In thinking about what I would like to post today, I thought I would take a moment to speak about one story of mine from my time studying abroad at Barcelona. We had stayed at a student residence named Onix. It was a really nice place, and I enjoyed quite a many interesting discussions there. Today, I would like to share one of those discussions.
It was a question that began in a discussion in the halls of Onix. This question is one that has been undoubtedly been troubling philosophers for the better part of two decades. Many of you will be familiar with the Richard Dean Anderson character from the mid-1980’s TV show, but chances are you have never thought of this before. Is MacGyver a superhero? My answer to this question is a resounding “Yes!” Blacki, the other participant in this discussion had taken the opposite view.
We continued to pull in passersbys in the hall into the discussion, however my position was met with strong opposition. The discussion we all had lasted for hours, and it was left unresolved for the night. We were however able to get the entire 4001 Ethics class to debate about it the next day. In my favor I felt that I had precedent with the existence of Batman as an accepted superhero, with whom MacGyver shares many qualities. In addition many of the feats pulled off by MacGyver defied the laws of physics, and could only be achieved by a super-human. Lastly, MacGyver’s adventures were undoubtedly heroic.
There was no trouble convincing the large majority that MacGyver was indeed a hero. But they felt he lacked the superhero. My interjection with the existence of Batman, had people willing to de-classify him of his “super”-status, and the defying of physics was chalked up to TV-magic. There were however a few who did join, and support my side, but their names and faces are lost to the passages of time. Perhaps for the best. Regardless of the outcome of the discussion, my stance is still that MacGyver is indeed a superhero, and his acceptance into the community of superheroes would not cause much of a disturbance. At the worst, we might have to let Mr. T join too.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Life = Life + School Work; Error: Integer Overflow
I have been, busy you might say. Most of my days were 20 hours awake with at least 16 dedicated to some assignment, or group meeting. I would like to point out that I really did this to myself. I took on a little too much, and this has turned out to be my hardest semester at Tech yet. So all the prospective parents/students who I was told might read this blog, don't fret, things aren't bad most of the time. Because of this work overflow, I have not updated, and I apologize for that lapse.
While I am on the subject of work, I may as well mention one of my more interesting classes. I am currently in CS 3630, Introduction to Perception and Robotics, with Henrik Christensen. In the class we get to mess with our own $3000 little robot(which I have personally managed to nearly kill 3 times) and program it to move about in the world. It is a good mix of really hard, and really interesting, so it isn't so stressful even though I spend the most time in group meetings for it. I have also learned while in the course there are even more robotics courses coming in big part to Professor Christensen, as well as a new Professor I met briefly, Mike Stilman. While I am hoping to go on to graduate school in a different area, Cognitive Science, more robotics courses available excites me. Personally, I am hoping Tech is able to build up enough robots for it's army to take on CMU and MIT in the future robot war. You have to root for the home team after all.
At any rate, I unfortunately have more work to do tonight, so I better get going. So, until next time. Hopefully by then, I will have figured out have to convert my life into a float.
While I am on the subject of work, I may as well mention one of my more interesting classes. I am currently in CS 3630, Introduction to Perception and Robotics, with Henrik Christensen. In the class we get to mess with our own $3000 little robot(which I have personally managed to nearly kill 3 times) and program it to move about in the world. It is a good mix of really hard, and really interesting, so it isn't so stressful even though I spend the most time in group meetings for it. I have also learned while in the course there are even more robotics courses coming in big part to Professor Christensen, as well as a new Professor I met briefly, Mike Stilman. While I am hoping to go on to graduate school in a different area, Cognitive Science, more robotics courses available excites me. Personally, I am hoping Tech is able to build up enough robots for it's army to take on CMU and MIT in the future robot war. You have to root for the home team after all.
At any rate, I unfortunately have more work to do tonight, so I better get going. So, until next time. Hopefully by then, I will have figured out have to convert my life into a float.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Graphing Morality
I apologize for not updating this blog within a week. I have had a few too many nights working to 3AM and beyond. I was thinking about what topic I would like to cover today, and that’s when I came across a comment made below on the previous post. After reading it I pretty much knew what I had to say.
