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Part 1
We care about water in the west because we can study it and learn from the engineering that has been done to make it available to people for use. There is a low supply of water in the west so by studying previous case studies we can learn from our past and hopefully preserve the little water that is left in the west. Reconciliation ecology is the science and practice of promoting ecosystem health and human well-being at the same time and in the same place. Environmental justice is the equitable distribution of environmental benefits and burdens among people no matter their race, ethnicity, gender, or wealth.
I think this video was done in the first person, because it adds more emotion to the video. By having the river plead for help it inspires people to donate and try to make a change for the better. The first person perspective did surprise me. It seemed kind of hard for one person to voice for the river because of its vastness and length. I figured the video would showcase all of the people who rely on the river not the voice of the river itself. I was unaware that treating rivers like people is a legal strategy. I can see how this would benefit the condition of the rivers. People have the most legal rights so treating rivers like people would give the rivers the most possible rights. Ethically this strategy holds the legal system more accountable for the rights of the rivers. If the rivers are treated like people in the legal system then they should be given more rights.
Part 2
I take the trees and green grass for granted around campus. I never stop and think about all of the resources and energy that goes into making the nature look so beautiful. Growing up in Nebraska I am used to having green grass and trees everywhere. But I know that the green grass takes more effort to maintain in Golden, because the climate is more dry here. I am not aware from where my water comes from. For all I know it just comes right out of the faucet. This is a sign of being spoiled by the benefits of a first world country, I am never worrying if the faucet will give me water when I turn it on because it always does. I would call the way we get our water an engineering success. The ways our water end up in our faucet works so smoothly that we never have to think twice about it. This shows that the engineers did a great job designing the flow of water from the river to our faucets. Some ramifications of not knowing where my drinking water comes from would be that it is easier to take advantage of it. People who don't know where their water comes from are more likely to overuse the water they have. They think that the water is endless and they will never have to worry about using too much.
Part 3
I believe that if the Colorado River ended in the US it would be treated a lot differently. The delta wouldn't run dry and people who lived by the delta would fight for the water to continue to flow. Because the delta would be in the US, the government would try and protect it and people upstream would have to be conscious to how much water they were taking out of the stream. Because of an environmental injustice there is less concern for the delta of the Colorado River because it isn't in the United States. The people who live near the delta are not treated the same as the people who live upstream so no problems arise when there is no water that flows out of the delta.
Part 4
In both ecology case studies the engineering measures taken to help improve the land and ecosystems backfired and had different outcomes. In the Salton Sea instance the government spent money and time trying to revert the Colorado River to its original path, whereas the Delta still spends most of the year completely dry. I think this has something to do with the location of these two instances. Because the delta is in a different country there is environmental injustice when it comes to trying to fix the delta. The US doesn't want to spend money and time fixing a delta that isn't even in the United States.
-Hannah Roberts

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Pt 1

I think this video was put into first person as a rhetorical strategy to evoke a sense of emotion for this river acting like it is a living person, which in a way it is. The fact that it is in first person was a little surprising but not too surprising. What was more surprising was that there were two separate voices talking about them being the Colorado river. There are many instances of treating rivers like a person by law to avoid compromising the river for hydroelectricity. I think that treating a river as a person would be a good thing as rivers provide so much to humans, wildlife, and the environment. If this is what it takes to keep rivers intact, then I think that this is a creative thing.

Pt 2

I think the part of my everyday landscape that I take for granted is the trees around me. I have always lived in an area with lots of precipitation and just have unconsciously thought that there are trees everywhere. Looking back at Golden in a previous century was eye-opening for me. I am not going to lie, I have no idea where my drinking water comes from at my house here in Golden. I know that at home in Wisconsin we get our water from a well and that is about all I know about that. I think that me not knowing and many others not knowing where their water comes from is an engineering success but also a failure at the same time. This simply means I haven’t been educated, I have never felt the urge to ask or even look up where my water comes from. I think that when people don’t know where their water comes from, they can often take it for granted and not understand the importance of using only as much water as they need. It is also just a little embarrassing to not know.

Pt 3

If the river’s delta ended in California instead of the border, there would have been much more attention paid to that issue. The river would never end in California if that was the case and engineers would have been proactive about the whole thing. The fact that Mexico didn’t know America’s systems and America didn’t know Mexico’s systems is a point of extremely poor communication and is unfair to the Mexican community and environment.

Pt 4

The Delta mistake and the Salton Sea mistake are both very similar in the way that engineers were trying to do something helpful but just didn’t consider any of the consequences. They are different in the results that followed the mistakes. The Salton Sea was created by accident and now holds toxins that are not only harmful to the environment but also humans. The Delta issue just leaves those that are south of the border with barely any water from the Colorado River. My biggest take away from these two disasters is that engineers don’t do extensive enough analysis of what might happen based on their designs. This extra time and effort could save many engineering mistakes.

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Part 1
In my opinion, the act of filming the Colorado River video in the first person influenced the audience to relate to the river and truly understand the desperate need it requires to stay sustained in the future. Moreover, I did not know that treating rivers like a person under the law was a strategy to preserve them and it was surprising to watch the Colorado River video in the first person as a result of the new discovery. Finally, although treating rivers with the same standard as humans under the law is a great method, it still raises the concern of if we should treat rivers as an alive entity when it is inanimate being.

Part 2
I typically take the trees outside for granted because I am so used to being surrounded by them in my everyday life. Furthermore, although I have a vague idea of where my drinking water comes from, I never really seriously attempted to search and explore the actual source online. Finally, I would state that my circumstance of not knowing where my drinking water originates from is an engineering failure because as an engineer, it is my duty to fully inform the public about my work and its implications, and one ramification of such engineering failure would be that I would be placed in a difficult situation if I had to produce drinking water myself once it becomes scarce in the future.

Part 3
If the Colorado River was directed toward Los Angeles or San Diego rather than San Luis Rio Colorado, then the consumption of clear water would substantially increase, but the river delta's condition would not be much different. However, as an engineer, it is vital to understand that environmental benefits need to be distributed equally among people regardless of their race and ethnicity. Consequently, it creates more diverse and ethically acceptable engineering solutions.

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Part 1
I feel like this video was done in first person to give the viewer more reaction from emotion, making the matters feel more personal than a standard 3rd person talk about this river. Assigning "personhood" like this video has, can promote more respect for the river and the resources, giving it more value.

Part 2
Back home in Alaska, I definitely take my landscape for granted. I grew up on the ocean with mountains and forests surrounding me, and now being a place like Golden that is necessarily a desert with added trees and plants, I know that for a fact. Where I grew up, I knew where my drinking water came from, my family installed and used a well to draw groundwater out for us to use.

Part 3
If the Colorado River lead to a place like Los Angeles or somewhere massive like that, the river water would be substantially different than it is now. The rate at which the water is used would be a lot higher, reducing the amount of freshwater available, and the river would be more polluted based on what we can see from how nature is treated in these big cities.

- Skyler

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Part 1
I really liked how the river was represented in first-person it made the inanimate object speak how it acts. I have traveled along many sections of the Colorado River and I have seen how many people live along its shores. When the video was talking about its playfulness and how everybody loves it got me thinking of how do we not treat the river any better. Which when the river was speaking for itself I thought it was really poetic how there were two voices that seemed to be representing the types of use (recreational vs commercial). I did know that people treat the river like law, unfortunately, the fate of the river lays in the hands of those who never touch its shores. which ethically leads to abuse of the river's resources and imbalance to where it should go to. It is abundantly tapped, tied, drained in cities far downstream so that people who are further up the river can only helplessly look at it while the water is taken somewhere else.

Part 2
I have previously seen that picture for the difference between Golden now and back then. So what I do know is natural is anything on the side of zion mountain, south table and many of the vallys and draniges that go along I70. I am not sure where the drinking water comes from but I have a feeling that it is from a variety of places. I don't know where the water comes from because I have not had a lot of free time while in the north range because of schoolwork (not having a car to explore with doesn't help either). I have long since been behind leaving the wild as is and when I do have to use it I replenish it. Further on this I do not believe that the engineering done to the Colorado River is a failure I believe that it is a failure in planning and strategy. We should know that the river doesn't create water out of nothing and because this river is very crucial to a lot of ecosystems we must be efficient with our water usage. I am almost glad that I don't know where I get my water because then it would show me how critical of a state it is in. I would rather live in ignorant bliss.

Part 3
I think that is would be minorly different primarily because of how U.S. cities differ in land usage form Mexican cities. I think that if the delta was treated as if it was near a U.S. city there would be a lot of litter which would remain until it came time for the pulse flow which it would then be cleared out and end up with a similar result to San Luis.

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Part 1) I think that the video talked about the Colorado River from a 1st person perspective to bring in a sense of vulnerability. Rivers (especially those as huge as the Colorado) can seem so powerful that we might be tempted to think that their water is unlimited. But by giving the Colorado River a human voice, they implied that rivers can be overused in the same ways that humans can be overworked. Assigning personhood to a river might be an effective ethical strategy because then you would be more likely to treat it with respect and compassion, instead of just a resource that is available to humans with no value of its own.

Part 2) I definitely take all of the vegetation we have in Colorado for granted. Watching the lecture showed me this because I had no idea that Golden used to be such a desert, I always thought all the vegetation here was just here before humans. I do know where my drinking water comes from; I live in Evergreen and our water comes from Evergreen Lake. I probably know this because I used to drive by Evergreen Lake every day, and it is basically at the center of our city. However, if I didn’t have such a personal connection to my water source I probably wouldn’t know where it came from, and just take it for granted. This presents a problem because you should be aware of the quality of the water you are consuming, and also be a part of the ethical debates about the resources you use to survive.

Part 3) The delta would definitely be in a different condition if it was in San Francisco or LA instead of Mexico. Firstly, there would need to be more water making it down to the delta because both of those are urban cities with millions of people. But also, I think that the fact that the delta would be inside the country rather than outside would change things. Because the delta is outside of the US now, we probably tend to overconsume water because the burdens of our overconsumption are held mostly by Mexico. But if we had to deal with these problems ourselves, we would be less likely to overconsume. This involved environmental justice because we should strive to distribute the benefits/burdens of water consumption equally between everyone, instead of keeping the benefits domestic and the burdens foreign.

Part 4) I think that Case Study #1 (Delta) demonstrates a more proactive problem, while Case Study #2 (Salton Sea) demonstrates a more retroactive problem. The Delta is something we can decide every year based on data to decide how much water we should let through in a pulse flow. However, the Salton Sea has already happened, so we have to take responsibility for the mistakes made by engineers before us so we can solve them. Both of these case studies definitely have to do with Environmental Justice, because they involve making the benefits/burdens of irrigation more balanced between different groups of people (based on location).

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Part 1

I believe that the Colorado River video we watched was narrated in the first person as it makes the problem more personal to the viewers. The first-person narrative made me care more about the river as I could see myself more easily helping the river as I would a person rather than trying to tackle a huge inhuman problem.

Part 2

When taking a step back and considering what parts of my landscape I take for granted I’m surprised with what I come up with. Mainly the landscape I take for granted is the environment I live in. I never stop to think how lucky I am that I don’t have to worry about oxygen pollution, being able to leave my home and take a fresh breath of air. I also take the nature around me for granted, while I appreciate looking at the greenery I never actively try and preserve the nature around me. This feeling of taking the nature around me for granted is continued as I have no idea where most of my drinking water comes from. I don’t know where my drinking water comes from most likely because I’m never concerned about how I’ll get my next glass of water. With this, I’ve been trained to care less about the nature surrounding me as I’ve had to care for it less and been able to have everything given to me in regards to nature.

Part 3

If the Colorado River lead into a bigger and more populated area like LA then I believe the water would have a significant change. First of all, the water would be more heavily used by the population as a whole meaning the freshwater would diminish at a faster rate. Second of all the river would be most likely be more polluted due to the more “urban” nature of LA. I believe with all these factors our sense of environmental justice would be skewed. It would be more of a fight for all to get water with the increased population and increase in pollution.

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Reflection 1)

This video gave the Colorado River the ability to speak in first person in hopes of people showing empathy towards this inanimate object. It is putting human value on the river to show people the harm this river is going through due to humans. I think people care more about something when they can relate on a personal level, so using phrases like “I am drained” will allow people to better connect. This did surprise me, I actually felt sadness for the river and felt a little disappointed. We are watching this river die because of our selfish ways, but no one will do anything to change until they are able to see and feel the distress this river is going through. Treating rivers as people is not as far fetched as some make it seem. At this point, this is the only way to save the river, so people should continue to treat rivers like people. I believe we will be able to connect to the river if we continue to ascribe “personhoods” to rivers, which will have an impact on how the general public views river systems. We cannot continue the same lifestyle we have today. I feel like Americans in the west would be more willing to change their bad habits if human value is put on the Colorado River.

Reflection 2)

Every time I walk through campus I always notice the bright green grass that compliments the large lecture halls. The grass is always healthy even in the hot summer months. This is interesting because the native landscape that can be spotted on Mt. Zion and South Table seems to get dry and yellow in warmer months. This is not normal. We take the green grass and imported trees for granted; however, our generation has grown up with the normalization of having big aspen trees in the front lawn with the green grass. I have also taken the ability to drive to school on paved roads for granted. I am aware of where my water comes from, but I feel like I only know this because I have sat through many civil engineering lectures. Civil Engineers must be aware of surrounding bodies of water when it comes to building dams, so our professors take this concept seriously. I am not too sure if the general public is aware of where their water comes from. I know I learned a little about this subject in elementary, but it was a brief introduction to the topic. I think everyone should know where their drinking water comes from because the process is not natural at all. If humans continue to take something like drinking water for granted, the continuous partners of running reservoirs dry will continue. I would say it is an engineer's responsibility to educate the general public on water sources. There must be some type of outreach to the public to spread awareness.

Reflection 3)

I do believe there would be a major difference in the river’s delta if a bigger city like Los Angeles was located near the headwaters of the Colorado River. I believe the U.S. would allow a bigger city to use up more of the water, which would mean less water for communities downstream. I think it is a good idea to have government policies in place to prevent any environmental injustice. These government policies prevent the over usage of water, but if the Colorado River ended in California instead of Mexico, I do believe there The Colorado River would already be bone dry. I think the Colorado River would be talked about in past tense because there would not be any policy ensuring the future of the river. America would be able to use the water in their best interests, which is not always the surrounding environment’s best interest. The current situation assures environmental justice throughout many communities because of the Pulse Flow Agreement. The community that sits at the delta of the Colorado River is guaranteed water for the next 15 years.

Reflection 4)

One key similarity between the two case studies is that both were caused by engineering failures. There was a common idea between the two situations where it seemed like engineers did not pay close attention to the surrounding environment. It seemed like both situations could have been prevented or even better handled. These two studies also resulted in a decent outcome, but they both could have ended up causing more damage to the surrounding area. The Salton Sea is actually still used by nearby farmers. The two situations did affect different regions and countries. The Salton Sea creation happened within U.S. borders, whereas the Delta incident carried across into Mexico. Communities were affected by both, but I would argue that the Delta incident affected more communities. Looking back at these two situations, it is important to note that engineers need to be aware of the surrounding environment. Many people can be hurt or harmed when situations like these are not fully planned. It is an engineer’s responsibility to bring safety to the general public.

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Part 1

We don’t have much water here in the west, so we need to know how to treat it and use it sustainably. Social and technical challenges don’t come out of nowhere, and we can trace the source of these challenges through past engineering decisions. This ties into NHV in that the decisions to build structures that hold and control water such as the Hoover Dam directly impact people and the environment and must be carefully considered to ensure ethical practices. Reconciliation ecology is the science and practice of promoting ecosystem health and human well-being at the same time and in the same places. Environmental justice is the equitable distribution of environmental benefits and burdens among people no matter their race, ethnicity, gender, or wealth.

The first person caught me off guard because I’m so used to viewing rivers as silent, majestic, and simply existent rather than alive. I think this was done so that the audience is forced to view the natural ecosystem as a living being so that we can better empathize with it. Ascribing personhood to rivers causes people to hold rivers to the same value as other humans, so people are more likely to protect rivers when they are personified due to higher levels of compassion. This implies that people are more likely to act ethically when there is an established personal connection, or their moral values align with the ethical dilemma at hand.

Part 2

I take for granted the number of trees there are in suburban areas. When I think of “the city,” I automatically think of lots of buildings, but I remember driving home from work back in Grand Junction, and at the top of a sloped street, I was able to see how many trees there were in the city. It seemed like the trees were providing a canopy for the houses. Obviously, things are different based on cities. I used to know where my water came from back in Grand Junction, but I’m not sure where my water is from here in Golden. I’m new to the area and haven’t asked anyone about the water. I call this an engineering flaw but not quite a failure because I think it is important consumers understand where their resources are coming from and what they are putting into their bodies. There ought to be some trust involved, but that comes with educating the public so that they don’t get taken advantage of in the future. If people don’t know where their water comes from, then there’s no way of holding engineers and water specialists accountable for the quality of the water and the sustainability of water treatment.

Part 3

If the river ended in a big city like LA, the water would be more heavily utilized, and the river would have less flow. The river would likely be industrialized by private business, and the resources would be more accessible by the wealthy, which goes against environmental justice since resources wouldn’t be equitably distributed. Marginalized communities in LA already face the burdens of pollution and lack of sanitation, so the existence of a river would only perpetuate the issues that these communities are already facing. Think about the Tamarisk Hunter reading. We saw how there was a major class gap between the Californians hogging the water and the other people rationing water to try and survive. I think that by the river flowing into another country, people utilizing the resources of the river act more consciously because they don’t want to hurt ties with Mexico.

Part 4

I think the issues rising from these scenarios stem from narrow scopes during projects, meaning that the engineers focused too much on completing a certain task and neglected to consider and account for the aftermath and how it would affect the environment. Some takeaways are that engineering isn’t always about reaching a set end goal, but also about considering the resources utilized and habitats altered on the way towards reaching a solution.

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Part 1
One example of a dual-use concept is GPS because it was initially developed to aid people in identifying their locations accurately and staying in contact from anywhere around the world. However, along with its benefit, it poses the risk of cybersecurity because it is vulnerable to hacking and possibly becoming a dangerous tool in the hands of the wrong people.

Part 2
I believe that halting the spread of nuclear weapons immediately after the Trinity test or Nagasaki would have saved tons of innocent lives that were lost as a result of a conflict between nations. Moreover, the scientist was disheartened by the negative impact of their work during the war. Finally, bombs do fall into the dual-use concept because although it provides security for the nation against other countries, it causes devastating harm if used.

Part 4
In our current world, I am most concerned about the radiation that will be released by the atomic bombs if exploded because the environment we live in has already been damaged by human activities to a great extent. Therefore, I don't wish to see it get further destroyed before we manage to preserve and save it.

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PART 1
An example of dual use would be Zyklon B since it could be used by civilians and the military. Dual use means something (usually tech) can be used in different ways, one being good (beneficial) and the other being bad (harmful). Zyklon B is the best example when it comes to seeing both sides of the spectrum.

PART 2
If  the spread of nuclear weapons were halted after the Trinity test, there would be a less amount of people that lost their lives. If the spread was halted after Nagasaki, the world would not fear the technology as much. They would not fear unexpected attacks with nuclear weapons. Scientists were hurt after these events happened. they did not want or even expect their creation to be used in  this way.

PART 4
My biggest concern when it comes to nuclear technology is that if something like WW3 was to break out, then nations would engage in a nuclear warfare. I feel as if countries would result in bombing, which would be an absolute disaster in the long run. I couldn't imagine what the world would be like during a time of nuclear warfare.

***CADEN YOREK***

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Part 1
One example of the dual use concept would be something like the Zyklon B, where it can be used in both civilian and military usages. Dual use is where a piece of tech can be used in to totally separate populations, usually seen as a beneficial vs harmful view.

Part 2
Halting the spread of nuclear weapons immediately after the Trinity test would have helped prevent many lives from being lost, and would've reduced the fear tactics caused by these weapons. Halting the spread after Nagasaki, would've reduced the fears of more surprise attacks, but not many deaths would be saved. From what I could tell, most of the scientists were hit hard after realizing what that had created. One was very depressed after hearing what his work was used for in Hiroshima, and most of the other scientists realized what they had created wasn't very ethically correct to have done.

Part 4
I would say my biggest concern about nuclear technology in the world today, is how drastic the consequences of even the slightest error come along as nuclear tech innovates and progresses. The other concern is the effects of nuclear warfare. With the way nukes work, there's almost no chance of survival for the world and all those who inhabit it.

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Dual use is the idea that scientific things could be used in the world two different ways. Some examples are legal vs criminal uses, civilian and military uses, beneficial and harmful uses, and indented and unintended uses. An intended use would be Zyklon B as a pesticide and unintended use example would be Zyklon B used by the Nazis to mass murder. An example of Helpful vs harmful would be nanotechnology for energy and nanotechnology for warfare.

Halting the spread of nuclear weapons after the Trinity test would have saved many lives from the following nuclear explosions and would have eliminated the fear of the possible misuses of that specific technology. Halting the spread after Nagasaki would have decrease the fear across the world of unexpected nuclear attacks. All of the scientists that spoke seemed to be extremely impacted from the realization of what they have created. The scientists were very excited about their work until they realized what it was that it would be used for. One said that he got extremely depressed after finding out about Hiroshima and clearly hasn’t been the same since. Most of the scientists realized that what they had created wasn’t ethically right even if the science behind it was innovative.

Nuclear technology keeps growing and growing, and the fear of nuclear attacks keeps doing the same as we now know more and more about what other countries have created. The thing that concerns me the most is that anything, even small, could go wrong and that mistake could take out half of the world. If something like Nagasaki happened again in today’s day and age, there would be nuclear war. Nuclear war means no one would survive based on the intensity of the nuclear weapons now.

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Part 1) One example of “dual use” we talked about earlier in class was Zyklon B. While originally intended as a pesticide to make agriculture more productive (beneficial use), it was ultimately used by the Nazis in an attempted genocide, killing millions upon millions of people (harmful use).

Another technology I think will be subject to dual use is AI (artificial intelligence). There are countless benefits of AI for humans, such as automation, but it could also be used in harmful contexts such as war.

Part 2) If there was action taken to halt the spread of nuclear weapons after Trinity, the world would look much different than it does today. Today, all powerful countries have access to nuclear weapons in one way or another, and there is shared knowledge that we could all “wipe each other out” if we really wanted to. If things were done differently, nuclear weapons could have been stopped from falling into everyone’s hands and giving us all the sheer amount of power we hold with these weapons.

I think that the scientists’ reaction to Hiroshima ties back to how we can subconsciously separate our “technical self” and our “moral self.” When they were developing the bombs, the scientists simply saw themselves as creators of technology, partially because it was impossible for them to detect all of the harm it might cause. However, when the bomb dropped their moral senses finally caught up with their technical senses, and they realized it would have been better off if they never created the bombs to begin with.

Part 4) My biggest concern about nuclear technology is that if a global conflict breaks out, it is basically inevitable that a nuclear war will occur. If one country decides to use a nuclear bomb on another country, that country will most certainly retaliate, leading to a chain reaction of explosions which will surely cause catastrophic destruction. Civilians should be the most concerned about this, because the people choosing to deploy the bombs on us will be politicians in more power than us who do not necessarily care about us.

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Reflection 1

Dual use is the idea that a material or engineered technology has the capability to function in various ways to both benefit the world as well as cause harm to the world, and this can entail both humans and the environment.

“Technology: benefit; harm”

Guns: self defense and establishing order; acts of violence

Zyklon B: treating illnesses; the Holocaust

Social media: allowing easy communication between people; political division and bullying

Electricity/energy: power devices and well-used technologies; pollution to environment

Reflection 2

That’s difficult to say. Halting the spread of nuclear weapons after the Trinity Test was likely the ethical thing to do because now, we live in an age where they are widespread among countries, and the advancement of them has created the potential for them to severely harm millions upon millions of people. Nuclear weapons are a vast scientific breakthrough, but the cost of lives and risks far outweigh any benefits they may have. Once technologies are discovered, it’s nearly impossible to undiscover it. Halting the spread of a technology doesn’t ensure its extinction. For all we know, stopping the advancement of nuclear technology could simply delay its progression and allow it to be furthered by malicious intent later. The scientists knew exactly the capabilities of the technology, but they continued developing it because they felt that they had an obligation to the pursuit of knowledge. Maybe they wanted credit for the scientific breakthrough, or maybe they wanted the testing under their supervision to ensure that the research didn’t fall into bad hands. Regardless, their desperate craving for achievement costed many lives and contradicted their moral/ethical obligation to protect people and use technology to benefit humanity rather than destroy it.

