The concept of Corporate Personhood is grounded in the fact that the owners of a corporation are not financially liable for any obligations the corporation enters into and the corporation is not financially liable for any personal obligations of its owners. It means that a corporation has many of the legal powers that people have- it can enter into contracts, acquire assets, incur obligations, and even enjoy protection under the US Constitution against the seizure of its property. Socially, much of the issue some people have with Corporations being treated as "people" under the law deals with "the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling striking down limits on independent corporate spending in elections" as Kent Greenfield writes in his "If Corporations Are People, They Should Act Like It" article for The Atlantic. Ethically, the issue becomes even more complex. If corporations are individuals, then how can the true made-of-organic-matter, not-just-legally-defined individuals who make the company's decisions be held responsible for choices that put corporate profit ahead of the value of human life. Following the Nuremberg trials, the world has agreed that the Nuremberg defense ("an order is an order") is no defense at all. When we consider the justification likely employed by the management and decision makers at companies like IBM during the second world war- money is money- we see that corporate greed created a villain that should be held just as culpable as the soldiers themselves. Make no mistake; there is a distinct difference between a home goods store selling a knife that is ultimately used in a violent crime and a company working with a criminal directly to develop an effective tool that company knows will be used in a malevolent way. In the Mic article "This Is the Hidden Nazi History of IBM - And the Man Who Tried to Expose It" by Jack Smith IV, Smith writes that IBM "didn't just sell tools and products; they collaborated with the Nazis in creative ways to help them design and execute the systematic destruction of the Jewish people." To that extent, I do not believe the question of whether or not corporations should be responsible for immoral or unethical use of their products is worded strongly enough to relevantly express IBM's role. I believe the question at hand is whether or not corporations should be responsible for knowingly selling their products for immoral or unethical uses. It should come as no surprise that my answer to this is yes. When evaluating decisions from a financial management standpoint, tradition calls for a manager to weigh costs against benefits to find the net value. In doing business with Nazi Germany, IBM's German subsidiary knew that the costs included the massive loss of human life and still decided that the monetary benefit was worth proceeding with business. In the New York Times article "IBM's Sales to the Nazis: Assessing the Culpability" by Richard Bernstein, Bernstein presents the counterargument that "Still, it was not clear until at least 1942, even to many Jews, that genocide was not only the Nazis' goal but also a goal they were determined to achieve." As such, Bernstein argues, IBM could not be expected to have known the details of Nazi Germany's nefarious goals. To that point, I believe that even if IBM was not aware of the plans when it began doing business with the Reich, they continued that business through every stage of the Holocaust. Smith agrees, as he writes in the Mic article mentioned earlier that IBM's machines had a part in each stage from identifying and ostracizing the Jews to ghettoizing, deporting, and ultimately killing them. In the New York Times excerpt from IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation by Edwin Black, Black writes that, although IBM communicated with the regime on a daily basis throughout the 12-year Reich, IBM employed a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. They ignored the very atrocities that they enabled- feigning ignorance even when Watson's personal representatives constantly visited Berlin or Geneva "monitoring activities, ensuring that the parent company in New York was not cut out of any of the profits or business opportunities Nazism presented." Should corporations refrain from doing business with immoral or unethical organizations or persons? The US Government seemed to think so, but, even when such business (and even contact) with German Nazis was illegal, IBM hid behind their European offices and subsidiaries to feign credible deniability. Once again, the diction of the question itself, in my opinion, does not adequately convey the consciousness of IBM to the actions of their Nazi clients. Corporations should undoubtedly refrain from doing business with clients who the company knows intend to use its products unethically. "Corporations are not actually living, breathing, physical beings. They cannot go to jail, they cannot lose their lives, and they do not think or feel. Their actions and inactions are the sum total of the actions and inactions of their members." I believe that if corporations are afforded the same rights as individual persons, they should be expected to have the same ethical and moral obligations and responsibilities. I also believe that where they choose to ignore those obligations and responsibilities, the decision makers need to be held responsible. If a parent tells their child to throw a dish on the floor in the middle of a store, that parent is expected to pay for the dish when it breaks. Other people may clean up the pieces and the child may get a strong talking to, but it's the decision maker who must be held accountable for his or her decision. In a similar way, I believe IBM's decision makers who worked with Nazi Germany should have been tried and faced punishment the same way Nazi soldiers did. Following money is just as bad as following orders especially when that greed spells out the loss of human life.
