Should We Block Ads on Youtube?

So I have made two videos on how you can block ads on youtube on your computer and also on your mobile phones or tablets. Most viewers of these videos will find these videos from searching on youtube or a search engine for information on how to block ads or they may come across it when youtube suggests it to them. To be clear, while I made the videos on how you CAN do it, it doesn’t automatically mean that I am telling you to do it, or even suggesting that you SHOULD do it. I am not telling or suggesting that you do it, or not do it.

Economic Technological Dys/Utopia

You walk into a fast food restaurant. You do not speak to any staff but enter your order into a touchscreen machine. You pay the machine, which spits out a receipt with a queue number. You collect your food from the counter when your number appears on the screens. You sit down, you clear your own tray when finished and you leave. You make zero contact with the workers working there.

The Experience Machine Part 2

Previously, I have explained what Nozick’s thought experiment on experience machines is about and his arguments against plugging in. If you have not watched it, please find the link, watch it first and then return here. To recap, his three arguments are and I quote:

1) “We want to do certain things, and not just have the experience of doing them.”

2) “We want to be a certain way, to be a certain sort of person.”

3) “Plugging into an experience machine limits us to a man-made reality.”

While they may seem reasonable, I have hinted at some scenarios such as wanting a holiday or to escape from a life of suffering, to be reasons why people might want to plug into the experience machine. I want to expand on that today, to argue against Nozick’s arguments and then reconcile it with what I think is the real takeaway from his thought experiment.

Dialectical and Historical Materialism by Joseph Stalin

“Dialectical materialism is the world outlook of the Marxist-Leninist party,”[1] reads the first sentence of Stalin’s text, which explains the importance of his book, Dialectical and Historical Materialism. Originally published in 1938, it was a section of a chapter in a larger book entitled History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks): Short Course. [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/]

In the year of publication, Stalin was the secretary-general of the Communist Party and already he had amassed a lot of power. He will become the premier of the Soviet Union three years later. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, he exercised dictatorial rule over the Soviet Union for a quarter of a century. Among his achievements is his industrialisation of the Soviet Union, bringing it from peasant nation to the country with the 2nd highest industrial output only behind the US. During his rule, the USSR also defeated the Nazis during the second world war, and he led the Soviet Union into the nuclear age. However, he did all these through a paranoid reign of terror that led to the deaths of tens of millions including the most powerful members of the elite closest to him. [https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Stalin]

The Myth of Science

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42526072

Is Horkheimer and Adorno’s Dialectic of Enlightenment still relevant? It was written in the midst of the second world war and aiming to explain why “humanity, instead of entering a truly human state, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism.”[1] Is its prognosis of how “thought in its headlong rush into pragmatism is forfeiting its sublating character, and therefore its relation to truth”[2] still accurate?

Is Artificial Consciousness Possible?

Image by Comfreak from Pixabay

Can machines become conscious or is artificial consciousness (AC) an impossible dream? If AC is possible, would we want to create it? This paper will attempt to answer the first question using Hartmann’s framework developed in New Ways of Ontology, where he carries out an ontological investigation into the structure of the world. I will contrast his four ontological strata with potentially fruitful approaches in the development of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and consider what is needed to remain on the right track. The answer to the second question depends on the first – to aim for AC or to avoid it, we need to understand whether and how it can happen.

Seeing is Believing – Why Fake News Works

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Do you consider yourself a discerning reader of the news?

When presented with a new piece of information, about something you do not know about, what do you do? A perfectly rational being ought to suspend judgement and investigate further before deciding if the information is true or false. This was how 17th century French philosopher René Descartes thought our mental systems worked. But is this really how we deal with new information? If you find yourself nodding, think again.

Is Surveillance Justified?

Photo by Erin Song on Unsplash

“He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows when you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!”[1] The words from the Christmas jingle reflect what most parents know – the threat of surveillance is sufficient to keep their children in line, at least for a while until Christmas is over. While adults know that there is no Santa Claus watching every move we make, the reality is no less sinister.

The Non-Neutrality Thesis and What Designers Must Do

Our lives are saturated with technologies. These technologies range from the simple, such as clothing, to the complex, such as airplanes. They may be firmly established, such as the refrigerators found in most homes. They may be new, like cryptocurrencies which are much hyped but still niche. They may belong only in the future, like nuclear fusion power plants which are currently being researched. They may only be conceptual or not even conceived yet. Nonetheless, the conduct of human life is so deeply intertwined with technological artefacts that we barely notice, though if they suddenly vanished, we would be paralysed.

The proof of this is how our lives grind to a halt during a power outage. Things we take for granted to work, such as the television or the lights, cease to do so, and we turn to earlier technologies such as matches and candles to light our way. In this way, technology is integral to our way of life and its effect on the human condition is profound. This paper will consider the moral status of technology given its deep relation to the human condition. I will argue against the neutrality thesis, after which I will outline what more must designers of technologies do, given the moral status of technologies.