In 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger was implementing its tenth mission. However, the spaceship exploded after 73 seconds because the O-ring seal failed. In this technological era, countless disasters are bound to occur frequently. Malcolm Gladwell’s essay “Blowup: Who Can Be Blamed for A Disaster Like the Challenger Explosion? No One, and We’d Better Get Used to It,” suggests that people should not be surprised by catastrophes, and at the same time, they should be prepared for them to happen at any time. People often make decisions with acknowledged risks; the occurrence of a disaster is too complex; and finally, people always place too much trust in technology. Firstly, people need to be ready for disasters to happen because every decision …show more content…
However, people tend to use this technology to engage in more dangerous behaviors, ignoring the always-present risks. The ABS system is used by car, and it makes the brake more reliable and decrease the risk of accidents. However, “the drivers [use] the additional element of safety to enable them to drive faster and more recklessly without increasing their risk of getting into an accident” (p289). People like to use the technology in a different way, so an unexpected result always comes after. They use the technical measurement as an excuse, make it be responsible for their naive behaviors. “Why are more pedestrians killed crossing the street at marked crosswalks than at unmarked crosswalks? Because they compensate for the ‘safe’ environment of a marked crossing by being less vigilant about oncoming traffic” (p289). It is kind of a self-comforting; people create a safe environment to palsy themselves. Most of them immerse in this “safe” environment, and do not realize their dangerous behavior because they subjectively think the technology is more advanced than before, and allows them to engage hazardous behavior with absolute safe. Ironically, the fact is the inverse of what they think. As an economist says, “they ‘consumed’ the risk reduction, they didn’t save it.” (p289) As the result of doing more dangerous things, tragedy often happens. On the other hand, people should not be surprised if it
Malcolm Gladwell, in order to make his argument seem credible, utilizes specific writing techniques. Gladwell frequently uses anecdotes about successful individuals as examples to further strengthen his argument. Gladwell write that, “One warm, spring day in May of 2007, the Medicine Hat Tigers and the Vancouver Giants met for the Memorial Cup hockey championships in Vancouver, British Columbia” (Gladwell 15). Frequently, Gladwell starts each chapter with a story about an individual group. These stories showcase the events and lives of successful people and are followed by Gladwell’s analysis of their success. By using specific, descriptive anecdotes, Gladwell is proving the credibility of his argument. Instead of just reciting his analysis,
The stories of “David and Goliath” and “The Basketball Underdog” are similar and different in many ways. These stories are both in the same book David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell’s book talks about underdogs, misfits, and the advantages of these people. Both of these stories have an overlying theme of the advantages of an underdog. The stories “David and Goliath” and “The Basketball Underdog” have many similarities and differences between the two of them.
Is success is achieved through hard work and dedication? Most people seem to think in this way, only one person who does not think in that way: author Malcolm Gladwell. In his article “10,000 Hours,” he talks about a rule you must follow to be successful; that rule is the 10,000-hour rule. Gladwell uses a study from Anders Ericsson in his article to support his thought; therefore, this article is rhetorically effective because he has credibility and he uses logical evidence to convey his argument.
David and Goliath is the story of a young shepherd whom lacking of any kind of combat training, managed to overcome a giant, who was sophisticated in combat tactics, just using his wit. In modern times, that act is used as an analogy to compare people who against all odds overcome a difficult situation in their lives.
