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/