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?

Gee whiz, the future...is getting better?

Interesting rebuttal to the idea that the future is not what it used to be...

"Environmentalists and globalization foes are united in their fear that greater population and consumption of energy, materials, and chemicals accompanying economic growth, technological change and free trade—the mainstays of globalization—degrade human and environmental well-being.

Indeed, the 20th century saw the United States’ population multiply by four, income by seven, carbon dioxide emissions by nine, use of materials by 27, and use of chemicals by more than 100.

Yet life expectancy increased from 47 years to 77 years. Onset of major disease such as cancer, heart, and respiratory disease has been postponed between eight and eleven years in the past century. Heart disease and cancer rates have been in rapid decline over the last two decades, and total cancer deaths have actually declined the last two years, despite increases in population. Among the very young, infant mortality has declined from 100 deaths per 1,000 births in 1913 to just seven per 1,000 today...."

http://www.reason.com/news/show/119252.html

(Yet more) on global warming politics....

This article from today's NY Times discusses congressional investigation White House editing of government reports on global climate change.....

Material Shows Weakening of Cimate Reports.

Lack of health care coverage as a deadly health condition....

I put the slides I used in class yesterday here, up on the ANGEL lessons page for the class (the file is called "Health Care, S07". I also put the reports and articles from which I took the slides in a folder called "Health Care Policy Resources."

These studies are all at least a couple of years old now. I will try to add some links to newer studies as I have a chance to look for them. If you run across relevant studies or news articles, please post them to the blog.

Boomsday -- Economic Pressure of Retiring Baby Boomers

Here is a link to the book review that Dan Sokil made reference to in class yesterday. It is Boomsday by Christopher Buckley, a satire about how American society "deals" with the economic pressures that occur when the baby boom generation becomes eligible for Social Security.

Just Grinding My Axe

After monday's discussion on the uninsured and universal health care, I just wanted to provide some sources on the ways we could've spent all the money we've spent (wasted) on Iraq. Here are two articles that try to get a handle on what that money could've done for the U.S. and the world.

ABC NEWS: Who's Counting? How Iraq Trillions Could Have Been Spent?


NY TIMES: What $1.2 Trillion Can Buy.

Notice how both of these articles deal with medicine and health care around the world.

Data Mining Ramifications

Just an interesting thought-provoking video, doesn't relate to our current class discussion, but does relate to my research topic for this course, and though it would be interesting to share, based on the topic of data mining/govt. surveillance. This should probably stir up some debate...?

Race and Medicine

Found this article pretty relevant to our class discussions and reading on how race can play a factor in medicine. This seems to be a very current example of that, of how race influences asthma treatment. Like many of our class discussions the question is is the difference in rates of asthma among different races something that can be explained scientifically, or is it influenced by social factors or a combination of both? And again questions are raised what role should race play in it's treatment/diagnosis? Link Here

Recent Story Analogous to Sara Baartman

In response to the 4th question in the previous post:
4) Are there any parallels in this 19th century case with today’s world?

I came across a news story today which struck me as quite similar to it and the discussion in class today: Aboriginals sue U.K. museum over bones . Basically, the Tasmanian Aboriginal Center of Australia wants Britain's Museum of Natural History to return the remains of 17 individuals believed to be from the original Aboriginal population there.

But what is in contention here isn't whether the remains will be returned; the museum has agreed to return the bones to Australia. However, the museum wishes to take samples of the bones and conduct tests on them prior to returning them. These tests are deemed important for anthropological and genetic studies, since the last of the full-blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal population was wiped out over a century ago. However, the present-day Australian Aboriginal population would see any such tests as a desecration of these remains, and forbid the tests to take place.

Personally, I'm inclined to side with the Tasmanian Aboriginal Center. They have been deemed the rightful owner of the remains, and so the museum has no right to conduct their own tests on the bones. Even though the museum says the tests will at most be removing microscopic samples of the material, I think that's not the point at all. It seems extremely arrogant of the museum to try to act with complete disregard for the Aboriginal population's traditions and beliefs, and particularly since it seems the scientific value of these tests is uncertain at best. If a genetic study of the Tasmanian Aboriginal population were needed to help unlock the secrets of a genetic disorder or a disease, then maybe it would be justifiable. But I see no strongly compelling reason for the museum to do so.

