The definition of
ethics according to [1] is “(also known as moral philosophy) is a branch
of philosophy which seeks to address questions about morality, such as what the
fundamental semantic, ontological, and epistemic nature of ethics or morality
is, how moral values should be determined, how a moral outcome can be achieved
in specific situations, how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what
its nature is, and what moral values people actually abide by”.
I was asked to write about an advanced function that
was taught to me and portray what I learned in this paper from the programs
AutoCAD, and Microsoft Excel. I was to discuss this while linking in an ethical
spin on the two subjects in regards to two separate readings that were given.
The readings I chose were “Why the future doesn’t need us” [2], and “The ACM
code of ethical conduct” [3]. The advanced CAD feature I have decided to
discuss is the “offset” feature, then I will be discussing how you import
information that you have created in an excel spreadsheet and implementing in
into Auto CAD. How in the hell you ask, can you link all of these topics
together in an ethical argument? In the next upcoming paragraphs I will be
discussing how I believe they connect. First off I will start by giving an
in-depth discussion of the two features and how to perform them step by step.
So, who noticed that my two points of interest in Excel and Auto CAD both have features that have the word “copy” in them? Was that intentional? This entire idea of having to replicate, describe, copy, imitate what we learned from another source is kind of unethical in itself. In this first paragraph I will discuss how this relates to “The ACM code of ethical conduct” article that I read and thoroughly enjoyed. The entire code of ethics seems to really be a greater code of how to be a “better person”. This point in particular is my favorite, and I would love to share it with you;
“1.6 Give proper credit for
intellectual property. Computing professionals are obligated to protect the
integrity of intellectual property. Specifically, one must not take credit for
other's ideas or work, even in cases where the work has not been explicitly
protected by copyright, patent, etc.”[6]
Are you serious! I understand the point of copy right and giving a general “props” to our elders and co-inhabitants for being the first human to find and publicize the according information. I mean in fact the whole idea that there is a copy feature in our Microsoft programs just ensures that we are actually using someone else’s ideas, and are in fact plagiarizing much more than we think. I may have commanded the AutoCAD program to perform such specific tasks for e.g. to offset a particular line that I technically drew, but there was a programmer on the other side of that line that programmed what that line should look like; So there for are we not plagiarizing on a regular basis? This plagiarism mumbo jumbo is getting completely out of control.
I feel the need to share section 4.1 also with you whom I found pretty entertaining “uphold and promote the principals of this code” [7]. Really I feel like I don’t really need to comment on that one. Wait! There’s more! Good old section 4.2 discusses that “ad hearing to this code of ethics is purely based on a voluntary matter” [8] (a.k.a this comment was put in here for legal reasons), but if you are in fact having a mind of your own, a will of free speech, and just good old being human this will in fact result in engaging in “gross misconduct” [9] your membership to the all mighty ACM will be terminated!!!
This really just brings me to my next point which is solely based on the second article “why the future doesn’t need us” [10]. The human race will soon be completely controlled, become endangered and then slowly but surely become extinct. We will be replaced by robots! Really the only way to have Codes of Ethics like these seriously upheld is by programming them into instruments that have no thinking power what so ever. The one truly beautiful thing about the human race is the fact that we have so much passion and thought process. We all have different points of view we all see the same object in all different forms, we see and think freely from others, and the idea that humans are actually trying to stop this behavior is becoming purely unacceptable. It Figures that the all mighty human species tries to off the all mighty human species, come to think of it maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
The ironic thing I think out of this whole situation is the fact that once computers and robots rule the world, plagiarism will seize to exist. Since you need to program information into robots and computers to run all the information simply to perform the necessary tasks, all information will have no option but to end up being free for all. No robot will quote all who and what they received their information from, one sentence will end up taking hours to communicate. The idea of plagiarism I feel was created by humans from the selfish and greedy part of our genetic makeup. It’s a way for people to feel “special”, and to be able to “one up” each other. Well guess what? I say realistically to every one of you “special” individuals, there are roughly 6 billion people on this planet and if “you” didn’t think of it someone else would have. I think the human race needs a huge wakeup call before we actually wake up to the idea of extinction, and we find metal creations taking over our day to day responsibilities and leaving us with nothing but purely monitored hobbies, and scanner running through our sculls making sure were not plotting revenge.
The internet is a funny thing, a wealth of information and I say if you post it on the internet it’s free for everyone and anyone to use. If you have an idea and you don’t want anyone to use it without quoting “you” or giving “you” the proper recognition then do the world a favor and keep it to yourself. Ideas are meant to be shared, to help our race grow and continue to prosper in society. Humans in general need to really start becoming a little less selfish and start enjoying the wealth of knowledge that we all have and share.
Last Updated: December 10, 2009
