In Monday's class, we discussed the fundamental question of the inmate morality (or immorality) of technology. Basically, the question asks, does technology itself hold a good or bad value? My claim today is that the technology does not have morality or immorality, which then I am connecting to the social media, Facebook. My reasoning for this is that the uses for such "bad" technology, such as bombs or guns, cannot be boxed into a good or bad use, because there will always be cases for both good and bad uses of the technology. For guns, killing or pain is always the outcome. Sometimes, it is for evil, like in a robbery or murder. On the other hand, it can be for good, like in self defense or justice.
In the case of Facebook, there are many positive outcomes, as well as many negative ones. Whether or not the bad outweigh the good, it all depends on how the user navigates Facebook. Bad outcomes of Facebook that were suggested in class were things such as: it can track wherever the user may be, the comment section of pictures or statuses house all kinds of illogical and brutally harsh comments, a.k.a. cyberbullying, or being subject to unattainable standards that you see of someone online. Some of the good outcomes said in class were things such as: freedom of expression, value of communication, or the community aspect.
The reason I don't think we should blame Facebook for negative outcomes is because the user who creates a Facebook account agrees to all the terms of being on the site, both legally (like the privacy issue), and socially (such as the unattainable standards). The user can unfriend (or even unfollow, while still remaining friends) whomever gives him/her unattainable standards. The user can turn off the tracking in the Messenger app.
Let's not blame Facebook for things we can control.
The Gun Did It! Not Guilty!
ReplyDeleteThe invention of weapons have been around for many decades. This invention overall includes many different weapons such as knives, bow and arrows, bombs, and guns, but in particular let us focus more towards the invention of guns. Since the very beginning of the invention of guns, its sole purpose was to take down targeted prey. Take down, however does not mean that the targeted prey has to be killed in cold blood. But unfortunately, over the decades the purpose of this invention has changed drastically. Although in some cases the gun has been used for positive events such as war, hunting, and the police force, unfortunately guns have also been used in negative situations. These negative situations include shooting an innocent person because someone lost in a game of basketball. Our next question to bring up discussion is whether guns are morally good and bad. When we turn on the news channel we usually hear about how the city encourages citizens to turn in their owned guns in exchange for gas or groceries due to the amount of gun violence in our city. Is the gun to be blamed for the killings or is the person who owned the gun the person to blame?
If Sally and Billy were into a very bad verbal fight and Sally gets mad and decides to shoot Billy who is to blame? We would all more than likely blame Sally for killing Billy. Let us change this up a little bit. Now let us say that Billy had threatened Sally that he would kill her and everybody in her family then Billy proceeds to go get his gun. It just so called happens that Sally pulls the trigger first. Who would be wrong in this situation? Both Billy and Sally owned guns. But it would be wrong for us to say that the gun did it. In Billy’s case he used his gun to commit a homicide and in Sally’s case the gun was used for self-defense. What if we are faced with a situation in which we actually do need guns to protect ourselves? It is not the gun that is bad but yet it is the person that is using the gun and their intentions and motives that may be bad. So why do we blame to gun? Why not the person who failed to think about the consequences of their actions.
-Michelle Elsberry (couldn't post)