Being detained in the Super Max Prison may well be a fate worse than death. The article describes the prison as a fortress with no way of escape, in which the daily routine of the prisoners prevents them from even interacting with their fellow prisoners. It is interesting to think of the motivation for building such a structure. On the one hand, there is emotion. Emotion is a significant "way of knowing" because how people feel about a subject oftentimes effects how they react. For example, this prison offers a good compromise for those who are against the death penalty. Although the Super Max Prison allows the prisoners to live, they still get harsh retribution for committing their horrible crimes. Some may argue that they deserve death, but the high intensity prison seems like a good compromise. Another "way of knowing" that may have effected the construction of the Super Max Prison is reason. For the small town of Florence Colorado, the prison provides a huge number of jobs, helping the inhabitants to thrive there. For them, it was reason that spurred the creation of the prison. They understood that a prison with security of that magnitude would need to staff a large number of people. In effect, they supported the construction because of what they knew it would do for the local economy. These two "ways of knowing" both played a part in the construction of this facility.
-Connor Gray

Brandon Smail- Supermax Prison

          As stated at the beginning of the article, “the purpose of Supermax . . . is to turn the prisoner into a nonentity.”  This is done by limiting the ways of knowing.  Without any of the ways of knowing, a person becomes a nonentity.  In Supermax, the first thing that is eliminated is language, since communication is forbidden.  Also, sensory perception is severely restricted, since the prisoners live in one steel and cement block for 23 out of 24 hours a day.  When the ways of knowing are restricted, one’s mind becomes confused.  It goes insane from the lack of input.  According to the article, “(Supermax) is designed to destroy.”  It destroys the mind and the meaning of freedom.    It is a cruel punishment, but the people who are trapped there certainly deserve it.

Rachel Kuhl- Supermax Prison

I think that in the Supermax prison the prisoners are made nonentities by limiting their ways of knowing. Since the prisoners are confined in a very small room for 23 hours a day and have no contact with the outside world or other people their language and sensory perception are very limited. To clarify, the prisoners are not talking to any other person and the only other people they see are the gaurds. Therefore the prisoners are completely deprived of language way of knowing. The prisoners sensory perception becomes very limited in the supermax because they are not even permitted to see the sky while outside of their rooms. Imagine never being able to see beautiful white clouds again and only seeing the same scenery everyday for the rest of one's life, this would be very difficult and depressing. With nothing in their surroundings changing the prisoners cannot learn anything new about the world and are stuck to dwell within their own minds. Without these two ways of knowing the prisoners become prisoners within their own bodies because at that point death might even be better than living in this prison. At the very end of this article it says "It's designed to destroy", I believe that this statement is very true. The prison destroys all hope for the prisoners of ever escaping. Supermax also destroys the prisoners' ways of knowing and without the ways of knowing one cannot be a knower and therefore is a nonentity.

Zachary Hecht

“We see and understand things not as they are but as we are.”

            When passing judgment one’s past experiences and personal philosophy are everything. When seeing something it is  nearly impossible not to be subjective. The decision making process has been complicated by people’s perception. People’s different views of things based on perception are shown through the Rorschach test. The Rorschach test is that inkblot test that you always see in movies. This test is able to show how people view objects differently. You could be shown a square and call it a circle, I could call it a triangle. Our different perceptions will affect the way we view the shape. An individual’s perception is developed throughout a lifetime. The way a person is taught and who they are taught by are major contributing factors to their perception. Perception is responsible for many of the disagreements in the world and due to this perception is possibly the most important way of knowing when considering a person's understanding of the world.

            When deciphering people’s differing views, emotion must also be taken into account. When one attempts to understand an object or situation their emotional state definitely comes into play. If I am extremely upset at the time I am presented with an opportunity I will most likely view it negatively. However, you may be extremely upbeat and view the same opportunity with great fervor. Emotion is probably the hastiest way of knowing. This is because emotions can change from second to second depending on what is taking place. This means that one’s understanding of things can change from second to second. Due to this emotion lends itself to being an incredibly volatile way of knowing.  Emotion is just one of several ways of knowing that dictates our decisions and feelings towards things.   

Nick Berger Plagiarism

Cheating and plagiarism has become a larger issue than it ever has been.  This is party due to the internet and all the resources available as well as the competition to be better than the next person.  In today's world some people would do anything to be better even if it is totally immoral.  In any subject, cheating and plagiarism can consist of the same concepts such as copying other people's work or looking at the answers on a test.  If somebody were to cheat on a math test, it would be very difficult to do so because most of the time the problems are lengthy multi step problems in which it would be very hard to copy.  If there is a multiple choice test in a history class, it is easier to cheat because you can see letters for answer choices much easier.  Also in history, people's ideas about a topic can be researched and slightly changed by copying and pasting with the changing around of a few words.  To do this in math, one person must copy the entire problem from another.

Scott Birke Plagarism

Plagarism had become extremely prevelant in the past few decades due to the creation of the internet. With the creation of the internet kids are able to just copy and paste infromation they find online into their hw or paper. History is the easiest subject to plagarise. This is because history hw is very easy to do but also very easy to just copy anf paste answers into the appropriate places and make it seem like you wrote the words. If kids are going to use other peoples work i dont understand why they dont just site the work. If they were to site the work they wouldnt get in trouble because they are not plagarizing. Math on the other hand is a very hard subject to plagarise. Very rarely are you able to go online and find the exact problem you have for hw and be able to copy the steps to solve the problem. Plagarism in math usually happens by copying a friends work. Students can usually get away with this because if you solve a solution correctly then the work most of the time is very similar if not identical. This doesnt make it right though to copy your friends math hw.

Louis Arens-Plagiarism

For years, plagiarism, or the unauthorized use of an author's work or thoughts has been become very common among high school students.  So many students choose to plagiarize because it makes doing work such as essays a lot quicker and easier.  However, it is also punishable if caught and wrong for many reasons.  For example, an author spends a lot of time and hard work on what they do, and a student copying that work word for word makes the author's work less valuable.  Plagiarism also prevents students from actually learning from their work, because they are just assuming what they are copying is correct.  Two areas of knowledge in which plagiarism is very popular are math and history.  Plagiarism is similar in these two areas because essentially, a student is using another person's work for their own benefit in both cases.  However, they are different because math homework is usually plagiarized when one student copies another student's homework, even though this isn't allowed.  When a student plagiarizes in history, they are usually taking work from a person that they don't know personally.  Instead, work from the internet is copied.  This is even worse because authors put a lot of work into articles that they put onto websites and databases.  A lot of people are paid for their research, but students still take their work for free.