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PolS 486 / CAPP 479
"I am not a number. I am a free man!"
Patrick McGoohan, The Prisoner
Page Two
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Private and Public in a New Age?
Private/Public: How do we draw the line between the uses of the Web that are appropriate and meaningful for private citizens and those that transcend public interests or acceptable standards of behavior?
Thursday, January 15, 2004
Ethics in the Internet Age: Morality Tale #1.
Read: Chapter II, of Michael Lewis, Next (in your Reader).
In this section, I want you to wrestle with the idea that the Internet is a welcome new realm of freedom. I've chosen this particular case of Jonathan Lebed's adventures on the WWW to the explore the empowering nature of this medium. Jonathan's case is interesting in that, even though we know what he is doing is wrong, we can't help but root for him along the way. As you'll see, Michael Lewis is definitely an admirer. He is happy to portray the controversy as a struggle between stuffy old adults and innovative, if also naive, youth.What do you think? Should Jonathan's dad be proud? Should Jonathan get to keep the Mercedes? Should Jonathan go to jail? Watch and Listen to Jonathan's Point of View
(If you need it, download the free version of Real One Player)
Contact Jonathan. Ask him a clever question about the reading (you can do this as a group): staff@lebed.biz
Look at Jonathan's site: lebed.biz
Page Three
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Ethics in the Internet Age: Morality Tale #2
Read: 'A Rape in Cyberspace' (also in your Reader)
I'm asking you to read this important and influential article to begin wrestling with the concept of the Internet as a realm of danger. It's much harder to sympathize with 'Mr. Bungle.' But for the purposes of this discussion, I'd like you to develop good reasons for taking your stand. To get to this point, let's ask what the 'reality' is in Virtual Reality (VR)? Is VR the same, existentially or practically, as Real Life (RL)? Do the abuses and harms inflicted on others over the Net have the same significance and meaning as those inflicted in RL, even though the latter may be physical as well as psychological? What kinds of behavior are appropriate to interactions over the Net? Is the standard of appropriateness the same we would use to judge behavior in real life? Should you be able to punish those who commit transgressions over the Net? Or does justice have no meaning in VR?
Who is Julian Dibbell? Where does he live? Read what he has to say about himself:
And what others have to say about him.
Contact Julian and ask him a question about 'A Rape in Cyberspace' (you can formulate this as a group): julian@juliandibbell.com
Page Four
Twilight Zone:
KASSEL, Germany (AP) — A computer expert accused of killing, dismembering and eating another man who allegedly agreed to the arrangement over the Internet went on trial for murder Wednesday at a court in central Germany.
Prosecutors in the city of Kassel accuse Armin Meiwes of killing a 43-year-old from Berlin, identified only as Bernd Juergen B., in March 2001, by stabbing him in the throat at his home in the town of Rotenburg.
Prosecutors say the killing was carried out with the victim's consent. But they classified it as murder, not - as the defense argues would be appropriate - a form of mercy killing, arguing that the evidence indicated it was carried out at the suspect's initiative.
Meiwes, 42, who has confessed to the killing, could face a life prison sentence if convicted of murder. Prosecutors say the killing was sexually motivated.
The suspect allegedly chopped the body into pieces, deep-froze parts of it and buried the rest, capturing the crime on a videotape which is being used as evidence.
Police tracked down and arrested Meiwes in December last year after a student in Austria alerted them to an advertisement the suspect allegedly placed on the Internet seeking a man willing to be killed and eaten.
A verdict from the court, which is scheduled to hear 38 witnesses, is expected in February.