Epilogue to the Sara Baartman Story

The last five minutes of the film we watched in class today, The Life and Times of Sara Baartman, were devoted to the issue of whether her remains would be returned to South Africa, which was unresolved when the film was released in 1998. Ultimately, the French government did agree to return her body to South Africa, where she was buried on August 9, 2002. As you can find out from reading some of the news accounts and editorial opinion surrouning the campaign for the repatriation of her remains gathered on the website RaceSci, the film did leave out some important details of her life - a brief marriage to a West Indian Man and two children (evidently while during the time she was in London), and her descent into prostitution in Paris. Interestingly, South Africa chose to bury her on it's National Women's Day public holiday, and the account of her return in burial in the African National Congress's official publication Sephardi indicates the degree to which her story has become connected to the fight against sexism withing South Africa. I have not been able to determine if the national monument for her has been established.

For the French government and museum authorities, part of the issue was the fate of the many thousands of other specimens of human remains from indigenous peoples taken during the colonial era that remain in Museums. Again from the RaceSci site, here is an argument from British scientists that these remains have to much scientific value to be returned without some guarantee that they could continue to be used for research. In the United States, the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act gave native Americans the right to reclaim remains if they could establish cultural affilication, though as this ethics website devoted to the issue indicates, it has hardly settled conflicts and controversies.

Obviously, our conversation about this film and the issues it raises could go in many directions. But here are some questions I think it raises:

1) Although scant historical information is available about what Sara Baartman felt about her experience, this film does tries to tell her story as much as possible from her perspective. Does considering her perspective change the way you feel about the racial science that was described in the article by Nancy Leys Stepan that you read last week?

2) Do you think the examination of Sara Baartman depicted in this film qualifies as science? Few if any people today would defend the scientific examination of Baartman that is depicted in this film. What was wrong with it? Do you find anything defensible about it?

3) Do you think it is important to remember what happened to Sara Baartman? Why? What is the most appropriate way to memorialize it? As the film indicates, the men who examined Sara were among the very elite of the scientific world. A google search of Cuvier will pull up dozens of biographical hits for him -- only one of which even mentions his racist views, but does not explain what they were. The closest to mentioning the Baartman episode is Wikipedia's entry, which has a link to an article about "Sarji Baartman, the Hottentot Venus which [sic] Cuvier Examined" that describes the episode you saw in the film. Why do Cuvier's many biographies omit reference to this episode? Is it right to ignore this? What are the implications of this for the stories we tell about science?

4) Are there any parallels in this 19th century case with today’s world?

(Much, Much) More Global Warming Politics

As we mentioned in class discussion last week, the interesting and vitally important question regarding the politics of global warming is whether the just-released 4th assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will "close" scientific debate on the matter. The IPCC report is a massive, multivolume document. But you can read the relatively brief, jargon free summary for policymakers that is generating all the attention.

If global warming becomes widely accepted as a scientifically established fact, this line of query goes, policymakers will be compelled to act. Certainly this was recognized by Repbulican strategists in the Luntz memo which I mentioned in class. Accuweather's blog had an interesting post referencing a Boston Globe article suggesting that the IPCC report has significantly constrained skeptics of anthropogenic global warming, though the blog's author Laura Hannon thinks the Globe article overstates the case.

As should be obvious by now, the "orthodox" STS position (an oxymoronic phrase given STS's penchance for unorthodox positions) is that no amount of evidence is sufficient to close a scientific debate. While evidence is important, it ultimately becomes persuasive only when political and social conflicts are worked out. (So, for instance, maybe Al Gore winning the Nobel Prize would represent the kind of settlement of social/political issues that would make the IPCC report convincing.) This is the point of the right-sided utterances from Latour's double-faced account of science. Issues like global warming (and concern that the Luntz memo amounts to applied STS) has led to some anxiety in the STS community about whether this kind of critique is undercutting any ability to reach compelling ethical and moral positions. Bruno Latour himself expressed such anxiety in a really interesting article that some have seen as repentance for his entire previous scholarly output. I wouldn't say that, but he is clearly struggling to find grounds to turn STS toward ethics. In any case, you should look at this article if for no other reason than to thank your lucky stars that I did not assign it to you. Don't say I never showed you a kindness....

