Author Archives: Alexander

About Alexander

I am a freshman at UC Berkeley enrolled in E125. Enjoy.

Russian Dash Cams Capturing Awesome Things?

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04/07/14: Surveillance Ethics. In this article, a number of key considerations were brought up in regards to the ethics of surveillance, as the title suggests. The article defined surveillance as watching, smelling or hearing a particular group for a specific purpose. Privacy, trust, cause, means and authority were all discussed in some detail. Bentham’s Panocticon and Orwell’s 1984 were brought up when talking about the pros and cons of surveillance. The Panopticon would foster an efficient means of inmate cooperation but at the expense of trust that could lead to a total authoritarian state such as that in Orwell’s 1984.

Trust and privacy were two themes that had a significant impact on the use of surveillance, among others. Our Bill of Rights includes a number of clauses that protect our privacy and has been challenged on a number of occasions in the US Supreme Court. For example, in Florida vs Harris the court ruled on the constitutionality of the use of infrared cameras to see inside a Marijuana grower’s house without the use of a search warrant and sided with Harris. Privacy is a questionable subject. The article gave a provocative example in which the privacy of a pornstar was discussed. Could a person who’s body is readily available to see in the internet have their privacy violated? Trust was often a casualty of increased surveillance and decreased privacy. As in Bentham’s example, you don’t have to trust someone as much if we can keep a close watch on them.

The question that I have is the ethics behind the means of surveillance. In the Supreme Court case Kyllo vs US the court addressed the question of reliability of a dog sniff as a reason for probably cause for a search of a vehicle stopped for a traffic violation.  Here the court ruled in favor if the dog sniff. Surveillance is not just for the authorities either, with the advent of dash cameras and mobile phones, thousands have access to spying equipment. There are a number of dash cams out on the market, and insurance companies use them to determine the safety of a driver and adjust their premium accordingly, but is this ok? You see where they drive, whom they drive with and what they do. CCTV cameras are all over the streets, but can this one day be turned into a super surveillance grid as that seen in the Batman movies?

 

Ethics Vs. Business

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If I ever happen to find myself sitting at a table with a bunch of great philosophers like Jeremy Bentham or Immanuel Kant the first thing I would say to them is thank you for wasting the better part of my Presidents Day off for creating such a confusing and vague theory of ethics, and then I would realize what I have just said to them and take it all back and thank them repeatedly. When I read about the different theories of ethics such as Utilitarianism and Duty Ethics, I felt like they were each similar in their construction (they were just systems of labeling our actions that are “good” and “bad”) and the fact that they were vague and unattainable. There would always be exceptions to their carefully thought out rules, Kant’s theory was already heavily criticized by being too absolute and leaving no room for “rule bending.” Nevertheless, I find that it is important to investigate ethics like Mill and Aristotle have because it brings us a step closer to our ultimate enlightenment (even though we will never come close). If we just said screw it and dropped our pursuit to find what precise ethics we as engineers have to abide by, we would be stuck in the dark ages and I would not get my units for taking E125.

But beyond that, If Ford was at the table I think that I would talk with him the most. I see him more as a business man than an engineer but he still has the skills of an engineer, something that I aspire to become. I feel as though if the question of the Ford Pinto were to be brought up then all hell would break loose. According to Kant and Mill and Bentham, Ford’s company would be completely in the wrong, but I think that I would side with Ford in this circumstance. This is because I see ethics as not necessarily law, but more of a guideline of what we should do as decent humans. Therefore thought the Ford motor company did fail to create safe ethical car, they did not break any laws. Business and ethics must come into close conflict, in my eyes ethics are in the least interest of business because that means they (the business leaders) must devote capital to ethical considerations, safety, environmental protection and so on and divert that capital from profit making products. The Pinto was unsafe because at the time ethics were not a money making entity. Today I feel as though ethics have become a selling point. Today Ford markets their Ecoboost widely under the environmentally friendly headlines. Today, ethics sells and that’s why businessmen pursue it.

Trying to Decipher Bateson

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NOTE: I posted this to the wrong blog site.

So what exactly did I just read? Looks like it is about time I got my head out of the clouds from winter break. Reading Bateson with the flu doesn’t help either. I guess this guy is concerned with creating a “high civilization” by making sure all the components of that civilization are “flexible.” Now to my understanding what “flexible” means is anything that can adapt easily, which makes sense, Darwin had that pretty much explained.