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So, I'm looking for those fuzzy heels- you know the ones- the really cute ones that almost look like marabou feathers across the strap? I don't know what to search for, so I'm trying "fuzzy heels", "furry heels", "marabou heels", and- in one attempt fueled by desperation- "those heels that european gold digger bought Carrie at Dolce in Sex and the City Season 1". I don't know how many links I've tried until I find them- beautiful and pink and fluffy and out of my budget. For days, they haunt me. I'm not going crazy, but the advertisement for the exact pair of shoes is everywhere. They're wearing me down; I'm losing will power. One day I break; I click on the link. I'm redirected and I get to the site thinking about how many hours I'll have to work to make up for the shoes, but how they're worth it. I go to add to cart, and they're sold out of my size. If they're going to be creepy and keep tabs on me, can't they keep tabs on my shoe size too? That's just frustrating.
One major concern surrounding targeted online advertising is reducing individuals to data points. It's the inherent lack of respect in undermining a person's perceived* privacy and treating them as a product rather than a person. I say perceived* with an asterisk because, if you want to get technical, this is what those individuals agreed to. That being said, when the terms and conditions are pages long and the options at hand are agree or don't use this service, most people agree without a second thought. If you don't think about the information advertisers and companies have and only think of the convenience of their respective advertisements and services, you might not even mind. If you are in the market for a new blender, for instance, wouldn't it be convenient to alert all major blender retailers? They would each advertise their blender promotions, and you would choose to purchase from the retailer with the best deal. It only gets creepy when those retailers know you want a blender before you even search anything about a blender. Maybe they figured it out because you've been liking those "Tasty" videos, or maybe they noticed you've been searching for smoothie recipes. Honestly, in the case of the blender, I don't care. But, maybe, there are certain search queries I don't want to determine the way I'm categorized and advertised to. I was doing updates on computers office-wide the summer before last, and I felt like I was invading my coworkers' privacy when I saw their advertisements for diapers or watches or Victoria's Secret. Why do I feel like it's an invasion of privacy when I see that data but not when third party services sell my data? It's a game of convenience and mutual benefits. Sure, companies are selling my data and mining it to more accurately sell me their own products, but at least I get advertisements that are actually relevant to me. Thinking about targeted advertisements, they're nothing new. Access to data just allows them to be better- more effective. For now, I consider online advertising to be tolerable. I used to use Adblock because pop-ups and video advertisements are generally more irritating than convenient. With Adblock, you can even continue to enable "Acceptable Ads." This keeps out the "malvertising" ads like "YOU JUST WON AN IPHONE CLAIM NOW!" without getting rid of the advertisements I want to see by stores I like to shop with. Although I don't think it's unethical to use these blockers, the Tom's Guide article brought up a great point- "when companies see revenue going up on the right types of ads, they'll change their practices accordingly." Similarly, when the options are either to scroll past an ad I don't particularly enjoy or pay for content, I will chose the advertisement 99% of the time. Before moving off campus, I had one request. I wanted my dad to install a deadbolt on my door. A break in is one of my biggest fears, so, as you might guess, backdoors and weakened encryption don't necessarily make me feel at ease. That being said, as a worrywart, the other extreme- no surveillance on anyone at all- would also make me a little uneasy. In a perfect world, no one would want to break in or cause harm, but we don't live in a perfect world. We also don't live in a black and white world. It's not always the good guys versus the bad guys. What if someone who is supposed to be a good guy takes advantage of his or her access to data?
