Copying music

Traviers Herndon

The thousands of people being sued for file sharing are as the cliché is stated “stuck between a rock and a hard place”. It is unfortunate for these individuals that the Record Industry Association of America is cracking down on this issue because file sharing rather it is burned music CD’s or downloading free music seems to be done everywhere today. I was surprised to find that it is illegal to transfer music that is legally purchased on a CD to a computer. One Sony lawyer called the method stealing one copy of the CD. I don’t agree because you cannot steal a copy of something that has already been purchased. The only way I see this method as illegal is if the person is indeed using the files to share them on illegal free music download sites. The recording industry is using the courts as a primary source to protect a business model that is falling apart just as all other old media of the past. I don’t believe any of the file sharing will cease despite the thousands of dollar fines that the RIAA are dishing out. The RIAA’s primary targets are college students, whom I know do the most file sharing of any age group. I also know that college students will not stop sharing music but maybe some will stop after a huge fine. I don’t think the legal authorities can’t crack down on everyone. I have no solution proposal for either party but I do believe that now that file sharing is out there, is will be virtually impossible to stop it.

Libertarianism and Society

written by Aizat. (Ethics/Politics/Economics)

Speaking about libertarianism, how does it relate to the matter of ethic's integrity and to humans in general? As we strain our brain in finding out the answers to the question, let’s hear out what Hospers main point of view regarding libertarianism in "What Libertarianism Is," he upholds two ideas central to libertarianism: "(1) Individuals own their own lives. They, therefore, have the right to act as they choose unless their actions interfere with the liberty of others to act as they choose. (2) The only appropriate functions of government is to protect human rights, understood as negative rights." In such a way, I agree with Hospers up to the point where we as human beings have the right to do almost everything that we want as long as our actions do not violate others humans right. For me, this is what the real meaning of freedom. Freedom is truly not something that will halt you from doing things that you like, things that can also be looked upon as intrinsic good. For example, if you like to stand for hours rather than sitting on a chair or lying down on bed, I as people around you have no right to prevent you from doing that although it may seem to me that your action is unprofitable. In this case, that is what defines intrinsic goods as Hull writes in his "An Introduction to Issues in Computers, Ethics, and Policy," in which "[t]his "intrinsic good" is something which is good in itself, and does not require justifications by other things. Instead, the intrinsic good is the justifications for why those other things are good"(Hull 14). Back to libertarianism, Hospers' main principal idea can be subdivided to several others way of stating it which are also something that I agree on most of them. According to Hospers, we are not the master of anyone else, and we are not the slave of anyone else. Since I born to this world thanks to the effort of my mother and father and it has got nothing to do with anyone else, specifically people with no whatsoever relation to me, so then, what are their qualification to say that I am their slaves, and vice versa. Hospers added that other men's live are not yours to dispose of. Well, he simply means that we cannot do or take something that others have put their energy on and work for their entire life. I agree no less than that. However, although I agree with Hospers and his libertarian's belief, I cannot accept his overall conclusion that the only appropriate role of government is that of the protector of the citizen against aggression by other individuals. If that so, what is the use of forming a government when their functions are so limited to the extent in which government cannot established laws protecting particular person against themselves. Following to that libertarian view regarding government role, do we still need a Presidential Election or in other words, do we need a leader to lead our country? For me, I would definitely say yes.

Goods and Nature

written by Ikhwan Jamaludin (story of stuff)

The first thought that crossed my mind after watching this video is a relation of goods with nature. Without thinking deeply about where the goods come, and where they go, we as consumers just know using stuff and throw them away after they cannot be used anymore or outdated. Nowadays, we are in a big crisis because we consume too much stuff without concerning about its effect to the natural resources. Productions of goods or stuff actually use a lot of natural resources and we know natural resources become less and lesser every day. With natural resources decreasing day by day and pollution increasing every day, these problems make the earth condition become worse and terrible. As a group of ethical people who cares about nature, we have to take action to stop all of these problems from keep occurring. We can start to recycle, plan our expenditure to less consume stuff and try to minimize using natural energy such as electricity. Is it hard to practice those things? No, it isn't. If we do care what Annie said about sustainability and equity, as a human being, we should involve in this matter to save or Mother Nature from perish by our own hand. Consumerism is the primary reason of increasing trashes in this country. The problem arises when not all trashes are recyclable or reusable. So, they will be thrown into a dumpsite, where all of these trashes can bring toxicity to the soil. Toxic produce pollution and harm us. We do not have any option besides taking care of our Earth. Here are a few things what I suggest for us to start taking care about to save the earth. Buy less can make the Earth happy and recycle can cheer the Earth. For me, the Earth is a part of nature which we have to preserve and protect for our next generation.

