Law & Literacy

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljz_pGcn-vQ 

I believe that the pull that money has on people, combined with the pull of your passions is a game of tug-of-war that everyone goes through.  In another world, or perhaps in this one at some point, I would love to produce music.  I recently discovered the thrill and euphoria that putting together sounds and vocals together gives you.  I have been fortunate enough to do this with one of my close friend's studio set up in his dorm room.  I have written lyrics and poems since before I can remember.  There is something mysterious about music itself that can cause someone to feel a lot of emotion, especially for someone who has a hard time expressing it, like myself.  Music can take control of your mood, it can inspire people, and it can give people a voice.  Music is something that the majority of people grow extremely attached to.  I am also very fascinated with what goes into making a hit.  What is that “thing” that clicks in pe...

The internet is perhaps the most public environment in our existence.  Once you put a piece of information online, it is on there permanently.  With technology improving every day, there are various different things that are possible that we as a society are unaware of.  Many of these things are placed strategically in the terms and conditions of many applications.  They are deliberately made to be lengthy and hard to understand so that customers overlook significant rights that are buried somewhere in the document.  The government is able to have a clear view of our private lives.  With license plate trackers and data mining, it is hard to do anything without being tracked somehow.  This is unethical in my opinion because it hinders people from acting how they normally would if they were not constantly tracked.  It restricts our autonomy and personal freedom.  For example, the Amazon Alexa is a device marketed to consumers to create conven...

I was informed about gatekeeping this morning.  Gatekeeping is essentially  the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something.  I realized that a common misconception could be that gatekeeping is just like censorship.  In reality, censorship involves  the repression of ideas in alignment to political, social or moral views.  Gatekeeping  refers to efforts to maintain the quality of information published in a given venue.  A censor involves covering up things it disagrees with, while a gatekeeper only wants to make sure the information being put out is verified and reliable. Another concept I learned about was illusory truth effect.  This is a fascinating topic because it involves manipulation of the brain.  It involves repeating key things that will eventually stick in people's heads and cause them to believe something that could be completely false.  Marketers and politicians are guilty of this....

Whistleblowing is defined as a person who exposes secretive information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within a private or public organization. Whistleblowing is a c ontroversial subject. It is definitely not something you want to be known for doing, yet it is the right thing to do. A f amous, or infamous, whistleblowing case was with Daniel Ellsberg. He was an employee of the State Department in 1971 that leaked the Pentagon Papers, a secret account of documents pertaining to how the United States came to fight the Vietnam War. Personally, I believe that whistleblowing is the right thing to do, but if it came down to it I can't lie and say that I would do it. If I worked for a very successful company that used insider trading, I most likely would turn a blind eye and move on. What I mean is that if it benefitted me financially to forget something I would easily do so. Ultimately not blowing the whistle in that particular situation would bri...

      Online presence is something that we should all be aware of.  What most people don't understand is how much the government knows about you simply from your Facebook profile.  I hadn't given my online footprint much thought until recently.  My footprint is most likely medium sized.  I have enough accounts with my real name that it just makes sense.   I have a Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and a Snapchat account.  Realistically, I am only regularly active on Instagram and Snapchat.  I believe that I do a good job of keeping them clean of media that should not be public.  A visitor could easily find out where I am from, what school I go to, what fraternity I am in, etc.  This is only from my profile.        After reading Richard Stokes' article on the ad-tech industry, I realize how much of our private lives are not so private at all.  The market is less about the consumer and more about extrac...