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"Nature as Wild Things" Throughout Golden, there are a lot of bunnies, squirrels, and birds that gather in populated and urban areas.  I have also seen buildings on my bike rides and runs that are worn down and covered in brush.  Nature survives through urbanization.  "As the Resources We Use" In Golden there is the clear creek which is used at Coors and there are a few reservoirs around used by normal people. "As Different to Different People" The Coors factory is used by people across America, however it is the people in Golden who have to deal with the pollution. The way Golden is situated in a valley, air pollution starts gathering throughout the day.  I can often see the smog in the distance while I run or bike. "As Landscape and Ecology We Build and Manage" I am always shocked by the landscape surrounding Golden.  There was a whole habitat before the first settlers began building their homes in Golden. We have found a way to enjoy floating down the creek, sliding down the snowy hills during the winter, and creating or following animal trails throughout the town.  "As a Premiere Source of Human Meaning" Humans have found beauty gazing in amazement and wonder at the mountains in the distance and sitting at the top of South Table and staring off into the horizon.  Watching the sunset and sunrise, taking hikes, or keeping track of the wildlife are all ways we have been able to find greater meaning in nature in Golden.

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I disagree with the structure of the moral sphere.  It completely depends on the person, their moral beliefs, and the circumstances they have gone through.  I for one, place a higher value on our biosphere than a lot of the other things in the inner circle.  I also would say I place a higher ethical consideration on my family than myself.  I do not believe that you can automatically assume this ethical consideration would work for everyone. I have come across a few ethical dilemmas in my life that have haunted me and kept me up at night. My decision for one in particular had to do with my belief that I was less than I was worth and also I was being coerced into the decision. Instinctively, I knew I shouldn't do it, but I did it anyway. I was later able to undo what I had done somewhat, but what I did still haunts me sometimes. Anyways, I realize now that I should have gone with my gut instinct. I feel as though most people know within themselves what is right and wrong, their subconscious knows the answer and it is up to the person to extract that information and put it into action, which can be fairly difficult. I would also say, having someone with influence over you tell you what is right or wrong messes with your head and your instincts. To make a clear decision for something morally ambiguous, one should sit and reflect on paper, within themselves, with other people (multiple people who do not gain anything either way) for as long as they need until they are certain with their decision.  The trolley problem really messes with me because I think to myself, "Why were these people on the train tracks not watching for the trains?" When I think like this, I think "it's natural selection." And to switch the track and murder the person who wasn't somewhere the train was meant to go would be punishing someone who was being safe. On the other hand, if you don't switch the tracks, in reality, you are punishing the five people's families and they did nothing wrong. I probably wouldn't switch the tracks. I would be convincing myself for the rest of my life that it was just meant to be though. So, while using the moral machine, I always picked what would result in the death of the people in the car and not the sidewalk because it is the people in the cars fault that they got into a faulty self driving car. The walkers had literally nothing to do with the dumb car. Also, cars are ruining the planet. When there was no-one was in the car, I left the car to keep going straight, because what will happen will happen.

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I would not change the report even though I would be very tempted to do so.  The reason for this being I know I would feel so guilty for being dishonest and I would stay up at night for years after it happens just thinking about how horrible a person I am.  I feel guilt very strongly and it makes me miserable. Part 2: Scientist and engineers are responsible for ensuring their products are not used for evil by creating barriers that would prevent their evil use. Obviously, creators would not be able to do this for all products. For instance, chainsaws, cars, and rat poison are all regularly used products that could be used for evil, yet the evil is not the creators fault.  I believe as long as the scientist and engineer made the product with good intent, minimize the products ability to do evil, and do not sell or create the product to someone who will use the product in an evil way, then the fault should not be their own.  Part 3: I believe the first document did adequately convey the risks of the flight since it urged for the flight to be delayed and said that the flight could end in the loss of human life and destruction of the ship. The second document did not convey the danger as it should have since it was advising for some short-term fixes which implied that the flight would be safe to go through with as scheduled.

