... This week we are starting a new two week unit on metadata, which is kind of like the glue that will hold our digital library together and make things findable. 1 The definition youve probably heard of metadata is data about data and to be honest, while that sounds short and pithy, its still hard to understand. So lets start by thinking about metadata in a really generic way: metadata is identifying and descriptive information about some actual thing. So the traditional bibliographic record, in MARC, is metadata its information about a book. In this record from Netflix, its structured information about this movie. This is metadata from Amazon. So really, thats what it all boils down to: a record of information about some thing. Metadata has been a part of our libraries forever through bibliographic records. By the end of this lecture, hopefully well understand how some of the things we can do with information search and retrieval now make metadata much more powerful than it was in just the analog or physical format of card catalogs. 2 One of the main features of metadata is that it is structured. So that blob of text about the Hobbit on the left contains the same information as that structured data on the right, but wed be more likely to think of the data on the right as metadata. The structure comes from the fact that each piece of information is labeled as such, the title is labeled as a title. The author as an author. That structure in the data, allows it to be machine-operablebecause it labels individual bits of information for what they are, you can automate the handling and understanding of it. You could extract out all the titles into a separate list, for example, because they are all labeled with that string of letters: t.i.t.l.e. The structure is what makes any kind of text metadata rather than just unstructured text. 3 Metadata standards are described as part of schemas or schemes. These are sets of labels, or elements, that are use for a specific purpose like describing a book, or a film, or the characteristics of a digital file, so and so forth. Metadata schemas are primarily conceptual, meaning they dont have to be expressed in any particular computer language, but are really just about definitions of elements. They describe a particular domain or subjectalthough sometimes the domain can be really broad And lastly they can be hierarchical, although they dont have to be. So that means elements within a schema can be split into subgroups, all the members of which inherit certain characteristics. Lets look at some examples to understand this better. 4 So, this is an example of a metadata schema. Its a group of elements, show here in blue, that could be used to describe a book. Its as simple as that really. For example, I could make up another schema that was clothing metadata and it would have color, fabric, and sizeits just a set of characteristics that you would use to describe a type of thing. But usually when people talk about schemas they are talking about sets of elements that have been created by a formalized group or organization (think Library of Congress, or the Getty Research Institute) and then are codified and published as a standard. Well talk about some of those specific schemas a bit later. 5 The discrete units of description within the schema are called elements, as I mentioned earlier, or sometimes they are also called properties. Those two words are generally speaking pretty interchangeable. So here the elements are in blue, the discrete units of information we can describe like title, creator, description etc. 6 Values is the term applied to any descriptive data you express using the schema. So in blue here, the specific information about this book, House of Leaves, is in blue. Those are the metadata values for this particular record, 7 Attributes are like qualifiers for elements. They distinguish between elements of the same type and add information. So continuing with our book metadata, example the attributes here would be the language and the language English and Spanish would be the values of that attribute for those two elements. 8 Finally, I mentioned that schemas could be hierarchical. Some schemas employ the use of classes, which are kind of like subgroupings of related properties. They also allow you to reuse a property in two places. So you could have say a class for author with a name property (and maybe some other properties not shown here like date of birth/death, stuff like that) and then a publisher class that also uses the name property. Adding hierarchy or classes allows you to make more nuanced data and allows you to re-use classes for many records. So you can have a single publisher class instance and point to it from all the records for books that they publish. 9 So now that we know a little bit about what metadata is, well talk about WHY its important. There is a paper that I didnt assign this year, but it is pretty good, that is called The metadata IS the interface and I think thats a great way of saying it. The metadata is what is searched and indexed in your repository. The level of description you use, in turn determines the level of indexing you can do, which determines what you can search, as well as what you can display. So if your metadata doesnt have enough granularity, which is the term for how detailed the metadata is how many things are placed in their own elements vs. maybe just put in a long descriptive paragraph -- you cant distinguish between things in that data for browsing or display. Think back to that earlier slide where we showed the structured and unstructured data. 10 The structured data on the right can be indexed, because it has been labeled. I can put the title in a table with all the other titles, the author in a table with all the other authors. When someone searches and finds this record, then I can display the author name with the label author and then maybe find other records with the same author name. In the unstructured text you would need human intelligence to determine where the title and author are. 11 As another example of this, lets imagine we are managing a database of several thousand images. We use a metadata schema that allows us to enter the title, creator, date, and some physical details. 12 So heres what three potential images might have as metadata 13 Now, when we design the interface, lets we want to add facets for narrowing down search results. Those facets are just an index of what was in metadata fields. So we can easily make an index of creators and dates. But we couldnt do an index of styles or artistic movements because thats not in the metadata. We might have had details about the size and format of the paintings (lets look back at the last slide to check). ..but they are smashed into the same field so we couldnt do a facet for each. Unless you wrote a program that could parse through the value of those physical description fields and look for specific phrases like oil on canvas or look for indication of size (like abbreviations for feet or inches), there is no way to index those separately. And that wouldnt be easy to do. The point here is that decisions about metadata made early on in the process have far-reaching ramifications 14 So long story short, channeling Beyonce, if you liked it then you should have put metadata on it. 15 Thinking about metadata from a broader perspective now, most schemas are created with a specific purpose. They perform a specific function. Generally, they fall into one of these types: Descriptive: describing the content Administrative/Technical: describing the format of the material, typically the digital format characteristics Administrative/Preservation: the kind of details needed to preserve the material, typically again very technical details about the creation of the digitized object Administrative/Rights: information about the intellectual proper status of the material The reason Ive put administrative in all of these, is that sometimes you will see parts or all of these functions combined in a schema and termed administrative metadata Finally, Structural Metadata describes how a multi-part item is composed. If you remember last week we talked about lots of different wrapper files, those are all a kind of structural metadata. The wrapper is a single record that encapsulates all the 16 relevant metadata records in different schemas or points to the data files needed for the use of the digital object. 16 There are lots of standardized schemas that are very commonly used in libraries, museums, and archives which have been developed by professional groups and organizations. Most of the ones here are used for different purposes. We wont talk about all of them this week, but will use two of them as examples. 17 Dublin Core and MODS will be the two schemas we will use in our first assignment next week. The four categories you see here are sometimes used to describe the characteristics of metadata: Purpose: the type, like we just discussed Function: this means how it is used, is it used to create a record, or a wrapper? Is it instead a thesaurus or controlled vocabulary which are related concepts Domain: describes what type of material it is describing, so these are both related to the cultural heritage materials, other types could specifically be about text or a/v or images, or could be about educational materials, or consumer goods, or books, etc Finally, Community: describes who uses the standard, in this case the Information Industry (libraries, archives, museums) as opposed to say retailers, or engineers, or musicologists Both of these schema are descriptive metadata schema, they are used for creating metadata records about cultural heritage materials (i.e. the kinds of stuff in libraries, archives, and museums) 18 First up is Dublin Core. This was created by a group called the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, I believe because they met in Dublin, Ohio (which is where OCLC is, although there is no formal relationship there) and thats how the name was created. It was created to facilitate description of any and all kinds of objects on the web. It was also created specifically to be very simple, and very loosely structured So there are only 15 elements, all are repeatable as many times as you need 19 So, heres the original Dublin Core metadata set. It was basically an attempt to agree on the basic things you need to describe and identify something in order to get everyone using the same standard. Contributor Coverage Creator Date Description Format Identifier Language Publisher Relation Rights Source 20  Subject Title Type These original 15 Dublin Core Elements are the ones we are going to use for our assignment next week. There are some elements in there that cause perennial user confusion such as coverage which is intended to describe either the place or time period that an item is about, or both (as opposed to say the time or place it was created). But coverage is a strange word for that concept mostly because its a complicated concept that would be hard to describe with a simple label. 20 Because the original set of Dublin Core terms was in fact so simple, they were eventually expanded with qualifiers, These are basically sub-elements that provide more detail for some of those concepts like coverage that are very complex. Qualified Dublin Core has 55 properties which are organized in 22 classes 21 Im not going to put them all up here, but this is a look at one class, the Agent class. So you can see its both a reorganization of the simple Dublin Core (organizing the original creator, contributor, and publisher terms together), but its also an expansion. 22 The next schema well talk is MODS: metadata object description schema. This is Library of Congresss attempt to make a metadata schema based on a very simplified version of MARC. So MODS is very good for books, and its pretty good with non-books. Its very popular for organizations that want to use more granularity than Dublin Core but still use a generalized schema suitable for many materials. MODS is very rich, and has lots of hierarchy and a lot of attributes for many elements. 23 Heres a look at the definition for a single element, titeInfo, in the MODS data dictionary. titleInfo itself has 10 groupings of attributes (so you could use ID or xlink OR xml:lang from the first group to indicate some administrative identification number, and then you could also use type to describe a classification like primary or alternate title, and then maybe authority OR authorityURI, to indicate that this has a LC controlled vocabulary ID, and so on) Title then has 5 possible subelements, which themselves can use 5 different attributes. I dont think that you can break the subelements down further within titleInfo, but other elements do have more layers of nesting. 24 So heres what an actual record might look like. We know that this is the uniform title, it has an id, that came from the controlled vocabulary authority at id.loc.gov. The title has a nonsorting word A which is english and then the rest of the title proper is House of Leaves which is also in english. YAY GRANULARITY There are plenty of other standards we could talk about in the information science domain: schemas just for preservation and technical metadata, metadata wrappers, encoding standards, etc. But I dont want to overwhelm you with them today. I think the MODS and DC examples give you an idea of the breadth of what can be expressed anyway. 25 So, weve learned a lot about metadata. And maybe it just sounds unbelievable awesome. It is, but. 26 There are some challenges. Metadata creation is going to be the most expensive part of your digitization workflow. It can easily take 10x as much time to create metadata as it does to scan something. Creating metadata in the digital library environment also usually presents a paradigm shift for traditional catalogers, or at the very least retraining on tools. MARC was created for physical world --- remember weinbergers second order from our reading? It gives us a physical surrogate for where something is physically. It does maybe contain some elements of miscellaneous-ness multiple subject headings, subject cards vs. author cards in a card catalog but it is still limited (no more than 10 subject headings!). When we move towards environments that use more than just MARC and that can do more sophisticated search and retrieval, we have to think more broadly about how resources will be used and accessed than we did when just dealing with the catalog. That said, you can re-use MARC data, and convert it to other metadata standards. That is sometimes called metadata reconciliation the process of converting data in any structured format into another something well talk about next week. MARC specifically is what a lot of libraries have in abundance, but really you could do this with any type of data (a spreadsheet could be converted into records as an example). 27 During the reconciliation process you will likely need to add data that the new schema required and the old didnt. For example, if we were converting a record from simple Dublin Core to MODS, we may need to split up that coverage field into separate time and place elements. So there is almost always manual work involved in reconciliation. And again, when trying to convert MARC you run into a lot of obstacles based on the differences between tracking a physical item and a digital one. 27 As with traditional MARC data though, the main challenges have to do with creating good data that serves its purpose and using the type of metadata that fits situation and content. This is from the Getty article by Baca and I think it is a good summary there is no single metadata standard that is adequate for describing all types of collections and materials; selection of the most appropriate suite of metadata standards and tools, and creation of clean, consistent metadata according to those standards, not only will enable good descriptions of specific collection materials but also will make it possible to map metadata created according to different community-specific standards 28 So part of our challenge is evaluating the situation and content and picking the right vehicle, or schema, for our metadata. This cartoon is very appropriate for the situation. 29 On the other hand, metadata can really provide us with a lot opportunities if we use it well. Above and beyond the mere fact that metadata is really the backbone of the information system (without it you cant find anything), I specifically had you read Weinbergers article about miscellany because I think its a really great way of articulating the opportunities that flexible metadata in a computer-mediated system can afford. It showed how metadata is different from traditional cataloging. While a lot of the concepts are the same (describing stuff), in the digital world we can index virtually every field in the record, meaning instead of having to find a work by its title, author, or one of three subject headings, we could find it by date, or by keyword in the summary, or by the 11th subject. In a sense, nothing needs to be classified for search, because we can search every field equally if we choose to. And thats a powerful concept with both pros and cons. Really granular metadata is what us to do really great and specific power searches and browses. As we showed with the facet example, that kind of ability to narrow your search down to just exactly what you want has been a hugely influential shift in online search and retrieval. That kind of stuff only exists with really good, granular metadata. 30 In addition, thinking of metadata as a broader term than cataloging, Weinberger introduces the idea of folksonomies (though he doesnt use the word). This is when descriptors are applied to objects by users. Over time, as these things are continually tagged with what you or I think is most important, a consensus emerges. A regular folks-driven taxonomy. Since the internet can allow the public to write back to the record, that folksonomy, as it is sometimes called, can be stored and exploited, which we couldnt do with a rigid paper-based catalog. This was a really big idea in libraries 10-15 years ago, I think we thought it would solve a lot of problems. It didnt. Primarily because it takes a lot of participation to make those kinds of systems really useful. However, the concept of breaking down authorities, using multiple sources of input, giving equal weight to various metata, those are still powerful and useful concepts. Some would argue that those things degrade the traditional authority of information resources because it means there is no one source of bibliographic records anymore, no one truth. But in fact, that was the case all along, its just more apparent now. New tools are allowing communities to create their own languages, their own tools, that we might never have used or recognized the importance of. 30 Next week we are going to talk more about these more advanced ways of using metadata and go a little beyond these fundamentals. Well talk about how metadata is shared and what are some of the cool things we can do with it. Next week will also introduce our first assignment. But until then, dont forget your forum questions. 31  ...

... LS 575: Digital Libraries Syllabus Spring 2020 Course Information | Tech Assistance |Learning Outcomes |Course Outline Grading Policy | Course Policies | Resources Course Information Instructor Information Instructor: Gretchen Gueguen Office Hours: Tuesdays, 12:30 to 1:30 pm; Wednesdays 7:30 to 9:30 pm (all times eastern). Office hours will be held online in a chat, Zoom, or Google hangout. Email in advance for an appointment. E-mail: ggueguen@clarion.edu Course Description LS 575: Digital Libraries Provides an overview of topics concerning digital libraries, including, but not limited to, organization and structure, programming interoperability and metadata standards, project management, intellectual property rights, and various interface applications. Students are expected to examine topics of interest concerning digital libraries, culminating in the preparation of a term project. Prerequisite None. Textbook & Course Materials Required Text Readings will be listed in the course schedule. No textbook is required. Other readings will be made available within your D2L course site. Course Requirements Internet connection (DSL, LAN, or cable connection desirable) Access to D2L Clarion University of Pa Page 1 LS 575: Digital Libraries Spring 2020 Course Structure This course will be delivered entirely online through the Desire2Learn (D2L) learning management system. You will use your Clarion University account to login to the course from the D2L login page (http://www.clarion.edu/d2l). In D2L, you will access online lessons, course materials, and resources. At designated times throughout the semester, we will participate in a blend of selfpaced and group-paced activities using D2L and alternative Internet-based technologies. Activities will consist of chat, discussion forums, email, videos, assignments to upload, and the optional use of Google Hangout. Generally each weeks materials will consist of several readings, a video lecture, and forum discussions. There will be two graded assignments during the course of the semester and two quizzes. Assignments must be handed in using D2L by midnight eastern of the due date listed in the syllabus, unless otherwise indicated. The course final will consist of either a 5,000 word term paper, or the creation of a digital collection using the free online version of the Omeka software. More information about the final will be presented in class. Course Week starts on Monday and ends on Sunday. Content for the following week will usually be released on Fridays by 8 p.m. D2L Access This course will be delivered fully online through Desire2Learn. To access this course on D2L you will need access to the Internet and a supported Web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari). To ensure that you are using a supported browser and have required plug-ins please run the Check Browser from your D2L course. Technical Assistance If you need technical assistance at any time during the course or to report a problem with D2L you can: Visit the D2L Student Orientation/Documentation Visit the D2L Student FAQs Web Page Contact 24x7 support or submit a helpdesk ticket Disclaimer: This syllabus, along with course assignments and due dates, are subject to change. It is the students responsibility to check D2L for corrections or updates to the syllabus. Any changes will be clearly noted in course announcement or through D2L email. Clarion University of Pa Page 2 LS 575: Digital Libraries Spring 2020 Course Learning Outcomes This course will provide an overview of the methodologies, philosophies, and technologies used in modern digital libraries. Through the course of the semester we will examine how digital libraries are built and populated, what functions they serve, how they are preserved and used, as well as some of the practical and pragmatic realities of digital librarianship in the 21st century. By the end of the course students will be equipped to participate in the planning and management of digital library projects and will have a solid research basis for further education on relevant topics. Specifically, students in this course will learn to: Understand the theoretical and historical basis for digital library development. Articulate different building blocks of digital library services including technologies, methods, and standards. Be able to think critically about the potential for digital library services and the interoperability, use, and reuse of digital objects. Demonstrate facility with the fundamental and practical skills of digital library development, management, use, and preservation. You will meet the outcomes listed above through a combination of the following learning activities in this course: Weekly readings and lectures Discussion forum participation Completion of course assignments Quizzes Completion of an end of semester term paper or the creation of a small digital library (more information will be given about this in the early weeks of the class). Clarion University of Pa Page 3 Course Outline Important Note: Refer to the course calendar for semester schedule dates. Activity and assignment details will be explained in detail within each week's corresponding learning module. Minor changes to the readings may be changed up to a week before they are assigned, so check the online content modules. Week one 1/13 1/19 Course Introduction; History and Definition of Digital Library Readings o Schwartz, C. (2000). Digital Libraries: An Overview. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Volume 26, Number 6, pages 385-393. o Carlson, S. (2002). Do Libraries Really Need Books? The Chronicle of Higher Education, Volume 48, Number 44. o Matusiak, K. (2012) Perceptions of usability and usefulness of digital libraries. International Journal of Humanities and Arts Computing, 6(12), 133-147. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/ijhac.2012.0044. Week two 1/20 1/26 Digitization of Images & Text o Readings o Cornell University Library / Research Department. Moving Theory into Practice, Digital Imaging Tutorial. 2003. Published online at: http://preservationtutorial.library.cornell.edu/contents.html Chapters 1-4, 6 (skip sections on storage, networks, and printers) o Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute. The NINCH Guide to Good Practice in the Digital Representation and Management of Cultural Heritage Materials. 2003. http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/links/pdf/chapter1/1.17.pdf Chapter V (up to page 91) o Coyle, K. The Mass Digitization of Books. Preprint. Published in the Journal of Academic Librarianship, v. 32, n. 6. Available at: http://www.kcoyle.net/jal-326.html Clarion University of Pa Page 4 LS 575: Digital Libraries Spring 2020 Week Three 1/27 2/2 Audio-Visual and Born-digital Readings o Time-based media (audio, video, film) See class website for some excerpts from various articles that I will post. Pennington, S. and Rehberger, D. 2012. The Preservation of Analog Video through Digtization. Oral History in the Digital Age. Available at: http://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/2012/06/preservation-of-analog-video-throughdigitization/ o Born-digital objects and technology Kirschenbaum, M., Ovenden, R., & Redwine, G. (2010). Digital forensics and born-digital content in cultural heritage collections. Washington, D. C.: Council on Library and Information Resources. Retrieved from: https://www.clir.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/pub149.pdf. Chapter 2: Challenges. Video: Rushdie Researcher Workstation Tutorial. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiqHv_SofNo. Week Four 2/3 2/9 Metadata Part One Readings o Riley, Jenn. (2017). Understanding Metadata. NISO. Available at: http://www.niso.org/publications/understanding-metadata-what-metadata-andwhat-it-primer. Read pages1-9;16-18; 23-25 (section titled Dublin Core (DC); 27-33 (ending with section on MODS) o Baca, M. (Ed.) (2008). Introduction to metadata. Online edition. Version 2.0. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Information Institute. Available at, http://www.getty.edu/research/publications/electronic_publications/intrometada ta/index.html. Read only Practical Principles for Metadata Creation and Maintenance. o Weinberger, D. (2007). The New Order of Order. Everything is Miscellaneous. Times Books. Available at: https://www.everythingismiscellaneous.com/wpcontent/samples/eim-sample-chapter1.html. Week Five 2/10 2/16 Metadata Part Two o Readings o Shreeves, S., Riley, J., Milewicz, L. (2006). Moving toward shareable metadata. First Monday. 11:8. Available at: http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1386/1304 Clarion University of Pa Page 5 LS 575: Digital Libraries Spring 2020 o Baca, M. (Ed.) (2008). Introduction to metadata. Online edition. Version 2.0. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Information Institute. Available at, http://www.getty.edu/research/publications/electronic_publications/intrometada ta/index.html. Read the following section: Crosswalks, Metadata Harvesting, Federated Searching, Metasearching. o Meindertsma, Joep. 2018. A Brief Introduction to Linked Data. Available at: https://ontola.io/what-is-linked-data/ o OCLC. 2012. Linked Data for Libraries. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWfEYcnk8Z8. Assignment o Crosswalk Activity, due 2/28 Week Six 2/17 2/23 Repository Systems and Digital Library Infrastructure Readings o Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute. The NINCH Guide to Good Practice in the Digital Representation and Management of Cultural Heritage Materials. 2003. http://chnm.gmu.edu/digitalhistory/links/pdf/chapter1/1.17.pdf Read Chapter XIII (189-197) o Henry, Geneva. Core Infrastructure Considerations for Large Digital Libraries. CLIR, Washington DC. July 2012. http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub153 o Arms, William Y. Key Concepts in the Architecture of the Digital Library. D-Lib. July 1995. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/July95/07arms.html Week Seven 2/24 3/8 User Experience o Readings o See class website for some excerpts from various articles that I will post. o Lack, R. 2007. The Importance of User-Centered Design: Exploring Findings and Methods. Journal of Archival Organization. 4:1-2. 69-86 o Hearst, M. "The Design of Search User Interfaces." http://searchuserinterfaces.com/book/sui_ch1_design.html o Center for Persons with Disabilities. 2016. Introduction to Web Accessibility. WebAIM: web accessibility in mind. https://webaim.org/intro/. o Fulton, C. 2011. Web Accessibility, Libraries, and the Law. Information Technology & Libraries. Vol. 30, Issue 1. o Assignment Proposal for final paper/project, due 3/15 Clarion University of Pa Page 6 LS 575: Digital Libraries Spring 2020 Winter Break 2/28 3/8 Week Eight 3/9 3/15 Intellectual Property, Copyright, and the Public Domain Readings o Review the Copyright and the Public Domain Chart available at: https://copyright.cornell.edu/publicdomain o Wilkin, J. P. (2011). Bibliographic indeterminacy and the scale of problems and opportunities of "rights" in digital collection building. Washington, DC: CLIR. Available at: http://www.clir.org/pubs/ruminations/01wilkin/wilkin.html o Schlosser, Melanie. Unless Otherwise Indicated: A Survey of Copyright Statements on Digital Library Collections. College & Research Libraries. Jul 2009, Vol. 70 Issue 4, p371-385. o Hirtle, P. Learning to Live with Risk. Art Libraries Journal. 37:2, 2012. Available online at: http://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/24519/2/ARLIS%20UK%20final.p df. Week Nine 3/16 3/22 Digital Preservation Readings o Cornell University Library. Digital Preservation Management: Implementing Short-Term Strategies for Long-Term Solutions. 2004. Published online at: http://dpworkshop.org/dpm-eng/eng_index.html Read chapters 1-3. o Lavoie and Dempsey. [2004] Thirteen Ways of Looking atDigital Preservation. D-Lib Magazine. 10: 7.8. Available at: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/july04/lavoie/07lavoie.html o The NDSA Levels of Digital Preservation. Available at: https://ndsa.org/activities/levels-of-digital-preservation/ o Google. (2017) Preserving digital art: How will it survive? Available at: https://youtu.be/vkSG7XaKoAs Assignment: o Learn to make a pitch, due 4/5 Week Ten 3/23 3/29 Funding, Sustainability, and Assessment Readings o Blue Ribbon Task Force on Sustainable Digital Preservation and Access. 2010. Sustainable Economics for a Digital Planet: Ensuring Long-Term Access to Clarion University of Pa Page 7 LS 575: Digital Libraries Spring 2020 Digital Information. Available at: http://blueribbontaskforce.sdsc.edu/biblio/BRTF_Final_Report.pdf. Read Chapters 3 & 5. o Arlitsch, Kenning. Committing to Research: Librarians and Grantsmanship.Journal of Library Administration. Jul2013, Vol. 53 Issue 5/6, p369-379. 11p. o Digital Library Federation Assessment Interest Group. Surveying the Landscape: Use and Usability Assessment of Digital Libraries. 2015. Available at: https://osf.io/uc8b3/. Read Executive Summary, pages 3-5 o Europeana. 2017. Impact Playbook for Museums, Libraries, Archives and Galleries. Available at: http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/169127/1/169127.pdf. Read pages 1-14. Week Eleven 3/30 4/5 E-books and Licensing Readings o Roncevic, M. (2013). E-book Platforms for Libraries. Library Technology Reports. Number 3. https://journals.ala.org/index.php/ltr/article/view/4307/4955. o Kahn, M. and Underwood, P. (2013). Issues related to the adoption of e-books in academic libraries: a literature review. South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science. Vol. 79 Issue 2. o Lukes, R., et.al. (2016). E-Book Collection Development: Formalizing a Policy for Smaller Libraries. Serials Librarian. 70:1-4. 106-115. o Grady, C. (2019). The 2010s were supposed to bring the ebook revolution. It never quite came. Vox. Available at: o https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/23/20991659/ebook-amazon-kindle-ereaderdepartment-of-justice-publishing-lawsuit-apple-ipad. Bailey, L., et.al. (2018). Position Statement on Controlled Digital Lending. Available at: https://controlleddigitallending.org/statement Week Twelve 4/6 4/12 Open Access, Institutional Repositories, and Scholarly Publishing Readings o Coalition for Networked Infrastructure. (2017) Rethinking Institutional Repository Strategies: Report of a CNI Executive Roundtable. Available at: https://www.cni.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/CNI-rethinking-irs-execrndtbl.report.S17.v1.pdf. Read only to page 6, stopping at the "Repositories in the UK" section. o Coalition S. 2018. Plan S: Principles and Implementation. Available at: https://www.coalition-s.org/addendum-to-the-coalition-s-guidance-on-theimplementation-of-plan-s/principles-and-implementation/. Read parts I and II. Clarion University of Pa Page 8 LS 575: Digital Libraries Spring 2020 o Hinchliffe, Lisa Janicke. 2019. Transformative Agreements: A Primer. The Scholarly Kitchen. Available at: https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/04/23/transformative-agreements/ o Borgman, C. L. (2012), The conundrum of sharing research data. Journal of the American Society for Information Science. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.22634/full Week Thirteen 4/13 4/19 Applications and Intersections with the Digital Library; Wrap Up and Review Readings o Cox, A. and Pinfield, S. 2014. Research data management and libraries: current activities and future priorities. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science. 46:4. 299-316 o Cohen, P. 2010. Digital Keys for Unlocking the Humanities Riches. The New York Times. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/arts/17digital.html o Elliott, Rory. 2014. Geographic information systems (GIS) and libraries: concepts, services and resources. Library Hi Tech News. 31:8. 8 - 11 o AIIM. What is Electronic Records Management (ERM)? Available at: http://www.aiim.org/What-is-ERM-Electronic-Records-Management Week Fourteen and Fifteen 4/20-5/1 Wrap up and Major Themes Work week for projects and papers due 5/1 at 5 p.m. eastern. Clarion University of Pa Page 9 LS 575: Digital Libraries Spring 2017 Grading Policy Visit each Weekly Module in D2L for details about each assignment listed below. Assignment Participation in Forums Quizzes Crosswalk Activity Pitch Activity Final Paper/ Project Proposal Final Paper/ Project TOTAL POINTS Points 15 20 15 15 5 30 100 Late Work Policy Be sure to pay close attention to deadlinesthere will be no make up assignments, or late work without a serious and compelling reason and instructor approval. Viewing Grades in D2L Points you receive for graded activities will be posted to the D2L Grades area. Click on the Grades link on the top navigation bar to view your points. I will update the online grades each time a grading session has been complete typically on the Thursday following the completion of an activity. A News item will be posted on the course homepage to let you know grades are completed and available for viewing and feedback. Letter Grade Assignment Final grades assigned for this course will be based on the percentage of total points earned and are assigned as follows: Letter Grade A B Percentage 90-100% 80-89% Performance Excellent Work Good Work C 70-79% Average Work D 60-69% Poor Work F 0-59% Failing Work Clarion University of Pennsylvania Page 10 LS 575: Digital Libraries Spring 2017 Course Policies Participation/Attendance Students are expected to participate in all online activities as listed in the course content. You should plan to participate by logging on a minimum of three times each week. The asynchronous (not in real-time) nature of most activities will permit you to take part at times most convenient to you. This is a graduate-level course and you are expected to keep up with the readings and coursework on your own. See the lateness policy above for the impact of missing assignment due dates. Otherwise, participation will be measured by whether or not you complete the required postings in the discussion forum and the two quizzes. You will be required to participate in 5 discussion forums (out of 10 total) throughout the course, consisting of creating original and response posts. You will receive up to 3 points for each week you participate. You may participate in other weeks to earn additional points if you dont receive all three points. Participation points will not exceed 15 total points for the semester. The Universitys policy on class attendance is found at: www.clarion.edu/956/#Class Attendance Policy. In lieu of a final exam you will have the option of completing either a 5,000-word paper or completing a small project to create a digital library, alone or in a group. If you choose to do the project as a group, there will be higher expectations of the amount of work to complete. We will discuss the final paper/project in the coming weeks. Since there will be no final exam it is important that you complete all of the assignments during the course. They will be a major factor in your final grade. Contact Information and Communication The forums have a discussion board for all inquiries related to the course content and assignments called Questions and Answers. Using these forums, rather than emailing, will result in a more timely response and other class members may benefit from the information. I will respond to your posting within a 24-hour period. I look forward to reading and answering your course questions. Remember that you have access to the 24/7 D2L Helpdesk for technical questions. If you have a private course issue you wish to discuss, send me an email through D2L. I will respond to your email within a 24-48 hour period. I do not check my university email as frequently as I check D2L, so a forum post will get my attention quicker. If you find that you have any trouble keeping up with assignments or other aspects of the course, make sure you let me know as early as possible so that I can help you find a solution. You can schedule an appointment with me during my office hours by Clarion University of Pennsylvania Page 11 LS 575: Digital Libraries Spring 2017 sending an email to set up an appointment. I will do my best to accommodate requests for meetings outside of office hours as well. We can set up a meeting through a chat channel or use Google Hangout or a simple phone call if youd prefer. Complete Assignments All assignments for this course will be submitted electronically through D2L unless otherwise instructed. Assignments must be submitted by the given deadline or special permission must be requested from instructor before the due date. Extensions will not be given beyond the next assignment except under extreme circumstances. All discussion assignments must be completed by the assignment due date and time. Late or missing discussion assignments will affect the students grade. Understand When You May Drop This Course It is the students responsibility to understand when they need to consider dropping or withdrawing from a course. Refer to the Clarion University Course Schedule for dates and deadlines for registration. Incomplete Policy Under emergency/special circumstances, students may petition for an incomplete grade. An incomplete will only be assigned if the student can demonstrate that unforeseen circumstances prevented them from reasonably completing the coursework. Inform Your Instructor of Any Accommodations Needed If you are a student with a documented disability and require accommodations, you must be registered with the University's Office of Disability Support Services (DSS). Students must provide current documentation to DSS which identifies their disability and need for accommodation(s). Students must meet with DSS to discuss requested accommodations. Students must provide instructors with appropriate notification from DSS of the approved accommodation as early in the semester as possible. The Office of Disability Support Services can be reached by calling (814) 393-2095 and is located in 102 Ralston Hall. A Safe and Productive Environment Clarion University and its faculty are committed to assuring a safe and productive educational environment for all students. In order to meet this commitment and to comply with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and guidance from the Office for Civil Rights, the University requires faculty members to report incidents of sexual violence shared by students to the University's Title IX Coordinator. The only Clarion University of Pennsylvania Page 12 LS 575: Digital Libraries Spring 2017 exceptions to the faculty member's reporting obligation are when incidents of sexual violence are communicated by a student during a classroom discussion, in a writing assignment for a class, or as part of a University-approved research project. Faculty members are obligated to report sexual violence or any other abuse of a student who was, or is, a child (a person under 18 years of age) when the abuse allegedly occurred to the person designated in the University protection of minors policy. Information regarding the reporting of sexual violence and the resources that are available to victims of sexual violence is set forth at 3 the Office of Social Equity/Title IX webpage http://www.clarion.edu/aboutclarion/offices-and-administration/universitysupport-and-business/office-of-socialequity/policies-and-compliance/sexual-misconductdefinitions-and-faq.html and http://www.clarion.edu/titleix. 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Online Writing Center http://clarion.edu/academics/academic-support/writing-center/ The Clarion University Writing Center supports all students in their efforts to become better writers and provides assistance with writing assignments in all subject areas. Virtual Campus http://www.clarion.edu/locations/clarion-online/ The Clarion University Virtual Campus provides various support resources for online students. Visit their website for additional resource links. Virtual Library http://clarion.edu/libraries/ The Clarion University Virtual Library Clarion University Libraries offer services designed to support research and information needs of off-campus students and faculty. Distance education support includes reference and information assistance, access to online resources, online tutorials, and interlibrary loan. Clarion University of Pennsylvania Page 14  ...

... A PERSON -CENTERED G UIDE to demyst i fy i ng t ec h nolog y M ARTI N WOL S K E A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Working together to observe, question, design, prototype, and implement/reject technology in support of people's valued beings and doings By Martin Wolske With special contributions by Betty Bayer, Henry Grob, Sara Rasmussen, Dinesh Rathi, Stephanie Shallcross, and Vandana Singh Windsor & Downs Press Champaign, IL A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology by Martin Wolske is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted. Copyright 2020 Martin Wolske. Ideating and Iterating Code: Scratch Example Copyright 2020 Betty Bayer and Stephanie Shallcross. Introducing the Unix Command Line Copyright 2020 Martin Wolske, Dinesh Rathi, Henry Grob, and Vandana Singh. Security and Privacy Copyright 2020 Sara Rasmussen. Published by Windsor & Downs Press, Urbana, Ill., part of the Illinois Open Publishing Network (IOPN). IOPN is a project of the University Library, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. Published as part of the OPN Textbook Series. ISBN (Online): 978-1-946011-12-1 ISBN (PDF): 978-1-946011-13-8 Please cite this book using the DOI: https://doi.org/10.21900/wd.7. This book was produced with Pressbooks (https://pressbooks.com) and rendered with Prince. The PDF version of this title excludes interactive content available in the online version. Links to excluded videos are provided in the text locations where they would appear. Interactive assessments have been provided as screenshots, but for a fully interactive version and a version accessible to screen readers, please consult the online versions of the relevant chapters. Credits Copyright PuTTY 1997-2020 Simon Tatham. macOS is a trademark of Apple Inc. Windows is a trademark of Microsoft. Cover photography: School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. Used with permission. Cover design by Kaylen Dwyer and Sara Rasmussen. Contents Introduction to the Book xi xi xi xii xiv xix xx xxii xxiii Background Knowledge Probe Overview Overall Objectives Some Useful Working Standards and Frameworks The Toolkit About the Toolbox Layout of the Book Lesson Plan Orange Unit: A Person-Centered Launch 1A: Information Systems 33 33 33 34 Background Knowledge Probe What is an Information System? Lesson Plan 1B: Introduction to Electronic Circuits 36 Background Knowledge Probe Technical Introduction Building Our First LED Circuit Using the Raspberry Pi Electronics Toolkit Exercise: Building and Testing an Electronics Prototyping Platform Troubleshooting Essentials Exercise: Two LED Circuits Using Different Ohm Resistors Exercise: Comparing Differences in Resistance and Voltage Wrap Up 2A: Critical Social + Technical Perspective 36 36 40 42 45 47 49 50 52 Background Knowledge Probe Digital Technology = Social + Technical Community Inquiry as the Basis for Digital Literacy Radically Reconsidered Lesson Plan v 52 52 54 57 2B: Electronic Components in Series 59 Background Knowledge Probe Exercise: A Momentary Switch in Series with LEDs and Resistor Exercise: From Circuits in Series to Circuits in Parallel with a Momentary Switch More on Transistors Exercise: From Breadboard Prototypes to Integrated Circuits Wrap Up 3A: The Unknown Tech Innovators 59 59 62 64 68 70 76 76 76 77 78 Background Knowledge Probe Who Shapes Technology? Broadening our Understanding of Creating Lesson Plan 3B: Computer Building Blocks 81 Background Knowledge Probe Technical Introduction Computer Hardware Building Blocks Computer Operating System Building Blocks Exercise: Reviewing Your Computer Wrap Up 81 81 82 83 89 90 4A: Launching Our Counterstories 101 Counterstory Creation Steps Lesson Plan 103 105 4B: Meet the Microcomputer 107 Background Knowledge Probe Technical Introduction The Components of the Raspberry Pi Exercise: Reviewing the Raspberry Pi Computer Wrap Up 107 107 108 110 110 4C: Getting Started with the Raspberry Pi 111 Choose Your Own Adventure Option 1: Raspberry Pi Quickstart Using a Monitor, Keyboard, and Mouse Option 2: Configure the Raspberry Pi Headless Wrap Up 4D: Coding Electronics 111 112 115 121 122 Exercise: Control LEDs with Python Code Exercise: Playing Counterstories Saved to the Raspberry Pi Wrap Up Orange Unit Review 122 131 133 135 vi Blue Unit: Computational Tinkering 1A: The Logic of Hardware and Programming 152 152 152 154 155 Background Knowledge Probe An Evolution of Computing Tools Reading the World, Reading the Word, and Tinkering Lesson Plan 1B: Essential Coding Concepts 157 Background Knowledge Probe The Shaping of Electronics Essential Coding Concepts Coding the Circuit Playground Express Exercise: Introducing MakeCode and Circuit Playground Express Choose Your Own Adventure Exercise: Using Momentary Switch Circuits With Conditional Code Exercise: Testing Out Innovation-in-Use to Build a Five Digit Counter Button B Counter Design Probe Wrap Up 2A: The Methodological Landscape 157 157 158 160 161 169 171 176 183 185 188 Background Knowledge Probe Tinkering as Research The Meta-Theoretical Landscape in Practice Lesson Plan 188 188 192 192 2B: Make Music with Code 195 Background Knowledge Probe Technical Introduction Piano Keys and Trumpet Valves Exercise: First Three Notes Boolean Logic Exercise: Toolbox Trumpet, First Three Notes, Failing Forward Boolean Logic and Algebraic Notation Exercise: Creating Code to Play a Full Middle C Scale Wrap Up 3A: Valued, Inclusive Information and Computing Technology Experiences 195 195 196 197 201 202 204 209 211 217 Background Knowledge Probe Examining Development The Capability Approach Inclusive Computational Thinking Lesson Plan 217 217 218 220 221 3B: Build Functions for Remixable Code 223 Background Knowledge Probe Technical Review Exercise: Variables & Functions Remix of the Toolbox Trumpet Exercise: 4-Octave Toolbox Trumpet Wrap Up vii 223 223 224 230 232 4A: Sharing Our Counterstories 234 Background Knowledge Probe A Self-Reflection on Sociotechnical Systems Lesson Plan 234 234 237 4B: Raspberry Pi Counterstory Little Free Library 239 Background Knowledge Probe Technical Overview Data Communications Between Devices Exercise: The Circuit Playground Express Meets the Raspberry Pi Wrap Up 239 239 240 241 247 Blue Unit Review 249 REMIX: Ideating and Iterating Code: Scratch Example Betty Bayer and Stephanie Shallcross 256 The Process: Inspiration and Ideation The Process: Iteration The Process: Mutual Shaping and Teamwork The Process: Computational Thinking Conclusion: Continued Mutual Shaping 256 257 260 261 264 Rainbow Unit: Networks Big and Small 1A: Programmable Electronics, Smart Technology, and the Internet of Things Background Knowledge Probe The Mechanical World From Mechanical to Programmable to Smart Bringing Together Sociotechnical Artifacts into an Internet of Things Lesson Plan 1B: Connecting Our Electronic 'Thing' to a Wider World 275 275 276 277 278 280 282 Technical Overview Data Transport Towards Our Own Internet of Things Exercise: Using Python to Monitor Sensor Information Exercise: Using http to Remotely Monitor Sensor Information Exercise: Using HTTP to Remotely Control LEDs Wrap Up 2A: Digital Internets, Past and Present 282 282 284 285 291 295 300 304 Background Knowledge Probe Some Early Examples of Systems for Networking and Internetworking Emergence of an Open Model for Internetworking The Free-net and Community Networking Movements The Commercialization of the Internet Lesson Plan viii 304 304 306 308 311 315 2B: The Infrastructure of the Internet 318 Technical Overview Computer Network Building Blocks Network Areas of Coverage Internet Service Provider Technologies Exercise: Listing Building Blocks of Your Computing Devices More on IP Addresses and IP Names Exercise: Internet Detective Cloud Computing Exercise: The General Purpose Raspberry Pi Web Server Wrap Up 3A: The Digitization of Divides 318 319 320 322 323 325 328 333 335 342 345 Background Knowledge Probe The Digital Divide Moving From the Digital Divide to Digital Inclusion Affordable, Robust Internet Service Provision Lesson Plan 345 345 350 352 355 3B: A Person-Centered Network Information System Adventure 357 Technical Overview A WordPress-Based Public Information System MAZI Zone DIY Community Network From an HTTP Thing to Multiple Internet of Things Devices Wrap Up 357 359 359 361 361 4A: Recovering Community: Designing for Social Justice 363 Background Knowledge Probe The Designer in Each of Us! Design Justice The Design Studio Lesson Plan 363 364 367 371 375 4B: Community-Centered Design 378 Design Introduction The Design Critique Wrap Up 378 379 382 Rainbow Unit Review 383 Introducing the Unix Command Line Dinesh Rathi, Henry Grob, Vandana Singh, and Martin Wolske 389 389 393 393 394 397 397 398 400 403 Listing files and directories Copying Files Searching the contents of a file Redirection Wildcards Filename conventions File System Security Processes and Jobs A Starting List of Common Terminal Commands ix Raspberry Pi Networking 1010 412 Exercise: Connect a Raspberry Pi to a Wired Ethernet Port Exercise: Connect to a WiFi Network from the Raspberry Pi Desktop Exercise: Connect to a WiFi Network via the Command Line Exercise: Unusual Additional Registration Requirements Network Troubleshooting 413 416 417 418 421 421 423 423 425 Essential Network Troubleshooting Tools Exercise: Identify Link Lights Exercise: Explore Your Network Configuration Exercise: Test the Network Node-to-Node Path Security and Privacy Sara Rasmussen 430 Overview Curriculum for Young People Resources for Adults Resources for Educators Workshop Facilitation Tools Go Deeper 430 431 432 433 434 434 Glossary 435 Bibliography 451 Print Handout 463 Acknowledgements 464 x Introduction to the Book Background Knowledge Probe What is something that you have that you have used in a way it wasnt meant to be used in order to do something you value? What is a notable time when you have come together with others to struggle through a complex problem and come out on the other side with a workable solution? Overview Historically, women, people of color, and others experiencing systemic oppression have played very active, even leading roles in hands-on work, including essential creative endeavors. And yet, a vast majority of these remain hidden or lost from our memories, and in key ways this is an intentional work of oppression. These are endeavors of home, craft, and trade workers, and also of information, engineering, and design professionals. Meanwhile, research reveals ways in which the K-12 and higher education systems create hurdles to participation in emerging digital technology spaces for women and people of color. Well explore these points periodically throughout the book. This book seeks to advance a person-centered orientation to technologies in ways that enrich each of our functional diversities and capability sets, and this often starts with recognizing that we can do far more than were led to believe. Technology has absolutely no ability to help us. None. Let me repeat that: Technology has no capability whatsoever to do anything for us.Its not a person. Its a thing. Things arent alive; they dont breathe; they dont think. But they can, sometimes, be a useful tool in the hands of people. And the usefulness of that tool is determined directly and indirectly through the shaping of that tool by other people. People are creative, living, thinking beings. They fail. They screw up. They hurt themselves and others. But they also fail forward, learning to do better and better through application of a growth mindset. At least, people do if they are invited into communities of practice that incorporate diverse cultural wealth and knowledge through collective leadership, community inquiry, and critical pedagogy action-research cycles. Too often people are taught to be submissive, to consume things created by others, to be saved by the thing itself. And this is especially so for those not white and for those not male. xi xii A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Most girls are taught to avoid failure and risk. To smile pretty, play it safe, get all As. Boys, on the other hand, are taught to play rough, swing high, crawl to the top of the monkey bars and then jump off head first. By the time theyre adults and whether theyre negotiating a raise or even asking someone out on a date, men are habituated to take risk after risk. Theyre rewarded for it. Its often said in Silicon Valley that no one even takes you seriously unless youve had two failed startups. In other words, were raising our girls to be perfect and were raising our boys to be brave. Some people worry about our federal deficit. But I worry about our bravery deficit. Our economy, our society, were losing out because were not raising our girls to be brave. The bravery deficit is the reason why women are underrepresented in STEM, in C-suites, in boardrooms, in Congress, and pretty much everywhere you look. Reshma Saujani, Teach Girls Bravery, Not Perfection This book seeks to advance the fail-forward and growth mindsets of all, especially those who have been oppressed through works advancing the power of others over them. We will work together to discover ways to advance power, both power within and power with others. We will work to advance our technical skills, but also and even more, our progressive community engagement skills, our critical social + technical skills, and our cognitive, information, and social emotional skills. To do this, we will also work to advance our collective leadership through storytelling, and especially counterstorytelling, within a framing of reciprocity. Overall Objectives The general learning outcome objectives of this book are to help readers: Develop a clear hands-on working understanding of the physical and software layers of computers and networks. As learners journey through the units of this book, they will hopefully develop a growing comfort and competency: working with the basic nuts and bolts of computers and networks; appropriately integrating components to serve as tools for computational and information processing; and performing basic troubleshooting. Evolve a more holistic and nuanced understanding of the sociotechnical artifacts we use as a daily part of our professional lives. The physical + software + human + social whole that is a digital artifact is greater than the sum of the parts. Beyond developing technical competencies, we need to develop an awareness of, and skillsets to influence, the emergent properties that come from specific combinations of the different social and technical building blocks of information systems. Develop a critical approach to sociotechnical artifacts. Social systems are constructs of economy, politics, matters of race, class, and gender, social institutions, and other cultural dynamics. Design, diffusion, and implementation of technical innovations both reflect and shape these social systems. Critically examining social + technical information systems from multiple individual and societal perspectives opens up consideration of idealized expectations vs. actual positive and negative impacts within specific user communities. Advance community agency in appropriating technology to achieve our individual and community Introduction to the Book xiii development goals through a reconsidered digital literacy learning and practice. Far from being just passive adopters of different digital technology artifacts used to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, as Information Science professionals we have opportunities to initiate and lead communities of practice, leveraging the plurality of our communitys social and technical insights. Humans are analog. We hear, see, and feel in a rich range of frequencies, hues, and senses. We actively create and use these analog circuits to network with others around us. We actively live as highly functioning analog networked information systems. And we do this quite well! On the other hand, programming code and the computers used to run that code are primarily digital and binary zeros and ones. Digital, too, is the Internet, cell networks, Bluetooth devices, and other inter-networking systems we generally think of when we speak of networked information systems. Makerspaces and other Maker-type environments are places to encourage people to gather together to create, invent, and learn. They are analog networked information systems first and foremost. Such spaces often serve as a counter to consumption and individualism. By their very nature, Makerspaces also embrace change. While you may certainly go to a Makerspace to attend workshops on traditional crafts, you may also find side-by-side ways to create using new digital technologies. But always the focus remains on personalization rather than assembly-line production. As such, cognitive, socio-emotional, information, and progressive community engagement skills are as much or more important than specific technical skills within Maker-type environments. Cognitive skills include the ability to logically analyze and organize problems in ways that allow use of digital and analog tools to help solve them, and to generalize new processes to other problems. Socio-emotional skills include the ability to communicate and collaborate with others, along with personal confidence, persistence, and tolerance, in order to tackle complex, ambiguous, open-ended problems. Information skills include the ability to seek, evaluate, interpret, and apply relevant and trustworthy information across multiple media. Progressive community engagement skills advance our ability to work together in communities of practice advancing and making continued use of collective leadership and individuals unique cultural wealth and capability sets to help each member better achieve their valued beings and doings. Technical skills, then, become a response to needs identified using cognitive, socio-emotional, and information skills. They are just-in-time in-fill learning. Combined, the intent of this book is not to exclusively provide technical skills as specific learning outcomes. Rather, the primary goal is to use exercises to teach the technical logic of electronics, coding, and networking in a way that can be generalized to various problems at hand and the unique technical skills needed within that context. At the same time, it is to expand our understanding of the social systems that have applied this technical logic to various design problems in ways that have positively addressed some issues while potentially negatively addressing others. The intent is to also help build up confidence and persistence to tackle ever-more-complex technology problems, while discovering that we are shaped by people, including the creators of this book, who worked to create these sociotechnical artifacts. And those who created the artifacts were shaped by other people who created earlier works. And you will begin shaping others as you innovate-in-use the artifacts associated with the book in a way it wasnt necessarily meant to be used in order to do something you value. xiv A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Ultimately, the aim of the book is to prime the readers for a lifetime of co-exploring within Maker-type environments as information professionals. It is to recognize that at their best, these studios bring together diverse populations of people as a collective to address a key issue of shared interest in ways that maximize individual and social benefits and minimize individual and social harms. It is to identify what participation and inclusion mean within the contexts that are unique to each community of practice and each issue of shared interest. It is to begin to identify the everyday technologies that may be unseen and displaced because of an overly narrow definition of what should be considered appropriate, and the local innovators whose technologies might be championed if only they were made visible. And it is to clarify ways each person might serve in the moment as an innovator-in-use of the technologies to make it practical and appropriate for their functional diversities, that is, their ways of better achieving that which they most value being and doing within a given context. Some Useful Working Standards and Frameworks The best works in a Maker-type environment are works of community, in community, and for community. They combine active hands-on innovation with individual and corporate reflection collective leadership with Paulo Freires action-reflection cycles and the community inquiry model developed initially by John Dewey and Jane Addams and further advanced especially through the works of Bertram Chip Bruce and Ann Peterson-Kemp. Combined, the outcome is development of a critical conceptual understanding of innovation-in-use from a personcentered perspective. This is a book meant to be done as part of a community of practice. Community Inquiry in Practice is a virtuous cycle that includes asking initial questions, joining in active co-learning, reading the words and worlds of knowledges shared in a range of ways, internal reflection, group discussion, critical questions, and journaling. Introduction to the Book xv To facilitate these works of collective leadership, action and reflection, and community inquiry, those working through this book are encouraged to test out a range of community of practice standards and frameworks that might apply within our professional practice moving forward. What follows is a short introduction to each. Well revisit and expand upon these frameworks as we go through the book. Community of Practice A core idea within the social constructivism of John Dewey and others as incorporated throughout this book is that learning is constructed by social interaction between an individual and the social environment. It cannot happen by an individual doing independent work. Sometimes this learning community comprises a range of people within a local community. At other times, it is a community of practice formed by a group of people engaging in a process of collective learning. While in both of these learning community examples the objective is knowing and learning so as to achieve a specific human endeavor, the means by which this objective can best be achieved varies considerably. As this book is written first and foremost as a textbook for use in classrooms, after-school sessions, workshops, and other Maker-type studio environments, the structure of, and activities within, the book are designed to especially facilitate communities of practice. In Communities of practice: a brief introduction, Etienne Wenger provides this nutshell description of the term: Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.1 Members of a community of practice are people with a shared domain of interest that distinguishes them from other people as it applies within this context. This may be a multigenerational gathering of people all living within a specific local neighborhood, a gathering of people living within different neighborhoods of a diverse city who all are part of a local club, a gathering of professionals from across the nation or world meeting using online technology, and so many other communities of practice. They are people who engage in joint activities and discussions to share information and help each other, whether in a specific physical location at which they meet on a daily basis, or via an online forum in which they meet synchronously periodically with other asynchronous meetings as infill. In so doing, they commit time and effort to work as formal or informal practitioners so as to develop a shared body of resources. Your past and future interests may vary greatly, but for a time and for a specific purpose as related the contents of this book, you may find it of great value to become a community of practice within this context. Collective Leadership When people gather to mobilize human, cultural, and technological resources in ways that address opportunities and challenges of common interest and for the common good, then bidirectional learning, joint action, shared responsibility, and mutual accountability have an opportunity to blossom. This shift away from prioritizing individual change agents to instead emphasize collective leadership serves to facilitate the crossing of boundaries 1. Etienne Wenger, "Communities of Practice: A Brief Introduction," October 20, 2011, 1. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/11736. xvi A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology of all types, including age, race, gender, income, culture, and religion. Through a cycle of preparation through trust building, of co-constructing a purpose and strategic plan, of implementation through allyship and collective action, and of sustaining of the work as part of the community fabric, robust strategies and partnerships come together to advance long-term impact. As your community of practice work together through the units, youll find various Do Something New! innovation-in-use/remix prompts encouraging you to make use of collective leadership to mobilize the sessions of a unit in ways that may address opportunities and challenges of common interest, even if just as a small prototype of a larger collective leadership cycle down the road as you enter into other communities of practice. Theres an International Leadership Association interview of leadership educator and practitioner Kirstin Phelps and textbook author Martin Wolske further highlighting digital leadership development through technology education 2. And the Innovation Center for Community and Youth Development and the Kellogg Leadership for Community Change provide a useful starting guide on collective leadership for community change. Community Inquiry Inquiry-based learning is open-ended, democratic, participatory engagement connected to peoples values, history, and lived experiences. It builds from John Deweys framing of logic as the theory of inquiry. Community inquiry as framed in this post by Bertram Chip Bruce further emphasizes collaborative activity and knowledge creation conducted of, for, and by communities as living social organisms. We learn best when doing things that matter to us. And so community comes together to inquire about, that is, ask questions with regard to, their opportunities and challenges, to enter into collaborative investigation and creation, and to set aside time for individual and corporate reflection and discussion, leading to a new cycle of asking, investigating, creating, reflection, and discussing. These cycles dont always happen in a set order. But the best community inquiries strategically incorporate each of these into their works, even when they sometimes seem out of place or of lesser value at a given moment. This community-driven inquiry can also lead to inquiry about the nature and meaning of the community itself, and the webs of privilege and oppression that shape and are shaped by the community and those impacting that community.3 The Community of Practice framework above is presented as a likely starting understanding of the type of learning community many users of this textbook may be joining into as they travel through the book. The Collective Leadership framework then highlights the importance of crossing boundaries of all types to better achieve collective action in a way that advances the community fabric. Community Inquiry is a framework that further emphasizes the social organism that is community. While this book is an outcome of two decades of work bringing digital technologies and literacies into diverse communities, especially focusing on those historically marginalized, key to each has been the community inquiry practitioner dialogue in community, with community, and for community. This book, then, is intended to help advance an understanding of the nuts and bolts of analog and digital hardware, software, and networks while also questioning the underlying assumptions of specific 2. Phelps, Kirstin and Wolske, Martin. "Pause for Pedagogy: Perspectives on Digital Leadership Development from Technology Education." International Leadership Development Interview, June 13, 2018. https://youtu.be/Q4dCUie0mUw 3. One detailed look at community inquiry in practice can be found in Youth Community Inquiry: New Media for Community and Personal Growth, eds. Bertram C. Bruce, Ann Peterson Bishop, and Nama R. Budhathoki (New York: Peter Lang, 2014). https://doi.org/10.3726/978-1-4539-1201-0. Introduction to the Book xvii sociotechnical artifacts so as to facilitate the deepening of the community fabric. In exploring the book using the frameworks of Community of Practice, Collective Leadership, and Community Inquiry, the intent is to help the learning community consider the ways the social and technical chapters within each session of the three units of this book may serve as effective infill to advance the additional, community-specific learning outcome objectives. Action-Reflection Paulo Freire was an adult educator and philosopher from Brazil, who in the 1960s worked to develop educational projects and went on to significantly inform and advocate critical pedagogy. He not only taught reading and writing to illiterate adults, but at the same time worked to help raise awareness of the agency people had to bring a new reality into existence. He used techniques that would be familiar to us today: show a picture, show a word, help people to pronounce the word and associate it with the picture, connect the syllables of the word with specific sounds, generalize to other words. But as Freire went through these steps, he also encouraged learners to combine syllables in unique ways to create new words. And he encouraged them to see how the old word was often associated with objects that served to oppress the learner (for instance, moving from learning the word brick to considering that the learner manufactured for elites who paid them a sub-living wage and then used the brick to build walled fortresses that kept wealth in and others out). At the same time they made connections of syllable sounds with new words, they also made connections between creating their own new words with creating new, more just realities. While Freire developed his approach to link together small group reflection with positive action for change and development within an adult literacy context, he and many others after him have taken this action-reflection critical thinking approach into many different arenas, including the sociotechnical realm. We first must move away from a banking model of education in which expert teachers deposit their knowledge into passive students. Instead we must enter into a problem-posing educational process that launches a dialectic approach to knowledge combined with abductive logic to facilitate a work of conscientization, that of perceiving in new ways the existing social reality and then working to bring about a new reality. Core to each unit of the book are action-reflection cycles in which we first learn the words and concepts underlying technologies, and the social contexts that have shaped and are shaped by these technologies. From here, works of action and reflection within learning communities are meant to help identify with aspects of the situations related to these sociotechnical artifacts. In so doing, the intent is to help each person feel themselves within the situations related to the unit in ways that help bring a new lens of understanding on the sociotechnical artifact and also the broader sociotechnical systems that make use of these types of technologies. In this way, the initial codifications of the words and concepts that have now been decodified can be recodified so as to understand in new ways the social organism around us and to advance the community fabric using the frameworks of community inquiry and collective leadership. xviii A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Information Search Process Community inquiry and Freirian action-reflection cycles employ varied, rich information seeking behaviors. Carol Kuhlthau has worked extensively to explore the daily lives of those applying information literacy to advance information seeking behaviors. Her resulting theory, the information search process, brings together the evolution of feelings, thoughts, and actions commonly experienced by those seeking information as a person passes through the six stages of the search process: 1. Task initiation is most often associated with feelings of uncertainty. 2. Topic selection, on the other hand, leads towards increased optimism. 3. Prefocus exploration leads back to feelings of confusion, frustration, and doubt. Combined, these first three stages are more closely aligned with ambiguous thoughts and general actions seeking relevant information. 4. Focus formulation begins to bring about greater clarity and increased interest. 5. Information collection deepens a sense of direction and confidence, with more specificity of thought, and actions seeking more pertinent information. 6. Presentation leads to feelings of satisfaction or disappointment through actions of documenting. Together, the information search process provides a helpful model of cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions of knowledge construction that apply equally to a wide range of information seeking activities and regardless of search venue, including those executed to advance our digital literacy and working within digital environments.4 By guiding inquiry through each of the six stages during information seeking within each of the three units, your community of practice will more effectively move away from simple unit information collection and compilation, thereby missing critical stages of learning. As such, the model may also serve as a helpful diagnostic tool, for instance regarding individual and community of practice focus formulation informing action-reflection community inquiry. Pair/Triplet Programming Pair programming is increasingly common in software development. Two programmers collaborate on design, coding, and testing, with qualitative evidence suggesting the subsequent design is better, resulting in simpler code that is easier to extend. Further, whether the pair programming occurs between two novice programmers, between a novice programmer and a more experienced programmer, or between two experienced programmers, people learn significantly more about the system and about software development as both participants bring in unique insights, as long as what is being done is not a repetitive task. Conversation between the programming pair can occur at many levels as the driver working at the keyboard takes charge of all changes made in the program and the navigator observes all the code that is entered, considers coding options, works to spot and address problems, considers and recommends simplifications, helps with programming style, and designs and verifies testing. 5 4. For more on the information search process and guided inquiry, see: Carol Kuhlthau, "Guided Inquiry: School Libraries in the 21st Century," School Libraries Worldwide 16, no. 1 (January 2009): 1728. http://wp.comminfo.rutgers.edu/ckuhlthau2/wp-content/uploads/sites/185/2016/02/GI-SchoolLibrarians-in-the-21-Century.pdf. Introduction to the Book xix Extensive testing of the hands-on activities throughout this book have indicated the substantial value of collaborative programming in small groups of two or three people. Further, while pair programming is specifically associated with computer programming environments, small group collaborations in which one drives the specific hands-on work and the other(s) navigates has also proved very useful in doing the electronics and networking exercises as well. Throughout, it is essential that participants switch roles regularly from driver to navigator and back. This technique is not about the expert doing while the novice observes. It is about collaboration that recognizes the unique expertise each brings to bear, including bringing in new sites when this is a persons first time doing something. The Toolkit In working through specific hands-on activities in this book, well make use of a range of electronic components, from individual components like light emitting diodes and switches, to complex circuit boards like the Circuit Playground Express microcontroller and the Raspberry Pi microcomputer. There are many variations of these components and the supporting electrical conductors and tools that may shape how you can/should work with various parts to achieve hands-on activities. While there are many sources from which you can purchase these, you may find it helpful to purchase them through Adafruit. That way, the specific details of the steps and diagrams of the activities will match the components on hand. (Last updated June 2020. This list will be updated on occasion to match revisions made to the technologies of the day.) We recommend the following items for your toolkit: The Raspberry Pi Starter Pack which includes: The Raspberry Pi 3 microcomputer, Pi 3 Case, Power Adapter, and 16 GB SD Card with Operating System. Breadboard, Cobbler, a 40-pin Ribbon Cable, and Jumper Wires to provide an electronics prototyping platform that can be connected to the Raspberry Pi. A USB to TTL Serial Cable, the old standby for debugging and logging into special purpose devices headless, that is, without a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, and that well use to connect the Raspberry Pi to a personal laptop. A package with basic electronic components, including Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs), Resistors, Potentiometer Variable Resistors, a Capacitor, and a Photo Cell. The Circuit Playground Express Pack (Individual Kit; Educators Pack), which includes: The Circuit Playground Express microcontroller and USB Power Cable. Small Alligator Clip Test Leads. Multicolor Pack of LED Sequin Integrated Circuits. Additional individual components, including: 5. For more on pair programming, see: Jeff Dalton, "Pair Programming," in Great Big Agile (Berkeley, CA: Apress, 2019) 199200. https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-1-4842-4206-3_42. Franz Zieris and Lutz Prechelt, "Does Pair Programming Pay Off?" In Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering, ed. Caitlin Sadowski and Thomas Zimmermann (Berkeley, CA: Apress, 2019), 25159. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4221-6_21. Eric Snow, Carol Tate, Daisy Rutstein, and Marie Bienkowski, "Assessment Design Patterns for Computational Thinking Practices in Exploring Computer Science," (Menlo Park, CA: SRI International) 2017. http://pact.sri.com/resources.html. xx A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology A pack of smaller, diffused white LEDs. A second 16 GB MicroSD card with Operating System. Small Alligator Clip to Male Jumper Wires. A second USB to TTL Serial Cable, which can be used to connect the Circuit Playground Express to the Raspberry Pi. NOTE: while this could be done directly using the TX/RX pins on the Raspberry Pis General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) connector and the Circuit Playground Express, new versions of the Raspberry Pi assign the primary TX/RX serial ports to console functions, something that well use to provide essential microcomputer access in earlier exercises. There are times when members of a community of practice have previously performed activities similar to the ones in this book, and so may want to take a deeper dive this time around by choosing their own topic-related adventure. In other cases, creative juices may begin to flow while doing an activity and an individual, pair, or team may want to do some remixing of the activity in creative ways. To that end, while not required for the primary activities within the book, here are a few electronics I find helpful at times: Additional small and medium male to male cables as helpful. Conductive nylon fabric tape: For extending the capacitive touch sensors of the Circuit Playground Express. This is needed if you choose to build a toolbox trumpet instead of playing the notes by simply touching the Circuit Playground Express touch sensors, and may also be used for the creation of wearable electronics. Transistors: Small electronic switches allowing control of electrical flow within a circuit without using programming code. Power blocking diodes: To provide reverse polarity protection from a power source and circuitry to avoid zapping sensitive electronics. Diffused RGB (tri-color) 10mm LED: These can be used to do creative color mixing using a single LED. About the Toolbox I grew up, literally, in the family sawmill. I dont remember far enough back to remember being carried into the mill by my mother, or my first ramblings through it as a toddler. But I remember that at age five I was paid 50 cents an hour by my parents to sweep up. And I remember that as an apprentice, wanting to do so much more but being instructed to just sweep and listen, I started discovering the music of the sawmill. The most alarming of sounds didnt cause a flinch in my parents, but a quiet change in pitch would send them around rapidly turning everything off. And I slowly learned the trade in ways that I cant, even now, tell you I know. Some are pretty straightforward, such as how to build a basic toolbox. But some, like how to fix an electronic circuit to keep a light or a power tool up and running, have just become second nature hidden knowledge thats hard to share with others. Introduction to the Book xxi Then, when I was 13, the logger who brought us the logs we used in the sawmill to build pallets for local businesses was severely injured. He ended up healing almost completely, but at the time he didnt think he would. And so he sold his logging equipment to us at a bargain. And my dad bought it because he figured I was now 13 and advanced enough as an apprentice to partner with him in cutting down and preparing trees for use in the sawmill. So I became a lumberjack as well. And as I was in junior high and was just learning how to write computer programs it was the mid-70s after all I tried adding in digital tools to measure the board feet of the logs. It was an early discovery of how the old standby analog tools can be so much better in the field than digital tools, sometimes, and an important introduction by my dad to the importance of focusing on people first. Truly, I learned much from that part of the trade beyond just doing the work. Our family was invited in to log amongst farms seeking to preserve the woods because my dad strove to carefully and selectively fell trees. And we started saving more and more of the premium lumber for use on projects around the house as gifts of the trees. The trees were more than just things to be bought and sold. They were more-than-human people, as Robin Wall Kimmerer shares in her book Braiding Sweetgrass. Even after death, trees gift to us so much if we take the time to discover it. And, as Kimmerer notes, I began to understand that we need to learn to remember to rememberto pick up what was left for us: the stories, the teachings, the songs, each other, our more-than-human relatives that were scattered along that path.6 Sometime in my late teens or early 20s, through many physical experiences and through spoken and written words, I increasingly discovered how the tulip poplar, or whitewood, has been a central resource for the creation of North America. Even before the landing of the first White Europeans, residents of this land used whitewood in support of their valued beings and doings. And this fastest growing and easiest working of the hardwoods gives itself willingly if we wisely choose which trees to cut down, and to cut it carefully and with respect. And as I learned more, I also discovered it was a more-than-human tree. To this day, when Im feeling low for some reason, I might discover that on a dime I begin feeling better. And if I look around, Ill discover close at hand a tulip poplar, silently singing its song of support to me. While this is my personal story, over the years Ive come to find similar stories told by people from different histories and cultures as well. In 1997 I began teaching the Library and Information Science course Introduction to Networked Information Systems. In 2000, a service-learning component was added in answer to a call by residents of East St. Louis, IL, to provide infill assistance building and upgrading computer labs in support of the community work addressing the digital divide in local neighborhoods. Throughout, at the start of each semester the following quote by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is referenced: We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 6. Robin Kimmerer, "Mapping a New Geography of Hope: Robin Wall Kimmerer Keynote," July 27, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=QhQKdJHLDcw&feature=youtu.be. xxii A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Ive continuously searched for ways to put into practice these words from Dr. King as part of all my teaching, research, and broader community engagement works. Over and over Ive joined into communities of practice going out to address the digital divide and advance digital inclusion and equity only to find that I have remained too thing-oriented. And so this book is being created as part of an ongoing search for better ways to become increasingly person-centered. For many communities of practice working through this book, you will use containers on hand to store your Raspberry Pi toolkits. Know that the diagrams, instructions, images and video featured in this book include a toolbox built from Tulip Poplar. All these activities can be done without the need for the toolbox, so feel encouraged to skip those steps even if you have in hand one of those Tulip Poplar toolboxes. However, whether in practice or in spirit, I hope that they serve you, as they serve me, as inspiration for this person-centered mindset by sharing counterstories of wisdom and knowledge they bring as one of the most noble of trees. Layout of the Book To help us advance our full range of skillssocial and technicalneeded to achieve our [craft]making works, each session in this book includes two thematically-linked chapters, one more social-oriented and one more technicaloriented, devoted to a particular set of activities and associated learning outcomes. The social chapter includes a lesson plan with essential works to be reviewed, along with question probes to be incorporated into a professional journal reflection response. The technical chapter includes a number of hands-on exercises and short quiz. Each of these thematically-linked chapters form one session. Sessions are brought together into several larger units: Orange Unit: This includes social chapters introducing the book, the underlying perspectives and mindsets, and broader skill sets underlying the framing of a person-centered guide to demystifying technology. The technical chapters introduce the electronics, circuits, and prototyping tools well use through the remainder of the book and beyond. Blue Unit: This includes social chapters exploring the histories of race, gender, and technology, the mutual shaping of sociotechnical information systems by innovators, innovators-in-use, and those in between including Adafruit Industries and the Raspberry Pi Foundation. The technical chapters move from individual electronic components to complex circuit boards such as the Raspberry Pi microcomputer and the Circuit Playground Express microcontroller, and explore how these can be used to bring together electronics and programming code so that individuals and communities of practice can shape digital tools in ways that better serve their valued beings and doings. Rainbow Unit: This includes social chapters exploring the broader history and design of the Internet, the guiding forces and principles that have shaped and reshaped it, and the new movements and design principles leading to counter-stories and person-centered products. The technical chapters explore and prototype ways to network together a range of circuit boards and operating systems to create a more structured networked information system addressing a design challenge. Introduction to the Book xxiii The grouping of thematically-linked chapters within specific units builds from two decades of participatory design in community and from community, and from the teaching of these concepts and practices in courses and workshops. However, the use of colors rather than numbers for the units, and the lack of chapter labels for each web page is in recognition of the value of flexibility in how these materials are covered in a specific context and moment in time. Lesson Plan Essential Resources: Wolske, Martin. Ethical Electronic Consumerism. Martin Wolskes Blog, August 15, 2013. https://martin.wolske.site/2013/08/15/ethicalelectronicconsumerism/. Kimmerer, Robin. Reclaiming the Honorable Harvest: Robin Kimmerer at TEDxSitka. YouTube, August 18, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/embed/Lz1vgfZ3etE. Saujani, Reshma. Teach Girls Bravery, Not Perfection. YouTube, March 28, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fC9da6eqaqg. Dweck, Carol. The Power of Believing That You Can Improve. YouTube, December 17, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X0mgOOSpLU. Professional Journal Reflections: 1. What social and technical contexts do you bring with you into the reading of the written, spoken, and visual texts shared in this book? Share a remembered story or two. 2. Why might Robin Wall Kimmerers talk be an essential resource for this chapter? How might it relate to the other texts in the chapter, and to the remainder of the book? 3. Where might you be in the development of a fail-forward and growth mindset? Why? 4. Where might others around you be in the development of a fail-forward and growth mindset? Why? Orange Unit: A Person-Centered Launch At a Demystifying Technology Workshop, elementary school parents sit in front of a desktop computer and practice pair programming along with School of Information Science student. Table of Contents Session Social Technical 1 Information Systems Introduction to Electronic Circuits 2 A Critical Social + Technical Perspective Electronic Components in Series 3 The Unknown Tech Innovators Computer Building Blocks 4 Launching Our Counterstories Meet the Microcomputer Getting Started with the Raspberry Pi Coding Electronics Orange Unit Review Orange Unit Overview We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his Beyond Vietnam speech at the Riverside Church in New York City in April of 1967. It was given against the advice of many of Kings closest advisors. They were concerned, with merit, that bringing together the civil rights, poverty, and peace movements would lose the support of some major donors, influential liberals, and many white supporters. King would not be dissuaded, as he saw all things interconnected. The structures in place were already appropriating the civil rights gains. The above quote ends a paragraph that began with Dr. King referencing a statement made by the late John F. Kennedy: Five years ago he said, Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Throughout this speech, Dr. King repeatedly emphasized our important need for a radical revolution of values. The primary objective of this textbook is to provide a deep, hands-on sociotechnical dive into technology including electronics, software, and networks, culminating in a holistic understanding of networked information systems. The textbook also explores the methodological landscape of networked information systems, exploring the theoretical assumptions, historical contexts, social structures, and research methods and techniques used by those known and unknown who influenced the design, making, gifting and/or marketing of technologies. Throughout, co-explorers will be introduced to, and make active use of skill sets, frameworks, and standards employed by a wide range of information professionals in selecting, co-designing, appropriating, and innovating-in-use networked information systems. But might we be at risk of approaching digital technology, literacy training, and programming through dominant paradigms that keep invisible the various ways our digital technology and media are controlled and mediated so as to privilege a few over the many? Is it possible, in our very efforts to bridge the digital divide and build 21st century digital literacy skills, that we are actually deconstructing civil society and civic engagement, and instead furthering magical thinking about technology, a belief in the supremacy of the technocrat, and the centrality of market forces? While these are questions well only introduce over the course of the book, the Orange Unit is our starting point for considering how our everyday works with technologies can serve as a means to rapidly shift from a thingoriented society to a person-centered society, as so importantly introduced by Dr. King in 1967. 1A: Information Systems Background Knowledge Probe What is the first thing that comes to mind when someone brings up the term information system in a conversation? What components, if any, do you consider to be part of that information system? What is an Information System? Information System: An integrated set of components for collecting, storing, and processing data and for providing information, knowledge, and digital products. Encyclopaedia Britannica As we work through the Orange Unit, well explore the basic parts of our everyday information systems. Over the millennia of human existence, strategies for collecting, processing, storing, and disseminating data, and uses of data to advance information, knowledge, and power have influenced the shaping of individuals, communities, societies, organizations, and governing bodies. For much of our history, humans have worked with mechanical devices to create information systems. Consider for instance Johannes Gutenbergs printing press or Herman Holleriths census calculator as but two examples of Euro-American inventions. But you can go back much further, to devices like the abacus, and even earlier still to find innovations of mechanical technologies from around the world that have facilitated advancement of the data to information to knowledge to power cycle. 33 34 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Rapid growth of the human population in the 20th century, combined with growing organizational and governance structures shaped via the industrial revolution and the impact of two major world wars, led to the rapid advancement of electronic computing systems. Key electronic systems were developed during World War II. After the war, new searches began for innovative uses of these systems and the components from which they were created. Business, academic, governmental, and other research institutions began a dedicated effort to consider what to do with the machineries of war, things like large tractors and poisonous gases. During World War I, there were posters proclaiming that Uncle Sam wants you to have two chickens per person. In World War II, Victory Gardens were seen as a civic duty to support the war effort. Entering the 1950s, the call was made by president after president, asking that we do our duty and buy from grocery stores in support of the modern farm that made use of those former war machineries to create innovative new agricultural systems. Take a moment to consider again what comes to mind when someone brings up the term information system in conversation in particular, in relation to these key transitions in information systems described above. What are the most beneficial outcomes that come to mind with the inventions of these information systems? What are the most problematic outcomes? Why do these come to mind? How do these come to mind? Mechanical and electronic information systems are tightly interrelated social and technical systems. The mutual shaping of social and technical components is highly complex and has seen, unseen, and unforeseen positive and negative impacts on individuals and the things that they value being and doing. We shape them and we are shaped by them. Others shape them and are shaped by them. And yet, too often we miss seeing inside the black box that we are an active part of, even if we dont know we are. And so we launch the Orange Unit by discovering the building blocks that make up basic electronic circuits. Its time to meet that often deeply hidden essential component of electronic systems face-to-face. We will use some instrumental approaches to apply deductive reasoning to discover relationships between individual components within an electronic circuit. We will begin to learn the key terms, concepts, and practices underlying the creation and use of these components to build electronic tools and larger systems. But at the same time, we start Session 1 also beginning to test out some practical approaches to knowledge by exploring the context and experiences of others lifeworlds through inquiry using inductive reasoning. And, on occasion we will also find ourselves using abductive reasoning, seeking creative leaps to reveal hidden forces and structures underlying the mutual shaping of the information systems around us. Lesson Plan Essential Resources: Urban, Ivette Bayo. We Are Our Stories: Is Technology Rewriting Our Values? YouTube, December 23, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7oN1zdS8HE.1 1. TED Talks are licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. 1A: Information Systems Bate, Alex. Electronics 101.1: Electricity Basics. Raspberry Pi, October 16, 2018. https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/electronics-101-1-electricity-basics/. Adafruit Industries. Collins Lab: Breadboards & Perfboards #Adafruit. YouTube, February 28, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0c3t0fJhXU. Professional Journal Reflections: 1. Ivette Bayo Urban notes that we are our stories. She also asks, is technology rewriting our values? After reading the text and context of the above essential resources, and before diving into the Introduction to Electronic Circuits chapter of Session 1, take some time to reflect on one or two of your own stories, and: Ways these stories have shaped your selection and use of your everyday electronics? Ways you have shaped these electronics, if any? 2. After learning more about the basics of electronics, revisit and reflect again on your own stories and the mutual shaping of you by these and your/others shaping of these. 3. What key takeaways did you discover through these essential resources and the hands-on exercises of Introduction to Electronic Circuits? 35 1B: Introduction to Electronic Circuits Background Knowledge Probe Write a list of the electronics that you make use of on a regular basis. Who comes to mind as the designers of these? What parts, inside and outside the hood, were used to build each one? To use it? What have you done with any items that started to work less than optimally? Technical Introduction We do more work with electronics in our daily lives than we might ever imagine. Many of our core tools for daily activities make use of electricity. The remote we use to change channels on the television uses diodes, transistors, capacitors, resistors, and other electronics. We replace batteries to keep these working, or we plug them in to recharge them. Or we choose alternative options, including software applications, commonly called apps, that we install on our mobile phones, thereby using shared electronic components on a single device, instead of the ones found over and over on each different handheld device. With the growth of DIY Do it Yourself we can follow relatively straightforward instructions to build our own replacement electronics, ofttimes expanding our own craft making ethos to this expanded toolmaker realm. This book kicks off with some basic activities in electronics. There are many good resources to get a detailed understanding of how electricity and electronics work. But for what were doing, only the most basic descriptions of the core components used will be needed for you to jump right in. You dont even really need to remember specific names and descriptions. You can always come back here to glance at names and descriptions later. But as should always be the case, feel encouraged to read strategically, not linearly. Do a general mining of this text to help you get started in the upcoming activities, then come back as needed to dig in a little deeper on this or that. As Miriam Sweeney suggests, instead of cruising along the 36 1B: Introduction to Electronic Circuits 37 narrative, you need to dive in, find the information you need, and move along.With that stated, lets move forward with definitions of key electronics used throughout the rest of this book. Example: A Single LED Circuit An electrical circuit is a path in which electrons flow from source to ground. The source is usually measured in voltage (the force, expressed in volts) or current (the flow, expressed in amps). A resistor (expressed in ohms) controls the flow of this source. When I water my garden from a rain barrel, a full barrel has more pressure than one that is almost empty. That full barrel is the equivalent of a higher voltage power source, for instance, one that is 240 volts. A barrel two-thirds of the way full may be more like a 120 volt power source, while a nearly empty rain barrel may be closer to a 5 volt power source. If I have a spray nozzle hooked up to my rain barrel, I can often use a lever to increase or decrease the waters flow. This is equivalent to the current of the power source. Some of my water hoses are 1/2 thick, while some are 3/ 4 thick. This is equivalent to bigger or smaller ohms of a resistor, respectively, since a thinner hose increases the resistance of the flow of water compared to the thicker hose. As a side note, in electrical engineering, Ohm's Law provides a basic equation I=V/R. This states that current (I) is equal to voltage (V) divided by resistance (R). And as all Trekkies know from their days with Jean-Luc Picard, resistance is not futile, its essential! Beyond this, dont worry if you are ready to put aside these particular details. Schematics are commonly used to draw out the path used by the electronic components to complete a circuit. As an example, the Fritzing image above is a schematic with three electronic components: a battery a resistor a light emitting diode (LED) The lines between are not electronic components, but rather are some form of conductive material like a metal wire that is used to carry the current from component to component. In the schematic, a positive current leaves the 9 volt battery and passes through a 560 ohm resistor before connecting to the positive charge of a 10mm white LED. From there, it passes through the negatively charged leg of the LED to the ground connection of the 9 volt battery, completing the circuit. Only when this circuit is fully and properly completed and the battery has sufficient charge to dispatch a current will the LED turn on. (Schematics and breadboard diagrams in this book were primarily created using the open source program Fritzing.)1 1. Fritzing breadboard graphics are licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0. 38 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Schematics dont tell us anything about how the circuit is actually built, and indeed the visuals for the different components needed are confusing artwork until their interpretation is provided. But with a little bit of practice, schematics become a unique conceptual information source. We can use design thinking and rapid prototyping to physically make the circuit using specific parts on hand or acquired to achieve something we value, even if its just good enough to help more than bother us. Often times, when you look for a plan or pattern to use electronics to perform a certain task, instead of a schematic, youll find a physical diagram of the parts as demonstrated in the Fritzing image shown above. This diagram is based on someones layout choices using available components to actually implement the circuit drawn in the Fritzing schematic at the start of this example. In the physical diagram, we see electrical components connected using a solderless breadboard, a plastic board with conductive clips under groupings of plastic holes, thereby allowing the passage of current between components. At the left of this particular diagram, a red wire brings the positive current of the battery to the lower red rail of the breadboard. Another red wire moves it from this rail to row J, column 59. Row H, column 59 then connects the current to one leg of a 470 ohm resistor, which carries that current, now under resistance, to row H, column 55. This brings the current to the positive charge of a 10mm white LED. Row E, column 55 is connected to the negatively charged leg of the LED, which then passes to row A, column 55 where it is connected to a black wire that carries the current to the upper blue rail on the breadboard. A black wire then brings the current to the ground connection of the 9 volt battery, completing the circuit. As you move forward, you may find yourself exploring and evaluating a variety of online guides, resources, and examples and comparing them to what is shown in the book. (Indeed, take a deep dive through the many examples found at Adafruit Learning System, from which we draw many for this book, for an extraordinarily wide range of electronic systems, along with supporting code.) Sometimes you may find schematics. But more often youll find diagrams illustrating how someone or a group have put the circuit into practice. Know that diagrams may be rigid as they tend to focus on a specific task in a specific configuration in a specific environment that suits a specific cohort, community, or culture. Schematics, on the other hand, are found in more professional settings and as such can be applied to a greater range of applications. These schematics, after doing research to define the components illustrated using specific visualizations, will also prove very helpful for problem solving or rapid prototyping for all innovators, regardless of experience. It may be helpful to think of schematics as standards used for many different applications, projects, and occupations. Schematic drawings are relevant for many users from electrical engineers to K-12 students. For example, circuits and schematics are part of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Energy Unit for elementary school students in grade 4.2 2. See Next Generation Science Standards' 4-PS3 Energy for more examples. 1B: Introduction to Electronic Circuits 39 Underneath the Hood of the Breadboard A solderless breadboard is a plastic board used to create models or prototypes of an electric circuit. Theyre solderless because you can easily push wires into the provided holes and later pull them out to move them into new configurations. They come in different shapes and sizes. The most commonly used full sized breadboard is 6 1/2 long and 2 1/8 wide. Below, youll note several different images of a full sized breadboard. In the first image, you see the typical working view of the breadboard. In the next image, we see the bottom side of a breadboard. The left half of the center image has the sticky covering revealed, while the right half has the protective covering installed. If the breadboard is moved around a table or desk, a protective covering remains on the underside of the breadboard (seen in the right half of the center breadboard). You can remove that covering to enable the breadboard to stick to a surface (seen in the left half of the center breadboard). 40 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology In the breadboard image below, we see the underside of a breadboard, but this time with the sticky tape fully removed. Breadboards typically come with rails along the edges, with conductive metal clips (two of which are shown at the very bottom of the image) installed so as to carry the flow of current along the extent of each rail. If you compare this image of the breadboard metal clips to the image of the top side of a breadboard, youll note theres a red colored rail and a blue colored rail on the upper part, and another red rail and blue rail on the lower part of the breadboard. The red rail is typically used to carry a positive source to a circuit or series of circuits, while the blue rail is typically used to carry the circuit or series of circuits to ground. The main part of the breadboard connects together groupings of five holes using 126 conductive metal clips. Thus, column 1, row A is connected to rows B, C, D, and E of column 1 with one metal clip. Column 1, rows F, G, H, I, and J are interconnected with a second metal clip. Column 1, rows A, B, C, D, and E do NOT connect with column 1, rows F, G, H, I, and J by default. They will only interconnect if a wire or electronic component is plugged into one of the left holes of column 1 and also to one of the right holes of column 1, and is set to pass a current from one connection to the other. Building Our First LED Circuit Using the Raspberry Pi Electronics Toolkit In the previous example, a circuit was created using a 9V battery, as shown in both a schematic and a diagram. Throughout the rest of this book, we will typically not use a battery to power our electronics. Instead, we will use a small, single-board microcomputer called the Raspberry Pi as a power source. The Raspberry Pi actively used around the world both for initial design and ongoing application of networked information systems for use in the field. It connects to 120V (United States) or 240V (many other nations) electrical power from a wall outlet or other alternating current (AC) power source using the kits Micro USB cable. The Raspberry Pi converts this voltage into 5V and 3.3V power supplies that can be accessed using the General Purpose Input Output (GPIO) pins of a Raspberry Pi. These pins provide a hardware link between the Raspberry Pi computer and electronics from the outside world. 1B: Introduction to Electronic Circuits 41 The Raspberry Pi GPIO pins have odd numbers on the left and even numbers on the right, and include in part the following: 1 and 17 are 3.3 volt power; 2 and 4 are 5 volt power; 6, 20, 25, 30, 34, and 39 are ground; 8 is the transmit pin of the Universal Asynchronous Transmit and Receive , or UART, port; 10 is the UART port receive pin. For our prototyping activities, well use a 40-pin ribbon cable to extend the GPIO pins to our breadboard by way of an Adafruit Industries assembled Pi Cobbler breakout printed circuit board. This brings together the Raspberry Pis GPIO pins and the solderless breadboard, along with a label for each pin, using a single ribbon cable rather than 40 individual wires, to make cobbling together prototypes easier. 42 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Exercise: Building and Testing an Electronics Prototyping Platform The image above provides a diagram of the basic configuration of the Raspberry Pi, GPIO ribbon cable, Cobbler, and breadboard. It also includes a diagram of a basic circuit in which 5 volts of current pass through an electronic component called a resistor, then through an electronic component called an LED, before returning to ground, thereby completing the circuit. In the above diagram, it is important to note that there are only four electronic components illustrated: An unidentified larger black square integrated circuit microprocessor on the Raspberry Pi An unidentified smaller black square integrated circuit microprocessor on the Raspberry Pi A 560 resistor A three millimeter (3mm) white LED on the breadboard This can also be used using two different schematics: First, a schematic illustrating the conceptual layout of how the electronic components and power/ground sources on the Raspberry Pi connect to the Cobbler. Second, a schematic demonstrating a conceptual layout of how, using the Cobbler, a 5V (volt) power 1B: Introduction to Electronic Circuits 43 source can be connected to a 560 (ohm) resistor electronic component, then to the positive, anode, leg of a Light Emitting Diode (LED), then from the negative, cathode, leg of the LED to a ground source to complete the circuit, thereby creating a white light source. Before moving on to the steps listed below, watch these video demonstrations for the hands-on process and description of parts. Steps Follow these steps to complete this exercise. You are highly encouraged to do this with one or two other people who are simultaneously working on their own toolkits. Other than the first step in which you are watching the video (see once, do once style), one person should do the work hands-on while the other(s) observe, work to identify yet/not yet moments, and do explorations to help facilitate failing forward. After the first person reaches a certain point as agreed upon by the collaborative, then the other(s) will work through those same steps with support from the first person. In this way, pair programming is implemented. 44 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology For a full video walk through of these steps, please visit the online version of this chapter. To see a demonstration of each step, follow the links below. 1. Take out the needed parts from your toolbox. 2. Connect the Cobbler to the breadboard, row D and H of column 63 to column 44. 3. Connect the 40 pin conductive wire ribbon cable to the Cobbler, with the white wire connecting to the 3V3 pin, pin #1, on the Cobbler. 4. Remove the clear cover of the Raspberry Pi case. 5. Connect the other end of the 40 pin ribbon cable to the GPIO of the Raspberry Pi, with the white wire facing the shorter side at which the 3V3 pin #1 is placed. 6. Connect a red male to male wire to the 5V pin attached to column 63. The red wire can be connected to either row A or B. Connect the other end to the nearby red rail. 7. Connect a black male to male wire to the ground pin attached to column 61. The black wire can be connected to either row A or B. Connect the other end to the nearby blue rail. 8. Connect an orange male to male wire to the 3V3 pin attached to column 63. The orange wire should be connected to row J. Connect the other end to the nearby red male. 9. Connect a black male to male wire to the ground pin attached to column 59. The orange wire should be connected to row J. Connect the other end to the nearby blue rail. 10. Replace the clear cover to the top of the Raspberry Pi case. 11. Bend the longer anode leg of the LED so that it is even with the shorter cathode leg. 12. Connect the longer anode leg of the LED to column 37, row B, and the shorter cathode leg of the LED to column 36, row B. 13. Take a blue male to male wire jumper wire. Connect one end to column 36, row A. Connect the other end to the blue ground rail. 14. Tightly bend down the two legs of a 560 resistor. The resistor should have green, then blue, then brown bands, and be followed by a gold tolerance band. Connect one leg of the 560 resistor to the 5V red rail, and the other end to column 37, row A. 15. Insert the Micro USB power cable to the Raspberry Pi. Insert the 120 volt or 240 volt side of the power cable to a proper source such as a wall outlet or extension cord. 16. Confirm that the LED is properly lit. Use the troubleshooting guide in the next section to consider further steps. Key Takeaways In this exercise, weve entered into a first apprenticeship crafting a rapid prototyping platforming, using a Raspberry Pi microcomputer as a source for power and ground, and using a breadboard as the physical prototyping base tool. To do this, we brought together a number of conductor wires, like the male to male jumper wires and the 40-pin ribbon cable made of individual wires. In order to test this platform, we brought together two electronic components, a resistor and an LED, to provide some literal light on the platform. 1B: Introduction to Electronic Circuits 45 In addition to these technical skills, we sought to bring in several socio-emotional skills development, including the ability to communicate and collaborate with others using a see once, do once, teach once strategy using pair/triplet programming, and potentially began exploring how failure serves as an essential step in project development, that is, a fail forward mindset. There are many ways to design and build electronic artifacts. This can be done as individuals working to serve personal interests. This can be done as individuals working as experts to serve others broadly considered. This can be done as individuals working as experts to serve others more strategically. It can be done in groups randomly or strategically partnered to serve inwards or to serve outwards. It can be done as a community of practice in ways that include the contributions of a range of stakeholders. And it can be done in so many other ways as well. How did you work to do this first hands-on exercise of the book with electronics? How did I and others work to develop this exercise? How did it influence your work with electronics? Who else influenced your work? What makes an LED and a resistor electronic components? What makes wires, the Cobbler, and the breadboard conductors parts which support electronic components? Troubleshooting Essentials Design thinking leads us from inspiration to ideation to iteration and back. Iterations are typically done through picture drawings, models, and with electric prototypes, often through the use of breadboards. Failure is common, and generally remains the norm, from iteration to iteration for an extended period. To positively fail forward, our iterations are an opportunity for us to discover how our inspirations and ideations arent aligning with our past and current iteration prototype. Said another way, iterations help us see how one part, much, or all of our design ideation is falling short of good enough. This helps inspire better ideations and sometimes even new inspirations, ultimately leading to better iterations at least for us within the given testing context. Let me say this again: Trying and failing is not optional. It is the norm. The general alternative to failing forward is failing to improve. Accepting failure as a normal, active, ongoing part of what we do leads us to failing forward in ways that facilitate growth and betterment of ourselves, and when done across functional diversities and community cultural wealth, the betterment of others as well. In so doing, we foster a high performing community of practice. So lets assume the LED did not light up in the last exercise, or that it burned up in the last exercise, or that it wont light up in the next exercise. Why not? What happened? 46 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Humans and other more-than-human persons around us have a rich range of analog senses, such as sight, hearing, feeling, and smelling. These are a wonderful resource in the troubleshooting process. These analog senses provide a continuously variable physical quantity, such as the visible wavelengths of light. This stands in contrast to the digits 0 and 1 that typically represent the values of a physical quality provided by digital measurements. Bringing our observations through those analog, continuously variable, senses into a process of critical thinking helps us create a plan for testing out a range of possibilities. Enacting that plan one step at a time helps us to continue the cycle of observation, thinking, planning, and acting. This is the heart and soul of inquiry-based learning as we collaborate in pairs and small groups through dialogue. Throughout the remainder of the exercises in this book, and as you work through your own design activities putting your learning into practice, be sure to make extensive, preferably documented, use of these troubleshooting basics. Its tempting to try it a few times and move on because troubleshooting the current exercises begins to become second nature. These experiences serve as a learning opportunity, but at the risk of having the learning become hidden knowledge that fails to fully help you as you encounter future problems. Indeed, this is a reason why this book has been written using the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. We hope you will add in annotations, page notes, and remixes for yourself and others to use as sources for their own design thinking projects. We hope the resulting inspirations, ideations, iterations, and failures support an advancing betterment of ourselves, those in our community of practice, and those we are serving through our creative works. 1B: Introduction to Electronic Circuits 47 Do Something New! For some, this is your first journey into electronic circuits. Youre Doing Something New through troubleshooting electronic circuits and failing forward! For others, you may already have a lived experience with electronic circuits. This is not something new to you. But if youre at all like me, some of this work has become rote, and the underlying terms, concepts, and principles hidden knowledge. For you, Doing Something New may be a work of re-remembering the codes to the electronic wheelhouse. And moving beyond, maybe its discovering some of the social influences that have shaped the non-neutral aspects of the otherwise strict laws of physics within. For all, its likely at least some aspects of Collective Leadership, Community Inquiry, ActionReflection, the Information Search Process, and Pair/Triplet Programming are new to you. Do Something New by incorporating one or two of these into your work this and every session individually and as part of your Community of Practice work. Exercise: Two LED Circuits Using Different Ohm Resistors In the last exercise, we used a 560 resistor within our LED circuit. By providing a little resistance to the passage of an electric current, we help to stay within the optimum upper and lower current flow boundaries of a designated LED. While some LEDs have greater tolerances to non-optimal current passing through, others have less. And most electric power sources have some increases and decreases of current within a given voltage depending on conditions in the moment. Resistors are an important means of balancing this out. For most of our work, a 560 resistor will be just fine. But for a later integrated circuit, well use a 10,000 (typically specified as 10k ) resistor. Lets see how a 3mm diffused white LED with a 560 resistor compares to one with a 10k resistor conceptually. 48 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Each of the two LED circuits are designed as standalone circuits working in parallel. That is, if the metal wire from the 5V power source to the 560 resistor were to somehow be cut, power would still flow over to the 10k resistor LED ground circuit were about to build. Or vice versa if the wire to the 10k resistor were cut and the 560 resistor wire remained intact the 560 resistor LED ground circuit would remain live. NOTE: Feel free to keep the Raspberry Pi plugged into the Raspberry Pi power supply. Also feel free to keep the first 3mm LED circuit live and the LED lit. Before moving on to the steps, you are encouraged to do a see once viewing of the video in full. Steps You are again highly encouraged to do this with one or two other people as a pair/triplet programming exercise in which one is doing the hands-on while the other is reading through instructions, reviewing the work, and looking for additional resources in support of a fail-forward, growth mindset collaboration. 1. Bend the longer anode leg of a second 3mm white LED to even out the length of the bottom side of the leg while also being able to identify this leg for the shorter cathode leg. 2. Connect the longer anode leg of the LED to column 28, row B, and the shorter cathode leg of the LED to column 27, row B. 3. Take a blue male to male wire. Connect one end to column 27, row A. This is the column associated with the cathode leg of the LED. Connect the other end to the blue ground rail. 4. Find and tightly bend down the two legs of a 10K resistor (it should be colored brown, black, and orange, followed by a gold tolerance band). 5. Finally, connect one leg of the 10K resistor to the 5V red rail, and the other end to column 28, row A. 6. You should now see the LED turn bright, but it will be at a different brightness as compared to the one with the 560 resistor. Lets explore what we found, and some possible reasons why: 1B: Introduction to Electronic Circuits 49 Key Takeaways For this activity, a choice was made to locate the two LEDs 9 columns apart, but connected into the same rows. The same 5 volt power source was used running across the full of the upper red rail. The key difference was that the flow of current was changed by using two different Ohm resistors. Is the light coming from the two different LEDs the same, or different? If the same, why? If different, why? What are some reasons you can think of that we decided to position the LEDs, resistors, and wires in the way we did to setup your execution of this activity? What are some ways we might have done it differently, and in so doing may have created a better way for you to complete this activity? Exercise: Comparing Differences in Resistance and Voltage Weve compared the brightness of LEDs using a 560 resistor and a 10k resistor. Now lets test out the difference between a circuit using a 3.3 volt power source and a 560 resistor and a circuit with our usual 5 volt power source. Steps As shown in the conceptual schematic above, there will now be three standalone parallel circuits. Using the diagram below, implement the circuit shown in the schematic by adding a third white 3mm LED to row H, columns 18 (anode leg) and 19 (cathode leg). Connect a 560 resistor to column 18, row I, and to the 3V3 red power rail. And finally, connect a 6 male to male wire to column 19, row I, and to the lower blue ground rail. 50 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Key Takeaways For this activity, a choice was made to locate the two LEDs 9 columns apart, but connected into the same rows. The same 5 volt power source was used running across the full of the upper red rail. The key difference was that the flow of current was changed by using two different Ohm resistors. How is the brightness of this third LED different from the first two LEDs? What causes this difference, if any? What could you change to make the brightness of this LED the same as the first without relocating it on the breadboard? The second LED? Wrap Up This is just a first glimpse at electronic circuits and some ways we can work hands-on in design and prototyping of new circuits. Theres much more to come as we proceed through the Orange Unit and beyond. For now, take a few minutes to do a quick comprehension check on some of the key circuit terms and concepts weve used so far. 1B: Introduction to Electronic Circuits Comprehension Check 51 2A: Critical Social + Technical Perspective Background Knowledge Probe In what ways have you been shaped by technology? When, where, how, and why? In what ways have you helped to shape technology? When, where, how, and why? In what ways have the people closest to you been shaped, positively and negatively, by this shaping of technology? When, where, how, and why? Digital Technology = Social + Technical Theres a growing realization that our digital technologies are actually a seamless, indivisible combination of artifacts, people, organizations, policies, economics, histories, cultures, and knowledge that they are sociotechnical products. And over the last several decades, this has gone further to acknowledge a mutual shaping of gender and technology.1 As a result, the reliable, anticipatable relationship between user input and system output is complicated by the continuous evolution of experience, knowledge, history, culture, economics, and policies of users and society. The social characteristics cannot be readily planned for or controlled, especially as sociotechnical products are continuously co-created by everyday users to fit the ever-changing contexts and knowledge of users and their communities.2 As such, a reductionist and positivist approach and associated deductive reasoning common in much of basic research must be complemented by, and live in continuous tension with, an interpretive approach and associated inductive reasoning of the social scientists, and even more importantly, with the community cultural wealth, expertise, and knowledges of community members. 1. Judy Wajcman, "Feminist Theories of Technology," Cambridge Journal of Economics 34, no. 1 (January 1, 2010): 14352. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/ ben057. 2. Bertram Bruce, Andee Rubin, and Junghyun An, "Situated Evaluation of Socio-Technical Systems," in Handbook of Research on Socio-Technical Design and Social Networking Systems, eds. Brian Whitworth and Aldo de Moor, Information Science Reference (Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2009), 2:68598. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60566-264-0. 52 2A: Critical Social + Technical Perspective 53 Innovations-in-Use [A]n innovation is not an object that can be packed inside a box, but rather a set of practices that emerges from the social setting of its use. Thus, in a sense, the user does not accept or reject an innovation but instead creates it through action in the world. Bertram Bruce, Andee Rubin, and Junghyun An, Situated Evaluation of Socio-Technical Systems In his thought-provoking 2015 book, Geek Heresy, Kentaro Toyama notes that technology does not itself have agency to transform us and the world around us. Rather, humans use technology to amplify our individual and group forces to transform our world. This is primarily framed from the perspective of the everyday user. However, if we bring criticality together with an interpretive sociotechnical perspective, we also need to reflect on the human forces amplified at each level of a products life cycle.3 We need to ask: How are the forces of engineers, computer scientists, and garage inventors; of the president, CEO, board, and shareholders of corporations; of the marketers and salespeople; of government legislators and administrators; of educators and social service agencies; of individuals and groups as co-creators; and of the many others in the product life cycle, amplified in ways that are consistent with and counter to the values and goals of those using the sociotechnical product at each stage of the artifacts life cycle? Each stakeholder, from the everyday user/co-creator to the government and corporate official, brings their unique history, intersectionality, expertise, etc., to bear, amplifying the influencing social and technical structures of the digital technologies around us. The personal and social aspects thereby shape the code, software, and information as well as the physical electronics on which the code, software, and information reside. At the same time, the code, software, information, and physical structure shape the individuals and social structures making use of those technologies. Given this amplification and mutual shaping of the sociotechnical artifacts and the overarching systems, what literacies are required for us to move from passive consumers to active innovators-in-use of digital technologies? 3. Gerhard Fischer and Thomas Herrmann, "Socio-Technical Systems: A Meta-Design Perspective," International Journal for Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development 3, no. 1 (2011): 133. Colin Rhinesmith and Martin Wolske, "Community Informatics Studio: A Conceptual Framework," in CIRN Community Informatics Conference: "Challenges and Solutions," Prato, Italy: Centre for Community and Social Informatics, Faculty of IT, Monash University, 2014. https://shareok.org/ handle/11244/13631. 54 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Community Inquiry as the Basis for Digital Literacy Radically Reconsidered Literacy is a set of competencies and knowledge within a certain domain. Digital literacy, then, is literacy within the realm of digital information and communication technologies. Summarizing a variety of definitions regarding digital literacy and related computational thinking, this set of competencies includes: Technical skills: The ability to appropriately select and effectively use a range of technologies. Information skills: The ability to seek, evaluate, interpret, and apply relevant and trustworthy information across multiple media. Cognitive skills: The ability to logically analyze and organize problems in ways that allow use of digital and other tools to help solve them and to generalize new processes to other problems. 2A: Critical Social + Technical Perspective 55 Socio-emotional skills: The ability to communicate and collaborate with others, along with the personal confidence, persistence, and tolerance needed to tackle complex, ambiguous, and open-ended problems. Application skills: The ability to integrate the above skills into our everyday experiences in order to advance our professional, personal, and civic interests and responsibilities. If we are to assure active participation in civic society and meaningful, diverse and inclusive contributions to vibrant, informed, and engaged community, it is essential to add the social justice-oriented progressive community [inter]action and critical social + technical skills to these other five points. The critical social + technical skills are brought forward as part of person- and community-centered deliberative dialogue processes using critical research paradigms, pedagogies, and abductive reasoning in combination with each of the five commonly considered digital literacy skills listed above. Progressive community [inter]action skills are simultaneously used in combination with the starting five digital literacy skills by advancing our ability to work together in communities of inquiry that make continued use of collective leadership, functional diversity, members capability sets and freedom of choice to better achieve valued beings and doings, community cultural wealth, and care work and ethics. Whether as part of preprofessional and professional development of library and information management workers, or as part of programming offered by these professionals, a radical reconsideration of digital literacy is essential if we are to effectively use sociotechnical products to amplify human forces which advance human and community development. This social-forward approach to digital literacy training doesnt negate learning about the nuts and bolts of the hardware and software. It instead works to advance our critical social + technical skills so as to situate such learning within the individual and group goals and values. A Person-Centered Approach to Digital Literacy Strategies Meet with stakeholders to understand what creative works participants would like to do and what digital technologies might be needed to do them. Incorporate digital literacy training as infill into projects as needed. Include exercises exploring all dimensions of socio-technical artifacts. Intersperse discussion and critical reflection with hands-on activities to bring to the fore participants human and social expertise to complement hardware and software skills development. Goals Achieve the creative works as determined by participants during stakeholder meetings. Advance participants capability set (the increased existence, sense, exercise, and achievement of choice). 56 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Increase participants ability to select and appropriate strategies/technologies that align with their values and goals. Counter the dehumanizing impacts of digital technologies. Work towards the essential outcome of more resilient, inclusive, and just communities. Values Technology is shaped by and shapes society. From this starting point, we posit that: The social, cultural, historical, economic, and political values and practices of stakeholders at each point in an artifacts life cycle tend to become embedded within that artifact. There are exclusionary social structures, some of which we actively even if unintentionally reinforce through our choices and actions regarding technology creation and use. Digital literacy without a critical and sociotechnical perspective is at risk of fostering magical thinking and technological utopianism. A liberative approach to technology requires lived and academic expertise within multiple domains, including hardware, software, human, community, social, cultural, historical, political, and economic. Key Takeaways Those of us with technical expertise may enter into an engagement as digital literacy instructors, but we also need to be willing learners if we are to understand the exclusionary social structures embedded within sociotechnical artifacts and thereby champion justice. The digitally excluded and participants from the margins of society may enter into digital literacy training as learners, but also bring essential sociotechnical expertise and teaching to communities of inquiry. Difference is not just a nicety, but an essential resource in building more resilient, inclusive, and just communities. Advancing digital inclusion, equity, and literacy often presents unique information needs and potentially burdensome financial, human, and infrastructure challenges. Partnerships among stakeholders, including those from the information sciences and information management, often serve at the front lines to mitigate these challenges. But how do we best help organizations build the capacity to meet the information needs of communities? In what ways can we develop 21st century skills to foster individual, social, and economic development? How can we integrate standards and frameworks such as collective leadership, community inquiry, action-reflection cycles, information seeking, studio-based learning and design thinking, collaborative programming and computational thinking, and creativity, play, and tinkering into the partnership process? 2A: Critical Social + Technical Perspective Lesson Plan While the focus of the technical chapter, Electronic Components in Series, is on how we can reuse the LEDs and resistors in combination with momentary switch push buttons, it is important for us to also continually reflect on the social aspects of these sociotechnical artifacts. Our educational and professional systems are built so as to often separate these two aspects. How can we work together in this session and in each of the following sessions to identify ways in which mutual shaping and amplification of sociotechnical artifacts has happened or is happening with this moment? How are we working to further the gendering of the artifacts? How are we working to problematize these artifacts so as to advance a more person-centered approach? Essential Resources: Toyama, Kentaro. TEDxTokyo Kentaro Toyama. YouTube, May 10, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxutDM2r534.4 Oxford Internet Institute. OII Awards 2018: In Conversation with Judy Wajcman. YouTube, November 26, 2019. https://youtu.be/pf7-93ioYsE. Bruce, Bertram C., Andee Rubin, and Junghyun An. Situated Evaluation of Socio-Technical Systems. In Handbook of Research on Socio-Technical Design and Social Networking Systems, edited by Brian Whitworth and Aldo de Moor, 2: 68598. Information Science Reference. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/9710. UIL UNESCO. Learning Cities and Education for Sustainable Development. YouTube, December 11, 2018. https://youtu.be/gPUK1VifD_U. Additional Resources: Wajcman, J. Feminist Theories of Technology. Cambridge Journal of Economics 34, no. 1 (January 1, 2010): 14352. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/ben057. Professional Journal Reflections: 1. How would you have described the terms digital technology, digital literacy, and digital innovation prior to reading this chapter and related resources? What are some of the contexts leading you to these initial descriptions? 2. What are some of the different descriptions of the terms that come forward through the reading of this chapter and related essential resources? What are some of the contexts shaping the 4. TED Talks are licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. 57 58 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology authors of these descriptions, and the contexts shaping your understanding of their descriptions? 3. What are some of the different ways youve learned about networks, information systems, and digital technologies as part of your lived history? How has that influenced your sharing of knowledge and best practices with others? How might we work together throughout this book to teach and learn together about systems in ways that foster sustainable development? 4. From your lived experiences and reading of text and context coming into the reading of the book and in your works so far through the book, in what ways have deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, and/or abductive reasoning played a role in shaping the creation and marketing of electronic technology around you? Your selection, use, and innovation-in-use of that technology? 2B: Electronic Components in Series Background Knowledge Probe Last session, we began to build our first electronic circuits. Along the way, we used videos, diagrams, and schematics to inform and guide our work. How does this build on your everyday works in the communities of which you are a part? How does it contrast with your everyday works? How did you work with others on last sessions exercises, whether in person or remotely, synchronously or asynchronously, to achieve the immediate goal of physical making and the more general learning outcomes of the exercise and chapter? Going into this sessions exercises, what might you do similarly? What might you do differently so as to better achieve immediate goals and general learning outcomes? In Introduction to Electronics, we created three circuits, each with a resistor electronic component and a LED (Light Emitting Diode) electronic component. Each of these two-component circuits ran in parallel to the others.In this chapter, we will reuse the LEDs and resistors while adding momentary switch push buttons and more LEDs. Exercise: A Momentary Switch in Series with LEDs and Resistor First, well restructure the circuit of the three LED components in such a way that they run in series with a single resistor. Next, we will add a momentary switch push button electronic component. It is called a switch because it changes the flow of current depending on the state of the switch. It is called momentary because this change in state only occurs while a physical action is happening in this case, the pressing of the button. 59 60 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Before going through the steps, try watching this video. Steps You are highly encouraged to do this with one or two other people who are simultaneously working on their own toolkits. One person should do the work hands-on while the other(s) observe, work to identify yet/not yet moments, and do explorations to help facilitate failing forward. After the first person reaches a certain point as agreed upon by the collaborative, then the other(s) will work through those same steps with support from the first person. In this way, pair programming will be implemented. For a full video walk through of these steps, please visit the online version of this chapter. To see a demonstration of each step, follow the links below. 1. Remove the three resistors previously used with the LEDs from the breadboard. Leave the LEDs and jumper wires connected to the breadboard as is. 2. Add in three new 6 inch jumper wires as specified in the diagram. 3. Add back in one of the 560 resistors into the location specified in the diagram. 4. Optionally, use pliers to straighten the four legs on a momentary switch. 5. Carefully insert the momentary switch into your breadboard in the specified pins from the diagram. 6. Use Yet/Not Yet troubleshooting to determine if: a. The LED in columns 27 and 28, row H comes on after connecting the switch to the breadboard. b. The LED in columns 27 and 28, and the LED in columns 36 and 37, both in row B, come on after the push button is pressed down. 2B: Electronic Components in Series 61 If Not Yet for either check, proceed to fail forward using our troubleshooting strategies. Key Takeaways The flow of an electric current through a circuit occurs in a predictable and controllable fashion and deductive reasoning serves exceptionally well in the exploration of these. As we saw in this exercise, no matter the physical change we make with the momentary switch push button, current always passes through the resistor and one leg of the momentary switch. Current then continues on to the lower LED on the breadboard before arriving at ground. The current will continue to flow through the circuit, as long as: The electrical components remain physically connected to the jumper wires and the metal conductors within the breadboard with sufficient magnitude. The five volts of power and ground remain connected to appropriate sources. 62 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology We also saw that when the push button is sufficiently pressed, current also flows to the other two legs of the switch. This incorporates the other two LEDs in series with the circuit. We also compared the view of a circuit using schematics and diagrams, each seated next to the physical, constructed prototype. As we seek to demystify technology, well continue to see how multiple points of view help to fill in gaps in our understanding of what is actually happening beneath the hood, and how we might implement it in our own works to shape its impact in our daily lives. Weve already discovered that if you increase the size of the resistor from 560 to 10,000 , the brightness of our 3mm white LED is reduced considerably. Indeed, the increased resistance dims the LED more than a reduction in the voltage of our electrical source from 5 volts to 3.3 volts. When working with electrical conductors, there is a proportional relationship between three measurements influencing the passage of an electrical charge: Electromotive force, listed in volts (e.g., 5V, 3.3V) Electrical resistance, listed in ohms (e.g., 560 ohms, 10K ohms) Electrical current, listed as amperes, or amps Recall earlier, we tested the influence of different voltages and different ohms on the brightness of an LED. As we increase voltage, we also increase brightness. On the other hand, as we increase the ohms of resistance, we decrease brightness. This is because voltage increases current, while resistance decreases current. And it is current that is used by an LED to make light. More current, more light. A fourth measurement, watts, is a comprehensive measurement of power as influenced by the above three measurements. You may recognize the term watts in relation to lighting, as in a 60 watt incandescent light bulb. An equivalent LED light bulb, in brightness, would use about 8.5 watts of power. Our little white LEDs use closer to 75 milliwatts (mW) of power. Like lights everywhere, they dissipate power in a predictable physical manner, such that at a certain point increasing the number of LEDs within a defined circuit decreases the brightness of those LEDs. It is for this reason that we see the dimming of all three LEDs when the momentary switch is pressed and current passes through to all three LEDs simultaneously. As more components are added within an electrical circuit, the flow of current remains the same, to the extent that it is a closed loop between current and ground. Components work in series to direct, redirect, and influence the force and resistance of the current passing through this loop in a range of ways. Exercise: From Circuits in Series to Circuits in Parallel with a Momentary Switch In the last exercise, we created a circuit in which three LEDs ran in series. That is, the 5 volts passed through the single resistor, decreasing the current, and then passed through the momentary switch to one or to all three LEDs, depending on the state of the push button. 2B: Electronic Components in Series 63 Lets create two new circuits, each running in parallel to the first. This time, rather than watching a video demonstration first, try doing this as a pair or group of three using the Fritzing diagram as a starting point.1 Steps 1. Review the breadboard diagram below to identify the columns of the breadboard used in testing. 2. For fun, lets try out two 10mm blue LEDs that came with the kit. For one, well bring 5 volts to a 560 resistor to the anode of the LED. Well connect the cathode of the LED to ground. 3. For the other, though, well connect one pair of legs of the switch to 5 volts, and the other pair of legs to ground. In this way, pressing down on the push button will switch the 5 volts directly to ground, completing the circuit. Well also connect the 5 volt legs of the switch to the anode leg of the other 10mm blue LED. Well connect the cathode leg of that blue LED to ground as well. 4. With the above completed, compare the impacts on the LEDs of pressing the button on the two different circuits that incorporate switches. 5. Further, compare how the pressing of the two switches impacts the brightness of the LED in a standalone circuit. Key Takeaways From the Raspberry Pi, 50 milliamps (mA) of current flow from the voltage pins of the General Purpose Input Output (GPIO), which we have connected to the red rail on the breadboard using a jumper wire. In this way, we can connect each circuit to the red rail, thereby passing that 50 mA to the rest of each circuit. If there is only one LED within the circuit, it has access to the total power passing through that circuit. On the other hand, when there are three LEDs in series on that circuit, each draws some of the power from that circuit. Take a moment to review the schematic below to compare how each of the three circuits establishes a complete and closed path in which current can flow. Compare this to the diagram showing the conductors and components used to form this complete and closed path. 1. Fritzing breadboard graphics are licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0. 64 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology How did this exercise compare to past exercises in which you were encouraged to watch a video demonstration first and then proceed forward in programming pairs? How might you have designed the setup of these circuits on the breadboard to better achieve that which you value doing? Why? In what ways are you reconfiguring the layout of the circuit schematic on the breadboard? In what ways are you designing a new circuit? More on Transistors Starting in the 1960s, a new term was heard in relation to radios, calculators, and televisions. I remember the commercial that inspired our family to get its first transistor radio. I also remember going to the Five and Dime or drug store to purchase a vacuum tube until we finally got that transistor television. Transistors replace those tubes by providing a semiconductor device having at least three legs: a source current terminal; a drain current terminal; and a gate terminal, which controls the output current. If the transistor gate is used to facilitate changes up and down in the voltage of the output, the transistor serves as an amplifier, something that can be used to control the volume of the transistor radio, for instance. As another example, consider the value of a transistor amplifier as LED dimmer! If the gate is used to control the on/off state of the circuit, the transistor serves as a switch. While our momentary switch circuits above required a physical act, the pushing of a button, a transistor switch uses an electrical input to determine the state of the circuit. Sometimes transistors do make use of some form of physical on/off switch or a momentary switch like the ones weve been using. At other times, the gate could use a microcontroller or microcomputer program to provide a digital on/off signal or analog low to high voltage signal. 2B: Electronic Components in Series 65 A transistor switch is more straightforward and therefore a better demonstration for our purposes. Heres an example of a 5V 560 resistor 10mm green LED N-type, or NPN, transistor circuit, in which a 3.3V momentary switch is used to temporarily pass the current through the transistor to ground. If you glance at the schematic, theres an arrow symbol at the drain terminal (also sometimes called the emitter) of the transistor. The N-type transistor is off unless the gate (also sometimes called the base) receives a small current, thereby completing, that is, closing the currently open circuit by passing ground to the cathode LED of the leg. And heres an example of a 5V P-type, or PNP, transistor 560 resistor 10mm red LED GND circuit, in which the ground source also is sent through a momentary switch to another 560 resistor to the PNP Transistor gate to temporarily turn on the current flow through the transistor, this time by temporarily grounding the base of the PNP transistor, creating a closed circuit by adding the current to the anode leg of the LED. 66 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology How might you add a NPN transistor remix into the Blue LED Circuit 2 above, the circuit in which the LED is continuously on unless the momentary switch is temporarily pressed? As one last example, lets replace the individual LEDs with an RGB (Red, Green, Blue) LED. These are constructed of three different types of crystals, one to make red light, another to make a green light, and a third to make a blue light. Technically, with the right setup we could see a million different colors. But as our electronic components and breadboard are currently configured to provide set voltages of 3.3V or 5V, our rainbow of colors is a bit more limited. Heres a demonstration of a circuit with three transistor and momentary on switch pairings to provide seven different colors from a switching RGB LED circuit: 2B: Electronic Components in Series Do Something New! For some, your lived experiences have helped you quickly move through the above exercises and review the associated key takeaways. Perhaps youve even repaired or built your own electronic circuits previously. If so, now might be a great time to try an Innovation-in-Use of the circuits weve already built to do the exercises above in a new way based on your own design inspirations. 67 68 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Or maybe youve noticed some of the other electronic components included in your toolkit or that you personally have on hand that we havent made use of through the exercises in the first two sessions, items that you think would serve to take the circuit prototypes to a new level. Feel encouraged to consider entering into a collaboration with others to Remix through rapid prototyping on your breadboards! Exercise: From Breadboard Prototypes to Integrated Circuits So far, weve placed individual electronic components on a breadboard to build a circuit. This is a very common way to rapidly prototype a product. In this way, weve been able to test different levels of resistance, models of LEDs, the number of LEDs in series, and whether or not to include a switch or amplifier within the product. From here, the larger circuit built using discrete components is typically brought together onto a small piece of semiconductive material and then etched onto a flat insulating sheet called a printed circuit board. Semiconductors can bring together many individual resistor, capacitor, and diode components, such as the ones weve used above as part of our exercises. And they can include other semiconductors, such as the transistor semiconductor just described above. And our Circuit Playground Express kits come with five Adafruit-designed individual LED integrated circuits they call Sequins. Next, lets add an LED integrated circuit to the breadboard. Steps In pairs, have one run through this test while the other observes. Then swap roles. Provide support to each other throughout, and make use of the videos as a guide. For a full video walk through of these steps, please visit the online version of this chapter. To see a demonstration of each step, follow the links below. 2B: Electronic Components in Series 69 1. Connect a black alligator clip to male jumper wire to the bottom blue rail of the breadboard. Connect a second alligator clip to male jumper wire (it can be any color of your choosing), to the bottom 3V3 red rail of the breadboard. 2. Carefully identify the + and the symbols on each of the five Sequins. 3. Connect the black alligator clip (the one with the male jumper wire connected to the blue ground rail) to the symbol on one of the five Sequins. 4. Connect the other alligator clip (the one with the male jumper wire connection to the 3.3 volt rail) to the + symbol of the chosen, grounded Sequin. 5. Carefully disconnect the 3.3 volt alligator clip from the Sequin to turn off the light, then disconnect the ground alligator clip from the Sequin. Then test the other four Sequins: connect the black ground alligator clip to a second Sequin, followed by the 3.3 volt alligator clip to that second Sequin. Repeat for the last two Sequins. 6. NOTE: If one of the Sequin Integrated Circuits burns out, and Ive done that a time or two myself, consider fail-forward strategies for the person working hands-on with the electronics to improve their probability of Yes in their next lighting of a Sequin. Key Takeaways Each Sequin is an integrated circuit comprised of a resistor and an LED. These are incorporated onto a printed circuit board along with conducting material, such that when voltage and ground sources are applied to the + and strips, the LED is lit. Take a few minutes to watch this video demonstrating the steps to connect the Sequin Integrated Circuit and reviewing these components compared to other integrated circuits and electronic tools which use those parts. NOTE: For those interested, theres a side video showing the behind-the-scenes soldering of the Perma-Proto Breadboard creation shown in the video above. 70 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology In the above schematic, how does the circuit using the Sequin integrated circuit compare with the three previous circuits we have constructed? How does the Sequin compare to other integrated circuit components, like the one integrated into a remote door opener as seen in the video? Wrap Up This exploration of electronics lays the foundation for what we may want to design and create as part of our ongoing person-centered valued designs and builds. There are other electronics in the toolkit that we wont work with directly, but that you might want to include in your own work. And there are many other electronics available for your consideration if you so choose. I highlight a few in this video. Comprehension Check 2B: Electronic Components in Series 71 72 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 2B: Electronic Components in Series 73 74 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 2B: Electronic Components in Series 75 3A: The Unknown Tech Innovators Background Knowledge Probe 1. Draw a picture of an innovation in the process of being innovated. 