Reflection 3

We already know the carnage that nuclear technology has the capability to cause. I’m terrified to think about what people will do with it for political reasons. It isn’t fair to threaten a country with nuclear annihilation if the country has done nothing wrong. I want to say I’m worried about bad people using this technology, but I’m nervous about anyone using it. I can’t think of any good reason to use them besides energy and fighting an alien invasion. I hope that this technology becomes heavily monitored to prevent clueless, uneducated, unempathetic politicians from deploying them on humans when there are other alternatives like smaller levels of military force and diplomacy.

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Reflection 1)

Dual use is the idea of different materials/processes having multiple outcomes or multiple  ways of use. Some possible outcomes can be good and some could be harmful; this is all based on how people decide to use these materials/processes. Some examples given in the video were cars and nuclear technology. Cars can be useful because they get people from point A to point B, but they can also be used in a harmful way. Cars can cause serious injuries or death when someone decides to use vehicles in an irresponsible way. Nuclear power is great for powering large cities, but nuclear technology can also cause death if nuclear technology is used as a bomb. Some more examples include laptops, dams, and pesticides for agricultural use. Laptops can be used to help schools and businesses function, but they can also be used to steal personal information in a situation where personal accounts are hacked. Dams are constructed to store water in cases of extreme drought like conditions, but they also harm the surrounding environment. This is also similar to the pesticides used by farmers; pesticides allow crops to grow healthy, but they can also harm the surrounding fields with no crops.

Reflection 2)

The scientists and engineers in the documentary were programmed to not stop until they were successful. They had very little choice when it came to deciding whether to stop or keep going. The scientist and engineers would have nothing to show for their endless research and sleepless nights. This put the scientist and engineers in a place where morals and ethics were considered when coming to this conclusion; therefore, the mixed emotions that came after bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is proof that the scientist and engineers had morals, but they did not act upon them. Each scientist expressed that they were aware of their beliefs, but they did not think twice about their decisions. Their work is an example of dual use because the scientists wanted their work to be revolutionary in the world of physics; however, it was also used to kill and injure thousands of people. I do believe the world would be vastly different if the spread of nuclear weapons were halted after the Trinity test. People would not have been used as test subjects. People would not have been put in harm's way just to conduct basic research of a weapon. The decision to continue designing nuclear weapons changed the future of the world. There can be regulations put in place, but these regulations will not always ensure the safety of innocent human beings. As the documentary mentioned, more than 1,200 nuclear weapons have been detonated on Earth’s surface. Continuing to work on nuclear technology has given people unreal ideas of power and knowledge. The intent of nuclear warfare was to put an end to any ongoing threat from other nations, but the effect was completely opposite.

Optional Reflection)

The United States had already detonated eight nuclear bombs before other countries even did one. There was a pattern throughout which seemed like each country would wait until another country tested a bomb. After one country tested a bomb, other countries felt like they had to keep up. It seemed more of an ego problem than anything else. The U.S. had to be the country that had the most tests. This could be a possible attempt to prove dominance. It was sad to see America was responsible for more than one thousand of the two thousand bombs that were tested.

Reflection 3)

I am concerned that nuclear technology is getting too advanced and too powerful. It is scary to think a powerful leader could be responsible for taking thousands of lives. The only thing stopping some leaders are the moral beliefs they hold onto. This worries me because we have seen how people of power can easily forget about those morals when they are desperate for more power. I believe the world is at somewhat of a standstill when it comes to nuclear warfare, but this could easily change. All it takes is one little action to start a major war using nuclear technology. The amount of countries that have access to nuclear weapons is surprising. There are many different ways these countries can use their nuclear technology, many of the ways are bad. Many things can go wrong if a person of power chooses to act against their moral beliefs.

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Part 2
(Without realizing it, I was slowly being influenced to use technology in my everyday life because although I don't use my phone or laptop every minute, the fragments of time that I spend can make a huge difference.)

Part 3
(The benefits of a system that detects and classifies faces are that it provides an additional layer of protection to our devices. However, the drawback is that it can still be accessed easily through various methods because, in the past, peripheral scanners had been breached because it could not tell the difference between a peripheral of a real person and a photo of the real person.)

Part 4
(I believe that the 12 lists have mentioned all of the important aspects we need to know about technology. Moreover, I strongly agree with list number 6 because cheap technologies such as soap dispensers can be viewed as discriminating toward the African American communities due to the fact that the sensor does not reflect back when scanned. Thus, further demonstrating the ignorance of the creators of the soap dispenser.)

Part 5
(It is frustrating to see bias in research relating to technology because technology is always changing and evolving. Therefore, it is vital to have researches that are not bais to produce the best result for society and its development.)

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Part 2
Unfortunately, the true idea of social media is hidden to the public eye. We often believe it to be a place to follow old friends or share photos of your vacation. Social media has changed the way the world's population acts. We seemed to have adapted and lost many social skills, even compared to 10-15 years ago. Mental heath has been on the decline and social media often deemed the main reason why.

Part 3
Benefits of a system that detects and classifies faces can be used for security. There has been a racial bias when it comes to sensing the faces. Often, skin with darker tones are not being detected. On the other hand, white faces are sensed with no  problem. There needs to be a way to make a face detecting system that is not bias and reads all tones of skin.

Part 4
I can agree to each of the twelve points. Each of the points are fairly broad, therefore I am able to agree with them. For example, number 7: "There is never just one single genius creator of technology", it talks about technology and how it has not been created by one person. Overall, every tech genius has came together and created their individual design, even if the products are similar.

Part 5
Bias in technology can be very annoying. Tech and other things should not judge its user by what color they are, etc. This could become a greater issue in the future because if the computer knows one's skin color, it might become bias, which is a huge problem. Technology needs to be unbiased because in the end it could hurt others due to their race.

***CADEN YOREK***

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Part 2
Social media has impacted every single person in their everyday lives. It has offered people these superficial means of communication to the point where people shy away and try not to communicate to people physically. I believe it's also heavily influenced how people's brains work, influencing their emotions and how they view themselves versus others, giving both narcissism and self deprecation a major increase in recent years. The trailer went to show how strongly fragmentation and connection with both people online, but also the destruction of groups and people.

Part 3
The benefits of a system like this is very useful for security, but a major drawback is the personal breach of privacy. A second drawback, which we can see in the modern day, a racial bias with facial recognition software. An algorithm or machine cannot be neutral because due to the fact it had to be created by a person or group of people who have a probable chance to have bias.

Part 4
I agree with all 12 pieces of the list without a doubt, but I would say it needs to mention how tech affects someone's mental and emotional health, more on security of tech and info on said tech.

Part 5
It's very disappointing to me on there being a bias even in research, but it does not surprise me at all. Science and tech needs to include all areas of people of all kinds, for lack of better words, which leads to stronger bias and less accurate results.

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Part 2

As a general rule of thumb, I never touch or use social media unless necessary. By doing this I was under the impression I was protecting myself from intrusive methods such as data mining. However, the trailer to “/The Social Dilemma” just proved to me that just using a simple tool like google can invite these intrusive methods without my awareness. It honestly disturbs me that I might’ve formed some of my thoughts and opinions based on what google custom picked for me and not in an unbiased way.

Additionally, I observed the trailer pushing an idea of the connection and fragmentation of our society. It emphasizes how connected we are now through the use of tools like Google, Facebook, and other social media. But it also shows us that we are fragmented because of this fact, using images of people enveloped in their like to dislike ratio.

Part 3

After watching the “Gender Shades” video I was able to make some general conclusions on my stance on AI facial recognition. While I do believe the video brought up valid points like preventing bias from infecting our facial recognition system I also believe it had some weak points. My biggest thought on this technology was that it hasn’t nearly been tested or worked on for long enough. Something as simple as the car has taken us years to perfect and still we debate how to make roads safer. The same argument can be applied here, with further development of AI facial recognition I’m sure bias can be phased out of its development. It’s just too early to conclude that AI facial recognition is biased against women of color.

Part 4

Out of the twelve points listed in the article, I believe that fact number eight doesn’t belong and that something that needed to be addressed instead was how technology can benefit humans. I believe that point eight “Most tech isn’t from startups or starter-ups” should be taken off as it doesn’t contribute to the main point the author is trying to make. I got the feeling the author was listing negatives about technology and the companies behind technology as a warning to the reader. Point eight doesn’t contribute to this narrative because it’s not a negative or bad thing that most technology is produced by professionals instead of un-experienced start-ups. Instead of this point, I believe the author should have stated a reason why technology has the potential to help rather than hurt. Listing some pros to technology rather than all the cons not only makes the author look more creditable but does a better job at informing the reader.

Part 5

Honestly, bias in technology can be very frustrating, we go through life under the assumption that our computers shouldn’t judge us based on the color of our skin. So when something like this does happen it feels like I’ve been cheated out of a basic right, I feel insecure about my future as well. In the future, if algorithms decide if I should get a loan or not and I get denied because of the color of my skin is an absurd and haunting thought. Although, I feel like if we engineer our technologies intending to avoid bias we can avoid a nightmare future inhabited by racist and sexist robots.

# data[].attributes.body
Part 2) One of the concepts the trailer focused on was “data mining,” which is definitely something I’ve noticed with my own use of social media. I have noticed that when I am watching a YouTube video and start typing in the search bar, it will often auto-fill with titles related to the video I am currently watching. This just goes to show how every action you take on a social media platform is monitored, from liking/commenting on something to just hovering over it. I’ve even heard of algorithms that track your mouse movement to try to decipher your interests.

Part 3) It is important that facial recognition AI is able to detect all faces equally because if it doesn’t, that AI will develop a conscious bias towards gender/bias. And when that AI starts being used by the government or other corporations, that bias will be further reinforced in our society. An algorithm cannot be “neutral” because it is always shaped by the training data we provide it with. This is why the facial recognition AI was less accurate at recognizing darker faces; a majority of the faces in the training data were white.

Part 4) I don’t necessarily agree with #3 (“Most people in tech sincerely want to do good”). I think that this might have been true initially, but as companies have found more and more ways to make money off of their users (advertising, collecting/selling their data), their motives have become mostly profit-driven. All too often, functionality of tech is sacrificed at the expense of higher profits (for example: planned obsolescence). The point I most agree with is #12 (“No institution has the power to reign in tech’s abuses”). I think that this is further exacerbated by the fact that most of the media we consume flows through the hands of these tech companies, so they have the power to change the narrative if they see fit.

Part 5) I was surprised to hear that “risk detection software” is actually being used by the US government today. To me, it seems obvious that the software was bound to develop biases, since AI is still such a new technology and we still know so little about it. I think that the main way that AIs develop biases are not through conscious sexism/racism, but rather, simply re-creating the systematic prejudices that exist in our society subconsciously. However, I think that with the increasing importance of AI systems, there is an opportunity to eliminate some of these biases in our society today. If we consciously program these tools to be unbiased and fair, as their influence broadens, it will contribute to a more equal society for everyone.

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Part 2

Social media has become so normalized that it’s a part of everyday life that people neglect to perceive its negative impacts on their lives. I know that I often find myself automatically open social media on instinct without even thinking, and I end up scrolling for minutes and sometimes hours without even questioning it. Social media is a part of my daily routine that takes up too much time and causes much more harm than good with regards to its toll on my mental health and the time it wastes.

The trailer emphasizes connection through the ways people can communicate with others to easily, but it emphasizes fragmentation by showing scenes of angry groups of people wreaking havoc in the streets. These small clips of people protesting shows the divisive nature of social media and how it clumps people into groups and further separates them.

Part 3

Facial recognition is important for security and accurate verification of identity. The drawbacks to this are that lack of representation of minorities in the design of these technologies can lead to racial and gender exclusion and bias. These technologies can also be a violation of privacy, or they could capture incorrect info such as by misgendering or misidentifying someone with a non-conventional gender identity or uncommon ethnicity.

Failure to identify certain faces creates a technology that is biased towards white men which would give them an advantage over minorities. An algorithm cannot be neutral because it is designed by ignorant humans that don’t empathize with future stakeholders and consumers. Giving up my data wouldn’t do much since my information has been all over social media and the internet my whole life. Luckily, these technologies still have room for improvement, so engineers are able to create larger samples of diverse test subjects to ensure inclusivity in the functionality of facial recognition.

Part 4

I agree with all 12. I think something should be included about the influence each of us have on our technological development. We have the power to get companies to change their projects to meet our needs and wants. If we speak up and stand up for what’s right, companies will adjust to our demands. This ties into the failures of facial recognition. People were able to draw attention to the issue and get companies to reevaluate their design processes by speaking up and holding them accountable. I strongly agree with number 11 about how tech is also about fashion. People are stupid and often go with their gut about whether they like the aesthetics of a product rather than the functionality of it.

Part 5

Examples of bias obviously frustrate me and make me question the “goodness” of humanity, but I also must consider that future generations will likely look back at us and think that we were intolerant and biased as well. All a person can do is put forth maximum effort to make a positive influence in the world. If a person doesn’t consider minorities as a part of their design, then they are biased, but they should then use it as a learning experience for future projects. Tech and science should act as catalysts for solving technical issues in the world, and it should be inclusive of all populations affected. Tech and science can create a more just society by reaching out to communities to better understand needs of people. I think it’s very important to truly understand who you’re working for before you assume they need.

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Pt2

I have seen the impact of social media in my everyday life through increased anxiety, depression, and a decrease in confidence. My habits tend to revolve around social media and technology. I find that the last thing I do before I go to bed is turn off my phone and the first thing I do when I wake up is turn it on. I find that I spend hours on social media just aimlessly scrolling instead of doing things that I enjoy, and if I’m doing work or homework, the only thing on my mind is to check my phone and see if anyone has snapped me. While you’d think that with increased platforms to communicate and share things with others online, our connections with other people would increase immensely, what has happened is that there is no real communication happening, and people tend to isolate themselves instead by creating these “fake” appearances. This is causing the fragmentation of people and groups.

Pt 3

Some benefits, if done right, are that it would be useful for security, clubs, police, etc. Some drawbacks are that facial recognition could potentially breach the privacy of individuals, create racial bias, and the lack of regulation on the use of these systems. Some faces are very similar to one another, with similar patterns and bone structures, so it would be easy if not careful to fail to distinguish between 2 people who look very similar or even just have the same skin tone if measures are not taken to fix that issue right away. An algorithm/machine cannot be neutral due to the creation of it. A human must create the algorithm, and the algorithm needs a pattern to work. I think that there are not really any costs of giving up my image or data depending on what it is and who it is going to. The thing about my image is that I am all over the internet anyways and I have been since I was born basically. All of my public information can easily be found via social media. Now other information more sensitive to me such as my debit card information or my passwords, or my social security number are all things that I do not care to share often. The costs of sharing things like that could result in identity fraud and a whole bunch of other things that could happen because of that. If we can create a more just society with research, we can progress and be more inclusive for everyone to enjoy the amazing new technology that is constantly being produced.

Pt4

I don’t think that no institution has the power to rein in tech’s abuses. There are many things that can be done to help with the affects and help to decrease the distribution of tech abuse. I strongly agree with the idea that tech is often built without taking into the account who the users are going to be and how that affects it. I feel that I hear more and more stories of these great inventions that just aren’t even plausible for the intended users to use. I agree that most people in tech really want to do good and sometimes they just don’t realize what the consequences might be. I think one thing that is missing is the idea that tech is ruthless. Like if you post a tweet online that is rude or inappropriate, the internet doesn’t care about you, and it can never be fully erased from the world.

Pt5

I find it pretty sad that bias exists in research as it is supposed to be reliable and more truthful. Science and tech play a role in creating injustice by not being inclusive of all individuals when the technology is implemented or created. Tech and science can use less biased data in order to accurately create things that are inclusive and don’t discriminate against race or gender or differences in general. The goal of tech should be to bring people together and celebrate everyone’s differences.

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Part 2
It was very shocking to see the impacts of social media that they were talking about in the trailer. We often don't even notice how social media is affecting us mentally for good and bad. I think that anxiety and depression has increased because of social media and it is extremely shocking to see that they strategically design social media to subconsciously affect our brains.
I find myself spending too much time on social media. I find myself relying on social media to communicate with my friends when I could just tell them face to face.
This trailer emphasizes fragmentation and connection by showing the people sitting together and all being on their phones. When you are alone you feel connected through social media, but when everyone got together they still were on social media which made them fragmented.
Part 3
Some benefits of facial recognition systems would be to help with criminal activity and ease in technology. Some drawbacks would be someone could hack into the data, your face is associated with your online data, and you could be relying on poor technology.
It is ethically problematic for facial recognition to be discriminating against certain genders and skin tones. This could be a problem because if someone is trying to use face recognition in the airport and it won't recognize their face they could get in trouble or miss their flight.
The algorithm isn't neutral because the test data was done with bias. More faces that were used when developing the facial recognition software was white males.
I think giving up you image and data is dangerous. It makes it easier for bad people to find you or take your identity.
The designers of this facial recognition software have the opportunity to correct the problems they overlooked. They can edit their software to make it better now that Buolamwini's research has been brought to their attention.
Part 4
I think this list had a good variety of thoughts about tech on it. I agree with all of the 12 things listed. I think that the mental effects of tech should be added to the list. Also they should add the cyber security threat that tech provides on the list. I strongly agree the statement that most people in tech sincerely want to do good. I think this is true. I think that people wouldn't knowingly create technology to hurt people.
Part 5
I feel like technology bias isn't talked about as much so I find it very interesting to learn about. I think over time if we keep ignoring biases that we see know those biases will only get worse and worse. Since technology is so prevalent in our lives, an injustice in technology will cause a large injustice in the world. Technology can evenly represent people of all races and genders to help our society become more just. If discrimination is minimized through technology it will greatly help our society become more just.
-Hannah Roberts

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Part 2
I can certainly see that some of the impacts that they were talking about were true. For example, it has been statistically shown that we are becoming more and more polarized and have significantly more extreme ideas on any side of almost all arguments. I am not sure if I agree with the fragmentation that the trailer spoke of because we are certainly connected in a lot of ways. but on the other hand, we are losing some of our most core ways of connection, being physical.

Part 3
One of the benefits I see is heightened security, but aside from face detecting phones, it can be used in places of high security to identify everyone that comes out of the building. This can give a more accurate representation of a suspect so that police are able to identify the culprit with increased efficiency. Some of the drawbacks are effective recognition and misuse. In the previous example, a malfunctioning facial recognition system could lead to police never catching the culprit or worse catching the wrong person. Some of the ethical issues with this tech are that its data can be misused as a false representation of real information.  This can either be purposeful or accidental coming from the unconscious bias of the programmer. Even though this can be minimized with more and more people looking at the code looking for bias the number of people starts running into security issues. The information in the code can easily be misused, so it is a careful balance between minimizing bias and stabilizing security. I am neutral on giving my data because it can be used to give me more interesting and relevant information but also destroys the credibility of a search tool because I can only find things that confirm my own bias. If we use this research to create a more just system then that exponentially increases the accuracy of that tool. which allows access to a myriad of new opportunities.

Part 4
I agree that most everything on that list should be there but I also think that this list should be more extensive and detailed. I think that it should include more info on a subconscious bias that tech will use based on more than what you type into a search bar. Some of the things that I don't believe should be there are in most cases false such as "Tech is often built with surprising ignorance of its users". I believe that this should be removed because most tech companies know the value of user feedback. What I strongly agree with on that list is that most people in tech want to do good because that is the very core of innovation which is creating a better way for a user to do something.

Part 5
I think that A lot of the bias is ridiculous but potentially understandable at the time. I think that this is true because the average thought of a person can change drastically through their own life which means that thought can change enormously throughout history. Science and tech could contribute to injustice through improper calibrations so that it would improperly work with a specific group of people. At this point, I think that it is the creators' error on unconscious bias. Fixing this calibration issue can contribute to injustice because it is significantly more unbiased than any person can be.

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Genetic Engineering
Benefits
- Eliminate specific diseases
- create super humans and extend lifespans
- limit invasive species
Problems
- Loss of ethics/ morality of the decision

Nanotech
Benefits
- Better overall healthcare
- Able to better treat animals as well as mental problems and issues
- potential for new technologies

Problems
- Potential to be weaponized
- Very expensive

Robotics
Benefits
- Increased workplace productivity
- better precision as well as capabilities compared to average man

Problems
- Loss of jobs and competition between companies
- Weaponized technology

Overall i am very optimistic as to what the future could bring. Through the next generation of engineers i feel there will be a greater emphasis to improve technology in a more ethical way and as such look forward to future innovation.

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Part 2) As I was watching the short trailer, I realized that I have almost all of the apps they listed in the video downloaded on my phone. I cannot say I am not affected by this argument nor can I say I know better than someone else. I have had the same Google account since I first got a smartphone (about ten years ago). Looking back at the situation, I now see how Google has influenced my search patterns. I would always click on the first suggestion presented by Google; I would never bother to go past the first page of results. Every suggestion that was at the top of the search results always seemed to fit my thinking. After watching the introduction from Professor Holles and the trailer for “The Social Dilemma”, it is clear Google and other apps/websites have been presenting what I want to see. The trailer expressed the amount of work and money companies like Facebook and Google have put in to ensure they know their users' way of thinking. As Professor Holles explained, this can be a good thing, but it can also be a really bad way of living. Professor Holles talked about the potential voting fraud in major elections and how this could have a negative impact on our society. Putting the introduction and the trailer together, it is worse to have fake news spreading six times faster than factual news. Fake news has already divided the nation by creating a false view on political decisions. The problem is fake news is getting harder to spot, especially for the ones who are on social media most of their day.

Part 3) Some benefits of systems that are able to classify faces include advancements in security, technology, and health care. Some facial recognition programs are able to detect a wanted criminal through security footage and recognize someone who may be on the no fly list. Technology is also depending heavily on new facial recognition programs, while some programs are trying to detect possible characteristics of the face that suggest a possible illness or disease. Some drawbacks to facial recognition is the ability to scan all unique faces. No one looks the same, which means facial recognition is having a hard time recognizing faces from diverse communities. There are problems with detecting female faces and faces that are not white. It seems like the program is almost perfect when a white male’s face is scanned, but as those characteristics start to change, the accuracy starts to decrease. The ethical problem associated with this is darker humans are not being accurately scanned by these programs (especially if they are female). Another ethical problem includes the program only having two possible genders to classify faces by. This limits everyone because genders go beyond male and female. These algorithms cannot be neutral because they have no real emotion. They are limited to what their code forces them to do. For example, most of these codes are written to have the program choose between male and female. A computer cannot look at a face and decide on its own to classify the face as something else. As a consequence of being young and not wanting to read through all legal documents presented from most apps, lots of digital companies probably now have the rights to my face through different pictures. I do not know what they will do with that or if they will ever do anything, but I would suggest to other people to be aware of what you are sharing and agreeing to. The digital society has a lot to learn from Buolamwini’s research. To start, these tech companies need to work on their programs to start including a diverse spectrum of what their innovation can do. The world is not limited to white males, and it never has been. There needs to be a way to open up the options as well as time moves on. This innovation can be life changing, but the engineers need to think about the ethical problems they still face.

Part 4) I would add to the list by saying tech can be manipulated by powerful leaders or companies. We have seen in the past how someone with power can manipulate a website or app to try to gain control or followers. This is true for many tech companies that have apps. I would also add that tech can be used in a good way, but the direction we are currently going in does not embrace good actions as a possibility. There are many ways that technology can and already has changed the world for the better, but there are also technological advancements that have had a negative impact. I agree with tech not being neutral and inevitable. Technology is used in every aspect of our daily lives, we cannot simply abandon it now. Tech is also not neutral, which is why I think number three and twelve should not belong on the list. Most people in tech can be won over by money, which has happened in the past. Many people working with technology can be bought if the price is right. Also, a journalist is not going to stop someone with money and power if they attempt to abuse technology. This is added into the list and makes it seem like a journalist will be able to stop someone who is abusing technological power. It is not that easy, especially if they have a following.

