HW #4 The New Politics of Consumption

1. Having a society focused just on material things will cause more people to be selfish and egotistical. Many people will look at the situation as a challenge to who has the better material things. This competitiveness will have people forget about their personal values and will cause them to forget about what is important in life. It will eventually come to a point where people will not need others to be present in their life if they have all the material things they need to be happy.
2. I believe a more stable income for all families will only increase the problem. Once a family pays all of the bills, they will have much more spending money. The problem is that today, people seem to be more focused about their image rather than their reputation.
3. I believe that cell phones are good examples of competitive consumption. Every time you watch television, you are bound to see a commercial about a smart phone that you are interested in. The next day you go to class and see someone with the same phone when you realize your phone isn’t nearly as nice, so you go out and buy a phone you truly can’t afford to keep up with everyone else. Another big societal factor of competitive consumption would be television, more specifically, reality television. In shows such as Jersey Shore, you see people living a great luxurious life full of partying. Many teens watch Jersey Shore; therefore, people will start to envy their lifestyle.
4. Nowadays, if you are caught walking around with an antenna on your cell phone or listening to a Walkman, you will get laughed at. I realized that there is a constant change in technology, and I try my best to keep up with it. In a way, I get these things for my own satisfaction, but at the same time, I get things to show them off. For example, when I was in the eighth grade, I had a ugly pre-paid phone. People laughed about it, so I felt the need to upgrade to a smartphone to show people I’m keeping up with society.

Moral Machines

1. I believe there will be a high chance of catastrophic events related to artificial intelligence  in the future. The thought of robots sounds appealing to people now, but if something were to happen, like the scenario described in the text, everyone would oppose to the idea of robots. The specific purpose for robots are to be a help to humanity.

2. Technology has come so far and the competition is never ending. There are a vast amount of different machines and gadgets that are amazing, but there is always someone trying to make an improvement; so the thought of robots being able think and reason without human help doesn’t surprise me. This will affect our identities because instead of treating robots as machines, we will start to treat them as humans (such as Rosie, the maid from “The Jetsons”).

3. Artificial intelligence could have either good or bad effects. On the negative side, if most people had a robot in their homes, they would mostly use them to clean up messes. Which means that the robots would basically become maids, resulting in more laziness. Children wouldn’t have to learn to clean up after themselves and everyone would get used to receiving anything that they asked for; which is not true in the outside world. On the positive side, robots could work in more dangerous areas (such as the ocean or mines) and not get bored because they wouldn’t understand boredom.

4. I had a computer fail on me the week my senior project was due in high school. The senior project was 100-200 pages typed about your entire life, and I eventually got the “blue screen of death” and lost all of my information! This caused for sleepless nights all throughout the week, but I eventually got my work done and received a good grade.

 

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