2. Looking at your completed drawing, consider the following: Describe the innovation in your drawing. What might be its uses? What might be its impact once it is released to the target population? Who is doing the innovation? Why? For what goal(s)? Who Shapes Technology? A Critical Social + Technical Perspective and associated essential resources highlighted ways technologies are a seamless, indivisible combination of social and technical components that are co-created by everyday users. But as Wajcman notes, those things white, male, and middle- and upper-class innovators primarily focus on creating are specific male machines rather than broader, everyday life technologies.1 When workshop and class participants are asked to draw a picture of an innovator innovating, many draw individual white men innovating the modern digital technology machine. This tendency towards drawing innovations and their innovators in this way is a representation of the current dominant narrative in much of U.S. culture. We also considered how once developed and made available for broader use by people, technologies do not remain static, but rather are adapted and co-created to fit within ever-changing contexts.2 The co-creation happens when uses of technology are done in ways that amplify our individual and group actions in the world.3 While this mutual shaping of technologies is ongoing, we often think of the digital technology product itself in the more static 1. Judy Wajcman, "Feminist Theories of Technology," Cambridge Journal of Economics 34, no. 1 (January 1, 2010): 14352. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/ ben057. 2. Bertram Bruce, Andee Rubin, and Junghyun An, "Situated Evaluation of Socio-Technical Systems," in Handbook of Research on Socio-Technical Design and Social Networking Systems, eds. Brian Whitworth and Aldo de Moor, Information Science Reference (Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2009), 2: 68598. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60566-264-0. 76 3A: The Unknown Tech Innovators 77 conceptualization. As such, often in these drawings of an innovator innovating, its a certain subgroup of initial innovators, and does not include in the drawing the intermediary and everyday co-creators of a digital technology. Nor do we include in the drawing those who are shaping the innovation and design as part of the engineering, coding, marketing and distribution, and other stages of the products life cycle. Take a moment to review your picture of an innovation in the process of being innovated, and reflect on your considerations of the questions above. In what ways might your readings and works so far in the book have influenced your response to the Background Knowledge Probe? Broadening our Understanding of Creating Todays Maker movements often emphasize a broader set of activities in the process of making something. While some of these spaces emphasize specific digital technologies, many others view this more broadly as craftmaking. Bruce Sinclair considers how the work of engineering requires skills developed through rigorous, formal instruction in areas such as physics and mathematics and maintained through ongoing readings of published literature. Sinclair goes on to contrast this to crafting, which depends primarily on unwritten and on-the-job development of knowledge and manual skills, typically done in a broader community of practice. Throughout U.S. history and continuing today, people of color and women have often been kept from educational opportunities, particularly in areas such as engineering, and more recently, computer science. And yet, hidden are the myriad ways elite occupations have been successfully done via these very same people while mainly white males are given the credit for the accomplishments made by the broader group of innovators, designers, and creators. Carolyn de la Pea has highlighted how finding these hidden stories regarding the design and innovation of technologies by white women have required challenging but essential meta-historical narratives through personal papers and the records of their and their husbands activities. Finding the records of people of color are even more challenging. To proceed, de la Pea notes: Rather than imagining race as a term that describes particular individuals marked as nonwhite, I want to suggest we think of race as an epistemology at play in all technological production and consumption. This concept makes it possible to see the significance of the obvious: that white people have race. And they make it, sustain it, and protect it in part through technology. More importantly, this approach suggests that it is not only the problem of source that keeps us from integrating race fully into our analyses. Instead, the real difficulty occurs in tandem: difficult-tolocate sources combine with our own tendencies to fail to see all that can be found in what is available, and to creatively engage and interpret in order to draw race out of the archive. Carolyn de la Pea, The History of Technology, the Resistance of Archives, and the Whiteness of Race 3. Kentaro Toyama, Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology (New York: PublicAffairs, 2015). 78 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology As a white, cisgender, heterosexual male scholar working at a higher education institution in the United States, it is essential that I recognize the ethical dilemmas involved in writing this book introducing networked information systems within the information sciences. In doing so, I continue to work to identify ways in which I am building from, and integrating into this work imperialist, patriarchal, and racist ideologies which are embedded within general Western and specific United States culture and practices. In order to broaden my understanding of digital technology design and innovation, I have drawn heavily from Community Informatics (CI) practice, a field that seeks to make effective use of technology through a practice of community inquiry, participatory design, popular education, and asset-based development to enhance quality of life.4 This led me to co-develop a list of critical questions for Community Informatics in practice.5 As related specifically to the philosophy of technology, rather than bringing forward the digital technologies we think are essential for information seeking and sharing, we need to instead consider: What everyday technologies might be unseen and displaced because of an overly narrow definition of what should be considered an appropriate technology? Who are the local innovators whose technologies might be championed as part of a CI project? How might the voices of technology skeptics and traditionalists inform adoption, or non-adoption, of a CI project? What important insights regarding culture, values, and history are these perspectives bringing to the engagement? Martin Wolske and Colin Rhinesmith, Critical Questions for Community Informatics in Practice from an Ethical Perspective Lesson Plan With this historical context in mind, in the next session we will consider the evolution of computers and their building blocks. Essential Resources: Articles and chapters: Sinclair, Bruce. Integrating the Histories of Race and Technology. In Technology and the African-American Experience: Needs and Opportunities for Study, 117. Boston: MIT Press, 2004. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/technology-and-african-american-experience. de la Pea, Carolyn. The History of Technology, the Resistance of Archives, and the Whiteness of Race. Technology and Culture 51, no. 4 (October 2010): 91937. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/403272. 4. See, for example: Gurstein, Bruce, Campbell, and Eubanks, all available at http://www.ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej. 5. Martin Wolske and Colin Rhinesmith, "Critical Questions for Community Informatics in Practice from an Ethical Perspective," The Journal of Community Informatics 12, no. 3 (2016): 23642. http://www.ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/1325. 3A: The Unknown Tech Innovators Wolske, Martin, and Colin Rhinesmith. Critical Questions for Community Informatics in Practice from an Ethical Perspective. The Journal of Community Informatics 12, no. 3 (2016): 23642. http://www.ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/1325. A few sources about women and people of color in technology, past and present: The White House: President Barack Obama. The Untold History of Women in Science and Technology. Accessed February 9, 2020. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/ women-in-stem. Biography.com. Famous Black Inventors. Accessed February 9, 2020. https://www.biography.com/people/groups/black-inventors. Adams, Genetta M. 17 Black Internet Pioneers. The Root, February 12, 2012. https://www.theroot.com/17-black-internet-pioneers-1790868134. Black Enterprise. List of the Most Influential Blacks in Technology Black Enterprise, November 9, 2018. https://www.blackenterprise.com/list-of-the-most-influential-blacksin-technology/. McDonald, Clare. Computer Weekly Announces the Most Influential Women in UK IT 2018. ComputerWeekly.com, September 26, 2018. https://www.computerweekly.com/ news/252449081/Computer-Weekly-announces-the-Most-Influential-Women-in-UKIT-2018. (Especially note #8, Carrie Anne Philbin, director of education at the Raspberry Pi Foundation.) Key highlights about the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Adafruit Industries, and their respective teams: ElectronicsWeekly.com. How They Make Raspberry Pi in the UK Electronics Weekly Visits Pencoed. Metropolis Multimedia. YouTube, September 11, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tza6Hl8wSJ0. Raspberry Pi Foundation. About Us. Accessed February 9, 2020. https://www.raspberrypi.org/about/. * Raspberry Pi Foundation. Raspberry Pi Foundation Annual Review 2018. Raspberry Pi Foundation, 2018. https://static.raspberrypi.org/files/about/ RaspberryPiFoundationReview2018.pdf. * Raspberry Pi Foundation. Raspberry Pi Foundation Strategy 2018-2020. Raspberry Pi Foundation, 2018. https://static.raspberrypi.org/files/about/ RaspberryPiFoundationStrategy2018%E2%80%932020.pdf. Adafruit Industries. About Us. Adafruit Industries. Accessed February 9, 2020. https://www.adafruit.com/about. NYC Mayors Office of Media and Entertainment. Her Big Idea, Featuring Limor Fried. YouTube, November 6, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwpIx7n6UYg. 79 80 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Professional Journal Reflections: 1. How has your consideration of digital technology and digital innovation changed after this reading of the texts and of the contexts? 2. Who are some of the unknown innovators of your everyday technologies? Why were they unknown until now? How might they still be partially unknown by you, or by others? 3. In what ways have you been an unknown innovator of a technology? Why were you unknown until now? How might you still be partially unknown by yourself and by others? 3B: Computer Building Blocks Background Knowledge Probe In chapter one, Introduction to Electronic Circuits, the background knowledge probe had you create a list of the electronics you make use of on a regular basis. As you did so, you considered who designed it, what parts might have been used inside and out to build and use it, and what you did with any items that started to work less than optimally. Now create a new list, this time documenting your daily-use computing devices such as laptops, tablet devices, and smartphones. What external and internal electronic components, such as resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors, switches, sensors, LEDs, copper wires, pins and clips, integrated circuits, and printed circuit boards, come to mind as you think about your computing devices? What design choices and design objectives might have inspired the layout of the system and the various circuitry, mechanics, and artistry of its layout function, look, and feel? What have you done with any components that started to work less than optimally? Technical Introduction In the technical chapter of session 1, we began deconstructing the components that make up our daily electronics, something we dug further into during chapter 2, Electronic Components in Series. Weve also been expanding our fail-forward troubleshooting and innovation-in-use remixing as we further open up the hood of electronic systems and the social influences shaping, and being shaped by, these. Before launching the Raspberry Pi microcomputer, lets spend a little time exploring how electronics, and often times code, are combined in a range of ways to create computers. In this chapter, well: 81 82 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 1. Explore the hardware building blocks that make up all computers. 2. Examine the operating system building blocks that provide the major software package that supports the basic functions of a computer and other computing devices. Computer Hardware Building Blocks Electronic components like resistors, switches, LEDs, variable resistors, capacitors, other diodes, photocells, transistors, and integrated circuits combine to create many of the everyday devices around us. These can be prototyped using breadboards and Perma-Proto breadboards, ultimately leading to the creation of printed circuit boards. All computers are initially made using these prototyping tools as they evolve from innovation and design, to testing, to production and marketing, and distribution. Inside the case of every computer, we will find one or more printed circuit boards. The system board or motherboard is the main board connecting computer parts. It brings together the many different electronic components we have studied, as well as the connectors, sockets, and ports that provide internal and external connections to other electronics. All computers are made up of the same basic building blocks. In addition to the motherboard, there are several key parts of a computers hardware: The central processing unit, or CPU, the core integrated circuit controlling and executing operations. Memory, the integrated circuits that temporarily hold data until needed by the CPU or other processors. Data storage, which includes devices like hard drives, optical media such as DVDs, solid state drives, and flash drives even when power is turned off, but that cannot share data fast enough to work directly with processors. Controllers, the crossing guards that control the flow of data from inputs to processors, and from processors to outputs. I/O or Input/Output Devices that you connect to the computer using Universal Serial Bus, or USB port, HDMI port, Ethernet jack, audio jack, and others, such as the Raspberry Pi GPIO port. Integrated Circuits Processors: Do the thinking work CPU: The main thinker and boss for the computer Memory: Hold data until needed by processors; faster than storage but more expensive RAM: The main system memory; it forgets when power is off Flash: Changes circuits in a way that remembers even without power (USB stick, solid state drive) Controllers: Move data from inputs to processors and from processors to outputs 3B: Computer Building Blocks 83 Storage Mechanical changes to media to store data even when power is turned off Magnetic media: Uses positive and negative charges (e.g., hard drive) Optical media: Uses lasers to detect presence or absence of reflected light (e.g., CD and DVD) Printed Circuit Boards System or Motherboard: Main highway connecting components; edge connectors and sockets provide for expansion Memory module: Board with group of memory integrated circuits (e.g., DIMM) Expansion cards: Board with controller and integrated circuits to add capability to computer (e.g., video card, network card) Case Protects the building blocks from damage Holds the power supply used to turn wall power into the power used by components (desktop) Provides space for air to flow around and to cool components Provides a surface to disperse heat away from components (laptop) Input/Output Devices Input devices let users control the computer (e.g., keyboard and mouse, touch-sensitive devices) Output devices inform user what is happening (e.g., monitor, printer) Computer Operating System Building Blocks Operating systems are the software managing the various components of a computers basic functions, from coordination between the many applications that allow us to do our daily computer-based activities, to the kernel used to span the boundary between programming code and the physical electronics. The building blocks of an operating system can be seen below: 84 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Themes and Skins Pre-set package containing graphical appearance details. Supported in some versions of Windows and Linux. Available as third-party applications in other cases. Supported for many applications like web browsers. Changes the look and feel of many features at once (e.g., background colors, text font and size, icons, mouse cursor, etc.). Desktop Environment The desktop environment is a collection of software that provides a predictable look and feel. Includes a Window Manager that controls the placement and appearance of windows, support icons, menus, etc. For some operating systems, such as Windows and macOS, the desktop environment is the branded look of the operating system and cannot be changed. Window System This is the part of the graphical user interface that communicates with the kernel. Many operating systems allow remote interfacing with the window system, either directly or through third-party applications. Bundled Software Applications like file managers, user managers, software managers. Applications like web browsers, text editors, photo and movie editors. Device and print drivers determine which hardware is plug and play ready. Kernel As the heart of the operating system, it is the go-between from applications to input/output controllers, memory, the CPU, and storage devices. When working with a computer, names bring things together, hiding from view many of the hardware and operating system building blocks. Im working right now on a MacBook Air. This laptop has all of the key hardware building blocks pulled together into a single system board within a laptop case. It is installed with the macOS operating system. On my desk is a Motorola moto e5 play smartphone. This also has all the key hardware building blocks pulled together into a single system board, this time within a smartphone case. It is installed with the Android mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux operating system kernel and other open source software. My spouse uses a Lenovo laptop much like the MacBook Air but with a few more I/O ports and a larger laptop screen. It is installed with the Microsoft operating system. 3B: Computer Building Blocks 85 We typically merge the hardware and software together as one device with a means for bringing in human input, using software to collect and respond to that input, and to provide output back to the human. We primarily interface with an operating system via the shell and graphical user interfaces. These connect us to the kernel of the operating system which interfaces with installed applications as well as with the computer hardware and other computer programs. All modern operating systems include both a graphical user interface (GUI) and a text-based shell known as a command-line interface (CLI) or terminal window. For the most part, we spend our computer time using a keyboard, monitor, and mouse/touchpad to work within these GUIs without even knowing were in an operating system that controls each and every action we take on that computer. Its just the computer and were just trying to do our work with a range of applications like web browsers, email clients, and word processors. Sometimes, though, we need access from a distance, and so we use remote desktop software. In some cases, remote desktop software is operating system independent, as is the case with the Virtual Network Computing (VNC) server installed on the Raspberry Pi Operating System by default, and that can be installed on almost all different personal computers and smartphones. In other cases, it is designed for a specific operating system, as is the case for Apple Remote Desktop (Apple) and Remote Desktop Protocol (Microsoft). 86 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology For many server computers, including devices like routers and a range of open-source content management systems (CMS), these are designed to serve as a simple, responsive web interface to a computer that otherwise runs headless. Headless means the computer is run without a monitor, keyboard, and/or mouse connected to it. The content management system provides us with a remote interface device to access and use certain tasks that would otherwise be accessed using a GUI through a keyboard, mouse, and monitor or through a remote desktop application. Another common way to work with headless devices is through a Universal Asynchronous Receive and Transmit (UART) serial connection or an Internet-based secure shell (SSH) connection. These serve to provide a simple, textbased shell, also sometimes called a console or terminal window. Indeed, the Raspberry Pi starter kit provides a default backup to connect a personal computer to a server or microcomputer using a USB (Universal Serial Bus) to TTL (Transistor Transistor Logic) cable to facilitate UART communications as a way to assure troubleshooting when all other means for user interface with a device has failed. This is how well start our work with the Raspberry Pi. Where Does the OS Live? The operating system is installed and maintained using a storage device like a hard drive or MicroSD card. But storage devices are like our old paperwork that we store up in an attic. We cant do anything with it beyond just storing it there. When a computer is turned on, those instruction sets in the operating system which are immediately needed are moved out of storage and into random access memory (RAM). We sometimes call this booting a computer, also called boot up or start up. This startup sequence first does a safety check of the system, then looks to one or more possible locations for the master boot record or boot manager, which then takes over control to bring forward the next modules of operating system code needed. The reason we need to boot up is because RAM can only store information as long as it has power and ground to complete the circuits used to input, store, and output the memory. This is compared to the older long term storage devices like hard drives, and to newer storage devices like secure digital (SD) cards and other flash memory, all of which have means for permanently writing memory to spaces on them while also allowing reading, deleting, and rewriting to those spaces as needed, albeit more slowly. RAM is like paper files within an arms reach of a computer were working on at the moment. But as is the case with many of the papers we may have sitting in close reach of the computer on our desk, they still cant be actually read and processed. To do this, a computer next moves sequences of code from dynamic RAM (DRAM), which can store larger amounts of data at a more affordable rate but that still works a bit too slowly for static RAM (SRAM), which doesnt need to be refreshed and that is faster than DRAM. SRAM serves as a system cache that works closely with the Central Processing Unit, or CPU. Consider SRAM as those files immediately at hand, and the CPU as your brain, now processing the information you just read from the file in front of you. At any given moment, where a segment of the operating system is living depends on what modules, functions, variables, iterations, and sequences of code are needed. It is moving from attic to desk to hand to brain to hand to brain to desk to hand to brain to desk to attic over and over billions of times per second. 3B: Computer Building Blocks 87 The Kernel: The Heart of the Operating System The operating system is the underlying program that we generally dont even know really exists. We hear about it, for instance when we buy a computer running Microsoft Windows 10, or an Apple MacBook running macOS Sierra. And once in a great while were encouraged or required to install a new version of the operating system. But generally we just see lots of text and graphics on a monitor, and we type on our keyboard, move around a pointer from one place to another using a mouse or touchpad or even sometimes the monitor itself. Thats the user interface side. But the heart of the operating system lives in the kernel. The kernel controls how applications get time on the CPU(s) of the computer. There was a day when the OS only allowed one application at a time to physically run on the computer. Imagine having to save your work in your text editor, exit, then open the spreadsheet to see your data, then exit, then reopen your text editor. Today operating systems are multi-tasking, allowing multiple applications to all run simultaneously. They do this using a very fast time sharing strategy, in which each application is allowed to submit threads, or small segments of programming code, to the operating system, requesting execution of that thread. The kernel controls memory access at several levels: Physical memory vs. virtual memory: Applications can easily eat up all available memory. To that extent, the OS must carefully control just how much memory is being used by a specific application. Further, when a user wants to do more than can be done with available memory, the operating system controls the movement of bits from physical memory to virtual memory or swap space, a special location on the hard drive configured to mimic, albeit very slowly, physical memory. Applications cannot directly access virtual memory, so when memory runs short, the OS spends a lot of time swapping bits between physical and virtual memory. Shared vs. private address space: Some operating systems conserve physical memory allocation by only loading shared segments of code (for instance from a library file) once, then pointing all applications to this shared address space. The problem is that sometimes a badly behaving application can overwrite a critical shared code with corrupted data. In the worst cases, this can lead to a general protection fault (a type of system error). Many modern operating systems therefore decide to make greater use of private address space, always loading segments of code again even if they already exist in memory. The kernel controls interactions with device controllers. Because there are many controllers manufactured for each type of input/output function (for instance, video controllers), an operating system cannot be expected to know how to interface with every one of them out of the box. Instead, each controller must come with its own device driver that can translate between the specific controller and the specific operating system. All hardware incompatibilities boil down to unavailable device drivers for the specific operating system. The kernel of the operating system determines which types of file systems are supported. 88 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology In all cases, it is the kernel of the operating system that does the core work of communication between electronics and programming code. A Brief History of Operating Systems In Microsoft and Apple operating systems, theyve put together a tightly intertwined, large set of applications to cover all main aspects of the operating system, from user interface, to bundled applications to configure the computer, store, delete, and access files, to install and update applications, to set up screensavers, accounts, and passwords, to disk and monitor management, and so much more. And the operating system has the essential instruction sets needed to interact with the electronics of the computer within the kernel, the most basic level of the operating system. Before there was Microsoft or Apple, there was Unix, a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems. Unix was first developed by AT&T at Bell Labs research center in the 1970s, but then was split into a few different Unix systems. All are commercial, at least at some level, although some have been made more widely available than others. For the most part, Unix provides a distinction between the kernel of the operating system, primary bundled applications, the user interface, and any networked information systems used to pass data back and forth with devices beyond the kernel. Very early in its development, Unix developers created the X-Window system to provide the ability to create graphical user interfaces. The developers also set up Unix to work on the Internet. In this way, even back in the 70s and 80s, Unix was able to have a graphical user interface to a headless computer using simple (actually called dumb at the time) computers that served primarily as a text and sometimes graphical human interface device to the Unix core computer. One company that entered into a licensing contract to use and build their own iteration of Unix was Apple, leading to the macOS. Microsoft wrote their own text-based operating system, called MS-DOS, or Microsoft Disk Operating System. It was meant to support a personal (that is, only one user working only with directly attached devices) computer, and included the kernel, basic bundled applications, and a text interface. They then later added their own Windows graphical user interface extension to MS-DOS. Later still, they created a new version of the operating system called Windows NT (New Technology) that integrated the kernel, bundled applications, and graphical user interface into one, while still also staying compatible with earlier versions of Windows. Ultimately, they made the break to create newer versions of the Windows operating system, and eventually also adding back a new and improved text-based terminal window. But throughout, their choices on select keyboard options, labels, and other essential communications have contrasted with those of Unix, and thereby with those of Apple as well. Moving into the early 1990s, Unix computers were relatively expensive, and therefore were purchased by, and used in, research labs. Then in 1991 University of Helsinki student Linus Torvalds purchased an Intel 80386-based clone of the IBM PC mini-Unix called MINIX. Later that year, he made public his first prototype of a Unix-like kernel operating system he called Linux. On March 14, 1994, he released version 1.0. From the start, he released Linux using Richard Stallmans General Public License. Stallman, a free software advocate, created the GNU Project, a software development initiative. By combining the GNU Project essential bundled applications with the Linux core, Torvalds built and released a fully functioning operating system. 3B: Computer Building Blocks 89 Over the years, different groups have worked to create distributions of specific GNU applications, other applications, and a Linux core. The oldest surviving distribution of Linux is called Slackware, created by Patrick Volkerding in 1992. Slackware 1.0 came on 24 floppy disks and was built on top of Linux kernel version 0.99. I started working in the Neuronal Pattern Analysis Group of the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1993 and soon after began using Slackware and Linux along with the newly developing X-Mosaic graphical web browser as part of a team seeking to use the Internet to make publicly available raw electrophysiology data which was collected as part of various research projects. Two common distributions of Linux are used as the starting point for a rich variety of child distributions. One is called Fedora, and originated in 1995, under the name Red Hat Linux. In 2003, the Red Hat trademark was used to create two branches: Red Hat Enterprise, with a combination of free and open source applications and commercial applications, and Fedora, a community-oriented distribution designed for hobbyists. Commonly used distributions with Fedora at their core include CentOS and Scientific Linux. Debian GNU/Linux was first announced in 1993 by its founder, Ian Murdock. It has been developed to every extent possible as a completely non-commercial project, through collaboration with over 1000 volunteer developers. Widely used Debian-based alternatives include the overall most widely used distribution, Ubuntu, and Raspberry Pi OS, the default Debian-based alternative for the Raspberry Pi microcomputer. There are two widely used commercial operating systems based on the Linux kernel today as well. In September 2008, Google launched its Android operating system using a modified version of the Linux kernel and various open source software designed for touchscreen mobile devices, and subsequently developed for Android TV, Android Auto, and Wear OS. The Android Open Source Project is used for development of its core source code, and apps for Android can therefore be developed by anyone for virtually any purpose and installed and run on Android devices. In May 2011, Google released the first Chromebook, running the Chrome OS. It is only available preinstalled on hardware from Google manufacturing partners. Its open source equivalent, Chromium OS, can be freely installed. Specific to Raspberry Pi OS, each major new release of Debian results in a major new release of Raspberry Pi OS. The code name used for each major release of Debian is taken from Toy Story characters. In 2013, this was Wheezy, the penguin character by that name. In 2015, this was Jessie, the cowgirl character. As of June 2017, this is Stretch, the rubber octopus from Toy Story 3. As noted in these code name release dates, Debian works to be stable through a conservative update process. The stable release is held for about two years, although test releases become available via the new code name during the interim for those wanting early access for use and testing of new designs. Exercise: Reviewing Your Computer Take some time to dig into the hardware, operating system, and major installed software applications of your primary computer. While its often more difficult, if even possible, to open up your computer to look at the system or motherboard of the computer than it used to be, if you can safely do that, do so. You may have received some default documentation with your computer, either in print or digital. There may be About this Computer links available on the computer or on a vendors website. Some resources are best accessed through applications that came with your computer and that provide current notes which can account for potential updates that have since replaced the defaults that came with the computer. 90 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Using these resources, create your own list of the physical components and operating system of your computer: Input/output devices, such as types of USB ports, Thunderbolt ports, audio, camera, Ethernet, Bluetooth, card readers, etc. Type and amount of random access memory (RAM) Storage devices Central processing unit (CPU) and, if included, graphic processing unit (GPU) Power source Operating system (OS) type and version.subversion/edition Windowing system, desktop environment, and themes/skins. For many computers today, these are highly integrated, so you may only see this as a singular graphical user interface system. Take time to compare and contrast this with some of the other desktop and laptop computers that you or others around you use on a fairly regular basis. Wrap Up Computers, microcomputers, and microcontrollers are an everyday part of life. The core components of these devices have remained the same, even as the specifications, standards, and physical and software implementations have been shaped and reshaped repeatedly over the last 50+ years. Knowing at least a bit about the items within all devices is essential as we serve professional and personal roles in the selection, implementation, innovation-in-use, and support of these devices in our varying contexts. Before we move on to examining the Raspberry Pi microcomputer, take a few moments to watch this teardown video from electronics repair company iFixit. A product teardown is a common method for identifying the component parts of an electronic device, in order to better refurbish or repair devices of that same model. However, take caution and browse the resources available from iFixit before tearing down your own device, as the manufacturer may claim that such actions void your warranty. Moreover, for many newer devices, components are glued not screwed together, requiring specialized equipment to get inside the device. In this teardown video, a 2018 MacBook Air is disassembled and evaluated. As you watch, make note of any parts you recognize. For even more detail, read the full teardown guide. 3B: Computer Building Blocks Comprehension Check 91 92 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 3B: Computer Building Blocks 93 94 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 3B: Computer Building Blocks 95 96 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 3B: Computer Building Blocks 97 98 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 3B: Computer Building Blocks 99 100 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 4A: Launching Our Counterstories The Universe is made up of stories, not of atoms. From The Speed of Darkness by Muriel Rukeyser, 20th century American poet A story is a fact, wrapped in an emotion that compels us to take an action that transforms our world. Robert Dickman and Richard Maxwell, The Elements of Persuasion Stories are narratives designed to interest, amuse, or instruct the listener or reader. Stories can be used to share things important to us, things we care about, and descriptions of who we are, where we come from, or where we are going/could go. Stories can be memorials of those we find have done something notable, retellings of challenges overcome, of hurt and healing, and tales of adventures. Numbers numb, jargon jars, and nobody ever marched on Washington because of a pie chart. Andy Goodman, creative director Storytelling lets us reflect on our pasts and build communities around shared thoughts and ideas. It invites people to be a part of something, whether something already happening, or something we could imagine might happen if we worked to make it real. Digital storytelling is a technique that allows the story to be retold even while the storyteller is sleeping. This technique also allows the storyteller to use additional media to better bring home the moment. It is an innovative community-based participatory research technique bringing together community members and health workers to approach, research, and collaboratively address local health issues.1 It has been incorporated into traditional 1. Aline Gubrium, "Digital Storytelling: An Emergent Method for Health Promotion Research and Practice," Health Promotion Practice 10, no. 2 (2009): 18691. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524839909332600. 101 102 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology quilting, along with capacitive touch sensors, to create living archives of voices in the sex work industry.2 It has played a role in co-design initiatives involving local underserved communities in data generation and to spur grassroots initiatives and encourage broader local participation and engagement in community-based co-design projects.3 Stories can take many forms, and can work towards a wide range of goals, depending both on teller and audiences. Dr. Nicole Cooke, in her chapter Becoming New Storytellers, states that counterstories work to further buck the status quo and challenge the long held collective stories of a hegemonic society, which tacitly maintain the narratives and normative behaviors of dominant groups.4 For this activity, co-explorers are called to work on the design and creation of counterstory prototypes. These should remix the normative understanding of technology innovation by highlighting in some way the collaborative work done by a community of practice to accomplish the innovative design of a past or present technology. In particular, the remix challenge should include key roles that women, people of color, or other oppressed peoples have played in that technology design and development, where technology is broadly considered as any digital tool used on a regular basis to achieve an individual or communitys valued beings and doings. Consider your own innovations-in-use, those of others around you, those in the essential resources from the book, those youve learned about in other readings, podcasts, and explorations. Common parts of a story that you may want to include are: A beginning or first act: Introducing location, characters, and questions/conflicts/challenges to be addressed. The middle or second act: Sharing the main course of events detailing what happened. An end or third act: Revealing to the audience how it turned out, and potentially the meaning of the story. As you develop the design and prototyping of a digital story, consider the audience. Who are they, really? Why would they relate? What gift can you offer? If you are telling the story yourself through speech, adjust the pace, emotion, and your tone of voice to fit your intended audience. Good stories are personal reflections that captivate the audience. Follow these prompts as you engage in your reflective process: 1. Own your insights. Ask yourself questions, such as: Why is this story important to you? Why do you want to tell this story? Why now? Who is it for? 2. Angelika Strohmayer and Janis Meissner, "'We Had Tough Times, but Weve Sort of Sewn Our Way through It': The Partnership Quilt," XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students 24, no. 2 (December 19, 2017): 4851. https://doi.org/10.1145/3155128. 3. Maria Rosa Lorini, Amalia Sabiescu, and Nemanja Memarovic, "Collective Digital Storytelling in Community-Based Co-Design Projects: An Emergent Approach," The Journal of Community Informatics 13, no. 1 (2017): 10936. http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/1362. 4. Nicole Cooke, "Becoming New Storytellers: Counterstorytelling in LIS," in Information Services to Diverse Populations: Developing Culturally Competent Library Professionals (Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited, 2017), 114. 4A: Launching Our Counterstories 103 What do you want to hear? 2. Place yourself in history: Where do you see yourself in your story? What do you hear? What do you see? What is being said and what are your feelings? Do you see yourself as the victim or the survivor? 3. Own your emotions: What emotions were you feeling as you lived the story? What emotions do you feel when you relive it? Which emotions best convey they story to your audience? Emotional complexity can help the audience understand your story more completely. Emotional honesty can help the audience really connect to your story. Play to your audience. 4. Find the moment: What is the moment(s) of change in your story? If more than one, which moment best conveys the meaning of your story? What are different ways you can describe the moment in a scene? What are the key pieces your audience should know for them to fully appreciate the moment of change and the meaning of your story? What parts of the narration distract from the essence of the moment? 5. Build your story around the moment. Counterstory Creation Steps Youve already begun working towards inspirations for a counterstory as youve worked through the reading of the text and context in the book and in the essential resources; youve come together in conversation, youve begun practicing through hands-on individual and collaborative works, and youve spent time with your Professional Journal Reflections. 1. Take some time during your Professional Journal Reflection to bring together some ideas of a counterstory or stories that could be told as part of this counterstory challenge. To begin, work alone, jotting down notes, images, or recorded words exploring these ideas. 2. Moving forward, you are encouraged to join into a story circle. Story circles are a place where you can share your story with others. In a real sense, they are an informal peer review or critique activity common in all design work. Seek out from, and in turn provide to, others: Generally, provide: Feedback on the clarity and effectiveness of the story. 104 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Ways others in the circle connect the story to their own experiences and provide additional insights into the subject. How members of the story circle have new opportunities to reflect on their pasts, reexamine their histories and place themselves in history. From there, provide more specific feedback: What do you see as the moment in the story? How well did the beginning and middle set up the moment? What was the point of the story? What might be done to help highlight the moment? What will you take away from this story? 3. As you move from inspiration and ideation to prototype iterations of products, write scripts of each counterstory prototype before creating audio recordings of the story. (While you can certainly do digital storytelling using much more than just audio recordings, for instance through blogs and videos, for this exercise you are encouraged to focus more specifically on audio.) 4. Next, create audio recordings using the script. There are many resources for recording audio built into Microsoft and Mac computers. I find that even with a script, my recorded audio isnt as good as Id like it to be. So I like to use recording software with solid editing features. If you find your computers preinstalled software insufficient for editing, you might consider Audacity. Audacity is a free cross-platform digital audio editor and recording application. While free, the software is feature-rich and is capable of simple or more complex audio recordings. Audacity allows for the creation of multiple tracks to allow for voice, background music, and ambient sounds to be overlaid. Think about your audience when recording a story and your tone of voice. Should this story be recorded orally? Would this story be more effective written down? 5. After recording at least one counterstory, record two more files: an introduction and a bibliography (supplemental list of resources). In the accompanying technical session, we will play back these media files on the Raspberry Pi. As we work through exercises of the Blue Unit, we will create a tool using the Circuit Playground Express and the Raspberry Pi for archiving and selective playback of stories. The inspiration for this activity comes from a presentation by Angelika Strohmayer and Janis Meissner at the Community Informatics Research Network conference in 2016.5 Lastly, consider other ways you might share this counterstory using the Raspberry Pi. As one example, heres an Ideation and Iteration Code: Scratch Example remix by Betty Bayer and Stephanie Shallcross. 5. You can find out more in their article: Strohmayer and Meissner, "'We Had Tough Times, but Weve Sort of Sewn Our Way through It': The Partnership Quilt," 4851. 4A: Launching Our Counterstories Lesson Plan Essential Resources: Cooke, Nicole. Becoming New Storytellers: Counterstorytelling in LIS. In Information Services to Diverse Populations: Developing Culturally Competent Library Professionals, 11336. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited, 2017. Lorini, Maria Rosa, Amalia Sabiescu, and Nemanja Memarovic. Collective Digital Storytelling in Community-Based Co-Design Projects: An Emergent Approach. The Journal of Community Informatics 13, no. 1 (2017): 10936. http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/1362. Additional Resources: StoryCorps is a nonprofit with a mission to preserve and share humanitys stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world. StoryCorps. The Great Thanksgiving Listen. Accessed February 10, 2020. https://storycorps.org/participate/the-great-thanksgiving-listen/. StoryCorps. StoryCorps DIY. Accessed February 10, 2020. https://storycorps.org/ participate/storycorps-diy/. Wolske, Martin. Digital Storytelling Workshop. Presented at the Faculty Summer Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011. http://apcg.wolske.site/Library/figures/ DigitalStorytellingWorkshop-FullRedesigned.pdf. Gubrium, Aline. Digital Storytelling: An Emergent Method for Health Promotion Research and Practice. Health Promotion Practice 10, no. 2 (2009): 18691. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1524839909332600. Crane, Beverly. Digital Storytelling Changes the Way We Write Stories. Information Searcher 18, no. 1 (2008): 39, 35. Drotner, Kirsten. Boundaries and Bridges: Digital Storytelling in Education Studies and Media Studies. In Digital Storytelling, Mediatized Stories: Self-Representations in New Media, edited by Knut Lundby, 6184. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Professional Journal Reflections: Dedicate some time to create two or three short, partial drafts of counterstories that you can share with others, highlighting in some way the role of women, people of color, or other underrepresented people in digital technology. You might draft the same story told to different audiences, different stories told to the same audience, or other mixes as you see fit. Drafts should rough out: 105 106 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology How the story would build towards the key moment Introduction of location, characters, and questions/conflicts/challenge Main course of events Conclusion revealing what happened and its meaning Also draft an introduction to your stories and a supplemental list of resources. Record these drafts and save them as MP3 audio files, which we will use in an upcoming hands-on exercise. 4B: Meet the Microcomputer Background Knowledge Probe While looking through the list of toolkit items found in this textbooks Introduction, what was the first thing that came to mind when you saw it included a Raspberry Pi? What inspired those thoughts regarding the Pi? When you now compare and contrast a Raspberry Pi with your daily use computers, what are your current thoughts? Why have or havent they changed? What design choices and design objectives might have inspired the Raspberry Pis layout function, look, and feel? Technical Introduction So far, each of our electronic circuits has been physically constructed using electronic components and electrical conductors, along with ground and 3.3 and 5 volt power sources. Many of our everyday technologies are built in just this way. Think of the essential lights, fans, and clocks around us. Even those with controllers to dim the lights, change the speed of a fan, or selectively tick-tock once a second are often made exclusively with electronic components and conductors and no more. But others also include programming code to add in features. Consider, for instance, a light connected to a remote timer allowing you to turn it on or off from your phone or laptop. In this chapter, were going to perform an upgrade to our Raspberry Pi. So far, it has performed as a helpful intermediate source for voltage and ground to our breadboard. Now, well use it as a microcomputer. Microcomputers are simply small computers that contain a microprocessor as its central processor. Well then install and run an application written using the Python programming language, designed to work with the GPIO to turn LEDs on and off based on the current status of different momentary switches. As noted in this video below from the Raspberry Pi Foundation, back in the 80s, kids had to learn how to code computers to use them. 107 108 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology And as a result, these kids grew up with an inbuilt understanding of how computers worked.1 The Raspberry Pi microcomputer has been built from the ground up to reignite this spark. Not only is it being used specifically for information and communications technologies (ICT), it is serving a wide range of cross-curricular applications. And as illustrated in this video, well use it to push a button to turn on a light as the final exercise in this chapter! As an aside, I was one of the fortunate kids who, back in the mid-70s, began learning how to code computers to use them to do things I valued. In this video, I highlight some of this history, recounting my work with a teletype machine and acoustical modem to connect to a server, a punch card interface with that server, and programming with a Commodore 64 desktop computer. The Components of the Raspberry Pi The Raspberry Pi 3 computer used throughout this book is built using a reduced instruction set computing (RISC) architecture known as ARM. This and similar architectures have slowly taken over the computer world, allowing us to do more for less. This is because RISC-based architectures require fewer transistors than complex instruction set computing (CISC) architectures, such as those used in most desktop and laptop computers. As a result, this has also opened up new computing opportunities, such as systems-on-chips (SoC) that bring together memory, input/output controllers, processors, radios, etc. into a single integrated circuit. The outcome is typically lower costs, power consumption, heat dissipation, and potentially lower environmental impacts. Take a few minutes to look over the hardware of the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B that has come with your toolkit.2 This includes: A Broadcom BCM2837 system-on-chip (the largest of the black, square integrated circuits on the printed circuit board). Built into this SoC is: Quad-core 1.2 GHz 64-bit ARM cortex A53 CPU Full HD 1080p, H.264 Video Encode/Decode, 400MHz VideoCore IV Graphical Co-Processor Unit 1. Raspberry Pi learning resources and documentation are licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0. 2. Fritzing breadboard graphics are licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0. 4B: Meet the Microcomputer 1 GB SDRAM 512 KB cache memory One of the many smaller integrated circuits is a Broadcom BCM43438 chip that provides: Wireless LAN Bluetooth 4.1 Next to pin 1 of the GPIO, just above the Made In label, is the chip antenna for wireless LAN and Bluetooth signals. Just off from the USB ports, youll find the SMSC LAN9514 chip, providing the controller for 10/100 Ethernet connectivity and four USB channels. A variety of I/O connectors, sockets, and ports, including: 4 USB 2 ports Full size HDMI port Micro SD port for loading an operating system and storing data 10/100 Ethernet port 4 pole stereo output and composite video port 40-pin extended GPIO connector Camera Serial Interface Type 2 (CSI) camera port used to connect CSI-type cameras with the SoC chip Display Serial Interface (DSI) port used with a range of LCD and similar mobile display technologies 109 110 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Exercise: Reviewing the Raspberry Pi Computer Using these resources, create your own list of the physical components and operating system of the Raspberry Pi: Input/output devices, such as types of USB ports, Thunderbolt ports, audio, camera, Ethernet, Bluetooth, card readers, etc. Type and amount of random access memory (RAM) Storage devices Central processing unit (CPU) and, if included, graphic processing unit (GPU) Power source Operating system (OS) type and version.subversion/edition Windowing system, desktop environment, and themes/skins. For many computers today, these are highly integrated, so you may only see this as a singular graphical user interface system. Now, take a few moments to compare and contrast some of the installed applications on the Raspberry Pi (e.g., web browser, word processor, games) with similar ones on your laptop. As you do this, consider: 1. In what ways is a given software on my laptop a better application based on specific design specifications? 2. In what ways is a given software on my laptop a better application because of the hardware of my laptop? 3. In what ways is a given software on my laptop a better application because of my familiarity with its design? Repeat these three questions, this time considering in what ways the application might be better on the Raspberry Pi than on your laptop. Wrap Up The next task is to configure your own Raspberry Pi in preparation for the technical exercises to come. Depending on the tools at your disposal, there are numerous ways to accomplish this. 4C: Getting Started with the Raspberry Pi When you start your Raspberry Pi for the first time, it is important that you configure the system for your context. This includes setting up your password, country, language, and time zone. In addition, for exercises in this book, this includes enabling a range of special interfaces. Choose Your Own Adventure There are several ways to interface with the Raspberry Pi computer and operating system. Before we can configure your Raspberry Pi microcomputer, we must determine the best way forward, based on the tools available to you. Take a minute to answer the following questions, which will lead you to the right exercise. Option 1: Do you have a wired or wireless USB keyboard and mouse? Do you have a television or computer monitor with an available HDMI port and HDMI cable? If yes: Follow the instructions in the Quickstart Guide to configure your Raspberry Pi. Option 2: Do you have an SD card reader? A card reader may be built-in on your laptop. They are also available as stand-alone products. If yes: Follow the instructions in the Headless Guide to configure your Raspberry Pi. Other options: If you said yes to a keyboard, mouse, and monitor, but no to the HDMI port: You may be able to purchase a cable or an adapter, as needed, to pursue the Quickstart Guide. Or, you may purchase an SD card reader in order to follow the Headless Guide. As you proceed through the rest of the textbook, you may find it helpful to come back and choose a different option as your skills, interests, and needs change. 111 112 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Option 1: Raspberry Pi Quickstart Using a Monitor, Keyboard, and Mouse This activity uses a graphical user interface (GUI), which displays on the monitor.1 Later, we will instead use a command line interface (CLI). Many of our everyday microcomputers, from those in our car to the routers connecting an Internet Service Provider to the Local Area Network in our buildings, dont use a monitor. We then use a wired or wireless connection to configure, troubleshoot, and make adjustments to the computer. But for now, if you have an HDMI monitor, USB keyboard, and USB mouse available, this is the easiest way to get your feet wet with the Raspberry Pi. You will need: A television or computer monitor with HDMI port (and cable) A USB keyboard and mouse (wired or wireless is fine) To do this, youll need to install an operating system (OS). The 8 GB MicroSD card with NOOBS comes with the toolkit. NOOBS stands for New Out Of the Box Software. The MicroSD card that comes with the Raspberry Pi Starter Kit includes both the Raspberry Pi OS, and the LibreELEC Just enough OS Linux. For our purposes, Raspberry Pi OS is a solid choice, and the one well use. Connecting and Starting Your Pi The online version of this chapter includes an animated GIF showing a microSD card, two USB cables, an HDMI cable, and a microUSB power cable being consecutively plugged into the Raspberry Pi. Take a minute to watch this video, then go through the steps as follows: Steps 1. a. Begin by plugging your keyboard and mouse into the USB ports on the Raspberry Pi. b. Next, insert your Micro SD card into the SD card slot on the Raspberry Pi. It will only fit one way. c. Make sure that your monitor or TV is turned on, and that you have selected the right input (e.g. HDMI 1, DVI, etc.). d. Connect your HDMI cable from your Raspberry Pi to your monitor or TV. e. When you have plugged all the cables and SD card in correctly, connect one end of the micro USB power supply to a 120/240 volt power source, and the other to the Raspberry Pi. This action will turn on and boot your Raspberry Pi. You should see: A small red LED come on in the lower left side of the Raspberry Pi board, right next to the power port, indicating it properly has power. 1. Raspberry Pi learning resources and documentation are licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0. The Raspberry Pi Help Guide offers a deeper dive into the materials in this part of the chapter. Headless activity adapted from Adafruit Industries PiUART tutorial. 4C: Getting Started with the Raspberry Pi 113 A small green LED should blink whenever there are data transfers happening between the MicroSD card and the circuitry on the Raspberry Pi board. Your monitor should begin displaying visuals that it is booting up, followed by a Graphical User Interface (GUI) display window as seen in this video. 1. Use the Raspberry symbol to open the applications menu and explore the range of applications installed by default on the full Raspberry Pi OS included in the Raspberry Pi starter kit. 2. Connect your Raspberry Pi to your local wired or WiFi Ethernet. Initial Configuration When you start your Raspberry Pi for the first time, it is important that you configure the system for your context. This includes setting up your password, country, language and timezone. In addition, for exercises in this book, this includes enabling a range of special interfaces. Take 10 minutes to watch this video. This is shortened slightly from the actual time you will need to execute the steps and wait on computer processing. Then proceed as follows: Steps In the upper left of the GUI of Raspberry Pi OS, click on the image of a raspberry. Youll see menus for Programming, Office, Internet, Games, Accessories, and Help. Feel encouraged to take a moment to explore and see whats been installed. Click Preferences, then Raspberry Pi Configuration. Within the System tab at the top of the Raspberry Pi Configuration window that opens: Change the password from the default raspberry to something of your choosing that will be more secure. For ongoing monitoring and troubleshooting at computer boot moving forward, disable the Splash screen. This will enable a more verbose textual boot of the Raspberry Pi OS. Next, click the Localisation tab to configure the system for your locale. Configure locale, timezone, keyboard, and WiFi to the location in which you are working on the activities in the book, and to your preferred language and keyboard system configurations. To enable needed and potentially needed interfaces for the activities in this book, next choose Interfaces at the top of the window. Check each of the following if they are not enabled already: SSH: This enables remote command line access through a secure shell. A secure password should be established for all users first. VNC: This enables the RealVNC virtual network computing server on the Raspberry Pi, allowing your laptop to have remote GUI access over wired or wireless Ethernet using an installed RealVNC viewer on the laptop. SPI: This enables data sharing using the Serial Peripheral Interface, a widely used synchronous 114 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology serial communication specification for short-distance communication, primarily with embedded systems. I2C: Pronounced I-squared-C, this is another synchronous serial communication specification for short-distance communication. I2C is packet switched, allowing communication between multiple integrated circuits with microcontrollers and computers. Serial: This enables asynchronous console shell and kernel messages on a serial connection. This is needed to provide TTL to USB UART Serial Communications between the Raspberry Pi and your laptop without the use of a keyboard, mouse, and monitor connection to the Raspberry Pi. Key Takeaways In this exercise, we launched the Raspberry Pi microcomputer with the Raspberry Pi OS for the first time. For anyone who has used a keyboard, mouse, and monitor to start a brand new computer for the first time whether they were separate from the case of the computer or an all-in-one like a laptop there may be many similarities as well as some differences. These similarities and differences, though, arent just between the Raspberry Pi and any other computer youve ever used. Rather, brands and generations of computers each have been shaped by a wide range of social, cultural, and economic factors that have influenced the look, feel, and functionality of a given computer within a given context. To this extent, Raspberry Pi is just like other computers in use today. Compare and contrast your experiences with the different computers you have used. There are three primary types of operating systems used today: Microsoft Windows-based operating systems, developed by Microsoft in the early 1980s. Apple Mac-based operating systems, a Unix-based system released at the end of the century to replace the classic Mac OS introduced in 1984. Linux-based operating systems, including: * Android, a mobile operating system developed by Google, first commercially used in 2007. * Chrome OS, an operating system that uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interface and first used commercially in 2011. * Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, and other popular Linux distributions used on laptop, desktop, and server computers around the world. * Raspberry Pi OS Linux, the first choice in most cases for the Raspberry Pi computer. If possible, compare and contrast any brand new computers youve turned on for the very first time. As you compare and contrast operating systems, consider how the following components vary: The graphical user interface The setup and configuration files The included everyday applications 4C: Getting Started with the Raspberry Pi 115 Option 2: Configure the Raspberry Pi Headless We are most accustomed to interacting with a computer through its graphical user interface (GUI), which displays on the monitor. In lieu of this, we can connect to and control the Raspberry Pi using tools on our laptop, including the command line interface (CLI). Connecting your Raspberry Pi to your laptop in this way is known as a headless connection. Communication between devices takes many shapes and forms, using a range of protocols. For this exercise we will make use of UART (Universal Asynchronous Receive Transmit) interfaces. UART is actually a microprocessor with a package of integrated circuits on a printed circuit board, along with program logic, and is used to attach serial devices to a computer. This allows the computer and attached devices to talk and exchange data. USB (Universal Serial Bus) TTL (Transistor Transistor Logic) serial cables provide connections between USB and serial UART devices. You will need: Your laptop (Must be Windows 10 or Mac 10.12 or newer) A microSD card reader (Note: Some laptops have a built-in card reader) From your Raspberry Pi toolkit: Three pin-to-pin wires USB to TTL cable Power cable for Raspberry Pi Raspberry Pi, connected to Cobbler and breadboard MicroSD card Its worth noting that in this process we may be doing something which the system administrator or others have decided we cannot do, based on other, unknown priorities. But know that what we are trying to accomplish is perfectly safe to do. The devices you use for this book may have been configured in a way to prevent you from moving forward in this process. Take these challenges as a not-yet moment. We should not assume that we are doing something silly or wrong because the process is not straightforward or does not work immediately the way we expect it to. Configure files on microSD card Take a minute to watch a video on enabling the UART serial connection in Raspbian on Windows 10 or on MacOS, then go through the steps as follows: 1. Insert the microSD card into the card reader on or connected to your laptop. Many windows may open and you may get a pop-up which says, You need to format the disk in drive H: before you can use it. You can ignore this prompt and select Cancel. 2. Navigate within the File Manager to the BOOT drive. 3. Within the BOOT drive, open the config.txt file. Be sure to open it with a text editor, not a word 116 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology processor. This file contains a range of configuration settings used each time the operating system is loaded on computer boot up. a. If you are unable to open or edit files through the File Manager, you can work through the command line interface. b. Resources on using the terminal are available at the end of the book. 4. A standard used in Linux is for the symbol called pound or hash to indicate a comment. In this case, there are both comments and also options that have a pound symbol in front of them. The presence of a comment indicates that a line of code in a file is commented out or not currently activated. By removing the the pound sign, this line of code is thus activated. 5. Near the bottom, there are three optional hardware interfaces that are currently commented out. 6. Uncomment the parameter: dtparam=i2c_arm=on Well be using this to bring the Raspberry Pi and Circuit Playground Express together later in the book. 7. At the bottom of the file, create a new line with the words enable_uart=1 This will enable the Universal Asynchronous Receive and Transmit serial console on the Raspberry Pi moving forward. 8. Save and exit this file. 9. On the Boot drive, create a new file with the type text document. Name this file ssh. Make sure the file does NOT end with a .txt or .rtf file extension. You will get a warning that this may make the file unusable. Click Yes to continue making the change. This empty file will tell the Raspberry Pi OS to enable the secure shell remote login for use moving forward. Well dig into what this means very soon. 10. With these steps done, right click on the RECOVERY drive and select EJECT. Youll get a notice that you can remove it from your laptop. Its now ready to use with your Raspberry Pi when you need to use the USB to TTL cable to work with the Raspberry Pi using a serial console on your laptop. 11. Note that when files are written, its a two-step process, where the file is written to temporary storage, and then transferred to the permanent storage. When you choose the Eject option rather than immediately removing the microSD card (or USB drive or any other form of removable storage), the computer checks whether both steps have been completed. By hitting Eject in this way, you can be certain that your file was written. 4C: Getting Started with the Raspberry Pi 117 Connect The Hardware Components Steps 1. From your toolkit, select three pin-to-pin wires in white, black, and green.2 2. Using the diagram for guidance, connect the wires to the breadboard accordingly: Ground (black) wire to breadboard, aligned with GND row on the Cobbler. TXD (white) wire to breadboard, aligned with TXD on the Cobbler. This means transmit. RXD (green) wire to breadboard, aligned with RXD on the Cobbler. This means receive. 3. Select a UART cable from your toolkit. This has a USB port on one end and female pins in red, white, black, and green on the other end. 4. Connect each of the cables from the breadboard to the corresponding input on the UART cable. Matching each of these is very important: Ground to Ground (green), TXD to TXD (white), and RXD 2. Fritzing breadboard graphics are licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0. 118 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology to RXD (green). Note that the red port is for power. Leave this disconnected as it could overload and damage the Raspberry Pi. 5. Connect the USB side of the cable to your laptop. 6. Insert NOOBS microSD card (in which config.txt has been edited to enable UART) into Raspberry Pi microSD card port. 7. Connect the microUSB power to the Raspberry Pi and to a wall outlet. Set up Laptop as USB Console At this stage, the instructions differ for Windows and Mac users. If your computer runs the Mac operating system, jump to your instructions below. If your computer has the Windows operating system, proceed here: Windows Steps 1. Usually, Windows will automatically install the CP2104 driver when you connect your breadboard to the laptop. But just in case it doesnt, visit the SiLabs website to download and install the required driver manually. 2. Next, you will need to download and install PuTTY. PuTTY is free and open source software which supports several network protocols for connecting two devices, such as secure shell (SSH) and secure copy (SCP), both of which we will explore later. 3. From the list of downloads select the binary called just putty.exe from the section For Windows on Intel x86. This will prompt you to save the file. Save it onto the Desktop for now. Note that this actually saves the Program itself not an installer. Simply double click putty.exe to run PuTTY! 4. Before you start PuTTY, you need to know which com port is being used for the cable. You can find this by looking in the Ports section of the Windows Device Manager. 5. The Device Manager is accessible from the Control Panel under System. Within the Device Manager, scroll down to Ports and expand to show the available ports. The com port will be in parentheses, for example (COM3) or (COM7). It will often say SiLabs or Prolific or similar next to it. 6. Open PuTTY. You will see a connection window. 7. Select a connection type of Serial from the radio buttons. 8. Set the speed to 115200 and the serial line to the com port shown in your Device Manager. 9. Finally click Open to connect. Press ENTER to start communications. Wait for the screen to load, as it may take a minute. 4C: Getting Started with the Raspberry Pi 119 Mac OS Steps 1. Go to the Adafruit tutorial and download the required driver. 2. Open a terminal window and type in the command: ls /dev/cu.* 3. This command will list all of the available serial ports. You should see something like this: /dev/cu.Bluetooth device. Youre looking for something like: /dev/cu.usbserial-NNNN or /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART or /dev/cu.usbmodem. 4. Once youve identified the name, you can then run one of these corresponding screen commands. This command detaches a terminal window, creating a separate window within which you can access and control the Raspberry Pi. Your device will have a slightly different name than the examples here. The last number, 115200, is the baud rate. This number remains the same. screen /dev/cu.PL2303-00001004 115200 screen /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART 115200 screen /dev/cu.usbserial-A4001nCf 115200 5. One way to quickly figure out the name of your device is start typing screen /dev/cu and then press the TAB key to auto-complete the command. Before pressing enter, add 115200 to the end. 6. Hit enter again. Wait for the screen to load, as it may take a minute. 120 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Initial Configuration Steps 1. If prompted, log in to Raspberry Pi OS with username pi and password raspberry, the default for new installations. Now you can use the command line on your laptop to control your Raspberry Pi! 2. In the command line, enter: sudo raspi-config 3. Using the arrow keys and enter key, navigate through the configuration menu. 4. Select 1: Change User Password. Change the password from the default raspberry to something of your choosing that will be more secure. 5. Select 2: Network Options. Select N2 WiFi. Set the SSID (name) of the network, and the passphrase for the network. Or, optionally, connect the Raspberry Pi to a router using a wired Ethernet cable. 6. Select Finish to close the Raspberry Pi configuration tool. An introduction to the terminal window can be found at the end notes of the book: Using the Unix Command Line. 4C: Getting Started with the Raspberry Pi 121 Key Takeaways In this exercise, we launched the Raspberry Pi microcomputer with the Raspberry Pi OS for the first time. For anyone who has used a keyboard, mouse, and monitor to start a brand new computer for the first time whether they were separate from the case of the computer or an all-in-one like a laptop there may be many similarities as well as some differences. These similarities and differences, though, arent just between the Raspberry Pi and any other computer youve ever used. Rather, brands and generations of computers each have been shaped by a wide range of social, cultural, and economic factors that have influenced the look, feel, and functionality of a given computer within a given context. To this extent, Raspberry Pi is just like other computers in use today. Compare and contrast your experiences with the different computers you have used. There are three primary types of operating systems used today: Microsoft Windows-based operating systems, developed by Microsoft in the early 1980s. Apple Mac-based operating systems, a Unix-based system released at the end of the century to replace the classic Mac OS introduced in 1984. Linux-based operating systems, including: * Android, a mobile operating system developed by Google first commercially used in 2007. * Chrome OS, an operating system that uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principle user interface and first used commercially in 2011. * Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, and other popular Linux distributions used on laptop, desktop, and server computers around the world. * Raspberry Pi OS, the first choice in most cases for the Raspberry Pi computer. If possible, compare and contrast any brand new computers youve turned on for the very first time. As you compare and contrast operating systems, consider how the following components vary: The command line interface The setup and configuration files The included everyday applications Wrap Up Now that the Raspberry Pi is up and running, well dive directly into two exercises, first, to implement Python code on the Raspberry Pi which will control the LED lights we have set up on the breadboard. Second, we will play our counterstories for the first time on the Raspberry Pi. 4D: Coding Electronics As a final exercise for this unit, well bring the hardware together with software to implement Python code to turn the LED lights on or off. Then, well play counterstories with the Raspberry Pi. Exercise: Control LEDs with Python Code So far, your LEDs and momentary switches have functioned together directly as part of isolated circuits. But in this concluding exercise, lets rewire them to communicate with an application well download to the Raspberry Pi operating system and run using Python. Beyond the ground, 5V, and 3.3V pins on the GPIO of the Raspberry Pi, we have a wide range of other pins we can tap into, as can be seen in the image below. Those labeled with a pound (#) sign, are especially prioritized to serve as inputs and outputs within programs. But how they are used is open to the decision of coders. 122 4D: Coding Electronics 123 For this exercise, well use GPIO #12 and GPIO #16 for the momentary switches and GPIO #20 and #21 for the LEDs to be integrated into programming code. The key reasons behind these choices include: They are placed on the side opposite to where the ribbon cable leans, improving visibility of the Cobbler labels. They are close to the electronic components. This pairs the switches (#12 and #16) and LEDs (#20 and #21) in the same ordering (#12 and #20 on the white LED system closer to the GPIO; #16 and #21 on the blue LED system further from the GPIO). Part 1: Steps to Rewire the Circuits Heres the configuration of our current circuits as a reminder of where were starting.1 1. Remove the lower blue 10mm LED from row I, columns 9 and 10. Also remove the ground and 5 volt jumper wires and the 560 resistor for this LED. 2. Leave the upper blue 10mm LED in place along with the ground jumper wire. 1. Fritzing breadboard graphics are licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0. 124 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology But remove the 5 volt jumper wire from row D, columns 3 and 9. 3. Remove the lower white 3mm LED from row H, columns 27 and 28. Also remove the ground and 5 volt jumper wires for this LED. 4. Leave the upper white 3mm LEDs in place along with the ground jumper wires. But remove the 5 volt jumper wire from row A, columns 20 and 28. 4D: Coding Electronics 125 5. Place a ground jumper wire from the upper blue rail to column 17, row A. Place a white 3mm LED into row C, with the cathode leg in column 17 and the anode leg in column 18. 6. Place a 560 resistor in row D between columns 5 and 9, the anode leg of the blue 10mm LED. 7. Place a 560 resistor in row A between columns 28, the anode leg of one of the white 3mm LEDs, and column 32. 126 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 8. Establish a connection between #16 of the GPIO and the right momentary switch. To do this, leave the ground jumper wire for the right momentary switch connected to column 1, row A. But connect the other end of the jumper wire to column 46, row A. 9. Establish a connection between #12 of the GPIO and the left momentary switch. To do this, run a jumper wire from column 20, row A to column 48, row A. 10. Establish a connection between #20 of the GPIO and the white 3mm LEDs. 4D: Coding Electronics 127 To do this, run a jumper wire from column 32, row B to column 45, row B. 11. Establish a connection between #21 of the GPIO and the blue 10mm LED. To do this, run a jumper wire from column 5, row A to column 44, row A. Part 2: Steps to Run the Code At this stage, the exercise will vary based the adventure method you chose, Quickstart or Headless, to configure your Raspberry Pi. For this step, jump to your corresponding exercise below: Quickstart Exercise Headless Exercise Quickstart With our circuits complete, we are set to use software to determine whether or not the momentary switches connected to GPIO pins #12 and #16 are pressed or not pressed. We can then use that software to also determine whether to provide current to the LEDs connected to GPIO pins #20 and #21. 128 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Take 7 minutes to watch this video, then follow the steps below. 1. Open the Chromium Web Browser. 2. In the browser location tab, enter: http://apcg.wolske.site/Library/Code/Python/pushButton 3. Take a glance at the code, but most importantly right click in the window to save the program as pushButton.py (NOT as pushButton.txt as automatically listed). 4. Open a terminal window. 5. At the command line, type: python3 Downloads/pushButton.py 6. Follow the printed instructions to turn LEDs on and off, and to exit the program when done. 4D: Coding Electronics 129 Headless Heres how to use the console to set up and run Python code on your Raspberry Pi. This assumes that you have already connected your Raspberry Pi to your laptop using the USB to TTL cable and you have used the terminal (on Mac) or PuTTY (on Windows) to access the Raspberry Pis Command Line Interface remotely. If you need a refresher, Option 2: Headless Guide in Orange Unit 4C: Getting Started with the Raspberry Pi provides detailed instructions. 1. On your laptop, navigate to an internet browser. In the web browser, enter: http://apcg.wolske.site/ Library/Code/Python/pushButton 2. Briefly skim through the code. 3. Select-all and copy the code. 4. Navigate to the terminal window which is connected to the Raspberry Pi, type: nano pushButton.py 5. This will create a new Python file on the Raspberry Pi called pushButton and opens the text editor Nano. Paste the copied code into Nano. 6. To save your file and exit the text editor, type ^O (CTRL+O) then ^X (CTRL+X). 7. To run your Python code, in terminal window, type: python3 pushButton.py Key Takeaways Take 10 minutes to watch through this Crash Course Computer Science video from Carrie Anne Philbin highlighting how Instructions and Programs can serve as a first step from hardware into software. In previous sessions of the Orange Unit, circuits were constructed using electronic components without code. 130 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Within these circuits, we could have used the breadboard with a wide range of current and ground sources to the Cobbler beyond just the Raspberry Pi power source. As mentioned at the start of this activity, we chose to use the Raspberry Pi GPIO #12 and GPIO #16 to read the state of the momentary switches, and GPIO #20 and #21 control the state of the LEDs. In this case, the Raspberry Pis GPIO and associated electronics and embedded code together create one, more complex circuit. Code, in this case using the Python programming language, is used to determine the activities based on the state of the momentary switches and the design decisions controlling the state of the LEDs. The key reasons behind these choices included: They are placed on the side opposite to where the ribbon cable leans, improving visibility of the Cobbler labels. They are close to the electronic components. This pairs the switches (#12 and #16) and LEDs (#20 and #21) in the same ordering (#12 and #20 on the white LED system closer to the GPIO; #16 and #21 on the blue LED system further from the GPIO). How might you have designed it differently? True or false? As we move from circuits made exclusively of physical electronic parts to ones that also include programming code, greater opportunities for innovation-in-use become available. 4D: Coding Electronics 131 Exercise: Playing Counterstories Saved to the Raspberry Pi While we may already have used an application on our personal computers to play our counterstories, lets see what it might be like to use the Raspberry Pi microcomputer to do this instead. Later in the book, well move to using the Circuit Playground Express touch sensors to play selected stories. And then we will install an Apache web server onto the Raspberry Pi so that we can play them via a web page as well. But first, lets get to the point of copying files to the Raspberry Pi and playing the audio using the OMXPlayer application found on the Raspberry Pi. As part of this exercise well take the following steps: STEP 1: Establish a counterstory workspace on your laptop. This folder will be used to clearly identify multimedia data that will be transferred to and from the Raspberry Pi as needed. Copy this folder to a USB flash drive. STEP 2: Transfer data files between your laptop and the Raspberry Pi using a USB flash drive. STEP 3: Test the audio playback on the Raspberry Pi. While there are many ways to play audio and video using the Raspberry Pi, we will opt for the built-in OMXPlayer. Step 1: Establish a Counterstory Workspace on Your Laptop On your laptop, set up the digital counterstory components: 1. Create a folder called cstories to store counterstory MP3 files. 2. Save one or more counterstory drafts as MP3 files in your cstories folder. 3. Grab a USB flash drive and insert it into your laptop. 4. Copy the cstories folder and its contents to the USB drive. Step 2: Transfer Files From Your Laptop to Your Raspberry Pi 1. Establish a Raspberry Pi terminal window. Once you have your terminal window open, the steps that follow are exactly the same. PATH 1: If you have a keyboard, monitor, and mouse connection with your Raspberry Pi, use the start tab to open a new terminal window. PATH 2: If you are running the Raspberry Pi headless (that is, without a keyboard, monitor, and mouse), use the TTL/USB Serial Cable to connect the Raspberry Pi to your computer. (Jump back to last session if you need a refresher!) 2. In this case we see the ~ that indicates were in the home directory. For practice well first make sure were in the home directory of user pi by using the command cd to change to the ~, or users, home directory: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cd ~ pi@raspberrypi:~ $ 132 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 3. Insert the USB flash drive into a USB port on the Raspberry Pi. 4. Next, we need to learn the name of the USB flash drive. Enter this command, which shows all of the attached drives (like boot) and their available disk space on a human-readable format. Note that commands are case sensitive. pi@raspberrypi:~ $ df -H 5. Look under the Filesystem column for the row which begins /dev/sda. The name of the USB drive will be in the Mounted on column, following /media/pi. 6. Once you know the name of the USB drive, you can copy the cstories folder and its contents from the drive to your Raspberry Pis home directory. In the following command, replace the name of the USB flash drive with your own. pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cp r /media/pi/NameOfUSBdrive/cstories ~/cstories/ Note there is a single space between /cstories and ~/cstories/. 7. If it seems like nothing happens after you run the command, thats because it worked! Enter ls F to list the contents of your home directory, indicating the folders with a forward slash at the end. Hopefully, you will see the cstories/ folder listed! Stay logged in to your Raspberry Pi terminal as we will come back to this in a minute. An introduction to the terminal window can be found in the end notes of the book: Using the Unix Command Line. Step 3: Testing the MP3 Audio Playback on the Raspberry Pi OMXPlayer is an audio and video player made specifically for the Raspberry Pi. It comes pre-installed on the Raspberry Pi OS. Well be using this as our digital Little Free Library tool. For more on the capabilities of OMXPlayer and instructions on its many user commands, visit the OMXPlayer website. To test the audio playback of the Raspberry Pi: 1. Connect a headphone or speaker to the audio jack on the Raspberry Pi. 4D: Coding Electronics 133 2. Go back to your Raspberry Pi terminal window. Move into the cstories/ folder, also called changing directories, and then list your MP3 files, with the following commands: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cd cstories pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ls 1. Run OMXPlayer for one of the MP3 files you copied over from your laptop. For instance, if your MP3 file is called AQuickCounterStoryTest-1.mp3, enter: pi@raspberrypi:~/cstories$ omxplayer AQuickCounterStoryTest-1.mp3 2. If you are connected to an HDMI monitor and dont hear any sound, try adding -o local before your MP3 file name. This will ensure the sound plays over the audio port, instead of the HDMI port. Wrap Up Weve gone from basic LED circuits in parallel using different levels of resistance and different voltages, to LEDs in series controlled by momentary switches, to integrated circuits, to code-based circuits. We have also taken our first dips into the Raspberry Pi microcomputer pond to see how these electronic parts, along with a range of other electronics, come together to create large, complex systems like computers. A wide range of individual electronic components can be brought together using power and ground sources and conductors to build individual circuits, like the three different LED circuits we created. Using a printed circuit board, these electronic components can be put together to create an integrated circuit, like the Sequin LED integrated circuit. Integrated circuits and additional electronic components can be further put together with code to create limited purpose microcontrollers like the Circuit Playground Express well use in the Blue Unit, and general purpose microcomputers like the Raspberry Pi. As mentioned in a video segment at the beginning of this session, my history with computers goes back to the mid-1970s in junior high, and my work with general electronics even longer, as I grew up in my familys sawmill. In this video, I share my memories of electronics and programming during the late 1980s and early 1990s as I worked on my research as a PhD student at Rutgers. You may find some similarities to the work weve just done! 134 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Comprehension Check Orange Unit Review 135 136 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Orange Unit Review 137 138 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Orange Unit Review 139 140 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Orange Unit Review 141 Blue Unit: Computational Tinkering At a Demystifying Technology Workshop, elementary school parents gather around a desktop computer which has its cover removed. Author Martin Wolske sits to the left of the computer. Table of Contents Session Social Technical 1 The Logic of Hardware and Programming Essential Coding Concepts 2 The Methodological Landscape Make Music with Code 3 Valued, Inclusive Information and Computing Technology Experiences Build Functions for Remixable Code 4 Sharing Our Counterstories Raspberry Pi Counterstory Little Free Library Blue Unit Review Blue Unit Overview Humans are analog, while computers are digital and binary zeros and ones. As we will begin exploring in the Blue Unit, part of our work with the following coding activities is to perform translations between analog and digital. However, its important to realize that sometimes the analog materials cannot be replaced by digital. And sometimes, even if the digital could replace the analog, this translated version may not serve as well as the analog version. There are also times, though, when it proves best to either use the digital translation or to use information that is collected digitally. In this section, we will begin using electronics and human analog tools as well as digitalonly materials to begin doing computational thinking in new, creative, inclusive ways by using computational tinkering. Tinkering, the making of relatively small changes in order to improve or repair, is both a part of everyday life and also a historic way for sustainable living. While dictionaries recognize that it is often associated with a person living in an itinerant community, from my personal experience, this also includes members of non-traveling communities as well, as some of my close relatives and I identify as tinkers. Makerspaces are places to both respect traditional crafts and to also explore, create, invent, and learn using digitally-based crafts that, too, can reflect a tinker mindset. Creative tinkering studios are starting to emerge around the country, such as the Tinkering Studio at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, California, meant to allow museum visitors to slow down and deeply engage in the investigation of scientific phenomena in ways that, at the same time, open up creations representing their ideas and aesthetics. Project Computational Tinkering at the MIT Media Lab has worked with the Exploratoriums Tinkering Studio to explore computational thinking concepts and practices through both analog and digital materials to teach and explore the important skills of communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking as well as the design thinking skills of inspiration, ideation, and iteration. They define the term computational tinkering as bringing together decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, and algorithms of computational thinking with tinkerings idea generating, designing, personalizing, expressing, remixing, collaborating, questioning, reflecting, and iterating. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), and a range of computer science teachers, researchers, and practitioners collaborated to create an operational definition and series of standards, defining computational thinking as a problem-solving process that brings together computer and other tools with critical and algorithmic thinking, confidence in dealing with complexity, tolerance for ambiguity, and the ability to communicate and work with others to achieve a common goal or solution.1 Moreover, initiatives in K-12 education, such as Computer Science for All, focus on educating students in these computational thinking skills, as they are now considered the basic skills necessary for economic opportunity and social mobility. These skills are not only valuable in the classroom, but also in informal learning environments, corporate teams, and the boardroom. But as Bertram Bruce notes, there is a commonly-held view that computer technology is a tool that will in and of itself improve education, and ultimately ameliorate social ills.2 This itself builds from an underlying assumption that technology and social relations are independent from each other, that technologies are neutral tools with fixed meanings, and that people are agents independent of their technologies.3 To this end, it is important we further consider the deeply intertwined advancements of society, hardware, and software; that we continue to expand our methodological landscape to incorporate the deductive and inductive methods along with critical methodologies; that we search out knowledges and wealths beyond those in the dominant narratives of society; and that we work to execute computational tinkering in ways that advance inclusive computer science experiences. Side by side, well also tinker with electronics and code so as to create digital storytelling devices so that by the end of this unit, you can use them to share your own counterstory prototypes as developed in the Orange Unit. As we consider our future professions, it may be helpful to reflect on the following questions adapted from the Exploratoriums Tinkering Studio. How can we support people in bringing their different contexts and perspectives into computational tinkering activities in our future professional endeavors? What could be the role of equity and narrative in computational tinkering activities? How do we create activities that dont result in people just copying the examples at hand but having opportunities to get creative in drop-in learning spaces? How can we support learners and teachers alike to be comfortable not knowing the end result or the answer with computational tinkering activities? As noted by Linda Liukas, computer code is becoming the next universal language. It is urgent for us to find ways to help young people move forward with greater optimism and bravery regarding technologies. To achieve this, we need to join together and imagine a world in which technology tools can be tinkered with in ways that make them more wonderful, whimsical, and a tiny bit weird. Above all, the Blue Unit seeks to provide a studio for communities of practice to begin just this sort of journey. 1. International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA). Operational Definition of Computational Thinking for K-12 Education, 2011. https://id.iste.org/docs/ct-documents/computational-thinking-operational-definition-flyer.pdf. See the ISTE Standards website for more information. 2. Bertram C. Bruce, "Technology as Social Practice," Educational Foundations 10, no. 4 (1996): 1. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/13369. 3. Bruce, "Technology as Social Practice," 1. 1A: The Logic of Hardware and Programming Background Knowledge Probe Bring to mind an everyday computing tool at your regular disposal. On initial reflection: What design motivations may have inspired the original creators of this tool? What may have been happening that they perhaps wanted to happen more through creation of this new/improved/remixed tool? What may have not been happening that they perhaps wanted to happen for the first time through the creation of this new/improved/remixed tool? What may have been happening that they perhaps wanted to reduce or stop from happening through creation of this new/improved/remixed tool? Who may have been involved in the design, development, and creation of this tool? What may have been some of the motivations for those involved? An Evolution of Computing Tools From abacus to tabulating machine, early computing tools were designed to achieve inspirational goals. Who was inspired to guide the design and creation of the tools, their strategies for failing forward in that design and creation process, the motivating factors for their involvement, and the ultimate implementation of these early computing tools varied considerably. Further, the impact of these early tools on more recent computing devices, including the digital computers of today, are sometimes embedded within the design inspirations and creation process of past computing devices, even if they arent specifically interrelated. Keep these knowledge probes in mind as you take 11 minutes to watch this video on Early Computing from Carrie Anne Philbins Crash Course Computer Science series hosted by PBS Digital Studios. 152 1A: The Logic of Hardware and Programming 153 Knowledge Probe #2 As we gather information on the journeys of hardware and programming logic, lets build up a picture of real situations and real people as they relate to an everyday computing tool. On further reflection: What design motivations may have inspired the original creators of this tool? What may have been happening that they perhaps wanted to happen more through creation of this new/improved/remixed tool? What may have not been happening that they perhaps wanted to happen for the first time through the creation of this new/improved/remixed tool? What may have been happening that they perhaps wanted to reduce or stop from happening through creation of this new/improved/remixed tool? Who may have been involved in the design, development, and creation of this tool? What may have been some of the motivations for those involved? Many factors have influenced the growth of human civilization. The ways in which this growth was shaped by the design and creation of computing machines, and the ways in which this growth inspired and shaped the design and creation of these machines varies considerably. What is certain is that the demand for more sophisticated and powerful devices was an outcome of the growth of human civilization, whether it was a designed and planned objective or not. Next, take 11 minutes to watch this video on Electronic Computing from Carrie Anne Philbins Crash Course Computer Science series hosted by PBS Digital Studios. Knowledge Probe #3 As we gather more specific information regarding the hardware and programming logic of electronic computing, lets work to further build up a picture around real situations and real people as they relate to an everyday computing tool at your regular disposal. On further reflection: What design motivations may have inspired the original creators of this tool? What may have been happening that they perhaps wanted to happen more through creation of this new/improved/remixed tool? What may have not been happening that they perhaps wanted to happen for the first time through the creation of this new/improved/remixed tool? What may have been happening that they perhaps wanted to reduce or stop from happening through creation of this new/improved/remixed tool? Who may have been involved in the design, development, and creation of this tool? What may have been some of the motivations for those involved? 154 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Reading the World, Reading the Word, and Tinkering As we look through the journeys of hardware and programming logic, and as we reflect on our experiences through reflection probes, we begin a process of codification: bringing together the context and the content of real situations and real people. This work of systematizing, or reducing to a code, a broader range of ideas, practices, policies, and standards into a more ordered plan or scheme, has been an ongoing work of sciencific and professional practices throughout human history. Writing computer programming code is not a radical change to this historic work of codification, but a new technique for doing so using emerging digital technologies in addition to, or instead of, regular analog tools. Learning these codifications, and then problematizing, or decodifying, these to ask questions and critique more deeply the issues at hand as related to the codifications of these real situations and real problems is at the root of Paulo Freires critical pedagogy. It is an educational process that brings action and reflection into praxis through dialogue. While there may be individuals in a specific learning community who serve in lead instructional roles within that learning community, their knowledge is less than complete, thus requiring them to periodically shift to the role of student. And students, while they may have no or limited knowledge and expertise with the specific content and context under consideration, bring other knowledge and expertise to bear, requiring periodic shifting of roles to that of instructor. This approach stands in opposition to the dominant banking concept of education, in which knowledge is bestowed as a gift by experts to the empty vessels who have come to be filled by this learned teacher. For in critical pedagogy, the dialogue of all within a learning community presupposes equality amongst participants. Each must trust the others as people with expertise in their own rights. An instructor-student comes into the learning community with a significant level of knowledge or skill in an area of study, and so has certain clear responsibilities with regards to learning outcomes achieved using expository techniques such as synchronous and asynchronous audio and video lectures and authoritative choices on readings and experiential learning activities.1 At the same time, the instructor-student must also have mutual respect and love for the student-instructor as each one questions what they know. And together, instructor-student and student-instructor must realize that through the dialogic action-reflection cycles of problem-posing, education leads to potentially reconsidering knowledge in ways that further humanize all participants. A central tenet of Freirean literacy campaigns, which strongly fit within the digital literacies of today, is the essential recognition that in reading the words, in this case of technology, we are also learning to read the world. The instructor-student strives to incorporate strategically selected words, words that generate exploration and can be combined to create generative themes, into co-explorations that identifiy limit-situations built through domination. And for Freire, domination implies its opposite, limit-acts leading to the objective of liberation.2 As we enter into this exploration of person-centered computational tinkering, it is essential that we join with a diverse group of others. This is the liberatory literacy work of Jane Addams and the Hull House, of Miles Horton and the Highlander Folk School, and it is the work of community inquiry and community networking today.3 And it is the work that inspires the construction of the generative themes within this book. This requires that we work across difference, bringing together a breadth of functional diversities, cultural wealths, and knowledges into 1. Drew W. Chambers, "Is Freire Incoherent? Reconciling Directiveness and Dialogue in Freirean Pedagogy," Journal of Philosophy of Education 53, no. 1 (February 2019): 26-28, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12340. 2. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 50th Anniversary Edition (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), 99. 1A: The Logic of Hardware and Programming 155 dialogue facilitating our critical exploration of the sociotechnical artifacts in our daily lives. As we do this, we must work towards decodifying the real situations and real people that are shaping, and being shaped by, these sociotechnical artifacts. Through this, we can begin to identify with aspects of the situation, feeling the ways we are in the situation, reflecting upon and discussing these various aspects, and thereby bringing the picture into better focus through our new recodifications of the concepts and terms at hand. As Bertram Bruce notes in Technology as Social Practice, technology and social practices are not separate. Social relations are encoded in technologies. Conversely, technologies are encoded in social relations. Social relations and technologies are mutually constituted. But as we become enmeshed in these social + technical networks, we are left seeing only the black box. And so we cannot work to codify the social separate from working to codify the technical. Just as the invention of writing could be considered the first educational technology, so too the moveable-type printing press further altered educational practice. But these were mutually shaped, not just mutually shaping. As Bruce further notes: A given technology brought about educational change, but at the same time, requirements of society operating through the educational system generated changes in the associated technology. Technologies and social practices cannot be separated. Bruce concludes: A technology is a system of people, texts, artifacts, activities, ideology, and cultural meanings. It doesnt so much determine, as become social practices. Our task then must be consider critically what those social practices are now and what they can become in the future. Lesson Plan Lets begin by considering how all forms of the creative process, including computational tinkering, are social and technical works. Analyzing this can only be done together with others from different backgrounds, experiences, knowledges, wealths, and valued ways of being and doing. Well start by working to advance our reflections, more fully bringing together the social and the technical into a new picture of real situations and real people. And well work to use community of practice group discussions and individual reflections, along with the hands-on activities, to bring this into sharper focus in the context of coding concepts and practices. Our objective is to bring together a complex blend of ideas, concepts, and hands-on practice with components of our everyday sociotechnical artifacts. Along the way, look for innovation-in-use/remix prompts encouraging you to make creative adjustments and expansions of the sociotechnical artifacts to do more of what you and your community of practice value being and doing. What hopes, doubts, values and challenges might be brought into dialectical interaction with their opposites? How might this exchange inform our use of existing analog information systems and our design, creation, and use of complementary digital tools? 3. Bertram C. Bruce and Ann P. Bishop, "New Literacies and Community Inquiry" in The Handbook of Research in New Literacies, edited by J. Coiro, C. Knobel, C. Lankshear, and D. Leu (New York: Routledge, 2008), 699742, http://hdl.handle.net/2142/15133. 156 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Essential Resources: Bruce, Bertram C., and Ann P. Bishop. New Literacies and Community Inquiry. In The Handbook of Research in New Literacies, edited by J. Coiro, C. Knobel, C. Lankshear, and D. Leu, 699742. New York: Routledge, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/15133. Bruce, Bertram C. Technology as Social Practice. Educational Foundations 10, no. 4 (1996): 5158. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/13369. Additional Resources: Freire, Paulo. First Letter: Reading the World/Reading the Word. In Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those Who Dare Teach, 3147. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2005. Professional Journal Reflections: In this weeks viewing of videos, reading of text and context, in small and large group discussion, and your hands-on actions with sociotechnical artifacts, consider: What ideas have you built/codified regarding hardware and programming logic, its influences, and its influencers? What ideas are coming into clearer focus through community reflection and action, regarding the sociotechnical artifacts explored in this book? With other sociotechnical artifacts in your life? 1B: Essential Coding Concepts Background Knowledge Probe Take a few minutes to bring to mind an electronic device from home or work that you use daily. Then think through the following questions as they relate to this device: What do you see as the primary purposes for having this electronic device? What inputs and outputs do you think are used to ensure this electronic device performs as expected? What calculations do you think this device makes with the inputs and outputs to ensure it performs as expected? The Shaping of Electronics In the Orange Unit, we worked to demystify the basic electronics and hardware found in the digital technologies of our daily lives. To do so, we primarily worked with the physical electrical components and supporting parts to build a complete, closed path for current to flow from source to ground. That is, we created circuits. Consider that someone chose to design and provide instructions for others to create a circuit in which a momentary switch push button is placed on a breadboard next to a Raspberry Pi computer in a way that one diffused white LED stays lit as long as that circuit passes current through a resistor to the passthrough legs of that push button on to the anode (positively charged) leg of the LED, then through the cathode (ground) leg of the LED and to a grounded connection. Two other LEDs are placed in a circuit such that they only light up when the momentary switch push button is depressed. Why use diffused LEDs and not ultra bright LEDs? Why white and blue LEDs and not different colors of LEDs? 157 158 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Why is only one LED lit unless a switch is pressed while two other LEDs are only lit when the switch is pressed? Why connect the wires and electronics in the way selected on the breadboard and then through a 40-pin ribbon cable to the Raspberry Pi, and not in one of the many other ways they could have been connected? Were these all good enough, less than you would have preferred, exceptionally well chosen, or is this question even of importance? Asking these kinds of questions expands our understanding of the ways in which the shaping of electronic hardware shapes what data is collected, how it is collected, and ultimately its influence on knowledge/power. How are you being shaped by the design choices in this book? Who is doing the shaping? Why? In the last unit, our hope was to join together, author and reader, as a learning community to shape the actions of the electronic components through the building of circuits only using those electronic components, thereby establishing complete and closed paths in which an electric circuit can flow. We learned how current flows from a source, through electrical components like resistors, LEDs, and momentary switch push buttons, to reach ground. We saw how integrated circuits use printed circuit boards to bring all these pieces together into a single whole. In this way, all that is apparent is the source entering into the + side of the integrated circuit and then leaving through the side to reach ground. In some ways, then, the integrated circuit begins to place these components into a black box. But the individual electronics are still there, all the same. We also saw it is possible to control the reading and execution of circuits using programming code rather than through rewiring of physical electronics. Many of our everyday electronic tools, and not just our computers and smartphones, are built using both physical electronics and programming code. Indeed, integrated circuits, printed circuit boards, and other components of microcontrollers, microcomputers, computers, smartphones, and our many other digital technologies, are simply these electrical components integrated into tight containers that are sometimes difficult to see from the outside. Essential Coding Concepts There was a long journey for people to move from the mechanical computing done with an abacus to the electromechanical computing done for the 1900 census to todays general purpose programmable computers that use transistors to perform calculations. Many argue that the first person to create a set of programmed instructions to be used with a mechanical calculating engine so that it could achieve its full potential was Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace, a mathematician and writer. Ada Lovelace, as she is generally known, worked closely in the early 1800s with Charles Babbage, who focused on the mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Lovelaces papers and presentations were deeply influential within the British research circles of the day in seeing the full potential of computing machines, today known as computers. 1B: Essential Coding Concepts 159 Well be working with the Raspberry Pi microcomputer, Circuit Playground Express microcontroller, and electronics purchased from Adafruit, a woman-owned business named in honor of Lady Ada. Our work with coding is done, also, in honor of this original creator of programmed instructions. Lets explore how we can create our own programming code to read inputs, control outputs, and perform calculations. To do this, rather than working with a general purpose programmable computer like the Raspberry Pi microcomputer, lets use the limited purpose programmable Circuit Playground Express microcontroller. Microcontrollers are designed to meet specific input/output specifications. As the purpose of the Circuit Playground Express microcontroller isnt high performance, per se, but rather education, it is a bit more flexible than other microcontrollers. To meet various educational specifications, designers, engineers, and others came together to move from prototyping, likely at times using basic electronic components, wires, and breadboards, to ultimately create a diversity of integrated circuits put together on one printed circuit board to result in the Circuit Playground Express microcontroller. In shaping this tinker microcontroller, the intent was to provide us with flexibility to use the device in ways that can serve a range of open-ended learning and design specifications. As well learn throughout this unit, it is a participatory design process that intentionally underdesigns the sociotechnical artifact to assure greater innovation-in-use by others. Similar to a diagram showing the LED Sequin Integrated Circuit, this diagram of the Circuit Playground Express doesnt provide specific descriptions of the electronic components actually built into the printed circuit board, nor how they are brought together with conductive materials. But all the same, they are miniature versions of the resistors, LEDs, and push buttons, as well as sensors, switches, speakers and other electronics, just in miniaturized form. They are soldered to a printed circuit board and connected together using sturdy conductive materials. So before moving on, take a few minutes to learn about the Circuit Playground Express. The best way is to visit the the Adafruit Learning Center: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-circuit-playground-express Especially check out the Overview, Guided Tour, and Pinout sections to see the otherwise hidden details of the electronic components put together on this printed circuit board. Guiding Questions As you read, keep in mind these social guiding questions: Who shaped the designers and builders of the Circuit Playground Express to create it in this way? Was that shaping intentional, accidental, or a little of both? 160 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology How does Adafruits goal of teaching electronics and learning to code fit into all of this? As a result of the design and implementation of the Circuit Playground Express, how are you being shaped? And how might that shaping ultimately result in the shaping of still other people? Coding the Circuit Playground Express Were pretty familiar with our everyday general purpose computers that play an important role in running a wide range of applications continuously, or at selected times, to accomplish a diverse range of tasks. To access this book via a web browser, to communicate via email, to talk and text using a phone, to participate in social media, and so many other activities, you have become rather familiar with laptop and/or desktop computers, and smartphones, which are microcomputers. (Microcomputers are simply small computers that contain a microprocessor as its central processor.) The instructions created to control or evaluate electronic components are commonly termed code. As coded instructions are brought together to control the complex operations of computers and other machines, they are typically termed programs. These days, doing this work is referred to either as coding or programming. The specific words, characters, symbols and structuring of code to achieve the desired works are typically termed a programming language. As a general rule, microcontrollers are designed to continuously run a single application using a specific programming language. The Circuit Playground Express has been designed especially for educational use and so works with a range of programming languages, including Microsofts education-friendly MakeCode block coding language, Adafruits CircuitPython extension to the Python programming language, and Arduinos Arduino integrated development environment (IDE), written using the Java programming language.1 For the next few sessions, well work with MakeCode using Adafruits website: https://makecode.adafruit.com It was designed to work specifically with their Circuit Playground Express. It has many similarities to Scratch, a programming language developed by the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab.2 Both use visualized blocks of code which can be combined to create error-free code which achieves a certain event. Both are freely accessible to anyone, and creators are encouraged to work collaboratively in online communities to share creations. Both are being used by a wide range of explorers, from those in the early grade levels to older adults, and all in between. 1. MakeCode 2020 Microsoft and Adafruit. Screenshots used with permission. 2. Those who are familiar with Python or the Arduino IDE are welcome to create remixes of the following exercises in those languages, if desired. 1B: Essential Coding Concepts 161 A key difference, though, is that Scratch focuses on creation of interactive stories, games, and animations visualized using sprites wearing costumes and performing on stage. Adafruits MakeCode is created online in a Circuit Playground Express prototyping space and tested in a visual simulator before code is then downloaded and moved to your physical Circuit Playground Express for live testing. Exercise: Introducing MakeCode and Circuit Playground Express Adafruit has worked extensively to come up with a range of introductory tutorials, courses, and web pages, along with a range of exciting projects for you to use the Circuit Playground Express in your everyday lives. Links to these can be found on the MakeCode homepage. This next exercise is a remix of different projects and guides found through Adafruit and other sources. Well work to familiarize ourselves with coding concepts while also repeating certain LED and switch activities from the Orange Unit. But first, lets test the 10 general-use LEDs built into the Circuit Playground Express ring. Take four minutes to view this video showing the steps to write the MakeCode Animated Blinky FOREVER function, to save this to your laptop Downloads folder, and to flash this to the CPLAYBOOT device after connecting the Circuit Playground Express to the USB port on your laptop. Steps 1. In your laptops web browser, click on New Project from the MakeCode homepage. 162 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology When programming in MakeCode, we select blocks from within one of the Category menus and drag those into the workspace. These are either dropped into an open workspace to create a new function, like the default FOREVER control flow statement loop, or within an existing function as a statement. All blocks in a category are color coded to match the color of that category as seen in the parent window. So we can tell that the green FOREVER block came from the green LOOPS category. MakeCode will automatically begin immediate testing of the code, if possible, in the simulator. 2. In the LIGHT category, drag the show ring block and drop it into the FOREVER loop. By default, all 10 LEDs are set to red, and after a few seconds the LEDs in the simulator should also turn 1B: Essential Coding Concepts 163 red. 3. From the LOOPS category, drag the pause block and drop it below the show ring block, providing a statement to pause the loop for a set amount of time by default 100 milliseconds. 164 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 4. From the LIGHT category, drag the show animation block and drop it below the pause block. 5. Increase the show animation time to 2000 milliseconds, that is, to 2 seconds, by clicking on the default 500 setting and choosing 2 seconds. 6. Right click on the existing show animation block and select Duplicate from the provided window that 1B: Essential Coding Concepts 165 pops up. 7. Drag the second show animation block from within the workspace and drop it below the first show animation block. 8. Right click again on the first show animation block and select Duplicate from the provided window that pops up. This time it will duplicate its own block, and all blocks below it. In this case, thats only the second show animation block. Place these below the first two. 9. As of now, the simulator should show ring, pause for 100 milliseconds, then show animation default 166 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology for 4 x 2000 ms, or 8 seconds. Click on one each of the show animation block animation visuals and select from the six options provided. 10. This is rapid prototyping, so only take a few moments to create an acceptable testing prototype through modifications of the six lines of code now within the FOREVER loop, and through viewing of the results within the simulator display. 11. At the bottom of the MakeCode window, replace the word Untitled with animatedBlinky and click 1B: Essential Coding Concepts 167 the save icon to the right of the filename. 12. You now need to flash the code to your Circuit Playground Express. You can review this section of the previous video to see the specifics on these steps again. a. Connect your personal laptop to the Circuit Playground Express via a USB to micro USB cable. 168 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology The lights on the Circuit Playground Express should start flashing different colors if this is the first time youve plugged it in. b. Press the center reset push button on the Circuit Playground Express. You may need to push it longer or shorter to move from flashing LEDs to a solid green set of LEDs. This indicates its ready to be physically reset with new code. c. In your Windows Explorer or Mac Finder window, you should now see the device named CPLAYBOOT listed. Heres a short section of the earlier video demonstrating these last steps. 13. Drag the file circuitplayground-blinky.uf2 from your downloads folder and into the CPLAYBOOT device. This saves the MakeCode you created onto the Circuit Playground Express in away that allows it to be understood and followed by the Circuit Playground Express. Key Takeaways A block code programming language and Integrated Development Environment (IDE) like MakeCode allows you to drag and drop error-free sections of code from the CATEGORY list into a working programming screen. Microcontrollers such as the Circuit Playground Express are typically directed by one or more small programming modules or functions with instructions which are continuously run unless the microcontroller is disconnected from power or otherwise turned off. To achieve this, the MakeCode environment launches a FOREVER block by default when you 1B: Essential Coding Concepts 169 open a new project. This creates a continuous iteration, a control flow statement used in computer programming to loop back around. We dragged and dropped six blocks that served as individual lines of code to be executed in sequence each time the FOREVER loop was restarted at the top. A live-screen simulator automatically restarts and runs the updated code each time you drag and drop a block, letting you test your program in a browser. The Circuit Playground Express is designed by default to allow you to then flash the code you created onto it, at which time the physical microcontroller will restart and run the code, just like the simulator. Choose Your Own Adventure A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology is an introductory textbook using a variety of hands-on exercises to evolve a more holistic and nuanced understanding of the sociotechnical artifacts we use as a daily part of our professional lives. It seeks to develop a critical approach to sociotechnical artifacts and to advance community agency in appropriating technology to achieve our individual and community development goals. As weve probed deeper, weve begun to expand our understanding of innovation beyond the package inside a box, but to also include the set of practices and remixes that emerge from the social setting of its use. Weve also explored the hidden and forgotten innovators of technologies, including technologies beyond those defined as innovative within male-dominated professions and monopolies. Working through this space is messy even at the best of times as we work to unpack the social and technical bits and their underlying, non-neutral shapers. And so the exercises seek to find a means through which a broader Community of Practice collaboration is possible. For the Blue Unit, this has been done through the selection of the education-focused Circuit Playground Express microcontroller board, and related exercises that explore core programming concepts through the use of the block-programming language MakeCode. Alternative Programming Adventures Whether or not you enter into this book with a background in programming, you may want to choose an alternative programming adventure to MakeCode to perform these exercises. Or you may want to do the exercises following the written MakeCode instructions, and then do your own innovation-in-use remixes using an alternative programming language. To that end, the Circuit Playground Express is compatible with three major text-based programming languages, including: JavaScript: a high-level programming language originally focused on livening up web pages through the use of its plain-text scripts. While its naming includes the term Java, a general-purpose programming language, it is independent from it and includes important features that make it a safe programming language that can be used with web pages and on web browsers in ways that Java cannot. Of special note, the design choices incorporated 170 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology into JavaScript make it an ideal complement to the block-based MakeCode programming language. Its easy to switch between MakeCode and JavaScript with a click of the code selection window options at the top, switching between adventure types. In this way JavaScript might prove an ideal text-based complement to the block-based MakeCode throughout the exercises of the Blue Unit to Do Something New! Python: a popular Open Source Software programming language that has proven very helpful within educational contexts as well as within the broader programming community. Its support of modules and packages means it can easily be reused in new projects. And as is the case here, it can be expanded to serve special use contexts, such as with microcontroller boards like the Circuit Playground Express. CircuitPython is based on Python and provides the essential hardware support needed to work with microcontrollers while including the Python coding base. The Circuit Playground Express is CircuitPython-ready, but does not have CircuitPython installed by default. This is because you can only work with one programming language at a time and MakeCode was chosen as the perfect introductory pathway. However, its easy to install CircuitPython. When installed, a new CIRCUITPY drive will appear in addition to CPLAYBOOT. NOTE: be sure to copy your .py program files to CIRCUITPY as thats the only place from which they will run. The Adafruit Explore & Learn site has more to get you started with CircuitPython on the Circuit Playground Express. To go back to MakeCode, all you need to do is flash your selected MakeCode .uf2 file to CPLAYBOOT. NOTE: in so doing, you are also uninstalling CircuitPython; that said, you can switch between these regularly and often. Adafruit provides a helpful guide on Moving Circuit Playground Express to MakeCode. Arduino: a programming language adding a library of hardare interfaces to the C/C++ programming language. The Circuit Playground Express is Arduino-ready and you can find out more on this from Adafruit. While Arduino outperforms MakeCode/JavaScript and CircuitPython when run on microcontroller boards, it can take more time within development uploading/compiling and memory management. As such, the other two are recommended for the exercises of the Blue Unit. The adventure is yours for the choosing. While its important to exercise your choice in ways that help you reach a sufficient state of Yet with regard to the key learning outcome objectives within the unit, its likely you have as many and more of your own valued beings and doings that you are working towards. It is our intent to assure you have choices and the means to exercise and achieve these choices in support of those values. 1B: Essential Coding Concepts 171 Exercise: Using Momentary Switch Circuits With Conditional Code The animated blinky exercise gave us a chance to test out the MakeCode web browser. It also introduced us to the downloading and flashing of code to our physical Circuit Playground Express, as seen in this video. From here, you could further tweak the light display, unplug the Circuit Playground Express, connect it to a portable battery source, and voil! Now you can carry this around after dark as you walk or bike home!! Now lets try using inputs, like the left and right momentary switches of the Circuit Playground Express, to determine the state of the LEDs. So far the sequence of our FOREVER control flow statement loop is run precisely the same over and over with no intentional changes. Using switches to turn on an off LEDs in our breadboard circuits is an example of conditionals. Lets work to do the same thing using the Circuit Playground Express LEDs and switches. For this activity, well repeat our Pi-Controlled LEDs activity from the Orange Unit. In that exercise, one white LED was constantly on. Two more white LEDs only came on when the left switch was pressed down. The blue LED, on the other hand, was on unless the right switch was pressed down. Lets use MakeCode to do something similar on the Circuit Playground Express. This is an example of taking the insights gained from the many prototypes done with a breadboard and electromechanical components, and using them to extend our prototyping at a higher level of abstraction using a microcontroller. One of the most common conditional statements is the "IfThen" statement, also referred to as an IfThenElse statement. In our case, well use this statement such that if the button A is pressed then turn a white LED on, else turn/leave it off. On the other hand, if button B is pressed, then turn a blue LED off, else turn/leave it on. An important first step in coding is to initialize items before moving on to the regular work of the code. In MakeCode, this is done with the ON START initialization control flow statement block. Any lines of code in this block are done in the order listed, and are done only once when power is first provided to the Circuit Playground Express. Hence the term initialization. Well use this to set a brightness for the LEDs and turn on and leave on another white LED as weve done in the Orange Unit exercises. Lets get started. Steps 1. On the MakeCode homepage, click to start a new project. 2. From the LOGIC category, drag an IfThenElse block and drop it into the FOREVER loop. 3. From the INPUT category, drag a button A is pressed block and drop it within the window, like so: 172 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Notice in the image that the and windows both have a yellow border around them. This indicates that, if you release the mouse or touchpad button now, the upper Button A window will be dropped in the the lower True window. Itll take a little practice to get good at this, and I still find I sometimes drop one window into the wrong lower window. Fortunately, by dragging and dropping, it can be moved to the intended window from wherever it was accidentally placed. 4. Time for a design choice. Which button will work with the normally off white LED, and which the normally on blue LED? For now, lets go with button A = white LED off unless pressed. 5. From the LIGHT category, within the More section, drag the set pixel color at block and drop it into the then section. 6. Change the at subwindow to 4, and change the color from red to white. 7. In the simulator, press the A button on the left. Notice the LED below the musical note symbol turns white and stays so. Could it be that the location of the buttons in the simulator looks similar to the location of the buttons on the breadboard sitting next to my computer workstation? Design influences come from many physical as well as social and mental influences! 8. The else part of an "IfThenElse" logic statement is just the place we need next so that we can turn/ leave the white LED off if the button A is pressed condition above is NOT true. Take another set pixel color at block and drop it into the else section, changing the at to 4, and the color to black.NOTE: You can do this either by duplicating the set pixel color at block from the then section and then dragging the duplicate into the else section, or you can enter into the INPUT category and drag a new set pixel color at block from there to drop into the else section.Our white LED is now off on the simulator unless we press button A! 1B: Essential Coding Concepts 173 9. Right click in the area of the then statement text, and choose duplicate from the pop-up window. 10. Drag the duplicate IfThenElse logic block and drop it below the + symbol at the bottom of the current IfThenElse statement block. It is important to drop this into the right location. In the images above, dropping it below the current 174 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology IfThenElse statement block specifies that, during each pass through the sequence of statements within the FOREVER loop, we will first do the top IfThenElse conditional logic block, then the second IfThenElse conditional logic block.The image on the right, crossed out in red, demonstrates how we could have otherwise done a single IfThenElse conditional logic block, and one if it is NOT true. We would turn/leave the white LED #4 off and then check the conditional as stated in the IfThenElse subroutine within the else statement. More on this later. 11. In the second IfThenElse conditional logic block, change button A to button B and the at statement from 4 to 5. 12. To reverse the conditions determining when the LED turned on, in the second IfThenElse conditional logic block, change the white color of the pixel within the then section to black. Change the black color of the pixel within the else section to blue. 13. Experience has shown these LEDs especially the white LEDs can be very bright, sometimes alarmingly so for those with certain visual functional diversities. Before flashing this over to the physical Circuit Playground Express, lets add in an ON START initialization block to determine the brightness of the LEDs, and to also turn on one of the white LEDs as a working symbol, as weve used in the Orange Unit prototypes. a. From the LOOPS category, drag an on start initialization block and drop it into an open area of the workspace. b. From the LIGHT category, drag a set brightness block and drop it into the ON START initialization block. c. From the LIGHT category, drag a set pixel color at block and drop it into the On START initialization block underneath the set brightness block. 1B: Essential Coding Concepts 175 d. To finish, change the brightness from 20 to 5, and the set pixel color at 0 from red to white. e. Do further testing in the simulator until you think it is working as it should. f. In MakeCode, change the file name from Untitled to pushButton, click on the save icon, and Download. g. On the physical Circuit Playground Express, push down the reset button, and drag the new circuitplayground-pushButton.uf2 file to the CPLAYBOOT device. h. Do initial testing on the physical device, confirming it is working as it should, or identifying fixes needed within the code. This can include adjustments in the overall design, not just in the code as created through the above steps. i. Make any changes as identified on the physical device within MakeCode, test further in the simulator, save a new copy and flash it to the physical Circuit Playground Express, and do additional testing there. Repeat this process until it works well for you, for your co-explorers, and perhaps even for your intended audience! Key Takeaways In this exercise, we extended our electronics prototyping skillset using the Circuit Playground Express microcontroller. We coded within the FOREVER function loop, extending the number of statements, or lines of code, that occur within each sequence through this loop. We studied the IfThenElse conditional control flow statement, which uses a logic question such as If button A is pressed, and provides a platform to then indicate that action when true. In our case, that meant turning on a white LED. The Else section lets us specify what to do if the question is false. In our case, that meant turning off, or leaving off, that same white LED. We found how it is often important to initialize items, for instance, by setting the brightness to a certain chosen level before those LEDs are turned on. We worked in multiple layers of abstraction, while balancing our prior and current knowledge and skills and our considerations regarding investment of time and capital to move through this activity. 176 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Theres quite a bit of electronics now under the hood, and much of the engineering specifics are no longer known by us, although as used it performs much the same as did our later breadboard prototyping in the Orange Unit. How our blocks turn into text before being compiled and turned into machine-readable code is now hidden from us, but this trade-off gives us a relatively easy way to dip our toes into coding. The programming code that takes our FOREVER function loop and ON START initialization control flow statement and uses them to change to state of the electronics as instructed is also largely underneath the hood and unknown to us. In its design, though, is a pathway for us to do some extensive innovation-in-use of the software and associated electronics to meet our own chosen valued design choices. Abstractions, when designed and implemented well, provide us with new opportunities to go places we had otherwise only dreamed. But, theres always a risk that underneath those hoods are choices that ultimately may take us places we consider problematic or dont value. No matter the stage of design and implementation we find ourselves at, it is valuable to pause regularly throughout and reflect on the seen, the unseen, and the unforeseen in these sociotechnical artifacts. Exercise: Testing Out Innovation-in-Use to Build a Five Digit Counter Our Circuit Playground Express now performs as a tool fairly similar to the one we prototyped on our breadboard previously. But with the Circuit Playground Express, we have more LEDs available. This might be a good way to further expand our budding design, prototyping, and coding skills. With five LEDs in the area of button A, what if we used them as a five digit counter? Through trial and error, I found that the programming code behind MakeCode preset the 10 LEDs with numbers 0 to 9, in which LED 0 is nearest the green On LED of the Circuit Playground Express, and LED 9 is just below D13 and just above the A9 thermometer symbol of the Circuit Playground Express. This brings to mind that there are five digits on the same half of the Circuit Playground Express as button A, numbered 0 to 4. There are five additional digits on the other half of the Circuit Playground Express, those numbered 5 to 9, on the same side as button B. This design matches well the normative design of the human body with two hands (analogous to two buttons) with five fingers on each (analogous to five LEDs in proximity to each of the two buttons). This prompted new ideas for using the Circuit Playground Express to further advance our coding logic flows. For this exercise, lets equate one push of each button with raising the fingers within that analogical hand. Once all five LED digits are raised within a hand, one with each new press of the associated button, the next press of the button will turn off all five of its LEDs. 1B: Essential Coding Concepts 177 Knowledge Probe First, lets think through the logic of this new design a bit more, starting with the five LEDs of button A, LED pixels 0 to 4. In the last activity, for each pass through the FOREVER sequence: If button A is pressed down, pixel at 4 is set to color white, whether it was already set that way or not. If button A is not pressed down, pixel at 4 is set to color black, whether it was already set that way or not. This is an example of combinational logic. In combinational logic, the result depends only on the current states of the inputs. What we do in each sequence is determined just based on the current state of the system. It is not based on any past states of the system.Sometimes combinational logic is the absolute best choice, like what I do if I see a squirrel trying to eat fruit from my garden. It doesnt matter whether this is the first time or the 50th time. Combining species (squirrel), location (garden), conditions (fruits ripe or nearly so), and knowledge (squirrels eat this type of fruit), Ill chase it away. This is combinational logic.Sometimes combinational logic is the choice we go with just because its at hand. Ill just keep chasing off the squirrel from the fruit tree because its right next to my easy chair where Im reading a book. But other times, we may use past logic to influence future logic. Perhaps squirrels havent been here before, so chasing it off five times might make good sense. But on the sixth attempt to invade our fruit tree, we might logically consider its time to do something more drastic than just chasing it off.Then there are times when combinational logic just doesnt make sense. Consider the ceiling lights in a kitchen. What if combinational logic was only available to turn them on? Combining intent (cooking dinner), conditions (after dark), and knowledge (Ive previously used my vision to select and use ingredients) suggests we turn on the light. If this meant we needed to walk over and push and hold down a button to keep the light on, this combinational logic would keep us from doing the rest of the activities. In this activity, we not only want the press of the button to turn on an LED; we want it to move down the line, lighting a sequence of up to five LEDs. What action using Button A could change the pixel number being lit next? 1. Each new pass through the FOREVER sequence while button A is pressed, move to the next pixel? 2. Every 100 passes through the FOREVER sequence while button A is pressed, move to the next pixel? 3. At initial change of button A from not pressed to pressed, move to the next pixel? 4. Something yet different from that? Back when I used to use a click counter to keep track of an event, a clicker either: 1) started a counter that ran until I did a second click, which matches well a and b above, or 2) it increased the count by one 178 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology every time I hit that clicker, which matches well with option c above. For now, lets go with option c, then. Steps 1. Start a new project in MakeCode. 2. From the LOOPS category, drag over an on start initialization block, and drop it somewhere in the workspace. 3. From the LIGHT category, drag over a set brightness to the ON START initialization block and set it to 5 (or your chosen value) to keep the LEDs from being too bright. 4. For this exercise, well need some variables to keep check on specific things. Well start by creating these variables within the VARIABLES category. Create each by clicking on Make a Variable: Name one aCount. Well use this to determine how many times the button has been pressed recently. Name one buttonALast. Well use this to remember if it was pressed down during the last sequence with the number 1, or if it was not pressed down during the last sequence with the number 0. Using variables to remember recent past states and to determine current events is the basis for sequential logic. What to do at this point in a sequence is determined not just on current state, but also on past states. 5. From the VARIABLES category, drag a set _____ to 0 to the ON START initialization block. This will be labeled the same as the last variable created. Copy two of these over to the ON START initialization block. Use the label to drop down options, and set one to aCount and the other to buttonALast. Leave each set to 0 within the ON START initialization block. 6. As in the last exercise, from the LOGIC category, drag over an IfThenElse block and drop it into the FOREVER function. 1B: Essential Coding Concepts 179 7. As before, from the INPUT category, drag over a button A is pressed block and drop it into the window. 8. This time, rather than turning a specific pixel white or blue, well instead use a new IfThen block (no Else needed here) within the Then section. Well use this to determine whether this is a new press of the button, or an ongoing press of that button. 9. From the LOGIC category, from within the Comparison section, drag over a <0 = 0> block and use it to replace the of this second IfThen logic statement. 10. From the VARIABLES category, drag a buttonALast variable block and replace the left 0 of the comparison we just added. Leave the other 0 as is. This IfThen conditional is now checking to see if button A was NOT pressed previously as a first step within the IfThen conditional in which button A is pressed was True. To complete the sequential conditional logic being setup with the buttonALast variable, we need to: Drag the set _____ to 0 variable block within the VARIABLES category and drop it into the else section of the parent If button A is pressed logic statement. Update it to read set buttonALast to 0, as this else section is reached only when button A is NOT pressed. We want to remember that in the past iteration of this FOREVER function sequence, button A was NOT pressed. Drag a second set _____ to 0 variable block within the VARIABLES category and drop it into the Then section of the If buttonALast = 0 logic statement. Update it to read set buttonALast to 1 as this Then section is reached when button A is first pressed, and we want to remember it is already pressed moving forward into future iterations of this FOREVER function. 180 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Looking at our code, we see that within the FOREVER loop, we now have a parent IfThenElse block that uses a button A is pressed block conditional as its starting point. If False, that is, button A is NOT pressed, we move to the Else section and set the buttonALast Variable to 0, or False. If True, that is, button A IS pressed, we move to the Then section. But rather than immediately taking an action, this time we first do another logic check, this time, whether button A was NOT pressed last time using an If buttonALast = 0 condition. Thats because we already know we set the variable buttonALast to 0 whenever the button A is pressed condition is False. Now, only when button A is pressed is True AND buttonALast = 0 do we change the block Variable to set buttonALast to 1. 11. Within the If buttonALast = 0 Then statement, add a set pixel color at block from the LIGHT category. a. From the VARIABLES category, drag over an aCount block and drop it into the 0 window of the new set pixel color at block, so that it now reads set pixel color at aCount. b. Change the red window to white. 12. From the VARIABLES category, drag a change _____ by 1 block and drop it under the set pixel color at block. Use the key to set this block up to read change aCount by 1.\ If you press button A in the simulator now, what happens? Here, we see that after 8 individual presses of button A in the simulator, eight pixels have been turned to white. 13. To add a conditional limiting the number of pixels turned to white using button A, we need yet a third embedded IfThen logic statement, this one as with the the top parent including an Else. From the LOGIC category, drag over an IfThenElse block and drop it under the set buttonALast to 1 block within the if buttonALast = 0 Then statement. 14. Drag the blocks set pixel color at aCount to white and change aCount by 1 into the Else section of 1B: Essential Coding Concepts 181 this new IfThenElse statement. It should look as follows: 15. From the Comparison section of the LOGIC category, drag over a <0 = 0> block and replace the true window of the new IfThen statement. a. From the VARIABLES category, drag an aCount block and drop it in the left 0 window. b. Change the = window to >. c. Change the right 0 to 4. d. Now, If aCount is greater than 4, Then we can turn all of the white pixels on the button A side to black. Else, well turn the next aCount to white. 16. To turn the five button A pixels from white to black, were going to use a new control flow statement called the FOR loop. From the LOOPS category, drag a for index from 0 to 4 block and drop it within the If aCount > 4 Then statement. 17. From the VARIABLES category, drag an aCount block and drop it where the index block is now located within the new FOR loop. 18. From the LIGHT category, drag a set pixel color at block and drop it inside the FOR loop. a. From the VARIABLES block, drag a aCount and drop it into the new set pixel color at block, replacing the 0. b. Change the red window to black in this set pixel color at block. c. This FOR loop resets the aCount back to 0, goes through the Do section, then increases the aCount by 1 and repeats the Do section, continuing until it reaches the maximum number. In our case, this means it will go through aCount from 0 to 4, turning the pixels black. 182 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 19. Finally, add in a set _____ to 0 from the VARIABLES category and drop it underneath the new FOR loop, using the to set this to a set aCount to 0 block. 20. Use the simulator to test this prototype. Every sixth press of button A should now reset our counter to zero pixels lit. If this is Not Yet the case, Fail Forward using the troubleshooting process to reach Yet. 1B: Essential Coding Concepts 183 21. Once all looks good in the simulator, save this code as pushButtonCounter, flash it to the physical Circuit Playground Express, and give it a field test. Ta-da!!! Now, lets create a Button B counter in blue to stay with the theme of that button. Button B Counter Design Probe We have more design decisions to make. We can either do the new If button B is pressed Then logic control flow statement in sequence with the If button A is pressed Then logic control flow statement within the same FOREVER function, or we can place it in a new FOREVER function. Should one follow the other, or should each run independent of the other? We also need to decide the order in which button B lights the pixels. Should it flow from top to bottom on the right, just as it does for button A on the left? This means we need to start with pixel 9 and move down to pixel 5 in order. Or should we go in pixel order from pixel 5 to pixel 9? For this exercise, we will conduct these tests independent of each other, starting from the top of the pixels as seen in the simulator. How might this be shaping your learning? How might this shape your use of this microcontroller push button counter moving forward? Steps Rather than taking the time to go through the copying/pasting and remixing of the first button A FOREVER function to create a second button B FOREVER function step by step, lets commit the time to noticing the key changes needed to have this fit within the design profile listed above. 1. In your laptop web browser, download this UF2 code: circuitplayground-twoPushButtonCounters.uf2 If it does not do so automatically, select to download this file. 2. Flash the downloaded circuitplayground-twoPushButtonCounters.uf2 file to the physical Circuit Playground Express and perform some initial testing of this prototype. Does it fit the design profile as stated above? Does it work well for you and your valued doings? 3. Go to the MakeCode homepage and drag the downloaded file circuitplaygroundtwoPushButtonCounters.uf2 onto the MakeCode screen. Take a minute to test this prototype in the simulator. How does it compare to the physical testing process? 4. Both FOREVER functions have 19 lines of text, so to speak, within the blocks. How many are the same? Why? How many are different? How might they have changed? 184 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Side Note on the For Loops Within the Button A FOREVER function, the FOR loop is written as: for aCount from 0 to 4, set pixel color at aCount to black In this For control flow statement, aCount starts at 0 and the pixel at 0 is set to black. aCount is increased by one, and if its still less than or equal to 4, that pixel is set to black. In this way, it sets pixels 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 to black. Within the Button B FOREVER function, the FOR loop is written as: for element bCount of bList, set pixel color at bCount to black Since Button B does not work with pixels 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4, but instead works with pixels 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, this basic For control flow statement wouldnt work. So in the ON START initialization control flow statement, a new bList array was created, with the numbers 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 put into that list array. In this For control flow statement, every bCount of bList is used to do a set pixel at action. An aList could have been created with 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 within this array, replacing the for aCount from 0 to 4, do statement with for element aCount of aList, do statement. In setting up the button A FOREVER function, you stepped through the simpler version as MakeCode wrote the block code with this simpler FOR loop block. But both forms of the FOR loop function the same, and using the list arrays would give greater flexibility moving forward. This demonstrates how there are often multiple ways to execute code, some of which depend as much on programming preference as on performance. 1B: Essential Coding Concepts 185 Key Takeaways Sequential logic is used when past conditions (such as the previous state of a switch or the last LED that was lit) should impact what is to be done in the current sequence of a control flow statement. In our case, this was used to determine actions to be done or not be done within a sequence of IfThen control flow statements. Multiple embedded IfThen and/or IfThenElse control flow statements can be used to move from more general True/False, Yes/No logic questions to more specific logic questions. Variables are data items whose values can be changed. In this case, the variables aCount and bCount were used to determine which of five pixels associated with button A and button B, respectively, should be lit. The variables buttonALast and buttonBLast were used to only change the condition of an LED pixel when the buttons state is first changed. Arrays provided a list specific to button B that was used to give greater flexibility regarding which LED pixels should be turned on or off. This is an example of how, often in computing, an indexed set of related elements can prove extraordinarily useful to expand the possibilities regarding data sets held within variables. Choices shape our pathways forward. Sometimes the way forward is to use written guides and hints, or even to download and use already written code. While useful, it can make it more difficult to know what has shaped these resources as compared to those times when you participate in a community of practice to design and prototype something. Even then, it is almost always the case that you are working at a relatively high level of abstraction, in which case there are still hidden choices underneath the hood. As an example of this last takeaway, you may find it helpful to glance at the JavaScript text to which the blocks are converted in the MakeCode twoPushButtonCounters code. The for aCount from 0 to 4, do as used in the button A forever function could have been changed to for bCount from 5 to 9, do in the button B forever function. But a MakeCode block for this type of for loop was not created, and so could only be done by making this change to the code in JavaScript, potentially a more difficult process for those shifting from block to JavaScript programming languages. Wrap Up To build further on the key takeaways from the above three exercises, take 11 minutes to watch this video on Programming Basics: Statements & Functions from Carrie Anne Philbins Crash Course Computer Science series hosted by PBS Digital Studios. Coders shape how things work even as they are shaped by how past coders shaped the code. We started with the blinky code. But behind that code was more complex code, hidden from view. Who set up the blocks we used to work the way they did? How did it work well for us? How could it have worked better? Did we always understand how one block worked compared to another? Why or why not? 186 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology By the end, you followed instructions to create your own functions with loops and variables. Each function included other, hidden functions and variables incorporated into sequences of code operating sometimes under only certain conditions. Theres a trend to more strongly shape programs and the distributed apps based on those programs. In doing so, control is taken away from us. In this chapter, weve worked to discover how we can get control, but only if the Integrated Development Environments like MakeCode and programmable electronic systems like the Circuit Playground Express have been designed and implemented in ways that facilitate innovation-in-use by those at every level of the social technical artifact. In what ways have you been shaped by the Circuit Playground Express, selected electronics, MakeCode, and these exercises? In what ways have you helped to shape the Circuit Playground Express, selected electronics, MakeCode, and these exercises? If you were return to the top, in what ways might you work to shape the Circuit Playground Express, selected electronics, MakeCode, and these exercises? Who might be impacted by these things because of the various mutual shaping and amplification by the many people involved: individuals and communities of practice with unique histories, intersectionality, expertise, valued doings, and power, privileges, and oppressions? Comprehension Check Weve spent time learning how to write basic programming code to create control flow statements such as FOREVER and FOR loops, ON START initialization, and IfThen conditional statements. Weve used variables and arrays to facilitate use of data within the code to facilitate coding through abstraction. And weve used FOREVER and ON START functions to break down code into distinct units. Lets check our learning of these core coding concepts by bringing the following blocks together to create a new ON SHAKE function that plays a short siren and blinks between two different LED pixels rings before turning all LED pixels off. This should be added to the Button A and Button B Five Digit Counters. The design criteria includes: A siren should cycle between playing a low note and a high note three times. The ring of LED pixels should change between two different LED colors four times. At the end, all sound and all LED pixels should be turned off. This sequence of events should only happen when the slide switch is moved to the right. If the slide switch is moved to the left, no siren or LED pixel rings will occur. Regardless of the state of the slide switch, the five digit counters should continue to work whenever the Circuit Playground Express is not being shaken. 