Part 5) The podcast presented an interesting question on self-driving cars and their ability to detect citizens of various races. If there were to be a fault in the program, some people could be at greater risk just because the program does not see everyone the same. The example of the court house’s risk analysis brings an injustice based on race. This program uses past history to judge people on their risk, which has the reputation of creating biased data. As the podcast mentioned, this historic data is not taking personal aspects into account. This creates a situation where people are being judged simply on the color of their skin. I was not surprised to learn about this injustice in court houses. It is reasons like these why the world is the furthest thing from equality. They claimed to be using history, which should not be an excuse. Look at our history as a nation. There is a history of prejudice and inequality. The risk for a non white male in court cannot be viewed based on a broken history. The future of tech/science needs to think about the ethical problems associated with current technology. Those should be addressed and fixed before the world falls back into a place where people are judged and treated differently.

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Genetic Engineering
Benefits
-Limit diseases
-Limit invasive species in crops
-Increase lifespans

Problems
-super humans
-loss of uniqueness and culture
-ethical problem

Nanotechnology
Benefits
-Helps health treatment
-Can treat at a molecular level

Problems
-weaponized
-only wealthy can afford

Robotics
Benefits
-Help technology progress
-Do repetitive tasks instead of humans
-Can work in hazardous environments

Problems
-could lose control of robots
-people will be replaced in jobs
-people could take over the robots

I am overall optimistic about the future. I believe that the technology will help us discover and learn new things as a civilization. I believe that we will be able to experience the great life of easy travel and lots of food. I think that the future in American is very different than the future in other countries however. So that is interesting to think about.
-Hannah Roberts

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Potential benefits:

Genetic engineering

·       Eliminate certain diseases

·       Limit invasive species in ecosystems

·       Increase human lifespan and quality of life

·       “Super humans”

Nanotechnology

·       Increased quality of healthcare

·       Better help animals/pets

·       Better treat mental illness

Robotics

·       Help 3rd world countries overcome biological obstacles

·       Increased workplace efficiency and productivity

Potential problems:

Genetic engineering

·       Only wealthy being able to afford expensive technology, classism

·       Bioterrorism, weaponization

Nanotechnology

·       Wealthier people will be healthier, generate new species

·       Rick and Morty episode 0106

Robotics

·       Companies/countries overworking engineers to compete with others

·       Countries trying to work against one another instead of together

·       Militaries weaponizing technologies

I am nervous about our future, and that’s not to say that I am pessimistic. I am optimistic that the next generation of engineers will effectively work together to tackle problems, but I am scared that some problems may be too far along due to careless people in the past. I believe that everything manages to work out, but at what cost?

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PART 1 & PART 2

*Genetic Engineering*
Benefits
- Overall more fit genetics, making people smarter and more athletic
- People will live longer
- Less diseases at birth

Problems
- Cost
- Could cause moral dilemma between people who agree and disagree with it

Nanotechnology
Benefits
- Diseases can be treated by doctors that might be difficult otherwise

Problems
- Easily weaponized
- Could cause their own diseases
- moral divide

Robotics
Benefits
- Can do thing better than humans
- Can repeat tasks
- Faster than humans
- Could be more precise and in detail than the work of man

Problems
- Cost
- Limited functionality

Overall, I disagree with most, but am ready to see what scientist and engineers create. If it helps cure diseases, I'm all for it, but I feel as if it could be abused.

***CADEN YOREK***

# data[].attributes.body
Part 1
Genetic Engineering
- Aid people in becoming immune to certain diseases
- Humans would be able to produce more foods
- Decrease the cost of food production as our population increases
Nanotechnology
- It could create self-repairing technology
- It will create more jobs in the economy
- It will aid the development of renewable energy technologies
Robotics
- It increases the quality assurance of products in a manufactoring line
- It can be work in hazardous environments
- It can increase productivity of certain jobs

Part 2
Genetic Engineering
- It may cause genetic defects in a newborn child
- It will limit the genetic diversity of the human population and make them vulnerable
- It could potentially create a pathogen that is more resistance than before
Nanotechnology
- It could cause a human to develop a disease
- It can be weaponized easily
- It is expensive and can be extremely costly to further develop and implement
Robotics
- It can cause a job loss in certain economic sectors
- The robots pose a cybersecurity concern to the public
- The robots can potentially harm humans due to malfunctioning

Part 3
As I think about the future, I am more pessimistic about the future because we are currently facing numerous global problems such as global warming, deforestation, pollution, poverty, and many more. However, the development of technology has been too expensive and there has not been any prominent innovation that have solved at least one of the many global issues we are facing today.

# data[].attributes.body
Part 1
Genetic Engineering
-Better overall genetics
-Creates longer life
-Less health issues typically
Nanotech
-Diseases could be treated at the molecular level
-Could be weaponized
-Harder cost wise to access
Robotics
-Life would be easier with robotic life
-Can take over riskier jobs
-Leads to unemployment

Thinking toward the future, I would say I'm more optimistic, but there's certain aspects that I fail to hold that optimism.

# data[].attributes.body
genetic engineering
benefits
-longer life spans
-eliminate genetic diseases
-bigger, faster, stronger, smarter people in general
problems
-if it was expensive(which it probably will) it could create a huge class divide that would be next to impossible to fix
-during the transition phase it would cause a divide between "natural" people and genetically  modified people

Nanotechnology
benefits
-Doctors could treat diseases at the molecular level, so things like hair loss from chemotherapy wouldn't be an issue
problem
-it could be weaponized, like putting it in the water supply for an area, or giving people diseases unknowingly.
-Again, it would cause a divide between people who had access to it and those who didn't

Robotics
benefit
-it would make everyday like easier for a lot of people
-robots could be used for dangerous jobs so it could help keep people safer
-space exploration, rockets wouldn't need to carry food and other supplies out to space so rockets could go further and for cheaper
-production of raw materials and manufacturing would become more efficient
problems
-robots could take up service jobs and lead to unemployment of the masses
-robots could be used to kill people anonymously
-robots could take over

Thinking towards the future...
When I think about the current state of the world and how I think new, life changing, technologies would be implemented, I would say that I'm more pessimistic. I think if something like genetic modification of human genes was possible and socially acceptable, it would be so astronomically expensive that only the .001% of the wealthiest people in the world would be able to afford it. If only rich, powerful people had the advantage it would just further their lead and create social class in its own echelon. It would very literally create a superior species. We would create a would similar to the matrix, however instead of aliens using humans, it would be humans with technology, using the ones without it

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Benefits:

Genetic Engineering

-Increase good genetics

-Create longer life span

-Less problems in health

-Greater species

Nanotechnology

-Technology in places it’s never been

-More work in the brain to improve functions or surgical procedures

-Greater understanding of the molecular level

-Help to improve the overall function and implementation of drugs

Robotics

-Increase efficiency

-Make certain tasks unnecessary- focus on other important tasks

-Creates a more sophisticated by eliminating unspecialized jobs

-Can increase sustainability

-Excites the public

Problems:

Genetic Engineering

-Might harm other species in the process of development

-Longer life span can lead to overpopulation

-Can cause harm to those not genetically modified

-Uplift big businesses and demote local businesses in the food industry

-Genetic modification can cause harm to those around it

Nanotechnology

-Unpredictable technology with chemicals and such

-So small that it’s hard to regulate

-Atomic weapons are dangerous

-Can cause harm to humans certain nanotechnology chemicals are inhaled

-Very very expensive

Robotics

-Takes jobs away from humans

-Makes it hard to find a job without education

-If somehow given “free will” and own thought, could turn against humans

-Robots have to be given direction from humans

-Expensive

-Often break down

-Time consuming to make and design

-Cannot do things they are not designed to do

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Part 1:

Genetic Engineering

We will be able to engineer the plants/animals we use for food to make them more nutritious and efficient.

We might be able to engineer human DNA to eliminate diseases which are passed on genetically.

Nanotechnology

Better nanotechnologies will give us a higher degree of precision when working with microscopic processes in the human body.

This could enable us to do things like perform surgeries we’ve never seen before and get rid of tumors with no side effects.

Robotics

Robots will allow us to automate positions in the workforce, especially those involving manual and/or unskilled labor.

Because of this, we will experience less labor shortages, and more people will have their basic needs met so they can focus on higher education.

Part 2:

Genetic Engineering

If plants/animals are altered too extensively, the “engineered” breeds could take over and wipe out all the “natural” breeds on Earth.

Nanotechnology

With more control over human bodies and genomes, we could reach a point where we break into 2 separate species - those with alterations and those without.

Robotics

If we give robots with AI control over processes which are vital to our survival, we might not be able to trust them to always work in our best interests and not their own.

Part 3: I am probably more pessimistic about the future, since right now I see problems being introduced into our society faster than we can solve them. For example, we are already dealing with many complex problems today: global warming, socio-economic equality, warfare, etc. As new technologies are developed, there will only be more and more problems we will be facing before we can even address the others.

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Part 1

Benefits from the growth of…

Genetic Engineering:

The potential of further human growth through cures for diseases like cancer, HIV, and many other genetic threats to human development.

A guaranteed eradication of congenital disabilities that debilitate people in future stages of life.

Humans can live a happy, healthy life without worrying about obesity, muscle degradation, and other physical restraints.

Nanotech

It can easily be weaponized to ensure world peace. This weaponization draws world powers away from much more destructive forms of weapons, making war less impactful on communities and the environment.

The potential for new and faster technologies can quickly push humans into a more prosperous age known as “the singularity.”

Robotics

A division of labor where advanced robotics can take over all the “grunt” labor that humans are unwilling to do themselves. Robots can take jobs like sewage clean up, manual labor jobs, and more blue collar-type jobs.

When robots take these more manual jobs, it leaves humans able to focus on more progressive careers. Pushing humans to take more productive and progressive jobs that help solve big problems like climate change.

Part 2

Problems from the growth of…

Genetic Engineering:

Pushing development in this area could lead to a sort of class divide between humans. Dividing the race into upper-class superhumans and a lower class of unaltered humans.

The genetic diversity that makes us human in the first place would be at risk of extinction. Leaving human evolution to be changed, no more will natural selection apply variation into our race.

Nanotech

The same weapons that could drive humans away from destructive means like the nuclear option can cause a violent and dangerous age of destruction.

Like genetic engineering, any nanotech involving biological changes would create an eventual class divide akin to the race divides still plaguing America.

Robotics

The most obvious drawback to robotics is robots replacing humans in the workplace. This, while allowing people to pursue other progressive jobs, will take away many jobs that people specialize in, like manual labor or trade jobs.

Potential for humans to not monopolize on the absence of more intensive jobs. Instead of focusing on STEM or the arts with the lack of more “manual” labor, humans could just as quickly sit around while the robots work for them.

Reflection

Overall, I’m very optimistic about our future! As an optimist, I like to see the best in our future. I can ensure this betterment as I am a part of the effort to further technologies while studying genetic engineering at mines. I want to be one of the leaders of our generation pushing to implement genetic changes like the editing of the human genome progressively. Instead of buying into shady companies, I’d like to make my research open to the public in a manner that helps rather than hinder. As long as I have these goals, I know others are out there like me, and with them, we’ll helpfully utilize the technologies.

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Part 1:
List of benefits
Genetic Engineering
This could solve all of our issues with dieses, birth defects, allergies, and more. This would mean that the human life span could theoretically be infinitely long. There would be a society where everybody is perfect and equal in most ways.

Nano tech
Like all thing if given to the right hand they could be taken to new levels. I see nano tech no differently. This has obvious implementations in healthcare, but I think this would be particularly interesting in how smaller nano robots can create larger structures. these robots because of there smaller size can be very accurate, increasing our ability to make more compact structures and decreasing excess weight.

Robotics
I am very partial to robotics because this has been an interest of mine for as long as I can remember. However I do recognize that there is a very real fear surrounding it. I see this as going either one of two way the first is that we will be displaced by robots, and the second is that we will coexist. In any situation I find it unlikely that we will continue to have complete control over them (unless we completely stop development).

Part 2:
List of problems
Genetic Engineering
I think that genetic engineering could be very interesting especially considering what we have already seen in the Covid pandemic. I think that if we develop a way to manipulate genetics to become immune to disease's it could become something that is required for everybody. This would cause a lot of strife because this just took away peoples ability to choose and for the same reason why there is so much trouble around the covid vaccine.

Nano tech
Just as this could be good in the right hands it could also be terrible in the wrong hands. Looking particularly at the medical aspects of it, when you have your bodies health managed by a complex system of machines it could be very easy to send a similar nano robot to go in and destroy the system and no one would know better because that is normal body failure.

Robots
as I mentioned earlier we could be very easily displaced by robots if we don't tread carefully we could end up loosing our jobs and at worse become slaves to our own creation. It is exciting that we are creating a new species but what will we do with ourselves after we have created something that is better us.

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Part 1) List of benefits

Genetic Engineering

Social: Can be used to create inulin for diabetics, there is future hopes of finding ways to create new organisms that help the environment (reduce emissions), genetic engineering has been applied to plants to help with the growth rate of certain crops, used in on animals to create therapeutic solutions for other hurt animals, is also used in the fight against Alzheimer's. All around trying to find the next medical advancements through genetic engineering, which will lead to a longer life expectancy.

Economic: There are many from an agricultural viewpoint, with a faster growth rate more crops means more food, genetic engineered crops help reduce the greenhouse gasses emitted from agriculture, which is a costly problem, new medical advancements can lead to cheaper health care, especially if an effective treatment a disease like Alzheimer's was found through genetic engineering

Cultural: Cultural impacts of genetic engineering has been a hot topic to debate. Some benefits of this would be more food for the rapidly growing population. Food can be considered a scarce commodity for some communities, but this can change that. Another cultural benefit is being able to take care of the people who are sick in our community. Health care is supposed to treat the ones who are sick, which can be done more effectively through genetic engineering.

Nanotechnology

Social: Nanotechnology is improving the fuel consumption of vehicles and power plants, this is leading to less of a dependency on  raw petroleum materials, producing faster technology (faster computers and phones), allowing certain diseases to be diagnosed faster

Economic: More efficient power sources will lead to less pollution (many are spending a lot of money to fight global warming, nanotechnology can help fight this) medical advances can lead to cheaper health care, faster computers will bring more economic dependence on technology

Cultural: Advancements in nanotechnology can make healthcare more accessible, especially if there are new treatments to major diseases. Global warming is a big issue at the moment, but there is no set solution yet. A more efficient power source can help this problem

Robotics

Social: Examples like self driving electric cars could help reduce pollution, which can help slow global warming, more advancements in technology can lead to more discoveries, new technology can also make the life of many way easier, an exponential growth in robotics can lead to better security both individually and nationally

Economic: An advancement in robotics can increase the productivity of many companies which will be beneficial for both the companies and the public, hopefully with new technology, the use of technology can become cheaper (computers, phones, and self driving cars)

Cultural: An exponential growth in robotics means more people will have access to new technology, this would be beneficial for all. New technology creates more ways to communicate/grows connection between different groups of people

Part 2) List of Problems

Genetic Engineering:

Many farmers do not believe genetic engineered crops are okay to consume, this presents a bigger problem of breaking the normalization of protesting genetic engineered crops in rural America, there may also be a push back on genetically engineering a way to produce insulin because it may go against their religion and beliefs. Some believe it is wrong to go against the “natural way” when it comes to medical procedures, which may result in less people using genetic engineered innovations.

Nanotechnology:

Similar to genetic engineering most of the problems associated with nanotechnology stem from public trust. Nanotechnology is a fairly new topic, which means the general public is not really educated on this topic. Some may be hesitant to trust nanotechnology. Also, nanotechnology questions people’s morals and ethics. For example, the question the class talked about after the reading on nanotechnology was would you rather be able to diagnose cancer faster or have a slim possibility of finding the cure to cancer. There could also be protests from major companies arguing that even though a more efficient power source can be found through nanotechnology, it may not be the most productive. Meaning this new power source may not be able to produce a good product.

Robotics:

The problem that is talked about all the time is that robots will become too powerful and will turn against humans. There have been studies that show some robots had to be powered down because they were teaching themselves new ideas through their powerful “brains”. In reality the real list of problems includes getting the older generation up to date with new technological advancements, the jobs that robots in factories and warehouses take from the working public, the accessibility to new technology in rural America and developing countries, the question if robots will have the ability to act with morals and ethics, and the materials needed for producing new robots.

Thinking about the future...
I am more optimistic about the future even after I listed all of the potential problems of future innovations. I believe the world will be able to unite to create the best situation possible; however, change will have to come soon or my optimistic view will change. The path we are on right now will not let new innovations be used correctly. I could see a new robot or form of technology being used in a threat of war. If this can be avoided, I will be optimistic about the future. I believe there are many new innovation coming that could change the world as we know it.

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Trump
fallacies
The first thing that I recognized was ad populum because from what I saw people didn't go there to just see trumps side of things, they had already chosen a side. Trump knew this and played off of it to get the crowd further secured toward his favor.

He then started talking about his opponent using a lot of argumentum ad baculum. He would talk about how if his opponent was elected all of these bad things would happen. This also undermines the goal of his opponent because that is not admitting the benefits of his ideas.

Trump got the crowd very riled up to the point where he could just start attacking his opponent without really talking about his potential policies. This sounds a lot like a straw man fallacy because it give the audience someone to attack.

This has a lot of connections to the paradigms fallacy because it assumes all democrats think this way or that way.

Target:
The target audience was people who already supported Trump as well as people who just cannot afford Biden's taxes.

Emotions:
This rally created a lot of anger through what he was saying about Covid and what might happen if his opponent was elected. But then he also gave it a reason which was the pride of being an American. This was brought up several times with statements similar to "Biden is killing the American dream.

Biden
I found that the fallacies in both of these rallies were nearly identical because lust like the Trump rally the Biden rally argumentum ad baculum. It was stated several times that if Trump gets elected such and so will happen.

Just the same as the Trump rally they started attacking Trump and getting the audience to do just the same.

This also used ad populum because they were talking about how they support certain things that just make sense. But they also talked a lot about not liking Trump which the vast majority of the audience agreed with.

Target:
The target audience for this rally were primarily activists or other people who are willing to fight for what they think is right (but only if the activists align with democrat ideals).

Emotions:
Similar to the Trump rally they installed a lot of anger but instead of fueling it with pride they fueled it with fear of what the out come of Trumps election would be.

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Part 1
Deontology and consequentialism both deal with whether an action is right or wrong in the long run. So if someone thinks deontologically it is not that hard for them to comprehend consequentialist thinking. where they differ is more of what they are directed towards, for example, Deantoligical thinking is based on your actions on others and consequentialism is more determinate on the self (there is still overlap between the two)
Part 2
I would not report him to the authority based on previous knowledge that he would be helping his family which in the end helps me. However, if this is to be used in some sort of unethical way or does not balance out that the sheep was stolen I would report.
Part 3
The Primary difference that makes Confusian Ethics stand out is that it take into account the relationship in between social constructs. for example in the sheep problem I would not report my father because I value that relationship, this would be different if I saw a complete stranger do this in which case I would report them. Using deantological, and consequential thinking I would report any one any time even if they were my father.

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Trump Rally
-The patriotic music in the beginning makes Trump seem like an American hero. This is an example of ad populum fallacy, because it appeals to the viewers emotions.
-Trump used statistical fallacy to talk about how many voters he has in PA. He used this and bandwagon to persuade people that the majority is voting for him.
-Hyperbole was used when he talked about the future with Trump president compared to the future with Biden president. He said that Biden will quadruple taxes which is definitely overexaggerated
-Trump uses a lot of paradigms when he talks about his future plans. He doesn't explain how he is going to do anything. He just says that with him president America will have the most economic growth in history. He doesn't have any facts to back it up. He presents his information as common sense to the audience.
-Slippery Slope is seen when Trump talks about opening up PA. He states one thing leading to another with things getting progressively worse for the American people if Biden is in office.
Biden Rally
-Paradigms are used when talking about Trump and current leaders that "tear America apart" statements like this are made without any facts to back it up.
-They appeal to ethos by talking more about personal stories to relate with the audience than their plans for the country. The speaker talks about when she was diagnosed with cancer this is similar to false analogy because it has nothing to do with Joe Biden and how he plans on helping the country.
-Overgeneralization is seen when she says that all Republicans in congress are working to take away health care. This cannot be true because not every single Republican in congress is against health care.
-She uses ad populum by talking about the pandemic and access to health care to appeal to the voters emotions. She makes it sound like President Trump wanted to make people not have access to health care.
Overall
1. Both arguments use ad populum to appeal to the voters emotions. By appealing to voters emotions they are hoping to make a connection and win their votes. Also they both used hyperbole when they overexaggerated. They dramatized the bad things the other party does and made it sound like they were the hero America needs.

2. The audience is potential voters. Also the audience is usually people that already support their party. This means that their messaging can be more rhetoric and aggressive, because their audience already supports them. They can hyperbolize and appeal to emotions and the crowd loves it because they fully support them already.

3. They are trying to appeal to emotions of guilt when talking about people who don't have health care. They appeal to hope by talking about how much better America will be once they are in office. They appeal to these emotions to help convince the voters to vote for them. By appealing to emotions voters are more easily persuaded.
-Hannah Roberts

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Trump Rally
- The music in the beginning resembles ad populum due to its emotional appeal to the audience. It is played as the intro tune to create a patriotic mood around Trump as he begins his speech.

- Trump says that "they will get rid of your clean coal". This

- When Trump talks about COVID, stacking the deck is used because he uses sources that back up his view on the virus and how it should be dealt with. An example being states opening up or  being on lockdown.

- "Biden will quadruple taxes." This overexaggerated hyperbole used by Trump is used to tell the crowd to vote for him because taxes will not be raised. I don't think that taxes will be raised up to 400%

Biden Rally
- False Dichotomy is seen when the second lady says that if you aren't for Biden, then you aren't wanting change in society.

- Considering that the overall point of Biden is to rally for the presidency, him talking about the museum and marriage proposals are red herrings. It sidetracks the audience. Biden also appeals to their emotions by talking about the crowd's museum as being beautiful. This could be seen as ad populum.

- When Biden calls out the people of Cincinnati and Ohio, he says they will have great opportunities and will become successful if he gets voted in. I see this as opinion masquerading as fact since he disguises the lack of evidence though feelings and opinions.

Discussion
Most people at each of the rallies are hardcore believers in their candidate. Often they are one-sided and completely disagree with the other side. They aren't open minded.

Trump always has a very loud and energetic rally compared to Biden's slow and quiet. They use two different tactics to speak their rally messages.

Both candidates tried to use tactics to put down the other candidate by saying that the other would not be fit for the job.

***CADEN YOREK***

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Trump Rally

The beginning plays some patriotic music using the ad populum fallacy, appealing to the crowd's emotions.

I don't know if the statistics are correct, but there is a strong chance Trump is using a statistical fallacy when talking about how many Pennsylvanians would vote for him.

Many promises and facts, such as "next year will be the greatest economic year in our country," are opinions masquerading as fact. There is absolutely no way to prove the economic strength a year from now, it's just an opinion.

Slippery slope is being demonstrated when Trump talks about opening Pennsylvania back up to the public. He starts by talking about a new governor then goes into how if they don't replace the current system in Pennsylvania, the people's taxes will go up and wages down.

Biden Rally

Biden keeps sneaking in compliments about Ohio and its people to seem more appealing to the general public listening, demonstrating ad populum.

In order to keep the crowd engaged, Biden takes minor detours from the topic at hand to talk about touching personal stories like his experience as a football player, appealing to the crowd's emotions via ad populum, taking a non sequitur as a distraction from the main topic.

Observations

Honestly, it was pretty disappointing watching both rallies. The central fallacies surrounding each rally include ad populum, hasty generalization, and opinion masquerading as fact. I was disappointed that in order to gain support, politicians have stopped relying on facts, evidence, and science and instead aim to appeal to supporters through emotional hype and one-sided opinions.

For both Biden and Trump, they must try and appeal to the whole American public. They achieve this by making more boring topics such as politics more entertaining by appealing to emotion or telling personal stories.