I started out this assignment with the mentality that companies should not purposely weaken encryption or implement backdoors in their products for the purposes of government surveillance. We consider big questions like if Apple is ethically responsible for protecting the privacy of their users or ethically responsible for helping to prevent violent or harmful activities that their platforms may enable, but we would be remiss if those are the only two situations we consider. What about a teenage girl scrolling through social media looking for pro-eating disorder pictures. Should Instagram hide posts #proana and #anaismyfriend? Should they redirect her to a help line? Is hiding those hashtag posts censorship? According to a Wired article by Emily Reynolds, "Instagram's pro-anorexia ban made the problem worse" (https://www.wired.co.uk/article/instagram-pro-anorexia-search-terms). Although instagram banned certain search terms, those who wished to continue looking for the content created variants on the terms. Similarly, I believe, if technology companies tried to take a stand against violent or harmful activities in any public way, those wishing to continue to use the platform would find a way around that stand. It seems to me that the only way technology companies could take a stand against those issues would be through back door monitoring. Having now undergone a near complete 180, there are more concerns to discuss. When we question the ethical responsibility of a company for protecting the privacy of their users who are we considering protecting their privacy from? Is it just those with malicious intent? What even constitutes malicious intent? Is it true that what someone doesn't know won't hurt them? And how much of a security risk is posed by a company opening a back door for the government? Who else could and will potentially use the same backdoor to gain access? I don't think worries about Big Brother are simply paranoia, but there are certainly nuances. We've all heard about leaked celebrity pictures and it makes sense that celebrities would be targeted, but what would make an individual target an average person? I still don’t have a clear answer to a lot of those questions. In a perfect world with a perfect government staffed by perfectly objective individuals who only care about national security and a perfect backdoor that only lets those perfect government in, I wouldn’t have a problem with monitoring. I don’t have anything to hide. That being said, as mentioned before, the world is not perfect and seemingly innocuous personal details could be used maliciously in the wrong hands. I don’t have a perfect answer about balance, but I look forward to continuing to reflect on the issue. We've already covered that ethical problems are never black and white. Questions of whistleblowing and information leaks are similarly grey- particularly in Boeing's computer security situation. In my opinion, neither Boeing nor Nicholas Tides and Matthew Neumann- employees of Boeing's IT Sarbanes-Oxley Audit Group (apps.americanbar.org/buslaw/blt/content/2012/01/article-4-haaf-platt.shtml)- were completely right in their actions.
According to the Seattle Pi article, “Computer Security Faults put Boeing at Risk” by Andrea James and Daniel Lathrop, Boeing listened to reports for years that “company’s inability to patch database and software development security holes” poses a “’significant deficiency’ within the computer infrastructure.” Despite an auditor raising ethical concerns, Boeing continued to fail to demonstrate a “robust control environment” in accordance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act according to the Wired article (https://www.wired.com/2007/10/boeing-employee/). I believe if Boeing had made a meaningful effort to address the concerns of its employees, the employees would not have felt it necessary to go public with the computer security faults. That being said, Nicholas Tides and Matthew Neumann should have taken further action to disclose the Boeing shortcomings to the proper channels before going to the press. I do not think that Boeing was out of line in dismissing Tides and Neumann for disclosing private information to the press. According to the Seattle Pi article, although there were fears that the problem would rise to the level of “material weakness,” Deloitte- an external audit firm- gave the company’s control a clean bill of health. If the auditors disagreed with this decision, they should have focused on disclosing that to the federal authorities rather than gunning for public attention right away. It is understandable that most of the attention in this situation is being focused on the auditors' disclosure to the media. This detail enabled Boeing to legally terminate the auditors. That being said, the full details of their disclosures paint a picture that favors the auditors more. One detail in particular that I think was glossed over by most media sources is that the auditors not only went to the media but also the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Wired article "Boeing Employee Fired for Discussing Computer Security" was the only article for class that I saw this mentioned in, and, even there, it was less than a sentence- "He then spoke with a reporter as well as the SEC about his concerns." Disclosure to the proper channels was definitely called for and appropriate in this situation. In fact, it's an auditor's job to inspect and ensure transparency and honesty. It would be shady if the auditors detected such a large scale problem and took no action to report it to the Securities and Exchange Commission. I do not believe that the workers should have been protected under the Whistleblower protection laws because they made the decision to go public with information that could have been dealt with in other channels without trying the other channels first. If they had first approached the SEC then gone public if no action was taken, I might have a different opinion. The title today is a nod to another poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay. I didn't include the poem because the words are not as relevant to today's readings as "First Fig" was to the readings last week; however, I still thought the theme was relevant. The theme of this "Sonnet XLI" by Millay is effectively not to reduce a woman down to the hardships she faces because she is a woman. Although I don't think the gender gap is necessarily overblown, I do believe that well intentioned attention is sometimes given to the wrong part of the issue. I am certainly not alone in my view- which Stuart Reges echoes in his Quillette article "Why Women Don't Code," he writes about "The Equality Agenda Versus the Equity Agenda." Reges says "While the equality agenda focuses on the equality of opportunity, the equity agenda is concerned with outcomes."