1B: Essential Coding Concepts Each of the following should be used within the ON SHAKE function: 187 2A: The Methodological Landscape Background Knowledge Probe Reflect back on a way that youve taken something you have and used it in a way it wasnt meant to be used, in order to get something done that you couldnt do otherwise. Then, consider the landscape of methods you used to accomplish this innovation-in-use. What are some ways youve used this and other methods and practices over time in similar contexts? How they have evolved over time? What are some ways these methods and practices may have originated as a part of your everyday or occasional praxis? How might these methods and practices have shaped your work so far through this book, both positively and negatively? What are some ways these methods and practices may be further developing as you work through this book? Tinkering as Research My work as a tinker began very early as my family encouraged me to tear apart any and all no-longer-used tools around me. Of course, while the goal was to discover what was inside and to make them work again, those earliest days were almost always Not Yet fail forward moments. At around 5, I was offered the opportunity to earn 50 cents an hour to help with basic sweeping, cleaning, and moving of sawdust and wood in the family sawmill. I didnt know it at the time, but it was my first apprenticeship role. It seemed boring, but what was really happening was a first discovery of the music and performance of the sawmill as sociotechnical system. It is a combination of senses, knowledge, culture, community, and technology artifacts working in concert. As with most, if not all, such lived experiences and practices in our lives, it was not something that could be learned through a banking concept of education. Rather, it could only be done through community inquiry as part of a community of practice, which itself is rooted within the apprenticeship model of learning in which students study with master craftspeople. 188 2A: The Methodological Landscape 189 I am first generation American, first generation English-as-first-language speaker, and first generation college graduate, let alone PhD. And yet, as I advanced through university and worked professionally the last two and a half decades within the university, I have found some aspects of the methodological landscape to be something I knew of, and practiced in part, even during my early years of work in that family community. While different perspectives may be incorporated, and while they may use different terms and practices, the research process is incorporated into many different disciplines beyond the academic realm. Still, it is in the academic disciplines that special emphasis has been given to identifying and practicing the perspectives and assumptions underlying our research paradigms. It has proven an extraordinarily valuable resource in addition to my apprenticeship learning, opening up new avenues for exploration, advancement, fine-tuning, and new discoveries of practice and knowledge. Table 1. Meta-theoretical assumptions behind the three research paradigms.1 Paradigm Positivist Reason for research To discover regularities and causal To describe and understand laws so that people can explain, phenomena in the social world and predict and control events and their meanings in context. processes. To empower people to change their conditions by unmasking and exposing hidden forms of oppression, false beliefs and commonly held myths. Ontology the nature and existence of social reality Assumes an ordered and stable reality exists out there waiting to be discovered, irrespective of an observer. Assumes reality is socially constructed, fluid and fragile, and exists as people experience it and assign meaning to it. Transcends objectivesubjective poles and assumes reality is socially constructed but nevertheless perceived as objectively existing. Takes a practical approach to knowledge; aims to include as much evidence about the subject, the research process and context as possible to enable understanding of others lifeworlds and experiences, and how the researchers came to understand them. Takes a dialectical approach to knowledge. Knowledge enables people to see hidden forms of control, domination and oppression, which empowers them to seek change and reform existing conditions and social order. The logic of scientific explanation The dominant logic of inquiry is hypothetic-deductive: hypothesized relations among variables (logically derived from causal laws or theories) are empirically tested in a way that can be repeated by others. The dominant logic of inquiry is inductive and develops idiographic descriptions and explanations based on studies of people and their actions in context; explanations need to make sense to those being studied as well as to the researchers and their community. The logic of inquiry can be deductive and inductive but also abductive, seeking creative leaps and revealing hidden forces or structures that help people understand their ways of changing them. Ethics and claims about values and normative reasoning concerning with what ought to be Assumes both natural and social sciences are objective and valuefree, operating separately from social and power structures; ideally positivist researchers are detached from the topic studied and collect value-free facts. Questions the possibility of valueneutral science and a value-free research; values are seen as embedded in all human actions (including researchers) and hence are inevitably a part of everything we study, without the judging of one set of values as better than another. Any research is a moralpolitical and value-based activity; critical researchers explicitly declare and reflect on their value position(s) and provide arguments for their normative reasoning. Takes an instrumental approach to knowledge: knowledge enables Epistemology people to master and control the nature events. Knowledge represents and the ways reality, is stable and additive; of knowing statements about reality are true only if they are repeatedly not empirically falsified. Interpretive Critical 1. "Table 1. Meta-theoretical assumptions behind the three research paradigms" 2018 Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic and Mary Anne Kennan. From: Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic and Mary Anne Kennan, The Methodological Landscape, in Research Methods: Information, Systems, and Contexts, eds. Kirsty Williamson and Graeme Johanson (Elsevier, 2018), 12755. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-102220-7.00005-4. 190 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Key Takeaways: Purposes of Research Paradigms Positivist Paradigms Behind all of our electronics and programming code, and much of traditional scientific research, stands deductive reasoning, also known as deductive logic. The goal in this paradigm is to produce and continuously adapt predictable, reliable, anticipatable, and controllable events and processes. Boolean logic brings together one or more propositions into simple Yes/No, True/False, or 1/0 statements. Boolean logic moves from more general to very specific in a top-down logic, in which a conclusion is reached deductively, narrowing the range under consideration until only the conclusion is left. The ordering of our Boolean logic tests matters! Interpretive Paradigms Within a sociotechnical framing of technologies, the continuous changes of our technological tools are events and processes of contingency, which are not fully predictable. Case study analysis and situated evaluation use inductive reasoning to develop interpretive understandings of complex social phenomena. While inductive reasoning and interpretive paradigms generally do not serve in the building of the physical technical system, they are essential to meta-design, in which users become co-designers during the formal design process, and throughout ongoing use of a product. Evaluation of it moves from the product generally, or even the idealization of that product in design thinking terms, to the innovation-in-use, a situation-specific use of the product by individuals and cohorts. Critical Paradigms Within a critical sociotechnical framing of technologies, deductive reasoning in support of the physical construction of a product and inductive reasoning in support of meta-design and innovation-in-use are both essential, but not sufficient. It is necessary to also incorporate moral and ethical questioning to unmask and expose hidden forms of oppression, false beliefs, and commonly held myths. To do so, abductive reasoning is also used, bringing together the best resources at hand to attempt creative leaps in understanding. Critical research requires work in community, with community, and for community using methods such as participatory action research and participant observation to apply a dialectic approach to knowledge. As the intersectionality of individuals brings together oppressed and oppressors in cycles of 2A: The Methodological Landscape 191 action-reflection, the resulting new understanding of reality serves to bring forward new starting points for deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning in support of meta-design and innovation-in-use of sociotechnical artifacts. Knowledge is not static or individualistic. At its best, culturally responsive, sustaining pedagogy using a critical sociotechnical lens works to foster and incorporate a dynamic, synergistic relationship between the cultures of home, community, schools/universities, library/museum spaces, for-profit/not-for-profit institutions, and many other co-exploration spaces. Sources for further investigation: Bruce, Bertram C., Andee Rubin, and Junghyun An. Situated Evaluation of Socio-Technical Systems. In Handbook of Research on Socio-Technical Design and Social Networking Systems, edited by Brian Whitworth and Aldo de Moor, 2: 68598. Information Science Reference. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/9710. Cecez-Kecmanovic, Dubravka, and Mary Anne Kennan. The Methodological Landscape. In Research Methods: Information, Systems, and Contexts, edited by Kirsty Williamson and Graeme Johanson, Second Edition., 12755, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-102220-7.00005-4. Fischer, Gerhard, and Thomas Herrmann. Socio-Technical Systems: A Meta-Design Perspective. International Journal for Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development 3, no. 1 (2011): 133. http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/~gerhard/papers/2010/journal-socio-ts.pdf Ladson-Billings, Gloria. Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal 32, no. 3 (September 1995): 46591. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312032003465. Milner, H. Richard. Race, Culture, and Researcher Positionality: Working Through Dangers Seen, Unseen, and Unforeseen. Educational Researcher 36, no. 7 (October 2007): 388400. https://doi.org/ 10.3102/0013189X07309471. Rodgers, Carol R. Defining Reflection: Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking. Teachers College Record 104, no. 4 (June 2002): 84266. http://www.canr.msu.edu/bsp/uploads/files/ Reading_Resources/Defining_Reflection.pdf. 192 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology The Meta-Theoretical Landscape in Practice Since its release in 2015, Robin Wall-Kimmerers Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants has been an ongoing source for expanding my own meta-theoretical landscape. As I recommend this book to new generations of readers/listeners, their response is universally the same. In the context of this text, her chapters Asters and Goldenrod and Learning the Grammar of Animacy especially highlight ways indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of the more-than-human persons around us complement each other. Together, this diversity of knowledge and experience enriches and greatly expands our reading of the world and of the word as part of action reflection praxis. Asters and Goldenrod brings forward the ways in which our cultural knowledge and wealth is taken away from us, to be replaced by dominant paradigms and ways of being and doing. We lose a core part of who we are and what we can be in order to be that which we are told to be. It is a process of removing parts of our humanity and pushing us to be a disposable thing. Learning the Grammar of Animacy highlights how the subjects around us the living persons typically beyond that which we can conceive to exist can and need to serve as wise elders. Listening to them can lead to creative leaps of understanding. And so it was for Kimmerer, as she discovered the walls keeping her from learning her cultural language, Potawatomi, were ones of language, and specifically the English language. In Potawatomi, 70 percent of the words are verbs, indicating the animacy of those around us. Plants and streams alike are animate, thinking, feeling entities. This compares to English, which is primarily noun-based, and which objectifies much around us, turning it into a thing. For us to rapidly shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society, as we are called to do by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his 1967 Beyond Vietnam speech, we need something beyond what our existing language and landscapes can often provide. It does not mean we must put aside who we are, how we live, what we value, and so much more. But it does mean we need to enter into new communities of practice, ones that help us address the shortcomings in our own meta-theoretical landscapes even as we bring forward our own expertise and knowledge that has built from these landscapes. Often, it is not an either-or work, but a both-and proposition that truly helps us reach ever greater individual and collective fulfillment. Lastly, its essential this is done in ways that push for greater justice for all, and especially for those most pushed to the margins and those who are oppressed. Lesson Plan By demystifying these methodologies and introducing new ideas, we seek to further advance our ability to consider and tell counterstories. In the technical session, we will see how the positivist paradigm of research is fundamental to both electronics and modern programming. 2A: The Methodological Landscape This session helps us better explore the meta-theoretical assumptions and research paradigms that shape our sociotechnical environment and the social and technical products that arise from our hands-on activities that put these assumptions and paradigms into practice. What within your Professional Journal Reflections from last session has helped you move into this session? What has proved problematic, requiring further codification and decodification in dialogue with others so as to more closely align to the valued beings and doings of all? Essential Resources Kimmerer, Robin. Asters and Goldenrod and The Grammar of Animacy. In Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, 3947. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 2013. Wolske, Martin, Colin Rhinesmith, and Beth Kumar. Community Informatics Studio: Designing Experiential Learning to Support Teaching, Research, and Practice. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 55, no. 2 (April 2014): 16677. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/48952. Additional Resources: Cecez-Kecmanovic, Dubravka, and Mary Anne Kennan. The Methodological Landscape. In Research Methods: Information, Systems, and Contexts, edited by Kirsty Williamson and Graeme Johanson, Second Edition, 12755, Elsevier, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/ B978-0-08-102220-7.00005-4. Professional Journal Reflections: 1. Take a few minutes to review your Professional Journal Reflection(s) from last session. Reflect on ways this is a new reading of these reflective words and worlds one session later. How have these reflections shaped you? How have you shaped your reading of the world and word within these reflections? 2. In what ways have deductive ontological and epistemological reasoning and Boolean scientific logic contributed to your action reflection praxis, individually and within your community of practice, since your last reflection(s)? 3. In what ways have inductive reasoning, meta-design, and innovation-in-use, along with associated ontological and epistemological reasoning, contributed to your action reflection praxis, individually and within your community of practice, since your last reflection(s)? 4. In what ways have abductive reasoning and moral and ethical questioning individually and within your community of practice helped to unmask and expose hidden forms of oppression, 193 194 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology false beliefs, and commonly held myths, thereby contributing to your action reflection praxis since your last reflection(s)? 5. Bringing these together, how has this influenced your hands-on coding to build a Toolbox Trumpet? How has the design and implementation of the sociotechnical artifacts used in these hands-on works shaped your own hands-on work? 2B: Make Music with Code Background Knowledge Probe Take a few minutes to bring up a mental picture of each musical instrument youve played yourself, or which youve watched others play. How are they played? What similarities and differences are there across instruments? How might they be constructed? What materials are used? How does material choice influence use of, and sound creation by, the instrument? Of the instruments considered, which ones might make use of digital technologies? Of programming languages? So far, weve used the Circuit Playground Express microcontroller and MakeCode programming language to learn essential coding concepts.1 In particular, weve explored: Conditional logic Iteration loops Variables Modularization Technical Introduction Weve also started exploring how we can write programming code using these concepts to interact with analog and digital electronic circuits in order to develop working electronic tools.Now, lets turn our attention to the tools that might facilitate our telling of counterstories. Weve seen how different folks are creating collective 1. MakeCode 2020 Microsoft and Adafruit. Screenshots used with permission. 195 196 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology digital stories in community-based co-design projects using emergent approaches.2 A Little Free Library is one of many examples in which analog information sharing takes place to advance community building. Lets consider if the Circuit Playground Express microcontroller and Raspberry Pi microcomputer can work together to serve as a digital extension to an existing analog Little Free Library in a community. In what ways can digital networked information systems serve as tools to help advance the analog? In what ways might it disrupt the analog? In what ways is the disruption good? In what ways is it harmful? Rather than considering how the digital replaces the technical, perhaps a digital little free library can be a valuable tool a digital networked information system extension for the already existing analog networked information systems sharing information and knowledge in communities, with communities, and for communities. We will create a Little Free Library tool using the Circuit Playground Express and the Raspberry Pi for archiving and selective playback of stories. Down the line we will hopefully be able to use touch sensors to indicate which story is to be shared.But first, lets put the system through some early testing by turning the components into a Toolbox Trumpet! Piano Keys and Trumpet Valves Lets compare a piano to a trumpet. With a piano, you have a key for every note you want to play. For instance, if we want to play the basic C major scale in ascending order, wed need seven keys as follows: |C|D|E|F|G|A|B| In music, an octave is a series of eight notes that take you from the first note back to that note, but in which that note is now twice or half the frequency of vibration that it was before. To go down one octave, wed need another set of seven keys to the left that cut the frequency of vibration in half. If we wanted to go up an octave, wed need seven keys to the right that double the frequency of vibration. So to play three octaves of the C scale, wed have something like: |C|D|E|F|G|A|B|C|D|E|F|G|A|B|C|D|E|F|G|A|B| Compare this to a trumpet. The standard trumpet has three valves. Each valve is a cylinder that, when pressed down fully, moves the airflow from one set of tubing to a different set of tubing. The airflow now takes a different path from the mouthpiece where it enters the trumpet to the bell where it exits the trumpet. In so doing, it changes the frequency of vibration slightly, changing the note being played. To play a scale, you need to press one, two, or three of those valves, or none of the valves, depending on the note you are wanting to play. To make this work, you need to add in embouchure. A person playing the trumpet uses their lips and facial muscles to adjust the frequency of vibration up and down, thereby slowly moving up or down scales and octaves in combination with the movement of the valves. In this case, wed play a middle-C scale like so: 2. Maria Rosa Lorini, Amalia Sabiescu, and Nemanja Memarovic, "Collective Digital Storytelling in Community-Based Co-Design Projects: An Emergent Approach," The Journal of Community Informatics 13, no. 1 (2017): 10936. http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/1362. Angelika Strohmayer and Janis Meissner, "'We Had Tough Times, but Weve Sort of Sewn Our Way through It': The Partnership Quilt," XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students 24, no. 2 (December 19, 2017): 4851. https://doi.org/10.1145/3155128. 2B: Make Music with Code 197 Note Valve 1 Valve 2 Valve 3 C open open D pressed open E pressed pressed open F pressed open open G open open A pressed pressed open B open open open pressed pressed open Exercise: First Three Notes Choose Your Own Adventure In the introduction to the book, I shared about the tulip poplar, a wood which inspires me, and which I have used to craft a toolbox for my Raspberry Pi equipment. As visible in the video below, Ive attached nylon conductive tape to the lid of the toolbox. The benefit of completing the exercise in this way is that it extends the digital capacitive touch sensors into an analog parallel. If youd like to follow along in a similar manner, two resources are available to you: Purchase nylon conductive tape from Adafruit. Download and print the toolbox template. But this is not the only way forward. The following exercises can be completed exclusively with the Circuit Playground Express. To pursue this remix, jump ahead to Option 2: Circuit Playground Express Trumpet. Option 1: Toolbox Trumpet Lets do some experimenting to find out how we might play notes on our Toolbox Trumpet by using three nylon electrically conductive tape strips on the cover of our toolboxes, and then using alligator clips to connect each to a pin on the Circuit Playground Express. Before going through this and the following exercises, take 4 1/2 minutes to watch this video demonstration of the Toolbox Trumpet. Connect three alligator clip wires between the nylon conductive tape pieces and the Circuit Playground Express: 1. Connect one end of an alligator clip wire to the nylon conductive tape by the single | column. Connect the other end of that alligator clip wire to pin A1 on the Circuit Playground Express. 2. Connect one end of a second alligator clip wire to the nylon conductive tape by the double | column. Connect the other end of this second alligator clip wire to pin A2 on the Circuit Playground Express. 3. Connect one end of a third alligator clip wire to the nylon conductive tape by the quad | column. 198 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Connect the other end of this third alligator clip wire to pin A4 on the Circuit Playground Express. Next, well follow the steps to develop the code for playing a Middle C. Option 2: Circuit Playground Express Trumpet We can also make a trumpet with the capacitive touch sensors on the Circuit Playground Express. On the microcontroller, identify the sensors labeled A1, A2, and A4. Steps 1. Now, lets develop the code to play a Middle C. a. Start a new project in MakeCode. b. To a FOREVER loop, add in an "IfThen" conditional block from the Conditionals section of the LOGIC category. c. From the INPUT category, take a button A is pressed block statement, and drop it into the IfThen block statement where it currently says . d. Hit the button A window and change that to pin A1. It should now say if pin A1 is pressed, then. e. From the MUSIC category, take the play tone at Middle C for 1/2 beat, and put it below the if pin A1 is pressed, then statement. f. In the simulator, move the mouse pointer over to the A1 pin and press down to play a Middle C for as long as you press it. Were playing our first note! g. Lets test it out on the real Circuit Playground Express: i. Save your project as MiddleCTest1. ii. Flash this to your physical Circuit Playground Express. iii. Press A1 on the Circuit Playground Express. h. In this first test, the sound was a little soft. Lets crank up the volume a bit and test again. 2B: Make Music with Code 199 i. From the LOOPS category, pull out an on start loop. ii. Add to this new loop a set volume from the MUSIC category. iii. For testing, lets set that to 255, the largest number listed. iv. Save this as MiddleCTest2. v. Flash this to your physical Circuit Playground Express. vi. Press A1 on the Circuit Playground Express. i. Feel encouraged to continuing adjusting this to meet your preferences. 2. Now lets add the ability to play a Middle D. Well do this in an else IfThen block statement right below the Middle C IfThen block statement. a. Click on the + symbol at the lower left of the current IfThen block statement. This creates an else statement. b. Click on the + symbol again to add an else IfThen block. c. Hit the symbol to the right of the else statement to remove it. d. Duplicate the pin A1 is pressed block input statement and place that in the new else IfThen block statement. Change it to pin A2. 200 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology e. Duplicate the play tone at Middle C for 1/2 beat statement, place it under the else if then statement, and change it to Middle D. f. In the simulator, move the mouse pointer over to the A2 pin and press down to play a Middle D for as long as you press it. Were ready to start our way up the C scale! g. You might want to do a quick test on the physical Circuit Playground Express by saving the file and flashing it over. Were in a process of rapid design and prototyping, so for now, if it works, we can move on. But do be sure to take notes of what is working subpar based on your as selfassessment, and your understanding of preferences if this were to be made available to other users. 3. With these two notes playing adequately, now what? Weve only got three valves and we want to play seven different notes. Remember that on a real trumpet we could press 0, 1, 2, or 3 valves. We could also use embouchure to create more possible combinations. To mimic the trumpet, we are using only three buttons or valves. Is it possible that we can press these in combination to play a third note? Lets test this out by pressing both pin A1 and pin A2. a. Hit the + symbol at the bottom of the IfThenElse IfThen conditional statement twice to add in a third Else IfThen block statement below the pin A2 is pressed conditional. b. Delete the Else at the bottom of this extended IfThen control flow statement block of conditionals. c. Go into the LOGIC category and scroll down to the Boolean section. From there, grab a < > and < > statement and add this to the third IfThen block statement. d. Copy the pin A1 is pressed, and place that into the left < > space. e. Copy the pin A2 is pressed, and place that into the right < > space. f. Copy the play tone at Middle D for 1/2 beat, and drop it below the else if < and > then statement, and change it to Middle E. You should see 2B: Make Music with Code 201 something like this in the MakeCode programming screen. 4. Unless you have a touch screen, you cannot test this in the simulator. So lets continue testing on our physical Circuit Playground Express. a. Lets name this ToolboxTrumpet3Notes and click on the save icon. b. Flash this new downloaded file to your physical Circuit Playground Express. Now we are ready to test our Toolbox Trumpet prototype. Option 1: Toolbox Trumpet Option 2: Circuit Playground Express Trumpet Result Press the single | column nylon conductive tape. Press the A1 CPE sensor. You should now hear a Middle C. Press the double | column nylon conductive tape. Press the A2 CPE sensor. You should hear a Middle D. Press both the single | and double | column nylon conductive tapes simultaneously. Press the A1 and A2 CPE sensors simultaneously. You should hear that Middle E! Weve reached three notes! Or did we? Boolean Logic In the code we just wrote, we created three IfThen block logic statements inside the forever iteration loop. Logical true and false, yes and no, 1 and 0 propositions are the fundamental process used in both electronics and modern programming languages, as well as in statistics and positivist paradigms of research. Boolean logic, or Boolean algebra, uses two possible values, true and false, to test logic statements. This concept was introduced by George Boole in his books The Mathematical Analysis of Logic (1847) and An Investigation of the Laws of Thought (1854). The Boolean logic written in our first code was as follows: 202 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Is pin A1 pressed? True Play Middle C for 1/2 beat End False Is pin A2 pressed? True Play Middle D for 1/2 beat End False Is pin A1 and A2 pressed? True Play Middle E for 1/2 beat End False End Note that the order of True/False statements in Boolean logic is essential. If pin A1 is pressed, then play Middle C. Else, if pin A2 is pressed, then play Middle D. Else, if both pin A1 and pin A2 are pressed, play Middle E. This makes perfect sense if our ultimate goal is to move up the C scale, going from the Middle C on to the Middle D and then the Middle E. The problem is, code uses Boolean logic, which has already determined that neither pin A1 nor pin A2 was pressed, so logically we already know both are also not pressed. That means we need to reverse our test in a way that fits within formal Boolean logic. In so doing, we should be in better shape. Is pin A1 and A2 pressed? True Play Middle E for 1/2 beat End False Is pin A2 pressed? True Play Middle D for 1/2 beat End False Is pin A1 pressed? True Play Middle C for 1/2 beat End False End For more on Boolean logic, take 10 minutes to watch this video on Boolean Logic & Logic Gates from the Crash Course Computer Science series featuring Carrie Anne Philbin, hosted by PBS Digital Studios. Exercise: Toolbox Trumpet, First Three Notes, Failing Forward Open the MakeCode project named ToolboxTrumpet3Notes, and swap the IfThen block statements around using our Boolean logic diagram above. Your code should now look like this: 2B: Make Music with Code 203 Save and Download this edited version of the MakeCode, calling it ToolboxTrumpet3NotesFailForward. Hit reset on the Circuit Playground Express microcontroller, and then drag and drop the ToolboxTrumpet3Notes-FailForward.uf2 file into the CPLAYBOOT device. Press the toolboxs single | or CPEs A1 valve and you should now hear a Middle C. Press the toolboxs double | or CPEs A2 valve and you should hear a Middle D. Press the toolboxs single and double | or CPEs A1 and A2 valves together. You should hear that Middle E! This time it should play the first three notes of a Middle C scale! Key Takeaways Failing forward to move from Not Yet to Yet is an unavoidable part of the creative process. The human experience incorporates multiple ways of knowing and being. But for many of us, Boolean logic using true/false statements is not a part of our everyday practice. While in the last session we worked to expand our essential coding concepts like conditionals, functions, variables, and control flow statements, it is only with the incorporation of Boolean logic that we gain some of the central deductive reasoning skills needed to effectively put our designs into executable code. 204 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Boolean Logic and Algebraic Notation Reflecting back on our Toolbox Trumpet code, lets step aside for a minute to consider ways we could get three valves to play seven different notes. We could have set up that third else IfThen block statement to play Middle E with the third valve alone. What might have been the design choice to instead play it using the first two valves combined? What would be the next valve or valve combinations of to play the next note in the C scale, a Middle F? Base Ten Decimal Notation Count with me from zero to nine using decimal notation: Zero 0 One 1 Two 2 Three 3 Four 4 Five 5 Six 6 Seven 7 Eight 8 Nine 9 Excellent! Now, what would we do if we wanted to move to the number ten? If you kept a close eye, youll notice the table above had a couple of blank columns to the left of the column listing numbers 0 to 9. Lets use that as a means to count from zero to twenty. 2B: Make Music with Code Zero 0 0 One 0 1 Two 0 2 Three 0 3 Four 0 4 Five 0 5 Six 0 6 Seven 0 7 Eight 0 8 Nine 0 9 Ten 1 0 Eleven 1 1 Twelve 1 2 Thirteen 1 3 Fourteen 1 4 Fifteen 1 5 Sixteen 1 6 Seventeen 1 7 Eighteen 1 8 Nineteen 1 9 Twenty 2 0 205 Note that now weve had a tens column all along. The value was just at zero when we started. Once we moved over to ten, we reset the ones column to zero, and moved the tens column to one. The tens column remained at 1 while we moved the ones column from 1 to 9. To take the next step, we moved the ones column back to 0, and the tens column from 1 to 2, giving us twenty. Using just these two columns, we could make our way up to ninety-nine. Now, lets move from ninety-nine to one hundred. To do that, we need to use the third column, that is, the one hundreds column: 206 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Zero 0 0 0 Nine 0 0 9 Ten 0 1 0 Ninety-nine 0 9 9 One Hundred 1 0 0 One Hundred and One 1 0 1 One Hundred and Ninety-nine 1 9 9 Two Hundred 2 0 0 Two Hundred and One 2 0 1 Two Hundred and Ninety-nine 2 9 9 Three Hundred 3 0 0 9 9 9 Nine Hundred and Ninety-nine To go any further in base ten, wed need a fourth column, that is, the one thousands column, which we dont have in the table weve been using for this. Were at our limit. When base ten decimal notation isnt the best option So if we somehow could do a lot of real quick tapping on those valves, we could be moving quite lively through a whole bunch of different notes. Our voices can move steadily through notes by adjusting the frequency with which they vibrate. The problem is, when we use the valve of a trumpet or our prototyped equivalent, it serves as a means to accomplish Boolean logic. If the trumpet valve is pressed, move the airflow through this tube. Else, pass it through that tube. If our prototyped valve is pressed, that is, if pin A2 is pressed, play a Middle D. As a matter of fact, in MakeCode, when you click to change the note you were wanting to play if pin A2 is pressed, clicking on the Middle D of the visual piano also shows the number 294, or 294 Hertz. Hertz is the frequency, or number of cycles per second that something should cycle up and down. The slower it cycles, the lower the pitch. The faster it cycles, the higher the pitch. Middle C is actually specifying that the little speaker on the Circuit Playground Express cycle 262 times per second, or 262 Hz, while Middle D cycles at 294 times per second, or 294 Hz. By cycling a little faster, the pitch is a little higher. 2B: Make Music with Code 207 With a standard speaker, that means a membrane vibrates up and down 262 times per second or 294 times per second, depending on if were playing a Middle C, or a Middle D, respectively. This is what makes an analog sound. And its the same thing that human vocal cords do. Digital signals collect and distribute data using the digits 0 and 1 to serve as samples of the analog signals or information. Pins A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, and A7 on the Circuit Playground Express can serve multiple roles, one of which is as capacitive touch sensors. When performing these readings of skin or other materials that have a slight positive charge, the input level is interpreted as a binary value of 1 and a logic value of True. When no positively charged touch is sensed, the input level is low, and a binary value of 0 and logic value of False are used. In MakeCode, the word pressed in the statement if pin A1 is pressed, then is equivalent to the binary value 1 and the logic value True. Analog signals are made up of continuously variable physical quantities. The speaker built into the Circuit Playground Express delivers an analog signal. The frequency of oscillation from peak to peak in a sine curve as shown below determines the musical pitch we hear. The note heard in a speaker vibrating two full oscillations, as shown in red in the image below, is 1/7th the pitch of the note played in the speaker when there are 14 full oscillations as shown in purple in the image below. If the sine wave below showing 14 full oscillations represents 262 Hertz, that is, a frequency of 262 oscillations per second, then the one above, showing 7 full oscillations in the same time period represents 131 Hertz. As seen in the MakeCode Play tone at line, 262 Hertz is a Middle C, while 131 Hertz is a Low C. The human ear can hear sounds as low as 20 Hertz, and in the image below 2 full oscillations in this time period is equivalent to about 37 Hertz given the other two frequency calculations, although it may be that the Circuit Playground Express will not play a frequency that low. For more on sound and music projects with the Circuit Playground Express, check out: Adafruits Circuit Playground Sound and Music tutorial.3 3. Sine wave image available via Wikimedia and in the public domain. 208 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology We could work to press our valve 262 times a second to play a Middle C over the next second in time. Or we could give ourselves some liberty and adjust the clocked sequential logic such that if we tapped it 26 times in 10 seconds, we would play a Middle C scale over the next second of time. Probably a more practical way forward is to use the conductive touch sensor pins on the Circuit Playground Express. We can take the digital inputs on these sensors and use basic Boolean logic to identify which of these sensors is touched during the current clock cycle. Then we can calculate a mathematical conversion to a certain frequency, say 262 Hz, to provide an analog Middle C output via the Circuit Playground Express speaker. Building from here, we could design and construct a toolbox piano made from tulip poplar, much like in the first video of this session. But that would require 21 nylon conductive tape pads, placed close enough together to let us easily switch between them, but far enough apart that we dont sense a current flow between them, confusing the code. Current can conduct over wood, especially when moist from rain or from just the wear of our moist human hands on the wood and nylon. Doable? Yes. Practical? Perhaps not. Is there another design option? Base Two Binary Notation Its exactly this conundrum that moved early developers of electronics and the early computers from base ten decimal notation to base two binary notation. Binary works in zeros and ones only. That is, they are a standard means of implementing Boolean logic! Is pin A1 and A2 pressed? True Play Middle E for 1/2 beat False Is pin A2 pressed? True Play Middle D for 1/2 beat False Is pin A1 pressed? True Play Middle C for 1/2 beat Or lets revisit the electronics studied earlier in the book: The push button itself is a Boolean logic processor. Is the momentary switch push button pressed? True Pass current through; LEDs are lit False Do not pass current through; LEDs are not lit As mentioned earlier, Boolean logic is fundamental to electronics, not just computer science programming languages. Indeed, the world around us has many ways of moving from true/false, yes/no, one/zero. This is why Boolean logic quickly shifted the design of electronics and programming over to using base two binary notation. 2B: Make Music with Code 209 When we count in binary, we move from columns representing ones, tens, and hundreds of base ten decimal notation, to columns representing ones, twos, and fours. Each column is known as a bit. Lets see where that takes us, counting-wise, when each bit can only be a 0 or a 1: Number Fours bit Twos bit Ones bit Decimal Equivalent Zero 0 0 0 = 000 One 0 0 1 = 001 Two 0 1 0 = 002 Three 0 1 1 = 003 Four 1 0 0 = 004 Five 1 0 1 = 005 Six 1 1 0 = 006 Seven 1 1 1 = 007 Note, then, that in binary we now have a ones column. It can only move from zero to one. So to get to the number two, we need a twos column. Moving it from 0 to 1 and moving the ones column from 1 to 0 gives us the number two. To move to three, we then keep the twos column at 1, and move the ones column back to 1. But were at the end of what those two columns can reach. So we now need a fours column. Set the ones and twos columns back to 0, and move the fours column to 1. Ta-da! Weve reached four. By switching the ones and twos column on and off, we can move the count all the way up to seven! This demonstrates that a 3-bit counter can move between 8 different decimal numbers: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. It also demonstrates that we havent even completed filling in the ones column in decimal, let alone moving to the tens or one hundreds columns of decimal notation. For more on binary, take 10 minutes to watch this video from Carrie Anne Philbins Crash Course Computer Science series hosted by PBS Digital Studios. Exercise: Creating Code to Play a Full Middle C Scale Lets put this new Boolean logic and deductive reasoning into practice to play the full Middle C scale using the three valves of our Toolbox Trumpet or Circuit Playground Express. As this is a tool being designed first and foremost for educational purposes, lets add in pin A4 along with pins A1 and A2. Remember that order matters in Boolean logic: 210 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Is pin A1 and A2 and A4 pressed? True Play Middle B for 1/2 beat End False Is pin A2 and pin A4 pressed? True Play Middle A for 1/2 beat End False Is pin A1 and pin A4 pressed? True Play Middle G for 1/2 beat End False Is pin A1 and pin A2 pressed? True Play Middle E for 1/2 beat End False Is pin A4 pressed? True Play Middle F for 1/2 beat End False Is pin A2 pressed? True Play Middle D for 1/2 beat End False Is pin A1 pressed? True Play Middle C for 1/2 beat End False End 1. Add in five more else IfThen block statements below the three we already have. Proceed to shuffle these so that the order goes as follows: 2B: Make Music with Code 211 2. Save this project as TrumpetToolboxCScale, flash it to the Circuit Playground Express, and give it a test run. 3. Can you play all seven notes of a Middle C scale? Keep practicing until you can do this at a relatively good pace. Getting in Your Groove Feel encouraged to go into the MakeCode project and adjust the volume level that we configured in the on start loop. You may also want to consider adjusting the tempo at which the 1/2 beat is played. You can do this by pulling out a set tempo to 120 (bpm) from the Tempo section of the MUSIC category and adding it to the on start loop. Play the 1/2 beat slower by lowering the beats per minute to double or single digits. Or speed it up by raising the tempo to setting it somewhere over 200 bpm. Experiment with changing the beat from 1/2 in each of the if logic statements to something else of your choice, say down to 1/16th or up to 4. Test it out in the simulator with the Middle C, Middle D, and Middle F notes. Or test it out on the physical Circuit Playground Express by saving, flashing, and testing to hit your preferred Toolbox Trumpet performance metrics! Key Takeaways Computing devices like computers and microcontrollers use binary notation to represent numbers and letters. The fundamental Boolean logic used in electronics is founded on base two binary notation. Digital signals like the capacitive touch sensors of the Circuit Playground Express also use binary. The continuously variable physical quantities of the world, including the human senses, are analog. Our Toolbox Trumpet now uses digital sensors on the Circuit Playground Express as conditional inputs to control the Hertz of the analog audio output of the Circuit Playground Express speaker. The prevalence of the digital realm, and the notion that more recent generations are born digitally native, does not change the core of our physical being. But it does add additional tools in our toolbox for use in our everyday lives, some of which are truly valued in helping us reach our individual and community goals. Were still physically analog. Or are we? Has the creation and use of this digital trumpet shaped us in significant ways? How might we have been changed differently if this session had been conducted only using analog materials, for instance, using different lengths of wood to play different notes? Wrap Up The focus of this session was two-fold: First, to help us expand our understanding of the methodological landscape. This includes positivist paradigms, as related to programming code and Boolean logic, with interpretive paradigms, as related to meta-design and innovation-in-use, as well as critical paradigms that advance moral and ethical questioning to unmask and expose hidden forms of oppression. Second, to further our more holistic journey of 212 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology recognition regarding the deep interconnectedness of the social and the technical, one that cannot be fully teased apart. At the same time, it is hoped this journey is now better facilitating our use of deductive reasoning to more effectively create programming code even as we work to use inductive and abductive reasoning to reflect on our sociotechnical artifacts as we continue to move from a thing-orientation to a person-orientation. Comprehension Check Binary Notation Print out the above binary cards and use scissors to cut these at the red lines. Then use these as a binary counter, with the smiley faces up equaling a binary notation 1, and smiley faces down equaling a binary notation 0. Order them from right to left as shown below: 2B: Make Music with Code Decimal Notation 16s Bit 8s Bit 4s Bit 2s Bit 1s Bit = ? ? ? ? ? 000 0 0 0 0 1 001 0 0 0 1 0 002 0 0 0 1 1 003 0 0 1 0 0 ??? 0 1 0 0 0 ??? 1 0 0 0 0 ??? 1 0 1 0 0 ??? 0 1 1 1 1 ??? 1 0 1 1 0 ??? ? ? ? ? ? 023 ? ? ? ? ? 024 ? ? ? ? ? 025 ? ? ? ? ? 026 ? ? ? ? ? 027 ? ? ? ? ? 028 ? ? ? ? ? 029 ? ? ? ? ? 030 ? ? ? ? ? 031 ? ? ? ? ? 032 ? ? ? ? ? 127 ? ? ? ? ? 255 The Instructor Binary Cards may be helpful at the end of the above. By using these, you could count in binary notation from decimal zero to decimal 255, inclusive. Next, drag the coding concept over to its matching block code. A single drop zone may have more than one right answer. Some coding concepts may be used more than once. 213 214 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 2B: Make Music with Code 215 216 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Use the book chapters and linked audio and video sources, and Blue Unit End Notes if youre not quite sure. This is a great opportunity to come together in small groups to work on this learning check. 3A: Valued, Inclusive Information and Computing Technology Experiences Background Knowledge Probe What do we especially value? How do we support others, and how are we supported by others, in achieving that which is valued? Resource Functioning (something people value being or doing) Capability (the freedom to achieve the functioning) Utility (that sought to be maximized) bicycle mobility ability to move around pleasure Looking at the above table, how do bicycle, mobility, ability to move around, and pleasure relate to you personally? How do these terms or statements relate to other people you know and who come to mind at the moment? Why might these terms or statements be listed within the specified columns? Examining Development The information, communication, and computing technologies we use in our everyday lives from home to play to profession arise from complex histories, methodologies, cultures, knowledge, and philosophies of a just society. They strongly shape our daily experiences and well-being. Strong arguments are made regarding the societal benefits of information, communication, and computer sciences: from meeting individual needs by empowering people, to advancing essential social services such as healthcare and education, to facilitating urgent data collection in advance of or during natural disasters and human-induced climate change, and beyond. Yet the sciences, including computer science, shape and are shaped by sociotechnical artifacts. 217 218 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology It is important to consider an oft-used word embedded within many conversations regarding the societal benefits of information systems: development. This term is used to indicate material prosperity, liberation from oppression, a holistic project for personal progress, development of a child, of new software, of new countries, of natural resources, and still more. It is a term used both directly, and as a hidden assumption. But however it is used, it is not a neutral term; development is loaded with value judgments, trade-offs, and complexities. Some scholars within the Community Informatics community argue for the adoption of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sens capability approach to facilitate human, rather than technical or sociotechnical, problem solving.1 Lets explore community informatics and computational thinking as a means to advance agency for valued, inclusive information, communication, and computing technology experiences. The Capability Approach The capability approach is an alternative to normative approaches to international development policies and practices that focus exclusively on resource expansionism such as economic growth, or positive/predictive approaches for strategies and practices that emphasize empirical studies, data analysis, and hypothesis testing. The capability approach has been highly influential in guiding the United Nations to a more holistic human development paradigm with its four essential pillars: equality, sustainability, productivity, and empowerment. Central to the capability approach are those things individuals value being and doing, their functionings. While it is important we do all we can to identify a persons functionings, the focus for development stakeholders is on expanding the set of capabilities, that is, the freedoms for individuals to achieve their functionings. Capabilities are the real and actual possibilities from which individuals can choose so as to achieve those things they value being and value doing. Functionings are the aspirations that make up peoples well-being. Martha Nussbaum has created a list of 10 central human capabilities as follows: Life; Bodily health; Bodily integrity; Senses, imagination, and thought; Emotions; Practical reason; Affiliation; Other species; Play; and Control over ones environment.2 However, Sen suggests each individual should be free to determine if any, all, more, or different capabilities are central to their personal functionings. While valuable food for thought as stakeholders gather to co-explore development paths, the essential determinant is to consider the possible range of capabilities needed to provide a sufficient capability set advancing individual freedom to choose, execute, and achieve their valued goals. To expand the capability set, we also need to assure individuals have agency to pursue the goals they value. Agency is a combination of many individual resources from within a resource portfolio that includes: Material resources; Financial resources; Natural resources; Geographical resources; Human resources; Psychological resources; Information; Cultural resources; and Social resources.3 Sen identifies choice, then, as the aim and the means for human development, recognizing that individual choice ultimately depends on their personal valued beings and doings. In the article The capability approach and the medium of choice: steps towards conceptualizing information and communication technologies for development, Dorothea Kleine notes that choice has four key components: existence of choice, sense of choice, exercise of choice, and achievement of choice. In 1. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999). See also: Larry Stillman and Tom Denison, "The Capability Approach Community Informatics," The Information Society 30, no. 3 (May 27, 2014): 209. https://doi.org/10.1080/01972243.2014.896687. 2. Martha Nussbaum, Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 78-80. 3. Dorothea Kleine, "The Capability Approach and the 'Medium of Choice': Steps towards Conceptualising Information and Communication Technologies for Development," Ethics and Information Technology 13, no. 2 (June 1, 2011): 11930. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-010-9251-5. 3A: Valued, Inclusive Information and Computing Technology Experiences 219 many cases, Kleine has found the existence of choice in her works to advance an individuals ability to exercise and achieve choice, but that this existence is hidden from the individual for a range of reasons. Advancing a persons capability set, then, is more than that of agency and skills development for the exercising and achieving of choice, but also a broader work to advance the sense of choice. Resource Functioning (something people value being or doing) Capability (the freedom to achieve the functioning) Utility (that sought to be maximized) bicycle mobility ability to move around pleasure If we review the table, we can see that the person aspires to be mobile. A bicycle can potentially then serve to provide agency to the person as a component within their capability set. However, as some of us may have considered up front, sometimes a bicycle is not the best resource, such as for those who do not have the technical abilities to ride a bicycle. This may be based on road or environmental conditions, because of balance problems, because of conflicts with the structure of the body, or still more reasons. Or it may be simply because it is not a capability a person values doing, even though mobility is a valued being. It is from this framing of the capability approach that Mario Toboso challenges us to rethink disability.4 Disability is the accepted term used when considering treatment of those in society with physical or mental limitations outside the considered norms of a human. From within the medical model, it is understood that disabilities are medical in nature, that disability is a disease, and that a person can only contribute to society to the extent they can be rehabilitated or normalized. The social model, on the other hand, identifies disabilities as social in nature. Each individual is just as capable as anyone else of making contributions to society if an environment is designed taking specific requirements into account. More recently, a diversity model has been brought forward to overthrow old concepts of ability and instead looks for personal identities that are not perceived as negative. It is within this new diversity model that Toboso articulates functional diversity in association with Sens concept of functionings, the valued beings and doings a person aspires to achieve to bring about well-being. In expanding the diversity model to incorporate diversity of functionings, we can consider mobility with a new lens. Agency to move around will require many different modes in acknowledgment of the diversity of people, and the ends they are seeking to achieve through the mobility. Participating in an information systems project, moving locations under challenging environmental conditions, or playing with others in dance or sports each would require different means of executing and achieving choice regarding ability to move around, given their agency to do so. As community informatics seeks to advance the well-being of individuals and communities through effective use of information and communications technologies, the capability approach serves as a framework for participatory action and research within a community of inquiry to assure a respected person-orientation to achieve real freedoms of agency to achieve that which individuals and collectives value being and doing. It is a valuable complement to critical methodological paradigms, and especially those within information and communications technology, that provide situated agency as a means to provide a critical account of individual agency, that move beyond a simplistic notion of technology as goods and resources often seen within capability approach research and practice, a work that advances reflexivity and a critical lens so as to identify and address reification and hegemonic potential of technology science and research methods and practices.5 This facilitates better design and 4. Mario Toboso, "Rethinking Disability in Amartya Sens Approach: ICT and Equality of Opportunity," Ethics and Information Technology 13, no. 2 (June 1, 2011): 10718. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-010-9254-2. 220 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology development of digital technologies through an understanding and respect of the unique and rich community cultural wealth. It is to actively work to counter oppressive components of sociotechnical artifacts, something only achievable through decodification and recodification of the text and context of the technologies, so as to see the ways in which they are removing choice, the sense of choice, and the possibilities to execute and achieve choice. Inclusive Computational Thinking Computational thinking brings together 21st century skills of communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking with digital technologies to advance collective problem-solving. Drawing on community informatics, the capability approach, functional diversity, and inclusive computational thinking, it is essential to develop inclusive computer science experiences for learners with disabilities. Doing so advances work within the sciences, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics, computer science itself, and beyond.6 The Creative Technology Research Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has worked extensively to explore advancement of K-12 education based on frameworks and strategies valued within a broad range of information and communication technology spaces. Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is one framework for innovative teaching and learning that combines explicit instruction with open inquiry and collaborative problemsolving to foster co-construction of expertise with peers. When combined with the capability approach, functional diversity, and community informatics, the Universal Design for Learning framework helps build bridges across the full diversity of stakeholders to better align design of information and communication technologies in ways that further facilitate innovation-in-use to achieve functionings. The three principles of UDL are engagement that stimulates interest and motivation for affective learning networks, representation that presents information and content in different ways building recognition learning networks, and action and expression that differentiate the ways co-explorers can express knowledge to build strategic learning networks.7 These principles serve as a solid base for effective, inclusive community inquiry. You know learning, its not a spectator sport. Ava Wolf, eLearning Professional, Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning Advancing our well-being through use of digital and non-digital technologies to realize our functionings requires active co-explorations within communities of inquiry. Explorations may occur in a second grade classroom, a school library, a university studio class, a public or academic library, a salon or barbershop, a community center, a community garden, a civic center, a religious institution, a safe space for people who are homeless, or the many other gathering spaces of communities. Inquiry happens when co-exploration is driven by community problems, in which questions are raised not only of the immediate possible technology under consideration, but also the nature of the community, membership within it, competing values, and beyond, so as to challenge and advance the nature 5. Yingqin Zheng and Bernd Carsten Stahl, "Technology, Capabilities and Critical Perspectives: What Can Critical Theory Contribute to Sen's Capability Approach?" Ethics and Information Technology, 77. 6. For more information, see: Creative Technology Research Lab, "Project TACTIC," accessed February 16, 2020, https://ctrl.education.illinois.edu/ TACTICal. 7. CAST, "About Universal Design for Learning," accessed June 2, 2020, http://www.cast.org/our-work/about-udl.html. 3A: Valued, Inclusive Information and Computing Technology Experiences 221 of community itself. This, as much as anything else, is what it means to take a person-centered approach. It is the radical revolution of values the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. calls us to. It is the problem-posing as opposed to banking system of education Paulo Freire calls us to as oppressed and oppressor come together in action-reflection praxis. To achieve this, inquiry must be facilitated by the community itself. Innovation-in-use, as with all co-exploration learning processes, is a doing accomplished in community, with community, and for community. Inclusive computational thinking, then, becomes inclusive community tinkering with an emphasis on persons first and last, and in which technical teaching, learning, hypothesizing, and testing occur as infill. And even more importantly, this work is a process of reading of word and world so as to understand the codifications of the central tenets of the technology, to decodify these words, to discover the mutual shaping of those technologies, and a recodification of these to strategically advance individual and community valued beings and doings. Through its integration of social and technical components, generative themes, and shared strategies, frameworks, and paradigms, in what ways might this book be advancing a life-long pattern for community inquiry and community informatics practice? In what ways is it shaped to hinder such advancement? Lesson Plan Together, weve worked to use a person- and social-first focus to reconsider our everyday technologies as both positive and oppressive, disruptive technologies. We have worked to advance our skill sets to serve as facilitators and co-explorers in person-centered demystification and innovation-in-use of our technologies. How can we assure a fully inclusive approach to these works? As we now move to Build Functions for Remixable Code, we add functions into the Toolbox Trumpet to create a four octave scale before concluding with an LED pixel counter challenge. What ways, if any, could this be used as a test space for assuring fully inclusive approaches? Essential Resources: Toboso, Mario. Rethinking Disability in Amartya Sens Approach: ICT and Equality of Opportunity. Ethics and Information Technology 13, no. 2 (June 1, 2011): 10718. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s10676-010-9254-2. Zheng, Yingqin, and Bernd Carsten Stahl. Technology, Capabilities and Critical Perspectives: What Can Critical Theory Contribute to Sens Capability Approach? Ethics and Information Technology 13, no. 2 (June 1, 2011): 6980. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-011-9264-8. Kleine, Dorothea. The Capability Approach and the Medium of Choice: Steps towards Conceptualising Information and Communication Technologies for Development. Ethics and Information Technology 13, no. 2 (June 1, 2011): 11930. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-010-9251-5. 222 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Creative Technology Research Lab | College of Education. Project TACTIC. Accessed February 16, 2020. https://ctrl.education.illinois.edu/TACTICal. Additional Resources: Robeyns, Ingrid. The Capability Approach. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2016. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/capability-approach/. CAST. About Universal Design for Learning. Accessed February 16, 2020. http://www.cast.org/ our-work/about-udl.html. Professional Journal Reflections: Use this reflection to bring our activities to date into conversation with the capability approach and inclusive computational thinking frameworks brought forward in this session. 1. In what ways might the toolbox trumpet and Raspberry Pi counterstories serve as a resource advancing agency? A capability? 2. In what ways might the toolbox trumpet and Raspberry Pi counterstories serve as an information system problematically disrupting valued beings and doings of individuals and communities? 3. In what ways might the toolbox trumpet and Raspberry Pi counterstories be designed for designers, that is, for the innovators-in-use who adapt this to their own functionings? In what ways might it have been designed differently leading to this point? 3B: Build Functions for Remixable Code Background Knowledge Probe Reusing/remixing code is a central tenet of the free and open source software movement. And indeed, its a central tenet of the Internet, as well discover in the Rainbow Unit. But as weve discovered throughout the book and especially highlighted in The Unknown Tech Innovators, theres also an active work to give the credit for innovations to certain people, and particularly to white males. Take a few minutes now to reflect back on the innovative designers and builders of the code were now using for our own Community of Practice works, and especially those hidden and forgotten that weve worked to bring forward as part of our explorations. How has their work helped shape your own use and reuse/remixing works? In what ways might your remixes be used by others in their works? Technical Review Lets take a minute to reflect back on the final exercises in sessions 1 and 2. Note that in the Five Digit Counters exercise, we used a range of variables and arrays to expand our opportunities for collecting and sharing data 223 224 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology using several functions. Compare this to the Middle C Scale Toolbox Trumpet exercise. Here, we committed our attention to deductive reasoning and Boolean logic to guide us in the creation of an appropriate, functional sequence of conditionals, thereby playing the notes in order from Middle C to Middle B. Exercise: Variables & Functions Remix of the Toolbox Trumpet Lets begin by considering how we could remix the Toolbox Trumpet using variables and functions to expand the capabilities of this tool. 3B: Build Functions for Remixable Code 225 Steps: Creating a binary to decimal calculator To begin, we will create a new variable and use conditionals to collect the binary notation values, 000 to 111, provided using the three valves. We will use this to calculate the decimal notation equivalent, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7.1 1. In the VARIABLES category, create a new variable called CapTouchCounter. This will be used to determine which capacitive touch sensor valve or valves are pressed in that sequence. 2. Drag a set CapTouchCounter to 0 block from the VARIABLES category and place it in the default FOREVER function. 3. Add three IfThen blocks from the LOGIC category to the FOREVER function, and configure them using a button A is pressed block from the INPUT category to have conditionals for pin A1, pin A2, and pin A3. 4. In each of the IfThen conditionals, add a change CapTouchCounter by block. Set the pin A1 conditional so that CapTouchCounter is changed by 1. Set the pin A2 conditional so that CapTouchCounter is changed by 2. Set the pin A3 conditional so that CapTouchCounter is changed by 4. 5. Under advanced, go down to the CONSOLE category. From there, drag a console log block and add it as the last line of code in the new FOREVER function. 6. Finally, from the VARIABLES category, drag a CapTouchCounter block and drop it into the right oval window of the console log block. Heres a video screenshot of these steps to compare with your own process. Feel encouraged to change 1X to 2X to play it back at high speed. Note that the console provides a means to enter a new level of testing within the simulator. Remember that we cannot test the pressing of multiple capacitive touch sensors simultaneously. At this point, we can only assume the change statement will add in the value, rather than replacing the previous value. Steps: Playing the Middle C Scale As we move forward, much of the time we use our Circuit Playground Express, we may want to use these to select a digital counterstory to play through speakers rather than playing the notes of a C scale. Sometimes we may want to do both. Sometimes well want to use the calculations for yet other purposes. For this reason, we will now create a new function called playTrumpetNote. Well pass the CapTouchCounter value to the function and set it up to determine the Hertz the note should be played at. 1. From within the ADVANCED category, open the FUNCTIONS category. Within FUNCTIONS, click on Make a Function. Replace doSomething with the name playTrumpetNote. 1. MakeCode 2020 Microsoft and Adafruit. Screenshots used with permission. 226 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Add a parameter Number and replace num with decimalNotation. 1. From the FUNCTIONS category, drag the call playTrumpetNote 1 and drop it at the bottom of the current FOREVER function, beneath and NOT WITHIN the end of the If pin A4 is pressed Then block. 1. Drag a CapTouchCounter block from the VARIABLES category and drop it into the call playTrumpetNote 1 function, replacing the number 1. 3B: Build Functions for Remixable Code 227 A number from 0 to 7 will now be sent to the function playTrumpetNote every time we call it. 1. Well now use eight IfThenElseIf logic tests to work through the possible different decimal notation values we may receive given the 0 to 7 decimal scale we might receive via the function call. 1. In the VARIABLES category, create a new variable called Hz. 2. Drag the set Hz to 0 block into the If decimalNotation = 0 logic statement. When the variable decimalNotation is equal to 0, no capacitive touch sensors are currently pressed, so no note should be played. 1. Copy and paste this set Hz to 0 7 times, putting one in each of the remaining If decimalNotation = logic statements. Set the Hz to the following numbers: 228 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology decimalNotation Note Hz 0 Silent 0 1 Middle-C 262 2 Middle-D 294 3 Middle-E 330 4 Middle-F 5 Middle-G 392 6 Middle-A 440 7 Middle-B 494 349 1. From the LOGIC category, drag over one additional IfThen logic statement and add beneath the last else If decimalNotation = 7 Then conditional. 2. To this new IfThen logic statement, replace True with a <0 = 0> comparison statement from the LOGIC category, within the Comparison section. Replace the left 0 with a decimalNotation variable block. Change the = comparison to a > comparison. This will assure that a tone will only be played if one or more of the valves is pressed. 1. Finally, from the MUSIC category, drag a play tone at Middle C for 1/2 beat and place it within the new If decimalNotation > 0 Then conditional statement. Drag a Hz block and drop it into the play tone at Middle C for 1/2 beat block, replacing the Middle C window. 1. Take a few minutes to test this out in the simulator. Then save this as ToolboxTrumpetMiddleCvariablesFunction, and flash it to your physical Circuit Playground Express for further testing. 3B: Build Functions for Remixable Code 229 230 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Key Takeaways Functions serve to run certain control flow statements and other code when called upon by other parts of the program. Indeed, MakeCode itself is written using many thousands of lines of code, most of which we do not see or even know about. But within that code, they make a call to the FOREVER function we create. This is the MakeCode implementation of the Clocked Sequence Programming I did as a graduate student back in 1990 to collect data from a controller I designed to do my own research. Then it was in the C programming language, but the lines of code themselves have a lot of similarities. By moving the playing of a note into its own function, we can now use the more general capTouchCounter value for a wider range of activities beyond just playing a note in a C scale, and potentially even instead of that. Indeed, take a moment to drag an IfThen logic block from the LOGIC category and drop it around the call playTrumpetNote CapTouchCounter block. Then, at the very bottom of the INPUT category, drag out a switch right block and replace the True statement within this IfThen logic block. Save and flash this to your Circuit Playground Express. Now, depending on the position of the slide switch located at D7 on the Circuit Playground Express, the notes of your scale will or will not be played when pressing the valves. However, the CapTouchCounter values will still be calculated, as seen if you use a CONSOLE category console log block to record the CapTouchCounter value. Exercise: 4-Octave Toolbox Trumpet In Essential Coding Concepts, we set up the momentary switch push buttons so that the blue LED was on unless button A was pressed, and the white LED was off unless button B was pressed. Essentially, this was equivalent to: No buttons = 1 LED Left button = 0 LEDs Right button = 2 LEDs 3B: Build Functions for Remixable Code 231 This design could be seen as equivalent to the Middle C scale with no buttons pressed, Low C scale with button A pressed, and High C scale with button B pressed. Lets do a remix of our code to see how an electronic device can do the same thing, sometimes with added functionality, by remixing the lines of code. To do this, well add these calculations into the FOREVER function, and then pass them on to the playTrumpetNote function. Steps and images are provided. Or, you can download the completed file: circuitplayground-ToolboxTrumpet4Octave-variablesFunc.uf2 Open and review it in MakeCode, and flash it to your Circuit Playground Express for further prototyping. 232 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology The key additions: Add a new variable called buttonCount to conduct three IfThen conditionals, setting buttonCount to 0 if only Button A is pressed, to 2 if Button B is pressed, and to 3 if both Button A and Button B are pressed. Otherwise, buttonCount remains at its default of 1. Pass buttonCount as a second number to the function playTrumpetNote. Divide the variable Hz by 2, taking it down one octave, if buttonCount is 0. Else, the variable Hz is multiplied by buttonCount. If neither button was pressed, it equals 1 and the Hz stays in the middle octave. If button B is pressed, the Hz is multiplied by 2 and it goes up one octave. If both buttons are pressed, it is multiplied by 3, and the Hz goes up two octaves. Steps 1. Create a new variable called buttonCount. At the top of the FOREVER function, add a set buttonCount to 1 block so that in each iteration, this value is reset to the value if neither button is pressed. 2. Add a new set of IfThen logic statements, such that: If button A is pressed and button B is pressed, then set buttonCount to 3. Else if button B is pressed, then set buttonCount to 2. Else if button A is pressed, then set buttonCount to 0. 3. Right click on the call playTrumpetNote and select Edit Function. Add a new number parameter and call it buttonCount. 4. In the call playTrumpetNote function, add a buttonCount block as the second number in the function call. 5. Between the decimalNotation IfThenElseIf logic statements and the If decimalNotation > 0 Then conditional statement, add in a new IfThenElse logic block from the LOGIC category. Configure this sequence of lines of code such that: If buttonCount = 0, then set Hz to Hz 2. Else, set Hz to Hz buttonCount. Wrap Up We should now have two variables, CapTouchCounter and buttonCount, that we can pass to functions. As a part of the Comprehension Check for this session, lets next look at how these variables can be remixed in different functions. 3B: Build Functions for Remixable Code Comprehension Check Do Something New! Weve used the LED Pixels as indicator lights and even 5 digit counters in a few exercises now. As a Comprehension Check, create a new LED Pixel Counter function to do the same with our Toolbox Trumpet. Indeed, this can prove helpful if weve forgotten we have the sliding switch to the left, keeping the Toolbox Trumpet notes from being played by the Circuit Playground Express speaker. Record a video image of this being run from your physical Circuit Playground Express, as well as a copy of a screenshot of this new function as a way of demonstrating youve learned the core steps to create a new function. Design Criteria 1. Open up the ToolboxTrumpet4Octave project in MakeCode. Rename this as ToolboxTrumpet4Octave-pixelCounter and click on save. 2. Create a new function called pixelCount and add in the number called digitalNotation and the number called buttonCount. 3. Create blocks of code such that pixel 9 is one of four colors, depending on the value of the variable buttonCount. 4. Create blocks of code such that pixels 0 to 6 are turned on to match digitalNotation 1 and off if no values are pressed. Heres a short video demonstrating a simulator test of the prototype I created. 233 4A: Sharing Our Counterstories Background Knowledge Probe What is the first thing that comes to mind when you read or hear the word community? The word culture and/or ethnicity? The word wealth? What is the first thing that you say when someone asks you about yourself in relation to one or more of these terms? A Self-Reflection on Sociotechnical Systems My mother and my fathers parents came to the United States in their 20s. Each of their journeys began in Eastern Europe, where they were a part of Volhynian German communities. My familys roots in the Volhynia region go back to the 1850s. Of those family members who lived through destruction of lands, forced starvation, and deportation to Siberia, some of my relatives have remained there, while others of my close family moved to Germany, the United States, and Canada. Some moved before World War I, including a great grandfather, some moved between the wars, including my fathers parents, and some only moved at the end of World War II, including my mother. Some participated as soldiers in the German military, some the Russian military, some the American military; some were soldiers, some interpreters, some medics. Some were early Eastern European participants and leaders of a Midwestern American Christian religion with a commitment to pacifism. Others claimed to be 13 generations pure a racist concept of purity that does not have a scientific basis and so were allowed by government officials to become members of the Nazi party. All made great sacrifices to protect other family members directly and indirectly. But always we sang, played instruments, and celebrated life to its fullest. 234 4A: Sharing Our Counterstories 235 I was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan, in the same hospital as my father. My grandfather, grandmother, and all my uncles and aunts on my fathers side lived within a one-mile radius. Much of my grandmothers family, including my uncle, lived a few miles away in another nearby community. Later in life, I learned that my father faced challenges in elementary school because of his health issues, immediate connection to German immigrants, and the associated name-calling based on these. The region where I grew up was one of the areas where the Volhynian Germans found the needed support to immigrate. And they remained together to provide essential community cultural support, just as they had in the Volhynian region before they fled violence, forced recruitment, and civil wars. I am a child and grandchild of immigrants, and I am ethnically of this culture. My middle and high school days, and my junior college days as well, brought me from the farming community into spaces primarily attended by students of color. And I thrived, participating in a range of in-class and extracurricular music and acting events. I am from a family of tinkers, although recent generations are not the formally-defined tinkers: people within itinerant communities who travel from place to place to mend metal utensils and other home and farm implements. It is from these many different lenses that I reflect on my past and present cultural and ethnic identities and values and explore my future possibilities. I am one of the first in my families direct line to receive advanced degrees, even though my speaking, writing, and explorations sometimes havent fit within expected norms and practices. I also reflect on my identity as a white, cisgender, heterosexual male scholar working at a higher education institution in the United States. Through this, I have great privilege that arises in significant ways through the arrival of the first European settlers on the shores of this continent centuries ago and the introduction of a culture in which the relative worth of whites has been placed above all others.1 In this self-reflection, I come to see myself as a person born into and thereby inheriting many different sociocultural-historical components. I am a first-generation German American; I am ethnically a German Christian socialist pacifist who also has disturbing, close links to Nazism and who inherits the centuries-long embeddedness of American white supremacy. But in addition, I also see myself as a person further shaped by my ongoing interactions with family, neighbors, schoolmates, the broader community, and more as my sphere of influence continued to evolve. Importantly, while much of this shaping comes from those whose socio-cultural-historical components are similar to mine, at times, whether through chance or through choice, abductive leaps in my development have occurred through associations with groups different from me. In Whose Culture has Capital? Tara Yosso brings forward the essential importance of focusing on and learning from the array of cultural knowledge, skills, abilities and contacts possessed by socially marginalized groups that often go unrecognized and unacknowledged brought forward by communities of color. In this context, she states that: Culture refers to behaviors and values that are learned, shared, and exhibited by a group of people. Culture is also evidenced in material and nonmaterial productions of people.2 1. Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation Implementation Guide, December 2016, W.K. Kellogg Foundation http://www.racialequityresourceguide.org, 7. 2. Tara J. Yosso, "Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth," Race Ethnicity and Education 8, no. 1 (March 2005): 75. https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006. 236 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Community cultural wealth is an array of knowledge, skills, abilities and contacts possessed and utilized by Communities of Color to survive and resist macro and micro-forms of oppression.3 Tara J. Yosso, Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth My own cultural influences have come in conflict with the dominant systems within which I have been shaped over my personal lifespan. But it is also true that I sometimes, and perhaps often, fit into these dominant systems specifically because of my white, cisgender, heterosexual male identity. And sometimes I fit in because I have taken on as part of my practice the dominant systems. And sometimes, perhaps even often, I inculcate the practices of those dominant systems into my students and into my socio-technical artifacts. Rather than focusing on and learning from socially marginalized groups, I emphasize dominant narratives, structures, artifacts, and systems. Yet, I also continue to consider the ways my culture and ethnic identity matches that of my family who often de-emphasized income and wealth accumulation and instead emphasized the broader community cultural wealth within Yossos model, which includes aspirational, familial, social, navigational, resistant, linguistic, and cultural capital. In what ways do the pedagogy of this textbook and the hands-on exercises therein serve the goal of education to fit students constructed as other by virtue of their race/ethnicity, language, or social class into a hierarchical structure that is defined as a meritocracy, as so effectively highlighted by Gloria Ladson-Billings in her seminal article Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy?4 The Blue Unit has sought to introduce the essential skills needed in support of the data-to-information pipeline fostering computational tinkering. Weve explored the journeys of hardware and programming logic that have brought us to this point within the socio-technical artifacts of our daily lives, and the methodological landscape we can use to decodify the dominant understandings of these artifacts. Now the question turns to ways we can systematically include student culture in the classroom as authorized or official knowledge, leading to recodification of the essential defining terms and skills of our everyday technologies.5 To do so, we need to continuously research the self, research the self in relation to others, join in engaged reflection and representation, and shift from self to system. These four key points constitute the framework brought forward by H. Richard Milner IV in the article Race, Culture, and Researcher Positionality. And directly as related to this session of the book, these four key points hopefully provide a means by which we can question anew our own counterstories. The essential resources listed below have been an active part of my more recent works to structure my own courses and structure the layout of this textbook. My personal reflections at the start of this chapter are not placed in this section to defend or justify the works of the Blue Unit, or of the textbook more generally. Rather, I bring them forward as a hopefully useful example of an individuals self-reflection and location within a unique, 3. Yosso, "Whose Culture Has Capital?", 77. 4. Gloria Ladson-Billings, "Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy," American Educational Research Journal 32, no. 3 (September 1995): 467. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312032003465. 5. Ladson-Billings, "Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy," 483. 4A: Sharing Our Counterstories 237 interdependent system of cultures and ethnicities. This system influences my participation in, and attempts to counter, the webs of oppression which discriminate against and disadvantage certain races, classes, and genders over others. And it seeks to prompt a guiding question for the remainder of this unit: how can we, as a community of practice, work to further design and prototype our work in ways that allow us as professionals to counter the normative webs of oppression around us as we move forward? Lesson Plan As you work in our hands-on exercises, consider the influencing factors shaping the information system you create. MakeCode, the capacitive touch sensors and the momentary switch buttons of the Circuit Playground Express come together to collect inputs and determine audio outputs. These inputs can even be stored to track requests. Why is this information system the primary technical exercise for the Blue Unit? What cultural and pedagogical factors might have shaped the design of this unit? For the advancement of what capital? In what ways is the design of these coding exercises helping or hindering the advancement of the core learning outcome objectives for this unit? Why? Essential Resources: Yosso, Tara J. Whose Culture Has Capital? A Critical Race Theory Discussion of Community Cultural Wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education 8, no. 1 (March 2005): 6991. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/1361332052000341006. Ladson-Billings, Gloria. Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy. American Educational Research Journal 32, no. 3 (September 1995): 46591. https://doi.org/10.3102/ 00028312032003465. Milner, H. Richard. Race, Culture, and Researcher Positionality: Working Through Dangers Seen, Unseen, and Unforeseen. Educational Researcher 36, no. 7 (October 2007): 388400. https://doi.org/ 10.3102/0013189X07309471. Professional Journal Reflections: 1. Take time this week to pause and silently reflect on the reading of the words within this chapter and within the essential resources. Silently reflect on the different contexts from which these come. And silently reflect on the coding activities of this session. Reflect but dont write. Not yet. 2. Now silently reflect on your self, and your self in relation to others in this community of inquiry. Reflect but dont write. Not yet. 3. Now silently reflect on your ongoing explorations of what it means to be a professional within 238 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology the information sciences, within informatics, and/or within a profession that facilitates the selection, adaptation, training, and use of information systems. Reflect but dont write. Not yet. 4. Yet: Bring these silent reflections together into one or several written, drawn, or spoken Professional Journal Reflections. 4B: Raspberry Pi Counterstory Little Free Library Background Knowledge Probe Which of your daily-use mechanical tools, if any, have attached digital electronic components? Think about this broadly, including your car or kitchen appliances, for example. Which of these digital electronics are microcomputers? Microcontrollers? A combination of the two? In what ways is the design and use of the digital component prioritized over the mechanical? The mechanical over the digital? In what ways are your daily-use tools, mechanical and digital, prioritized over the person? In what ways are your daily-use tools first and foremost person-centered? Technical Overview Weve slowly been working towards creating a digital Little Free Library extension to the wonderful analog Little Free Libraries we find in many neighborhoods. Microcontrollers like the Circuit Playground Express provide a range of sensors and indicators that can be very useful to communicate back and forth with Little Free Library patrons. Microcomputers like the Raspberry Pi, on the other hand, serve as an e-library stacks, library catalog, chat room, and much more. Together, these can be hidden away in a toolbox and run with an extension cord or solar panel and battery pack. For now, our goal is to bring the Circuit Playground Express and Raspberry Pi together. We will set up the Circuit Playground Express to communicate through serial connection with the Raspberry Pi, and the Raspberry Pi to play MP3 audio recordings through its audio jack. In this exercise, we will 239 240 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology begin to explore the possible relationships between a single-purpose computer, such as the Circuit Playground Express, and a multi-purpose computer, such as the Raspberry Pi. Data Communications Between Devices The Raspberry Pi, like many microcomputers and microcontrollers, provides pins to which you can attach transmit and receive wires to connect with personal computers. In this way, even if there is no network or keyboard, mouse, and monitor to provide access to one of these devices, a simple USB to serial cable can be used to configure, diagnose, or perform regular tasks on it. Many operating systems, such as the Raspberry Pi OS, also provide a control window to output and input text from and to the device through this serial interface. A note on the technical terms Master and Slave: Historically, the technologists who developed these data communication tools used the term Master to indicate the controlling device and Slave to indicate devices being controlled by that device. I follow the lead of Python developers who, moving forward, are using the terms Parent and Worker, respectively. These changes within Python coding were made in November 2018, after heated discussion launched by a change request submitted in September 2018 by Victor Stinner, a developer with the software company Red Hat.1 Other programming languages have implemented similar changes. Drupal uses the term replica to replace slave and primary to replace master. As another example, Django has moved to follower and leader. The terms still largely used within engineering and computer science remain slave and master. In discussions regarding these change requests, many argued that these common terms are used to refer to the operation of technology independent of, or at the direction of, another technology with no reference to human slavery. They argue that because there is no common replacement that could easily be made given the existing labels on electronics and in code back many decades, it is important to stay with the stock terminology. As you read through this document and look at abbreviations listed on your electronics and in code, note that sometimes the listed abbreviations for instance MISO, below do not align with written descriptions in this text Parent In/Worker Out. Communications between devices takes many shapes and forms using a range of protocols. Three of the most commonly used are: I2C (Inter-Integrated Circuit and pronounced I-squared-C) was developed in the early 1980s and is widely used to connect lower-speed peripheral integrated circuits to microprocessors and microcomputers using the bus topology (think of a physical bus you ride to travel with others between locations). It is designed to work over relatively short distances, and allows multiple worker integrated 1. Daniel Oberhaus, "'Master/Slave' Terminology Was Removed from Python Programming Language," Vice, September 13, 2018. https://www.vice.com/ en_us/article/8x7akv/masterslave-terminology-was-removed-from-python-programming-language. 4B: Raspberry Pi Counterstory Little Free Library 241 circuits to communicate with one or more parent integrated circuits. I2C only requires two wires and can support up to 1008 worker devices. It can also support multiple parent devices, allowing for more than one parent to communicate with all devices on the bus. SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) is another widely used bus topology protocol used to send data between peripherals and microcontrollers/microcomputers. What is unique about SPI is that it uses a serial clock in addition to a MOSI (parent out, worker in) data line and a MISO (parent in, worker out) data line. The serial clocks oscillating signal allows for data communications to occur synchronously. As with I2C, multiple workers can connect to a single parent. To accomplish this, a fourth line, SS or Worker Select, alerts a particular worker that it should wake up and send and/or receive data, as well as to detect that multiple workers are present. UART (Universal Asynchronous Receive Transmit) interfaces: UART is actually a microprocessor with a package of integrated circuits on a printed circuit board, along with program logic, and is used to attach serial devices to a computer. This allows the computer and attached devices to talk and exchange data. There is a range of USB (Universal Serial Bus) TTL (Transistor Transistor Logic) serial cables used to provide connections between USB and serial UART devices. For our purposes, UART is the simplest and a very effective strategy for basic work in the console window of the Raspberry Pi using a personal computer. Exercise: The Circuit Playground Express Meets the Raspberry Pi In the first three technical session chapters, weve explored MakeCode and configured our Circuit Playground Express microcontroller, eventually working to create our own functions. In this session, well bring together the microcontroller and the Raspberry Pi microcomputer to allow us to use the trumpet valves to play selected counterstories saved on the Raspberry Pi. To do this, well use the UART serial communications pins found on the Circuit Playground Express and the UART Python extension on the Raspberry Pi to transmit valve press sensor data from the Circuit Playground Express to the Raspberry Pi, and to then assess this data to choose which of the available MP3 counterstories to play using the audio output of the Raspberry Pi. Well accomplish this in three steps: STEP 1: Set up the Raspberry Pi to store and play counterstories using the OMXPlayer. This may have already been done previously as it is an exercise within the Orange Unit. STEP 2: Set up your Circuit Playground Express. The Toolbox Trumpet will now be expanded to use components of the MakeCode Serial UART Communications Extension to transfer capacitive touch and momentary switch data to the Raspberry Pi to play counterstories based on sensor inputs. STEP 3: Use the Toolbox Trumpet to play short counterstories (no momentary switches pressed), introductions to the counterstories (left switch pressed) and extended counterstories (right switch pressed). A simple Pythonbased program has been included to test out the Circuit Playground Express, the USB to TTL serial cable, and the Raspberry Pi as a media center. 242 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Step 1: Transfer MP3 Files to the Raspberry Pi The first step is to set up a folder called cstories in the home directory of your Raspberry Pi, containing your counterstory MP3 files. You may have completed this step as part of the Orange Unit. If not, jump to Coding Electronics. In the steps below, well continue working with this folder. Step 2: Set Up Your Circuit Playground Express On your laptop, make the following update to the Circuit Playground Express so that it can work with the Raspberry Pi to play counterstories: 1. Download the Toolbox Trumpet Counterstory UART Prototype for the Circuit Playground Express: circuitplayground-ToolboxTrumpet4Octave-WithUART.uf2 2. Review the new conditional that has been added to the MakeCode, building from the previous Toolbox Trumpet 4 Octave exercise. In this case, we now do a serial write of data whenever the capacitive touch sensor count is greater than zero. This is possible because within the Advanced section, weve taken a serial redirect Configuration block and added that to the On Start function. 3. Connect the Circuit Playground Express to your laptop via the microUSB to USB cable and flash the new UF2 to your Circuit Playground Express. 4. Note you now need to move the off/on switch on the Circuit Playground Express to on to hear the audio playback of the trumpet. Turn this on and double check that you can still play the notes. 5. Disconnect the microUSB to USB cable. Step 3: Use the Toolbox Trumpet to Play Your MP3 Files Now lets connect up your Raspberry Pi to your Circuit Playground Express using a USB to TTL cable and some male to alligator clips. The diagram below assumes the microUSB to USB is NOT connected to your laptop at this time. Instead, you will now provide power to the Circuit Playground Express directly from the Raspberry Pi via the USB port. In this way, one power source directly attached to the Raspberry Pi is all that is needed to run the whole digital Little Free Library!2 2. Fritzing breadboard graphics are licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0. 4B: Raspberry Pi Counterstory Little Free Library 243 Use four male to alligator clip wires to connect the TTL side of a TTL/USB Serial Cable to the Circuit Playground Express microcontroller: Black wire to ground (GND) Red wire to power (VOUT) White wire to transmit (TX) Green wire to receive (RX) Plug the USB side of the second serial cable to one of the four USB ports on the Raspberry Pi. Any one of these should work OK. You should see the Circuit Playground Express green power light go on. If not, a few tests can include: Confirm there is power on the Raspberry Pi and that it is not in the boot-up phase. Check to see if the cable USB is fully pressed into the USB port of the Raspberry Pi. Try using a different USB port on the Raspberry Pi. Confirm the GND and VOUT pins are properly connected to the red and black wires on the TTL/USB serial cable. From a web browser, enter: http://apcg.wolske.site/Library/Code/Python/cstories 244 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Take a glance at the code, but most importantly right click in the window to download the program as cstories.py (NOT as cstories.txt as automatically listed). Be sure to save it to your cstories folder on the Raspberry Pi. You can do this several ways: Directly from the Raspberry Pis Graphical User Interface, using a web browser on the Raspberry Pi. By downloading it to your laptops cstories folder, and then transferring the file using the USB to TTL serial console connection. By downloading it to your laptops cstories folder, and then transferring the file using SSH/SCP (secure shell and secure copy) in a terminal (Mac) or PowerShell (Windows 10) window. For this approach, first identify the IP address of your Raspberry Pi. Jump to Network Troubleshooting for instructions. Visit Introducing the Unix Command Line for details on using SSH/SCP. If you have more than one cstory with intro, regular, extended, and end notes, open the text editor nano to edit the Python code with the following command. Change the variable numStories from 1 to the number of cstories now on the Raspberry Pi. pi@raspberrypi:~/cstories $ nano cstories.py Use the up, down, left, and right arrows on your keyboard to navigate to the row that starts 4B: Raspberry Pi Counterstory Little Free Library 245 numStories. Navigate to the number 1 and change it to the number of stories you have transferred to /home/pi/cstories. To save, hold down the Control or CTRL key, seen as ^ at the bottom of the window, and hit the letter O key. To keep the same name, cstories.py, just hit enter when it shows that name. To exit nano, hit Control X (e.g., ^X). Test it all out. In the terminal window in which you have logged in on the Raspberry Pi, type the following, then touch the different Toolbox Trumpet valves to see if you can hear a story be read to you: pi@raspberrypi:~/cstories $ python3 ~/cstories/cstories.py 246 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology To exit the Python command output, provide a keyboard interrupt by holding down the Control (that is, CTRL or ^) key, and then hitting the c key. FAIL FORWARD TIP: Sometimes the connection of the USB/TTL Serial Cable from the Circuit Playground Express to the Raspberry Pi may have changed. In the terminal window on the Raspberry Pi, type: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ls /dev/ttyUSB* Note the result. If nothing is listed, then the USB/TTL Serial Cable may not be connected. Otherwise, compare the returned value(s) with the one listed in the uart variable within the cstories.py code. The best way to do this is using nano. If the value returned from the ls command is different from that listed in uart = serial.Serial then change the number accordingly in the Python code, save, and retest. From Here If youll be jumping in and out of your Raspberry Pi periodically, feel encouraged to leave it powered on, just as you would any server. Close out of your ssh connection to the Raspberry Pi by hitting ^D (that is, holding down the Control key and hitting the d key), or by typing logout. Either way, you should see the following window display at the end, making it possible for you to SSH back in via Terminal or PuTTY whenever you need to. 4B: Raspberry Pi Counterstory Little Free Library 247 Wrap Up The primary objective of the Blue Unit is to bring together our microcontroller and microcomputer systems as a means of sharing data between devices, thereby creating a basic physical network. That is, weve worked to create a digital networked information system. Together, we can advance a range of technical skills in addition to a number of cognitive and socio-emotional skills to help your community of practice use a growth mindset to build these multi-layered systems. Comprehension Check Now would be a great time to revisit the lesson plan listed in Valued, Inclusive Information and Computing Technology Experiences. Spend some extended time with your Professional Journal Reflections this week, especially responding to the probes at the end of that session. As you reflect, bring our activities to date into conversation with the capability approach and inclusive computational thinking frameworks brought forward in this session. 248 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 1. In what ways might the toolbox trumpet and Raspberry Pi counterstories serve as a resource advancing agency? A capability? 2. In what ways might the toolbox trumpet and Raspberry Pi counterstories serve as an information system problematically disrupting valued beings and doings of individuals and communities? 3. In what ways might the toolbox trumpet and Raspberry Pi counterstories be designed for designers, that is, for the innovators-in-use who adapt this to their own functionings? In what ways might it have been designed differently leading to this point? Blue Unit Review 249 250 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Blue Unit Review 251 252 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Blue Unit Review 253 254 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Blue Unit Review 255 REMIX: Ideating and Iterating Code: Scratch Example Betty Bayer and Stephanie Shallcross This real life hands-on project by four information science graduate students provides a step-by-step example of ideation and iteration of code to support counterstories. The Process: Inspiration and Ideation As a group of four current and future educators, we knew we wanted to focus on one person, whose story is not well known in the history of technology, and we wanted the game to be fun and accessible for late elementary students. We were particularly interested in inspiring young girls because women, as a whole, are a group that is underrepresented in technological fields. Often when children are taught the history of technology, women who have contributed to the field are left out. We hoped that by creating a game that was fun and accessible for late elementary students young girls who were interested in technology would be inspired to learn, create and change the way women are represented in technology fields. From this initial spark of inspiration, we quickly moved into the ideation phase. Fueled by the recent release of the picture book Grace Hopper: Queen of Computer Code by Laurie Wallmark, the group chose to focus on Grace Hopper. Much of the initial debate focused on whether or not Grace Hoppers story was truly a counter-story. However, we decided that since none of usfour educated women, who work with children and technologyhad heard of her, her story did indeed meet the requirements of a counter-story. Then, the group member who had by far the most experience coding with Scratch, suggested using a maze with scrambled letters to decode.1 This seemed both feasible technically for us and fun and accessible for our target audience. We decided we wanted to have multiple levels of the game, each telling a different story about Hoppers life. We were especially enthused about telling the story of Hopper finding the moththe literal bugin the Mark 2 computer because (A) its fun and will engage students, but also (B) the term bug is mainstream technology terminology, but few people know it was coined by a woman. Knowing this storyand Grace Hoppers in generalcan allow girls to see themselves in the mainstream history of technology, and in the terms and code we use today. We also discussed possible stories for the other levels, and some of Hoppers more pithy and applicable quotes we could work into the game [See Image 1]. 1. Scratch is a project of the Scratch Foundation, in collaboration with the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. 256 REMIX: Ideating and Iterating Code: Scratch Example 257 Image 1: We incorporated one of Hoppers well-known quotes that inspired the development of the game into the introduction. The Process: Iteration In an early iteration, we planned to include three mazes. However since one of the reasons we were taking the course was to improve our technical skills, we decided it would be ideal if all four members of the group gained experience in Scratch. So, we decided early on that the best course of action would be to have each group member individually code a level of the game. Image 2: The backdrop and sprites in place for beginning the Level 2 Maze. 258 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Early in the design process, one team members letter blocks didnt work when other team members played the game. Through some pair programming over email and on Blackboard Collaborate, we realized the problem was she used separate sprites as blocks and letters, where as the rest of us used different costumes. We were able to fix this bug much more quickly working as a team than one of us could have as an individual. Image 3: Set of costumes for the decoy balloons. In another iteration, we started adding more content to each level in order to give children as much information about Grace Hopper as we could. We wanted to make sure our game was person-oriented rather than thingoriented. After testing this prototype, a couple of the members of our group that work with children in a primary setting stated that the extra information caused a lot of visual clutter on the screen that would make it less accessible to some studentsfor example, those with visual deficits or those who are easily distracted. So in the interest of keeping our counter-story as tailored to our audience as possible, we decided to get rid of the extra information on each individual level and instead streamline the information into one backdrop at the end of the game. The slide also provided links to more information. This approach would provide the best experience for children of all abilitites, and those students who were inspired by Graces story could easily continue to learn more about her. One of the members of our team worked in an elementary school library that serves Kindergarten through fifth grade students. In order to get feedback from our target audience, she took our prototype in and asked two fifth grade students to test it out. The students identified two areas of concern. In one level, after all the letters are revealed and the Grace sprite gets to the end of the maze, the question mistakenly covered all of the letters. Based on this feedback, the team was easily able to change the location of the letters, to allow for them to be seen during the question phase. The second issue the students found was a bigger one: if the mouse pointer touched Grace in levels 2-4, she would return to level 1. This glitch made it impossible to finish the game. Through paired programming, we determined that the issue was in one of the initial sequencing codes, specifically, the code that starts the game. Basically, the code was telling the computer every time Grace is clicked to restart at level 1, which REMIX: Ideating and Iterating Code: Scratch Example 259 Image 4: End screen with link to further information. is not what we wanted. It took some time to figure out how to fix this, but eventually, we discovered that by simply adding a stop script control to that particular sequence, we were able to debug our game. Without rapid prototyping our game and asking students to play it, we would not have found these errors nearly as quickly. The students feedback was critical to the next iteration of our game. Image 5: First iteration of code. This caused the Grace sprite to return to Level 1 whenever she was clicked with the mouse. Image 6: Second iteration of this line of code. This allows for the sprite to only complete this set of instructions once. 260 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology The Process: Mutual Shaping and Teamwork Our group had a lot of shared social factors since we are all current and aspiring educators. We were inspired by our backgrounds working with children in a school setting, and we wanted to create a game we could use with our own students. Our backgrounds influenced us to style the game as a series of mazes to be more fun and appealing to children. Our backgrounds also determined the level of the content; we wanted to teach players about Grace Hopper in a way that would be understandable and also make them realize they too have the capacity to learn and create technology. Despite the similarity of our backgrounds, we had different strengths and weaknesses. We were able to leverage each team members strengths by using pair and triplet programming, thorough communication, and taking on specific team roles. As discussed previously, pair and triplet programming helped us to debug our game much more quickly than we could have individually. Initially, each team member worked alone on their level, but almost right away we encountered issues with the letter sprites. If one member of the team tried to program a letter sprite, it moved in other level. Through paired programming, we realized that we needed different sprites for each level and that we had to rename those sprites right away with the specific levels name to avoid confusion. Each sprite needed to be coded separately and each sprite needed to have its own costume, i.e. balloon. Image 7. This game required the use of 21 sprites. Each with individual coding. REMIX: Ideating and Iterating Code: Scratch Example 261 Another aspect of our teamwork that made us successful was the unofficial roles that each member of our team took on. One member of the group took on a project manager role, taking meeting notes, scheduling weekly meetings, and sending out action items for each group member. Another person took on the task of managing the written portion of the project and recorded the groups progress throughout the design thinking process. The person with the most Scratch experience researched ways to code the maze backgrounds. The final persons job was to be the final editor. She carefully walked through all of the programming and located any errors in the programming that required attention, and put the finishing touches on the introduction and conclusion screens of the game. Although we naturally fell into these roles that fit our own personal strengths and weaknesses, we also were flexible working as a team. If the Scratch expert hit an obstacle with Scratch, we would all work on the problem together. If the project manager couldnt make it to one of the meetings, another group member took notes and scheduled the next meeting. After the desk critique with Martin, Martin was concerned that we were just telling a story. He questioned our motivation in choosing Grace Hooper as our counter-story and challenged us to think deeper. After much discussion, the group really focused in on using Graces story to inspire and challenge young girls into STEM fields. As with any teaching tool, it is critical to provide context to the game. We felt strongly that this could be a launching off point for students, especially girls, to create their own games or do their own research into concealed stories in technology. Futhermore, just the fact of seeing that a woman is the reason we are coding in English instead of 1s and 0s is pretty incredible. Our hope was that young girls could see that what we are doing with computers today wasnt just because of the Bill Gates and the Steve Jobs of the world, but because of the Grace Hoppers of the world, as well. At the first in-class peer critique, each member of the group had to present the team idea. One of the big feedback items we all received was to simplify the word choices for our unscramble. We had initially chosen very specific words from Graces life, losing site of the fact that our primary audience was elementary students. For example, initially one of the unscrambles was Waves, which was the womens branch of the Navy that Grace joined. Elementary students would likely not be familiar with Waves, so we opted to change the unscramble answer to Navy, making the game more accessible for young students. After the second class peer critique, we changed the coding to slow down the text throughout the game, giving players more time to read the words. Again, we felt this was a positive change to our prototype making it more accessible overall. The Process: Computational Thinking We decided to use programming that we learned in class to not over-complicate the assignment. Using the push buttons that we set up in Chapter 1 of the guidebook allowed us to focus on finding an innovative and fun way to tell Graces story and engage our young audience. Early on, we decided not to use the touch and motion sensors because they did not add to the story we were trying to tell. We would just be including them for the sake of adding more cool tech stuff. 262 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology By the time we created our final iteration of the game, we had incorporated all five of the computational thinking terms into the programming. Below are examples of the how we incorporated the five elements into our final product. Sequence: In order to make our game user-friendly, we wanted our game to be easy for students to understand how to play. We wanted even the youngest of players to be able to play the game without a teacher or adult having to explain it. The game, quite simply, had to explain itself. We accomplished this goal by using sequencing to give players a set of instructions when they start the game. When the backdrop switches to Instructions, the Grace sprite appears then goes to a specific location and says a series of statements, including basic directions, that start the game. Iteration: We incorporated iteration into our programming in order to make the balloons react to Grace touching them, transform to a clue letter and fly up to the corner of the screen. Specifically, we used the forever block so that these actions would continue again and again. Conditionals: We wanted players to be able to progress through the different levels of the game. Creating conditionals allowed us to tell the computer that if the player gets the answer right, then open up the next level. If the player gets the answer wrong, then ask them to try again. We accomplished this leveling up function by using the if/then blocks in Scratch. REMIX: Ideating and Iterating Code: Scratch Example 263 Variables: Using data blocks, we created correct answer variables. This allowed players to move forward through the game based on those variables. Variables were essential in creating a multi-level game platform. Modularization: We knew that we wanted players to have to answer questions about Grace, so that they would gain knowledge about her while playing the game. By using the more blocks function in scratch, we were able to define questions for each game level. 264 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Conclusion: Continued Mutual Shaping The work we did in this class continues to shape and influence each member of our team as well as our instructor and future users of this guidebook. One member of our team has plans to use this project as the foundation of her work as an elementary school librarian. One of her goals as a practitioner is to inspire elementary students to design, create, and challenge their thinking by having them work in groups to research a lesser known individual from history and tell their story through a unique game. Furthermore, this project, which is based on an earlier version of this guidebook, shaped the version of the guidebook that you are reading. This iteration of the guidebook will continue to shape future information scientists, and, in turn, they will continue to shape and refine the contents of this guidebook. Rainbow Unit: Networks Big and Small At the Mary Brown Center in East St. Louis, Illinois, community members and Lessie Bates Davis Neighborhood House staff along with School of Information Science students setup a new public computing center created using participatory and evidence-based design principles. Table of Contents Session Social Technical 1 Programmable Electronics, Smart Technology, and the Internet of Things Connecting Our Electronic Thing to a Wider World 2 Digital Internets, Past and Present The Infrastructure of the Internet 3 The Digitization of Divides A Person-Centered Network Information System Adventure 4 Recovering Community: Designing for Social Justice Community-Centered Design Rainbow Unit Review Rainbow Unit Overview As we went through the Orange and Blue Units, we dove into essential electronics technology and computer hardware and software concepts that make up our sociotechnical artifacts and systems. And weve networked together separate sociotechnical microcontroller and microcomputer artifacts to create our first networked information system. As we move into the Rainbow Unit, its time to bring together the technical, cognitive, socio-emotional, and critical sociotechnical skillsets, frameworks, and standards weve been advancing within our community of practice into a more holistic understanding of networked information systems. For over a century, professionals in a range of information sciences have sought to use the information and communications technologies of the day to provide liberating directions for social justice outcomes for individuals, communities, and society. As the twentieth century came to an end and we entered the twenty-first, new digital networked information systems emerged, and the information sciences added to their repertoire community networking, community technology centers, and digital literacy training. There has been a significant tension, though, between user-centered practices that too easily result in users being identified as entities completing a task, and a more human-centered, design justice focus that recognizes the ever-present relationship between design and power, a relationship that is often used to benefit some over others through the social shaping of information technology artifacts and systems. In the Rainbow Unit, each session will more closely bring together the technical and the social within the two chapters of the session to introduce the sociotechnical Internet of Things/smart devices (session one), the global and community Internet networks (session two), the expansion of historic, and introduction of new, divides through digitization (session three), and the hope of recovering community through design justice (session four). The first two sessions will continue to explore core concepts and skills through a more structured set of hands-on technical activities, while sessions three and four will open up a tinker lab to explore further specific introductory skills that still need some development through execution of your own chosen person-centered networked information system adventure. Today, networked information systems bring together the rich lived analog realm that has evolved over millennia with the digital technologies that have developed over the last decade. These continue to include the stillrelevant Universal Asynchronous Receive Transmit (UART) serial communications protocol weve used in previous exercises of the textbook and related protocols like Inter-Integrated Circuit (IC) and Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI). In addition, as dialup bulletin-board systems and commercial online services entered the scene in the 1980s, central servers began to provide information and communication services to larger communities. In some cases, these systems came together to form larger internetworks using more open models. One serial communication protocol that emerged at this time was the peer-to-peer protocol. Peer-to-peer (P2P) applications are not just used to facilitate communication between two peers passing data back and forth, such as our Circuit Playground Express microcontroller and our Raspberry Pi microcomputer. Some peer-to-peer applications are set up for home file and multimedia sharing, while others make use of the Internet to extend peer-to-peer connections globally, often using a store-and-forward principle in which data is first stored at a peer hop in its journey before being forwarded to the next peer. BitTorrent is a widely used peer-to-peer file sharing software, while Bitcoin is a well-known peer-topeer cryptocurrency, with many emerging mobile peer-to-peer payment services coming to market using Bitcoins underlying blockchain technology. Another space in which peer-to-peer protocols have emerged is within the Internet of Things space, and this is where well start in session one of the Rainbow Unit as we also gain a first view of the underlying Internet Protocol (IP). But as well also explore within this session, too often Internet of Things devices are actually simplified programmed devices that use a centralized command and control. This shaping of the sociotechnical IoT devices reduces or removes design and the advancement of power that should be centered within the individual and with the community of which the individual is part. Instead, the tension regarding whose design and power for whom that always exists has moved forward on a path within the digital realm that centers around economic and societal dominance, something well especially explore in session two regarding the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol. The majority of Internet services used today, including many smart sensors, controllers, and communications devices, still function using the client-server architecture. While in peer-to-peer architecture each device on an IP network is equally privileged so that tasks and workloads can be distributed among peers, within a clientserver architecture specific nodes play a centralized role as server. The server provides services and resources upon request from individual client nodes, often through front-end applications that interact with the human users of the application. The open standards and protocols of the Internet are systems agnostic, and thus peer-to-peer and client-server technologies can work well together using a range of different internetworking platforms. However, today we are shaped in a wide range of ways to consider the server as the essential information and communication thing floating up there in the cloud, from which we are the fortunate recipient and through which we can be transformed. But servers are always local devices and the cloud is often just a bank of servers within local networks owned by corporations. It remains that the local networks on which servers are housed can be anywhere. And while there is considerable value in locating our core email, video streaming, and social media services within a Microsoft or Amazon or Google cloud located within regional server banks, there remains significant value in more localized community networks and decentralized Internet of Things devices, a concept well explore throughout sessions one and two as we configure our Raspberry Pi as a local web server using two different strategies. Together, sessions one and two are works seeking to guide us beyond the dominant neoliberal American dream of digital technological determinism, radical individualism, and supply-side, free market capitalism that has especially emerged since the 1990s. As we move into session three of the Rainbow Unit, well explore how the technological determinism that embeds our digital thing-orientation works both intentionally and unintentionally to extend the historic racial and cultural divides into the digital realm. A name that has stuck in this regard is the digital divide, which is especially framed as a national crisis of competitiveness, defined as a human capital deficit and resolved through publicprivate partnerships for access extensions.1 The breadth of socially driven divides is instead turned exclusively into a technical one. The challenge is to shift focus towards both digital inclusion and also digital equity in recognition that todays digital technology is a necessary tool for civic and cultural participation, employment, lifelong learning, and access to essential services.2 Our digital information and communication technologies arise through a range of design principles and processes that merge social and technical considerations. Within digital inclusion, affordable, robust Internet service provision is an essential first element, but it is something that has especially been influenced through monopoly power within the United States, something well especially highlight as we move further into session three. But internetworking of information systems does not need to be this way, something well (re)consider throughout sessions three and four of the Rainbow Unit as each learner is encouraged to choose their own person-centered networked information systems adventure. Well also work to explore the ways in which a design justice framework can be used to advance new pathways for social justice practice within the information sciences. The open protocols and standards of the Internet Protocol continue to give us considerable freedom of choice. As we conclude the Rainbow Unit, the adventures are meant to provide a means to test execution of choice, especially as exercised at the local premises, neighborhood, and community levels. Well learn to track down network performance issues and rapidly move up the support tier levels to ensure our Internet Service Providers give us what we pay for with regard to Internet provision. And as well see in the Rainbow Unit, not only can we build our own local networks and even community networks, we can also build our own web servers, and from there could expand to build our own database and communications servers, if we so choose. But there are communities and even regions that are stepping up their works to build campus and community networks at larger scales, pushing Internet Service Providers to play more by community rules, not just corporate rules. This is a long journey, but hopefully as we work through the Rainbow Unit well begin to demystify the clouds that keep Networked Information Systems within a mist, thereby opening up a visioning of the revolution of values that are person-oriented, rather than thing-oriented, as King called us to over 40 years ago. 1. Daniel Greene, "Discovering the Divide: Technology and Poverty in the New Economy," International Journal of Communication 10 (2016): 1226. 2. National Digital Inclusion Alliance, "Definitions," accessed July 6, 2020. https://www.digitalinclusion.org/definitions/. 1A: Programmable Electronics, Smart Technology, and the Internet of Things Background Knowledge Probe 1. Create a spreadsheet with two columns and at least 20 rows. 2. Take a few minutes to walk around your home, listing in the right column all the electronic devices you use on a regular basis. 3. Review your list of devices and note in the left column which category you think each device belongs: a. Non-programmed circuit Example from Orange Unit: 5 Volt resistor -> momentary switch -> light -> ground b. Programmable circuit(s), no connectivity to other devices Example from Orange Unit: Using a momentary switch and Python on Raspberry Pi to turn LEDs on or off Example from Blue Unit: Using a momentary switch and MakeCode on Circuit Playground Express to turn LEDs on or off c. Programmable circuit(s), data connectivity with one or more local devices only Example from Blue Unit: Circuit Playground Express capacitive touch sensors informing which counterstory to play on the Raspberry Pi d. Programmable circuit(s), Internet connectivity providing remote information and/or control Examples from Rainbow Unit to follow 275 276 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Which of the items on your list are analog electronics? Which are digital electronics? How many more devices would be added if the list were to include non-electronic, mechanical devices? The Mechanical World I wake up a little before the sun rises. I stand up and stretch, then walk out of the sleeping quarters and over to the outhouse with composting toilet. Its light enough out now so my kerosene lantern isnt needed, although its still a little dark in the outhouse. I start my campfire and 30 minutes later have some water boiling eggs and making some tea. The morning is first spent feeding and providing clean water to the chickens and washing clothes in the nearby stream before putting them out to dry. Then I take some time weeding in the garden while nibbling on the few first strawberries and snow peas of the season and picking the cold-tolerant spinach and kale greens of the spring garden. Getting out of the warming midday sun, I head into the woods to forage for mushrooms, ramps, dandelions, and nettles. Check on the clothes drying, catch a fish from the stream, make dinner over the fire or inside over the woodburning stove, turn on the lantern to read for a bit, and back to bed I go. The romance of time in a mechanical world! While I have and continue to live with a wide range of daily-use electronic devices for lighting, heating and air conditioning, cooking and cleaning, and the other staples of modern life, I come from a long family line who also keep a hold on the mechanical side of life in a range of ways. And I have a family who continues this tradition in our own ways. While we dont live off-grid in a tiny house producing and preserving all our own food and resources, we continually explore and periodically test ideas from local rural and urban farmers and foragers. At the same time, were a family who uses the Internet to explore resources such as Mother Earth News and Bryce Langston and Rasa Pescuds Living Big in a Tiny House YouTube Channel to expand our understanding of the balance between mechanical and electronic, off-grid and on-grid, physical community and the larger online communities of practice. Im someone who writes code, designs and builds electronics, has facilitated setup of a number of local networks and helped explore a couple community networks, and consulted on Internet choices, while also using a wide range of electronic and mechanical woodworking tools. I live in a family and in communities that flex between the both/and of the mechanical and electronic, of the analog and digital, of the in-person and online. 1A: Programmable Electronics, Smart Technology, and the Internet of Things 277 From Mechanical to Programmable to Smart For purposes of this discussion, well consider mechanical devices as those involving pure physical processing. A common style of toilet within the United States flushes because we push down on a physical component that adjusts other physical components, thereby allowing water to leave a tank and flow through the toilet bowl. The water flows in an effective manner to remove liquid and solid waste through the physical porcelain S-shaped siphon, designed to remove wastes while physically protecting sewer gas from venting back into the room after the flush cycle has completed. Together, this represents a classic mechanical technology. While we continue to make use of a range of mechanical devices as part of our daily lives, we have increasingly made use of electronic devices as the latter half of the 19th century experienced the advancement of electrical power generation and the eventual emergence of electrical engineering. Weve moved from the building of wax candles or gas-soaked wicks in lanterns as a source of lighting to the incandescent light bulb providing an electrical device in which the flow of electricity can pass through a wire filament embedded within glass. More recently, weve seen the transition from the incandescent light bulb to light-emitting diode lamps, or LEDs, that use significantly less energy to achieve equal brightness and with greater longevity. Each of these represent simple non-programmed circuits. But it many cases it is possible to expand the circuit to include additional components. The simple LED circuit can be constructed so as to include the necessary resistors, capacitors, transistors, and photocells such that it automatically dims or brightens depending on the amount of light currently within the area. This can be designed as a non-programmed circuit, but often is incorporated into a microcontroller or microprocessor to control the brightness of the LED based on certain levels of light as sensed by the photocell. It is now a programmable circuit. The programmable circuits can become increasingly complex, as when an LED only comes on at the appropriate brightness based on current light levels when movement is detected via an integrated motion sensor. It may include built-in switches or touch sensors that can be used to determine whether to make use of the dimming and/or motion sensing functions of the program. Depending on the technology being used, its possible that as we observe our own or others uses of the technology, our behaviors are shaped by the choices being made in that use. And it may be that we begin shaping our choices to further shape behavior. The electronic devices continue on as sociotechnical artifacts. Over time, the programs running some of our electronic devices were further expanded to incorporate code that altered the actions of other segments of the code based on previous data collection by that software. To begin, machine learning code can be combined with a mathematical model using initial training data to create predictive decisions. Over time, machine learning algorithms are set up such that the software learns from new data in ways that help set up more precise predictions and corresponding actions. The predictive analytics of machine learning has emerged from the broader exploration known as artificial intelligence (AI). Programming languages such as LISP started emerging in the late 1950s, helping to advance the field of AI that was also emerging at the time. Autonomous devices with software facilitating perception of its environment and execution of actions that maximize chances of achieving target goals are formally referred to as intelligent agents within AI, and popularly as smart devices or technologies today. 278 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology In their 1997 article, An Overview of Smart Technology, Goddard, Kemp, and Lane noted that the term smart for a diverse range of materials, structures, systems and technologies originated in the early 1980s, mainly via researchers working in the United States and funded through defense budgets. It was the reports of smart bombs and other smart munitions of the Gulf war in newspapers and popular science journals that brought about public awareness. From this emerged the fashionable use of smart technologies as part of industrial applications well beyond the original aerospace and defense uses that began in the early 1980s. Thus, while intelligent agents were already being developed at about the same time as part of various dedicated research groups, these academics had been working on smart technologies for several years without realising it!1 Intelligent or smart systems include: 1) sensors used to collect associated information on environment, condition, or operating history; 2) a trainable control algorithm to read sensor data, draw inferences on that data, and alter system characteristics based on these inferences; 3) control hardware interconnecting arrays of sensors, a microprocessor running the algorithmic code, and actuators; 4) the actuators, or mechanical devices that can move or control something and thereby implement the change in configuration based on the control algorithm; and 5) structural members allowing the sociotechnical artifact or system of artifacts to perform its primary function. Take 11 minutes to watch this deeper exploration of machine learning & artificial intelligence introduction from Carrie Anne Philbins Crash Course Computer Science series hosted by PBS Digital Studios. Bringing this together, each of these terms and concepts, from circuits that are mechanical or programmable, to sociotechnical artifacts and systems, to artificial intelligence and intelligent agents, and to smart devices and technologies is shaped by and shapes individual people, scientific disciplines, research funding resources and their governmental, corporate, and non-profit funders, journalists and popular media, and many other social, cultural, political, and economic influencers. As the previous sentence is complex, so too is each individual word within it. But only in acknowledging the complexity is it possible to meaningfully enter into true works of liberation of all direct and indirect stakeholders seeking advancement of their individual and communal valued beings and doings. Bringing Together Sociotechnical Artifacts into an Internet of Things As weve seen in the Blue Unit, it is possible to bring together microcontroller-based programmed sensors with microcomputer-based processing software using data communications cables such as our UART serial cable. This can be very effective to connect the microcontroller to the microcomputer as a single device. But a difficulty arises as control algorithms work to facilitate interdevice internetworking; that is, to facilitate two or more devices working with each other, whether or not interdevice internetworking code incorporates artificial intelligence functions and thus formally serves as intelligent agents. From farming to the home to the office cubicle to the library shelves, a growing number of independent small microcontroller/microcomputer sociotechnical artifacts are capturing and routing volumes of data between devices. The code on these devices, while much smaller than centralized cloud computing devices and services, can be very effective at rapid collection and analysis of data. 1. N. D. R. Goddard, R. M. J. Kemp, and R. Lane, "An Overview of Smart Technology," Packaging Technology and Science 10, no. 3 (1997): 129. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1099-1522(19970501/30)10:3%3C129::AID-PTS393%3E3.0.CO;2-C. 1A: Programmable Electronics, Smart Technology, and the Internet of Things 279 If we had computers that knew everything there was to know about thingsusing data they gathered without any help from uswe would be able to track and count everything, and greatly reduce waste, loss and cost. We would know when things needed replacing, repairing or recalling, and whether they were fresh or past their best. Kevin Ashton, That Internet of Things Thing2 It is here that the open protocols and processes of the Internet serve an essential role, leading researchers such as Neil Gershenfeld and others to formally advance an Internet of Things (IoT), allowing myriad devices to intercommunicate and interoperate.3 The initial IoT concept could incorporate, but did not require, use of Broadband connectivity to support much of its functionality. Key is the recognition that the circuits and software, even including a Web server, can be brought together on very low-cost microcomputers. While our educationalfocused toolkit includes a $35 US Raspberry Pi and $25 US Circuit Playground Express, along with a range of other materials, its possible to build various everyday devices for as little as $1 US. Alarmingly, today many of our smart devices are really not intelligent agents, but rather basic data gathering devices that use the Internet to communicate with proprietary controllers located in the Cloud, storing (and often taking ownership of) data and the information emerging from this data. Management and use of data and information of sensors that include both known and unknown input from consumers in many cases, is determined by the commercial providers, then returned to the devices to be implemented. Devices are indirectly interconnected via cloud platforms and software, divorced from the interdevice interconnectivity envisioned within an Internet of Things. Such conflicting meanings also appear in terms such as smart grid, smart homes, and smart cities. Here is a video of Neil Gershenfeld discussing this topic. For Neil Gershenfeld and the team at the Center for Bits and Atoms, this has meant bringing together the computer and physical sciences to explore how to turn data into things, and things into data by creating location fabrication facilities, Fab Labs, and a global network for training people and sharing knowledge, a Fab Academy, thereby digitizing fabrication in the same way we digitized communication over the last two decades. In so doing, it is to shift the focus from plumbing and power to safety and convenience, from pills to proper medication. To do this, it requires shifting focus to the local edges rather than a centralized cloud, exploring the boundaries between the digital and physical worlds.4 Gartner is a global research and advisory firm who has developed the Gartner Hype Cycle model to inform its customers, senior leaders across the enterprise, regarding technology hype versus its commercial viability. This can be a helpful way to more broadly recognize the ongoing shaping and reshaping of sociotechnical artifacts over an extended period. Initially, innovation of emerging technologies leads to early proof-of-concept stories and increasing publicity of a product. However, as this often still requires further research and development, increasing wide use of the product can lead to a Peak of Inflated Expectations as success stories begin to be accompanied by increasing stories of failure. In many cases, interest continues to wane until the product reaches a Trough of Disillusionment. Only through ongoing development and testing do we reach a Slope of Enlightenment leading 2. Kevin Ashton, "That 'Internet of Things' Thing," RFID Journal, June 22, 2009, https://www.rfidjournal.com/that-internet-of-things-thing. 3. Neil Gershenfeld, Raffi Krikorian, and Danny Cohen, "The Internet of Things," Scientific American, October 2004, https://www.scientificamerican.com/ article/the-internet-of-things/. 4. Neil Gershenfeld and Jim Euchner, "Atoms and Bits: Rethinking Manufacturing," Research-Technology Management 58, no. 5 (September 2015): 1623. https://doi.org/10.5437/08956308X5805003. 280 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology to a Plateau of Productivity. View the Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2020 video to see an example of this methodology in practice, with indications that we are slowly moving from a BITNET of Things as noted by Gershenfeld to an increasing plateau of productivity that includes both the edge and the cloud, each in its own way. The possibilities and pitfalls of the Internet of Things as seen through a critical lens is to recognize the many seen, unseen, and unforeseen dangers, as Richard Milner brings forward in Race, Culture, and Researcher Positionality. Furthermore, it is to question Whose Culture Has Capital? as asked by Tara Yosso, questions that we explored at the end of the Blue Unit. It is essential that we continually bring to the table not only our positivist and interpretive meta-theoretical assumptions, but also our critical meta-theoretical assumptions into the methodological landscape. Lesson Plan Ultimately, choice between cloud services, local servers and server farms, or the Internet of Things and smart devices does not require either this or that decisions. In many cases, strategic decision making, design, and implementation may reveal that a combination of several different networked information systems is the ideal practical path to facilitate functional diversity in achieving valued beings and doings for the broadest range of stakeholders. The first objective of this session is therefore to introduce us to the concepts and terms, the technical components, and the sociotechnical codifications underlying these networked information artifacts and systems, helping advance the existence and sense of choice, as well as our ability to more effectively execute and achieve that choice to advance our valued beings and doings. And as we decodify these materials, a second objective of this session is to recognize that the data and information being collected is not just of things. It is often data and information about human and morethan-human persons and their activities. Individually and collectively, people have shaped the devices and systems which collect data and facilitate information processing for a range of objectives. In this process, we gather data on peoples actions and behaviors within various social and environmental contexts which we also are observing. How we reflect upon, investigate, and act upon this determines the form of power that is used: power within ourselves to advance our power over others, or power within others to advance power within all, to every extent possible. How the artifacts are shapedand how we are shaped by them also influences how we go on to shape things and persons alike. Essential Resources: Burgess, Matt. What Is the Internet of Things? WIRED Explains. Wired UK, February 16, 2018. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/internet-of-things-what-is-explained-iot. TED Institute. Internet of Things: Transforming the routine. YouTube, November 15, 2016. https://youtu.be/8qjf_VuGW7A. Stop Autonomous Weapons. Slaughterbots. YouTube, November 12, 2017. Note: Watch the 1A: Programmable Electronics, Smart Technology, and the Internet of Things following dystopian science-fiction arms-control short film with caution. This film was produced by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute and Stuart Russell, who provides short remarks at the end. It first screened to the November 2017 United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA. Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. Black Future Month. Produced by Halcyon Person with Adam Howard. TBS, March 20, 2019. https://youtu.be/vJrHFBCa4MQ. Additional Resources: Harwood, Trevor. Internet of Things (IoT) History. Postscapes. Accessed July 16, 2020. https://www.postscapes.com/iot-history/. Feather, Katie. Attack of the Internet of Things. Science Friday, October 28, 2016. https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/attack-of-the-internet-of-things/. Gershenfeld, Neil, and JP Vasseur. As Objects Go Online: The Promise (and Pitfalls) of the Internet of Things. Foreign Affairs 93, no. 2 (March 2014): 6067. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ articles/2014-02-12/objects-go-online. Gershenfeld, Neil, and Jim Euchner. Atoms and Bits: Rethinking Manufacturing. ResearchTechnology Management 58, no. 5 (September 2015): 1623. https://doi.org/10.5437/ 08956308X5805003. Huckle, Steve, Rituparna Bhattacharya, Martin White, and Natalia Beloff. Internet of Things, Blockchain and Shared Economy Applications. Procedia Computer Science 98 (January 1, 2016): 46166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2016.09.074. Professional Journal Reflections: 1. Review your original list of devices from the opening Background Knowledge Probe. How does it need to be revised, if at all? Why or why not? 2. In what ways do you have greater control than you previously thought over your devices? Less control? Why? 3. How do we recodify the concepts, terms, and technologies of microcontrollers and microcomputers, of smart and intelligent devices, technologies, and systems, of the Internet of Things/Bitnet of Things, so as to advance a more just society for all, and especially for those marginalized and oppressed? 281 1B: Connecting Our Electronic 'Thing' to a Wider World Technical Overview As we saw at the end of the Orange and Blue Units, there are many ways to provide data communications between devices. In the Orange Unit, we learned more about the ports available on our computers, such as the USB and HDMI ports, that provide ways for us to connect external devices such as keyboards, mice, and monitors. And in the Blue Unit, we learned about serial data communications interfaces such as the Universal Asynchronous Receive and Transmit (UART) interface weve been using to transmit and receive data between the Raspberry Pi and the screen or PuTTY console of our laptop, and between the Circuit Playground Express and our Raspberry Pi. While technically a keyboard and a computer or a microcontroller and a microcomputer are two separate devices, via the software we use, they work as one unified system. They are our computer. They are our counterstory trumpet. But underlying the concept of the Internet of Things which today is often popularly referred to as Smart Devices coming together to create Smart Homes, Smart Grids, Smart Cities, and more is an interconnection of electronics. A mechanical keyboard connected to a personal computer is not an IoT device. But a programmable keyboard that uses machine learning to predict changing contexts based on data from a range of local IoT devices and functionally evolve accordingly would be an IoT keyboard. It is to create an Internet of Things, whether or not this is connected to the physical Internet. There are actually many choices that can be made regarding this interconnectivity, only some of which make use of the Internet Protocol, something well learn more about in session two of the Rainbow Unit. Data Transport As the evolution of computer networking continued into the 1970s, a number of different government- and corporate-sponsored programs led to the development of protocols, standards, and frameworks for data, information, and communication distribution between computers. This included CYCLADES in France, NPL network in the UK, and ARPANET in the United States. Through extended work by international bodies such as 282 1B: Connecting Our Electronic 'Thing' to a Wider World 283 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the Telecommunications Standardization Sector of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU-T), an Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model was created and formally published in 1984 as both ISO 7498 and X.200. A key component of the OSI is a seven-layer model. With regard to the Internet, these layers are practically combined into four groups, as follows: Application & Presentation Layers Provide the physical client/server (e.g. web browser client/Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP, server and Structured Query Language, or SQL, database server) or peer-to-peer (e.g., Bittorrent, Bitcoin) applications with which end users work & the data translation and representation used in support of those applications Session & Transport Layers Provide interhost communication and connections using protocols such as the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). While TCP is the most commonly used, leading to the standard TCP/IP suite reference, UDP is used when speed is prioritized over occasional dropped packets, for instance in live streaming and online gaming contexts. Network Layer The core of the Internet Protocol (IP) used to provide end-to-end routing of data packets across the backbone Physical & Data Link Layers The unique identifiers associated with key hardware devices and the communications technology used to interconnect these devices 284 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Limor Fried of Adafruit Industries partnered with DigiKey to create the web series All the Internet of Things, highlighting essential tools for building Internet of Things devices. Traditional Internet-based systems and structures combine the seven layers into four groups as listed in the table above. But Internet of Things applications often focus on the Physical and Data Link, Network, and Transport layers, as is highlighted in the video. To prepare for our own work in the Rainbow Unit, watch the first 13 and a half minutes of Frieds review of Ethernet and Wi-Fi transport.1 Data transfers between Internet of Things devices do not always (or even often) require human-computer interaction. The applications commonly used within Internet of Things devices do typically make use of common protocols such as HTTP and SQL that work within the Session and Presentation layers of the OSI model, but often can do so without the need for human-computer interfaces such as a web browser, or use the human-computer interface only occasionally for testing and configuration/programming purposes. In episode two of All the Internet of Things, Fried introduces us to commonly used application protocols including HTTP, which well be using in the exercises below. To get started, watch the first 4:10 of the video. For those wanting to do a deeper dive, you may consider watching through minute 11:04 to learn about the REST API (Application Programming Interface) that can be used with HTTP to create more extensive intercommunication between devices.2 Towards Our Own Internet of Things In the following three exercises, we will work with the key components used to create IoT devices. 1. First, we will return to the MakeCode Serial UART Communications Extension used with the Raspberry Pi Counterstory Digital Little Free Library exercises from session four of the Blue Unit. This time, well add in temperature and light sensor data to the A1, A2, and A4 touchpad and A and B push button sensors. Well also include the current runtime of the Circuit Playground Express since it was last powered on or rebooted, providing five unique data points. We will transfer this data to the Raspberry Pi via the UART connection every second. A simple Python application run on the Raspberry Pi will then print these to a terminal window. 2. Second, instead of displaying this data within a terminal window, well display the data within a dynamic Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) document, viewable from a web browser client. Starting with Python version 3, Python code can be used to set up an HTTP server, watching for HTTP client requests for data. When a client request is received, the server dynamically creates an HTML page providing the real-time data, previously collected data, static text, or a combination of the above. 3. Third, we will add the option to power LEDs on and off from a web browser. To accomplish this, we can use Python code, bringing together the HTTP server code from exercise two with code from the Coding Electronics chapter in the Orange Unit. Two options are available: The first uses the push 1. Read the full video transcript on Adafruit's website. 2. Read the full video transcript on Adafruit's website. 1B: Connecting Our Electronic 'Thing' to a Wider World 285 buttons and LEDs as configured in the Orange Unit Coding Electronics chapter. The second uses a diffused RGB (Red, Green, Blue) LED to allow us to choose one of seven different colors for the LED display. As we get started with these exercises, you may find it helpful to quickly review Blue Unit, Session 4, Raspberry Pi Counterstory Little Free Library. In particular, make sure you have your Circuit Playground Express connected to your Raspberry Pi using a TTL/USB Serial Cable. The TTL connects to the Circuit Playground Express using male to alligator clip wires. Disconnect the red wire from power (VOUT) on the Circuit Playground Express as well be connecting the Circuit Playground Express to your personal computer with a microUSB to USB cable to edit the Circuit Playground Express code for these exercises. Opportunity to Remix These activities do not use databases or machine-learning code to create that true IoT device. Further, while both the Circuit Playground Express and Raspberry Pi devices are configured to transmit (TX) and receive (RX) data via the Universal Asynchronous Receive Transmit (UART) protocol, MakeCode currently does not support the RX pads on the Circuit Playground Express. For those wanting to do a deeper dive, follow Adafruits tutorial to use CircuitPython on the Circuit Playground Express, instead of MakeCode, to effectively use both the TX and RX pads and create a full serial bi-directional communications with the Raspberry Pi. Note: If you want to return to working in MakeCode after using CircuitPython, Adafruit provides instructions for uninstalling CircuitPython. Exercise: Using Python to Monitor Sensor Information First, connect your Circuit Playground Express to the Raspberry Pi using the USB to TTL cable. Connect the black to ground, white to TX, and green to RX. Leave the red VOUT disconnected; instead, connect the CPE to your laptop with a microUSB cable. Lets return to the MakeCode used within Blue Unit Session 4, circuitplayground-ToolboxTrumpet4OctaveWithUART.uf2. We can reuse that code, remixing it slightly to re-purpose the serial write so that it outputs sensor data. Well test out this modification using a new Python program instead of the previous cstories.py. Heres where were beginning: 286 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 1. Within the FOREVER loop, delete the if CapTouchCounter > 0 LOGIC statement. This should also delete the two serial write number blocks within this if statement. Deleting this conditional IfThen logic statement is needed as well want to transmit the serial write values whether or not the pads A1, A2, or A4 on the Circuit Playground Express have been touched. 