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Week 4: Introduction to Moral Philosophy

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Week 4: Introduction to Moral Philosophy

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Moral relativism is the idea that all moral standpoints are equal. This would be good if there were not evil people in the world who have an ethical stance that could cause harm to others.
Utilitarianism is a form of ethical theory that the happiness and well-being of all should be maxed out as much as possible. This could lead to one innocent person carrying  all the burden so that all others involved could have as much happiness as possible.
Deontology is the moral theory that something should be deemed ethical or unethical through the steps it takes to do the action, not the outcome. This thinking could lead to actions that seem like the moral correct thing to do but lead to a lot of pain to others.
Virtue ethics emphasizes one's character instead of the actions a person has taken in order to get good consequences. This is flawed because a person who does no good in their life but have strong virtues would be considered morally better than someone who always will do the better choice.
Liberalism is based on liberty, consent of the governed, and equality. This is not always good since most people are selfish and only want what is best for them at the moment and not the future, the leaders the people choose could severely harm the environment or other nations.
Sandel mentions a prison cell update and the London eye as things money can buy. Friends and wedding speeches are things Sandel says money cannot buy. A market economy is a tool for organizing productive activity and a market society is where everything is for sale and everything is bought (even health, politics, looks).
People might be exploited for their organs because they have no other options and need money. Only people with enough money would be able to buy their "health". People selling the kidneys might attempt to cut corners and sell bad kidneys. People could be taken advantage of through blackmail. People should not sell themselves because it might objectify ourselves and we are sacred.
The definition of justice that resonates with me the most is the need-based justice because it makes sense to me that someone in more need of something, like food, shelter, or healthcare, should be given in instead of someone who has an abundance of these things.

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Issues that might be more adaptive than structural, would be issues that involve how a team dynamic is or what changes in the leadership style needs to be made. The skills involved in making these changes would involve critical thinking and self reflection on an individual and group level. Skills that make a good engineer are ability to think out of the box and to be adaptive.
If I were the last person on Earth and I was sad and lonely I would not nuke the world. I would starve myself to death in a field of yellow flowers. Or, if I could get my hands on something that would shoot me up into space, I would do that.  I wouldn't nuke it because the world is beautiful and has done so much for me and has made me so happy, nuking the world would feel like nuking someone I love. I really do feel that the Earth and everything around us is living and is sacred in its own way. Some may say to nuke the world for the same reason people do group suicides. They want to die, but they don't want to leave anything behind.
I am very non-anthropocentric. I really don't like the idea that everything on Earth is only there for the purpose of being useful to humans. I do believe there are places on Earth humans should not permanently live.  There needs to be places with no man made architecture. US National Park system would be somewhere in the middle because the land is still being used for human purposes but it is being used to view for its beauty and kept protected from too much damage.
Humans are equal to every other being on the planet. We have taken over only because we have advantages other species don't but that does not mean what we are doing is right. I do not believe the Judeo-Christian view is correct. Nothing was created for us. We should change our relation with the environment so that we care for it.
I do plan on having children. We have an obligation to make sure other people's children are safe, fed, and given shelter and education. People do have a right to experience nature and there should be places available to everyone where one can do so without distraction. This does not mean one has a right to kick everyone else off a piece of land so they could have alone time and this also does not mean people can start living on public land to be near nature.
I find technologies like cars the most dangerous. They are cause so much damage yet they are so useful so people forgive the damage. They kill the planet. The precautionary principle calls for caution when using new technologies.
A cost benefit analysis could be used to address issues like a factory. It would describe the monetary gain as a benefit and the pollution and waste as a cost. I have not changed my view about having children. I do believe when it comes down to it the human population will redeem itself and I already believe that the younger generations are making efforts to save the planet. I wouldn't want to bring up a child in a broken world but I have had a need for a while to raise a child and make them happy.

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I would place my tick mark on the right near implementation. Figuring out the details of a design  is cool but you should first know how you will get the funding or figure out how people will react and if they would accept the change. Political polarization is an effect of politicians campaigning tactics of pushing the idea that the other party is evil and automatically wrong and that we are at political war all the time. This trend has definitely continued. People have the views that they do because of their environment. What their parents taught them, who their friends are, their education, and where they live. When trying to communicate with people with different ideals than you, you have to try to be understanding, realize what makes them believe in what they believe. One should not become argumentative because that will only make the other person not want to listen. To get through to them you have to be calm, listen to them, and speak with facts and intent. My first thought was that this act was not immoral. The neighbors no longer be able to have their dog and the dog is no longer using it's body so why would it be wrong to make good out of the unfortunate situation? I never understood why people still keep significant value to a person's dead body. The body is simply a vessel that animals use to live. Our bodies are not who we are. The role of the scientist is to inform.

