I Kill You in the Name of Ethics!

Some questions and answers for Human Sit, only a few days late:

* Are you an iTunes user? If so, please discuss the technology system required to deliver your music!

Nope! Oh oops, that means I can't answer that question!

* Disruptive forces are forces that change the status quo - they somehow throw off the equilibrium and sink social groups, businesses, and even societies into chaos. Identify a technology, past or present, that is serving as a disruptive technology. How is it changing the status quo? How is it impacting society?

It may be unorthodox to think of this as a "technology," but the invention of welfare seems like one of the most disruptive technology in lower class Americas. Listen, America! No longer do you have to work! Now you can just not work and barely scrape by as the government hooks you up to the great gleaming IV tube of its budget! Just make sure you have lots and lots of kids, so you can fully reap the benefits! Oh snap, did we just shoot ourselves in the feet? Well, too late to pull out now! I may be a typical uninterested-in-politics-and-most-current-events type American, but I know that welfare is one big technological mistake that America could have done without.

/Tirade

I also like to think of Interstates and Motors as disruptive technology. They aren't so much disrupting society as they are disrupting our attention to the world around us. Like we all learned so poignantly in Pixar's Cars, the Interstate cuts accross the land like a knife, rather flowing with it (like route 66 did, apparently). Motors allowed for the inventions of automobiles, speed boats, jetliners...all things which have put nature behind in favor of economy. Now don't get me wrong, I drive a car and am not adverse to accumulating some frequent flier miles, but I also believe that sometimes a person needs to put roaring engines away and experience the world in the way it used to be.

We didn't conquer it, we just think we did.

* No one has answered Adam's question fitfully - not even Adam. Do technics that are designed and created for the soul intention of doing something immoral inherently immoral themselves? Does form follow function? If the function is immoral, is the form as well? Can you come up with any other or "better" examples than a radar detector?

Sure. Let's talk about Cigarettes, Cigars, Smokeless Tobacco, and other misery-causing addictive type things. Millions of years ago the surgeon general cast down the whole Tobacco industry into a well of despair and infamy. Since then no one, not even smokers, have said that smoking is a good thing. Except maybe those smokers who can afford cigars for every smoke. What purpose do tobacco products serve besides body-ruining? Supposedly, recreation. I guess there are some people who say "let's go take a recreational smoke for the sake of smoking" and aren't talking about mind-altering drugs.

But still, when the judgment day comes, God isn't going to cast the cigarettes into hell along with the sinners. I'm pretty sure the smokes will to be left behind on earth, along with the radar detectors and the Microsoft Zunes (because those are pure evil).

* Does absolute right and wrong exist? In what context? Does absolute good and bad exist? Are we morally obliged to always do what is absolutely best?

In my eyes, absolute right exists. However, no human can ever attain it in this life. Jesus was the absolute right, and that's why we need his blood (wouldn't that sound terrible if you didn't understand the context?) to save our souls. We are morally obliged to follow Jesus' example as best we can, but to think that we can ever be as Absolutely Good as He is is to go down a road which quickly leads to madness.

I'm a scientist, Betty

When dealing with science, I have to train my mind to listen to what's being said, since I'm right-brained, and therefore more prone to wander off paying more attention to the shoe-color of the person accross from me rather than a formula. Even though it's difficult for me to cross the barrier into left-brained thinking, I do it occassionally, just to test the waters. I'll attempt to do it here to answer some questions about science.

Is science controllable? Should it be? If so, by whom?

As far as I've ever been able to tell, no. Even if the entire nation rose up and formed a 100% unanimous Luddite regime, someone somewhere would still advance the fields of science. We mentioned in class last time that even when America slows research on something due to moral issues, other countries less inclined to pause for morals (such as China) continue it. The thing is, however, no matter how many blind eyes we turn to the advancement of science, it still is. Even though the Catholic church really, really didn't like the idea of a heliocentric solar system, it didn't cause the sun to change its mind. Plus, I like the idea of the sciences helping mankind along on its slow, inevitable roll towards doom. You may call me fatalistic, but I find the apocalypse to be quite poetic.

Why is "Why?" such an uncomfortable question?

Because it's the eternal question! "Why" can be asked about anything, and most of the time cannot be fully answered. All of the other members of the inquisitive party (such as "how" and "where") can be answered quickly, sharply, and with a definite outcome, like a scantron. But "why" can continue to be asked, even about the question "Why." Why ask why? I suppose it's the only question we humans can claim as our own.

It used to be that being a scientist was a big deal! People respected scientists. People valued a scientist's opinion and input. There were few professions more noble than dedicating your life to the advancement of science - not even being a medical doctor was more important! Our modern perception of a scientist is a pasty colored white male with thick glasses, a pocket protector, and no social skills. No one wants their opinion, let alone respects their opinion. Even you, as a class, expressed distrust of NASA - the US's leading science machine - and doubt in the value of the science being conducted by the organization. What changed? Can you point to a specific era in time? Why do we listen more to Al Gore than we do to leading scientist in climatology, biology and environmental science?

Personally, I don't listen to Al Gore at all, especially when he's talking about the internet. As for scientists, the glorified hero scientists of the earlier age died with 80,000 people of a certain city, leaving people with a terrible question: What has science done for us? It seems to me that the Cold War further soured the public's opinion of the Hero Scientist, as he went on to develop more and bigger bombs and missiles for us to wave at Russia and other nuclear countries. Fortunately none of that ever happened. In any case, Science hasn't yet formed for us the utopia that we thought it would (see Star Trek), and as postmodernism continues to rise, the concrete answers provided by the sciences fail to be as concrete as they claim.

On a side note, who now is the heroic society champion that once was the scientist? Is it really the politician? I surely hope not.

To close, let me provide this short clip from one of my favorite movies, which also happens to give my frank opinion on scientists: