Thursday, December 26, 2019

Mithridates and the Mithridatic Wars

While still a child, Mithridates, later King Mithridates VI of Pontus, official friend of Rome, developed a reputation that included matricide and a paranoid fear of being poisoned. Roman Treaties - Information on What Is Meant by a Friend of Rome During the Roman Republic, competing military leaders Sulla and Marius wanted the honor of disposing of the greatest challenge to Roman supremacy since the Punic War general Hannibal Barca. From the end of the second to the middle of the first century B.C, this was the long-lived Mithridates VI of Pontus (132-63 B.C.), a thorn in Romes side for 40 years. The rivalry between the two Roman generals led to the  loss of blood at home, but only one of them, Sulla, confronted Mithridates abroad. Despite the great battlefield competence of Sulla and Marius  and their personal confidence in their ability to check the Eastern despot, it was neither Sulla nor Marius who put an end to the Mithridatic problem. Instead, it was Pompey the Great, who earned his honorific in the process. Location of Pontus - Home of Mithridates The mountainous district of Pontus lay on the eastern side of the Black Sea, beyond the province of Asia and Bithynia, north of Galatia and Cappadocia, west of Armenia, and south of Colchis. [See Map of Asia Minor.] It was founded by King Mithridates I Ktistes (301-266 B.C.). In the Third Punic War (149 - 146 B.C.), King Mithridates V Euergetes (r. 150-120) who claimed descent from the Persian King Darius, helped Rome. Rome gave him Phrygia Major in gratitude. He was the most powerful king in Asia Minor. By the time Rome had annexed Pergamum to create the province of Asia (129 B.C.), the kings of Pontus had moved from their capital in Amasia to rule from the Black Sea port city of Sinope. Mithridates - Youth and Poison In 120 B.C., while still a child, Mithridates (Mithradates) Eupator (132-83 B.C.) became king of the area of Asia Minor known as Pontus. His mother may have assassinated her husband, Mithridates V, in order to take power, since she served as regent and ruled in her young sons stead. Afraid his mother would try to kill him, Mithridates went into hiding. During this time, Mithridates started ingesting small doses of various poisons in order to develop an immunity. When Mithridates returned (c. 115-111), he took command, imprisoned his mother (and, possibly, ordered her execution), and started to extend his dominion.After Mithridates acquired Greek towns in Colchis and whats now the Crimea, he developed a strong fleet to hold his territories. But that wasnt all. Since the Greek towns hed overtaken proved so lucrative, providing resources in the form of revenue, officers, and mercenary soldiers, Mithridates wanted to increase his Greek holdings. Next page Mithridates expands his empire Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Print SourcesH. H. Scullards revised version of F.B. Marshs Roman World 146-30 B.C.Cambridge Ancient History Vol. IX, 1994. Also on this site Gaius Julius CaesarGaius MariusSullaTimeline of the Late Roman Republic Previous Articles -I tell the tale that I heard told.Mithridates, he died old.From A.E. Housman Terence, this is stupid stuff

