Study Journal 6

Nov 19th

• The advance of technology has had a huge effect on the the LDS church is run.
• New technologies are not evenly distributed among church members, especially since the LDS church is a global church.
• Increased linking between LDS church members and investigators via the Internet has contributed to missionary work.

Dec 1st

• Computer technology has allowed the LDS church to coordinate translation of church materials all across the world.
• Teaching translators to use programs that incorporate machine translation into the process can be slow, but it has big payoffs in efficiency.
• Members might be able to access the LDS church's machine translation technology in the future.

Dec 3rd

• Computer technology has vastly altered the way that information is spread.
• Danger can arise in a person's life if these technologies are used for negative ends.
• Although much can be communicated through the internet, in-person interaction is more effective and important to our social well-being.

Dec 8th

• Family history work makes it easier for people to feel connected to their ancestors.
• Revamping the back-end implementation of a server database is worth the trouble if it provides significant gains in speed.
• Family history capacities have expanded as the LDS church has grown.

Video Games and the Brain (Current Event 6)

The article we discussed in class pointed out that research has shown that violent video games are linked to increased aggression. However, we didn't discuss any of the other effects that video games can have on the brain, violent or not. Psychology Today notes that there are some benefits to playing action-based video games that require players to manage a lot of information in their minds and make split-second decisions. These benefits include improved visual contrast sensitivity, improved spatial attention, improved multitasking, and improved mental flexibility, among others. Taking into consideration the effect of violent video games, it seems that it's best not to take a black and white approach to video games and treat them as either all good or all bad. Perhaps it's better to view video games as we view other forms of entertainment, like books and movies. Individual books or movies can be spiritually uplifting or degrading, so we should judge individual video games based on their merits, too.

Study Journal 5

Nov. 5th

• Weeder classes may be demanding in a way that men are more accustomed to than women - this could be hurting the pipeline of women coming in to CS.
•  Since teams benefit when they are composed of both women and men, it makes sense to seek out more women in computer science.
•  The culture of a company and the work environment can also influence whether women feel comfortable in computer science jobs.

Nov. 10th

• Violence in video games is bad enough that I would want to be careful about how much my children are exposed to it even if there's not a conclusive link to criminal behavior.
• Compulsive video game playing can be dangerous to one's responsibilities and social life.
•  Companies that are concerned about secrecy need to be careful of the way their employees use social media.

Nov. 12th

• Staying home and only focusing on childcare isn't working for a lot of women, since 80% of children in Utah have two working parents.
• Women are better able to excel in technology-related careers when they have friends and family who recognize their talent.
• One key to helping women feel included in the workforce is treating them the same as you would a man - don't make being a woman an issue.

Nov. 17th

• Technology has a bigger impact on the lives of younger couples than older ones.
•  For me, a balance between STEM-related education and liberal arts education has been beneficial. Only studying computer science and math would get boring for me.
• Since a lot of influential executives have liberal arts backgrounds, we can expect that a study of those disciplines should continue to be beneficial.

More Women in Computer Science (Current Events 5)

At Stanford University, only about 21% of undergraduate CS majors are women, in spite of the fact that the first two CS classes taught there have an equal gender ratio. This may be due to the male-dominated culture of computer science at Stanford or the fact that women don't hear about the CS major early on in their college careers. To counter this trend, Ayna Agarwal and Ellora Israni founded the group she++ to provide community and support for women pursuing tech careers. More women in computer science should be beneficial for companies who need more CS talent and for the US as a whole, since the demand for computer scientists is growing but the US has fewer CS graduates than many other countries. In class, the idea was raised that gender parity in computer science isn't something that we should be worried about, due to what the Family Proclamation says about men being mainly providers and women being mainly nurturers. However, research has shown that all-male teams tend to experience negative outcomes compared to other teams (see Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing). Plus, it hardly seems fair to assume that our LDS ideas about gender and gender roles should be imposed on people who don't share our beliefs. If people want to encourage more women to be in the workforce and it appears to be benefiting society, then they should do so.

Study Journal 4

Oct. 27th

• New technology and new business strategies can lead to problems in the market when people aren't used to them. The dot com bust is one example of this.
• Investment bankers were eager to have people buy stocks through them, and they encouraged tech companies to open up their stock for sale before they had become established, because bankers profited off of sales regardless of how well the stock did. Some people took advantage of this and sold stock in companies that didn't do anything.
• Insider groups tend to take advantage of markets when they have the opportunity to do so.

Oct.  29th

• The advent of computers has provided a lot of advantages in terms of communication and data management, but it also has its downsides, like providing anonymity for hateful groups or individuals or promoting anti-social tendencies.
• With new technology, there's a danger of losing sight of what we considered important before we had that technology.
• The subcultures that develop in online forums are often examples of how technology becomes mythic, because they tend to take the internet for granted and don't consider what life would be like without it.