Both rallies seemed to try to elicit two very different emotions. Trump's rally was more energetic and tried to convey a sense of urgency in the American people to keep our current administration to encourage economic prosperity. Biden's rally, however, was a starch contrast of this. It seemed more calming and civilized, encouraging Americans that our current administration needs a change to bring a more civilized approach to economics.

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Part 1

I'd have to say that deontology and consequentialism both have a significant hand in how I treat myself and carry my actions. For example, if hanging out with friends will hinder me from studying for a big exam, I'd avoid hanging out with them. My thought process here looks at the consequences of being a part of the group and the rights and wrongs of participating. I see the result of going as potentially failing a big exam, thus endangering my academics. And I check off a list of rights and wrongs based on what my friends have planned. If it were a party involving alcohol, that would immediately break one of my personal checks. This way of thinking I found also affects my loved ones and family. When planning hangouts with my girlfriend, it's very interesting that I'll be motivated to finish my homework and tasks as soon as possible so I can thus see her as fast as possible. This way of consequences and a series of rules dictating my decisions is definitely an intriguing take.

Part 2

When finding out my father might've stolen a sheep, my gut response is to seek more information. I wouldn't report him immediately because what if my family needs that sheep to keep on living? What if he stole the sheep because it could've harmed those around it? What if he stole it out of spite? These questions and answers would guide my decision-making, much like deontological thinking. Positive responses to my questions would lead to me deciding not to report my father. In contrast, negative answers would influence me towards reporting him.

Part 3

Confucianism is a very wide-spanning ethical thought process where deontology and consequentialism seem more narrow-minded in comparison. Confucianism encourages one to consider four main principles respect for autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice. Confucianism covers all aspects of ethical thought and encourages out-of-the-box thinking with each tenant. In comparison, this makes deontology and consequentialism seem very narrow-minded. As the beliefs only consider the consequences of a set of actions and not the actual morality of each action.

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Trump Rally

·       Patriotic music at beginning to appeal to nationalist population

·       Use of “we” to include audience and make them feel important and valued

·       Parallel structure of sentences with rhythm of short, choppy phrases

·       Statistical fallacy, misrepresentation of COVID trends

·       Stacking the deck

·       Opinion masquerading as fact

·       Circular reasoning, Ad Ignorantiam: “COVID will be eradicated next year as long as I am voted back in.”

·       Slippery slope:

o   “If Biden is elected, there will be a depression.”

o   “He’s going to quadruple your taxes.”

·       Straw man: “We want to kill the virus; Biden wants to kill the American Dream.”

·       Argumentum ad Baculum: “These terrible things will happen if I’m not voted back in.”

·       Ad Hominem: “Sleepy Joe”

·       Bandwagon: “You can hear how big these crowds are.” “Biggest crowds anyone has ever seen.”

·       Paradigm: “Democrats hate fracking, love to tax, hate coal, etc.”

·       False dichotomy: “Only by voting for me can you save your fracking.”

·       Ad Hominem: “Radical left”

Trump is very aggressive towards opposing viewpoints and makes many assertions about the future that either are not true or cannot be proven to be true.

Biden Rally

·       Ad Hominem: “President Trump divides us and tears us apart.”

·       Ad Populum: (Cancer story to encourage affordable healthcare)

·       Paradigm: “Republicans are repeatedly working to take away access to healthcare.”

·       Slippery slope: “This election is about the future of our country and the future of our democracy.”

·       Argumentum ad Baculum: “There is so much at stake this year for our families and businesses.”

·       Straw man: “All Donald Trump cares about is the stock market and refused to follow science.”

Biden goes on many irrelevant tangents and appeals to the audience’s emotion through stories about his family and his life.

Discussion:

Their audiences are likely people that already agree with them. Those who show up to the rallies are likely supporters, and people who watch it online either support them, are political moderates, or are watching it to complete an NHV assignment. Their rhetoric is aimed to inspire and excite the audience instead of persuading and informing.

They are trying to illicit patriotism, hope, fear, and anger. The rallies are meant more to get the people excited about the candidate then angry and turn on the other side. These speeches aren’t meant to persuade people of opposing sides; instead, they are making supporters excited and passionate about the candidate’s work.

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Part 1

Deontology in the way that it is being presented in the video is the idea that ethics take precedent during the analysis of the problem. Someone who thinks deontologically will consider whether the act is morally right or wrong without considering other factors whereas consequentialism will value the consequences of the act.  They are similar in the sense that they can both be used to satisfy the ethics of a group. However, while they both try and satisfy a group, deontological decisions emphasize the ethics of a universalized setting that in theory should satisfy everyone.

Part 2

I think the first thing that I would consider would be the reasoning behind the father's actions. For myself personally, I don't think that I would turn my own father in but I feel that depending on the reasoning, It could damage our relationship or trust.

Part 3

The large difference that stands out to me between Confucianism and both deontology and consequentialism is that Confucianism aims to serve the individual and cater to the believer's individual values and relationships where the other two ideologies cater to the mass and are also much more universalized than Confucianism. Overall, I feel that Confucianism tends to be more of throughout ideology that applies other techniques such as empathy and relationship to justify decisions and define status.

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1.) The two speeches at the presidential rallies were completely opposite. They had two very different ways for conveying their message to their supporters. President Trump’s strategy seemed to be more forceful in his speech. He was using hyperbole phrases when he was arguing against President Biden. He would over exaggerate his claims on President Biden. This supported his goal to try to persuade voters away from President Biden. President Biden’s speech focused more on logic rather than degrading President Trump. Biden used metaphors and analogies to compare a personal story of his to the ongoing problems in the nation. His goal was to connect with as many voters as possible. Looking over the rhetorical strategies given in the textbook, President Trump focused more on pathos and President Biden had more focus on a logos argument.

2.) President Trump’s audience consists more of argumentative Americans. This audience wants to get things done as soon as possible as long as they think America is benefiting. This can be seen at President Trump’s rally though all of the merch that the crowd was wearing. The crowd was more outspoken and cared about being heard through cheers and applause. This rally seemed more like a sporting event instead of a presidential rally. President Trump was well aware of his audience; President Trump would flow with the audience. He started to attack President Biden more as the crowd got more into it. President Biden’s audience consisted of more Americans who were more aware of the ongoing issues in America. Most of his audience had higher education, which can be seen in his style of arguments. President Biden used a more technical and formal argument. With this, President Biden attacked President Trump with logical examples.

3.) President Trump was more aggressive than President Biden. One could tell that President Trump was trying to provoke President Biden by using terms like “sleepy Joe”. President Trump fed off of his audience’s reaction and kept attacking the Biden party. There was even a promotion video presented at the Trump Rally. This attacked President Biden in many ways. President Biden was trying to argue President Trump with factual evidence. The nation knows that President Trump is known for going against statements backed by research unless it supports his claims. President Biden used this in his argument by stating statistics that occurred during President Trump’s term. President Biden was trying to call out President Trump with statistics.

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Part 1

Deontology is focused on the action itself, whereas consequentialism is focused on the outcome of the action. These philosophies are similar in that others are treated equally and held to the same degree, loved one or stranger.  Both are valid, and people treat themselves differently due to the different values that each of these philosophies hold.

Part 2

I would first consider the reasons why he did it. I would also consider his track record: has he done this before? Next, I would evaluate the people he’s affecting in doing so. Obviously, each situation is different from the next, but without given more information, I would likely cover for him because I trust my dad and would like to think that he did it for a good reason. I would see it as betrayal if I told on him without hearing him out.

Part 3

Confucian ethics seems much more flexible than consequentialism and deontology. Yes, there are obviously ethical and unethical actions, but relationships and circumstances are considered when evaluating them. Confucian ethics emphasizes observation and empathy. One must understand how the world works and why people act the way they do before an action is judged properly.

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1.

In Trump’s rally, there are a lot of ironic and sarcastic comments made in order to degrade and create an unjust image of his opponent. This supports the argument that Trump thinks that Joe Biden is completely unfit for the position and makes the democratic party look “silly” in front of the audience he’s presenting to. The style for both of these are pretty informal with the Biden rally being more informal than the Trump rally. This is seen with the emphasis on creating a relatable platform for the democratic party to appease the people.

2.

The Trump rally is geared towards the middle class, the farmers, the manual laborers, the well off, and overall patriotic people. Trump expresses his concerns with the democratic endeavors and relates it directly to taxes which none of these people want to pay for. He includes direct jabs at Joe Biden, calling him “Sleepy Joe” for humorous effect. The audience enjoys this because they are such hard core Trump fans. This rally includes a lot more background noise and most Trump rallies I’ve seen include the fans in the back with all of their MAGA gear and american flag themed apparel. In the Biden rally, the first part of it entails working women that create relatable or empathizing stories to create a sense or urgency and passion associated with the election of the next president. The speakers convey a solemn and stern message to the crowd of also middle class, but more so everyday working class citizens and the rich. This tone sets the mood to help increase the urgency and create the sense of hatred for Trump and what he stands for. In the rally they straight up say that Trump has ruined our country since he’s been in office. The theme I saw was the most prominent throughout the rally was the idea of unity. The democratic party wants to instill the idea of unity into everyone’s brain because it appeals to the majority. The idea of everyone working together to fight for the greater good makes people feel good about themselves and persuades them to lean more towards Biden.

3.

In the Trump rally, he is trying to elicit excitement for the traditional American beliefs as well as throw in some fear with the word “socialism.” Trump’s rally overall carried a calm, cool, and collected aura that he was trying to instill across the audience while trying to appeal to them. The Biden rally provided an almost sad and eerie vibe that created urgency as well. The words and tone of voice created the feeling of anger and resentment towards the Trump administration.

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Part 1
Both deontology and consequentialism are similar in a way that they both attempt to maximize the happiness of an individual and the group of people related to that specific person based on a set of moral principles. For instance, deontology ethics places importance on a universalized ethical principles, whereas consequentialism focused more on ethical rules established by a majority. Moreover, both of these ethical ideas use such sets of principles to decide on if an action is moral or not.

Part 2
Similar to the majority of the people, if my father steals a sheep, I will cover for him rather than reporting him. It is because I am confident that he will only commit such acts during a desperate time because in our society, not everyone lives in an equal environment. Thus the sheep that my father stole could have helped my family immensely by aiding us in having food to eat, while the owner of the ship would not be harmed greatly as the act is not directly imposed on him/her and he/she would still have sheep to tend to in the future.

Part 3
Confucian ethics is different from consequentialism and deontology in a way that it places great importance on the relationship between individuals to make an ethical decision. Whereas, the previously mentioned two ethical ideas focus more on the the action itself committed by an individual and the moral consequences while abandoning the context in which the ethical decision is being carried out.

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Part 1
Deontology and Consequentialism both focus on the outcome of the action, not always the rationale that lead to the action itself. Both are looking toward the end goal in order to determine what the right thing to do is based on the greatest good.
Part 2
Most people, including myself, would likely cover for the father. I think part of the reason for that is even though his actions were wrong on the surface, you are more likely to understand and sympathize with his rationale for what he did vs. some stranger.
Part 3
Confucian ethics are unique because a lot of the value a person has is a result of his or her station in society. As a result, confucianism values some over others blatantly, but the other philosophies do not generallly tolerate that kind of classist behavior.

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Part 1
Deontology and Consequentialism both have similar views when it comes to the universal good to you and those around you. Deontological principles means to treat everyone including you as someone who holds some sort of special value, while consequentialism says no one is above anyone else when it comes to happiness.

Part 2
I would definitely cover for him, regardless of what happened because he's my family. Because of who he is, and how he thinks, I know it would be for a good, ethical reason. Reporting him to the authorities would be harming him, my family, and me myself, and that just doesn't make sense.

Part 3
Confucian ethics are different from deontology and consequentialism because it focuses more on treating people with certain contexts, as in basis of relation to each person. The other two, as mentioned in part one, they are more focused towards treating everyone equally. Confucian ethics also take time to create this relationship and the build up to ethical decision making, while deontology and consequentialism feel like you're supposed to be able to provide an ethical solution immediately, regardless of the situation and relationship of those involved.

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Pt 1

Deontology and Consequentialism both want to benefit the majority. So when treating oneself, both ideologies say you should be treating yourself in a way that helps others as well. To those you love and to strangers, you are treating them in a way that is beneficial to others. Both of these ideologies are not based on who the person is to you, but who the person is to society. Therefore it doesn’t matter if the person is someone you love or simply a stranger. The difference is the way you do this. In deontology, you are treating people with broad principles that benefit society in a semi-prejudice manner, while consequentialism is what exactly makes the greatest number of people benefit with the idea of consequences in mind.

Pt 2

If this happened to me I would try to cover for my father, no matter what because he is my family and I think that the reason he would be stealing the sheep would be to feed his family or maybe get some wool to make a blanket or something useful. It’s not right that he just took the sheep but I feel like I would simply trust what my dad does and support him. If it was some other person outside of my family and friends, I don’t think I would be so inclined to cover for them.

Pt 6

Confucian ethics follows the guidelines of an individual’s values and beliefs. Making decisions in line with Confucian ethics depends on the person and who they find valuable and how they want to benefit themselves and the people they care about, whereas consequentialism and deontology are more focused on the community or the majority. Confucian ethics depends on each individual person whereas the other 2 ideologies would be constant for each person as long as the majority benefits the same.

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Part 1) Deontology and consequentialism both have similar viewpoints when it comes to you and people around you. These viewpoints have different components to them, but the two are overall similar. Deontology suggests actions that fall into universal principles. For example, deontology suggests treating people as ends not as means. This would be treating everyone and yourself as someone who holds a special value. This is similar to a consequentialism view on seeing everyone’s interests as equal. Consequentialism holds no one above anyone when it comes to happiness. This idea tries to bring the greatest good or happiness to the greatest number of people. In the end, both have an overall idea of treating yourself, those you love, and strangers as equals. Everyone should have an equal opportunity to pursue happiness in both major ethic groups.

Part 2) I would cover for my father after finding out he had taken the sheep because I have been taught to listen and not go against my parents. My family and people in my community have this same view on this situation because we have all learned from church that one shall not disobey their parents; however, in this situation I would quickly try to get a better understanding of the situation. I would ask my father his reasoning for taking the sheep and ask him who he thinks he hurt carrying out the act. He could have a justified reason for taking the sheep. I would not simply cover for him and let life go on as normal. After getting a better understanding of the situation, I would hopefully try to reason with my father to make sure he was making the right decision. I would also make sure to keep the people affected by his decision in mind and not let the family relationship block this. They have the right to justice even if it is my own father.

Part 3) Confucian ethics is different from consequentialism and deontology because of two main pillars that Confucian ethics stands on- context and relationships can justify treating some differently. Confucian ethics promotes the idea of taking care of the ones close to us. For example, the relationships we have with our parents will cause us to treat our parents differently compared to our coworkers. Dr. Zhu presented the idea that people talk to their parents differently than how they would talk to coworkers because people have different responsibilities in different relationships. It was also interesting to hear Dr. Zhu compares his daughter to his students. This created a perfect representation of the differences between Confucian ethics and the idea of treating everyone as equals. Love and care have different distinctions based on relationships. As Dr. Zhu stated, the difference in love and care does not mean strangers do not matter, it means that some matter more than others like family. Context of the situation can also create an instance where people are not treated as equals. The sheep example could be a good representation of this. If my father took the sheep because he witnessed them being mistreated, then my father could be justified in a way. All of this can result in a situation that is not supported by consequentialism and deontology.

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Part 1) Deontology and Utilitarianism both ask that you put yourself under a “veil of ignorance,” and treat EVERYONE with the same judgement. You should not value yourself, your loved ones, or strangers differently; everyone is equally valuable. Both of these philosophies ask you to ignore your “moral spheres” so your decisions are not biased based on who they are applied to.

Part 2) Realistically, I would definitely cover for him. If I reported him to the authorities, that would damage my own life in ways I would want to avoid; our family might be fined, and my relationship with my father would be hurt. Under Deontology and Utilitarianism, I don’t think this would be justifiable, but under Confucianism, it would be.

Part 6) Confucianism is different from Deontology/Utilitarianism in that it justifies treating people differently based on their relation to you. It asks you to value those who are close to you (family, friends) above strangers. It is also different in that it treats morality as a process of learning. Whereas Deontology and Utilitarianism imply that you can start making moral decisions immediately, Confucianism understands that it will take a lengthy process of observation, reflection, and practice to become a “junzi.”

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They both have the same end goal of doing universal good. They both believe that you should do what is good for the greater good. They both say that you should treat yourself, those you love, and strangers with love and by doing the right thing for all. Also they agree that you should consider all people equally when considering happiness.

I would cover for my father. I would approach him about him stealing the sheep and learn why he did what he did. Then I would help him try to solve the problem without getting into legal trouble. I would do this because he is my father and I should try to do what I can to help my family. I have been taught to look out for my loved ones so I wouldn't turn him in to the authorities.

Confucian ethics uses a lot of critical reflection in its daily life. They believe that using reflection will help you see where you can improve in your ethics. In Confucianism, they recommend to observe people and examine what they are doing, then think about what their motive is and how that applies to your life. Confucian ethics incorporates a lot more observing and reflecting than consequentialism and deontology. Consequentialism and deontology sees ethics as more black and white than Confucianism. They believe that a deed is either right or wrong and it is either good or bad for the greater good. This is different from Confucianism because Confucianism is more based on observation and opinion if the deed is good or bad.
-Hannah Roberts

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Part 1:
Is human control over the environment likely to be a lasting feature of our existence, or a brief exception?
(As of today, the human control over the environment has been a brief exception because Anthropocene has only occurred in the last few centuries. However, in the future, I believe that as humans continue to utilize natural resources to improve our quality of life, the control over the environment will come a lasting feature since humans will be utilizing the resources presented by the nature until it is exhausted.)

Part 2:
Do you favor a conservationist or preservationist approach to human interactions with the environment?

(I prefer the preservationist approach more because conservationist approach tends to place human enjoyment above the protection of natural resources, thus it does not completely protect the nature from being used up by humans. Also, as nature require diversity to continue to exist, preservationist approach is the best choice because it attempts to leave the environment as it is without any changes. Nonetheless, we still faces the issue of nature extinction, but I believe that we can find a solution if we try to look for one in the future.)

Part 3:
What are the best means of ensuring environmental justice for all human communities?
(I believe that in order to ensure environmental justice for all human communities, it is important to look at how different group of people uses natural resources without exhausting it before making it exclusive. It is because sometimes the act of making a natural resource exclusive can be harmful as these resources will become unaccessible for the indigenous groups who have been using it for centuries.)

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Part 1:
I think that the “Anthropocene” will be a lasting feature of our existence, rather than an exception. With the constant development of technology, it is inevitable that we will continue to possess more and more control over the environment. However, I do think that humans will have to change the ways we interact with nature soon. We will have to switch from exploiting nature, like we do today, to finding a way to coexist with nature peacefully. If we do not, we will destroy all our nature and there will be nothing left to control. So we need to find a way to revitalize nature in our society soon.

Part 2:
I prefer a conservationist approach over a preservationist approach. I think that as humans develop more technologies, it is simply inevitable that we will gain more and more control over the environment. However, I do not agree with the way that conservatism was applied in the Hetch Hetchy case. I think we need to recognize that sometimes, to solve problems that involve the environment we actually need to focus on humans instead; specifically, the unsustainable expansion of our communities. We need to scale back on our expansion if we want to build a sustainable relationship with nature. Otherwise, it will be impossible.

Part 3:
I think that when we look at problems involving environmental justice, they are usually caused by large-scale movements or initiatives being applied to places with small-scale natural processes. So I think that we should regulate environmental policies on the small-scale rather than the large-scale. That way, local communities can continue to use nature in the ways that are best for them, and if they use nature in a self-contained way, they will not be harming other local communities. This approach is unique I think, because it is not strictly conservationism or preservationism; it is something new altogether.

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Part 1:
Land of Cockagine:
- Mythical land from the middle ages that was filled with luxury, like endless food, no need for work. Viewed as the perfect place.

Biological Old Regime:
- The opposite of the Land of Cockagine, constant labor, food hard to come by, struggle to live.

Anthropocene:
-Concept of human domination and control of the Earth, more seen as modern day, improved life, but harm to Earth and environment.

Part 2
Hetch Hetchy:
- A valley and reservoir in California that was taken by the government in 1913, this valley was a place of beauty, then turned into a dam of water.
Conservationism
-Idea of protecting areas of land due to land beauty and natural resources.
Eco-Modernism
-Concept where humankind should be protecting nature at the highest priority.
Forest Death
-Forests were depleted, despite acts of conservationism.
Preservationism
- An area where the Earth is not touched, but can be visited by, humans.
Island Effect
-Island ecosystems have members that change based on what surrounds it.
Half Earth
- The concept where nature is preserved in certain areas, free of human touch.
I would say I favor a preservationism aspect, based on my experiences around already existing land conservation acts and how little they actually work.
Part 3
Hide Hunters
-People who hunted bison hides to sell on the markets helping lead to the near extinction of bison in the 1800s.
Environmental Justice:
- Interactions with nature impacts groups of people in other ways depending on how those groups get the resources.
Slow Violence:
- The consequences of one sided relationships with the environment.
Fortress Conservation:
- The barriers the limit human interactions with environments that are at risk.

Personally I think the best means of ensuring environmental justice to all human communities is to force those who plan to use certain resources to sit and think about who and what all gets affected, not just other humans, and act around that.

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Pt1

-Land of Cockaigne: Mythical world that was created in the middle ages and used over and over, century after century: had easily accessible foods, no work, everyone was equal and lazy, no conflict, perpetual peace

- Biological Old Regime: The opposite of the conditions of the land of cockaigne, how the vast majority of people live, food hard to find, people separated and classed, hard to survive through famine, constant back breaking labor in order to live

Anthropocene: New term for the biological old regime, how humans have captured new forms of basic resources, taken control of nature for personal benefit, domesticated animals and plants to give humans control, a recent development in relation to the old regime

I feel that human control over the environment will be a brief exception. One of two things are bound to happen, the resources of earth will be used up and there will be no more environment to manipulate, or other animals will begin to take over. For example: The Planet of the Apes. The way we live now as humans may be fine for now and for hundreds of years after us, but eventually our resources will run dry and we will overpopulate the earth.

Pt2

-Hetch Hetchy: A valley in northern california, was a beautiful tourist destination, area was then held for public use, recreational use, and other touristy things, conservation act, valley provided water to burnt down city for human interest

-Conservationism: The preservation of an area for human recreational use to prohibit other harmful activities or “destruction”, human interest is the highest priority

-Eco-Modernism: Science and engineering can help to create positives for the environment, the Anthropocene produces an unnatural world

-Forest Death: Forests were conserved but only the species that humans could use, conservation failed to protect the forests, large scale intervention produces consequences

-Preservationism: An area where the earth is not destructed by humans, humans may visit but cannot stay

-Island Effect- Island ecosystems have smaller organisms and areas, the natural areas left in the main chunk of the us are small, just like on islands

-Half Earth- logic of preservationist, significant portion of the planet needs to be set aside to preserve nature, eliminating human impact in key areas of the natural world, only way to protect ecosystems , half of the planet could be saved

I favor preservation as opposed to conservation due to the fact that we have already used up an enormous amount of the resources on earth and have altered some amazing natural scenery. To preserve rather than conserve is to avoid leaving the land to human benefit. Hetch Hetchy Valley should still be a site to see today.

Pt3

-Hide Hunters: Group that obtained bison hides to sell to the markets and aided in the near extinction of bison in the 1800s. Military encouraged hide hunters to degrade and destroy Native American way of life.

-Environmental Justice: Interactions with nature impacts different groups in different ways depending on how they are distributing the resources

-Slow Violence: The negative consequences of unequal environmental relationships, devastating to communities over time

-Fortress Conservation: The creation of barriers that limit human interactions with at risk environments

Humans have had a very negative impact on the environment, not only affecting the animals and plants, but other humans that use the environment differently. The best means of ensuring environmental justice is to think before you act and realize what you do with the environment will impact hundreds of different species. The preservation of land is a great starting point, but keeping it all equal for everyone is hard. I think the best way to prevent this from happening is to take out the greed in individual companies who take more than they need. And by doing this they take from others.

