Month: September 2018

While my intentions when writing my first draft were very different in that I wasn’t intentionally trying to intentionally make mine shitty, the end results were pretty similar. I found that the description Anne gave of a very disorganized and randomly assorted paper fit mine very well. I had very long paragraphs that went on and on. I also hit the word limit way before I finished talking about all my points, so my first draft was very half-baked. I feel like she’s very correct about how inevitable it is for your first draft to suck.

For my revision process, I plan to edit my intro because it seems to contain a  lot of points that I wasn’t able to address in my paper within the word count. If I shift the focus of my paper so it more accurately covers my various points, it will seem much more clear. I also need to break up my body paragraphs because I rambled on with many different points that don’t necessarily correlate. If I do this, my essay will have more organization and will overall flow better. I also need to develop a stronger conclusion, because I had spent too much time on the other parts of my essay.

Overall, while this process was a little time intensive, it was very beneficial. Even though I didn’t get direct insight on my essay, commenting on others allowed me to compare mine and see where I could improve. It also presented me with different strategies to organize my essay, different points to make, or a more general view of the essay could be formatted.

After reading through both articles, I believe that art is not a waste of time. While the EAs have a point in saying art doesn’t immediately solve hunger or poverty, they are wrong in the fact that art can’t be used to help. After listening to the TED Talk on painting in poorer communities, it made me realize that there are useful ways that art can help those in need. Painting a mural in a “slummy” town, did so much more for the people there than expected. First of all, it brought the community together through painting, weekly barbecues, or just the common interest of beautifying the community. This process also gave many people skills required to paint and work on a team that they could further use in their lives in a job. Lastly but most importantly, it drew attention to the community in need but in a positive way. The news and press reported on the mural but looked at the community as a community instead of slums or the ghetto. This inspires people to try and be better by getting jobs or just contributing to the community in a positive way. It gives them a chance to be treated like everyone else, which is something that the EAs handouts don’t do

The TED Talk I chose to review and discuss was “How Can Painting Change Communities.” I chose this one because I believe that the work being done has the most lasting impact on the people there. I believe the work being done is a true example of art changing lives and helping others. As far as a limit of the painting projects go, I don’t believe there is one. There are an incredible number of neighborhoods all around the world that could use a mural to decorate it. Also this project is one that people love and really want to support and see grow, so money wouldn’t be an issue considering they got $100,000 for just crowdfunding a project in Rio. I believe this project could be repeated over and over again throughout many neighborhoods and always have a great effect on the people there.  This is an especially great project because it does so much more than just make a building look pretty. Dre and Jeroen mentioned in the TED Talk that they had barbecues every week or so while in Rio and Philly. These barbecues brought people in the neighborhood together, not to mention they also hired many locals to help participate in the painting projects. This gave many people jobs and even trained some people with valuable skills that would help them become skilled workers after the painting project was done. By far the most powerful aspect of this project is how it made outsiders view the neighborhood. Multiple News Articles stopped referring to the places as slums and treated them better giving the people there hope for the future of their neighborhood. It gave the people there a chance to be viewed simply as people.

After taking a look at the Effective Altruism website, I felt as though I got a better understanding of the message the EA’s are trying to get across. During my first reading, I was very shocked and confused as to what the EA was trying to achieve. I got the impression that they were radical extremists  that would do anything to get their message across. It seemed as though they targeted the artist who are just trying to share their work, when they could be targeting big businesses and companies. After the first read and taking a look at the EA mentality, I realized this wasn’t necessarily true. The EA while it seems like they are radicals, just want the fastest possible solution to helping others. And artists aren’t really a target of theirs but rather just seem that way due to the author’s perspective. This seemed especially clearer after I had looked up the definition of Altruism. The EAs are just trying to devote their help to others who need it as effectively as possible. They don’t necessarily hate art, they just have bigger fish to fry. My second reading gave me more respect and understanding to what the EA is trying to achieve.

One of the annotations that I had made on Southan’s text is near the bottom of the first page. The article is discussing a hypothetical situation where a philosopher, Peter Singer, asks people if they would save a child drowning in a pool near them even if it would mean their clothes get wet or if it wasn’t your fault she’s drowning. The overwhelming response to this question is of course that they would save the child. Singer than equates ignoring the drowning child to the same thing as ignoring those dying of poverty and disease around the world. While I see what Singer is trying to get at, I firmly believe that there is a fundamental difference between the two situations. The drowning child is right by you and taking the child is a rather easy solution whereas helping those in poverty around the world is a tougher challenge because one, “people in poverty around the world” are AROUND the world and it becomes very difficult to directly help them in an efficient manor. The other problem is poverty is nowhere near as simple of an issue to fix as taking a child out of water. I therefore think it is unfair to equate the two scenarios.

Another annotation I made was on the middle of page 2. This annotation was in response to a part of the article where Southan explains that the EA’s see writing scripts and making movies demand resources that could have saved lives. I find this claim very ridiculous because while movie making is generally expensive, it doesn’t have to be. Also script writing just requires a computer or at the very least a pen and paper. I cannot fathom how either of those “resources” could have saved lives. I also feel like the EA’s are targeting the wrong people if they have a problem with wasting resources. Instead of attacking scriptwriters that are doing little to no harm, I feel it would be more effective to go after big corporations that waste more resources than the scriptwriter ever would in only a day.

AnnotationPDF

P.S. The pictures of my annotations are in the above link in a PDF format. They are only half pages because the full page pictures kept coming out blurry.