Nov. 3rd

• Access to the internet for more people around the world could be an economic equalizer because people would have easier access to information they could use for business purposes.
• Although television used to have a big impact on public opinion, some of its influence has been lost because of the rising use of the Internet and social media.
• Because technology can change the whole fabric of society, we should be careful about how we implement it and allow it to take hold in a society.

Online Harassment and GamerGate (Current Events 4)

The group South by Southwest (SXSW) regularly holds a music and media festival in Austin, Texas. This year's festival was going to include panels on video games and also online harassment; however both panels were canceled because of threats towards some of the panelists. Both panels featured people who had been proponents of GamerGate as well as people who had been targeted by GamerGate. Those in favor of GamerGate are bothered by the effects that female gamers and critics are having on the video game industry, and they have often resorted to threats of violence to discourage women from speaking out. Critics like Brianna Wu and Caroline Sinders are disappointed that SXSW didn't offer increased security in response to the threats - by canceling the event, SXSW is sending the message that online threats and harassment can be effective. This goes to show that there are winners and losers with new technology, as we discussed in class. The anonymity of the Internet has made it easier for people to send threats and bully others without facing repercussions. In online forums, good moderation can discourage that sort of behavior, and in real-life events, proper security measures can be taken to show that threats will not deter an event. Since other smaller groups have responded with better security in response to death threats, SXSW should have done the same.

Study Journal 3

Oct 6, 2015

• You must be able to redistribute and/ or modify software without paying any fees in order to call software free.

• Linux has followed the bazaar-style development pattern, which has been surprisingly effective due to the dedication of the programmers involved.

• The cathedral view of program development views bugs as intense problems that a few people need to work really hard on, while the bazaar view characterizes bugs as problems that will be really simple to someone, so it's important to have as many people as possible testing and examining the source code.

Oct 8, 2015

• Copyrights are automatically granted once you complete a creative work.

• Employers like to set agreements where anything you create outside of work belongs to them, unless you get their permission to work on it first. This is intended to protect their intellectual property,

• Non-compete clauses and non-disclosure agreements in contracts serve a similar purpose - the company doesn't want you sharing insider knowledge with another company.

Oct 13, 2015

• Cliff Stoll gradually became more aware of the seriousness of the hacker's intentions and attacks throughout the time he was tracking the hacker.

• Cliff realized that the need for security in information systems was something that liberal and conservative people have in common, and he became more moderate.

• Cliff tried to make others more aware of the danger of hackers, since it was a new issue, and he warned them when he noticed the hacker infiltrating their networks.

Oct 15, 2015

• Hackers believe that all information should be shared.

• Hackers don't tend to follow the normal political divisions of left and right.

• The NSA has collected a lot of data about emails people send, and their actions were made public due to WikiLeaks, a site made by hackers.

Oct 20, 2015

• The Espionage Act of 1996 made it illegal for people to steal information, not just material objects.

• Betrayal from an insider, like John Walker, who sold government secrets to the USSR, is one of the most dangerous security breaches for an organization.

• Spies may use pre-arranged drop sites when exchanging secret information in order to minimize the risk of multiple people being compromised if one person is caught.

Oct 22, 2015

• The professor broadly dismissed anything "socialist" as bad, based on a talk by Ezra Taft Benson, when America has plenty of socialist practices that are good. There was a lively discussion.

• Consecration is basically like socialism, except that you choose to do it, so it's good. But what if people want to choose to practice socialism by democratic reform? Well, that doesn't count, because socialism is bad.

• Ezra Taft Benson was way involved in the Red Scare and suppressing dissidence. His attitudes contributed to the culture of the LDS church, which fears dissident opinions.

Women in the Islamic State (Current Events 3)

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIS or the Islamic State now occupies a significant portion of Syria. There are many aspects of the ways that they rule which are highly problematic, like their use of brutal violence to enforce laws and their commitment to war against all other states to establish a global caliphate, but their treatment of women stands out as one of the worst aspects of the Islamic State. Women may be punished by whipping if they leave their homes without a male relative. Single foreign women must stay in a hostel, where they receive food and a small monthly allowance. Single male fighters can come to this hostel and immediately become engaged to one of these women, with hardly any choice on the woman's part. Women who refuse to marry a soldier can be killed. Yazidi women who are captured in Iraq are forced to be sex slaves for the conquering soldiers. Controlling women or men through coercion or threats of violence is a terrible way to run a society. This will engender hatred towards the government and hopefully be a factor that leads to the downfall of the Islamic State. The practice of restraining women from participating in society except as mothers and wives decreases the productive and intellectual capacity of the region. No society which denies freedom to its female members by forcing them to marry or be sex slaves can be considered ethical.

