#Blog Entry 4: "Only post online what you can actually say in real life", says Bianca Gonzales

“Only post online what you can actually say in real life”, says Bianca Gonzales.

This statement for me is true since as a responsible person you should be responsible enough to all your actions as well. Living in this modern era, Blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites have become an instant power tools to voice our opinion and broadcast our thoughts. These platforms have become an extension of our social life in cyber world where we can communicate and exchange thoughts with people across seas; shout out our feelings, learns new culture and many more uses. Though these tools are free media but it doesn’t imply that each of us has the full freedom to say whatever we want. Do you remember when you sign in for an account? If you remember, there was so called terms and conditions you agreed. This states all your rights with using your account and limits to when you should be responsible enough. In that terms and conditions you can even read that they will take information from you but mostly we neglect of noticing it as long we can have an account and get the privilege and pleasure to communicate with people without wondering we exchange our own classified information to them. In Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities [1] for example, in ‘Section 3: Safety’ particularly numbers 6 through 9 states our commitment and responsibilities in posting and sharing to Facebook and thus if we violate any of those including any of the commitments like ‘Section 2: Sharing Your Content and Information’ and ‘Section 5: Protecting Other People’s Rights’, ‘sections 14: Termination’ will be the cause. Number 6 clearly highlights that “You will not bully, intimidate, or harass any user”, therefore if we post any discrimination and malicious post, we users are responsible unto it and assumed to be also responsible in real life. Given the responsibility, the only difference between posting and speaking is that if we speak bad intensions in front of the person he/she will be discriminated and some people might know it but posting on social networking site considering millions of users, the whole world will know and it’s beyond ashamed. Posting in social networking sites is a fragile and dangerous matter, with just one post you can easily put someone down. Thus we post something, we must make sure that we can stand it in real life and be responsible unto it.

On the contrary, the post of Bianca Gonzales could be false. Since from the idea of posting it on the internet it means you’re incapable of saying it in person. Despite with terms and conditions, the ultimate goal of having a social networking site is to expression and expose once thought and feeling that are can’t be express in real world. Thus if we limit ourselves to express our true selves, so what’s the point having a Facebook Wall? If we take social networking site is all about communication why not only make it as a messaging application or chat box? Why include the wall? Because by having the wall we are allowed to post on it whenever we want, whatever we want and whoever who wants, right? If social media have limitation, is it a threat to our freedom of speech or violation to our human rights? Expressing once selves makes some people happy, satisfied and comfort, so are we need to deprive them to it? Yes, responsibility is important but it doesn’t imply that we need to be responsible at all time, since  in this world their is no fully responsible person but only person that aware to responsibility. Awareness is not equal to doing it or following it, so we must consider that as a human we could be rational sometimes. Going back to the statement, we could say that we can’t always be responsible or do whatever we say or post online and that's make us human.

In conclusion, regardless whatever we choose, the most important thing is we know our stand and that’s a responsibility. We must consider the welfare of our own and our society; and that’s also a responsibility.

Reference

[1] Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities: https://web.facebook.com/legal/terms

#Blog Entry 3: Contemporary Information Technology Issues VS Society Moral Guidelines

Along with established ethical theories and rules in our society, flaws and uncertainty are inevitable to happen in the community. As the scope of this laws and basis become wider and bigger, the box can’t anymore contain excess baggage. Technology in particular contributes great complexity to this matter that should be dealt with experts. Contemporary information technology problems are one of the mainstream issues in this modern age which our society’s moral guidelines can hardly distinguish the existence and clear view of the issue from the existing morals. In this article I would list and discuss several contemporary information technology issues nowadays and give some ideal solutions to the issues anchored to the ethical theories.