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Justice is that those who are wronged or have not been presented with the same opportunities as others might get equality or something in response to their suffering to alleviate it. Our society is mostly unjust. A just society, everyone would be presented with the same opportunities.
Part 2: I think biases did play a part of my decision making when playing the moral machine. Everyone has biases which is why not everyone answered the questions the same way. Technology is primarily made by white men which is why they work best for white men. They had themselves in mind when creating the product and tested on themselves. Their bias was that they did not consider the difficulties that would lie with having different face shapes or skin tones.  These problems could have been solved by considering more people than just themselves, and testing the technology on a large and diverse group.
Part 3: Interpersonal racism is a bout feelings. Institutional racism is about action. Racism is biases against a or multiple races. Antiracism is becoming conscious about the choices we make through our biases and actively fighting against these biases. The racism at Mines is both a personal and institutional issue. The racism comes personally from professors and institutionally because these professors are not being properly disposed of. Engineering is attempting to tackle these issues by getting more diverse teams, having diversity meetings to promote the ideas that their products need to be diverse.

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Land of Cockaigne is a luxurious place where all physical needs are met. The Biological Old Regime is where the majority of people lived on the land and were direct producers of food. Anthropocene is an age where human activity is the primary thing that influences the environment. Human control of the environment will likely last until we all kill ourselves.
Part 2: I take more of a conservationist approach to human interactions with the environment. I care about the environment more than I care about people. Anyway, people don't need to be building all the time and overpopulation needs to be stopped.
Part 3: The best way to ensure environmental justice for all human communities is by making sure all communities only bear the burden of their own waste. This would give each the chance to try to live as cleanly as possible and give each the chance to have as clean as of a community as they can.

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Deontology is the act of duty and obligation. Consequentialism is when the morality of an event only depends on its outcome. Depending on the reasoning behind my dad stealing the sheep I would or would not report my father. I would feel extremely guilty if I did not report him and urge him to report himself. I dislike dishonesty and sheeps are pretty important and I would feel so bad and sick to my stomach knowing my dad had stolen a sheep. I would also lose respect for my dad but I have a strong sense of loyalty to my family and would never want to cause them harm in any way, but I am also a strong believer in admitting to your mistakes and doing what is right. Confucian ethics is about compassion and thinking about the outcome for others. So, instead of looking at the outcome or whether or not a specific action is dutiful, you look at what your intentions are and how it will affect other people.

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I think genetic engineering will have huge growth in the food industry, making food growing faster, cheaper, and requiring less land. Also, I think there will be improvement in the genetic engineering of humans but limited to disease prevention hopefully. I think the human race will find the ability to genetically engineer new species that would serve the human race in some way, however I think laws would be put in place to prevent this happening. In the future, I also suspect nanotechnology will be used to prevent viruses and cancer. Again, I believe this advancement would definitely be used in unethical ways and laws would be put into place to prevent it. In the case of robotics, I believe many human jobs will be replaced by robots. AI in robots will be used to entertain humans in various ways. I do think that robots would very likely be used by the rich to make themselves richer and the money would not be circling back out to the economy, which would be very bad.
I'm optimistic about the future.  I do believe that if each generation has cared so little about the world and others as each previous generations, I believe there would be destruction in the future, but I think the younger generation is pulling through by informing themselves and other about environmental, social and political issues.

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I try to stay off social media as much as I can, but I can still see that I am affected by it. Even though I don't have any social media accounts, I still enjoy looking at funny videos or memes on different social media sites and I still see things that I look up later and realize they are false. The trailer shows how dependent we are of social media and how most of our information has come from social media.
A system that detects faces would allow for criminals to be found easier but it would also remove a lot of privacy from people's lives and allow corporations and governments to track most individuals. The failure to identify faces may lead to false charges and many innocent individuals being charged of crimes they are innocent of. An algorithm cannot be neutral unless it is tested on every single individual in the world without issue. That would be extremely difficult to do. I don't like the idea of tracking software, things/people holding on to my data. It makes me uncomfortable but I know that it is the cost of using technology.  Creating a pledge like Buolamwini suggested would encourage companies to do better tech-wise and would shame companies that don't take the pledge and they would lose customers or users.
I don't like the statement  "most people in tech want to do good". The most prominent tech makers are after money, in my opinion. Yes, I do believe they would somewhat stay morally correct when creating the tech, but if it came down to making more money off a morally incorrect thing that nobody would ever find out about versus doing the right thing at the expense of their company, they would make the morally incorrect choice. Also the statement about most tech education not including ethical training in my experience is wrong. Even if it is not learnt in schooling, the majority of companies would have meetings and training about morality.
Bias in technology is due mostly because of ignorance. This can be stopped by diversifying companies. Technology can make life more difficult for minorities than for others.