Global Warming Politics

Just saw this post online, which seems really relevant to our class discussion yesterday on the role of scientists with differing political views and agenda, and the question of being fired or removed from posts for having differing views from political or scientific consensus, interesting read. In Summary from the post :

"Oregon state climatologist George Taylor, who may be fired by Gov. Ted Kulongoski for having views not in line with state policy on greenhouse gas reduction."

For Further Reading: Critics of Technology

As you've no doubt gathered, Langdon Winner is well-known as one of the staunchest critics of the mystique of new technology. You can find more of his writings and other interesting resources at his website and blog.

Another important critic of technology was Neil Postman, from whom I have taken what I have called the the 5 theorems regarding the political nature of technology that we have been discussing in class. If you are interested, you can read the article from which I took them. You and also find more by and about Postman here and here -- two of many websites that are devoted to keeping his ideas alive.

Tedious, yeah, but it's not a very funny subject

Winner makes an interesting choice by doing a satire: he seems to be attempting to present his views through a charicature of modern business CEO's. While not very funny, he does address a serious problem in American society today, how do we distinguish between that which is best run by the market and that which isn't? Winner's APM is the pinnicle of modern market capitalism, it is the triumph of neo-liberalism, it is the iTunes of education (and some people would argue is the end goal of NCLB). Thus, just as iTunes was the creative destructor of record stores, the APM would be the creative destructor of professors.

Really what Winner is arguing against isn't technology in education (although he seems to not be so fond of that), it's the system of beliefs that is being pushed with technology that he is mostly making fun of and that is the neo-liberal notion of specialization and championing of market forces (Neo-liberals believe that the economic clock has stopped at the current status quo, for better or worse. In order to suceed in this neo-liberal world, one must specialize and find their nieche in the flattened world economy. Winner's will be those who can specialize the fastest, and exploit market forces to their fullest. Loser's are left to charity and re-education to try and find their neiche. If you want to read the pre-eminant cheerleader for this, read Thomas Freidman The World is Flat, but take what he says with a grain of salt and think about whose story isn't told). Basically, he's saying the same thing he did in this weeks reading -- technology (and science) is political. LC Winner CEO, is one the technocrats who plays like technology is pure and carry's no baggage. While Winner, in writing this, is showing that you aren't just buying the APM, or a college degree, you are buying into a socio-economic belief system (dare I go so far as to say a lifestyle, even government?)

To conclude, I find it interesting that we are watching this movie off ANGEL, then communicating with each other on a blog... Can I get a certificate in ANGEL?

Tedious, Short-Sighted, Not as Funny as Colbert

Winner’s satire regarding the movement towards online education is packed with amusing one-liners, but lacking the overall vision of the bigger picture. Winner implies that online education will bring rampant commercialization to the field, resulting in a hyped and inflated sense of superficial understanding.

This is not necessarily the case. A great deal of education in America is publicly-funded by local citizens, including very vocal parents. It is (hopefully) preposterous to assume that we will ever have “Coca-Cola Presents… The Cell” with cellular structures renamed after different cola products. No one would tolerate that level of educational perversion, regardless of the pecuniary savings. The concept that education must be commercialized to incorporate technology seems fundamentally flawed.

Simply providing educational materials to students in a digital form does nothing to diminish their quality. On the contrary, online resources provide a means for wider availability, data cross-referencing, and information indexing. Furthermore, emerging information technologies (holography, immersive audio and visual content, etc.) promise a depth of education that far exceeds what is available from outmoded film strips and vinyl records.

The argument that online education diminishes educator/student interactions is quickly losing ground. High-bandwidth communication technologies are beginning to approach the fidelity of face-to-face meetings (the highest bandwidth communication). New technologies capture and convey the nuances of these interactions to each party. Online professors can see brows furrowed in confusion as easily virtually as they can in person.

