Argument185 [飞跃dreams小组] 第四次作业

纳兰馨儿UID: 2437109

TOPIC: ARGUMENT185 - The following appeared in a letter from the owner of the Sunnyside Towers apartment building to its manager.

"One month ago, all the showerheads on the first five floors of Sunnyside Towers were modified to restrict the water flow to approximately 1/3 of its original force. Although actual readings of water usage before and after the adjustment are not yet available, the change will obviously result in a considerable savings for Sunnyside Corporation, since the corporation must pay for water each month. Except for a few complaints about low water pressure, no problems with showers have been reported since the adjustment. Clearly, restricting water flow throughout all the 20 floors of Sunnyside Towers will increase our profits further."
WORDS: 466          TIME: 00:40:00        

In this argument, the author makes a suggestion to restrict water flow  in a wider range for the increase in the corporation's profit, which is relative to the payment of the water. The statement seems to be beneficial to the corporation, but with closer scrutiny, it is easy to find several faults as follows.

In the first place, the conclusion that the change will obviously result in a considerable savings for Sunnyside Corporation is very unconvincing. First, the author points out that the water usage before and after the adjustment are not yet available, and there is no information can demonstrate this trend. It is common sense that the total amount of water determines the payments, but the  restrict of the flow, which only decrease the quantity of water every period of time. It is quiet possible that due to the decline in flow, the residents use the water for a longer time, in that case even more water is used instead. Secondly, granted that this change indeed decrease the spent on water usage, it does not mean that the whole payments, in which the charge of water can only occupy a small part of all outcome, by the corporation will be saved. Probably the change and the preservation of the water system will be much more than the money saved by the water itself. Therefore, the author should take the whole spent and the effects into consideration before conclusion.

Another problem is that one month is quiet a short time for testing the effectiveness of the new plan. Only by the reaction of the residents, it is doubtful of the quality of the new system. Without a longer observation, we can not judge that there is no potential problems from the change, which may cause huge trouble for the corporation in the future.  A close research should be taken by experts to ensure the safety of the system. In addition, there is no information about the population of the homeowners, and "a few" seems to be quite a vague statistic. Maybe the "a few" residents are 90% of the total. In that way, this plan is certainly be opposed by the homeowners and cannot work in a long time.

Finally, the suggestion that the other 15 floors should also adopt this change and result in a profit is questionable. First, the conditions of the other 15 floors may be not similar to the first 5 floors, so the same change is not suitable. And whether it will gain a profit remains to be a problem, because the decline of the satisfaction may appear with the decrease flow, so that less homeowner will rent the house in the future. And the corporation will lose a lot of customer and lead to less profit

For the reasons given above, the argument is not well reasoned.