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I know I sound fairly like a white imperialist bearing the burden and all that, but bear with me. We (i.e. first world countries) created really fantastic cons

• elemeno 14y ago
  From the caption, it looks like the S3 was just being used as a compass. It's a strange state of affairs when, in what's effectively a war zone, it's easier to use the compass in your phone than a real physical compass!
• edraferi 14y ago
  I also found that picture very interesting. The juxtaposition of technology is striking. It is generous to call an improvised set of rocket tubes "targeted" and the small conventional explosive payloads of those rockets falls far below the bar for "mass destruction." Technology is fundamentally neutral. Higher technology means better tools. Better tools are greater multipliers of people power. It's up the person to decide how to use the tools. Sometimes we are responsible for death via technology transfer. America's support to the Afghan Mujaheddin against the Soviet Union is a great example. There's no question that Soviet helicopters blew up as a direct result of American-supplied stingers. That particular case was a clear action by the US, and in the end a very effective one (US clearly won that round of the Cold War). The real tragedy here is that the Galaxy S3 is civilian technology. The tragedy is that part of the world conceived, designed, built and deployed that gadget to millions of people to make their lives better. Another part of the world has been thrown down to a lower level of civilization by a horrible war. They're not building the S3, they're not even using it to check their email at a coffee shop. They're bolting it onto a hobby shop of explosives to kill their fellow countrymen. If there is a moral obligation here, it's a geopolitical one, not a technological one.
• fmavituna 14y ago
  > We (i.e. first world countries) created really fantastic consumer devices for our daily lives. #30 showed a Samsung Galaxy S3 being used as a guidance tool for a missile. Do we have a moral obligation on the carnage brought about by our devices? I think the first world countries got a bigger problem with carnage they've been bringing the world DIRECTLY. There is a moral obligation for us (UK here) due allowing our governments to do this and indirectly support them by our taxes.
• mauvehaus 14y ago
  Does Toyota have blood on its hands for manufacturing pickup trucks? Are the people put machine guns in the back balanced by the people using identical pickups to deliver aid? What about all the pickups that people use going about their day to day lives? Some of the people using trucks in their daily lives are no doubt able to raise their standard of living by using the truck to carry more material more effectively than they could without. I won't go so far as to call all technology inherently neutral (machine guns and nerve gas being just two examples I'd be pressed to find much neutrality in), but cell phones, like pickup trucks are about as neutral as you're likely to find. Globally, for every person using their Galaxy S3 to target missiles, there are probably a comparable number using a similar phone to coordinate medical or material relief efforts and tens or hundreds of people just using their phones as they go about their lives, many of whom benefit materially from the ability to contact other people or look up information online at their convenience. And if you aren't convinced of the neutrality of pickups and cell phones, what about the companies that made: 1) the pot the guy is stirring explosives in? 2) the lathe they're turning missiles on? 3) the ladder that got incorporated into the slingshot? 4) the glass beverage bottles that have become Molotov cocktails? 5) the steel pipe and sheet steel that show up in weapons in half the pictures? Do they/we all have a moral obligation on the carnage brought about by these things?
• InclinedPlane 14y ago
  I started typing up something about technology and morality but I thought better about it, I'll take a different tack. Your post is racist. Now, I'm going to assume that it is not intentionally racist, but it has the same ultimate effect. Let me explain. There are many different types of prejudice. There is prejudicial hatred, that tends to be obvious and blatant but is also people's stereotypical example of the sort of prejudice that we should all fight against. There's also something that people call "the soft bigotry of low expectations", and this is also pretty bad. It manifests itself in forms such as "well, that's pretty good... for a girl" or "for an Indian" or what-have-you. This is a pernicious sort of prejudice because it affects how people are treated, what sorts of opportunities people have, etc. But for the perpetrators of it can feel more justified and less morally wrong than more blatant racism. But there's a semi-related form of prejudice which I'll call paternalism. It's where you remove agency and culpability from certain folks and rest responsibility in the hands of "more developed" people. This is even more pernicious than low expectations because it sort of feels like you're doing the victims a favor. By taking away moral responsibility and devolving it on oneself it may seem like you are accepting a burden for someone else. But in reality you are denying them agency, denying them responsibility, and diminishing them as people. All human beings are responsible for their own actions, and to treat them like children or animals by denying them the responsibility for their deeds is incredibly dehumanizing. So to answer your question, no, the makers of the Samsung Galaxy do not have a moral obligation for creating a device which can serve as a compass, even though a compass can be used to point a weapon. That responsibility lies with, and should never be removed from, the individual who uses the device.
• deleted 14y ago
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