2. Add five new serial write value x = 0 blocks just above the pause 1000 ms block. These should be set up as follows. NOTE: value names are case sensitive as this will need to match the Python code run on the Raspberry Pi. a. serial write value Temp should be setup to transmit the INPUT temperature. It can be left as C or changed to F if you prefer Fahrenheit over Celsius. 1B: Connecting Our Electronic 'Thing' to a Wider World 287 b. serial write value Light should be setup to transmit the INPUT light level. c. serial write value Runtime should be setup to transmit the CONTROL millis (ms), that is, the number of milliseconds elapsed since power on. d. serial write value Note should be setup to transmit the VARIABLE CapTouchCounter. e. serial write value Button should be setup to transmit the VARIABLE buttonCount. NOTE: Previously we transmitted a number. These are sent in 1-byte packets (1 byte = 8 bits). These numbers, which were in the range of 0-4 and 0-7, were predictably sent as a single 1-byte packet. Moving forward, values such as Runtime will range, requiring 1 or more byte-sized packets. In MakeCode, the easiest alternative is to send each as a complete line of data that ends with a carriage return and line feed. In this way, they can easily be displayed line by line in a console window, just as if you were typing in the data using a keyboard and then hitting the Enter key at the end of each line of data. Your lines should now look something like this. Note the two new sensor icons within the simulator window: f. Change the name of the file to SimpleUART, hit the save icon, and then flash this to your Circuit Playground Express. g. With the slide switch on the Circuit Playground Express to the right, you should be able to again play four octaves of the C scale. Slide it to the left if you do not want it to play the scales moving forward. h. From a web browser, enter: http://apcg.wolske.site/Library/Code/Python/simple_uart5 i. Take a glance at this new Python code: i. This code first imports some needed Python library packages accessed through the Python Package Index3, including: 288 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology ii. serial, used to receive and transmit serial data iii. os, which will let us to run Linux commands and read data iv. sleep, which lets us run the time function v. RPi.GPIO, the PyPI project specifically for the Raspberry Pi GPIO vi. The code creates a variable called uart and connects it to the /dev/ttyUSB0 device. If you needed to change the USB port used for the Blue Unit Toolbox Trumpet Counterstory Player, keep this in mind. Youll need to make that change again after downloading this file. vii. A key addition is a new function, convert, that is created to change the Runtime from milliseconds to hours, minutes, and seconds. viii. The last half is a while True FOREVER loop that reads in the five lines each time they are sent from the Circuit Playground Express. It fine tunes each of the lines to make them more readable and then prints them to standard out, which typically is a terminal window display of the Raspberry Pi. ix. NOTE: An essential piece of the fine tuning is related to the decode process. In particular, the Circuit Playground Express sends lines of data encoded using UTF-8. According to Wikipedia, Unicode Transformation Format 8-bit is a variable-width encoding that can represent every character in the Unicode character set. It was designed for backward compatibility with ASCII and to avoid the complications of endianness and byte order marks in UTF-16 and UTF-32.4 ASCII is the American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It was the standard for US-based computers and the basic encoding scheme initially within the Internet Protocol. However, this limited usable character sets, something that plagues much of global Internet usage to this day.5 j. Right click on the simple_uart5 programming code and save it as simple_uart5.py to your personal computer (if connecting to the Raspberry Pi using screen, PuTTY, or SSH) or to your Raspberry Pi (if using a keyboard, monitor, and mouse with the Raspberry Pi). Make sure to save it as a Python file with the .py extension, not with the default .txt extension. If the simple_uart5.py file was saved to your personal computer, copy it over to your Raspberry Pi using the scp command. If you have more than one USB device connected to your Raspberry Pi, you may need to edit the Python code using nano, to match the /dev/ttyUSB0 line to your exact USB. k. In a Raspberry Pi terminal window, type in: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ python3 simple_uart5.py 3. Also known as PyPI, pronounced like "pie-pea-eye." Despite the shared "PI," it is not specifically Raspberry Pi-related. 4. "UTF-8" in Wikipedia, July 20, 2020, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=UTF-8. For more resources on UTF-8, see http://www.utf-8.com/. 5. Endianness defines the ordering of bytes of a word of digital data, with big-endian-based and little-endian-based computer architectures ordering bytes in storage in two significantly different ways. Today's major personal computer providers use the little-endian format. 1B: Connecting Our Electronic 'Thing' to a Wider World 289 Once the program begins, you will see new sensor information printed to the terminal window every second. Try pressing different sensors and buttons to see the data output change. You can end the Python session at any time by hitting CTRL-C. The display will look something like this: This may take some pair programming and failing forward to get up and running. Remember to work through the troubleshooting basics cycle to work from not yet to yet! 290 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Key Takeaways Microcontrollers are common in many of our everyday electronics, from computers to printers to microwaves to cars. Sometimes they only serve to sense device context and then control the motors running a device accordingly. Other times, sensor data is collected and passed on to other microcontrollers and to microcomputers. And sometimes microcontrollers collect data from other sensors first. The Circuit Playground Express has been designed first as an educational tool, but as weve seen first building the Toolbox Trumpet Counterstory Player and now in this exercise, it has a range of sensor capabilities that could be used as datasets informing actions for a range of information services. What might you do next to remix this? So far weve used the terminal window to view Python information. But since Python version 3, it is also possible to print this information as Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server data instead of, or in addition to, a standard output like weve now sent to the terminal window. With the Python code and UART communications confirmed, lets explore how this data can be made remotely available. 1B: Connecting Our Electronic 'Thing' to a Wider World 291 The Hypertext Transfer Protocol is a well-established, highly used TCP/IP-based client/server protocol that well explore more formally in Rainbow Unit, Session 2. For now, consider that you make regular use of web browsers which perform a client role putting forward requests to associated servers using the same protocol. Today, web browsers are mostly used to access pages stored on HTTP servers by typing in an http:// or https://, followed by an Internet Protocol name associated with that server, and perhaps further subdirectory names on that server, each separated by another / symbol, and finally the resource name at the end of the last / symbol if needed. Together this creates a Uniform Resource Locater (URL). The URL is a commonly used form of the more general Uniform Resource Indicator (URI), strings of characters used to unambiguously identify a particular resource. The first part of the URL states the protocol to be used. Web browsers actually support a number of different protocols, but we almost always make use of the HTTP protocol or the secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTTPS. For the following exercises, the remainder of the http:// URL will include the Raspberry Pis IP address and a special port number well define in the Python code to separate it from any other web servers that may be running on your local network. Exercise: Using http to Remotely Monitor Sensor Information For this exercise, we do not need to change anything on the Circuit Playground Express or with the TTL/USB cable connection to the Raspberry Pi. The focus instead is on the Raspberry Pi IP Address and the Python code that will be used to read the five lines of serial data sent once every second by the Circuit Playground Express using the TTL/USB cable. 1. From a web browser, enter: http://apcg.wolske.site/Library/Code/Python/ simple_uartWebserverCPE 2. Take a glance at this new Python code. This is pretty complex, and do not worry if it doesnt make much sense at this time. Notes have been added, delineated using the comment character #. Doing a quick read of these comments might be helpful to just highlight key aspects of the Python code. Later, after running this Python code on the Raspberry Pi and then reading data through a web browser, come back and review it again. 3. Right click on the simple_uartWebserverCPE programming code and save it as simple_uartWebserverCPE.py to your personal computer (if connecting to the Raspberry Pi using screen, PuTTY, or SSH) or to your Raspberry Pi (if using a keyboard, monitor, and mouse with the Raspberry Pi). Make sure it is not saved with a final .txt extension. 4. This code will now need to be edited using a simple text editor on your laptop, or using nano on the Raspberry Pi: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ nano simple_uartWebserverCPE.py Whichever text editor you use, here are the changes that need to be made: In the third section at the top of the code, note the host_name is configured to the IP address assigned to my home Raspberry Pi (more on connecting your Raspberry Pi to a Local Area Network (LAN) is provided in the backmatter of this textbook). The host_name variable will need to be changed after downloading the Python code to match the IP address you find when typing into the Raspberry Pi terminal window the following: 292 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology pi@raspberrypi:~ $ hostname -I Also included in this section is a host_port. Think of a shipping port of call as an analogy. When arriving at a shoreline with designated docking ports for a boat or ship, a set of names or numbers are used. This is the same for the Internet Protocol. By default, HTTP uses port 80 and HTTPS uses port 443. Ports from 0 through 1023 are well-known system ports and are stricter than ports above this range. Port 8080 is actually a common number used for test web servers. The iSchool course for which this textbook is commonly used is IS401, and so 8401 is the chosen host_port listed here. But this can be changed, and indeed should be changed if the same Raspberry Pi is attempting to run multiple different web servers simultaneously. If you have more than one USB device connected to your Raspberry Pi, you may now need also revise the /dev/ttyUSB0 line to an appropriate USB device other than 0. 5. Save the changes to the Python code. If simple_uartWebserverCPE.py was edited using nano on the Raspberry Pi, use CTRL-O to write out the file keeping it the same name, then CTRL-X to exit nano. If simple_uartWebserverCPE.py was edited on your personal computer, copy it over to your Raspberry Pi next. 6. With the Python code tweaked to match your IP address and possibly your /dev/ttypUSB assignment, type the following in a Raspberry Pi terminal window: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ python3 simple_uartWebserverCPE.py 7. In a web browser located on the same local network as your Raspberry Pi, type in your Raspberry Pis IP address, followed by :8401, like this: http://10.0.0.30:8401 This is the most complex piece of programming code weve worked with yet. It includes changes needed within Python to match it with the IP address of your Raspberry Pi. For some, this may be the first time youve edited Python. You may have been using the Raspberry Pi in Graphical User Interface mode with a keyboard, mouse, and monitor and thus it might be the first time youve had to work with the IP address of the Raspberry Pi. In addition, many new concepts related to networking are just starting to be introduced. In all, there are plenty of fail forward opportunities to advance a growth mindset. Maybe too many for the time being, in which case yet enough might be working collaboratively with another person to walk one of you through this exercise on one Raspberry Pi. But I would encourage you to spend at least 45 minutes or so working to fail forward on each Raspberry Pi available, comparing and contrasting what works and what doesnt work as a community of practice. When youre ready to take a closer look, highlights of the simple_uartWebserverCPE.py code include:In addition to several other Python libraries, the code imports the http.server part of the base Hypertext 1B: Connecting Our Electronic 'Thing' to a Wider World 293 Transfer Protocol request handler and server libraries.The core part of the Python code is the class BaseHTTPRequestHandler. In Python, classes provide a means of bundling data and functionality together.6 BaseHTTPRequestHandler is used to handle the HTTP requests that arrive at the server. By itself, it cannot respond to any actual HTTP requests; it must be subclassed to handle each request method (e.g. GET or POST).7In this case, do_HEAD() sends the headers it sends for a typical GET request sent from a HTTP client, including a 200 OK response and a content type text/html noting text and/or Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is being sent back to the client.The do_GET() does the lions share of the work setting up a dynamic HTML page. It can do this because a special implementation of BaseHTTPRequestHandler is being used for reading data from and controlling GPIO of a Raspberry Pi note the Import RPi.GPIO at the top of the file.At the bottom of the do_GET() function, youll note a wfile.write statement, written in the stated html.format, encoded in utf-8. Within the html.format portion of this statement, there are seven items providing data to be integrated into the seven {} tags above, in order from top to bottom. So the temp data is collected using the vcgencmd, that is, the Raspberry Pi VideoCore GPU command line utility. The five Circuit Playground Express data items are read next through the USB to TTL serial port, and finally an empty status line, something currently unused.The last lines of the Python code are the location where the server hangs out waiting for client requests before going into action with the class BaseHTTPRequestHandler code.The html text within the code includes a statement:Many web browsers know what it means and are set up by default to follow this meta statement to refresh the content with a new request to the server every second. The terminal window will note who placed the request for information, when the request was placed, and the do_HEAD response provided, while the web server will show the do_GET response provided, as shown below: A link stating Click here to refresh dataset and javascript refresh script is also provided in the HTML to facilitate manual refreshes of the data, in case a web browser does not follow the meta instructions. 6. "9. Classes Python 3.8.4 Documentation," accessed July 20, 2020, https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/classes.html. 7. "Http.Server HTTP Servers Python 3.8.4 Documentation," accessed July 20, 2020, https://docs.python.org/3/library/http.server.html#modulehttp.server. 294 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Key Takeaways The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a widely used client/server protocol. For most, youll know this through HTTP application as a general-purpose server in which many different parent and child web pages are located on a single web server. This textbook is a gathering of many individual web pages located on one of those generalpurpose servers. There are other Illinois Open Publishing Network Windsor & Downs books, and also a number of Publishing Without Walls books and IOPN Journals all located on this general purpose web server. In this exercise, though, were running a special-purpose, Python-based HTTP server on a microcomputer and setup to provide data it collects both from its own hardware, and data provided over a serial connect from a microcontroller as a single web page. But as is the case with the majority of HTTP-provided data, it is sent using the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), the standard for web pages.8 An important takeaway is the distinction between HTML standard and the HTTP protocol. Both are Internet Protocol-based. But while standards serve as guidelines that can or should be followed, protocols serve as rules defining exactly how data is exchanged and the expected behavior to be followed within this change. You can put anything into an HTML page that you want and it will be sent to the requester whatever is in there. But if it is something outside of the standard, it may be ignored or even lead to special or bad behavior if it is not following the standard. But if HTTP does not follow the protocol to the tee, it is unlikely to travel the length of the Internet and effectively carry through with communication between the client and the server devices using this protocol. Within an object-oriented programming language, a collection of data variables are acted upon using defined functions that are brought together as an object. A class then serves as the blueprint for that object. In this exercise, the class BaseHTTPRequestHandler brought together two functions, do_HEAD and do_GET, each beginning with the Python function keyword def. The do_GET() method, or function, implements the standard GET method of HTTP/1.1 used to retrieve whatever information is identified by the Request-URI. The do_HEAD() method, on the other hand, MUST NOT return a message-body but rather the metainformation continued in the HTTP headers. This is different from the of HTML standard, which is instead meta-information as defined within the HTTP protocol.9 For more, take a look at the formal protocol definitions page from W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium. Currently MakeCode on the Circuit Playground Express only supports the writing of data using one of the serial write blocks, thereby providing data to the other side of the UART connection. It does not support the serial read blocks. Otherwise we could enter the data into variables and use those, for instance, to set LED pixels to specified colors. But think back to the Orange Unit's Coding Electronics chapter where we used Python to read the two momentary switch push buttons and turn on or off associated LEDs accordingly. Take a minute to review the Orange Unit Python code we previously downloaded from http://apcg.wolske.site/ Library/Code/Python/pushButton and ran using the Raspberry Pi terminal window to type in: python3 pushButton.py 8. A tutorial for HTML is available from W3Schools.com. 9. 1B: Connecting Our Electronic 'Thing' to a Wider World 295 Exercise: Using HTTP to Remotely Control LEDs As we enter into this last exercise, let's consider how we might make use of the Python class BaseHTTPRequestHandler on the Raspberry Pi to not only provide regularly updated Circuit Playground Express data, but also information regarding which LED is currently running on the breadboard based on the status of the Momentary Switch push buttons just reviewed above. Further, since we have some other LEDs available, let's add in an additional red, green, and blue LED set that we can set up to remotely turn on and off, using the same Python HTTP server program. While this will bring together two "things" on one Raspberry Pi, this also provides a potential launchpad for considering ways different microcontrollers and microcomputers could ultimately further be brought together to create a range of local "Internet of Things" devices. Step 1: Adding LEDs to the Breadboard Before we get started setting up the Python code, look through the following Fritzing diagrams to consider what you have on hand to complete this exercise. The primary objective is to connect the cathode of a blue LED to pin 13 of the GPIO, a green LED to pin 19 of the GPIO, and a red LED to pin 26 of the GPIO. 296 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Option 1: The sequins are integrated circuits that include their own resistors, so no additional resistors are needed. Six male to alligator clip wires are needed. Connect the positive, anode side of each to the 3.3 Volt rail. Connect the negative, cathode side of each to the appropriate pin. Option 2: The 10mm red, green, and blue LEDs are connected opposite to the ones above, with the resistors being connected to the cathode side of each LED. As before, the other sides of the resistors are connected to the appropriate pins on the GPIO. The anode side of each LED can be directly connected to the 3.3 volt rail. Option 3: The diffused RGB LED is listed in the Introduction as a possible extra to the kit. What makes this especially fitting for this exercise is that the three different colors can provide a range of seven 1B: Connecting Our Electronic 'Thing' to a Wider World 297 different shades of light, similar to the seven different Hertz, or notes, the three bits of the Toolbox Trumpet at a given C-scale. One leg of the RGB LED is longer than the other three, and is the common anode leg that receives the voltage input that is then provided to each of the three different embedded LEDs within. Connect this to the 3.3 volt rail. The two legs on one side of the anode are the Green and Blue cathode legs, while the single leg on the other side of the anode is the Red cathode leg. Whichever LED setup you choose, before connecting the cathode leg of each LED/Sequin to the appropriate GPIO pin, you can connect it to the blue ground rail, at which time it should turn on. Step 2: Setting Up the New Python Code With the three new LEDs, each connected to a different GPIO port, available, this final Python program is a remix of the simple_uartWebserverCPE. A new table has been added to the HTML portion of def do_GET from which a selection can be made regarding which of the three LEDs should be on, and which should be off. And below that, additional variables have been set up to read from, and write to, the appropriate GPIO pins. 1. From a web browser, enter: http://apcg.wolske.site/Library/Code/Python/simple_uartWebserverLED 2. As before, take a quick glance at this new Python code. Much of it is taken directly from the simple_uartWebserverCPE.py program. And as before, after downloading this, you will need to edit the Python file to change the "host_name" from 10.0.0.30, the local IP Address of my Raspberry Pi at my home office, to be whatever IP address you were assigned on your local network. The file is much longer, though, because of the new HTML table and then the new series of "IfThenElse" conditionals, one to provide an edited output of the Circuit Playground Express data, the other to interact with the GPIO pins and edit associated variables. 3. Right click on the simple_uartWebserverLED programming code and save it as simple_uartWebserverLED.py to your personal computer (if connecting to the Raspberry Pi using screen, PuTTY, or SSH) or to your Raspberry Pi (if using a keyboard, monitor, and mouse with the Raspberry Pi). Make sure it is not saved with a final .txt extension. 4. This code will now need to be edited using: a simple text editor on your laptop, or; using nano on the Raspberry Pi pi@raspberrypi:~ $ nano simple_uartWebserverLED.py Whichever text editor you use, here are the changes that need to be made: ALL: Change the host_name to match the IP address assigned to your Raspberry Pi as seen in the hostname command, or as used to ssh into your Raspberry Pi. If you have more than one USB device connected to your Raspberry Pi, you may now need also revise the /dev/ttyUSB0 line to an appropriate USB device other than 0. ALL: save the changes you just made. * If simple_uartWebserverLED.py was edited using nano on the Raspberry 298 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Pi, use CTRL-O to write out the file keeping it the same name, then CTRL-X to exit nano. * If simple_uartWebserverLED.py was edited on your personal computer, copy it over to your Raspberry Pi next. 1. Before going to the next step, be sure simple_uartWebserverCPE.py used in the previous exercise is not still running as it is already using the assigned port number for its own HTTP server. To stop a program running on the Linux command line, you typically will type: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ CTRL-CWhere CTRL- indicates for you to press and hold down the control key on your keyboard while typing in the additional key, which in this case is the letter 'c'. 1. In one window, if it isn't already running restart pushButton.py by typing in: python3 pushButton.py 1. With the Python code tweaked to match your IP address and possibly your /dev/ttypUSB assignment, in a second Raspberry Pi terminal window, type in: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ python3 simple_uartWebserverLED.py 1. In a web browser located on the same local network as your Raspberry Pi, type in: http://10.0.0.30:8401Again, replace the IP address above with your Raspberry Pi's. You should now see something like the following: 1B: Connecting Our Electronic 'Thing' to a Wider World 299 Key Takeaways In this exercise, we have revisited an exercise from the Orange Unit in which Python code was used to create a programmable circuit allowing us to selectively turn on and off LEDs using Momentary Switch push buttons. We have continued to use a MakeCode Toolbox Trumpet program on the Circuit Playground Express which allows us to play four octaves of the C-Scale. And finally we expanded the Python code from the previous exercise to both report on data from the Circuit Playground Express and also from the Raspberry Pi GPIO, and also add in the ability to remotely control another red, green, and blue LED set. Pause to look again at the two images taken to display the target outcome of this exercise. Now that these are set up and working properly, consider the following probe questions: How many different devices are now playing a role as tools within this third exercise? How many different computer programs are now playing a role facilitating the use of these tools? Which tools could be used independent of the other tools shown in the images? Which ones must be used together to work? Which ones cannot work fully independently, but could be used through slight adjustments, for instance, by just being provided a separate power source? Which ones now require access to the Internet periodically, or continuously, to function effectively? Consider the Internet not as the local network, even though it works using the Internet Protocol, but rather the connection to the global Internet provided by your Internet Service Provider. Who shaped the different tools, including the electronics and computer programs used to create these tools? How does this shaping go on to shape your use of them? 300 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Wrap Up As we've worked through Session One, we've worked to demystify what it means when someone says a thing is an Internet of Things, or Smart device. We've worked to unpack what is actually within these devices, and also what is essential for them to work together. The goal is for this to help us to see that IoT devices can often stand separately and work independently. But as they are brought together on a local network, the data can start being combined to further influence the monitoring and activity of these interrelated devices. Also, as we've seen here, a local microcomputer can be set up to collect the data from multiple other datasets separately collected on devices and consolidated into a single output. From here, consider that both the Raspberry Pi and Circuit Playground Express themselves can collect data from multiple worker devices as a parent using the I2C serial data transmission protocol. When Circuit Playground Express is programmed using Python or Arduino, this could include both input and output data with a range of remote microcontrollers and integrated circuit sensors and motors, with data being stored in a file instead of, or in addition to, sending it to the Raspberry Pi using the UART serial communications protocol. Likewise, the Raspberry Pi can both provide data dynamically to a web browser and also store this data in a file or database. And while our programs have been used to provide a consistent unconditioned stimulus and response pattern, it is possible that through the use of machine learning algorithms, this can be expanded to create conditionals to reshape stimulus and response patterns. All of this can readily be done without Internet connectivity using local networking technologies. But it's also important to note that there's the Internet of Things and there's the Bitnet of Things as differentiated by Neil Gershenfeld and his colleagues. If the Raspberry Pi serves exclusively or primarily as a storage center for data, this is more like a centralized Bitnet of Things. Even if this centralized system facilitates remote control of devices, it has not yet moved to being an Internet of Things device, especially if each microcontroller/microcomputer device with which it might communicate remains separate from all other devices within its arena. As an example, I found it increasingly important to purchase a window air conditioner for our home woodshop given the rising nighttime temperatures, increased humidity, and the negative impacts this was having on the metal tools and wood used in our carpentry projects. This week I purchased a Toshiba Smart Wi-Fi Window Air Conditioner with Remote and ENERGY STAR. In setting it up, I was able to use the easy to use touch controls. What about some of the other methods for working with the air conditioner specified using the terms Smart, Wi-Fi, and Remote? Toshiba clarifies the Remote Control as a now standard radio frequency handheld remote used within the same room. The Wi-Fi, on the other hand, requires a connection to the Local Area Network, thereby facilitating communications with the associated smartphone app and with voice controlled using Amazon Skill. Toshiba has helpfully clarified that their use of the term smart indicates the air conditioner, like our remotely controlled LEDs, can interface with smartphones. And while the Amazon Alexa Skills system does incorporate machine learning and narrow artificial intelligence (AI for a specific task), these are not incorporated within the air conditioner to provide ongoing engineering of the auto settings. This is the concept behind the Bitnet of Things for Neil Gershenfeld and others. 1B: Connecting Our Electronic 'Thing' to a Wider World 301 What might be the alternative pathway in which the air conditioner was integrated within an Internet of Things workshop? The table saw, bandsaw, planers, chop saw, woodlathe, air compressor, dust collector, and various other mechanical tools and also the wood resources would include sensors set up as Internet of Things devices. The dust collector, air compressor, and air conditioner would monitor the saws, planers, and lathes to detect usage and performance levels. These would be used to adjust settings on the climatic and air quality standards within the space to increase performance and longevity of machine, human, and more-than-human alike. In part, this would be done through integrated machine learning that worked not only individually on each of the many sensors and controllers, but through end-to-end strategic learning to recognize the best adjustments given the different contexts and current requirements. After all, the woodshop is a very different space when it is also being used to raise a new gathering of soon-to-lay-egg chicks, or when it is used by my students to design, cut, and build computer tables, or when it is used by my family to build gifts, sometimes in rapid succession. This is the concept behind the Internet of Things. Machine learning moves from a centralized command and control to each of the various tools that now have as part of the construction electronic sensors, servomotors, and other controllers. These tools then work in an artificial community of practice to achieve objectives the algorithms on each individual device could not do alone. It is not essential for there to be Internet access, although sometimes it might be useful for there to be. For instance, if we were to configure the home router, which is provided a public IP address, to forward port 8401 requests to the private IP address of the Raspberry Pi, then web browsers around the world could choose the LED color! If done in this way, the Internet is not needed to collect and analyze the data and adjust algorithms accordingly, but instead is used to provide additional data as helpful. And there are times when it is helpful to send data to remote databases, HTTP servers, and other systems, either as the primary server array for storing and consolidating information, or as a secondary location in addition to the primary local server. This will be the focus of Session Two of the Rainbow Unit. For now, this and the previous exercise provide baseline examples of the broader framework used for many Internet of Things devices. But it also provided some starting points that you could use to build your own Internet of Things devices right now. For those wanting to dig deeper into the technical work of building Internet of Things devices, you may want to watch further episodes in the series, including: Episode 3 on Services (Read the full video transcript on Adafruit's website.) Episode 4 on Adafruit IO, an Internet of Things Service by Adafruit for those starting out with IoT (Full transcript available on Adafruit's website). Episode 5 on Security (transcript at Adafruit's website.) 302 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Comprehension Check 1B: Connecting Our Electronic 'Thing' to a Wider World 303 2A: Digital Internets, Past and Present Background Knowledge Probe What is the first thing that comes to mind when someone says they are on the Internet right now? Is this the same or different from internetworking as we discussed in the last session? What quickly comes to mind as the top three transformative advancements that have resulted from the digital revolution? What might be the concealed stories behind the stock stories regarding these Internet and digital revolution memories? Some Early Examples of Systems for Networking and Internetworking Networking 1. The exchange of information or services among individuals, groups, or institutions specifically: the cultivation of productive relationships for employment or business 2. The establishment or use of a computer network First known use of networking: 1967, in the meaning defined in sense 1 Merriam-Webster, Networking1 1. Merriam-Webster, "Networking," accessed June 2, 2020, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/networking. Emphasis added. 304 2A: Digital Internets, Past and Present 305 The USB to TTL serial UART connection between a microcontroller and microcomputer. As we have explored throughout the textbook, there are many ways to connect, or network, two devices together. Weve made use of the Universal Asynchronous Receive Transmit, or UART, protocol with our own devices. We have also briefly reviewed the Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C), which is a synchronous, multi-parent, multi-worker, packet switched, and single-ended serial computer bus. There are many other ways to network devices together, through physical cables (Ethernet, fiber) or varying wavelength frequencies (WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, infrared, cellular, satellite, low-powered radio). My own history with networking goes back to the 1970s and the growth of radio-controlled model airplanes. While attending Hull Middle School, I used a teletype device and landline phone to dial in to a minicomputer located at the high school, both to play Star Trek video games in my free time and to write my first BASIC programming language code to calculate the board feet of a log for my familys sawmill. (My dad was not impressed. He preferred continuing to use our analog, hand-held Doyle log rules). Then in the early 1980s I bought a Commodore 64! The night before I picked it up, I remember using a manual typewriter to complete an English class assignment at Lake Michigan Community College and continually thinking, This is the last time I will ever need to use whiteout!! When I got it, I also got a few issues of PC Magazine so that I could read the BASIC programming code stories that I could then enter in and use to play games and to begin creating my own calculating devices for making. And for a short period I also tested out CompuServe, a commercial online service, from which I could join in discussions and download other BASIC programming code. But landline phones were expensive when used to connect from my rural home. So for all of these, there was only one way I effectively internetworked sneakernet. Sneakernet is an informal term sometimes used tongue-incheek to reference those times when the best, or perhaps only, way to transfer electronic data between devices is by physically moving storage media (e.g., magnetic tape, floppy disk, hard drive, USB flash drive) from device to device. 306 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology A Modulator-Demodulator, or modem, turns converts text into binary so that the data can be sent over the network. But the early 1980s also saw the emergence of BITNET, an international cooperative network launched by Ira H. Fuchs at the City University of New York and Greydon Freeman at Yale University.2 It used IBMs Remote Spooling Communications Subsystem (RSCS) protocol and a peer-to-peer (P2P) network "store-andforward" principle in which data and information at a given BITNET-connected computer was sent to a central mainframe computer, stored, and then forwarded to other mainframe computers. This university-focused network eventually spanned the coasts of the United States and was also joined in 1982 by the European Academic and Research Network, or EARN, providing a means for communications across a broad research community. For me, this first true internetworking as I worked towards my PhD degree at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, provided a means to easily email and store and forward research data across campus and between universities. But as with previous networked systems I had used, the primary focus was towards centralized administration and a focus on target audiences. For me to get the support I needed from outside University BITNET members to fix microcontroller or C programming code problems with our supporting small startup businesses, I needed to communicate via landline phone and send digital data and electronics via postal mail. Emergence of an Open Model for Internetworking At the same time that commercial service providers such as CompuServe and cooperative university networking systems such as BITNET were emerging with a focus on centralized servers and services, other models for internetworking were also under development. A key design of these open internetworking structures was that each computing device connected to that network has responsibility for reliable processing and delivery of data. This pioneering work came from Louis Pouzin and the French Cyclades Network in the early 1970s.3 It was 2. Learn more about BITNET. 3. Andrew L. Russell, and Valrie Schafer, "In the Shadow of ARPANET and Internet: Louis Pouzin and the Cyclades Network in the 1970s," Technology and Culture 55, no. 4 (December 3, 2014): 880907. https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2014.0096. 2A: Digital Internets, Past and Present 307 created to allow end-to-end protocol transparency of application-specific features even when the devices are on different types of networks. Pouzin selected Cyclades as an inspirational description of between networks, or internets, from the Greek islands with the same name that form a circle in the Aegean Sea. In his presentation of the Cyclades network to French ministers in 1974, Maurice Allegre provided this metaphor: One should retain the image [of the Cyclades islands]; the processing centers are still today islands isolated in the middle of an ocean of data, which overwhelms our civilization. Now, thanks to the networks, these islands will be able to connect and thus contribute to a wide circle of information exchanges which will shape the future development of our society.4 Ultimately, the French government chose the Transpac telecom monopolys plan for centralized control by the network provider within the network of data traffic and quality of service until 2012 before fully transitioning to commercial Internet, something for which the Cyclades open model provided essential inspiration. However, key features of Cyclades influenced the design of the Internet Protocol (IP), another packet switching distributed communications network, this one being developed through the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) established by the United States Department of Defense in 1966 and officially named ARPANET. ARPA itself was formed as an agency in 1957 with the objective to establish a United States (US) lead in science and technology applicable to the military after the launch of the satellite Sputnik by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). This agency was in large part a continuation of post-World War II high-technology industries of the Cold War period. Like many agencies of the post-war development period, it included extensive basic research by academia and industry for the development of generic infrastructure, protocols, and standards. One central development based on this unique US open internetworking sociotechnical system was the launch of a Request for Comments (RFC) system in 1969 to keep unofficial notes on the development of ARPANET as well as peer-reviewed official documents of Internet specifications, communications protocols, and procedures.5 Today it is overseen by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), founded in 1986 by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) as part of the United States Department of Defenses Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). In 1992, it became a part of the Internet Society (ISOC), an American nonprofit organization founded as part of a larger transition of the Internet away from being a United States governmental entity.6 Examples of the Request for Comments (RFC) Process The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is one example of how open standards and protocols develop through the RFC process. Its initial development from 1989 to 1992 by Tim Berners-Lee and colleagues happened as a part of their work at CERN in Switzerland. It was first released publicly on USENET newsgroups alt.hypertext, comp.sys.next, comp.text.sgml and comp.mail.multi-media. It wasnt until 1996 that an informational RFC 1945, HTTP/1.0 was released. This was followed by a proposed standard, RFC 2068, HTTP/1.1 in 1997 and a draft standard, RFC 2616, HTTP/1.1 in 1999. 4. Russell and Schafer, "In the Shadow of ARPANET and Internet," 886. 5. The current list of Requests for Comment are available at their website. 6. Learn more about the launch of the Internet Society on their website. 308 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology For comparison, consider the earlier development of the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). This protocol evolved through early drafts submitted in 1980 (RFC 772) and 1981 (RFC 780 and RFC 788). It became an internet standard with RFC 821 in 1982. In both examples, the original standard was iteratively extended as needed to fit contemporary Internet contexts. Take a few minutes to look at the abstracts of these RFC drafts and standards. Read through the introduction of RFC 2616, HTTP/1.1 (published in 1999) and compare it to the introduction and The SMTP Model from RFC 821 (published in 1982). How do these two RFCs differ? How are they the same? In 1993 I joined the Neuronal Pattern Analysis group at the Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, as a post-doctoral researcher. One project I was a part of was exploring ways we could share raw data between research labs around the globe using the Internet. At the same time, the Universitys National Center for Supercomputing Applications was developing NCSA Mosaic, the first widely used graphical web browser. Participation as part of this research team seeking to collect, store, and share large raw datasets using HTML through our in-house NCSA Mosaic HTTP server meant spending considerable time poring through USENET discussions and through review of web page raw HTML, looking for examples as the protocol was still in early development. And sometimes it meant getting pre-notifications of changes through hallway conversations with those working on Mosaic. And for me, this journey through systems for networking and internetworking took another radical turn when in 1995 I decided to test the waters outside of the tenure system and neuroscience to join the team developing Prairienet Community Network at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The Free-net and Community Networking Movements In 1995, an informational Request for Comments, RFC 2235, was submitted by Robert H. Zakon and the Internet Society. As noted in the introduction, This document presents a history of the Internet in timeline fashion, highlighting some of the key events and technologies which helped shape the Internet as we know it today.7 This includes a listing of many different national and international internetworking organizations and companies, including the Cleveland Free-Net, launched in 1986 by Tom Grundner of Case Western Reserve University. Cleveland Free-Net used a community-based bulletin-board system (BBS) model in which community forums are hosted by a community server to facilitate the sharing of public information of local citizens online and launched a wider free-net movement. Free-nets made use of local voice-grade landline phone dial-ups to provide free or low-cost access from home, school, and library computers to a multiuser computer within a central location of a community. The phone was connected to a Modulator-Demodulator, or modem, that turned the text data provided from computing devices into the binary zeros and ones being used by that digital network through 7. Robert H. Zakon, "Hobbes Internet Timeline," accessed July 16, 2020. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2235. 2A: Digital Internets, Past and Present 309 connection to a remote set of modems connected to the multiuser computer. The multiuser computer itself ran a range of server applications in addition to BBS software and also provided access to the Internet, including USENET with its store-and-forward framework, that together inspired much of the forums that became available through the emergence of the World Wide Web because of HTML and HTTP. In a speech delivered to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1994, Grundner brought forward the term cybercasting to compare Free-nets to broadcasting. He goes on to provide the following vision: Basically, its the same service you find in radio or television networks. You might have, lets say, a local radio station here in Urbana and you might have your own radio talk show hosts or disc jockeys. But you might also be taking feeds from ABC Radio. Similarly, we have independent affiliates who operate their community computer systems, drawing upon local people, local information resources, and so forth. Then we try to supplement that with high-quality feeds from the network levelinformation services and features that supplement what theyre able to do locally.8 For Grundner and the Free-net movement, community computing was about building stronger citizens through community conversations and information sharing, advances in local K-12 education and government two-way interactions, support for small- and medium-sized businesses who could not otherwise afford the services only major corporations could obtain, the agricultural community who are often left out of conversations with county officials and extension agents, and hundreds of local community organizations. Further, while community media historically has made strong use of Public, Educational, and Government access (PEG) cable television channels to express concerns for local issues, engage in democratic debate, and deliver reliable access to information, art, and music, they too found this community computing movement of great value. And with its official grand opening in June 1994, this embodied the inspiration and dreams of Prairienet Free-net, later called Prairienet Community Network, which I joined in the fall of 1995. Other early networks also were being developed and embedded similar principles, including the Community Memory project from the late 1970s, FidoNet and other public bulletin board systems, and other early community networking systems including PEN (Public Electronic Network) and the WELL (Whole Earth Lectronic Link) in California. Community Networks Every community has a system of core values that help maintain its web of unity A community network supports these core values by supporting the information and communications needs of smaller communities within the larger community and by facilitating the exchange of information between individuals within these small communities and by encouraging the exchange of information among communities. Douglas Schuler, Community networks and the evolution of civic intelligence9 8. Tom Grundner, "Seizing the Infosphere: An Alternative Vision for National Computer Networking," Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/365. 9. Douglas Schuler, "Community networks and the evolution of civic intelligence," AI & Society 25, no. 3 (August 2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/ s00146-009-0260-z. 310 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Prairienet Prairienet is used to make community information available in electronic form and is also used as a free access point to Internet information resources The fundamental question to be addressed by the research is, to what extent is Prairienet serving its intended purpose as a community forum for education and information access? Gregory B. Newby and Ann P. Bishop, Community System Users and Uses10 The Prairienet Free-Net. Free-nets and other community networks in part served an essential role at a time when Internet access remained the venue of research projects using the NSFNET-based Internet. In 1995, NSFNET reverted to a research network backbone linking super-computing centers, with United States WAN traffic now routed through interconnected commercial network service providers and backbone providers, opening up full commercial use of the Internet. Throughout the late 1990s and into the mid-2000s, core aspects of Free-nets and centrally-located community computing systems providing dialup access were replaced by commercial Internet Service Providers and larger web service providers. Any Free-nets that remained, such as Austin Freenet, changed their focus to technology training and access to residents of the city. Others, such as Prairienet, ended over a decade of service as the host School of Information Sciences continues its work to foster community networking through graduate and undergraduate education, community inquiry and participatory action research, service-learning and design studios, and mentoring and internships. In so doing, a range of community-based stakeholders strive to bridge 10. Gregory B. Newby and Ann P. Bishop, "Community System Users and Uses," Proceedings of the ASIS Annual Meeting (1996): 1-2. https://www.petascale.org/papers/asispnet.pdf. 2A: Digital Internets, Past and Present 311 silos by coming together to innovate-in-use Internet-based tools for social and democratic participation. At their core, community networks remain a gathering of schools and libraries, of governmental and small and medium businesses, and of a range of community organizations addressing local issues for all sections of the community, thereby advancing community development for a more just society. The Commercialization of the Internet During the early 1980s, some commercial vendors began to incorporate Internet protocols into their digital artifacts used on their competitive, private network services, as noted by some of the early Internet developers in their article A Brief History of the Internet. Then in 1983, the United States Department of Defense separated from ARPANET to create its own separate network, MILNet. In 1986, the United States National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET) was created, establishing five super-computing centers to provide open high-computing to ARPANET users around the world. Locations included Princeton (John Von Neumann Center, JFNC), Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, PSC), University of California, San Diego (San Diego Supercomputing Center, SDSC), the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (National Center for Super-computing Applications, NCSA), and Cornell (Theory Center). In 1988 an NSF-initiated conference at Harvards Kennedy School of Government entitled The Commercialization and Privatization of the Internet built off of a growing number of initial three-day workshops to begin a broader conversation on the topic. This shortly led to the establishment of the first Interop trade show, started in September of that same year. Vendors also started attending periodic formal meetings of IETF meetings to discuss new ideas regarding Internet protocols. The late 1980s and 1990s also saw a strengthening of US intellectual property rights policies. This pro-patent posture opened up possibilities of university facultyfounded firms and establishment of new public-private partnerships.11 Combined, this established a rich, mutually cooperative evolution of the Internet for a range of research, end user, and vendor stakeholders from a primarily military-funded research program to an internetworking suite available both publicly and privately. And so while other global models of internetworking faded, such as the French Cyclades Network which lost out to corporate monopolies, the US Internet model rapidly expanded through this public-private partnership, some of which was introduced through initial first use via local and regional community networks. In 1995, the United States National Science and Technology Councils (NSTC) Committee on Computing, Information and Communications chartered the Federal Network Council (FNC). The NSTC itself is a Cabinetlevel council established as Executive Order 12881 in 1993 by President Bill Clinton early in his first term and is part of the Executive Branchs Office of Science and Technology Policy. The membership of the FNC consisted of one representative from each federal agency whose programs utilize interconnected TCP/IP Internet networks. Its charter was two-fold: to provide a forum for networking collaborations among Federal agencies to meet their research, education, and operational mission goals. to bridge the gap between the advanced networking technologies being developed by research FNC agencies and the ultimate acquisition of mature versions of these technologies from the commercial sector. This helps build the NII, addresses Federal technology transition goals, and allows the operational experiences of the FNC to influence future Federal research agendas. 11. David C. Mowery and Timothy Simcoe, "Is the Internet a US Invention?An Economic and Technological History of Computer Networking," Research Policy 31, no. 8 (December 1, 2002): 1386. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0048-7333(02)00069-0. 312 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology RESOLUTION: The Federal Networking Council (FNC) agrees that the following language reflects our definition of the term Internet. Internet refers to the global information system that (i) is logically linked together by a globally unique address space based on the Internet Protocol (IP) or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons; (ii) is able to support communications using the Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons, and/or other IP-compatible protocols; and (iii) provides, uses or makes accessible, either publicly or privately, high level services layered on the communications and related infrastructure described herein.12 As weve worked through this textbook, weve explored the ever-present social shaping of technology in recognition that technologies are not, and can never be, neutral. The systems for internetworking are both deeply technical systems and also deeply social systems. They are sociotechnical artifacts and systems. They have been designed, developed, and implemented within a range of political, economic, social, and cultural structures. The outcomes of this shaping of sociotechnical design and implementation will positively impact and shape some but not others, and also potentially negatively impact and shape some. Remember that tinkering is a research process, one that incorporates various aspects of the methodological landscape. Without incorporating critical paradigms though incorporation of moral and ethical questioning to unmask and expose hidden forms of oppression, false beliefs, and commonly held myths, we continue to advance the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism. So lets finish this chapter by exploring a limited government, supply-side, market-oriented think tank that has also been one of the shapers of the sociotechnical Internet, one that has influenced both government policy and technology innovation very differently than that of the Free-net and community networking movement model. In 1993 The Progress & Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit think tank, was launched. The first paragraph of its mission statement notes: The Progress & Freedom Foundation is a market-oriented think tank that studies the impact of the digital revolution and its implications for public policy. Its mission is to educate policymakers, opinion leaders, and the public about issues associated with technological change, based on a philosophy of limited government, free markets, and individual sovereignty. In August 1994, the foundation released the publication Cyberspace and the American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age. In its preamble, authors Esther Dyson, George Gilder, George Keyworth, and Alvin Toffler begin by stating: The central event of the 20th century is the overthrow of matter. In technology, economics, and the politics of nations, wealth in the form of physical resources has been losing value and significance. The powers of mind are everywhere ascendant over the brute force of things. 12. Federal Networking Council, "FNC Resolution: Definition of 'Internet'," October 24, 1995. https://www.nitrd.gov/fnc/internet_res.pdf. 2A: Digital Internets, Past and Present 313 In a First Wave economy, land and farm labor are the main factors of production. In a Second Wave economy, the land remains valuable while the labor becomes massified around machines and larger industries. In a Third Wave economy, the central resource a single word broadly encompassing data, information, images, symbols, culture, ideology, and values is actionable knowledge. The industrial age is not fully over. In fact, classic Second Wave sectors (oil, steel, auto production) have learned how to benefit from Third Wave technological breakthroughs just as the First Waves agricultural productivity benefited exponentially from the Second Waves farm mechanization. But the Third Wave, and the Knowledge Age it has opened, will not deliver on its potential unless it adds social and political dominance to its accelerating technological and economic strength.13 Soon after this publication, a range of scholars began introducing the terms technolibertarianism or cyberlibertarianism to explore the ways both the political left and right within the United States were beginning to incorporate these central Third Wave concepts of a Knowledge Age introduced within the Magna Carta. In Cyberlibertarian Myths and the Prospects for Community, Langdon Winner highlights three key aspects within the Magna Carta: 1. technological determinism changes that are inevitable, irresistible, and world-transforming; 2. radical individualism ecstatic self-fulfillment and the putting aside of anything that might hinder the pursuit of rational self-interest; 3. supply-side, free market capitalism as formulated by Milton Friedman.14 UK media theorists Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron explore how the US New Left movement that formed as part of 60s radicalism collaboratives with campaigns against militarism, racism, sexual discrimination, homophobia, mindless consumerism, and pollution and the US New Right those resurrecting an older form of economic liberalism based on liberty of individuals within the marketplace came together in a hybrid faith they termed the Californian Ideology. In The Californian Ideology, they go on to underline: Crucially, anti-statism provides the means to reconcile radical and reactionary ideas about technological progress. While the New Left resents the government for funding the military-industrial complex, the New Right attacks the state for interfering with the spontaneous dissemination of new technologies by market competition.15 More recent work by David Golumbia indicates there remains a strong political voice championed by both the political right and left regarding the liberatory nature of mass computerization and digital practices whose underlying motivations are often explicitly libertarian. For instance, Golumbia states: 13. Esther Dyson, George Gilder, George Keyworth, and Alvin Toffler, "Cyberspace and the American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age," The Progress & Freedom Foundation, August 1994. http://www.pff.org/issues-pubs/futureinsights/fi1.2magnacarta.html. 14. Langdon Winner, "Cyberlibertarian Myths and the Prospects for Community," ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society 27, no. 3 (September 1, 1997): 1419. https://www.langdonwinner.com/other-writings/2018/1/15/cyberlibertarian-myths-and-the-prospects-for-community. 15. R. Barbrook and A. Cameron, "The Californian Ideology," Science as Culture 6, no. 1 (January 1, 1996): 56.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/ 10.1080/09505439609526455. 314 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology We must not mistake the computer revolution for anything like a political revolution as various leftist traditions have understood it. The only way to achieve the political ends we pursue is to be absolutely clear about what those ends are. Putting the technological means for achieving them ahead of clear consideration of the ends is not merely putting the cart before the horse; it is trusting in a technological determinism that has never been and will never be conducive to the pursuit of true human freedom.16 In considering the prospects for community given the broad adoption of cyberlibertarianism, Winner concluded by noting: Superficially appealing uses of new technology become much more problematic when regarded as seeds of evolving, long term practices. Such practices, we know, eventually become parts of consequential social relationships. Those relationships eventually solidify as lasting institutions. And, of course, such institutions are what provide much of the actual framework for how we live together. That suggests that even the most seemingly inconsequential applications and uses of innovations in networked computing be scrutinized and judged in the light of what could be important moral and political consequences. In the broadest spectrum of awareness about these matters we need to ask: Are the practices, relationships and institutions affected by peoples involvement with networked computing ones we wish to foster? Or are they ones we must try to modify or even oppose?17 The last half century has seen a rich exploration of various sociotechnical artifacts and systems for digital networking and internetworking. These tools have provided opportunities to address a range of individual and social issues and meet a range of individual and social needs. The commercialization of the Internet has further opened up amazing possibilities for community networking and the advancement of stronger citizens through community conversations and information sharing, education and government two-way interactions, support for small- and medium-sized businesses, of agriculture, of community media, of Makerspaces, DIY and do-it-together culture, and of many, many more means for advancing civic intelligence. But the social shaping of technology also includes a range of political, economic, and social influencers that have problematically shaped the technologies and our visions for these technologies. But we do not stand at an either/or inflection point. Internetworking can happen in many shapes and forms which regularly incorporate the Internet suite of protocols and applications. The key is the level to which we enter into use of an Internet-based tool from a thing-oriented compared to a person-oriented framing. A dominant narrative is centered within thing-oriented framings such as cyberlibertarianism. But as we work to open new critical lenses that help us see the person-centered counterstories past and present, and enter into communities of practice across difference using collective leadership and community inquiry, we begin to dismantle the many webs of oppression within these sociotechnical systems while effectively using carefully selected aspects to achieve social justice outcome goals, as Judy Wajcman notes in this video segment on the impact of digital technology. 16. David Golumbia, "Cyberlibertarians' Digital Deletion of the Left," Jacobin Magazine, December 4, 2013. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/12/ cyberlibertarians-digital-deletion-of-the-left/. 17. Winner, "Cyberlibertarian Myths and the Prospects for Community." 2A: Digital Internets, Past and Present Lesson Plan In this session we begin our journey exploring the Internet and other digital internets which serve as the base of many of our Networked Information Systems today. The history of internetworking, the range of organizations that helped in its design, and the influence specifically of the United States in shaping and codifying these designs is important to remember as we move forward in the Rainbow Unit. The mutual shaping, past and present, is both significantly solidified within the black boxes that are our daily smart devices used within our smart homes and smart cities, and also highly fluid within our tinker, maker, and DIY innovation-in-use spaces. Essential Resources: The essential resources for this extended session chapter are many and varied. First, skim these in connection with related sections of this chapter, bringing in a critical mindset to tease this sociotechnical review apart a bit further as it relates to the broader themes of this textbook. With this as an entry point, carefully choose two or three of these to delve further into the ways we are not confronting our ignorance on the various conflicting impacts based on the social shaping of technologies, but rather the ways our hidden intelligent practices have impacted other individuals and communities. Histories of open models for internetworking Russell, Andrew L., and Valrie Schafer. In the Shadow of ARPANET and Internet: Louis Pouzin and the Cyclades Network in the 1970s. Technology and Culture 55, no. 4 (December 3, 2014): 880907. https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2014.0096. Leiner, Barry M, Vinton G. Cerf, David D. Clark, Robert E Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel C. Lynch, Jon Postel, Larry G. Roberts, and Stephen Wolff. A Brief History of the Internet. ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review 39, no. 5 (October 2009): 2231. https://doi.org/10.1145/1629607. Zakon, Robert H. Hobbes Internet Timeline. Accessed July 16, 2020. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2235. Free-nets and Community Networking Grundner, Tom. Seizing the Infosphere: An Alternative Vision for National Computer Networking. Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/365. Peter Day. Community Networks. Public Sphere Project. Accessed July 16, 2020. http://publicsphereproject.org/content/community-networks-1. Schuler, Douglas. Community networks and the evolution of civic intelligence. AI & Society 25, no. 3 (August 2010): 291-307. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-009-0260-z. 315 316 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Commercialization of the Internet Leiner, Barry M, Vinton G. Cerf, David D. Clark, Robert E Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel C. Lynch, Jon Postel, Larry G. Roberts, and Stephen Wolff. A Brief History of the Internet. ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review 39, no. 5 (October 2009): 2231. https://doi.org/10.1145/1629607. Mowery, David C., and Timothy Simcoe. Is the Internet a US Invention?An Economic and Technological History of Computer Networking. Research Policy 31, no. 8 (December 1, 2002): 136987. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0048-7333(02)00069-0. The Magna Carta and Cyberlibertarianism Dyson, Esther, George Gilder, George Keyworth, and Alvin Toffler. Cyberspace and the American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age. The Progress & Freedom Foundation, August 1994. http://www.pff.org/issues-pubs/futureinsights/ fi1.2magnacarta.html. More on the Progress and Freedom Foundation can be found on the foundations website, which remains as an archive. Consider especially their About page, which includes their mission statement and statement of who they are, and list of Supporters as of 2009. Winner, Langdon. Cyberlibertarian Myths and the Prospects for Community. ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society 27, no. 3 (September 1, 1997): 1419. https://www.langdonwinner.com/other-writings/2018/1/15/cyberlibertarian-myths-andthe-prospects-for-community. Barbrook, R. and A. Cameron. The Californian Ideology. Science as Culture 6, no. 1 (January 1, 1996): 56. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09505439609526455. Golumbia, David. Cyberlibertarians Digital Deletion of the Left. Jacobin Magazine, December 4, 2013. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2013/12/cyberlibertarians-digitaldeletion-of-the-left/. Additional Resources: Look for one or two current articles related to applications of the Sociotechnical Internet today. For instance, in May 2020, The Intercept published Naomi Kleins article Screen New Deal: Under Cover of Mass Death, Andrew Cuomo Calls in the Billionaires to Build a High-Tech Dystopia. This article is the first installment in an ongoing series about the shock doctrine and disaster capitalism in the age of Covid-19, highlighting a continuing belief amongst tech billionaires and many others in Silicon Valley that there is no problem that technology cannot fix and that this 2A: Digital Internets, Past and Present provides them a golden opportunity for deference and power that has been unjustly denied to them. Professional Journal Reflections: 1. Using a positivist paradigm lens, note several key technical takeaways from this chapter and essential resources. 2. Using an interpretivist paradigm lens, move from the simple nuts and bolts to note several overarching takeaways from this chapter and essential resources. 3. From a critical paradigm lens and a non-neutral stance, what mutual shaping has influenced the development and use of the Internet and major sociotechnical artifacts that are parts of our personal and professional lives? 4. What first thoughts do you have on how we can work together to actively decodify key terms and concepts related to networked information systems to better understand ways in which the oppressive components within these can be countered moving forward? 317 2B: The Infrastructure of the Internet Technical Overview The hardware infrastructure of the Internet happens at layers 1 and 2 of the OSI model. Layer 1 provides the cable and radio wave media that interconnect devices, along with the network interface controller (NIC) installed within the computing device to which media connects. When formally connected to an Internet Protocol (IP) network the NIC becomes a node on the network. Layer two of the OSI model provides the identification mechanisms for the node. A computing device can have one or more than one NIC. For instance, your laptop may be simultaneously connected to a network with both a wired Ethernet media & NIC and a WiFi media & NIC, and 318 2B: The Infrastructure of the Internet 319 your smartphone a cell radio wave media & NIC and also a WiFi media & NIC. Each NIC is uniquely identifiable so that information is correctly disseminated to the appropriate device. To direct the flow of information between nodes, there must be an interconnect device or a combination of devices to facilitate communications. The only exception is when two nodes use the NIC, node identifiers, and media to do direct peer-to-peer communications. Computer Network Building Blocks There are four main components needed for a computer or other computing device to join as a node on a local area network (LAN) within a building such as a home, library, office, or cafe. Node Identifier Any device directly connected to the network that has been assigned a unique identifier on that network. Examples include: MAC address (also known as the hardware, physical, or Ethernet address): The serial number for Ethernet cards. IP address: The address used by the Internet protocol. Network Interface controller (NIC) The hardware necessary for a node to connect to a network. Examples include: Ethernet controller (wired Cat5/Cat6 or wireless/WiFi): Used for LANs. MODEM (cable, DSL, dialup): Used for traditional internetworking with the Internet. Optical Network Terminal (ONT): Used for fiber to the home Internet. Media The communications technology used to connect nodes. Examples include: Copper transmit low-voltage electricity (e.g. wired Ethernet, DSL, cable, dialup). Fiber optic transmits light (e.g. fiber to the home). Radio waves (e.g. wireless Ethernet or Bluetooth). Interconnect Device A device used to interconnect nodes. Examples include: 320 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Switch or hub: Wired Ethernet LAN. Access point: Wireless Ethernet (WiFi) LAN. Router or gateway: Builds an Internet by connecting different LANs together. Hotspot: 1. Popular alternative term to access point on a WiFi LAN; or 2. Mobile device (e.g. Smartphone, Coolpad Surf, NetStick USB Modem, or MiFi 8000) that is both a cell-based wireless router and a WiFi access point providing Internet access through the cell-based Internet connection.1 Nodes interconnect with other nodes in different ways, depending on how far they reach geographically, how many people are meant to use them, and who primarily owns or controls them. Some cover a very small area and may be used for very specific devices, while others are more general, cover larger areas, and are especially effective for use on the Internet. Network Areas of Coverage Personal Area Networks (PAN) provide a simple computer network organized around a few personal devices allowing transfer of files, photos, and music without the use of the Internet or your homes local network. Two common examples would be your Bluetooth headset or keyboard/mouse. Depending on the Bluetooth range selected (or chosen for you), this could span 3 feet, 10 feet, or 100 feet. Beyond Bluetooth, other common PAN connectivities include Infrared (IR), USB, ZigBee, Wi-Fi, and radio frequency (RF, including short distance AM and FM radio). The simplest type of Internet-based area network is a Local Area Network (LAN). A LAN is a network with connected devices in a close geographical range. It is generally owned, managed, and used by people in a building. For example, connecting to a WiFi network at a coffee shop or library would mean your device would be a node on the cafe or librarys publicly accessible LAN. Many public spaces may have a second, private LAN for use by staff only. A Wireless LAN (WLAN) is another name for a LAN used over WiFi. In some cases, a router is used to strategically isolate the wired Ethernet LAN from the wireless Ethernet LAN and may therefore distinguish between the networks specifically using LAN vs. WLAN connectivity. A Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) is a collection of LANs and devices in an area the size of a city. A version of a MAN is a Campus Area Network (CAN), which would be a network the size of a college, organization, or business campus. These types of networks are typically community-owned 1. Mobile Beacon and Mobile Citizen are providers for such devices, dedicated to serving schools, libraries, and nonprofits. 2B: The Infrastructure of the Internet 321 and/or managed and may also provide the infrastructure for one or more local/regional Community Networks. A Wide Area Network (WAN) covers the size of a state, country, hemisphere, or globe. A WAN is comprised of multiple MANs and/or LANs interconnected through a backbone or core transmission line or set of lines. The primary WAN we know of today is the Internet, a federation of local and regional networks interconnected through transmission lines typically owned and managed by one or more Internet Service Providers (ISP: the business that provides connections to each LAN), Network Service Providers (NSPs: the business(es) that provide connections between ISPs), and Backbone Providers (the business(es) that provide the more extended connections between NSPs). The backbone of the Internet, that part serviced by Network Service Providers and Backbone Providers, is constructed using a fiber optic cable infrastructure. To carry signals, rather than using electrical signals, glass fibers are used to carry light, with upwards of a thousand fibers being located within a single cable cladding. It is often the case that more fibers are included within a cable than are needed at the time of installation (called dark fiber) to allow for future growth without additional installation expense. Further, Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM) is further used to allow multiple different wavelengths of light to be distributed on each strand of fiber (multiplexed) and then later separated (de-multiplexed), transmitting multiple communication streams simultaneously though a single light pulse. As technology continues to improve, replacement of multiplexers for newer models is allowing for still further data to be transferred over existing lines without additional installation expense of the cables themselves. The data itself is transferred using pulses of light transmitted using light-emitting diodes (LEDs) or small lasers. This can be done at very high speeds and over very long distances with less susceptibility to interference. A few different techniques are used to separate different wavelengths of light in ways that allow multiple communication streams, each at high frequencies, supporting higher capacity in addition to high frequencies. This opens up data transfer rates using fiber optics that are 20 to 1,000 times faster than cable and outdoor WiFi Internet service and for a larger customer base. As Susan Crawford points out in her 2018 book Fiber: The coming tech revolutionand why America might miss it, If the informationcarrying capacity of copper wire is like a two-inch-wide pipe, fiber optic is like a river fifteen miles wide.2 Within the United States, most Internet Service Providers, on the other hand, make use of existing communication technologies developed for phone and cable television to also provide Internet access. Indeed, it has often been marketed as the triple play, a discounted package providing these three at a discounted price compared to the purchase of each one individually from the provider, or from several different providers. In some cases, a provider primarily uses one technology, such as the cable Internet used by Xfinity/Comcast. On the other hand, depending on geographic location you can get Internet service from AT&T via copper Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) or fiber optics Internet lines, as well as via radio waves through their wireless phone services. 2. Susan P. Crawford, Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution and Why America Might Miss It (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), 6. 322 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Internet Service Provider Technologies Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) Adds two channels to standard phone line for Internet Hub and spoke (dedicated line) topology; full duplex In the US, DSL prioritizes download speeds Cable Internet Redirects a cable channel to be used for Internet Neighborhood shares bus topology; full duplex In the US, cable internet prioritizes download speeds Cell-Based Internet 3G adds the EV-DO (Verizon, Sprint/Nextel) or HSDPA (AT&T, T-Mobile) protocol to cell voices protocol 4G adds the WiMax (Sprint) or LTE (Verizon, AT&T) standard to cells voice protocol Equivalent to bus (shared) topology; half duplex Prioritizes download speeds Satellite Internet Indoor Unit (IDU) provides a modem connecting premises router to antenna dish (outdoor unit, or ODU). The very-small-aperture terminal (VSAT) dish antenna, which can also be used for satellite television service, requires a clear line of sight to facilitate microwave communications directly with the geostationary satellite serving the Internet provider, or to a shared Gateway Earth Station (gateway hub) that then connects to the satellite. Broadband speeds have improved considerably, with download speeds now reaching up to 40 Mbps. Download speeds are prioritized over upload speeds. Latency of signal, the delay between end node data transfers, is typically over 500 milliseconds. Wired Ethernet on a LAN is typically below 2 milliseconds; regional copper Internet latency is typically below 10 milliseconds. Latencies above 100 milliseconds can be problematic for some Internet applications, such as live-stream conferencing and online gaming. 2B: The Infrastructure of the Internet 323 Community Wireless Uses standard wireless Ethernet (WiFi) outdoors; anyone can use off-the-shelf equipment to create Equivalent to bus (shared) topology; typically half duplex Synchronous upload and download speeds Fiber Optics Ultra-high speed communications technology with one or more channels for Internet Hub and spoke (dedicated) topology; full duplex Synchronous upload and download speeds For most homes, community organizations, and small office/home office contexts, a gateway router is used that provides a WAN port used to connect the media leading to the first router of the Internet Service Provider. While sometimes this WAN port may need to first connect to a DSL/Cable modem or a fiber optics Optical Network Terminal (ONT), in other cases this interconnect device is integrated into the router. Typically, a gateway router will also incorporate both wired Ethernet switch and WiFi access point interconnect devices for interconnectivity on the LAN side of the router. In addition, a gateway router typically integrates a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server that dynamically or statically assigns IP addresses to connected nodes on the LAN. The router will be configured to route essential Internet phone book type lookups to a designated ISP or third-party Domain Name System (DNS) server that contains a database of public IP addresses and associated IP names. All of these additional services facilitate its core function as the router between the LAN and the WAN. Weve worked through quite a few underlying concepts related to computer networks. Before moving into our first exercise, take a few minutes to review what weve already covered and also get a glimpse at materials well be covering next by watching Carrie Anne Philbins introduction to Computer Networks, Crash Course Computer Science episode #28. Exercise: Listing Building Blocks of Your Computing Devices Before moving on further, take some time to look at your own Local Area Network (LAN), whether its the one in your place of residence, the LAN of a family or friend, or that of your workplace, library, community center, etc. To the extent possible, do this at a physical location where you can see the various network building blocks, and maybe do it with the person who took the lead in setting things up if you werent the one who did that. 324 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Download the Excel spreadsheet template. 1. Begin with the information regarding the Internet Service Provider connecting the premises to the Internet. What type of communication technology and media is used to connect the premises to the Internet? What are the specified upload and download speeds for the service being provided? Are there any monthly data caps limiting use? As other things come to mind, also include notes on this information. 2. Next, explore the gateway router that provides the first hop between the WAN and the LAN you are documenting. To the extent possible, document the MAC and IP addresses of the routers WAN Network Interface Controller, and also that of the routers LAN NIC (remember, many devices have multiple network interface controllers, and therefore multiple node identifiers). Are there additional devices between the outdoor media and the router, such as a modem or optical network terminal? Does the router provide one or more LAN ports? Does it serve as a wireless access point? What are the settings for these? Does it provide a DHCP server giving IP addresses to other LAN nodes, and if so, what are the settings for this service? Are any IP addresses reserved for specific devices? Does it 2B: The Infrastructure of the Internet 325 forward port requests that come to its WAN IP address to specific LAN node IP addresses? Are there any security access controls, block sites, and block services being used? 3. Finally, do all you can to document every node connected on this LAN, noting the type of device, the media being used, the assigned MAC and IP address, and any notes you think would be helpful to keep on record. Remember to that your laptop, printer, Raspberry Pi, and other devices might be connected through multiple means such as via WiFi and also wired Ethernet. You might also document devices that are connected to multiple different networks, for instance a smartphone that is connected to the LAN using WiFi and also to a cell network. And there may be devices like that smartphone that also serve as hotspot routers, connecting some devices to the Internet via the cell network instead of the LANs ISP. Key Takeaways This exercise synthesizes concepts integral to computer and network building blocks. It also demonstrates an important principle regarding documentation. Its easy to forget some of this information until computer network trouble is encountered. Filling out this form and occasionally updating it before again tucking it away in an easyto-access file folder can prove of significant value when troubleshooting an array of computer network issues. Also, it is sometimes helpful to have these notes on hand and add to them strategically in combination with the Network Troubleshooting chapter. More on IP Addresses and IP Names When we type in a URL, or Uniform Resource Locator, in a web browser, were almost always typing in an Internet Protocol name. Consider for instance the URL to this book: https://iopn.library.illinois.edu/pressbooks/demystifyingtechnology/ Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the ever-present client-server protocol we have used for the last several decades to move information across the Internet. In this case, the first part, https, indicates the resource were searching for is the secured HTTP protocol (HTTPS). The second part indicates the providing resource is the web server with name iopn.library.illinois.edu. The last two parts indicate the directory and subdirectory in which the specific resources being requested are located. Not specified is the specific file, which in this case probably defaults to index.html, index.php, or something similar. But as with our phone system, the name doesnt truly get you in. Rather, the IP name needs to be associated with an IP address to pull up a web page, just as a persons or organizations name needs to be associated with a phone number to make a phone call. As of this writing, to get to the website, iopn.libary.illinois.edu is actually first converted to the IP address 130.126.162.192 in order to access the server. We can do this ourselves by typing in: https://130.126.162.192/pressbooks/demystifyingtechnology/ 326 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Only IP names are converted to IP addresses. The directory and subdirectory listings use whatever characters were used to create those directories. The Formation of IP Domain Names The basic structure of the Internet came out of research launched in 1973 through funding from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Researchers developed came a system of protocols known as the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP), or TCP/IP Protocol Suite. In 1983, a conceptual framework for domain names was established through the RFC, in order to support the growing number of applications spanning multiple hosts, networks, and finally the Internet.3 RFCs 883 and 973 expanded the domain name system (DNS) to build an intentionally extensible system. In 1987, two new RFCs made 882, 883, and 884 obsolete. These were Domain Names Concepts and Facilities, Request for Comments 1034 and Domain Names Implementation and Specifications Request for Comments 1035. These, too, have since had a range of RFC updates related to specific components of DNS: 1101, 1183, 1348, 1876, 1982, 2065, 2181, 2308, 2535, 4033, 4034, 4035, 4343, 4035, 4592, 5936, 8020, 8482. Design Goals of DNS The primary design goal of the domain name system (DNS) is a consistent name space which will be used for referring to resources. In order to avoid the problems caused by ad hoc encodings, names should not be required to contain network identifiers, addresses, routes, or similar information as part of the name.4 Today, we have a range of top-level domains, some of which are based on organization type (e.g., .gov, .edu), geographic location (e.g., .uk, .es), or general category (e.g., .org, .com, .net, .site). Individuals and organizations can apply for second-level domains they can then use on the Internet (e.g., illinois.edu, raspberrypi.org, adafruit.com, wolske.site). Individuals and organizations can then create subdomains to extend their DNS tree to represent sub-groupings (e.g., ischool.illinois.edu, makecode.adafruit.com, martin.wolske.site). Fortunately, another thing the RFCs for domain names came up with was a solution to the pesky phone system. Consider that to call someone with our phone we need to know a series of numbers in order to dial them, employ our smartphones contacts app, or create our own name/phone number listing system that informally maps a name we can remember to that series of numbers we need to dial. 3. P. Mockapetris, "Domain Names - Concepts and Facilities," Network Working Group, November 1983, https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc882.txt. 4. P. Mockapetris, "Domain Names - Concepts and Facilities, Request for Comments 1034," Network Working Group, November 1987, https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1034. 2B: The Infrastructure of the Internet 327 By contrast, all IP names that are to be accessible need to be formally mapped within a DNS server. Each registered second-level domain runs its own local DNS server that holds the authoritative mappings. Top-level domain providers then run DNS servers that map the second-level domains, like illinois.edu, with the authoritative DNS servers for that domain. Internet service providers also run DNS servers that can be used to temporarily remember mappings for a set period of time, generally as defined by the second-level authoritative DNS servers. These are used by our local area networks so that we only have to type in illinois.edu in our web browser, and not 192.17.172.3. IP Addresses Internet Protocol addresses are the formal identifier of a node on a TCP/IP network. These addresses are used to route messages between source and destination across a network. Introduced in 1983, IP version 4 addresses use a 32-bit number broken into four 8-bit numbers separated by periods. When working in 8-bit binary notation, the decimal equivalent ranges between zero and 255. That is, an IPv4 IP address can range from 0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255. Protocols and policies have been developed to provide clear guidance regarding these addresses. Almost all IP addresses, ones such as 192.17.172.3, are publicly accessible over the Internet. While some are not formally mapped to domain names widely known across the Internet, and some have strong security measures to restrict access, these numbers all can work across the Internet as needed/desired. For this reason, any router that is publicly available over the Internet (linking a Local Area Network to Wide Area Networks) must have one of these public IP addresses. The router you use at your home, office, or other organization to connect to the Internet through an Internet Service Provider is typically assigned one of these public IP addresses. Often, its only given to you temporarily, and may change dynamically in structured or semi-structured ways. But for those needing to ensure reliable access to nodes, for instance to web or database servers, you might purchase a static IP address so that you can set up routing information in a DNS server. In the late 1990s, the Internet began running into the limits of IP addresses in version 4. As a 32-bit number, the maximum number of addresses available was 4,294,967,294. While that seems like a lot, given an increasing number of people have several different Internet smart devices in addition to their own laptop, four billion addresses isnt nearly enough. These protocols were given out in formal ways that suited the 1970s and 1980s understanding of the limited uses of the Interneta far cry from what really evolved. IPv6 was ratified in 2017 but has yet to be fully implemented. It uses 128-bit, allowing 3.41038 possible addresses. Private IP Addresses In creating the Internet Protocol, there were several blocks of IP addresses that were made private. Anyone can have access to any of these without any required registration of them. The only caveat is that they are meant for use on private networks and cannot be routed through the public Internet. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) directed the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) to reserve the following Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) address ranges for use on private networks: 328 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology IP address range Maximum number of addresses available to a single Local Area Network 10.0.0.0 10.255.255.255 16, 777, 216 172.16.0.0 172.31.255.255 1, 048, 576 192.168.0.0 192.168.255.255 65, 546 Private IPv4 addresses are widely used today. They allow a home or organization to create personal private networks for internal use and then set up routers to translate traffic (NAT, or Network Address Translation) meant to pass between that private network and the public Internet. Or more likely, when you purchased Internet access through an Internet Service Provider, the router they purchased came set up with a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server. This router hands out private IP addresses to nodes like your laptops, desktops, phones, and printers, or to those connecting to the router via WiFi. That router also is a NAT doing the network address translation to its Wide Area Network public IP address assigned to it by that Internet Service Provider. Take a few minutes to join Carrie Anne Philbin in this introduction to the Internet, from Crash Course Computer Science episode #29. Exercise: Internet Detective When the Internet is working at expected levels, we generally dont think about the extensive collection of sociotechnical artifacts needed for one node to communicate with another node on a local network, let alone the many more that allow us to connect when the end-points cross the globe. When things are less than optimal, our responses vary from stepping out for coffee in passive acceptance, to pangs of guilt that we must be doing something wrong, to anger that nothing can be done when essential services are being lost. This exercise equips us with sleuthing tools as we work to demystify the Internet further. 2B: The Infrastructure of the Internet 329 As explored in the extension chapter on Network Troubleshooting, there is a range of network troubleshooting tools such as ping, traceroute, and speedtest. And there are a couple of tools that are especially helpful when sleuthing IP names: whois and dig. These tools are often installed or available to be installed on different operating systems. They are also integrated into various webpage tool sets. Before beginning, we must update and upgrade the Raspberry Pi operating system. This is necessary for The General Purpose Raspberry Pi Web Server exercise later, so lets get a head start. At the same time, we can install whois and dig in the operating system. The advantage to this is ensures the following exercises are completed in a consistent manner. Enter these commands to update the Raspberry Pi and install the following packages. Note that each of these commands start with the word sudo. This indicates the command that follows (such as apt) is issued as a superuser: a user with administrative privileges. As you go, you may periodically be required to enter y for yes, or hit q after reading upgrade information, before you can proceed with the upgrade. pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt update pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt upgrade pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt install dnsutils pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt install whois Take a few minutes to test the strategies for tracking down problems and identifying if theres something we might do about them in Network Troubleshooting. Take a close look especially at traceroute. What can the following tools tell you about a network? link lights ifconfig/ipconfig ping traceroute speedtest Lets do a quick initial exploration with the traceroute command to see where the Adafruit.com website might be located physically: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ traceroute adafruit.com For those running the traceroute command in a Windows PowerShell terminal, youll type in tracert adafruit.com instead. 330 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology I see a first hop that takes me to my gateway router on my LAN, and then the first router of my ISP. A few lines down, I see Ive reached ntt.net. A quick search on my web browser, typing in ntt.com in the search bar, takes me to NTT Communications, a Global IP network. In my search, it actually defaulted to Japanese which I had my browser translate, indicating this is likely a Japanese-owned corporation providing backbone service in the United States. The 5th hop also includes chcgil09.us within the IP name, which suggests the router is probably in Chicago, Illinois, United States. This would make sense as I live and am doing this traceroute just a couple hours south in Champaign, Illinois. Hop seven takes me to an IP address that includes the name cloudflare before finally reaching 104.20.38.240, the IP address associated with the IP name adafruit.com as listed at the top of the traceroute. One thing that isnt fully clear is the details regarding the second hop of the traceroute, the one that leaves my premises and takes the packets of data to my ISP. This is a place where the dig command can sometimes prove very helpful. Before moving on to explore the use of that command, heres a snapshot of a search I did indicating that second hop was to iTV-3.com, the leaser of the fiber optics municipal area backbone network owned by the cities of Champaign and Urbana in collaboration with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. 2B: The Infrastructure of the Internet 331 Once installation for dnsutils (which include the dig command) and whois is complete, proceed. Lets learn more about the dig command, starting with a search of the manual command within Linux before moving on to do a couple of searches specific to the Adafruit.com IP name and IP address. From the Raspberry Pi command line, type: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ man dig Dig (domain information groper) performs Domain Name System (DNS) lookups. Its a flexible tool which can take some time to understand fully. After skimming through the manual entry, lets do a couple of quick tests of the command. pi@raspberrypi:~ $ dig adafruit.com Here, we see within the QUESTION SECTION that were looking for type A information. In DNS, A records store the 32-bit IPv4 address(es) associated with a hostname. Here, we see the IP name adafruit.com actually has been assigned two, 104.20.38.240 and 104.20.39.240. In a web browser, type in first one, then the other, of these IP addresses. What do you get as a webpage? What does this tell you? Lets do a reverse lookup to get the PTR, a pointer from an IP address to the associated canonical name. pi@raspberrypi:~ $ dig -x 104.20.38.240 Here we see in the AUTHORITY SECTION that ARPA provided SOA, that is, the start of a zone of authority record, in which this IP address is associated with dns.cloudflare.com, the authoritative Domain Name Server for cloudflare.com. According to their About page, Cloudflare is a service that protects websites from all manner of attacks, while simultaneously optimizing performance.5 While we dont know specifically how, we do know that Adafruit Industry is associated with, or makes use of in some way, Cloudflare. Lets now use the whois command to see if we can learn more about Adafruit and Cloudflare. From the command line, type: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ whois adafruit.com | less (NOTE: the pipe symbol, found on the upper right between the enter and backspace keys on US keyboards, takes the output from one command and passes it to the next command, in the case less which allows us to view the contents one page at a time, moving back and forth within the text.) Here, we see that the domain adafruit.com is registered through NameCheap, Inc. The name was created in May 2005, was last updated July 2018, and will expire May 2026 IP names are not owned, but only leased. 5. "About Cloudflare," Cloudflare, accessed July 18, 2020, https://www.cloudflare.com/about-overview/. 332 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology We then find that the Domain Name Server for the domain name adafruit.com is hosted by Cloudflare.com. Adafruit, Inc. may still host the website in-house, or may use another service to do the hosting using an Infrastructure-as-a-Service or Platform-as-a-Service cloud web server. From this, the only thing we do know is that Cloudflare is performing as a Domain Name Server for Adafruit. The DNS system actually has quite a range of record types that can be effectively used to support a wide mix of IaaS, PaaS, and in-house infrastructures simultaneously in support of one domain name. As a result, Adafruit.com can actually be making use of a number of different in-house and remote-located services. Use the up and down arrows to explore further the Registrant, Admin, Tech, and Name Server information records for the Adafruit.com domain name. Then lets do the same for Cloudflare.com by typing: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ whois cloudflare.com | less We do see some information regarding creation, updated, and expiry dates, and also the Name Sever for the domain. But we also see that while early in the establishment of the Internet Protocol all records were kept open, today many items can be held private from the public. So we see far less in whois for Cloudflare than we did for Adafruit. Before moving on, lets take a quick look at the whois manual: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ man whois This description specifies this application searches for an object in the Request for Comments (RFC) 3912 database. Towards the bottom of the manual, NOTES are listed clarifying the search process and some of the underlying official resources searched depending on context. Key Takeaways The tools traceroute, dig, and whois can provide us with a considerable amount of information regarding the Internet backbone and the different end-point entitities that comprise the social and technical infrastructures that for the most part we just think of as a website. From the LAN of the personal computer running the web browser to the LAN of the computer or system of computers running the web server, there is an array of other LANs running the Domain Name Systems used to go from IP names to IP addresses, and then to specific server LAN locations that may vary depending on personal computer LAN geographic location, and then to various performance and security services, such as that from Cloudflare, that are used to further advance performance, and the many other systems and services hosted on still other LANs, only some of which are using HTTP web services. This Internet web, something that happens out of sight and mind, transfers untold packets of data around the globe every millisecond, coming back to our personal electronic devices as web pages, email, and audio/video communications in what appears to be a single, consolidated information artifact. What we dont see is the wealth of sociotechnical artifacts all influencing the shaping of this single information artifact we have received or transmitted. Take a few minutes to check out Warriors of the Net. You can see a unique visualization of packets, routers, and even a guest appearance of the Ping of Death. 2B: The Infrastructure of the Internet 333 Digging Deeper From Adafruit to Raspberry Pi: We used several tools to explore the hops to Adafruit.com, the IP address of Adafruit, the registrar used to lease the IP name and the Domain Name Server used to associate the IP name with an IP address, and other bits and bobs about the provider of core parts of the toolkit used for hands-on exercises in this textbook. Consider repeating this now to explore further raspberrypi.org. How does this compare and contrast with the adafruit.com exploration? Is there anything new that you learn from this parallel exploration? The Authors Site: Some resources for this textbook as well as early releases of revised chapter sections are housed on my own website: http://apcg.wolske.site. I also have a second website, my blog http://martin.wolske.site, housed on my leased domain name wolske.site. I use the domain name, wolske.site, which is hosted by an Infrastructureas-a-Service (IaaS) provider, Dreamhost. As the iSchool was winding down Prairienet as a regional community network web-hosting service in the early 2000s, we searched for alternative web-hosting services for our non-profit patrons. Dreamhost not only provided web hosting, they also provided domain name registration, both at no cost for 501(c)(3) non-profits. What can you learn about these websites and the IaaS through the use of traceroute, dig, and whois in addition to the things you can learn by using a web browser to go to these sites? So Tom Prncipe, Africa: Ive valued my time doing participatory action research community inquiry projects in So Tom Prncipe, Africa, with citizens of this island nation, to advance their community cultural valued beings and doings. We found it technically impossible to set up community wireless on the island because of volcanic deposits that significantly interrupted Wi-Fi signals. We also found a nation that valued analog interactions within the marketplace and that made use of the public and community radio stations available. And their ISP provided wired broadband that valued upload speeds over download speeds so as to bring forward the information of people to others instead of focusing only on centralized corporate information sources being brought down to the people. But to bring this all to a broader audience, the official website of the nation is not located on the island. Where is it located? Who oversees this website? To do this last Internet detective dig, consider the different top-level domains that might be used in association with this nation. Within the United States, where the Internet was birthed from ARPANET, we would use the .gov toplevel domain name for a government, and .edu top-level domain name for an educational institution. But other nations needed to either apply to the United States for second-level domains associated with a top-level domain (which they couldnt do for .gov but could do for .com), or they needed to use their national top-level domain first (e.g., .co.uk specifies a .com site within the United Kingdom). For this detective task, try out different sites, such as stp.gov.st (the site listed within the Wikipedia listing for So Tom), saotome.st, and saotome.org. Which are trusted sources of information about the nation, if any? Who hosts these websites? Who manages them? What is left unknown through the use of these tools? Cloud Computing When discussing Internet-based applications today, the term cloud or cloud computing is often used. Indeed, sometimes the word cloud is used synonymously with the word Internet. Cloud computing, like the Internet of Things, is an evolving paradigm. For this reason, in 2011 the National Institute for Standards and Technology, as part of its statutory responsibilities under the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002, developed a short document highlighting important aspects of cloud computing. The goal was to provide a baseline for 334 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology further discussion regarding cloud computing and as a means for comparison of cloud services and deployment strategies. Essential characteristics include on-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity, and measured service. Together, these provide a means by which multiple organizational, community, or public consumers to which these services are deployed can each have great individual flexibility and freedom to unilaterally adjust services to fit current and anticipated demands across a range of devices. These essential characteristics and deployment models are associated with one of three service models: Software as a Service (SaaS): The consumer runs applications running on a cloud infrastructure. Platform as a Service (PaaS): The consumer uses the cloud to deploy applications they have created or acquired and that make use of programming languages, libraries, services, and tools provided and/or supported by the provider as part of their platform. Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): The consumer is provided a base of computer resources such as processors, storage, and networks upon which they can deploy and run software. Others have noted that the distinction between higher-level Platform and lower-level Infrastructure as a Service found within a large data center is not a crisp line and should be considered together as utility computing.6 What is not generally recognized in relation to Cloud Computing is that, as part of the Internet with its foundational concepts of the end-to-end protocol creating a federation of the locals, data centers themselves are housed within their own Local Area Networks (LANs), some of which may be located within broader corporate Campus Area Networks (CANs). As part of a federation of the locals, these data centers should not be seen as centralized servers with overriding authority control, but rather local nodes internetworked with other local nodes to provision hardware and software services, a concept that was underlined within the Essential Characteristics section of the NIST Definition of Cloud Computing. Wouldnt it therefore be accurate to consider the research servers (e.g., Prairienet Community Network server computers), the University library servers, and University campus infrastructure servers that serve on- and offcampus associates a Cloud service? 6. Michael Armbrust, Armando Fox, Rean Griffith, Anthony D. Joseph, Randy Katz, Andy Konwinski, Gunho Lee, et al., "A View of Cloud Computing," Communications of the ACM 53, no. 4 (April 2010): 5058. https://doi.org/10.1145/1721654.1721672. 2B: The Infrastructure of the Internet 335 Exercise: The General Purpose Raspberry Pi Web Server In session one of the Rainbow Unit, we did a few different exercises exploring some of the underlying concepts behind the Internet of Things, also highlighted in Limor Frieds segments All the Internet of Things. Of special note now, reflect back on the Hyptertext Transport Protocol (HTTP), an example of a client/server protocol that works at layers 6 and 7 of the OSI model. Lets finish this chapter by testing out a more general-purpose installation of HTTP on the Raspberry Pi, setting it up as web server that can be used on the world wide web. While we did create an HTTP-based web server in session 1, the Python library code used created a special-purpose web server. This time well install the Apache web server, a widely used general purpose web server.7 Before starting the installation of Apache, take a few minutes to follow though Carrie Anne Philbins Crash Course Computer Science episode #30 on the World Wide Web. About the Apache Web Server As we explored ways to make use of this brand new thing called a web browser to share our raw data sets across the Internet with other researchers, one of the challenges we faced during my time from 1993-1995 as a post-doctoral researcher on this project at the Neuronal Pattern Analysis group at the Beckman Institute, University of Illinois, was the rapid ongoing changes in the code for the campuss National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) HTTP server in support of their just-being-developed Mosaic web browser. What worked on the http server or on the web browser one day might not work the next day. This is the rapid prototyping, fail-forward, 7. Apache is a either registered trademark or trademark of the Apache Software Foundation in the United States and/or other countries. No endorsement by The Apache Software Foundation is implied by the use of these marks. "Debian" and the Debian Logo are trademarks of Software in the Public Interest, Inc. 336 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology growth mindset in action. It also represents those times when innovations go viral while still in their alpha phase, the lab time before an artifact or system enters the beta testing phase and eventual stable release. I was already working with the Linux operating system, version 0.9. I dont remember the 0.x versions of Mosaic and NCSA HTTP, or if they were even listed yet. Research institutes serve different roles at different times, but much of the core is on basic research. And so in early 1995 the Apache HTTP server project began as the NCSA research HTTP server and Mosaic web browser development was winding down. The NCSA code was available through what became the free and open source licensing framework, and served as the base for Apache HTTP. The use of existing code and a series of software patches led to the early development teams use of the pun A PAtCHy server, a pun that somehow stuck and became the formal name, respelled Apache HTTP.8 The Apache HTTP server remains commonly used, especially on Linux-based computers, making up over 25% of the websites around the world, and is the perfect choice for a general-purpose HTTP server on the Raspberry Pi. The following instructions are a slightly modified version of those found on the Raspberry Pi Foundation documentation site. Steps Install Apache 1. If you didnt do so in the Exercise: Internet Detective above, first update the available packages by typing the following command into the Terminal: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt update 1. Next, install version two of the Apache web server by typing: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ sudo apt install apache2 -y Test the web server By default, Apache puts a test HTML file in the web folder. This default web page is served when you browse to http://localhost/ on the Pi itself, something that works well for those who have their Raspberry Pi attached directly to a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. For everyone, you can also access the test HTML file using something similar to http://192.168.1.10 (whatever the Pis IP address is) from another computer on the network. To find the Pis IP address, type hostname -I at the command line (or read more about finding your IP address). Browse to the default web page either on the Pi or from another computer on the network and you should see the following: 8. "Apache Server Frequently Asked Questions," Apache, accessed July 20, 2020, https://web.archive.org/web/19970106233141/http://www.apache.org/ docs/misc/FAQ.html#relate. 2B: The Infrastructure of the Internet 337 Unlike in session one, this time around we do not add a port number after the IP address. The HTTP protocol has as a default port 80. So you could type in http://192.168.1.10:80, but do not need to do this, as it is assumed by default. This also means you could have two web servers running simultaneously, the Apache general-purpose one on port 80, and one of the Internet of Things Python HTTP servers that use port 8401. Check this out by typing into the terminal window: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ python3 simple_uartWebserverLED.py Now, in a second web browser window, go to your IP address equivalent of http://192.168.1.10:8401. Voil! Two web servers on one Raspberry Pi! Initial Reflections What is a web browser? From where does a web browser get its web pages? 338 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Whats different regarding the web pages retrieved from port 80 with those retrieved from port 8401? When might this matter? Changing the default web page The default web page created during the installation is just an HTML file in the computers filesystem. When installing servers, typically also installed is one or more configuration file(s). Within Linux operating systems, these are usually installed in the /etc, or etcetera, directory. In the terminal window, type: pi@raspberrypi:~ $ ls -al /etc/apache2 Notice a file called apache2.conf. This is the main configuration file used to guide the launch of an Apache HTTP daemon. This provides the start-up information needed for a server to perform in the specified way. The listed apache2.conf, ports.conf, and additional conf-enabled, mods-enabled, and sites-enabled files provide those who are administering the HTTP server abilities to further innovate-in-use the base Apache software. Changes can be made on the fly, and then integrated into the server through a refresh without disrupting ongoing and new page requests. In computing terms, a daemon is a computer program that runs in the background providing services as needed. In this case, each time it is launched, the HTTP daemon starts itself based on the specifications within the configuration file, then mostly hangs out twiddling its thumbs waiting for a call in asking for something. When the call comes, it gets busy doing its stuff before going back to waiting mode. Youll often see a running HTTP server daemon listed as httpd. These daemon server applications are a way things can perform a similar manual function to that done by a human call support service where the worker closely follows a checklist. When might it be better for this service to be done by the thing? When might it be better for this service to be done by the person? In what ways might machine learning and artificial intelligence advance to the point where some of the current person tasks may be replaced by a thing? To review these configuration files for Apache, head over to /etc/apache2. It is especially recommended to skim the apache2.conf and ports.conf files. We dont need to review the configuration files to know that the default location for HTML files in Apache is generally under the /var, or variables, directory. When we install Apache, a new directory /var/www is created to specifically host World Wide Web data. And Apache goes on to create a test index.html HTML file. (In the /etc/apache2 configuration files, index.html is one of the default files looked for when someone requests a parent page for a website. This is why we can get a webpage by typing in something like www.raspberrypi.org. This web browser request, combined with the configuration of the HTTP server, results in the return of www.raspberrypi.org/index.html or something similar, as specified within the HTTP server configuration file). Lets go over to the HTML directory space and edit the index.html file /var/www/html/index.html. Even as we do this, lets keep the python3 HTTP server running for the moment as well bring these together in a later step. So navigate to this directory in a second terminal window so that we can have a look at whats inside of this test page: 2B: The Infrastructure of the Internet 339 pi@raspberrypi:~ $ cd /var/www/html pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ ls -al This shows that by default there is one file in /var/www/html/ called index.html and it is owned by the root user (as is the enclosing folder). In order to edit the file, you need to change its ownership to your own username. Change the owner of the file (the default pi user is assumed here) by typing into the terminal: pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo chown pi: index.html You can now try editing this file using nano and then refreshing the browser to see the web page change. To do so, in the terminal window, type: pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ nano index.html Next, scroll past the through the section, which contains a range of metadata and also various Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) code, until you see the tags on two separate lines. Diving Deeper Consider some quick changes such as changing the title Apache2 Debian Default Page and the note It works! to something different. You might also add in additional

paragraphs sharing your thoughts at this moment. When done editing the html, type CTRL-O to save the file by the same name. You dont need to exit, but can now refresh the browser to see the web page changes. This may take some trial and error to get working keep failing forward! Once done testing out changes of the default index.html file, type CTRL-X to exit nano. Creating our own webpage Starting at minute 4:05, Carrie Anne Philbin gives a quick example of an HTML page. To create new web pages, youll need to run nano or your favorite text editor with super user privileges as the /var/www/html directory is owned by user root. For example, to create the page mypage.html, type: sudo nano mypage.html Once youve opened the text editor, take a few minutes to explore creating a webpage. If you havent done this before, you can test out Philbins example. Or if youve done web page creating directly through text editing before, feel encouraged to use your own creativity to create a new page. Once you think you have something reasonable, save the file (you dont need to exit, though) and then go to a web browser and go to the new page. In my case, Id type in: http://10.0.0.30/mypage.html 340 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Creating an Internet of Things iframe page The iframe tag is used to embed another document within the current HTML document. The iframe tag is used throughout this textbook to bring in YouTube videos. And we can now use this frame to bring in a web page from another server in this case, that created by the HTTP server run through simple_uartWebserverLED.py. Open up a new text file in the www directory called iot.html. If Im using nano, Id type: pi@raspberrypi:/var/www $ sudo nano iot.html Now, create a page that looks something like:

Internet of Things Gathering Page

This page is used to gather datasets from various local Internet of Things devices

2B: The Infrastructure of the Internet 341 Notice that it is a combination of static HTML and also an iframe tag bringing in source data from the other HTTP server running on the Raspberry Pi. Make sure youve listed the IP address of your own Raspberry Pi instead of my 10.0.0.30 Raspberry Pi address. Then save the document, make sure your Python3 program simple_uartWebserverLED.py is up and running, go to your web browser, and open up both the Python page directly as we did in session one, and also through the Apache server as weve just set up now. For my Raspberry Pi, with an IP address of 10.0.0.30, Id go to: http://10.0.0.30:8401/ http://10.0.0.30/iot.html And remember, if you have other LAN-based computing devices with a web browser installed, such as your smartphone, you can use those to access these pages as well. Install PHP When we used the Python3 BaseHTTPRequestHandler library in session one, we were able to bring together some static HTML page tags with some Python programming code to create a dynamic web page whose data was continuously updated. With the iframe tag, we were able to bring this dynamic web page data into an otherwise static web page we were creating. Lets finish this exercise by installing PHP. PHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML.9 To allow your Apache server to process PHP files, youll need to install the latest version of PHP and the PHP module for Apache. While still in the /var/www/html directory, type the following command to install these: pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo apt install php libapache2-mod-php -y Now, rename the index.html file to index-orig.html: pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo mv index.html index-orig.html and create the file index.php: pi@raspberrypi:/var/www/html $ sudo nano index.php Put some PHP content in it: Now save and refresh your browser. You should see the phrase hello world displayed. This is not dynamic, but still served by PHP. Try something dynamic: 9. "What Is PHP?" PHP Manual, accessed July 21, 2020, https://www.php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. 342 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Underneath the hood, PHP is now running Linux operating system apps to collect current information and bring it back to a dynamic web page. This is the PHP equivalent to Pythons use of /opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd measure_temp to get the current temperature of the Raspberry Pi, like we did in session one of the Rainbow Unit. To add in some static text using standard HTML tags, consider adding an

Title of page

line above the PHP code, and maybe some

paragraphs of text

after the PHP to see what it looks like. Going a step further, you can show a rich listing of your PHP info at the bottom by adding an additional PHP hypertext preprocessor call: Key Takeaways While a Python3-based HTTP server can prove of value in support of a specific task, it is the general purpose HTTP server which has become the foundation of the Internets World Wide Web. In this exercise, weve seen how flexible server platforms like Apache have been developed using the open protocols and standards of the Internet and an open community of developers to work on a range of different computers and to meet a range of different use objectives. This design strategy provides opportunities for innovation-in-use, something we tested as we moved from initial installation of Apache, to the creation of a first HTML page, to the addition of an Internet of Things iframe, to the addition of the PHP Hypertext Preprocessor. Weve also seen how, through the use of the default port address with Apache server and an alternate 8401 port for the Python3 server, one computer could run multiple distinct instances of the HTTP server package simultaneously, providing us even greater flexibility to innovate-inuse. Given this, what would it take for your sociotechnical networked information system to now become a cloud platform? What if, over time, the context and design parameters that resulted in the creation of this networked information system become hidden? Is it possible this, too, could become part of the mystical cloud that others use? In what ways is it of value to do works in ways that continually demystify technology? Is this even possible? Wrap Up As noted earlier in this session, internetworking can happen in many shapes and forms which regularly incorporate the Internet suite of protocols and applications. The key is the level to which we enter into use of an Internet-based tool from a thing-oriented compared to a person-oriented framing. Through the exercises within this part of the session, weve made use of different research methods to explore key social and technical aspects of the Internet suite, seeking to decodify key terms and concepts related to networked information systems. The infrastructure of the Internet provides an amazing opening for us to build from person-centered digital internets past and present, and to also open new critical lenses to further challenge the dominant thing-oriented framings through new pathways as we move forward within the information sciences. 2B: The Infrastructure of the Internet Comprehension Check 343 344 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 3A: The Digitization of Divides Background Knowledge Probe Bring to mind a few recent events that have happened within your lived experiences. Think broadly, considering your times outdoors as well as indoors, at stores and markets as well as at community centers, with community and family as well as time alone. What is one technical strength that was demonstrated by you or another person, human or morethan-human, within one or more of these events? What is one economic strength that was demonstrated? What demonstration of social dominance was demonstrated by you or another person within one of these events? The Digital Divide Digital Divide The economic, educational, and social inequalities between those who have computers and online access and those who do not. Merriam-Webster, Digital Divide 1 One central theme during President Bill Clintons administration in the 1990s centered around fostering an economic transition based on technology investment national competitiveness. Goals included: long-term economic growth that creates jobs and protects the environment; making government more efficient and more responsive; and world leadership in basic science, mathematics, and engineering.2 Core within these goals was 1. Merriam-Webster, "Digital Divide," accessed July 3, 2020, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/digital%20divide. 345 346 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology an advancement of human capital through education and training, and the advancement of an information superhighway through general deregulation and targeted publicprivate partnerships. As part of the assessment, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) published a series of four Falling through the Net reports between 1995 and 2000. The 1995 report brought forward a survey of have-nots in rural and urban America, while the 1998 and 1999 reports were the first to especially highlight the digital divide. The final report in this NTIA series moved from reporting on the digital divide to considering ways to move towards digital inclusion. For the Clinton administration, combating poverty and connecting the have-nots to a privatized National Information Infrastructure (NII) was considered a national economic emergency. As Daniel Greene notes in Discovering the Divide: Technology and Poverty in the New Economy, it is important to frame the digital divide as a poverty program as well as a technology program.3 To this end, a healthy citizenry was redefined as a bundle of human capitals brought to market by information technology and digital literacy training became a limited investment in workforce oriented technology provision and training.4 Greene goes on to state: Within this first part of the digital divide frame, combating poverty is a problem not of alleviating suffering in the present, but of making the correct investments in information have-nots so as to resolve current crises of underutilized labor, realize future capital growth, and achieve post-Cold War international economic hegemony.5 The NII originated in 1991 as part of the High Performance Computing Act, created and introduced by then US Senator Al Gore who had spent years working to this point. In 1991, Gore published the following in Scientific American: The unique way in which the U.S. deals with information has been the real key to our success. Capitalism and representative democracy rely on the freedom of the individual, so these systems operate in a manner similar to the principle behind massively parallel computers. These computers process data not in one central unit but rather in tiny, less powerful units. Capitalism works on the same principle. People who are free to buy and sell products or services according to their individual calculations of the costs and benefits of each choice process a relatively limited amount of information but do it quickly. When millions of individuals process information simultaneously, the aggregate result is incredibly accurate and efficient decisions. Communism, by contrast, attempted to bring all the information to a large and powerful central processor, which collapsed when it was overwhelmed by ever more complex information. Al Gore, Infrastructure for the Global Village6 2. William J. Clinton and Albert Gore, Jr., "Technology for America's Economic Growth, A New Direction to Build Economic Strength," ED 355 929, February 22, 1993. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED355929.pdf. 3. Daniel Greene, "Discovering the Divide: Technology and Poverty in the New Economy," International Journal of Communication 10 (2016): 1216. 4. Greene, "Discovering the Divide," 1216. 5. Greene, "Discovering the Divide," 1217. 6. Al Gore, "Infrastructure for the Global Village," Scientific American 265 no. 3 (September 1991): 151. https://www.scientificamerican.com/magazine/sa/ 1991/09-01/. 3A: The Digitization of Divides 347 Greene concludes by stating: This conflation of different scales infrastructure and individual, personal computing and national markets was not just New Democrat spin, but an overarching regulatory regime emphasizing market competition as the primary political calculus and market citizenship as the primary political unit.7 Take a minute to pause and reflect on how this consideration of a healthy citizenry and market citizenship compares to a key intention of Free-Net and Community Networking movements generally, and the information sciences more specifically, to foster an informed citizenry as highlighted in this textbook. One significant shaper of the digital revolution explored in the last session was the Progress & Freedom Foundation, which sought to educate policymakers, opinion leaders, and the public regarding technological change based on a philosophy of limited government, free markets, and individual sovereignty. A central futurist thought leader who played a major role in fostering the creation of the Progress & Freedom Foundation was Newt Gingrich, a professor of history and geography at the University of Western Georgia in the 1970s before serving in the US House of Representatives from 1979 until 1999. His time as a Representative included serving as House Minority Whip from 1989 to 1995, and as Speaker of the House from 1995 to 1999. Further, as noted in the Frontline episode The Long March of Newt Gingrich, an initial principal project of the Progress and Freedom Foundation was Gingrichs college course called Renewing American Civilization.8 The course, like Cyberspace and the American Dream, and released at about the same time, highlighted an important need to move from a Second Wave to a Third Wave economy by adding social and political dominance to its accelerating technological and economic strength.9 As a professor of history, for Gingrich the renewal of American civilization required something more than the reinvention of government which the Clinton administration was working towards including through their digital divide framing that was emerging from Gores extended congressional initiatives. While Gingrich agreed with a significant part of this, from his viewing of American history, the renewal of American civilization required the replacement of the entire structure of the welfare state with an American values-based model of the government.10 Its important to note that while Gingrich and Gore became highly vocal rivals in the 1990s, they both entered congress in the late 1970s and quickly became part of a bipartisan in-house futurist think tank, the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future, where they came to know and respect each other for important common ground that they shared. These shared ideals are demonstrated in the similarities seen between the activities of the Clinton administration and those of the Progress & Freedom Foundation. While there was a clear demarcation 7. Greene, "Discovering the Divide," 1218. 8. The course was taught through Kennesaw State College, Georgia, by Representative Gingrich and was open to all online. A complaint was filed regarding use of non-profit funds in support of staff time with the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct within the House in 1994, for which a settlement was reached. 9. Esther Dyson, George Gilder, George Keyworth, and Alvin Toffler, "Cyberspace and the American Dream: A Magna Carta for the Knowledge Age," The Progress & Freedom Foundation, August 1994. http://www.pff.org/issues-pubs/futureinsights/fi1.2magnacarta.html. 10. Newt Gingrich, "Renewing American Civilization," CSPAN September 10, 1993. https://www.c-span.org/video/?50261-1/renewing-americancivilization. "The Long March of Newt Gingrich," Frontline, January 16, 1996. Accessed July 7, 2020. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newt/ index.html. 348 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology between the role of government and that of the Foundation, it was more one between government as referee and government as spectator.11 It was between reinventing government through advancing a healthy citizenry for market citizenship, part of which included digital literacy and inclusion to help individuals leave the welfare system, and the replacement of the entire structure of the welfare state. In the preface to her book, Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the Information Age, Virginia Eubanks notes magical thinking as a driver of technology-based economic development programs.12 It is a deeply thingcentered approach. The underlying assumptions within these digital divide initiatives are that some people lack access to technology and/or the skills to effectively use the technologies meaningfully as citizens. Schools, libraries, religious institutions, and other community spaces play an essential underlying role to bridge the digital divide through provision of community technology centers and by advancing digital skills development for individuals. What is not seen is a shift in poverty policies that emerged in the U.S. and some European nations at the same time that included a punitive, paternalistic, racialized bent. Programs funding the bridging of the digital divide centered on educational quick fixes in which short hour-long courses ensuring individuals could turn on a computer, type on a keyboard, connect to the Internet, and fill out a job application form were prioritized over individual and community valued beings and doings. Quarterly reports to grant agencies prioritized head counts and defined skills checkboxes over community-defined learning outcome objectives. Ultimately, these were programs that crossed party lines, and were part of a broader neoliberal agenda. As Greene notes: By reviewing the links between the digital divide frame and other contemporary neoliberal projects, it becomes clear that a crisis of human capital deficits was articulated in multiple domains and that final result of the frame redefining access not as available tools or skills but as the opportunity to compete fit cleanly not just with the demands of post-Fordist capital but with the common sense of laborers who really were excluded from the transition to a knowledge economy, and those helping professionals librarians, in Stevensons [2009] account who really do work for inclusion.13 In the end, even as the left edge of neoliberalism under the Clinton administration began to weaken and the right strengthened, the problematic magical thinking of the digital divide framing has persisted, as Greene notes in his conclusion: Digital divide stuck in the United States because a frame announcing a national crisis of competitiveness, defined as a human capital deficit and resolved through public-private partnerships for access extension, created a fundamental definition of access that resolved the contradictions between a punitive, paternalistic poverty policy and the premise of the New Economy. If the opportunity to compete was made available by information technology, then investments in those opportunities publicly encouraged but privately executed so as to not violate the sanctity of competition were urgently required. Unfortunately, more competition creates not just more winners, but also more losers. Therefore, individual failures of competitiveness had to be excused as lacking initiative or improperly planning, whereas mass failures could be understood as populations surplus to New Economy requirementsthus justifying the expansion of the prison and workfare systems that paralleled Clinton-era digital divide initiatives and bounded their antipoverty aspirations.14 11. John Heilemann, "The Making of The President 2000," Wired, December 1, 1995, https://www.wired.com/1995/12/gorenewt/. 12. Virginia Eubanks, Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the Information Age, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. 13. Greene, "Discovering the Divide," 1216. 14. Greene, "Discovering the Divide," 1226. 3A: The Digitization of Divides 349 At some point in our participatory action research community inquiry projects, we may discover our own complacency within oppressive structures through an over-reliance on a distributive paradigm setting up computer labs, providing digital skills training, and helping digital immigrants keep pace within the digital revolution. We thus miss seeing the many non-technical, socio-political, and economic realities of generational oppressions that dismiss the community cultural wealth and local valued beings and doings to instead prioritize neoliberal agendas. One of my own deep nights of the soul occurred in 2008 when, through an abductive leap, I came to see a radically different understanding of the oppressive works I was doing and helping others do through teaching and practice as part of our bridging the digital divide tasks. But following deep conversations with my community partners of color regarding unspoken truths of my own works centering on white supremacy, and also works towards new processes of reconciliation, our community of practice, oppressed and oppressor, used Freires popular education approach in a deeper way to continue those aspects of projects that were deemed of value, innovated-in-use further those aspects we considered reparable in some meaningful way, and cast off those things that clearly worked to continue the intersecting webs of oppression. And it has been this continued work that has guided much of the development of this textbook. As weve explored throughout this textbook, the technical can never be separated from the social. The sociotechnical artifacts and systems are complex webs of interdependent social and technical components. We each need to make use of new critical thinking and expanded digital literacy skills to tease apart aspects using individual action-reflection, and even more within communities of inquiry action-reflection using collective leadership and popular education strategies. A great visualization of this transformative movement into a more people-centered, popular technology approach in which the marginalized other can challenge our preconceptions regarding the Digital Divide can be found in Eubanks Trapped in the Digital Divide: The Distributive Paradigm in Community Informatics. Together with YWCA workshop participants in Troy, New York, Eubanks created a series of drawings. She notes how her initial sketch used to answer their question, What is the digital divide? a new-to-them term, ultimately helped step workshop participants from the initial codification in which have-nots are helped to reach the desired have side of the chasm, to popular technology discussion and a new mutual understanding of the term. The revised drawings of the divides by workshop participants were essential in guiding this work of decodification and recodification. Some considered ways in which this needed to be re-articulated as technology for the people as skills, strengths, and resources from both sides of the divide are brought together. Others visualized the ways the divide actually represented a conflict between The Man, those with power who used hoarding and shortcuts to advance personal gain, and The Rest of Us, the survivors. And over time, this moved to considerations of new paths forward, ones that sought for possibilities of equal exchange in which digital technologies become one tool to bring stuff together within ethics of sharing and community. These visualizations can provide an example of a recodification of one term, the digital divide. In doing this work of decodification and recodification in action reflection, we discover not an end point, but a new starting point. Alternate images of the digital divide serve as question prompts such as: if this is the true divide, what works do we now start, what works do we re-invent, and what works do we put aside as unusable to begin addressing this newly understood digital divide? 350 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Moving From the Digital Divide to Digital Inclusion As noted earlier, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)s final Falling through the Net report focused on digital inclusion, a theme selected to especially highlight the progress made and the progress yet to be made.15 They go on to state: The rapid uptake of new technologies is occurring among most groups of Americans, regardless of income, education, race or ethnicity, location, age, or gender, suggesting that digital inclusion is a realizable goal. Groups that have traditionally been digital have-nots are now making dramatic gains. This first use of digital inclusion left open a more formal definition of the term. For many, the discussion has remained on the digital divides that leave some excluded from full participation online and all that brings. Others, like the nonprofit National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), have found the term digital divide to be problematic given the multiple intersecting divides within. They have instead forwarded a more formal definition of the key terms digital inclusion, digital equity, and digital literacy as follows: Digital Inclusion Digital Inclusion refers to the activities necessary to ensure that all individuals and communities, including the most disadvantaged, have access to and use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). This includes 5 elements: 1) affordable, robust broadband internet service; 2) Internet-enabled devices that meet the needs of the user; 3) access to digital literacy training; 4) quality technical support; and 5) applications and online content designed to enable and encourage self-sufficiency, participation and collaboration. Digital Inclusion must evolve as technology advances. Digital Inclusion requires intentional strategies and investments to reduce and eliminate historical, institutional and structural barriers to access and use technology. Digital Equity Digital Equity is a condition in which all individuals and communities have the information technology capacity needed for full participation in our society, democracy and economy. Digital Equity is necessary for civic and cultural participation, employment, lifelong learning, and access to essential services. Digital Literacy NDIA recommends the American Library Associations definition of Digital Literacy via their Digital Literacy Taskforce: Digital Literacy is the ability to use information and communication technologies to find, evaluate, create, and communicate information, requiring both cognitive and technical skills. 15. National Telecommunications and Information Administration, "Falling through the Net IV: Toward digital inclusion," U.S. Department of Commerce. http://www.ntia.doc.gov/files/ntia/publications/fttn00.pdf, xiii. 3A: The Digitization of Divides 351 A Digitally Literate Person: Possesses the variety of skills technical and cognitive required to find, understand, evaluate, create, and communicate digital information in a wide variety of formats; Is able to use diverse technologies appropriately and effectively to retrieve information, interpret results, and judge the quality of that information; Understands the relationship between technology, life-long learning, personal privacy, and stewardship of information; Uses these skills and the appropriate technology to communicate and collaborate with peers, colleagues, family, and on occasion, the general public; and Uses these skills to actively participate in civic society and contribute to a vibrant, informed, and engaged community. National Digital Inclusion Alliance, Definitions16 To the above digital literacy skills, as noted in the Orange Unit, I would add progressive community [inter]action and critical social + technical skills, brought forward as part of person- and community-centered deliberative dialogue processes using critical research paradigms, pedagogies, and abductive reasoning. This is embedded throughout this textbook and has been developed through a range of digital literacy-oriented courses and workshops done over the last two decades. And as noted earlier in this chapter, sometimes there have been deep nights of the soul that have been part of a critical abductive leap as a transformative moment reveals unseen or unforeseen works dehumanizing others. But at other times, I have had wonderful insights provided by those who are experiencing these works of marginalization and oppression. As an example of the latter, consider a five-part workshop that included parents and teachers from a Kindergarten-5th grade elementary school whose constituents come primarily from households with low socioeconomic status. The schools motto, Technology and Literacy for the Community, inspired them to look for creative ways to further engage parents as collaborators in their childrens education, knowing that a significant number of households did not have each of the five key elements necessary for full digital inclusion. One AfricanAmerican parent noted at one point the frustration they feel when questioned regarding their decision to purchase a smartphone rather than a laptop. They went on to state how, as a parent of color, they need to teach their children to call a relative or trusted other whenever a police officer seems to be looking at them closely, and to then put their smartphone in a pocket with the connection open in case a negative encounter develops. As such, the smartphone, while an inferior device to the laptop in some ways for educational purposes, has a unique lifesaving property, the value of which trumps other considerations if the purchase of only one device is possible. Stories similar to this have been shared with me individually or within a class group discussion in a range of workshops by people of color, and highlight the intersectional realities of digital technology and Internet experiences, and the essential need for digital inclusion and equity to continually strive to advance social justice considerations within all aspects of policy and practice. This highlights the essential need for digital inclusion and equity activities to consider the five key elements within a range of contextualized, dynamic individual, cultural, and community-defined conditions. 16. National Digital Inclusion Alliance, "Definitions," accessed July 6, 2020. https://www.digitalinclusion.org/definitions/. 352 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology To conclude this chapter lets probe further the first element regarding digital inclusion, affordable, robust broadband internet service. As NDIA notes, digital inclusion must evolve as technology advances. In a myriad of ways, broadband access within the United States has lagged behind that of other nations. In particular, given the advancements in Internet service that today includes fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) or premises (FTTP) in many nations, to what extent is FTTH a necessary condition for there to be full Digital Equity? In what ways is full civic and cultural participation, employment, lifelong learning, and access to essential services for the many places within the US where home fiber not available, or not affordably so, achievable? Fiber is a central media used in building the backbone of the Internet throughout the world. But when it comes to Internet provision by the Internet Service Providers to the home, community centers, and small- to medium-businesses, what is primarily available is the old copper wires that had previously been installed to provide phone and television service. These proved more than adequate for voice service and the downloading of television audio and video. But these significantly underperform if we look at broadband Internet within a broader conceptualization beyond simple information consumption plus some basic social media and email tasks. To do live-stream sharing in support of interactive audio/video, selected asynchronous sharing of large datasets from home to community without use of cloud servers, or an emerging array of IoT device interactions centered within the original Internet Protocols end-to-end principle high speed (20+ Megabits per seconds; Mbps), low latency (8 milliseconds or less) upload speeds are needed in addition to high speed downloads of online audio/video information and communication. If a musical group wants to do a live performance in which each is performing from a different LAN, but as if they were in the same room, they must have latencies at or under 8 milliseconds. To share video along with audio without lags, they must have 20+ Mbps uploads to share their audio/video with the others rather than just downloading the performance of their band. Adding to this, if there is more than one computing device on the LAN seeking to participate in live streams, asynchronous data sharing of large datasets, and IoT device activities, then each of these devices will each require high speed, low latency upload and download speeds, increasing the requirements for infrastructure service from the WAN to the LAN by the ISP. Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), Cable, WiFi, and cell-based Internet do not meet these needs, and they cannot be engineered to eventually meet such needs. Only fiber optics can, and it continues to be further developed, adding even greater possibilities for distance socializing in ways that advance civic and cultural participation, employment, lifelong learning, and access to essential services. This highlights a way in which truly just digital inclusion and equity often requires fiber-to-the-home to fully provide the conditions for full participation in civic and cultural participation, employment, lifelong learning, and access to essential services. Affordable, Robust Internet Service Provision In her books Captive Audience: The Telecom Industry and Monopoly Power in the New Gilded Age (2013) and FIBER: The Coming Tech Revolution And Why America Might Miss It (2018), Susan Crawford brings together her professional experiences as a member of the board of directors of ICANN from 2005-2008, as co-leader of the FCC transition team between the Bush and Obama administrations, and her time within the Law Schools at Michigan and Harvard, among other lived experiences. From this, she richly brings together the history of the Internet with current political contexts nationally and internationally to consider the impacts of the Internet today on our lived experiences. The monopoly power has significant power over health care, education, urban administration and services, agriculture, retail sales, and offices, something that has been a constant even as the emergence of 3A: The Digitization of Divides 353 transformative Internet of Things devices is reshaping the landscape. She has traveled around the United States and internationally to see the many different municipalities, regions, and countries that have, in some cases for decades, established ways to implement home fiber Internet as a utility to advance full digital inclusion and equity as defined by individuals and their communities. While I personally have been part of various Community Networking projects, some of which have included fiber-to-the-home grants, I found her interview with Bill Moyers to be a very insightful introduction to the deeper social shapers of key barriers that have been raised keeping us from this true integration of digital equity.17 As part of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) grants following the 2008 financial crisis, the Obama administration made available funds for 1) Infrastructure, 2) Public Computing Centers, and 3) Sustainable Adoption programs. The Urbana-Champaign Big Broadband (UC2B) project worked to construct 187 miles of fiberoptic broadband network to provide high-speed connectivity to area community anchor institutions and support fiber-to-the-home services in four low-income neighborhoods. MuniNetworks.org continues to provide resources, including case studies, fact sheets, videos, and podcasts highlighting ways communities are working to implement cost effective, publicly owned, cooperative models, and other nonprofit approaches for community broadband.18 Today, FTTH over the publicly owned UC2B is being provided to a growing number of homes and other premises in the area through its private partner, I3 Broadband. During the COVID-19 pandemic and stay-at-home orders, this proved essential as I and my son sometimes were each participating in separate University Zoom live video sessions while my wife was participating in a HIPAA-compliant Doxy.me live video session with a patient. The FTTH Internet connectivity provided 1 Gbps download and 300 Mbps upload speeds, while our wired Ethernet connectivity to each room provided 100 Mbps upload/download to each of our laptops. We consistently had latencies under 8 milliseconds to the regional I3 Broadband. But there were many times when a Zoom indicator or traceroute test would indicate failures either at the cloud level, or more often at the other end of our connection. When functional diversity requires communication over voice and video rather than text following a Traumatic Brain Injury, as became my case after a 2016 bicycle accident, full participation may be lost with a bad audio/ video feed somewhere along the Internet backbone or end-points, and a significant human aspect is lost. When a pair-programming hands-on activity with electronics or a face-to-face therapy session happens online without high quality video, a significant analog, social aspect is lost. When several minutes are lost troubleshooting technical problems, a significant analog, social aspect is lost. When people already experiencing levels of stress find themselves at a loss, problematic social aspects are increased. This provides an example of how digital inclusion and equity is too often addressed only on one side of the Internet when viewed from the underlying end-to-end principle that arose from the French Cyclades model a vision of interconnecting a group of islands, a metaphor from the Aegean Sea island group and later guiding the Internet Protocol development first funded in support of a flexible military during the Cold War. As one final example, my brother has had epilepsy since early childhood and suffers from refractory seizures that are drug resistant. 17. Bill Moyers, "Susan Crawford on Why Our Internet Access Is Slow, Costly and Unfair," BillMoyers.com, February 8, 2013. https://billmoyers.com/ segment/susan-crawford-on-why-u-s-internet-access-is-slow-costly-and-unfair/. 18. Read the transcript online from a 2013 interview with two participants in the project, Carol Ammons and Brandon Bowersox-Johnson. 