Postscript to Secrets of Silicon Valley

Here is a summary of what happened in the remainder of the film, and since the film was released in 2001.

Raj Jayadev – The state of California ruled that Manpower Temp wrongfully let him go, and he got his job at the HP plant back. Subsequently, he quit this job to write for a variety of publications through the Pacific News Service. He continues to organize low-wage workers and others left behind by the silicon revolution. He formed a worker’s collective called Silicon Valley De-Bug – the Voice of the Young and Temporary, which includes an online zine, and has written a number of other articles that you can find on the web.

Plugged In – President Bill Clinton’s visit in May 2000 helped boost the organization’s visibility, their capital campaign was successful and they built their own building. Judging from their website, they are still going strong, w/ Magda Escobar at the helm, and Avram Miller on their board.

Jan Krieger aka “Dr. Technology” – Evidently still building eco-concept cars and other fun gadgets. Here is his website.

Hewlett-Packard -- In February 2005 HP ousted CEO Carly Fiorina in the wake of a controversial merger with Compaq, but she had been controversial from the outset because of her hardnosed style in what had been viewed as a friendly, family run corporation. But don’t feel too bad for her – her buyout package was $14 million in cash and an estimated $42 million total value.

Manpower Temporary Services – 131st on Fortune 500 list for 2007. Going strong. 2.5 million temp workers placed in 2006.

The film has a nice website . There are more links about workers rights organizations, globalization, and other issues raised by the film.

Hey guys, well i came across an article in USA Today related to our discussion in class regarding surveillence. It's not camera surveillence it's about a bill that the Bush administration is seeking to expand a law allowing them to surveil any communications used by a possible terrorist suspect. This includes wire tapping, intercepting e-mails and any other type of systems. The full article can be seen here. http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20070417/a_fisa17.art.htm

The reason I posted this article was because within the proposed changes the bill asks for a lot of freedom surveilling suspects and more leeway in surveilling without warrants. One proposal asks that up to a week of surveillence should be allowed before seeking approval from a judge. Currently the law is 48 hours, with this provision, the agencies could basically surveil whoever they wanted for up to a week, with no one ever having to find out. Another issue is they want permission to store information not relavant to the reason of surveillance, previously required to be destroyed. This law is extended to non US citizens and a proposal similar to this failed to pass last year. Since citizenship can take years, many innocent people who come to America to pursue a better life are subject to surveillance and investigation, no matter who they are. This issue is starting to be confusing because of the events of 9/11 and how intelligience knew the planned attack at that point, but never had a law to surveil, hmmm. I don't know how much of a difference passing the bill will make for all we know they surveil anyone whenever they want, is this just to make them feel better about themselves and be able to sleep through the night? Also if this gets passed, next year they'll just ask to pass the bill for all people, US citizens or not. If we were receiving attack upon attack and were in serious danger i would understand more. The last major attack was 2001, almost 6 years ago now, and we knew about that but didnt act. I dont know about anyone else but the requests in the bill just dont make sense based on their previous actions. I guess this could kinda be tied into the camera surveillence arguement being that every person they surveilled could essentially be stalked. I'm not very comfortable with the idea of that, even if there is nothing to hide. This country was founded on freedom, shouldnt we try to stay somewhat close to that?

Navy displays anti-terrorist dolphin team

By Thomas Watkins, Associated Press

SAN DIEGO -- In a world of high-tech sensors and underwater robotics, Koa the bottlenose dolphin and others like her may still be the Navy's best line of defense against terrorists in scuba gear.

"They are better than anything we have ever made," said Mike Rothe, head of science for the Navy's marine mammal program, which trains dolphins and sea lions to guard military installations.

The article in full can be found here.

Based upon our readings for the week of April 9-13, I found this article to be a perfect example of how our military is going to great, and often ridiculous, lengths to curb terrorism with technological innovation. Here, the research within the Navy has turned to nature as a source for technology. While the natural world has been the inspiration for many great strides made in science, I find this example to be in a category of it's own.

The military is using the abilities of actual animals for their benefit, as opposed to finding inspiration from the design found in nature. The Navy's spokesperson claims that they "made" these instruments of war. They are taking credit for the natural abilities possessed by these animals. This sort of viewpoint further separates us from the fact that we don't control nature (which in itself has caused many problems for humanity).

