in a confusing or overwhelming manner that obviously needs the wisdom and interpretation of experts (e.g. Enron's hundreds and hundreds of pages of complex business deals that no one outside the transactions would understand), it is not the fault of the consumers who cannot possibly be experts in every walk of life, prepared to deal with fallacies from whoever deems it necessary for their own success. According to Gladwell's article, the Powers Committee noted that Enron "did not communicate the essence of the transactions in a sufficiently clear fashion to enable a reader of [Enron's] financial statements to understand what was going on." so how could this be the fault of the potential "readers" of Enron's statements? No matter what sort of cause it may be for, or how much the "propagandist" thinks the receiver should be able to filter the propaganda, I think truth is a right of humans, especially coming from figures of authority, or else it will create a world of confusion and mistrust.
On occasion I myself have used some informal fallacies, such as when I sort of "specially pleaded" or held a double standard for myself once I got into Sturgis and the workload became difficult. I thought "since I skipped a grade, I missed a year of education, so I should get more leeway with school and all this stress, etc. And since I'm so young, I shouldn't have to be looking at colleges right now...". I thought that the other kids should be working this hard because they were more developed and could handle it, while I was a year younger so I shouldn't have to deal with all that stress yet. I also often "pull a Jeff Skilling" with an ad hominem attack: when my friends and I get into pretend arguments and I can't think of any come-backs, I'll just say "well, you're stupid!" or something to that effect. I think many people do that because it is human nature not to just take an insult and not say anything, yet if we have nothing valid or intelligent to say, what is left?
Humans do not like to be proven wrong, we like to be in full control and have people view us in the light we want to be portrayed in, so in times of desparation, many people (such as Skilling and Lay when Enron was going down the tubes), resort to informal fallacies to get away with their own mistakes, faults, and lies. While this chronic use of informal fallacies by humanity is never ok and should not be allowed or happening, sadly it is the truth.
Bibliography:
"Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" (HDNet Films)
"Open Secrets", The New Yorker.
Informal fallacies are often plausible and convincing because of a few different factors. It is easier and less time-consuming to believe a fallacy that someone has told you than to go and do the research and find the real answer out yourself. Also, in Enron's case, the people formulating the fallacies can appear to be so smart and we so ignorant that we naturally trust their authority (as a justification of the "truth"). Many times we assume that government, large corporations, etc. will tell us the truth because that is their job, and if they twist the truth, that is wrong, so obviously they must be telling the truth. If Enron says they are making money, and their books show it, they must be right. However, in Enron's case, this was not the case.
Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling used circular reasoning and the fallacy 'propter hoc ergo hoc' with their accounting books, using mark-to-market accounting to make Enron's money. As Gladwell says, "With mark-to-market accounting, you estimate how much revenue the deal is going to bring in and put that number in your books at the moment you sign the contract." Enron used mark-to-market accounting to say they had money from deals before they actually got it, and then the price of their stock went up on the basis that they were already high and therefore Enron must be making money. Enron's view on these things was: "we made the deal, we WILL make the money, so it's like we already have that money to use, and therefore we're doing well, so therefore stock prices should rise." 'Propter hoc ergo hoc' combined with Enron's circular reasoning to lead to the idea that because they had money in their books, they were making real money and they must be a good, prospering company worthwhile for investment in stocks.
A fallacy not really formulated by the company but rather a product of the circumstances and society/human nature, was how the public avoided questioning Enron because of the fallacy known as "ad ignorantiam". Because the company wasn't actually doing bad then and their books said they were still making money, noone thought there was anything wrong, and because there was nobody waving Enron's false deals in front of the public's face, nobody suspected any false dealing or thought to ask how Enron was making their money, their real money. "We went on the information that was available at the time", said the stock analysts from Wallstreet in the film "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room". The stock analysts trusted the integrity of the company and hence fell prey to the thinking "since there is no evidence of Enron's false dealings, that must mean there is none." Gladwell says, "the prosecution said... Senior executives withheld critical information from investors." Stock analysts, investors, and the like thought (after the fact) that the situation was a 'puzzle' and they were not being told enough and did not know enough, and that was why they hadn't acted and questioned Enron, when in reality they just needed to start asking questions and interpreting the information they had differently.
