Shutter Island

The movie we watched in class, Shutter Island, started out making us think we were watching a movie that involved solving a mystery. We thought we were following the adventures of the federal marshal Teddy Daniels and his partner as they searched for a missing patient and attempted to uncover the secrets behind the mysterious mental facility island that Teddy suspected were doing bad things.

Toward the end we actually discover that everything we had been following and watching was a lie. We reveal that the whole thing is a set up by his doctors. They invented a role playing game in attempt to get Teddy to accept his reality and be cured. It was his doctor’s last chance to prove that he could be cured and wouldn’t have to be lobotomized.

Although you suspect nothing of it while you are watching it, if you think back or watch the movie again, there are hints the entire time that help reveal the ending. If you watch the guards you can tell that they get a lot more on edge when Teddy comes around because they know he is a highly dangerous patient. In the beginning of the movie when they are out supposed to be looking for the missing patient, all the guards are sitting around on the rocks with no ambition to look, obviously because they have been instructed to play along with this game and are a little less than enthused to over achieve and act it out. One scene that really stuck out to me was when Teddy was conducting the interviews with the nurses. You could tell they all took it as a joke and weren’t happy about being forced to play along and be a part of the experiment. You can see how much Dr. Sheehan (Chuck) pushes the nurses to answer the questions. One of the nurses even makes an ironic joke about how strange their jobs are, obviously pointing at the whole little time wasting game they were getting pulled into. Another thing I noticed was how very obviously coached the patients were when Teddy was trying to interview them about Rachel and Andrew, he even points it out at one point. This is because pretty much the whole island has been informed on the situation and instructed to play along.

In the end we see Teddy now accept his fate as Andrew Laeddis. He accepts that he killed his mentally ill wife for killing his three children. The thing causing him to create his made up scenarios is guilt. His brain can’t accept the immense guilt he feels because he knows it was his drinking problem and absence that caused his wife’s illness and then caused her to kill their children. We see clues to his guilt throughout the film when he sees his wife and a little girl saying “why didn’t you save me?” Later we come to find that little girl is actually his daughter. Guilt is also the thing that kills him at the end of the movie, although he is cured, he cannot live with the burden of his past so he pretends a relapse so they lobotomize him.

Game Theory/ Prisoners Dilemma

Nash Equilibrium- a solution concept of a game in which each player is assumed to know the equilibrium strategies of the other players.  No player has anything to gain by changing only their own strategy.

Game Theory- one person's gains result in losses for the other participants. Uses the concepts of conflict and cooperation in behavior relations.

Prisoners Dilemma-shows why rational individuals might not cooperate even if it’s in their best interest to do so. Is an example of a game based off the game theory.

When I played the game I don’t know if I completely understood, this game and its rules are extremely confusing. However I noticed that most of the time, the strategy that worked best and gave the biggest payout was cooperating and it also gives the best payoff to your partner. Competing sometimes gives you less payout and you can get in trouble with the Foul Fate if you do it too much.

Example of game theory:

In history- Cuban Missile Crisis

In government- Negotiating with foreign countries or making war decisions

In economics- Compliance contracts between businesses

In sociology- Making a decision like joining the forces that would affect you family and friends

Related to psychology- Whether to make a decision with your gut or your head

In my everyday life- Deciding whether to watch my favorite show on Netflix or studying     

Gary Webb hero or zero?

Was Gary Webb a journalism hero or a zero? Honestly in my opinion he was a hero. He may not have been completely successful or accredited with his work, but when you take on the heads of the Unites States government agencies, who really can win? I think that the fact he had the guts to take the government head on in the first place makes him a hero. He had to be incredibly brave in order to investigate the CIA and challenge their involvement with the guerrilla army in Nicaragua and America's crack-cocaine epidemic. He wrote the articles regardless of all the criticism he was going to have to face from the American public let alone having to fear the loss of his job and reputation of the company he worked for. His own newspaper company that he worked for was not even completely supportive of his work and even admitted that he was getting out of line, Webb ended up resigning and writing a book t defend his articles. Soon newspapers wouldn’t print his letters because they were worried about their own reputations. Major newspapers tried to silence him by questioning his credibility and personal and professional character but he kept going anyway because he believed in justice and truth for the American people like any good journalist/reporter should do. After all, the job of the press is to inform the American people.

I don’t thing Gary Webb had a chance from the beginning, and I think he knew that too, but for him that wasn’t the point. He wanted to shed light on a major issue that had been being overlooked and bring it to the American people’s attention and maybe in the process inspire other journalists to do the same. Fight for what they believe in and give people the truth, and that’s exactly what he did. After Webb’s articles came out and the federal investigations had been announced, several other newspapers starting doing their own investigations and writing articles including many big papers like The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post. Gary Webb challenged one of the most powerful agencies of the United States government, completely knowing the depth and extremities of their power, knowing they could ruin him or make him disappear like it was nothing, but he did it anyway, and if that doesn’t make him a hero, I don’t  know what does.