Training these dolphins and sea lions to venture out into dangerous territory for us is, of course, found to be inhumane by many animal-rights activists. I personally feel that this development is not only exploitative and disrespectful toward nature, but that this is also attacking the problem from completely the wrong direction. Scuba-diving anti-Americans and underwater mines are hazards that won't be stopped, no matter how many dolphins we have patrolling the waters. I think that peaceful collaboration and discussion is a more effective way of alleviating the problem of people risking their lives to booby-trap international waters. Misunderstanding and disjointed viewpoints are the cause of much of the hate in the world. It's easy to hate something you aren't familiar with.

We can all agree that no one really knows what the proper solution for terrorism and hate is, if there is one. But this sort of bastardization of nature is just the latest in a long line of ridiculous responses to a complex problem. The paranoia that spawned this sort of innovation is causing Americans to accept any half-cocked idea as a cure for all types of terrorism. If we invested this much time, energy and money into programs aimed at international peace and understanding, imagine what our world would be like. Rather than spending trillions of dollars on absurd war toys, we could focus resources on developing the type of technology that actually benefits humanity. Plus, these marine animals would again be able to fish for food rather than terrorists.

Is training these animals to be terrorist-detectors really how we want to be spending our resources?

When the 21st Century and 19th Dynasty meet...

Egypt: Team Retrieves the Hair of a King of Kings
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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 11, 2007
Officials at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo unveiled locks of 3,200-year-old hair from Pharaoh Ramses II, returned to Egypt after being taken 30 years ago in France and put up for sale on the Internet last year. The small tufts of brown hair were displayed in a glass case and will eventually be put on exhibit next to Ramses’ mummy at the museum. An Egyptian archaeological delegation traveled to Paris last week to retrieve the strands, which were put up for sale on a Web site last November by a Frenchman who offered them for $2,600. The seller apparently obtained the items from his late father, a French researcher who examined the mummy when it was brought to France in 1976 for treatment to stop the spread of a rare fungus. “I was so upset,” said Zahi Hawass, the chief of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. “How the hair of the mummy — of the greatest king of Egypt — can be sold on the Internet!”

Penn State Participation in Climate Change Supreme Court Case

Found this article detailing the role of two Penn State climate scientists in the recent supreme court hearing on climate change. Haven't had a chnace to read the article in depth yet, so may try to leave comments later, but for now figured I'd link it for everyone else to see if they haven't already.

Avoided FUBAR?

Well, I guess that depends on who you ask.

As things turned out, a fairly pessimistic scenario obtained, with a critical point of 2. Since the class's average "consumption" level was 4.2, the class as a whole faced some serious consequences -- a deduction of two points from the points each individual chose.

The "economic" impact of this was, as might be expected in the real world, spread unevenly. As the table at right indicates, several individuals accumulated fortunes that allowed them to realize a significant overall growth in their wealth despite the costs of exceeding these environmental limits. One individual in fact managed to enjoy a very lavish lifestyle indeed. Most people suffered a significant loss of wealth. Though they still retained enough wealth to enjoy a lifestyle not too far diminished from what they experienced in their childhoods, the outcome was far from their dreams of prosperity. Alas, two individuals had failed to establish significant personal wealth to bear these costs, and were wiped out (or nearly so) by the costs of your collective excess. Unfortunate to be sure, but no one forced them to choose the sort of lifestyle that would leave them so vulnerable. We can hope that they found other sources of support, or at least satisfaction, in choosing to lead lives so far out of the economic mainstream.

However you care to judge these outcomes for your own "society," clearly your collective actions have passed some real problems on to future generations. As there is no way of thinking how the kind of excesses you have produced would simply disappear, it would seem that future generations would be facing a much harsher dilemma than you. But who could've known it would go this way? As they say, que sera....

So did you as a "society" handle this dilemma well? Depends on who you ask, and on the kind of "world" you want to live in. Collectively, you certainly acted as every group of students I have done this with have acted. In the real world, do we as a society handle this dilemma any better?

Your comments are of course encouraged, and we can spend a bit more class time criticizing assumptions built into the game, etc. But let me say once again that the lesson here is NOT that these reflect the real odds of the dilemma. If you want to know that, go and inform yourselves about the actual issues. Rather, what I hope you come away from this with is a realization that, in the real world, every choice you make about consumption -- large and small, conscious or unconscious, voting, buying, using, re-using, disposing, etc. -- takes place in a context of such a dilemma, and will have consequences not just for you, but for society as a whole, for individuals in other societies, and for future generations.

Supreme Court Global Warming Decision

You have all probably heard about this decision, in which a Supreme Court decision rejects Bush administration claims that CO2, one of the most common "greenhouse gases," cannot be regulated as a pollutant under existing anti-pollution law. If you haven't, read the NYT article on it, and/or the Court's decision. What do you think?