The "ad hominem" fallacy was used multiple times by different people in the case of Enron. When Jeff Skilling was asked why Enron was the only company that couldn't produce a balance sheet, because he didn't have a good argument to attack the opposing argument, Skilling instead attacked the man, calling him an "asshole". People fall back on this technique when they know they don't have anything valid to say, but it doesn't accomplish anything, as Skilling found out when they brought up his little name-calling episode in court. On the other hand, Skilling used "ad hominem" tactics to boost his own image in Enron ads, and used the support of himself and the other men rather than the goodness of the company itself, emphasizing that they were very smart people, not necessarily that they were making good deals and money. Ken Lay sort of did this too when, on a CNN interview he reiterated the fact multiple times that his father was a Baptist minister from the time Ken was little, implying his own holiness and inability to do wrong. Furthermore, Enron commercials on TV showed Enron representatives shaking hands with representatives from countries like China, emulating the so-called "integrity" with which Enron supposedly treated all its customers. Because they had no real foundation of positive traits and success for their company to stand upon, Enron (owners) used the ad hominem approach to boost themselves up when they had no real integrity to stand upon, and to attack the "askers" when they couldn't tackle the questions.
I don't think the use of informal fallacies is ever justified because it is the responsibility of authoritative figures (e.g. large businesses, politicians, etc.) to present the truth to the public in an understandable and non-misleading manner. I think when the case is very obviously misleading and the "consumer" ought to be aware, it is the viewer/consumer's fault as well. If a campaign gives a really backwards or circularly reasoned example of why you should donate to them and yet you let yourself fall pray to this fallacy, obviously you are to blame for your lack of common sense and logic, as well as the company for their lies or misrepresentation of the truth. As Gladwell says, "Because if you can't find the truth in a —even a mystery shrouded in propaganda—it's not just the fault of the propagandist." The implications of this are that it is not fallacy-formulating companies like Enron who are to blame, it is the consumers, who have the responsibility to "do their homework" and research if what those companies saying is correct. This would mean that perhaps Skilling and the rest of his gang shouldn't have been punished and tried in court for "lying" to everyone, it was the investors and such who had been punished for their lack of intelligence and initiative to ask "why". It was their job to "say 'no'" and and ask the questions, and it's not Enron's fault that they didn't do so. However, the counterclaim to this is that A) companies and other figures in society have the responsibility to tell the truth openly and maintain the trust of the public, and B) consumers do not always have the means to ask "why" and to find their own answer, so they should not be blamed. If an uneducated people is being told something that, according to the knowledge they possess (some people have less educational opportunities available to them), does not sound way out of wack, or if something that the average person is not capable of interpreting or researching is told them, and they fall prey to it, that is unjust and I don't think the people should be blamed for their ignorance in their circumstances. Also, if the company/figurehead is presenting the "correct" information, but in a confusing or overwhelming manner that obviously needs the wisdom and interpretation of experts (e.g. Enron's hundreds and hundreds of pages of complex business deals that no one outside the transactions would understand), it is not the fault of the consumers who cannot possibly be experts in every walk of life, prepared to deal with fallacies from whoever deems it necessary for their own success. According to Gladwell's article, the Powers Committee noted that Enron "did not communicate the essence of the transactions in a sufficiently clear fashion to enable a reader of [Enron's] financial statements to understand what was going on." so how could this be the fault of the potential "readers" of Enron's statements? No matter what sort of cause it may be for, or how much the "propagandist" thinks the receiver should be able to filter the propaganda, I think truth is a right of humans, especially coming from figures of authority, or else it will create a world of confusion and mistrust.
On occasion I myself have used some informal fallacies, such as when I sort of "specially pleaded" or held a double standard for myself once I got into Sturgis and the workload became difficult. I thought "since I skipped a grade, I missed a year of education, so I should get more leeway with school and all this stress, etc. And since I'm so young, I shouldn't have to be looking at colleges right now...". I thought that the other kids should be working this hard because they were more developed and could handle it, while I was a year younger so I shouldn't have to deal with all that stress yet. I also often "pull a Jeff Skilling" with an ad hominem attack: when my friends and I get into pretend arguments and I can't think of any come-backs, I'll just say "well, you're stupid!" or something to that effect. I think many people do that because it is human nature not to just take an insult and not say anything, yet if we have nothing valid or intelligent to say, what is left?
