Links to the readings can be found in the
on-line reader.
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ECS 188 – Ethics in an Age of Technology – Spring 2009 – Phil Rogaway |
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Class | How we spent the class | Reading/HW due today | Notes | |
#01 0R 9/24 | Class canceled on account of the system-wide walkout. Welcome letter. | Surprise! Nothing due on our first non-day of class! | See Tuesday's slot for assignments due Tuesday. Some links on the UC budget crisis: Prof. Cole's letter to students; Yudof speech; recent news; admin view; town hall; budget central; admin growth; response; winners and losers; Charlie Schwartz. | |
#02 1T 9/29 | Prof. Premkumar Devanbu will lead the class. We watched Kieslowski, Dekalog, Part 1 | Homework 1 | . | |
#03 1R 10/1 | Quiz 1. Discussed Dekalog and the Disciplined Minds reading. | Read H24, Disciplined Minds, by Jeff Schmidt. | . | |
#04 2T 10/6 | Quiz 2. Discuss Barbour reading. | Read H1, Views of Technology, by Ian Barbour. | . | |
#05 2R 10/8 | Quiz 3. Dr. Earl Barr led our classroom discussion today, on the Johnson reading. | Read H7, Philosophical Ethics, by Deborah Johnson. | . | |
#06 3T 10/13 | Quiz 4. Finished discussion of Johnson. Discussed Joy and Kurzweil readings. | Read H6, Why the Future Doesn't Need Us, by Bill Joy, and S8 (softcopy), Promise and Peril, by Ray Kurzweil. | . | |
#07 3R 10/15 | Quiz 5. Discussed Heilbroner article. | Read H2, Do Machines Make History?, by Robert Heilbroner, and H3, Do Artifacts have Politics?, by Langdon Winner. | You might wish to read S4, Do Politics have Artefacts?, by Bernward Joerges. | |
#08 4T 10/20 | Discussed Winner and Postman articles (small-group discussion for Postman). | Milestone 1 due. Read H4, Five Things We Need to Know About Technological Change, by Neil Postman; and H9, Industrial Technology and Technological Systems, by Ruth Schwartz. | . | |
#09 4R 4/22 | Quiz 6. Discussed McLuhan interview. Watched Terence McKenna on McLuhan. | Read H5, Marshall McLuhan interview. | Helpful vocabulary for McLuhan. The video Epic 2015, by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson (Jan 2005), that I had meant to show. A well-known poem by Yeats, The Second Coming, alluded to at end of McLuhan article (among 100+ other allusions in the interview...). | |
#10 5T 10/27 | Quiz 7. Finished discussion of McLuhan reading. Discussed the Friedman and Chang readings. | Read H10, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, by Tom Friedman, and H11, The Lexus and the Olive Tree Revisited, by H. Chang. | . | |
#11 5R 10/29 | We discussed the LLH article then watched 40 mins of the film The Corporation. | Read H12, A Road Map for Natural Capitalism, by Lovins, Lovins, and Hawken. | Panel discussion at RMI2009 (10/2/09) | |
#12 6T 11/3 | Quiz 8. Discussed the Therac-25 reading and the SE Code of Ethics. Watched another 20 mins of The Corporation. | (1) Read S30, The Therac-25 Accidents, by Nancy Leveson (excellent but long) or you may study the Therac-25 Case Materials from ComputingCases.org. (2) Read H22c, The Software Engineering Code of Ethics. | . | |
#13 6R 11/5 | Finished The Corporation. | (1) Read H19, Bhopal Lives, by Suketu Mehta. (2) Homework 2: Find an interesting and recent (< one year old) on-line article discussing a company or companies not acting in the public interest. Write for me a one-paragraph summary. Please make me a tinyurl pointing to your article so that I can see what you found and read it if I wish. Bring your hardcopy writeup to class on Thursday. | The Right to Read, by Richard Stallman. I wanted to assign this but didn't because of Milestone 2. Please read it if you have time before class tomorrow. | |
#14 7T 11/10 | Quiz 9. Discussed the recent readings and film. | Read H13, The Tragedy of the Commons, by G. Hardin, and H14, The World as a Polder, by Jared Diamond. | . | |
#15 7R 11/12 | Watched Food, Inc. | (1) Watch F1, Moving Beyond Fast Food Nation, with Peter Singer and Eric Schlosser. (2) Read F2, the Michael Pollan lecture. | Oprah Winfry and Mad Cows | |
#16 8T 11/17 | Quiz 10. Saw the last bit of Food, Inc and discussed it and the readings. | Read H17, Fencing Off Ideas, by James Boyle, and H18, Microsoft DRM talk, by Cory Doctorow. |
One day's patents (11/10/2009). What is "fair use"? |
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#17 8R 11/19 | Quiz 11. Discussed Giving Good Talks. Discussed the day's readings. Watched Its Eyes. | (1) Read S28, The Transparent Society, by David Brin (2) Milestone #2 due. | . | |
#18 9T 11/24 | Quiz 12. Discussed Jonas reading. Watched a clip from Jacob Bronowski's (available here) from The Ascent of Man. | (1) Read: H8, The Altered Nature of Human Action, by Hans Jonas. Helpful vocabulary for this difficult reading. (2) Homework 3: Do quotes from the Jonas reading. (3) Homework 4: Evaluation of another group's milestone-2. | . | |
#xx 9R 11/26 | Thanksgiving - No class | . | . | |
#19 10T 12/1 | Student presentations 101, 102, 103, 104 | Read the writeups of the students presenting today | . | |
#20 10R 12/3 | Student presentations 201, 202, 203, 204 | Read the writeups of the students presenting today | . | |
#F 11F 12/11 | Final (1:00 - 3:00) Student presentations 301, 302, 303, 304 | Read the writeups of the students presenting today | . |