https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp Jason Balke Fall 2022 en-us 2022-09-01 22:42:30 UTC 2026-02-27 21:31:08 UTC hello@padlet.com https://padlet.net/icons/png/1f47e.png jgbalke https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2280244676 What do you do when faced with an impossible decision? When all outcomes are bad? What do you do with the weight of that decision, the guilt, misery, and indescribable hopelessness. Tom Godwin envisions this in his short story The Cold equations. When faced with the situation of a stowaway, a little girl innocent and ignorant of the consequences of sneaking aboard, our character must decide between the life of one girl or the lives of a colony in peril. Plummeting alone in a destitute sky, without help, without friend, he is alone in the decision he must make.  Thus through it Godwin parades the notion of the impossible decision, the ethical question, life's cruel fate. Does the lives of the many out weigh a simple girl's one mistake?

Quotes:
 “But I’m afraid. I don’t want to die — not now. I want to live, and nobody is doing anything to help me; everybody is letting me go ahead and acting just like nothing was going to happen to me. I’m going to die and nobody cares.” 
 “You’ll never know how sorry I am. It has to be that way and no human in the universe can change it.”
 “You’re going to make me die and I didn’t do anything to die for — I didn’t do anything—” 

Questions:
When faced with an impossible situation as such can any decision be considered ethical?
What can these sort of situation teach us about human reasoning and ethical decision making?
Could not they removed some sort of storage or cargo equivalent to the girls weight instead of the girl herself?

Addition:
Tom Godwin's short story emulates the story detailed in Theodore Gericault painting "The Raft of Medusa". Beached, deconstructed, and over maned the Captains of the ship Medusa decides to build a raft crewed by those unimportant enough to reserve a spot on the life ships. However, storms and hunger saw the captains of the Medusa betray their crew and cut loose the raft to better save their own lives and futures.]]> 2022-09-02 04:00:16 UTC https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2280244676 jgbalke https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2288952699 All to easily do we close our eyes to the world around us, fail to consider the magnitude of an action, fail to reason its effects in proportion to the lives around us. An evil action, an immoral creed, often spreads not because innate evil among people but because of the closing of one’s eyes to that evil. Roger Forsgren's recites this notion in regard to Albert Speer, chief architect and later Minister of Arms of the Nazi regime, in his article “The Architecture of Evil”. Speer, possessing power, genius, ambition, and a knack for efficiency, fell victim to his self-imposed isolation, dissolved himself of guilt through ideology, the grandness of Hitler’s dream, and lack of curiosity and will to ask why. Forsgren utilizes Speer’s story to extrapolate on the power in the hands of every engineer and to warn of the ease in which a creator can close their eyes to their own immoral actions thus isolating and dissolving oneself from guilt.

Quotes:
"Speer, that is, convinced himself of what remains one of the shibboleths of the technical professions to this day: that science and technology, no matter what their implications or the ends toward which they are employed, are completely apolitical and amoral in character."
"All I wanted was for this great man to dominate the globe"
"I felt myself to be Hitler’s architect. Political events did not concern me…. I felt that there was no need for me to take any political positions at all."

Questions:
The article questions the legitimacy of Speer's ignorance. If Speer's was aware, how does this change Forsgren's argument?
Is it always the duty of a creator (Engineer/Architect) to judge the ethicalness of his creation?
Can evil always be discerned? If Hitler won would Speer's lack of action be consider immoral?

Addition:
In some ways I see Speer's story and his lack of embarkation towards discovering truth or questioning similar to Aldous Huxley's dystopian "Brave New World". The lines between moral and immoral, the things that seem perfectly right and proper, are blurred and unquestioned. Both John, in the beginning of Brave New World, and Speer are architects of a immoral world who blindly follow duty.]]> 2022-09-08 23:34:34 UTC https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2288952699 jgbalke https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2321718610  In the face of changing times does history always prevail? Does a past of wealth surmount ability? Does yesterday's relations supersede effort? Does a history of benefaction, gratuity, and fame outmatch merit, excellency, and worth. Kurt Vonnegut in his short story titled The Lie divulges the progression of ethics within a changing society. When faced with an tantalizingly lie, a situation unimaginable to prestige, a family of history faces change that forces them to accept that the old concept of the past, that wealth yield induction, prestige yield consideration, and name yield privilege. Thus through it Vonnegut asserts that in the process of time the ethics that influence and shape society diversify and strengthen.