Humans do not like to be proven wrong, we like to be in full control and have people view us in the light we want to be portrayed in, so in times of desparation, many people (such as Skilling and Lay when Enron was going down the tubes), resort to informal fallacies to get away with their own mistakes, faults, and lies. While this chronic use of informal fallacies by humanity is never ok and should not be allowed or happening, sadly it is the truth.
Bibliography:
"Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" (HDNet Films)
"Open Secrets", The New Yorker.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Enron #3
1. What does Gladwell mean when he says that, 'Puzzles are "transmitter-dependent"; they turn on what we are told. Mysteries are "receiver dependent"; they turn on the skills of the listener.'?
He means that puzzles, which depend on the information and how much of it is given, are dependent on the source of the information, the "transmitter", whereas since mysteries, since we already have the information and just usually cannot interpret or understand it correctly, are more dependent on the skills of the receiver to solve the mystery.
2. Why didn't Enron have to pay taxes on their S.P.E.'s? What would be Enron's defense? Can you name the Illogical Fallacy present?
Enron didn't have to pay taxes because "the I.R.S. doesn't accept mark-to-market accounting; you pay tax on income when you actually receive that income" and since Enron wasn't actually having any real income coming in, the I.R.S. didn't think it was making any money and thus didn't tax it. Enron would probably just say that they "knew" they WOULD make that money for real, and when they did they could pay taxes, but right now they shouldn't have to pay the I.R.S. because they haven't actually attained the money yet.
This fallacy is called Special Pleading/Double Standard, when someone/a party thinks everyone else should have to follow the regulations except for themselves, because they have an excuse.
3. Did Enron try to hide the fact that they weren't paying taxes?
Enron did not try to hide that fact, or really much of anything, they just didn't flash it out in the open, and nobody bothered to ask the questions and actually read Enron's documents and financial statements that would clearly show what they were doing.
4. Why does Gladwell claim that, 'Woodward and Bernstein would never have broken the Enron story.' Why don't you think anyone asked about Enron's financial statements? Is there a fallacy at work here?
Because they were just young kids with no experience, who had the type of energy and persistence necessary for solving a puzzle, when you need to uncover missing information, but this was a mystery that required "experience and insight" to understand the complex financial statements.
Probably the reason nobody asked about Enron's dealings is that there wasn't a lot of evidence yet to show they were sinking themselves, and not a lot of people -if anybody- knew that the money Enron claimed to be making wasn't actually real. To me this seems like the Ad Ignoratium fallacy, where because there was no proof known (UNDERSTOOD) by outsiders, they didn't think to accuse Enron of the real problem.
5. Gladwell claims that, 'Mysteries require that we revisit our list of culprits and be willing to spread the blame a little more broadly. Because if you can't find the truth in a —even a mystery shrouded in propaganda—it's not just the fault of the propagandist. It's your fault as well.' Do you agree with the implications of this statement?
I agree to some extent because With puzzles, it can be that the company or whoever the offending party is is hiding information from us that we cannot find out because we are not inside that party (for example, if Enron had NOT reported their financial deals on paper, no one else could report it for them because only Enron has that information), but in the case of a mystery, when we have the information available to us, it is our job to ask questions and actually LOOK at the information and if necessary learn how to read/interpret it. If we don't do this, as no one did at first for Enron, we are partially to blame for the situation at hand. However, I think in areas or situations where people may not be as educated or have as many opportunities open to them to investigate such a thing as Enron's financial documents (for example, living under a strict government where it is illegal to interfere with corrupt companies or whatever), it is not the people's fault if they are not aware or can do nothing to solve the mystery or stop the corruption.
6. What was the advice of the Cornell students to anyone who held Enron stock?
Their advice was "Sell." They believed Enron's stock values were too high because they weren't actually making all their claimed earnings, so the students thought, logically, it would not be wise to hold stock in such a company that really isn't worth all it says it is and will probably go down the tubes soon...
