Critical Thinking Blog Post #9

In this course I opened my eyes up to more science that is out there. I never looked at science as a threat because I find it useful, but everything good always has its negative side. For example with the robots being made, I always thought I would like to have one to do everything for me because I am lazy. They threaten us in many areas that cannot be controlled if they were to get there. This course help me think about humanities with the David Gelernter story explaining robots would not be able to think as we do. It is amazing to learn about new things that has not been talked about. Who knew people was thinking that this millennium we would have flying cars and similar things to Futurama. Technology is gradually becoming more intellectual as the years go on. The critical thinking blog helped me come up with some essay ideas from reading others blogs and gave me a catch on what was on assignments that I missed. 

Critical Thinking Blog – Assignment #7

Robert Oppenheimer was called the father of the atomic bomb during the manhattan project. He played a negative role on society because of his contribution towards it.The atomic bomb only became threatening to us. Eventually other countries would want in and develop their own bombs. Nuclear weapons only damaged us, it gave power to the US and leakage for others to still and become a threat also. After World War II, he joined a team to make the atomic bomb which he was willing to do. He was a threat to everyone in the project because he built the bomb in his head. Oppenheimer knew everything it took to build that bomb so he knew he was needed and was not going to get kicked off any time. He was widely known throughout the world because he developed the most threatening invention. People knew with an invention like the atomic bomb getting into the wrong hands could destroy the world.

Blog Assignment #5 – Midterm Practice

     The World’s Fair provided hope to people about the future. It was called the “American Dream” that influenced the people to believe the future will be based on cars and living in suburbia. Transportation is always growing, Kenneth Button stated “Globally the use of mechanised transport continues to grow”(Button 79). The “American Dream,” is a great idea of molding the future, but I do not agree with the reasoning of positive effects because of global warming. It is difficult to make such an enormous change globally without putting damage to the natural environment. The use of only cars as transportation and living in the rich community of suburbia sounds ideal for the future, but the designers did not realize it fail to show damage that it adds to global warming. The threat of global warming has not effected enough of the population for us to get alert. We are aware, but not too many people are giving a shot at trying to step up. Al Gore wrote the book “ the Inconvenient Truth,” he wanted to bring global warming threat to the peoples eyes. Gore did an outstanding presentation on it, but the hype eventually died down. Based on historical documents, photos and several articles,I will argue that the inventors of Futurama and similar exhibits at the 1939-1940 World’s Fair played a significant role in contributing to today’s problem of global warming by promoting a vision of suburbia that relied on cars and consumerism.

      Cars are one of the greatest inventions thus far. What is not really argued much is the level of emissions cars produce to increase global warming. Kenneth Button, professor of Public Policy and Director of the Center for Transportation Policy, Operations and Logistics wrote the essay, “ Transportation and Global Warming Gases.” According to Button, “ While numerical estimates should be treated with some caution, transportation accounts directly for about 7% of the Natural Incomes of most developed countries” (100). All companies the rely on transportation leads them to expand business adding more trucks and cars to the road. This increases greenhouse effect, Mark A. Saunders stated in “Earth’s Future Climate,” that “ The Earth’s surface temperature is slowly rising due to human activities, which are releasing heat-trapping gases, notably carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere” (Saunders 3459). As we learned from scientist, cars produce carbon dioxide, which it is one of the leading causes listed with many others. Button also stated, “ But it is also a significant and growing contributor to emissions of global warming gas”( Button 79). 

Critical Thinking Blog Post #4

In the movie Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, This clip was interesting to me because of the level of technology that was being shown. Robots are more intelligent than we know. Everyday scientist are trying to make robots become more human like as possible. That is a scary thought because eventually if they succeed, how are we supposed to tell a difference from human and robots in society? Robots has not become acceptable to most humans because they are a threat to humans. They are controlled they are not able to think on their own as humans. In the movie, one women robot really believed that she was a human until they put her through a series of questions to find the truth. If it takes that just to separate a human from a robot, what is the point of having them. Scientist who are working on developing the perfect robot is trying to make it better than humans. We cannot have that happen because there would a huge demand for them overtaking everything us humans do. Jobs will be in jeopardy because a robot would be more reliable than a human in some people views. In Dream-­‐‑ Logic, the Internet and Artificial  Thought by David Gelernter, he argues that machines will never have consciousness like  humans, even though they will be able to mimic our intelligence. It is true because they will never be able to think on their own because that is something that comes natural. A robot is program to know what is installed into them. If they take on something that is new they will go with what is closely related to it and perform the task even if it is wrong, but they feel it is right.