Most Relatable Character in Spoon River

     For me, the most relatable character in Spoon River Anthology was George Gray. His fear of taking chances struck home with me almost too well; I do want to be an actuary after all. The job of an actuary is to minimize risk, to avoid failure. That's why no one knows what they are.
     For a while, I was about as afraid of rejection as a person could be. The fear isn't completely gone though; I have four other blog posts drafts that I haven't posted, most of which will likely never see the light of day. After all, if there are zero views, there are zero people who can make fun of its length, say that my jokes aren't funny, or just plain say it's stupid.
      At the beginning of the year, when we were all signing up for Google Classroom, someone noticed that I was signed in as "John Doe," and a few people wondered why. Though the simple answer is that the account is for Craigslist, the reason I have that account for Craigslist is that if I message people as John Doe and they refuse my offer, they won't have rejected Stephen Barr, student, they'll have rejected John Doe, anonymous entity from the internet.
    Writing this was, to be frank and honest for once, utterly h*llish. I just erased two paragraphs of typing. They were risky, so they were deleted. Some of them involved people in this English class, some of them involved other people, some of them go clean back to elementary school. All of them are regrets: things I've done that completely overwhelmed any victories around them. Over time, both groups have started to shrink. No reward means no risk, after all.
   

The Massacre that Didn't Happen

     The article about John LaDue is extremely disturbing for a large variety of reasons.  It demonstrates the ease with which someone can keep a dangerous mental illness well-hidden, an important part of most massacres. It also presents a massive issue in the American criminal justice system, which, while more applicable to individuals with mental illness, shows an underlying problem with the rest of the convicts as well. Lastly, the article shows a massive problem with the American media, an issue which helped make the article itself exist.

     Firstly, the article shows what an issue mental illness is, and why it's so important that it is studied further. John LaDue was confirmed to be mentally ill, but far too late and with far too little certainty on the specifics of his illness. Had his illness been discovered later, it could have been after another school shooting. Yet had it been found earlier, Mr. LaDue could have been given proper treatment sooner and possibly experienced improved mental health as a whole.
     One of the major points of the article was about the American justice system; the author implied that LaDue should have received a harsher sentence for his planning. However, there's a much bigger problem. John LaDue will be given much less psychological help in prison than he needs, majorly due to the fact that the American justice system is based on punishing criminals instead of reforming them. Revenge certainly feels nice, and makes sense for torts, yet it doesn't help society recover from the damage done to it by criminals. Reforming criminals and helping the mentally ill recover is the only way to prevent criminals from costing prisons more money.
     The author referenced the Columbine killings multiple times because John LaDue was attempting to mimic them himself. This shows a massive issue with the media: had John LaDue not known about the Columbine killings and been inspired by the killers, he couldn't have been inspired by them. The media talked far more about the killers themselves than it did about the families, because that made them more money. Recently, in certain killings, most news sites refused to say the names of the killers. However, this was caused by police officers asking them not to and the knowledge that viewers would be angered by the station for doing so. Even so, this is only certain killings. Many killers receive massive fame because of their killings, and this shows youths that killing other people can get them attention.       

most useless thing ever

Yup, Pet rock 2.0 is finally here! It's the most valuable computer part on the market: it doubles your frames in CoD, types essays for you, and is adorably soft and fluffy! Okay, maybe not, but at least it won't send your information to every company on earth, so it's got that going for it, which is nice.

Hierachy of Disagreement

     If only for the reason that I love using words more than once in the same sentence repeatedly, I disagree with the hierarchy of disagreement. The Internet ceased being a place of calm and civil disagreement when the first person commented "First!" on a youtube video.
     Originally, of course, the Internet was made for the spread of knowledge. Then, it became popular. Now it's infested with trolls, flame wars, and other various forms of stupidity incarnate. However, the people who want to use it for research are still easily capable of doing so. On youtube itself, the comments don't even load unless you actively scroll down to make a comment yourself, or if you want to read them and laugh at all the trolls.
     The fighting does very little harm, but is entertaining in most cases. A common trend in humans is seeking entertainment, much of which frequently involves violence. In the past, this violence has been quite physical and resulted in the deaths of many people. "Are you not entertained?" is a movie quote that evidences this mindset. Though internet fights can cause carpal tunnel if done too frequently without an ergonomic keyboard, they do not lead to the decapitations that were the outcomes of the fights of previous entertainment forms. And seriously, Facebook would be basically worthless without the fun of watching people argue pointlessly.
Normally this is a pretty worthless point, but in this case it's more applicable than in others: on the internet, no one ever obeys all of the rules. No one even knows the rules, because no one reads the terms of services of any websites. No one will care if this hierarchy is used in various sites. There are already rules on most websites against name-calling, and no one cares because if a user does get banned, he can just make another account and keep on trolling.
     The concept is incapable of being universally applied due to the concept of Russell's teapot: if someone makes an indisputable claim that is outstandingly ridiculous, it is completely impossible to attain the highest level of disagreement or any of the other levels involving evidence.
     Even though the hierarchy itself really means nothing and isn't very beneficial to anything, it is sort of based on concepts in use in the internet and the real world as well. Ad hominem and name calling are two of the famous logical fallacies, and both are generally frowned upon and likely to get a person banned from most places on the internet. A person responding to someone's point by calling him an ---hat is going to be yelled at by a mod/admin; in real life he will be either shunned and eventually left friendless or beaten up for being a terrible human being.