He means that puzzles, which depend on the information and how much of it is given, are dependent on the source of the information, the "transmitter", whereas since mysteries, since we already have the information and just usually cannot interpret or understand it correctly, are more dependent on the skills of the receiver to solve the mystery.
2. Why didn't Enron have to pay taxes on their S.P.E.'s? What would be Enron's defense? Can you name the Illogical Fallacy present?
Enron didn't have to pay taxes because "the I.R.S. doesn't accept mark-to-market accounting; you pay tax on income when you actually receive that income" and since Enron wasn't actually having any real income coming in, the I.R.S. didn't think it was making any money and thus didn't tax it. Enron would probably just say that they "knew" they WOULD make that money for real, and when they did they could pay taxes, but right now they shouldn't have to pay the I.R.S. because they haven't actually attained the money yet.
This fallacy is called Special Pleading/Double Standard, when someone/a party thinks everyone else should have to follow the regulations except for themselves, because they have an excuse.
3. Did Enron try to hide the fact that they weren't paying taxes?
Enron did not try to hide that fact, or really much of anything, they just didn't flash it out in the open, and nobody bothered to ask the questions and actually read Enron's documents and financial statements that would clearly show what they were doing.
4. Why does Gladwell claim that, 'Woodward and Bernstein would never have broken the Enron story.' Why don't you think anyone asked about Enron's financial statements? Is there a fallacy at work here?
Because they were just young kids with no experience, who had the type of energy and persistence necessary for solving a puzzle, when you need to uncover missing information, but this was a mystery that required "experience and insight" to understand the complex financial statements.
Probably the reason nobody asked about Enron's dealings is that there wasn't a lot of evidence yet to show they were sinking themselves, and not a lot of people -if anybody- knew that the money Enron claimed to be making wasn't actually real. To me this seems like the Ad Ignoratium fallacy, where because there was no proof known (UNDERSTOOD) by outsiders, they didn't think to accuse Enron of the real problem.
5. Gladwell claims that, 'Mysteries require that we revisit our list of culprits and be willing to spread the blame a little more broadly. Because if you can't find the truth in a —even a mystery shrouded in propaganda—it's not just the fault of the propagandist. It's your fault as well.' Do you agree with the implications of this statement?
I agree to some extent because With puzzles, it can be that the company or whoever the offending party is is hiding information from us that we cannot find out because we are not inside that party (for example, if Enron had NOT reported their financial deals on paper, no one else could report it for them because only Enron has that information), but in the case of a mystery, when we have the information available to us, it is our job to ask questions and actually LOOK at the information and if necessary learn how to read/interpret it. If we don't do this, as no one did at first for Enron, we are partially to blame for the situation at hand. However, I think in areas or situations where people may not be as educated or have as many opportunities open to them to investigate such a thing as Enron's financial documents (for example, living under a strict government where it is illegal to interfere with corrupt companies or whatever), it is not the people's fault if they are not aware or can do nothing to solve the mystery or stop the corruption.
6. What was the advice of the Cornell students to anyone who held Enron stock?
Their advice was "Sell." They believed Enron's stock values were too high because they weren't actually making all their claimed earnings, so the students thought, logically, it would not be wise to hold stock in such a company that really isn't worth all it says it is and will probably go down the tubes soon...
Visiting Seniors Reflection & EE Assignment
Please take a few moments to reflect on the visit by Seniors. What is the ONE PIECE OF ADVICE that you took away from their presentation? What can you do to follow that advice? What might keep you from following the advice?
The presentation wasn't all that surprising to me because I've heard pretty much everything they said before... All the kids in the IB program say do your work on time and just try to find ways to relax. Unfortunately, I am not a good stress-handler at all so those tricks don't usually help me too much, especially in being able to get focused again after taking a break and relaxing. I think I'm too burnt out most of the time to really focus on much, after a full day of school, etc.