Who killed the electric cars???

:Lily Syafikah Mansor

When the day Prof Perry showed us the documentary about ‘Who Killed the Electric Car”, soon as I left the class, a question keep playing in my mind. “Why electric cars?” Then I start to think about the whole things and look clearly into the problem. There is one thing that I can conclude, everything begin with capitalism. Is it so? Let us find the root of this problem. Once again, capitalism means that the only thing that important is profit-making instead of anything else. G.M launched the first modern-day commercially available electric car, the EV1. EV 1 is cleaner as it is an environmentally-friendly and thus polluted less than powered cars. It is a good way to save our mother earth .besides; they are cheaper to run than gas-powered cars as electric cars required no gas and could be plugged in for recharging at home and definitely a cost-solving salvation for us because we could save our money to buy gases . However for certain people or corporation they might see electric cars as a profit barrier. For instance, gas companies’ might feel threatened as many people purchased the EV1 and the use of gases will be decreasing thus make the profit-making also decreasing. This is not good as capitalism wants to make more money. Capitalism sees the electric cars as something that could prevent them from getting profit and thus they want to get rid of it. Thus they decided to ‘kill’ this EV1. For me this is an ethical problem as they ‘kill’ the car that belongs to others. The owner could not anything but only could see the cars are taken away to somewhere place that they even don’t know. In my opinion, their right are been violated because the EV1 is belong to them and it is their property. Like Hosper said “other men’s lives are not yours to dispose of”. They probably don’t want to ‘kill’ the EV1 but they don’t have any options. Then, what happened to our right? Are they should violate our right just because they want to make profit? What happen to the happiness of the people? Should it just been ignored? Is capitalism still beneficial enough? I am not the one who be in the situation where my right are been violated but we never know what are gonna happen in the future.

The Story of Stuff

Traviers Herndon
The Story of Stuff breaks down the process of production that we as consumers tend to not think about, not know or not care to know as long as the production of the latest goods are out on the market. The “Materials Economy” as the video called it consists of the process of extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal. The first three steps in the process are the most detrimental to our planet. It is not shown to consumers when natural resource exploitation occurs but this fact will by no means slow down capitalism. I think the only thing that really gets humans’ attention is disastrous reality that is in the immediate future. The video presented some really disturbing facts that would seem to take precedent over capital but the government would rather accommodate big business. Brominated flame retardants are used in production of computers, appliances, couches, mattresses and pillows. The retardants are harmful to the brain and I would think that the protection of the workers and the potential harm it has on consumers would concern the higher powers. The emitting of four billion toxic chemicals in the atmosphere is a big mess and to continue to burn trash and create Dioxin, the most toxic man-made toxin seems like it doesn’t really matter at this point. Nonetheless, I am unaware of any solutions to these issues but I think capitalism will live on as long as there are no immediate posed threats to the world as we see it today. Producers will produce overabundant products and consumers will continue to buy more than they really need.

Politics + Ethics

written by Ikhwan Jamaludin (politics, economics, ethics)

These days, one thing that pops out in everyone's mind in this country about politics, is an election that will be held by the end of this year and it would be a big year either for a Democratic Party or Republican Party. Both representatives from each party are running for President of the United States of America and everyone knows that the United States of America is like a central of administration of the world. But a question arises, is it enough to reveal the meanings of politics by assuming politics is all about an election? Then, after the election ends, will the meaning of politics change? It could be yes or vice versa. We cannot just simply relate the politics with the election, but we have to look beyond the meaning and the power behind of this word. Politics is actually multi-related to the other things. It can be related to the bad things or to the good things. As general, politics can be also related to economics, social, sports, law, culture and many more. I just want to emphasize that politics is also much related about a responsibility. Responsibility is a very important for everybody and absolutely also for a politician. Nowadays, scenario as we can see many people admit that politician is a 'dirty job' because their job contains scandal of corruption, conspiracy, and also sometimes their job is called as a back-stabber. Some other people will agree about this statement but some other people will argue. Honestly, we confess that corruption is one of the biggest problems in politics field. Until now, we cannot avoid this problem from keep occur even there are a lot of organizations of anti-corruption agencies. There were so many times we see a number of well-known politicians dropped from their position because of the corruption. This problem occurs because the responsibility value was being neglected and they exploit their power only for their benefits and not to share with others. I like to respond to what Cohen wrote in his article 'The Politics of Ethics' where he make his analogy about politics, "if one guy robs you, it's ethics, but when 435 people rob you, it's politics" . In my opinion, corruption can be prevented if every politician implements to the fundamental concept of being a good politician which is sincere to help and manage society. This concept concludes us to think about the connection of politics to individual ethics.