What is the definition of true success? Everyone has his or her own definition of success. For me success is to have earned the appreciation of honest critics and tolerate the betrayal of deceptive friends and most importantly being self-reliant. Some great writers have their own special wise thoughts on prosperity, for example, in Self- Reliance and Other Essays “Self-Reliance”, by Waldo Ralph Emerson suggest we all need to be individuals and put ourselves before anyone else. However, in Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, he gives a different meaning of prosperity. He claims success is never the result of talent alone. Both of the writers Emerson and Gladwell have similar and different thoughts on what makes a content opulence and self-reliant
Human nature is a consolidation of common characteristics, traits, feelings, and behavior that all humans share. Human nature is a very delicate because it can be easily manipulated by environmental, and cultural changes. In Malcolm Gladwell’s text, “The Power of Context”, he states that the environment has an affect on a person’s behavior, which is the way a person acts, and the environment alters more of a person’s behavior then he or she readily admits because the person’s character is unstable. The main idea that Gladwell is trying to convey is that how human nature is shaped and formed. One of the most compelling strategies Gladwell uses in his essay of human nature is the infectious disease formula he introduces. As a way to understand
When complicated systems fail catastrophically, there are processes that aim to fulfill three general objectives. One, is to assign blame, another, to understand what happened and what why it happened. Last, is to fix the specific feature or problem so that disaster will not happen again. In the article “Blowup” published in 1996 by The New Yorker, author Malcolm Gladwell examines catastrophes such as the Challenger explosion, and the near-disaster at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. He begins by defining the “rituals of disaster,” [1] a modern process in which physical evidence is collected and scrupulously analyzed to form a conclusion, and further explores the sociological aspects surrounding disasters, tying them to the human
Malcolm Gladwell (2002), author of The Tipping Point, presents a theory of social epidemics. Gladwell’s notion on epidemics and human behaviour uses a combination of scientific fields such as psychology, epidemiology, sociology, intragroup and intergroup dynamics to explain the spread of social and cultural behaviours.
Technology has had a negative impact on this generation- we have lost and forgotten many things because of it. In Malcolm Gladwell’s “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted”, he discusses the difference between social media activism and “real” activism and the loss of human connection that he has identified. He believes that with social media activism, we lack the connections a community should have because we don’t get together in person- we are satisfied with being connected through technology. He also thinks that as time goes on, we will only get worse when referring to the ideas that we are delusional because the issues we fight about (such as getting phones taken away) aren’t as important as we think.
“People don't rise from nothing....It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn't”(Gladwell 18).
Malcolm Gladwell’s “Troublemakers” is an article in which he explores the way societies make generalizations. Malcolm explains how Ontario has banned pit bulls due to a boy being attacked and people viewing that one example to be enough to distinguish all pit bulls as vicious and bloodthirsty. He goes on to employ that all dogs even resembling pit bulls or that have some pit bull mixed into them have been banned as well, because anything that looks like a pit bull has now been deemed dangerous for the people in that society. Not only does Malcolm point out other ways societies generalize people, like racial profiling a terrorist, but he distinguishes how steps could have been taken to eliminate the threat of the pit bull but it seemed to just
In the article Threshold of Violence published by The New Yorker Magazine, author Malcolm Gladwell alludes to the cause of school shootings and why they transpire. Gladwell tries to make sense of the epidemic by consulting a study of riots by stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter. Granovetter sought to understand “why people do things that go against who they are or what they think is right, for instance, why typically non-violent, law-abiding people join a riot”(Granovetter). He concluded that people’s likelihood of joining a riot is determined by the number of people already involved. The ones who start a riot don’t need anyone else to model this behavior for them that they have a “threshold” of zero. But others will riot only if someone
Two tragic incidents, the Challenger Space Shuttle crash of 1986, and the Three Mile Island near meltdown of 1979, have greatly devastated our nation. Both these disasters involved failures of communication among ordinary professional people, working in largely bureaucratic companies. Two memos called the “Smoking Gun Memos,” authored by R. M. Boisjoly, of Morton Thiokol, and D. F. Hallman, of Babcook and Wilcox, will always be associated these two incidents. Unfortunately, neither of these memos were successful in preventing the accidents of the Challenger and the Three Mile Island near meltdown.
Once in a while, it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to. Gladwell believes that cultural legacies are powerful forces. Cultural legacies are the customs of a family or a group of people, that is inherited through the generations. According to Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, Cultural legacies is something that’s been passed down for generations to generations. It depends on what type of legacies was passed that will affect a person. If a good legacy was passed down, someone can keep that legacy going by trying hard at keeping the legacies going. If a bad legacy was passed down; I believe that cultural legacies can be altered or changed, by good working habits, determination, and a positive mindset to succeed. Culture can affect either positively or negatively, but we have the power to turn our cultural
“The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status, or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we all believe that we are above-average drivers” -Dave Barry, comedian. The number of accidents over the last ten years have drastically increased, drivers are paying less attention to the road itself. Many individuals behind the wheel of a car believe that their driving does not affect the road conditions, however it always will. The driving habits of today are catastrophic due to the reasoning that the driving will affect other lives through reckless or distracted driving, and disobeying traffic laws.