The one piece of advice that really got drilled into me from their presentation was to NOT PROCRASTINATE and to just buckle down and do the work on time, following the schedule that the teachers have set to help you. To follow this advice I could waste less time at home talking and whatever else in order to actually get work done... But like I said before, what keeps me from following this advice, even though I give it to myself all the time and convince myself that I will do the work ON TIME, is my stressed nature, already burnt-out ness and inability to focus on schoolwork for more than a bit at a time, and the other activities such as church and homelife that always seem to suck up my time...
The presentation wasn't all that surprising to me because I've heard pretty much everything they said before... All the kids in the IB program say do your work on time and just try to find ways to relax. Unfortunately, I am not a good stress-handler at all so those tricks don't usually help me too much, especially in being able to get focused again after taking a break and relaxing. I think I'm too burnt out most of the time to really focus on much, after a full day of school, etc.
The one piece of advice that really got drilled into me from their presentation was to NOT PROCRASTINATE and to just buckle down and do the work on time, following the schedule that the teachers have set to help you. To follow this advice I could waste less time at home talking and whatever else in order to actually get work done... But like I said before, what keeps me from following this advice, even though I give it to myself all the time and convince myself that I will do the work ON TIME, is my stressed nature, already burnt-out ness and inability to focus on schoolwork for more than a bit at a time, and the other activities such as church and homelife that always seem to suck up my time...
Friday, April 17, 2009
Enron #2
1. How does a Special-Purpose Entity (S.P.E.) work? Why does the "partnership" giving money to your company make a big difference?
A partnership holds a company's leases and borrows money from the bank at a much lower interest rate than the bank would charge the company who's not doing so well if they were to borrow all that money from the bank, then the partnership gives the company the money. This makes a big difference because by the "partnership" giving you the money but paying the interest, much less money is lost to interest (since if you were receiving the money directly, you would be paying a lot higher interest).
2. How did Enron pit "twists into the S.P.E. game?" What does it mean that Enron "didn't always put blue-chip assets into the partnerships"? What was problematic about Enron using its own executives to manage the S.P.E? What was Enron's guarantee?
Enron twisted the "game" by selling "less than sterling assets" and sometimes even selling them to insiders instead of outsiders (so that the property and money was actually staying right within the company). By that phrase, it means that Enron sometimes sold off leases that would not necessarily reliably generate income. What was problematic about Enron using its own executives to manage the S.P.E. was that not only were they receiving all the money from the deal, but the leases were not even in more stable hands than those of Enron (they were still in Enron's hands essentially, so the bank should have still been charging that higher interest). Enron's guarantee was that "if whatever they had to sell declined in value, Enron would make up the difference with its own stock." so in essence they were selling parts of itself, to itself.
3. How did the world come to learn of Enron's use of S.P.E.'s? Is Gladwell correct in claiming that this is another example of a mystery? Explain.
The article says "The public became aware of the nature of these S.P.E.s through the reporting of several of Weil's colleagues at the Wall Street Journal—principally John Emshwiller and Rebecca —starting in the late summer of 2001." And it says they were tipped off the same way as Weil, by reading Enron's own public files.
I think Gladwell is correct in his claim that it's a mystery rather than a puzzle because it wasn't simply that the directors/investors didn't KNOW all the information - much of it was right there for them, but it was so much, so detailed, and so confusing that they couldn't understand it.
4. What is the difference between "scrounged up" and "downloaded?"
"Scrounged up" sounds like much more work had to be done to find these documents that were carefully hidden and covered up by Enron, when the reality is that Enron had these documents in public, all that had to be done to read them was to download them. This is using emotive langauge to make it sound like Enron was trying to hide everything.
5. Why does Gladwell claim that "It scarcely would have helped investors if Enron had made all three million pages public."? Explain what Gladwell means when he says, "But here the rules seem different." Who is Andrew Fastow?
He claims that because who can/will read 3 million pages of confusing S.P.E. info?? Nobody could read that much and digest it enough to understand it and draw an accurate conclusion. By saying the rules are indifferent in this case Gladwell means that the rule of puzzles- the more pieces that are added, the clearer the picture becomes- does not apply here because the more information revealed about the S.P.E.s, the more detailed, complicated, and confusing the situation gets.
Andrew Fastow was Enron's chief financial officer who put together the S.P.E. deals.
