Site Index

Greetings! As the blog grows, I wanted to set up an easy way to access posts.  The following is a list of topics that have been featured on the site so far:

The Technological Citizen, Year One: A Recap is an overview of all of my posts from the first year of the blog, and a snapshot of what’s coming next!

Ethics and Electronic Recycling, Part 1 and Part 2 take on the global epidemic of electronic waste, and the moral, environmental, and social problems it poses.

The Power of Social Technology at Stanford Business School is about Professor Jennifer Aaker’s course at Stanford GSB on harnessing social media to promote social change.

Reading Minds with fMRIs looks at brain scanning technologies which allow us to see inside the brain, and considers their implications in the court room, as well as for our conceptions of free will.

Should Students Take Cognitive Stimulating Drugs? Part 1 and Part 2 explore the ethical issues surrounding the off-label use of study drugs like Adderall and Ritalin on college campuses, and offer reflections about what the pursuit of these drugs says about our society.

Interview with Methuselah’s Foundation Roger Holzberg is a follow up to the transhumanism post, featuring my talk with Chief Marketing Officer and Creative Director of the non-profit life extension organization Methuselah Foundation Roger Holzberg, exploring the current status of life extension research.

Immortality, Transhumamanism, and Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity looks at Futurist Ray Kurzweil’s predicitons for the future and what ethical questions they pose.

Natural Happiness explores the question, “Are we ever as happy in doors as we are outside?  If not, then why are we such slaves to our screens?” and is based around the article by the same name by Paul Bloom, originally from The New York Times Green Issue.

Do We Need New Ethics To Handle Modern Technology? is inspired by Morton Winston’s article, “Children of Invention”, which poses the question of whether we need a new ethical framework to approach the contemporary environmental problems we are presented with as a result of modern technology.

Are You A Techno-Optimist or A Techno-Pessimist? is a reflection asking you to consider your general attitudes towards technology.

Moral Machines asks, “Does humanity want artifical moral agents?” and features Wendall Wallich and Colin Allen’s opening book chapter on the topic and the issues it raises.

Our Cell Phone Culture questions how the ubiquitious gadget the cell phone has shaped social interactions and our sense of community.

Using Technology To Build Greener Homes is a guest post by Solar Decathlon team member Preet Anand about SCU’s achievements in building “The Refract House,” a highly-energy efficient green home which won 3rd place at the national Solar Decathlon competition.

Genetics, Privacy and The Web explores personal genomic testing and the issues it raises for those who partake in it.

Jonathan Zittrain’s  ”Minds For Sale” is a summary of Harvard University’s professor’s lecture on “ubiquitious human computing,” the trend on the internet towards marketing human minds as a fungible resource.

Ethical Issues with Preimplantation and Prenatal Genetic Diagnosis features an article from Dr. Lawrence Nelson, a bioethicist who writes about ethical issues of genetically testing embryos before implantation into the womb.

Media Multitasking and The Good Life takes a look at how our compulsive multitasking habits are affecting attention and engagement in the world around us.

What Ethical Issues Are Raised by Advertisements for Egg Donors? explores advertisements for egg donors targeted to female students on college campuses, often offering large sums of money and specifying specific traits like academic and athletic achievements in exchange for higher sums of money.

Is It Ethical For Employees to Factor in Online Profiles in Hiring Decisions? looks at how information online, particularly from social networking sites, can be incriminating in the workplace, and whether it’s fair game for employers to judge people on the information they find about someone online.

What Is The Internet’s Effect on Deep Reading? examines how our online reading habits of skimming and flitting between multiple websites at once are affecting the depth with which we engage with the information we read, inspired by Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” and Sven Birkert’s “The Gutenberg Elegies.”