If the focus is consistently placed on closing the gender gap/diversity issue rather than recognizing and encouraging and developing talent regardless of gender or race, then companies could be encouraged to hire less qualified candidates to meet a quota. These less qualified candidates could reinforce negative stereotypes about the abilities of women and minority candidates on the whole, and that would foster resentment by the majority. On the other hand, if we swing too hard in the opposite direction- not considering circumstance at all- then we would fail to account for implicit biases when evaluating talent. For instance, if an individual has to work three jobs to support his or her family and put themselves through school, that individual may not have time to devote to personal projects or extracurricular activities. That individual should be evaluated differently than an individual that- without any other commitments- chose not to be involved with anything outside of classes. In conclusion, lack of diversity is a problem in the technology industry that needs to be addressed in a measured and balanced way. One obstacle faced by women early on is the suggestion that math is masculine. I remember playing ClueFinders games when I was in grade school- Leslie, the girl, was always associated with the reading challenges, while Santiago, the guy, was more mathematically inclined. Little details like that seem harmless, but when they're repeated again and again in representation everywhere, it feels reinforced that women don't belong in STEM fields. This is one area that I feel has definitely experienced progress in the past few years- at least in media representation. I can turn on a TV show or a movie and see women in CS or Math or Science at every turn. That being said, representation is still sometimes lacking in the workplace. 13/15 interview calls I've had this semester were with males. Even at Notre Dame, it looks like I will graduate without having taken a single STEM class with a female professor. In the Bloomberg article, "Why Doesn't Silicon Valley Hire Black Coders?," a senior at Howard, Sarah Jones, noted that "There are not a lot of people of color in the Valley- and that, by itself, makes it kind of unwelcoming." I echo Sarah and strongly believe that it can be difficult to go down a path where you see no role models who look like you- to have the pressure of being a trailblazer of sorts. That in and of itself can detour people of color and women from pursuing careers in the technology industry. I believe that the events at Uber were completely unacceptable. Aimee Lucido puts it more eloquently than I could when she writes in her Medium article, "Reflecting on Susan Fowler's Reflections" that "This is disgusting and appalling and horrifying and yet [she] is not surprised at all... This incident is not isolated to Susan Fowler, SREs, or even Uber. This is everyone's problem." My reaction to the event is not just based on the actual incident of sexual harassment but also to the lack of response from HR/management. There is a possibility that the harasser did not know what he was doing was wrong. I doubt it based on the number of his offenses and the outcome- women transferring teams as a result. However, unfortunately, this is still a possibility since he had management reinforcing his own judgement. By their lack of discipline, management made him believe that his behavior was acceptable. By saying it was a "first offense," management blamed the victim in each situation. By noting that the harasser was a "high performer," management effectively said that talent gives you a free pass- if you are good enough at your job, you don't need to face consequences for your actions. These events say that work has to be done not just on the gender gap but also on teaching individuals how to respect one another regardless of gender or race. One of my favorite poets in the world is Edna St. Vincent Millay. Above, I included her "First Fig" -- a poem that I definitely identify with, and one that I think is relevant to a conversation about "having it all."
