Re: [liberationtech] [cpsr-activists] CPSR Curriculum? - curricula collection

[Charles M. Ess]

Dear colleagues,
my good colleagues at SPT have pointed me to the following resource:



Over 200 courses in there, and from across a range of disciplines, 
certainly including computer science - ca. 25% - but well beyond as well.


This is impressive and most helpful - if still somewhat US-centric - 
i.e., spurred by a NYTimes editorial about the dreadful state of ethics 
education vis-a-vis technology professionals.  But a stunning resource - 
one open to further addition - and so should be very useful indeed for 
anyone here who wants to pursue these examples.


Again, many thanks to all for such an interesting and fruitful exchange!
best,
- c.

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Re: [liberationtech] [cpsr-activists] CPSR Curriculum?

[Charles M. Ess]

And thanks on both fronts!

My acknowledging that it was a critical, spot-on point was not 
gratuitous or merely courteous: behind it is a larger point - one that 
we don't always point out to our undergraduate students.  But Aristotle 
warned at the outset of his Nichomachean Ethics that no one under 30 
should attempt it - precisely because of their comparative lack of 
experience as enculturated ethical beings.  (Part of this enculturation 
includes precisely our learning from our mistakes - phronesis as 
self-correcting ethical judgment.)
FWIW: while I loved teaching undergraduate philosophy courses, such as 
ethics and logic, for example - and still think that there's value and 
some measure of good effect from them - having so-called 
"non-traditional" was always a great pleasure, precisely because they 
could bring their greater experience into play.  FWIW: the past couple 
of decades have been even better on this front as I've been privileged 
to work with a number of groups and communities who meet Aristotle's age 
requirement - and it shows up in insights, discussion, debates, 
dialogue, etc. that are that much richer for it.


In all events - yes, kudos and great thanks, Paul!
- c.

On 04/02/2019 05:32, Paul wrote:

Charles,
    I would like to claim partial credit for spurring your excellent 
response. ;)

   Paul


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Department of Media and Communication
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Re: [liberationtech] [cpsr-activists] CPSR Curriculum?

[Paul]

Charles,
   I would like to claim partial credit for spurring your excellent
response. ;)
  Paul
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[liberationtech] Do any of you know of apps for detecting any fake requests for assistance in the aftermath of disasters?

[Yosem Companys]

Hey All,

Would any of you happen to know of any apps to detect fake requests for
assistance in the wake of disasters?

It is not uncommon after disasters for imposters to appeal for help, take
the money, and run. In fact, swindlers will even create organizations for
this purpose.

Has any technology been invented to guard against this purpose? In any
case, are there any best practices for detecting and defending against this
type of behavior?

Thanks,
Yosem
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[liberationtech] Apple Censorship

[Charlie Smith]

Hi - we formally launched applecensorship.com last week. You can find our
annoucement here:

https://mailchi.mp/greatfire/applecensorship

The Intercept also covered the project, and highlighted how Radio Free
Asia, Tor and Psiphon have all been subjected to Apple censorship in China:

https://theintercept.com/2019/02/01/apple-apps-china-censorship/

Please feel free to contact me should you have any questions about this
project.

Best, Charlie

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[liberationtech] (no subject)

[Doug Schuler]

Dear colleagues,

we are happy to inform you that - due to many requests - the paper
submission deadline for paper submissions and workshop proposals at C
2019 has been extended to

** February 22, 2019 (23:59 CET) **

We hope you will take this opportunity to submit a paper.
Please find below the Call for Participation.
Apologies if you receive multiple copies.

Best
Hilda Tellioglu
C Conference Chair



CFP:  9th International Conference on C - Transforming Communities
3 - 7 June 2019, TU Wien, Vienna, Austria

The biennial Communities and Technologies (C) conference is the
premier international forum for stimulating scholarly debate and
disseminating research on the complex connections between communities –
in their multiple forms – and information and communication
technologies.

C 2019 welcomes participation from researchers, designers, educators,
industry, and students from the many disciplines and perspectives
bearing on the interaction between communities and technologies,
including architecture, arts, business, design, economics, education,
engineering, ergonomics, informatics, information technology,
geography, health, humanities, law, media and communication studies,
and social sciences.

C's 2019 theme, "Transforming Communities", embraces a dynamic view
of communities. We recognize how communities are rooted in the
construction of solidarities and mutual recognition at the same time
there is tension and desire for change. We welcome scholarly
contributions that pay particular attention to the roles of technology,
and technology design, in the making, un-making, and re-making of
communities. Please consider submitting a paper (details below).