354 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology For those not familiar, epilepsy is a neurological condition that affects the nervous system. Seizures seen in epilepsy are caused by disturbances in the electrical activity of the brain. The seizures in epilepsy may be related to a brain injury, genetics, immune, brain structure or metabolic cause, but most of the time the cause is unknown. Sixty-five million people around the world have epilepsy. And while there has been much progress on research in this area (including as part of research in the field of informatics), one-third of people with epilepsy continue to live with uncontrollable seizures because no available treatment works for them. The Epilepsy Foundation, About Epilepsy: The Basics For my brother, treatment experience has taught him that maintaining a complete personal record of seizures and treatments is an essential complement to, and at times even more informative than, the expensive tests commonly used within the medical profession such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRIs) and Electroencephalogram (EEGs). He demonstrates collective leadership in practice. For thirty years he has used his personal computer to document hundreds of seizures, over a dozen anti-seizure medications and their assigned usage regimens, and other valuable medical details. And today new seizure diary programs are becoming available to assist epilepsy patients in documenting the treatment path (my brother has been finding Seizure Tracker very useful to document and forward to his doctor treatment data). Combined, this rich personal dataset connects these medical-focused notes within the broader personal context in ways that help inform conversations with his care team and with the broader epilepsy community. Recently, he was provided with an innovative NeuroPace brain-responsive neurostimulation (RNS) system, which is described in this video. Tiny wires with electrodes, called leads, are placed in the area of seizure onset and connected to a neurostimulator placed under the scalp. This small battery-powered microcontroller is programmed by the doctor to monitor brainwaves, detect unusual activity, and respond in real time. It is personalized by the doctor for the individual, but this personalization can include additional new analog feedback of the individual to the doctor further expanding the information flow. At least in ideal conditions. My brother still lives in the rural area in which we grew up. And as is the case for many rural areas, Internet service is still inadequate to meet all needs, especially within the context of telehealth. Provision of Internet is currently being provided by a Satellite provider, with latencies consistently over 700 milliseconds. This is far less than the <8 millisecond latency required to feel as if you are in the same room, and something not effectively supported within todays general purpose live streaming services such as Zoom. Further, beyond diminished or lost live stream conversations required as a result of Covid-19 social distancing, essential weekly uploads of NeuroPace data can sometimes fail for extended periods. In his speedtests, he finds that while his download speeds are often >30 Mbps, his upload tests at times have given the message Upload Test Error. Thus, as my brother notes: The new RNS treatment demands more than a computer and the skills to operate itsufficient upload speeds are required to weekly transfer data to the doctor. Also, the COVID-19 outbreak has left me using the telephone to speak with a doctor and therapist more than once instead of using the telehealth option. Will RNS eventually offer the chance for doctors to alter the Neuropace device settings from home? Not without sufficient computer speeds. 3A: The Digitization of Divides 355 Ultimately, information sharing between a distanced community of practice in support of collective leadership fails at multiple levels, even as the 20 Mbps download, 3 Mbps upload (20/3) speed definition of minimum service as defined through the US FCC Lifeline program is recorded as met within corporate and governmental Internet records. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. notes: Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.19 Truly just digital inclusion and equity is more than an individual issue. It is a community and social issue that requires a high-quality infrastructure not only at the backbone of the Internet, but at each endpoint as well and all nodes in between. Each missing element as listed within the definition of digital inclusion, and each element that is less than what is needed as defined from within the individual and communitys defined valued beings and doings based on a communitys cultural wealths, is another intersecting component of the many different analog and digital divides that reinforce the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism. Lesson Plan Essential Resources: Robinson, Laura, Jeremy Schulz, Matas Dodel, Teresa Correa, Eduardo Villanueva-Mansilla, Sayonara Leal, Claudia Magallanes-Blanco, et al. Digital Inclusion Across the Americas and Caribbean. Social Inclusion 8, no. 2 (May 14, 2020): 24459. https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v8i2.2632. Eubanks, Virginia. Trapped in the Digital Divide: The Distributive Paradigm in Community Informatics. The Journal of Community Informatics, 3, no. 2 (September 14, 2007). http://cijournal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/293. Ferreira, Becky. Watch Our Documentary on Detroits Grassroots Internet Network. Vice, November 21, 2017. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qv395v/watch-our-documentary-ondetroits-grassroots-internet-network. King, Jamilah. A Tech Innovation in Detroit: Connect People, Not Computers. COLORLINES, October 3, 2012. https://www.colorlines.com/articles/tech-innovation-detroit-connect-people-notcomputers. Yu, Liangzhi, Lorcan Dempsey, and Sarah Ormes. Community Networking: Development, Potentials and Implications for Public Libraries. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 31, no. 2 (June 1, 1999): 7183. https://doi.org/10.1177/096100069903100202. 19. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," Birmingham, AL, April 16, 1963. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/ documents/letter-birmingham-jail. 356 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Professional Journal Reflections: The social shaping of technology includes a range of political, economic, and social influencers and frames shaping technologies and our visions for these technologies. The digital divide further represents a social framing of a range of sociotechnical artifacts as exclusively technical matters, something the digital inclusion and other movements are trying to reframe. 1. Take some time to read through your past Professional Journal Reflections. As you reread your own reflections, what has remained consistent throughout these? What has slowly transformed within these? 2. In what ways do the readings of this session build from the past reflections? In what ways do they counter those past reflections? 3. What are some first thoughts regarding next steps you need to take individually and within your communities of practice in response to your journey through A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology? 3B: A Person-Centered Network Information System Adventure Technical Overview My philosophy is very simple: When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to stand up, you have to say something, you have to do something. My mother told me over and over again when I went off to school not to get into trouble but I told her that I got into a good trouble, necessary trouble. Even today I tell people, We need to get in good trouble. John Lewis, interviewed by Valerie Jackson for StoryCorps1 We began this session considering the codifications of the digital divide and beginning a process of decodification of this and related terms. We explored some examples specifically related to NDIAs first element of digital inclusion, affordable, robust broadband internet service. Digital inclusion, equity, and literacy as brought forward by NDIA, ALA, and others give a more formal definition that can serve as a framework to move from the magical thinking that is pervasive within current neoliberal understandings of sociotechnical networked information systems. But this is an ongoing work of community inquiry and action-reflection. As we move forward in our professional practices, we each will likely make use of a range of sociotechnical digital tools within our daily activities, which, together in work with others, include works towards advancing digital inclusion and equity goals. But in practice, information science professionals have encountered limits and constraints to the social justice parameters given their permitted roles, given certain socially structured fabric and certain community values that are placed above others, particularly in light of dependencies on public funding that gives greater power to the middle class white population.2 1. John Lewis and Valerie Jackson, "The Boy From Troy: How Dr. King Inspired A Young John Lewis," StoryCorps, February 20, 2018. https://storycorps.org/stories/the-boy-from-troy-how-dr-king-inspired-a-young-john-lewis/. 2. Bharat Mehra, Kevin S. Rioux, and Kendra S. Albright, "Social Justice in Library and Information Science," in Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences (CRC Press, 2009), 4820-4836. https://doi.org/10.1081/E-ELIS3-120044526. 357 358 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology As an introductory text, A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology has worked to open up the closed box of digital technologies sufficiently so that we can explore ways we innovate-in-use our everyday technologies so that our choice, [re]design, and use of digital technologies better serve the diverse community knowledge and cultural wealth within the fabric of communities. It is an introductory text seeking to help us see better those aspects of digital technology that are not right, not fair, not just, to quote John Lewis. As an introductory text, considerable time has been spent in the first three stages of Carol Kuhlthaus information search process that brings together the evolution of feelings, thoughts, and actions commonly experienced by those seeking information as a person passes through the six stages of the search process, which include: 1. Task initiation is most often associated with feelings of uncertainty. 2. Topic selection, on the other hand, leads towards increased optimism. 3. Prefocus exploration leads back to feelings of confusion, frustration, and doubt. Combined, these first three stages are more closely aligned with ambiguous thoughts and general actions seeking relevant information. 4. Focus formulation begins to bring about greater clarity and increased interest. 5. Information collection deepens a sense of direction and confidence, with more specificity of thought, and actions seeking more pertinent information. 6. Presentation leads to feelings of satisfaction or disappointment through actions of documenting. As we come to the end of this textbook, its time for each learner to especially advance Kuhlthaus stages 4) focus formulation and 5) information collection. To do so, first consider what technical and information search skills still need some introductory development in recognition that both personally and professionally, you have to say something, you have to do something to move beyond the many historic and ongoing divides fostering existing injustices and the digitization of information systems that are birthing new injustices in many areas of society locally, regionally, and beyond. This digitization of the divides continues even as we remain caught in that inescapable network of mutuality and are thus being affected whether it be directly or indirectly, as Martin Luther King, Jr. notes.3 With this in mind, each reader is called to choose your own adventure to bring these explorations together into an early prototype launchpad of a person-centered networked information system specific to an area in which you sense you need to say and do something. What skills do you think you should especially focus on fine-tuning further to help you leave this space better prepared to get in good trouble? Heres some initial possibilities, although you are welcome to remix these or add to them. 3. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," Birmingham, AL, April 16, 1963. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/ documents/letter-birmingham-jail. 3B: A Person-Centered Network Information System Adventure 359 A WordPress-Based Public Information System In the last two sessions, weve used a few technical exercises to explore different ways we could create a Raspberry Pi HTTP server. While at first we used Python3 BaseHTTPRequestHandler to provide special purpose HTML page data and information, we ended by adding the general purpose Apache HTTP server and PHP preprocessor to create a broader range of HTML pages that could be accessible upon request by an HTTP client. This textbook is provided through the Illinois Open Publishing Network (IOPN). To create this IOPN textbook, the open source content management system (CMS) PressBooks was chosen as it provides administrative and reader interfaces specifically for published online books while also including print-ready PDF, mobi, ePub, and other open formats. Underneath the hood, PressBooks is based on the free and open-source CMS WordPress. WordPress is written in PHP and is paired with MySQL or MariaDB database, and is used by many popular websites around the world as their base. The Raspberry Pi Foundation includes instructions for a project to Build a LAMP Web Server with WordPress. Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP/Perl/Python (LAMP), a term that became popular in the late 1990s, represents a bringing together of these sociotechnical systems to create a flexible web stack, a collection of software applications to perform specific tasks, in this case specific to web development. WordPress is a commonly used extension to the widely used base LAMP stack. The toolkit for this textbook includes the Raspberry Pi microcomputer and the New Out Of the Box System, which by default is set up with the Raspberry Pi Linux Operating System. Linux, check. In session two of the Rainbow Unit, we concluded by installing the Apache web server and PHP preprocessor. Check and check. What remains is the installation of the MySQL database and WordPress CMS, items covered within the Raspberry Pi foundation project instructions, starting with step 4. From here, you can further innovate-in-use and remix previous IoT and Internet-based Rainbow Unit exercises, exercises from earlier in the book, or go a new direction completely. Whats next? For those who choose this adventure, how might you now use this LAMP and WordPress server to prototype a way you could say something, do something to get in good trouble? MAZI Zone DIY Community Network MAZI means together in Greek. The MAZI project is part of the Collective Awareness Platforms for Sustainability and Social Innovation initiative, promoted by the European Comission, and funded through the European Unions H2020 framework. Their goal is to provide technology and knowledge in order to: empower those who are in physical proximity, to shape their hybrid urban space, together, according to the local environment and context. 360 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology generate location-based collective awareness as a basis for fostering social cohesion, conviviality, participation in decision-making processes, self-organisation, knowledge sharing, and sustainable living facilitate interdisciplinary interactions around the design of hybrid space and the role of ICTs in society.4 According to MAZI, do-it-yourself (DIY) networking using such toolkits can serve two complementary objectives: 1. to improve Internet connectivity in a certain region or local area 2. to support local interactions and services.5 This video provides an overview of the MAZI project and toolkit. The MAZI Toolkit The MAZI Toolkit is made up of three elements. All of these are available from the MAZI Toolkit page on this website. 1. Low cost hardware: Currently the Toolkit is using the Raspberry Pi system. Designs for making your own hardware casings will be available soon. 2. Software and applications: These are specifically developed by the MAZI Project, including a set of local web applications ready to be installed on the captive portal. The functionality will range from very simple communication services, like chatting, forums, wikis, and polls to more sophisticated collaborative applications for social networking, deliberations, community organizing, project development, etc. 3. Guidelines and knowledge, including examples and inspirations: Installation scripts and step-by-step guides are part of the toolkit, enabling you to build and deploy your own network zone, to configure a user-facing captive portal, and to select and customize software applications. In addition, you can directly access the Toolkit guidelines on GitHub, which includes up-to-date documentation. For this adventure, consider flashing a second 16GB MicroSD card with a ready-made MAZI toolkit image that includes the Raspberry Pi Operating System and the rest of the LAMP + WordPress stack, along with a number of other software applications that can be used by choice as part of your own MAZI Zone. This MAZI Zone can be used offline on its own, as part of a LAN or CAN intranet, or online with the Internet. You can use it exclusively as a web-based ICT, or you could also include Python-based IoT communications, integrating and innovating-in-use into your MAZI Zone exercises from session one of the Rainbow Unit. The MAZI website lists several test examples, but consider other ways this might be used as part of an Urban or Rural Community Network, or perhaps even in support of digital agriculture on that five acre farm seeking sustainable agriculture pathways. 4. "Overview," MAZI, accessed July 20, 2020, http://www.mazizone.eu/about/overview/. 5. "Toolkit," MAZI, accessed July 20, 2020, http://www.mazizone.eu/toolkit/. 3B: A Person-Centered Network Information System Adventure 361 Whats next? For those who choose this adventure, how might you now use your MAZI Zone to prototype a way you could say something, do something to get in good trouble? From an HTTP Thing to Multiple Internet of Things Devices Through the exercises of sessions one and two in the Rainbow Unit, weve explored a few different ways we could bring together the Orange Unit electronics and the Blue Unit code with the Rainbow Unit internetworking to build a basic Internet thing. How might you now start combining multiple basic Internet things together to create a plural Internet of Things? This adventure could be done using the Python3 and/or Apache HTTP server setup already in place, done in combination with one of the above choose your adventure possibilities above to provide a richer web interface, or using the Adafruit IO as described in this video. The Adafruit Learning site also has instructions on how you can take a newly emerging pathway to set up your Raspberry Pi as a Home Assistant. Unlike IFTTT or Samsung Smart Things, your data can remain local, not needing to tie in with the Internet, or can be used in combination with the secured Adafruit IO to add in remote access. And for those comfortable in CircuitPython who want to test out an open-source web application that includes data cleaning and transformation, numerical simulation, statistical modeling, data visualization, and machine learning, still another adventure could include CircuitPython with Jupyter Notebooks (as seen in this video) as a first exploration of how machine learning and weak artificial intelligence could be brought into these works. Whats next? For those who choose this adventure, how might you now use your Internet of Things to prototype a way you could say something, do something to get in good trouble? Wrap Up It is highly recommended that even though many readers may not be part of a current community inquiry project or program, you still hopefully have a means to enter into a community of practice to collaboratively work on this adventure. Perhaps this community of practice brings in some clear consensus on a single small project, or on a larger overarching project in which several different adventures could serve as a means to address the larger project goals. But core is to advance your sociotechnical skills through this final adventure in a way that prepares you for a deeper, participatory action research community inquiry adventure in community, with community, for community personally and professionally throughout your lifetime. Whatever the specific adventure, also be sure to consider regularly how many of the technical instructions leave unconsidered the embedded social dimensions of technologies that are continuously in tension with the limits and constraints to social justice parameters. Unconsidered, we likely further algorithms of oppression in our personal and professional practices. If you currently do not have rich diversity within your community of practice, work to outline clearly how diversity would be brought into the collective leadership to assure this is the good trouble to which the late John Lewis refers. 362 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Comprehension Check Given you are now choosing your own adventure based on your own considerations of the technical and information search skills still need some introductory development, its time for you to also create your own comprehension check. In choosing your adventure, youll be working towards a clearer focus formulation. The sociotechnical adventure you choose also serves to advance information collection to deepen your sense of direction and confidence moving forward in the profession. Take a few minutes now to create your own comprehension check that you can use in the coming days and weeks to affirm you are effectively meeting your learning objectives so that you can say something and do something moving forward personally and professionally so as to get in good trouble in support of personal and community social justice goals. Keep these on your desk or wall to glance at regularly as you work towards completion of the textbook activities, using these to help you keep interest and specificity of thought and actions in this last stretch. 4A: Recovering Community: Designing for Social Justice Background Knowledge Probe Design As transitive verb: 1. To create, fashion, execute, or construct according to plan a. To conceive and plan out in the mind b. To have as a purpose c. To devise for a specific function or end As intransitive verb: 1. To conceive or execute a plan 2. To draw, lay out, or prepare a design As noun: 1. a. A particular purpose or intention held in view by an individual or group b. deliberate purposive planning 2. A mental project or scheme in which means to an end are laid down 363 364 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 3. a. A deliberate undercover project or scheme b. Designs plural: aggressive or evil intent used with on or against> 4. A preliminary sketch or outline showing the main features of something to be executed 5. a. An underlying scheme that governs functioning, developing, or unfolding b. A plan or protocol for carrying out or accomplishing something (such as a scientific experiment); also: the process of preparing this 6. The arrangement of elements or details in a product or work of art 7. A decorative pattern 8. The creative art of executing aesthetic or functional designs Merriam-Webster, Design1 1. After reading this definition, put everything aside and pause for several minutes to reflect back on your journey through A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology. Explore especially the ways youve done aspects of design, whether as noun or verb, during this journey. 2. When you return, review the titles of each social and technical session within the Orange, Blue, and Rainbow Units. How does this compare to, and further shape, your initial reflections on your journey through this book? 3. Now skim the Introduction to the Book and the Orange, Blue, and Rainbow Overviews. How do these further shape your initial reflections on your journey through this book? 4. With these reflections in mind, take a few minutes to brainstorm and creatively document a vision or two you may have of a person-centered collective leadership design of a networked information system. The Designer in Each of Us! What if our discipline made the shift from a science approach (organizing our professional knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world) towards a design approach (identifying problems and addressing them with human-centered solutions)? Miguel A. Figueroa, Foreword to Design Thinking2 1. Merriam-Webster, "Design," accessed July 3, 2020, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/design. 2. Miguel A. Figueroa, Foreword to Design Thinking by Rachel Ivy Clarke (Chicago: ALA Neal-Schuman, 2020), vii. 4A: Recovering Community: Designing for Social Justice 365 To conclude, there are two possible futures for libraries: one is a passive future, in which libraries sit back and let others design solutions to information problems. The second one, and the one I know I prefer, is the one that libraries design. Design thinking is so pervasive in librarianship that libraries and librarians already have the power to create unique, powerful, value-laden experiences and help individuals, communities, and even societies solve information problems. Its time to embrace design as a fundamental component of librarianship in order to create a better future for all. Rachel Ivy Clarke, Design Thinking3 As noted by Merriam-Webster, design is a word with a range of definitions. To begin, lets consider this within a very broad framing: to make something, it first needs to be implicitly or explicitly designed. When we are trained within a profession to move from rote use of tools and techniques at our disposal in order to accomplish tasks, to instead expanding upon the tools and techniques to assure they work for different populations and contexts, we are being taught to design and make new things or to further innovate-in-use and remix existing things. We have moved from use to design. We all design personally and professionally to some extent or another. But only some of us are formally given the job description of designer. As weve journeyed through the Units of this textbook, weve been immersed within a deep hands-on social + technical dive into sociotechnical artifacts including electronics, software, and networks culminating with what is hopefully now a more holistic understanding of networked information systems. Weve met, and made active use of, skillsets, frameworks, and standards employed by a wide range of information professionals in selecting, co-designing, appropriating, and innovating-in-use networked information systems. Throughout this deep dive, a central objective has been the development of a critical approach to sociotechnical artifacts and the advancement of community agency in appropriating technology to achieve individual and community development goals. Core is an intent to move away from information science professionals as passive recipients of networked information systems designed by others to address information problems, and instead build from our already existing professional power to create unique, powerful, valueladen experiences and help individuals, communities, and even societies solve information problems.4 Information science professionals and our patrons each move from use to design and back as needed to effectively take on information problems. In Design Thinking, Rachel Ivy Clarke notes: Supporting patrons has always been a key component of librarianship, which has prided itself on being a user-centered profession. Early American librarianship was rooted in service to library users with the goal of improving their lives through exposure to books, reading, and literacy. Reading was emphasized as a means of intellectual, moral, and social education and improvement. But this meant that the tools and services created by libraries for users were often based less on what users wanted to read and more on what librarians thought users should read; usually this meant classic, culturally uplifting texts in the Western literary canon. Although this agenda certainly had users at its center, today it is criticized for its cultural presumption and its imposition of certain values.5 3. Rachel Ivy Clarke, Design Thinking, Library Futures 4 (Chicago: ALA Neal-Schuman, 2020), 54. 4. Clarke, Design Thinking, 54. 5. Clarke, Design Thinking, 22-23. 366 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Especially beginning in the mid-twentieth century, efforts have been made to move from assumptions to investigations of what is actually needed and wanted, such as through the use of needs assessments. This form of design has been heavily influenced through user-centered design (UCD) in which design is based upon an explicit understanding of users, tasks, and environments; is driven and refined by user-centered evaluation; and addresses the whole user experience. The process involves users throughout the design and development process and it is iterative. And finally, the team includes multidisciplinary skills and perspectives.6 However, as noted by Sasha Costanza-Chock in Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need, Design always involves centering the desires and needs of some users over others. The choice of which users are at the center of any given UCD process is political, and it produces outcomes (designed interfaces, products, processes) that are better for some people than others (sometimes very much better, sometimes only marginally so). This is not in and of itself a problem. The problem is that, too often, this choice is not made explicit.7 Clarke adds, User-centered approaches, by their very name, focus on use: things like completing a task or accomplishing a goal. The word user reduces people to the use of a thing, rather than engaging with their experiences as human beings.8 While user-centered practices are works of design, user-centered design too easily results in the user being identified as an entity completing a task, ultimately a work of dehumanization. An alternate holistic approach incorporating empathetic techniques has emerged attempting to re-center human beings as individuals. Its a process that starts with the people youre designing for and ends with new solutions that are tailor made to suit their needs. Human-centered design (HCD) is all about building a deep empathy with the people youre designing for; generating tons of ideas; building a bunch of prototypes; sharing what youve made with the people youre designing for; and eventually putting your innovative new solution out in the world.9 A central aspect of human-centered design is to consider not only the actions of design work, but the thought processes that underly these actions. Design thinking, as described in this video, emerged as a term in the 1960s to describe this key aspect of design found across a wide range of design disciplines. Indeed, consider our own work throughout the sessions and units of this textbook, and youll find ongoing cycles of action-reflection praxis reading, watching, discussing + hands-on actions alone and within pairs/small groups + individual and corporate reflections. Together, these move us from use to design to broader thinking regarding design processes and the shapers of design and product. There is the risk that as with so many other concepts that reach popular use, design thinking is taken out of the more rigorous, extended work of design as a mental pat of congratulations for being thoughtful and empathetic while continuing a user-centered approach. And there is a risk that this design thinking is done in ways that shape design to conform to dominant narratives. But critically, strategically, and communally used, design thinking becomes a valuable mindset while working to resolve illdefined problems using critical abductive reasoning within a broader design justice approach as well explore in the next section. 6. "User-Centered Design Basics | Usability.Gov," U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, April 3, 2017. https://www.usability.gov/what-andwhy/user-centered-design.html. 7. Sasha Costanza-Chock, Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need, Information Policy (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2020), 77. https://design-justice.pubpub.org/. 8. Clarke, Design Thinking, 23-24. 9. Design Kit, "What is Human-Centered Design?", accessed July 17, 2020. https://www.designkit.org/human-centered-design. 4A: Recovering Community: Designing for Social Justice 367 In the 1990s, one of the lead faculty at the Stanford University Design School, David Kelley, also worked to bring design thinking into the field through the founding of IDEO, a global design and consultancy company. And through more recent funding by the Global Libraries program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, IDEO led to the creation of a Design Thinking for Libraries toolkit in collaboration with Chicago Public Library in the United States and Aarhus Public Libraries in Denmark. Libraries are a center for information access and serve to benefit their people in a wide range of ways. Over time, approaches and perspective have had to change to adapt to new opportunities and needs. But the challenges are real, complex, and varied within a rapidly evolving information landscape. Design thinking within the library context seeks to foster deeper understanding of the needs of patrons and to engage with communities in new ways. The design thinking processes listed in the toolkit bring forward a few formulas that might prove useful in moving from learning about the terms and concepts of digital technologies to considering ways these technologies can be further designed and remixed by the communities of practice of which you are a part or whom you are serving within a support and resource role. And as information scientists, the activity toolkit may also prove a useful base as we enter into collaborations with design professionals who bring to the collective leadership deeper formal training in design techniques, including form, composition, balance, typography, visual literacy, color theory, etc. In practice, its also helpful to include within the toolkit alternate terms to those within the Design Thinking framing, such as: Inspiration: Discovery, Interpretation, Empathize, Define Ideation: Ideate, Create, Prototype, Rapid Prototyping Iteration: Implementation, Experimentation, Deliverable, Test, Evolution And consider, too, that this design thinking framework itself is another way of considering the ongoing inquiry cycle done in community, with community, and for community that includes: Ask Investigate Create Discuss Reflection Ask Design Justice Library and information science is a profession dedicated to advancing the informed decision-making abilities of individuals, communities, and societies. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century: Libraries played a significant role by portraying themselves as socially uplifting agents, developing library services to meet the needs of European immigrant populations during the foundation years (19001917), or during the era of depression and war (19301945), and afterwards, where the focus was on economic recovery and revitalization. During these times, the library provided liberating directions for social justice outcomes in nurturing just and fair ideals, expanding the base of impact to include outreach populations, creating a service-based ethics in the profession, and forging partnerships with community-based social justice agencies towards common goals.10 10. Bharat Mehra, Kevin S. Rioux, and Kendra S. Albright, "Social Justice in Library and Information Science," in Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences (CRC Press, 2009), 4823. https://doi.org/10.1081/E-ELIS3-120044526. 368 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Bharat Mehra, Kevin S. Rioux, and Kendra S. Albright, Social Justice in Library and Information Science As the twentieth century came to an end and we entered the twenty-first century, these works also included community networking, community technology centers, digital literacy training, and addressing the digital divide. These included social justice activities and initiatives, even though the rhetoric and vocabulary of social justice had not been significantly incorporated into the mainstream profession.11 Mehra, Rioux, and Albright acknowledge there is no universally accepted definition for social justice, and moreover, social justice theory specific to library and information science is still within its infancy: Historically, social justice has been concerned with the tensions between: 1) the individuals right to choose her/his own ends; 2) conflicts with other individuals rights to make similar choices; and 3) the debate on individual rights vs. the good of the community.12 The lessons from the past are today providing libraries directions to develop a new approach that recognizes: 1. importance of outcome-based, socially relevant evaluation methods in assessing library services; 2. value of local experiences and ontologies and their representation into formalized organizational tools of information; and 3. necessity in building equitable partnering efforts with disenfranchised constituencies.13 Human-centered design has served as an important transition point from previous user-centered approaches to design in helping the information science profession move towards a person-centering of sociotechnical design, implementation, and use. This textbook builds from over 20 years of social justice-oriented teaching, research, and practice that has included extensive use of service projects, community inquiry, and engaged scholarship to bring together the school and community to advance community goals. But a 2008 ethnographic study of my course Introduction to Networked Information Systems conducted by Junghyun An found that without greater criticality, incorporation of human-centered design techniques and social justice-oriented pedagogies and goals into design studio service projects too easily left true action-reflection praxis at a superficial level.14 Ans valuable study underlined important aspects, and highlighted key shortcomings, of my own ongoing research that has emphasized the essential need for critical ongoing thinking regarding the various social issues and problems within our own technology design and use practices, as well as those of others shaping these technologies. And of central importance is that these reflections include collaborative discussions within our own profession and related professions, and also very importantly with the wider range of stakeholders, especially those marginalized and oppressed via the shaping that is embedded within and emerges from these technologies. 11. Mehra et al., "Social Justice in Library and Information Science," 4823. 12. Mehra, Rioux, and Albright, "Social Justice in Library and Information Science," 4820. 13. Mehra, Rioux, and Albright, "Social Justice in Library and Information Science," 4824. 14. Junghyun An, "Service Learning in Postsecondary Technology Education: Educational Promises and Challenges in Student Values Development," University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. https://hdl.handle.net/2142/17387. 4A: Recovering Community: Designing for Social Justice 369 This textbook was birthed through deep nights of the soul that especially emerged beginning in the late 2000s. Rather than learning-by-doing specifically as a service-learning action, it now seeks to be a learning-by-doing action-reflection praxis as a primer for true ongoing professional design justice works. The action-reflection learning-by-doing praxis of this textbook happens as we use our deepening understanding of the components and concepts underlying electronics, software, and networks to build a picture, or codification, of these artifacts within real situations and people, including those forgotten and marginalized. It happens as we then work to decodify the artifacts and associated codes by looking at certain aspects in order to build a new lens on the larger sociotechnical artifacts. It continues to happen as, through this work of action and reflection, we reach towards a recodification to move from magical thinking about networked information systems that are designed by others for our passive professional use to meet patron needs, and instead envision an alternate, social justice path for our profession that centers around community inquiry and collective leadership engaging all members of local communities. But for this to happen, we need to assure our human-centered design thinking is centered within a design justice approach. Costanza-Chock argues that this work is: about the relationship between design and power. Its about the growing community of designers, developers, technologists, scholars, educators, community organizers, and many others who are working to examine and transform design values, practices, narratives, sites, and pedagogies so that they dont continue to reinforce interlocking systems of structural inequality. Its about design, social justice, and the dynamics of domination and resistance at personal, community, and institutional levels. In essence, its a call for us to heed the growing critiques of the ways that design (of images, objects, software, algorithms, sociotechnical systems, the built environment, indeed, everything we make) too often contributes to the reproduction of systemic oppression. Most of all, it is an invitation to build a better world, a world where many worlds fit; linked worlds of collective liberation and ecological sustainability.15 Costanza-Chock works towards a recognition that development of new information and communication technologies (ICT) needs to not only take shape in Silicon Valley, they also emerge from marginalized communities and social movements, both during waves of spectacular protest activity and also in everyday life, in order to advance the growing conversation about the pitfalls and possibilities of design as a tool for social transformation.16 The Design Justice Network and its underlying principles are central to Costanza-Chocks vision. Considered part of a living document, these principles emerged over several years of work as part of the Allied Media Conference held in Detroit. As of a summer 2018 update, the Design Justice Network Principles are: Design mediates so much of our realities and has tremendous impact on our lives, yet very few of us participate in design processes. In particular, the people who are most adversely affected by design decisions about visual culture, new technologies, the planning of our communities, or the structure of our political and economic systems tend to have the least influence on those decisions and how they are made. 15. Costanza-Chock, Design Justice, preface, https://design-justice.pubpub.org/. 16. Costanza-Chock, Design Justice, preface, https://design-justice.pubpub.org/. 370 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Design justice rethinks design processes, centers people who are normally marginalized by design, and uses collaborative, creative practices to address the deepest challenges our communities face. Principle 1: We use design to sustain, heal, and empower our communities, as well as to seek liberation from exploitative and oppressive systems. Principle 2: We center the voices of those who are directly impacted by the outcomes of the design process. Principle 3: We prioritize designs impact on the community over the intentions of the designer. Principle 4: We view change as emergent from an accountable, accessible, and collaborative process, rather than as a point at the end of a process.17 Principle 5: We see the role of the designer as a facilitator rather than an expert. Principle 6: We believe that everyone is an expert based on their own lived experience, and that we all have unique and brilliant contributions to bring to a design process. Principle 7: We share design knowledge and tools with our communities. Principle 8: We work towards sustainable, community-led and -controlled outcomes. Principle 9: We work towards non-exploitative solutions that reconnect us to the earth and to each other. Principle 10: Before seeking new design solutions, we look for what is already working at the community level. We honor and uplift traditional, indigenous, and local knowledge and practices. Design Justice Network, Design Justice Network Principles18 Design justice re-centers the role of digital literacy training using what Virginia Eubanks calls popular technology. Introduced in her 2007 article Popular technology: exploring inequality in the information economy and expanded further in her books Digital Dead End (2011) and Automating Inequality (2017), Eubanks systematically investigates the ways high-tech tools and jobs continue and expand social inequalities within the United States. To move beyond this dominant narrative, Eubanks brings forward an alternative digital literacy agenda that make[s] technology analysis and development both relevant and empowering to people who live in persistent poverty, by drawing on traditions of popular education in South America (articulated by Paulo Freire) and the United States (articulated by Myles Horton and the Highlander Research and Education Center).19 Eubanks underlines that as a digital literacy strategy, popular technology reminds us that technology is not a destiny but a site of struggle.20 A popular technology approach: 17. This principle was inspired by and adapted from the Allied Media Network Principles. 18. Design Justice Network, "Design Justice Network Principles," accessed July 17, 2020. https://designjustice.org/read-the-principles. 19. Eubanks, Virginia. "Popular Technology: Exploring Inequality in the Information Economy." Science and Public Policy 34, no. 2 (March 1, 2007): 131. https://doi.org/10.3152/030234207X193592. 20. Virginia Eubanks, Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the Information Age (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2011), 155. 4A: Recovering Community: Designing for Social Justice 371 Resists oppression in the form of exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence; Draws on cognitive, cultural, and institutional difference as a resource; and Engages in participatory decision making in agenda setting, design, implementation, and evaluation. In the Laura Flanders Show episode below, Eubanks further introduces Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor before describing the 2018 Allied Media Conference and the Our Data Bodies project, developed in collaboration with members of the Detroit Community Technology Project. These all serve as examples of coalition work and collaboration that should be the essential centering of all radically reconsidered digital literacy training, technology design, and sociotechnical artifact and system implementation. Eubanks highlights the Allied Media Conference as an incredible space where we have difficult conversations about media, technology, and social justice. But the folks who are here are makers. Theyre organizers, theyre activists, so they make spaces and they make movements. But they also make stuff. She highlights the mathwashing that leads us to believe things, issues, and solutions are more complicated than we can handle: Its true there might be a really technically complicated system that takes a little bit of breaking down for us to understand, but we understand the problems and we understand the solutions and we understand actually even some of the really complicated technologies that are out there once we have the language, the basic language to do it. View this video to hear Eubanks story. The Design Studio Makerspaces, Tinkering Studios, Fab Labs, and other creative spaces have become increasingly commonplace as workspaces bringing people together to engage in conceiving, designing, and developing new artifacts. They often incorporate both traditional crafts and also emerging digitally-based crafts. Beyond general action-reflection that includes various inspiration, ideation, iteration and act, investigate, create, discuss, reflect cycles, a key component of effective design is the critique process. Clarke describes the critique in Design Thinking: Critique is a rigorous form of evaluation that is central to the discipline of design. Critique may call to mind scary memories of harsh, negative criticism, perhaps in front of peers, like reading a poem aloud in a creative writing class only to have the instructor and classmates rip it to shreds. However, well-executed design critique is not subjective negativity. Critique is not about whether you like a design or approve of its aesthetics. A good critique says why something does or does not work for that individual. It asks questions and elicits the rationale for a design decision. A critique is about discovering whats not working in order to make a design better. It can be a hard process to learn to take critique well, and even harder to learn to give a critique well. The critique of a design especially one you are emotionally invested in can feel like a personal blow. This is why its important to seek critique throughout the design process.21 Critique can take many different forms, and it is often helpful to make strategic use of selected forms at different points within the design process. The following is a list of some of these Ive found helpful within my community informatics design studios: 21. Clarke, Design Thinking, 44. 372 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Table 2. The design critique as a model of distributed learning.22 Critique Brief Definition Type Mapped to Traditional Academic Practice Formal Structured and summative presentation formats: peer-reviewed journals, advanced degree oral defense Public, invited, summative, evaluation events Seminar/ Semipublic, less formal, more generative, but occasionally Group evaluative Symposium format in which development of ideas or products is stressed as a group Desk Conducted with mentor or instructor, highly generative, modeling of cognitive behavior potential for incidental learning Modeling for graduate students, professional participation, individualized instruction Peer Highly informal, generative, voluntary or on request Structured, scaffolded critique; informal sharing or practice of work; 3-person critique Rooted in the apprentice model of learning in which students study with master designers or artists to develop their craft, design studio classes emphasize learning by doing, often through community-based design problems. It has been an integral pedagogy in practitioner-based fields such as architecture, urban planning, and fine and applied arts. Studio-based learning aligns closely with Deweys concept of experiential learning. For instance, Dewey emphasized the importance of helping students shape their purpose for a given activity by constructing a plan based on their impulses, past experiences and community knowledge to maximally shape the current learning environment. In this way, teachers act more like guides to assist students in developing and implementing their design choices. Students and instructors work together within a studio space that serves as a model of professional practice. Regular written reflections also help students think more deeply about the paths that lead them to their final project designs. 22. Adapted from "Application of critique elements in academic practice and instructional design" Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012. From: Brad Hokanson, "The Design Critique as a Model for Distributed Learning," in The Next Generation of Distance Education: Unconstrained Learning, eds. Leslie Moller and Jason B. Huett (Boston, MA: Springer US, 2012), 7183. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1785-9_5. 4A: Recovering Community: Designing for Social Justice 373 Much of the service-learning coursework that has guided the creation of this textbook emerged originally through my work as part of the East St. Louis Action Research Project (ESLARP), one of the oldest communityuniversity partnership programs in the United States. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was pushed to engage with the East St. Louis community, situated 175 miles away, when in 1987 State Representative Whyvetter Young aggressively worked to bring the University into this most devastated city in the state to provide essential assistance through participatory action research (PAR) projects in community, with community, doing collective inquiry and experimentation grounded in lived experiences and social histories. Later, Recreation Sports and Tourism, Library and Information Science, and Law joined the collaboration.23 It was here that I first began unwittingly making use of design studio techniques as I watched the works of other university instructors, and later beginning a series of community-university collaborations to develop and introduce to the LIS profession a formal Community Informatics Studio course that centralizes place-making and popular technology workshops within which sociotechnical artifact design and implementation serves a valuable supporting role.24 This aligns strongly with the person-centered, hands-on guide for working with information and communications technologies as covered in this textbook, and provides a potential tool for establishing and further advancing design justice as a part of our ongoing community inquiry activities in daily professional field practices. Whether in the Makerspace or Tinker Studio, as part of design justice projects and networks, or in a community center meeting room, you have knowingly or unknowingly joined into a design studio. While some will have had formal training as designers, all of us bring in our lived experiences doing design practices. These movements are working to break down barriers to full participation in the analog and digital realms of sociotechnical artifacts and advance empowerment for all. But as Angela Calabrese Barton and Edna Tan note in STEM-Rich Maker Learning: Designing for Equity with Youth of Color: At the same time, it is important to ask questions about how the movement defines who makers are, what makers do, what kinds of access makers need to tools and opportunities to keep making. These questions cannot be divorced from considering the social, racial, gendered, economic, and political conditions in which particular makers are bound. Espousing an egalitarian vision of making may symbolically level the playing field, while the reality is that access and opportunities to make for some groups of the population continue to remain sporadic.25 Barton and Tan further note: It is always rooted in the history and geographies of young peoples lives and in the broader context of making and makerspaces in the United States and beyond.26 Making and design practices and expertise build through iterative and incremental works. But what types of practices and expertise are built? How does this go on to impact the longer-term shaping of people, communities, and societies? For us to move from social justice intent to truer forms of social justice practices, it is essential for the information science profession to continue our progression implementing design justice principles and practices. 23. A very insightful reflection on this history of ESLARP can be found here: Janni Sorensen and Laura Lawson, "Evolution in Partnership: Lessons from the East St Louis Action Research Project," Action Research 10, no. 2 (June 2012): 15069. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476750311424944. 24. Martin Wolske, Deven Gibbs, Adam Kehoe, Vera Jones, and Sharon Irish, "Outcome of Applying Evidence-Based Design to Public Computing Centers: A Preliminary Study," The Journal of Community Informatics 9, no. 1 (November 25, 2012). http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/811. Martin Wolske, Colin Rhinesmith, and Beth Kumar, "Community Informatics Studio: Designing Experiential Learning to Support Teaching, Research, and Practice," Journal of Education for Library and Information Science 55, no. 2 (April 2014): 16677. http://hdl.handle.net/2142/48952. 25. Angela Calabrese Barton and Edna Tan, STEM-Rich Maker Learning: Designing for Equity with Youth of Color (New York: Teachers College Press, 2018), 1-2. 26. Calabrese Barton and Tan, STEM-Rich Maker Learning, 107. 374 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology This chapter serves as a brief general introduction to design thinking, design principles, and design processes, and the ways these need to center around design justice. To do this, Costanza-Chock notes that design justice builds on, but also differs in important ways from, related approaches such as value-sensitive design, universal design, and inclusive design.27 Others, too, are finding it important to bring together a breadth of design approaches while also considering ways designing for values will need to differ from certain approaches given current contexts. Located in The Netherlands, Delft Design for Values Institute brings together a diversity of design approaches, theoretical backgrounds, considered values, and application domains within the design field more broadly. Internal and external value dynamics across the broad spectrum of stakeholders need to be grasped and connected to achieve a more inclusive and successful design. Pieter Vermaas et al. note ways increased attention in design for values of users and of society at large has found its way also to design methodology.28 As seen in this video, modern design methods have moved from a previous focus on functionalities, affordances, and disaffordances, to contemporary methods that use methodologies such as ethnographic research to clarify the values at play in the problems of users, for instance regarding conflicting values of safety and privacy. To this end, a common design method bringing together user perspectives and userdriven design is participatory design. But as the scale of design outcomes expands, it is sometimes necessary to move beyond user-driven user perspective change, to broader user-driven social perspective change using transformation design methods to broaden the distribution of power within the decision-making process and bring forward a broader social perspective, as may be the case in the design of backbone Internet services used to connect multiple First Nations first-mile local area networks. As the complexity continues to increase, it becomes ever more challenging for design to be directly user-driven, and therefore design for values sometimes uses larger-scale, designer-driven social implication design methods. Still, even as complexity increases, as Fischer and Herrmann note in Meta-Design: Transforming and Enriching the Design and Use of Socio-Technical Systems, a meta-design framing can be used to design for design after design, facilitating user-as-designer, or what Bruce et al. call innovation-in-use, at use time of a product.29 Community technology design, as with many other areas of design, requires the bringing together of many different fields of research and practice that also include human-computer interaction (HCI), design studies, computer science, community studies, and community informatics. This is not something the information sciences profession can do in a silo. For all involved, concerns continue to grow regarding the cultural black box in community technology design, expanding on the existing range of social shaping of technology concerns that have been raised throughout this textbook.30 It is for this reason that design justice might provide an essential central gathering point if we are to rapidly transition from a thing-oriented society to a person-centered society. 27. Costanza-Chock, Design Justice, 46. 28. Pieter E. Vermaas, Paul Hekkert, Nomi Manders-Huits, and Nynke Tromp, "Design Methods in Design for Values," in Handbook of Ethics, Values, and Technological Design: Sources, Theory, Values and Application Domains, eds. Jeroen van den Hoven, Pieter E. Vermaas, and Ibo van de Poel (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2015), 179201. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6970-0_10. 29. Gerhard Fischer and Thomas Herrmann, "Socio-Technical Systems: A Meta-Design Perspective," International Journal for Sociotechnology and Knowledge Development 3, no. 1 (2011): 133. http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/~gerhard/papers/2010/journal-socio-ts.pdf. Bertram C. Bruce, Andee Rubin, and Junghyun An, "Situated Evaluation of Socio-Technical Systems," in Handbook of Research on Socio-Technical Design and Social Networking Systems, eds. Brian Whitworth and Aldo de Moor, 2:68598. Information Science Reference (Hershey, PA: IGI Global), 2009. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60566-264-0. 30. For more on this idea, see: Amalia Sabiescu, Aldo de Moor, and Nemanja Memarovic, "Opening up the Culture Black Box in Community Technology Design," AI & Society 34, no. 3 (September 1, 2019): 393402. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-019-00904-z. 4A: Recovering Community: Designing for Social Justice Lesson Plan This session especially focuses on design frameworks and approaches that 1) recognize the designer in each of us, and 2) the essential need for an integration and practice of design to advance the recovery of community. As with all aspects of popular education, these cycles do not bring us to an end-point, but rather bring us to new starting points as we continue true social justice works. It is for this reason that popular technology training and design justice-related processes cannot be done exclusively, or sometimes even primarily, within formal education and professional practices. But where and how this should be done is not something that can be taught. It is something that needs to be discovered in community, with community, and for community. Core to the lesson plan for this session, then, is an opening up for you to discover individually and, to the extent possible within your communities, what introductory development of design frameworks and processes you specifically still need. Essential Resources: This article is a 2014 Keynote given at the Illinois State University Critical Media Literacy Conference, and was written by five University of Illinois students who tested the feasibility of several of the key aspects of the De-mystifying Technology workshop framework that is now represented in this book. This feasibility was tested as part of a participatory action research design process in community and with community as part of a Community Informatics Studio course, and gives a valuable example of the critical design process in action. Stangl, Angela; Haniya, Samaa; Naples, Kim; McCoy, Casey; and Ransberger, Rebecca, Promoting Digital Literacy: The De-mystifying Technology Workshop for Families (2020). Critical Media Literacy Conference. https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/criticalmedialiteracy/2014/Keynote/2 The following design case studies and toolkits should be seen as some possible pathways from which you could choose in support of your own lesson plan. PressBooks also provides an annotation tool that may prove useful to add in further essential resources for you individually, or that you share with others as helpful. Lorini, Maria Rosa, Amalia Sabiescu, and Nemanja Memarovic. Collective Digital Storytelling in Community-Based Co-Design Projects: An Emergent Approach. The Journal of Community Informatics 13, no. 1 (2017): 10936. http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/1362. This resource from the Orange Unit is a case study not just of digital storytelling, but also more broadly within co-design projects. Strohmayer, Angelika, and Janis Meissner. We Had Tough Times, but Weve Sort of Sewn Our Way through It: The Partnership Quilt. XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students 24, no. 375 376 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 2 (December 19, 2017): 4851. https://doi.org/10.1145/3155128. Also from the Orange Unit, this case study especially highlights a feminist framework for human-centered computing and HCI. Cumbula, Salomao David, Amalia Sabiescu, and Lorenzo Cantoni. Community Design: A Collaborative Approach for Social Integration. The Journal of Community Informatics 13, no. 1 (March 22, 2017). http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/1209. This case study highlights a successful co-design and implementation of a community multimedia center, and notes ways that broader-scale research and development projects can be done in ways that also specifically bring local stakeholders into the design process. FirstMile. Community Stories, 2016. http://firstmile.ca/community-stories-2/ and FirstMile. Free Online Course: Colonialism and the e-Community, 2016. http://firstmile.ca/free-online-course/. The First Mile consortium of First Nations have worked since 2005 to bring Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to remote and rural First Nations using a critical lens. As noted in the parent webpage, these stories outline innovative, industry-leading uses of ICTs and broadband by First Nations communities and organizations in areas including art, education, and health. The free online course on Indigenous peoples and the e-Community is a living resource that provides essential background information for all seeking to reframe ICT within this critical lens. de Moor, Aldo. Citizen Sensing Communities: From Individual Empowerment to Collective Impact, In Proceedings of the 17th CIRN Conference, November 6-8, 2019, 99101. Monash Centre, Prato, Italy. https://www.monash.edu/it/hcc/research/digital-equity/prato-conferences and de Moor, Aldo. Increasing the Collective Impact of Climate Action with Participatory Community Network Mapping. Livingmaps Review no. 8 (April 29, 2020). http://livingmaps.review/journal/ index.php/LMR/article/view/197. These two articles provide case studies highlighting how a research consultancy firm can serve an essential role in building collaborative common ground between stakeholders in an organization, network, or community. Commotion Wireless. Where Its Used. Accessed July 22, 2020. https://commotionwireless.net/ about/where-its-used/ and Commotion Wireless. Commotion Construction Kit Planning. Accessed July 22, 2020. https://commotionwireless.net/docs/cck/planning/. These case studies and design activity are part of a larger toolkit of free, open-source communication technologies and design processes leading to establishment of community wireless mesh networks. M-Lab. What Is Measurement Lab? Accessed July 22, 2020. https://www.measurementlab.net/ 4A: Recovering Community: Designing for Social Justice about/ and M-Lab. Papers, Presentations, and Regulator Filings, Accessed July 22, 2020. https://www.measurementlab.net/publications/.M-Lab. Internet Measurement Tests. Accessed July 22, 2020. https://www.measurementlab.net/tests/. These tools and publications are not specific to design processes, but rather provide an essential toolkit for information collection as part of the information search process. Its use has included work within public library settings. This information can then be incorporated into data storytelling that both helps within a collective leadership design process and also within the structuring of community group critiques. Professional Journal Reflections: 1. Return now to the reflections, brainstorming, and vision documentation of the Background Knowledge Probe at the start of this session. What has remained constant and what has transformed within those as youve reviewed the session materials and entered into a critique? 2. Review your reflections from session three of the Rainbow Unit. Is there anything you would further revise as you explored past reflections within the context of session three and now session four? 3. What are some additional thoughts regarding next steps you need to take individually and within your communities of practice in response to your journey through A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology? 377 4B: Community-Centered Design Design Introduction My philosophy is very simple: When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to stand up, you have to say something, you have to do something. My mother told me over and over again when I went off to school not to get into trouble but I told her that I got into a good trouble, necessary trouble. Even today I tell people, We need to get in good trouble. John Lewis, interviewed by Valerie Jackson for StoryCorps1 In this concluding session of the Rainbow Unit, we have begun by exploring some ways design can be used to recover community through design thinking, design justice, and the community informatics design studios and design for values approaches. These are an essential part of working towards good trouble. Returning now to your chosen person-centered networked information systems adventure from session three, what design considerations need to be (further) integrated into the inspiration, ideation, and iteration process to more deeply foster and embed a person-centered community technology design so as to truly incorporate a design justice framework? The Lesson Plan for this session lists a number of design process materials and design case study resources within the Essential Resources section. In session three you chose your own adventure based on your focus formulation and information collection goals. In this session, use these Essential Resources as a starting point for considering effective ways you would add design into these adventures. 1. John Lewis and Valerie Jackson, "The Boy From Troy: How Dr. King Inspired A Young John Lewis," StoryCorps, February 20, 2018. https://storycorps.org/stories/the-boy-from-troy-how-dr-king-inspired-a-young-john-lewis/. 378 4B: Community-Centered Design 379 The sixth and final stage within Carol Kuhlthaus information search process is presentation, which leads to feelings of satisfaction or disappointment through actions of documenting. When this presentation stage is brought into the recurring process of the design critique, this sixth stage helps to further refine and/or redirect stages four and five of the information search process, further advancing the overall design process at the same time. Lets bring all this together with a design critique exercise. The Design Critique Design Justice: the importance of merging community informatics studio, community inquiry, and collective leadership with design thinking. As noted in the first part of this session, critique is an essential, rigorous form of evaluation within design, something used throughout the design process. There are many different forms from very informal peer critiques to formal evaluation events. For this exercise, an initial 3-person critique would be ideal. If you are in a space in which there are at least three different design teams working on different person-centered network information system adventures, this would be the highly recommended option. But in all contexts and spaces, some form of informal sharing and feedback request serves as a very important generative tool in the design process. Steps 1. Before entering into a peer critique, gather as a team to reflect on the current cycle of design. 380 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology What are the overall outcome objectives of this design adventure? What are some of the shapers that have led to these goals? What inspirations and ideations shaped the iteration processes of the current design cycle. Which of the iterations were left behind before testing was done? What iterations were very briefly tested? What iterations continued moving forward? What aspects of the community inquiry cycle were incorporated into this design cycle beyond creation of prototypes? Who served in leadership during the community inquiry process? What design approaches were used within this cycle of design? Some to consider include: user-centered design, human-centered design, value-sensitive design, universal design, inclusive design, participatory action research/participatory design, transformation design, and social implication design. What design techniques beyond those specific to those weve incorporated to date centered around hardware, software, and networks, were incorporated within this cycle? These might include: form, composition, balance, typography, visual literacy, color theory, among others. 2. Peer critiques are informal, but that doesnt mean they are unstructured. With these reflections in hand, create the structure and scaffolding by preparing a five-minute design pitch strategically bringing these reflections together in a way that facilitates effective feedback. Given its informality, a slide deck and presentation notes are generally not needed in this form of critique. a. If this is a 3-person peer critique, the next step is to gather with two other people, each from a different team. i. One team member begins with their five-minute pitch and feedback request. ii. After the five-minute pitch, the two others then ask for additional details and clarifications over the next five minutes. iii. For the third five-minute period, the first person turns their back to the other two to assure they only take notes while the other two members provide a critique of the design inspiration, ideation(s), and iteration(s) presented initially. iv. The peer critique of presenter one finishes with five minutes of open discussion. v. Member two then has 20 minutes to repeat the process used for member one. This is then repeated one last time with member three. b. There are many physical and online spaces in which we have an opportunity to enter into informal sharing and feedback. There may be patrons with whom you regularly chat and so may have an opportunity to bounce some ideas off them in a more structured way to get helpful critique. There may be opportunities for staff gatherings to bring this into the work community of practice. Teen spaces, especially when developed to include a teen advisory group, are often a great resource for peer critiques, as are other advisory groups. Use the 4B: Community-Centered Design 381 steps listed above as a starting point for setting up the structure to be used in these and other alternative peer critique spaces. Regardless of the path chosen, there is great value in bringing multiple peer critiques back to the team for review and the launch of the next design thinking cycle. 1. As design cycles continue, its highly recommended that desk and seminar/group critiques also be brought into the larger design process. In desk critiques, instructors, teaching assistants, and/or mentors come together to model cognitive, socioemotional, and critical social + technical skills along with professional practice. The team meets in person or online with those leading the desk critique, providing a five- to 10-minute presentation. The rest of the critique is more flexible to assure highly generative modeling. In seminar and group critiques, the class as a whole, potentially joined by a juried panel, view a structured and summative presentation by the team using a symposium format. When a juried panel is in attendance, they first provide a more formal peer-review to further development of ideas and product deliverables as well as to provide evaluative feedback. In addition, all in attendance provide additional development of ideas and product deliverables as a group. Diving Deeper For there to be design justice, it is important to consider all ways possible to bring diverse community knowledge and cultural wealth to bear in the process. Indeed, as weve seen throughout the textbook, innovative design and redesign of technologies so often forces into hiding the expansive, diverse works of design and creation of technology done by each human. As Costanza-Chock notes: Design justice as a framework recognizes the universality of design as a human activity. As noted in the introduction, design means to make a mark, make a plan, or problem-solve; all human beings thus participate in design. However, though all humans design, not everyone gets paid to do so. Intersectional inequality systematically structures paid professional design work. Professional design jobs in nearly all fields are disproportionately allocated to people who occupy highly privileged locations within the matrix of domination. At the same time, the numerous expert designers and technologists who are not wealthy and/or educationally privileged white cis men have often been ignored, their labor appropriated, and their stories erased from the history of technology.2 Sasha Costanza-Chock, Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need 2. Sasha Costanza-Chock, Design Justice: Community-Led Practices to Build the Worlds We Need, Information Policy (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2020), 73. https://design-justice.pubpub.org/. 382 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology As information science professionals, we are paid not to just passively and strictly follow a list of tasks verbatim, but to creatively innovate-in-use our designated activities in ways that meet the needs of our patrons. If we are to truly advance stated and emerging social justice parameters within our profession, we first need to move from user-centered design to human-centered design as part of our daily practices. But from here, we need to also move from general design thinking to an essential design justice framing. Funding to pay community members as members of the design team is an essential feature to advance social justice objectives, but one too often difficult to carry out in practice. In addition, many designers have other commitments to work, community, and family that keep them from daily participation. Ive found at times an effective middle ground is to embed collective leadership within this process through invitation (with provision of funds, transport, and food to every extent possible) of community members who bring essential community knowledge and cultural wealth to bear within the critique process itself. Wrap Up Many technical instructions leave unconsidered the embedded social dimensions of technologies that are continuously in tension with the limits and constraints to social justice parameters. Unconsidered, we likely further algorithms of oppression in our personal and professional practices. This is also true of design processes, and is why design justice has been emphasized so strongly throughout session four. And as noted in the session three Wrap Up, if you currently do not have rich diversity within your community of practice, work to outline clearly how diversity would be brought into the collective leadership to assure this is the good trouble to which the late John Lewis refers. Comprehension Check Return again to the comprehension check you developed for yourself at the end of session three. Take some time now to add to this some specifics related to design. What are the specific design-centered comprehension checks you are seeking to assure are reaching the yet enough point of introductory development? Rainbow Unit Review 383 384 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Rainbow Unit Review 385 386 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Rainbow Unit Review 387 388 A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Dinesh Rathi, Henry Grob, Vandana Singh, and Martin Wolske Introducing the Unix Command Line Jump to a section: Listing and creating files and directories Copying files Searching files Redirection Wildcards Filename conventions File system security Processes and jobs A starting list of common Unix terminal commands Most of the time, our daily work on computers is done through a graphical user interface (GUI) in which we do some typing of text in combination with the clicking of drop-down menus and option buttons. Those drop-downs and option buttons hide the wide range of text that is actually executed through those mostly simpler clicks we make.But sometimes we need greater control than is provided through those menus and buttons, which have been shaped in part to simplify at the cost of reducing flexibility. And sometimes we need to just quickly hop into a computer to do something and then pop right back out. In these cases, and especially when done remotely from another computer, the terminal interface is a much faster alternative. For this reason, Unix and Unix-based Operating Systems like MacOS and Linux have always included at their core a Command Line Interface (CLI) such as a terminal window. While for most of its existence Microsoft pushed people to ignore their command prompt alternative and to instead strictly work within the graphical user interface, beginning with Windows 7, Microsoft has included their PowerShell command-line shell and scripting language. Listing files and directories In Linux and Unix Operating Systems, commands start with the command itself, for instance: ls If you type in the ls command, youll get a list of files, folders, and directories. 389 390 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Many commands also have options, switches, or flags. For instance, the ls command has many options you can use, including the -a to list all files, including those that start with a period to keep them a little more hidden. As another example, if we add not just a -a but also a -l to an ls, we can have all files listed in a long format using option grouping. Introducing the Unix Command Line | 391 While ls is the basic command, and ls -la is the command with options, we can also add in arguments at the end, for instance, to get a listing of files, folders, and directories within a specific directory. As an example: ls -la / This command would give us the list of files, folders, and directories within the very top of the tree structure. 392 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology To create an empty or blank file, use the touch command, followed by the name and extension of the new file: touch mynewfile.txt To create a new directory, use the mkdir command, followed by the name of the new directory you would like to create: mkdir cstories Introducing the Unix Command Line | 393 Copying Files To move a file from one place to another, use the mv command. This has the effect of moving rather than copying the file, so you end up with only one file rather than two. It can also be used to rename a file by moving the file to the same directory but giving it a different name. mv file1 file2 This command moves (or renames) file1 to file2. Remove Files and Directories To delete (remove) a file, use the rm command. As an example, we are going to create a file and then delete it. Type the following: $ touch tempfile.txt $ ls $ rm tempfile.txt $ ls The ls command is used first to check if it has created the file and second to check if it has deleted the file. You can use the rmdir command to remove a directory (make sure it is empty first). Note that Unix will not let you remove a non-empty directory. Create a directory called tempstuff using mkdir, then remove it using the rmdir command. Searching the contents of a file Using less, you can search though a text file for a keyword (pattern). For example, to search through a file called science.txt for the word science, type: $ less science.txt Then, while still running less (i.e., dont press [q] to quit), type a forward slash [/] followed by the word to search: /science As you can see, less finds and highlights the keyword. Type [n] to search for the next occurrence of the word. Another powerful search tool is grep, one of many standard Unix utilities. It searches files for specified words or patterns. First clear the screen, then type: $ grep science science.txt 394 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology As you can see, grep has printed out each line containing the word science. Or has it? Try typing: $ grep Science science.txt The grep command is case sensitive; it distinguishes between Science and science. To ignore upper/lower case distinctions, use the -i flag: $ grep -i science science.txt To search for a phrase or pattern, you must enclose it in single quotes (the apostrophe symbol). For example, to search for spinning top, type: $ grep -i 'spinning top' science.txt Some of the other options of grep are: -v display those lines that do NOT match. -n precede each matching line with the line number. -c print only the total count of matched lines. Try some of them and see the different results. Dont forget, you can use more than one option at a time, for example, the command to find the number of lines without the words science or Science is: $ grep -ivc science science.txt Redirection Most processes initiated by Unix commands write to the standard output (that is, they write to the terminal screen). Many take their input from the standard input (that is, they read it from the keyboard). There is also the standard error, where processes write their error messages, by default, to the terminal screen. We have already seen one use of the cat command to write the contents of a file to the screen. Now type cat without specifing a file to read: $ cat Then type a few words on the keyboard and press the [Return] key. Finally hold the [Ctrl] key down and press [d] (written as ^D for short) to end the input. What has happened? If you run the cat command without specifing a file to read, it reads the standard input (the keyboard), and on receiving theend of file (^D), copies it to the standard output (the screen). In Unix, we can redirect both the input and the output of commands. Introducing the Unix Command Line | 395 Redirecting the Output We use the > symbol to redirect the output of a command. For example, to create a file called list1, containing a list of fruit, type: $ cat > list1 Then type in the names of some fruit. Press [Return] after each one. pear banana apple ^D (Control D to stop) What happens is the cat command reads the standard input (the keyboard) and the > redirects the output, which normally goes to the screen, into a file called list1. To read the contents of the file, type: $ cat list1 Using the above method, create another file called list2. Add the following fruit to the file: orange, plum, mango, grapefruit. The form >> appends additional output to a file. So to add more items to the file list1, type: $ cat >> list1 Then type in the names of more fruit: peach grape orange ^D (Control D to stop) To read the contents of the file, type: $ cat list1 You should now have two files. One contains six fruit, the other contains four fruit. We will now use the cat command to join (concatenate) list1 and list2 into a new file called biglist. Type: $ cat list1 list2 > biglist What this is doing is reading the contents of list1 and list2 in turn, then outputting the text to the file biglist. 396 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology To read the contents of the new file, type: $ cat biglist Redirecting the Input We use the < symbol to redirect the input of a command. The command sort alphabetically or numerically sorts a list. Type: $ sort Then type in the names of some vegetables. Press [Return] after each one. carrot beetroot artichoke ^D (control d to stop) The output will be: artichoke beetroot carrot Using < you can redirect the input to come from a file rather than the keyboard. For example, to sort the list of fruit, type: $ sort < biglist And the sorted list will be output to the screen. To output the sorted list to a file, type: $ sort < biglist > slist Use cat to read the contents of the new sorted file. Pipes To see who is on the system with you, type: $ who One method to get a sorted list of names is to type: $ who > names.txt $ sort < names.txt Introducing the Unix Command Line | 397 This is a bit slow and you have to remember to remove the temporary intermediary file called names when you have finished. What you really want to do is connect the output of the who command directly to the input of the sort command. This is exactly what pipes do. The symbol for a pipe is the vertical bar |. For example, type in: $ who | sort This will give the same result as above, but quicker and cleaner. To find out how many users are logged on, type: $ who | wc -l Wildcards The character * is called a wildcard, and will match against none or more character(s) in a file (or directory) name. For example, in your current directory, type: $ ls list* This will list all files in the current directory starting with list. Try typing: $ ls *list This will list all files in the current directory ending with list. The character ? will match exactly one character. So the command ls ?ouse will match files like house and mouse. But it will not match grouse. Try typing: $ ls ?list Filename conventions A directory is merely a special type of file. So the rules and conventions for naming files apply also to directories. In naming files, characters with special meanings such as these should be avoided: / * & % Also, avoid using spaces within names. The safest way to name a file is to use only alphanumeric characters, that is, letters and numbers, together with _ (underscore) and . (dot). 398 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology File names conventionally start with a lower-case letter and may end with a dot followed by the extension, a group of letters indicating the contents of the file. For example, all files consisting of C code may be named with the ending .c, for example, program1.c. Then, in order to list all files containing C code in your home directory, you need only type ls *.c in that directory. Beware: some applications give the same name to all the output files they generate. For example, some compilers, unless given the appropriate option, produce compiled files named a.out. Should you forget to use that option, you are advised to rename the compiled file immediately, otherwise the next such file will overwrite it and the original file will be lost. Getting Help There are online manuals which give information about most commands. The manual pages tell you which options a particular command can take, and how each option modifies the behavior of the command. Type the man command to read the manual page for a particular command. For example, to find out more about the wc (word count) command, type: $ man wc Alternatively, the following command gives a one-line description of the command, but omits any information about options. $ whatis wc When you are not sure of the exact name of a command, the apropos command will give you the commands with keyword in their manual page header. $ apropos keyword For example, try typing: $ apropos copy File System Security In your current directory, type: $ ls -l The letter L stands for long listing. You will see that you now get lots of details about the contents of your directory, similar to the example below. Also, the command ls -lg gives additional information as to which group owns the file (beng95 in this example): Introducing the Unix Command Line | 399 -rwxrw-r-- 1 ee51ab beng95 2450 Sept29 11:52 file1 Each file (and directory) has associated access rights. In the left-hand column is a 10 symbol string consisting of the symbols d, r, w, x, -, and occasionally s or S. The first character in the line of output specifies the type: A d indicates a directory. Otherwise, the character will be a dash (-). The 9 remaining symbols indicate the permissions, or access rights, and are taken as three groups of 3. The first character, -, notes that this is a file. Next, the first group of three characters gives the file permissions for the user that owns the file (or directory). In the above example, rwx are the permissions for the user ee51ab. The middle group of three characters gives the permissions for the group of users to whom the file (or directory) belongs. In the above example, rw- are the permissions for the group eebeng95. The rightmost group of three characters gives the permissions for all others. In the above example, r-are the permissions for any user who does not own the file or is not in the group to whom the file belongs. The symbols r, w, and have slightly different meanings depending on whether they refer to a simple file or to a directory. Access rights on files are: r (or -), indicates read permission (or otherwise), that is, the presence or absence of permission to read and copy the file. w (or -), indicates write permission (or otherwise), that is, the permission (or otherwise) to change a file. x (or -), indicates execution permission (or otherwise), that is, the permission to execute a file, where appropriate. Access rights on directories are: r allows users to list files in the directory. w means that users may delete files from the directory or move files into it. x means the right to access files in the directory. This implies that you may read files in the directory provided you have read permission on the individual files. So, in order to read a file, you must have execute permission on the directory containing that file, and hence on any directory containing that directory as a subdirectory, and so on, up the tree. Some examples: A file that everyone can read, write, and execute (and delete): -rwxrwxrwx 400 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology A file that only the owner can read and write. No one else can read or write and no one has execution rights (e.g., your mailbox file): -rw------- Changing access rights To change a file mode, meaning to change the access rights of a file, use chmod. Only the owner of a file can use chmod to change the permissions of a file. The options of chmod are as follows: Symbol Meaning u User g Group o Other a All r Read w Write (and delete) x Execute (and access directory) + Add permission Take away permission For example, to remove read, write, and execute permissions on the file biglist for the group and others, type: $ chmod go-rwx biglist This will leave the other permissions unaffected. To give read and write permissions on the file biglist to all, run: $ chmod a+rw biglist Processes and Jobs A process is an executing program identified by a unique PID (process identifier). To see information about your processes, with their associated PID and status, type: $ ps A process may be in the foreground, in the background, or be suspended. In general, the shell does not return the Unix prompt until the current process has finished executing. Some processes take a long time to run and hold up the terminal. Backgrounding a long process has the effect that the Unix prompt is returned immediately, and other tasks can be carried out while the original process continues executing. Introducing the Unix Command Line | 401 For example, the command sleep waits a given number of seconds before continuing. To wait 10 seconds, type: $ sleep 10 After 10 seconds, it will return to the command prompt. Until the command prompt is returned, you can do nothing except wait. To background a process, type an ampersand (&) at the end of the command line. To run sleep in the background, type: $ sleep 10 & The & runs the job in the background and returns the prompt straight away, allowing you to run other programs while waiting for that one to finish. The first line in the above example is typed in by the user; the next line, indicating job number and PID, is returned by the machine. The user is notified of a job number (numbered from 1) enclosed in square brackets, together with a PID, and is notified when a background process is finished. Backgrounding is useful for jobs which will take a long time to complete. To background a current foreground process, type at the prompt: $ sleep 100 You can suspend the process running in the foreground by holding down the [control] key and typing [z] (written as ^Z ) Then to put it in the background, type: $ bg Note: do not background programs that require user interaction; e.g., pine. Listing suspended and background processes When a process is running, backgrounded or suspended, it will be entered onto a list along with a job number. To examine this list, type: $ jobs An example of a job list could be: [1] Suspended sleep 100 [2] Running netscape [3] Running nedit To restart (foreground) a suspended process, type: $ fg %jobnumber For example, to restart sleep 100, type: 402 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology $ fg %1 Typing fg with no job number foregrounds the last suspended process. Killing a process It is sometimes necessary to kill (terminate or signal) a process, for example, when an executing program is in an infinite loop. To kill a job running in the foreground, type ^C (control c). For example, run: $ sleep 100 ^C To kill a suspended or background process, type: $ kill %jobnumber For example, run the following, and suppose that by running jobs, you find that sleep is job number 4: $ sleep 100 & $ jobs $ kill %4 To check whether this has worked, examine the job list again to see if the process has been removed. Alternatively, processes can be killed by finding their process numbers (PIDs) and using kill PID_number. The command ps stands for process status. $ sleep 100 & $ ps PID TT S TIME COMMAND 20077 pts/5 S 0:05 sleep 100 21563 pts/5 T 0:00 netscape 21873 pts/5 S 0:25 nedit To kill off the process sleep 100, type the following command. Then type ps again to see if it has been removed from the list. $ kill 20077 If a process refuses to be killed, uses the -9 option: $ kill -9 20077 Note: It is not possible to kill off other users processes. Introducing the Unix Command Line | 403 A Starting List of Common Terminal Commands | The pipe key | on the keyboard is used to take the output of one command and send it to another command. For instance, to view through the history of commands run, screen by screen, you would combine the history command and the less command as follows: history | less apt-get The Advanced Package Tool has been developed by the Debian GNU/Linux branch of Linux, and is incorporated into all child Linux operating systems, like Ubuntu and Raspberry Pi OS, that use the Debian core. Synchronize the list of packages available by typing: sudo apt-get update Upgrade all the software packages currently installed by typing: sudo apt-get upgrade Install new applications, for instance the Apache web server, version two, by adding the following to apt-get: sudo apt-get install apache2 cat The cat command, short for concatenate, lists the content of a text file. In the case of very long file contents, the less command works better. cat science.txt cd The cd, or change directory, command helps us to move around the file hierarchy tree structure of Linux. 404 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology / the root of the tree, containing all other main directories /bin the essential binary executable files of the system /boot the startup files for Linux /dev the entry point for peripherals /etc the commands and files necessary for system administration /etc/vnc /home as one example, the subdirectory for commands and files necessary to administer the VNC server personal user directories /home/pi as one example, the subdirectory for the base user pi /lib shared libraries essential for the system during startup /mnt mount points for temporary partitions like a USB hard drive /opt packages for some supplementary applications like minecraft-pi, pigpio, sonic-pi, and Wolfram /root directory of the root administrator /sbin essential high-level binary executable files /tmp temporary files /usr secondary hierarchy /var /usr/bin majority of binary executable files and user commands /usr/ include header files for the C and C++ programming language /usr/lib shared libraries for the system /usr/local data pertaining to the programs installed on the local machine by the root user /usr/sbin the binary executable files that are not essential for the system but that are reserved for the system administrator /usr/share reserved for non-dependent data of the architecture /usr/src code source files variable data clear The clear command is helpful when your terminal has become cluttered with lots of output from commands and you want to start with a clean slate. This will clear all text and leave you with the $ prompt at the top of the window. df -h Use this to find out the size of your available disk spaces, how much is currently being used, and how much is available. Many are tmp, or temporary spaces, while others are formally defined /dev devices. dig Dig, the Domain Information Groper, is a tool used to search through Domain Name System (DNS) Introducing the Unix Command Line | 405 servers for various DNS records. As such, it can be very useful for troubleshooting public IP name and IP address problems. (NOTE: IP addresses in the ranges 10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255, 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255, and 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255 are all private. That is, they do not need to be registered to be used on local networks, and therefore do not appear in the DNS system of servers.) To find the public IP address for the IP name google.com: dig google.com To find the public IP address for the IP name ischool.illinois.edu: dig ischool.illinois.edu To find the IP name for the public IP address 216.58.192.174: dig -x 216.58.192.174 To find the IP name for the public IP address 192.17.172.3: dig -x 192.17.172.3 find The find command is used to find files using their filename. grep The grep, or global regular expression print, command is a powerful tool to search for a given string in a file, or in a range of files within a directory, or even a directory and subdirectories. For fun, try running this command in the pi home directory: grep -r "the" * head The head command writes the first ten lines of a file to the screen. First clear the screen then type: head science.txt history The history command will list the history of commands youve written, at least back a certain amount of time or a certain number of commands run. A sweet little trick is to use the ! character followed by the number of a command to repeat that command, for instance, the 137th command you ran: 406 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology !137 hostname -I Shows the IP address(es) of your Raspberry Pi ifconfig Used to check the status of wired Ethernet (eth0) and wireless Ethernet (wlan0) Internet connections. inet = the assigned Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) address, if any inet6 = the assigned Internet Protocol version 6 (IPV6) address, if any ether = the MAC address, roughly equivalent to a serial number for that specific network adapter iwconfig Indicates which WiFi network the wireless adapter is using at the moment. iwlist Used to get more detailed wireless information than is provided from iwconfig about a wireless adapter interface. The most commonly used argument with iwlist is scan, giving a list of Access Points and AdHoc cells in range at the moment. iwlist wlan0 scan To narrow down the information provided, it can be useful to combine this with a grep command to search just for the ESSID, or Extended Service Set Identification identifying a specific 802.11 wireless network: iwlist wlan0 scan | grep ESSID kill Terminate the process based on its Process ID (PID) number. By default, the kill command sends a request to the PID specified, officially known as a SIGTERM, asking for it to shut itself down: kill 12345 To forcefully quit a PID specified, officially known as a SIGKILL, you need to add in an additional kill statement. kill -s KILL 12345 You can choose to kill several PIDs all at once, also. Introducing the Unix Command Line | 407 kill 12345 12346 543 139 To kill all PIDs with the same name, for instance, all PIDs running apache2 sessions, you run the killall command instead. killall apache2 less The less command is considered to be a more powerful version of the older more command. Thats right, the creators thought less is more! Instead of using the cat command to list a file, you can use the less command. It opens the file for viewing. From there, you can use the space bar to jump ahead one screen, the b character to scroll back one screen, the down and up arrows to go down and up one line, and many other tags to do a range of other movements. Hit [Q] to quit out of the file. Less is also used instead of cat for reading long files. ls The ls, or list, command is the most common way to get a list of files. This is often combined with the options -la and then an argument to search a specific directory. lsusb Lists the USB hardware currently connected to your Raspberry Pi. man The man, or manual, command is used to show the basic operating manual for an available command, including why to use it, the options available in its use, defaults, some examples, and the authors of the command. mkdir The mkdir, or make directory, command allows you to create a new directory. As an example, lets use the cd command to make sure were in our home directory (the easiest way to do that is to use the ~ argument), then use the mkdir command to make a Python subdirectory. cd ~ mkdir Python mv the mv, or move, command allows users to move a file to another directory, with the first argument indicating which file is to be moved, and the second where it is to be moved. For instance, if you create a 408 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology new Python command in the pi home directory and later want to move it to a directory called Python in the pi home directory: mv /home/pi/somepythoncode.py /home/pi/Python nano A commonly used default text editor. For instance, to edit a file you found using ls that is called example.txt, type: nano example.txt ping A core command for testing the connection between two devices on a network, whether local or over a wider network (e.g., campus network, Internet). This can be done using an Internet Protocol address, or an IP address number. For instance, both of the following check the connection between your device and the same other device: ping illinois.edu ping 192.17.172.3 ps The ps (processes status) command is one of the earliest native Unix/Linux utilities for viewing information about running processes, the operations on computer data within programs being currently run. Print all processes currently running by all users, listed by user, extended to include TTY commands and also internal commands: ps aux Print all processes currently running in wide, or double wide format: ps auxw ps auxww raspi-config The core configuration command for the Raspberry Pi OS as run from the terminal interface. This can also be run from the graphical user interface. reboot Use this command to do an immediate reboot of your computer. Introducing the Unix Command Line | 409 rm The rm, or remove, command only removes files. However, the -r option will recursively remove a directory, any subdirectories, and any files within those directories. To go even further, you can add in the -f option to forcefully remove items. Use this command with great care: rm -rf somedirectory And do not, under any circumstances, ever do this command, as youll put an end to the operating system and all files within: rm -rf / rmdir The rmdir, or remove directory, allows you to remove a directory and files held within that directory. scp Short for secure copy. Uses the secure shell, or SSH, to copy files to and from a remote device. For instance, to copy the example.py Python file from your laptop to the user pis home directory on the Raspberry Pi, type in the following (example uses an IP address in the IllinoisNet_Guest local area network domain): scp example.py pi@172.16.108.44:/home/pi To copy the file anotherexample.py Python file from the user pis home directory on the Raspberry Pi to your laptop, type in: scp pi@172.16.108.44:/home/pi/anotherexample.py screen The screen command detaches a terminal window, creating a separate window within which you can access and control the Raspberry Pi. shutdown Use this command to shut down your Raspberry Pi computer. Shutdown immediately by typing sudo shutdown -h now Schedule a shutdown time, for instance 11:30 PM, by typing sudo shutdown -h 23:30 ssh The secure shell, or SSH, provides remote login access to another computer. On MacOS laptops, to access your Raspberry Pi open the terminal and type the following (example uses an IP address in the 410 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology IllinoisNet_Guest local area network domain). Before proceeding, youll need to have written down the WiFi IP address of your Raspberry Pi, or determined it via the console using the USB to TTL cable. On Windows, you can use PowerShell to SSH. You can also use PuTTY, the free and open source software which supports several network protocols for connecting two devices. Download PuTTY. startx When a Raspberry Pi or other Linux computer boots straight to a console window, you can prompt it to further boot to reach the GUI by typing: sudo startx sudo Placing sudo in front of any of the above commands asserts increased authority if the user logged in has been granted such in the /etc/sudoers configuration file. Working in your home directory generally isnt a problem. But often youll find running higher order control commands and editing of files in system-wide directories will require the running commands like ls, rm, mkdir and others with a leading sudo in front of it to exercise your advanced powers of control. tail The tail command writes the last ten lines of a file to the screen. Clear the screen and type: tail science.txt touch The touch command allows you to create an empty file. This can be useful if you want to then fill the file with notes, output data from a command, or a range of other miscellany. You can specify a file extension (such as .txt or .py) or name the file without an extension. traceroute A core command to test the connection between two devices on a network, testing each intermediate connection between the two. For example: traceroute illinois.edu UP key This is not a command typed into the terminal, but rather a key on the keyboard you can hit to list previous commands youve entered. Much simpler than fully typing in a command again to rerun it. write Introducing the Unix Command Line | 411 Open a chat session with another user connected via terminal, console, or other TTY (officially, teletype) connection. For instance, if a user named visitor has logged into the Raspberry Pi using SSH, you could say hello to them by typing the following: write visitor Hello, visitor. How can I help? This chat could then be continued back and forth until you end the write session by holding down the CTRL key and hitting the letter C on your keyboard. This is known as CTRL-C, stated as control c. Raspberry Pi Networking 1010 While the world originated analog, with physical quantities such as audio/visual signals that change continuously, we now also make regular use of digital signal processing to turn the continuous analog signals into number samples, often transmitted using binary 0/1 sets. A leading mechanism for sharing binary digital data streams of all kinds is the Internet Protocol. In this set of exercises, youll get a chance to connect your Raspberry Pi to a Local Area Network (LAN) and test out performance of the Raspberry Pi on the Internet. Some choices of interest may include: Exercise: Connect a Raspberry Pi to a Wired Ethernet Port In many cases in which reliable, high-performing Internet is needed, the best choice is to make use of wired Ethernet. Exercise: Connect to a WiFi Network from the Raspberry Pi Desktop Recommended if you are running your Raspberry Pi with desktop GUI and have it connected to a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. Exercise: Connect to a WiFi Network via the Command Line Recommended if you are running your Raspberry Pi headless, that is, without a monitor. Exercise: Unusual Additional Registration Requirements Some WiFi networks employ measures to restrict access to enhance security. Heres one example of setting up a reliable network connection used at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. We live today in a wireless society. In some cases, even our phones no longer provide a plug-in for our wired headsets, moving us to instead primarily use Bluetooth headsets. When our mobile phones are located someplace in a building with limited cell service, we can make use of the buildings WiFi connection to get us to that cell service. Our laptops and even many desktops today depend on WiFi Internet access. After all, its much simpler and cleaner-looking than yet another wire. When mobility, flexibility, and simplicity are important, wireless Ethernet connectivity is a solid choice. But here are some key reasons why wired Ethernet remains the better choice for networking more often than you might think. Performance: Wired Ethernet makes use of Cat5 or Cat6 cables that provide synchronous upload and download of data at either 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps. The 802.11a/b/g speeds are improving and can now provide creative forms of synchronous transfers of data at upwards of 54 Mbps. Wired Ethernet provides synchronous communication from a single computer to a switch. Meanwhile, the wireless radio waves are shared by all connected devices simultaneously, thereby changing performance without notice. Reliability: Cat5/6 cables are designed to limit interference, and are often installed within walls or 412 Raspberry Pi Networking 1010 | 413 ceilings to further improve reliability. While WiFi has improved over the years, it remains susceptible to interference from a range of fixed and dynamic factors. Security: While the wireless 802.11 protocol and interconnected devices used to provide network access to WiFi devices have improved significantly, it remains that a wired Ethernet connection is less susceptible to security attacks than wireless Ethernet. When doing some home improvements many years ago, I used the opportunity to run wired Ethernet to a few locations in each major room of the house. This helps improve performance of all devices, as the high demand Roku, solar panel interface, and office computer all make use of the wired Ethernet Cat5b cables. And especially at times when many devices are making active use of the network, the 1 Gbps wired Ethernet connection has proved essential when I am teaching or collaborating online from my home office. When consulted on new construction and Ethernet, I strongly recommend installation of as much wired Ethernet as possible, especially in libraries, schools, and community centers where there will be more statically located networked devices. This both improves performance, reliability, and security for these static devices and also reduces demand for the many wireless devices within the space. What about the Raspberry Pi? While it is capable of both wired and wireless networking, the choice may vary by project. For basic educational and prototyping activities, especially when close access or mobility is important to work with breadboarding and electronic testing in a range of locations, WiFi continues to be the preferred means of connecting to the LAN. However, when prototyping moves to the next level and is used for ongoing data collection and distribution, for instance as a soil and weather sensor database system accessible via web server, I move the Raspberry Pi to a waterproof case and connect it to the LAN via an outdoor Cat5 cable. When the Raspberry Pi is used as a multimedia server or a location-based collective networking toolkit, Ive found it ideal to locate the Raspberry Pi right next to the gateway router, connected via a short Cat5 cable. When the Raspberry Pi is running headless (without a keyboard, mouse, and monitor), Secure Shell (SSH) is a quick and easy way to connect to and control the microcomputer. The Pis microSD card must be edited to enable SSH access within the Raspberry Pi Operating System, but after this, I can connect the Raspberry Pi to a router with a wired Ethernet cable. This will automatically provide it an IP address that I can use to SSH into the Pi on its very first boot. Exercise: Connect a Raspberry Pi to a Wired Ethernet Port 1. Connect one end of an Ethernet cable to the wired Ethernet port on your Raspberry Pi. 2. Connect the other end of the Ethernet cable to an available LAN Ethernet port. Some places these may be found include: An Ethernet port on the wall. One of the four LAN ports commonly found on home and small office gateway routers used to connect to the Internet Service Provider. 414 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology An Ethernet switch that itself connects to a wall connection or to the gateway router for the LAN. 3. Most home and small office gateway routers provide a quick guide with login and password information to help you connect to their web servers to determine the assigned IP address for connected devices. A first look at the Netgear gateway routers attached devices. Raspberry Pi Networking 1010 | 415 Editing the newly connected, unknown device the wired Ethernet Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi is connected with both wired and wireless Ethernet to the home gateway router as viewed with a first ssh connection to the 10.0.0.29 address identifed using the Netgear web servers Attached Devices tool. Note eth0 is assigned the IP address 10.0.0.29, while the wlan0 is assigned the IP address 10.0.0.28. 416 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Exercise: Connect to a WiFi Network from the Raspberry Pi Desktop A GUI is provided for setting up wireless connections with the Raspberry Pi OS. If you are not using the Raspberry Pi Desktop, you can set up wireless networking from the command line in the next exercise.1 Wireless connections can be made via the network icon at the right-hand side of the menu bar. If you are using a Pi with built-in wireless connectivity, or if a wireless dongle is plugged in, left-clicking this icon will bring up a list of available wireless networks, as shown below. If no networks are found, it will show the message No APs found scanning. Wait a few seconds without closing the menu, and it should find your network. Note that on the Pi 3B+, which supports the 5G protocol, wireless networking is disabled for regulatory reasons, until the country code has been set. To set the country code, open the Raspberry Pi Configuration application from the Preferences Menu, select Localisation and set the appropriate code. The icons on the right show whether a network is secured or not, and give an indication of its signal strength. Click the network that you want to connect to. If it is secured, a dialogue box will prompt you to enter the network key. Enter the key and click OK, then wait a couple of seconds. The network icon will flash briefly to show that a connection is being made. When it is ready, the icon will stop flashing and show the signal strength. 1. Raspberry Pi learning resources and documentation are licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0. This exercise is a remix of the "Wireless connectivity in the Raspberry Pi Desktop" tutorial. Raspberry Pi Networking 1010 | 417 Exercise: Connect to a WiFi Network via the Command Line This method is suitable if you dont have access to the graphical user interface normally used to set up WiFi on the Raspberry Pi. It is particularly suitable for use with a serial console cable if you dont have access to a screen or wired Ethernet.2 Step 1: Get WiFi network details 1. Connect your laptop to your Raspberry Pi via serial console and begin a remote terminal session to scan for WiFi networks. 2. To scan for wireless networks, use the command: sudo iwlist wlan0 scan 1. This will list all available wireless networks, along with other useful information. Look out for: ESSID:testing is the name of the WiFi network testing. IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1 is the authentication used. In this case its WPA2, the newer and more secure wireless standard which replaces WPA. This guide should work for WPA or WPA2, but may not work for WPA2 enterprise. Visit the FreeBSD manual for WEP hex keys, scrolling down to see the last example on the webpage. 2. Youll also need the password for the wireless network. For most home routers, this is found on a sticker on the back of the router. Step 2: Connect to a network through raspi-config 1. Once you know the network name (SSID) and password, the quickest way to enable wireless networking is to use the command line raspi-config tool. 2. From the Raspberry Pi terminal window, enter: sudo raspi-config 1. Select the Network Options item from the menu, then the WiFi option. 2. On a fresh install, for regulatory purposes, you will need to specify the country in which the device is being used. 3. Then set the SSID of the network, and the passphrase for the network. 2. Raspberry Pi learning resources and documentation are licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0. This exercise is a remix of the "Setting up a wireless LAN via the command line" tutorial. 418 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Exercise: Unusual Additional Registration Requirements Businesses, schools, libraries, and other organizations use various measures to restrict access to their network to enhance security. This often means a password is required to access a network, whether wired or wireless; two-factor authentication may also be required. Sometimes, only registered devices can access a network. And sometimes, the level of registration determines what can be done over the network. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, two primary wireless Ethernet networks are available for general use: IllinoisNet and IllinoisNet_Guest. For the most part, IllinoisNet_Guest is used for easy first access to the core technical services. Visitors can use this to create a 24-hour login, while regular users can use this to gain up to 12-month access for certain devices, such as gaming consoles, streaming devices, and your Raspberry Pi. As one example, the following steps will help those who are part of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign system to register their WiFi nodes, such as a Raspberry Pi, to the IllinoisNet_Guest network. MAC Address Overview Before we start, let us take a step back and look at how devices are differentiated. In the Orange Unit, we learned how different integrated circuits perform different tasks in a device. For a device to connect to a network, it requires an intergrated cuircuit called a Network Interface Card (NIC). There is a NIC for each type of network connection: Ethernet, WiFi, and Bluetooth. The Raspberry Pi 3 includes all three NICs. To differentiate between different NICs and different devices, each NIC is assigned a Machine Access Control (MAC) Address. The MAC address is comprised of 6 groups of 2 hexidecimal digits. Hexidecimals contain the numbers between 0-9, but also include the uppercase letters A-F to give 16 possible digits. Some information about your device is contained in the MAC address, such as the vendor or manufacturer of your device. Register Device The following steps will walk you through registering your device. First, you will need to find the MAC address of your Raspberry Pis WiFi network card. To do so, open a terminal window in your Raspberry Pi and type the following command: $ ifconfig wlan0 This will output the data related to your wireless network interface. The first line should contain: Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr XX:XX:XX:XX:XX Instead of Xs, your MAC address for your WiFi NIC will be printed. Either write this down or leave the window open, as you will need this information to register. Next, using your laptop, naviage to http://go.illinois.edu/illinoisnetdevices and log in using your NetID and password. Click the Manage Devices button. Raspberry Pi Networking 1010 | 419 Click the Create button to create a device account. Insert the following information for each required field: 1. MAC Address: Copy or type the MAC address found in the steps above. 2. Device Name: IS401-RaspberryPi 420 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology 3. AirGroup: Leave the box unchecked. 4. Account Activation: Now 5. Notes: Leave empty unless needed otherwise. 6. Terms of Use: Check box to accept the terms of use. Click Create. Restart your Raspberry Pi before attempting to connect to the network. Network Troubleshooting Initial and ongoing evaluation and documentation are two strategies at the core of effective troubleshooting. These can be applied to both your Local Area Network (LAN) and the interconnection of your LAN with the Internet through your Internet Service Provider (ISP) interconnect device(s). Here are some key techniques I use, which help me to rapidly move up the tiers of support when a problem is encountered. Essential Network Troubleshooting Tools In some cases, we connect computers and other electronic devices using serial communications protocols such as Universal Asynchronous Receive Transmit (UART) and Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C). But today it is very common to instead or also use the Internet Protocol (IP), whether just within a Local Area Network (LAN), as part of a Community Network, or as part of the Internet. Below are some of the key investigative tools we can use to assess these IP network connections. Link Lights LED light found on wired Ethernet cards and switches. When lit, indicates that the card and switch are on and working properly and the Ethernet cable is plugged in and working properly. Network Manager Operating system utility that shows network configuration. An IP address of 0.0.0.0 or one that starts with 169.254 indicates you are connected to the media but arent getting a proper IP address from the address server (usually the gateway router). Ping Run from the command line or terminal application to test if you can communicate with another node. ping IP_ADDR or ping IP_NAME (e.g. ping google.com) Times of 1 ms or less are good on a local network; 10-50 ms or less are good on the Internet. Hint: ping different nodes to track down faulty component. 421 422 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Traceroute Run from the command line or terminal application to test the performance of each router between nodes. Windows: tracert IP_NAME Linux: traceroute IP_NAME macOS: traceroute IP_NAME Smartphone apps available Note: Asterisks (*) indicate failure or firewall Hop 1 is usually your router; hop 2 is your ISP Speed Test Web-based Internet connection speed test: https://speed.measurementlab.net/ https://www.speedtest.net https://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ To access the command line: Windows: Click on the Start button, choose run, type in cmd in the open bar and hit the enter key. macOS: Click on the spotlight, type in terminal and choose Terminal under Applications. Linux: Click on the Start button, choose Terminal under Accessories. Previously, we saw how the data beanbag could be passed between just two nodes, your laptop and the Raspberry Pi. But even there, the server and client VNC (Virtual Network Computing) software are standing in the circle along with the hardware (computers). The Ethernet cable served to carry the data beanbag between these players. For most of our work on computers, smartphones, and other networked devices, the beanbag needs to pass between many more interconnect devices to get between the starting and ending node. And when gathering information from something like a web server, the server itself may first act as a client, dynamically collecting data from a range of other servers, again using interconnect devices, before packaging this into a web page that it passes back to you. Lets use some essential network troubleshooting tools to follow the data beanbag as its passed around the circle. Along the way, lets do a little bit of testing to make sure our networking is performing as expected, and if not, where it might be failing. This is a great opportunity to work collaboratively. Network Troubleshooting | 423 Exercise: Identify Link Lights The most general of tests is to see if a wired Ethernet media is making a connection between a node and a network switch or in the case of our Raspberry Pi/laptop connection, two nodes. Look for a couple of little LEDs on the Raspberry Pi where it connects to the Ethernet cable. When the cable is fully plugged in and the Raspberry Pi is turned on, you should see one or both come on (red indicates its connected, green indicates its transferring data). Look at your laptop. Can you see one or two little LEDs where the Ethernet cable is connected? Some laptops with Ethernet ports, particularly those from Apple, no longer include the link lights, figuring if you want to know, you can open up software to find the answer. And some laptop producers change around the color of the LEDs, or use them for different purposes. Lastly, some laptops no longer provide Ethernet ports. But regardless, even seeing these LED link lights on one of the nodes generally indicates you are fully and properly connected at both sides of the Ethernet cable. If you see active link lights, youre good to go. If you dont see a link light active, or even if you do, unplug the Ethernet cable and look again. Has anything changed? What about if you plug it back in? If you use a dongle to connect the Ethernet cable to your laptop, what happens if you leave the Ethernet cable plugged into the dongle but unplug the dongle from your laptop? Take a few minutes to compare notes with others who are doing the same but with other types of laptops. Exercise: Explore Your Network Configuration All computers have some form of network management software that you should be able to access to see the network configuration. This varies considerably between computer operating systems, and even between versions of the same operating system. And sometimes you need administrative access to actually have significant access. All the same, try to track down how you might do this on your computer. Pair up with someone using the same type of computer as yours and see if you can track it down. Take some notes. Another way to do this is from the command line or terminal window. On the Raspberry Pi or on a Mac you would type in: $ ifconfig In response, you should see something like the following: 424 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology In the above ifconfig, you can see the Raspberry Pi has been assigned an eth0 (wired Ethernet) IP address of 192.168.45.1 and a wlan0 (wireless Ethernet) IP address of 172.16.107.205. On a Microsoft Windows command line or PowerShell terminal you would type in: > ipconfig In response, you should see something like the following: Network Troubleshooting | 425 In the above ipconfig, you can see the Microsoft Windows 10 laptop has been assigned a wired Ethernet IP address of 10.0.0.33 and a wireless Ethernet IP address of 192.168.137.1. In the Raspberry Pi terminal window, you can also type in: $ hostname I The output from that command should look something like the following: In the above example, we see the Raspberry Pi has the IP addresses we found using the ifconfig: 192.168.45.1 and 172.16.107.205. But in this case we cannot identify which are wired Ethernet and which are wireless Ethernet. We also cannot define using hostname the new listed IP address of 169.254.206.69 (this is actually part of the private IP address range used for Automatic Private IP Addressing, or APIPA, a failsafe used by some devices when no other IP address is assigned to a device). Whether you run ifconfig on a Mac, or ipconfig on Windows, compare the outputs with those you see on your Raspberry Pi to develop a first picture of your LAN. Indeed, you can find a range of apps for your smartphone to run similar commands to identify the IP addresses these are also assigned by the LANs router or other Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol Server (DHCPS). Exercise: Test the Network Node-to-Node Path When your request for a web page is sent to a web server, and when the web server sends back that web page, the information is broken into a bunch of much smaller data beanbags called packets. While packets often take the same route along the circle between starting and ending nodes, each packet actually might change its course around the circle, depending on how the different interconnect devices it must pass through are performing at a given moment. Lets imagine Im on an extended vacation, traveling by bicycle, and that Im doing this without a physical or software-based map of any kind. I just know the name of my starting point and ending point, and I have a general sense of direction to get there. 426 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology To start, I might go to the local bike store/club and ask for suggestions. They may give me a perfect set of roads to get me from here to some intermediary destination that theyve biked before. Great! Off I go. On arriving at that intermediary location, Ill find the local bike store/club and get a new set of directions. They may mention that the usual route is preferred, but that theres some construction and so its more of a rough ride. As a result, they recommend an alternate route. Great! Off I go again. As I near my destination town, I need to find one more stopoff site to get directions to reach my goal destination: Beer, Bed and Breakfast. With directions in hand, I complete the ride. This is the way of internets. While some interconnect devices, for instance your home gateway router, have only one way in and one way out if you are to leave one network and join another, the larger routers that make up an Intranet or Internet can provide multiple different routes in case of decreased or failed performance of one route at the given moment. There are three widely used pieces of software to do network testing. Two, ping and speed test, give you a general overview of the connection between two nodes. But the third, traceroute, will show you each of the router hops between two nodes. Ping Ping started as a text-based software installed by default on all major computers. There are now some graphical ping apps available, including ones for smartphones. First, if youve identified your gateway router, such as the gateway of 10.0.0.1, lets use ping to test that connection. On your laptop, open a terminal (Mac) or cmd (Windows) window and type: $ ping 10.0.0.1 The command ping sends a ping to a destination node. If all is good, the destination node returns back a ping. Well-functioning LANs should have times listed of less than 1 ms, and should show 0% loss. On the Mac and Raspberry Pi computers, the default is to continue sending, and hopefully receiving, test pings until you hit CTRL-c. On Windows computers, the default is to run four test pings, and then to stop automatically. Lets test ping, this time from the Raspberry Pi. Open up a terminal on the Pi and do a ping to some of these sites (hit CTRL-c between each, or open up three terminal windows and run the three simultaneously): $ ping illinois.edu $ ping adafruit.com $ ping raspberrypi.org Ping sends the information from the node on which you are running it to a destination node, which then returns a ping. You will be told where the ping is returned from if all is well. It will also return a sequence number, and the time in milliseconds (ms) it took to go there and back again. In general, times under 10 ms occur on LANs and ultrafast WANs. Times above 10 ms but under 100 ms are typically found on fast WANs. Times over 100 ms reflect slower WANs, or networks of all types not working at expected speeds. Network Troubleshooting | 427 Sometimes the failure to get successful pings does not represent a failure in the network, but rather represents a security firewall that does not permit ping traffic to pass to and fro along a certain portion of the network path. Speedtest Speedtest is a general descriptor for websites such as the M-Lab Speed Test, Ookla Speedtest, and Speakeasy Speed Test, each of which are useful tools for testing a networks speed and connectivity. When troubleshooting problems with your Internet Service Provider, they may ask you to employ such a tool. As a default, these sites dont let you select a destination node to which you will test the network path. But by collecting an extended set of speedtests, it becomes possible to see if the upload and download speeds change at certain times or under certain conditions. Speedtests generally provide the following key data points: Ping, which is identical to what we get from the command line ping application; Download, the speed in Mbps that describes the rate of data, measured as millions of bits (0 or 1) passed per second, traveling from a remote destination to your own location. Upload, the speed in Mbps of data traveling from you to the remote site. The United States Federal Communications Committee (FCC) has a Lifeline program in which low-income households are assured ways to get low-cost Internet to the home. In 2020, the minimum download/upload speed has been set to either 25/3 or 100/10. But often promised IP speeds are much higher than the actual speeds at which networks are currently performing. Speedtests provide a very helpful measurement tool in which to collect baseline and current data when filing reports on real Internet access. Traceroute Traceroute is another text-based software installed by default on all major computers. Depending on operating system, the program will use one of several underlying network protocols. As a result, some succeed more than others at going through the full set of hops, as sometimes security firewalls are set up to stop one type of network protocol or another at some hop along the way. But while results vary a little, overall traceroute is an essential troubleshooting tool for networking. One key point before doing the following activities using traceroute: While on Mac and Linux computers you type in traceroute in the terminal window, on Windows computers you type in tracert in the command line window. To start, open two terminals on the Raspberry Pi. In one terminal, run ping 10 times and stop: $ ping -c 10 illinois.edu In the second terminal, run traceroute to the same location: $ traceroute illinois.edu 428 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Whereas ping does a general test from one node to another independent of the routers along the way, traceroute does a test of each hop between routers between the starting node and ending node. Typically, traceroute does three tests at each hop. The first hop indicates the time it took to pass from the starting node to the first, gateway router that moves us from the LAN to the next network between that node and the destination node. The second hop indicates the time it took between the gateway router and the second router in the path. For small to mid-sized LANs, this is usually the hop that takes us from the LAN to the ISP. For MANs and CANs, this is often the next hop in this community-based network. Subsequent hops move us further along in a MAN, CAN, or WAN until The final hop brings us to the destination node. When troubleshooting using traceroute, the first hop is a great indicator as to whether the problem is somewhere on our LAN and needs our attention or the attention of our internal technical support team. The second hop often means we need to contact either our ISP or our campus or neighborhood technical support team. Generally, the further we go along, the more the troubleshooting moves out of our hands. To review, the first hop typically indicates an in-building issue, the second hop a problem with our direct network provider, and further hops a problem outside our realm of control. But if we do a traceroute test of just one destination node, its still questionable where on the path the problem is occurring. To this end, traceroute really shines when we perform multiple traceroute tests. We can do this on one node, say a laptop, going to a multiple different sites, some more local and some more distant. We can take it a step further by repeating the range of traceroute tests on different nodes, say on two different laptops. We can take it a step further still by repeating the range of traceroute tests on a node connected to one network and then to another, say on a node connected to the LAN WiFi, then to your local cellular service. (That last test could be done using a smartphone that can connect to either, or by using the smartphone as a hotspot allowing a laptop to connect to the Internet through cellular.) For this next test, open one terminal or cmd window on your laptop and two terminals on the Raspberry Pi. As a bonus, if you can, open a traceroute app or terminal that can run traceroute on your smartphone. Run the following traceroute tests on each device, and in the second terminal on the Raspberry Pi, a ping to those sites. Compare and contrast the results. $ traceroute illinois.edu $ ping illinois.edu $ traceroute zoom.com $ ping zoom.com $ traceroute adafruit.com $ ping adafruit.com $ traceroute raspberrypi.org $ ping raspberrypi.org Network Troubleshooting | 429 Compare the different number of hops, the performance of hops, and even some of the possible router location identifiers you find. For instance, below are two traceroute results, one going from my home office to adafruit.com, the other to raspberrypi.org. In both cases, the first hop is the the homes gateway router with IP address of 10.0.0.1. The second hop is the ISPs router, 23.249.47.10. The next two hops go through routers with firewalls and so do not give performance reports (I know this because it is consistent over time and over destination). In the adafruit.com example, the next three hops travel along the ntt.net backbone within the Chicagoland area before getting to a destination router with IP address 104.20.38.240. This means Adafruit Industries has a server themselves or a provider with a location in the Chicagoland area. All Internet tests are under or just above 10 ms, indicating a high performing Internet connection at every router interconnect device between my house and the site hosting the Adafruit.com server. In the raspberrypi.org example, we see a journey of routers that moves from the Chicagoland area to somewhere else, possibly VA, that is, Virginia, in the United States, before going to The Netherlands, likely in Amsterdam, before ending up with Mythic Beasts networks, a privately owned hosting ISP. In this case, note that once travel moves from Chicago to the East Coast of the United States, travel speeds move from below 10 ms to 20-30 ms. Then as the route passes over the Atlantic Ocean, it jumps up again to the lower 100 ms performance level. This is much better performance than even a few years ago, and is an example of why it is possible to have more audio and video communications than ever before! But how does this compare to your own Internet service? Key Takeaways Using ping, speedtest, and traceroute, you will build a strong portfolio of normal and problem network performance data for use when things go wrong on your network. Combining a continuous ping written to a file with regular timestamps, you can have a clear picture of when and at what level network performance is impacted. Speedtest provides a second tier of data, and is often the data ISPs want to see themselves. Using traceroute, some tests will only have one hop as they stay on the local network. Other tests will have multiple hops as they leave one local area network and move to another, and perhaps yet more local area networks until they arrive at the destination local area network. Routers serve as the go-between, passing packets between local area networks. Intranets and the Internet are simply multiple interconnected local area networks. Usually, hop one in a traceroute is from your node to the interconnect device (such as a gateway) in the building hosting your local area network. A decrease or failure in network performance in hop one generally rests on you to troubleshoot. Hops two and three are more variable, and may indicate a problem on your Intranet or the hop between you and your Internet Service Provider (ISP). If the former, the troubleshooting onus may still be yours, or that of your IT support team. If the problem is at the level of connectivity between your network and the ISP, then it might be time to give them a call. Or, you might need to first collect data on performance variability over time, as ISPs can often shift the burden of testing back on you. Regardless, the expected results are that you will increase your level of success at troubleshooting. Sara Rasmussen Security and Privacy Jump to a section: Overview Curriculum for Young People Resources for Adults Resources for Educators Workshop Facilitation Tools Go Deeper Overview Security holds multiple, varied meanings: Digital information security intersects with personal, physical, and financial security and overlaps with personal, political, and economic issues. With respect to digital tools and systems, security seeks to achieve confidentiality, integrity, and availability for all users. Security manifests within technology as a stand-alone product, such as a password manager, but more often it is embedded within everyday technologies. Security becomes especially important with respect to Internet-connected devices. It is a necessary consideration when connecting to a network and engaging in online activities, such as logging into accounts, sending email, securely banking, shopping online, or sharing personal information on social media. Privacy, according to NYC Digital Safety, is the extent to which ones personal data is observed, shared, revealed, exploited, or misused in digital spaces and systems, such as the Internet and the ability to exercise control over that personal data.1 Through participant observation and participatory action research, Seeta Pea Gangadharan studies digital literacy programs at libraries and community centers serving marginalized groups. Gangadharan found that new internet users, while optimistic about the potential of the internet, encounter a privacy-poor, surveillance-rich experience, and come to feel a sense of inevitability that if they use the internet, they will eventually experience a breach of their privacy and security.2 At the time of the study (2012-2013), Gangadharan found that these programs barely covered topics of security and privacy, and moreover, instructors were unable to sufficiently answer the questions of program participants. Gangadharan warns that, through our analog social systems, marginalized communities have historically been watched by default, which feeds into the experience of using the Internet. Gangadharan further notes that, even while being offline is rarely an option, being digitally included means participation in the potentially harmful consequences arising from inappropriate and asymmetric flows of information.3 This highlights the tension between the necessity and the risks of digital participation. 1. "Privacy and Security in the Library," NYC Digital Safety, accessed June 10, 2020, https://nycdigitalsafety.org/module/privacy-and-security-in-thelibrary/. 2. Seeta Pea Gangadharan, "The Downside of Digital Inclusion: Expectations and Experiences of Privacy and Surveillance among Marginal Internet Users," New Media & Society 19, no. 4 (April 2017): 597, 605. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444815614053. 3. Gangadharan, "The Downside of Digital Inclusion," 608. 430 Security and Privacy | 431 From their origins, the disciplines of information security and privacy have focused on technical solutions to such risks. This traditional approach either assumes users to be expert technologists, or identifies them as the weakest link in the security chain.4 Security is implicitly designed with an expert user in mind, but thats regularly not the reality. Because security and privacy are most often attributes of a technological product, rather than its primary purpose, they are inherently embedded into larger and more complex systems. This makes the topics of security and privacy nearly impossible to isolate; they must be carefully considered with respect to broader digital skill-building efforts and within the users and communitys context. Moreover, security and privacy awareness are not inherently linked to digital literacy: It is possible to use technologies in a variety of ways without accounting for the threats they present. And likewise, its reasonable that non-users of a particular technology may choose this path for their own security or privacy-driven reasons. While the concepts are often abstract, security and privacy are critical facets of community-centered explorations of digital technologies. For a brief introduction, watch Carrie Anne Philbins Crash Course Computer Science video on Cybersecurity. Below is a curated list of resources on security and privacy, segmented by audience. Curriculum for Young People Common Sense Education from Common Sense Media Intended Audience: Families, kids, and educators Quality content, broken down by age group. Provides activities for kids, readings for parents, and lesson plans for educators. This nonprofit is affiliated with Comcast. Looking for lesson plans? Common Sense offers this overview of 23 Great Lesson Plans for Internet Safety. Protecting Childrens Privacy Online A Guide for Parents, Carers and Educators from CompariTech.com Intended Audience: Families and educators A long but comprehensive article containing both safety strategies and specific instructions for families in protecting their kids. My Future from The Boys & Girls Club Intended Audience: Kids The interactive features are only available to members of the Boys & Girls Club, but the training modules provide good inspiration as well as links to relevant free online resources. 4. Mary Ellen Zurko and Richard T. Simon, User-Centered Security, in Proceedings of the 1996 Workshop on New Security Paradigms - NSPW 96 (Lake Arrowhead: ACM Press, 1996), 27. https://doi.org/10.1145/304851.304859. Matt Bishop, Introduction to Computer Security (Addison-Wesley Professional, 2004), 1. 432 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology There are resources on privacy, online presence, trolls, bullying, etc. Civic Online Reasoning from Stanford University and MediaWise Intended Audience: Ages 10-20 The curriculum includes 30 free lessons and is accompanied by short videos for teachers. The modules are for educators to teach students fact-checking and how to evaluate online sources. According to the website, The lessons and assessments that make up the curriculum provide students with opportunities to apply fact checkers questions to real-world examples. Topics covered: Wikipedia, social media, and determining how real a website is, with practice opportunities built in. Resources for Adults TechBoomers Intended Audience: Targeted to older adults, but good for everyone TechBoomers provides a general resource for adults who want to learn to use technology and covers many aspects of safety, such as: Privacy settings on social media Online shopping safety tips Tutorials on popular websites and apps What is the cloud? Data privacy law Oasis Connections Intended Audience: Similarly targeted to older adults Quick and easy to watch videos with tips on navigating the internet safely, this series covers a lot of topics with broad relevance beyond the specific concerns of older adults. Surveillance Self-Defense from the Electronic Frontier Foundation Intended Audience: Adults An extremely comprehensive collection of how-tos as well as more detailed explanations of how information security and privacy works. Popular guides include how to create strong passwords, how to enable 2FA, how to use encrypted text messaging, and how to secure your social media presence. Security and Privacy | 433 The writing can get a little technical, but they include a glossary, so when you see an unfamiliar term, you can hover over it and get a definition. Navigating Digital Information from PBS Crash Course Intended Audience: Teens and adults The ability to interpret and assess online information is foundational to online security because it lends itself towards being able to identify and avoid scams. Narrated by author/YouTuber John Green, and part of the PBS Crash Course series of videos. The name sounds boring, but they make it fun! Described as a practical take on the Media Literacy series below. This YouTube series covers how to fact-check information online, how to interpret the authority of information, and how search engines and social media feeds work. The goal of the series is to teach healthy online information consumption habits. Resources for Educators Cyber Safety for Schools Fact Sheet from Readiness and Emergency Management, U.S. Dept. of Education Intended Audience: Educators and school administrators Provides a summary of online safety concerns, legal and policy considerations. Provides guidance on planning for online threat incidents that impact students. Links to further learning resources (some are a little outdated). NYC Digital Safety from the New York Public Library Intended Audience: Designed for a librarian audience, but useful for anyone teaching these concepts to others Quality video series to train the trainers. Starts at the basics, and covers internet technologies, online data collection, account security, tracking, scams, and malware. Features quizzes for readers to test their learning. Includes an extensive bibliography of news articles and more educational resources at the end of each chapter. ALA Toolkits for Social Networking from the American Library Association Intended Audience: Librarians 434 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology A bit dated, but these two links provide a general overview of whats at stake for young people across age groups and provides introductory definitions and further reading on a variety of topics, including social media. Workshop Facilitation Tools These are all-in-one toolkits for people who want to lead workshops to educate coworkers or community members on digital safety. Stronger NYC Communities, Organizational Digital Security for Immigration Justice from the Mozilla Foundation Intended Audience: Organizational leaders and facilitators; for example, school administrators, especially those who work with immigrant communities This website provides everything you need to run a digital security workshop (facilitator guides, participant workbooks, resource guides, etc.). From the workbook: The Stronger NYC Communities (SCNYC) project was designed to advance the digital security capacities of community-based organizations that work directly with immigrant populations. The purpose of this resource is to support organizations to implement organizational security. Digital Defense Playbook from Our Data Bodies, available in English and Spanish Intended Audience: People connected to and working closely with families and the community A tool for communities to discuss and explore what online internet use, and subsequently data collection, means to them. This workbook, published as a zine by Our Data Bodies, contains popular education activities intended for nonprofits and community groups to use for reflection on data, surveillance, and community safety in their particular context. Through sharing these resources, the authors develop the argument that all groups (formal or informal) should be aware of and concerned about how data about the community is collected and used. Go Deeper Ready to explore further into the history of security attacks and preventive mechanisms? Here are two more videos from Carrie Anne Philbins Crash Course Computer Science series: Hackers & Cyber Attacks and Cryptography. Glossary "If...Then," "If...Then...Else," and "If...Then...Else If" Statements A Control Flow Statement that specifies the conditions under which one path or another should be taken. Abstraction The level of abstraction is the level of complexity to which an electronic system or computer program is created. At the lowest level of abstraction, every individual component is identifiable. As the level of abstraction increases, few details related to the system can be identified. At the highest level of abstraction, only the entire system is identifiable. Within programming, the ideal is to determine the most appropriate level of abstraction at which to incorporate the appropriate collection of blocks of code within modules stored within libraries to facilitate more general-level writing of code. Analog Specific to electronics, an analog signal is any continuous electric pulse of varying amplitude. If we view a tone playing from a speaker as a sine wave, an increase in amplitude is equivalent to a louder sound from the speaker. An increase in the number of waves within certain period of time is equivalent to a higher pitched tone (perhaps from a middle C note to a middle E note). In these graphs of two different sine waves, the left sine wave plot shows increasing amplitude of the same tone while the right sine wave plot shows a relatively tone held at the same amplitude. Anode The positively charged electrodes conducting electric current from a cell into a device like a diode. Artificial Intelligence (AI) The use of computers to not just collect and store data, but to run algorithms which learn from data in order to make predictions and decisions about the data. ASCII The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) uses 7 binary 0s and 1s (bits) to represent characters. The first 32 characters (00000000 to 00011111) are unprintable control codes. Codes 32-127 (00100000 to 01111111) are printable American English codes, including everything seen in this glossary term definition. Audio/Video Interfaces Computers incorporate a range of audio/video interfaces, depending on vendor. Some of the most common interfaces currently in use include: High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI), a proprietary audio/video interface standard, currently at version 2.X. This is included as the display port on the Raspberry Pi Model 3 and Model 4 microcomputers. DisplayPort (DP) is a VESA standard digital display interface, and is backward compatible with other interfaces such as HDMI. Apple computers use the Apple-designed Mini DisplayPort (mDP), although beginning in 2016 Apple began moving towards use of the USB-C connector. 435 436 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Thunderbolt is the brand name of an interface standard developed by Intel and Apple. The standard allows the multiplex of individual data lanes from multiple connected devices to a single DisplayPort (DP) or Mini DisplayPort (mDP) (Thunderbolt versions 1 and 2) or USB-C (Thunderbolt version 3) connector. Binary Notation Binary notation is based on the base-2 numeral system using only two symbols. The symbols used are the digits 0 and 1. Binary is the standard notation for Boolean true or false logic tests. This is in contrast to the base-10 numeral system commonly used in the English language, and which uses the digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. Boolean Logic A form of algebra used in mathematics, electronics, and computer hardware and software. At its base, all values are found to be either true or false using the Boolean operators "OR," "AND," and "NOT." Breadboard A breadboard used to be a board (sometimes literally a board for cutting bread) with nails pounded into it so that you could wrap wires around them to make experimental models of electric circuits. Today, the breadboard is a piece of plastic with holes in it. Underneath each hole is a metal clip. These metal clips connect together a specified set of holes ordered into a row or column. This way, pushing a piece of conductive material into one hole right away connects that material to things pushed into other holes that are joined together by that clip. A perfboard is a thin, rigid sheet with holes but no metal clips on the other side. Instead, copper pads are used, to which conductors can be soldered. In some cases, as with the perma-proto breadboards from Adafruit, copper is further used to group together certain holes, mimicking the breadboard in a way that provides greater durability for prototyping work. Bundled Software Applications like file managers, user managers, software managers. Applications like web browsers, text editors, photo and movie editors. Device and print drivers determine which hardware is "plug and play" ready. Cable Internet Redirects a cable channel to be used for Internet. Neighborhood shares bus topology. In the U.S., cable internet prioritizes download speeds. Campus Area Network (CAN) A version of a Metropolitan Area Network, the CAN is a network the size of a college, organization, or business campus. These types of networks are typically community-owned and/or managed. Cathode The negatively charged electrodes conducting electric current out of a device like a diode and back to a cell. Cell-Based Internet 3G adds the EV-DO (Verizon, Sprint/Nextel) or HSDPA (AT&T, T-Mobile) protocol to cell voice's protocol. 4G adds the WiMax (Sprint) or LTE (Verizon, AT&T) standard to cell's voice protocol. Equivalent to bus (shared) topology. Prioritizes download speeds. Glossary | 437 Central Processing Unit (CPU) The CPU is the central processor of a computer. It is built of an ever-growing number of electronic circuits enabling it to carry out the basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, and input/output operation instructions for the computer. Over the decades, more electronic components have been placed on a single and increasingly small integrated circuit (IC) chip. Today's CPUs are actually multi-core processors, with one chip being constructed of two or more CPUs called "cores." It is on the CPU that instructions for the vast majority of programming code is actually run. The CPU uses three main steps: fetch, decode, and execute, after which the instruction is returned to a memory integrated circuit. Circuit When working with electrical components, a circuit is a complete, closed path that allows an electric current to flow. In this book, we work with active circuits that begin at a source voltage, pass through one or more electrical components, then end at the return, or ground. Client-Server Architecture A computing structure which separates the work between a resource provider, or server, and a resource requestor, or client. The client-server model is distinct from centralized computing in which servers reside in a central location or a set of regional locations. It is true that when there are many simultaneous client programs initiating requests, the server computer program(s) providing resources and services resides on centralized computer hardware called a server specifically designed for computation, storage, and networked sharing. That is, the hardware called a server is just a computer specially designated to run one or more different applications designed to provide the server side of the client-server protocol. Cloud Computing Cloud computing is a form of client-server architecture, where a distributed network of data centers ensure the regular availability of computer storage and power, which is accessed over the Internet. Cobbler A Cobbler, used in electronics in combination with a prototyping board such as a breadboard, is a plastic header to which a ribbon cable can be attached, which can then be inserted into the prototyping board. A T-cobbler extension is sometimes included using a printed circuit board, allowing the header to which the ribbon cable is attached to be separated from the male pins that are inserted into the breadboard. Labels on all cobblers identifying each of the electrical circuits associated with each pin can then also be included on the printed circuit board. Coding Coding is the practical work of using a system of words, letters, figures, and other symbols to substitute for another set of words, letters, figures, and other symbols. Coding can include the creation of codes of practice and codes of ethics within a profession, codes of classification or identification, and codes of information and instruction within a technology. Decoding is the work of moving a code back to the original system of words, letters, figures, and other symbols. This is compared to programming, which is the creation of a planned series of events, items, or performances using or guiding the creation of codes. Coding is more context-oriented, while programming is oriented towards the bigger picture. DifferenceBetween.net has a helpful page providing further comparisons between Coding and Programming. Combinational Logic Boolean logic in which the output is based only on the present input. 