To start with, let talk about the issues aligned with social networking sites. This issue could be the most popular debates in this modern era. Lots of areas in social networking site seem to be unclear to the moral guidelines. Like creating and posting memes, it is unclear to some if it’s really morally right to create or post memes of personalities and celebrities thought this is just for fun but some of these personalities thought this as harassment and bullying.  Though persons creating memes could be thought ethical in the concept of Egoism and Consequentialism, but it also breaks privacy and morality of the personality. Ethical in egoism in the sense that it made the creator happy of what she’s/he’s doing and consequentialism in the sense that the creator disregard the feeling of the celebrities as long as viewers could relate and make fun on that meme, thus it has good goal to make every people happy.  To tie up these differences, the persons who want to create or post meme should have approved rights from the personalities or celebrates before doing it. In means, if creating meme is necessity or essential in making peoples happy and joy, these could be legalized to have meme creator in this sense anything will be done is approved. Moreover, this adds new job for memes creator enthusiast. Thus, the solution implies Utilitarianism to the side of the personality where he/she approve to use his image for the happiness and joy of more people and by doing so, he/she gives new job for professional meme creator. In the world of social networking, we could find more uncertainty to moral guidelines like public post of nudity image, explicit comments to wall post, illegal hopping of personal information and many more. Social networking has still wide area for improvement in moral guidelines and this should be dealt by experts.

Second issue is all about internet access. Internet now is one of the necessities for communication and processing.  Thought by having internet connection in transferring classified or important data is safer than carrying it to the destination but it’s not. Internet communications are monitored by Internet Service Providers (i.e. ISP) where our data and information can be access by them anytime they want. ISP has the power to collect private data from us that means they break our rights of privacy. By breaking the privacy, we could also gain advantage on it. Through ISP we could monitor terrorist attacks by tracing communication and other treat to our country. In this case, the best solution for the issue of privacy is to turn over the steering wheel of ISP to the government sector, since commonly ISP is a private sector. In this solution, the personal privacy is not still solved but the advantage of it is that government can now fully access directly the data to trace and monitor terrorism to protect the fellow countrymen.  Thus, this act is Utilitarianism since it risks personal data to help the country from bad elements.

The last issue I will talk is about internet piracy. Piracy on internet is very common nowadays; we could download movies, music, data, and others for free from pirate website even its originally for sale. Most hackers believe that it’s worth the hack since services and prices of content or product are enormous and unreasonable for customers. I myself quite agree with hackers, since I’m not satisfied most of the product prices and services. Thought this could be solved by at least make the product improved with cheap prices for us customers could be convinced to apply the service. Thus by doing so, utilitarianism is applied since having improved product in cheap price while satisfying customers is an act of utilitarian.

In conclusion, in most of the issues in contemporary information technology the root of all issues is that data and personal information are readily opened and can now be easily access by anyone without strong restrictions in this modern era.  Therefore ethical expert should focus improving and recreating ethical theories that will adopt the modern changes.  

#Blog Entry 2: Ethical Theories

Suppose I’ve successfully wooed the Tralfamadorian. Now the alien has become remarkably open-minded and has asked me to outline and discuss the ethical theory/theories that should guide the interactions between the human and Tralfmadorian races.

These are the ethical theories…

Relativism theory should be the first ethical theory Tralfamadorian should consider from us earthlings, since we earthlings are originally a diverse culture, where every place could have different norms and beliefs and every society could have different rules and regulations. Tralfamadorian should respect each culture to promote peace invasion to the earth. For this theory believe that there are no universal moral standards or standards that can be universally applied to all peoples at all times. Though this theory also holds the idea of subjective individual basis (i.e. subjective relativism) which a person decide its own wrong and own right, the theory doesn’t imply that clearly morally wrong act can be considered ethical.  Tralfamadorian should understand that individual human beliefs on earth are valued in the society and if they wish to conquer earth and put their own ethical basis on us, they should be considerate in the diverse changes could happen. Tralfamadorian should then set their own culture standard to clearly understand their own morals and by then, other planets like earth could impose limits based on their ethics. In result, pleasant debates could be justify and concluded from Tralfamadorian and earthlings based on both moral and ethical standards.

In connection with diverse belief and norms, most human believe in divine command theory. Divine command theory states that right actions are aligned to the will of God and wrong doings are those contrary to the will of God. God for us humans, are believed to be the creator and savior of earth and humankind, that’s why we earthlings highly value his will. Tralfamadorian could think that God for us human follows one supreme being will but it’s not, since humans have diverse culture, we human also believe in different Gods with different wills. But the whole idea of divine command theory implies that human based their ethics to the will of a supreme being. Tralfamadorian should then consider and respect these beliefs, as we human also respect each other’s human belief differences.