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Pt1.

I believe that in the grand scheme of things our control over nature is brief because we will either fail and our society will disappear or we will learn and give up control and live in a more balanced state. It will be a balance between our need to fight for all of our resources like in the Biological Old Regime and our desire to reach such resources similar to that of the Land of Cockaigne. We want to reach this level of utopia but even after we have captured much of earth’s power in the Anthropocene we have discovered that it is unsustainable.

Pt2.

I favor preservationism because I believe that nature has more value than just what we are able to use it for. As opposed to Conservationism which can be good but still have negative outside effects on the environment. The primary difference between these two is how they are valued, in preservationism nature itself is valued but in conservationism, it is nature’s use to humankind that is valued. As such it can be justified to destroy the most beautiful places such as Hetch Hetchy and Glen Canyon. Some people see this as a travesty and some others see this as a good approach to eco-modernism because we are artificially modifying to deceased the effects of natural disasters. This creates a more controlled and safer environment for humans to live in. But how can natural elements thrive in a world like this, there are at least two ways to think about this which are preservationism and conservationism. If we use conservationism we only need to look back as far as the old German forests to see the consequences. Because this mindset values human use on nature we could end up destroying the environment. Because we are favoring certain species that humans can use over the ones the humans can’t which results in a Forest Death scenario. Inversely if we use preservationist ideas it would create an island effect which is creating a micro world for animals to live in. This obviously is not ideal because most animals depend on large migration routes which if we were to evade these area’s creates the Half-Earth idea. Where we can use half of the earth to set aside just for animals to live unaffected.

Pt3.

I believe that the best way to achieve environmental justice is to minimize our impacts as much as possible and only take what we need to be happy no more no less. This belief is at extreme odds with the hide hunters who were people that harvested as many buffalo hides as possible to generate income. This contrast between beliefs shows the concept of slow violence that shows the consequences of vastly different values of the environment. These consequences, however, are not always initially evident and take time to show up or have a noticeable effect. These are particularly devastating for the lower side of these effects. This can be limited by fortress conservation which would put up walls around dangerous areas. This could also create an island effect for example when the U.S. Calvary guarded Yellowstone they also blocked the native population from entering Yellowstone creating population imbalances.

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Part 1

The Land of Cockaigne was a utopian land of luxury filled with endless food and pleasures. This is a fictional place in the middle ages. Many famous stories and paintings depict what happens in this land. This land is seen as the perfect place to live in since it is what would happen without evil.

The Biological Old Regime is known as the time before anyone had access to fossil fuels, etc. It was a place where people struggled to  live since they had trouble gathering food and other necessary things in life.

Anthropocene is the concept that Earth has fell into a human domination in the planetary world. These acts may improve life on earth, but at the same time it will hurt the nature around (climate, etc.).

Part 2

Hetch Hetchy -

A valley and reservoir in California which was overtaken by the government in 1913. Once a beautiful valley, it became dammed up and now filled with water.

Conservationism

The idea of protecting an area due to its natural resources and beauty. One who believes in conserving things that come from nature(resources, etc.)

Eco-Modernism

Humans should protect nature at all costs and improve human wellness by developing technology.

Forest Death

Forests suddenly dying off and the diversity of the trees declined due to natural occurrences.

Preservationism

One who believes in preserving an area due to its beauty, resources, and thinks visitors should not be allowed to visit. The idea that it should stay untouched.

Island Effect

Members of an ecosystem become smaller or bigger depending on what surrounds it.

Half Earth

Idea of preserving nature by keeping certain areas of the world safe from humans. This will allow nature to do its thing without humans in the picture.

Part 3

Hide Hunters

People hunting bison to capture their hides for money. They would sell them in markets. This created a rapid decline in the bison population.

Environmental Justice

The fair treatment of all people regardless of race, gender, etc. with the respect to environmental issues and topics.

Slow Violence

Slowing growing over time, this is the consequences of unequal interaction in the environment between groups of people.

Fortress Conservation

Banning hunting and carrying out the ban by using force to prevent any type of animal killing.

***CADEN YOREK***

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Part 1

Even though the idea of human control over nature is relatively new, I believe that it will be a long-lasting trend in our future. Technological development has helped humans become lazier and connected all of our kind worldwide, assisting with global peace just as fantasied in “the land of Cockaigne.” As technology increases our control over the environment, we will ascend further into the Anthropocene age. However, I believe that we should be careful not to overreach with control over the environment as natural elements such as climate change can revert us back to the days of the biological old regime.

Part 2

When comparing the two schools of thought, conservationism, and preservationism, it’s hard for me to agree with just one. I like the idea of preserving historical environments and species as it helps to usher out the old biological regime way of thinking. Thinking with preservation in mind helps humans understand we no longer have to struggle against nature and instead should strive to preserve what little of it we have left thanks to old mentalities. Additionally, conservationism also lends to this idea, encouraging individuals to conserve the recourses we have as we no longer need to practice overexploitation of recourses.

Part 3

I highly agree with the idea of fortress conservation brought up during the lecture. Having self-contained, bio-diverse, and protected ecosystems can ensure that environmental justice is found in all human communities. Having ecosystems that function independently of humans allows for human communities that can function independently of the environment. This separation of the environment and community can help ensure human communities are equal in their sense of environmental justice. Human principles can be identical because of similarly separated settings of community and ecosystem.

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Part 1
Land of Cockaigne- the Land of Cockaigne was a place from legends mostly occurring in the middle ages. This world was told by stories and paintings. The Land of Cockaigne had easily accessible food, no work and no social classes. Everyone was equal and no violence. The Land of Cockaigne had peace and is significant because it shows the opposite of the reality of the people who made it.
Biological Old Regime- this describes the period in human existence where life was the complete opposite of the Land of Cockaigne. There was very little food supply and a struggle to get enough food. People would have to safe guard their food to avoid starvation. There was constant hard work and extreme inequality in the socioeconomic status. There was endless wars and violence in the Biological Old Regime.
Anthropocene- The exit of the Biological Old Regime is the Anthropocene. This is the age of the humans. We are taking control of the world by capturing new forms of energy. We have greatly improved the quality of life while altering nature. We have a direct control of a lot of the natural water on earth. There are very little wild animals now. We no longer face the struggles of the Biological Old Regime.
Is human control over the environment likely to be a lasting feature of our existence, or a brief exception?
I believe that human control over the environment is going to be a lasting feature of our existence. I believe this because the advancements of science and technology keep giving us more control over nature. We are finding new ways to solve problems caused by natural disasters. Also I believe that we wouldn't know how to survive in a world like the Biological Old Regime so we need to maintain control over the environment for basic survival.
Part 2
Hetch Hetchy- is a valley in California near San Francisco. Hetch Hetchy used to be a place full of beauty and nature. It was set aside as a grant so it could be held for public use. This was a result of the conservationism movement.
Conservationism- a movement that advocates the careful management of environmental resources primarily for human enjoyment.
Eco-Modernism- a view where the Anthropocene should result in an unnatural world where the humans control the nature around us.
Forest Death- german forests suddenly took a huge decline. The diversity of the forest was ruined and the forest became full of certain types of trees. This failed to protect the forests and the economic diversity. This shows us that large conservation efforts always result in unpredicted consequences.
Preservationism-the belief that nature should be preserved in its exact state because of its inherit value.
Island Effect- the preserved wilderness areas lose almost half of their plants and animals because they are surrounded by roads, cities, and fences. They are almost like islands because of the separation from the world.
Half Earth-the idea to preserve nature by splitting large amounts of Earth and securing them as natural places. This would allow for nature to thrive and animals to migrate as they would in the wild without human conflict.
I favor preservationist ideas because I think we should avoid destroying ecosystems at all costs. I think nature deserves to be preserved just because it is nature not for human benefit.
Part 3
Hide Hunters-people who used to hunt and sell bison hides. They would sell them in distant markets. They pursued product at all costs. This resulted in a mass kill of the bison and a dramatic decrease in the bison population.
Environmental Justice- this view recognizes that our interaction with nature impacts different groups of people. This creates inequalities between certain groups and societies.
Slow Violence-this term describes the negative consequences of unequal environmental justice. The effects slowly grow overtime.
Fortress Conservation- this idea creates barriers which limits human interactions in certain environments.
The best means of ensuring environmental justice for all human communities is to only use what you need. If everyone only used what they needed and reused, reduced, and recycled, there would be a lot more resources available for everyone. By reducing what you use you are also reducing waste which helps the environment be better.
-Hannah Roberts

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Part 1

Land of Cockaigne: mythical land of equality with endless supply of food that causes residents to be lazy, spending all day indulging themselves.

Biological Old Regime: inverse of Land of Cockaigne; extreme inequality with very few people able to escape poverty while the majority don’t have necessities met and struggle to find food, likely committing crimes to get their basic survival needs met.

Anthropocene: a new era of human development where humans are in control of Earth’s resources to improve quality of life but changing Earth’s climate.

Reflect: Is human control over the environment likely to be a lasting feature of our existence, or a brief exception?

I think it’s human nature to want to control our environment, whether that be our physical, social, or emotional environment. I think human control over the environment is a lasting feature of our existence and things will only get worse as we uncover new discoveries that “warrant” further use of our natural resources.

Part 2

Hetch Hetchy: a natural place of beauty in California taken control by the federal government to protect for public use and recreation

Conservationism: protecting an area to maintain its natural beauty, but this concept holds human interest at top priority

Eco-Modernism: scientists and engineers can use their influence to make a positive impact

Forest Death: people worked to carefully protect a forest in Germany but favored specific trees that benefited humans, so this decreased biodiversity and resulted in the decline of the forest.

Preservationism: acknowledges intrinsic value of nature; humans are visitors to nature that do not remain nor interfere.

Island Effect: ecosystems with smaller, more vulnerable organisms suffer when surrounded by manmade structures

Half Earth: ecosystems are to be set aside away from human intervention to assure it isn’t harmed

Reflect: Do you favor a conservationist or preservationist approach to human interactions with the environment?

I favor a preservationist approach because conservationism is self-centered and isn’t beneficial to the environment if it’s only being conserved to support human development. Preservationism acknowledges that humans will prioritize their own safety and comfort over the prosperity of nature, so humans would benefit nature by dissociating from it.

Part 3

Hide Hunters: killed bison and held profit to a priority over sustainability

Environmental Justice: addresses how people’s interactions with the environment impacts other groups of people.

Slow Violence: consequences of unequal interactions with environment between groups of people; happens slowly over time

Fortress Conservation: using military force to prevent hunting/poaching in a sanctioned area

Reflect: What are the best means of ensuring environmental justice for all human communities?

We need more advocates for people living in marginalized communities and people to hold careless corporations accountable. We need to get rid of loopholes that allow businesses to get away with excessive emissions and store waste in areas that harm impoverished areas with people whose safety and wellness is already at risk. Lastly, we need to raise awareness about environmental issues and speak for those that can’t speak for themselves.

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1. Justice is the equal treatment for everyone that takes into account factors that may make people not equal to the majority.
2. America as is has very strong morals in communities, however it can be seen that inequality exist among classes and stereotypes which can be seen as very unjust due to unfair treatment based off of a characteristic that is not controllable.
3. Unbiased judgement where everyone is an equal would be considered true justice. However there will always be bias and and injustice spring forth from this. Injustice is any situation when a decision is made based off a perhaps unknown bias or moral reason not giving complete equal treatment.

Part 2.
1. Bias did impact me in making my decision. In my first run through I did not notice the light changed color, as such I tended to favor the car and drivers. Through favoring the driver I was giving unjust choices since the pedestrians did not get a second thought.
2. Both of the first two articles have unintentional bias in them, this bias is not directly meant to hurt a group of people and is purely technological. The last article is very biased however and can be considered explicit.
Part 3
1. In my opinion individual racism is based off of feelings of the individual, and structural racism or racism when inequality does not exist is based off of action. Racism as a whole is when a race is treated differently openly. Anti Racism is stopping and preventing such things from happening.
Part 4.
1. Overall at Mines it is the responsibility of not just me but also the other students around us to keep racism and inequality around us. However, to weed out and fully rid ourselves of racism it takes more than just the support of one school. To truly make an effect we would need the support of not only on campus but also off campus students and people. This lecture has helped me see the injustice around me that was not fully visible before, and now I can fully understand and help stomp out the injustice around me.

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Part 1) Human control over the environment is likely to continue for many decades, but the meaning behind controlling the environment will change.  The idea of humans controlling the environment has altered based on certain eras of life. As Dr. Horan explained in his lecture, the early signs of human life treated the environment differently than humans do today; however, it can be argued that the concept of using the environment to better the life of humans is the same throughout. The main difference is how different generations have used the environment. There are many new tools and technological advancements today, which makes it easier for humans to control the environment. This makes modern society act more like the biological old regime.

This is not a good thing for the surrounding environment. As the population grows exponentially, the effects from humans on the environment is clearer than what it was in the past. Humans are using the environment at a rate that is faster than what it takes for the environment to replenish. Human use of the environment needs to be altered to ensure that nature will still be around in the next decades. At this point, human control over the environment is inevitable, but there needs to be change to how much control humans can have over the environment. Wildfires and droughts are ways of communication from the environment. Humans are going too fast and too far, which creates a situation where the environment cannot keep up with the demands from human life. If human control over the environment does not change, the environment will respond in ways that will hurt human life through famines, droughts, and nature disasters.

Part 2) I favor more of a preservation approach for interaction between humans and the environment. This is opposite of what I had originally thought I was before going through this lecture. Most civil engineers tend to think more like a conservationist, which is what Dr. Horan explained in his lecture. A conservationist would be in favor of building dams and water control to flood an area in order to maintain water supply for the public. A preservationist would use the surrounding environment to better both human life and the environment. A dam may not always be the best choice for the environment. However, I have learned from most of my civil engineering classes that people who are against dams do not always think about the pros of having a dam. This is true, but it is also true that civil engineers do not always think about the cons of having a dam in this type of setting. I believe we should do everything in our power to live with the environment and not depend on the environment to live healthy lives. This might go against what a civil engineer should think like, but the past is a good representation of how a mindset like that will affect the environment. The environment around us is diminishing relatively quickly, which means change is bound to happen if humans want to keep living on the same resources.

Part 3) There are different ways in which different communities use the surrounding environment differently; therefore, setting some laws and regulations may cause some communities to flourish while other communities struggle. This is why it is important to balance the positive and negative interactions between humans and the environment. This is a big challenge because many communities see the environment in different ways. As stated above, some humans want to preserve nature, but some see the resources from nature as free to use by humans. This causes the distribution of nature to be uneven throughout each community. An example of this would be the armed forces being called into Yellowstone National park to prevent the poaching of animals in the area. This ended up protecting some species, but it also hurt the native people in the area causing some communities to praise the action of the government and leaving some to argue. This is a prime example of why balancing the positive and negative interactions between humans and the environment is so important. This will take a lot of communication and compromise to create a solution that benefits everyone. For example, this may involve giving up some land to ensure the surrounding environment is protected for future generations. I do not think the actions of kicking people out of an area was the correct way of handling this situation. It was not a balanced way of looking at interactions between humans and the environment. One community benefited more than the others. A balance must occur to ensure justice for the environment.

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Part 1
1. Justice is emphasizing equal treatment and balance between people in power and those that aren't.
2. In my opinion, our society is very just through the strong societal morals that are valued by a majority of people. It is unjust in the way it treats certain people and certain groups based on stereotypes and hearsay.
3. In my opinion, justice is anything where equal opportunity exists for all, and everyone faces the same consequences, et . Injustice is anytime when equal opportunity does not exist.

Part 2
1. I do not think bias played into part of my decisions. I made all of my decisions based on whether or not the sidewalk light was green or red.
2. The first two articles are unintentional bias, it's technological and not purposefully being used to hurt a group of people. The last article is very biased since it has offered solutions such as Michigan University asking to add in female dummies for their tests, but still not being implemented. This problem could have been avoided if companies took into account women and their differences from men, physically and physiologically.

Part 3
1. Racism as a whole when inequality does not exist is based on action. Racism when it's from an individual is based on feeling. Racism is when you treat a different race differently or discriminate them openly. Anti-racism is actively going to stop people from doing racist things or saying-racist things as well.

Part 4
1. Each person at Mines has a personal obligation to help better our community. If people act racist, then the community isn't welcoming or trusted, and one thing I know is that Mines kids are all very nice which is one of the charming qualities of the school. It's a personal issue and institutional issue as well.

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Part 1:
1) Define justice?
(In my opinion, justice is the treatment of fairness.)
2) In your opinion, to what extent is our society just or unjust?
(I believe that, to a great extent, our society is unjust because on social medias, we learn about events that demonstrated discrimination and inequality such as police brutality, racist remarks, and poverty.)
3) In your opinion, what do justice and injustice look like?
(I believe that injustice is the unequal treatment of a human being based on biased perspective. On the other hand, I view equal treatment without discrimination as a justice.)

Part 2:
1) Recall your experience playing MIT's "The Moral Machine." Do you think bias played a part in your decisions?
(I believe that bias played a role in my decision making process to a certain extent.)
2) What kind of bias is being demonstrated by the engineering and technological failures described by these articles? How could these problems have been avoided?
(Discrimination based on race and gender was revealed by the failures of technologies. Moreover, I feel that such incidents could have been avoided if the large technology companies took in feedbacks from people with various backgrounds because the technologies that were mentioned in the article mainly lacked to take into consideration of diversity of its users.)

Part 3:
1) Which of these iterations of racism are about feelings? Which are about action? What is racism? What defines the philosophy of antiracism?
(I believe that the individual racism is about feelings, whereas interpersonal, institutional, and structural racism is about action. Also, racism is the act of discriminating against a person or a group based on their ethnicity, gender, and background. Finally, antiracism is the practice of advocating for the suppressed group or an individual and promoting the idea of unity.)

Part 4:
1) What obligation do you have to your fellow Orediggers to stop racist and biased behavior on campus? Is this a personal issue, an institutional issue, or both? How do these stories demonstrate or reflect the types of biases and racisms described above?
(In regard to my obligation to stop racist biased behavior on campus for my fellow Orediggers, both personal issues and institutional issues are involved because in order to promote healthy environment, I have to get myself in the mindset of treating everyone equally and it is also important for Mines to advocate for equality through its programs, classes, and faculty.)

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Part 1
1). Justice is the act of fair treatment for all regardless of characteristics.

2). In my opinion, our society is just in most ways, but because not everyone is given the same opportunities in life, there's some unjust. A strong example of this is how some individuals can attend college without the expenses being a thought in mind, while others turn down schools or cannot attend what they dream of because of the price tag.

3). Justice mainly looks like everyone in a society having an equal fair chance to succeed, and injustice would be the opposite, more like what we can currently see on some extremes, where some live well below the poverty line, while others are making enough to fund several lifetimes.

Part 2

1). I would definitely agree I had bias in my Moral Machine decision making. Bias is used to make any decision that invokes thought, whether its a strong or faulty bias is what matters. If you didn't have a bias for those scenarios, it just boils down to randomly picking who gets to live or die.

2). After reading both of the first two articles, the soap dispenser and the facial recognition ones, they mainly involve implicit bias. It wasn't intended to not recognize darker skin tones and darker faces, but it's more a lack of testing while this AI system and tech. The third article seemed to be more implicit but still a toss up of both implicit and explicit, because men were more often in charge, so that's what things were tended to always lean to.

Part 3

1). I would say individual racism is based around how a person sees others who are not the same or come from different backgrounds, while interpersonal, institutional, and structural racism are based on action.
2). Racism is the thought process where someone can treat others differently on a bias based on race.
3). Anti-racism is the idea of trying to fix racism or addressing the topic with a drive to remove racism.
4). I always feel obligated to help reduce racism regardless of where I am because of my personal background with racism, but with Mines' diversity being as low as it is, it's hard to fight this bias behavior. This is what seems to be both a personal an institutional issue.
-SB

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Part 1
1. Justice has many different definitions depending on your own views, but in general it is the term used to describe the pursuit of fairness whether in opportunity or treatment.
2. In my opinion, a large part of our society is fundamentally unjust due to the inherent unfairness of the situations that we are born into. There can be steps taken to help mitigate this, but there is only so much that can be done currently when even just being born in a different country could be the difference between succeeding and starvation and poverty.
3. In my opinion, justice is anything where the opportunity to succeed is solely dependent on one's ability and effort, and injustice is anything that takes into account things outside of our control for success.

Part 2
1. I definitely had some explicit bias when playing the moral machine, as most of the time you had to choose who died between very similar groups that only had a few differentiating characteristics so it was kind of built to show you your biases.
2.  I think that the biases shown in the articles are all implicit, likely as a result of people designing these things based on their own experience. So if it is mainly people with light colored skin or men in charge, it becomes increasingly likely that other groups are discriminated against or forgotten about in these ways whether or not any harm was actually intended. Having more representation for differing people and backgrounds would greatly help to solve this issue.

Part 3
1. Individual racism is based in feeling, while interpersonal, institutional, and structural racism are based in action.
2. Racism is the thought that race is a basis on which to treat others differently or discriminate against them.
3. Anti-racism is the idea of seeking out and helping to fix or address racism rather than just being not racist.

Part 4
There is both personal and institutional racism shown, both small scale and large scale. As fellow students at mines it is absolutely our responsibility to help make mines a more inclusive community. Calling out racism when we see it, and working to become more open minded means that our campus and community could become much more diverse. And like discussed in part 2, a more diverse and open minded class of college graduates works to help everyone through the representation it would give.

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Part 1:

1) There are two ways to define justice: (a) Rawls’ definition, which states that everyone should have equal opportunities to succeed, and (b) Nozik’s definition, which states that everyone should be treated exactly the same regardless of their situation.

2) I think that currently, our society is moving away from Nozik’s definition of justice and towards Rawls’ definition of justice. Especially with the recent Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and the “tax the rich” movement, people are noticing the inequalities of opportunity in our society and trying to fix them.

3) I do agree with Rawls’ definition; I think that justice looks like everyone having a fair chance to succeed. In order to do this, we need to look at the factors which can involve inequalities (socioeconomic class, race, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities, etc.) and vote for policies that put everyone on the same playing field.

Part 2:

1) Yes, bias probably played some role in my decisions even though I wanted to avoid it. For example, if there was nothing else to judge off of, I usually favored the younger people over the older people for no particular reason. This is biased on my part because if I was older instead of younger, I might have made decisions the other way around.

2) The first two articles involve implicit bias. The side effects of these technologies were not intended, but rather a result of inadequate testing. The soap dispenser could have been tested on a broader range of skin tones, and the image recognition software could have been given a more appropriate set of training data. However, the third article seems to be more explicit than implicit bias to me, since especially in the workplace there has historically been lots of discrimination against women.

Part 3)

1) Internalized racism is based on the feelings of individuals, while interpersonal, institutional, and structural racism all arise from racist actions between individuals. “Racism” as a philosophy means to believe that race is a legitimate criteria on which to treat people differently. To be antiracist, you need to be more than simply “not racist”; you must actively seek out cases of racism (small-scale or large-scale) and work to address them.

2) In the Instagram account we can see both small-scale and large-scale racism. In terms of small-scale, there are several posts documenting people saying racial slurs, and in terms of large-scale, a couple of the posts called out the curriculum of some Mines courses for not being inclusive enough. As students, we have a responsibility to combat both these types of racism. For small-scale, we can call out racist behavior when we see it on the personal level, and for large-scale, we can join organizations or movements aimed at making bigger changes.

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Part 1

I see justice as a way of fixing immoral actions. This can be done through legal or social action.

It’s difficult to imagine the truly just aspects of society. Everything is subjective. Most people have free will, but their choices are influenced by predetermined factors like socioeconomic status or societal pressures. There’s systemic oppression, racism, classism, elitism. If innocent people are suffering, we cannot live in a just society.

Justice encompasses people participating in moral actions while those who do not act morally face restorative consequences that make amends to the wrong. Injustice encompasses ethical people facing wrongful suffering while the immoral can push negativity into the world without being checked.

Part 2

Any bias that I had was likely due to moral self-preservation. I didn’t feel right picking the wrong option, and I didn’t view any option as “moral,” so I chose without thinking, mostly at random, to ease my conscience.