Quotes:
"He was a massive, dignified man, a physician, a healer for healing’s sake, since he had been born as rich as the Shah of Iran"
"Your mother has the idea that you’re entitled to special privileges around here. I hope you don’t have that idea too."
“I don’t suppose,” said Doctor Remenzel, “that we’ll ever be coming here any more.” 

Question:
If the ethics of society ever increases why does the atrocities of the present yield greater strife and disaster than those of the past?
With the modern integration of technology how has this effected the ethical responsibilities society carries, does Vonnegut's notion still carry weight considering this?
Vonnegut seems to express that the Remenzels' time of privilege has come to an end, however is privilege solely expressed in the institution you attend, cannot privilege be expressed elsewhere?

Addition:
The death of historical privilege and the broadening of consideration that Vonnegut seems to express is a concept I personally see in great abundance throughout history. whether that is from the enlightenment and the death of despotism, the great schism and the accessibility to prayer, and lastly separation and the modern diversification of our communities, history expounds ever growing ethical change and responsibility.]]> 2022-10-01 01:16:54 UTC https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2321718610 jgbalke https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2331674245 Is man entitled to certain fundamental, unequivocal rights, born with the power to choose and say, the power to dictate his won future? Are we limited and oppressed, subjugated under a higher system, under a doctrine of morals, under society, under others? Are our choices free, our action uninfluenced, thoughts individual? Are we equally entitled to opportunity, to success, to achievement. Dr. Sandy Wilson, a professor of human ethics and engineering at Colorado School of Mines, in his week 7 lecture, titled "What is Justice?" analyzes the philosophies surrounding the distribution of justice, privilege, and fairness in tandem with addressing forms of injustice and the burdens of responsibility this carries. Ultimately through documentation and examples, Wilson postulates that although society is built upon principles of justice, equality, and fairness, all interactions, conversations, and arguments contains within them a level of bias and injustices either consciously or unconsciously. Society is fundamentally a complex, interwoven system perpetually in change, and, as such, the definition and notions surrounding the ideas of justice equality, and fairness are too perpetually in a state of evolution and change.

Quotes:
"Even though we talk a good talk about everyone being equal, the reality of peoples experience in life is that it is not equal... not fair in the Rawlsian sense"
"Social Contract - Moral/political obligations recede in the agreements people make in order to build/maintain society"
"Fairness=opportunity, making sure 'arbitrary distinction' (the lottery of life) doesn't prevent individuals from being the best that they can be"

Questions:
How has Justice advanced throughout human history, how does this translate to the development of a social contract and moral doctrine?
Dr. Wilson focuses on John Rawls's notions and concepts of injustice and the formation of social doctrine, how does other social philosophers (i.e, Kant, Rousseau, Voltaire, Locke)?
With society being an everchanging, unpredictable, comigrate of ideas, beliefs, thoughts, and expression, how can any universal statements, as Rawls and other philosophers express, be actually proven or tested to thus be university acceptable/applicable?
 
Addition:
In some ways I see our Week 7 Lecture similar to Tom Godwin's short short story "The Cold Equations" as they both highlight the complexities and nuance within the notion of what is ethical or what is justice? Both present and discuss the idea that unequivocal fairness over a situation sometimes results in actions neither ethical or just. ]]> 2022-10-08 03:08:51 UTC https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2331674245 jgbalke https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2340992025 In this era of man, this era defined by the innovations of the present, sculpted for the machinations of the past, can humanity be blamed for the crises our planet faces today. Is ultimately our society the cause, are institutions and ideologies to blame. Jason W. Moore in his article titled "Capitalocene & Planetary Justice" advances the notion that it is humanity and social ideologies that surround them that are the well of all modern global ills. Contending with the term Anthropocene, Moore argues that the modern era, rooted in the doctrine of capitalism, has established a history of unsustainability, racism, prejudice, inequality, and a unsatiable addiction to selfish hording and pride. Ultimately by exacerbating the history of unethicalness within the human era, Moore seeks to upturn society's acceptance of the standards and notions surrounding the doctrines of Capitalism and Imperialism, to thus render the notion that we must turn away from the era Moore calls the "Capitalocene".

