How about videogames? Pong, Tetris, and Super Mario morphed into massive online multiplayer games where armies of millions do battle and die. The delicious terrors and perils of Harry Potter morphed into far darker takes: The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, The Matrix, Divergent, and Game of Thrones. Pick a random young adult book or movie: most are post-apocalyptic. For better, and worse, the speed of invention and adoption of new technologies is such that we have little time to consider, less time to adapt. The far right and the far left have no monopoly on concern over the future. And you loudly proclaim your absolute certainty, at school, in a stadium, on Twitter, Facebook, in bars, coffeehouses, and ballot boxes. Maybe even you feel that, unlike the rest of the surrounding, unwashed mob, you know Right from Wrong. Many of us tend to judge an acquaintance as soon as we find out if they are R or D, for or against (insert favorite cause here). They declare they are tried-and-true (insert your favorite label): gay-rights activists, red-blooded conservatives, #MeToo, God-fearing X, Y, Zs, anti-vaxxers, #MAGA and so on. One ends up asking: Why is it so hard, for so many, to just understand and do what is RIGHT? In this Age of FEAR but also of GREAT Certainty, people take sides and barricade themselves behind positions they feel comfortable with. It sometimes feels as though demons are loose everywhere, like never before. And, at the same time, you too may feel: That is not how I was brought up, what I was taught. Perhaps that is one reason you’ve felt a touch uneasy lately? You are surrounded by so many people telling you, with absolute certainty, that you are doing x, y, or z wrong. Whether you are conservative or liberal, there is so much sound and fury surrounding constant change. Technology often changes our beliefs and, in moving fundamental ethical goal posts, leaves many feeling discombobulated others end up angry and scared, on the wrong side of history. Things that they would have considered unacceptable and unethical are now commonplace. What your grandparents thought about contraception, IVF, surrogates, and gene editing is very different from what you now take for granted. So too are some of our core notions of what is Right and Wrong, about sex, and about so many other topics. INTRODUCTION: WHY IS ETHICS SUDDENLY WHITE-HOT, FRONT-BURNER? No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. Excerpted from Right/Wrong: How Technology Transforms Our Ethics, by Juan Enriquez (footnotes omitted).
0 kommentar(er)