Individual ethics is about understanding a good relation to the society. As an analogy, if we did something good to someone, absolutely the person who we helped will appreciate us even if we only gave just a little aid. When we are being appreciated by others, by chance we create a relationship with the society and we can control this relationship by ourselves. If we can create a bigger relationship with everyone, we can have a chance to influence the society. From huge relationship, we start to influence other people and tend to appeal other people to follow our own doctrine in every single perspective. Based on that point, we start to connect ourselves to a healthy politics relationship that basically starts from individual ethics. Then, it depends to us in what way we want to use the relationships, whether to keep the politics relationship in a clean atmosphere or to change the relationship into our own benefit. Now, we can see obviously where the main role or power of politics is. As a good politician who hates the corruption, we can use the power that we own to prevent the corruption in environment of politics surround us or in any other perspectives such as business, sports or etc. In my opinion, individual ethics can generate good politics relationship and can also change the perspectives of people who think that politics is a 'dirty job'.

Today's Dilemma

written by Aizat. (Ethics/Politics/Economics)


You might be wondering, why on earth I put on the title "Today's Dilemma" as I post my first blog here. Well, it might be somewhat confusing you, but the thing is, if we don't take this matter seriously to the extent for our own good, we are doom neglecting all "[t]he very rich families and individuals who compose the owning class who live mostly off investments: stocks, bonds, rents and other property income"(Parenti 6). The matter that I am talking about is referring to capitalism. Nowadays, capitalism is applied by pretty much all country in the world. Is it a good thing for us? In some sort of way, it is great, but the fact is, it brings a lot of disadvantages to the people as a whole. In class, we talk about how capitalism is some quite connected to the story of Frankenstein monster. Frankenstein monster was indeed created by human and that also went to capitalism which was also created by human beings. Usually, if we create something, we have the power to control them as we would love to. However, that is not what happened to both scenarios I stated earlier. Humans are now being control back by them. Humans being forced to work under them as in order to keep them alive as they think they were supposed to be. Look at the meaning of the capitalism itself in which it is an economic system where profit –making is more important than anything else. Based on that statement, capitalism's world do not necessarily care about our labor work, they only care about the profit we make out off our labor. Parenti writes in his "Democracy for the Few", he said that,"[u]nder capitalism, however, the portion taken from the worker is not visible. Workers are simply paid substantially less than the value they create. Indeed, the only reason they are hired is to make money off their labor." I am totally agree with the things he mentioning about and I have my own justifications for that support.
Let us remember back to the second short 10 minutes video clip that Prof. Perry showed to us during our last class, unless you guys are sleeping at that time. In that video, we could see how cruel it was actually capitalism did to us. Such company that worked under this capitalist system, gave a lot of sweet promises to the people of Jamaica, which most of them still living as in a third world country, where they can improve the quality of their lifestyle as so as their income if they willing to work under this such company. But then, as we watched the video much further, we saw that, these people had actually trapped to a massive tricks played by this capitalism based company, where the only reason these people being hired was to make money off their labor and not to make money for their own personal good. Consequently, the upper class people become richer and richer and the lower class people become poorer and poorer. So, as for me to end this conservation, let me say couple of things that can relate this matter to other. Where has our right missing? Don't us supposedly to have right as our main protector. If we say about right, don't we supposedly to have the right to live in a country where people's need is somewhat more important than anything else. As what Hospers said, "Individuals have the right to act as they choose unless their actions interfere with the liberty of others and other's men live are not yours to dispose of" (Hospers 319).Thinks about it.