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

The Sociological Imagination By C. Wright Mills - 1315 Words

â€Å"The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society. This is its task and its promise.† C. Wright Mills writes about the sociological imagination in an attempt to have society become aware of the relationship between one’s personal experience in comparison to the wider society. By employing the sociological imagination into the real world, individuals are forced to perceive, from a neutral position, social structures that, in turn, influence behavior, attitudes, and culture. Mills just wants the world to be able to see the connection between the individual and society. Everything is influenced by an outside force. Just as easily, outside forces are influenced by an†¦show more content†¦According to Mills’ mentality, one has to truly fulfill the promise that social science requires people to focus upon practical problems, and to relate these kinds of problems to historical fea tures of the sociocultural system. Mills continues on in his book, expressing ideas that he finds troubling in professional sociology. In his opinion, the sociological world should retreat back to the classical roots from which it has derived. According to Mills, society as a whole has failed to carry out the work in which he believes in. First and foremost, Mills addresses what he calls â€Å"grand theory.† Grand theory is what he uses to try and explain all social structures in all societies. This, in turn, provides general descriptions of all social interactions and he refers to this as a concept. Mills associates this theory with Talcott Parson. Parson was a very important American sociologist, if not one of the most important. He thought there was one big social system and all of society operates the same way. Mills continued on to say that Parson’s work is too general and dense, as he makes big theories about human nature, as well as, the shape of all soc ieties. When writing about grand theory, Mills states â€Å"when people share the same values, they tend to behave in accordance with the way they expect one another to behave. Moreover, they often treat such conformityShow MoreRelatedThe Sociological Imagination By C. Wright Mills857 Words   |  4 PagesThe sociological imagination is simply the act of having the capacity to think ourselves away from the commonplace schedules of our day by day lives keeping in mind the end goal to take a gander at them with a new perspective. C. Wright Mills, who made the idea and composed a book about it, characterized the sociological creative ability as the clear attention to the connection amongst encounter and the more extensive society. The sociological imagination is the capacity to see things sociallyRead MoreSociological Imagination By C. Wright Mills969 Words   |  4 Pages C. Wright Mills defined sociological imagination as the awareness of the relationship between personal ex perience and the wider society. Understanding and being able to exercise the sociological imagination helps us understand the relationship between the individual and society. Mills focuses on the distinction between personal troubles and public issues. Having sociological imagination is critical for individual people and societies at large to understand. It is important that people areRead MoreThe Sociological Imagination : C. Wright Mills907 Words   |  4 Pagesindividual s life a person will experience what C. Wright Mills refers to as the trap. The trap alludes to a person that can only see and understand their own small scope of life. Their frame of reference is limited to their day to day life and personal experiences that are directly related to them, they cannot see the bigger picture. They do not yet know that the sociological imagination can set them free from this trap and as C. Wright Mills said, In many ways it is a terrible lesson; in manyRead MoreThe Sociological Ima gination By C. Wright Mills986 Words   |  4 PagesMills Chapter Summary â€Å"Yet Men do not usually define the troubles they endure in terms of historical change and institution contradiction.† Stated from chapter one of â€Å"The Classic Readings in Sociology† which was based on â€Å"The Sociology Imagination† by C. Wright Mills. As our Sociology 131 class study the works of C. Wright Mills, we learn and examine his views. We learn how he view other things such as marriage, war, and the limitations of men. His view of war is that both sides playRead MoreSociological Imagination By C. Wright Mills942 Words   |  4 PagesSociological imagination according to C. Wright Mills (1959) â€Å"enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals† (p.5) Mills in this book of The Sociological Imagination explains how society shapes the people. Mills wants people to be able to use sociological imagination to see things in a sociology point of view, so they can know the difference between personal troubles versus personal issuesRead MoreSociological Imagination, By C. Wright Mills Essay1611 Words   |  7 PagesI SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION CONCEPTUALIZATION As conceived by C. Wright Mills, sociological imagination is the mental ability to establish intelligible relations among social structure and personal biography that is observing and seeing the impact of society over our private lives. Sociological imagination helps an individual to understand on a much larger scale the meaning and effect of society on of one’s daily life experience. People blame themselves for their own personal problems and they themselvesRead MoreThe Sociological Imagination, By C. Wright Mills799 Words   |  4 Pages The sociological imagination, a concept used by C. Wright Mills, is essentially the ability to perceive a situation or act in a much larger social context as well as examining the situation or act from many perspectives. In particular, it plays a paramount role in Donna Gaines Teenage Wasteland. It is a tragic story of 4 teens who together, committed suicide. The teens were deemed as â€Å"dropouts, druggies† [Teenage Wasteland 8.2 ] by newspapers and were still treated with disdain even after theirRead MoreThe Sociological Imagination : C. Wright Mills1822 Words   |  8 PagesC. Wright Mills defines the sociological imagination as, â€Å"what they need, and what they feel they need, is a quality of mind that will help them to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves†. Mills also says that the sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society. When I read Chapter One: The Promise from C. WrightRead MoreThe Sociological Imagination, By C. Wright Mills1692 Words   |  7 Pagesentire life, can be determined by examining his or her intellect, high school performance, and talents. However, C. Wright Mills proposes a new approach to this idea in his work, â€Å"The Promise.† Mills presents an idea known as the sociological imagination, which examines society on a larger scale to better grasp an individual’s life circumstances (Mills 2). The sociological imagination examines the role of social forces on the lives of individuals (Butler-Sweet, September 5, 2017). For example,Read MoreSociological Imagination, By C. Wright Mills1762 Words   |  8 Pages 10/11/2017 ID 100602667 Soc. 1 FY40 Sociological Imagination The Sociological Imagination, by C. Wright Mills, was a statement that questioned the developing field of sociology, challenging sociologists and the public to take seriously the rise of elites and the decline of American democracy, American community, and American equality. Mills argues that the sociological imagination is a quality of mind necessary to the understanding of the human condition