Technology is not a diffuser of educational worth or a taker of education-jobs. Properly integrated, it can be an excellent asset. To use Winner’s elevator example: Yes, the child today who would have been an elevator operator for his entire life will not be able to be an elevator operator. Instead, he will have to be an electrical engineer or information technology specialist. It doesn’t sound to me like he is losing on that deal.

There were some “winning” (“and yes that is a pun on his name”) moments in the video. “Gemeinschaft education for gesellschaft prices” was clever. The T-Shirt as the alma mater elicited a chuckle, and the “Texas School Book Suppository” even got a laugh.

Winner’s faux presentation was accurate in one regard. His slogan “Lighten Up… Or Perish” touches on a very important point. Societies that do not change stagnate. We can not turn our backs on every new prospect because it is frightening or still under development. We must constantly search for and embrace technologies and ways of thinking that better humanity and our planet. Quite simply, cultures that do not change will die.

Ramifications of APM

While Winner clearly sees many benefits in the Automatic Professor Machine, I for one am not totally sold on this idea. To me this takes a significant aspect out of education, and would enhance some problems already found in the education system. For one, a significant part of education is experience in your field, and oftentimes that experience, which frequently includes interactions with others in your field, can only be found in a campus environment. Especially for fields like IST and computer science that emphasize teamwork, the APM would take a significant component out of education. Addi tonally it would further specialize people so that they would only have to know facts for their field, and would have less interaction with other fields or general education. Finally, education would become even more based on factual memorization, as the significant part of education that comes from classroom discussions and exposure to alternate views and opinions would be lost with the APS. I do not think you can take the personal component out of education and automate it, at least successfully.

L.C. Winner's Automated Professor Machine

Reminder: we will not no class on Friday. Instead, you can view this online lecture by Langdon Winner. (Note: I had trouble getting the streaming video to work. I also have the video files available for direct download on ANGEL under the lessons tab. You can also get the gist of his idea by looking at the other documents on the link above.) In any case, you might think about the following questions as you consider Winner's ideas:

1) What are the political implications of the development of distance learning that Winner is lampooning?

2) Satire works by exagerrating some characteristics of its target. How well does Winner's satire work -- does it exagerate some features of distance learning too much? Not enough?

3) L.C. Winner, CEO of Edu-Sham describes education as a commodity, like any other. Do you view it that way? Why or why not? What are the strengths and weaknesses of viewing education as a commodity.

If you are so moved, post your thoughts on Winner's satire to the blog. (Remember, if you are setting up a new google account, you may need to follow the invitation link back to the blog AFTER you set up the account. In any case, you should be able to respond via comments to this post whether you are registered to author posts or not)

Also, just FYI, Winner's homepage and blog are chock full of interesting things.

For Further Reading: Wendell Berry

For those of you who just can't get enough of Wendell Berry, here is a link that leads you to a website that, doubtless, Mr. Berry does not admire. The page links to lots of bio information, interviews, and essays of his that have been made available online.

Welcome!

This blog is a space for you to extend conversations and activies begun in class. From time to time, I may ask you to post specific things to the blog, but feel free to add material anytime you like. You can raise questions for your classmates to consider. You can post links or upload files of relevant material. You can do whatever you like with this page -- just so long as it is relevant to issues that further the objectives of the class, respectful of the ideals of democratic discourse, and, of course, legal. Think of this blog as a common resource for everyone in the class.

Credit toward your participation grade: You'll get credit for posting equivalent to contributing a comment in class. More importantly, the quality of this discussion forum will count toward the overall quality of class discussion, and thus to a significant part of your participation grade.

If you do the mediawatch posting in place of a weekly reading, you can and should post it to the blog. But be sure to give me a separate copy of your posting so I can make sure to give you credit for it.

For now, I have the blog set to be readable to anyone so that you will be able to read the blog. But once you have all joined, I can make it readable only to authors (i.e. students enrolled in the class). But if you are inclined to share your wisdom with the world, I am happy to make it available to anyone on the web as well.