World economy

Lily syafikah Mansor~~

Basically, I don’t have any ideas how to start writing a blog. Then, I took a walk and looking at my friends. They are doing the ES 140 challenge question about the tallest building in the world. Then, I start to think that nowadays people are likely to compete to build the tallest building in the world. The latest and still in the construction is Burj Dubai that has reach a height of 688 m (2,257 ft ) in United Arab Emirates. I keep wondering why people want to build another skyscraper that taller than other. It is because of they like to show off and challenge others to build another one. Then, in next fifty years we will have so many building that probably reached the cloud. Is it the ethical things to do? Ethics mean do something good. It is beneficial to us with all the development of these building. We can say that with the construction of the building we can make another significant symbol in the world and it is good but it is necessary for us to be in the country that has the tallest building in the world and can we maximize the happiness of the people with the construction just like utilitarian claims. For some people they rather the government spend the money on the welfare of the communities.
World economy today is totally different from the past years. We live in the world of capitalism today which the world that profit-making is important than anything else. Just like Prof Perry said in the class, capitalism is like a Frankenstein monster. “We created it but it is uncontrollable”. It is true that we are the one who create it because capitalism can’t just existed by nature. Capitalism has good side and also bad side. Capitalism had started form the past year, back to the industrial revolution years where at that time, people even exploited other country resources just to make profit thus make capitalism related with imperialism. Capitalism may good as it is effective at producing goods. It is also fulfill the demand of human being. Competition from much company will give us chance to have variety choices of a product. We are free to choose products with any specification that we want and thus increase the happiness of human being. The rapid growth of capitalism is uncontrollable and affects us. Like Schweikart wrote in his book, “capitalism makes many inequalities as the distribution of wealth is much more unequal than the distribution of income”. It is true that capitalism is good for us as a consumer but for the worker, they work hard to ensure that they keep making profit. They have their own right to do what they want like Hosper said "They own freedom to do things what they want unless their action interfere with liberty of others to act as they choose". For the owner, maybe capitalism is a good thing as they gain profit from it but in employee perspective, capitalism probably does not made a change for them.Does capitalism beneficial for all of us?I leave this question for us to think of.

Parenti and Imperialism

Chris Johnson
After reading Perenti’s views on imperialism and its relation to our capitalistic society I was a little disturbed by some of the things I read. I was well aware of United States’ practices of outsourcing and taking advantage of cheap labor and other natural resources, but, like many others I’m sure, I was under the impression that they did more good than bad. For corporations everywhere, maximizing profits and minimizing expenses are two of the main ingredients to success. This often means finding cheaper forms of labor and outsourcing some factors of production, and I think this is good because it keeps prices down for the consumer. However, I believe the line should be drawn when other people and countries are being harmed. The fact is that the US is an extremely powerful country, and they use that power to get what they want at any cost. Often this idea is covered up as the “development theory” where a 1st world country enters a 3rd world country and is believed to be helping it become more productive and climb out of poverty, but this is not the reality of the situation. They are actually exploiting these underdeveloped countries and just make the economic conditions worse. The only thing that is accomplished is the further enrichment of 1st world countries like the US. I firmly believe this type of behavior is wrong, even If I save a few bucks when I go shopping. Also I believe that if people really knew what went on they would feel the same way. A perfect example of this can be seen in the Jamaican Free Zone video we watched in class. In basically a modern form of slavery, companies like Brooks Brothers and Tommy Hilfiger exploited the labor of Jamaican citizens. They worked making products that sell for extremely high prices in other countries, but got paid little to nothing. This is inexcusable and I think something needs to be done to stop this sort of behavior

Story of Stuff

STORY OF STUFF
Chris Johnson
After watching this video I was introduced to a concept that I already knew to be true: as Americans we consume too much, and in turn we waste too much. As a capitalistic country we are so concerned with acquiring capital and being wealthy. As we continue to build more and more capital it is only in our nature to spend and consume more and more. I thought the ideas of planned and perceived obsolescence were very important because they are so true. Producers build things so they can break and make people buy new things. Also producers make products and advertise them so that we think we need them, when in fact often times we would be just fine without them. These practices have been around for a long time, and it is this very thing that fuels our economy. I am just as guilty as anyone in doing this. I can’t tell you how many things I’ve bought, not because I needed them, but because I wanted them. For us to continue to thrive in this capitalistic world I believe a lot of this is necessary. However, I believe the waste issue is more of a problem than the consumption. It is ok to want the newest things or the newest technology, but we need to find a better way to turn old things into new things. With a much more efficient and thorough recycling system our we could change much of our trash into treasure. I’m not just talking about paper, metals, and plastic, I’m talking about everything from clothes to home appliances. Just like the video said, many of the new products created only change one small part from the previous model. If we could find a way to better turn our trash into new goods we could get a jump start on preserving our natural resources.