Collaborative Project Introduction

Thomas Braun
2/17/2015
CAL 103 G Middleton

Part 1

 1. Media and Entertainment Industries
  The topic of media and entertainment is something I take great interest in, as it has played a big role in
all of our lives whether we know it or not. The topic of media and entertainment is one that encompasses
a lot of different subject areas, particularly television, movies, music, and video games. It has always been 
my dream to work within this industry, and it's no secret that I am very passionate about this industry. 

2. The end of the World
  The end of the world I feel is something that has fascinated everyone in the past at one point or another.
There are many things that could bring about the end of our world, both caused by humans, and not. 
These include things like pollution, or a meteor cataclysm.  It's fascinating to me because everything
will come to an end eventually, even time, according to modern scientific theory.  

3. Politics and Social movements
  Politics are very interesting to me as they effect every aspect of our daily lives, and give us guidelines as  
to what we should and shouldn't do. Social movements challenge these laws, and/ or the fundamental 
beliefs o certain individuals.

Part 2

 1. Media and Entertainment Industries
 http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/moviesandtv/columns/moviebob/12173-Comparing-Film-Journalism-and-Games-Journalism

This article took a look at the recent spark within the gaming community otherwise known as "gamergate".
It goes over the two opinions on the state of gaming journalism and proves that no matter what side you're 
on, every gamer is a member of the same community.

2. The end of the World
 http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/12/world/ocean-trash-pollution/

This article sums up the threats of the worlds total accumulation of plastic. People often seem to think that 
there are massive islands of garbage in the ocean, that have collected because of the oceans currents, but
this article explains that the ocean is more of just a "plastic soup", which ends up being far worse. As it is 
near impossible to clean up, and hurts animals much more. On this track it seems that the end of the 
world cold come from accumulation of things such as plastic before anything else.

3. Politics and Social movements
http://www.occupy.com/article/millions-march-december-13-anger-over-police-violence-sweeps-nation

This article sums up the recent millions march protest in New York. The march demonstrates how
social movements such as peacefull protests can be used to change views and opinions, eventually leading to change in politics.

"The case against Character" Response

This week I read Anthony Appiah's "The case against Character". This reading explains Appiah's opinion on ethics and what makes a persons character supposedly "good" or not. He first explains his idea of virtue ethics. Virtue ethics are committed by virtuous people, and will help lead someone into living a good life. Appiah says that people should be searching for virtues that they have, and virtues that they could have to further improve their life, a term also known as eudaimonia. He includes a list of 3 claims the philosopher Hursthouse stated. He says "The right thing to do is what a virtuous agent would do in the circumstances", "A virtuous person is one who has and exercises the virtues.", and "A virtue is a character trait that a person needs in order to have edaimonia." The second type of ethics talked about is situationalist ethics. Situationalist ethics explores the idea that people help others when they are feeling happy themselves, and want to spread the joy to other people. Situationalist ethics comes from the questioning of whether a truly virtuous person even exists. Overall I found this text to be very confusing and hard to read. Even though I tried my hardest to understand it, I feel like I still misunderstood and misinterpreted some aspects of the reading. I look forward to discussing this in class so I can try and understand it better.