Law, justice, and morality weave a tangled web. Over time there have been many attempts at creating a just system of laws. It seems that law approximates an objective state of justice based on a sense of subjective moral units. Being objective, achieving justice should not change over time, and remain constant. Attempts at achieving that justice do however change over time.
I believe a tangible example of this is in what is acceptable in love. Going back a hundred years or more it is not considered wrong for an older man, say 20, to wed a younger woman, say 12. Now however, that raises all sorts of feelings of disgust. This disgust is created by your sense of morality conflicting with given fact. That feeling of disgust, I can assure you, was not felt so strongly at the time. Now of course, to accompany that new sense of morality, we have law to step in and prohibit such things from occurring. Law acts as a catalyst here to equalize a society’s sense of subjective morality.
Injecting law does not always equalize society’s sense of morality however. An example of this was prohibition. A minority was able to convince law makers that it was immoral and unjust to imbibe alcohol. The majority however felt differently, and the law was overturned in time. I believe it is fair to then say that law is most often defined by a majority’s opinions on justice, justice in turn is approximated by locally defined moral units. These moral units are for the most part linearly defined by your society, meaning you tend to fall within an agreed upon approximated sense of justice.
Think of it like, if every year someone came out with a new math textbook. One that said it had a better approximation of justice then the last edition. Of course you have homework to do, and last year’s textbook has a different set of problems, so you have to buy the new one or fail the class. Sadly, you don’t have any money. Hoping you can borrow a friend’s from a nearby school you notice when you look at it, that they use a different textbook with yet another approximation of justice. So you can’t borrow it from a friend at a different school, so you have to make friends with someone in the same math class who has the book. When you find someone you find them eager to share. You just have to hope that they are using the correct edition, and not one of those cheaper international editions.
I could with little trouble continue to string along this analogy, but in the interest of brevity I hope that part was helpful in communicating my otherwise complex and wordy concept of morality, law, and justice.
So then, to my real point. It is inherently wrong to say that society is, by a majority, immoral. This is because society itself determines by a consensus of the majority just what is moral, and what is not. This consensus is made law, and in doing so creates an even larger majority who follow the moral construct. The hope is that this moral construct, when graphed, looks like justice. It is my belief that it does. I feel as a society we are moving closer towards the line of justice, and not further away. I only need look at history to know this to be true. And, as such to tie into my previous post, if society deems the current copyright law not within the lines of their majority sense of morality, it will change on a long enough time scale. And I assure you the majority sense on this is changing. In parting, I have one bit of advice:
Just be wary of independent publishers.
Law, justice, and morality weave a tangled web. Over time there have been many attempts at creating a just system of laws. It seems that law approximates an objective state of justice based on a sense of subjective moral units. Being objective, achieving justice should not change over time, and remain constant. Attempts at achieving that justice do however change over time.
I believe a tangible example of this is in what is acceptable in love. Going back a hundred years or more it is not considered wrong for an older man, say 20, to wed a younger woman, say 12. Now however, that raises all sorts of feelings of disgust. This disgust is created by your sense of morality conflicting with given fact. That feeling of disgust, I can assure you, was not felt so strongly at the time. Now of course, to accompany that new sense of morality, we have law to step in and prohibit such things from occurring. Law acts as a catalyst here to equalize a society’s sense of subjective morality.
Injecting law does not always equalize society’s sense of morality however. An example of this was prohibition. A minority was able to convince law makers that it was immoral and unjust to imbibe alcohol. The majority however felt differently, and the law was overturned in time. I believe it is fair to then say that law is most often defined by a majority’s opinions on justice, justice in turn is approximated by locally defined moral units. These moral units are for the most part linearly defined by your society, meaning you tend to fall within an agreed upon approximated sense of justice.
Think of it like, if every year someone came out with a new math textbook. One that said it had a better approximation of justice then the last edition. Of course you have homework to do, and last year’s textbook has a different set of problems, so you have to buy the new one or fail the class. Sadly, you don’t have any money. Hoping you can borrow a friend’s from a nearby school you notice when you look at it, that they use a different textbook with yet another approximation of justice. So you can’t borrow it from a friend at a different school, so you have to make friends with someone in the same math class who has the book. When you find someone you find them eager to share. You just have to hope that they are using the correct edition, and not one of those cheaper international editions.
