自己看不出大问题，大家帮帮忙～

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TOPIC: ARGUMENT47 - Scientists studying historical weather patterns have discovered that in the mid-sixth century, Earth suddenly became significantly cooler. Although few historical records survive from that time, some accounts found both in Asia and Europe mention a dimming of the sun and extremely cold temperatures. Either a huge volcanic eruption or a large meteorite colliding with Earth could have created a large dust cloud throughout Earth's atmosphere that would have been capable of blocking enough sunlight to lower global temperatures significantly. A large meteorite collision, however, would probably create a sudden bright flash of light, and no extant historical records of the time mention such a flash. Some surviving Asian historical records of the time, however, mention a loud boom that would be consistent with a volcanic eruption. Therefore, the cooling was probably caused by a volcanic eruption.

In this argument the author suggests the reason for the drop of temperature in the mid-sixth century was probably caused by a volcanic eruption. And he/she derives the conclusion by saying some historical records survived describe a dimming of the sun and radical plunge of temperature, and successive evidence bolster the one of his/her conjectures which is the volcanic eruption. The reasoning course seems solid in a quick glance. However, logic unsoundness emerges soon as we go deeper.

Firstly, the author gives the survived evidence overly authority. The scanty indication has gone through over a thousand year, there is no way to ensure its validity. The only thing we could do is set hypothesis base on this information. By doing so, we could not exclude other possibilities since all that we conclude is a presumption. When we take this insurances into account, the author's fundamental assumption the cooling of temperature during that time is due to the block of sunlight is severely demeaned, let alone the final conclusion of a volcanic eruption.

Besides, if we lend bit of trustiness to the historical records, we still doubt the scope in which the record would be effective. The ancient time recorders couldn't be able to jot down the what happened in a enough broad terrain and period, thus their accounts must be confined to certain area which unable to be representative. For instance, the region were subject to regional meteorological oscillation and the sun were going through an inactive period. The erratic records proofs nothing.

Even we suppose the historical records to be the mimic of situation at that time, there is no reason to attribute the declining of temperature to the blockade of sunlight by the thick dust permeating the atmosphere. An obvious exclusion is the ice age. No dust needed to make the earth cooler.

Another eye-catching flaw lies at the end of the argument. The author mistakenly assumes the record of a bright flash of light amounts to the occurrence of a large meteorite colliding with Earth and the record of a loud boom would be equivalent to the eruption of a volcano. If the recorder can see the bright flash when a large meteorite hit the Earth, he/ she has to be relatively near. The Asian recorder can never see anything if the meteorite hit the American land. And the record of loud boom is feeble in proof anything. As we can imagine, the hit of a meteorite also cause loud boom. We can reasonably assume the clash happened during a brilliant Sunday, the recorder was shielded from the bright flash by the sunlight and heard the loud boom. In this case, the conclusion would be the alternate one from the author's first derivative.

In general, after close scrutinize of the argument, the author's deduction seems far from rational. Without 1)substantiating the validity of the historical records, 2)finding the cause for the cooling of the Earth, 3)confining the unique characteristics indicating the disaster, the author can hardly convince me into his/her judgment.







TOPIC: ISSUE88 - "Technologies not only influence but actually determine social customs and ethics."


As technologies progressing exponentially in all the fields of our living world, our lives are much more willingly to rely on relishing the abundant fruits harvested from the technology front. While various kinds of high-tech equipment facilitate nearly every single perspective of our daily affairs, these tools seldom touch the root of social customs and ethics.

Admittedly, technologies have drastically boosted how we live our lives. We need look no further than the numerous electronic and mechanical devices to find how our new customs and ethics change to adapt the advancing technology. Typing an email with the aid of a computer and send it via the internet has become the routine for our communication which has put the traditional mail out of its historical track. Writing letters has been practiced and accustomed by us over thousands years, but the booming technology win our favor within only decades. Besides, cell phone enable us accessible at all time if you keep it on. And we become more direct to each other simply because impulse can be satisfied with a press on the button. Thus, it's easy to imagine hundreds years ago, we were more prudent as the distance to cover can always cool down our rush. Moreover, departure is seldom desperate for most of us. Since all kinds of marine, land and aerial vehicles making us able to take a picture under the statue of liberty in New York on Saturday and taste the afternoon tea in London on Sunday. We people feel more close to each other. The scenery of people holding each other crying before departure is more often seen in reminiscent movies these days.


Nevertheless, technology is far from the leading role of social development either from the customs side or the ethics. Technology, however advanced, is and will always be confined as a means to facilitate human. Thus, not as an end itself, technology can not determine, but only to serve. Either email or paper mail, it is used to inform others. The core of both kind of mail which is the content, is to express ourselves and this fact will always stay the same even if we can send video image in the future. From the communication sense, we merely utilize different mediums for our communication without wane our inner urge to communicate. In more obvious examples, families still get a reunion regardless of how many high-tech equipment they embrace. Crime still exists whatever technology has been applied to prevent it from happening. Technology, as an external means to serve we human, looks feeble when facing the customs and ethics which is the collective of inborn human nature.


We human, both as an end and means of ourselves, are dominating ourselves in all respect. Consequently, once we put our scope to a group level, we instantly conclude that it's human itself rather than anything external determines the social customs and ethics. As we have going through the evolution from orangutan to human being, our customs and ethics surely changed fundamentally. We no longer live on trees, we wear clothes, we eat cooked food, most of us obey monogamy, we socialize with certain rules, etc. However, if we look from an upper perspective, there still exist wars, crimes, treacheries in us. All these defects of human race are unable to be eliminated through external means which in the most direct sense--technology. As Kant described in his philosophy, here I quote:' the two types of commands given by reason: the hypothetical imperative, which dictate a given course of action to reach a specific end; and the categorical imperative, which dictates a course of action that must be followed because of its righteous and necessity." The categorical imperative is the nature of our temporary morality or ethics. But we as human being, innate with selfishness, can never achieve such height in ethics. When we evolve for another million years, into another advanced species, may we achieve that improvement. It would rather be the nature of our species determines what we conform to.

In
sum, we humans are so complicated a creature that only the nature inside us are qualified to direct the development of each individual and from a collective view, the social customs and ethics . Any form of external factors at most serve to influence, either precipitate or hinder the intrinsic transformation, they can nevertheless be in charge.


自己最大的问题就是写的太慢了，argu还好，issue要近2小时。。。