Ethics

The most common retort against privacy advocates -- by those in favor of ID checks, cameras, databases, data mining and other wholesale surveillance measures -- is this line: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?" Some clever answers: "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have no cause to watch me." "Because the government gets to define what's wrong, and they keep changing the definition." "Because you might do something wrong with my information." My problem with quips like these -- as right as they are -- is that they accept the premise that privacy is about hiding a wrong. It's not. Privacy is an inherent human right, and a requirement for maintaining the human condition with dignity and respect. Two proverbs say it best: Quis custodiet custodes ipsos? ("Who watches the watchers?") and "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."

good neuroethics blog

Verbeeks research focuses on the social and cultural roles of technology and the ethical and anthropological aspects of human-technology relations. He recently published the book What Things Do: Philosophical Reflections on Technology, Agency, and Design (Penn State University Press, 2005), in which he elaborates an analysis of how technologies mediate human actions and experiences, with applications to industrial design.

CART414 overview of Kiesler on Biotechnique

Ultimately, Toward the Sentient City argues against a techno-determinism that cedes overwhelming agency to new technologies and either champions or laments their projected impact on urban life. Rather, the exhibition examines the relationship between ubiquitous computing, architecture and the city in terms of the active role its citizens might play – or neglect to play – as both designers and inhabitants, in the unfolding techno-social situations of near-future urban environments.

In cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor, or cognitive metaphor, refers to the understanding of one idea, or conceptual domain, in terms of another, for example, understanding quantity in terms of directionality (e.g. "prices are rising"). A conceptual domain can be any coherent organization of human experience. The regularity with which different languages employ the same metaphors, which often appear to be perceptually based, has led to the hypothesis that the mapping between conceptual domains corresponds to neural mappings in the brain.

How can physical work, play, and living spaces be enhanced through digital information systems? How can the long biological experience of humans in manipulating physical objects be exploited as an interface to information systems? Researchers propose that contemporary models that focus on the computer as a separate appliance will seem like an anachronism in the digitally enhanced future. Sensing, computing, and communication functions will become invisible and integrated into the manufacture of many objects and the architectural arrangements of spaces. UC can also be defined as an art of technology transparency or tangible computing. In the words of Bill Buxton (1998): "Rather than turning inward to an artificial world, ubiquitous media encourages us to look outward. It expands our perception and interaction in the physical world."

MetaboliCity is a vision of a city that metabolizes its resources and waste to supply its inhabitants with all the nourishment they need and more. This is a unique experimental and participatory design project that explores low cost solutions to integrate both traditional and hi-tech agricultural techniques into the fabric of the built environment, whilst being rooted in an ethical systems thinking. MetaboliCity is about empowering people to grow food in the most challenging of urban spaces, be it indoor window farms or vertical green cladding that clings to the buildings. Design studio Loop.pH has been developing lightweight, architectural structures together with soilless growing techniques for the project. The rigid 3D lace provides support for plants and irrigation and can be retro-fitted to buildings or become free standing vertical gardens for indoor or out. The agenda is driven by how design can be used to bring about positive change. Recognizing that it is social innovation...

MacIntyre wrote the very interesting book "After Virtue" in 1981. This article summarizes that very well and the rest of his work.

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Mr. Oltzik’s life would end not with a bang, but with the drip, drip, drip of an IV drug that put him into a slumber from which he would never awaken. That drug, lorazepam, is a strong sedative. Mr. Oltzik was also receiving morphine, to kill pain. This combination can slow breathing and heart rate, and may make it impossible for the patient to eat or drink. In so doing, it can hasten death.