Lisa Nathan & Maurizio Teli (Paper Chairs)
Hilda Tellioğlu (Conference Chair)

Important Dates
Extended: February 22, 2019 (23:59 CET) Papers (full and short) due
April 5, 2019 Notification of acceptance for papers (full and short)
April 26, 2019 Camera-ready for papers (full and short)

Submission DetailsOnline Submission: via EasyChair
Submission Template: ACM SigConf proceedings template (part of the ACM
Master Template)
Submission Format: max. 10 pages for long papers and max. 4 pages for
short papers (excluding references and appendices), as PDF

For more information please visit
https://2019.comtech.community/submissions.html
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Re: [liberationtech] [cpsr-activists] CPSR Curriculum?

[Richard Brooks]

On 2/3/19 1:26 AM, Paul wrote:
> Is there any evidence, or even anecdotes, suggesting that ethics courses
> (in any form) work to make people act more ethically?  

Main issue that I would see is how you measure ethics. Psychology
studies seem to lack reproducibility.

>      I can see that someone who was already ethical might find something
> they had missed, but it's hard for me (admittedly a cynical person) to
> imagine that an ethics course can make someone ethical, any more than
> one could expect an "empathy" course to make people empathetic.
>   Paul
> 

In courses I taught that touch on ethics, I feel that it has
made some impact. I notice that the position of students coming
in tends to be:

"We won't do anything unethical, because we are good people."

Which is not what you want. I think I get them to at least think
of the possible, including unintended, consequences of their
actions. That may be the best you can do.

A good text is: "The Case of the Killer Robot" it has lots of
cases it presents with no clear answers and possible legal
liability. Probably for a large segment of the population
ethical activity is mainly trying to avoid litigation.

Am concerned about autonomous systems ethics having devolved into
a repeat of the trolley problems. In discussion with automotive
companies, they tell me their answer: "Autonomous vehicle needs
to save the life of the owner. Otherwise no one will buy the cars."
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Re: [liberationtech] [cpsr-activists] CPSR Curriculum?

[Yosem Companys]

Thank you, Charles. This is a great post.

Charles, your post reminded me of the fascinating research of Stanford's
Dale Miller who has shown that students, on average, become LESS ethical
after taking an economics course.

I believe Miller was also the one who conducted studies that showed that
when people were asked why they had donated money to a cause they would
privately say altruism yet publicly say "to get a tax break," suggesting
that the assumptions of economics have become a social norm that governs
the American psyche.

A great paper on the subject can be found here

.

We also know from U.S. researchers of communities who have been running a
continuous yearly national community survey since the 1940s that trust
among Americans has been eroding since at least that time.

And then there are cross-cultural studies such as those that study the
societal reactions to suicides and mass shootings: In collectivistic
societies like China, the reaction is that the community somehow must've
failed the individual. In individualistic societies like the U.S., the
reaction is that the individual is deranged and a lone wolf.

On Sun, Feb 3, 2019 at 3:03 AM Charles M. Ess  wrote:

> Paul's comments are spot on: thanks for raising a central and critical
> issue.
>
> It would be great to have the sort of empirical evidence suggested - and
> below I will allude to some anecdotal evidence.
> But part of the response is, it's complicated, beginning with attempting
> to devise a study that could isolate the impacts of such a course
> vis-a-vis specific ethical choices and actions.  As with, say, studies
> that attempt to dis/prove causal connections between say, internet porn
> and violent content on behavior, it is monstrously difficult to prove
> with much certainty either one or the other.
>
> But underneath this is an assumption or two that should also be
> interrogated.  One assumption - especially prominent in the US context,
> as shaped by specific Christian assumptions about human nature - is that
> people are inclined towards selfishness and are thereby less "naturally"
> social, cooperative, etc; rather, they can only be coerced into doing so
> by some form of force - whether open and brutal (Thomas Hobbes'
> Leviathan, a Christian theocracy, threats of eternal damnation in
> hellfire, the total surveillance state or corporation, etc.) or more
> subtle: Santa Claus / B.F. Skinner systems of rewards for desired
> behaviors, etc.
> In these contexts, my experience has been that the (second and
> consequent) default assumption - including in professional communities
> such as police and first responders, lawyers, as well as engineers of
> various expertise - is that "ethics" means a rulebook to impose order /
> desired behavior on a target audience otherwise inclined to be less than
> "ethical." (And, unfortunately, I have to admit that ethics is taught
> this way in all too many instances.)
>
> There may be some good ways to try to teach ethics under these
> assumptions - but again, attempting to provide solid evidence that
> people behave better afterwards will be difficult indeed.
>
> As an alternative: the assumption many of us make - starting from
> Aristotle forward - is that people are already reasonably well
> enculturated and experienced with "ethics" - meaning more broadly, a
> capacity to recognize the primary dimensions of a difficult ethical
> choice and to discern / judge the preferable way(s) forward.
> (And in a Scandinavian context, the assumption is that human beings are
> primarily / "naturally" good - including other-regarding and so on.
> There are a range of historical and cultural factors that support these
> views - and they are manifest in such measured matters as the highest
> trust levels in the world, vanishingly small crime rates, community
> policing without weapons, etc., etc.)
> In any event, for those of us who have been privileged to teach ethics
> in both academic and professional settings, this approach begins with
> the emphasis that ethics is not primarily about imposing some sort of a
> rulebook (utilitarian, deontological, etc.) upon those who would
> otherwise be clueless.  It is rather about first interrogating the
> ethical sensibilities and experiences of our interlocutors - most
> especially among professionals who often have many decades of experience
> to draw on.
> Involving ethics in these domains - e.g., research ethics in the social
> sciences, ethics for design in ICT, and/or the ethical dimensions of
> specific "Big Data" projects involving computer scientists and
> engineers, police and first responders, national emergency authorities,
> etc. - is then a much different matter from attempting to impose a rule
> book.  It is often 

