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Ethical Dilemmas Related to Technology
Anonymous Coward writes "I have a relative who will be teaching a college class on the topic of ethical dilemmas brought about by new technology. Unfortunately, he doesn't keep up with technology news, so he's not sure what the most relevant dilemmas are. For example, 'If robots came alive, would we be justified in killing them?' is one that might come up if nothing more relevant were suggested. (OK, it might not be that bad, but you get the idea. He was using Netscape 4.76 on system 9 until last week.)
So, what are the most relevant ethical dilemmas brought up by technology? Note that I am looking for ethical dilemmas, e.g. 'Is Activity X moral?' rather than legal dilemmas like 'Is the DMCA constitutional?' Now is your chance to guide the young minds of the future toward stuff that matters."
Wow! Another slashdotter who knows nothing about history.
Listen, Japan was setting itself up for a massive suicide defense. They were going to throw boats filled with TNT at our ships, have 3,000 jets flying at our ships performing kamakazees. They had mined all of their ports, they were preparing their entire civilian population for suicide attacks as well.
It would have cost 700,000 American lives to retake the islands and another 1,000,000 japanese; would you have gone in if asked? If you used your logic, It would have been wrong to bomb the Nazi camps because the civilians in the cities were working there, Truman decision was more than justified.
Please don't forget, The "Bad Guys" Did rape and pillage China, setting up death camps along the lines of Hitler and his friends.
As for the lame exuse of "Mass slaughter of civillians..." WW2 was about civilian deaths, around 40 million, it was a differet time and place with much different set of values. Today this kind of behavior wouldn't fly due to 24HR news channel and rapid exchange of information.
How about the responsibility of professors and teachers in the technical field to know what they are talking about by staying current before the teach and mold students with little experience. Often old, outdated, or completly wrong ideas are trasfered upon the class room who's teacher doesn't take it seriously to stay current.