6. Why has the "Disclosure Paradigm" become an anachronism?
The idea that the more business information revealed to the public, the better off it is, is no longer correct in this time period because many business transactions, such as Enron's with the S.P.E.s, are so complicated and detailed that the more information included just makes it more confusing and less understandable to the public, so the public would probabaly have a better understanding of what was really going on with just a summary or something.
7. Why did treating the German secret weapon as a mystery prove to be more useful? Specifically, how did the "propaganda analysts" (the batty geniuses) use reason to uncover the Nazi V-1 Rocket?
If they had treated it like a puzzle and been like, "We don't have enough information and we can't really get it" they probably would not have figured it out, but since they treated it like a mystery and like all the information was already there, in the broadcasts, they focused on translating that information and were then able to understand what the Germans were doing/going to do. They used reasoning by listening to the broadcasts to the German people and reasoning that since the German leaders would try to keep the trust of the people, they weren't really lying, and when there was a 10 day period during which the weapon was no longer mentioned, that must mean that there was a delay in development and afterwards, less certainty...
8. How has diagnosing Prostate Cancer transformed from a puzzle to a mystery?
Doctors used to wait for the "missing puzzle piece", the symptoms that would show that the pacient had prostate cancer, the lumps on the gland... But now doctors don't wait for the missing piece/symptoms, the regularly test and examine middle-aged men, but sometimes whether the patient actually has the cancer remains a mystery because sometimes the test results are inconclusive, or the doctors don't agree, or one thing could mean something else, etc.
9. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, how has "the situation facing the intelligence community has turned upside down?"
It says "Now most of the world is open, not closed. Intelligence officers aren't dependent on scraps from spies... In a post-Cold War world of "openly available information," Inman said, "what you need are observers with language ability, with understanding of the religions, cultures of the countries they're observing." Inman thought we needed fewer spies and more slightly batty geniuses."
The situation has changed from a puzzle with not enough pieces to almost a puzzle with too many pieces, so that investigators have lots of information but it is difficult to put it together correctly and come to a conclusion.
10. How does Admiral Bobby R. Inman believe the U.S. should strengthen the U.S. intelligence system? Why was his answer seen as unusual?
His answer was that they should revive the State Department. This was seen as unusual because the State Department was "the one part of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment that isn't considered to be in the intelligence business at all."
11. Gladwell writes: In a post-Cold War world of "openly available information," Inman said, "what you need are observers with language ability, with understanding of the religions, cultures of the countries they're observing." Inman thought we needed fewer spies and more slightly batty geniuses.
Does this curriculum sound familiar?
I know what Inman means, that what they need is not more information or more people to find the information, what they need is more equipped interpreters of the information they already have. They need professionals to solve mysteries, not a bunch of little kids to solve puzzles.
However, I don't specifically remember anyone else having this theory...
A partnership holds a company's leases and borrows money from the bank at a much lower interest rate than the bank would charge the company who's not doing so well if they were to borrow all that money from the bank, then the partnership gives the company the money. This makes a big difference because by the "partnership" giving you the money but paying the interest, much less money is lost to interest (since if you were receiving the money directly, you would be paying a lot higher interest).
2. How did Enron pit "twists into the S.P.E. game?" What does it mean that Enron "didn't always put blue-chip assets into the partnerships"? What was problematic about Enron using its own executives to manage the S.P.E? What was Enron's guarantee?
Enron twisted the "game" by selling "less than sterling assets" and sometimes even selling them to insiders instead of outsiders (so that the property and money was actually staying right within the company). By that phrase, it means that Enron sometimes sold off leases that would not necessarily reliably generate income. What was problematic about Enron using its own executives to manage the S.P.E. was that not only were they receiving all the money from the deal, but the leases were not even in more stable hands than those of Enron (they were still in Enron's hands essentially, so the bank should have still been charging that higher interest). Enron's guarantee was that "if whatever they had to sell declined in value, Enron would make up the difference with its own stock." so in essence they were selling parts of itself, to itself.
3. How did the world come to learn of Enron's use of S.P.E.'s? Is Gladwell correct in claiming that this is another example of a mystery? Explain.