I could with little trouble continue to string along this analogy, but in the interest of brevity I hope that part was helpful in communicating my otherwise complex and wordy concept of morality, law, and justice.
So then, to my real point. It is inherently wrong to say that society is, by a majority, immoral. This is because society itself determines by a consensus of the majority just what is moral, and what is not. This consensus is made law, and in doing so creates an even larger majority who follow the moral construct. The hope is that this moral construct, when graphed, looks like justice. It is my belief that it does. I feel as a society we are moving closer towards the line of justice, and not further away. I only need look at history to know this to be true. And, as such to tie into my previous post, if society deems the current copyright law not within the lines of their majority sense of morality, it will change on a long enough time scale. And I assure you the majority sense on this is changing. In parting, I have one bit of advice:
Just be wary of independent publishers.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Social Trends
If you caught me around campus this past week, you would likely have been made aware of my internet issues. I am currently on my third strike with copyright infringement with OIT. The third strike means I am without internet in my dorm or on LAWN until the Office of Student Integrity makes an appointment with me. Before I begin I would like to apologize for the Wall-of-Text, there is a lot of setup involved with bringing this point across. I promise not to be this wordy in the future.
For the uninformed, what happens is in order to comply with the copyright law in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Georgia Tech as a Service Provider is required to forward DMCA infringement notices to students. In addition Georgia Tech, as well as most of the rest of academia have taken the stance to punish the user who is receiving these notices. While not required under the law the stance as I understand it is that these academic communities wish to prove they are making efforts to stop illegal downloading with punishment to avoid the wrath of the big lobbying groups: RIAA(music), MPAA(movies/tv), and ESA(video games). I am not so cynical to believe that this is Georgia Tech’s only reason. I am sure they also don’t want their students burdened with the potential lawsuits so they try to punish us to stop us from being put in that situation.
That being said, there is a growing discord with student social norms and the policies of the school. There are very few students in the field of computing who do not regularly take part in some sort of copyright infringement. Georgia Tech has noticed this problem as well. I believe the figure I was told at OIT was that 1300 unique DMCA notices were sent to students in 2007. If we are to say Georgia Tech has 18,000 students total(graduate and undergrad), and guess 60% were on campus, which may be high, that means roughly 13% of students were caught downloading illegally. I want to emphasize caught. The number actually downloading is sure to be significantly higher. Is this number an indication that this generation lacking in morality? I mean so many people willing to steal?
Well first off even legally it is not considered stealing. In fact the potential punishments are much greater for downloading than stealing. For example, if I were to steal the latest Muse CD from Barnes and Noble. I might be charged with petty larceny and charged the price of the CD. If I downloaded it I could face charges of $750 for the initial download, and $750 for each additional person who downloaded it from me. I would also like to personally like to take a moment to define ‘stealing’ as to take someone’s property without permission. Certainly downloads are done without the permission of the copyright holder in a majority of the cases, and the definition of property would cover non-physical media. But it isn’t taking. Taking implies you have something, and wherever you took something from no longer has it. The process of downloading is copying, therefore not taking, and not stealing. Even still this process of copying without permission must surely be morally wrong, as it is legally wrong, right?
Well much akin to it being legally wrong to jay-walk but not morally wrong, I think you can make the case that it is the same with illegal downloading. In jay-walking the law is there to protect you from danger, with illegal downloading the law is there to protect corporate interests from danger. But just what is the danger to corporate interests? With the advent of new technology, they were behind the curve instead of leading it. Even now the media companies don’t know how to take advantage of this new form of delivery. Their danger is having limited control of information, and rightfully so it scares them. Because of this we have the DMCA instead of a system by which I can download Heroes from NBC in high quality as soon as it airs. It should be known NBC tried something, but what it was, was a highly non-functional low quality broadcast hours after the original airing. Compared to a high quality download from torrents within the hour after it airs. So then why is it morally wrong for one to take advantage of a system where legitimate business has failed?