438 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Community Networks Called the "public space in cyberspace" by Doug Schuler, a community network facilitates the sharing of public information between residents within a geographic area online. Community wireless networking uses standard wireless Ethernet (WiFi) outdoors; anyone can use off-the-shelf equipment to create. Equivalent to bus (shared) topology, with synchronous upload and download speeds. Computer An electronic device using a program of instructions to collect, store, process, and transmit data. Many of our daily use devices, including automobiles, mobile phones, home routers connecting a building's network to the wider Internet, the growing number of "smart" internet-connected devices like watches, building heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), and light and sound systems, and our laptops and desktops are all built using computers. While some use a more significant combination of integrated circuit processors and potentially multiple printed circuit boards, increasingly these parts are more tightly integrated into a single printed circuit board and a reduced number of integrated circuits. Depending on design and use specifications and marketing, these may be referred to as microcomputers, microcontrollers, microprocessors, or System on a Chip (SoC). The Raspberry Pi is a general purpose microcomputer with integrated System on Chip central processor and other microprocessors. Conditional A command that determines under which a specific path should be executed based on the occurrence of another sequence in the program. Conductors Electrical conductivity is the capacity to transmit electricity from one place to another. There are many different substances, such as copper wires and other bare metal pins, that are used to build electronic components. Examples of conductors include breadboards, jumper wires, printed circuit boards, and ribbon cables. Control Flow Statement A control flow statement provides a choice between two or more paths, and defines the specific sequence in which individual statements within that path should be executed or evaluated. Controller An integrated circuit that interfaces with one or more other devices on a printed circuit board. Besides the CPU, this can include input/output controller(s) and a graphic processing unit (GPU) controller. The Raspberry Pi Model 3 has two controllers, the System-on-Chip (SoC) controller that includes the CPU and computer memory, and a controller interfacing with the wired Ethernet and four USB ports. Current (A or Ampere) Current is a flow of electrons from relatively positive points to relatively negative points. Greater voltages have greater currents. As such, there is somewhat greater current when you use the 5 volt source of the Raspberry Pi than when you use the 3.3 volt source. Different electronics are capable of using different maximum currents, so it is sometimes necessary to provide resistance to reduce the current passing through the component. Glossary | 439 Daemon A computer program that runs in the background providing services as needed. In this case, each time it is launched, the HTTP daemon starts itself based on the specifications within the configuration file, then mostly hangs out twiddling its thumbs waiting for a call asking for something. When the call comes, it gets busy doing its stuff before going back to waiting mode. You'll often see a running HTTP server daemon listed as httpd. Desktop Environment The desktop environment is a collection of software that provides a predictable look and feel. Includes a Window Manager that controls the placement and appearance of windows, support icons, menus, etc. For some operating systems, such as Windows and macOS, the desktop environment is the branded look of the operating system and cannot be changed. Digital Specific to electronics, a digital signal is a representation of a physical quantity expressed as a series of the digits 0 and 1, that is, binary. The range of decimal numbers representing physical quantities in our work, for instance 12 seconds, is converted to a binary equivalent, in this case, 1100. In this illustration, the dots along the analog sine wave are data points collected to create the digital representation of the physical quantities. Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) Adds two channels to standard phone line for Internet. Hub and spoke (dedicated line) topology; full duplex. In the U.S., DSL prioritizes download speeds. Diode A semiconductor that passes current from one terminal to another terminal, and in which current can only flow in one direction. The kit used in this book includes a mix of different Light Emitting Diodes, or LEDs. Different LEDs work at different wavelengths (the measure of distance between the peak and the trough in a wave), associated with different recognized colors of light. Some LEDs are made to be especially bright, such as a car headlamp to help us see the road more clearly. Others are meant to be more diffuse, thereby working more as a source of information, like a car brake light or turn signal. Domain Name System (DNS) A naming system which translates domain names to IP addresses. This ensures a consistent name space for information resources. Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) As part of the Internet protocol suite, DHCP is a network management protocol. DHCP servers dynamically or statically assign IP addresses to connected nodes on the local area network (LAN) so that they can communicate with other IP networks. End-to-End Principle According to this principle, network features should be implemented as close to the end nodes of the network as possible. Everything that can be done within the client or server application should be done there. Only those things that interconnecting devices must do should be done there. Ethernet Port An Ethernet port is an Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standard connector for 100BASE-Tx/1000BASE-T full duplex Fast and Gigabit wired Ethernet communications using twisted pair CAT-5 and CAT-6 copper cabling. 440 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Federation of the Locals The principle that networks begin and end with local area networks (LANs). The other types of area networks, including the wide area networks that comprise the Internet, then serve as a bridge between the local area networks. Fiber Optics Ultra-high-speed communications technology with one or more channels for Internet. Hub and spoke (dedicated) topology with synchronous upload and download speeds. Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH)/Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) When fiber-optic communications infrastructure reaches from the infrastructure (such as cable laid underground in the street) into privately owned property to reach an ISP subscribers home or workspace. File Manager A file manager is a software program that helps you manage all the files on your computer. For example, file managers allow you to view, edit, copy, and delete the files on your computer's storage devices. It is known as the File Manager within the Windows Operating System and as the Finder on the Mac Operating System. The file manager makes use of the Graphical User Interface (GUI). The same tasks you can complete with the file manager can also be done through the Command Line Interface (CLI) terminal. For Loop A Control Flow Statement that specifies the conditions under which a sequence of events should be executed. Forever Loop A Control Flow Statement used to create a function that keeps running a sequence of code infinitely. Function A unit of code defined by its role within a more general code structure. To execute the function, it is provided one or more inputs, and produces a concrete result. This result may, but is not necessarily required to, be returned back to the caller of the function. General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) A general purpose input/output, or GPIO, is a common, open-ended transmission mechanism used with integrated circuits on microcontrollers, microcomputers, and other printed circuit board electronics. Pins are provided to which female-ended wires can be connected. GPIO pins can be programmed as input (e.g., sensor data; ground) or output (e.g., state change; power) sources. GPIO pins can be preconfigured for special purposes, or can remain undefined until specified by a user at run time. In general, GPIO provides a means to tailor pins to fit specific design goals within applications, as well as reusability across applications. Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) The standard markup language for data, structured into documents, intended to be displayed on a web browser. Using a standard syntax, HTML annotates a document with a semantic structure. For example, wrapping a phrase in HTML tags denotes that those words are italicized when rendered in the web browser. Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) The ever-present application layer protocol used to request and access media (such as webpages) from across the Internet. Website URLs begin with http or https to signify this protocol (the added s denotes the secured HTTP protocol, which is increasingly common). The Hypertext Transfer Protocol is part of the Internet protocol suite. Glossary | 441 Initialization The assignment of an initial value for a variable. Input/Output Devices Input devices let users control the computer (e.g. keyboard, mouse, touch-sensitive devices). Output devices inform the user of what is happening (e.g. monitor, printer). Integrated Circuit Integrated circuits (ICs) are semiconductor wafers which contain a collection of tiny resistors, capacitors, and transistors. These can then be built to serve a wide range of electronic functions. In practice, larger sized electronic components used to build circuits are first tested using materials like breadboards for rapid prototyping. They are then redesigned to be built into integrated circuits and optimized for regular, more standardized use. At times, a mix of electronic components along with integrated circuits are themselves used on breadboards to do further rapid prototyping of yet larger circuitry. The 5-Key Capacitive Touch Sensor included in the kit for this book contains a mix of integrated circuits. Examples of integrated circuits include: processors, memory, controllers. Intelligent Agents/Smart Devices Autonomous devices with software that facilitates the device's perception of its environment and execution of actions that maximize chances of achieving target goals. Interconnect Device A device used to connect nodes together. A switch or hub is used with wired Ethernet, an access point is used for wireless Ethernet (WiFi), and a router or gateway builds an Internet by connecting different LANs together. Interdevice Internetworking The facilitation of two or more devices working with each other. Internet Protocol (IP) A key communications protocol for routing data within networks, thus enabling the Internet. This protocol delivers packets from a sender to the destination and requires IP addresses for routing these packets. Domain Name Server (DNS) services are used to associate IP names with specific IP addresses. Iteration Repeating one step in a program multiple times. Jumper Wires Wires are made of either a thicker solid metal, or thinner strands of multiple wires, placed within a non-conductive material. The exposed ends of the wire can then be inserted into two different holes on the breadboard to safely conduct current from one hole to another, helping to extend the circuit between different electrical components. These are sometimes attached to a plastic holder to provide greater strength. If a solid metal wire end has been soldered into the other side of that plastic holder, it is known as a male end. If a metal wire can be temporarily inserted into the other side of that plastic holder, it is known as a female end. If a pair of metal clips attached with springs is provided, it is known as an alligator clip. Kernel The heart of the operating system. It is the go-between from applications between input/output controllers, memory, the Central Processing Unit (CPU) and storage devices. 442 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Link Lights LED light found on wired Ethernet cards and switches. When lit, indicates the card and switch are on and working properly and the Ethernet cable is plugged in and working properly. Lists and Arrays Lists and arrays are two commonly used ways to store data. A list is a set of data arranged in some order. Lists are mutable, meaning that the order of the items within the list can change. This allows for sorting, shuffling, adding, and deleting items from the list. One form of lists, called an array, is an indexed set of related elements associating one thing with another and are especially useful in control flow loops such as button counters. However, insertion or deletion of items within an array's list can prove difficult. Local Area Network (LAN) The simplest type of Internet-based area networks is a Local Area Network (LAN). A LAN is a network with connected devices in a close geographical range. It is generally owned, managed, and used by people in a building. For example, connecting to a WiFi network at a coffee shop or library would mean your device would be a node on the cafe or library's publicly accessible LAN. Many businesses and institutions have a second, private LAN for use by staff only. Machine Learning A branch of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in which algorithms include "teaching" models that continually improve machines predictions when fed data. Media Media are used to interconnect devices on a network, and are made of four primary materials: coaxial copper cable, twisted pair copper cable, fiber optics cable, and radio waves. Media Access Control (MAC) Media Access Control (MAC) addresses are unique identifiers assigned to network interface controllers (NICs) as part of the data link layer of the OSI model. Memory Memory is the part of a computer in which data or programming instructions are stored and retrieved. Memory is constructed using high-performance integrated circuit chips to increase performance as compared to storage devices such as hard drives and lower performance but less expensive flash drive integrated circuit chips. Much of this type of memory is volatile Random Access Memory (RAM), in which data is lost when power to the computer is turned off. There are multiple types of RAM: The higher cost but faster performing static RAM (SRAM) is used with the CPU to increase CPU performance, while the less costly but slightly slower dynamic RAM (DRAM), or more recently double data rate synchronous dynamic RAM (DDR SDRAM) is the main memory of computers. The Raspberry Pi Model 3 comes with 1 GB (Gigabyte) of DDR, while the Raspberry Pi Model 4 is available with 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB of DDR, making it very similar to today's smartphone and Chromebook computers. Many laptops today come with 4GB to 8GB of system memory. Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) A collection of LANs and devices in an area the size of a city. Modem A portmanteau of the words Modulator-Demodulator. This device converts data provided from computing devices into binary zeros and ones so that it can be transmitted through a network. Glossary | 443 Modularization Including blocks of code over and over into a program, or having a very long list of code in a single instruction set, can become confusing and hard to debug. A module is a block of code, separated out into a manageable chunk. Functions and subroutines are examples of modularization. Motherboard The printed circuit board found in a computer, which contains the principal components, along with ports and connectors to other devices. The term "motherboard" arose at a time when it was paired with one or more supporting printed circuit expansion boards, often referred to as daughterboards or expansion cards, in order to achieve the full general functioning of the computer. The motherboard is sometimes also referred to as system board or mainboard. Network Interface Card (NICs) The hardware necessary for a node to connect to a network. For example, an Ethernet card (wired or wireless) is used for a LAN connection. A modem (cable, DSL, dialup) is used for traditional Internet. Optical Network Terminals (ONT) are used for fiber to the home. Network Manager Operating system utility that shows network configuration. An IP address of 0.0.0.0 or one that starts with 169.254 indicates you are connected to the media but aren't getting a proper IP address from the address server (usually the gateway router). Node Any device directly connected to the network that has been assigned a unique identifier or address on that network, such as a MAC address (also known as the hardware, physical, or Ethernet address), the serial number for Ethernet cards, or an IP address: The address used by the Internet protocol. Ohm's Law German scientist Georg Simon Ohm developed this simple, linear mathematical principle relating current (I), resistance (R), and voltage (V). There are three equations that are used in direct current circuits. If needed, these can help us to determine, for instance, which voltage source or which resistor ohms we should use to achieve a certain passage of current through our circuit. V = IR Electrical voltage equals amperes times ohms I = V/R Current amperes equals voltage divided by ohms R = V/I Resistance ohms equals voltage divided by amperes Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Model The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model expresses the relationship between the seven layers of computer and telecommunications systems. These layers are: 1. Physical: Copper & fiber cables, radio frequency & infrared wireless. 2. Data link: Media Access Control (MAC). 3. Network: Routing of data packets. 4. Transport: End-to-end connections. 5. Session: Interhost communication. 6. Presentation: Data translation & representation. 7. Application: What the 'end user' sees. 444 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Operating System (OS) The core software bundle of a computer. The OS supports different aspects of a computers basic functions, overseeing the coordination between the physical electronics of the computer and the many software applications that allow us to do our daily computer-based activities. While the physical electronic components of most personal computers support multiple different operating systems, only one OS can be run on a computer at a given time since it is the central control system of those physical electronics. That is, the OS has the final word on how software interacts with hardware when the computer is turned on and functioning. The kernel is the heart of the OS, and for the most part remains hidden from view. On the opposite side, the Graphical User Interface (GUI) serves as the visual mechanism for interacting with a computer, whether via keyboard, mouse, and monitor, touchpad, or something else. All modern computers also include a Command Line Interface (CLI) such as a terminal window in which applications can be run and data is displayed using text. Indeed, for higher-level programming, research and development, and systems management, a combination of GUI and CLI interfaces used in parallel prove essential. Packets When information and communications data sent is sent from the node and onto the LAN and often to the WAN, it is not sent as a single file such as that we store on a hard drive or flash drive. Rather, it is divided into pieces, called packets. Each packet contains a header and payload. The header contains information including the source IP address, destination IP address, and an identification tag to order the packets. The payload is the actual information that is being transmitted, such as web page data or an email. When a packet reaches its destination, the software application will piece all the packets together. Pair/Triplet Programming Pair programming (or triplet programming) is common in software development. Two (or three) programmers collaborate on design, coding, and testing, with qualitative evidence suggesting the subsequent design is better, resulting in simpler code that is easier to extend. Further, whether the pair programming occurs between two novice programmers, between a novice programmer and a more experienced programmer, or between two experienced programmers, people learn significantly more about the system and about software development as both participants bring unique insights. Conversation between the programming pair can occur at many levels as the driver working at the keyboard takes charge of all changes made in the program and the navigator observes all the code that is entered, considers coding options, works to spot and address problems, considers and recommends simplifications, helps with programming style, and designs and verifies testing. Peer-to-Peer Architecture A computing structure in which individual devices can share information and resources directly without relying on a dedicated central server. Each device can perform a mix of resource provision (e.g., computation, storage, and networked sharing) and resource requesting (e.g., web page, new email or social media posts) tasks. Compare to client-server architecture in which the client device performs requests while a server device performs resource provision. Glossary | 445 Personal Area Networks (PAN) Personal Area Networks (PAN) provide a simple computer network organized around a few personal devices allowing transfer of files, photos, and music without the use of the Internet or your home's local network. Two common examples would be your Bluetooth headset or keyboard/mouse. Depending on the Bluetooth range selected (or chosen for you), this could span 3 feet, 10 feet, or 100 feet. Beyond Bluetooth, other common PAN connectivity includes Infrared (IR), USB, ZigBee, Wi-Fi, and radio frequency (RF, including short distance AM and FM radio). Ping Run from the command line or terminal application to test if you can communicate with another node. Power Adapter Our homes, businesses, libraries, and other community spaces typically include wall outlets from which we can plug in our electronics. These are usually either installed to supply 120 volt or 240 volt alternating current (AC) power source to our devices. But many of our devices use a much lower voltage direct current (DC) power source. It is for this reason that we often need a power adapter that has a plug-in to connect to the wall outlet, and another that has another form of plugging, increasingly today a Micro USB connector, to your electronic device. For the kit used in this book, we use a power adapter that works with 110 to 240 volt AC power on one side, and provides 5 volt, 2.4 amp power via a Micro USB connector on the other side. Printed Circuit Board A printed circuit board is a board base made of fiberglass or glass-reinforced plastic with one or more layers of copper or other conductive traces placed on one or both sides of the board base. If you've ever tie dyed a shirt, you've got a good starting point for considering the printing process of a circuit board. Individual electronic components and integrated circuits are then soldered onto specific trace paths to build complex electronics. A small printed circuit board was used to build the 5-Key Capacitive Touch Sensor used in our kit. Program A program is software containing a series of coded instructions to control the operation of an electronic device (noun), and the activity of creating coded instructions in support of a particular task of an electronic device (verb). Programs are created using a programming language that includes rules and a system of symbols. The language must conform to these rules of syntax and semantics, but unlike many commonly used physical electronics, they often are not created as part of a standards body. A programming language may be developed from scratch, but more often are built within a programming family, using previous programming languages as a base starting point, and may rely on another programming language to effectively function on a machine. This book explores several popular programming languages: MakeCode: A web-based code editor developed by Microsoft, adapted specifically for the Circuit Playground Express in collaboration with Adafruit. It provides a block editor similar to the Scratch visual programming language developed by MIT Media Lab Lifelong Kindergarten Group. (Scratch is installed by default in the Raspberry Pi OS and with the available extension can be used with the Raspberry Pi GPIO.) The MakeCode programming language itself is TypeScript, a high-level programming language superset of another language, JavaScript. MakeCode is edited in a web browser at https://makecode.adafruit.com/ and provides a simulator of a Circuit Playground Express. Programs can be downloaded and flashed, that is, written to the Read-Only Memory (ROM) of the Circuit Playground Express, overwriting the previous MakeCode program on the physical device. 446 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Python: A popular general-purpose programming language with a relatively easy-to-use syntax. A range of Integrated Development Environments (IDE) are available in which code is written, tested, and debugged. The Raspberry Pi comes with IDLE and Thonny, two commonly used Python IDE bundles. PHP Hypertext Preprocessor: A scripting language used with web server applications in support of web development, as well as a general-purpose programming language. SQL (Structured Query Language): Used within database management system servers, like the open-source relational database management system MySQL, which can be installed and used in the Raspberry Pi OS. Programmable Circuit An electronic component with an undefined function, allowing it to be programmed and used in reconfigurable ways. Prototype The first, preliminary model of a circuit or a system of circuits used when developing a product. Used both as a noun describing a model, or a verb describing the activity moving towards the creation of the model. Request for Comments (RFC) RFCs are technical and organizational notes about the Internet and cover many aspects of computer networking, including protocols, procedures, programs, and concepts. Resistance ( or Ohm) Electrical resistance reduces the flow of current through a circuit. Resistors are the typical electrical component used to provide resistance in a circuit. The kit used in the book comes with five 560 ohm resistors, and five 10,000 ohm (or 10k ohm) resistors. In most cases, feel encouraged to work with the 560 resistor. Ribbon Cable When a number of insulated wires are brought together to create a flat ribbon of wires, this is called a ribbon cable. Ribbon cables may have a plastic box with solid metal pins extending out from the other side, in which case it is known as a male header. Other times, a plastic box is made with holes into which metal pins can be inserted, in which case it is known as a female header. Router A router is an interconnect device used to transfer data from one Local Area Network (LAN) to another LAN connected to the router. Schematic A symbolic and simplified diagram or other representation of a circuit. Throughout this book, schematics are used when an illustration of a circuit is needed without specifying exactly how these would be physically built using a breadboard or other prototyping platform. In this schematic illustration, we see the formal representation of the electronics used to create a complete and functioning circuit that include a 560 Ohm resistor, a 5mm LED circuit, and a battery. In the prototype illustration, we see one example of how this circuit could be constructed using a tiny breadboard and double-A battery. Semiconductor A substance that can conduct electricity under some conditions, but not under others. Many electrical components are built using such semi-conductive materials, including diodes, sensors, and integrated circuits. Glossary | 447 Sensor Electrical sensors are devices used to detect input from the physical environment. Light sensors might automatically turn on the headlights of your car, while heat and chemical sensors might turn on a fire alarm. And motion sensors might turn up the heating or cooling in a house, or might count how many people have passed through a gate to and from a library. The Circuit Playground Express that comes with the toolkit has a range of sensor inputs within this printed circuit board, including: Analog light sensor to detect ambient light, with similar spectral response to the human eye. Temperature sensor calculated using the analog voltage at a given moment. Microphone audio sensor is a digital microphone that works similarly to the microphones built into our laptops and smartphones, but is smaller and less expensive, well-suited for this educational microcontroller. Motion sensor using an accelerometer, detecting both motion and gravitational pull. Seven capacitive touch sensors that can sense the touch of a person, human or otherwise. Sequence A particular set of events, and the specific ordering of those events, to complete one step in a program. Sequential Logic Boolean logic in which the output depends on the present input as well as a set history of the input. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) As part of the Internet protocol suite, SMTP is a communications protocol for email servers and clients. SMTP is used to send and receive email. Specifications Often called "specs," specifications are formalized practices created using accredited technical standards developed and adopted using an open consensus process under guidelines of a standards body, or using de facto technical standards developed and owned by a single group or company. Statement A statement is a single instruction given to the computer based on the rules of syntax and semantics of a programming language. The statement may include both the specific command and clarifying details, such as the color all pixels should be set to. Storage (Optical, Magnetic, and Flash) There are a range of different data storage devices: hard drives (HDDs) constructed using magnetic charges placed on a set of spinning platters, DVDs using pits on a spinning platter read via laser, and flash memory integrated circuit chips, such as Solid State Drives (SSDs), USB flash drives, and SD cards, provide computers with long term storage of data and software applications. Storage devices are relatively slow, so programming instructions need to be moved from storage to memory using integrated circuits to be fetched, decoded, and executed by the processors of the computer. The Raspberry Pi kit includes an 8 GB MicroSD card storage device, although 16GB, 32GB, and 128GB MicroSD cards are available and can be used with the Raspberry Pi. In addition, it is sometimes helpful to make use of USB flash drives or USB hard drives with the Raspberry Pi to provide even more storage. Store-and-Forward Principle A telecommunications technique in which information is stored at each intermediate node on the path to a specified destination. 448 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Structured Query Language (SQL) A language for creating, deleting, and manipulating data in a relational database. Although SQL is a standard language, many vendors, such as MySQL, have their own dialect. Relational database management systems are often a key component within the client-server architecture. Subroutine A unit of code defined by its role within a more general code structure. A subroutine does not need an input and does not provide an output, but simply executes the sequence of code within it. Switch Electrical switches are devices used to move between closed position, in which a current is passed through a circuit, and open position, in which the current is not passed through. A classic example is a light switch, in which a closed position would turn on a light and an open position would turn off that light. Closing the switch completes the circuit. The kit in this book includes three momentary closed tactile pushbutton switches that can be used with the breadboard, as well as three additional switches built into the Circuit Playground Express. Pressing on the round button momentarily closes the switch, temporarily passing current from one leg to the other on the switch. While the momentary switches used with the breadboard have four legs, the two legs on one side are connected together, as are the two legs on the other side. In practice, that makes these two-way switches. Themes and Skins Pre-set packages containing graphical appearance details. Supported in some versions of Windows and Linux. Available as third-party applications in other cases. Supported for many applications like web browsers. Changes the look and feel of many features at once (e.g. background colors, text font and size, icons, mouse cursor, etc.). Traceroute Run from the command line or terminal application to test the performance of each router between nodes. Transistor Small electronic switches allowing control of electrical flow within a circuit without using programming code. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) Together with the Internet Protocol (IP), TCP is one of the primary protocols of the Internet protocol suite. TCP specifically defines how data intended to be sent over a network is broken into packets before transmission and reliably reassembled in the right order at the destination application. Many applications, including the web, email, and file transfer rely on TCP as a foundation. Uniform Resource Locator (URL) Also known as a web address, the URL is a commonly used form of the more general Uniform Resource Indicator (URI), strings of characters used to unambiguously identify a resource, such as https://www.wikipedia.org. The first part of the URL states the protocol to be used. While web browsers support several different protocols, we almost always make use of the HTTP protocol or the secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTTPS. Universal Asynchronous Receive and Transmit (UART) Pronounced u-art, the universal asynchronous receiver-transmitter is a commonly used hardware supporting serial communication between two devices, such as between a microcomputer and a microcontroller. As an asynchronous device, UART data can be sent at different periods of time as needed. This contrasts with synchronous data communications technologies such as the dynamic random access memory (RAM) found Glossary | 449 in dual in-line memory modules (DIMM) of a computer, in which data is exchanged at precise intervals. Universal indicates the configurability of UART, allowing for unique code to be written supporting different data types and sizes to meet specific data communication needs. An independent driver circuit manages transmission levels (e.g.,115,200 kilobits per second speed) and methods (e.g., USB to TTL) used within a specific communication cable. USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is a formal industry standard with specifications for cables and connectors, and also protocols for connections, communication, and power supply between electronic devices such as computers and peripherals. USB 1.x, 2.0, 3.x, and the upcoming 4 are generations of the standard and associated specifications. The USB port connector on a device is called the receptacle, while the connector on the cable is called the plug. There is a range of different USB connectors approved within USB committee specifications, including: Standard format USB Type-A (common on computers, and used on the Raspberry Pi) and Type-B connectors (seen in a range of removable devices such as external hard drives and printers). Type-A receptacles on devices are color-coded white, indicating USB version 1 or 2 compliant low/full/high speed ports, or blue, indicating USB version 3.x SuperSpeed compliant ports. Mini-A (common in cameras and some tablet computers) and Mini-B connectors. Micro-A and Micro-B connectors, common in many mobile devices. For USB 3.x ports, a thin but wider Micro-B SuperSpeed plug is used. USB-C is a formal connector specification, and does not necessarily implement USB 3.x standards. User Datagram Protocol (UDP) Used together with the Internet Protocol (IP), UDP is an alternative to TCP when speed is essential and errorcorrection is not. For example, live video streaming applications use the UDP protocol acknowledging video may occasionally freeze or appear jumpy for brief periods. UTF-8 UTF-8, the 8-bit Unicode Transformation Format encoding system, is the most encoding for the World Wide Web. It is backward compatible with ASCII but provides support for a wide range of languages beyond American English encoding of ASCII. Variables A convenient name to represent numbers that change from time to time. Look at the top of your smartphone, and you may see the battery percentage charge remaining. A program exists on the smartphone to read this variable and provide a visual representation of it. Variables are often used within code to evaluate changes in patterns to determine which series of code should be executed at a given moment. Voltage (V or Volt) A quantitative expression of the difference in charge between two points in an electrical field. The Raspberry Pi electronics kit provides both 5 volt and 3.3 volt sources for use in our circuits. While Loop A Control Flow Statement that specifies the conditions under which a sequence of events should continue to be executed. 450 | A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology Wide Area Network (WAN) Covers the size of a state, country, and could even be considered to include the entire Internet. A WAN is comprised of many interconnected MANs and LANs. The WAN that is used to internetwork these is typically owned and managed by one or more Internet Service Providers (ISPs: the business that provides connections to each LAN), Network Service Providers (NSPs: the business(es) that provide connections between ISPs), and Backbone Providers (the business(es) that provide the more extended connections between NSPs). 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Illinois Media Space, April 15, 2019. https://mediaspace.illinois.edu/media/t/1_d0tj0lc6. Yu, Liangzhi, Lorcan Dempsey, and Sarah Ormes. Community Networking: Development, Potentials and Implications for Public Libraries. Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 31, no. 2 (June 1, 1999): 7183. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 096100069903100202. Zakon, Robert H. Hobbes Internet Timeline. Accessed July 16, 2020. https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2235. Zieris, Franz, and Lutz Prechelt. Does Pair Programming Pay Off? In Rethinking Productivity in Software Engineering, edited by Caitlin Sadowski and Thomas Zimmermann, 25159. Berkeley, CA: Apress, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-1-4842-4221-6_21. Zurko, Mary Ellen, and Richard T. Simon. User-Centered Security. In Proceedings of the 1996 Workshop on New Security Paradigms NSPW 96, 2733. Lake Arrowhead, California, United States: ACM Press, 1996. https://doi.org/10.1145/ 304851.304859. Zwass, Vladimir. Information System. In Encyclopdia Britannica. December 28, 2017. https://www.britannica.com/topic/ information-system. Print Handout Download the Demystifying Technology Manual This cheat sheet provides key charts and diagrams from A Person-Centered Guide to Demystifying Technology in an easy-to-print format. 463 Acknowledgements Acknowledgments begin through a reflection that this textbook is the latest edition of a living document arising from my 25 years of engagement, teaching, and research at the School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Ann Bishop and Greg Newby, founders of Prairienet Community Network, both welcomed me in and challenged me bring my research and engagement interests into the information science space. Leigh Estabrook, then dean of the School, further opened doors by adding teaching and leadership opportunities to the participatory research of Prairienet. Many of the other faculty and staff of the School have guided my pedagogical development and community inquiry practices, especially Chip Bruce, Ann Bishop, Jon Gant, Manette Messenger, Paul Adams, Sharon Irish, and Lisa Bievenue. But there are so many others that I feel should be listed but worry this acknowledgment would become unwieldy and theres still more to include. For this PressBooks edition of the living document, special thanks go out to the Center for Digital Inclusion who provided ongoing funding, and the Publishing Without Walls project, which includes the University of Illinois Library, School of Information Sciences, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, and Department of African American Studies, and which is generously supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Moving from School to campus, there are many across the University of Illinois that I want to especially recognize. Thanks to all within the East St. Louis Action Research project with whom I have spent rich days (and nights) traveling, discussing, and doing as part of our extended time in community, with community, for community. And much thanks also to the campus engagement scholarship, CTRL-Shift, CITL, and Gadget Garage campus/ community space! Extended thanks especially for those deeply valued hours in Prato with the Community Informatics community, and our gatherings between conferences as well! Colin Rhinesmith, you fit into so many of these categories that I will instead put you into a line by yourself. ? But real change requires community, and so I want to especially acknowledge members of the Champaign-Urbana, East St. Louis, and So Tom communities with whom Ive collaborated. You have accepted me as I am with such open arms, and have spoken truth to me in so many transformative ways. Thanks to Sally, Joel, James, Vera, Essie, Martha, Christina and Eddie, Brad, Bill, Sister Marge, Earl, Kaitroy, Jorge, James, Elvis this list should go on, but Ill stop here with apologies to the so many Ive left out. I am so very different, my personal and professional engagement is so very different, my work with community technology and networks is so very different, this book is so very different because of you all. Thank you! Living documents like this develop through extended works in a community of practice. At the top of that list come the many who have spent extended hours as my research and teaching assistants during the time the Demystifying Technology worksheets and handouts turned into Word documents and then into HTML and PressBooks items. Thanks go out to Dinesh, Vandana, Beth, Chris, Jake, Deven, Damon, Jeanie, Sarah, Hailley, Kim, Sarah, Travis, Samaa, Angela, Casey, Rebecca, Rachel, Dan, Brandon, Hila, and Stephanie. And special thanks go out for the deep commitment and extended hours that Henry and Sara put into this work. 464 Acknowledgements | 465 I continue to challenge myself to expand the popular education of Freire, and this especially re-centers me as instructor-student, giving space to the student-instructors who have so much from their lived experiences, unique knowledge, and community cultural wealth to bring to the table. This, too, is a deep part of this living document. Thank you. But the start, the end, and all between comes deeply from the closest of my community, my family. And at the center of that is Angie.  ...

... Philosophical Ethics a guidebook for beginners George W. Matthews CC 2020 Contents I Some Preliminaries 10 1 The Examined Life 11 1.1 What do I know? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1.2 What should I do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1.3 Philosophical Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 1.4 Slideshow Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2 A Little Bit of Logic 19 2.1 Arguments, Rationality and Rhetoric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 2.2 The Structure of Arguments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2.3 Validity and Soundness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 2.4 Proofs and Counterexamples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 2.5 Slideshow Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 3 Fallacies and Biases 33 3.1 Fallacies of Relevance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 3.2 Fallacies of Ambiguity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 3.3 Fallacies of Presumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 3.4 Cognitive Biases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 3.5 Slideshow Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 2 3 II Ethics Culture and Religion 51 4 Relativism 52 4.1 Claims and Consequences of Moral Relativism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 4.2 Defending Relativism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 4.3 The Argument from Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 4.4 Difference and Tolerance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 4.5 Questioning Relativism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 4.6 A Starting Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 4.7 Slideshow Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 5 Religion and Ethics 66 5.1 Divine Command Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 5.2 A Nasty Dilemma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 5.3 Natural Law Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 5.4 Ethics and Human Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 5.5 Slideshow Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 III Reconstructing Norms 80 6 Egoism 81 6.1 Psychological Egoism: Whats in it for me? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 6.2 Arguments for psychological egoism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 6.3 Ethical Egoism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 6.4 In Defense of Ethical Egoism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 6.5 Capitalism and the Common Good . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 6.6 Slideshow Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 7 Social Contract Theory 94 7.1 Hobbes and the Invention of Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 7.2 The social contract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 7.3 Why should we follow the rules? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 7.4 Slideshow summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 4 8 Utilitarianism 104 8.1 Happiness and The Highest Good . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 8.2 Why should I care? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 8.3 Problems, Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 8.4 Slideshow Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 9 Kant and the ethics of duty 113 9.1 What do we owe one another? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 9.2 Rights and the ideal of respect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 9.3 The Categorical Imperative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119 9.4 Slideshow Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 IV Applied Ethics 10 Theory in Practice 10.1 Ethics in the real world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Euthanasia 122 123 125 126 11.1 Types of euthanasia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 11.2 Arguing About Euthanasia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128 12 Liberty and its Limits 134 12.1 Libertarians and paternalists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 12.2 The Case of Recreational Drugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 13 Crime and Punishment 142 13.1 Utilitarian approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144 13.2 Retributivist approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 13.3 The Death Penalty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150 14 Animals and Ethics 156 14.1 Defending The Status Quo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 14.2 Humane Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 14.3 Genuine Moral Consideration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 5 15 Ethics and the Environment 166 15.1 The Standard View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 15.2 The Limits of Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170 15.3 Varieties of Environmental Ethics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 Preface Dedication Receive correctly this monks word-stream, neither frozen nor trickling away, neither transparent nor muddy. When you wring it dry, take advantage of the opportunity; when you enter the bustle, perceive with your whole eye. Thorough understanding and the changing world fulfill each other totally without obstacle. The moon accompanies the current, the wind bends the grass. . . Find your seat, wear your robe, and go forward and see for yourself. Hongzhi, Cultivating the Empty Field 6 7 About this book This book is an introduction to philosophical ethics intended for use in introductory college or high school level courses. It has grown out of lecture notes I shared with the first students who took my online Ethics course at the Pennsylvania College of Technology almost 20 years ago. Since then it has seen more development in a variety of forms starting out as a pdf document, and then evolving into a static set of WordPress pages and finally now as a book written in bookdown and hosted at GitHub. This text represents my attempt to scratch a couple of itches. The first is my wanting a presentation of the major philosophical approaches to ethics that I can actually agree with and that is integrated into my overall teaching method. I tend to teach philosophy to beginners and so there is a fair amount of discussion of the tools used by philosophers and of the ways in which their approach differs from that of their colleagues in other disciplines. There are of course many good quality ethics textbooks out there, and yet none has exactly matched my way of wanting to present the material. Teaching ethics over the years has been a process of active exploration and constant revision of my approach as I have come to a more nuanced and richer appreciation of what ethical thinking and theorizing is all about, as well as some ideas about how I think the main strands of argument relate to each other. Yes this is a partisan effort, but its all subject to revision and refinement based on, I hope at least, the better argument. Thats what I am trying to get across here. The second itch I am trying to scratch has to do with initiatives in open education, and Id like this text to contribute in its own small way to the much larger and more influential open source movement and philosophy of which I consider it a part. Knowledge is only ours to share. Yes of course writers, developers and publishers do hard work that deserves compensation. But intellectual property, it seems to me, is a false idol that deserves to be smashed. So here is my effort to chip away at it knowledge should free us and and not sink us into both literal and figurative debt. In addition the decision to place this text into a GitHub repository1 should be considered as an invitation for others to participate in its future development. Anyone can fork the repository where it resides and use it as a template for their own book project; offer suggestions for revisions, or contribute in other ways as well. Please use the issues section of the repository for making any major suggestions. If youd like to make your own book from scratch you can read all about how to do it in another book wrtten using the same setup as this one called Bookdown: Authoring Books and Technical Documents with R Markdown2 . Acknowledgements The writing and publication of this book would not have been possible without the work of numerous people who make and share their amazing work in the open source software 1 2 https://github.com/gwmatthews/ethics https://bookdown.org/yihui/bookdown/ 8 community. It is based in particular on the work of Yi Hui Xie3 and the other developers of bookdown4 and Rstudio5 and related software. While it has been a bit of a steep learning curve figuring out how to use Rstudio and bookdown to write and style a book, it has been a lot of fun too! The end product, hopefully, speaks for itself and demonstrates that these tools are not just for people with highly technical backgrounds, but can be used by anyone with some computer skills and a bit of patience to create functional, cross-platform and pretty good looking web based books. Icons are by Arthur Shlain6 . License CC BY-SA 4.0 This book is released under a creative commons CC BY-SA 4.07 license. This means that this book can be reused, remixed, retained, revised and redistributed (including commercially) as long as appropriate credit is given to the authors. If you remix, or modify the original version of this open textbook, you must redistribute all versions of this open textbook under the same license. How to use this book Read it This should be self-explanatory, but be sure not to miss the icons on the top of the screen which enable you to: Open up and close the sidebar with the table of contents in it. Search within the text for a keyword. Change the color scheme or font to make it easier to read. Offer editorial suggestions on GitHub (see below for how this works). Download a pdf version of the text for offline reading or printing. Find out keyboard short cuts for navigation. Also note the arrows on the side of the screen (or down at the bottom if you are reading on a small screen) that bring you to the next or previous pages. 3 https://github.com/yihui https://bookdown.org/yihui/bookdown/ 5 https://rstudio.com/products/rstudio/ 6 https://thenounproject.com/ArtZ91/ 7 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ 4 9 Comment on it If you are a current student in one of my Ethics classes youll have to do some commenting. When I used WordPress to host this text that was a built in feature. Here I am relying on a third party commenting add-on to the online version of the book. There are many ways to do this, with Disqus being one of the most popular. But we wont be using it since they track users and push lots of advertising. Instead well be using a nice tool called Hypothes.is, which you can find out all about here. Contribute to it If you find a mistake, dont think its clear in some part, have an issue with any part of it, want something more added, etc. I encourage you to contribute. You can do this in a few ways. If you have a GitHub account, you can leave a comment in the box at the end of each chapter. That creates an issue which others can read or add to as well. You can also contribute more directly as a pull request by clicking on the edit button on the top menu bar this will take you to the GitHub repository where the source material lives. There you can fork the repository, make whatever edits you want and then offer them in the form of a pull request. Any such requests will be subject to discussion unless they are minor issues like typos. If you really think I get things all wrong here, fork the book and make it your own! All of this assumes that you: Know what git even is.8 Have an account at GitHub9 which is free. And GitHub pages10 is a great way to get yourself a free website too! Send me an email if you know me in the real world. 8 If you dont, it is a version control system that enables collaboration and it mostly intended for software development, but it can be used for working together on any kind of project that involves electronic files, from novels to operating systems. 9 https://github.com/ 10 https://pages.github.com/ Part I Some Preliminaries 10 1 The Examined Life Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates The unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates Then raising the cup to his lips, quite readily and cheerfully he drank off the poison. Until this point most of us had been able to control our sorrow; but now when we saw him drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught, we could no longer hold off, and in spite of myself my own tears were flowing fast, so that I covered my face and wept, not for him, but at the thought of my own calamity in having to part from such a friend.a a Plato, Phaedo, Project Gutenberg, accessed January 12, 2020, https: //www.gutenberg.org/files/1658/1658-h/1658-h.htm#link2H_4_0002 11 12 CHAPTER 1. THE EXAMINED LIFE This is Platos version of an eyewitness account of the last living moments of their teacher Socrates. Socrates was executed in 399 BCE in his hometown of Athens, Greece in the customary way of being given a cup of poison hemlock extract to drink, for the crimes of corrupting the youth and preaching false gods. What he really did was spend his days engaging his fellow citizens in dialogue about anything and everything, but especially focused on questions concerning how we all should live our lives, as well as challenging everyone he met to account for and defend their assumptions about how to live. But his relentless questioning earned him many enemies who preferred that the youth, and everybody else, rest content in the assumption that the best way to live is to seek fame and fortune and try to live the good life that these seem to make possible. Socrates was not convinced and advocated the life of the philosopher, turning away from worldly pursuits and instead reflecting on and critically examining our deepest assumptions and ultimately being willing to admit how little we really know. Socrates was famous for his saying that the unexamined life is not worth living. What he meant by this is that all of us have a responsibility to examine our own beliefs and try to figure out whether or not they are really true. Not doing this is like sleepwalking through life. This might be pleasant but it runs the risk of us devoting our lives to things that dont truly matter, and even worse it leads us to neglect developing our unique capacity as human beings. Unlike other animals, we can mentally take a step back from what we see in front of us and ask, Should I trust what I see or not? Likewise with everything we do: we can examine our own desires, intentions and plans and ask ourselves, Should I act on these or not? In both cases we are capable of distancing ourselves from the immediate demands of our situation and seeking orientation from another source we seek reasons to believe or doubt what we see and reasons to follow or resist our urges. This reflective capacity is the source of our strength since it has enabled us to understand and manipulate the world around us like no other creature on the planet. But, as we can now see more clearly than perhaps Socrates could, it also puts us in the uniquely awkward position of having to justify ourselves to our own worst critics, ourselves. Another famous, although fictional figure, who shows the difficulties that our ability to reflect can pose is Shakespeares Hamlet. Writing at the dawn of the modern era, which saw the expansion of human populations to the current seven and a half billion of us in the span of a few short centuries, and the resulting crowding out of many other life forms, Shakespeare sums up the human predicament when he has Hamlet say, What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust? The capacity to reflect is the source of both our godlike apprehension and the difficulties we inevitably encounter in figuring out what we should do with ourselves; our ability to dominate the world we live in and the difficulties we sometimes face in finding a solid sense of purpose and direction. What should we really do with our short time here on this planet and why? Should we live our lives according to the standard routine, and accumulate more 1.1. WHAT DO I KNOW? 13 and more stuff, seeking one peak experience after another to file away in our memories? Or should we look for a higher purpose, whatever that might be? Even though, thankfully, most of us do not experience the tension between these two aspects of our ability to reflect on ourselves and our circumstances quite as dramatically as Hamlet did, all of us face this essentially human predicament being masters of the universe and yet feeling lost at the same time. As we will be seeing in this text, philosophical ethics is another, much less bloody, way of exploring it. To set the stage for what we will be up to here I want to first say a bit more about our unique reflective capacity and our ability to pay attention to reasons. This was what Socrates had in view when he questioned his fellow Athenians about what they thought was the best way to live. Then Ill turn to a more detailed account of what is distinctive about philosophy in general and philosophical ethics in particular. 1.1 What do I know? Another Ancient Greek philosopher, Platos student Aristotle, defined human beings as, rational animals. We are like all other animals and come equipped with nervous systems that enable us to perceive what is happening around us and respond in real time. Animal nervous systems are the product of hundreds of millions of years of evolution, and are extremely useful for helping animals survive and flourish in a complex and constantly changing environment. But what is distinctive about the human nervous system is the degree to which the constant stream of information coming into it through our senses is integrated and organized. It is integrated in an experience which is, as far as we can tell, more fully conscious than that of other creatures. And it can be more explicitly examined and critically reflected on, enabling us to reason about how reliable it is and whether what it presents us with is really true. We can make explict to ourselves our own thought processes and subject them to critical analysis. This is a point that it is hard to overemphasize but also easy to miss since we take it so much for granted. By asking ourselves about the reasons we have for believing that some aspect of our experience is true we are asking ourselves not only about the way things seem to us, but about the way things should appear; not just what we happen to believe about things based on their appearance to us, but about what we should believe about them because it reflects their true reality. And by asking ourselves such questions we are asking what philosophers call normative questions, questions that have to do with values, with concepts like right, wrong, good, bad, true, false, beautiful and ugly. We not only perceive and think, but also judge our own perceptions and thoughts according to standards that are more general and weighty, going by the lofty names of Reason, Truth, Reality and so on. 1.2 What should I do? Aristotle also defined human beings as political animals since we live together in societies organized around explicit rules and social norms. Here as well we dont have to simply act on whatever urges we feel most strongly, or even just follow along with what others 14 CHAPTER 1. THE EXAMINED LIFE expect of us, we can stop and think about what to do instead and think about whether it is right to do or not. Our ability to reflect on our choices and actions introduces a normative dimension to human practical and social life as we come to ask ourselves questions about our own needs, desires and decisions as well as about the rules governing our social lives. We may wonder what we should do in some particular situation, maybe when our impulses lead us in one direction and our experience and reason says otherwise; or when we feel social demands imposed on us that we still feel uncomfortable with. Consider the following famous fictional case. A difficult case Imagine that you are standing next to a railway track and notice a runaway trolley coming down the tracks. There are five children further down the track who are too far away to hear you. There is also a switch in front of you, that would divert the trolley to another track. Unfortunately there is also a single worker on this other track, who is himself to far away to hear you. Would you throw the switch and cause the worker to most likely die in order to prevent the runaway trolley from hitting the children? This classic case of an ethical dilemma has been extensively studied by philosophers and moral psychologists.1 It presents us with a situation in which we most likely feel torn between two alternatives, neither of which seems to be acceptable or desirable, but in which we also may feel unable to refuse to pick either. Cases like this are good at bringing to the surface the intuitions and assumptions we make about what the right thing to do might be, and that is why they are often studied by philosophers and others interested in looking more closely at moral decision making. One significant result of the study of this case is that a large majority of people say that if they were in that situation they would throw the switch. Many of us feel compelled to follow a common moral idea: all else being equal, do whatever saves the most lives. But then consider the following variation on this case. Imagine that you are standing on a bridge with a low railing over a railway track and notice a runaway trolley coming down the tracks. There are five children further down the track who are too far away to hear you. There is also a very large person standing next to you, and if you gave him a slight push he would fall in front of the trolley car 1 Originally developed by Judith Jarvis Thompson 50 years ago, this problem has lately seen practical application in the development of self-driving cars., Lauren Cassani Davis, Would You Pull the Trolley Switch? Does It Matter? The Atlantic, 2015, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/10/ trolley-problem-history-psychology-morality-driverless-cars/409732/ 1.3. PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS 15 causing it to derail, thus saving the five children. Would you push the person off of the bridge in order to prevent the runaway trolley from hitting the children? In this case a large majority of people say they would not push the person off of the bridge even if it would save the five children. Given that the result is the same in either case, the question then becomes why it is that in the this version of this scenario we no longer look at it in terms of gut feeling that it is better to do what leads to more lives being saved. Whatever the explanation for this discrepancy may be (and there is an entire academic industry that has developed around research into the trolley dilemma) the important point here is that philosophers are interested in both examining cases like this directly and in studying how it is that we all tend to respond. Cases like this help us to see and hence to start examining the deeper assumptions we rely on in our thinking about right and wrong. In general this is what philosophy as a discipline is all about exposing to view and carefully examining the assumptions we make about how the world works, what we can know about it, and what matters. This is exactly what Socrates meant by leading an examined life. He insisted that if we never bothered to reflect on our own deepest assumptions about reality, knowledge and values we would be missing out on what may truly make life worth living. You may disagree with him that this kind of examination is something that we should all devote our entire lives to as he did, but he does have a point worth considering. If we never take the time to deeply reflect on our assumptions, are really ever living our own lives? 1.3 Philosophical Ethics Philosophical ethics is nothing but the deliberate pursuit and clarification of this kind of reflection on our own values, actions and decisions. Even though, as I have been emphasizing, we all have the capacity to reflect on our lives and choices, we do not always spend the time or make the effort to do this carefully and deeply. This is because we are mostly preoccupied with the immediately practical details of our lives. We are too busy living to take the time to stop and think about the significance of what we are doing. However, at times in the lives of both individuals and societies the need to reflect more clearly on what we are doing becomes more urgent. For individuals the need to stop and think and to reconsider the basic assumptions on which we act often arises in relation to important life events or radical changes the sudden loss of a loved one; the birth of a child; living through a natural disaster or a war; or even the transition to adulthood in which one assumes full moral and legal responsibility while also gaining the full rights and privileges of adults. These are topics and situations, as we will see later, that are often the focus of discussions in the branch of philosophical ethics called applied ethics. In the case of societies, philosophical thinking likewise flourishes in times of great stress or change for example when radically different societies suddenly make contact with each other; when new groups and ways of living displace old groups and ways; when 16 CHAPTER 1. THE EXAMINED LIFE new discoveries challenge peoples basic views of the nature of things; when societies find their very existence threatened by seemingly insurmountable obstacles. In cases like these it becomes more obviously important to reflect carefully on what we assume is valuable to us both individually and as a society, on what counts as a good life. A philosophical approach to ethics, or moral philosophy2 , looks at a few different kinds of questions. So the broader field of ethics can be divided up into a few different sub-fields. These are: Descriptive ethics What do people really think about right and wrong? How can we best describe and explain peoples moral claims and beliefs? Descriptive ethics is not exclusively a philosophical approach to ethics sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists and other social scientists are also interested in studying peoples ethical, moral and social beliefs. From the perspective of descriptive ethics, our beliefs and principles are things to be studied, categorized, organized and explained. This is what social scientists do for a living. Meta-ethics How does ethical thinking work and how does it compare with other forms of thinking? Are ethical claims nothing but opinions as opposed to the factual claims made scientists? Meta-ethics is a higher-order or meta-level discussion about ethical thinking. Here again, philosophers as well as social scientists often ask meta-ethical questions in their attempts to understand what is distinctive about ethical thinking as opposed to other modes of cognition. Looking at ethics from this perspective does not involve taking a stand on particular ethical principles or issues. 2 Throughout this book Ill be using the terms ethics and morality as basically synonymous. Some people distinguish between the two terms in one way or another and that is fine as far as it goes. But since the reason English has both terms is that we borrowed each from a different language ethics comes from Greek, while morality comes from Latin and both original terms mean something pretty similar, I see no reason to insist on any fundamental different meaning between them. 1.3. PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS 17 Prescriptive ethics What is really the right thing to do? What moral principles are really justified and should be followed? This approach to ethics is the uniquely philosophical attempt to find the true basis of ethical thinking. We will be spending a lot of time here examining various attempts to give an account of the basis and justification of ethical thought, belief and action. This way of approaching ethics is not scientific, to the extent that science concerns itself with value-neutral descriptions and explanations of whatever phenomena it is addressing. That philosophy can succeed in making normative claims while remaining based on objectivity and rationality is up to philosophers to establish. Applied ethics What is the right thing to do in real-world cases of ethical controversy? What assumptions and principles lie at the basis of ethical controversies? How does all of this play out in real life cases? Under this heading are also to be found discussions of ethical issues associated with some particular area of human life, profession, or subject matter hence medical ethics, business ethics, legal ethics, environmental ethics, bioethics and so on are sub-fields within applied ethics. We should keep in mind as we proceed that these various approaches are not always so clearly separate from one another. Our description of what people believe about ethical questions, for example, is clearly often informed by what we think they are justified in believing. Nevertheless we should keep in mind the fact that we can look at ethics from each of these different points of view and recognize that failing to do so may result in unnecessary confusion. In conclusion we might say that philosophical ethics involves deliberately reflecting on our ideas about ethics in general and on specific applications of these ideas to actual cases and controversies. Another term for such deliberate reflection is critical thinking. This should not be looked at as a primarily negative activity as the word critical might suggest, but as the positive attempt to arrive at the truth of the matter by thinking carefully about what are often complex and ambiguous ideas and concepts. Even though, as I mentioned at the outset, all of us are equally capable of reflecting critically on our own beliefs, desires, actions and values, it does take some effort and quite a bit of practice to be able to do so effectively. This is because critical thinking is a skill like anything else that we might do with our minds (like solve algebra problems or identify different species of trees) and we shouldnt expect to be experts at it from the start. In the next chapter we will look at and get some practice using one of the most important tools for critical thinking the logical analysis of arguments. 18 CHAPTER 1. THE EXAMINED LIFE 1.4 Slideshow Summary Here is a slideshow summary which can be viewed online3 , downloaded4 or printed5 . Further exploration Michael Sandel is a philosophy professor at Harvard who teaches a very popular course called Justice that explores material that overlaps with this text. His extensive website Justice with Michael Sandel6 also has videos of his lectures from that course the first of which focuses on the famous runaway trolley example. The Trolley Problem7 : an account of some recent rearch on the problem. It is impossible to lead a totally ethical life8 : Ephrat Livni reflects on ethics and everyday life. Introduction to Philosophy: Ethics9 , ed. George Matthews. A free textbook, part of a series edited by Christina Hendricks. 3 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/01-phl210-slides.html https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/01-phl210-slides.pdf 5 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/01-phl210-handout.pdf 6 http://justiceharvard.org/ 7 https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2016/dec/12/the-trolley-problem-would-you-killone-person-to-save-many-others 8 https://qz.com/1327804/its-impossible-to-lead-a-totally-ethical-life-but-its-fun-to-try/ 9 https://press.rebus.community/intro-to-phil-ethics/ 4 2 A Little Bit of Logic John Tenniel, Alice meets Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum Contrariwise, continued Tweedledee, if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isnt, it aint. Thats logic. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass Logic is the formal study of reasoning the attempt to justify or provide evidence for claims or beliefs. In this chapter we will look at the basic concepts and techniques for the logical analysis of arguments. As we will be seeing this will be useful in our discussions of ethics since much of what we will be doing will involve careful consideration of the justification of claims we make about ethics in general as well as particular topics in ethics. Before we get started though we need to clarify some terminology especially our use of the word argument. Too often this word conjures up a pointless verbal fight between people 19 20 CHAPTER 2. A LITTLE BIT OF LOGIC with opposed views. They argue rather than discuss because their differences of opinion are fixed in place and neither will budge. It is typically a good idea to stay away from arguments in this sense. The word argument as we are using it here, however, has quite a different meaning. For us arguments do not require differences of opinion because arguments are just attempts to explicitly provide back-up or justification for some claim that we might make. We offer arguments in this sense whenever we make the grounds for our belief explicit whether we are doing this within the confines of our own heads, in written form or spoken out loud, and whether or not anyone disagrees with us. Arguments in this sense of the term might appear in regular old verbal disputes. But as we will be seeing, arguments are best looked at one at a time since each one stands or falls on its own merits. So, for philosophers, arguments are just attempts to provide support for whatever it is that we might claim is true. For example, maybe we think the death penalty is wrong, or the opposite, so we come up with an argument to show this. Or maybe we think that morality is a sham, nothing but a cover story for basically selfish motives. Once again, we can come up with an argument in support of this idea. Or on an even more abstract level we might think that moral judgments are just matters of opinion and that it is therefore a waste of time to even argue about what is right and what is wrong. Since none of these claims are self-evidently true (even though some people may think some of these are obvious) well need an argument to back them up, or at least to make explicit our reasons for making these claims. In the end, we can think whatever we want. That will, however, only get us so far either others will agree with us or not, and either our thoughts will be true or not. But we can also offer reasons in support of our claims in the form of arguments. As we will be seeing, not all arguments are equally persuasive. There are, however, clear-cut and reliable ways of evaluating them to see which really provide the support we are after and which do not. 2.1 Arguments, Rationality and Rhetoric Arguments can of course be looked at as attempts to persuade other people that they should accept the claims that we are making. Because of this it may seem at first glance to be similar to rhetoric, also known as the art of persuasion. People who study and practice rhetoric often claim that rational argument is just one among many different methods of persuasion, appropriate at specific times, but not fundamentally different than other methods. That is, they claim that argument is a form of rhetoric. Philosophers, on the other hand, would like to insist on the basic difference between the two. Philosophers call attention to the fact that in rhetoric: Appeal is made to our emotions, prejudices, fears, hopes, etc. That is, who we are and what we feel about things matters. This is both its strength and its weakness. Because of this, the persuasion that rhetoric produces doesnt last, once our feelings change, we are no longer convinced, and our feelings are constantly changing. In rational argument, on the other hand: 2.2. THE STRUCTURE OF ARGUMENTS 21 Appeal is made not to our emotions but to our ability to reason. Since everyone is equally capable of reasoning, this means that arguments do not appeal to us personally. It doesnt matter who you are, a good argument should convince you. 2.2 The Structure of Arguments To see all of this more clearly, we need to take a look at how arguments work. But first things first we need a more precise definition of what we mean by an argument in the first place. Thats easy enough: An argument is a series of statements where some of these statements are intended to provide evidence or support for others. When we argue we are attempting to establish some claims on the basis of other claims. As sets of statements, arguments involve the declarative use of language. Declarative statements (or propositions) are just sentences that state stuff, they make claims, and so they can be either true or false. So when we are looking at arguments we are deliberately ignoring the many other ways we can use language, such as asking questions, making commands, expressing feelings. When we are offering an argument we are making a series of claims in which some are supposed to provide support for others. The statements that are doing the supporting are known as premises. The statement that is being supported, the point of our argument is called the conclusion. It is, however, sometimes difficult to tell whether a set of sentences is an argument or not. Let us consider a few examples: Parents should have the right to make decisions about their own childrens healthcare. Why should other people mess around in their business? And please, lets keep the lawyers out! This may seem like an argument, so how can we tell for sure? Simply by checking whether this set of sentences is a set of statements where some are intended to provide support for others. So, how many statements are there here? Only one: the first sentence is a statement, the second is a question and the third is a command. In other words, even though this looks at first like an argument it is really just a single claim with no real argument given in support. What about the next example? How many statements are in these sentences? And do any of them really offer support for any of the others? 22 CHAPTER 2. A LITTLE BIT OF LOGIC I am convinced that aliens are living among us and you should be convinced as well. I have really good evidence for this claim. Well this is almost an argument, but not quite. There is a claim being made here: aliens are living among us. But there is no real support given for this claim, only the insistence that this person has some unknown evidence. Before we can start to evaluate this evidence to see whether it really supports the claim, we need to see it. So here we have only two separate statements without a real argument yet. Now consider the following example: Christopher Columbus was a criminal, because anyone who kills innocent people, kidnaps others, and steals their valuables is a criminal and that is just what he did. Here the grammatical form is a little misleading. This is an argument in spite of the fact that there is only one sentence. Why? Because this one sentence expresses a few different claims or propositions and some of these claims are offered as supports for others. We can see this if we break it up into individual claims and change the order around like so into standard form with the premises listed as individual statements and the conclusion written last. Anyone who kills people, kidnaps other people and steals their valuables is a criminal. Christopher Columbus did all of those things. So Christopher Columbus was a criminal. Perhaps this is not yet a very convincing or complete argument, but at least it is an argument unlike the first examples. It is not always so clear which statements in an argument are the premises and which statement is the conclusion. Often, but not always, these are signaled with one of a number of typical words or phrases that function as premise or conclusion indicators. Paying attention to these typical words and phrases can help you to disentangle the argument from the peculiarities of a writers style. Premises To help guide us through an argument a writer or speaker who is presenting an argument might use the following expressions and phrases to show what the argument rests on. These are premise indicators. 2.2. THE STRUCTURE OF ARGUMENTS 23 Because Since In light of the fact that In view of the following evidence This is not an exhaustive list. Basically, when reading an argument you can pick out the premises by asking yourself where the writer is starting from and where he or she is going. The first is the set of premises and the second is the conclusion. Conclusions It is often the case that arguments are presented with the conclusion first in order to emphasize where the discussion is supposed to be going. The following common words are often used to indicate a statement that is supposed to play the logical role of the conclusion of an argument. Therefore It follows that Thus It should be clear that These words and phrases indicate that this is where the writer (or speaker) is going with the argument and they are often used at the beginning of an informal argument to orient us, even though logically speaking they are last. For example, when a lawyer begins her argument in court with the claim, Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client is not guilty, and then goes on to present the evidence, she is reversing the logical order for rhetorical effect. This is fine in everyday life, but since it can be confusing, when we look at arguments explicitly here we will look at them in standard form with the premises first and conclusion last. Pattern of reasoning One other thing to watch for when looking at arguments is words and phrases that indicate the structure of the reasoning itself. These are ways of pointing out exactly how the premises are supposed to support the conclusion, and so are indicators of the pattern or form of reasoning involved. Some examples are: Because of these, that has to be true. 24 CHAPTER 2. A LITTLE BIT OF LOGIC If this then that, otherwise this. All of the above is true so this means. . . This is the only option that makes sense. If we assume that this is true we get a ridiculous result so it cant be true. These indicate the general logic form of argument being followed. Is it a matter of necessity, other conditions present or absent, summation of influences, or a process of elimination, or are we showing something indirectly by showing that denying it makes no sense? The more formal study of logic looks carefully at these and many other different patterns of reasoning, and we will meet them at various points in our discussions of arguments about topics in ethics. 2.3 Validity and Soundness Being rational is nothing more than trying to follow two basic rules. 1. Have good reasons for your fundamental beliefs. Dont just repeat them because you have heard them, but own them because you have thought them through and they seem to present a defensible picture of how things should be. 2. Adjust your theories to the evidence. NOT the other way around! Theories are nothing but models that help us see what might happen next. If our theories keep telling us that something will happen and it doesnt so much the worse for the theory. Well established theories have both a cogent theoretical story to tell, but also mesh with the facts on the ground. Because of this they can help guide us through our lives. Bad theories that fail either on the theoretical or empirical side, are no better than guesses. Not all arguments, however, are really equal. Just having any old argument wont always get us very far. Instead, as we will see, there are some arguments that really are better than others. This was the insight of the first philosophers in the Western tradition, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, and it does seem kind of strange that I feel compelled to have to justify it even after a couple of thousand years. Way back then, just like now, many people thought this was a presumptuous claim to make. This is especially the case since it amounts to the claim that some arguments are really compelling on their own, and that we should, as long as we are being rational, have no choice but to accept them. For the skeptics out there who doubt that we will ever be able to create such an argument, I should also point out that the clearest and best arguments really dont end up saying anything very controversial or 2.3. VALIDITY AND SOUNDNESS 25 extraordinary. This is one of the limitations that logic imposes on us: if we are really being logical and using only reliable arguments we may have to refrain from claiming to be able to establish very much. Understanding the logic of arguments, if nothing else, should encourage us to be a little more modest in our claims to knowledge. And this is why Socrates, in spite of his reputation for being a bit of a jerk in pointing out to many people the flaws in their own arguments is today most well known for saying that the only thing he really knew what how little he knew. To get back to business, when we are arguing what we are doing is trying to establish the truth of something that we dont know on the basis of other things that we already know or accept. What we are interested in is establishing the truth of the conclusion, yet for some reason its truth is not obviously apparent to us so we need to establish it on the basis of other claims the truth of which we can already accept. Arguments move us from the known to the unknown. To take a simple example, suppose we would like to establish that Socrates fears death. We dont have any direct reason for thinking that this is true. But we do know some other things that may be of use in establishing this. First we know that Socrates is a human being. Second we know that all human beings are mortal. Third, we know that all mortals fear death. In standard form this would be arranged like so: Socrates is a human being. All human beings are mortal. All mortals fear death. So Socrates fears death. This is a bit of a contrived example, but it can help us to see the key concepts we can use to evaluate any argument at all. Key concepts The information in the premises is enough information, as we can easily see, to establish our conclusion. Since Socrates is human he must be mortal, and he must fear death, since all mortals fear death. This argument seems like a pretty solid piece of reasoning. But how can we tell in general whether an argument is a good argument? It turns out that there are two questions we will need to ask about an argument in order to determine whether or not it is a good argument: Is there a clear and solid connection between every step of the reasoning that leads us inevitably from premises to conclusion? In philosophical terminology: is it valid? 26 CHAPTER 2. A LITTLE BIT OF LOGIC Are the claims that we started from, our premises, really true? In philosophical terminology: is it sound? How do we answer these questions for the example above? It seems that there is in fact a clear and solid connection between what the premises are saying and what the conclusion is saying. In fact we already showed this above when showed that the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises. Technically this is a short and informal proof of its strength as an argument, that is, of its validity. So the answer to the first question is, yes, it is valid. As far as the second question goes, however, we may have our doubts. Are all of the premises really true? Socrates is (or was) a human being he was one of the first philosophers. And all human beings are in fact mortal, at least as far as the evidence we have goes. But do we really know whether all mortals, past, present and future fear death? So here is the one small weakness of the argument. If we could be assured that this premise was true the argument would be completely convincing and would provide adequate backup for the conclusion. But it rests, unfortunately, on a weak premise, so it is not a sound argument. Since these two ideas are both very important for everything well be doing here and not so obviously obvious, here are some more explicit definitions: The best arguments must be both valid and sound. Validity: in a valid argument IF the premises are true the conclusion MUST also be true. Soundness: A sound argument is a valid argument that also has TRUE premises. One thing to notice here is that the test for validity is entirely independent of the test for soundness. It is a little misleading, as we can now see, to ask whether arguments are either good or bad. More precisely, they can be: Valid and sound: these are the best arguments, because the premises really establish the conclusion, and the premises are true hence the conclusion really is true. Valid but not sound: these are promising arguments that exhibit good logical form, but that rely on less than perfect information in their premises, and so are not completely solid. Invalid: these arguments are bad arguments since they do not establish what they claim to be establishing. All invalid arguments are automatically unsound, since sound arguments are a subset of valid arguments. 2.3. VALIDITY AND SOUNDNESS 27 More examples Theoretical and Empirical Claims Complex arguments about moral issues typically have two primary kinds of support, theoretical claims and empirical claims. Theoretical Claims are premises that spell out the bigger picture about how we are looking at things. These can range from explicit statements of methodology and scientific support to implicit ideological frameworks and assumptions. Empirical Claims are factual claims on which the application of our theory to reality rests. If our theory says that this economic policy will cause that change in unemployment rates and it consistently doesnt happen that way, we have a flawed theory. So empirical claims are where we provide evidence that shows as much as we can how it is that our theory makes a difference in reality. This is an important part of moral argument as well since it is often the case that our ideas about morality depend on our ideas about what humans really do in certain kinds of cases, so we should at least get that right. Learning how to identify valid arguments is important for a course in philosophical ethics, since the philosophical approach to ethics consists largely of the examination of arguments about ethical issues. And the best way to learn this is by practicing. Consider the following argument, conveniently written in standard form: The earth is a rotating sphere moving around the sun. We are all on the surface of the earth. Anything on the surface of a moving object moves with that object. So we are all moving around the sun. Forget for a moment about whether or not you buy the conclusion on its own. In analyzing an argument we need to know whether the premises support the conclusion adequately, so we pretend that we are not sure about the truth of the conclusion. Our first test is the test of validity. We ask ourselves: if the premises were true, could the conclusion be otherwise? Is the truth of the conclusion guaranteed by the truth of the premises? In this case it seems clear that if we are in fact all on the surface of an object that is moving around the sun, then we would all also have to be moving around the sun. So the argument is valid. Notice that establishing an arguments validity is not yet establishing that the conclusion is really true. It is only establishing that the conclusion would be true, if only we could show that the premises were true. In fact this argument was rejected until about 500 years ago because nobody was willing to accept the truth of the first premise. Establishing that this 28 CHAPTER 2. A LITTLE BIT OF LOGIC was true took quite a bit of effort by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo and other early modern scientists. However, we now know that the premises are true. So this argument is not only valid, but also sound. And since it is sound we have proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that the conclusion is true. One more thing to point out here is that this argument has always been sound (or at least as long as the solar system has existed) even if many people denied the truth of the first premise. They were simply mistaken in this denial. Lets look at another example: If you want to see the world, you should join the navy. Jane wants to see the world. So Jane should join the navy. This argument is a little trickier because it contains an If . . . then statement. If . . . then statements, also known as conditionals, make indirect claims. They dont just tell us what is the case, they tell us what would be the case if, or on condition that, something else were true. With this in mind let us consider this second argument. First we check for validity, by assuming that the premises are true and seeing if the conclusion would have to be true as well. In other words we are not yet interested in whether or not they really are true, but whether the argument works as an argument, whether the conclusion logically follows from the premises. It seems pretty clear that this argument is valid. This is because if, as the first premise claims, the navy really is the best way to see the world, and if as the second premise claims, a person named Jane wants to see the world, then she should clearly join the navy. Notice that this arguments validity does not have anything to do with its content, with the particular claims being made. Instead, validity is a matter of form, so that we could substitute any other content for the content of this argument without affecting its validity. Essentially this argument has the following form: If A, then B. A. Therefore B. Here A, B can be substituted by any statements we please, as long as our substitution is consistent throughout the argument. In all cases the resulting argument will turn out to be valid. Try it and you will see that the resulting arguments all come out valid. This is because validity is a matter of logical form regardless of the content we are arguing about. The soundness of arguments, however, unlike validity, has everything to do with content, because an argument is sound when it is valid and it also has true premises. Back to the argument about Jane. Is it sound? First we note that it is valid, then we ask whether or not the premises are really true. Consider the first premise: If you want to see the world 2.4. PROOFS AND COUNTEREXAMPLES 29 you should join the navy. It may be true that joining the navy is one way to see the world (provided that you dont end up on a submarine, or in the engine room of a ship), but is it the only way? Of course not, so the first premise is just false. The second premise is also questionable, but for a different reason we simply do not know who Jane is since this is a fictional example. So in spite of its validity this argument is unsound and we need not accept the conclusion as a true statement. It may in fact be true, but this argument gives us no good reason for thinking so. As an exercise you might want to try coming up with a sound argument that follows the form of this one. Now consider as our next example, the following argument: If you want to see the world, you should join the navy. Jane joined the navy. So Jane wants to see the world. This argument seems similar to the previous one, but it has one important difference. The conclusion of this argument was the second premise of the last argument, and the second premise of this argument was its conclusion. What happens to the validity of the argument when we make this simple change? Notice what this argument is saying. It is offering an explanation of why it is that Jane joined the navy because she wanted to see the world. The question is, and this is the way we check for validity, are there any other possible explanations of why she joined the navy that are consistent with the premises? In other words, is it possible for the premises to both be true and the conclusion false? The answer is yes. It all hinges on what the first premise doesnt say. It doesnt say that the only possible reason to join the navy is the desire to see the world. It just says that if thats what you happen to want then the navy is for you. So Jane could have joined the navy only because she wanted to learn all there is to know about marine diesel engines without caring whether she learned this in New Jersey or in the South Pacific ocean. To put this in yet another way: if it is at all possible, if there are no contradictions involved, for the premises of an argument to be true and the conclusion false, then the argument is invalid. This argument is invalid for precisely this reason. Furthermore, since it is invalid, this automatically makes it unsound, since in order for it to be sound it has to first be valid. 2.4 Proofs and Counterexamples Another way to look at the difference between valid and invalid arguments is in terms of the difference between a proof and a counterexample. A proof is a step by step demonstration that the conclusion is a necessary consequence of the premises. To prove that a conclusion validly follows from a set of premises we show in a detailed way how a series of obviously valid steps in reasoning lead us to the conclusion. Take the following argument for example. 30 CHAPTER 2. A LITTLE BIT OF LOGIC Fred is older than Wilma but younger than Betty. Barney is older than Betty. So Barney is older than Fred. Remember that a valid argument is one in which if the premises are true, the conclusion must also be true. So how would we prove that this is the case? Well we just assume that the premises are true and go from there. So here is what a proof might look like: The first premise states that Fred is older than Wilma and he is younger than Betty. Wilma doesnt matter here since she isnt mentioned in the other premise or the conclusion, so lets just note that this premise clearly states that Fred is younger than Betty. Now this would mean that Betty is older than Fred, since older and younger are inverses. If I am younger than you then you are older than me no matter who we are since thats what younger and older mean. Now since Barney is older than Betty, as the second premise states, he must be older than Fred too, since as we just saw, Betty is older than Fred. This follows from the fact that the relationship older than is a transitive relationship if A is older than B and B is older than C A has to be older than C since thats just whatolder than" means. So our conclusion that Barney is older than Fred is clearly a logical consequence of the premises. Thats all there really is to any proof. We have just unpacked the meaning of what the premises are saying in a way that establishes that they entail the conclusion. We dont, in other words, have to add any new information to what is already stated in the premises in order to get the conclusion. In more complicated cases it can take much more effort to show this but all proofs are nothing but such a process of showing that the conclusion is thus contained in the premises already, which is of course why the truth of the premises would guarantee the truth of the conclusion. In a simple case like this we can almost just see the obviousness of the connection between premises and conclusion, and so it might seem silly to spell things out in this much detail, but in more complicated cases there is more room for error so spelling things out like this is important. Invalid arguments in contrast are arguments where we would need something more than what is contained in the premises to get the conclusion. No matter how we attempt to prove our conclusion we will always come to some spot where we cannot get any closer to the conclusion. So how do we show this? We use a counterexample, which is nothing but a possible situation in which the premises would all be true and the conclusion would be false. This shows that the argument is invalid, since if it were valid it would be impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false at the same time as we just saw. Consider the following argument: 31 2.5. SLIDESHOW SUMMARY Fred is older than Wilma but younger than Betty. Barney is younger than Betty and older than Wilma. So Fred is older than Barney. Even though we have no idea what these peoples ages are (or even if they exist outside of a 1970s TV cartoon series) we can tell that the conclusion does not have to be true, even if the premises were true. This argument is invalid and we can show this with a counterexample. person age Barney Betty Fred Wilma 36 40 35 32 Notice that if these people had these ages, this would make all of the premises true and the conclusion false. If Fred is 35, Wilma is 32, Betty is 40 and Barney is 36, then it is true that Fred is older than Wilma, but younger than Betty which is what the first premise claims. It is also true that, given these ages, Barney is younger than Betty and older than Wilma which is what the second premise claims. But Fred is not older than Barney. In other words, what these ages show that it is possible for the premises to be true and for the conclusion to be false and thus that the reasoning involved in getting to the conclusion is invalid. Even if we had true premises, this would not be enough to guarantee the truth of the conclusion. That is what terrible reasoning is all about. We will many more examples of bad reasoning in the next chapter on logical fallacies. 2.5 Slideshow Summary Here is a slideshow summary which can be viewed online1 , downloaded2 or printed3 . Further exploration For a slightly different and more in-depth treatment of the basic concepts of logic see the logic chapter4 of Jonathan Weisbergs open source textbook on probability and statistics, Odds & Ends. 1 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/02-phl210-slides.html https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/02-phl210-slides.pdf 3 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/02-phl210-handout.pdf 4 https://jonathanweisberg.org/vip/logic.html#logic 2 32 CHAPTER 2. A LITTLE BIT OF LOGIC Wireless Philosophy is a well-produced series of short videos on a great many topics in philosophy. Their playlist on Logic and Critical Thinking5 is a great resource for exploring logical thinking in all of its complexity, 5 or 6 minutes at a time. Critical Thinking Web6 : A great site with over 100 free tutorials on many aspects of logic and critical thinking. A nice way to hone your logical thinking skills. Deductive and Inductive Arguments7 : An in depth look at the subject at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Abduction8 : A close look at the logic of scientific explanation. Gets technical, but the introduction is accessible. The Irrationality of Politics9 : Michael Huemer is a professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado. This TED Talk by him addresses the question of why we are so irrational when it comes to politics. 5 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtKNX4SfKpzX_bhh4LOEWEGy3pkLmFDmk https://philosophy.hku.hk/think/ 7 https://www.iep.utm.edu/ded-ind/ 8 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abduction/# 9 https://youtu.be/4JYL5VUe5NQ 6 3 Fallacies and Biases OpenClipart-Vectors1 at pixabay.com Reality is, you know, the tip of an iceberg of irrationality that weve managed to drag ourselves up onto for a few panting moments before we slip back into the sea of the unreal. Terence McKenna Throughout our discussions of logic so far, you may all have been wondering how often anyone ever lives up to the standards of logical reasoning as we have laid them out here. It may seem fairly obvious that most people do not seem to be either willing or able to accept only those claims that are conclusions of sound arguments, but instead we often decide based on feelings and instincts or on the basis of what we just want or assume to be true at the outset. In fact, there is a theory of the origins of our capacity for logical reasoning known as 1 https://pixabay.com/users/openclipart-vectors-30363/ 33 34 CHAPTER 3. FALLACIES AND BIASES the argumentative theory of reasoning2 that claims that our logical abilities, such as they are, evolved to enable us to prove ourselves right. Before the abstract study of logic was invented by Aristotle, who sought the universal principles governing reasoning, we were all already adept at persuading others by manipulating logic for the sake of convincing others that we were right and hence asserting social dominance, whether or not our claims were truly justified. It seems, in other words, that the rhetoricians were right after all that logic is just one means of persuasion among others, no better or worse than them, but maybe more or less effective in different contexts. Or is it? As we saw in the last chapter, there is something to be said for being logical. Put simply, valid and sound reasoning really just boils down to not saying more than you really know and this seems like a pretty reasonable approach if we want to figure out what is true and what is not. It is, however, abundantly clear that us humans often fail to abide by this principle and make claims that we really dont have much support for. This chapter explores two related ways we do this by committing fallacies and by getting caught by various cognitive illusions. Fallacies are bad arguments they are typically invalid that are often used to try to convince someone of some point that really has little argumentative support. They work, to the extent that they do, because they take advantage of certain weaknesses in our reasoning skills. As we will be seeing, a careful analysis of how various different forms of fallacious reasoning work and of what mistakes they make can provide us with a certain degree of protection from those who would use them to convince us of things that have little real support. Cognitive illusions are related in that they lead to mistakes in reasoning, but they are often more difficult to spot and avoid falling prey to, since they are mistakes rooted in mental shortcuts that can be reliable in certain contexts. Like visual illusions, they are false representations of reality, which, even if we know they are false, we cannot help falling prey to. Looking at some common cognitive illusions can help us to see, however, why we should sometimes not trust our own thought processes as much as we often do. And this as well can provide us with more tools for distinguishing between between what is really the case and what just seems to be so. As we turn to examine some important logical fallacies it is helpful to keep in mind that there are both many more particular fallacies than the ones we are going to look at and also many different ways of categorizing them. The thing to keep in mind here is that all stretch logical support beyond its breaking point, and how in particular this happens is not always so clear. On the other hand you can usually see the weakness of an argument that relies on a fallacy by asking yourself a simple question about it: What is being claimed here, and on the basis of what? This often reveals the basic weakness of the argument as it involves stepping back from the particular claims being made in order to see the broader pattern and strategy of reasoning involved. It is this pattern that is flawed, regardless of the content of the argument. As a result, we can often find instances of the same form of fallacious reasoning used with many different topics, especially those that are controversial. In addition it can be helpful to look at fallacies in terms of a few more general types of mistakes in reasoning. That is what we will do here as we examine some different forms of bad reasoning under the headings: fallacies of relevance all of which depend on premises 2 https://www.edge.org/conversation/hugo_mercier-the-argumentative-theory 3.1. FALLACIES OF RELEVANCE 35 not relevant to the conclusion; fallacies of ambiguity all of which depend on the ways in which many words and expressions can have multiple and often incompatible meanings; and fallacies of presumption," which depend on unacknowledged, unjustified extra assumptions. 3.1 Fallacies of Relevance As we turn to the fallacies of relevance, it is good to remember these fallacies depend on the use of information that may seem relevant to establishing the conclusion but isnt really relevant after all. They often play on our emotional responses to certain situations and topics and they can be quite effective as means of persuading us. They work so well in getting us to buy into their conclusions in part because of the nature of the human mind even though we are capable of thinking about things coolly and logically, we often jump to conclusions on emotional grounds and then enlist our cognitive abilities merely to rationalize decisions and conclusions we have already made. Philosophers would encourage us to resist such impulses and to stop and think before jumping to conclusions. This can of course be quite challenging just because of the way in which our brains are wired the neural pathway between sensory input to motor and cognitive output is shorter in its trip through those parts of the brain that process emotions than it is through our higher cognitive powers. But still, whoever said leading an examined life was the easiest thing to do? Appeal to authority My friend who is a scientist insists that global warming is not cause for alarm, and for me that is a good enough reason to accept her conclusion. This fallacy is also known as appeal to inappropriate authority. Appealing to authority is a commonly used way of trying to convince people. But why do we find authorities believable in the first place? Because they are authorities? In this case we may wonder why they are considered authorities at all. On the other hand if they have something to back up their claims, why dont we just see for ourselves whether they are right or not? Ad hominem There is no need to take that animal rights activist seriously. After all, she also benefits from the use of animals notice her leather shoes and fur mittens. 36 CHAPTER 3. FALLACIES AND BIASES The name of this fallacy is a Latin expression meaning against the person. It is also known as the abusive fallacy, or personal attack. This very popular fallacy focuses on the personal inconsistency of the person giving the argument in an attempt to discredit their argument. People who use this strategy dont respond directly to their opponents argument but bring up external reasons not to believe anything he or she says. This is clearly wrong since it is the argument that someone gives and its validity and soundness that should be our concern not the person from whose mouth that argument happens to be coming. Popular appeal (bandwagon fallacy) The Romans were justified in slaughtering thousands of slaves. After all it was a part of their culture and not many people objected. This fallacy involves appealing to what most people or the majority of people think as a way of determining what is really true or really right. But as pre-civil rights segregation laws show what the majority wants or believes can very easily be wrong. The fallacy known as the appeal to tradition is similar in that it claims that tradition, the way people have been doing things for a long time, is a good enough basis for us to believe or act as they did. This, of course overlooks the possibility that they were wrong or had no good reason to believe or act as they did. Appeal to force The reason that we are right is because we have the military might to get rid of any government that disagrees. However effective force or threats of force may be in getting people to do what we want, we may wonder whether this approach really is attempting to convince anyone of anything. Even though threats may get people to say that they agree with you, this shows nothing about whether or not the conclusion is true or whether they really believe what you are saying. 3.1. FALLACIES OF RELEVANCE 37 Appeal to consequences If astronomers are correct, the earth orbits a relatively insignificant star in a remote corner of one galaxy among billions. But this conclusion violates our sense of the significance of our own lives and so it must be false. This fallacy involves rejecting some particular viewpoint, theory or idea based on the consequences to which it leads. These consequences are often emotionally loaded, the kinds of things that we may not want to believe. However, it is often simply irrelevant whether or not we like or want to believe something: the truth may in fact be indifferent to what is pleasing to us. The way to tell what the truth of the matter is, is to examine the evidence rather than reject a theory out of hand because it has unappealing consequences. The naturalistic fallacy Women alone are capable of having babies. So the responsibility of raising and taking care of them is entirely theirs. Next we have the naturalistic fallacy. We often appeal to nature as if natural things, practices, etc. were automatically good. This is perhaps understandable in a world filled with various artificial substances of dubious safety. But we should be careful of making such appeals since they involve a leap of logic. The problem with the naturalistic fallacy is actually quite a general problem the attempt to conclude something about what should or ought to be be the case from what simply is the case. In this example, the facts of how human reproduction work entail nothing about who should play what role in raising children. That is a matter of social relations that, us philosophers hope, should be based on a free and open (and rational) discussion between those involved and not on the facts of life. The genetic fallacy Newspapers are businesses that make profits from selling papers. So we should distrust what they publish since it is bound to be affected by their desire to make money. 38 CHAPTER 3. FALLACIES AND BIASES Arguing like this is a more general version of the naturalistic fallacy. We often assume that where something comes from affects its nature in fundamental ways and so we automatically tend to distrust research that is paid for by corporations, we distrust claims made by people who stand to gain from what these claims are about and so on. Although it may seem like wise advice to follow the money and keep in mind that those who pay the bills might use their power to determine the content of the conversation, insisting that this must be the case simply does not follow. In the case of the news media, the fact that a large newspaper corporation makes money for its employees doesnt automatically slant what exactly they are saying in one way or another. This is because one part of their business strategy might also be to maintain high standards of independently verified journalistic integrity. If they are selling their reputation as reliable reporters, and there is an independent way of determining the truth of their claims, there is not necessarily a conflict built into the idea of selling newspapers. Just as in the case of other fallacies of relevance, such as appeal to authority and ad hominem, in this case what matters is not so much who is saying something but what is being said, and we can see for ourselves whether or not it is reliable or slanted in any way. Red herring We shouldnt worry that much about people dying of horrible diseases in Africa. After all we have problems of our own to deal with. The name of this fallacy comes from the British method of fox hunting. First a captive fox is released and then a pack of foxhounds follow its scent trail, followed in turn by the hunters. In order to make it a little more difficult for the hounds to follow the fox, a piece of smoked herring (a smelly fish that typically is red in color) is wiped on the ground across the foxs path and thrown off to the side somewhere. This serves to distract and confuse the hounds and gives the fox a chance to get away. In an argument whenever you bring up something irrelevant in order to draw attention away from the topic at hand you are relying on the fallacy of red herring. The problem with the reasoning in this example, of course, is that there is no mention made of the possibility that both problems in Africa and problems here can be addressed. Besides mentioning something off the topic in no way undermines whatever claims are made about that topic. 3.2. FALLACIES OF AMBIGUITY 39 Weak analogy Galileo was ridiculed because of his views, and these views later proved to be correct. I too am ridiculed for believing that the Pope is a reptilian alien in league with the Freemasons. Thus I too will have my day and my views will be accepted. Analogies are comparisons between different things. We reason analogically when we argue that because one object or concept has a certain feature, other objects or concepts that are similar in certain respects will also have that feature. This is an important way in which we make sense of the world. However, it has its drawbacks. If we are not careful we can end up making analogies when they are not really there. This argument is based on a weak analogy because it is just not the case that all views that are ridiculed end up prevailing in the end. Some do, like Galileos, but the reason was not inherent in their being ridiculed, but on their being based on good reasoning supported by evidence in the appropriate ways. And by the way, there really are people who believe that the Pope is a reptilian alien, just google it and see. 3.2 Fallacies of Ambiguity The next set of fallacies relies on the fact that many terms have multiple meanings. Switching between meanings without acknowledging that one is doing so is a way of making invalid reasoning look valid. Closer examination reveals arguments that do this to be weaker than at first glance. Here we will consider just a few examples. Many more often appear in debates and you can find out about many more examples by following the links at the end of this chapter. Equivocation People in jail are really free. This is because if you can think whatever you want, then you are free and people jail can certainly think whatever they want. Equivocation is using multiple meanings of a word as if they were the same. We start out with one meaning of a word like freedom and end up with another meaning, in the attempt to fool the person who is listening to us that our reasoning is valid. Since many words have multiple meanings it is important to watch out for subtle shifts as an argument progresses. 40 CHAPTER 3. FALLACIES AND BIASES Straw person The senator who suggested cutting funding for the new Air Force attack drone system really wants to leave us defenseless against our enemies. Thus we should reject such cuts. This fallacy often appears in the context of a debate in which one person misrepresents his or her opponents view in order more easily to knock it down, like a person made of straw. This is a fallacy of ambiguity in that it relies on a superficially similar version of the view that is being attacked rather than the view itself. One can often win debates by using this strategy, but such victories are hollow in that they do not really engage with the real issues. If you really want to demonstrate that some view you are attacking is worthy of rejection, it is far better to rely on the principle of charity and present your opponents view in as favorable a light as possible. If it still fails, then your position may look even better. The drawback, however, is that if you represent your opponents views in a more fair and favorable light, your objections to them may themselves not hold up. But that is really only a drawback if you care more about winning debates rather than in figuring things out. Cherry picking This study of 12 children clearly shows a link between childhood vaccination and autism. Thus vaccines cause autism. This one is really no joke in fact the whole of the current scare about childhood vaccinations and autism was established by a single study of twelve children! The fact that the paper was retracted, and its author was barred from medical practice didnt matter since its influence only grew since the date of its publication. The logical mistake here is that of selectively reading the evidence in favor of your own hypothesis, or cherry picking the data to get the juiciest bits while ignoring anything that contradicts it. The other name for this fallacy, Texas sharpshooter refers to the related practice of proving your worth as a target shooter by first shooting random holes in the side of a barn, and then afterwards drawing your target around a cluster of holes so that it looks like you are a great shot. Is this done in Texas? Probably not, but whoever named it must have had a low opinion of Texans no offense intended and if you are from Texas, substitute your state of choice. 3.3. FALLACIES OF PRESUMPTION 41 Fallacy of misplaced concreteness I feel so agitated after I watch the news. That is not so surprising though, since the media is trying to scare us all. How often have you heard someone say something like its the medias fault? While this may be a common way of talking about things, it makes a subtle mistake in reasoning. It treats an abstract noun, the media which refers to many different organizations, publications, companies and their vast numbers of employees, owners, stockholders, etc, as if it were a concrete noun: the kind of thing that could meaningfully be referred to as being at fault for something. Concrete things, such as individual people can of course be at fault. Some organizations, such as corporations, can be at fault in a legal sense that they are liable for damages if they do something that is illegal. But can the media really be at fault for anything? What would this even mean? To be at fault for something, I for example, have to knowingly and willingly do something that is illegal or otherwise wrong. But this requires that I can know things and will things, that is, that I am person with a functioning mind. When we talk about abstractions like governments, the media, society and so on, were are no longer talking about particular concrete things, however. Instead we are talking about collections of organizations, institutions, and of course all of the many particular people who run them. And such collections are just not the kinds of things that can do anything on their own. This is not to say that individual news agencies, reporters, publishers or whoever, wouldnt be responsible for knowingly publishing false or misleading information. Of course they would be. It is also not to say that there might not be general trends clearly governments run by one particular political party tend to do things that governments run by another party would not. Its just that we have to be careful about talking about these abstractions the government, the media, society as if they were real agents making deliberate decisions. To do so would be to commit the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. 3.3 Fallacies of Presumption The third set of fallacies we will consider here are those that make presumptions, often in a hidden way. That is, they rely on hidden and unstated assumptions written, as it were, between the lines. This strategy, however, cannot withstand critical analysis since if we can get the perpetrator of such fallacies to acknowledge these hidden presumptions we can see them for what they are, mere assumptions without warrant. Mere assertion Abortion is just wrong, and that is all there is to it. 42 CHAPTER 3. FALLACIES AND BIASES This is the simplest and most obvious kind of bad reasoning. As the name implies, mere assertion involves simply stating what you want to establish without presenting any evidence whatsoever to support it. It is truly amazing how often people simply assert something that they may think is true without bothering to offer anything to support this assertion. Begging the question You should become a Christian. This is because the Bible says that if you are not a Christian you will go to Hell. This strange sounding name really applies to a very simple technique. Someone who begs the question is guilty of assuming what they are claiming to establish in their argument. In other words they put a disguised version of their conclusion in the premises of their argument. That is, they are not really arguing for what they claim to be arguing for. This is an example of a fallacy that is nevertheless a valid form of reasoning. The problem here is that we cannot just assume that the conclusion is true, as someone who uses this way of argument is in fact doing. Begging the question is not, of course, always so obvious. We can see that this is a case of begging the question when we realize that the only people who will be convinced by this argument are Christians. Why? Simply because nobody else will take evidence from the Bible seriously, and people who consider the Bible as authoritative are already Christians. This example also shows why begging the question is also known as preaching to those already converted. Appeal to ignorance The claim that the death penalty deters crime has not been established with any certainty. Thus it is clear that it does not deter crime. The fact that something has not yet been proven to be true does not mean that it is false. It is just unknown! Yet this fallacy assumes that if we do not have proof of something then that thing must be false. 3.3. FALLACIES OF PRESUMPTION 43 False dilemma (black or white fallacy) Either living organisms are products of blind chance or they were deliberately designed. But it makes no sense that something as functionally complex as a living organism is the result of blind chance. Hence they must have been designed. The argument here rests entirely on an assumption that is not always so easy to see, the assumption that the alternatives stated are the only ones there are. If this were the case, then the argument would stand, but often other alternatives are simply not even mentioned. Hence the dilemma, or forced choice between two alternatives, is here a false one. In the example below, which is often used against the theory of biological evolution, the missing alternative is precisely what Darwin articulated in his book On the Origin of Species, a theory which contains an element of chance but which is not reducible to the blind chance that this argument presumes is the only alternative to deliberate design. Hasty generalization All three of my ex-wives always told me what to do. This clearly shows that all women want to control us men all the time. We may be tempted to conclude a lot from a single case, or a relatively small sample, but this is often merely a way to confirm our prejudices. If we really want to make sweeping generalizations, well have to gather a bit more evidence in less clearly biased ways than this. Slippery slope If we legalize physician assisted suicide then everyone over sixty had better watch their backs. Once doctors get used to helping people with terminal illnesses die comfortably, theyll find it easier to get rid of older people. Slippery slope arguments are often used as a way of warning us of the dangers of allowing people to do something that is now forbidden. They say, in effect, if we allow someone to do 44 CHAPTER 3. FALLACIES AND BIASES this, then theyll have no reason not to do that, which is much worse. The name comes from the metaphor of an icy ski slope: if we are foolish enough to step onto the slope, without skis on of course, well end up uncontrollably sliding down to the bottom. The problem with this argument is that it claims that we must end up where the arguer claims we will, but the argument gives does nothing but assert that. False cause The majority of heroin users smoked marijuana when they were younger. So smoking marijuana must be one of the causes of heroin use. Us humans are very good at noticing patterns in the world around us. In fact science is based on this ability we notice regularities and then come up with explanations for them. The most powerful of these explanations involve attributing a causal relationship between events that appear to be related to each other in a regular way. We have to be careful here, however, since we also have the tendency to overdo this. This may seem like a convincing argument until we recognize that the fact that something tends to happen before something else is not nearly enough to establish that the first thing causes the second to happen. For example, the fact that my alarm clock goes off every day shortly before sunrise does not mean that my alarm clock causes the sun to rise. The same goes for drug abuse. The fact that I abused marijuana first and then heroin later does not mean that the first caused the second. It is equally possible that I abuse whatever drugs I abuse for another reason I have major problems I am trying to escape from. Circular reasoning He must be guilty, since he has a guilty look on his face. Furthermore, the look on his face indicates guilt, because he is the one who did it. This final fallacy in our list is, in a sense, a more complex version of begging the question. Circular reasoning involves bouncing back and forth between two assumptions each of which is supposed to be the basis for the other. To see the circular structure of the reasoning exhibited here it may help to figure out which statement is the premise and which is the conclusion. In this example, at first glance it seems like the conclusion is He is guilty, and this seems to be based on the premise that He has a guilty look on his face. However, the fact that the look on his face indicates guilt is then supported by the assertion that He did it. Clearly we are moving around in a circle our premise supports and is supported by our conclusion. There is thus no real support for either and the whole structure is unfounded. This fallacy is also known as the vicious circle fallacy. 3.4. COGNITIVE BIASES 3.4 45 Cognitive Biases Fallacies, as we have been seeing, are common mistakes that we make in reasoning especially when we are trying to support a conclusion that we have insufficient evidence to support, ways in which we claim more than we really know. In recent years cognitive psychologists have also explored the ways in which not only get our arguments wrong, but also tend to get things wrong in our own thinking, how as Thomas Gilovich puts it in the title of his book How We Know What Isnt So.3 That is, we have a tendency to fall prey to biases and mistakes in our own reasoning whatever it is that we may end up defending later in our arguments. In this section well look at some of the most important and relevant of these cognitive biases. In general we might classify these biases into two general types: hot biases, or motivated irrationality where our interests, emotional responses or visceral reactions to things influences our thinking process; and cold biases or unmotivated irrationality which are a result of certain mental shortcuts and routines we rely on even in situations where they do not really apply. Lets look at some examples. Hot biases involve bending our reasoning to fit our wants and desires. Because of this definition I believe that hot biases can be pretty easy to spot throughout our daily lives and interactions with others. That is if we take a step back and evaluate our reasoning and emotions within the situation. However, unlike hot biases, cold biases are not results of our desires, but rather they are more like bugs in our mental operating systems. When you get into cold biases, I believe that this is where things could get tricky. Ryan Moore The reason I believe that cold biases can be very tricky to spot is that they are simply caused by the way our minds are wired as humans. This means that when dealing with these cold biases in any situation, the odds are already stacked against us. Even when attempting to avoid the use of bias in any situation, debate, or reasoning process, cold biases may rear their ugly heads without us even fully understanding that they are present. One cold bias strikes me in particular, The fundamental attribution error. What this refers to is our tendency to be more generous with ourselves when trying to excuse our actions or get ourselves off the hook than we tend to be regarding others. The reason this bias struck me was because, without even noticing it, I have just recently fallen victim to this cold bias in my own life. To make a long story somewhat short, my girlfriend was in a fender-bender about 2 months back. She was at fault, as she rear-ended the person in front of her. Everybody was okay, and there was minimal damage, but there was still enough damage for it to be noticeable. Well, when I got home from work, she told me the story of what had happened and showed me the damage. In this situation, after she showed me the damage and explained it, I was giving her grief about being more careful when driving probably for the rest of the night. At that point in time, I didnt want to hear any excuses. I was just annoyed that the car was going to need some work. However, not even two weeks after that incident, guess what. I 3 Thomas Gilovich, How We Know What Isnt So (New York: The Free Press, 1991) 46 CHAPTER 3. FALLACIES AND BIASES rear-ended someone on my way into work. Honestly though, what are the actual chances? Again, luckily nobody was hurt (besides my ego), and there was very minimal damage. All I had was a cracked headlight and the other car had a small scuff. Well, later that night when I got home from work, I explained to my girlfriend what had happened. However, this time, I was ALL for using every excuse in the book of how it wasnt my fault (when in reality, if you rear-end someone, its almost always your fault). Looking back on this situation, I fell victim to cold bias. While my girlfriend and I basically committed the same fault, I was much more generous with myself when I was the one who messed up. Overall, it is my opinion that cold biases can be much more difficult to spot and stop as compared to hot biases. Hot Biases Hot biases are also known as examples of motivated irrationality because they involve bending our reasoning to suit our wants and desires. Our motivations may not always be clear even to us, so we may not realize that we are caught up in such biases. Luckily, however, there are steps we can take to avoid falling prey to them. Confirmation bias Confirmation bias is our often unconscious tendency to give more weight to evidence supporting our pre-existing beliefs or hypotheses and our tendency to downplay the significance of evidence against them. The result is similar to cherry picking but it may not be a deliberate attempt to mislead, but more of a product of other unconscious tendencies. I keep seeing more and more evidence in favor of my hypothesis! What about the evidence against it? Well that must be based on faulty data collection. Given that we have a strong tendency to fall prey to this bias, what steps might we take to avoid it? For one, we can use various blind methods of data collection and analysis to protect our reasoning from the errors involving confirmation bias. Double blind medical trials follow these precautions to avoid confirmation bias, the patients involved in the trial of a new drug, for example, dont know whether they are getting the drug or a pacebo, and the researchers also dont know whether each particular patient they examine afterwards are in the test group who receive dthe drug of the control group that didnt Group think Just like our pre-existing beliefs can influence what we take the evidence to support, likewise with our connections to other people can do so. When someone in a group we identify with 3.4. COGNITIVE BIASES 47 comes up with an idea we have tendency to give it more weight than in fact it deserves. A great example of this occurred during the Kennedy administration with the Bay of Pigs incident. The plan was to send a small group of armed anti-Castro Cuban soldiers to the Bay of Pigs in Cuba with the thought that that would be enough to incite a full-scale revolt against the Communist government by the rest of the Cuban population. Enough members of Kennedys National Security Council which planned and approved the incursion were strongly in favor of it that they collectively ignored their own military intelligence which indicated that there was little popular support for revolting against the Cuban government. So when the invasion happened in January 1961 the initiative was quickly defeated and the Cuban exiles who landed in the beach were quickly arrested and imprisoned much to the embarrassment of the Kennedy Administration.4 Wishful thinking These last two biases could be considered specific examples of a more general tendency we have towards wishful thinking, which is the tendency to project our own desires onto reality and fool ourselves into thinking that reality conforms to how we would like it to be. I just know that the Yankees will win the World Series, they just cant let me down again! All of these biases fail to make a distinction between what we would like to be the case and what really is in fact the case. We may end up lucky and happen to find out that reality conforms to how we would like it to be, but then again we may not. We can protect ourselves against these kinds of biases first by being aware of our own tendencies to fall prey to them and then by using particular strategies to separate our analysis of the evidence from our wishes. Cold biases Cold biases differ from hot biases in that they are not such much results of our desires but of the ways in which our cognitive systems work. They are more like bugs in our mental operating systems than ways in which we twist our thoughts to conform to our desires. Anchoring/framing effects How much are you willing to pay for some given product or service? Well it turns out to depend not just on the features of that product or service itself but also by what is next to it on the shelf, what other options you are presented with and even the initial asking price. 4 Bay of Pigs - Groupthink, accessed December 2, 2019, https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/ops/bayof-pigs-groupthink.htm 48 CHAPTER 3. FALLACIES AND BIASES These are examples of the ways in which the context of our choices influences the content of our choices. Many examples of this can be found in the marketplace. The notorious bait and switch tactic relies on this bias. Today only, you can get a new Toyota for 20% off the sticker price! So act now and drive your new car away today! There are numerous ways in which advertisers and salespeople try to influence our choices. First the sticker price may or may not reflect anything about the reality of the product in question but may be intentionally inflated to anchor our minds to a price higher than we would actually pay. It turns out that doing so will make us more willing to pay a higher price than we would if the original non-discounted price were set closer to what we might actually pay, or what the manufacturer expects us to pay. Likewise, adding extra options that we may not actually be interested in independently can influence our willingness to buy a product, especially when it is compared to an otherwise equivalent product without those potions. In both cases our ability to compare what is offered with what we want is corrupted by the context within which the product is presented.5 The fundamental attribution error When it comes to explaining human behavior, and trying to figure out the relative weights of internal factors such as needs, desires and the personality of the actor on the one hand, and external situational factors on the other hand it turns out that we come up with different weights when thinking about our own behavior and that of other people. our own and others. We tend, for example, to put more weight on things outside of our own control when accounting for our bad behavior than we do when accounting for the behavior of others. The fact that I tripped when walking down the street was because the sidewalk was uneven. When you trip on the other hand, its evidence that you are a klutz. In other words we are more generous with ourselves in terms of getting ourselves off the hook its not my fault its the situation I was in than we are with others clearly it is their fault! This is true that in many, many cases, if we looked at things in the more neutral terms of finding what factor most influence all of our behavior situational or external factors often play a much greater role than we think. So we are more accurate when we reflect on ourselves than when we look at the behavior of other people. Our attribution of causal influences tends to be skewed in the wrong direction when we look at why others do what they do especially when we compare it with our understanding of what influences us ourselves. 5 For more on anchoring effects see Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011) 3.5. SLIDESHOW SUMMARY 49 The availability heuristic Finally in this brief survey of some major cognitive biases we have the confusion we tend to make between how readily something comes to mind (its salience) and the more objective probability of its occurrence (its frequency). Thus because terrorist attacks are so dramatic and stand out in our minds much more than the more common and mundane threats we are exposed to we tend to be more afraid of terrorism than, for example, driving to the airport. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks I remember listening to an interview with an expert on national security threats. The interviewer asked him what we could all do to be safer in international air travel and his response was Drive very carefully to the airport. This effect, once you start to notice it, is everywhere. We focus on dramatic if also highly unlikely threats and events and ignore those that are far more likely and hence, paradoxically, not so obvious to us. In this and the last chapter we have taken a closer look at what is involved in the justification of any claim at all. We have seen that the best arguments are both valid and sound they work logically in that their premises really provide adequate support for their conclusions and their premises are actually true. We have also examined some of the many mistakes in reasoning to which we are prone. These mistakes are not only used in a deliberately misleading way, since all of us have a tendency to make decisions and judgments first and then come up with reasons in support of them later. Thus we often rely on fallacious reasoning to rationalize our own beliefs or we tend to read the evidence is biased ways. As we will be seeing, as we turn now to start examining some of the many different theoretical approaches to ethics, the tools of logic and critical thinking will prove very useful in trying to come up with a reasonable answer to the general question, what is the right thing to do? 3.5 Slideshow Summary Here is a slideshow summary which can be viewed online6 , downloaded7 or printed8 . Further exploration There are many great websites that list, discuss and explain the many ways we get things wrong in our thinking. Here are a few of my favorites. Your Fallacy Is 9 is a nicely designed website with more examples of common fallacies. Your Bias Is 10 is the sister site to Your Fallacy Is and focuses on common cognitive biases. 6 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/03-phl210-slides.html https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/03-phl210-slides.pdf 8 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/03-phl210-handout.pdf 9 https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ 10 https://yourbias.is/ 7 50 CHAPTER 3. FALLACIES AND BIASES Logically Fallacious 11 is a site with a huge and comprehensive list of logical fallacies and cognitive biases. A great reference with lots of examples. And you should of course follow the Logical Fallacy Ref12 on Twitter. 11 12 https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies https://twitter.com/fallacy_ref Part II Ethics Culture and Religion 51 4 Relativism mikhsan1 at pixabay.com As we now turn to look more carefully at ethics it may help to have a sense of the general approach we will be following here. Well be looking at a variety of theoretical perspectives on ethics perspectives which determine the position one might take regarding questions such as: Is ethics just a matter of opinion, or is can ethical principles lay claim to a more universal validity? What is the relation between ethics, law and religion all of these spell out rules for behavior but on the basis of what and what happens when they come into conflict? Is it rational to be ethical or does ethics depend on something other than our ability to think things through? Is there anything that is just plain wrong, no matter what the consequences? There are many possible ways to consider these questions. Ill be following a fairly common approach that looks at them in the light of various general theories or philosophical 1 https://pixabay.com/users/mikhsan-4911734/ 52 53 positions one might adopt. Each of these theories makes a particular claim about what is fundamental to ethics, highlights certain aspects of our ethical lives and also provides some guidance for dealing with ethical controversies in the real world. These theories have all found both defenders and critics in the history of philosophy although here I will be more concerned with them as general approaches to ethics than with worrying too much about accurately presenting the views of historical thinkers. These theories as I am presenting them can best be looked at as ideal types that have their own inner logic, and their own strengths and weaknesses as attempts to articulate and defend some version of what ethics is really all about. In my view not all of these theories are equally viable. In fact it seems to me that most of them simply fail as approaches to ethics for a variety of reasons that will become clearer in each case. This brings up the obvious question of why we should bother looking at a whole slew of approaches to ethics that ultimately dont work instead of just more directly articulating one that does. There are two reasons to take this approach. First, in spite of the difficulties faced by these approaches to ethics, all of them continue to be popular and find defenders both historically and at the present. Even if these defenses are inadequate, they still have and have had their champions. There is a version of an old joke about anarchists that applies here to philosophers: given three philosophers in a room together there will be four positions taken by them on any topic that comes up for discussion. This is a feature and not a bug of philosophy, since philosophy is the attempt to articulate and defend a general account of such abstract topics as the nature of reality, knowledge and values, so the more particular positions we can examine the better. Just like in science we should welcome a diversity of approaches rather than rule any out at the start. But unlike in science, unworkable philosophical theories have a longer shelf life since the cost for holding on to them is relatively easy to bear. If a scientific theory is fatally flawed that is typically clear ones prediction of what the experiments or data will show fails, other explanations cover more cases with fewer assumptions and better fit with the data, the bridge built on the basis of ones calculations collapses. The cost of bad science is steep. In philosophy, however, the costs of holding onto unsuccessful theories is having to put up with theoretical incoherence, to be willing to hold conflicting views in the mind at the same time. And it turns out that us humans are pretty good at doing these things all you have to do to live with a poorly worked out set of fundamental beliefs is stop thinking about them. The second reason for considering a multitude of unsuccessful approaches to ethics here is that each of these approaches does have the advantage of focusing on some important aspect of ethics. To the extent that these theories fail it is because they tend to overemphasize the aspect in question and ignore others. Looking at a variety of approaches can thus help give us a clearer picture of what ethics as a whole is all about, even in the absence of some final master theory that would unify ethics once and for all and win universal assent. It seems to me that there is a certain logic to the story Ill be telling here, even if it is nothing like a necessary development, a magical dialectical unfolding of the Truth about ethics, but I do present each theory as an effort to take in to account the failings of the proceeding accounts. Making sense of our ethical lives and thinking clearly about ethics is hard, but it seems to me that it is worth the effort. Philosophical ethics may not be an empirical science, and debates in ethics may not ever be resolved, but it is a rich field well worth exploring. 54 CHAPTER 4. RELATIVISM My presentation here is intended in the spirit of a guidebook, pointing out certain general features of the landscape, some important landmarks and major hazards to be reckoned with. So much for a general account of what we will be up to here. This section of the text looks at two approaches to ethics that may seem to be diametrically opposed cultural relativism and the attempt to show how ethics can and should be based on religion. According to cultural relativism, ethical rules and norms are determined by culture in the sense that there are no absolute and universal rules with an independent warrant, but only particular, culturally determined ways of conducting oneself, none fundamentally better or worse than the others. According to religious approaches to ethics, ethical rules and principles do have an absolute foundation and that foundation is to be found is an authoritative set of religious truths. In spite of their obvious opposition, with relativism denying the existence of ethical absolutes and religious approaches affirming it, in a sense both have something essential in common, which is the idea that ethical rules come to us from outside and have little to do with human choices. Their opposition lies in whether or not the source of ethical rules varies from place to place or not. Both of these approaches will be found wanting, for roughly parallel reasons. And so the next part of the text, which examines various more purely philosophical approaches to ethics, takes up the question of what ethics might look like if it is something we humans create and not imposed from outside by culture, God or human nature. A note on method: In this text Ill be exploring various approaches to ethics chiefly as I understand them. Although at times I make reference to historical philosophers and sometimes to their particular arguments and texts, this book is not intended as a contribution to historical scholarship. Instead my approach is to consider ethics in terms of a series of ideal types which, while they may overlap with the ideas of certain historical figures, are intended to capture what I understand to be the major lines of argument available to anyone who attempts to clarify basic notions of ethics. There is a certain inner logic it seems to me to how we can, and maybe even should, think about ethics. Or maybe that is just a result of my having spent too much time reading Hegel in my youth. In either case, caveat lector let the reader beware. Over time I will also try to expand on and/or make room for approaches I havent yet had time to integrate into my overall scheme, such as virtue ethics, Buddhist ethics (and non-Western approaches more broadly) and feminist approaches to ethics. I do welcome suggestions about how to extend and revise this text to make it more inclusive. 4.1. CLAIMS AND CONSEQUENCES OF MORAL RELATIVISM 4.1 55 Claims and Consequences of Moral Relativism If anyone, no matter who, were given the opportunity of choosing from amongst all the nations in the world the set of beliefs which he thought best, he would inevitably after careful considerations of their relative merits choose that of his own country. Everyone without exception believes his own native customs, and the religion he was brought up in, to be the best. Herodotus, The Histories Opinion this seems to be where ethics starts and in many peoples minds where it ends. You have a right to your opinion about right and wrong and I have a right to mine, so lets just leave it at that. Given what we have been looking at so far, not to mention all of the unread pages still ahead, it is probably already apparent that that is not going to be the whole story about ethics. It is nevertheless a deeply rooted assumption that ethical claims must be opinions, since they are clearly not factual claims and that seems to be the only other sort of claim we can possibly be making when we are using language to state things. That this assumption does not in fact hold up to closer inspection is what this chapter is going to argue. Humans are incredibly diverse and in many ways. We are diverse in appearance; we live in many ways in many different environments; we speak many different languages and embrace many different beliefs, practices and norms. People live in almost any conceivable physical environment, from dense tropical jungles, to frozen polar deserts, from small villages with thatched huts to modern industrial cities made of concrete, steel and glass. In addition, our cultural practices and norms reveal perhaps an even greater diversity. Some human cultures place value on devotion to the group at the expense of individual liberty, others emphasize the unique individual while downplaying our relation with others. Some cultures value continuity and tradition while others value innovation and rapid change. Some cultures value constant productive work while others place far more emphasis on living well and enjoying social interaction with others. Some cultures allow men and women to participate equally in all areas of social life, while others have entirely separate spheres for the two sexes. Recognition of this diversity is what has led some philosophers and social scientists to formulate a theory known as cultural relativism, which takes these casual observations and turns them into an explicit set of claims about the nature of value judgments. This theory is not only a popular theory about the nature of values. It also presents a challenge to the whole enterprise of philosophical ethics since it leads to the view that rational discussion and argument have little role to play in ethical decision making. Ethical decisions, opinions and judgments, according to cultural relativism, are always relative to the cultural environment within which they are made. Cultural relativism is one particular variant of a broader position that holds that moral universals are impossible in principle and that moral judgments are closer to judgments of 56 CHAPTER 4. RELATIVISM taste than they are to anything else. Just as with judgments of taste, according to this view, sometimes called moral anti-realism for its denial that there is any basis in reality for determining what is right and what is wrong, there is little point in arguing about moral issues since they reduce to personal preferences. I wont go into the various versions of this idea here but will focus on the claim that moral values and judgments are essentially rooted in culture. The issues that this view raises, it seems to me at least are broadly the same as those faced by other variants and so dealing with cultural relativism will be enough for our purposes here. So let us then look more carefully at what cultural relativism claims. It is a meta-ethical position that boils down to a few simple and seemingly obvious claims: According to cultural relativism Ethical or moral claims are not objective in the way factual claims are. There is no neutral standard for determining right or wrong. All value judgments are relative to our personal or cultural perspective. A first case for relativism At first this set of claims may seem obviously true. After all, given the diversity of human values and customs, how could there be anything more than relative standards, standards that are only applicable within a given culture? Many people find relativism intuitively appealing and might even offer as a preliminary case for relativism the following points: Cultural diversity: Human culture has always been extremely diverse. And many people seem to have equally diverse views on what sort of behavior is acceptable. It seems to follow from this that there cannot possibly be any standards for deciding between these views. How we learn about values: It seems obvious that we learn about values, and come to accept the values that we do because these are the values that are shared by the people who raise us. They are the values of our families and communities. Intolerance: There have been plenty of cases throughout history in which one group of people firmly believed that their values were not just acceptable for them but absolutely right, and used this as a justification for committing atrocities against other people. Relativists insist that the only way to avoid this kind of intolerance is to accept that there are no ultimate standards. What is at stake In a moment we will consider each of these points in greater detail. Before we do this it will be helpful to spell out what is at stake here. That is, we should consider what 4.1. CLAIMS AND CONSEQUENCES OF MORAL RELATIVISM 57 would be the case about ethical principles and decision making if cultural relativism were true. Its defenders make much of the positive consequences of this theory, while its opponents emphasize its negative implications. As we consider these consequences of the theory we must remember that whether or not we like where a theory leads us, in terms of its theoretical consequences, cannot itself determine whether the theory itself is correct. Reality does not care whether or not we like it. In the case of relativism at least, the extreme nature of its consequences helps explain why it is such a controversial theory. Defenders of relativism present it as the best way to acknowledge the great variety of human value systems and cultures. If there are no ultimately correct moral principles, then all human cultures become equally valid as ways of life, at least for different groups of people. This seems to encourage tolerance of other ways, a welcome relief after millennia of people intolerantly fighting with each other over their different views. After all, if there are no ultimate standards for right and wrong, we would could never justifiably say, Your group is wrong in doing what you do and so we have the right to force you to change your ways. On the other hand, a relativist cannot really consistently promote tolerance otherwise she would be granting tolerance for other cultural practices the status of a universal value, valid for everyone and this is what relativism says does not exist. So we should really say that relativism really only rules out one possible way of dealing with conflicts: the rational settlement of differences with reference to some kind of universal principles or values. Sometimes differences of opinions might be tolerated by the members of the groups that differ, sometimes one group will attempt to push its values on the other group. Both approaches are consistent with the claims of relativism. The first troubling consequence of relativism is one you may already have suspected: if there are no real standards, standards about right and wrong that are independent of cultural perspectives, it doesnt seem possible to condemn other cultures or individuals for doing awful things. For example, imagine that there is a society that has two major groups of people. One of these groups, who happen to be the majority of the population, decides that the other group doesnt deserve any respect, perhaps even that they are somehow naturally deficient or inferior. As a result they perform painful and often fatal experiments on the minority group, force them to work without pay, and even decide just to kill them off because it makes them feel better about themselves. What would a relativist say about this? It seems that since the relativist is only willing to recognize local or relative standards, she would have to conclude that although she doesnt like it, or that such behavior would never be tolerated in her society, she really cant condemn what this group of people are doing as simply being wrong. Why not? Well, because it seems right to the majority of people in that other society. Furthermore, relativism, if it were true, would require us to reject the idea that we can really make moral progress. Consider voting rights for women and African-Americans. In early American history both groups were denied these rights. Later on, after the Civil war in the case of African-American men and then in the early twentieth century in the case of all women, the Constitution was amended when people recognized that it was wrong to restrict these groups access to the political process just because of race or gender. Many of us would consider this a case of moral progress a basic right was extended to people who had previously, for no good reason, been denied this right. What would a relativist say? Could they say that this was really a case of progress? Probably not, since progress implies 58 CHAPTER 4. RELATIVISM that things are getting better, and this requires that there is some standard against which we can measure better or worse. So, for the relativist there is no such thing as progress, only different ways of doing things, none of which are really better or worse than any others. Is this a conclusion you are comfortable with? Relativism seems like a plausible theory about the nature of value judgments. It also seems, at first glance at least, to be a theory with nothing but positive implications it seems to encourage of diversity and lets everyone do their own thing. However, as we have just seen this easy-going character of relativism soon reveals a darker side. A relativist cannot really have any grounds for condemning any behavior at all, no matter how intuitively awful it seems, as long as someone believes that it is OK. In addition relativism does away with one of the most important parts of our moral thinking, the idea that maybe through our efforts we can make things a little better. This idea of progress is rendered simply meaningless by relativism. These implications of relativism do not by themselves let us know whether or not relativism is true. At best they reveal what the stakes are if relativism is true we get tolerance at the expense of having to tolerate anything all at that someone feels is the right thing to do. To determine whether or not relativism is true we need to consider more explicitly the arguments in support of this theory. Consequences of relativism If relativism is true: Nothing can be condemned as just plain wrong. Moral progress is a meaningless idea. Different cultures speak different, mutually incomprehensible moral languages. But remember just because a theory has consequences we dont like doesnt mean its false. Saying so would be a fallacy. 