Ethics & Morality

Corporations are powerful, useful and fascinating inventions full of the trappings of humans and are the embodiment of some of the tensions of what it is to be a person. They can be safe. They can be ruthless. Some people bristle at the thought of a cube farm and I think some people prefer the safety of a corporate environment.

I am almost all the way through Ken Burn's "Vietnam". I've watched every episode twice and I am blown away at how visceral, gritty and real it feels from my couch. And it has changed me.

I have found it quite a challenge while shopping to choose products that are ethical, healthy and sustainable. For one, it's hard to remember everything and second the information is not always available. I can improve the second by picking places to shop that list this type of information and hopefully this entry will help me wrap my head around the first.

The Pope was released an ENCYCLICAL LETTER to the public regarding the document. It's generated a lot of press coverage and I find myself quite moved by it. The language is beautiful and the arguments are quite sound. I have yet to read the full version (saving for my next long flight) but I jotted down some notes.

Fully conscious, self-aware, complex and possibly even immature electro-mechanical machines are just one more step (and probably not even the last) in what is a long series of developments that started with the invention of computers (arguably earlier if you consider hunting dogs and the like). It started with basic stuff like calculators. Smart homes, cars and phones are automating our lives. It's a matter of time before these machines learn and build their own knowledge systems. And it's just a matter of time before one of them becomes self-aware.

CRISPR describes a mechanism that bacteria use as a defense mechanism against viruses. It involves incorporating a part of the virus DNA into their own DNA to use as a fingerprint to quickly identify a repeat invasion. It is also a method for coopting those genes for cutting in (or out) specific gene sequences in a cell. Any cell. I learned about it from Radiolab's latest broadcast and the power of this tool is mind blowing.

I don't know whether to be excited or terrified by the thought that we could soon have the ability to genetically modify our children's genome. This could be accomplished by tweaking the genes in young embryos or later on by "patching" the genome.

Thinking about happiness (or lack thereof). I finally understood that happiness is a mood. You can't "do" happiness anymore than you can "do" pissed off or envious. They're moods that are products of your action or circumstances.

So I've jotted down the beginnings of my own personal architectonic.

Updated: Apr/14/2016
Updated: Apr/03/2016
Updated: Feb/25/2016
Original: Aug/02/2014
Original link here.