To us humans we also have this ethical theory called Consequentialism theory which states that “the end will justify the means’’. This statement implies that the consequence of an action justifies the moral acceptability of the means taken to reach that end. Humans do a lot of decisions, some decide to walk to the wrong path and some to the right but with good consequence and results these could be considered ethical, atleast for this theory. Tralfamadorian should understand that humans are capable of deciding on its own whether to follow or unfollow certain theory or belief.  Tralfamadorian should then be dynamic, open-minded, considerate, and open to changes to the complex ethical beliefs of each human.

In contrary with consequentialism theory, humans also have this theory called Kantianism which states that ‘act morally regardless of the consequence’. As humans have the innate ability to act rationally, they therefore must act morally, irrespective of personal desires or consequence. As a whole the theory implies that morality should be based on pure reason and thus we could say that Kantianism is the opposite of Consequentialism.

Lastly, humans also have this self-centered theory called Egoism. Egoism focus exclusively on self-interest and actions that could give maximum long-term benefit.  This theory implies the greediness of humans and Tralfamadorian should be vigilant to these morals.

To some up, the ethical theories of earthlings are very complex matter but these theories also give the basis to overcome this complexity. Through these theories, Tralfamadorian could understand and interact with humans without violating the ethics of each race. 

#Blog Entry 1: How Important is Ethics?

Suppose this scenario happens…

An alien from planet Tralfamadore comes to Earth and is baffled by the concept of ethics. In their planet, there’s no such thing. There’s only absolute freedom - the same freedom that motivated them to conquer Earth. As an earthling, it is my inherent duty to convince the Tralfamadorian that ethics is important. This is the only way to save humanity. Make every word count.

This is how I convince them…

Ethics is an important matter. As the meaning suggest ‘Ethics is the study of right and wrong’ though the meaning only applies to ‘human conduct’, the concept of ethics itself is a key towards peace and order to every conscious-aware living beings. As for humans, ethics helps society to have the basis for justifying the judgment between right and wrong for a particular action. Without ethics and having all the freedom, our actions would be random and aimless; and the society will be in chaos. Chaos in the sense that every human being will do everything they want without considering the right and wrong in their doings. Without ethics there would be no way to work towards a goal because there would be no way to pick between a limitless numbers of goals.

Thought freedom is freedom? NO, because freedom itself will have the freedom to oppose or breaks someone’s freedom, thus conflicts in everyone else freedom is not freedom. That’s why ethics is an important matter. Ethics sets everyone’s freedom to the limits considering the freedom of others is not stepped in. Moreover, besides setting everyone’s freedom, it also identifies the rightfulness and wrongfulness of once freedom. Ethics also organized the goals and actions to accomplish the most important values.

Tralfamadorian should consider having their own ethical basis. I bet with only their absolute freedom they have conquer several planets by tragic wars and chaotic battles because both planet settlers and Tralfamadorian don’t understand and agreed the meaning of right and wrong from each of their perspectives. By having an ethical basis to justify every actions and considering the rights and rules of the other party, Tralfamadorian could conquer the planet in peace and less cruel way. By this, casualties will not be accounted and bonds between planets settlers and Tralfamadorian will be made. To add more, both parties could help each other progress whether in the field of technology, medicine or in other means. Though the word ‘conquer’ itself could be easily link to ‘force’, but what I’m really trying to say is that conquering the planet by socializing and making efforts to make a mark in the planet without using violent actions and alike. In humans, this type of conquering could be depicted in Korean culture, were most people nowadays are adopting the culture such as K-Pop wardrobes, Korean foods and delicacies; Korean language and others. Thus we could say that Korean conquer the world in peace without forcing anyone else to do so.

In this way, if invading and conquering once planet runs in the blood of Tralfamadorian alien they could conquer the Earth without violence and cruelty by having ethical manners. Understanding and agreeing individual ethical interest must be done both Tralfamadorian and humans. Considering us earthlings believe that alien tribes have much more advance technology than us, so if we resist the invasion, we might fail and humanity will come to extinction.  Having an ethics will not just settle things in peace but it also guides everyone whether human or Tralfamadorian or other conscious-aware living beings to make better decisions.