4.2 Defending Relativism The life history of the individual is first and foremost an accommodation to the patterns and standards traditionally handed in his community. From the moment of his birth the customs into which he is born shape his experience and behavior. Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culturea a Ruth Benedict, Patterns of Culture (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1935) Thus far we have been looking at the pros and cons of accepting relativism as an approach to ethics. In doing so we have been avoiding asking a simple question, that we now cannot 4.2. DEFENDING RELATIVISM 59 any longer avoid is relativism true? To answer this question we need to take a look at how we might argue for relativism instead of just leaving it as one opinion among others that we might take or leave. Although it may seem obvious to many people that relativism is in fact true, our examination of the explicit case that can be made in defense of relativism will show that it is not in fact based on very good arguments. But I am getting ahead of the story. . . Cultural differences The first and most obvious way to defend relativism is based on the recognition of human cultural diversity. This was what motivated Herodotus to pronounce that custom is the king of all, and what has also led many anthropologists and sociologists to embrace similar views. So the first argument for relativism that we will examine here rests on recognition of the diversity of value judgments and tries to argue from this premise directly to the conclusion that there are no ultimate standards for right and wrong. We all have different views about right and wrong. Thus there are no standards about what is really right or wrong. This argument may seem to be persuasive. Doesnt the fact of human diversity automatically entail relativism? But the question we should ask about this argument is not Does it seem persuasive?, but Is it valid and sound? Remember, a valid argument is one in which if the premises are true the conclusion must also be true. So is this argument valid? How can we tell? In this case the premise seems obviously true, but does that by itself force us to accept the conclusion? Clearly not, since even if the premise is true and we do all disagree, this alone does not have to mean that there are no standards. However implausible it may seem that there are universal moral standards, the fact of human disagreement about what those standards might look like is just not enough to rule out the existence of standards. To see this more clearly, it may help to consider a more obviously bad argument of exactly the same logical form in which the premise is clearly true and the conclusion is clearly false. A counterexample We all have different views about how to deal with stop signs some people come to a complete stop while others only slow down. Thus there are no standards regarding stop signs. The premise in this argument is clearly true. Yet the conclusion is also clearly false, since there really is a correct way to deal with stop signs, the one written in the relevant section 60 CHAPTER 4. RELATIVISM of the laws governing driving. What this shows about the argument from cultural differences is that disagreement alone is not enough evidence for the conclusion that there are no real standards. From the fact that we may disagree about some topic we cannot conclude anything about whether or not any of us are really right or really wrong. We need much more evidence than this to support the conclusions of relativism. In fact we disagree about many things. In some of these cases there is a way of settling disagreements look up the law, check the facts if we disagree about the temperature outside or whether or not it is still snowing. In other cases, there is simply no way to settle differences some people will just not be convinced that the Backstreet Boys are horrible musicians, or that sushi is the best dish on the planet. Likewise in all matters of style and taste. So this argument for relativism is inconclusive. Relativism focuses on our differences of opinion and tries to draw from this a conclusion that just does not follow. We still are no closer to deciding whether, as in cases of dispute about the law, we will be able to settle our ethical differences, or whether, as in cases of dispute about taste, we will not. It remains an open question whether or not there are standards in ethics. Given that disagreement about something does not conclusively tell us whether it is possible to settle the dispute we are left with the questions: Are ethical disputes more like disputes about the law or the facts where there is some possibility of resolving them? Or are ethical disputes more like disputes about taste where the best we can hope for is to agree to disagree? 4.3 The Argument from Learning A second way to argue that relativism is true is to appeal to how we acquire moral concepts. It seems plausible that we get our ideas about what is right and what is wrong by learning them from those around us. We may have certain built-in reflexes but moral judgments seem to be learned and not to be innate. The evidence for this would be their global variability and their local consistency. Cultures around the world differ in terms of their basic moral concepts, so this story goes, but we each tend to embrace values similar to those in our immediate social environment. This is a commonly held view on morality the apple doesnt fall far from the tree. Likewise it is also a commonly held view that raising a child with strict moral guidelines is the best way to ensure that she will continue to adhere to those values later in life. We will get back to the question of whether or not this is really the best way to look at morality in a moment. For now we can grant it as the premise for a second argument in defense of relativism. 4.3. THE ARGUMENT FROM LEARNING 61 If we get our values from our cultural environments then our values are culturally determined. If values are culturally determined then they are relative to cultures. We do get our values from our cultural environments. Thus relativism is true values are relative to cultures. This is at least a valid argument. If in fact values are best understood as ideas that we pick up or learn from those around us and what we learn is relative to the cultural environments in which we happen to grow up, cultural relativism seems to follow. The question then becomes whether or not it is sound. Are the premises in fact true? The key premises are the first and the third. Consider the first premise: If we get our values from our cultural environments then our values are culturally determined. There are two ways we might understand this statement one of which makes it true by definition and the other of which makes it just plain false. If getting our values from our cultural environments means the same thing as our values being culturally determined, then the first premise is true, but completely uninformative, since it gives us no new information. It just tells how we happened to acquire an idea. Of course if I learn about the meaning of the symbols for numbers and mathematical operations in a math class then they are relative to the class I learned them in. But if , on the other hand, this claim is not true by definition it is in fact false, since it just does not follow that where we get an idea in any way determines what the content of that idea is. As a counterexample: just because we learn arithmetic within the particular cultural environment of a particular math class does not mean that the content of arithmetic is at all determined by this environment. 2 + 2 = 4 wherever you happen to learn it. What we learn is at least in principle independent of where we learn it. Saying otherwise is to commit the genetic fallacy. The third premise, We do in fact get our values from our cultural environments, is equally suspect. It is possible that this is true, but it assumes some things about human psychological development that are simply unknown at this point in time the extent to which the ideas that we have in our heads are products of our immediate environments, and the extent to which they are products of built in psychological capacities and functions. Well then, where would ideas about right and wrong they come from, if not from the environment in which a person is raised? One possibility is that human moral development is somewhat built in, that we are all born with the capacity for social interaction and that this gets switched on, in a sense, as we grow and interact with others. And maybe, moral rules are, just like mathematical truths, things that we discover in our interactions with the world and other people. Just as we all come to see how more abstract ideas about quantity, space and structure work by generalizing from the details of our interactions with things in space and time, why couldnt we learn about the value of kindness and generosity and fair treatment in and through our interactions with other people? If this view were correct we would expect to find that the variation of moral ideas among is humans is less pronounced than relativism claims. And in fact, if we ignore the surface differences between human value systems and 62 CHAPTER 4. RELATIVISM look at the core values people seem to accept, they start to look much more similar than moral relativism would lead us to expect. 4.4 Difference and Tolerance Relativism isnt quite finished yet though, since there is another popular argument in its favor that we havent yet considered. This argument appeals to the, once again seemingly obvious, difficulty in coming to any kind of agreement about the meaning of basic moral terms. Here it is in explicit form: When I say that human life is important I mean one thing by that statement. When you say the same words you mean something completely different. Hence relativism is true and there are no universal values. Once again, this argument might convince someone who already is partial to relativism, since it might seem obvious that our different opinions about what moral concepts mean can only be rooted in fundamentally different value systems. But is this really so obvious? It seems to me that one reason why it appears so obvious to so many people has do to with a hidden assumption that is at work here. This hidden assumption is that everyones values form a coherent whole, a system of inter-connected ideas, commitments and preferences that each of us uses to make sense of the world we live in and the rules of the social game within which we find ourselves as actors. According to this assumption values are passed on from generation to generation as complete packages and not as individual ideas or preferences. If that is the case, and if moral terms only themselves makes sense within the context of different value systems, then it would be expected that people with different value systems would just have to mean different things by terms such as right and wrong. And, furthermore, if we are to learn how to get along with each other and tolerate other ways if life, this would also seem to entail tolerating entire value systems that might be very different than our own. The question is, however whether this assumption about the way things work with values is true. We will see some reasons to doubt it in the next section. For now, all that needs to be pointed out is that this assumption is itself just another way of expressing the fundamental claim made by relativism that values are essentially rooted in some kind of cultural or personal framework. Thus this last argument really amounts to a restatement of relativisms basic outlook and shouldnt really count as an independent argument in its favor. If it were it would be another case of begging the question and that is not really a legitimate way of arguing anything. 4.5. QUESTIONING RELATIVISM 4.5 63 Questioning Relativism In recent years even in the field of anthropology, which was once the field most committed to the truth of relativism, there has been a growing emphasis on the universal values underlying culturally different ways of expressing those values. To take a few examples, we all: honor the dead with some sort of funeral rites and find it incredibly offensive to mistreat the dead. act so as to help the group to survive. believe in the importance of telling the truth in general, even if exceptions are sometimes made to this. distinguish between acceptable and wrongful killing of other human beings. The possibility that there is a common moral ground between groups of people is tempting as a possible alternative to relativism. What relativism gets right is the fact that we all disagree about how to carry out the basic moral demands these core values impose on us. But what it gets wrong is the degree to which we do all disagree. After all, we all have some way of honoring the dead, we all think that the survival of our group is important, we all recognize that communication is only possible against a general background of truth-telling, and we all agree that there is something that should be considered the wrongful killing of a human being or murder, even if different cultures have very different ways of putting these values into practice. But then, wait a moment, doesnt relativism just reappear on another level? So what if we all agree on the importance of honoring the dead? Our different views about how exactly to do this have the potential to lead to serious conflict. How might we resolve this kind of conflict? To see how we might respond to the question of whether relativism simply reappears at another level of analysis that of the implementation of supposedly common core values let us take a closer look at what I claimed above was one of the common core values all human cultures share, the distinction we all make between acceptable and wrongful homicide. The relativist might argue that the fact that we all agree that there is such a distinction does nothing to alleviate the conflicts between different ways of interpreting its meaning and putting it into practice. Take the way in which this value was put into practice in Nazi Germany: it was considered wrong to kill a member of the Aryan race, but acceptable and even necessary to kill Jews, Slavic people and Gypsies (among others). We, on the other hand, fought against Germany in WWII because, among other reasons, we disagreed that this was a legitimate way to make the distinction between acceptable and wrongful homicide. Our beliefs are that it is only acceptable to kill others in self-defense, in a just war or, in 64 CHAPTER 4. RELATIVISM some cases, as a penalty for very serious crimes. Is there any way to resolve this conflict, or does relativism gain back all of the ground it has lost in the preceding discussion? It seems to me that there is. Respect and avoiding causing harm to others is a good place to start. Its like that quote, Your freedom stops where my nose begins. Marlene Goodbrod Once we recognize that even Nazis are not living in an utterly foreign moral universe, that they share with us the basic idea that there is an important moral distinction between justified and unjustified homicide, the whole game changes. We are no longer faced with a disagreement about fundamental values, those core moral beliefs that that seemed so personal and out of reach to discussion and critical evaluation. Instead we have a conflict about something that at least seems amenable to criticism and revision our understanding of what exactly is going on, or the facts of the situation. Is there really such a thing as fundamentally different biological races? Are there any measurable differences between groups of people organized by skin color, facial features, or ethnic origins? Is there really a plot to undermine our group that is being carried out by a network of shadowy agents from their group? These are no longer moral questions, but questions of fact. And while such beliefs and the story-line they are often connected with about hostile inter-group relations do tend to take hold of many people at times of great social stress, and under the influence of demagogues, at least it seems like there is hope for changing peoples minds about these questions. Summary Relativism is a difficult position to come to grips with. First of all it seems completely obvious to many people that it must be true, especially those who are sensitive to the ways in which us humans differ from each other. But the fact that many people come to discussions of relativism already thinking that it is true masks the fact that it is hard to defend with explicit arguments in favor of it that dont beg the question. And then there is the deeper philosophical question of whether it is even a coherent position that makes any sense at all. In some sense it may not even be possible to deny the truth of all truth as more extreme versions of relativism seem to do. Can a relativist ever lay claim to being correct about anything including the correctness of relativism? In case she did, then anyone else could simply say, well relativism may be true for you, but its not true for me! But relativism also presents a challenge to its opponents since it seems to acknowledge how firmly it is that we all tend to stick to our sense of what is right and what is wrong. People do tend to dig in and refuse to either accept reasons against their own favored views or even the possibility of compromise. In spite of this, however, radical changes of viewpoint as 4.6. A STARTING POINT 65 a result of reflection on ones own values are possible. See the links below for some examples. What these show, it seems to me at least, is that it does make sense to look at values as amenable to rational reflection and justification. We will look at some different ideas about what this involves in the third part of this book. Before we get there, we will need to open up two more cans of worms the view that the only way to provide a solid backing for value judgments is if they are based on some kind of absolute authority (chapter 5); and the view that value judgments either are or should be essentially self-serving (chapter 6). 4.6 A Starting Point If relativism shuts down debate with its assertion that we can never get beyond individual perspectives to any kind of moral common ground, our arguments against relativism put the burden squarely on us. If there is such moral common ground well have to be able to find it and articulate it in ways we can all accept. But this proves impossible if we dont understand the basics of our different views on things. Cris Evans project called A Starting Point is an attempt to open up dialogue through mutual understanding across the political divide. Follow this direct link: A Starting Point2 , or view in window below. 4.7 Slideshow Summary Here is a slideshow summary which can be viewed online3 , downloaded4 or printed5 . Further exploration For a much more detailed account, see the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophys page on moral relativism6 . Unfollow7 : this is the story of how someone raised in social isolation in the radically conservative Westboro Baptist Church came to question her own firmly entrenched beliefs. Leaving White Nationalism8 is an audio podcast that tells the story of Derek Black, a rising star on the radical right who came to question the views that he was brought up into, but that he also vocally defended on the radio. Once again this story raises the issue of how we can independently assess even views that we are indoctrinated into. 2 https://www.astartingpoint.com/ https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/04-phl210-slides.html 4 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/04-phl210-slides.pdf 5 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/04-phl210-handout.pdf 6 https://www.iep.utm.edu/moral-re/ 7 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/23/conversion-via-twitter-westboro-baptist-churchmegan-phelps-roper 8 https://www.npr.org/2018/09/24/651052970/how-a-rising-star-of-white-nationalism-broke-free-fromthe-movement 3 5 Religion and Ethics JordyMeow1 at pixabay.com If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. Voltaire What is the relation between religion and ethics? Many people insist on their close connection. They also often claim that the only way to provide an alternative to the anything goes attitude of the relativists is to turn, or return, to a set of strict ethical rules grounded in religion. This chapter examines these claims. We will do this by looking at two of the most important approaches to providing a foundation for ethics in religion. The first emphasizes the authoritative character of religion, highlighting one traditional role played by God in monotheistic faiths, that of providing laws for human conduct. This approach is known as 1 https://pixabay.com/users/jordymeow-943760/ 66 67 Divine Command Theory and is most popular, in the United States, among conservative Protestants. The second emphasizes the order inherent in the natural world, considered as something created by and reflecting the plans of a divine creator. It is known as Natural Law Theory and is the official ethical theory of the Roman Catholic Church. Before we get to these particular theories it is worth considering in more general terms what motivates them both. What are they trying to accomplish and why? It almost goes without saying that when any public figure in the United States speaks about things like values, or morality they are usually talking about religion. Hence it probably wouldnt come as a surprise that the political organization called The Moral Majority2 was a Christian group that advocated a much greater role for religion in public life. But on what basis do we make this assumption that morality and religion are so closely connected? There are a number of reasons for this: Many of us learn about what matters, about values, early in life in the context of religion. We are often taught about right and wrong in more or less explicitly religious terms. Religious leaders have the reputation of being experts on moral and ethical issues, they serve as ethics and morality advisers to political and military leaders and often express concerns about the morality of scientific research and new technologies. In many religions God plays the role of the source of morality he/she/it is often considered the highest good and the giver of the laws. Societies lacking strong religious traditions have a tendency to embrace moral and ethical pluralism, or at least an openly tolerant attitude about many questions of individual conduct and social roles. Now this doesnt yet show that morality and public order must be based on religion as Voltaire seemed to assume when he asserted that If God didnt exist we would have to invent him as a method of social control. But at least it shows that many people are comfortable with asserting a close connection between the two. It is important to keep in mind, however, a distinction between three things: the origin, explanation and justification of a thing or concept. NOTE: we should keep in mind the distinction between three things. 1. The origins of an idea, thought or principle. 2. An explanation of why someone might have it. 3. The justification of that idea, thought or principle. Even if religion is often a source of moral ideas, does this mean that religion is necessary for morality? Even if we can explain the role of religion in societies in part by its role in providing moral guidance, does that mean that religion is the only possible source of moral ideas or that 2 https://www.pewresearch.org/2007/05/17/rev-falwells-moral-majority-mission-accomplished/ 68 CHAPTER 5. RELIGION AND ETHICS it can in fact provide an adequate justification of those ideas? Backers of the theories we will be looking at here claim that we need religion, or at least a religiously inspired conception of reality, if there is to be any hope of avoiding the trap of moral relativism. Likewise, they assume that their theoretical attempts to provide a detailed account of how religion might provide a framework on which to build morality are up to the task. We shall see soon how things work out. 5.1 Divine Command Theory Divine Command Theory starts out as a reflection on the nature of moral language and on this basis develops a comprehensive theory of morality. The first thing it points out about moral or ethical language is that it takes the form of rules governing behavior. These rules are expressed as commands, such as Dont lie, Dont steal from other people, and You should never cheat, especially not on your ethics exams. Now commands, as opposed to statements, are neither true nor false, so we cannot simply investigate the world to see whether they are correct or not. Instead the way we determine which commands are correct is by figuring out which ones we really should listen to, which ones are truly binding on us and most importantly why? Why should we accept and act on the claims that some things are obligatory for us to do, while some other things are permissible and some other things forbidden? According to divine command theory Moral principles tell us what we should do. Commands are meaningless without authority to back them up. The universal scope of moral commands requires divine backing. Moral rules such as Do not kill, really mean God commands us not to kill. This theory claims that moral commands are binding on us only to the extent there is some kind of actually existing authority figure behind them, whose will determines that we should obey his her or its dictates. That is, in order for moral commands to really become obligations for us we need someone or something that can make them stick and give us a reason to accept them as such. On this view commands can only get their binding power from an enforcing authority, and the stronger that authority is, the more binding the commands are. This is not an unfamiliar idea. Why is it necessary for the police to patrol highways looking for people driving faster than the speed limit? Well, obviously, if nobody were around to enforce the rules of the road, many more people would violate them and it would be unsafe to drive on public roads. It is the real threat of punishment by people with the authority to enforce the rules that keeps us in line. The same goes for morality in general, or so the backers of Divine Command Theory claim. 5.1. DIVINE COMMAND THEORY 69 Implications of DCT In recent years there has been much debate surrounding attempts to display the Ten Commandments in public places, such as on the wall of a courtroom in Alabama3 , or outside the state legislature building in Oklahoma4 . Defenders of this idea clearly are relying on ideas similar to those expressed by DCT. They reason that the authority of the law embodied in a court room or legislature is weakened if it is not ultimately based on divine authority. The only way, they claim, to emphasize the absolutely binding character of human law is to remind us that it is based on, or should be based on, a higher, divine law. So the first implication of DCT is that, if it is true, then moral laws would be absolutely binding on us. It would not be up to us what is right and what is wrong, but up to a higher authority. As a result this would provide an absolute basis for human law, and, in addition, enable us to escape from relativism for good. This may seem appealing, especially in the light of the relativists difficulty with moral decision-making. If the relativist has a hard time taking a stance on anything, no matter how obviously appalling it seems, DCT more than makes up for this by insisting on absolutes. If moral language is really a series of divinely issued commands, then there would be no question about whether or not something is wrong. To find out we just consult Gods explicit commands. This solution to the problem of morality, however, presents a number of problems. First, how can we be sure that we really know what it is that God commands? For devout followers of a particular religion, this problem usually never arises, since religious texts such as the Bible are often very explicit about what God commands. To find out what God commands us to do, we need simply consult the Bible. But then what about people of different faiths? Christians, for example, are commanded to honor the Sabbath or day of rest and not to work on Sundays. But Jews are commanded to do the same thing by not working on Saturdays, while Muslims can only honor the day of rest by not working on Fridays. All of these commands cannot simultaneously be absolutely binding on us, unless we opt for mandatory three day weekends (not necessarily a bad thing). And the same problem arises regarding other more serious matters and even within a particular religion. On the one hand, the God of Christianity seems to command us to kill certain people according to the Old Testament book of Leviticus, this would include people who commit adultery, people who work on Sundays, and even our own children if they curse us. But then there is the First Commandment which says simply, Thou shalt not kill. In the Old Testament there is the famous demand for an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, as pay-back for crimes committed. But then in the New Testament we find Jesus advising his followers, to turn the other cheek, and explicitly not seek pay-back for others crimes against them. Certainly we cant be expected to take conflicting commands literally and put them all into practice. Now none of this completely undermines DCT, but it certainly presents a challenge to backers of the theory. If DCT is going to offer a reasonable approach to ethical decision making we will have to sort out quite a bit of the content of religious teachings. We will have 3 http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1525 https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/0301/Supreme-Court-lets-stand-order-to-remove-TenCommandments-monument 4 70 CHAPTER 5. RELIGION AND ETHICS to figure out which body of religious ideas really reflects Gods commands and what those commands are really telling us to do. And this of course requires interpretation hopefully with some guidance from moral principles, but I am getting ahead of the argument here. In addition, DCT has an added implication that some people may find troubling. That is, since it claims that morality can only be based directly on the commands of God, then someone who does not believe that a God exists cannot have any real basis for moral decision making. Although it is true that an atheist may act in a way that appears to be moral, in fact, without an absolute authority figure to motivate this action, there is really no reason for her to do so. Advocates of DCT do not usually see this a much of a problem, since they insist that the atheists out there are obviously incapable of being moral unless they secretly harbor the suspicion that there may be an ultimate enforcer and hedge their bets accordingly. But is this really true? Is it possible to be a moral person in the complete absence of belief in a supreme being who is the ultimate authority figure enforcing moral rules? Is there any humanly accessible reason for being moral that does not reduce to culturally relative local customs? We will return to this question later. At this point, we need to examine the arguments in favor of DCT because, as we saw with relativism, the implications of a theory do not by themselves determine whether or not we should accept that theory. These implications only show us what is at stake with the theory and do not yet give us any reason to conclude that its claims are either true or false. To come to that kind of conclusion we need to see the back up for the theory. Defending DCT There are two major arguments for DCT, one of which is based on an explicitly religious assumption and the other of which is not. The religious, or theological, argument goes like so: If God created everything, then this has to include moral rules, otherwise there would be something that God did not create. God created everything. So God must have created whatever moral rules there are. A very clear and simple argument it seems, but is it very convincing? Well it is valid, since if the premises are true then the conclusion must also be true. OK. So are the premises really true? The first simply defines what a creator God would do, if such a God really existed this is a pretty standard understanding of God shared by all of the great western monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. So far so good. The second premise, however, is not necessarily true. Granted that people who are true believers in one one of these religions take this as an article of faith, it certainly requires much more argument before anyone else is willing to accept it. So in the end this argument will be found appealing only to those 5.1. DIVINE COMMAND THEORY 71 who are members of certain religious faiths. As we will see in a moment, however, even true believers may have reason to reject DCT in spite of this argument. The second argument is a classic argument from the philosophy of religion, where it is sometimes used in the attempt to prove that a God exists in the first place. For our purposes, that is not as important as its role in the attempt to put ethics in a religious foundation. If there is no absolute moral authority, then anything goes. But it is not true that anything goes. Thus there is an absolute moral authority,and that authority is God. Once again this is a valid argument. So our evaluation of it needs for its completion a discussion of whether or not the premises are true. The obvious starting point for critical analysis of this argument is the second premise It is just not true that anything goes. How can we just assert that this is true, if this is exactly the kind of thing that is up for grabs in a discussion of philosophical ethics? After all, relativists deny this very claim. Well, at the very least, this premise makes a believable claim some kinds of behavior are just flat out wrong. If you deny this, you will end up in the uncomfortable position of having to explain how it is that some pretty awful kinds of behavior might be acceptable. For example (and this is the classic example used by defenders of this argument), it is simply unacceptable to kill babies for fun. Try to respond that this is just a matter of culturally relative preference and you will look like a monster. Perhaps this discussion is best avoided by shifting our focus to the first premise. Is it true that If there is no absolute moral authority, then anything goes? At first it may seem that this is true. But if we stop and think for a second we soon realize that this claim sounds suspiciously like what DCT is ultimately claiming. Isnt the point of the theory to defend the claim that the absolute authority of God is the only thing capable of preventing moral anarchy? If that is the case, then rewriting the conclusion as a premise and basing our argument on this premise is a clear example of the fallacy of begging the question. While an argument that begs the question may be valid, it is terrible as an argument because it assumes the very thing it is claiming to be proving. So this argument does not do so well in our analysis it will only convince people who already buy DCT, and that is not enough to show that DCT is true. 72 5.2 CHAPTER 5. RELIGION AND ETHICS A Nasty Dilemma The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods. Plato Let us return to the first argument in defense of DCT, the theological argument. This argument again seems valid, and appears to be an argument that anyone who believes that God is the creator of everything would have to accept. Everything means everything, including whatever moral rules there happen to be. There is a subtle problem that emerges here, however, a problem that has come to be known as the dilemma of Divine Command Theory. Dilemma is a Greek word that means two horns as in the two horns of a bull. So when we are caught in a dilemma, we are stuck between two positions that are equally uncomfortable and we might want to question what led us into the dilemma in the first place. The dilemma is easy to state. If ethics is to be based on Gods commands we can always ask the question Well, why should we listen to these commands? There are two possible answers: On the one hand we can listen to them simply because of who issued the commands. In this case what is right is right and what is wrong is wrong, because God says so. On the other hand, we can listen to the commands because they are commands telling us to do what is right. That is, God would be commanding us to do something because it is right. Think about that one for a minute. The point of DCT is to base right and wrong on what God says. But we can do this only in these two different ways: either we believe what God is saying because of who is saying it, or we believe it on the assumption that whoever is saying it has a good reason to say it. But are either of these options what divine command theory wants? Lets look more closely at how this plays out for the command not to murder. Suppose God commands us not to murder each other. Is murder wrong because God says it is? This would seem to be a way of basing right and wrong directly on Gods will. But if this is all there is to murder being wrong, why couldnt God have said the opposite? If its wrong only because He says so, there is no answer to this question. If this is what it means to say that ethics is based on Gods will, God appears totally arbitrary, and thats not how we want to think of God, is it? Does God say that murder is wrong because it really is wrong? This definitely seems to fit better with how we usually think of God, as a supremely wise being. But this makes it look like standards of right and wrong are independent of God he knows and does not simply decree that murder is wrong. This seems OK except for the fact that Divine Command Theory claims that right (and wrong) are based on Gods will. 73 5.3. NATURAL LAW THEORY The dilemma of DCT Is something wrong because God says so? This would make morality arbitrary. Or does God say something is wrong because it really is wrong? This would make morality independent of Gods will. So we end up with a nasty dilemma either we base ethics on Gods commands directly, but at the price of rendering ethical rules arbitrary, with no real reason behind them, or we grant that they have a reason behind them at the price of making the authority of God irrelevant to the rightness of these commands. Note that this dilemma is the same dilemma that arises any time we appeal to authority to settle some issue. When someone says for example Experts says that blah, blah, blah, we can always ask, Should we listen to that because it is the experts who say it, or because the experts are right? To avoid granting the experts arbitrary power to tell us what to do, it has to be the second. But that then renders the experts irrelevant in a sense. After all, if what the experts say is right, this has nothing to do with who they are and everything to do with what they say. So let them present their evidence and let us be the judges of whether to listen or not. Because of this problem, Divine Command Theory is rejected even by some people who insist that morality must be based on religion. The Catholic Church, for example, officially rejects this explanation of why ethics needs religion. It prefers instead, the next theory, Natural Law Theory. 5.3 Natural Law Theory Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by mans own will. St. Thomas Aquinas Natural Law Theory (NLT), as the name suggests, argues that there are standards for right and wrong and these are to be found in nature. Natural things are built (whether by a divine creator or by Darwinian evolution doesnt matter here) to be good at certain types of things. Fish are good swimmers, but bad typists. Dogs are good at smelling things in your luggage, but bad at flying. Trees are good at turning solar energy, water and carbon dioxide into sugars, and bad at solving calculus problems. Another way of saying the same thing is to appeal to the concept of a natural function: fish, dogs, trees, and all other natural things, including us humans, have a certain set of built in potentials, or functions, things 74 CHAPTER 5. RELIGION AND ETHICS they are built to do and can do well. Things that are not part of their natural abilities they shouldnt be doing at all. Natural law theory in ethics is based on this idea. Human beings have a certain set of things we can all do and that we can also do well or poorly. By nature us humans can: move physically through our surroundings; perceive things around us and learn about how the world works through observation and experiment; maintain our bodies and minds in a healthy state; be emotionally engaged in our lives and the lives of others; be creative and enjoy the products of others creativity; be productive and politically active members of society; have and raise children. All of these capacities combined make up what humans can do by nature. In spite of the fact that this list seems long, there are of course plenty of things that we cannot do by nature, like fly under our own power, or survive underwater without an artificial air supply. Given all of this, the fundamental claim of Natural Law Theory is just that ethics can and should be based on these natural functions. Ethical decisions are decisions that follow from and foster human nature, while unethical decisions are those that go against our natures. So far this may not seem to be a particularly religious approach to ethics as it was billed above. In a sense, the religious reading of natural law theory is optional the claims it makes could be cast in an entirely secular light, by simply referring to nature. However, not only is the most popular version of this theory the one embraced by the Catholic Church, but the tradition from which this theory arose saw nature as the result of supernatural forces at work Gods creation. So even the religious aspect of Natural Law Theory may not be required for the theory itself, to the extent that talk about natural purposes evokes the purposes of the creator of natural things, the two are closely connected. According to NLT Understanding things requires understanding their purpose. Human nature is clearly visible by the light of reason. It is better to follow the natural order of things than to oppose it. Implications of NLT This theory may sound simple and even a little trivial, but, as we shall soon see, it has far-reaching implications. In addition, it fits in very well with certain intuitions we may have about what is involved in living a good life. We all have some conception of what a good life would look like, and our individual conceptions of a good life no doubt overlap. Among others, elements of a good life would include: 5.3. NATURAL LAW THEORY 75 having a healthy body and mind; knowing enough about our world to be able to effectively realize our personal goals; having friends and a family who love and understand us, and who are willing to help us out in times of need; living in a comfortable community with people who share our values; having an interesting and rewarding job that fits our abilities. According to NLT it is no accident that these are elements of a good life in most peoples view, because all of these things involve realizing or fulfilling some of our naturally given capacities mentioned above. In fact, for NLT, living a good life is not only what many people aspire to, it is the naturally given goal of human beings. Fulfilling our natural capacities, realizing the set of capacities we are all born with is also what we should strive for. We should, to borrow a famous slogan, Be all we can be. In the eyes of a backer of NLT this slogan is not intended only as a way of encouraging us to do our best, it is also an expression of an ethical demand we should strive to realize our natural potential to the greatest extent possible and we are acting wrongly if we do not listen to this demand. But what about people who fail to realize their naturally given potential? In some cases people are prevented from realizing their potential because of factors outside of their control, such as disease or accidents. Someone afflicted with a childhood disease may be prevented from ever realizing the potentials they were born with and this is an unfortunate accident. But someone who has no excuse besides, say laziness, who fails to live up to his or her potential deserves to be condemned. Such a person is a slacker, a dead-beat, living a wasted life even the language we use to describe someone who fails to live up to their potential has a tone of moral disapproval. For a backer of natural law theory, a person who does not follow human nature and strive to be all that they can be is wrong to do so. On the other hand, if a whole society is filled with people who fail to realize their potentials, this is good grounds for suspecting that there is something wrong with the way in which that society is run. In fact, both nations and international organizations such as the United Nations increasingly measure the prosperity of countries not just by GDP growth rates, but by determining to what extent people are well-fed, employed, educated, in good health, etc. It is a common assumption (is it warranted?) in international affairs that if a country is systematically preventing its citizens from realizing their potential, if it is frustrating the fulfillment of their basic human needs, then there is something wrong with that society and it should be encouraged or prodded to change. Taking this idea still further, in the hands of Aquinas, Natural Law Theory leads to the idea that there are certain absolute values, things that we must value without exception. If human flourishing is an ethical demand that nature makes on us by providing us with a set of built-in capacities, there are certain things that we must always value as preconditions for realizing those capacities. These are, in Aquinas view, life procreation knowledge 76 CHAPTER 5. RELIGION AND ETHICS sociability If we fail to honor these values, we cannot realize our potentials as nature (or its creator) intends. This is most obvious for the first of these absolute values, but the case could be made that if we fail to have children, seek knowledge and develop our social abilities, us human beings would fail miserably in our attempts to realize our natural capacities. It is for this reason that these values simply must be honored everything else depends on them. Such are the implications of the theory now on to the important question, But is it true that right and wrong can be determined by how well or poorly we live up to our natural potentials? 5.4 Ethics and Human Nature The argument for NLT is straightforward. It rests on one factual premise and one premise that contains a value judgment, and runs like so: Human beings have a definite nature, a set of built-in capacities. In general it is better to follow nature than to go against it. So we should act in such a way as to fulfill our nature as human beings and avoid violating what it is in our nature to do. This argument has a long history, and goes back at least as far as the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BCE), a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. It was revived and recast in explicitly religious terms by the great medieval Christian philosopher, and official philosopher of the Catholic Church, St. Thomas Aquinas (1227-1274). It is the foundation of Natural Law Theory and one way of defending a broader view known as Virtue Ethics, both of which equate an ethical life with a life spent realizing our potentials as well-rounded human beings. As a quick look at the argument indicates, it is at least a valid argument. If we have a definite nature and if in fact it is better to follow that nature, then we should clearly follow our particular, human nature. We should all act in the way that is most likely to lead to the fulfillment of our natural functions. But is there anything wrong with this picture? It may seem appealing to talk about what human beings are naturally built to do, and its true that many people talk about how we just werent meant to do that. But the question is, how can we be so sure what a human beings natural functions or abilities really are? And besides, doesnt this argument seem to rest on a hidden assumption that what is natural is always better, or that what is unnatural is wrong? Can nature really be a guide for the making of value judgments? Natural law theory assumes that the following claim is true: Whatever is unnatural is wrong. But is it? It is not so easy to say since the word unnatural has a number of different meanings. It can mean: 5.4. ETHICS AND HUMAN NATURE 77 Going against the laws of nature, as in Hot snow is unnatural. Being statistically uncommon, as in He has an unnatural ability to remember what cards were played at the blackjack table. Being artificial, as in Those snack foods are made only of unnatural ingredients. Violating natural functions, as in It is unnatural for a lesbian couple to have a child with the help of a sperm bank and a team of doctors. Lets look at these definitions one at a time: 1. Violating the laws of nature is wrong. This is clearly false in that the laws of nature are just descriptions of regularities in nature and so it makes no sense to talk about violating them. Apparent violations of the law really just show us that our view of what the laws of nature are is incorrect. 2. What is uncommon is wrong. Clearly this is not always the case being part of the statistically defined norm is neither good not bad by itself. Rare talents are great, rare diseases not so good. 3. What is artificial is wrong. While we might resist buying food labelled All artificial ingredients, and assume that natural ingredients are better than artificial ones, this claim is not in general true. There are plenty of things like artificial heart valves and limbs that have made peoples lives better and many perfectly natural phenomena like tornadoes and earthquakes that have not. 4. What violates natural functions is wrong. This claim is really what Natural Law Theory rests on, but it also seems a bit shaky as a support for morality as we will see in a moment. Natural purposes The whole idea that things in nature have built-in purposes that it is somehow wrong to violate is somewhat paradoxical in that it is both intuitively appealing and difficult if not impossible to establish. It is intuitively appealing to think that things in nature have essences or some set of essential features that determine how they act and their roles in relationship to us. As the old saying goes, Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly. . . This spontaneous essentialism is part of what psychologists have termed magical thinking and it seems to be built-in to the way the human mind works.5 Hence both children and early human societies tend to accept without reservation the idea that everything has a place in the world and certain internal characteristics that it would be wrong to ignore. And this makes sense to the extent that categorizing is a basic mental function that comes online first and only later are its products subject to critical reevaluation. Until the scientific revolution finally rejected the idea that explanations of natural phenomena required specifying what the purpose, end or function of something was, this 5 See Susan Gelman, Essentialism in Everyday Thought, American Psychological Association, accessed December 13, 2019, https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2005/05/gelman. for more on essentialism as a spontaneous mode of thinking. 78 CHAPTER 5. RELIGION AND ETHICS kind of essentialism was simply taken for granted as part of the explanation of anything. Aristotle was the first to explicitly formulate it as part of his account of the requirements of any explanation. According to Aristotles doctrine of the four causes, any explanation had to answer four questions about what was being explained: For Aristotle any explanation requires specifying its four causes. 1. 2. 3. 4. What is it made of. (the material cause) What sort of thing it is. (its formal cause) How it came to be in its present state. (the efficient cause) What it is for or its function, purpose or goal. (its final cause) This doctrine was incredibly influential and was only rejected as Galileo and other early modern scientists in the early 1500s rejected all but the third of these as irrelevant to scientific explanation. Nevertheless, it is a central assumption of Aquinas account of morality that we both can and should spell out the purposes of anything in nature. If purposes are built-in the human beings then what we should do would be accessible in a straightforward way by the light of reason. However that no longer seems so obvious to modern eyes since we tend to see the purposes of things as externally imposed on them by creatures like us who use them for our purposes. Nature is no longer in our conception a place of built in forms and functions organized hierarchically in the Medieval Great Chain of Being or other such comprehensive views, but is more like a vast and value-neutral machine that we may be part of but that has no intrinsic values in its parts. Hence any account of value is, from this modern point of view, dependent on the free choices of those, like us, who value things. We will be seeing different conceptions of what this means in coming chapters. In conclusion, even though it may seem tempting to appeal to nature as a guide for ethics, this strategy simply does not work. Something being natural, to use philosophical jargon, is neither necessary not sufficient for it being good or right. Likewise with something being unnatural. Even if we could spell out the natural functions of human beings and our parts in a way that did not beg the question, doing so would still leave open the question, as the philosopher G. E. Moore pointed out, about whether following that function was right.6 Nature provides a framework within which we can make choices that are either right or wrong or that lead either to good or evil and it is our responsibility, not natures to figure out which is which. Failure to recognize this is nothing but a trap the trap of what Moore called the naturalistic fallacy, a mistaken form of reasoning with which we have already met. Religion and ethics reconsidered The ultimate conclusion of this chapter can be stated simply enough: In spite of the fact that religion often expresses moral concerns, morality and ethics are logically independent of 6 Aaron Preston, Moore, George Edward, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed December 13, 2019, https://www.iep.utm.edu/moore/ 5.5. SLIDESHOW SUMMARY 79 religion. As a result we can see why it is that both Divine Command Theory and Natural Law Theory had to fail since both asserted the opposite, that without some connection to the divine, either directly or through a divinely ordered nature, ethics would be impossible. Note that this doesnt mean that in human cultural history religious conceptions of ethics have not come first. Nor is it intended to deny that religion can be a powerful way of teaching ethical principles as it is for many people. It is just intended to mean that religion is neither necessary nor sufficient for ethics. It is not necessary in that one can be ethical without any religious belief. And it is not sufficient in that it is possible to have strong religious belief and be an awful person from a moral or ethical point of view. 5.5 Slideshow Summary Here is a slideshow summary which can be viewed online7 , downloaded8 or printed9 . Further Exploration A much more comprehensive account of the relationship between religion and morality can be found at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophys article Religion and Morality10 . 7 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/05-phl210-slides.html https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/05-phl210-slides.pdf 9 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/05-phl210-handout.pdf 10 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/religion-morality/ 8 Part III Reconstructing Norms 80 6 Egoism Free Photos1 at pixabay.com So far we have examined a few different theories about the basis of ethics. Each of these theories proved inadequate for one reason or another, in spite of the fact that each one is popular. Philosophers are kind of hard to please. The failure of these theories can, however, tell us something about what an adequate ethics might look like. The first lesson we can learn from their failure is that ethical principles cannot simply be based on authority. It does not matter whether this authority is the authority of culture, a divine creator of laws, or nature appealing to such sources of ethical principles fails to really provide a reason to accept those principles as legitimate. Authority may get us to act, for fear of punishment or ostracism if we fail to do what the authorities want. But authority alone will never be enough to convince us that what the authorities want us to do is right. In order to be convinced we will need to see some convincing reasons. Providing reasons to back up our claims is exactly what we do when we are attempting to be rational. This simple observation is the point of departure for our next four approaches to ethics. These are known as egoism, social contract theory, utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. All of these theories are products of an important period of intellectual history known as the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was a period (which began in roughly the mid18th century, and ended as a formal intellectual movement in roughly the mid-nineteenth 1 https://pixabay.com/users/free-photos-242387/ 81 82 CHAPTER 6. EGOISM century, even if its ideals are still with us in many ways) in which intellectuals and other public figures throughout the world embraced the idea that reason alone was capable of providing guidance for human affairs. According to such advocates of the Enlightenment as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, David Hume, Adam Smith, Jeremy Bentham and Immanuel Kant, among many others, careful and rational investigation of the world and the evidence that could be found in the world could provide a solid basis for our social lives as well as scientific knowledge. There are considerable differences among the ideas of the major figures of the Enlightenment. However, all of them shared a basic trust in the power of reasoning to solve human problems. For egoists, social contractarians, utilitarians and advocates of Kantian ethics, rationality is the bottom line and ethics, if it is to move beyond the arbitrariness and prejudice embedded in the traditional conceptions of morality we have been considering, must embrace rationality. In the next four chapters we will be examining different answers to the question, What would a rational ethics look like? To get a sense of the territory ahead here are the answers that each of the next four approaches to ethics offers: Egoism: It would not exist since rationality requires us to put ourselves first. Social Contract Theory: A rational ethics would be based on an agreement about what the basic rules of the social game should be. Utilitarianism: Ethics would be an effective method for attaining the common good. Kantian ethics: A rational ethics would provide a set of universal principles that all free agents must follow. 6.1 Psychological Egoism: Whats in it for me? Where the world comes in my way and it comes in my way everywhere I consume it to quiet the hunger of my egoism. For me you are nothing but my food, even as I too am fed upon and turned to use by you. Max Stirner Calling egoism a theory of ethics may seem to stretch the meaning of the word ethics to the breaking point, since egoism denies that we can or should really care about ethical rules. But since advocates of egoism make explicit claims about the relationship between ethics and rationality, any discussion of philosophical ethics cannot avoid dealing with egoism. Egoists claim, in fact, that rationality undermines the possibility of ethics as it has been traditionally understood. To the extent that we follow reason, as opposed to customary authority, we can and should cease to be concerned with ethics. It is not that we will suddenly be cold to the 6.1. PSYCHOLOGICAL EGOISM: WHATS IN IT FOR ME? 83 needs and desires of others where we previously kept these interests close to our hearts. It is that we will recognize certain things about the way the world and human beings work that will compel us to give up certain ways of looking at the world. But I am getting ahead of myself here. Egoism is not a single theory, but two separate theories that make different, even though related, claims about human action and decision-making. These separate theories are known as Psychological Egoism and for want of a better term, Ethical Egoism. Psychological Egoism is the view that we cannot be unselfish even if we may want to be. Ethical Egoism, on the other hand, is the view that we should not be unselfish even though we can be. Two varieties of egoism Psychological egoism: a descriptive theory about the nature of human decisionmaking. It claims that all decisions are by definition self-serving and so ethics is impossible. Ethical Egoism: a normative theory about what is best for all of us. It claims, somewhat paradoxically, that the best way to help others is to help yourself and so ethics is wrong. Psychological egoism (PE) makes a very straightforward claim: we cannot be unselfish. That is, certain facts about human psychology prevent unselfish or altruistic behavior from being a live option. This may sound outrageous, but defenders of PE think that there is a compelling case that can be made for this view. Note that PE is not claiming that we should not be unselfish. That is what Ethical Egoism claims and is a very different can of worms. PE presents itself as a hard-nosed and realistic view that simply reports on the way things are lets just face it, we all have an agenda, and anyone who denies this is a fool. According to Psychological Egoism, a careful and rational assessment of the evidence concerning human behavior, shows that ethical rules do not make very much sense, since we cannot really ever put others first. That is, altruism, (acting selflessly, putting others needs and interests before ones own) is not really possible. We will examine the arguments for this view in a moment. Implications of psychological egoism Clearly if PE were true, this would have an enormous impact on our lives. If we simply cannot ever really be unselfish, at best we are confused when we talk about ethics and and worst we are deceiving ourselves about human nature. Whatever the case may be, PE compels us to give up talking about others needs and interests, and gives us a clear license to put ourselves first. This may sound appealing it relieves us from the burdens that go with ethical demands to help others, and frees us to pursue our own self-interest without the guilt feelings that society has traditionally encouraged us to feel when we put ourselves first. Furthermore, the view that we never are really unselfish strikes some people as a realistic 84 CHAPTER 6. EGOISM antidote to the idealistic tone of ethics. If PE is true, describing human actions in terms of what we should and shouldnt do, in terms of duties and obligations, etc. is simply unrealistic and we should give it up. The ethical perspective would be revealed to be obsolete from the new, more realistic standpoint of Psychological Egoism. On the other hand, if PE is true, we would not really ever have any grounds for complaint about the way others treat us. If nobody really can be unselfish, what right would we ever have to ask others to take our interests seriously and not try to take advantage of us? 6.2 Arguments for psychological egoism These implications of PE are the kinds of things that we would have to buy, if it were true. So far we havent been given any reason to suppose that it is in fact true. So let us take a look at the arguments that might be offered in its defense. There are two main arguments in defense of PE. The first is a purely theoretical argument. It is based on an analysis of rational decision-making and claims that because of certain facts about the way we make decisions, these decisions are always selfish. When I make a decision, I am attempting to fulfill my goals since I cannot act on anyone elses goals. But acting for the sake of fulfilling my goals is acting selfishly. Since the same point applies equally to everyone, we are all always selfish. What this argument is claiming is that if we think about what is involved in rational action in general, we will soon realize that it has to be selfish by definition. Since my reasons for action are nobodys but my own, they must be oriented toward my own good. After all this is what it means to act rationally rational action is action that effectively realizes ones goals. But since these goals have to be my goals, otherwise they would fail to motivate my decisions, it clearly seems to follow that I have no choice but to act for my own sake. Acting for someone elses goals is just impossible by definition. But acting for ones own goals exclusively is just what it means to be selfish. Hence PE must be true. A second argument for Psychological Egoism is an empirical argument. It does not rest on the claim that we are selfish by definition, even though that is what PE ultimately claims. Instead it appeals to evidence about real human behavior in the real world. If psychological egoism were false we should be able to find a real example of selfless or altruistic behavior. But there are no such examples. So psychological egoism is true. 6.2. ARGUMENTS FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL EGOISM 85 Well this argument may just seem silly. Arent there in fact are plenty of examples of real altruistic behavior out there? Sure some people are selfish, but there are many people who help other people at no apparent gain to themselves. Here are a few ordinary examples: A person gives all of their extra money, after paying their bills and buying groceries, to charity and does so anonymously. Another person stops to help the victim of an accident on the highway even though doing so makes them late for an important meeting. Someone else spends their weekends volunteering at the hospital. The strategy of reinterpreting motives As you may already suspect, a defender of Psychological Egoism has an answer to this objection. The second argument for PE does not instantly fall apart under the weight of these apparent counterexamples. This is because, according to PE, they are only apparent examples of altruism on closer examination these apparently altruistic acts can be shown to really be based on underlying selfish motives. Take the case of a person who gives to charity anonymously. Isnt there likely to be a selfish motive in this? Perhaps this person feels guilty for having as much money as she has and decides that the best way to make herself feel better is to give a large anonymous donation to a charity. Or maybe it is a way of avoiding paying taxes on the rest of her money if you do it right, donating to charity can save you money on your taxes by lowering your tax bracket. The same kind of argument can apply in the other cases as well. Cant we reinterpret the motives of people who help strangers in a way that makes them seem less altruistic and more selfish? Once again, the motives for helping people might be to relieve ones own guilt feelings, or to enjoy the feeling of being a hero, or the fame that goes with getting your picture in the paper as the heroic rescuer of that poor, helpless victim of the accident. Volunteering? Well, that looks great on your resume, plus it is a great way to meet people without having to buy them drinks, etc. This line of reasoning is intended to provide additional support in defense of PE against the objection that people obviously do not always act on the basis of selfish motives. Something may strike you as suspicious about this line of thinking and especially about the egoists response to the apparent counterexamples we have just mentioned. If so, your intuitions are on the right track. It is difficult, however, to pinpoint exactly what is wrong here. In order to clarify things a bit, we need to digress for a moment and talk about the nature of empirical theories and what sorts of evidence they appeal to. This short excursion into the territory of the philosophy of science will reveal the big problem with the second argument for PE. If we are to have a good reason to accept a theory, we need some evidence to support that theory. But, how much evidence do we need? Well, it seems that the more evidence we have, the more well-confirmed our theory is and the more reason we have to believe that it is true. Suppose someone asks me to believe his theory that NASA faked the Apollo 11 moon landing. Before I buy this theory, Ill want to see the evidence. If the only evidence he offers is that he doesnt believe that such an accomplishment was possible given the primitive state 86 CHAPTER 6. EGOISM of technology in 1969, I still do not have much reason to be convinced. But if more and more evidence appears to support this claim then my initial skepticism might have to give way to a belief that maybe he is right. What evidence might help convince me? A top NASA official publicly admits that the space program faked the moon landings. Investigators find and photographically document an abandoned movie studio in the Arizona desert that is filled with exact copies of the lunar landing modules and other equipment that appeared in the original TV footage of the moon landing. Reels of film with outtakes from the TV broadcast footage are found in a warehouse in Arkansas, and this footage shows microphones and other stage equipment on the surface of the moon. The Chinese land on the moon and fail to find any evidence of a prior American landing in a thorough search of the American landing area. Of course no such real evidence like exists. The point is a more general point about how theories need to appeal to sufficient evidence if we are they are to be convincing theories. It seems that the more evidence a theory has the more believable it becomes. But there is a catch we shouldnt have too much evidence for a theory. Consider the following case of a theory with unlimited evidence, the theory that there is a massive conspiracy against me personally. I might mention the following evidence in support of this theory: The person who almost ran me over when I was walking across the street this morning is clearly in on the conspiracy. Yesterday I asked someone if they were in on the conspiracy against me, and they nervously replied Of course not. Obviously a lie! Even my best friend laughed when I asked him, and then admitted to being in on the conspiracy. I could go on mentioning more and more evidence for this theory, otherwise known as paranoia. And in fact, if I were in the grip of genuine paranoia, I would have an unlimited amount of evidence at my disposal. Whatever counterexamples anyone could come up with to try to calm my fears could easily be explained away as still more evidence in favor of the conspiracy against me. Clearly there is a problem here. The problem with paranoia, considered as an empirical theory a claim about what is really going on in the world is not that there is no evidence for it. Instead, the problem is that there is no possible evidence that might count against it. In philosophical jargon it is non-falsifiable. All empirical theories not only need evidence to support them, they also need to be falsifiable, that is, there has to be at least the possibility that they could be wrong. Note that falsifiable does not mean the same thing as false, or falsified. Such theories are obviously no good they have failed the tests that we have given them and should be rejected. Falsifiable theories are theories that might not be true, even if the only such theories that are worth our time are ones that have not yet been shown to be false. But legitimate theories have to be at least capable of being tested with tests that they might possibly fail. After all, if the only tests you give a theory are tests that it cannot possibly fail, have you really 6.2. ARGUMENTS FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL EGOISM 87 learned anything new about anything by testing your theory? In fact it is better to say that non-falsifiable theories are not even really theories that make claims about how the world really is instead they are assumptions that we project onto the world with no evidence whatsoever. To return to Psychological Egoism, it now appears that this too is a non-falsifiable theory, just like paranoia. The tests that the theory was given in our discussion above were the apparent counterexamples cases where it appears that people are in fact not operating based only on selfish motives. PE of course had a ready answer to all of these challenges all we have to do is come up with some possible hidden motive that explains away the appearance of altruism and the theory is back in business. But this is a game that the defender of PE cannot possibly lose. We can always reinterpret others motives in way that undermines the appearance of altruism. As a result, however, PE loses any claim it may have had to be a genuine theory about what human behavior is really like and is revealed to be nothing but a cynical projection of selfish motives onto all human action. The strategy of reinterpreting motives, which seemed like a promising way to defend PE, in fact renders it non-falsifiable and hence empty of real empirical content. It reveals nothing about the world, but everything about the assumptions of the person defending this theory. Someone in the grips of Psychological Egoism is thus probably also suffering from a severe case of confirmation bias. But what about the first argument? This argument claimed that we could see that human behavior has to be selfish to the extent that it is rational simply because we all are only capable of making decisions that fulfill our own goals. Rational decision-making is decisionmaking that realizes ones own goals and so it is bound to be selfish the argument concludes. A little reflection on this argument, however, reveals a subtle problem. Does the fact that a goal is my own goal have to mean that my interests alone are at stake in the attempt to satisfy that goal? Only if we assume that I cannot have goals that involve helping other people. But why should we assume this? PE claims that my goals are always my goals, and so they must be selfish. But doesnt this mix up two different meanings of the expression my goals? Clearly it is true that my goals are my own if they are going to get my body moving, they have to be in my own head. That is a trivial truth of human psychology it is so obvious that there usually isnt much point mentioning it. The thoughts in your head cannot cause me to do anything, at least in any direct way. But my goals might also mean, my goals, as opposed to your goals in a situation where both cannot be satisfied simultaneously. If my goal is to rob you of all of your money and your goal is to prevent me from doing that this is the meaning of the expression my goals that is appropriate. But these two meanings are different, so if our argument uses both of these meanings as if they were equivalent, it is guilty of the fallacy of equivocation. Thus the first argument is revealed to be invalid, since it equivocates on the meaning of the expression my goals. Thus we can see that both arguments for PE ultimately fail. As a result, however cynical we may sometimes feel about the possibility of genuine altruism, we must leave open the possibility that we are at least capable of being altruistic. Whew! It takes philosophers an enormously long time to establish the simplest of points. Well, at least we can now respond definitively to the cynics who assert that by definition everything we do is selfish. 88 CHAPTER 6. EGOISM 6.3 Ethical Egoism So we have seen that human action might be unselfish in some cases, that genuine altruism is at least possible. This doesnt mean that we are not often selfishly motivated, nor, as Ethical Egoists will argue, that we really have any good reasons to act unselfishly. Is selfishness ethically defensible? If we consider many peoples actions, it appears that human beings can be pretty selfish. Consider for example, the case of former CEO of Tyco, Inc., L. Dennis Kozlowski.2 He and another executive engaged in massive fraud, stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from investors and employees of his firm all so he could live a life of excessive luxury, which included paying $6000 for a shower curtain with gold threads woven into it and spending well over $2 million on a birthday party for his wife. Such behavior seems patently wrong. But on what grounds can we say this? Defenders of Ethical Egoism claim that in fact we have no real grounds for condemning such behavior, because the only duties we really have are to ourselves. If we had the opportunity and thought we could get away with it, wed really act no differently than Kozlowski, and we neednt feel guilty about it either. Ethical Egoists claim that we should always put ourselves first and that we should refrain from helping other people. Ethical Egoism (EE) thus differs from Psychological Egoism since PE makes a descriptive claim it describes what human actions are really like while EE makes prescriptive claims it tells us what we should do. Because of this, EE is not going to appeal to facts about human psychology, but is going to try to show why it is that selfishness is better than altruism in general. Of course, arguing that selfishness is better for me is easy, so defenders of EE will need to appeal to deeper reasons in order to show why it is that selfishness is ultimately better for everybody. Implications of ethical egoism Before we get to the reasons that might be offered in defense of selfishness, we should be clear on where this view leads us. Even more so than Psychological Egoism, Ethical Egoism would give us a license to act selfishly. So, for example, even though people in rich countries could very easily save the lives and end the misery of millions of people in poor countries just by sending a little extra cash to charitable organizations and not spending it on needless luxuries, relatively few people actually do this.3 According to EE, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. If you want to send your money to people less well-off, by all means that is your right. But it is certainly not your duty to do so. This may sound pretty cold, and perhaps it is. But us philosophers really only care about whether it is a rationally defensible position. If it is, then we will just have to learn to live with the implications. 2 Capital Flows, Former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski Was One of the Great All-Time Value Creators, Forbes, accessed December 21, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/12/09/former-tyco-ceodennis-kozlowski-was-one-of-the-great-all-time-value-creators/ 3 See Peter Unger, Living High and Letting Die (Oxford University Press, 1996) for many details. 6.4. IN DEFENSE OF ETHICAL EGOISM 6.4 89 In Defense of Ethical Egoism OK, so what reasons might be given to support the idea that we have not only have no real duties towards others, that we can and even should always put ourselves first? There are three main arguments to consider here, which Ill call Rands argument, The capitalists argument, and The revisionist argument. The first argument well examine was developed by the Russian emigre philosopher and novelist named Ayn Rand (1905-1982). Rand was a staunch opponent of communism who dramatized her ideas in the best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, as well as in essays with titles such as The Virtues of Selfishness. Her argument for EE goes like so, What makes human life valuable is its individuality. Fulfilling yourself as an individual requires putting your own needs and interests first. Altruistic behavior involves sacrificing your own interests for those of other people. So acting ethically should be avoided since it undermines what makes human life valuable. That is, we should be wary of the ethical demand for self-sacrifice since this undermines what is truly valuable about human lives. This is exactly what happened in communist countries individuals were asked to sacrifice their own selfish desires and interests for the good of the whole and in the end they got nothing for their sacrifices, while the leadership who demanded these sacrifices accumulated power and privileges it denied to everyone else. The second argument for EE is an argument that you have probably heard before. It is commonly used in defense of cutting government social spending, privatizing governmental institutions and getting rid of welfare programs. I call it the capitalists argument and it goes like so: If we help others we are undermining competition and all of the good that competition produces. Market forces, what Adam Smith called the invisible hand of free markets, act in such a way as to determine the best possible distribution of social goods. Interfering with such forces may seem to be benevolent, but in the end it will only lead to some people taking advantage of benevolence and everybody losing out from the loss of the benefits of competition. 90 CHAPTER 6. EGOISM The last argument in favor of Ethical Egoism alleges that when properly understood, all ethical rules really express appeals to our self-interest. Ethical rules make sense because they work for each of us. I call this a revisionist argument because it reinterprets or revises the content of ethical rules so that they look just like rules any self-interested agent would accept. Ethics is not a challenge to self-interest, but an expression of self-interest. The argument might run like so: Ethical rules can be rephrased in terms that appeal to self-interest. For example, Lying is wrong, really means It is in your best interest not to lie; Murder is wrong really means Life is better for you if you refrain from murdering people. So defending ethical rules is really defending selfishness. This argument equates ethics with the pursuit of self-interest, so that whether you happen to defend acting ethically or not, you are still always defending acting in a selfinterested way. What are we to make of these arguments? Do they really present a convincing case that we should turn our backs on the demands of others, that we should guiltlessly pursue our own interests? Let us consider them more carefully one at a time. Rands argument is essentially that ethics in the traditional sense of a set of commands that require us to put others first is incompatible with genuine concern for human individuality and with individuals truly achieving their personal goals. That is, to the extent that we contribute to the welfare of others, we are required to give up our own welfare. But is this really true? It would be true if human social life were a zero sum game where my gain is only possible if others lose an equal amount. Poker is a good example of a zero sum game in which it makes no sense to act benevolently towards others. If I am playing poker I am playing to win money from others their loss is my win and vice versa. But is life in society really like a poker game in which I have to take from others in order to win? Arent there ever any benefits to all (and each) from cooperating, from setting aside immediate gains for the sake of a greater collective good? Of course there are. For example, a number of investors might pool their resources to open up a business that benefits all of them much more than if each had simply stolen the others contributions. This is possible since valuable goods can be created when we work together. Unlike in poker, where there is a fixed pool of money that is divided among the players in the end, in society we can use our given resources to make more things of value than we started with. Thus Rands argument proves in the end to be unsound, since the second and third premises are just false fulfilling yourself as an individual does not require putting your own needs and interests first, and altruistic behavior might not have to require a complete sacrifice of your own interests. 6.5. CAPITALISM AND THE COMMON GOOD 6.5 91 Capitalism and the Common Good So, what then about the capitalists argument that we should practice tough love, and not help others in order to encourage them to help themselves? In certain situations this seems like the best way to get the best outcome for all of us if I run a business in a competitive industry, I will be forced by market forces to produce the best products for prices that people will want to pay, and that make me enough of a profit to want to stay in business. I want what is best for me profits and my customers want what is best for them products that are of acceptable quality and cost for their needs. So selfish individual behavior can lead to an overall outcome that is best for all of us. So far so good. There are two problems, however, with this argument. The first is that competition is not always the best way of producing the best outcome for all involved. In some industries competition helps both the producer and the consumer competition forces the producer to keep prices lower and quality higher. But is this the case in all markets? What about, for example, health care? If we opened up health care to free competition this would mean that hospitals and other health care providers would be offering a service to consumers for the sake of making profits. If the consumer was dissatisfied with the services offered she could just go elsewhere next time and this would encourage health care providers to lower prices and increase the quality of their services. This all sounds good, until we realize that there is something very different between consumer goods and health care services. When I am sick, I often do not have the time or the ability to shop around for the best health care I need help now. And if I am not satisfied with the poor services offered to me at one hospital as treatment for my illness, I may not get the chance to go elsewhere next time, since there may be no next time. So, and this is a technical point that probably needs much more development to be thoroughly convincing, not all social institutions would be benefit from being opened up to competition, even if in certain cases competition is beneficial. There is, however a deeper problem with the capitalists argument for egoism. Granted that at times competition for selfish gain leads to a better outcome for all of us, we may wonder why an egoism someone who claims that selfishness is acceptable even cares about the good of everyone. If we are defending egoism, doesnt it seem strange to base our argument on a concern for others? Can we even really be defending selfishness in this way? If we claim that selfish behavior can produce good outcomes for all of us, then we are putting our selfish impulses to work for society and not subordinating social concerns to selfish concerns. So calling this argument an argument for egoism is really incoherent, it makes no sense to be claiming that we should always be selfish because that is the way to insure that everyone benefits. Finally, we have the last argument for Ethical Egoism to deal with. This argument claimed to establish that we should always be selfish because even ethical rules only really encourage us to do what is in our self-interest anyway. I called this the revisionist argument since it tries to revise ethical rules in a way that turns them into rules that even purely self-interested people would be willing to accept. The problem here is that when we revise ethics in this way, we lose something important about ethical rules. It might be nice if ethical rules were things that even the most self-involved people among us could easily live with, but unfortunately that is not the case. Ethics makes demands on us that we cant always just simply accept. For 92 CHAPTER 6. EGOISM example, even though at times refraining from lying is really in my own best interest, since it helps to maintain trust between myself and others upon whom I rely to tell me the truth, this is not always the case. If there is an ethical rule about usually not lying, it is because at times it probably seems to me that it is in my selfish interest to lie to others, even if there are larger reasons not to lie. Ethical rules frequently ask us to set our self-interest aside for the sake of larger goals or purposes. Of course, we have not yet seen why we should ever do this. But to claim that ethics does not ever really do this is to throw out the proverbial baby with the bath water. If ethics is really reducible to self-interest, merely throwing out those parts of ethics that conflict with self-interest is no way to show this. And all we have to do to seem that it is probably not reducible in this way to consider any situation in which ethics makes demands on us not to do something that it is in our self-interest to do. Looking ahead We have seen in this chapter why it is that, as tempting as it might be, we cannot defend selfishness as a fundamental obstacle in the way of ethics. We saw this in the collapse of two different theories in defense of selfishness, Psychological and Ethical Egoism. Neither of these positions stands up to scrutiny and so we are now in a position to move forward with some attempts to finally say what a rationally defensible ethics might look like. As we will see, there are three main ways of proceeding here which go by the names of Social Contract Theory, Utilitarianism and and Kants Ethics of Duty. In spite of their differences, all three are attempts to answer the question of why a rational agent like you or me should sometimes set our own interests aside and act for the sake of other people. Each has been and continues to be enormously influential not just in philosophy but also in our public lives, since each articulates a comprehensive picture of the basis of our social lives. Well look at each in a chapter on its own. 6.6 Slideshow Summary Here is a slideshow summary which can be viewed online4 , downloaded5 or printed6 . Further exploration The Internet Encylcopedia Page on Egoism7 An in-depth account of the varieties of egoism. It takes a different approach to ethical egoism, by distinguishing it from rational egoism but the discussion overlaps the one given here. 4 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/06-phl210-slides.html https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/06-phl210-slides.pdf 6 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/06-phl210-handout.pdf 7 https://www.iep.utm.edu/egoism/ 5 6.6. SLIDESHOW SUMMARY 93 Ayn Rand was and remains a controversial figure. She is often criticized by philosophers as an unsophisticated, ideologically motivated and not very good novelist who developed a cult-like following. And yet her ideas have been enormously influential in American culture and politics with followers ranging from Alan Greenspan to Donald Trump. Read more about her and her influence in this article8 . Markets and Morals9 : For more on the topic of free market approaches to social decisionmaking and their limitations, this collection of interviews and articles by and about Michael Sandels work on this topic is a great place to start. 8 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/10/new-age-ayn-rand-conquered-trump-white-housesilicon-valley 9 https://scholar.harvard.edu/sandel/markets-morals 7 Social Contract Theory lyn01011 at Pixabay.com For it can never be that war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan At this point we have considered five different approaches to understanding and explaining ethics Relativism, Divine Command Theory, Natural Law Theory, Psychological and Ethical Egoism. Each of these at first might have seemed to offer a reasonable account of the origins and nature of moral principles, or in the case of egoism of why moral principles are best ignored. But then each also turned out not to hold up very well to critical analysis. 1 https://pixabay.com/users/lynn0101-8308820/ 94 95 Lets briefly look back at what went wrong in each case, since maybe that might help us find a way to move forward in our quest to find a basis for morality and ethics. Relativism claimed that morality is nothing but a set of culturally dictated rules and that as a result of this, that there are no moral universals. Even if relativism may seem obvious to some people, in the end, it seems to overstate its case. Is there really no such thing as something that is just plain wrong? And does relativism really succeed in establishing that there really are no universal rules underlying particular cultural norms. If there are deeper common rules that transcend cultures, the relativistic claim that particular cultural rules are binding on us because there are no others would lose its force. And finally, relativism fails to provide a convincing answer to the question Why should I listen to what my culture tells me I should or shouldnt do? Divine Command Theory, on the other hand, appealed directly to an authority that supposedly commands universal assent, God, as the basis for moral rules. But this theory ran into trouble as well, since it rested everything on an appeal to authority. The problem here is that simple appeals to authority fail to provide any reasons why we should follow the commands of even an absolute moral authority Is it because God commands me that I should follow the rules, or should I follow these rules because they are really the correct rules? Neither of these options really provide reasons to accept a set of rules the first says follow the rules or else, and the second says that there are reasons to follow the rules but fails to provide them. So we are left not really having any idea why we should bother following the rules. Next, natural Law Theory claimed that we should orient our lives according to what nature dictates by striving to fulfill our natural capacities and by avoiding anything unnatural that violates the natural functions built-in to our bodies and minds. Once again, however, this theory failed to provide a convincing reason for us to follow human nature. Even if we could all agree about what our natural capacities and functions really were, we can always still ask, But why should I do what my nature tells me I should do? Unlike other animals who have no choice but to follow their natures it is always an issue with us humans whether we should do what our instincts tell us to do or not. Psychological Egoism in contrast to these last theories, dismissed ethical rules are unrealistic. But it turned out to have little explanatory power and amounted to nothing but a cynical dismissal of ethics. Thus once again the question of why strive to be a good person reasserts itself. Finally Ethical Egoism attempted to show how ignoring ethical demands was in fact the best way to achieve the social good. This position, it turns out was not well defended, nor in the end did it even seem logically coherent. Here too we are left with an unanswered question if focusing on oneself is the best way to achieve the best outcome for all of us why should we even care about this outcome in the first place? I hope a pattern is becoming apparent here. Each of these theories tried to solve the problem of explaining and/or justifying moral principles with its claim to have found the source of the basic moral rules that govern our lives together in society (or in the case of egoism why such rules are beside the point). In spite of the differences between these sources of moral rules, however, all of these theories leave something out. They all fail to spell out 96 CHAPTER 7. SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY why it is that we should listen to any rules in the first place. All assume that the job of ethical theory is simply to find the source of ethical rules and that once we have found it we are done. Now it might strike you that this is an unfair criticism of these theories since each of them does at least suggest a reason why we should comply with the rules. Why should we take culturally dictated rules seriously, or why we should listen to the commands of God or human nature, or build a society based on the powers of invisible hand of market driven competition? If we dont we will fail to fit in with those around us, or we will end up being punished by God, or we will fail to find the true fulfillment that Natural Law Theory claims we can only get by following our true natures, or we will act in a way that is counterproductive to a good social outcome. This is not enough, however, since wherever the demands to conform to any rules come from it is always possible just to ignore them. I can simply ignore my culture, God, human nature, and even the demands of me, myself and I if I want to. The rules of human conduct are not like the laws of nature, since they depend in a crucial way on choice. Even rules that supposedly come from outside of us still depend for their existence as rules on something inside of us, our freely granted consent to follow them. And if this is true, it seems less important to figure out where the rules of society and morality come from than it is to address the question of what it is about those rules that would encourage us to comply with them in the first place. After all, rules that nobody felt any reason to comply with would automatically cease to be rules, as anyone who has had first hand experience of a child in her terrible twos knows all too well. A stubborn two year old who has just learned the power of the word no doesnt have to do anything at all, no matter who says so. Likewise with ethical rules, we can and should all ask, Why should I follow the rules in the first place? Social Contract Theory, as our next approach to ethics is called, is an attempt to answer the question of why we should follow the rules of the social game when we have a choice not to. In contrast to all of the other theories we have looked at, it doesnt just assume that saying where these rules come from is enough to get them to stick. Instead it tries to explicitly ground the rules governing our social lives in our ability to make free choices. 7.1 Hobbes and the Invention of Society To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan 7.1. HOBBES AND THE INVENTION OF SOCIETY 97 Ethics in times of social and political change Historically speaking the question of why and which rules to follow come to the forefront in times of great social and political change. Political revolutions, for example, take place when an old order breaks down and this happens when enough people no longer feel compelled to follow the rules of the old authorities, when the old authorities no longer seem legitimate. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was one of the first philosophers to recognize this fact about social rules in part because he lived through a time of great social upheaval, the English Civil War of the 1640s. Traditionally English kings had commanded absolute authority and had even claimed that this authority was granted to them by God. But these claims made no difference if enough people were willing to go against the authority of the king by simply refusing to follow orders issued by the king and his agents. Hobbes experiences of the complete social breakdown of the Civil War period and the eventual restoration of the deposed monarchy convinced Hobbes that all rules of society and morality were inherently conventional, or products of the choices of the members of any society. The problem for ethical theory for Hobbes thus shifts from that of answering the question what are the rules governing behavior? to that of answering the prior question why should we follow any rules at all? Hobbes also thinks that answering the second of these questions will give us important clues as to how to answer the first. If we can figure out what it is that encourages us to conform to social rules, we can also start to see what rules it is that we are mostly likely to accept as valid rules. This is the basic idea behind Social Contract Theory. The state of nature In order to answer the questions of why we should follow any rules at all and what those rules might be Hobbes asks us to engage in a mental exercise, a thought experiment.2 Suppose, he asks, that there were no rules, that we lived in what he calls a pre-social state of nature, in which all of us are free to pursue our own interests with no religious, legal, moral or other restrictions on our behavior. In such a situation would we have any reason to create and honor any rules limiting our freedom? Would we have any reason to respect other peoples property, to keep our promises to them, to cooperate with each other at all? Well, if there were no binding rules limiting acceptable behavior, Hobbes answers, we would have no interest in cooperating with each other. If there were no rules limiting our treatment of each other we would do whatever we thought we could get away with in pursuit of our own interests. Furthermore, in such a state of nature, since we would lack the ability to work with each other to produce the things that we all need to have comfortable lives, we would all be faced with chronic shortages of the necessities for life. This would lead ultimately to 2 Note that I am here intentionally ignoring the difference between ethical rules that would regulate individual conduct and the rules that make up the social order the rule of law. Social contract theory historically was an attempt to legitimize political authority, or why governmental institutions and rules should be respected. However, it seems to me that the arguments given here apply more generally to any sort of rules of social interaction like ethical rules as well. Contemporary backers of SCT, such as David Gauthier tend to look at it as operating on this more general level as a theory of any sort of socially binding norms. 98 CHAPTER 7. SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY a warre of all against all, in which those who thought they were stronger, smarter or more cunning would try to take advantage of others perceived to be weaker in one way or another. In the end, however, all of us would suffer and life in the state of nature, to cite Hobbes famous description would be solitarie, poore, nastie, brutish and short. So life without any social rules would clearly be a mess. Hobbes thinks that this follows from a thoroughly realistic picture of what human beings are like once we strip away all of the conventions of social life. It is not that we are all mean-spirited or intent on hurting others out of maliciousness. It is just that we all need to look after number one first, and without any universally accepted laws of social behavior, it is always better to be safe than sorry and aggressively pursue what is in our own best interests and this for the simple reason that nobody else can be trusted to care about our interests. Once we realize that this kind of individualistic pursuit of self-interest is leading us all down the path to chaos, however, Hobbes thinks it becomes equally obvious that we need to find a way out of this mess. Our lives literally depend on successfully departing from the state of nature and creating rules that will enable us to live with more security than we can possibly provide for ourselves in the state of nature. And this is, according to Social Contract Theory how we can account for the origins of morality among members of a species like us who are naturally interested in only pursuing their own interests. Thus, as Hobbes argues, if there were no ethical or moral rules governing our relations to others, we would still have a very powerful reason to create and follow such rules because, namely, life without them would be unbearable. I have already mentioned that Social Contract Theory claims not only that we should answer the question of why we should bother accepting any rules at all, but that by so doing we will be able to also answer the more substantial question of which particular rules are really the rules we should accept. Social Contract Theory not only offers us an account of what it is about moral rules in general that makes them acceptable, it also spells out what those rules would look like. 7.2 The social contract For Hobbes, as for other advocates of Social Contract Theory, the big problem of a life without binding moral rules is that cooperation between individuals is impossible. If I have no reason to keep my promises to you, then, should I be tempted to not deliver what I have promised to deliver, I wont bother. If I have no reason not to respect your property when I am in a position to take it for myself, I will just take it. If there is no reason why I should avoid endangering your well-being, when it is to my advantage to do so, I wont pay any attention to whether or not my actions hurt or even kill you. Since, however, it is just these failings that would make life in a state of nature unbearable to all of us, it seems like these are the kind of things wed all be willing to create rules against. Since not keeping promises, stealing and recklessly endangering others are what wed most like to escape from in a state of nature, then these are the kinds of things that our moral rules should forbid. Entering into a social contract is then just agreeing to abide by a certain set of rules that we can all accept such as agreeing to keep our promises, to tell the truth to each other, not to steal from each other, or endanger each others lives for no good reason. These are all of the things each of 7.3. WHY SHOULD WE FOLLOW THE RULES? 99 us wants, so these are the kinds of rules we would all accept. And we should all be willing to give up our freedom to violate these rules, because otherwise life would be unbearable for us all. This suggests an argument for Social Contract Theory. Life would be unbearable without moral rules. So we have a strong interest in developing and following a set of moral rules. Hence moral rules are a product of human choices and are grounded in our common self-interest in creating and preserving social order. Social rules, according this argument, are thus thoroughly conventional rules that are based on mutual self-interest. They are not based on human nature, Gods commands or the dictates of some cultural tradition or other. Instead they are put in place in order to allow us to live together, to engage in cooperative tasks, to own property, and to be assured that others will not infringe on our basic needs. The rules, once enacted, create legally enforceable rights and duties and enable us to depart from the chaos of the state of nature once and for all. Or so it seems at least. 7.3 Why should we follow the rules? Social contract theory is not free from difficulties. Of the two major problems facing it, the first is a lack of clarity concerning the status of the agreement that creates moral rules. Is this supposed to have been a real agreement between real people at some point in the past, or a hypothetical agreement about what people would agree to if they were faced with the task of creating moral rules from scratch. The second problem with has to do with its adequacy as a justification for moral rules in general. Granted that it shows we have a need for such rules, it fails to provide an adequate account of why we should bother to follow the rules when we have constant incentives to cheat. What agreement? This first problem facing Social Contract Theory has to do with its claim that the authority of the rules of the social game can only be based on the free and willing consent of those under the authority of these rules. If social rules are conventional rules, they can only be binding to those who have freely accepted the restrictions they impose on us. But most of us, who never lived in any situation remotely resembling Hobbes state of nature, probably cannot remember ever being asked to endorse a social contract. Instead, we are born into a society with a set of rules already established and taken for granted as legitimate rules and we are asked simply to accept these rules. But then how could these rules really be binding 100 CHAPTER 7. SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY on us if we were never asked whether or not they fit in with our ideas of what would serve our interests best? There are two standard ways of responding to this question. First we might say that although the social contract was in fact a real historical event establishing a set of conventional moral rules, once these rules have been set in place, they are no longer subject to debate or rejection. Our ancestors who lived in a state of nature were in a unique position to found a social order and, short of the kind of complete social breakdown that occurs during a civil war or political revolution, subsequent generations have no choice but to accept the rules authorized by the original parties to the social contract. Perhaps subsequent generations can tweak particular details of the rules of the social game, as has definitely happened, for example, concerning relations between men and women in the western world. But the basic rules that result in the creation of the social world in the first place must henceforth be taken as given. This response is, however, unsatisfactory and even threatens to undermine the very thing that seems unique about Social Contract Theory, its claim that social rules are inherently conventional and based on the free choices of those to whom they apply. That is, if only the original parties to the social contract are in a position to accept or reject some set of social rules, then these rules can count as conventional only for them and not for anyone born into a later generation. But this means that the social rules are just as arbitrary for later generations as they would be if given by a particular culture, by God, or by some conception of human nature. The second way to answer the question of why moral rules might be binding on us even if we have never explicitly approved of them starts by rejecting the idea that the social contract should be understood as a real historical event. Instead, the contract should be understood as a hypothetical contract reflecting what rules would be acceptable to free and rational agents if they were living in a pre-social state of nature. That is, the Social Contract Theory is to be recast as an idealized set of rules that any free and rational individuals would be logically compelled to accept in order to avoid the general types of problems that would plague their lives in the absence of such rules. Just like physicists idealize in their accounts of the laws of motion by talking about things like frictionless planes and perfectly elastic collisions, us philosophers are licensed to talk about the requirements of free and rational agents in general, regardless of the historical details of their lives since what we are after is an account of the sorts of rules we should accept. This approach is by and large the approach taken by the majority of contemporary philosophers who take Social Contract Theory seriously as a way of justifying social rules philosophically, and it does seem like a reasonable way to proceed. Thus let us accept that Social Contract Theory is not dependent on the claim that a real agreement is at the basis of currently existing social rules. Instead let us accept for the sake of argument that the social contract is a hypothetical device that enables us to talk about what rules would be acceptable to free and rational agents whoever they happen to be. We can now ask a more difficult question of this theory why would free and rational agents accept any rules at all that limit their options in the way moral rules do? Moral rules, we recall, should be understood as rules that might get in the way of self-interest. For example, if there is a moral rule against lying to others, this means that whether it suits us at the moment to lie is not important because the rule against lying should overrule our immediate 7.3. WHY SHOULD WE FOLLOW THE RULES? 101 interests. We have seen that Social Contract Theory is based on the idea that we can all agree that certain sorts of behavior should be restricted since they tend to lead to chaos if enough people engage in them. Thus it certainly seems like moral rules have an important role to play in our social lives. The prisoners dilemma We may wonder, however, whether Social Contract Theory goes far enough by pointing out how moral rules can serve our collective interests. What is to prevent us from accepting a set of rules as long as it does not get in the way of our individual interests but then ignoring the rules whenever it seems to us that it pays to do so? If moral rules are necessitated by the fact that we are essentially self-interested individuals but also need not appeal to anything besides self-interest, doesnt this make moral rules highly unstable? To see why this is the case, let us consider a famous puzzle often called called The Prisoners Dilemma. This puzzle condenses into a very clear picture the fundamental problem of morality why should we trust each other when we are all constantly facing temptations to violate trust and why should we stick to the agreements we make when a situation presents itself where it is in our interest to violate them? Imagine that you and a partner in crime have just been arrested after a botched attempt to rob a convenience store. The police have reason to suspect that you two have also successfully robbed other stores in the area but lack sufficient evidence to convict you of these other robberies. Since the police chief has been taking a philosophy course he decides to present each of you the following offer in separate interrogation rooms: We have reason to believe that you and your partner have been involved in a string of robberies around here and we would like to put at least one of you in jail for a long time. So if you cooperate with us by testifying against your partner, we are willing to make you a deal. If you testify against your partner and she stays quiet, you will go free and she will get a 10 year jail sentence. If both of you testify against each other then we will give you each 5 years in jail. On the other hand if both of you refuse to cooperate with us and keep your mouths shut, we can only hold you for 1 year for the attempted robbery yesterday. What is your decision? Now suppose that you and your partner have already come to an agreement not to rat on each other in case the police try to convince you to do so with an offer like this. What should you do here? That is, what is the smartest thing to do in this case assuming that neither you nor your partner really wants to go to jail and will always opt for a shorter sentence? Is there even a rational solution to this puzzle? Is it better for you or your partner to stick to the agreement not to rat, or is it better to rat? (Note that there are no hidden negative payoffs here, such as, for example, the threat that your partner will take revenge on you later on if you rat since that would distort the puzzle the police have presented to you. Besides, 102 CHAPTER 7. SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY we are assuming that if you testify against your partner, the police will reward you with a new identity through their witness protection program.) The problem here, is that you cannot be sure about what your partner will do, since she is being held in a separate interrogation room. All you have is her word that she will not rat on you, and all she has is your word that you will not rat on her. The way to find a solution to this puzzle is to recognize that there are really two possibilities for each of you and thus four possible combinations. Either you partner will keep quiet or your partner will rat on you, and likewise for you. We can arrange these possibilities in a payoff matrix like so: I keep quiet you keep quiet you rat I rat 1 year each I go free, you get 5 years I get 5 years, you go free 3 years each So if your partner keeps quiet, is it better for you to rat or to keep quiet? Well since you would get less time in jail if you ratted (no jail time versus 1 year for sticking to the agreement not to rat) than if you kept quiet, if your partner keeps quiet then you should rat. But what if your partner rats after all, you do not know what she will do which is better, ratting or keeping quiet? Well here again ratting gets you less time in jail since if you keep quiet while she rats you end up with 10 years in jail, while if you both rat, youll only end up with 5 years behind bars. This is known in the jargon of game theory which studies strategic situations like this, as a dominant strategy, since no matter what your partner does it is always better for you to rat. Unfortunately, since your partner is thinking in exactly the same way as you are thinking, if both of you choose what clearly seems to be the best thing to do, you will both rat on each other and will end up with 5 years in jail each. Why couldnt you have just kept your mouths shut and gotten only one year in jail each? It would be nice if you could just trust your partner not to violate the agreement you have made, and this seems like it gets both of you the better deal. Its too bad that trust seems to be irrational here since it is always better to rat no matter what the other person does. Much has been written about the prisoners dilemma as a model for certain kinds of basic social interactions. For our purposes here, Id like to mention only two points. First, this kind of situation arises quite often in the real world, namely whenever we may make an agreement with each other to play by the rules but are constantly tempted to cheat for an immediate gain, in spite of the fact that cheating leads to an outcome that is worse if enough people do it. Think, for example, about the problem of over-fishing. All fishermen recognize that overfishing depletes fish stocks and thus threatens their long term livelihood. So suppose the fishermen all get together and agree that it is in their best long term collective interests to limit their own catch. The question for each fisherman, as he sets out his nets, Should I stick to the agreement and not over-fish? He reasons like so: Well, I have no idea if the other fishermen will stick to our agreement. Suppose they do in that case my over-fishing wont hurt anyone elses long term livelihoods, but I will benefit by having more fish to sell. On the other hand, supposed they also over-fish in that case I would be a fool not to also over-fish since my short term benefits would be better if I did and there wont be any fishing 7.4. SLIDESHOW SUMMARY 103 for anyone after a few years of over-fishing, so my not over-fishing does nothing to protect my long term interests. So everyone, reasoning in a similar fashion over-fishes and depletes the resource that all need to survive. Why cant they all just stick to their agreement? This last example is an example of a many person prisoners dilemma, also known as a free-rider problem or the tragedy of the commons. With a little reflection you will probably be able to come up with numerous other situations that exhibit the same logic. The prisoners dilemma has thus earned the reputation of being a simple model illustrating a very real problem faced by social actors trying to coordinate their behavior in a way that secures their own long term interests, which is exactly what Social Contract Theory says moral rules are supposed to do. This brings me to the second point I want to make about the prisoners dilemma, namely that it shows the ultimate weakness of Social Contract Theory as a justification for moral rules. Moral rules are supposed to be solutions to situations like prisoners dilemmas, since in the state of nature we all act for the sake of our immediate short term gain and thus cannot coordinate our behavior in a way that leads to peace and security. But moral rules alone, in the form of voluntary agreements not to break the rules that you yourself have agreed to, are not enough to get out of prisoners dilemmas. As we saw a moment ago, a promise to follow a rule that we ourselves can agree is a good idea is worthless given the ever present temptation to cheat in order to get a better outcome. 7.4 Slideshow summary Here is a slideshow summary which can be viewed online3 , downloaded4 or printed5 . Further exploration Investopedia on the Prisoners Dilemma6 : perhaps this seems like an unlikely source for information about a philosophical theory. However, given that prisoners dilemma-type situations arise all over the place in social life whenever we make agreements with others and then find ourselves tempted to ignore those agreements out of self-interest, it is not in fact unlikely at all. The Tragedy of the Commons7 : the tragedy of the commons is a name given by the philosopher Garrett Hardin to a collective version of the prisoners dilemma in which all involved are tempted to overuse a commonly held or accessed resource for personal gain. This has clear implications for our fate as a species as is explained in this article from the National Academy of Sciences. 3 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/07-phl210-slides.html https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/07-phl210-slides.pdf 5 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/07-phl210-handout.pdf 6 https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/prisoners-dilemma.asp 7 https://www.pnas.org/content/114/1/7 4 8 Utilitarianism Free-Photos1 at Pixabay.com Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism So far we have examined a number of approaches, all of which are popular, but all of which have proven to be unsatisfactory in one way or another. This may lead you to wonder whether all of this philosophical analysis is really such a good idea. Shouldnt we have some results by now, after all of this investigation? Wont philosophers be capable of poking holes in every theory that comes along with their hyper-critical methods of analysis? The answer is a definite yes and no. Although no ethical theory that has been developed is entirely without problems and criticisms, there are a couple that seem pretty good, even 1 https://pixabay.com/users/free-photos-242387/ 104 8.1. HAPPINESS AND THE HIGHEST GOOD 105 to us skeptical philosophers. In this chapter we will consider one of these more promising theories. It is known as utilitarianism and was developed in its most explicit form in the 19th century by two British philosophers, Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. To situate this theory in relation to the theories we have already examined, consider the following case : Fred is on his way to a job interview and happens to be running late. On his way to the bus station he happens to notice a small child apparently drowning in a pool. He quickly glances at his watch and realizes that if he does not hurry, he will miss his bus and will be very late for the job interview. Fred decides not stop and help. He catches the bus and not only makes it to the job interview on time, but gets the job. Something is clearly wrong here. Fred should have stopped to help, even if it meant being late for the job interview. The simple reason he should have stopped was that someone else was in need of help. And the fact that this person was in need overrides his personal interest in getting to the interview on time. Now, in spite of how obvious this might seem, none of the theories we have considered so far can really account for this simple moral intuition. And this does not make them look very good as theories about our ethical obligations. Consider what each would say about this case: Relativism: Stop and help if your culture values helping strangers. Divine Command Theory: Stop to help if and only if God commands you do help strangers. Natural Law Theory: Stop to help if and only if it is part of human nature to help others. Psychological Egoism: Helping would be selfish anyway, do whatever suits you more. Ethical Egoism: Dont help since it is best to let people help themselves. Social Contract Theory: Stop to help because it is in your long term best interests to help others. None of these approaches can account for what seems compelling about this case, that is, that we just should help in cases when someone is desperately in need and it would cost us comparatively little to help them. Their interests should count for us at least this much. This, in a sense, is the moral intuition that utilitarianism tries to account for. It is an explicit attempt to justify our normal, everyday, moral sense that we should take other peoples interests seriously. Our systematic analysis of the varieties of egoism gives us a theoretical motive for considering this point if we cant defend selfishness shouldnt we at least try to see whether the case for moral concern for others does any better? But our humanity should give us a deeper reason for examining the nature and justification for this very ordinary feeling of moral concern that we should feel and expect others to feel as well. 8.1 Happiness and The Highest Good Utilitarianism is one of the major contemporary philosophical theories about the nature of and justification for ethical principles. It has its roots in the writings of the Scottish 106 CHAPTER 8. UTILITARIANISM philosopher David Hume (1711-1776), although the name utilitarianism is most closely associated with the works of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1873). Utilitarianism is an attempt to provide a rational basis for ethical decision making. It focuses on the consequences of actions and measures their value by the amount of good they do for whoever it is that is affected them. As Mill puts it, Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. Whose happiness? you may ask. Everybodys! the utilitarian would answer. The sophisticated moral theory developed by Bentham and Mill in defense of this simple point is what we will be examining further here. Both Bentham and Mill aim to make ethics into nothing less than a science of human happiness. This science starts out with a distinction that is important for ethical theories in general, a distinction between different types of value. Some things have a value only because they help to bring about other things of value. For example, a car is valuable to me since it helps me to get around easily. If I live in a place where owning a car is not necessary to get around, or it becomes prohibitively expensive because I cannot afford parking, gas or maintenance, then it loses this value. This type of value is known as instrumental value. Something has instrumental value if it allows me to realize other goals I have. On the other hand, some things just have value in themselves. For example, I may want a higher salary since the extra money will enable me to rent a bigger apartment and this in turn will make happier. But my quest for happiness itself is not for the sake of anything further. Being happy is something I want for its own sake and not for the sake of something else, unlike the bigger apartment or the salary increase, both of which I want for the sake of something else. Something that has value on its own, without its being valuable for something else has intrinsic value, as opposed to instrumental value. Utilitarianism starts with the claim that the only thing that has intrinsic value is happiness. Everything else of value is valuable to us to the extent that we believe it will help us to attain happiness. Happiness alone is something that is desirable for its own sake. Thus it may make sense to ask someone who takes on an extra job to earn more money why she needs or wants the extra money, but it makes no sense to ask someone why they want more happiness out of life. It is the one thing we are all striving for, even if we each have our own unique perspectives on exactly what will make us happy. Now the question arises, what is the best way to attain happiness? Is there a reliable, rational, scientific way to increase our happiness? Both Bentham and Mill answer that there indeed is a scientific way to attain happiness, and it is called maximizing utility. Each of us has his/her own idea of what will lead to happiness, but in general we are all out to maximize happiness. Now every pleasurable thing that we strive for has a cost including time, money, effort, and/or opportunity costs. But, both benefits and costs are uncertain. So the rational way of attaining happiness is by getting as much satisfaction for as little cost as possible given the uncertainties involved. This is maximizing utility or the rational approach to happiness. 8.1. HAPPINESS AND THE HIGHEST GOOD 107 The rational way to attain happiness is to strive to maximize utility by taking into account the costs and benefits (as well as their respective probabilities) of each possible choice we may have in a give situation. So far, we have only been speaking of the way each of might satisfy his or her own selfish desires. Both Bentham and Mill argued, however, this account can be the basis of ethics as well. If each of of is out to get the most pleasure for the least cost, then the ethical thing to do would be the course of action that enables the most people to satisfy their personal interests at the least cost. Ethical choices are choices that lead to the greatest overall utility. Implications of utilitarianism So what then, are the implications of utilitarianism? It has a number of positive implications. First, it makes ethics relevant to the real world, by defining ethical actions as those that have the best overall outcomes. Being ethical would not be a matter of personal conscience alone, but would be something that would be good for everyone. Second, the ethical nature of an action or a decision is something that could be measured. This idea was particularly attractive to Jeremy Bentham he was a strong advocate of legal reform and used as his criterion for evaluating laws the question of whether or not a given law was beneficial or harmful overall. Third, making ethical decisions would not require anything other than the ability to figure out how much our actions impact the interests of others. All of us are equally capable of adding up the expected good and bad results of our actions and deciding accordingly. On the other hand, there are negative implications to the theory as well. We will be considering these in greater detail in the next section and in the next chapter, since the final position we will look at in the theoretical part of the course, Kantian ethics, is an explicit attempt to avoid the pitfalls of the utilitarian approach. Three problems stand out. First, since utilitarians claim that the moral worth of an action depends on it having better consequences than the alternatives we may wonder how we can ever really determine these consequences when we are making a decision. Of course, some actions have obviously bad consequences, like tossing a burning cigarette butt into a dry field of tall grass. But can we really reliably predict the consequences of our actions in the majority of cases? After all, moral problems seem to arise in just those cases where it is not entirely clear what the best thing to do really is. In addition, as many large scale engineering projects have shown, determining whether the consequences of a decision are for the best or not in part depends on when you ask the question. For example, the building of dams as sources of cheap power may seem like nothing but a win-win situation, but the long term environmental consequences of such projects may end up costing more than the proponents of the project could foresee. Second, since utilitarianism depends on comparing the benefits and costs of different actions on everyone who is affected by those actions, it assumes that it is possible to compare the impact of ones actions on different people. But how can we do this? Is there one neutral standard of comparison that might reveal that, for example, person A gets 3 units of utility from action X and 5 units of utility from action Y, while person B gets 5 units of utility from action X and only 1 unit of utility from action Y? 108 CHAPTER 8. UTILITARIANISM Finally, we have the problem that, if utilitarianism is correct, and the moral worth of an action is to be measured by the amount of good it does in the world, this seems to do away with the concept of rights. As long as an action leads to a sufficiently good outcome, anything goes. For example, suppose framing and executing an innocent person for murder would lead to great happiness for the whole of a community. As long as we could show that the benefits to everyone else outweigh the costs to this innocent person, a utilitarian would not have a problem with this. But, what about the rights of an innocent person not to be punished for a crime he or she did not commit? We will return to this question in the next chapter. In spite of some of the troubling consequences of utilitarianism, however, it remains a popular theory. Part of the reason for its popularity is the plausibility of the argument for this view. It it to this that we now turn. 8.2 Why should I care? The argument for utilitarianism is straightforward and might go like so: Everyone is out for the same thing happiness. The rational approach to happiness is maximizing utility. All of our interests count equally. Thus we should all strive to maximize overall utility. That is, given a standard set of assumptions about human motivation and rationality, and adding an explicitly ethical premise (the third), we get the result that we should all strive to get the best possible outcome for the greatest number of people. Utilitarians claim that this argument shows why it is that we should use the good that our actions do for whoever it is that is affected by them as a measure of their ethical value. So far, in our description of the position of utilitarianism, we have seen the grounds for buying the first two premises. The first of these claims is a straightforward, and pretty obvious, description of human behavior. The second depends on a pretty clear and uncontroversial theory of rational action. Acting rationally has to involve taking into account the costs of doing something and the probability of actually accomplishing it. So far so good, but these premises do not yet enable us to go beyond egoism. They are perfectly compatible with a complete lack of concern for others. The third premise goes well beyond anything that an egoist would accept and clearly calls for a more involved defense. The whole weight of utilitarianism rests on this claim. So far, we seem to be admitting that people only care about themselves and getting what they individually want. Yet ethics is supposed to be about concern for others, or at least taking others into account when you are making a decision. Utilitarians, however, insist that we can construct an ethics on the basis of what we have so far said about human motivation. So what we have to show next is that not only should we act with our own interests in mind, 8.2. WHY SHOULD I CARE? 109 but we also have to have a compelling reason to take others into account. We cant just assume that others count; we have to demonstrate that ignoring others interests is just not a rational option. Consider the following, somewhat absurd, example. Suppose I have 10 dollars and would like to entertain myself on a hot sunny afternoon. I come up with the following two possibilities: 1. I could buy a ticket to go see a Hollywood action movie. 2. I could use the 10 dollars to buy a six pack of beer and then go up to my roof where there happen to be some bricks left over from the construction of the building. My plan would be to hang out and relax, enjoying the breeze, while occasionally throwing a brick down on to the crowded street below. In case 1 Id get some relief from the heat and a little relief from my boredom. But this relief would only last for an hour and a half, and Id have to sit though yet another typical Hollywood movie in which the good guys get the bad guys, with all of the usual predictable car chase and cliff hanging scenes and all of the usual dazzling but fake looking special effects. In short it just doesnt seem worth the money. In case 2 instead of the fake explosions and chaos, blood and guts of a Hollywood movie I could see the real thing. Maybe there would be multiple vehicle accidents and perhaps even a gripping real life chase, involving me too. This certainly seems more cost effective, a way of getting the most for my entertainment dollar. The only problem here is of course that option 2 requires that I assume that nobody elses interests, or lives for that matter, really count. In this scenario I am considering only my own interests and treating others as if their pain and suffering just didnt matter. The question is then, do I have any way to defend my actions? Can I possibly come up with good reasons for believing that my interests mean more than the interests of the people whose lives I am putting at risk for the sake of entertainment? It is not enough here just to insist that the people I am endangering wouldnt want me to endanger them. This is because I may genuinely not care what they think of my actions. I am acting selfishly here as a matter of fact. The real issue is whether I can in any way rationally defend my selfishness. Well, can I? It seems like I cant. Of course I can act selfishly, but thats not the same as convincing others, who are potential victims of my selfishness, that I am justified in acting selfishly. But that seems very unlikely why should you, someone who has his or her own needs and interests agree to let me endanger you unless you were getting something in return? But if I am selfishly endangering you, then you are not getting anything, or at least enough, in return, so youd have no reason to go along with my selfish schemes. Thus I cannot defend my own selfishness. And if I cannot do this, then I must accept the third premise of the argument for utilitarianism: All of our interests count equally. Where is all of this leading? To the claim that we dont really have any good reason for denying that others count just as much as we do. Once we are convinced of this it is 110 CHAPTER 8. UTILITARIANISM a short step to the basic principle of utilitarian ethics, other wise known as the principle of utility. This states that the right thing to do in any situation is to look at all of the available alternatives and choose the one that gets the most benefit for the most people, or that maximizes overall utility. All of morality boils down to this one simple principle: do whatever brings the most benefits and the least costs to the greatest amount of people. On the account of utilitarianism I have been developing here, this principle follows from the fact that none of us really has any good reason for denying that others count just as much as we do. This is perhaps not a surprising conclusion. After all, isnt accepting the idea that others interests count just as much as ours do a requirement for looking at things from a moral point of view? If we cannot accept this, then we are simply not moral agents. Utilitarianism simply makes this idea explicit and defends it with a clear argument. 8.3 Problems, Problems The difficulties faced by utilitarianism are of two types technical problems that arise from its claim to be based on a scientific calculation of the costs and benefits of our actions and deeper questions about its status as a moral theory. We will look at each of these in turn in this section. Technical problems These issues have already briefly discussed these in the last section but they deserve further elaboration since they may end up being more serious than defenders of utilitarianism seem willing to admit. The problems I mentioned there were the problems of measuring and comparing happiness as well as the problem of determining what exactly the outcomes of our actions might be. At first glance these may seem relatively minor, but it seems to me that they begin to call into question the very claim of utilitarianism to be a viable theory. So the first question is, if utilitarianism claims that we can determine the moral worth of an action by the results of that action and measure those result by the amount of happiness that it produces we may wonder how exactly we might go about measuring that. Of course it may seem obvious that I know for myself whether I am happy or not, whether my needs have been met, whether I am better off than I previously was in a variety of circumstances. It may also seem to be the case that we can compare different people and determine that one person is happier or better off than another at least in general terms. But that already suggests a problem for utilitarianism how can we get beyond the somewhat vague and indefinite comparisons we might make in such a way as to support the claim that the calculation of costs and benefits can truly lead us to an objectively valid measure of moral worth for any particular situation we might face? Economists and other social scientists frequently face similar issues and so fall back on a convenient stand-in for happiness dollar value. When they examine human decision-making from a scientific standpoint they often ask people to choose which of two alternatives people would pay more for, or how much would be required 8.3. PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS 111 to compensate them for their efforts in a given scenario. This works well enough in given scenarios but it seems to be limited to cases in which a monetary equivalent can be given and there are many situations in which monetary value is a poor substitute for other more qualitative valuations we might make. For example, how might we compare the long term, but not particularly intense satisfaction of seeing ones children graduate from college to a shorter term and more intense pleasure, like that one might get from going skydiving. Any attempt to find a single scale on which to make an objective comparison must seem completely arbitrary. Hence Jeremy Benthams claim to have developed a felicific calculus that would enable us to calculate the precise quantity of happiness produced by any action invites parody, something with Bentham himself unwittingly provided with his convenient verse mnemonic: Intense, long, speedy, fruitful Such Marks in pleasures and pains endure. Such pleasures seek if private be thy end: If it be public wide let them extend Such pains avoid whichever by thy view: If pains must come let them extend to few.2 This brings up the related issue of how we might be able to compare the results of an action across different people. Do we just end up counting heads? Is there a survey we can give to everyone involved to determined how much people really enjoyed the results of our actions or not? The general problem here of determining the precise payoff of our decisions gets even worse when we think about when that payoff even occurs. After all the consequences of my actions continue to spread out in all kinds of ways like the ripples on a pond after you throw a stone into it and there seems to be no non-arbitrary way to determine when exactly the further consequences no longer need to be taken into account. It is not as if the consequences of our decisions simply stop being relevant after a certain definite point. And finally in this vein, we may wonder how it is that we can even tell what consequences our actions even may have. It seems to me to be no accident that the classic trolley problem where we are asked to decide whether to throw a switch that leads to the death of one person on one track as opposed to doing nothing causing the death of more than one person on another is cast on a railroad, where a speeding train car is locked into its trajectory. In the real world there are no such well-defined and pre-determined alternatives but instead we have to take at best educated guesses about what might happen as a result of our decisions. Deeper questions The deeper questions that utilitarianism faces have to do with its fundamental claim that we can and should define what is right in terms of what is good. Well can we and should we? As we will be seeing in more detail in the next chapter the philosopher Immanuel Kant argues that the answer is no. In the absence of his particular arguments about why this is the case we can here at least appeal to our moral intuitions. This isnt really a definitive 2 Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970) 112 CHAPTER 8. UTILITARIANISM proof that utilitarianism is wrong, but it does at least suggest that we need to look at things more carefully, which Kant will offer a way of doing. The big worry here is captured by the question, Can the ends ever justify the means? Utilitarians answer in the affirmative given good enough outcomes, the pursuit of the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people may in certain cases lead us to endorse doing things that seem to be morally dubious. Should we ever risk the lives of innocent people in order to accomplish a greater good? Well utilitarians might very well answer in the affirmative if they consider the payoff to be big enough. But then, if we cant really determine how big the payoff really is, how can we say when this might be the case? Are we really justified in causing real harm in the interests of avoiding even worse but merely hypothetical results if we acted differently. Since we have no real way of rewinding the tape and playing the scenario again with a different choice at the crucial moment we are basically reducing the morality of any given decision to something that is basically unknowable what would have happened if things had been otherwise. Real life examples of this are easy to find and it always must seem at least a little suspect to offer as a response to the victims of our actions, Trust me the outcome would have been much worse if I did this instead of that. 8.4 Slideshow Summary Here is a slideshow summary which can be viewed online3 , downloaded4 or printed5 . Further exploration 3 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/08-phl210-slides.html https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/08-phl210-slides.pdf 5 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/08-phl210-handout.pdf 4 9 Kant and the ethics of duty Ron Cogswell1 Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason So far our discussion of ethical theory has revealed many different aspects of ethics. Each of the theories we have considered is, we might say, partly right and partly wrong about the nature of ethics. Each is partly right, since it captures some important feature of ethics, but partly wrong in that it chooses the wrong feature as the foundation for the rest. According to relativism, for example, the defining feature of ethics is its connection with 1 https://www.flickr.com/photos/22711505@N05/ 113 114 CHAPTER 9. KANT AND THE ETHICS OF DUTY culturally transmitted rules organizing our social lives. Resting the whole weight of ethics on this feature, however, leads to all of the problems we encountered in our investigation of relativism. The same holds for all of the other views we have considered, as can be seen in the following table. theory what it emphasizes Relativism Divine Command Theory Natural Law Theory Egoism Social Contract Theory Utilitarianism ethical rules as cultural norms authoritative character of ethical rules connection of ethics to human well-being individuals always make their own decisions legitimate rules grounded in rational choice ethics require impartial consideration of interests So each theory we have considered implies a judgment about what is really important about ethical decision-making. The final theory we shall consider, Kantian ethics, also makes such a judgment. For Kant, what is distinctive about ethics is contained in the concept of duty. Kantian ethics uses this concept as the foundation of ethics. As we shall see, there are some compelling reasons behind this approach to ethics, although, as we might suspect, some challenging consequences as well. We are all familiar with the word duty. A duty is something we simply ought to do, whether we want to or not. For example, if we have a duty to pay taxes, it really makes no difference if we can think of better things to do with the money, we simply have to get our tax forms in by the due date. (In fact the word due comes from the same root as the word duty both of which refer to what we owe, to our obligations.) Duty is an inherently normative concept and is thus likely to have some connection with ethics. But what exactly is the nature of that connection? Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a German philosopher who developed his approach to ethics as an attempt to answer this question. A more generic term for the ethics he developed is deontological ethics which literally means the ethics of duty, but since that is an awkward term, well stick with calling it Kantian ethics in honor of its founder. Kants big question is this: what is the basis of the duties we may feel towards each other, ourselves and society? Is it based on the feelings of commitment we may have towards each other feelings of solidarity, sympathy, or affection? Or is there a rational basis for our duties can we become convinced that we have them and then act on them by thinking things through? Or are they based merely on fear of authority, the desire for self-preservation and getting what we need and want in a hostile and competitive world? Are we pushed to do certain things and avoid others by culture, God, human nature? Or are we pulled by what we want as individuals and groups? Or is there something else that can get us to do what it is that ethics claims we should or shouldnt do? Kants answer, as we will see is that duties result from our ability to push ourselves by recognizing the binding and non-negotiable character of moral law. We are not moved by external forces, nor encouraged by inner desires when we act morally, instead we act autonomously. Well see what this means in more detail in a moment. 9.1. WHAT DO WE OWE ONE ANOTHER? 9.1 115 What do we owe one another? In the kingdom of ends everything has either a price or a dignity. What has a price can be replaced by something else as its equivalent; what on the other hand is raised above all price and therefore admits of no equivalent has a dignity. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals Philosophy is the art of making distinctions. If this is true of the work of any philosopher it is definitely true of Kant. The first and most important distinction to keep in mind as we start to explore Kantian ethics is that between the conditional and the unconditional. This distinction applies to claims about what is true or false (knowledge claims) as well as to claims about what is right and wrong (moral claims). As an example of something that is unconditionally true, consider the following claim from elementary geometry, For every right triangle with legs labeled a, b and the hypotenuse labeled c, the sum of the square of the legs a and b is exactly equal to the square of the hypotenuse c. It does not matter what the triangle is made of, whether it is drawn in a book, encoded in a computer program, sketched in dirt on the surface of the moon. This relation between the sides of a right triangle holds unconditionally. On the other hand, most of the (non-mathematical) claims that we make are at best conditionally true. For example, even though it is true that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, this might not have been the case if the laws of physics and chemistry were different and it all depends on atmospheric pressure which is why high up in the mountains where there is less air pressure water boils at a lower temperature than at sea level. Likewise, that I was born to my particular parents on the day I was born is contingent, something that might not have been the case, and so it is only conditionally true that my birthday is when it is. The same distinction applies when we are talking about right and wrong. Some things are only conditionally right or wrong. It is, for example, wrong to drive on the right side of the road in England, since the accepted, and legally binding, norm is to drive on the left side of the road. But this clearly might not have been the case and in many other places in the world, one is expected to drive on the right. What about things that are unconditionally right or wrong? Are there any such things? Well in Kants view unless we recognize that there are some things that are unconditionally right and unconditionally wrong we have failed to grasp the point of ethics. In fact, Kants ethics is an extended defense of the claim that there are such things as unconditional duties, things that we simply either should do, or should avoid doing, no matter what. We will see what Kants defense of this fairly strong claim looks like in a moment. Before we get there, let us take a look at what this claim implies about ethics. 