Quotes:
"The Capitalocene is therefore not some new word to mock the Anthropocene. It is an invitation to a conversation around how we might dismantle, analytically and practically, the tyranny of Man and Nature."
"Society and Nature fetishize the essential alienated relations of violence and domination under capitalism."
"Wherever and whenever European ships disembarked soldiers, priests, and merchants, they immediately encountered “savages.”"

Questions:
If the relationship between man and nature under the ideology of capitalism portrays a twisted version of the relationships between violence and domination how might other system change this dynamic?
In what ways is does Moore's arguments compliment and contrast the world created Ursula le Guin's "The Ones Who Walked Away"?
What historical evidence exist for the correlation of social upheaval and climate crises.

Addition:
I see many parallels (or perhaps perpendiculars) between Moore's Capitalocene and Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness. Conrad's novella portrays the dynamics between civilization and savagery, represented characteristic of darkness, within an imperialistic setting. Moore lambast this system and characterization within his Capitalocene, describing it as fundamentally racist and in promotion of colonization and human inequality.]]> 2022-10-14 21:37:49 UTC https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2340992025 jgbalke https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2351062612 All situations, in the effort to describe the great mechanisms that compose Earth and the life that is harbored there, are complex, for the real world is complex, often unclear, and always ever-changing. E. Lily Yu, in her traditional styled Chinese folk tale turned short story, "The Cartographer Wasps and The Anarchist Bees," manifest the concepts of desire, conquest, enslavement, governance, wealth, and knowledge to convey the ethically of historical events, which is further refined by the questioning of innate characteristic that define individuals decision making. Centering around the interactions of four groups: humans, wasps, royalist bees, and anarchist bees, Yu chronicles a series of injustices committed out of a material desire between groups to convey specious of desire. Yu continues by detailing the wasp conquest and enslavement portraying western subjugation and imperialization of eastern life. The rise and falls of these groups compound to offer a demonstration of the imperfections within our societies both in a historical sense and a more modern one.

Quotes:
"“A perfect society needs no rulers,” they said. “Knowledge and authority ought to be held in common. In order to imagine a new existence, we must free ourselves from the structures of both our failed government and the unjustifiable hegemony of the wasp nests."
"The wasps sent to oversee the installation did not take this kindly. Several civilians died before it was established that the bees could not read the Yiwei dialect."
"As they traveled farther and farther afield in search of nectar, they stopped singing. They danced their findings grimly, without joy."

Questions:
If the wasp and their domination over the beehive represent Western Imperialistic societies what do the humans in the story represent?
How does the interactions presented within this story represent the or deviate from eastern and western ethics writings? Do certain groups follow more closely to one distinction rather than the other?
If society and all its distinctions and variants are fundamentally flawed and destined to capitulate how is progress made? How is improvement or self growth possible?

Addition:
Jean Jacques Rousseau, a French Enlightenist and philosopher (also somewhat insane) often writes about the "noble savage" or this idea that orates that mankind in a original, unspoiled, uninfluenced, uninhibited, is the purist form of humanity without desires, prejudice, or evil. Yu's short story, in the end, convey a very similar idea that out of these four groups, these four societies, the original, unspoiled yet tried by tribulations, remains to continue forwards. Thus I think both Yu and Rousseau present very similar ideas surrounding the structure and nature flow of society and the institutions that surround it.

