Tag: laws

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About Toi Question of the Month

#Question of the Month: a bloghop to think about. No. 3- Would you turn family in to the cops?

A little while ago, Michael D’Agostino, of A Life Examined, brought up the idea of a new blog hop called Question of the Month. He thinks blog readers would like to know a little more about us, the bloggers. So we’re all gathering to show you guys who we are by taking part in the Question of the Month blog hop. On the first Monday of each month, we answer the question that gets posted here.

This month’s question is: “If your parent or child committed a major crime, would you turn them in?”

The first thing I considered when I saw this question was, “What’s the major crime?”

The reason I asked myself this question is because of the current political/racial tension in the U.S. I’m not going to go into a spiel about right and wrong or ask if you care about “black live.” The reason this question popped up is because sometimes things that aren’t crimes now, once were. For example:

-In some states marijuana is now legal.
-Gay marriage is legal.
-And for those of you who pretend not to remember, there was a time when interracial marriage was a crime, and so on…but of course I realize that these aren’t major crimes.

Now, I’m not here to advocate for or against anything, but I wanted to explain why I take justice a lot more serious than I do “crime”. Yes some crimes are clearly wrong, but many others are founded in popular opinion or are a sign of the times.

So to answer the question, if a family member killed someone or stole from someone, yes I would turn them in. There are probably other “crimes” for which I would do the same, but I would evaluate the situation as is arose and not apply a blanket reaction.

Please check out the other participants in this hop and even join in if you’d like.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

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Fun Hops

Wormfest 2014! – I’Robot Quote

2014 National Wormhole Week and Blog Hop! 3/10-16/2014

Click to learn more.

This blog hop and blog tour are brought to you by: Alex Cavanaugh, L. Diane Wolfe, and Stephen Tremp– the author of Escalation.

For 2014, the theme is to name one thing where science advances mankind, and one where technology with unforeseen consequences will go too far and set mankind back. Example: De-Extinction, or bringing back extinction species through back breeding, genetic engineering, and cloning. With all the breakthrough discoveries mankind is on the cusp of, are we playing God?

Feel free to reference movies and books too. These provide no shortage if inspiration. Speaking of de-extinction, the book and movie Jurassic Park comes to mind where science takes a huge leap forward, but also backfires. I’m looking forward to all the amazing responses everyone will have.

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Each day this week I’ll be sharing quotes from sci-fi movies or books along with my thoughts on how far technologies still needs to go and where I think it will go too far.

Today I’m focusing on a more positive aspect of the advancement of robotics and how it could possibly help humanity.

Goodreads

The book (collection of short stories) I’ve picked for today is another true sci-fi classic, I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (similar to, but not the same as the movie).

From the book, I’Robot I give you…

“The Three Laws of Robotics:

1: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm;

2: A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law;

3: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law;

The Zeroth Law: A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. ” ~ Dr. Susan Calvin (from Goodreads)

Let me start off by saying that I really liked the movie that was adapted from this book. The only reason I’m focusing more on the book than the movie is that I don’t think people many people got what the overall message of the movie was supposed to be.

It wasn’t that the machines had turned on people and were determined to save us even if it meant enslaving us. The message of the book, which the movie missed a bit, was that as with children the Robots learned what we taught them. The book focuses a lot of the technophobia that emerges from the wide spread use and distribution of robots.

In the movie, the big bad computer decides it’s her job to save humanity from itself for two basic reasons: 1.While it was taught or programmed the importance of human life, it was not taught or programmed the value of it or the value of individuality. If people were machines or programs, we’d all essentially be that same while each performing different tasks. 2. While it was taught to advance its knowledge base and make decisions based on probabilities and statistics, it was never taught to properly think, reason, or have compassion.

I think the movie does a good job with this last point by showing how Sonny is different because of how he is essentially raised, not programmed (even though there were some program alterations made).

As with the book, and a little with the movie, the moral of this tale is that when done properly robots don’t have to be a menace or threat to humanity. Even in the movie, in the scenes where older models of the robots sacrifice themselves to help Spooner escape, this message of the good of robots should be clear, but I think most people simply focused in on the warning of possible danger.

If science continues to advance the way I constantly see on YouTube, I seriously hope they look to literature and Hollywood, to see where to work out the kinks before moving us all too quickly into the next stage of technological evolution.

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If you haven’t already, be sure to check out all the other ideas and theories about where technology is heading and going wrong.

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Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords