2 from the nytimes

The first one
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/science/telling-the-story-of-the-brains-cacophony-of-competing-voices.html?sq=neuroscience&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=print

discusses some of the findings of research into how the brain works.  It is interesting, but challenges popular ideas about free will and agency.  From the course perspective, how does this affect morality?  Can you have morality without freewill?  Does this affect which frameworks we should choose to use?

The second one is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/business/at-the-sec-questions-about-its-own-privacy-controls.html?tntemail1=y&emc=tnt&pagewanted=print

This is an example of the danger of data collection, even for valid/legitimate/noble purposes.

Singularity Summit

Here are some videos of the singularity summit?  Some are fairly interesting, are there any that you would like to discuss in class?

http://www.kurzweilai.net/singularity-summit-2011-videos

Ethical or not?

Is it ethical to take down child porn websites via "hacking"?

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/10/22/1325238/anonymous-hackers-take-down-child-porn-websites

GPS tracking and the constitution

This is the first of three articles looking at a case before the supreme court concerning gps tracking.

http://volokh.com/2011/10/21/my-view-of-the-first-question-presented-in-united-states-v-jones-the-fourth-amendment-gps-case/

Surveillance technology

Here is a link to the story about seeing through walls
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/10/19/0333215/seeing-through-walls

Here is the van based one
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2004/02/16/daily42.html?jst=b_ln_hl

There was some controversy about these being used in the US, but I didn't see those stories in my initial searches.

Telepresence medicine

I didn't realize that telemedicine, in this case video-chatting with a doctor was starting to become widespread.  I'm surprised that the quality of care is just as good.  If something like this takes off it would really change how we view healthcare.

http://singularityhub.com/2011/10/16/welcome-to-rite-aid-the-virtual-doctors-will-see-you-now/

What are the ethical issues involved in a change like this?

Privacy

Slashdot has a discussion/article on privacy today.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/10/16/1247207/a-day-in-the-life-of-privacy

Often times the comments are more interesting than the original article.

Copyright case before supreme court

There is a case before the supreme court about whether it is ok to take works out of the public domain and place them back into copyright.

http://chronicle.com/article/Equal-Protection-for/129287/

Size of the law

I found this an interesting followup to our discussion Friday.  About 6:45 into the video he describes a law that makes it illegal to violate an aspect (fish possession) of any other country's law.

http://volokh.com/2011/09/30/prof-duane-dont-talk-to-the-cops/

There is a followup/response video here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08fZQWjDVKE

Tragedy of the Commons

We were talking about this Wednesday.  In the following what is the commons and what is the tragedy?

http://xkcd.com/958/

copyright in science

Is this morally positive, negative or indifferent?
http://theconversation.edu.au/princeton-goes-open-access-to-stop-staff-handing-all-copyright-to-journals-unless-waiver-granted-3596

Screen saver mode and searches

This is an interesting followup to the privacy discussion that we were having.

http://volokh.com/2011/09/27/taking-a-computer-out-of-screensaver-mode-to-see-suspects-facebook-wall-as-a-fourth-amendment-search/

Speeding

Remember how we used speeding as an example of the difference between what is moral and what is legal.  The following article reinforces the distinction

http://blog.motorists.org/warning-pay-no-attention-to-this-message/#more-2709

Sep 19 followup

Followup from today's discussion:
The options for this week's essay about the youtube video are:
1. Was it moral to destroy the original?
2. Was it moral not to disclose how the machine worked?

The book I mentioned on limited time clones was  Kiln People

The experiment http://www.prisonexp.org/ while not directly related to technology is very interesting result in ethics.  In some ways it reminds me of the book The Gulag Archipelago A thought provoking book, but not light reading.

Brain Stents

Here is an article about brain stents

http://singularityhub.com/2011/09/16/brain-and-coronary-stents-expensive-popular-cutting-edge-%e2%80%93-and-they-dont-even-work/

This article is mostly negative about them.  My question is:  Suppose that they aren't a great idea, is it morally wrong for these procedures to be done?  If so, who is morally liable?  If not then is it morally wrong not to pay for them?

Robots

Since we've been talking about replicants/robots you might find these statistics about current robot usage interesting.


http://singularityhub.com/2011/09/12/robotic-labor-taking-over-the-world-you-bet-here-are-the-details/

Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

It looks like the penalties for computer crimes might increase dramatically.  See this discussion:
http://volokh.com/2011/09/11/poisoning-the-hamburger-helper/

This is an interesting video about identity:

Topics for week 3

What are interesting current events that you would like to see us talk about in week 3?

War on Terror effectiveness

Bruce Schneier talks about an article in The Atlantic that examines the effectiveness of the War on Terror spending

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2011/09/the_efficacy_of.html

How much and where should we be spending?  What are the trade-offs?

Digital Divide?

This story looks at the effectiveness of technology in the classroom.

http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/technology/technology-in-schools-faces-questions-on-value.html


How should we view technology spending in education?

Copyright Overview Video

Here is the video I mentioned in class