Social Implications of Computing

CS 195, Spring 2016

Topics, Assignments, and Readings

Lecture screencasts will be posted ...

For many of the linked readings you need to have your UC Berkeley library proxy server enabled on your web browser, or install the Berkeley VPN on your computer (better privacy).

2/1 Privacy

Rachels, "Why Privacy Is Important"

Boyd, "Facebook's Privacy Trainwreck"

Miller, "Addicted to Apps"

2/8 Copyright

Stallman, "Misinterpreting Copyright"

Stallman, "The Dangers of Software Patents" (Video)

Heckel, "Debunking the Software Patent Myths"

2/15 No Class

2/22 War

Please complete the War Survey before class.

Drones (three short readings):

"Drone Strikes Reveal Uncomfortable Truth: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die"
"The Moral Case for Drones"
"Our Drone War Burnout" (heads up: first two paragraphs are a bit brutal)

Automated Weapons Ban (three short readings):

Consequentialism (two short readings):

"Philosophy - Ethics: Consequentialism"
"The Status of Moral Emotions in Consequentialist Moral Reasoning" - pages 1-7 only
For even more, see Stanford's Encyclopedia of Philosophy or The University of Tenneesse's Encyclopedia of Philosophy. These are not required readings and are fairly technical, dense reads.

2/29 Jobs

CGP Grey, "Humans Need Not Apply"

Brynjolfsson and McAfee, "Jobs, Productivity and the Great Decoupling"

Pew Center, "AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs (page one)"

Derek Thompson, "A World Without Work (optional)". If you just want the key ideas, I'd recommend reading starting from "To paraphrase the science-fiction novelist William Gibson," and then reading sections 3, 4, 5 and 6.

3/7 Government Censorship and Surveillance

Foreign Governments (three short readings):

Vara, "The World Cracks Down on the Internet"
Xuecun, "Scaling China's Great Firewall"
Nisbet and Mikati, "Russians don't trust the Internet - and it's making the country worse"

United States Government (four short readings):

Optional extra readings/watching:

Der Spiegel, "Inside TAO: Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit"
Snowden, "I don't want to live in a society that does these sort of things"

3/14 Finance

Hug, "A Stock Market Primer (draft)"

Wigglesworth, "Treasury market's bogeymen are here to stay"

First Round Capital, "Quarterly Report, Q1 2016"

Paul Stearns (Blinn College), Kant's Morality part 1, Kant's Morality part 2

For even more, see Optional Enyclopedia Entry on Kant's Morality. This is not required.

3/21 No Class

3/28 [Politics and Media]

Elections (video):

Center, Carr, Finn, Volpe "Is Social Media Ruining Politics (excerpts) (25 minutes)"

Political Polarization (two short pieces):

Pariser, "Filter Bubbles (9 minute video)"
Bartels, "(Not Much) Political Polarization in Europe"

Political Action (two short readings, one long one):

Wasik, "Gladwell vs. Shirky: A Year Later, Scoring the Debate Over Social-Media Revolutions"
Gladwell, "Small Change": (long)
Tufekci, "After the Protests"

Optional Political Polarization Reading:

Garrett, Resnick "Resisting Political Fragmentation on the Internet"

Optional Political Action Readings:

Shirky, "The Political Power of Social Media": Introductory Paragraph, "The Theater of Collapse", and "The Convervative Dilemma"
Tufekci, "Social movements and govenrments in the digital age: Evaluating a complex landscape"

Note: For lack of time, we will not discuss the social implications of computing on the process of governance, e.g. "How Sandy Changed Social Media Strategies in New York City".