The article says "The public became aware of the nature of these S.P.E.s through the reporting of several of Weil's colleagues at the Wall Street Journal—principally John Emshwiller and Rebecca —starting in the late summer of 2001." And it says they were tipped off the same way as Weil, by reading Enron's own public files.
I think Gladwell is correct in his claim that it's a mystery rather than a puzzle because it wasn't simply that the directors/investors didn't KNOW all the information - much of it was right there for them, but it was so much, so detailed, and so confusing that they couldn't understand it.
4. What is the difference between "scrounged up" and "downloaded?"
"Scrounged up" sounds like much more work had to be done to find these documents that were carefully hidden and covered up by Enron, when the reality is that Enron had these documents in public, all that had to be done to read them was to download them. This is using emotive langauge to make it sound like Enron was trying to hide everything.
5. Why does Gladwell claim that "It scarcely would have helped investors if Enron had made all three million pages public."? Explain what Gladwell means when he says, "But here the rules seem different." Who is Andrew Fastow?
He claims that because who can/will read 3 million pages of confusing S.P.E. info?? Nobody could read that much and digest it enough to understand it and draw an accurate conclusion. By saying the rules are indifferent in this case Gladwell means that the rule of puzzles- the more pieces that are added, the clearer the picture becomes- does not apply here because the more information revealed about the S.P.E.s, the more detailed, complicated, and confusing the situation gets.
Andrew Fastow was Enron's chief financial officer who put together the S.P.E. deals.
6. Why has the "Disclosure Paradigm" become an anachronism?
The idea that the more business information revealed to the public, the better off it is, is no longer correct in this time period because many business transactions, such as Enron's with the S.P.E.s, are so complicated and detailed that the more information included just makes it more confusing and less understandable to the public, so the public would probabaly have a better understanding of what was really going on with just a summary or something.
7. Why did treating the German secret weapon as a mystery prove to be more useful? Specifically, how did the "propaganda analysts" (the batty geniuses) use reason to uncover the Nazi V-1 Rocket?
If they had treated it like a puzzle and been like, "We don't have enough information and we can't really get it" they probably would not have figured it out, but since they treated it like a mystery and like all the information was already there, in the broadcasts, they focused on translating that information and were then able to understand what the Germans were doing/going to do. They used reasoning by listening to the broadcasts to the German people and reasoning that since the German leaders would try to keep the trust of the people, they weren't really lying, and when there was a 10 day period during which the weapon was no longer mentioned, that must mean that there was a delay in development and afterwards, less certainty...
8. How has diagnosing Prostate Cancer transformed from a puzzle to a mystery?
Doctors used to wait for the "missing puzzle piece", the symptoms that would show that the pacient had prostate cancer, the lumps on the gland... But now doctors don't wait for the missing piece/symptoms, the regularly test and examine middle-aged men, but sometimes whether the patient actually has the cancer remains a mystery because sometimes the test results are inconclusive, or the doctors don't agree, or one thing could mean something else, etc.
9. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, how has "the situation facing the intelligence community has turned upside down?"
It says "Now most of the world is open, not closed. Intelligence officers aren't dependent on scraps from spies... In a post-Cold War world of "openly available information," Inman said, "what you need are observers with language ability, with understanding of the religions, cultures of the countries they're observing." Inman thought we needed fewer spies and more slightly batty geniuses."
The situation has changed from a puzzle with not enough pieces to almost a puzzle with too many pieces, so that investigators have lots of information but it is difficult to put it together correctly and come to a conclusion.
10. How does Admiral Bobby R. Inman believe the U.S. should strengthen the U.S. intelligence system? Why was his answer seen as unusual?
His answer was that they should revive the State Department. This was seen as unusual because the State Department was "the one part of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment that isn't considered to be in the intelligence business at all."
11. Gladwell writes: In a post-Cold War world of "openly available information," Inman said, "what you need are observers with language ability, with understanding of the religions, cultures of the countries they're observing." Inman thought we needed fewer spies and more slightly batty geniuses.
Does this curriculum sound familiar?
I know what Inman means, that what they need is not more information or more people to find the information, what they need is more equipped interpreters of the information they already have. They need professionals to solve mysteries, not a bunch of little kids to solve puzzles.