State of the Syrian Civil War (Current Events 2)

Have did the civil war in Syria start? Well, I'll tell you. This will be a quick summary of a loooong article on Vox.com. The conflict has its origins in French colonialism. The French gained control of what is now Syria and Lebanon in 1920. When they left in 1963, the Alawite Shia Muslims whom they had placed in power stayed in power. In 1976, many Syrian Sunni Muslims started a civil war. Concerned about maintaining his power, the Alawite leader Hafez al-Assad resorted to brutally massacring thousands of people in the city of Hama. But this did not solve any of the problems that had caused this civil war, and the tensions caused by authoritarian minority rule and threats between demographic groups continued to foment a rebellion.

In March of 2011, non-violent protests began in the city of Deraa, and police responded by firing on the protestors. This triggered a wave of protests throughout the country and led to the foundation of the Free Syrian Army, mainly composed of defectors from Bashar's army. They seized control of military bases and began to engage in conventional warfare against the state.

But support for different rebel groups from the Arab league led to conflict among the rebels. Al-Qaeda was involved, but their group fractured and formed ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria). Iran, Bashar's ally, also entered the fight. The fact that many rebel groups were extremists deterred other international interference for a while, which was what Bashar wanted.

In 2014, President Obama began a largely unsuccessful effort to help more moderate rebels. Meanwhile, Kurdish fighters were having success in taking away territory from both Assad and ISIS. But all the fighting has been hellish for Syrians - a quarter million have been killed, four million are refugees, and about half the Syrian population has been displaced from their homes.

The political situation in Syria is very complicated, but refugees fleeing the country need asylum and aid. The US response has been poor; only 1500 Syrians have been allowed to come here. We ought to be doing more to help them. Check out this petition to resettle more Syrian refugees in America and this watchdog list of charities.

Study Journal Notes 1

(For my ethics class)

Sep. 8th

• Western concepts of ethics have much of their roots in Aristotle's ideas about moral excellence
• Ethics and morals are processes of systematizing what is right and what is wrong
• In modern philosophy, often ethics are seen as secular while morals are seen as religious in origin

 Sep. 10th

• Churchy people tend to get worried about trends of moral relativism that they see in society
• Situational ethics is based on the idea that love should be at the core of our morals, but its founder may not have defined what is love (baby don't hurt me) explicitly enough
• The four main tenets of situational ethics are pragmatism, relativism, positivism, and personalism

Sep. 15th

• Taking a long time to observe a subject will help you find details that it would be easy to skim over
• Ethics are difficult enough to define that it takes a lot of observation and thought to come to reasonable conclusions about what is ethical
• We may not have knowledge about what kind of stuff we don't know, so we need to be careful not to think we know everything

Sep. 17th

• Just because a law is on the books doesn't mean that it's ethical
• Some people's moral ideas are founded on the idea of a devil and a God who will help you overcome that devil's temptations and other difficulties
• David Bednar has gotten the impression that people mainly leave the LDS church because they have been offended by someone.

Atheism, Moral Standards, and Adultery Amid China's Sexual Revolution (Current Events Post 1)

A recent article published at wantchinatimes.com discusses the recent Ashley Madison website hacking and the social mores associated with sexual behavior in China. The Ashley Madison website advertises itself as a way to secretly arrange extramarital affairs, and the recent hack revealed tens of thousands of Chinese users.

But there are other indicators that show that Chinese people are breaking established social mores about sex. Ninety-five percent of corruption probes into public officials showed that they had affairs. The WeChat app, used for hookups, is more popular than Ashley Madison in China. The rate of affairs for men and women in China are higher than the average for other countries.

There are social mores against adultery, pornography, and frequenting sex workers in China, as there are in the United States. But the fact that these mores exist in China shows that people can and do create ethical standards for their society without a belief in God, since the majority of Chinese are atheists.

The conservative sexual mores in China are similar to those of conservative Christians in America, in spite of how Christianity is not the predominant religion in China. Some problems with the customs of both of those groups is an unwillingness to discuss sexuality openly and a pressure to have children. But hopefully the sexual revolution in China will lead to more healthy and beneficial customs without the loss of mores regarding marital fidelity. More openness in talking about sexuality and relationships can help those who chose to marry to have happier marriages and be less likely resort to cheating for sexual satisfaction. Lower stigmas against divorce will allow couples whose relationships are not working out to separate without feeling like they've failed.

In the discussions in my ethics class, several people have claimed that God is the source of morality, and without God there cannot be moral rules. But the situation in China challenges those assertions, because the Chinese people do have cultural and ethical standards that people are expected to live by. Standards for good human conduct can exist without a belief in a higher power.

Web comics and an Introduction

I'm starting this blog for my ethics in computer science class at BYU, but I plan to use it for other things, too. Eventually I want to start writing about important events in my life. But in the meantime, check out this list of my favorite web comics!

• Existential Comics
• Girl Genius
• Gunnerkrigg Court
• Hark, A Vagrant
• Humon Comics
• Hyperbole and a Half
• The Oatmeal 
• Oglaf (warning, this one is often NSFW)
• Order of the Stick
• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
• Scandinavia and the World
• Scary Go Round 
• xkcd (obligatory)