Something that I'm starting to learn, even before I have a family of my own, is that you may be able to do everything you want short-term, but long-term exhaustion and burnout will catch up with you. In my time at Notre Dame, I've been an officer or sat on the executive board of over 10 different organizations/entities. I've worked 5 jobs- sometimes 3 at the same time. I've overloaded credits because I don't want to miss out on classes I could be passionate about. I've made myself sick from the stress of the number of things on my plate. Last year, I was managing a consulting engagement, leading the front-end development for my research project, chairing a division of the CCC, and overloading on classes when the stress started getting to me. I was sleeping about four hours a night- on nights that I was lucky. I started to realize that every week I had between 10 and 12 of my 14 meal swipes unused by the end of the week. I came down with a cold and a cough that kept me up for part of those 4 hours. I was working on assignments that I didn't understand because I only managed to stay half-awake during class when I broke out into a sweat. At first, I thought I might be having a panic attack. I never had one before, but I've seen my sister deal with them and I waited for the feeling of not being able to breathe. It didn't come, but I kept sweating. I started to see an aura- black splotchy circles littered across my vision- and I knew I was about to get a migraine. I hadn't gotten migraines since my senior year of high school. I started crying because I didn't have the time to put on a sleep mask and lay in silence and pain while I waited for it to pass. I started thinking about all the things I should be doing, and I got hit by a wave of nausea. I threw up, and I called my parents. I didn't know what to do. They told me to take my temperature- 101.4 if memory serves. They told me to go to St. Liam's. I told them I didn't have time. I finally caved and emailed my professors. My dad flew halfway across the country to take care of me until I started feeling better. I can't put into words how fortunate I am and how lucky I feel that he was able to do that. For me, burnout is more than just a feeling- it's my body saying you need to stop. After this episode, I took a step back from some of my roles. It helped immensely to have my family as a solid support system. That being said, burnout is still something I struggle with. Over the summer, I worked a ~40 hour a week full-time internship, managed a ~20 hour a week consulting engagement, and, even though I still had time to sleep, the stress of all the requirements started getting to me. I couldn't keep down most foods. I would wake up with excruciating pain that I later found out were intestinal spasms and the overproduction of acid in my stomach. On the worst day, I- a person who hates public bathrooms and will generally wait through the entire drive from NY to South Bend to use the bathroom so I don't need to use a rest stop- was in such excruciating pain that I laid on the bathroom floor with the garbage can on its side throwing up for over two hours. I legitimately thought that that's how I would die. I sound dramatic, but I have a relatively high pain tolerance. I have all my dental procedures done without Novocain and it took my mother's intervention to get me to the doctor after sports injuries growing up. This stomach pain was an entirely different animal. Following that episode, I saw four different doctors trying to figure out what was wrong. I had every blood test under the sun, an endoscopy with a biopsy of my esophagus, a biopsy of my stomach, I tracked all my meals, and I was confined to a "low FODMAP" diet (no fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols). The gastroenterologist told me I had gastritis and diagnosed some of my other symptoms but identified the source as primarily stress rather than a physical factor or digestive intolerance. He prescribed three medications, but even taking them in conjunction with over the counter medicine doesn't help sometimes. The night of the club fair- which my beloved CCC plays a role in running- I spent two hours throwing up in the bathroom of the Duncan Student Center until one of my friends picked me up and brought me home. Finding a balance is extremely important to me, and I guess I don't intend to maintain a lifestyle of doing everything. It’s like Edna St. Vincent Millay says in the poem at the top of this page, even if you can’t maintain everything forever, it’s nice while you still can. In terms of the role employers can and ought to play in finding a balance, I think it would be extremely easy for me to say from a place of privilege that individuals who want to spend more time with their family should choose a career that allows them to do so. It was certainly a consideration in choosing my career. One of the offers I considered offered 20 weeks of fully paid maternity leave. That’s 4-5 months with my baby, and, although I don’t anticipate starting a family in the near future, it was a detail that made me stop and think. In the real world, most people don’t get the opportunity to spend that much time with their family. Because minimum wage is barely livable in most urban areas, families- especially single parent families- are torn apart by the sheer number of hours a parent must work to provide for his or her family. In her article in The Atlantic, Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote “I believe that we can ‘have it all at the same time.’ But not today, not with the way America’s economy and society are currently structured.” In order to allow for more of a balance, wages and benefits would need to be reevaluated across the board- particularly for those who depend on hourly wages to support themselves and their families. A meritocracy is a system in which individuals succeed solely on the basis of their ability. Of that much, I am certain. However, the first issue with this concept arises when we try to define ability. In the tech industry, does this mean good programmers? Communicators? Leaders? At what point do soft skills contribute to an individual's ability, and at what point do these intangible factors only contribute to people's perception of that individual's ability?
