Davidson College Fall 2018
Looking back at all my blog posts, I was excited to see how much I had learned from the beginning of this course until now. I noticed how I related the topics from class to personal experiences and things from other courses. For example, in my blog post titled “Ridiculous Trends,” I talked about the… Read more about Blogging Reflection!
In case you live under a rock and have not seen national and/or local news coverage recently, the 2018 midterms are nearly upon us. Two weeks from today, on November 6, voters will head to the polls across the nation, with 35 U.S. Senate seats, every seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and countless state …
On December 21, 2012, I stood around with a handful of fellow middle schoolers who bid each other goodbye at the end of the day, jokingly expecting to not see any of them the next day in school, hugging and fake-weeping as we walked to the buses. I’m sure there were a few of us […]
An open question… I really appreciated our reading today from Chapter 1 and 2 of A Culture of Conspiracy because it did what many academic works fail to do: it laid out a clear framework of definitions and criteria which we can use to identify and evaluate distinct people and theories for whether they qualify. Perhaps it’s …
Continue reading “Does Michael Barkun think I’m a conspiracy theorist?”
Conspiracy theories follow us everywhere we go, whether they are online, in the classroom, or just talking to individuals. In Barkun’s, “A Culture of Conspiracy,” he touches on the roots of conspiracy and how it has evolved in many ways. One take that he examines in particular is fiction to fact. I find this argument …
Continue reading “Conspiracies: From Movies to Books to Blogs”
Within our class discussions over the past two weeks, we’ve touched a great deal upon the pros and cons of using algorithms and artificial intelligence for a variety of purposes. As the module progressed, the conversations we were having became darker and more concerned with the negative aspects of such technology. Dr. Sample even asked …
In his book, Barkun unravels the extraordinary genealogies and permutations of increasingly-widespread conspiracy theories, showing how this web has spread among subcultures on the Internet and through mass media and how this phenomenon relates to larger changes in American culture. Conspiracy theories have become really difficult to map as the number of channels through which […]
In an article titled A Culture of Conspiracy, Barkun defines a conspiracy belief as “the belief that an organization made up of individuals or groups was or is acting covertly to achieve some malevolent end” (Barkun, 2013). The conspiracy belief that I am most familiar with is the Illuminati, which is mentioned in the article. The Bavarian Illuminati is… Read more about Beyoncé in the Illuminati?
When it comes to solving difficult problems, technology can be of great use. Everybody knows how useful technologies such as calculators and computers can be if you are trying to find a solution in the math and science fields. For the most part, these types of calculations merely provide us with some basic information, deduced …
I should start by saying that as a general rule, I find most of Noble’s “Algorithms of Oppression” paper to be persuasive. The general premise, which she outlines from the start, that search engine’s algorithms are immensely powerful in shaping our perceptions or exposing us to certain thoughts before we ourselves have them seems to […]