Re: [liberationtech] [cpsr-activists] CPSR Curriculum?

[Charles M. Ess]

Paul's comments are spot on: thanks for raising a central and critical 
issue.


It would be great to have the sort of empirical evidence suggested - and 
below I will allude to some anecdotal evidence.
But part of the response is, it's complicated, beginning with attempting 
to devise a study that could isolate the impacts of such a course 
vis-a-vis specific ethical choices and actions.  As with, say, studies 
that attempt to dis/prove causal connections between say, internet porn 
and violent content on behavior, it is monstrously difficult to prove 
with much certainty either one or the other.


But underneath this is an assumption or two that should also be 
interrogated.  One assumption - especially prominent in the US context, 
as shaped by specific Christian assumptions about human nature - is that 
people are inclined towards selfishness and are thereby less "naturally" 
social, cooperative, etc; rather, they can only be coerced into doing so 
by some form of force - whether open and brutal (Thomas Hobbes' 
Leviathan, a Christian theocracy, threats of eternal damnation in 
hellfire, the total surveillance state or corporation, etc.) or more 
subtle: Santa Claus / B.F. Skinner systems of rewards for desired 
behaviors, etc.
In these contexts, my experience has been that the (second and 
consequent) default assumption - including in professional communities 
such as police and first responders, lawyers, as well as engineers of 
various expertise - is that "ethics" means a rulebook to impose order / 
desired behavior on a target audience otherwise inclined to be less than 
"ethical." (And, unfortunately, I have to admit that ethics is taught 
this way in all too many instances.)


There may be some good ways to try to teach ethics under these 
assumptions - but again, attempting to provide solid evidence that 
people behave better afterwards will be difficult indeed.


As an alternative: the assumption many of us make - starting from 
Aristotle forward - is that people are already reasonably well 
enculturated and experienced with "ethics" - meaning more broadly, a 
capacity to recognize the primary dimensions of a difficult ethical 
choice and to discern / judge the preferable way(s) forward.
(And in a Scandinavian context, the assumption is that human beings are 
primarily / "naturally" good - including other-regarding and so on. 
There are a range of historical and cultural factors that support these 
views - and they are manifest in such measured matters as the highest 
trust levels in the world, vanishingly small crime rates, community 
policing without weapons, etc., etc.)
In any event, for those of us who have been privileged to teach ethics 
in both academic and professional settings, this approach begins with 
the emphasis that ethics is not primarily about imposing some sort of a 
rulebook (utilitarian, deontological, etc.) upon those who would 
otherwise be clueless.  It is rather about first interrogating the 
ethical sensibilities and experiences of our interlocutors - most 
especially among professionals who often have many decades of experience 
to draw on.
Involving ethics in these domains - e.g., research ethics in the social 
sciences, ethics for design in ICT, and/or the ethical dimensions of 
specific "Big Data" projects involving computer scientists and 
engineers, police and first responders, national emergency authorities, 
etc. - is then a much different matter from attempting to impose a rule 
book.  It is often characterized in terms of "process" or dialogical 
ethics - oriented more towards using philosophical and applied ethics to 
provide concepts and frameworks that help practitioners more fully 
articulate and critically assess their extant ethical sensibilities and 
approaches.
I can tell you that in the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), 
after the first decade or so of approaching internet research ethics in 
these ways (i.e., starting in 2000) - the broad experience and consensus 
is that incorporating ethics in these ways not only helps with analyzing 
and resolving often complex and novel ethical challenges: it also leads 
to substantively better research in good old fashioned social science 
terms.  This is part of the reason why the association supports the 
on-going development of ethical guidelines - FWIW, our 3rd iteration 
will be delivered this October at the AoIR annual meeting in Brisbane.


I can also tell you that our collective experience in teaching ethics in 
these ways consistently receives strongly positive evaluations in the 
workshops - whether with academics and/or professional communities - we 
have offered since 2002 or so.
That's not evidence that people will behave any better as a result.  But 
it is evidence that people feel greater confidence by way of having more 
conceptual tools to draw on when confronting ethical challenges - an 
impression I also strongly hold from teaching undergraduates, FWIW.


I also have at least