The biases demonstrated in the articles all boil down to lack of user empathy while conducting research of technical designs. These technologies are unable to accurately recognize black people or women because these groups of people had little to no representation during the testing stages. This indicates that the engineers didn’t do a good job at reaching out to the community to see who would be affected by the design. These issues can be avoided by engineers taking more time to conduct surveys, hold interviews, and bring in guests during the design process to better understand stakeholder needs.

Part 3

Individual and interpersonal racism are smaller scale and are rooted in emotion. Institutional and structural racism are larger scale and rooted in action. Racism is prejudice towards people based on their race or skin color which can have positive or negative assumptions. Anti-racism is defined by action against racism by making choice to mitigate the spread of hateful thinking. Being “not racist” is different than being anti-racist in that “not racist” is a neutral stance that takes on a tone of complacence and lack of willingness to spark change.

Part 4

To stop racist and biased behavior here on campus, we must hold each other accountable for inappropriate behavior and word choice. At the same time, we must be open to new thinking and be receptive to opposing points of view. We should at least hear people out before we respond. Listening should be a priority over response. This open-minded behavior can mitigate racist behavior and make Mines a more inclusive place. I would say this is more of an individual issue, but one could argue that it is an institutional issue in that students shouldn’t be expected to have these civil discourse skills automatically and need practice and guidance to develop them. These stories shared about racism on campus demonstrate the continuity of institutional racism due to lack of activism and accountability.

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Part 1
1. Justice is fair treatment for everyone. This takes into consideration factors that make people less equal to the majority.
2. I believe our country is a little unjust. You can see this in the ways that for some families it is a lot easier for their kids to go to college than other families. In a total just world, all of the kids would get an equal shot to go to college. But that isn't how it works.
3. Justice looks like everyone getting a fair and equal access to things. Injustice would be unequal and unfair access to things. We can see this in how some people can easily afford to travel places on planes were others cannot. This is unjust because not everyone is getting the same opportunity to fly in a plane.
Part 2
1. Bias definitely played in apart of my MIT simulation game. I found myself trying to save children and women more than the elderly and men.
2. In some of the articles there is bias against looks. Like in on of the articles the soap wouldn't dispense for African American's skin tone.
These problems could be avoided by running better tests product testing.
Part 3
1. I would say that the individual racism has the most feelings involved. This type of racism is about the feelings, opinions, and beliefs of one singular person.
2. Interpersonal Racism is about action. This type of racism usually involves public displays of racism like hate speech or racial slurs.
3. Racism is discriminating against someone because of their ethnicity and/or the color of their skin.
4. Antiracism is being very observant of the words you use and the actions you choose to make. Also it is the act of not discriminating against anyone.
Part 4
1. I have the obligation to make everyone no matter the race feel welcome and included. I have the obligation to step in and stop racism whenever I witness it. And I have the obligation to be super observant in cases that could involve racism.
2. Here at mines it is a personal issue. The campus does a good job of trying to make everyone feel welcome no matter what. It is up to us students to follow through and stick up for people who are experiencing racism.
3. You can see lots of different racism in the stories. You hear of institutional and interpersonal racism at Mines. From the lack of diversity on campus to the inappropriate jokes that are very racist.
Doing this lecture has helped me lower my veil of ignorance. I am able to understand and better see racism around me and hopefully help put a stop to it.
-Hannah Roberts

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pt1
1. Justice is how the law can enforce ethics
2. I believe that our society generally is a little bit unjust because of the mistakes of our past and those scars and habits don't heal over very quickly.
3. Injustice to me means turning a blind eye and purposefully being ignorant of a situation. Visa versa justice means actively fighting against what the general population thinks of as immoral

Pt2
1. I believe that there was a lot of bias that went into the moral machine but it truly does depend on the person because what I tried to do was minimize casualties as a whole and everything else was likely subconscious bias.
2. These technologies are a result not of a purposeful bias but more of an overlooking and didn't think if this other person were to use it would it work just as well or be uncomfortable

Part 3
1. I think that the smaller the group for the type of racism the more feelings-based it is for example if it is an individual then it is more about what they feel than actionable. But if a cooperation is racist then that does require action. I think that the philosophy behind antiracism is thinking to yourself shat would I say if it is just a voice talking to me.
2. I believe that anyone's obligation to fight racism is to just not be racist themselves because if everyone is that way then there is no racism at all. It is both a personal and institutional issue because the institution can provide the resources the students need to make it personal.
3.

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Part 1

Justice: To deliver a fair punishment upon a wrongful act in order to incentivize order in a society.

The society we live in now in America is fair in the sense that anyone has the freedom to do anything. However, it becomes unjust when others use this freedom for personal or selfish gain. For example, you have the freedom to get a minimum wage paying job, but your boss also has the freedom to control your working conditions. Your boss could cause your work life to be miserable or give you a slight advantage over your coworkers, and in this sense, our society is unjust.

In my opinion, justice looks as I've defined it above. It needs to be a fair punishment or enforcement of a wrongful act to incentivize order. Without a set of rules to guide society, I believe society would plunge into my definition of injustice, which is when unlawful acts go unpunished, further incentivizing the degradation of society. An excellent example of injustice that matches my definition is social anarchy. During anarchy, anything goes, society is disrupted, and justice is missing causing others to suffer.

Part 2

When recalling the previous lecture where we played MIT's "The Moral Machine," I think bias played a role in my decisions. I was biased towards young people as I saw more value in the extent of life they had left to live, more educated individuals, and more physically fit individuals. These biases seemed to be unconscious as it's been virtually ingrained into me that you need to lead an educated and healthy young life to have value.

During this first article, the soap dispenser not recognizing an individual's dark skin seems like an implicit bias. I say this because whoever engineered the soap dispenser probably wasn't aware that they unconsciously programmed an almost racist soap dispenser.

When Google's face recognition software mistook people of dark skin as gorillas, I think an implicit bias is being demonstrated. And my reasoning is very similar to that of the first article. The engineers designing the software must've unconsciously programmed this bug into the software.

American car companies' usage of male crash test dummies differs from the first two articles as this seems more of an implicit bias. Those that created the crash test dummies had the preference that female crash dummies looked wrong, so they never ended up using other gendered dummies.

Part 3

After reading the Smithsonian article and looking at the different types of racism, I can answer the lecture questions more in-depth.

For starters, the iteration of racism that seems based on feelings is individual racism. Individual racism refers to an individual's beliefs, attitudes, and actions based on personal feelings regarding race.

Additionally, I believe structural racism is more action-based as individuals must take extreme action to enforce their bias through an institution or society.

Racism, in my opinion, is the unjust judging of a person based on the color of their skin. This definition also matches my definition of what it means to be unfair, as this type of judging is a wrongful act that can and unfortunately does go unpunished.

Part 4

Overall I believe that it is not only my responsibility but the responsibility of my peers to keep racism out of Mines. Additionally, this responsibility goes beyond any one person. To truly stomp out racism, we'll need the support of everyone on and off-campus, making this problem both personal and institutional. The stories from the Mines Instagram of racism on campus reflect how this problem is more than personal. In one case, a professor was racist towards students from Saudi Arabia. This shows that if you don't believe in racism, others around you might, so it's not enough to internalize these anti-racist ideas.

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Pt 1

Justice is the implementation of the rights of a group of people. Our society is just in the ways of what we want. People want our country to be just and the intention is there. The unjustness in our society is the fact that not everyone has the same opportunities even though that is the idea of the american dream. I think that justice is the unbiased judgment of the violation of a human’s right. The idea of unbiased judgment is the basis of all great justice, while injustice follows the idea of bias and prejudice.

Pt 2

Bias absolutely played a part in my decisions for the moral machine and it was the only way that I could make a decision that had some back to it. Otherwise, without bias I would have just been letting some people live and some people die without any reason. Bias lets people make hard decisions without as much guilt.

A lot of bias is that the only people that will be using the products made are white men. The testing portion of the engineering process has only accounted for one type of human, instead of making the product inclusive. This makes engineers seem lazy and not inclusive. These problems could simply be avoided by running more tests that include a wide variety of possible users. There should be no reason why an individual with darker skin is not able to get soap from a soap dispenser.

Pt 3

Individual racism is about how a person perceives individuals who are different than they are and they feel that they are better or superior because of this. Structural racism and interpersonal racism puts action to a person’s opinion with one actively giving advantages to those who are white in a system or institution and the other actively degrading another person through words and slang. Racism is the unequal treatment of a person based on their appearance, nationality, or other information that sets them apart from a white individual. Antiracism is the idea that those who are antiracist are actively against and unsupportive of those who are indeed racist. Antiracism and a person being not racist are not the same thing at all as someone who is not racist is often identified as being a racist. The act of simply not being racist is not something that is a viable option in the severity of the subject.

pt4

In an institution that does not have great diversity, I feel that I have an obligation to stand up for my fellow orediggers and support them in any way possible using the privilege that I have to my advantage as well as theirs. I think that there are a lot of issues institutionally clearly by just looking at the rosters of our athletic teams. This is also a personal issue as I have talked to people that have experienced racism right on campus. Therefore this is both a personal issue as well as an institutional issue. I feel that if the institution gets better at creating a safe space of equal opportunity for all, it will encourage those who have bias to think differently and act differently. The stories described create a realization that racism is found everywhere and most people just choose not to acknowledge that it exists.

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Part 1)

Justice is a concept where actions receive a fair judgment to which they deserve. In my opinion, the most important phrase in the definition above is fair judgment. Justice can come in many ways, which is different to the understanding of the vast public. This means that justice does not always involve a court case and trial. I believe justice goes further than this. As Dr. Woodson explained, justice can be seen throughout daily life. Justice can be getting a good grade on an exam because you studied. This is a fair result to this action; however, it does not always play out like this. Some actions do not receive the result that they deserve. For example, if you were to fail an exam that you studied hard for, the result is not just, but it is still a possibility.

Our society has an underlying base which tries to be just, but the people in our society go against this making our society unjust. There are many instances where people’s actions receive an unfair result because not everyone believes in the same definition of justice. Some people have a Nozick mindset, which means treating people exactly the same. This ignores all previous circumstances and is ignorant in my opinion. Many Americans strongly believe people growing up in America are given the same opportunities. This is simply incorrect and unjust. It would be unjust to live life thinking everyone in America has the same opportunities. This makes our society divided and unjust. I do believe there have been efforts to change this, but there is a long way to go.

As stated above, injustice would be when actions do not receive a fair judgment or result. Someone should not be punished through injustice, even though this happens all the time in America. This can happen in many different ways- injustice can happen through education, race, and countless others. Justice would be making sure everyone has the same opportunities and everyone is treated fairly and equal.

Part 2)

I do believe bias played a factor in this simulation, but I think bias will almost always be a factor in a situation like this. Bias in this situation could be as innocent as cats versus dogs. Bias would influence someone to pick a dog before a cat, or vice versa. Bias can also have a larger impact on a situation; for example, racial equality has been a recent problem where biasness played an important factor.

In the case studies we examined, biased thought made engineering designs fail. The first case presented failed to dispense soap to different people. The reason this happened was because the dispenser would not detect darker skin. There could have been bias to the engineer designing this design. This bias could be due to the fact that the engineer could have lighter skin and did not think about other people’s situation. This bias was more than likely innocent, but it was still looked over. The biases that occurred in the second example are due to the details overlooked by engineers. There should have been someone in the design process of this function that reminded everyone that people look different in many ways. The bias could have branched from engineers not taking a second to think about other situations. The first two engineering and design failures could have been prevented if the designers looked at different people’s situations. The last situation listed a few examples of designs that were “made for everyone”, but in reality, they were only suitable for men. From injuries in a car crash to police gear, some designs make life for women harder instead of easier. This bias is similar to the two articles above. Not everyone was thought about in the design process which resulted in a product that did not suit everyone. This could have been prevented if different types of people were accounted for in the planning process of design.

Part 3)

Which of these iterations of racism are about feelings? Which are about action? What is racism? What defines the philosophy of antiracism?

I unknowingly briefly mentioned this in the discussion about just and unjust actions. There are many iterations of racism, which may not be well known in America. Many people believe that you are either racist or not racist. This is not totally true, because one can claim they are not racists, but unknowingly take part in structural racism. I would classify structural and institutional racism as action based racism. This happens as a result of the actions people choose to carry out. This affects education and other different things that have to do with race. This would leave individual and interpersonal racism as feeling based racism. This is the category that I believe divides this nation. Feelings are taught at a young age and will carry on for generations unless stopped. Racism is the idea of supporting the inequality of human life because of race. Racism is supporting laws and policies that separate people of different backgrounds and race from the rest of the public. An antiracist would be supporting the idea of abolishing these normalizations. It is not good enough to not be racist. People must be anti racist for this problem to be solved. They must believe in the process of being antiracist.

Concluding Part)

I come from a family of diverse race and ethnicity. I have grown up through many different cultures and have been able to see the beauty behind diversity. I know there is diversity at Mines, which requires an open mind from all and the willingness to learn about new backgrounds. This is both a person and an institution issue. One person cannot do it themselves. There will be bias and racism just like what is mentioned above, but people must stick together under the same belief to overcome those select few. It is important for students to know that they are not alone and have classmates that will back them through difficult times. All students need to have the mindset of wanting to collaborate with different people and beliefs. This is relevant to the years after Mines. Companies will hire different people that are best suited for the job. The same mindset of learning from others is needed to be a successful engineer.

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Part 1: Reflect: Where would you put your tick mark? What informs your decision?
(I would place my tick mark towards the design dot because although I want to look at the design of a technology or scientific discovery first, I also wish to get a little of bit understanding of its implementations and effects to make an appropriate judgement.)

Part 2: Reflect: What happened in regard to political polarization between the years 1994 and 2017? Do you think this trend has continued?
(I believe that political polarization occurred over the passage of time because people are viewing Democrats and Republicans as two separate parties that are in contrast of one another. Whereas, in reality, it is important for individuals to understand that the two parties have different values and perspectives, but they strive for the same goal of improving and bettering the country. Furthermore, I believe that this trend has continued because after president Trump came into office, the friction between the supporters of the two parties become much more apparent.)

Part 3: Reflection: In the above scenario, was anything done that was immoral? Is your decision based on intuition, or reason? Which did you respond with first? Was your reasoning used to justify your intuition, or do you think it was the result of impartial thought?
(I believe that the act of eating the dog of their neighbor without his/her acknowledgement is immoral as the dog held a certain value which can't be replaced. Nonetheless, my intuition responded first by influencing me to think that since humans are omnivores, eating a dog without anyone seeing them is not immoral. However, after looking at the value which the dog had to the owner, my reasoning convinced me that the family eating the dead dog was immoral as it was committed without permission.)

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1)My tick mark leans toward the implementation side, because implementation is what determines whether something actually becomes a reality. You can have a great design, but if your implementation doesn't work or is flawed, then it does not matter.
2) Political parties have become less about free thought and more about thinking with the crowd.
3) I think that taking someone's pet is different from taking and eating an animal that was raised for food. Same principle would apply if you took your neighbor's pet chicken even though most people eat chicken. Pets are not food.

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1). I would say my tick mark more towards design, but not all the way. Design is more important to consider, but implementation is still very important too.

2). I feel that political polarization is happening, because a majority of people are viewing the Republicans and Democrats as two separate teams that are against each other. In the past, people had found themselves to see parts of each party, not only just one.

3). It's hard to make a reasoning if this is immoral or moral without more context, but personally I would say this is immoral. Assuming the family who has the dog had the standard relationship to the dog, they would be destroyed to know their neighbors found their dog, didn't let them know about the dog, and proceeded to eat it. Without knowing more, this could've been their only food, or something along those lines, but we don't know.

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PART ONE
My tick mark would be placed towards the design side rather than the implementation side since the design process should be considered before the product is complete. It should satisfy the key stakeholders within reason of the product. If you implement an idea before it is well thought out/designed, there may be a chance that it could leave negative affects on the environment, stakeholders, etc. During the design process, stakeholders and people who are interested in a product that you produce may give information as well as things you should stay away from. Their ideas can be considered during the process of designing, although it may be too late after implementation.

PART TWO
Over the last decade, political parties are becoming more and more divided. Why? Rather than being able to have views on each side of the political spectrum, they are being force-fed the information that  they want to hear. The media is making it difficult to be in the middle due to how divided the media really is. Your electronics are listening and calculating what you search up and will give you information about the political party that you follow. It has became COMPLETELY divided in the past few years. After President Obama/Trump came into office, the followers of the opposite party became super opposed to anything said by them. This trend continues to this day.

PART THREE
The immoral act of taking someone's dog to feast on is absolutely absurd. It is still the neighbor's dog and they have no right to take it. You can't steal their dog, even if it has died. It is completely unethical to take and eat the dog, even if they believed that it was okay to do so. And, why would someone want to eat a dog anyways?

***CADEN YOREK***

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1)  I’d place my tick mark all the way to the left on the scale, directly on the edge that says “design.” This is because the design of a technology always plays a role in how it is implemented; we cannot consider “design” and “implementation” to be separate stages in the engineering process. For example, if we designed a car without considering any of the environmental implications, we might end up with something which released an unsafe level of emissions. So there would be no way to safely implement this technology at all. This is why I think design and implementation go hand-in-hand; we must consider the ethical implications of our technologies from the outset.

2) In regard to political polarization, I think that this is happening because people are now seeing the Democratic and Republican parties as two separate “teams.” Instead of choosing their political party based on their values, people are choosing their values based on their political party. We can see an example of this happening in media with CNN and Fox News, the 2 most popular news channels; CNN is seen as “the Democratic” channel and Fox News is seen as “The Republican” channel. This trend has continued into 2021, as shown by the hostility between Democrats and Republicans in the recent 2020 presidential election.

3) Both intuitively and logically, I think that it is morally wrong for them to eat the dog. This is because the neighbors who owned the dog would technically still have ownership of the dog after it dies, so it is theft for the family to eat it. If the neighbors wanted to eat their own dog after it died, that would be ethical, but it is not ethical to eat someone else’s dog.

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Issues of policy/politics/ethics lie closer to the design side while kind of towards the center. This is because during the design process, it’s very important to engage with stakeholders and consumers and better understand how the design/solution will ultimately impact them. These factors are pivotal to consider while designing because implementation is way to late to consider these factors since the solution has already been thought out and built. These factors should be considered through the entire process, but design is the most important since that is the source of ideas.

As years progress, the political parties continue to become more and more divisive. I believe that this trend is continuing, now especially because of all the political tension due to COVID, social activism, and racial inequality issues. I think the division began mostly around 2007 with Facebook and other social networks rising. The “algorithms” that they use provide users personalized content based on their interaction with posts and search history. This algorithm may be convenient for users, but it only shows them one side to a story. I believe that this is the reason politics are becoming more and more divided.

The act is immoral because the dog was not theirs to take, and their reasoning for taking the dog and eating it (because they heard that dog meat is delicious) isn’t enough to justify the action. I think my reason is rooted in intuition as well as reason. I intuitively know that eating dogs is not socially acceptable since they are viewed as lovable pets that are a part of a family, and I know reasonably that stealing isn’t ethical, so collectively, the act is immoral.

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Pt 1

I would put my tick mark closer to design because when designing or thinking about a design, the implementation is just as important and should be considered right away. Questions like: “How will this affect a certain area?”, or “How can we make this least destructive to the environment?”, are all important to answer before actually making the design. This is also important because if someone just makes a design right away it could get into the wrong hands and end up being used without even getting to the thinking of the implementation process.

Pt 2

In 1994 most individuals found themselves to see both sides of the political spectrum, with the majority of people being in the middle. As the years go on, people begin to separate themselves from either side and less and less people are in the medium. This trend most definitely has continued as the media spews out fake news left and right to coerce Americans to choose a side. There is no option to be in the middle anymore as both sides make it seem like a ride or die situation.

Pt 3

My first decision was that this was immoral. Reasons being that the family would be looking for the dog and if they never found the dog or knew what happened they would never have any closer. This is assuming the family had a very traditional American relationship with the dog where they thought of the dog more of a family member than an animal. Because it was the first thing that popped into my head, I do think that it was an impartial thought. I think that if it was my dog I would be very upset if my dog just vanished without a trace, and I would never want anyone to feel like that, but at the same time I don’t know the details of the situation and it could have been that families only source of food that day.

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Part 1

Based on the chart and question posed to us students, I’d say it would be correct to start by designing ethics into technology instead of implementing it later. A great example that goes to prove my statement can be found when looking at the rise and relative fall of social media juggernaut Facebook. Facebook was designed to connect people all over the world and paved a legacy for modern social media. However, upon further use of the app, it was discovered that Facebook had been leaching out users personal data and auctioning it off. This ethical mishap could’ve been avoided if Facebook was initially designed with its users privacy in mind and instead of later implementing these ethical precautions.

After checking out the graphs of political views provided to us by Pew Research Center I made a conclusion on why American beliefs have become so divided since 1994. I think the major cause for America’s divide is the technologies available to us. The widespread use of Google through computers, phones, and other devices has allowed Americans insight into viewpoints that are tailor-made for them. Google will replace the search results one sees based on their preferences and personality. This unethical invasion of privacy causes Americans to become blind to other viewpoints than their own. This dominos into the countries widespread believes as one is less inclined to become open to new ideas and divides America’s population.

I found it interesting taking a look at how others view topics like climate change or politics as in my mind my I’ve convinced myself that my beliefs are the only right answer. With this, I believe being able to know how to properly communicate with others based on their beliefs is a very important concept. For example, the concept presented to us about the public blindly following so-called experts. The public assumes their appointed experts know the solution to all their problems. When in reality many are bluffing, showing that people shouldn’t blindly follow but ask questions about who we actually follow and why. This example shows that people need to be able to properly communicate information, in this case, information about an appointed expert, in order to achieve the most ethical and progressive choice.

Reflection

In the scenario presented to us above I believe the family’s decision was very immoral. My decision is entirely based on reasoning and logic as my mind immediately thinks of the dead dog’s owners. How would they feel knowing their beloved pet’s remains had been swept up and eaten? This action would most likely bring them pain and therefore be an immoral decision.

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I would put my tick mark closer to implementation because I believe that the design should solely be based on the best possible solution to the problem statement. When you are deciding how the product and if the product should be implemented that is when policy, politics, and ethics should come into play. When someone designs new medicine the FDA starts helping when they talk about how they will implement the medicine into the market. The FDA helps determine if the medicine will be safe for human use. This is all part of the implementation process.
Between the years 1994 and 2017, the political divide between continually democrats and continually republicans has widened. I think this trend has definitely continued. Lately instead of hearing both sides people only listen to and look for what they want to hear. It is very hard with todays technology to find unbiased sources for political information. This has helped cause the divide to continue to grow.
You can understand why people have the views that they do from learning more about their personal backgrounds. The way people have been raised and their past experiences determine their views on topics. By knowing how to understand peoples views it is easier to navigate how to communicate with people on complex issues. When you can phrase discussions in ways that don't offend people's views they are more willing to hear your point of view.
I think that eating the dog was immoral. Mostly because the dog wasn't theirs to eat in the first place. The neighbors were probably looking for their dog and may have wanted to bury it. By eating the dog and not telling the neighbors that it died they are being immoral. My decision is probably based on reason, because the family with the missing dog will never know what happened to their dog. Also in our culture we view pets as higher than other animals so we view it as immoral to eat them. I can see that if you were desperate eating a dog would be necessary to stay alive, but I would personally never eat a dog if I had a choice not to. I responded with reason first, but then it turned into intuition. It became intuition because I talked about my own culture and what I would have done in the situation. I think my reasoning was used to justify my intuition. I came up with arguments to explain why I believe what I believe even though you could argue for both sides. Overall, we subconsciously make decisions and then taint our ideas to agree with what we decide is correct. I believe they shouldn't eat the dog so it was very easy for me to come up with reasons for why they shouldn't eat the dog.
-Hannah Roberts

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Based on Dr. Hudson’s diagram, I think I would place my mark closer to design than implementation, but I would not put it too far left. I still believe that implementation is an important factor to designing something new. I believe that you cannot have a successful design if the two concepts are not correctly used. A design would do no good if it is going against a popular policy. Completing a few projects at Mines has taught me that a good plan should be the base of a good project; however, I have also learned that a good design plan does not guarantee a successful final product. Implementation cannot be overlooked, nor should it be considered easy. There could be issues in the design that came about during implementation. This could be political issues as well. I do believe that if the design process deals with most of these before implementation, then there should be less of a problem in the implementation stage.