So in Bateson’s second point as to what a high civilization should have, some would argue that computers have led to less wisdom. Just like in ancient times, books and writing were frowned upon because man was no longer forced to remember stories and facts, and today computers not only store vast amounts of information, they compute even greater problems. I wonder when they day will come when elementary school students will no longer have to memorize the multiplication table and instead memorize the controls on an iPad. And the problems that a computer can solve may not always be in the best interest of everyone. There’s no way we could have had the atomic bomb if we didn’t have the super computers in order to design it. So maybe going back on Bateson’s first point is necessary. Maybe going back and becoming ignorant new-age settlers is the only way we can have a peaceful coexistence with all our surroundings.

 

Humanities Looking into the Sciences

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Now I am probably the only humanities major in E125. As a pre-business freshman, I am probably one of the youngest as well. So why in the world would a second semester first year want to take an engineering ethics class with some of the best minds in the country? Well, I admire them and perhaps one day, I will be one of them.  My sojourn in ethics class should bring me one step closer to committing to a major switch, or at least add a minor. I hope that surrounding myself with all the ideas of engineering (without the intimidation of hard math and science) will get my demons to scurry away. At a minimum, as a business major I would like to enter an engineering firm in management so the responsibilities of the professional objective really appeals to me. If everything would be dandy, that would be an automotive manufacturer, Porsche to be exact. I am extremely interested in all things car related and today’s leaps in bounds in autonomous vehicles are very appealing. So to summarize, I am a pre-business major looking into a discipline a night-and-day different from my own: engineering.

It is quite the battle internally. For the greater part of my life I have been business interested. I sold paper airplanes at my dad’s shop when I was little, I was the business guy at my school’s student government and now I am taking econ and UGBA. But I also played with Legos. I had as much fun building bridges and buildings out of scrap wood with my father. I enjoyed making the paper airplanes almost more than selling them. My family says business, but my friends and my mind tell me engineering. So I am at a crossroad, and that is why I am taking Engineering Ethics and Society.

So what I hope to gain from this experience is a sure fire way to determine if engineering, mechanical to be precise, is something that I would love or something that maybe is just a phase in my life. All the questions that arise during class and the people who answer them are my influential factors. If I can keep up with what people say, and what people say sound awesome, then I am all in.

Aforementioned, I would like to enter Porsche in management, so the objective to discover what the professional responsibilities are of an engineer can prove to be very useful. We mentioned in class a few problems that arise between management and the engineers and many of the conflicts arose from poor communication. It cannot hurt to learn both sides of an argument right? As a manger in Porsche or some other car manufacturer, I am surely going to step in at a time where self-driving cars are being tested widespread and so that is something I would very much like to investigate further. And as a pre-haas major, I think my wish to explore a discipline other than my own is quite clear, it is engineering in its entirety.

What is engineering?

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Reading Pawley was short and sweat. I very much enjoyed the topics that were brought up, specifically the question as to what could be labeled as engineering. The entire piece itself was written very much like an engineer would write. When Pawley was describing how the interviewers were questioned and then presented in the article, great care was given to things that I did not even consider. For example, Pawley on page 312 asked if the interviewer required any comprehension aids and then described three different formatting techniques simply to include what they had said in Pawley’s literature. I was pleasantly surprised to see a nod to gender concerns when communicating interviewer’s responses. Someone might ask why any aim at concealing gender would be required at all, but it is my believe that today we are still struggling with the homologation of male and female in predominantly male dominant workplaces. Engineering has been ruled by man, I know the bias is male in my classes for sure, and having such a good piece of information be disregarded or questioned just because Pawley decided to include the participant’s gender seems like a waste.

One thing I would like to point out however is on page 314 in italics, “Engineers solve problems that matter.” I almost get the feeling that other professionals, like a businessman doesn’t solve problems that matter, almost like here engineers sound almost condescending. I can think of plenty of problems that we could have left unsolved and get on with our lives just fine. The world’s fastest car, 280mph Ford GT does not drive at those speeds for any reason other than pure driver excitement, and one passenger. Engineers solve problem not doubt and they can solve many worthy important issues like making a space shuttle or a suspension bridge, they can give into frivolous problems just like the rest of us.