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Information Systems for Ethical Issues - myassignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about theInformation Systems for Ethical and PolitialIssues. Answer: Ethical, social, and political issues raised by information systems Ethics are the principles that help in assessing the wrong or the right thing for the individuals and acts as moral agents in influencing the choices and the behavior of the individuals. The information systems and the information technology help in raising ethical questions that will help in creating opportunities for the individuals and the societies in accepting the changes. Use of technologies such as electricity, radio, telephones and steam engines along with information technology has helped in achieving social progress. These social progresses have also led to the committing of crimes, which has affected the social values as well. The information technology has developed, which has helped most on the individuals in benefitting from it (Laudon Laudon, 2016). The dilemmas faced by the managers with respect to ethics in a work place may get reflected on a political and social front as well, as political, ethical and social issues are greatly linked with each other. Most of the individuals within the organization want to be left alone so that their privacy can be protected within the system. The employees in the organization are subjected to electronic devices and other technologies that threaten their level of privacy within the companies (Jameson, 2013). The extensive use of the internet has produced many difficulties in protecting the privacy of the individuals, as most of the information is shared over large areas of network, which may be intercepted in various computers before reaching the target destination. These systems are able to monitor, capture and store the informations that are communicated through it (Lyon, 2014). Intellectual property is a type of intangible property that is created for the corporations and the individuals. The use of information technology has made it difficult in protecting the intellectual property, as it can be easily copied and passed on to different networks. The intellectual property can be protected by using three different laws, which are known as trade secrets, patent and copyright law. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) 1998 has helped in providing protection over the distribution of articles, books and other properties so that it can help in protecting the copyright of those materials (Pickles, 2015). The use of the internet has resulted in increasing the rate of cyber crimes, as it is easy to use and can be accessed easily. These atrocities are increasing due to the unsolicited mails and messages that are being sent to different organization without incurring any costs. Therefore, it is important to restrict the access of information to all the people within the organization (Hirschheim Klein, 2014). The case study, which is Glass Cage: Automation and Us by Nicholas Carr has helped in pointing out the high level of reliability on computers, which has resulted in the loss of expertise and made us idle in nature. The author has cited the two failures in the cognitive senses that results in the underperformance of the humans. The first one is complacency, which is the overconfidence that humans have on the ability of the computers and the second one is bias, which leads us to believe that the data that we receive from the computers are accurate in nature. The managers of the organizations, doctors, pilots and soldiers lose their focus, which leads them to ignoring the data that comes through the computer along with the external threats (Harley, 2016). The pilots have become too much reliable on the use of computers, which has resulted in losing of their ability in flying the airplanes. The compilation of the data and the capability in analyzing the complex situations has helped in making the decisions in a better manner. According to a research conducted in Australia, it was seen that the managers of reputed firms had a lower rate of understanding the auditing softwares, as they used the best available software whereas, the managers of a simple firm had a better knowledge in assessing the risks and make better decisions (Lakoff, 2013). Over the centuries, it can be seen that humans have faced serious issues over the skills that they have lost due to the advancement in the technologies. The process of automation has helped the world to be positioned in a better way, which needs to be increased so that it can help in preventing the crash of the high profile information (Lyon, 2014). The offloading of the tasks in the computers has helped in the liberation of the complex thinking that is required in the completion of the ordinary tasks, which consists of data inputs and observing the output of the data (Hirschheim Klein, 2014). Assessment of the sensory skills, awareness of the environment and the coordinated movement among them has helped in making the process of automation easier in nature. This was seen in a project started by Google that they were testing the automatic cars on the public roads directly, as they were confident with the technology that was instilled in it. This resulted in making the cars public so that they can understand the utilization of the technologies. It has also been argued that this is the direction where the world is heading towards (Lake, 2013). One of the basic solutions in designing the programs is by promoting the process of learning and engagement by returning the controls to the operators on a frequent basis. This will help in including the tasks that are difficult on a regular interval. Most of the operators need to perform the complex mental and manual tasks so that the effect of the generation can be reinforced. These changes unfortunately may result in the slowdown of the softwares and decline in the level of productivity as well. The businesses may not try to value the preservation of the expertise on a long-term manner and would choose the direct method of increasing the profits on a short-term (Lakoff, 2013). Reference List Harley, J. B. (2016). Cartography, ethics and social theory.Cartographica: The International Journal for Geographic Information and Geovisualization,27(2), 1-23. Hirschheim, R., Klein, H. K. (2014). Realizing emancipatory principles in information systems development: the case for ETHICS.MIS quarterly, 83-109. Jameson, F. (2013).The political unconscious: Narrative as a socially symbolic act. Routledge. Lake, R. W. (2013). Planning and applied geography: positivism, ethics, and geographic information systems.Progress in human geography,17(3), 404-413. Lakoff, G. (2013). Moral politics: What conservatives know that liberals don't. Laudon, K. C., Laudon, J. P. (2016). Management information system. Pearson Education India. Lyon, D. (2014). Surveillance, Snowden, and big data: Capacities, consequences, critique.Big Data Society,1(2), 2053951714541861. Pickles, J. (Ed.). (2015).Ground truth: The social implications of geographic information systems. Guilford Press.

