Final Topic Presentations

I was pretty lucky with my topic.  I was at a loss and couldn't think of any issues that I regularly was interested in, but I stumbled upon self-driving cars.  It was really interesting reading the articles I read and learning about the legal, moral, and ethical issues surrounding them.  Beforehand I had heard a couple scenarios that would bring up issues with self driving cars, but wasn't aware that there actually was a lot of things to think about.  Extending it further to AI in general also opens a whole other can of worms.

It was definitely cool to hear about everyone else's topics as well.  There were a number of ideas that I hadn't heard before, so I think the presentations will be interesting.

Citizenfour Thoughts

I definitely enjoyed the movie.  It was tense, suspenseful, informative, and well done.  I thought it was very interesting to actually hear Snowden talk about exactly what he had access to and how extensive the surveillance (allegedly) was.  Since I never really paid much attention to it when it was happening it was nice to get the details of what he was claiming.  It definitely is pretty scary stuff if it was/is all true, and I'm inclined to believe him.

And I do think it's wrong that the government would do that.  But in reality... it doesn't affect me at all, at least not in ways that I can perceive.  It changes nothing if you just ignore it.  Of course, then you fall into the "First they came for..." problem.  Yeah, I do think I should be doing something about it, trying to fight what could easily become a much more prevalent and real issue than it is now.

But I'm resigned to it, and really just trying to get through each day right now.  There's too much to worry about in this world, so I'll focus on what I know I can affect: me.