The graph that Dr. Hudson presented documented political polarization over the last few years in an interesting way. The first date started in 1994, which showed the country mixed between consistently liberal and republican. This meant the nation was not as divided as it is now. As the years went on, the graph showed the nation splitting apart. For about ten years, the nation shifted towards being more consistently liberal, but around 2004, the nation began to fully divide into consistently liberal and republican. As the years got closer to the present day, less people were a mix of the two parties and more remained strictly to one side. The trend has and will continue. There are more influences on people's decisions now. A huge influence is the media one takes in. I believe this is the reason why the nation has been more divided in recent years.

I do believe this makes presenting complex issues like climate control or COVID 19 challenging. Each side will have their own ideas about each topic, which contradict each other in most cases. As Dr. Hudson presented, it is scientists and engineers duty to successfully present these ideas to the public. In many cases there will be debate on the issues which may include some insults, but it is important to present a non biased claim even if you have a positintion in which you stand. The end goal is to get a solution that is the best choice for everyone, but it should also be agreed upon by most. As Dr. Hudson expressed, expertise is needed even when the general public does not agree. Decisions should be made from facts not opinions. The public should engage with the facts to decide their position.Engineers and scientists need to speak up about their knowledge before it is too late. The public needs to be on board with the engineers and scientists.

I initially thought that it was immoral to take meat from the dog and eat it. I initially thought that it is wrong to eat a dead dog on the side of the road. If there is a collar on the dog, this is immoral because that is someone’s pet dog. My initial thoughts were based on intuition and no reasoning, which was clear once I started to think more about the situation. As I thought more about this problem, I began to feel like a hypocrite. I eat meat all the time, ranging from various animals. I have even tried some meat that would be considered exotic. I do not have the right to say this family was immoral for doing this. If it were to be a cow, many people would have to agree with their decision because many Americans eat beef. There is also the fact that no one knows this family’s background. They could be less fortunate and desperately need a meal, this would change the situation greatly. My initial judgment was mostly intuition with little reason. As I thought more about the situation (about a minute) , my judgment became more reason. I quickly began developing an impartial thought. However, if there was a collar on the dog and the family absolutely knew that this dog belonged to someone, then it is still immoral. This dog belongs to someone, which should be respected.

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Part 1
The issues of colonizing other planets such as mars has its issues for example we would want to go to mars to continue expanding our civilization but how can we take care of mars when we have done a not so great job on earth

The skills necessary for taking on adaptive challenges is an open mind so that you don't narrow your focus to early and create the wrong product

I think that a engineer or a scientist needs many skills but I believe the primary one is grit and knowing what to do when something goes wrong. I believe this is important because it is unreasonable to believe that you will be right even most of the time.

Part 2
I would definitely not nuke the planet because even though I am the last person I would be destroying every possible outcome of the current life. This also just feels like the scenario where people are having a bad day so they will make everyone else pay.

I think why most people would say to not nuke it is because they know the world is larger than just themselves and see how much harms could be done with a selfish action.

The reason some people would nuke the planet is that they no longer see value in what is around them they are there own world view.

Part 3
I mostly lie on the intrinsic side of things just because I have grown up around a lot of wilderness areas and have gotten use to there benefits.

I definitely think that there are places people should never live. I always like to have an escape and walking alone through nature is usually my outlet and if people lived everywhere this would be taken away.

I think that it is pretty intrinsic because they have a lot of programs that teach kids in particular about the beauty and delicacy of a certain place.

Part 4
I think that humans fit everywhere but belong nowhere, because we have been on top of the food chain for so long we have actually become removed from it. But because we are so adaptable we can go to the jungle, the artic, and even space and live.

I think that the Judeo-Christian philosophy is partially right I think that because of our advancements over other species we act as stewards of the environment but also they were here long before us so we should act as guests.

Because we are one species among many I think that we should be respectful of our surroundings so that we do not disrupt the delicate balance of the food chain.

Part 5
I don't really know what I want in the future especially something that specific. But if in the future I will choose then because then I will have all the facts.

I believe that we do have impacts on other people's children through our relationships, and other areas. for example, if you decide to build a factory in a residential area the children are going to be heavily affected.

Experiencing nature is one of my favorite things to do when I need peace. but there now is not enough nature for everybody to enjoy. We learned that through the pandemic when nature is what everyone turned to.

We can only predict the future so far and even at that is could be drastically different than what we expected. So I think we should work on minimizing our negative impacts as much as possible but not losing sight of progression.

Part 6
One of the most dangerous technologies is computing because people really depend on it and because it is really difficult to make big companies don't have a whole lot of competitors and they can charge a lot and still have reasonable demand because people need them.

This impacts nonhuman nature in a different way because it can be harmful to the environment through obtaining materials.

A lot of them talked about being careful until tests and long-term analyses have been done. but the differences lie in what they would be careful about. some would be careful about vaccines some would be careful about new food.

Part 7
Cost-benefit analysis can be used in most cases except for medical because no how expensive the costs are the benefits will always outweigh them. It can be used for creating a product like a computer or a car.

As well as considering the future it also considers the entire surrounding area as well as everyone who is impacted. But because it is so much you have to consider it makes it almost impossible to make a decision. So by these terms to be completely fair is impossible.

basically, nobody is in the extreme of any side but rather a range in between the two. but people also chose a side that would benefit them the most.

Part 8
My ideas of having children have not changed. Primarily because I have already known about this for a while. But it has made me question myself every time I am buying something, do I want or need this.

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Part 1
1). Some other problems that would be more adaptive than technical would be trying to produce plastic water bottles that are more safer for the environment. Another would be environmental disasters, such as earthquakes or tsunamis, as they aren't super predictable, so a technical solution to this problem wouldn't work.
2). The skills that are vital to adaptive challenges are based around teamwork within a group, leadership, communication, and creative thinking.
3). I feel like good skills to have as an engineer/scientist are things like creative thinking and communication are generally very important to have.

Part 2
1). I would not choose to nuke the Earth because there is still life on Earth, it may not be human, but to me it still isn't just to remove all life.
2). People who choose not to nuke the Earth can see the value in non-human life.
3). The people who would choose the nuke the Earth see nature more instrumentally, meaning they only see nature in ways that humans can use it.

Part 3
1). I'm partially in the middle on this scale, I value human life slightly more than other life, but I still value it pretty high.
2). I agree that there are places where humans should not live. Places such as nature reserves and recognized wildlife refuge areas, and all those like these should remain uninhabited by humans. I do not believe humans can change to truly co-exist with nature on a larger scale.
3). The national park charter definitely values nature in itself, trying to protect and preserve what little nature there still is.

Part 4
1). I feel that humans should be on equal basis with all other nature on Earth, rather than on top of all other species.
2). I do not necessarily agree that humans have special rights over other life on Earth.
3). I feel like we need to find the safe region where we lower the total suffering of all life, but as a human, still have benefits in the standards of living.

Part 5
1). I do plan on having children at some point.
2). Yes I feel we are obligated to often treat other's children how we would treat our own, and helping where possible, and creating a better world for that next generation.
3). People do have a right to experience nature, but there needs to be guidelines on what can be done within nature.
4). As humans, we need nature and its resources to survive, so it cannot be truly preserved without humans being taken out of the picture, so there are limits.

Part 6
1). The most dangerous technologies are those that have hidden consequences, or ones that were not taken into full thought of consequences.
2). Yes some of these tech would impact nonhuman nature as well, such as sprays that add to the damage to the ozone layer, or tech that just becomes waste that does not decompose remotely fast at all.
3). Some want to avoid risks at all costs, while the others use a more universal rule that needs to be looked at for risks.

Part 7
1). A cost benefit analysis can be used to find out if the benefits of something are worth the costs of risks.
2). Some fairness issues relate to how most groups of humans tend to bend to those who offer more and more money for their own agenda, creating a not so fair situation for life.
3). These business decisions are all only focused on what monetary income that they can get the most form and almost nothing else is take into account. Regulations and laws are the only thing to really stop them from ruining the entirety of nature.

Part 8
1). No, after learning, I still hold the same views in having children. I feel that the way nature and the world gets treated and how the future is going to be truly depends on the parenting of the next generation. Often times I'm truly worried about how its going to be in certain time with the current generation of children due to the severe lack of parenting that I've witnessed, but this doesn't mean to push away from having children as a whole, this should just lead to people striving to become better parents and have their children help preserve nature.

- SB

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Part 1

What other problems/issues might be more “adaptive” than “technical”?

(Other adaptive challenges would AI, artificial intelligence, because AI is more efficient than human, it fails to apply ethics in their actions.)

What skills are necessary to address adaptive challenges?

(I believe that critical thinking would be an important skill to address adaptive challenges because these issues forces us to look at the problems from multiple perspectives.)

What skills-more generally-do you think are necessary to be a good engineer/scientist?

(In order to be a good engineer, an individual first must be proficient in their technical skills. Furthermore, an engineer must be able to think critically and to work in a collaborative environment to solve the adaptive challenges.)

Part 2

In the “last man” scenario, would you nuke it or no? Why?

(I would not nuke it because although I am last person alive, there was still living organisms such as trees and animals.)

Most people say don’t nuke it. What could be their reasons?

(I believe that the most common reasoning would be that the living organism that are currently alive would be able to experience evolution and become humans in the future.)

Some people say it’s okay to nuke it. What could be their reasons?

(I believe that for these specific people, their value is human-centered, thus they believe that it is ok to nuke since no human is alive.)

Part 3

Where do you fit on this scale?

(I would say I am weak version of non-anthropocentric because although I believe that nature itself has its unique value, I tend to look everyday objects such as my phone and water bottle through an anthropocentric perspective.)

Do you think there are places where humans should never live? (They visit but do not remain)

(Yes, I believe that unique natural sights should be preserved as it is.)

Look up the charter for the US National Park system. What Value(s) does it demonstrate?

(The carter for the US National Park system places great emphasis on protecting and preserving the nature rather than its uses for sightseeing and tourism.)

Part 4

Where do you think “humans fit”? Why?

(I would say humans fit between masters and stewards of nature because people have different view of nature, thus a clear classification can't be made.)

Even if you do not consider yourself religious, do you think the Judeo-Christian view is correct?

(I agree that we as humans control the nature to a certain extent, however I strongly disagree with the view that we are the masters of nature.)

If we are just “one species among many,” does that mean we should change our relationship with the environment?

(Not entirely because although we hurt the nature through our usage, we are still using nature to live just like other living organisms.)

Part 5

Do you plan on having children?

(I do.)

Do we have obligations other people’s children?

(We do have an obligation to other people's children to a certain extent because we are obligated to preserve the nature for the future generation.)

Do people have a right to experience nature?

(We have a right to experience nature because everyone has the right to enjoy life.)

Are there limits to these obligations and rights?

(It depends on personal beliefs and viewpoints because some people might not worry about the future circumstances of their actions as much compared to other people.)

Part 6

What are the most dangerous technologies? Why?

(The most dangerous technologies are our phones and computers because in our current society we became addicted to it and controlled by them to a certain extent.)

Would these technologies also impact non-human nature?

(Yes because as technologies get replaced by new versions, the old versions of technologies will become trash.)

Look up some of the different versions of the precautionary principle and discuss the differences.

(The difference is that some state to avoid risks at all cost while others state that a universally accepted rules and requirements need to be applied regardless of the risk.)

Part 7

What sorts of issues can a cost-benefit analysis be used to address?

(Cost-benefit analysis can only address issues related to supply and demand efficiently.)

What other issues of “fairness” seem embedded in environmental questions

( The environmental questions revolves around the idea of fairness as it always involves groups which could either benefit from its solution gets harmed by the solution.)

How are ideas about anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric value in play here?

(The libertarian approach uses cost-benefit analysis when it comes to constructing a solution for environmental questions. Thus, the aspects of anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric value gets lost along the way.)

Part 8

Revisit your answers about obligations to future generations. In light of population trends, does your thinking about having children change? Why?

(It does not change because with how much our current population uses resources, it is important to preserve the nature for the future generation to utilize.)

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Part 1
1. I think there a lot of environmental problems that are more adaptive than technical. We cannot change a lot of things about our environment and so it is necessary to adapt rather than recreate. A good example is working with the human genome. We can't reengineer the whole genome but we can adapt it to suit our needs.
2. To address adaptive challenges, one must be willing to consider all ideas and think creatively.
3. You need to have creativity, and a strong moral compass. You need to be able to think critically about technical problems and also consider the wide range of consequences from your actions.
Part 2
1. I would not nuke probably. Honestly if I was the last person on earth I don't think I would survive for very long. If I did survive I think I would wait until the pain of existence got more overwhelming than the idea of destroying everything.
2. My reasoning in saying not to nuke it is that my life and natural life has inherent value.
3. Those who say you can nuke it don't think that nature is of as much value as human life, and so if the human wants to die, nature may as well die too.
Part 3
1. I think that I value humans and human life over nature, but I do think nature has some inherent value.
2. I think that having spaces that are dedicated to nature and preserve nature are a good and important thing. I like being in sparsely populated areas and in natural parks.
3. The national park charter shows that they value nature in and of itself, and seek to protect nature from being destroyed in certain areas of the country.
Part 4
1. I think humans are created in the image of God and all human life has a special kind of value because of that. I also think that all life has value, but morality applies more to humans than other animals. Because of this however we have a responsibility to take care of nature and treat it with respect.
2. I do think the Judeo Christian view is correct because I think it does a good job of differentiating between humans and other animals without removing value from either.
3. If humans had no intrinsic purpose or meaning above that of any other animal, of course that would change our relationship with the environment. It would be tantamount to murder to harm another animal, and we would need to stop acting in our own best interest all the time.
Part 5
1. I plan on having children if I ever get to a stable point in my life and I am with the right person.
2. We do not have an obligation to other people's children as much as we do to our own. However we have obligations to them in the sense that they are people and should be treated as we would like to be treated.
3. I do not think people have a right to experience nature per se. I think people can experience it in a lot of different ways.
4. There are limits to these obligations and rights because they are too broad and generic.
Part 6
1. The most dangerous technologies are those that destroy the environment itself. I think this is why great caution must be used when trying to eradicate mosquitoes or change the genome of plants and animals, because although the goals are good there may be a lot of unintended consequences.
2. Yes, these technologies by definition impact non human nature.
3. There is the idea that precaution must be taken even if cause and effect relationships are not yet fully established scientifically. This is the definition I most agree with because it says that even things that are not scientifically demonstrable yet, like correlation, should be taken into consideration because the consequences are so great.
Part 7
1. Cost benefit analysis can address economic issues, time management issues, and issues related to technical maximizing of products and goods.
2. Fairness is imbedded in environmental questions because the environment affects everyone, not just the decision maker. Also fairness is imbedded in environmental questions because usually the strongest actor makes decisions for the weaker actors.
3. The Anthropocene changed the natural playing field in that human interaction with the environment changed the environment fundamentally, whereas other species just coexist with the environment.
Part 8
No, my thinking about having children is not changed in response to population trends. First of all, in the West fewer and fewer women are having children. We have been below replacement level since the 70s. Meanwhile, in southeast Asia and Africa, populations are rising. I think that we can find ways to take care of everyone, and I think that discouraging people from having children is a bad idea because it sends the message that human life is not valuable enough to perpetuate.

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PT. 1
1. Problems such as environmental disasters can be considered as adaptive. An earthquake for example is very chaotic in nature and a technical approach will not work as well as a adaptive approach.
2. The most vital skills needed to have a successful adaptive approach are teamwork, communication, and open thinking.  An adaptive challenge can take many different thoughts or ideas to find a solution. For example, your team will need to work together if you wish to find the best course of action to take.
3. To be a good engineer requires the same skills as the adaptive challenge. Important skills such as teamwork as well as communication are primarily the upmost importance. As an engineer most challenges are adaptive, and others point of views are just as important as your own. As such you need to be able to be receptive to feedback from fellow engineers otherwise projects will never progress if there are constant arguments.
PT2
1. In the last man scenario I would choose not  to Nuke the earth. Ethically it is the most moral choice, as choosing the destruction of the earth would kill not only myself, but all the other forms of life around me. I personally feel it is selfish to choose to not let the life around me cultivate simply because I have given up.
2. The vast majority of people also choose not to nuke themselves, but why? For many self preservation is the key role running their life, but at this point when they no longer care for themselves they feel a greater empathy for others around them. They would rather sacrifice their own happiness to help what's around them, and allow it to prosper and grow.
3. The others who say it is ok to nuke it would be thinking about themselves rather than others. They would rather get rid of themselves so they could be "happy" rather than letting everything around them prosper and grow. There own happiness is placed higher in priority than everything else.
PT 3
1. I feel as if I fall directly in the middle. Although I do see the value in nature I tend to value the services that come out of changing nature. However, I feel as if we do not need to continuously alter nature as what is changed is extremely hard to fix.
2. I do personally feel there are places people should not populate. For example, the national parks in America are beautiful testaments to nature that are ok to visit but populating would take away the magic of it.
3. The values demonstrate that nature has a higher priority than using the land for other uses. I think this makes sense because there is very little land left purely for nature and that needs to be preserved.
PT 4
1. I think humans would fit on the top. This is because we oversee and think about the other animals and creature, and as such need to focus on protecting them as much as possible.
2. I do think that view is correct because it is very akin to the saying "treat those as you would want to be treated. " It allows us to have a purpose and responsibility to help others and animals as well.
3. To me this means we need to use our resources more wisely. If we are not careful we will be the only species from over using the environment and eliminating the others.
PT 5
1. Yes I plan om having children
2. I believe our obligations are to leave the world better for both our children as well as others children. There is not a reason to be selfish and leave the world worse than
3. Nature is different to everyone, but as such everyone has the right to experience it in their own way. For example nature used to be running around outside and enjoying the day, but now it could be as simple as laying out for a tan.
4. Nature cannot be perfectly preserved without the downfall of humanity also occurring. We need nature to survive, so yes we should try to preserve it but we also need to preserve it as much as possible, so limits do exist.
PT 6
1. The most dangerous are those that have unforeseen consequences. Cigarettes used to be considered healthy. After research is done however it was proven how harmful they could be. The same can be said for gas powered vehicles. Technology without any research is the most dangerous.
2. Yes, hairspray had been used prominently in the 80's and impacting nature all around. It was only stopped when humans began facing consequences as well with the ozone layer.
3. Through acting with a high hazard you are asking for forgiveness rather than for permission. It would be better to prevent the problem rather than clean up the problem that could have been prevented in one way or another.
PT 7
1. A cost benefit analysis can be used to draw conclusions on the benefits and consequences of certain actions. Through this it can be easier to identify a better solution, like if we should frack in a certain area or not. However a cost benefit can also lead to the choice being based off of money rather than ethics.
2.  Money is always the most important factor. Big companies would rather do it for cheaper and easier than spend money to make the environment better. The bigger company tends to have an unfair advantage because they have more money and a larger presence.
3. Business decisions are based purely off of what will make the most money. The amount of regulations put in place are the only thing that has stopped them from completely destroying the environment. The view here leans to anthropocentric because they view nature as a resource for humans to use rather than enjoy and preserve.
PT 8
1. No, I believe having children is an important part of life for me that would give me a greater purpose and reason. Bringing kids into this world as is would be fine, and push me to improve it as is. Having children would give a greater meaning to life that would allow me to push for what is right.

# data[].attributes.body
Part 1)

The problem of how we can make the plastics we manufacture more eco-friendly, such as water bottles, is more adaptive than technical. We wouldn’t just need to consider if the water bottle did its job in the short term, but also how it  could contribute to pollution in the environment in the long term.

Addressing adaptive challenges is most efficient in groups, since we need a wide range of perspectives to see every side of an issue and brainstorm many possible solutions. So the skills we would need are leadership and teamwork.

To be an engineer in general, you also need to be able to deal with the technical problems too of course, so you must be proficient with the science you work in. You should also be able to communicate, since if you are working in a group not everyone will have the expertise that you do.

Part 2)

I would not nuke the Earth. I believe that the level of complexity that we see with life on Earth is something remarkable, so the life of all organisms has inherent value to me.

The people who wouldn’t nuke the Earth see nature as having inherent value, regardless of how humans use it. So it is unethical to nuke it because destroying nature in any capacity goes against their morality.

The people who would nuke the Earth see nature as having instrumental value, meaning that it is only valuable in the ways that humans can use it. So if there are no more humans alive, then nature would have no value, so these people think it is ethical to nuke it.

Part 3)

I am closer to the non-anthropocentric end of this spectrum than the anthropocentric end. I believe that life has inherent value, so our decisions regarding nature should be based primarily on their effects on living organisms.

I do not agree with this. However, I do believe that we as humans need to fundamentally change the way we inhabit places so that we can coexist with nature. If we did this, we would be able to conserve and preserve nature while simultaneously living on it.

The charter specifically mentions that one of the reasons for the National Park system is to preserve nature for “future generations.” So this is taking more of an anthropocentric approach than a non-anthropocentric approach, since they are not talking about the inherent value of nature, but rather the instrumental value of allowing future generations to witness nature.

Part 4)

I believe in the “eco” view that humans are simply one species among many. All living organisms on Earth can respond to good and bad conditions, which in a way can be seen as experiencing happiness and suffering. So I believe that humans have a responsibility to increase the happiness and decrease the suffering of all life on Earth.

I do not agree with the Judeo-Christian view that humans have “dominion” or “special rights” over other life on Earth. Since all life can experience happiness and suffering to some capacity, all species have the same inherent value to me.

Yes, we should. I do not think we should have the goal of eliminating suffering for all life on Earth entirely, since humans rely on resources from plants and animals to survive so it is not possible. Rather, I think our goal should be to minimize the suffering of other species as much as possible while still maximizing the standards of life for humans.

Part 5)

I don’t plan on having children.

I do think that we have obligations to future generations. If we only considered humans on Earth today and not humans who will be on the Earth in the future, we would do things like using up our supplies of natural resources because we would see it as “their problem” and not ours.

I do think that all humans should be able to experience nature in some way. However, I do not think that the solution to this is breaking off sections of land that humans cannot use at all, such as National Parks. Instead, I think that we should be changing our ways of living so that nature and humans can coexist in all places that we inhabit.

I think that we should look as far into the future as possible, so there are no limits. Ideally, we should reach a point technologically where all of our interactions with nature are 100% renewable, so we would no longer be handing our problems to future generations.

Part 6)

The most dangerous technologies are those where the long-term consequences are still mostly unknown. Take GMOs for instance - they can be incredibly helpful to humans in the short term, but we have yet to have them around for long enough to see the long term damage they could have on ecosystems.

Yes, all technologies will have interactions with nature in some way. With GMOs, the more efficient, modified version of an organism could enter an ecosystem and then inadvertently wipe out the natural version of that organism through competition.

Some versions of the precautionary principle state that we should not introduce new technologies if we have any uncertainties at all about their consequences, which is the extreme. Other versions state that we should not introduce them “if the stakes are high,” which is problematic because how are we supposed to make this judgement?

Part 7)

Cost-benefit analysis should only be used to make decisions which affect you personally and no one else. When you are labeling someone else’s well-being as a “cost” or a “benefit,” you cannot simply compare the costs with the benefits because then you are making a judgement about the value of some people’s well-being relative to others.

When talking about “fairness” we must also consider the present state of the environment now. Some places on Earth have nature which is perfectly preserved, while other places on Earth have nature which has been destroyed. So we must focus on balancing these disparities so people living in all places on Earth can experience nature.

The Libertarian approach to environmental ethics is 100% anthropocentric and 0% non-anthropocentric. To determine what happens to nature, it only takes into account the preferences of humans democratically and nothing else.

Part 8)

No, my thinking does not change. I do not think that we should be thinking of environmental ethics in the context of overpopulation and excessive resource use; rather, we should think of overpopulation and excessive resource use as their own problems which need addressing. We should take steps to prevent these trends from having disastrous consequences, rather than mitigating these consequences after the fact.

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Part 1

·       What other problems/issues might be more “adaptive” than “technical”?