However, I don't specifically remember anyone else having this theory...
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Mr. Andre Reflection
Please take a moment to REFLECT on Mr. Andre's presentation in ToK. Did you learn something new? Did you enjoy his riddles? Why or why not? How do you think the Riddles about Monopoly and the Explorers relate to the story of Spider and Black Deer? This post must be completed by April 15.
His presentation of the possibilities for Mock Exams as a syllogism and the riddles we had to solve using reasoning and logic seemed confusing at first but after they were explained seemed very clear and simple. I did learn something new, that many more "riddles" or problems than we think can be solved by breaking it down into a syllogism or into a series of True/False statements, and that sometimes riddles are much more simple than we think (i.e. the man is just playing monopoly, he has not maxed out on his credit cards and gotten into a severely damaging car accident and now cannot work). I have a really tough time with riddles, and it never occurs to me to separate it into separate parts to see which ones are true and false and hence what are the real possibilities for an answer. I did not necessarily ENJOY the riddles he gave us because I get very frustrated when I can't think of an answer and then I feel very stupid afterward, but I enjoyed it in the sense that the riddles made me think and made me realize that sometimes you have to think outside the box, but not too far, because the answer could be fairly simple... I also liked how they opened my eyes more to HOW we reason, and the process our brains go through, sometimes without us actually realizing it, to reach a conclusion that seems logical to us.
The riddles about Monopoly and the explorers in the ocean relate to the story of the tribespeople trying to answer the riddle about Spider and Black Deer because we see, in trying to answer all 3, that context (what context the person trying to answer the riddle is thinking in terms of) plays a key part in determining what we see as a logical conclusion. Because the Kpelle people were probably used to folklore and their perspective on reality etc. is different than ours, they were thinking not in the hypothetical context we think in when asked a riddle, but what seems the reality to them. Similarly, when asked the riddle about the man who went bankrupt after arriving at a hotel, we do not naturally think in the context of the game Monopoly, so we assume it must be a real man at a real hotel with real money, and something went awfully wrong. When we gear the riddle about the 2 explorers who see a wild animal, our brains automatically think "jungle" and "tiger" or something to that effect, so we would never think "oh, the one moving faster will get killed because the wild animal is a shark who can sense blood movement."
His presentation of the possibilities for Mock Exams as a syllogism and the riddles we had to solve using reasoning and logic seemed confusing at first but after they were explained seemed very clear and simple. I did learn something new, that many more "riddles" or problems than we think can be solved by breaking it down into a syllogism or into a series of True/False statements, and that sometimes riddles are much more simple than we think (i.e. the man is just playing monopoly, he has not maxed out on his credit cards and gotten into a severely damaging car accident and now cannot work). I have a really tough time with riddles, and it never occurs to me to separate it into separate parts to see which ones are true and false and hence what are the real possibilities for an answer. I did not necessarily ENJOY the riddles he gave us because I get very frustrated when I can't think of an answer and then I feel very stupid afterward, but I enjoyed it in the sense that the riddles made me think and made me realize that sometimes you have to think outside the box, but not too far, because the answer could be fairly simple... I also liked how they opened my eyes more to HOW we reason, and the process our brains go through, sometimes without us actually realizing it, to reach a conclusion that seems logical to us.
The riddles about Monopoly and the explorers in the ocean relate to the story of the tribespeople trying to answer the riddle about Spider and Black Deer because we see, in trying to answer all 3, that context (what context the person trying to answer the riddle is thinking in terms of) plays a key part in determining what we see as a logical conclusion. Because the Kpelle people were probably used to folklore and their perspective on reality etc. is different than ours, they were thinking not in the hypothetical context we think in when asked a riddle, but what seems the reality to them. Similarly, when asked the riddle about the man who went bankrupt after arriving at a hotel, we do not naturally think in the context of the game Monopoly, so we assume it must be a real man at a real hotel with real money, and something went awfully wrong. When we gear the riddle about the 2 explorers who see a wild animal, our brains automatically think "jungle" and "tiger" or something to that effect, so we would never think "oh, the one moving faster will get killed because the wild animal is a shark who can sense blood movement."
Thursday, April 9, 2009
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