It is not, and has never been the responsibility of the end user to worry about business process of a company they buy from. Market forces take users towards the superior product, and in this case the superior product is the pirated one. Until these companies can properly satisfy customer demand piracy will continue to grow. It will grow and grow and grow until the companies have no more money. Because if you don’t adapt in the business world, you die. If I can play Mr. Futurist here for a moment I would guess in 5 years we will have a proper delivery system available to the general public. A system that will deliver a show or movie to your computer on demand, in high quality, with a compromise in fees or advertising we can all live with.
The problem as I see it is that Georgia Tech, as well as other noted colleges such as MIT and Cornell, have bet on business, instead of betting on their students. The students will win in the long run. Who knows we may see a venture from a student of Georgia Tech that will be about filling this much needed hole of a legal delivery system of new media? Either way it is important for Georgia Tech to be aware of this changing social norm for students, and should know that increased punishment will not stop people from downloading. It is beyond control by matters of law and regulation. My suggestion is to put all the people who get caught downloading into a think-tank on making a legal system instead of cutting off their internet for more then a week. Just a thought.
For the uninformed, what happens is in order to comply with the copyright law in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Georgia Tech as a Service Provider is required to forward DMCA infringement notices to students. In addition Georgia Tech, as well as most of the rest of academia have taken the stance to punish the user who is receiving these notices. While not required under the law the stance as I understand it is that these academic communities wish to prove they are making efforts to stop illegal downloading with punishment to avoid the wrath of the big lobbying groups: RIAA(music), MPAA(movies/tv), and ESA(video games). I am not so cynical to believe that this is Georgia Tech’s only reason. I am sure they also don’t want their students burdened with the potential lawsuits so they try to punish us to stop us from being put in that situation.
That being said, there is a growing discord with student social norms and the policies of the school. There are very few students in the field of computing who do not regularly take part in some sort of copyright infringement. Georgia Tech has noticed this problem as well. I believe the figure I was told at OIT was that 1300 unique DMCA notices were sent to students in 2007. If we are to say Georgia Tech has 18,000 students total(graduate and undergrad), and guess 60% were on campus, which may be high, that means roughly 13% of students were caught downloading illegally. I want to emphasize caught. The number actually downloading is sure to be significantly higher. Is this number an indication that this generation lacking in morality? I mean so many people willing to steal?
Well first off even legally it is not considered stealing. In fact the potential punishments are much greater for downloading than stealing. For example, if I were to steal the latest Muse CD from Barnes and Noble. I might be charged with petty larceny and charged the price of the CD. If I downloaded it I could face charges of $750 for the initial download, and $750 for each additional person who downloaded it from me. I would also like to personally like to take a moment to define ‘stealing’ as to take someone’s property without permission. Certainly downloads are done without the permission of the copyright holder in a majority of the cases, and the definition of property would cover non-physical media. But it isn’t taking. Taking implies you have something, and wherever you took something from no longer has it. The process of downloading is copying, therefore not taking, and not stealing. Even still this process of copying without permission must surely be morally wrong, as it is legally wrong, right?
Well much akin to it being legally wrong to jay-walk but not morally wrong, I think you can make the case that it is the same with illegal downloading. In jay-walking the law is there to protect you from danger, with illegal downloading the law is there to protect corporate interests from danger. But just what is the danger to corporate interests? With the advent of new technology, they were behind the curve instead of leading it. Even now the media companies don’t know how to take advantage of this new form of delivery. Their danger is having limited control of information, and rightfully so it scares them. Because of this we have the DMCA instead of a system by which I can download Heroes from NBC in high quality as soon as it airs. It should be known NBC tried something, but what it was, was a highly non-functional low quality broadcast hours after the original airing. Compared to a high quality download from torrents within the hour after it airs. So then why is it morally wrong for one to take advantage of a system where legitimate business has failed?
It is not, and has never been the responsibility of the end user to worry about business process of a company they buy from. Market forces take users towards the superior product, and in this case the superior product is the pirated one. Until these companies can properly satisfy customer demand piracy will continue to grow. It will grow and grow and grow until the companies have no more money. Because if you don’t adapt in the business world, you die. If I can play Mr. Futurist here for a moment I would guess in 5 years we will have a proper delivery system available to the general public. A system that will deliver a show or movie to your computer on demand, in high quality, with a compromise in fees or advertising we can all live with.