Adaptive problems require lifestyle or social changes such as pollution. To solve the issue, we need new regulations, environmentally friendly laws, and most of all: buy in from people. Everyone needs to do their part in reducing waste, which is a very difficult thing to achieve. This can also be said about the water crisis or the pandemic. Although a vaccine is a technical solution, it doesn’t work unless everyone utilizes it to prevent further spread of the virus.

·       What skills are necessary to address adaptive challenges?

Some important skills are communication, delegation, and persuasiveness. Adaptive challenges require team efforts, and this can only be achieved if the team gets along and is willing to work together for the greater good.

·       What skills-more generally-do you think are necessary to be a good engineer/scientist?

Skills that make a good engineer/scientist are critical thinking, problem-solving, and time-management.

Part 2

·       In the “last man” scenario, would you nuke it or no? Why?

Hell no. If I want to kill myself THAT BADLY that I’m contemplating destroying the whole world, then I bet I’m determined enough to be able to succeed in killing myself in non-nuke related ways. My mental issues are no one’s problem but myself, so why would I make others pay for my misery? That’s such a selfish way to think.

·       Most people say don’t nuke it. What could be their reasons?

People value life and don’t believe 1 person’s misery warrants the end to other lives. One person’s burdens shouldn’t negatively impact others.

·       Some people say it’s okay to nuke it. What could be their reasons?

I legit have no idea. Maybe because the death is quick and painless? But pain or suffering doesn’t change the ethical implications of the scenario. Killing someone painlessly isn’t much better than stabbing someone to death.

Part 3

·       Where do you fit on this scale?

I found that I am very non anthropocentric and find value in nature just because of its existence. I think that something can have value even if it doesn’t directly benefit humans. I hate the superiority complex that something isn’t valuable unless we can use it. Well, other species might be able to use it. I think that it’s useless to judge the value of something from a biased perspective. We only know what it’s like to be in the shoes of humans, so we don’t know the true value that a place/ecosystem/species may hold.

·       Do you think there are places where humans should never live? (They visit but do not remain)

Yes. I think there should be a lot of places that humans should never live. We have already pretty much conquered the Earth, so we need to preserve whatever we can to preserve the beauty of nature and its intrinsic value.

·       Look up the charter for the US National Park system. What Value(s) does it demonstrate?

The US National Park system values preservation of nature, which is a very non anthropocentric ideal. They strive to protect nature not for human benefit, but because it’s the ethical thing to do.

Part 4

·       Where do you think “humans fit”? Why?

I feel like humans belong with each other. We need each other to survive and flourish, and although we also need resources from our environment, we can interact with nature in a way that doesn’t negatively impact other living creatures – which sadly is very difficult. I think we belong WITH nature instead of on top of it or against it.

·       Even if you do not consider yourself religious, do you think the Judeo-Christian view is correct?

No. The world was not created for us. We evolved to be able to inhabit the world. We are suited to withstand Earth’s conditions, so if anything, we should be contributing to the well-being of nature so that we can allow other species the opportunity of life like we were gifted. But instead, we are so incessant on controlling nature and people that we destroy everything in the path.

·       If we are just “one species among many,” does that mean we should change our relationship with the environment?

Yes! Although humans should stick together and form close bonds with one another, we just still interact with nature and be WITH it instead of ALONGSIDE it.

Part 5

·       Do you plan on having children?

I plan on adopting children and potentially donating sperm to allow a single mom to have a child.

·       Do we have obligations other people’s children?

We are obligated to look out for and advocating for the overall safety and well-being of other children, but since we have not made the commitment to care for them, we are not responsible for providing for them and meeting their needs.

·       Do people have a right to experience nature?

We are a part of nature, so we are entitled to experience it.

·       Are there limits to these obligations and rights?

Yes. Asking people to feel some sort of obligation to other children puts a lot of pressure on parents and may overwhelm them. It’s also impossible to protect someone’s right to see nature when that might infringe on someone’s right to live there or build something there. There’s a large grey area.

Part 6

·       What are the most dangerous technologies? Why?

The most dangerous technologies are ones that exploit people’s trust and loyalty. These technologies may cause consumers to blindly follow without question.

·       Would these technologies also impact non-human nature?

Yes. If people blindly follow technologies, they may make decisions that ultimately affect the environment. Look at cigarettes. People got addicted and held trust in the companies that the smoke began to negatively impact the environment through pollution and by lung disease among people.

·       Look up some of the different versions of the precautionary principle and discuss the differences.

Precautionary principle urges people to deny a risk if it seems too high with too little benefit. This can be used in a philosophical, economic, and engineering standpoint. Regardless of the scenario, the precautionary principle encompasses the idea of being safe instead of sorry.

Part 7

·       What sorts of issues can a cost-benefit analysis be used to address?

Cost-benefit analysis is rooted in the assumption that consumers will make the correct/ethical choice when that is not the case. People are stupid and won’t always do the right thing. This can lead companies to continuing malpractices without government regulation.

·       What other issues of “fairness” seem embedded in environmental questions?

If people collectively want to ruin the environment, then they will use their money to pay for things that accomplish this. This isn’t right, and it isn’t fair, but it’s what the market decided. This is very dangerous in that big decisions are chosen on uneducated people.

·       How are ideas about anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric value in play here?

Business decisions are guided by influence of public. Without regulation, it’s likely that people with wealth will use money to bribe companies to continuing processes that directly benefit them. This is anthropocentric in that the viewpoint is centered around nature’s resources being utilized solely to benefit humans. With government regulation, consumers have less say and don’t directly influence companies, and the environment is likely better protected, which is non anthropocentric.

Part 8

·       Revisit your answers about obligations to future generations. In light of population trends, does your thinking about having children change? Why?

No. I don’t want to bring new kids into this screwed up world. I would rather save someone from this terrible world. I know this is a controversial opinion, but I think it’s very unethical to have children for the sake of it, religious reasons or not. I think people should be very selective with having children. Over population and distribution of resources is already a huge issue and having more kids than necessary is just making things worse.

# data[].attributes.body
Part 1:

Adaptive problems are the challenges that are more challenging than the technical issues. These come about as progress is made, which can cause unforeseen challenges. Adaptive issues can even come about after a solution is put in place. For example, if a huge stadium was built for a professional sports team, the traffic in that area will exponentially increase. The people that live in this area would not want to deal with this every time there is an event. This would be an adaptive challenge. Another adaptive challenge would be the traffic caused by the new Mines rover. This might not have been anticipated in the design and must have a solution to make everyone happy. Teamwork is an emphasis in solving adaptive challenges, especially in the professional world. Many engineers go on to work as teams and need to know how to work with others. This could be listening to new ideas or directing a new project. These skills make a good engineer or scientist because they are easy to work with. People who are easy to work with tend to be the ones who move up in the hierarchy.

Part 2:

I would personally not nuke the last of life remaining on Earth. I realize that in this situation I do not want to stay alone on Earth, but I cannot end all possibility of life for my selfish thinking. For people who say don’t nuke it, I would say they are thinking about the possibility of other living things getting destroyed like plants. They do not think it is right to take something away to make yourself happy in this situation. For the people who say nuke it, they could be thinking that they are the last person around, so they do not have to think about anyone’s opinion. This makes the choice easier when you only have to think about your morals and opinions. I think it would be that idea of being the only human being around to make someone do it. They are only affecting themselves in this situation.

Part 3:

I learned that I valued nature even when humans are not receiving anything from nature. I believe humans cannot be one sided when it comes to nature because we would not be able to live without trees and other objects in nature. We rely heavily on nature, so humans should not be making decisions that wipe away nature. I fall more on the non anthropocentric mindset. I do believe that there are some places that humans should not live. Humans have had the reputation to ruin nature and run it to the ground at the point of no return. There should be some places where humans are not allowed to do this. I do not think there should be a large amount of these places, but they should exist. The charter for the US National Park system has the will to conserve nature that is not changed by humans. The charter for the US National Park system is mainly non anthropocentric, which makes sense because they support putting nature before human desires.

Part 4:

I believe most humans will say they are more non anthropocentric, but they are actually anthropocentric. I would even put myself under this category, I described myself as non anthropocentric. I would like to be this way, but I still depend so much on nature, which I get from companies who use nature poorly. This goes into the Judeo-Christian view, which means that humans are above nature and can use nature as we please. I do not think this is one hundred percent correct because we should not use nature to the point where we have none left. There should be a point at which too much is too much. I do believe we can use nature to help our everyday lives, but to a certain extent. We should coexist with nature and other species. We should not abuse our relationship with nature.

Part 5:

I plan on starting a family, which includes children and many generations. I do believe we have a responsibility to sustain nature for our future generations even when we are not directly related. We were all given the opportunity to view nature, so who is it to say we are not obligated to give the future generations the same opportunities. I think the view of not worrying about our future generations is selfish and not capable of sustaining life on Earth for the future. I think we should worry about a few generations down the line, or the most  we can worry about. We should worry about this by putting our needs and benefits aside to think about the future. Humans tend to be selfish to sustain their best life. I think we could put this mindset aside to better our lives and the lives of the future generations.

Part 6:

In a sense all technology can be dangerous even the ones we use in our everyday lives. Computers and phones bring risk that may be low, but it still exists. Cars bring a lot of risks ranging from environmental risks to safety risks. I think this could be one of the most dangerous technologies that we use today. We are changing the environment rapidly and are still producing more and more cars. I think we have created a bad habit which is hard to break. We are trying to change too late. The precautionary principle explains that humans and nature should adapt when hazards are high. This is where I believe we are trying to adapt too late.

Part 7:

A cost-benefit analysis is a form of utilitarianism mindset, which means consequences are at question not the choices. A cost and benefit analysis can be used for  a vast variety of problems. It can be used for making a choice to go to college, which means we are looking at the benefits of going to college and the cost of going to college. Environmental issues are a bit more challenging to use the cost-benefit analysis. There is no fairness embedded in the decision making process of the cost-benefit analysis. Benefits may not always be in the favor of a non-anthropocentric value. This makes using the cost-benefit process difficult for environmental problems.

Part 8:

I do not think this changes my view of having children, but it does change my mindset of how urgent this problem is. I do not think it would be just to say they cannot start families to save the environment, but I do think it is just to change our habits to cut down on the resources we use. I still believe change can come, but I think it has to come from everyone, not just a selective few.

# data[].attributes.body
Pt1

Problems like animals in the road are adaptive issues because it is impossible to solve this issue as animals exist everywhere and cannot be controlled to such an extent. Some necessary skills would be to think about how to improve instead of always thinking about how to solve. Every factor should be included when thinking about addressing adaptive challenges. In order to be a good STEM worker, it is crucial that a person must be good at identifying problems and doing what they can to improve upon the situation.

Pt 2

While this scenario is a hard one to put myself into, I feel that even if I am the only person alive and don’t want to live anymore it doesn’t make it okay for me to kill off every other species of life with me. I feel like this relates to when, say, I have a bad day. I try not to go out of my way to make anyone else’s day bad. Same kind of concept applies here. Just because I, a human, cannot go one without human interaction, doesn’t mean I should kill myself and everyone along with me. I can understand, however, why some people say to just nuke it. It’s convenient and maybe it’s like a dream of theirs where they've always wanted to nuke something. Not everyone feels the same way about nature and if you're dead immediately then there’s no suffering, no thought, no guilt, it’s just over. Those are some reasons why people may just say nuke it. I feel that more people say to nuke it just because there are other living things on the planet, even if they aren’t humans and they should have a chance to live as well.

Pt3

I feel that I am towards the non-anthropocentric side of the scale but still existing in the middle-ish area. While I believe that everything has value and is important, I still find myself thinking about how some things are more important to me because they provide me a service or direct help. People have a way with areas and once they are introduced to an area, it is ultimately destroyed unless extremely regulated, and even then forest fires still happen because of humans, littering, vandalism. Humans are destructive, it is in their nature. I feel that there are a lot of places where humans would never live. These include very secluded areas in sahara, the north and the south poles, and on some secluded islands. In the National Park system charter for the US, they have a lot of values pointed towards having members on the board be experienced and have special expertise in related fields to the environment. While this is the case, they also make it clear that they mean the best and do not want anyone questioning their decisions as a board. I feel there are a lot of contrasting ideas in the charter and it is unclear whether they are more for the non-anthropocentric side of the scale or vice versa.

Pt4

I feel that humans should fit more in the ECO idea of the circle of life, but I know that most people do not think about it like that. The hard part is that humans can pretty much do whatever they want when they want, yes these actions have consequences, but they can still do the damage regardless. Poachers for example, yes, it is illegal, however people still do it. At the end of the day humans do take control of our environment, whether it’s right or wrong they do what they want with what they want. From a personal perspective I feel that we should exist without this difference in power as people often take advantage of the technology we have today. I grew up in a Judeo-Christian household and I feel that I have had a little on the way I thought about life and nature. Thankfully my parents were extremely into the outdoors and really appreciated nature for what it is. I think that some aspects of that view are understandable and some are not. I think that nature is a sacred thing whether it is made by God or not and it should be treated with respect. I do think we should change our relationship with the environment because like I said before, humans tend to take advantage of the privileges they have and use them with evil intentions. I think that humans and other species can coexist together without intentionally harming one another in the process with no reason behind.

Pt 5

Personally I do not plan on having children, I have never felt the desire and I cannot see myself having them at any point in the future. That being said, I still feel like we have a duty to protect other people’s children. Something about the little humans with absolutely no knowledge but the potential for anything they want makes people put every child before themselves (most people). It is important for us to set up the children in the world for success, not only to help them live fulfilled lives, but also to keep our planet preserved for the future generations. I do think that people have a right to experience unspoiled nature. Our planet has so many amazing places and sights that give a lot of people purpose. I think that it is only fair that we leave what doesn’t need to be touched alone. Obviously these obligations and rights have limits due to the ever growing population of the world and the growth of infrastructure all over the word. It comes down to the point of whether we give these future generations a place to live, or a place to see. While this is not something that is ideal to think about, depending on how far into the future, it is very likely that that question will have to be answered.

Pt 6

Some very dangerous technologies are often ones that provide the most benefit to us as humans. Like the windmill example, solar panels also do harm to the environment, taking up space in the desert and attracting birds and such. Straws are some of the most convenient things to use, however, when thrown away, they often harm the environment and all the living things involved. Another example is pesticides that are used to get bugs off of our veggies and fruits. These pesticides are harmful to us and animals alike. Without knowledge of the chemicals, either party could be affected. One version of the precautionary principle states that if something is not understood it should not be encouraged, while another says that only if there is insufficient information and data that says something might not be great should something be discouraged. The difference is that one is simple if you don’t understand, while another is that some evidence is needed to prove that something is not good.

Pt 7

Cost-benefit analysis can be used to address issues like the implementation of renewable energy resources. In this example, the cost of this is quite high, but the benefit is a more sustainable resource that is cleaner for the environment. The fairness of the decisions is not always taken into consideration due to the sole focus of how much and how it will affect us. In the environment, following the example provided, it is not fair for human’s to place things like wind turbines and solar panels in the homes of many animals in nature, but that doesn’t stop people from doing it. This directly relates to anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric because humans are not worried about how the decision impacts anything, but how it will be used to benefit themselves, or even something that would indirectly benefit them as well. The cost-benefit analysis of a problem thrives off of the anthropocentric value; as something is associated with a greater outcome, the cost is not as important to the decision, etc.

Pt 8

The thought process for having children does not change much, but it almost solidifies my reasoning to not. While I have many personal reasons why I don’t want to, I do find the rapidly growing population a bit terrifying because with a growing population comes many complications with space, resources, and a monumental amount of waste. It is hard to want to put another human out into the world if I’m not sure that the world would be ready for them.

# data[].attributes.body
Part 1
1. What other problems/issues might be more “adaptive” than “technical”? The problem of natural disasters is more adaptive than technical because it can change based on the circumstances.
2. What skills are necessary to address adaptive challenges? In order to address adaptive challenges, you need to have team work and collaboration. Adaptive challenges take many points of views to come up with feasible solutions.
3. What skills-more generally-do you think are necessary to be a good engineer/scientist? I think it is important to be able to work with a team and present your ideas as an engineer. Also it is important to be able to hear other people's opinions and take criticism.
Part 2
1. In the “last man” scenario, would you nuke it or no? Why? I wouldn't nuke the planet because it isn't fair to kill all of the plants and animals. Just because I want to die doesn't mean everything else should have to die.
2. Most people say don’t nuke it. What could be their reasons? They could see value in the plants and animals. They could want to preserve the rest of the world.
3. Some people say it’s okay to nuke it. What could be their reasons? They could think that because there are no humans on the planet, there is less value in the animals and plants. Also they wouldn't be there to have to deal with the consequences.
Part 3
1.Where do you fit on this scale? I think I am more on the intrinsically side of the scale. I find value in nature itself even if it is not doing anything for humans.
2. Do you think there are places where humans should never live? (They visit but do not remain) I think places that are untouched by humans should stay untouched by humans. Humans enter ecosystems and dramatically change them this is can be damaging. Therefore I think some nature should remain untouched.
3. Look up the charter for the US National Park system. What Value(s) does it demonstrate? The charter for the US National Park system values nature over human use for the land. This makes sense because the land is set aside to be preserved.
Part 4
1. Where do you think “humans fit”? Why? I think humans fit on top because we think about all of the other creatures. I feel like we need to treat this as a responsibility and use it to benefit the world.
2. Even if you do not consider yourself religious, do you think the Judeo-Christian view is correct? I do think the Judeo-Christian view is correct because it gives us a responsibility as humans to look out for all of the other creatures.
3. If we are just “one species among many,” does that mean we should change our relationship with the environment? It means that we are equal to many other species. I think if we believe this then we should only use what we need to survive and not over use the resources in the environment.
Part 5
1. Do you plan on having children? I do plan on having children.
2. Do we have obligations other people’s children? I believe we have obligations to leave the world better than we found it for my kids and future generations of children. 3. Do people have a right to experience nature? I believe that people do have the right to experience nature. With that being said I believe that nature changes and will look very different in every generation.
4.Are there limits to these obligations and rights? I do think that you can't perfectly sustain nature because we do need to use it to survive, therefore that would be a limit to those rights and obligations.
Part 6
1. What are the most dangerous technologies? Why? The most dangerous technologies are the technologies that hide how dangerous they really are. This is dangerous because consumers can't protect themselves from what they don't know.
2. Would these technologies also impact non-human nature? Yes because if people use pesticides for example and aren't warned of the consequences they can end up killing a whole ecosystem in the river that their lawn run off goes into.
3. Look up some of the different versions of the precautionary principle and discuss the differences.
By acting when hazards are high you are cleaning up after the problem instead of preventing it. A better version would be to prevent problems and design things with caution.
Part 7
1. What sorts of issues can a cost-benefit analysis be used to address? Cost-benefit analysis can be used to address issues that have different consequences based on the choices. This can be college decisions, job decisions, or our day to day choices to do the morally right thing.
2. What other issues of “fairness” seem embedded in environmental questions? If it is fair to have the same environmental regulations for everyone no matter their economic class. This is an issue we see in day to day life around the world.
3. How are ideas about anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric value in play here? People who have anthropocentric views don't see value in adding environmental restraints to resources like fossil fuels. Where people who have non-anthropocentric views see value in restricting some fossil fuel use to better the environment and nature as a whole.
Part 8
1. Revisit your answers about obligations to future generations. In light of population trends, does your thinking about having children change? Why? I think I will still want to have children. I think now I will have less children probably only two. I would only have two so I wouldn't make the population increase too much. Also I think that I will try to use less resources in the future so having less children will help me do that.
-Hannah Roberts

# data[].attributes.body
-Moral Relativism is the point of view that there is no good or bad moral standards and that everything is relative. While this means people have the choice to choose how they think they should carry themselves, it can go just as badly as it can go well.

-Utilitarianism states that the correct course of action is the option that does the most good for the most people. While helping the most people in any given situation seems like good thing, just because an action favors the majority, doesn’t make the action just.

-Deontology states that the outcomes in a situation are meaningless and that the driving factor for decision making should be what is right and just without taking into account how it could end up. While it is good to try and make the most just decision, it can be reckless to always make decision with a vail of ignorance.

-Virtue Ethics are decision based on a persons’ social value and whether or not they could be considered virtuous. While it seems reasonable to help ‘good’ people over ‘bad’ people, it’s nearly impossible to accurately judge people without the influence of personal prejudices.

-Liberalism is in favor of protecting individual rights and acceptance of opposing points of view. While liberalism allows people to make their own decisions and can be a framework for understanding, it guarantees nothing.

Sandel talks about how money can buy better jail cells or public landmarks like the London Eye. What money can’t be used for are things like friendships and families. Market economies are where money is used as the main incentive, when money turns into something you use in every aspect of your life it shifts from a Market Economy to a Market Society.
The objections made about selling kidneys include how people could be exploited, the pice could sky rocket, people could be coerced and threatened to have it done, and the dehumanization that would come if people sold parts of their body like a car in a junk yard.

4. While watching the video on justice the section that grabbed my attention the most was the discussion on positive and negative rights. Although I can understand the argument from both sides, I tend to lean more towards the negative rights. I don’t think that anyone should have the power to stop someone else from fulfilling their needs but you shouldn’t be obligated to step in and affect change in someone else’s life. To clarify, I do think we should help our fellow man but it should be on our own resolve.

# data[].attributes.body
Part 1)

Some problems that are more adaptive in scope rather than technical are oftentimes more difficult. They usually include topics that have many disagreements on how you could solve them, require broad solutions, and solutions that generally require difficult change.

Skills that are required to solve adaptive problems need to be flexible to match the adaptivity of each problem. These skills include teamwork, flexibility, and open mindedness.

And out of the skills listed above I’d have to say keeping an open mind about problems and their solutions is the most important. This helps keep us scientists and engineers thinking about every factor of each problem, not just one set in stone solution.

Part 2)

Given the last man scenario I’d avoid nuking the Earth. My driving reason for this is that I don’t believe in destroying life itself for one selfish desire. I’d want to cultivate life and find a new meaning through the cultivation of other life.

Usually people like myself don’t find this scenario morally ok as we see the act as violent or selfish and don’t want to commit such acts. However, I can see an argument for the other side of the debate where justification can be derived from wanting to put rest to a dying planet, to let go of the past in a way.

Part 3)

On a scale comparing each person's value in nature to the next I would be on the extreme end, I find immense value in the nature around us. In my opinion, for the health of the planet and environment around us, I think there are definitely places humans should never live. US national parks, for example, are something humans need to observe but never intertwine with. I agree with the idea of national parks as some of their main values taken from the national park charter include humans not using parks for natural resources and not using parks for recreation.

Part 4)

In my opinion humans, in the grand scheme of things, serve to cultivate other living beings. We have this power to manipulate the world around us and as an engineer I am biased to believe that we exist to better everything around us.

I myself am not of any religion so I don’t think the Judeo-Christian approach to engineering isn’t correct. I’m of the opinion that you can’t be afraid or unwilling to change, especially if it's a change for the better.

Part 5)

I myself plan on having at least one child, and with that being said I and the others around me definitely have an obligation to future generations. With this obligation we’re holding accountable current leaders of our generation to work with goals of bettering the future. If we leave behind a legacy that inspires future generations to be better to those around us and the environment then we can help further a better, more sustainable world.

Part 6)

In my opinion some of the most dangerous technologies are those that break the idea of Rawls Veil of Ignorance. That is technology that is being developed that specifically  benefits one social class more than another. I think that technology should be developed with a sense of a veil over the target demographic. That way we can ensure the future is equally beneficial for everyone.

Part 7)

The cost-benefit analysis can be applied to really anything in life. When it comes to engineering, I’d have to say it applies when measuring the environmental impact a system will make compared to how many people the new system could benefit. The costs here being the potential negative impact on the environment adding synthetic systems could bring. The benefit being all the opposite positive effects the system adds to people.

Part 8)

When reflecting on my answer to one of the previous questions I’d have to say no, my opinion on having children hasn’t changed. Instead of solving the overpopulation problem with more ethical problems like if people should have children or not, I believe we need to focus on engineered solutions. Those are solutions that have a high benefit for others but low cost to the environment and others around us.