Held: Monday, 7 April 2014

Back to Outline 27 - Intellectual Property (1). On to Outline 29 - Hypertext and the Web.

Summary

We apply some of our perspectives to what we learned about biotechnology and genetic engineering.

Related Pages

• EBoard (Source) (HTML) (PDF)

Overview

• Risks: Dread vs. Knowledge.
• Lenses.
• Other issues.

Administrivia

• Note takers: tbd
• News on classmates.
• Apologies for being behind in grading. College paperwork and the CSC 207 exam took my whole weekend. I had expected to complete the CSC 207 exam on Saturday, but I didn't finish grading until 11 pm on Sunday. Isn't it nice to know that faculty can be as overworked as students?)
• I've rearranged the schedule a bit to accommodate some faculty requests.
• Wednesday's reading: V. Bush, "As We May Think"
• Friday's reading: Read "The Prize is right" and "Big Prize" in the ebook.
• Fun things, no extra credit
  • Rachel Rose '01 did some of the special effects technology for Noah.
  • Previews suggest that there's yet another movie with the same concerns as Bill Joy this summer.

Extra Credit

• "Pioneer Weekend is a three day event, sponsored by the Wilson Program and Grinnell AppDev, that is being organized to take place this month from April 18th - 20th. The objective of this event is to bring together student innovators from different backgrounds, to work together in teams of 3-6 people and complete a prototype of an idea that they come up with at the event." http://www.strikingly.com/pioneerweekend
• CS extra Thursday at 4:30 here: Software to enhance wellness: The DavisJan team.

The Exam

• I'm happy to take any general questions about the examination.

The Paper and Presentation and ...

• We'll go over the handout.
• We'll make sure that everyone has a group.

Dread and Knowledge

We'll start with the "Dread vs. Knowledge" chart.

low       DREAD        high
+------------+------------+
|            |            | high
|            |            |
|            |            |
+------------+------------+ KNOWLEDGE
|            |            |
|            |            |
|            |            |
+------------+------------+ low

• Pick about four technologies that Prof. Robertson discussed.
• Pick a few different audiences (e.g., members of your group, American citizens, Eurpoean politicians, Monsanto employees, ...)
• Plot the technology/group on the chart.
• We'll discuss a bit of your placement.

Applying the Lenses

We'll use the obvious ones.

• Are there any of these technologies that Berry would like?
• Would Joy classify any of these genetically engineered objects in his uncontrollable technologies warning?
• What would Florman see as the heroic failures?
• Would Marx consider these technologies democratic?
• What political structures would Winner think this support?
• ...