Imagine two candidates' resumes. One attended an Ivy League school, and the other attended a state school. Would a recruiter develop a preconceived notion of which candidate is more skilled? Is it merited? That recruiter does not know the situation that led each candidate to their respective schools. Perhaps they each got into the same colleges, but one could not afford to attend the more highly ranked institution. Perhaps the candidate who attended the Ivy League school was a seventh generation legacy with a building named for his family. Perhaps the state school candidate was accepted to the Ivy League school, but their declination to attend allowed the Ivy League candidate to be accepted off of the waitlist. With more situations possible than can be enumerated, I think it's fair to say assuming one candidate's superiority based off of school is not merited. That doesn't stop us, however, from associating one positive characteristic from another. This thought is echoed by Joseph Reagle in "Naive Meritocracy and the Meaning of Myth" as he writes, "So-called meritocracies reproduce extant members and favor incidental attributes; they are biased, susceptible to privilege, and unconcerned with inequitable outcomes." There's a technical term for this- the Halo Effect. The Halo Effect, researched and named by Edward Thorndike in the early 20th century, is "the way our own cognitive bias changes how we perceive the character or ability of an individual" (Vikus). Attractiveness, trustworthiness, and intellect are all intertwined in our brains whether we consciously realize it or not. We've all seen the articles on LinkedIn- "Size Does Matter: Tall Men and Slender Women Earn More Throughout Life", "Physical Attractiveness Bias in Hiring", the list goes on. In The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature, Matt Ridley explains that we are, to a certain extent, genetically programmed to associate these characteristics for the survival of the species and of our line. It goes further than just genetics; however, putting pretty people on a pedestal is part of our culture- exogenetic heredity so to speak. The phenomenon of physiognomy- "assessing a person's character or personality from their outer appearance" has been discussed by philosophers as far back as the ancient Greek (Wikipedia). Even Aristotle discussed the idea of physiognomy, writing "It is possible to infer character from features" (Prior Analytics 2.27). Research on the topic recently began to spike again, aided by facial recognition software. Although physiognomy refer specifically to appearance, but you can substitute a number of features in- charisma, eloquence, etc. Considering physiognomy and the Halo Effect, if we all as humans have subconscious biases, how could we ever have a complete meritocracy? Until we find a completely objective way to measure ability, meritocracies cannot exist. The Principle of Beneficence- do good. Ethical decision making would be easy if we could just leave it at that. The issue, as far as I see it, is not only in trying to decide what constitutes the greatest good but also in discerning what constitutes good as a baseline. Thousands of years discussing and debating have brought us no closer to resolving this foundational issue; discerning right from wrong will never be black and white.