(Comments:
I just though I would write this little section here at the bottom just to communicate some of my thoughts, opinions, other things surround this short story. Personally I found this text really fascinatedly, complex, and insanely dense with meaning but intuitively written and approachable. Despite that this was a very difficult thing to write about. Some much is being alluded to, so much is being expressed, I definitely see why it has won so many rewards. Something else I keyed in on was the style in which it was written in. It feels like a traditional style chinese tale, one spoken and handed down through generations, but its contemporary and set in modern world. I think this fundamentally effects the writing and the meaning conveyed in a way unapproachable to other western styles of writing. These were just some thoughts I felt like I wanted to talk about but couldn't figure out how to incorporate into the rest of the writing. )]]> 2022-10-21 17:41:10 UTC https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2351062612 jgbalke https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2361151288 All of human history mankind has fought with the concept of the unknown, held with trepidation and fear for the future. We poke and prod at the dark expanse at the edge of the horizon, seeking the answers to the mighty stars and nebulas, the complexities of life and ecology, the macro-universe and the realm of quantum. We question because ultimately the unknown is frightful, yet in the process of searching the precipice, justifying it, accepting it, we inadvertently make the unknown more terrifying, mightier in our minds, intimidating by nature. Bill Joy, one of the pioneers of the internet and technological revolution of today, in his article titled "Why the future doesn't need us" fantasies on mankind's path to self-served ruin. Joy delineated that in the feverish rush to innovate, design, and create we have created technology far to easily manipulated, far to broad in effect, for the ensured safety and enhancement of human life for the long term or the time close at hand. Supplied with the exponential speed of our development, the possibilities of catastrophe on a global scale grows ever greater and worrying. Thus it is the paradox of development that we, in the process of discovery and eliminating the unknown, inadvertently make the unknown ever greater and expansive.

Quotes:
"We are being propelled into this new century with no plan, no control, no brakes."
"Now, as then, we are creators of new technologies and stars of the imagined future, driven - this time by great financial rewards and global competition - despite the clear dangers, hardly evaluating what it may be like to try to live in a world that is the realistic outcome of what we are creating and imagining."
"The new Pandora's boxes of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics are almost open, yet we seem hardly to have noticed."

Questions:
Can all avenues of innovation lead to an alike situation we face now? Are there forms can innovation take that can only lead to enhancement of all?
How has history, the societies of the past, view a technological future? Did these views include problems we face today?
What constituting factor within these technologies and innovations that prove a danger to humanity? Is this overarching or is this limited to a few circumstances?

Addition:
There is a few things I'd like to talk about here surrounding the general concept of the unknown and humankind struggle with it. I personally think the Bible has an interesting relationship with this concept, historically explaining genesis and the end. However my connection piece to the this idea of the unknown  pertains to Herman Melvin's Moby Dick. Within it there is a scene where a young sailor Pip is left floating in an endless world of blue where the sky melds into the sea and the sea the sky. Pip in the end goes mad but ultimately that situation, that world of blue, is how I visualize the enormity of the unknown.]]> 2022-10-28 21:57:48 UTC https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2361151288 jgbalke https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2370689150 The technological advancements of the modern age have facilitated an ease of life never before seen on the human stage. The concept of the internet, a system where all of human knowledge and research is available at the palm of your, is marvel of human ingenuity and design. The world is advancing at a rate that supersedes all models and predictions, all imagination and pretext. As we have advanced our way of life has become easier, distances have shortened, the world at large grows ever more connected and intertwined. However ultimately are we moving too fast? Can the consequences of our designs be properly managed? Can we deter catastrophe?  Eli Pariser's in his "The Filter Bubble" hyper analyzes the consequences of a personalized internet. Pariser begins by delineating a recent discovery: that search result differ highly from person to person. He explains that this tool has made the process of searching for information and finding alike people easier for teh majority of teh population. However at the same time it ultimately disrupts the underlining process of decision making, trust, and argument by present a single, solitary side.

Quotes:
"Democracy Requires citizens to see things from one another's point of views"
"But you are the only one in your bubble. In an age where shared information is the bedrock of shared experience, the filter bubble is a centrifugal force, pulling us apart."
"From gigacities to nanotech, we're creating a global society whose complicity has passed the limits of individual comprehension."

Questions:
Is this a solvable problem, can we take a step back, redirect our steps, and travel down another avenue or is this a pandora's box bounded towards inevitable catastrophe?
What percent of people are effected by personalized internet and social media? What percent of people are actually aware of this and take the time to peer out from their filter bubble?
In critiquing the overall argument displayed across papers about this topic, if there is one thing history tells us its that the future is near impossible to predict. Thus can any argument truly be made that human species is in fact in danger of extinction with a concept so new as personalized internet?