The problem as I see it is that Georgia Tech, as well as other noted colleges such as MIT and Cornell, have bet on business, instead of betting on their students. The students will win in the long run. Who knows we may see a venture from a student of Georgia Tech that will be about filling this much needed hole of a legal delivery system of new media? Either way it is important for Georgia Tech to be aware of this changing social norm for students, and should know that increased punishment will not stop people from downloading. It is beyond control by matters of law and regulation. My suggestion is to put all the people who get caught downloading into a think-tank on making a legal system instead of cutting off their internet for more then a week. Just a thought.
Friday, February 15, 2008
NIU Shooting
I would like to begin by saying that my heart goes out to all those affected by the Northern Illinois Shooting. I feel it is important at times like these for college students to express their sadness over the tragedy, and support for all of those harmed.
As more news comes in, the less the situation makes sense to all of us. One thing is clear, that a mental unbalance, perhaps caused by being off of needed medication is the cause. What saddens me the most, is the loss of life of those so young. Unfortunately I am also saddened by some groups who have used these events to stand on their pulpits and explain that X must be the cause. As is the case with one man, a self-proclaimed 'expert on campus shootings', Jack Thompson. Jack Thompson has now for both the Virginia Tech, and NIU shootings declared that the root cause was video games. What is worse, is he made both claims on Fox News, before the killer was even identified. I only wish to call attention to this because it has personally disgusted me so.
I must say that as a college student, events like this concern me. But probably not for the reason you are thinking. College has been an eye opening experience for me, in so many ways. Every time an event like this occurs, people anticipate another one. In doing so, it is only natural to think of ways to prevent them from occurring again. My fear is that college will stop being the wonderful, open experience that everyone enjoys today. I know that while I am here, I will do everything in my power to keep it that way. However, when it comes to the safety, people tend not to think rationally. So I encourage you the reader to think objectively, and not give in to the mentality of fear that is so often created around these incidents.
In the coming weeks I hope to be reporting much happier news both in my personal life, and around campus. I would just like to close with my sympathies to everyone at NIU, and my personal mission statement for this blog. It is my goal to inform on, and highlight issues that may otherwise go unnoticed. It is my greatest wish for this blog that I encourage objective thinking, and allow people to draw their own conclusions from the information I present. I am however, not objective in all my thoughts and carry my own load of baggage and bias -- caveat lector.
As more news comes in, the less the situation makes sense to all of us. One thing is clear, that a mental unbalance, perhaps caused by being off of needed medication is the cause. What saddens me the most, is the loss of life of those so young. Unfortunately I am also saddened by some groups who have used these events to stand on their pulpits and explain that X must be the cause. As is the case with one man, a self-proclaimed 'expert on campus shootings', Jack Thompson. Jack Thompson has now for both the Virginia Tech, and NIU shootings declared that the root cause was video games. What is worse, is he made both claims on Fox News, before the killer was even identified. I only wish to call attention to this because it has personally disgusted me so.
I must say that as a college student, events like this concern me. But probably not for the reason you are thinking. College has been an eye opening experience for me, in so many ways. Every time an event like this occurs, people anticipate another one. In doing so, it is only natural to think of ways to prevent them from occurring again. My fear is that college will stop being the wonderful, open experience that everyone enjoys today. I know that while I am here, I will do everything in my power to keep it that way. However, when it comes to the safety, people tend not to think rationally. So I encourage you the reader to think objectively, and not give in to the mentality of fear that is so often created around these incidents.
In the coming weeks I hope to be reporting much happier news both in my personal life, and around campus. I would just like to close with my sympathies to everyone at NIU, and my personal mission statement for this blog. It is my goal to inform on, and highlight issues that may otherwise go unnoticed. It is my greatest wish for this blog that I encourage objective thinking, and allow people to draw their own conclusions from the information I present. I am however, not objective in all my thoughts and carry my own load of baggage and bias -- caveat lector.
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