Links to many of the readings can be found in the on-line reader.

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ECS 188 – Ethics in an Age of Technology – Spring 2008 – Phil Rogaway

Class How we spent the class Reading/HW due today Notes
#01 1T 4/1 Kieslowski, Dekalog, Part 1 Surprise! Nothing due at first class meeting See Thursday's slot for assignments due on Thursday.
I will always follow this convention, so watch out.
#02 1R 4/3 Quiz 1. Discussed Dekalog film.
Discussed Barbour reading.
§1 (Barbour, Views of Technology). .
#03 2T 4/8 Quiz 2.
Discussed today's readings
§2 (Heilbroner, Do Machines Make History?), and
§3 (Winner, Do Artifacts Have Politics?).
Assign 3: Summary, Quotes, or Analysis for each (about 1 page each)
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#04 2R 4/10 Quiz 4.
Discussed today's reading
§5 (Postman, Five Things ... About Technological Change)
§8 (Strong, Technological Subversion)
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#05 3T 4/15 Quiz 5. Discussed today's reading. §6 (Johnson, Philosophical Ethics) .
#06 3R 4/17 Quiz 6. Discussed today's reading. §7 (Jonas, The Altered Nature of Human Action).
Be prepared to present the ideas of the section you were assigned.
Helpful vocabulary for the Jonas reading
#07 4T 4/22 Quiz 7 Project milestone 1
§23 (Joy, Why the Future Doesn't Need Us)
Ray Kurzweil's response to Bill Joy's article
1/17/07 Doomsday clock adjustment
#08 4R 4/24 An Inconvenient Truth §18 (UN, The AR4 Synthesis Report) .
#09 5T 4/29 Quiz 8
Discussed Thursday+today readings
§9 (Diamond, The Worst Mistake)
§10 (Schwartz, Technological Systems)
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#10 5R 5/1 Quiz 9. YouTube video.
Discussed today's reading
§12 (Marshal McLuhan interview) Helpful vocabulary for the McLuhan interview
#11 6T 5/6 Quiz 10.
Discussed the Friedman reading.
§13 (Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree)
§17 (LLH, Road Map)
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#12 6R 5/8 Why We Fight §19 (Orend, War) .
#13 7T 5/13 Discussed Why We Fight film
and recent readings.
§21 (Eisenhower, Farewell address)
§20 (SM, Collective Violence)
Assign 11: Analysis of today's film. More specifically, take one
of the repeatedly-shown characters from the film and discuss
his or her moral character, as you see it.
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#14 7R 5/15 Discussed SM reading, ACM code,
and scenarios
§31 (ACM Code of Ethics) Read the other codes of ethics in the chapter
if you're interested.
#15 8T 5/20 Quiz 12.
More scenarios.
Discussed Boyle reading.
Project milestone 2
§24 (Boyle, Fencing off Ideas)
§25 (Stallman, GNU Manifesto)
§27 (Doctorow, Microsoft DRM Talk)
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#16 8R 5/22 Giving Good Talks.
Discuss recent readings.
§28 (Quinn, Privacy) .
#17 9T 5/27 Quiz 13
Discussed today's and last Thursday's readings.
§14 (Mehta, Bhopal) (Chun, Eric, Nick)
§29 (Leveson, Therac-25) (Oliver, Edward, Ivan, Mark)
§30 (Morgenstein, Fifty-Nine Story Crisis) (Lin, Gregory, Chris, Greg)
Come prepared to present "your" article (read carefully, bring notes)
& to join a discussion on the others (skim or read altnernative)
Bhopal alternative
Therac-25 alternative
Fifty-Nine-Story Crisis alternative
#18 9R 5/29 The Corporation §32 (MF, Unlocking the Clubhouse) .
#19 10T 6/3 . §34 (Schmidt, Disciplined Minds) .
#20 10R 6/5 (1) Eric + Nick presentation
(2) Greg + Lin presentation
(1) Eric + Nick paper
(2) Greg + Lin paper
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#F 11T 6/10 Final (10:30 - 12:30)
(3) Chris + Gregory presentation
(4) Chun + Edward presentation
(5) Ivan + Mark + Oliver presentation
(3) Chris + Gregory paper
(4) Chun + Edward paper
(5) Ivan + Mark + Oliver paper
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