Joy - Why the Future Doesn't Need Us

1)   1) I would consider Bill Joy’s primary concern in this article to be about how he doesn’t want the world to have all robots in the future, and no humans.  Robots would eventually take the place of humans with all their technology.  Joy finds this really concerning and potentially dangerous.  Thinking about all of the technology used today for science seems like a good thing, but it could potentially be dangerous with all the new abuses.  Technology is already being used for the bad when any country goes to war, for example all the potential nuclear weapons could be extremely harmful to the human race.  Joy said he himself has worked toward the problem of robots taking over when he did computer work.   He stated that he found it very disturbing to know he had been working toward a larger problem. 

2)  

        2)Joy uses many techniques to set up the problem, and he has a very effective way of going about it.  Joy first points out the problem by using personal anecdotes when he met Ray and John.  He introduces that the idea that robots through the passages that he took from Ray’s book, which was actually written by Kaczynski.  He also takes passages from Moravec.  They’re very good informational views but I found Joy’s own personal life history to be the most effective.   He talks about his love of science, math, and technology.  He states how he started working in technology and how he loved it.  He was even interested in robots and loved how there were ethical humans in the future with robots in Star Trek.  He had never thought about how his advancement in technology was pushing the future even more towards robots.  Joy makes a good use of the logos and ethos in the arguments. 

3)

             3) I think the issues brought up have taken on more relevance, but I don’t agree that humans will be a sub-race to robots one day.  I believe that our technology is increasing very quickly, but robots aren’t making the technology for us, we’re making our own technology.  We may have insane amounts of technology in the future but they won’t take over the human race.  I do agree that technology creeps up on us fast though; and we don’t even realize how much we’ve accomplished.  I think the relevance of science issues today are probably more relevant than they were then because of all the diseases.  I also think the problem with technology is that it can’t hold up against Mother Nature.  For example, just look at the radiation in Japan from the nuclear reactor plant hurt by the tsunami.  

Today, I watched half of the show "60 Minutes".

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7360240n&tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel
This was about the nuclear reactor plant in Japan, and how the U.S. believes it's more dangerous than the Japanese believe it to be.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7360250n&tag=contentMain;contentAux
This story about about removing "the N-word" from Huckleberry Finn, and replacing it with the word slave.  Censored books have already been sold to some schools.  Some people argue it takes away from the strong meaning of the book; while others believe it's just highlighting how people used to talk.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7360248n&tag=contentMain;contentAux
This section talked about the recent sexual abuses by priests, and how one man talks about changing it.

http://video.foxnews.com/
This was all about Libya and the potential war and how U.S. and England fired missiles at Libyan air defenses.

http://www.philly.com/philly/video/
I watched a bunch of short clips including: Mob madness during march, facebook spam, and the Dementri trial who was accused of racism.

http://www.cnn.com/video/
This was a video titled "Radiation: Facts and Falsehoods"
It talked about how the radiation compares to 3 mile island, and it's not deadly, but can make some of the workers sick.  They're worried that Japan isn't telling the people how truly dangerous it is.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/
I watched a lot of the recommended videos on the side.  Some were about Libya and action that the U.S. could take.  Some of it was about the war in Afghanistan and whether or not it's even worth continuing fighting.

Modest Proposal Blog

            Swift’s proposal was very interesting and also disturbing.  He starts out with imagery or poor people begging for money and food, which is the main problem that he’s hinting at in the piece.  He introduces the idea of eating children in replace for money for the poor parents.  He talked about eating children, preferably little children at the age of 1.  He claims that one boy could feed four girls.  To me, that’s really disturbing because I’d rather not think about eating people, because that would be cannibalism.  Swift discusses how the children don’t have to just contribute to food; it can also be clothing.  He says there are a lot of positives to eating children, such as preventing abortions, increasing the love and care of mothers, and less poor people.  The only downside he sees in all this is the fact that there will be less people in the ‘kingdom of England.”  He says it has nothing to do with him because his proposal doesn’t apply to his family.  I think he takes the sarcastic tone a bit too far because it gets very disturbing.  Also, the sarcastic tone makes it seem more of a joke rather than a very serious issue. 

Modest Proposal about financially selling organs

            EBay should just set up the organ part of the site now.  Everyone knows the government will eventually just find a secret way of financially selling organs but of course they won’t call it that… they’ll call it something else to hide it from everyone.  EBay should just set up the organ section so no one has to hide anything and there won’t be a black market for organs.  It’ll be just like looking for used cars – with descriptions like “liver 20 years of use, decent condition”.  People can just shop for their organs online, instead of waiting on extremely long lists to have their lives saved.  It’s the perfect solution.  I’m sure tons of people would be willing to sell their organs, especially for all that money.  EBay would be perfect, because it’s an auction- to see who wants to live more and pay more.  The only bad side would be that nothing’s guaranteed.  No medical professionals would be looking at your liver before you auction it off, but that’s the price you pay while shopping on EBay.  It’s only risking your life, so I mean it’s really worth it in the long run.