Answer:
I was reminded of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 a day or two ago while reading Ian Bogost on Apple’s Airpods. Bogost examined Airpods’ potential long term social consequences. “Human focus, already ambiguously cleft between world and screen,” he suggests, “will become split again, even when maintaining eye contact.” A little further on, he writes, “Everyone will exist in an ambiguous state between public engagement with a room or space and private retreat into devices or media.”
problem/cause/solution
The passage first identifies the problem as the tires "piling up in empty lots." Then it is explained how those tires got there: the cause. The author says that since "it is expensive and dangerous to dispose of tires" people don't dispose of them and they just keep piling up. Then the passage ends with a solution. The author mentions how tires can be shredded and turned into rubberized asphalt for paving projects.
-4 2/3 is the answer in simplest form.
Prufrock has all the normal desires of a young man, but he is ultimately incapable of doing anything. He is compelled to think everything through, but it doesn't help him at all. The thoughts just can't transform into actions, in part because he is afraid, in part because he lacks confidence, and in part because he can see no sense in all of it. He doesn't "dare disturb the universe" by asking "an overwhelming question". He is only capable of entering trivial, petty interactions with the world obsessed with material, "the cups, the marmalade, the tea, / <span>Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me". This matter renders Prufrock's existence futile, and he is all too aware of it. His intelligence doesn't help him at all, because it locks him into a self-indulgent, passive world, rendering him aware of all the impossibilities.</span>