Monday, December 2, 2019

Rousseau Ideas Essays - Deists, Hypochondriacs,

Rousseau Ideas Jean Jacques Rousseau was a very famous french philosopher. He wrote many popular stories and operas during his life. He was a very smart man who was born into a disturbed family. Jean Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva on June 28th, in 1712. Rousseau's mother died while giving birth to him. His father was a very violent tempered man and he paid little attention to Jean's training. His father would eventually desert him. The fact that his father deserted him gave Jean a passion for reading. Rousseau developed a special fondness for Plutarch's Lives. In 1728, when he was 16, Jean was first apprenticed to a notary and then to a coppersmith. Rousseau couldn't stand the rigid discipline so he ran away. After a few days of wandering, he fell in with Roman Catholic priests at Consignon in Savoy, who turned him over to Madame de Warens at Annecy. She sent him to an educational institution at Turin. Rousseau was charged with theft and began to wander again. In 1730, he was at Chambery, he lived with Madame de Warens again. In her household he spent eight years diverting himself in the enjoyment of nature, the study of music, the reading of the English, German, and French philosophers and chemistry, pursuing the study of mathematics and Latin, and enjoying the playhouse and opera. Over the next few months, Jean spent his time at Venice as secretary of the French ambassador, Comte de Montaignu. Up to this time, when he was thirty-nine, his life could be described as subterranean. He then returned to Paris, where his opera Les Muses Galantes failed, copied music, and was secretary of Madame Dupin. It was here that he became a contributor to the Encyclopedie. His gifts of entertainment, reckless manner, and boundless vanity attracted attention. In 1752, his operetta Devin du village was met with great success. His second sensational writing assured him of fame. It was called Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inegalite parmi les hommes. In 1754, he revisited Geneva where he received great acclamation, and called himself from then on a "citizen of Geneva". Two years later, he retired to a cottage in the woods of Montmorency, where in the quiet of nature he expected to spend his life. Unfortunately, domestic troubles, his violent passion for Countess d'Houdetot, and Ms morbid mistrust and nervous excitability, which lost him his friends, induced him to change his residence to a chateau in the park of the duke of Luxembourg, Montmorency. From 1758-1762 is when is famous works appeared. These works included Lettre a d'Alembert, Julie ou la nouvelle Heloise, Du Contrat social, and Emile ou de l'education. The last-named work was ordered to be burned by the French parliament and his arrest was ordered, but he fled to Neuchatel, then within the jurisdiction of Prussia. Here he wrote his Lettres ecrites de la Montagne, in which, with reference to the Geneva constitution, he advocated the freedom of religion against the Church and police. In September of 1765, he returned to the Isle St. Pierre in the Lake of Bienne. The government of Berne ordered him out of its territory, and he accepted the asylum offered to him by David Hume in England. In 1767, Rousseau fled to France because he was afraid of being prosecuted. In France he wandered about and depended on his friends until he was permitted to return to Paris in 1770. Here he finished the Confessions which he had begun in England, and produced many of his best stories. He also copied notes, and studied music and botany in Paris. His dread of secret enemies grew upon his imagination, until he was glad to accept an invitation to retire to Ermenonville in 1778. It was here in Ermenonville where Jean Jacques Rousseau at age 66, died. Rousseau reacted against the artificiality and corruption of the social customs and institutions of the time. He was a keen thinker, and was equipped with the weapons of the philosophical century and with an inspiring eloquence. To these qualities were added a pronounced egotism, self-seeking, and an arrogance that led to bitter antagonism against his revolutionary views and sensitive personality, the reaction against which resulted in a growing misanthropy. Error and prejudice in the name of philosophy, according to him, had stifled reason and nature, and culture, as he found it, had corrupted morals. In Emile, he presents the ideal citizen and the means of training the child for the State in accordance with nature, even to a