Inside the Macedonian Fake-News Analysis by Samanth Subramanian

            Samanth Subramanian writes about the incidence of Macedonian Teens making money by creating fake news. In “Inside the Macedonian Fake-News Complex”, Subramanian conveys that the Internet is dangerous using pathos, ethos, and logos. In the beginning of the essay, the author emphasizes how Boris is oblivious to the effects of what the internet can do. For example, Subramanian bolds the introducing story of Boris posting fake news on the internet just for the sake of needing to upload an article onto his website. She writes, “He posted the link on Facebook, sending it to within various groups devoted to American politics; to his astonishment, it was shared around 800 times. This portrays his initial oblivion to the start of his new money making career. The author also promotes ethos to her audience through her narration-like descriptions of Boris. She states, “Boris is 18 years old, a lean, slouching youth with grey eyes, hair mowed to his skull, and the rudiments of his beard,” almost as if she knows him on a more personal level. Subramanian continues to portray that desperateness leads to oblivion through her use of pathos. The author inserts pictures within the essay to show the readers the condition of Macedonia. Picture 1 shows the central market in Veles, and describes that the town’s economy declined throughout the 1990’s. Picture 2 shows a tiny room that broadcasted basketball and handball games. Currently, operators of sports events are depicted as prosperous, but the pictures show otherwise within this town. This results in teens almost given an excuse to upload fake news in order to make money. Furthermore, Subramanian supports her claim utilizing logistics, such as a bar graph, that portrays the dangers of faulty advertisements that are easily trusted. According to the graph, 82% of people trust their local news, 77% of people trust their friends and family, 76% of people trust national news, and 34% of people trust social media. However, Subramanian is claiming that no news source should be trusted. People should not trust any sort of news that is on the Internet because it is so easy to make stories up. Subramanian’s audience is mostly intended for Internet users, and her purpose is to inform them that everything on the Internet is not true. It is dangerous, especially when one is oblivious to it. 

iGod by Nicholas Carr

iGod, written by Nicholas Carr, portrays the power of technology and its greater knowledge compared to the human mind. In the beginning of the essay, Carr writes about the Google founders and their goal: “to have the entire world’s knowledge connected directly to our minds.” They desire something that surpasses the mind of any human being. The intended audience that Carr writes for are people similar to the experts he talks about within his paper- people who have a common interest for computers and the human mind. He also broadens the audience when stating, “our generation”, and the future generations that are to come with a lot more advanced technology. He states that the solution to the generation is to not limit our information, but rather increase our intelligence through artificial intelligence. The author successfully grabs the reader’s attention by providing examples from experts, which also builds his credibility. For example, Carr writes about a physicist from Princeton, historian of technology, George Dyson, MIT professors, and Google workers, specifically, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. However, I felt my mind drifting after the third page of the essay because claims sounded repetitive, and my interest is just not in technology. But, Carr re-grabbed my attention when he said, “an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain.” The next question was very interesting too. He asked, “And what o our brains? As we come to rely ever more heavily on the Internet’s vast store-house of information as an extension of or even substitute for our own memory, will it change the way we think?” The claims that pertain to the human mind, and the possible effects on us is more engaging to the reader compared to the facts. Carr’s purpose of his writing is to inform his audience of what is to come, and the expansion of knowledge humans can have as a result of higher level search engines and technology. However, I feel that there is a big counterargument to this topic: people do not want to be controlled by their creation. Carr says it himself, “Rather than the machine working for us, we work for the machine.” This is what worries many people, but Carr does a successful job to think about the future of technology and what it offers.

Black Hole by Michael Finkel

Michael Finkel does a good job articulating facts of the black hole to the audience in a way for us to comprehend. Furthermore, Finkel provides many examples that support his claim. For example, he writes, “If our sun suddenly became a black hole- not going to happen, but let’s pretend- it would retain the same mass, yet its diameter would shrink from 865,000 miles to less than four miles.” He interacts with the audience in an informal way and depicts concrete facts that relate to everyone living on this planet. In addition, Finkel broadens our understand just by his use of structure. Each new topic begins with bolded words that highlight his important claims. Not only are they bolded, the words catch your attention: “No one has ever seen…”, “It’s important to clarify…”, and “While an outside observer…”. The author did incorporate Huxley’s Three dimensions, but I felt he directed it more on the second dimension. The second dimension includes the objective, historical, factual, and the concrete. Finkel states factual information about black holes rather than talking about his inner experience. He writes, definite facts like “The universal speed limit is 186,282 miles a second, the speed of light. But even that isn’t enough to defeat the pull of a black hole.” Furthermore, Finkel talks about past scientists and their observations. For example, Einstein did not believe in such nonsense of a black hole. Finkel incorporates some parts of the third dimension: towards the abstract, the poetic, and the universal. In his conclusion, his last thoughts got me thinking. “The evidence for what could reside in a black hole is compelling…. A black hole might have originated in another universe. But we may be living in it.” The writer states that there is an end to the black hole, but no one knows what actually is occurring within it. The fact that Finkel questions our existence within one is very abstract and poetic. I think Finkel chose to write a scientific paper on the black hole because 1. It is very interesting, and 2. The unknown provides curiosity, fear, and enlightenment.