My dad always told me I should be an engineer. "It's a way of thinking. A way of approaching problems logically. You have that." I guess he's right; the way I approach problems has always been algorithmic. If the situation is A then I respond with B otherwise respond with C. As much as I'd like to treat ethical decision making the same way, I think reading situations is too subjective. It's too easy to fall into the trap of ethical egoism- to think only of the greatest good for myself as an individual. In order to try to avoid this pitfall, I have a set of basic values I hold myself to when I consider an ethical dilemma. "There is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. When you kill a man, you steal a life... you steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness... There is no act more wretched than stealing." - Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner The first standard I hold myself to is respecting the dignity of individuals. I read The Kite Runner in high school, and Baba's explanation of stealing as the basis for every sin has stuck with me ever since. When determining right from wrong, my first consideration is how my decision will impact others. What does it take away? What is the opportunity cost of my decision. "A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved." - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., The Sirens of Titan My second consideration builds upon the first. Respect is the baseline, but, as a Catholic, I'm called to take it a step further. I'm called to be a mirror of God's love to those around me. I chose this Kurt Vonnegut quote because, although emphasized by Catholicism, I believe this is a consideration everyone should make ("no matter who is controlling [human life]"). The Golden Rule is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Jesus Christ, in his words and actions, calls us to do even more. He calls us to treat others with the mercy and love of God. This is a big part of my faith and a big part of my ethical decision making. "If you have to look over your shoulder to check if anyone's watching, you're doing something wrong." - My Dad My third consideration deals with who exactly I'm considering in my ethical choices. To me, making an ethical decision means making a decision I'd feel comfortable standing by and taking ownership of regardless of who challenges me. It means being forthright and not sneaking around hoping no one will notice the choice I made. This consideration has a lot to do with my personal prayer life. Even if I make a decision that no one physically present will see, I know I will have to take ownership of it to God. God already knows my deepest motivations and desires, and praying helps me discern them too. To this extent, for me at least, morality and spirituality are two sides of the same coin. My name is Samantha Scaglione. I'm a Computer Science major with a minor in Engineering Corporate Practice. I know you're technically not supposed to capitalize academic disciplines, but just look at "Computer Science" versus "computer science." Clearly capitalization looks prettier. I'm mentioning this now because I will- from time to time- ignore typical rules of capitalization or grammar in favor of making the sentences look a little prettier. It feels more natural this way anyway.
In case you couldn't tell by the half a paragraph justifying my capitalization, I'm very detail oriented. I guess that is a part of why I chose to study Computer Science. I honestly didn't think there was any connection between the two until I happened upon an article that made me think about how Computer Science and attention to detail are related even beyond the context the author presented. What I mean by "attention to detail" can be summed up pretty easily- I like things looking their best, and I like things doing what they're supposed to do. I'll never forget the first day of my first programming class (pre-major switch), "Introduction to Computing for Electrical Engineers." We were writing and running a glorified Hello World that printed characters and integers. As our professor walked around the class to see how everyone was doing, someone near me stopped him to say "Mine isn't working." Our professor replied "Let's look at your code; the computer is only going to do what you tell it to do." The computer is only going to do what you tell it to do. A simplified notion for our first day, perhaps, but it was a powerful statement. I like knowing that if there's a bug in something I've written, it's fixable. Even if I have to scrap everything and start over, the computer is only going to do what I tell it to do. That mentality is kind of empowering, and it's a big part of why I chose to study Computer Science.. More about me- Activities on Campus: Club Coordination Council, Engineering Leadership Council, Wishmakers ND Favorite Class Taken So Far: Social Sensing & Cyber-Physical Systems Summer Internship: Full Stack Development @ MoreSteam Dorm Affiliation: Cavanaugh Hall Hometown: Port Washington, NY Zodiac Sign: Capricorn Although I'm a Cav girl through and through, I call Long Island, NY home. I like long walks on the beach and bagels and pizza and basically anything that reminds me of home. I love my dog, Belle, who is the cutest Maltese-Yorkie mix in the entire world. I like reading poetry in my down time (which I don't have a ton of). My favorites are Edna St. Vincent Millay and Walt Whitman. I also love to read novels and short stories which are more often than not by Vonnegut or Salinger or Fitzgerald or Hemingway. I'm not a snooty reader who only reads the 'greats," but, when I find a writer with a style I enjoy reading, I keep reading that author. I like watching "Romantic Dramas with a Strong Female Lead" (as Netflix reminds me every time I try to browse) and shows that are mainly on the CW or HBO. Speaking of HBO, I'm very excited to discuss Westworld and all the ethical questions it poses especially as we start talking about AI. (Also Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?/Blade Runner) I think the most pressing issue facing computer scientists and engineers today is figuring how and where to draw the line for data usage and privacy. I think the most interesting and controversial ethical issue facing computer scientists and engineers today is morality in the context of artificial intelligence- not just how to have self-driving cars answer the trolley problem but also what are the implications of developing AI technology. |
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