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Another example of a dual use would be  news reporting and social media. They were intended to inform the public but have become a platform to spread misinformation and cause hysteria, hate and division. Halting the spread of nuclear weapons immediately after bad happenings with them would have greatly reduced the wrongdoings on this planet. Less fear would be instilled in the peoples and countries would not have such immense power over each other.
The only real concern I have about nuclear technology is the abuse of it. I think nuclear power is great and should be used more as an alternative to burning fossil fuels, and I think no harm will be done if it is taken care of properly. These days with the power hungry politicians all over the world competing with each other and butting heads, there is concern that just a single politician could destroy the world for good.

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The river video was done in the first person with respect to the river so that the viewer can start to feel empathy for the river. If we view the river as a person, we will start to view the river in a new way that will allow us to feel sad if the river isn't being taken care of like it should. I did not know rivers being treated like humans was a legal strategy but it makes sense and seems like it would be very effective. A lot of people don't care too much about the environment but if they start to view the environment as another human being with thoughts, emotions, and a soul, the person may be more inclined to want the environment to thrive and they might try to take better care of it. Making rivers become people legally may mean that much harsher repercussions would be made against those who damage or abuse the river. I take almost every part of my landscape for granted. Every tree, river, and rock I see out in nature I could not imagine that they could one day they might be destroyed. It breaks my heart. I remember the first time I really felt connected to nature. It was the most connected I had felt to anything in my life before. After that, I still prayed to God, but it was a new God I had in mind. I was praying to the Sun, the Trees, the Earth. It made me feel heard. I knew they were taking care of me and I wanted to take care of them in return. I had never felt so loved before. It breaks my heart knowing what has loved me and taken care of me so much is getting destroyed. It is not only destroying the environment, it is destroying us as well. I have seen a few water reservoirs on my walks and runs around town but I do not know exactly which one, or if anyone of the ones I have seen, feed me. People don't know where there food or water comes from because they are separated from it. They aren't informed and so there is a level of disconnect. The water comes from a tap, not from a river that feeds birds, deer, bears, and trees. People are more willing to abuse the drinking of the water if they believe it comes a tap in their house that is made only for them. If the river ended in California, the destruction of the river would cause more of an uproar. If people in California could not drink because the river ran dry, more people would have something to say about it. Protection of the river would be more extreme and people would not abuse the river in the way they are today. The mistakes made by the human engineers are absolutely disgusting. Extreme caution needs to be taken when making changes to the natural environment.

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Redlining is a practice by banks to concentrate black people within certain neighborhoods. This makes me think of all the environmental racism issues we have talked about in class and gives a new perspective. Minorities have been concentrated in the areas purposefully and it really is just a race issue. I knew nothing about Globeville prior to reading these articles. The issues are all due to people taking advantage of any source of revenue possible. Industrialization and consumption mindsets are going to lead to our downfall if we don't fix our issues soon. We have gotten too ambitious, too comfortable, and too proud to realize that what we are doing is killing us and the environment and we'll all be dead and gone soon and none of it will be worth our greed. Engineers should and could play a role in lessening the issues of environmental justice. First off, I think we should just stop doing things that endanger the planet but that would be extremely difficult. What we could do instead is stop placing production plants in areas where there are mainly minorities. We have a moral responsibility to help those affected by climate change. We are the cause of it but others bare the burdens of it. We are too greedy and selfish. People seeking refuge from climate change should be let into the homes of the heads of the companies that are causing the most damage. As engineers, protecting the people and the environment should be our top priority. Any burdens that must be bared should be bared by the sellers and the creators. If they benefit from the products that are causing environmental issues, they are benefiting from the suffering of others.