Addition:
When reading Eli Pariser's article "The Filter Bubble" I was constantly aware of the fact that technology in a way has superseded the abilities of the human brain. Our technologies are so complex, the process of machine learning is so nuanced that only few individuals of the billions of human, can actually grasp the mere basics of each underlining process and decision making. This reminder me of 2001's a Space Odyssey's HAL or the blank monolith as both present this idea of an intelligence greater than humanity's.]]> 2022-11-04 22:01:40 UTC https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2370689150 jgbalke https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2390558421 It is often said that "a picture can speak a thousand words," an expression, in essence, signifying that the scope of our imaginations can be insufficient to convey the arbitrary, render reality and the significance behinds a notion. Photographer and writer Michael Friberg, in his commentary "Picturing the drought," records the fabrication of the Colorado River to ultimately convey the scale of human impart through the depiction and documentation of alteration and environmental devastation. Friberg elucidate the draught, arbitrary and distant from the average American, to conseptualize the notion of the scale of human impact stemming from this man-made environmental disaster and oversight: to sedate and control the mighty Colorado River.

Quotes:
"man-made infrastructure put in place to control every last drop of water coming from the river"
"a huge ring encompassed the entire shoreline. We stumbled upon a marina that was abandoned, old food still rotting in the kitchen, the docks bent upward by the ground they were never supposed to touch."
"all of this was and is beautiful. Lake Powell looks like a prehistoric sea on the surface of another planet. The dams are all monumental achievements to man’s both genius and hubris."

Questions:
If, in a way, the current landscape on the Colorado River contains its own certain element of beauty, what reasoning, besides it inefficiencies and environmental destruction, elicits that we dismantle this scenery in favor of the past?
In conservationism and environmentalism where does the use of water fall when considering its necessity for human habitation?
Friberg's images portray a single time frame of the events that are occurring within the Colorado River basin and the man-made lakes and reserves. Why is this? Would not a more impactful visualization of the alternation of the river be expressed if present and past images were to be shown side-by-side?

Addition:
The idea that the Colorado River behaves, in essence, as a limited resource, competed over and subdivided, is danger I see similarly expressed in Garrett Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons. It is interesting that the concept of a dwindling shared resource, mismanaged and exhausted, that Hardin imagines and asserts adheres so closely with the real-word and the events of the damming and overuse of the Colorado River and its tributaries.

]]> 2022-11-18 23:24:02 UTC https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2390558421 jgbalke https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2407215637 The landscape of the world and its ecosystems are changing now at a rate never before seen on any ecological scale. With the advent of human civilization, the destruction and terraformation of the earth has accelerated exponentially in both its capacity and scale of effect. Rachel Carson, in an except from her article titled, "Silent Spring," imagines a world where humanity itself is the root of its own destruction and dismantling. Cason highlights man's history of modification of his surrounding, and how, incidentally, he has caused the instability that rattles the environment, atmosphere, habitation, and resource extraction around the globe.

Quotes:
"Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity? Who would want to live in a world which is just not quite fatal?"
"The problem whose attempted solution has touched off such a train of disaster is an accompaniment of our modern way of life."
"Time was the essential ingredient. Now, in the modern world, there is no time. The speed with which new hazards are created reflects the impetuous and heedless pace of man, rather than the deliberate pace of nature."
"Have we fallen into a mesmerized state that makes us accept as inevitable that which is inferior or detrimental, as though we had lost the will or the vision to demand that which is good?"

Questions:
How has growing population affected the feasibility of stopping the use of insecticides and fossil fuels?
Who is harmed the most by the disregarding of environmental needs and ecological concerns?
Can human industrialization and the technological advancement of today exist and proceed without the negative impacts of the world around us? By seeking to coexist with nature do we have the present growth and development of society?]]> 2022-12-02 23:05:08 UTC https://padlet.com/jgbalke/qrn29ylu2jonbzrp/wish/2407215637