116 CHAPTER 9. KANT AND THE ETHICS OF DUTY Implications So, then, what are the implications of the claim that there are such things as unconditional duties? First of all, this fits in very well with some basic moral intuitions that many people share, namely that some things are just plain wrong. There are some things that we should just simply never do, no matter what the benefits of doing them may be. For example, many people would agree that things like murder, rape, torture and slavery are simply wrong. (Remember that we are not committed to the truth of this claim just yet, since we still need to examine Kants argument that this there really are unconditional duties.) Furthermore, if it in fact the case that such things should never be done, then this would enable us to flesh out the concept of rights. Rights are nothing but standards of treatment we are entitled to unconditionally. My right not to be tortured continues to hold, or should continue to hold according to Kantian ethics, no matter what might be gained for society as a whole by torturing me. If Kant is correct, then, and only then does the concept of rights really mean something. This position is clearly at odds with utilitarianism, according to which nothing should ever be ruled out as a possible course of action since it may be the best way of attaining the greater good. Utilitarians have to leave open the possibility of murder, rape, torture or slavery as avenues to getting the best for the most. This is the fundamental conflict between utilitarians and Kantians. This conflict, however, extends far beyond the question of rights. For Kantians ethics is not concerned with trying to attain the greater good for the simple reason that it is not concerned with attaining what is good. Ethics, in Kants view is about doing what is right and not what is good. It might be nice if the people who did the right thing habitually were also rewarded with happiness for their efforts, but there is no guarantee that this will happen. Basing ethics on the contingent outcomes of our actions is sacrificing the truly ethical side of our actions for things that are utterly undependable. This goes back to one of the problems with utilitarianism mentioned in the last chapter, the problem of predicting the outcomes of our actions. Since according to utilitarianism, ethics requires choosing whatever leads to the best overall outcome, it assumes that the consequences or our actions are at least roughly predictable. But, as Kant points out, what happens in the world is contingent dependent on many things that are simply out of our control. So basing ethics on the contingent effects of our present choices seems hopelessly unreliable as a source of ethical guidance. By placing the ethical value of actions out in the world this value gets lost in the shuffle. Persons and things A second important distinction that follows from Kants claim that there are such things as strict duties is the distinction between persons and things. Both persons and things have value, but the value each has is completely different. Things are valuable in that they are useful for our plans, they are means to an end. Their value is not inherent in them but in the other things of value that we get by means of them. As a result, the value of one thing can be compared to the value of another an idea reflected in the fact that we give a price 9.2. RIGHTS AND THE IDEAL OF RESPECT 117 to things thus showing how their value compares with the value of other things. Finally, the value of things can be used up. In the end, when a things ceases to be useful to us or even becomes a burden to us, we get rid of it or trade it for another thing. Persons on the other hand, have an entirely different sort of value. Their value is intrinsic or inherent and not dependent on their use for our projects that is, as log as we are treating them like persons and not like things to be used. Instead of having a price, a person has an inherent dignity, a moral worth that transcends what good they may do to us. Thus, the primary way we treat other persons should be respect. They are worthy of respect simply in recognition of their intrinsic value. Now all of this may sound completely idealistic and may seem to have little connection with the real ways in which we relate to each other. In Kants view that just shows how little our behavior really corresponds to the standards of morality. The fact that we often fail to treat other people persons with inherent moral dignity has nothing at all to do with whether we should treat them like that. In fact, this basic distinction between persons and things follows directly from the idea that there are some things that are just plain wrong. What this really means is that there can never be an excuse for doing certain kinds of things to people. The ideal of moral treatment and the idea that there are real moral standards that just should not be violated are two sides of the same coin. 9.2 Rights and the ideal of respect Kants claim that we should have absolute unconditional respect for persons will doubtless attract skeptical responses. Isnt respect something that has to be earned? Isnt respect conditional and cant we lose respect for others if they show by their actions that they are not worthy of respect? This is a tricky issue, but Kant would have to answer no to these questions. Respect is something that is owed unconditionally to all rational agents. There are two reasons why Kant takes this position. First, if respect is conditional if each of us will only grant respect to those who prove themselves worthy of respect respect would never get off of the ground. I would be waiting for others to begin respecting me while they are all waiting for me to begin respecting them. The only way to ever get respectful relations going is for someone to start respecting others with no strings attached. The second reason why Kant refuses to accept that respect is something that can be lost, comes from his recognition of the limitations inherent in our knowledge of each other. If I deem someone else not worthy of continued respect, I am essentially downgrading their status to that of a thing, something beneath me that I can dispose of or use at will. But who am I to make such a decision? How can I possibly claim to put myself in a position to be able to judge someone else like this? Perhaps God knows that the person I refuse to respect is not really worthy of being respected, but lacking such an absolute perspective on things, how could I ever decide that another person is really not worthy of respect? The only way I can do this is by assuming that I am somehow above the person I condemn. But that is an unjustified (and in fact immoral) assumption to make. As a result of these difficulties with turning respect into something conditional, we have no choice but to understand it as something unconditional. The moral point of view 118 CHAPTER 9. KANT AND THE ETHICS OF DUTY simply demands that we recognize certain absolute limits on the way we interact with others, including our willingness to judge the value of others. We must not put ourselves above other people, no matter how unworthy of respect they seem to be. But then, this should not seem to unusual, since it is exactly what it means to have rights. Rights are claims that we make about what sort of treatment we are each entitled to. And rights, if they are really rights, have to be unconditional, universal and inalienable. They have to be unconditional because, if they were not, they would be dependent on someone elses judgment about whether or not each of us deserves rights. But the whole point of insisting in rights is that nobody can be absolutely trusted to make such decisions. Historically, the concept of rights arose in the late 18th century, the era of the American and French revolutions. In those days absolute monarchs had the power to decide whether or not someone else was worthy of respect. But, as the colonists in what was to become the United States and the revolutionaries in France were very much aware, granting that sort of power to anyone undermines the security of everyone. So the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of the Rights of Human Beings, both insisted on the absolute non-negotiable character of rights. In addition, there is ultimately no way of containing rights to one group of people even though it took us Americans almost another 200 years to grant full political rights to women and non-whites, the idea of rights really only makes sense if it applies to all rational adults. Finally, rights, if they are to remain rights and not become something much weaker, must be inalienable incapable of being taken away. If they could be taken away, whoever is entrusted to taking some peoples rights away would then be elevated an almost godlike stature above those whose rights are being taken away. Conflicting duties Kants position on ethics is thus quite a bit more demanding than the other views we have considered. It insists on the absolutely binding character of moral rules. For some critics of Kantian ethics, this makes it seem too rigid to deal with real life situations that seem to defy clear definition in terms of right and wrong. The most obvious, and most frequently voiced, objection to Kants insistence on the unconditional character of duties is that it seems to prevent us from being able to deal with cases where duties come into conflict with each other. For example, if someone shows up at your door and demands to know if your brother there, you are obligated to tell the truth, even if your brother is there hiding from this person and you suspect that he or she intends to harm your brother. It seems like our duty to help protect someone from harm and our duty to tell the truth come into conflict here. Most of us, naturally, would probably say that Kant is wrong in his insistence that we should tell the truth in this case, on the grounds that this lie is a good lie. But is there really such a thing as a good lie? According to utilitarians the answer is obvious as long a lying leads to a better outcome than telling the truth would have, the lie is good. Good lies are those with good consequences and bad lies are those with bad consequences. Of course, all of the problems with basing the rightness or wrongness of a decision on its consequences come rushing back in. How long do wait have to wait for consequences to unfold before we can decide whether it was worth it to lie or not? How do we measure the consequences of telling a lie in a way that is not subjectively biased towards our own interests? How can we compare the results of a real lie with what would have happened 9.3. THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE 119 if we told the truth? In Kants view, these problems demonstrate the utter arbitrariness of utilitarian approaches to ethics. But then what do we do when duties conflict? Well, Kants answer is, that we have to try our hardest to fulfill all of our duties simultaneously, because we cannot rely on the usual utilitarian excuses to get us out of our moral commitments. So in the case of the person looking for your brother, you have to both tell the truth and protect your brother. Our duties cannot be overridden by what we think may or may not happen if we violate them. All of this assumes that we really have such unconditional duties. Thus we need to consider, at long last, Kants argument that we really have such duties. 9.3 The Categorical Imperative So how is Kant going to try to defend the claim that we have strict, unconditional duties to each other? Earlier we considered the basic distinction between conditional and unconditional claims. Conditional claims are claims about what is right or true that may or may not hold. It all depends on circumstances. Unconditional claims must hold no matter what else is the case. It is, for example, unconditionally true that, say 2 + 2 = 4. That is, it does not matter what else is true, as long as we understand what it means to say that 2 + 2 = 4 we will see that it is true. But how do we show this? We prove it in one of two ways. First of all we could establish that it is true by reasoning validly from true premises about basic arithmetic and the definitions of numbers to show that it must be the case that is we can build a sound argument with 2 + 2 = 4 as the conclusion. On the other hand we could use a method known as indirect proof, and show that 2 + 2 = 4 must be true because denying its truth leads us to a contradiction. This is less obscure than it sounds. If I can show that it makes no sense that it entails a contradiction to say that 2 + 2 6= 4 then it must be true that 2 + 2 = 4. Kant realized that the same line of thinking applies to unconditional claims in ethics. If we have any unconditional duties, this can be shown by showing that denying these duties makes no sense at all, that it leads to a contradiction to do so. His basic argument in defense of unconditional duties is thus: If an action is to be morally acceptable its goal must make sense. But some actions have goals that contradict themselves. So such actions are unconditionally wrong and we have strict duties not to do them. This argument is an extremely general argument. In fact we might consider it to be a kind of template for moral arguments in general, an argument schema that is to be turned into a moral argument be substituting particular actions for the general claims. Here is an example that shows why we have an unconditional duty not to steal: 120 CHAPTER 9. KANT AND THE ETHICS OF DUTY If stealing is to be moral its goal must make sense. When I steal something, I do so in order to take possession of it. But stealing undermines private property, since if everyone stole, there would be no such thing as private property. Thus stealing has a contradictory goal it both assumes and undermines the possession of private property. So stealing is unconditionally wrong and we have a strict duty not to steal. The same general argument can be used to show that other things are immoral as well. Another example is lying. Why is it that lying is wrong? Is it because of the harm that lies cause as utilitarians might claim? Is it wrong to lie just because people lie are at risk of getting caught. Neither of these reasons come close, in Kants view, to accounting for the moral status of lying. In his view, the following argument shows just why lying is wrong: If lying is to be moral its goal must make sense. When I lie, I do so in the hope that others will believe my lie. But lying undermines communication, since if everyone lied, there could be no reliable communication. Thus lying has a contradictory goal it both assumes and undermines reliable communication. So lying is unconditionally wrong and we have a strict duty not to lie. Likewise with murder. Murder is wrong, not because it causes pain (as utilitarians might argue), or because God commands us not to murder (as Divine Command Theory argues), but because the idea that murder could be acceptable contains an inner contradiction. The argument that it does runs like so: If murder is to be moral its goal must make sense.When I murder someone, I do so in the hope that my life will be better without that person around. But murder undermines the possibility of having a good life, since if everyone murdered, nobody could live a happy and secure life. Thus murder has a contradictory goal it both assumes and undermines the possibility of living a stable and secure life. So murder is unconditionally wrong and we have a strict duty not to murder. 9.4. SLIDESHOW SUMMARY 121 In all of these cases, the result is the same. Immoral action has ultimately irrational motives, motives that assume and undermine one and the same thing. Thus the only way to act immorally is presume a kind of double standard There is one set of standards that I expect everyone else to follow, but another set for me. The argument for Kantian ethics is the most abstract of all of the arguments we have considered. And perhaps it seems to be stretching the limits of what reason alone can do as a method for grasping just what is wrong with immoral or unethical actions. Nevertheless, it seems to be at least a plausible argument, or set of arguments, since it seems to capture some important features of morality. First, morality does in fact seem to require consistency. If there is such a thing as morality, it would have to be the same for everyone, otherwise it would be nothing but an arbitrary set of rules lacking any ultimate basis. Second, Kants argument makes it clear how morality can be universal, without being the kind of thing that one group can simply impose on other groups. To grasp the content of morality requires only thinking things through carefully enough to see that what I am doing either makes sense or fails to make sense when considered as something practiced universally. We certainly expect that every rational adult can grasp the fact that lying and stealing and murder just should not be done. Kants theory shows us why we might be justified in having such expectations and in hold people responsible for seeing that you just shouldnt do those kinds of things. His theory certainly seems to impose some strict demands on us as moral agents, but then again, who said being good was easy? 9.4 Slideshow Summary Here is a slideshow summary which can be viewed online2 , downloaded3 or printed4 . Further exploration 2 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/09-phl210-slides.html https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/09-phl210-slides.pdf 4 https://gwmatthews.github.io/ethics-slideshows/pdf/09-phl210-handout.pdf 3 Part IV Applied Ethics 122 10 Theory in Practice Jordy Meow1 In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is. Yogi Berra At this point we have explored many different approaches to the fundamental questions of philosophical ethics. We have examined how these different approaches account for and justify basic moral principles and we have looked at how well-founded each of them was as a philosophical theory. But given such an abundance of theories we may be left wondering about how things might play out in real world cases where we have to make decisions about 1 https://pixabay.com/users/jordymeow-943760/ 123 124 CHAPTER 10. THEORY IN PRACTICE what exactly the right thing to do might be. Do we just pick whichever theory we like or which leads us to the results we want and then claim justification for our views? We could do that, but then that would require a willingness to leave out of account the various philosophical failings of many of the theories we have encountered. I wont rehearse these various failings here but in general I have tried to make the case that an adequate account of ethics must avoid two things. First an adequate ethics cannot be based on appeals to some sort of external authority. Whether this appeal is to culture, God or nature doesnt really matter since all of these supposed sources of ethical norms inevitably leave us scratching our head and wondering why exactly we should ever do what it is that they demand of us. It is always up to us as to whether or not to listen to any authority, and this depends crucially on what it is that we ourselves want. Secondly, however, ethics can also not simply be based on appealing to what it is that we want. Self-interest, whether in the crude and explicit form endorsed by egoism or in the more socially filtered versions at the basis of Social Contract Theory and Utilitarianism, is not in the end capable of giving us a reason to be ethical, since ethics involves putting our own interests aside, not for a greater payoff later but for another being now. Showing why we should ever do this and how we even can is the great challenge of philosophical ethics. This challenge is simply not met by showing how I can scratch my itches best by scratching yours, because sometimes that is just not possible. Morality can involve genuine sacrifice and renunciation of selfish desires and maybe even requires it in some cases. But then if ethics cant be based on what others want of us, nor on what we ourselves want, what on earth is left for it to be based on? Well, as I have tried to show in the last chapter, ethics might be based on something else, what we have good reasons to want in the first place. Reason here is not intended as some sort of mysterious force out there that is supposed to magically solve all of our problems, but simply as a shorthand for our ability and need to tell ourselves a truly convincing and coherent story about how we are living our lives. Reason is nothing but the demands that thinking beings make on themselves to live lives that harmonize, where we dont ignore inner contradictions in our intentions, where we dont neglect to consider the clash between what we expect for ourselves and require of others. This to my mind is the central insight of Kants approach to ethics and also what is expressed in such more contemporary ideas as Universal Human Rights, and appeals to the unique dignity of moral agents. Kant agrees with Socrates that the unexamined human life is not worth living since it is not truly a human life failing as it does to live up to our capacity to reflect on and account for ourselves on terms that truly make sense to us ourselves. What Kant adds to Socrates is just some sense of how exactly we might proceed to examine ourselves and what constraints this self-examination imposes on how it is that we go about determining what exactly we should do. This is still, however, just a bare-bones account of what ethics really looks like because the real lives within which ethical decisions have to be made by us real people are messy and complicated. We still have to be able to put this general approach, as well as our knowledge of the inadequacies of the other various lines of thinking we have encountered into practice and this can be a hard thing to do. But practice requires practice and so the best thing is just start examining different kinds of situations and dilemmas that we may face in the real world and see what sense we can make of them given all we have seen so far, and that is 10.1. ETHICS IN THE REAL WORLD 125 what we will be doing in this part of the book. 10.1 Ethics in the real world Debates about justice and rights are often, unavoidably, debates about the purpose of social institutions, the goods they allocate, and the virtues they honor and reward. Despite our best attempts to make law neutral on such questions, it may not be possible to say whats just without arguing about the nature of the good life. Michael Sandel, Justice As we proceed we should keep in mind what is at stake here. We are not simply looking for some technical means of solving problems once and for all. Instead the point of applied ethics is to develop our capacity to think about what it is that we consider a good life in the first place. In the succeeding chapters we will look at a number of topics in applied ethics in the light of the various theories we have been examining. It turns out that under the surface of many debates in applied ethics there are competing ethical theories and commitments. What makes these debates debates about ethics, and not policy debates about the pros and cons of some topic or other, is that both sides appeal to something that seems like it has a legitimate moral claim to our allegiance. In many cases the major arguments can be roughly divided between those that follow utilitarian ideas and those that appeal to Kantian ethical ideals and principles, but that is not always the case and the particularities of each topic often present obstacles to this simple dichotomy. Well see how the different debates we have already examined on a purely theoretical basis play out for each topic. The particular topics we will examine are euthanasia; individual liberty and the legality of recreational drugs; crime and punishment; ethics and non-human animals; and environmental ethics. Each of these are huge topics and we will only be able to give a bare outline of some of the major ethical issues and argumentative strategies employed by backers of different sides of each issue. The point of this part of the book is to provide a brief overview of some of the major lines of argument in each case. It is my hope that this will be an inspiration for further exploration of these topics. 11 Euthanasia Our first topic in applied ethics is the topic of euthanasia (and/or physician assisted suicide these are not really the same thing, as we will be seeing shortly, although for convenience we will use the term euthanasia to cover both). The topic of euthanasia is not only a topic debated often in the public arena, but a central topic in the branch of ethics known as bio-medical ethics. The reasons for the importance of this topic are pretty obvious the debate about euthanasia arises from the dilemmas of aging and dying in a world in which medical technology often permits us to continue to live in spite of major medical problems brought on by aging, disease or misfortune. Modern medicine enables us to prolong life as never before, but in some cases prolongation of life ceases to be such an obviously good thing. So the question arises as to whether it is ethically permissible, in certain kinds of situations, to choose to die, to help others to die, or to even cause them to die. The word euthanasia itself comes from two Greek words meaning literally good (eu) and death (thanatos). Some of the questions that arise in connection with euthanasia have to do with this literal meaning: Is there any such thing as a good death, or is death just plain bad? What exactly would constitute a good way to die? Who, if anyone, can or should decide when the time is right for a human life to end? Should medical professionals be involved in any way in decisions to end peoples lives, or should they only be permitted to try to prolong life? The first three questions aside, for now, it is perhaps the last of these questions that has led to modern controversies about euthanasia. Modern medicine has given doctors enormous power to prolong life through radical surgical procedures and life sustaining technology that can keep some people in desperate medical conditions alive indefinitely. Thus medicine has had to confront a new dilemma: should doctors do whatever they possibly can to preserve life, in keeping with their traditional role, or should they accept moral limitations on this power 126 127 11.1. TYPES OF EUTHANASIA to keep alive. Formerly doctors faced primarily technical limitations on what they could do, and so the chief moral responsibility they had was not to harm patients. But now that those limitations have been greatly reduced they find themselves face to face with questions about the value of life is it worthwhile to live whatever the cost in medical resources or individual suffering? Are there some lives that are no longer worth living, even though the technical means of extending them are available? 11.1 Types of euthanasia It is important, when we are discussing euthanasia, to be clear about what exactly we are talking about doing or allowing. For example, claiming that physicians should be allowed to assist terminally ill patients in ending their own lives is very different from advocating putting all mentally retarded infants to death, in spite of the fact that both could be considered forms of euthanasia. We can avoid some confusion by classifying types of euthanasia based on two separate factors, the degree of activity of the physician, and the degree of voluntary choice on the part of the patient. The role of the physician can be anything from that of a passive spectator doing nothing to assist a patient in continuing to live to that of an active agent causing the death of patient, (not to mention several possibilities in between). Patients, on the other hand can, voluntarily choose to die, or they may not be capable of making choices, or they may simply not want to die. (Dont be alarmed yet not all of these possibilities will lead to types of euthanasia that anybody wants to discuss. Some of them will be unethical or even criminal.) The following table lays out the relevant possibilities. patients wishes / role of doctor voluntary non-voluntary involuntary none suicide accident accident passive active DNR orders Physician Assisted Suicide removing life support hastening death negligence murder Clearly this way of classifying euthanasia is just the beginning of the discussion. Some of these forms, such as passive voluntary euthanasia, are not at all controversial we have every right legally and morally to refuse medical treatment for ourselves. Implementing this right can be a problem, but the problem is typically one involving figuring out how voluntary a refusal of treatment really is, rather than the problem of whether or not someone should be allowed to refuse treatment. There are no real moral problems here simply because of the presumption that, as far as medical care is concerned, rational adults can decide for themselves about treatment of their illnesses and when enough is enough. On the other side of the scale, what the chart labels involuntary euthanasia is also lacking in any significant controversy, since killing someone or refusing treatment to someone against her will is clearly wrong. Nobody who is a serious participant in discussion about the ethical and legal status of euthanasia wants to defend involuntary cases. These must be mentioned, however, for two reasons. First, we need to distinguish non-voluntary cases, in which the patient has not or cannot express their desires in one way or another, from involuntary cases, in which 128 CHAPTER 11. EUTHANASIA the patients wishes are being ignored or overridden. In other words, it is important to see that the opposite of voluntary may be involuntary or it may be non-voluntary. Second, mentioning involuntary euthanasia is important for historical and argumentative reasons the Nazi euthanasia program, the so-called T-4 program, was a program that killed over 100,000 unwilling victims and this specter of involuntary killing for supposedly medical reasons looms over the debate. As we will see, the danger that such a program presents is one of the motivations for the slippery slope argument against legalizing euthanasia. So the controversy about euthanasia is going to center around assisted suicide and active euthanasia, although as we will be seeing even suicide is subject to debate, as are cases of nonvoluntary euthanasia. Assisted suicide has clearly been subject to many legal battles, those involving Jack Kevorkian, for example. It is currently legal in some parts of the United States including Oregon, which passed and implemented a law called the Death with Dignity Act in 1995. Active voluntary euthanasia, where, at the patients request, a physician administers a lethal dose of a drug, is illegal in the entire country, although it is legal in the Netherlands and Belgium. 11.2 Arguing About Euthanasia The way I would like to assess these various types of euthanasia is by considering some of the major arguments for and against the different varieties of euthanasia. There are no doubt many other ways to argue about euthanasia than the arguments we will look at, but these are simply some of the better known and more worked-out arguments on the topic. Against medical killing Our first argument is an argument against making any form of euthanasia, whether it is physician assisted suicide or active euthanasia, legal. It goes like so: The role of physicians is to aid in the preservation of life. Legalizing physician assisted suicide or active euthanasia would require at least some doctors to violate that role. Thus no form of euthanasia should be legalized. At first glance, this may seem compelling. The Hippocratic oath, after all, mentions, First do no harm, as the primary constraint on the job of the physician. The primary role of medicine is, to add to the plausibility of this argument, to cure illness and relieve pain, and not to be involved in the termination of human life. However, on closer consideration, this approach to the topic of euthanasia soon reveals itself to be too general and inflexible to be of much use. First there are the technical issues involved in preserving life. For example, is a patient in an irreversible coma with severe and permanent brain damage really even 11.2. ARGUING ABOUT EUTHANASIA 129 alive? In a sense yes such a person has a heartbeat and can be kept alive indefinitely through the use of a feeding tube, and in a sense no no amount of treatment will be able to restore function to a brain permanently damaged by, say lack of oxygen. To say the least, cases like this make the role of the physician in preserving life quite difficult to understand and put into practice. In addition, this argument seems to lead to a blanket restriction on physicians playing any part whatsoever in the death of patients. But does this mean not giving palliative care, care intended to alleviate suffering, to terminally ill patients dying, say, of cancer? Medicine is not, in other words, always a struggle to maintain life, but is also often concerned with alleviating suffering. It is this additional role of the physician that is behind the second argument to consider the argument from mercy. Appealing to mercy The clearest argument in favor of legalizing at least physician assisted suicide and perhaps also active euthanasia appeals to the idea that we should ease the suffering of the terminally ill. This is the other major role of medicine helping to relieve the suffering that disease or injury often entail. Some incurable illnesses cause immense suffering that medicine cannot relieve. In such cases, preventing someone from dying sooner rather than later is wrong since it causes pointless suffering. Allowing someone to kill themselves under a physicians guidance, or when necessary, allowing physicians to administer lethal drugs upon the patients request, is the only merciful option. Thus physician assisted suicide, or even active euthanasia, should be legalized. This argument clearly stands in contrast to the first argument, since it emphasizes the other aim of medical treatment, the alleviation of suffering. It insists, moreover, that it should be up to patients to determine whether or not their lives are worth it. So why not, it may be countered, allow patients to refuse treatment if they deem that their lives are no longer worth living? Well, in some cases, the suffering involved in a slow death is so bad, that it seems cruel not to allow patients to choose assistance in speeding the process up. (This point is central to Rachels argument as we will see in a moment.) The argument from mercy rests on the assumption that someone can and should be allowed to give up on their own lives. Thats obvious, isnt it? Well, not according to Kant. Kants argument Part of the difficulty involved in discussing and resolving questions about euthanasia undoubtedly comes from the close relation between euthanasia (voluntary euthanasia at 130 CHAPTER 11. EUTHANASIA least) and suicide. Suicide has long been a taboo in Western culture, as it is in many other cultures. Suicide is held to be shameful, cowardly, an insult to others towards whom the suicide has responsibilities and/or to God (or the gods). It is a sign of a basic inability to cope with reality. Opponents of euthanasia often emphasize the connection of voluntary euthanasia with suicide. On this view, the person who opts out of struggling to survive a painful illness, or signs a do not resuscitate order is giving up hope and taking the easy way out. Thus as long as suicide is a taboo, voluntary euthanasia, if it is a form of suicide, would clearly also be off limits, not a topic to talk about in polite company, and certainly nothing to seriously consider as a rational response to illness. On the other hand there have always been defenders of suicide, not as something to encourage, but as a possibly rational solution to certain types of problems. The 18th century Scottish philosopher David Hume, one of the precursors of utilitarianism, wrote a famous essay in defense of suicide. In it he argued that killing oneself in certain circumstances could be rational or even obligatory if the only alternative was to bring harm upon others or suffer needlessly from a painful terminal illness. Kant, in contrast argues that suicide can never be rational, and so, according to his standard method of argument, it cannot be moral. An act can be rational only if performing that act does not undermine the possibility of attaining the goal towards which it is directed. Suicide is a self-undermining act, since the point of suicide is relief from suffering, but the result of suicide is death a condition in which there is neither suffering nor relief. So suicide is irrational and hence immoral. According to this argument, suicide can never be defended as a moral act, and thus it should be ruled out of consideration in all cases. The problem here, of course, as utilitarian critics of Kant will be sure to note, is that it seems hopelessly unrealistic to judge the real-life complications of the end of a human life according to an absolute moral standard that insists that we all have a duty to struggle on in pain, no matter how awful it is. Nevertheless, Kants claim that suicide is irrational in its intentions should give us pause, and keep up from the easy adoption of the attitude that ending ones own life is ever a purely rational choice. Active and passive, is there a moral difference? It is a very widely held belief that there is absolutely nothing wrong with voluntary passive euthanasia. Writing a living will and demanding that it be respected does not involve taking any moral risks, and is something that is perfectly legal in all fifty states in the USA, and throughout much of the world. Each of us has the right to refuse medical treatment and thus there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking doctors to stand back and allow us to die in certain circumstances. On the other hand, many people, perhaps even the majority, 11.2. ARGUING ABOUT EUTHANASIA 131 are opposed to active euthanasia, and assisted suicide. Requiring that doctors passively let us die, at our own request, is one thing, asking them to actually help us to do so is something else entirely. Or is it? James Rachels, in a well known article claims that this moral distinction between letting someone die (acceptable in some cases) and actively killing someone (unacceptable in most cases) does not stand up to scrutiny. In fact he argues that there is no moral difference between actively killing someone and passively letting them die. His argument is based on consideration of a fictional and somewhat implausible case, that of Smith and Jones, both of whom have rich uncles whose money they will inherit. Both Smith and Jones, morally corrupt as they are, decide that they do not want to wait for their uncles to die of natural causes, that is, they decide to kill their uncles. Example 11.1. Jones goes to visit his uncle, who is upstairs at home taking a bath and does not hear Jones come in. Jones, after having picked up a brick outside, creeps in and the up the stairs. He quietly opens the bathroom door and knocks his uncle on the head with the brick. Jones uncle is knocked unconscious and sinks into the tub where he drowns. Smith, likewise, pays a visit to his uncle, grabs a brick from outside and creeps up to the bathroom where his uncle, as luck may have it, is also taking a bath. Just as Smith is about to kill him, however, his uncle bumps his head on the soap dish, gets knocked unconscious and thus drowns while Smith silently watches. Considering the details of this case, it seems that both Jones and Smith are evil people. Further, their acts seem equally bad both stand to gain from their respective uncles death, both decide to kill their uncles, both approach them to carry out this intention. But only Jones brick actually make contact with his uncles head, while Smiths brick hovers a short distance above his uncles head. But that seems like a completely inconsequential detail. So what if all Smith did was watch his uncle die, he is just as bad as Jones. Now the point of this case is just to show that in and of themselves, removing all other factors, killing and letting die are morally equivalent. In this case they are equivalently bad. As Rachels argues, in the case of euthanasia, if we accept that passive voluntary euthanasia can be a good thing, then active euthanasia in the same circumstances would be just as good. If there is no essential moral difference between killing and letting die then there is no way to defend the position that passive euthanasia is acceptable while active euthanasia is not. The Jones and Smith case shows that there is no essential moral difference between killing and letting die. Thus we should either allow both active and passive euthanasia or forbid both. This seems like a pretty compelling argument. Is there really any way to distinguish active killing and passive letting die? If not then their moral status, whatever it might happen to be, would have to be the same. 132 CHAPTER 11. EUTHANASIA Peter Singers argument Some people have absolutely no hope for survival for medical reasons for example, babies born with anencephaly. There are two choices in such cases, either they can be allowed to die naturally, or they can be painlessly killed. Medical resources are limited. Rather than waste medical resources on allowing anencephalic babies to die slowly, they should be killed to free up the medical resources where they will do some good. In this argument, developed by Peter Singer, the claim is that in some very rare cases active non-voluntary euthanasia can be acceptable. These cases would be very clearly defined cases where there is absolutely no hope for someone, and yet allowing them to die (which will inevitably happen), as opposed to speeding up the process, prevents other people from getting the medical attention that they need. In such cases people should be killed in order to enable others to benefit from medical resources, such as hospital beds, IV drips, etc., that others might benefit from. Clearly this kind of argument is going to ruffle some feathers. But isnt it true that if we are devoting any resources to someone who has absolutely no chance of survival (and who is also not capable of being even conscious, as is true of anencephalic babies), that is a waste of those resources? Slippery slopes? Naturally, arguments like Singers raise the question of whether even thinking seriously about killing any babies, no matter how hopeless their cases may be, is already going too far. Isnt this just disrespectful of human life, to contemplate throwing it away, however damaged it may be? And doesnt this kind of disrespect of human life often lead to disrespect for people with less severe afflictions? That is, are we not sliding down a slippery slope, if we accept Singers argument? This brings up a standard objection to all varieties of euthanasia that are not currently acceptable, that is to anything stronger than passive voluntary euthanasia. 11.2. ARGUING ABOUT EUTHANASIA 133 Legalizing assisted suicide or active euthanasia will lead inevitably to the following consequences: Elderly people will give up hope sooner than they would if they did not have the opportunity to kill themselves or request euthanasia. Those who pay for expensive treatments will put pressure on patients to choose death. Doctors will lose a degree of respect for human life and will give up sooner. All of these consequences are unacceptable. Thus neither physician assisted suicide nor active euthanasia should be legalized. In general, slippery slope arguments are not to be trusted slippery slope is the name of a fallacy because the fact that one thing happens does not logically require that something worse will happen, if there is no law of nature that forces it to happen. There clearly is no law of nature that would force us to carry out involuntary euthanasia just because we happen to have legalized physician assisted suicide. As philosophers put it, there is no nomic or law-like necessity here. But, nevertheless, we may wonder whether doing something that seems innocent may not end up having long term detrimental consequences. The slippery slope argument at least demands that we take this possibility seriously. 12 Liberty and its Limits As we have seen in a variety of contexts, one way of understanding ethics is as an attempt to justify certain restrictions on our freedom. In general freedom is a good thing. But then there are some things that we just shouldnt do. The most obvious things we shouldnt do are things that involve deliberately hurting others. For example we would think that a bus driver who deliberately ran his bus full of passengers off of the side of a cliff did something that he shouldnt have done. It also seems clear that he would be morally and legally responsible for hurting others if he were to get drunk before showing up for work as a bus driver since he would be endangering the lives of the passengers as well as of other people who happened to be driving on the road with him. In such cases we seem to have every right to restrict the drivers freedom to do things like this. But what if this same driver decides to risk his own life by driving alone across a vast road-less area of the Sahara desert without enough fuel in the bus? Or what if he decides to get drunk while driving alone across the uninhabited desert where no one besides himself could possibly get hurt? These two cases might be cases of just plain stupid behavior, but can we, or should we, be able to restrict his behavior simply on the grounds that he himself might get hurt? These kinds of questions are at the root of the current controversy about the use of illicit drugs. Depending on how we would answer them, we will either end up siding with one of two different positions: libertarianism or paternalism. Libertarianism is the view that we should have the maximum amount of individual liberty possible whatever we see fit to do, for whatever reasons, we should be permitted to do, as long as it harms nobody but ourselves. Paternalism, on the other hand, is the view that we need protection from ourselves and that there are others, such as experts, legislators and policy-makers, who know what is best for us, and should decide for us the limits of our individual liberty even in such cases where we are the only ones likely to get hurt. One way to address these alternatives is in terms of a number of different principles for limiting liberty. These principles have been endorsed by various philosophers and political thinkers over the centuries. The harm principle: originally proposed by John Stuart Mill, this principle states that the only permissible limitations on liberty should be those that prevent us from 134 12.1. LIBERTARIANS AND PATERNALISTS 135 directly harming others. Thus, although it would be wrong for me to practice my target shooting in a very crowded part of Boston, it would be acceptable for me to experiment with the injection of household chemicals into my veins according to the harm principle. Libertarians accept this view since it allows for the greatest amount of liberty. The social harm principle: a more restrictive principle that is based on the recognition that we can harm others in indirect ways through the impact of our actions on society as a whole. Thus it may be socially harmful, and so, according to this principle at least, wrong, to sell pornography to consenting adults if it were to be shown that the sale of pornography encourages domestic abuse on the part of the purchaser, even if in some particular cases there is no abuse. The personal harm principle: a yet more restrictive view that claims that it is wrong to use your liberty in ways that hurt oneself. Paternalists endorse this principle claiming that it is wrong to deliberately do things to oneself that it would be wrong to do to others. The offense principle: the most restrictive view, which claims that it is wrong to exercise ones liberty in ways that cause offense to others. For example, it would be wrong for a woman to wear skimpy clothes in public if the local population is sufficiently conservative, or wrong to use language in a manner that people within earshot would find offensive. In spite of the restrictive character of this last principle, it does not necessarily capture the view of paternalists since it makes no mention of harm to oneself as being inherently offensive to others. Extreme social conservatives might adopt this view. 12.1 Libertarians and paternalists Libertarianism is the view that claims that we have no right to prevent someone else from engaging in risky, dangerous or disgusting behavior as long as it is clear that no one else will be hurt by that behavior besides the person engaging in it. In other words, libertarians argue that the state has no right to prevent me from riding a motorcycle without a helmet, watching pornographic videos in the privacy of my own home, injecting myself with whatever substances I feel like, as long as no one else is hurt by what I do. Even if I do things that are patently stupid, and clearly go against my own best long term interests, it is up to me whether or not I do them. The bottom line for libertarians is liberty. In their view liberty is what makes human life worth living, and it needs to be protected from arbitrary limitation. In the view of libertarians, unless it is clear that what I am doing infringes on your liberty or harms or sets back your interests, it should be up to me to decide what to do with my life. Libertarians defend this view by appeal to the benefits, both individual and social, of allowing as much liberty as possible. A society that allows as much liberty as possible may at times seem chaotic, but it is also a society in which individuals can find personal satisfaction in whatever way they see fit and in which society as a whole benefits from the innovations and new ideas that only free individuals can create. Paternalism, in contrast, is the view that it is acceptable to restrict others behavior even 136 CHAPTER 12. LIBERTY AND ITS LIMITS when what they are doing hurts only themselves. Paternalists believe that even mature adults need protection against our own impulses at times. Paternalists thus make the assumption that we are not always competent judges of our own interests. Left to our own devices we would degrade ourselves with drugs just for the sake of the cheap thrills they bring, we would gamble away our life savings in pursuit of the easy money of winning the jackpot, we would endanger our lives by taking stupid risks for the sake of the fleeting pleasure of riding a motorcycle with the wind in our hair. That is, paternalists are not confident that the average adult can in fact make rational, adult-like decisions about his or her own life. Thus, they believe that strong social sanctions, like laws regulating intoxicating substances, gambling, prostitution, etc. can be good things. Even though such laws limit our liberty, without them both individuals and society as a whole would needlessly suffer from self-abuse and degradation. 12.2 The Case of Recreational Drugs The debate between these two perspectives, libertarianism and paternalism, underlies a particular question that many societies have been grappling with in recent decades, that of the legal status of certain intoxicating substances or drugs. I this section well see how this debate plays out by examining a number of different arguments that have been brought forward either against legalizing the recreational use of drugs or in favor of it. As more and more states in the United States have legalized the recreational use of marijuana in recent years, these arguments have come into prominence and I am sure all of them will seem familiar. Against legalization There are a number of arguments that are typically given against the legalization of certain controlled substances that are currently prohibited for recreational use. Ill consider three of the most commonly given ones here. All three are often used to justify official federal policy in the USA and other countries as well and all have been challenged by states and countries that have recently legalized the recreational use of marijuana. The use of drugs for recreational purposes is in itself wrong. In addition it has a corrupting effect on non-users when some people use drugs. One of the roles of law is promoting public and moral order. So currently illegal drugs should remain illegal. This argument no doubt raises controversial points. Is the recreational use of drugs in itself wrong? If so, why exactly is it wrong? It would seem that utilitarianism would reject 12.2. THE CASE OF RECREATIONAL DRUGS 137 this idea, insofar as the recreational use of drugs might be pleasurable. A Kantian might perhaps see the recreational use of drugs as a violation of ones duty to oneself to live up to ones potential, but only if this use interferes with ones larger goals and aspirations. Certainly an occasional user need not undermine her lifes projects by smoking or drinking every once in a while. So what moral theory does this claim then depend on? It seems like it might appeal to some conception of moral virtue, as developed by Natural Law Theory, since the use of drugs could be looked at a moral failing that indicates having a weak will or an inability to deal with lifes problems and a willingness to seek an easy escape from those problems. But, as we saw in the earlier, Natural Law Theory faces some serious problems as an account of right and wrong. It grants too small a role to human freedom and choice in determining right and wrong and assumes that it makes sense to impose a single template of what morally correct action must look like on all of us. Hence this approach seems to many people to be suspect. On the other hand, suppose it were true that the recreational use of drugs was inherently wrong from a moral perspective, what then? Does it follow that because it is wrong it should thus be illegal? It almost seems to be taken for granted in official policy making circles that this is the case. But is it? Is the role of the criminal law to police public morality? Is that were the case, why are some vices such as smoking tobacco, watching pornographic videos, and the consumption of alcohol tolerated and others, such as the use of drugs such as marijuana and cocaine forbidden? We will return to this question of consistency in more detail later. For now, we can just state as an objection to this first argument, that the fact of something being wrong from a moral perspective alone wouldnt necessarily be enough to warrant its being made illegal. We live in a society that takes individual liberty seriously and separates private moral concerns from public legal concerns. The next argument, however, considers in greater detail the issue of broader, more public social harm suggested by the second premise of this first argument. Our next argument is similar to the previous one in that it assumes that the use of certain substances (so-called hard drugs basically anything more serious than marijuana) is either wrong or at least personally and also socially a very risky thing to do. But it also an argument that has been used against those who claim that marijuana is different than other drugs, since it is physically less harmful and generally less debilitating in its effects on the user, and so should be legalized. People who smoke marijuana at a young age are more likely than people who dont to use harder drugs later in life. If we legalize marijuana more people will smoke it at a younger age. So legalizing marijuana will increase the use of hard drugs. The use of hard drugs is wrong and/or poses great public risks. So marijuana should not be legalized. This argument is the familiar gateway drug argument. It is often simply assumed in 138 CHAPTER 12. LIBERTY AND ITS LIMITS debates about drug use that marijuana is in fact a gateway drug, as in the familiar claim I saw recently in a video on the debate about drugs, drug counselors consider marijuana to be a gateway drug. The issue here has to do with what exactly it means to be a gateway drug. If it means that in fact people who use hard drugs like cocaine and heroin have most likely used marijuana prior to having used heroin or cocaine then it is obviously true that marijuana is a gateway drug. After all, most heroin users do not start out with injecting heroin into their veins. They probably started drinking alcohol and then moved on up the scale of more serious drugs that provide a more powerful effect. But this is not enough to get the argument off the ground, since what it needs is a relationship of cause and effect. It is because you use marijuana that you are much more likely to use other drugs later that is the claim that is being made in the argument. But is that true? Doesnt this look suspiciously like a case of the false cause fallacy? It is clearly true that marijuana users are more likely to use heroin that non-marijuana users, but that does not by itself mean that marijuana use causes heroin use. That would be like saying that because the sun arises shortly after my alarm clock goes off every day, then the clocks going off must cause the sun to rise. In fact, the causal relation between marijuana use and heroin use is undermined even more by a simple fact about usage rates. Even though large numbers of people have smoke marijuana on a regular basis, many fewer are regular heroin users. But if marijuana caused heroin use, shouldnt the numbers of heroin users be significantly higher? Compare the claim that smoking causes cancer if only one percent of smokers ended up with cancer, then this claim would clearly seem to be stretching the evidence. So then, how do we explain why non-marijuana users are far less likely to use heroin than marijuana users? It seems clear that there may be some common third factor that is the cause of both. Perhaps I have a physiological weakness for addictive substances, or come from a background that leads me to drug use in general. Whatever the case may be, whether it is nature or nurture that leads me astray, it would be this third factor that leads some people to smoke marijuana and some others to both smoke marijuana and use heroin. But this is not at all what the gateway argument claims and significantly weakens its attempt to show that marijuana is far too dangerous to be legalized. Our next argument takes a more modest approach the approach of limiting harms to acceptable levels without trying to make unsupported claims about the unique features of certain currently illegal substances. The abuse of alcohol and tobacco are an enormous social problem they lead to huge public health costs, lead to lower productivity, and endanger others through the effects of second-hand smoke, DUI accidents and bad behavior under the influence. If drugs were legalized, this would add to the problems created by alcohol and tobacco. So currently illegal drugs should remain illegal. This argument seems fair enough. The question, however, is why set up the boundary between illegal and illegal exactly where it currently happens to lie? Shouldnt we have 12.2. THE CASE OF RECREATIONAL DRUGS 139 some serious studies to back up our claims that drugs a and b should be allowed (alcohol and tobacco) but not drugs c and d (marijuana and cocaine) because that leads to the least possible harm? There is nothing in principle to prevent it from being the case that the legal drugs should be alcohol and marijuana, with tobacco being classed with heroin and cocaine as too risky to the public. But that seems contrary to the inherently conservative character of this argument. It seems to be saying, We should avoid changing the current situation because adding new substances poses further risks. But then maybe the current situation needs to be re-addressed as well, if the idea is to minimize risks over all and not just defend the status quo. Consistency We must now, finally confront the issue of consistency. Alcohol and tobacco are risky in much the same way that illegal drugs are risky. So why then is it legal for adults to use them? The next argument, which addresses this issue of consistency, deserves consideration on its own, since it is neither strictly prohibitionist nor strictly against prohibition. It just demands like treatment for like harms and thus, depending on our assessment of the potential harms of the use of drugs may or may not support their legal prohibition. There is, however, a catch to this provocative argument if currently illegal drugs pose too much of a threat to be legalized, and alcohol and tobacco pose the same threat, then the latter should also be made illegal. Alcohol and tobacco are just as risky to individuals and society as currently illegal drugs are. So the same arguments should apply to both. Rational policy should be consistent. So currently illegal drugs should remain illegal if and only if alcohol and tobacco are made illegal. This argument clearly rests on an appeal to the idea that we should have a single set of legal standards that apply across the board in cases that are relevantly similar. So the question that we must ask of supporters of this argument is: are currently illegal drugs really so similar in their personal and social effects to currently legal drugs? If the answer is yes, and there is a good reason to have a consistent social policy, this argument seems fairly strong. Note that it is not necessarily an argument for the legalization of drugs. It simply points out that our policies concerning alcohol and tobacco are inconsistent with our policies towards other drugs. If both are equally harmful then either both should be permitted or both should be forbidden. Failure to treat both the same amounts to irrational social policy. As a parallel example consider the recent legislation that permits motorcycles in the state of Pennsylvania to ride without helmets. This legislation was introduced at the same time that measures were enacted to stiffen penalties for not wearing set belts while driving. If adults are legally permitted to assume the added risk that comes from riding a motorcycle 140 CHAPTER 12. LIBERTY AND ITS LIMITS with out a helmet why then are we not allowed to assume the added risk of driving without a seat belt? Likewise, if our own safety is the motivation for the state to enforce seat-belt laws strictly, why then are not motorcycle riders compelled to wear an obvious enhancement to their own safety? Inconsistent social policy it seems has little defense. Against prohibition The first argument against prohibiting drug use by adults, takes us back to our earlier discussion of libertarianism. Libertarianism, we remember, is the view that adults should have the maximum possible amount of liberty. This argument, with suitable modifications, applies to many social issues. It has been successfully used to defend the wider legalization of gambling, a lack of restrictions on the access of adults to pornography, the legalization of prostitution, not to mention revisions of motorcycle helmet laws. Liberty is an overriding good, so adults should have as much of it as possible. The only reason to restrict someones liberty is to prevent them from directly harming others. It is possible to use drugs without directly harming others. So adults should be allowed to use drugs as they see fit. If you found libertarianism at all compelling in our discussion above, you will no doubt find this argument plausible. The burden of proof certainly rests on the third premise. Is it truly possible to use drugs without directly harming others? According to the image of drug users in the media and in official policy presentations of the issue we may have reason to doubt this. In response, we may simply point out that alcohol, in spite of its powerful effect on human behavior, is allowed precisely because of the judgment that it can be used in such a way that others are not harmed. This certainly does not mean that it cannot be used in a way that puts others directly at risk. But those cases, such as DUI cases, for example, are severely punished and are not considered acceptable uses of alcohol. Once again, if we would like to be consistent and judge the liberty to drink alcohol as an important freedom, not be be restricted except in cases of overt and direct harm to others, why not then extend this liberty to other substances as well? The final argument Id like to present is one that has more, perhaps, to do with social policy than it has to do with purely logical and ethical considerations. This argument poses the question: is the War on Drugs, declared in the early 1970s by President Nixon, redeclared by Reagan in the 1980s, and Clinton in the 1990s and still the official approach to the problem of drug use, really worth it? Does it perform as advertised? 12.2. THE CASE OF RECREATIONAL DRUGS 141 Prohibiting adults from taking drugs legally has high costs: It is expensive, organized crime runs the trade, it leads to corruption in law enforcement and it undermines civil liberties. In spite of the War on Drugs, drugs are widely available. So other methods for dealing with the problems of drug use should be sought. This provocative line of reasoning is certainly far from being taken seriously in any official policy making circles. But shouldnt it at least get a hearing? It seems that the premises are true. Rates of drug use and drug availability have been fairly steady for at least the last few decades, yet record numbers of Americans now sit in jail as a result of drug law violations. Other countries, such as the Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany and Canada have in recent years sought alternatives to criminalizing drug use. Might that be an option here as well? The recent proliferation of drug law reform efforts on the state level indicates that this argument is being taken more seriously in the USA as well. Further exploration 13 Crime and Punishment Crime is clearly a major social problem and by and large the way most societies deal with it is through some form of official punishment, involving imposing fines, confining people in prisons and even executing people. This chapter explores ethical debates about crime and punishment, concerning such questions as. . . What is the justification for punishing people who commit crimes in general? What particular forms of punishment, and what particular rationales for punishment are ethically defensible? Is the death penalty a legitimate form of punishment? Now it might seem ridiculous to ask that punishment for crime be given a general justification. It seems obvious to most people that committing crime, wronging or hurting others deserves and requires punishment and that the only question is that of the degree of punishment. And yet philosophers start to get suspicious whenever anyone claims that something is completely obvious. Maybe we just like making life difficult, or maybe there are some unquestioned assumptions that need to be clarified and supported if we are going to be able to resolve pressing difficulties in our policies on crime and punishment. The fact that there are difficulties is itself painfully obvious as the following points show: The United States currently has the worlds highest per capita prison population: the number of people incarcerated in federal, state and local jails exceeds 2 million. Crime rates nevertheless remain high as do rates of recidivism or return to jail after release for other convictions. More types of behavior are considered criminal in the US than in most other countries around the world (the exceptions are fundamentalist Islamic countries and dictatorships). The US is the only Western democracy to utilize the death penalty in peacetime. The death penalty continues to attract controversy, especially concerning the possibility of executions of innocent people. 142 143 Police continue to be granted more power to arrest, prosecute, seize property, as the official get tough on crime policy adopted all around the country continues its popularity among politicians and the general public. If we are to define crime in a non-circular way (we cant simply say that crime is what our society deems to be illegal because that is a circular definition) we can perhaps say that crime is the deliberate infliction of pain and suffering on other people by taking from them things that are theirs, harming them physically or mentally or taking away their lives or their liberty. If we consider the punishments that we give out for committing crimes in the light of this definition of crime, however, a problem appears. We punish people by taking away their property (fines), by making them work without compensation (community service), by taking away their liberty (jail), or by killing them (execution). But how are these any different than the crimes of theft, forced labor, kidnapping or murder? Is it just because state officials carry them out? We can thus see why it is that punishment requires justification because if it lacks justification then we cant really distinguish between the kinds of things that count as crime and the kinds of things that would count as a legitimate social response to crime. If punishment lacks justification then the only difference between crime and punishment would be the identity of the person or people carrying it out its called crime when its done by anyone other than the official representatives of the state. The state, that is, the set of official governmental institutions that wields power, has a monopoly on the use of violence or the use of force. This gives the state an enormous power over its citizens. The state can take money from individuals (taxes and fines), take away freedom (restraining orders and jails), kill (the death penalty). So the task of justifying punishment is that of showing why the state should have such power, how such power should be wielded, in whose interests that power is wielded, and what exactly the state should be allowed to do. Many opponents of the death penalty, for example, argue that whatever other powers the state has (taxation, punitive fines and imprisonment) it should not have the power to kill its own citizens. This might be argued because it is too socially risky to allow the state to kill, or it may be argued on the grounds that there are some things that the state is just not allowed to do, if it is to be a legitimate state. On the other hand, backers of the death penalty often insist that the state has the right to do whatever is necessary to maintain order within its borders, including kill troublesome offenders. Clearly power is a major issue here. Because crime and punishment look quite similar to each other, and because a state that can arrest, fine, confine and even kill its citizens has enormous amounts of power over its citizens, punishment requires justification. So then how might punishment be justified? Our answer to this question will have far-reaching consequences it will determine the nature of acceptable punishment, the function of punishment and the limitations on punishment that we endorse. Since justification of punishment will involve distinguishing justified from unjustified punishments this is the same as establishing limits to punishment. Different types of justification will respect different limits. In general, there are two approaches to justifying punishment, those that focus on the social good done by punishment and those that emphasize the idea of justice. These are known, respectively, as utilitarian and retributivist theories of punishment. As we will see, 144 CHAPTER 13. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT even though our society appears to endorse both of these approaches to punishment, they are deeply in conflict with each other. 13.1 Utilitarian approaches Utilitarian approaches to punishment typically focus on the good that punishment can do. Thus they tend to be forward-looking. Punishment itself is the deliberate harming of someone and this is wrong for utilitarians unless it is a way of attaining a greater good for all involved. There are three different views that are all broadly utilitarian in their approach to crime and punishment: 1. Isolation theory: the criminal is enough of a threat to society to warrant confining him or her to prevent more harm from being done. 2. Deterrence theory: crime should be prevented by harshly punishing those convicted for crimes this will make non-criminals think twice about whether to commit crimes or not. 3. Correction theory: crime is a sign of a maladjusted character that needs to be coercively readjusted to fit in better with society. Punishment is one important tool in readjusting criminals to society. Isolation The first of the utilitarian approaches to punishment is based on the idea that punishment, imprisonment or even execution, is primarily a way of removing certain people from circulation in the public world. This can be justified, on this view, if isolation of the prisoner costs less, both monetarily as well as in terms of pain and suffering to all affected, including the prisoner, than the benefit enjoyed by society as a result. So if my being stuck in a jail cell causes everyone else to sleep better at night knowing that I will not be climbing through their windows looking for valuables to steal, and reduces the costs of my criminal activities in other ways that outweigh the costs of imprisoning me, it may be justified to imprison me. I say here that it may be justified because, if the price of keeping me in jail is high enough, or peoples desire to sleep well weak enough, it may not be justified. But in spite of these complications about the exact consequences of confining me, the basic idea should be clear justification for punishment is to be sought in its ability to make the world a better place for those on the outside of prison walls. This approach to punishment clearly requires us to be able to predict whether or not imprisonment of offenders will lead to a greater good or not, and this may be difficult to determine. Are all of the billions of dollars we spend on locking people away in jail well-spent billions, or are they an expensive relic of a past approach to crime in which people who committed crimes were assumed to possess an inherently criminal nature that would cause them to always commit further crimes? 13.1. UTILITARIAN APPROACHES 145 Deterrence An alternative, and very popular attempt to justify punishment points to the possible deterrent value of punishment for other people besides the one being punished. The claim is that punishment is justified to the degree that it sends out a message to everyone else (especially people who may be thinking about committing crimes themselves) that crime does not in fact pay. If we see someone who committed a crime being punished we will think twice about violating the law ourselves. There are (at least) two issues that need to be addressed when considering this approach to crime whether it is effective crime control policy, and whether it is just. The first issue can only be settled by figuring out the degree to which people who commit crimes are in fact motivated by the expected results of their actions, as this view claims. Then we need to find out how different punishments have different deterrence results. Many advocates of the get tough approach to crime assume that a more severe punishment will have a higher deterrence value, that killing a murderer will prevent more murders than fining murderers $50. This seems to make sense. Yet empirical studies of crime and punishment carried out both by advocates of and critics of deterrence theory have so far been unable to come up with any solid answers about whether or not there is any meaningful connection between severity of punishment and the crime rate. Perhaps the real world is just too complicated for this simple bit of armchair psychology to be of much use in determining the behavior of such complex creatures as ourselves. Whatever the case may be about the real effects of punishment on people thinking about committing crimes there is a deeper problem with deterrence theory. Since punishment is supposed to be effective to the degree that it sends out a loud and clear message it seems like it would be effective only if that message is swift and sure if the day after the bank is robbed someone is caught and thrown in jail. Its all a matter of making the connection between crime and punishment as clear as possible to everyone watching. But, unfortunately for this view, most criminals attempt to protect themselves from capture by committing crimes in ways that make it difficult if not impossible to get the person who did it. Besides all of this, justice seems to demand that only the person who really committed the crime should be punished for it. All of this, however, adds up to delays in getting the message out, so it seems that on the utilitarian grounds we are here considering, the innocence or guilt of the individual punished is not that important. If punishment is justified by its effects on others, then sometimes framing an innocent person seems justified if there is no other way to effectively send out the massage that crime doesnt pay. This, of course, is the problem with utilitarianism in general once again if what is right is what leads to the greatest good for the whole of society, sometimes it seems acceptable to sacrifice innocent people for the good of all others. Correction The last utilitarian approach to punishment we will consider is the idea that punishment can be justified only to the degree that it serves to readjust criminals behavior in socially more acceptable way, that it corrects people. At first glance it may seem strange that this view is grouped together with deterrence theory under the general heading of utilitarian approaches 146 CHAPTER 13. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT to punishment. This is because contemporary debate about crime policy is often framed in terms of the two opposing views of deterrence theory (a favorite of political conservatives) which demands a getting tough on crime and correction theory (a favorite of political liberals) which requires helping people to overcome their anti-social behavior in more cooperative and less punitive ways. But these two views share a number of features: Both look at the justification of punishment in terms of its results, lowered crime rates Both are willing to manipulate individuals to achieve this, by making them afraid to commit crimes, or by readjusting their behavior through job training and counseling as well as punishment Both insist on looking at the effectiveness of punishment rather than the issue of justice. That is, neither ever asks the question, are people getting what they deserve? In spite of these similarities, there are clearly also differences that need to be taken into account here. If punishment is justified to the degree that it prevents people from repeating criminal acts, then it seems to make a difference whether or not the one being punished is the one who committed the crime. That is, if it aint broke dont fix it if you did nothing wrong it is a waste of time to readjust your attitudes by sending you to jail to think about what you did wrong and convince you never to do it again. So the problem of punishing innocent people is not as bad here as it was for deterrence theory. Here an effective crime policy requires at least finding the person who committed a crime. 13.2 Retributivist approaches In spite of the kinder and gentler approach of correction theory to punishment, Kant and other fans of deontological ethics, might raise the following questions about it: Does anyone have the right to tell other people how to live their own lives? Isnt there something basically disrespectful about coercive attitude adjustment of the kind given out in prison? What about justice isnt punishment the kind of thing that some people deserve because of what they have done and not simply a means of making the world a better place than it was in the past? But what is justice? In the simplest of terms, justice involves individuals getting what they deserve or being treated fairly. In some contexts this would require not discriminating against people by giving them a lower pay or less opportunity for no good reason in such cases individuals do not get the benefits or opportunities that they deserve. These are cases where distributive justice is not being done in the sense that some people are unfairly excluded from equal consideration in societys distribution of benefits and opportunities. There is another way, however, in which people may (or may not) get what they deserve. When someone intentionally and knowingly wrongs someone else, say by mugging them at 13.2. RETRIBUTIVIST APPROACHES 147 gun-point, the person who has been wronged has not gotten what they deserve, respectful treatment by the person who has wronged them. Further, if the person who did the mugging fails to be punished in some way even if they are caught by the cops, it may seem like they havent gotten what they deserve punishment. Questions of this kind, about giving people what they deserve when they have knowingly and willingly wronged other people are sometimes known as questions of retributive justice since they have to do with retribution or pay-back for wrongs done. One thing to notice about retributive justice is that it is essentially backward looking figuring out what someone deserves in retribution focuses only on what they have already done. This approach to punishment is very different from that of the utilitarians who were above all else concerned with the consequences in the future of punishment, the good that could come out of intentionally harming someone in punitive custody. There are three basic approaches to retributivism: simple retributivism, social contract theory and Kantian retributivism. We will consider them one at a time. Simple retributivism Simple retributivism is best captured in the famous biblical slogan, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The idea behind this approach to justifying punishment is to appeal to the notion of fair treatment. People should be treated the same way that they treat others. In spite of the appeal and the popularity of this approach to justifying punishment, however, it fails to provide any guidance whatsoever. First of all, taken literally it leads to nonsensical results how many people actually go around poking out others eyes or stealing their teeth? Well you might respond that this is not intended to be taken literally, but instead expresses a general principle you should be payed back in kind for what you do that harms others. But then we may ask whether you can always be paid back in kind. For example, if you are a tax evader how could you be paid back in kind? Or if you speed excessively? Or shoot someones dog, when you yourself are not a dog owner, etc. Second, and more seriously, it does no more than simply express a desire for justice without any explanation at all of why punishment is justified. Why is it important to pay people back in kind for what they do? It may seem obvious enough, but is that any kind of basis for a justifiable and rational approach to punishment, or does it just beg the question concerning the justification of punishment? Social contract theory One attempt to make up for the failure of simple retributivism to address the problem of justifying retribution is suggested by Social Contract Theory. We looked as Social Contract Theory earlier as an attempt to provide a foundation for ethical and social rules in general. Here it is more relevant as a theory of the origins and justification of political authority. It tries to root the authority and the legitimacy of political institutions in a real or fictitious agreement between citizens living under state authority. The relevant idea here is that society can be looked at as a kind of game there are certain rules of the game of living in and otherwise participating in society. Once these rules are established we would all be granted 148 CHAPTER 13. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT certain rights, and privileges while being expected to take on certain responsibilities. If someone were to violate these established rules, then they would be required to sit out of the game for a while and if this violation of the rules was severe enough they completely lose the right to play the social game at all. We wont have too much to say about the social contract approach here, except to point out a few problems that render it unworkable as a theory of the justification of punishment. The first problem here concerns the rules of the game that we are supposed to have violated when we commit a crime. What exactly are these rules and why are they binding on each individual? Are they the laws that happen to be on the books at any particular moment? But these are subject to modification new laws are constantly being created and old laws are constantly being revoked. If the right to play the social game is based on the laws that happen to be around at any given moment and these laws change it seems like our basic rights can change depending on the legislative mood of a society. That seems to make rights a lot less solid than the usual talk about rights presumes. Second, and more importantly, if punishment is owed to someone for breaking the rules, then this seems to get things backwards do I really deserve punishment because I broke the rules, or are the rules what they are because that somehow reflects what our society deems to be worth protecting? What is the point of these rules? And finally, social contract theory makes rights relative to a set of social norms and claims that they are not absolute. But doesnt that undermine the very concept of rights? After all, if I insist that my rights are being violated, as did American blacks during the civil rights era, I am appealing to a concept that transcends the particular rules of society at the time. I am appealing to something universal that any particular society cannot take away, even if that society can fail to respect it. Thus if rights are the kind of things that particular societies can take away, they they are simply not rights. Kantian retributivism _This discussion_ of the absolute character of rights seems to leave us in a bind. If rights are absolute then how on earth can we ever be justified in punishing anyone? After all, punishment involves the deliberate infliction of harm on someone and that patently seems to be a violation of rights. We seem to have a choice, either respect everyones rights or punish some people. One philosopher, our old friend Kant, claims that this is a false dichotomy, that is, he tries to show how, if we properly understand the concept of responsibility, we will see that in those cases where people are responsible for treating others in a criminal manner, they both deserve punishment and continue to have rights. In fact, as paradoxical as it may sound, in Kants view criminals are to be punished because they have rights and it would be a violation of the criminals rights not to be punished. Seems strange perhaps. Lets see how it works. Since punishment is, on the view we are currently considering, all about retributive justice, it is crucial that punishment only be given out to people who have actually done what they are accused of doing. Furthermore, if such people are to be punished they must also have been fully responsible for their actions. Thus, if someone gets killed accidentally, as a result 13.2. RETRIBUTIVIST APPROACHES 149 of my car hitting them in circumstances that I had no control over (like, if someone trips and falls into the street as I happen to be passing) then the result is certainly tragic, but no one is truly responsible for the death of the victim, no wrong has been done. On the other hand if I deliberately run someone down with intent to kill them, and I succeed in doing so, then a wrong has been done and the death of the victim is something I am responsible for. In the real world it sometimes difficult to assess the exact degree of responsibility involved in cases where somebody gets hurt. This is why in criminal courts there are different punishments corresponding to different degrees of responsibility, in cases involving the death of another these range from first degree murder to negligent homicide and so on down to no responsibility at all in cases of accidental death involving no wrong. In spite of this practical difficulty in actually determining the degree of responsibility the theoretical point here is clear to wrong someone youve got to know what you are doing and do it intentionally. So far so good. But why does someone who intentionally harms another, who wrongs them, deserve punishment? According to Kant we all owe respect to others no matter what and this seems plainly incompatible with the claim that some people deserve to be locked up or even executed. The key to Kants justification of punishment lies in his conception of autonomy. When we treat others with respect this means allowing them to make up their own minds about what is valuable to them, in the full expectation, of course, that they will also see that others deserve respect as well. There is a risk, however, in trusting someone like this, in allowing them to decide for themselves how they should behave. For example, someone may come up with the idea that you are not worthy of respect if you have something they want. The person who disrespects you after having come to this conclusion is failing to see that everyone is equally worthy of respect and that no one should be treated like a means to an end. Instead they are treating you as if you had merely instrumental value and so were not worthy of respect. In Kants view we are all free to make decisions like this, but when we act on the idea that others are not worthy of our respect we are also announcing something to the world we are basically saying that in our view people are not worthy of respect, that they dont deserve treatment as ends in themselves but only as means to our ends. Lets look at an example. Lets say that I decide to murder someone I do not like and so I deliberately plan a way to kill them and when I get the opportunity, I carry out the murder. If I actually do this I am assuming that it is OK to murder someone who I dont like. But notice what this means if I murder someone under the belief that its OK for me to do so, am I not also assuming a more general point, that human life doesnt have the kind of value that would prevent me from ending someones life when it was in my interests? Kants answer is yes, that I am indeed assuming this simply by carrying out a deliberate and pre-planned murder. My action speaks louder than words, it announces to the rest of the world that I do not find human life valuable. Since this was my free and autonomous decision it follows that the only way for others to respect me is to treat me in the same way that I have decided that others should be treated. In the case of murder, since it is possible for me to murder someone only because I do not value human life, the only way for others to respect me, to act on my wishes would be to kill me as well. So, paradoxically, it is an act of respect to execute a murderer in Kants view. This may sound a bit strange, but Kant claims that if justice is giving people what they 150 CHAPTER 13. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT deserve and people deserve treatment according to the standards they themselves freely set, then it seems to follow that someone whose standards allow for the deliberate termination of others lives can only be respected by being treated as they see fit to treat others. This idea is not only limited to cases of complete disrespect for others lives, but in cases of partial disrespect for others where someone deliberately harms others without actually killing them. In these cases punishment of a lesser degree, whatever fits with the degree of disrespect the criminals actions demonstrate, is appropriate. There are a few points to bear emphasizing here: 1. Punishment is only acceptable when the person being punished is really guilty of willingly and knowingly harming another. 2. Punishment only serves the interests of justice, it is not legitimate as a way of maintaining order in society, or of correcting the offender coercively, by forcing them to act more responsibly. This is simply because these would both violate the autonomy of the person being punished. 3. Punishment must be proportional to the degree of disrespect exhibited in the act that is being punished. We have seen that there are two major approaches to justifying punishment, the utilitarian and the retributivist approaches. Each of these approaches assumes something very different about our responsibility for our actions. Utilitarians assume that we are not really responsible for what we do and so have to be manipulated into behaving as we should. That is, we need to be scared into submission (deterrence theory), coercively made to want to behave (correction theory) or simply locked up because we cannot be convinced to behave (isolation theory). On the other hand, concern for retributive justice, a common thread in all of the retributivist theories, is based on the claim that we are really responsible for what we do in some cases and it is because of this that we deserve punishment. This is especially clear in Kantian retributivism it is because we are responsible adults making up our own minds about how others are to be treated that some of us deserve punishment. The difficult question Id like to ask is this: how on earth can we be, at one and the same time, both responsible for our actions and not responsible for our actions? It seems impossible. But, arent our societys policies concerning crime and punishment somehow based on both of the approaches we have been considering here? That is, we have departments of correction and put a lot of emphasis on the deterrent value of punishment, and yet we also insist loudly on the responsibility of people for their actions. But there is an inherent contradiction embedded in this approach, isnt there? How on earth can we have both? 13.3 The Death Penalty The death penalty has a long and complex history in the United States and continues to attract a great deal of controversy. Some people claim that it should be abolished, while others are firmly in favor of it and insist that it should be used much more frequently than it is. We certainly wont settle these debates here, but the death penalty is a great example 13.3. THE DEATH PENALTY 151 for bringing into focus the various arguments about crime and punishment in general that we have been considering here. What Id like to do in this section is talk about how the two basic theoretical justifications for punishment in general might address the topic of the death penalty. Then Ill develop an argument as to why, while it may be justified in principle there are some good reasons to be opposed to it in practice. Utilitarian Arguments How might a utilitarian consider capital punishment? As we have seen in other cases utilitarianism doesnt really allow us to determine whether or not something is right or wrong in principle but instead requires us to ask about particular cases and find out whether one choice or another leads to a greater good than other available alternatives. This would seem to leave us in the difficult position of not being able to have any more general policy governing a punishment like the death penalty and to force us instead to decide each case individually. In other words, wed seem to have to look at each particular criminal case and decide which possible punishment from among the available options would lead to the best overall outcome and then go with that one. But this doesnt really provide us with any guidance as to whether or not the death penalty should even be one of the available options. We can however, avoid this difficulty if we follow the lead of a version of utilitarianism which we have so far neglected to mention, rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism is an attempt to address what we might call the information overload problem that ordinary utilitarianism seems to face. The ordinary version of utilitarianism evaluates each individual act, one at a time, to determine whether or not it leads to the best outcomes among those of all of the available alternatives. But following this procedure for every decision we might make seems like it is beyond the capacity of mere mortals like us. So rule utilitarians basically say, well that kind of calculation of the outcomes of every decision we make is only a problem for act utilitarianism, we can take a much more efficient approach and look at what tends to happen in similar kinds of cases and in that way can come up with general rules to guide our choices. Of course, sometimes what usually works out for the best just doesnt but if we are careful and decide what general moral rules well follow based on decent research in to what does in fact tend to happen, we are all set. In the case of the death penalty, as long as we follow the lead of rule utilitarianism it does in fact seem that we can come up with a general account of the morality of capital punishment. If capital punishment tends to maximize utility overall, then it would be a justified punishment to keep available as an option in particular cases. If it does not tend to do so, then we should abolish it. What this line of argument does is to turn the moral debate about capital punishment into a policy debate about whether capital punishment does sufficient good to compensate for the harms it causes. And it does cause harm. Remember that according to utilitarianism, everyone who is affected by the consequences of our actions counts, and in this case this certainly includes the person who is executed. Considerations of justice and who deserves what are just not part of the utilitarian framework for moral decision making, so no matter how counterintutive it may seem to do so in cases on crime and punishment, in looking at the utilitarian approach to capital punishment we need to leave them out. 152 CHAPTER 13. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT Keeping these points in mind how do things stand for a utilitarian evaluation of the morality of capital punishment? The answer is that if we can show that in general capital punishment does more good than harm then it would warranted as at least an option in certain cases according to utilitarianism. Two ways of looking at this issue are often brought up in debates about capital punishment that are relevant here: the idea that capital punishment alone offers a sense of closure to victims and that it is thus justified, and the idea that capital punishment has a significant deterrence value which would offset the harms it does. Let us look at each of these points in turn. The first utilitarian argument about capital punishment hinges on the idea that executing someone who has harmed people in a serious way can do certain things for victims that not executing them cannot. By victims here I mean not the immediate victims of a crime that has led to the seeking of the death penalty since typical capital cases are murders and the immediate victims are dead. I mean the secondary victims such as friends and family of the immediate victims. Thus the argument is often given that these secondary victims lack something, a sense that justice has been served, that the case has been closed, that the murderer will never strike again, and so on, as long as the murderer remains alive. If capital punishment can provide this sense of closure to these victims then it is legitimate, according to this argument, as long as this feeling outweighs the harms that capital punishment does. The presumption that proponents of this argument typically make is that it will in fact provide such feelings of relief to these secondary victims. Some in fact claim that it does, but then again some claim that it does not. It is, as we might imagine, very difficult to generalize for all cases of capital punishment. Sometimes the victim of a murder might happen to be someone who was well loved and their survivors might happen to feel a great sense of relief and the ability to move on after their killer is executed. Other victims might not have had much in the way of friends and family at all, or in case they do, their friends and families might just not feel any relief at all. It seems to me at least that resting the legitimacy of capital punishment on an attempt to generalize based on a typical case of murder and the effects of an execution on the people left behind is too fraught with difficulties to be workable. Well what then about the second utilitarian argument about capital punishment, one that might appeal to the good that it might do by having a deterrent effect? Once again this is an argument that is contingent upon how things play out in the real world, since it is an argument about the real or likely consequences on a particular punishment on particular people. To see whether or not capital punishment does have any effect on murder rates would require extensive and careful analysis of data on crime and punishment. And it is not quite clear from this data whether or not particular punishments do in fact have much to do with decision making on the part of would be criminals in the future. One staunch proponent of the death penalty is the philosopher Ernest Van den Haag who has argued that if it could be shown that some potential murderers are deterred by the thought of the ultimate penalty this would make the death penalty worth it.1 This strikes me as more of an appeal to common assumptions about what should happen rather than as a completely solid argument in favor of the death penalty. As even van den Haag himself admits, finding out what the actual deterrent value of the death penalty might be in the real world is probably 1 Ernest van Den Haag/Legal Scholar, accessed January 26, 2020, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/ frontline/angel/procon/haagarticle.html. 13.3. THE DEATH PENALTY 153 impossible to do, simply because there are too many variables in play to determine whether one factor affecting decision making in potential situations where someone might kill someone else like the presence or absence of the death penalty might make a significant difference. Falling back on common assumptions about what should happen is not basis for a policy that is supposed to be based on empirical facts. However things play out in terms of the real consequences of executing people for certain crimes, this is how a utilitarian might argue. As we have seen when we examined utilitarianism earlier, everything here depends on our ability to determine what the consequences of our actions actually are and this seems especially difficult to do for capital punishment since we are not here only talking about individual cases but of typical results of certain types of actions executing versus not executing convicted murderers. It is always difficult in such debates to separate the genuinely supported empirical facts of the matter from common sense understanding of what we might think really should happen in these cases. But the burden of proof for utilitarians must lie on the factual side of things since their fundamental claim is that a certain policy really does have certain effects. If one argues this way, the facts on which ones argument is based should at least themselves be clear. As far as I can tell the facts about the real results of the death penalty are just not clear and cherry picking the available information is not a legitimate way to avoid this uncomfortable situation. Retributivist Arguments Well then what about the other basic approach to the justification of punishment, the retributivist appeal to what people deserve? How might it address the question of the death penalty? As we have seen in our discussions of retributivism, in spite of the intuitive appeal of simple retributivism, as captured in the slogan, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, well need to show why death might be a warranted punishment for certain crimes and we will need a principled way of doing this rather than just appealing to some felt sense of what is right. After all if peoples lives are in the balance we cannot just rely on our subjective sense of right and wrong but need something that might actually guide policy in a way consistent with broader social ideals of fairness that are central to life in a democratic society. We have already seen the weakness of social contract theory when it comes to showing why it is that we are justified in punishing people in general and the same points apply in the case of the death penalty as well. Even if it may seem that it is possible and maybe even desirable to understand rights as the kinds of protections that might be forfeited in certain circumstances doing so leaves rights vulnerable to the arbitrary exercise of power. Who is it that would get to decide in what circumstances someone would forfeit their rights? Wouldnt this make rights dependent on something a little too shaky? **On the other hand,_** it does seem to me that a case in favor of the death penalty might be more successfully made by appealing to Kants account of retributive justice some people, by their actions, do things that seem to warrant death since they are based on a complete and utter disrespect for human life. For Kant the death penalty would absolutely not be something to be used for the sake of social control, deterrence, or any other supposed good that might come of it. Instead it could only be acceptable as a response to something that 154 CHAPTER 13. CRIME AND PUNISHMENT has happened in the past and even in this case would really just be a matter of completing something already started by someone else. We have already seen how this argument works in Kants more general defense of punishment if you, by your actions, indicate that you attach little value to human life and concerns, it seems only fair to you to treat you by the very same standards. To treat you otherwise would be to second-guess your free and deliberate decisions and assume that you did not in fact intend freely to cause others harm and disrespect them. This argument clearly also applies to the case of truly awful crimes that seem to some people to warrant the death penalty. Take the case of one of the most serious possible crimes perpetration of genocide. Genocide involves not just the deliberate killing on an individual for selfish reasons, but the attempt to destroy an entire people based on some ultimately arbitrary distinction between people based on ethnicity, religion, race, nationality, etc. Perpetrators of genocide deliberately decide that a particular group is absolutely lacking in value and take often elaborate and systematic steps to eliminate them with utter contempt for their victims. On Kants line of reasoning it seems like the death penalty would in fact be warranted and even required in such cases. How else could we possibly respond to someone who has freely decided to treat others with complete disrespect. And yet we may wonder whether we should endorse this approach in the end. It seems troubling to say the least to accept that perpetrators of genocide can possibly decide to do what they do with the kind of deliberate clarity of thought that Kants argument requires. Certainly there must be some form of madness at work that could have led to the coldly rational killing machines of the Nazi death camps. The alternative almost seems unthinkable, that a substantial number of people could really freely have decided that their victims were unworthy of any respect whatsoever. And if they were coerced in some subtle or not so subtle ways, but desperation, collective insanity, the seductions of power, why should we treat them as autonomous beings worthy of our respect and not as dangerous threats to our safety? Yes that might strike some people as another reason why they should be executed, as an act of collective self-defense. But that simply returns us to the question of whether execution really should be considered to be a legitimate part of our societal self-defenses. Well, why shouldnt it be? This is clearly a pressing question since at this point in time the majority of countries around the world have decided that it shouldnt be. In the next section we will see why not. The Death Penalty in Theory and in Practice Let us suppose for the sake of argument that the death penalty is moral defensible in some cases. In cases like those we have talked about such as genocide it certainly seems like it might be the morally warranted response. And yet in many countries, even those who have struggled to come to terms with the aftermath of genocide and other forms of political oppression and violence, the death penalty has been eliminated altogether or its use has been severely limited. Why might this be the case? It seems to me that there are two basic reasons for this. The first has do with the recognition of human fallibility, and the second with a distrust of political power. 13.3. THE DEATH PENALTY 155 There is no such thing as a perfect criminal justice system. Not only are the people making decisions, investigating crimes, arresting suspects, carrying out trials and so on all fallible, but in many cases evidence is hard to come by and hard to protect from being tainted with false clues. In addition, criminal justie systems are all embedded in societies that often have long histories of inter-group conflict that can lead to hidden or not so hidden biases and any stage of criminal proceedings. 14 Animals and Ethics The history of ethics might be looked at a history of the gradual expansion of ethical consideration. Tribal loyalties are replaced by national loyalties, and eventually loyalties to all of humanity; exclusion of women and people in minority groups are replaced by universal rights for all human beings regardless of race or gender. Some philosophers insist that this expanding circle of ethics has not quite expanded as far as it should even with universal human rights. At present the majority of human beings act as if the circle of ethical consideration stops at the border of the human species, as if no non-human animals deserve true ethical consideration. Hence we keep certain non-human animals as pets, kill them for food and sport, and perform countless experiments on them in labs without even wondering whether this violates ethical rules that we should pay attention to. In this section we are going to examine a number of arguments concerning the proposed expansion of ethics to include granting at least some animals moral consideration. Note that moral consideration does not mean the same thing as moral rights, and that although some philosophers, most notably Tom Regan insist that some animals be granted rights, not all who defend granting animals moral consideration follow Regan in this. Before roughly two hundred years ago, humans for the most part assumed what Id like to call the dogma of difference. This is the idea that whatever our relationship to animals may be, it is the differences between us and them that should be emphasized, not the (mostly superficial) similarities. In the Old Testament, for example, the story is told of how God created animals separately than human beings and grated us dominion over all of the other animals and plants on the earth, to use as we see fit. The differences between humans and animals according to this story are that we are the ends of creation, and animals are just the means that we can and should use for our benefit. Likewise, according to this tradition, it is humans alone who have souls, and thus we are in a unique position to control nature, while animals as a part of non-human nature are subject to our control. The modern philosopher Rene Descartes took the Christian idea that animals have no souls to its logical conclusion when he suggested that animals have much more in common with inanimate machines, such as clocks, than they do with human beings. This is because animals have only bodies, the movements of which are subject, according to the scientific perspective Descartes helped to create, to entirely mechanical explanations. If animals have 156 157 no souls, then they also lack what comes from having a soul inner experience, experience of pleasure and pain, experience of ones own thoughts, fears and desires. Since, as Descartes argued, according to the tradition going back at least to the Old Testament, animals do not have souls, they are thus incapable of experiencing anything, not even pleasure or pain. How then do we explain why it is that animals appear to experience things, like pain for example? Well, when a dog makes noises as a result of being injured, this would have to be the same kind of thing that your alarm clock does when it is set to go off at a certain time it makes noises for purely mechanical reasons. Since both clocks and dogs lack souls their noises are not experienced from inside by anyone or anything there is nobody home inside a dog or a clock. The ethical implications of this are that there are no ethical implications however we treat animals is OK, since not only did God give us dominion over animals, they do not even really experience the kinds of things that we experience when we ask others not to harm us or set back our interests. This extreme view of the dogma of difference was challenged somewhat, though not entirely, by later philosophers, like Kant. Kant believed, as we have seen that the basis for genuine moral relations with other persons is their ability to understand what it means to respect another being. This requires rationality, the ability to understand the abstract idea of respect. Since, in his view, animals lack this ability, they neither owe us nor are owed respect. In terms of Kants distinction between persons and things, animals fall entirely on the side of things, possessing merely instrumental value. However, Kant did recognize that certain animal behaviors bear an analogy with human behavior hence a dog cries out in pain when beaten. Whether or not the animal is really feeling pain when a person beats it does not matter as much as the fact that it seems to. Kant reasons that if it seems to us that animals feel pain when mistreated this may serve to harden us to human suffering, and this would be an unwelcome outcome. Kant clearly endorses the dogma of difference since it is only his belief that mistreating animals will have bad effects on human relations to other humans that underlies his view that we should not abuse animals too much. Since the nineteenth century however, the development of the science of biology has fundamentally challenged one of the major supports of the dogma of difference by challenging the strict separation between animals and humans on scientific grounds. As modern biology has amply demonstrated, we are made of the same basic stuff, the same complex biochemicals organized in the same ways into the same types of cells, tissues and organs as other animals. Further, as is now completely accepted by biology, we are related to all other living things, from the lowliest fungus on up the scale of complexity to the most complex mammals we are all part of a single, vast family tree going back to the first appearance of life on earth some four billion years ago. In addition to these deep similarities between all life forms, there is much evidence that human behavior is not as different from animals behavior (especially the behavior of other mammals) as Descartes and others believed. The evidence comes in the form of studies of the physiological basis of human and animal experience and behavior. Although we can never really know from inside what it is like to be a dog or a cow, we do know that dog and cow brains have the same parts that support experiences of pain and pleasure in us. In addition, scientists have spent years documenting the complexities of social organization in such animals as chimpanzees and gorillas and the picture that emerges here is that certain animals are not really that different from humans. 158 CHAPTER 14. ANIMALS AND ETHICS Biology, however, does not simply point out that we are much more closely related to other living things than we previously suspected. It also provides us with a powerful set of tools for more effectively and efficiently exploiting animals for our purposes. Consider the modern factory farm in which biology is put to work to maximize the yield from animals for human purposes. Modern methods of animal production involve: Living conditions designed for maximum efficiency in feeding and growth cows in a feedlot get fat quicker with the use of less land than cows on the open range; pigs are bred for lean and consistent flesh produced in the shortest period of time. Scientifically engineered diets designed to make them grow as quickly as possible cows raised for meat are feed high protein diets to give their flesh a rich fat content that us humans have a taste for; animal feed is mixed with growth promoting and disease inhibiting antibiotics. Special methods employed for particular results or to address problems caused by intensive production: chickens have their beaks partially cut off to keep them from killing each other when they attack each other in overcrowded coops; veal calves are kept from moving to keep their flesh tender; pigs are increasingly raised indoors because decades of being bred for rapid meat production makes them incapable of surviving in their natural habitat, outside they would be quickly killed by cold and disease. Use of hormones to increase yield: milk cows are injected with hormones so they produce more milk and their feed is supplemented with animal protein (ground up cows, chickens, horses, pigs, etc.) to enable them to produce the extra milk. All of this is made possible by our increased understanding of the way animals work. So the ironic result of biology is that it supports the idea that animals are not that different from us and so maybe might deserve more moral consideration, and at the same time enables us to make much more efficient and ruthless use of animals as meat and milk production machines. As a result of biology, animals, paradoxically, appear both more like persons that have moral value and more like things that have only instrumental value. Rather than solving the problem of the moral status of animals, modern biology presents us with a dilemma: our knowledge of the way animals work gives us both more reason to respect them and more opportunity to exploit them. 14.1 Defending The Status Quo There are three ways of responding to this dilemma. The simplest and most obvious in a sense is simply to ignore the one side of the dilemma, the side that suggests that animals may deserve moral consideration in view of their similarity to us. This is the approach we can call the status quo approach to non-human animals. We will examine it first and then move on to consider the other two possibilities, one recommending reform of our relations with other animals and one advocating a revolutionary overhaul of these relations. 14.1. DEFENDING THE STATUS QUO 159 The top of the heap How can the status quo be defended? The usual answer is with reference to the old ideas of human dominion over nature since we are on the top of the heap, what we say goes. Humans are more powerful than any other creature on earth. Because of this we have the ultimate say over how other animals are to be treated. Thus whatever we decide to do is the correct thing to do as far as non-human animals are concerned. However popular this view may be, it is deeply flawed, because it commits an obvious fallacy, the fallacy of appeal to force. The fact that we have the power to determine the rules does not imply that whatever rules we establish are good rules. As we have seen throughout the semester the fact that someone has power or authority does not at all establish that whatever they do is the morally correct thing to do. Power can be abused or it can be used to do good, so power itself does not imply a moral license to do whatever one can and get away with it. Human needs Until we provide some reasons why we should be permitted to use animals for food, research and entertainment without any moral consideration, we will not have a leg to stand on. Now the most obvious reason we might have for our current methods of treatment of animals appeals to human needs. According to this line of reasoning, since we need to use animals we should be permitted to do whatever provides us with the maximum benefit. We need to use non-human animals for food, research and entertainment purposes. The satisfaction of these needs overrides the interests of animals in not being used by us. So we need not change the way we treat non-human animals. There are a number of objections to this argument that we might consider, but I will focus on just two. First, assuming that it is true that we need to use animals for food, research and entertainment, it plainly does not follow that they thus deserve no moral consideration whatsoever. The fact that I may need something does not imply that there are no moral restrictions on how I might go about satisfying that need. After all, I certainly need money 160 CHAPTER 14. ANIMALS AND ETHICS in order to survive in the modern world, but there are still plenty of moral restrictions on how I am allowed to go about getting money. I can only satisfy my needs in ways that do not interfere with my moral responsibility to respect other peoples rights and interests. Thus even if we need to eat animals, modern factory farms may turn out to be unacceptable ways of satisfying those needs. The fact that this issue has not yet been addressed does not imply that anything goes as far as non-human animals are concerned. Second, we may object to this argument by challenging the idea that we need to use animals at all for the purposes mentioned. As the existence of millions of strict vegetarians worldwide demonstrates, humans do not need to eat meat. We are naturally omnivorous, but can easily survive, some argue more healthily, without the consumption of animal flesh. So our eating of meat is not a need but a preference. Likewise with our other uses of animals, we certainly do not need to use animals as companions, as curiosities in zoos, as targets of sport hunting, or even as research subjects. The last of these is sure to arose skepticism dont we really need to use animals as test subjects for urgent medical research that saves human lives? The answer is no we may strongly prefer to use animals for testing drugs, because research protocols are established, and because it is cheap and easy to experiment on animals. But there are also many viable alternatives, some of which are gaining ground as more reliable and ultimately more cost-effective, such as computer modeling of the immune system as a way of testing drugs, or the use of tissue cultures, which require only small samples of animal cells raised in petri dishes. Thus this argument, which may have at first seemed to be a good way of defending currently popular practices does not succeed in establishing what it claims to establish. The benefits of our use of animals Granted that we do not, strictly speaking, need to use animals as we do, we may still argue that the benefits of our uses of animals are a sufficient justification for things to continue as they currently are done. It is beneficial for us to use non-human animals for food, research and entertainment purposes. Imposing ethical limits on the way we treat animals would increase our costs. So, on simple utilitarian grounds, we should not change the way we treat non-human animals. Well what about this argument? Once again it seems promising at first, but a little critical prodding will soon show that it makes a really big assumption. That is, it assumes that animals do not count in our utilitarian assessments of costs and benefits. Benefits here are benefits to us and costs are likewise costs to us according to this argument. But it seems clear that animals are being asked to bear the burden of being eaten by us, used as research 14.2. HUMANE REFORM 161 subjects and so on, without the slightest consideration of their benefits and costs. Now we have not yet seen any reasons why we should take animals costs and benefits into account, but this argument cannot possibly establish that we need not do this, since it assumes from the start that animals costs and benefits do not count. So at best it remains neutral as far as a defense of the status quo if animals do not count morally, we should be permitted to use them, and at worst it simply begs the question it argues that animals do not count on the assumption that, well, they do not count. 14.2 Humane Reform So far the status quo seems kind of tough to defend, so what about the alternatives? We now turn to attempts to defend a kind of moderate reform that would enable us, in theory at least, to avoid the worst excesses of the status quo while stopping short of granting to nonhuman animals any kind of real moral consideration. This is the approach that is roughly equivalent to that followed by such organizations as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Humane Society, so I call it the Humane Reform approach. The first argument to consider here was developed by Kant. Kants argument Recall that in Kants view morality is a relation of strict equality based on the rational recognition that another counts just as much as I do. Even if we are not really strictly equal with each other, our ability to grasp and apply the ideal of moral equality requires us to act as if we really were equal with other moral agents. This implies a set of rights as well as a set of responsibilities each of us moral adults deserves absolute respect from other moral agents as well as owing them absolute respect. Well what about non-human animals? We can have no direct duties to non-human animals since that would require them to be capable of acting out of duty towards us as well. But, some animals are like us, so our mistreatment of them will lead us to be insensitive to human suffering and thus will encourage immorality. Thus we have indirect duties to treat animals well. This argument makes two important claims one that we can have no direct duties to animals since they lack the ability to treat us with genuine moral respect; and two, that our mistreatment of animals leads us to mistreat humans. Let us examine the second of these first. Is it true that abusing animals leads humans to abuse people? This treads dangerously close to the false cause fallacy even if someone who abuses animals may also lack concern 162 CHAPTER 14. ANIMALS AND ETHICS for humans this correlation does not imply causation. Perhaps people who abuse animals are also indifferent to human suffering out of a general lack of compassion. As far as the first claim goes, on the other hand, this criterion for genuine moral consideration will soon get us into hot water, so we will hold off on a definite answer to the question of the solidity of this argument. Identifying with animals Kant does, however, make a pretty obvious point that some people are more compassionate towards animals and humans than others. We are clearly capable of forming bonds of sympathy with some non-human animals. This is the basis for the next argument. Some animals are similar enough to us that we can form genuine bonds of sympathy with them. Respecting these emotional attachments that humans form with animals is important. So, it is in our own interests to treat animals with compassion and kindness. This reformist argument is a good example of we might call anthropocentric (literally human-centered) ethics. It is because of the value we humans get from identifying with certain animals that these animals are considered to count at all. No this may seem like a safe middle ground to occupy humans get to remain the sole objects of direct moral concern (and thus we can continue to eat and experiment on those animals with which we do not sympathize) and yet we also admit that some animals seem to count for more than this. Well, it is exactly this attempt to have it all, to have our pets and eat them too, to paraphrase the famous proverb, that causes problems for this line of reasoning. After all it seems kind of arbitrary that we would judge animals depending upon whether or not we think that they are cute, or cuddly or otherwise worthy of our attention and affection. Are piglets or veal calves any less cute than puppies? That seems to be too much a subjective judgment of culturally biased prejudice to say so, and yet based on such judgments many people would be horrified if they were to discover that the veal cutlet they are dining on was in fact a dog cutlet. In other words, reducing ethical considerability to something as fickle as our ability to judge some other animals as cute seems to make nonsense out of moral judgment. Isnt there a more rational basis for ethical judgment? The revolutionaries think that there is and that this rational basis for ethical judgment forces us to conclude that some non-human clearly animals qualify as objects of genuine, direct moral concern. It is to their arguments that we know turn. 14.3. GENUINE MORAL CONSIDERATION 14.3 163 Genuine Moral Consideration Animal Welfare As long ago as the late 18th century the British Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham claimed that animals deserve moral consideration to the extent that they can feel pain. He was in fact simply following the logic of the utilitarian view of ethics in making this claim. Recall that utilitarians measure the moral worth of an act by the amount of good it does for all affected by it. This good, in Benthams view, can be measured in the amount of pleasure that results for those affected. But if pleasure is the sole measure of what is good in an action, why restrict this to human pleasure? Arent at least certain animals also capable of feeling pleasure and pain? Shouldnt this also be taken into account when we are figuring out the consequences of our actions? Bentham thought that there really was no good reason to think that some creatures pleasures and pains have moral worth and others do not. If it is pleasure that makes something good, how could we restrict it only to the pleasure experienced by us, why not also include the pleasure experienced by whoever or whatever is capable of feeling pleasure? So in the name of interspecies democracy Bentham suggested the revolutionary idea that animals should be considered apart from whether or not our decisions regarding them had good or bad effects on us alone. More recently Benthams position has been revived by the Australian philosopher Peter Singer, and this view represents one wing of the contemporary animal rights movement. Singers argument can be summed up as follows. Pleasure and pain are morally significant ethical action is that which maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain for all who are affected. Some animals can experience pleasure and pain. So, we should act in such a way that maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain for humans as well as for those animals affected by our actions. There a couple of points worth mentioning here. First Singer is just following out the logic of utilitarianism if your pain matters just as much as mine does this can only be because of the nature of pain itself, not the identity of the being who is experiencing pain. If animals are also capable of experiencing pain then it seems that species membership is not crucial for deciding whether you count or not, what counts is the degree to which you can experience pain and pleasure. Second, this view does not imply that humans and animals count the same. Instead it only claims that if you are capable of experiencing pleasure and pain to the same degree then you count the same. So the arguably less intense or less sophisticated sort of pleasure and suffering that birds can experience (they lack the kind of heightened psychological experiences that we humans experience) means that if we were forced to kill a chicken or of a human being we would have to kill the chicken. And finally this position, does not entail that it is simply wrong to kill animals or use them for research. 164 CHAPTER 14. ANIMALS AND ETHICS Instead it simply says since animal suffering make a moral difference we are obliged to minimize surplus suffering, suffering that is not used as a means to get greater pleasure for all creatures involved than would have been the case without that suffering. Animal rights Utilitarian arguments alone cannot possibly be the basis for objecting to all uses of animals by humans that are currently the norm. For as we saw when we discussed utilitarianism, one of the big problems faced by utilitarians is that they recognize no concept of rights all they are interested in is the total payoff in happiness resulting from our actions. There are, nevertheless, advocates of the idea that animals literally should be considered as having rights. This position was first articulated by the American philosopher Tom Regan. Dissatisfied with the unprincipled nature of utilitarian arguments (any kind of action would be acceptable to utilitarians as long as the balance of pleasure and pain were right in the end), Regan argues that animals can and should be granted more than just consideration, they should be granted rights as well. It is our cognitive abilities that are the basis of our having rights. Humans and animals overlap in terms of cognitive abilities. So, either all humans and some animals should have rights, or only some humans but no animals should have them. There are two sides to this argument. The first, negative side, suggests that there is no workable way of restricting the idea of rights to humans, without either making the criterion of application so broad that it includes some animals or so narrow that it excludes some humans. That is, if we decide that humans deserve rights because they have a sense of the significance of their own lives, they experience pleasure, pain, the feelings of success and frustration, and have the possibility of running their own lives shouldnt this also apply to certain animals, who arguably experience their own lives and are frustrated by not being able to do as they want? If on the other hand we set as a criterion for having rights some more narrowly defined feature of human experience, like the ability to be rational and use language to express ourselves, doesnt this end up excluding some humans from moral consideration? Not all humans are fully rational young children are not yet rational, and the mentally retarded never will be but this seems no reason not to grant them at least some rights. In other words Regan points out a dilemma with the concept of rights we can either define the criterion for granting rights broadly, in which case certain animals seem to qualify, or narrowly in which case certain human do not seem to qualify as rights bearers. Regan is clearly in favor of including animals in the sphere of those who get rights, and he points out that those who would resist this move would have to also accept that certain humans, those who through mental handicaps or just as a result of being not fully developed lack rationality, should not have rights either. 14.3. GENUINE MORAL CONSIDERATION 165 The second, positive side of Regans argument takes over from here since animals share something significant with humans, the capacity to experience their own lives as truly their own, why not grant them full moral consideration? After all, if the reason humans deserve rights is because each of us has the capacity to experience the world from our own unique perspective, and that is what is valuable about each human being, isnt it just human chauvinism to insist that no other animals have anything like this ability of ours? 15 Ethics and the Environment A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac In this chapter we will be considering some of the ethical issues that have to do with our relation to the world around us, especially the world of non-human nature. Since this is a vast topic, my treatment here will have to be very brief and sketchy. What Id like to do is talk about how we now find ourselves in a historically unusual position in which we must confront basic assumptions about our relation to the physical and biological worlds around us, that is, our relation to the environment within which we live. This is a unique time to be alive, since for most of our history we could simply take it for granted that the environment just didnt matter that much. Either our impacts on the environment were small enough not to matter, or we could move on to some place else if we did things like cut down all of the trees, caused too much soil erosion with our farming practices, depleted the wildlife or fish wherever we happened to live. But now, for the first time, we are forced to confront planet-scale limits to our activities our impacts are so massive and there is simply nowhere left for us to go if we disrupt the environment of the entire planet. And, as we will be seeing shortly, that is exactly what we seem to be doing as the twenty first century begins. As we have seen in other contexts, all of ethics has to do with figuring out what the limits of our behavior should be. Individual human beings are free to do as we please much of the time so the fundamental question of ethics is thus Under what conditions and for what reasons should we accept voluntary limitations on our freedom? The three most successful ethical theories we examined earlier, Social Contract Theory, Utilitarianism and Kantian Ethics, can clearly be understood in this way. Each of them shows in its own way why it is that free and rational agents should accept rules that limit our freedom. Social Contract Theory argues that we collectively impose limits on our freedom in exchange for the benefits that come from living in an organized and rule-governed society. Utilitarianism 166 15.1. THE STANDARD VIEW 167 starts from the recognition that each of us is capable of being benefited or harmed by anyone elses actions and argues that this offers us a good reason to accept limits on our own pursuit of individual self-interest. What is good for me is not always good for enough other people to allow me to do it. Finally, Kantian Ethics argues that it is our recognition of the fact that every rational adult is capable of making autonomous decisions for him or herself that requires all of us to recognize limits on our treatment of each other. There are inherent limits in the way we should treat other rational agents according to Kant and these limits are often expressed in the language of human rights and duties. According to all of these theories, rational agents impose limits on themselves as a result of having carefully thought through the nature of our social connections with others. They thus stand in contrast to the first three theories we examined Relativism, Divine Command Theory and Natural Law Theory in that these earlier theories all assumed that we were incapable of imposing real limits on ourselves, and that morality thus required some of help from outside, embodied in the authority of culture, God or nature. We also saw why it was precisely this appeal to authority that prevented all of these theories from showing why it was that free and rational agents should accept limits on their behavior. Because we spent so much time examining why it is that appeals to external sources of rules or limits on acceptable behavior failed to really provide any reason for accepting these limits as legitimate, it may seem strange that we will be looking once again at the idea that there may be certain limits to our behavior that come from outside. In this case, however, the limits at issue do not come from an authority figure, a set of cultural practices or some conception of what is really good for human beings. Instead they come from some of the basic laws of the world around us which impose physical and biological constraints on human populations and our use of resources. Ironically it is the fact that we have been so successful at surviving and thriving on earth that has led us to the brink of crossing these limits. Unfortunately, we seem to be outgrowing the planet we depend on for our long term survival. 15.1 The Standard View As questionable as it may sound once stated explicitly, many aspects of our lives are based on an unquestioned and even unnoticed assumption, namely, that nature is essentially unlimited in its capacity to provide resources for human activities. Since environmental ethics challenges this assumption it is a good idea to consider it a bit more carefully. The assumption that there are no limits to human activity is perhaps clearest in the realm of economic activity. We all take for granted that a healthy economy is a growing economy, one in which the amount of goods and services available for sale and purchase is always increasing, leading, of course to better and better lives for all of us. This kind of material progress is something we have gotten used to and have even come to expect. But economic activity requires inputs of matter and energy. For example, consumer products manufactured for purchase are made of raw materials while manufacturing them requires energy, as does transporting them from factories and warehouses to stores. The same applies 168 CHAPTER 15. ETHICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT even to providing services like, for example, investment advice, which requires buildings in which they can be offered for sale, equipment that must be manufactured and transported, etc. Thus the constant expansion of the economy leads to a constant growth in our use of raw materials and energy. Economics standardly assumes that there are no inherent limits to this kind of growth, since it assumes that whenever a particular resource starts to become scarce and thus more expensive, this fact alone leads people to begin to develop alternatives. If we start running out of cod and salmon to purchase at seafood restaurants, their price will rise and a new market will develop for previously unused fish like orange roughy and tilapia. If we start running out of oil as an energy source, rising energy costs will provide us with sufficient incentives to come up with alternative energy sources. Standard economics focuses its efforts on understanding in detail how such market forces work and simply does not ask whether there are some things we might need for which there is no possible replacement. In addition to the sheer expansion of markets and resource usage implied by economic growth, economic activity leads to another kind of expansion, that of the value of things bought and sold in the economic marketplace. This follows from the fact that we add value to raw materials when we convert them into particular products, and thus we seem to get more value out of the process for free. For instance a car can be looked at as just a pile of rocks (metal ores), sand (the raw material used to make glass), and oil derivatives (plastics come from oil). If you were to buy these raw materials, you would pay significantly less than you would pay for a finished car made of them simply because a pile of rocks and sand and a puddle of oil are much less useful than a car. The processes of engineering design and manufacturing add value to the raw materials and thus generate growth in value. Once again, according to the assumptions built in to standard economics, there seems to be no reason why we couldnt continue to grow the economy in this way indefinitely. Human beings are the only animal on the planet that adds such a significant amount of value to the natural items we find by thinking up new, more interesting and thus more valuable uses for them. Is there any reason to suppose that we cannot continue doing this indefinitely into the future? Now we may wonder about the potentially negative impacts of economic activity, impacts such as pollution and resource depletion that seem to accompany many manufacturing processes as well as other human activities like transportation. Dont these indicate some basic limits to growth? Again, according to standard economic approaches the answer would be no. This is because of its basic assumption that if enough of us care about resource depletion or pollution, we will be willing to spend money to fix the problem, and if the problem is pressing enough, then enough of us will offer enough money for a solution that will spur on technological developments to find a solution. In other words, whatever problems growth in the scale and impacts of human economic activity create, further growth can also provide solutions. These, then, are the basic reasons why it is commonly assumed that nature provides no inherent limits to the growth of human activity, that there is always more room on the planet for more of us consuming more stuff and having better lives as a result of our increased consumption. This view is explicitly endorsed by some writers who have come to be known as cornucopians, people like the statistician Bjorn Lomborg and the economist Julian Simon. The name cornucopian comes from the traditional Thanksgiving symbol of the cornucopia or horn of plenty with the fruits and vegetables of an abundant autumn 15.1. THE STANDARD VIEW 169 harvest spilling from its opening. Cornucopians argue that there are no inherent limits to economic growth since a combination of free markets and technological innovation will be capable of solving whatever problems our pursuit of more may find in its path. This view is pretty close to the official position of our political and economic leaders and is an assumption many of us share without even realizing it. It is fair to say that our society is committed to the assumptions that growth is always good, that the resource hungry lifestyle of Western consumers can and should spread to all parts of the globe as a part of continuing story of human progress, social and economic development. To sum up: 1. Humans convert low value resources into high value products that make our lives better we increase the value of natural resources. 2. We will be able to continue relying on free markets and human ingenuity to overcome barriers to continued progress. 3. For all environmental side effects of our continued growth there are technological solutions. Values on the standard view If this standard view of nature is correct, and for a moment we will hold off on reasons to think that it is not, what does this say about the value that natural things and nature as a whole might have? The basic answer is that natural things have no value in and of themselves, according to the standard view, but only have value in terms of human projects, needs and desires. That is, the standard view endorses a position called anthropocentrism (literally human-centeredness) which grants inherent value only to human beings and asserts that all other things can only have the value in terms of human projects, needs and desires. Anthropocentrism has a long history. Perhaps its most famous expression is in the Old Testament book of Genesis, in which after God creates the heavens and the earth, plants animals and then human beings He grants human beings dominion over all of the rest of creation. After God creates the first humans, so the story goes, God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.1 This passage is often taken to imply that nature only has value in human terms, that nature is not valuable in itself, but only to the extent that human activity attaches value to natural things and nature as a whole. As we shall see in a moment, anthropocentrism is arguably behind many environmental issues we are currently facing. It is a major unspoken assumption of modern industrial/consumer society, just as much as it was one of the foundations of more traditional societies in the Judeo-Christian historical lineage. In spite of the widespread acceptance of the assumptions that nature is a limitless source of resources for human activities, and that natural things have no value except in purely human terms, however, there are a number of good reasons to challenge these claims. 1 Genesis 1:28, New International Version 170 15.2 CHAPTER 15. ETHICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT The Limits of Nature Let us reconsider first the assumption that nature is a potentially limitless pool of resources capable of supporting a limitless expansion of human society and consumption. Modern environmentalism, which first became a popular movement in the 1970s arose as a challenge to this assumption on a number of fronts. One particularly powerful expression of this challenge was issued in 1972 by a group of scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who published a book called The Limits to Growth. In this book they argued that as a result of the growth of an industrial society based on the extensive use of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas, humanity would soon be reaching some fundamental limits to its further expansion. The basis of their argument was a complex computer model simulating the interaction of numerous factors human population growth, increases in consumption of natural resources and generation of wastes by increasingly affluent populations, increased food production as a result of the application of fossil fuel driven technology to agriculture, availability of basic resources like fresh water, food, oil, coal, metal ores, wood, etc. By running this model with different assumptions about the future, ranging from the optimistic we will never run out of oil and can keep expanding our numbers indefinitely to the pessimistic we face immanent depletion of vital natural resources, they found that in all cases sooner or later human populations would run up against some barrier or other that would prevent further expansion. Eventually we would hit some limits that prevented our further expansion. Depending on the particular starting assumptions these limits might appear as limits to the amount of pollution that could be absorbed by the environment, limits to the amount of energy resources available, limits to the amount of food we could produce, limits to the amount of fresh water available for human use, and so on. Interestingly enough, their simulations tended to show that whatever those barriers were, they would begin to appear at some point early in the 21st century. Now, these authors were not claiming to be able to predict the future, since their model was far too simple to take into account all of the numerous factors affecting the ability of humans to survive and thrive on the planet earth. But, as they point out in updated editions of their book, published in 1982 and in 2002, there is plenty of accumulating evidence that in fact we are currently running up against fundamental limits to the continued expansion of human society and resource usage. For my purposes here it will be enough to focus on three different areas in which the limits of nature are becoming more apparent to a wide range of scientists and non-scientists alike: climate change, oil depletion and loss of biodiversity. Each of these presents a challenge that we ignore at our peril. All three simultaneously will make life in the twenty first century very interesting indeed. And, from a purely philosophical perspective, all of these issues present fundamental challenges to the assumption that we need not worry about limits imposed on us from outside, by the natural world in which we live. Climate Change The fact that the climate of the earth is fairly well-suited to human habitation is something most of us take for granted. Even though climactic conditions vary quite a bit from place to place from the polar regions that are frozen much of the year, to temperate 15.2. THE LIMITS OF NATURE 171 climates, to tropical deserts and rain forests there are enough places on the planet in which the temperature is fairly well suited to comfortable human habitation, and in which there is ample rainfall or other sources of water for large scale agriculture. This has not however, always been the case on the planet earth. At times the overall climate on the planet has been cooler much of the mid-latitude areas of Europe and North America were covered with vast ice sheets as recently as 15,000 years ago for instance. At other times global average temperatures have been warmer than at present. In addition, the current composition of the atmosphere approximately 79% nitrogen and 20% oxygen with traces of other gases such as carbon dioxide making up the remainder is not a permanent feature of the planet earth but is a product of long time-scale geological and biological processes. However, on a human time scale the climate and atmosphere have been relatively stable. This relative stability of the earths climate within the time frame of human history is a result of complex geo-chemical processes in which the overall composition of the atmosphere has remained more or less constant, even though many elements and compounds are constantly moving between the large scale repositories of the earths crust, the biosphere, the oceans and the atmosphere. These so called bio-geochemical cycles are important for all living systems. Although there are many important cycles of different chemical elements and compounds, such as water, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus and carbon, the carbon cycle is particularly important for understanding the potential variability of the earths climate. The vast majority of the very abundant element carbon is in fact stored in carbonate minerals within the earths crust, but a relatively small amount of carbon cycles through the atmosphere. It is absorbed by plants from the atmosphere and incorporated by plants into sugars, starches and cellulose, and then taken up into animals who eat the plants for the energy stored up in the carbon based molecules that plants contain. In the process of extracting this energy, carbon is then combined with oxygen and released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide gas. Some of this gas is reabsorbed by plants, and some dissolves in the oceans where it is captured and used by shelled aquatic organisms to construct their shells. Eventually these die and their carbonate shells settle to the sea floor where they are incorporated back into carbonate rocks, which in turn are mixed into the earths slowly moving crust, occasionally finding their way to the surface where they are exposed to weathering and may thus return to the atmosphere. This is somewhat of an oversimplification of a very complex process, but it is a good enough picture for grasping the basic mechanism of climate change. To understand this mechanism, one more piece needs to be added to the puzzle. In addition to its role in the biological world, carbon dioxide is one of many so-called greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases are so named because they act just like the glass in a greenhouse does they allow visible light to enter the atmosphere (or greenhouse) which warms objects on the surface of the earth (or within the greenhouse); these in turn radiate some of their heat back outwards as infrared radiation, which is, however, reflected back by greenhouse gases (or glass) thus raising the temperature inside the atmosphere (or greenhouse). Greenhouse gases (and glass) do this since their molecular structures allow only certain wavelengths through, blocking and reflecting others. Because of this property of gases like carbon dioxide, the climate of the earth is highly sensitive to variations in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is not a new discovery in fact the greenhouse effect was discovered way back in 1824 172 CHAPTER 15. ETHICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT by the French mathematician and scientist Joseph Fourier. But in the 1970s climatologists began to get increasingly worried about the scale of climactic changes possibly resulting from drastic increases in the amount of carbon dioxide humans were releasing into the atmosphere through our burning of enormous amounts of fossil fuels. Worldwide at present our burning of fossil fuels pumps approximately 3 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year in the form of carbon dioxide gas. In addition deforestation has caused an additional increase of approximately 1 billion tons per year of carbon dioxide that is no longer absorbed by those forests which have been cut down for crop and pasture land or for the spread of urban and suburban development. Altogether in the last century and a half the concentration of carbon dioxide in the earths atmosphere has increased by more than 30%, and the rate of emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases has been accelerating as more and more of the world embraces industrial development and a consumer oriented lifestyle heavily reliant on the worldwide transportation of goods, personal mobility and increased energy usage. The effects of this increase of greenhouse gases are becoming increasingly clear to the worlds climate scientists and policy makers, in spite of the resistance of some vocal skeptics to this picture. Although the exact nature of changes to a system as complex as the global climate are hard to predict with any accuracy, we can still get a general sense of what we can expect the future to be like. We can expect such things as rising sea levels as more of the water currently locked up in ice caps and glaciers melts; increasingly violent storms as more solar energy is captured by the hurricane and typhoon generating central ocean belts; shifting patterns of rainfall that will move around the worlds deserts and agriculturally productive regions; increased levels of species extinctions as species not capable of moving to new locations rapidly find themselves living in a changing environment. That all of this, or even just some of this, will have an enormous impact on human societies almost goes without saying. Consider only rising sea levels and the effects that this will have on the worlds current population centers, many of which are at or near sea level in the U.S. alone New York, Boston, Baltimore, Miami, Houston, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle as well as many smaller cities are at or near sea level and so will have to deal with more flooding and a loss of available land area on which to build and house people. Worldwide an estimated 650 million people (10% of the population of the planet) live at or near sea level. Clearly we are at or crossing some important limits with our continued burning of fossil fuels. Somewhat paradoxically, this burning of fossil fuels is also entering into an age of limits, which brings us to the next of the three major challenges mentioned above. Oil Depletion All of us who are currently alive have lived our entire lives in a time of cheap and abundant energy, a situation which is unique in human history. This is something we have come to take for granted the fact that modern industrial and consumer society is built on the exploitation of fossil fuels oil, coal and natural gas. It is easy to forget that as recently as 150 years ago, there were no and had never been any cars, airplanes, trucks, buses, trains, oil tankers, plastics, synthetic fabrics, artificial fertilizers, or pesticides, let alone all of the modern electricity generating, manufacturing, transportation and communications 15.2. THE LIMITS OF NATURE 173 infrastructure that enables us to live in the most complex society that has ever existed. Without oil (and to a lesser extent coal and natural gas) none of this would be possible. Consider, for example, what is in the background of a simple everyday activity grilling a hamburger on a backyard grill. In order for this to take place first corn and soybeans were grown in a large field fertilized with artificial fertilizer (made from natural gas), sprayed with pesticides and herbicides (derived from oil), both applied with tractors running on diesel fuel, which also fuels the numerous plowing, planting harvesting and processing machines used by the grain farmer. These grains were then transported to a feed mill (by truck or diesel powered train) processed into feed which is transported (by truck or train) to a feed lot where it was fed to cows (brought there by truck) until the cows were again transported by truck, slaughtered and butchered, wrapped in plastic packaging (made from oil) and shipped by truck to a refrigerated case (manufactured of metal and plastic, kept cool with a refrigerant derived from oil) in the supermarket. To get to the supermarket the consumer probably drove in a car that runs on gasoline, and then bought the hamburger meat and rolls (also produced with many fossil fuel inputs) with the currency (the US Dollar) that keeps its value in part owing to the fact that it is the standard currency for buying and selling oil around the world. After he or she drove home and unwrapped the hamburger, he or she slapped it on the grill (fueled by propane, an oil derivative), cooked it to perfection, ate it and then threw the waste out in the trash where it now awaits pickup by the garbage truck. All told for every one calorie of food energy you eat, approximately 10 calories of fossil fuel energy had to be consumed in its production and transportation, not including the energy used in cooking. We could say without really exaggerating things that the modern industrial food system is a method for using crop land to convert fossil fuels into food. The same applies to most things we take for granted as part of life in a modern industrial consumer economy oil and other fossil fuels are used to power the entire world economy as well as supply it with numerous raw materials used to feed, clothe, transport, house and employ and entertain much of the worlds population. We truly live in the age of fossil fuels. Unfortunately fossil fuels will not be available forever they are a non-renewable resource, the result of a unique combination of geological events some hundreds of millions of years ago which folded an enormous mass of decaying plant matter into geological formations where it was subject to heat and pressure resulting in oil, coal and natural gas deposits fairly close to the surface of the earth. Fossil fuels are in effect millions of years worth of solar energy that was captured by plants and has been stored underground for a very long time. Because of this we will eventually run out of oil, coal and natural gas. Well that much is probably obvious. On the other hand, it might seem that this is not a problem that we currently have to face since, according to the most widely accepted estimates, we have in the last 150 years used up at most half of the oil, and slightly less than half of the coal and natural gas that can be extracted (not all fossil fuels in the ground can be extracted since some is so far down and of such poor quality that it is simply not economically worth it to try to get it out it would cost more money to get it out of the ground than it could be sold for). However, it is important to recognize that oil in the ground is not really like gasoline in the tank of your car. When you run out of gas it is a sudden event one second you are driving happily along and the next moment your car sputters to a stop as you realize that you forgot to get the gas gauge fixed. Oil and other resources that are available in limited 174 CHAPTER 15. ETHICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT supplies are extracted according to a pattern that has come to be known as the Hubbert Curve after the petroleum geologist who first described and studied the rates of production and depletion of oil wells, oil fields and oil producing regions M. King Hubbert. The basic pattern of oil extraction goes like so: When an oil discovery is made it takes a little while for production to begin and then it starts flowing slowly at first simply because it takes time to drill wells and get the oil to market. As more wells are drilled and as long as the demand for oil continues to grow, more oil is extracted from individual wells and the oil field as a whole. Eventually production peaks as the maximum flow rate of oil is attained, a rate determined by the complex geology of oil deposits as well as physical characteristics of crude oil. After the peak in production (when roughly half of the extractable oil has been pumped out of the well and/or oil field), production declines since the remaining oil is typically harder to get out than the easily flowing oil extracted initially. Finally, the rate of extraction tapers off to nothing and the oil wells are shut down. Hubbert realized that not only individual wells and oil fields follow this bell-shaped curve in their rates of production, but so did oil producing regions and countries as well as the world as a whole. As a result of his examination of the available data on worldwide oil regions in 1958 he estimated that the United States, which was then the country that produced more oil than any other country in the world, would reach its peak of production (peak oil) in approximately 1970 and that world oil production would peak in the first decade of the twenty first century. In fact the production of oil in the U.S. peaked in 1970 and except for a temporary upsurge in production in the 1980s when oil from Alaskas remote North Slope oil fields came on line, has been in decline ever since in spite of ever more intensive exploration and major improvements in exploration, drilling and extraction technology. Ever since then the U.S. has become increasingly dependant on importing oil from other countries. As for the peak in world oil production, it is unclear when it will happen, if it hasnt already happened. Many oil industry analysts say that it will happen sometime within the next decade although a growing chorus agrees that the world peak in oil production was reached in July of 2008. So far all of this may seem like an issue that is of interest only to oil industry executives and petroleum geologists. That this is not the case and that the peaking of oil production worldwide is an event with historic implications is a point that I cannot fully defend here for lack of space. It will have to suffice here to simply point out that until this point the amount of oil produced and consumed by a growing worldwide industrial consumer economy has been steadily rising. Economic growth has always required growth in the amount of energy used and this has been possible owing to growth in the amount of oil produced each year. But now we are entering into an age in which the expansion of energy supply is not something that can be taken for granted. In fact, if the so-called peak oil theorists are correct, we are now facing a decline the amount of available energy for the first time since the beginning of the industrial revolution 150 years ago. The practical implications of this are huge, if still difficult to pin down with any degree of confidence. To get a sense of this, simply imagine the 15.2. THE LIMITS OF NATURE 175 implications if the price of oil were to increase to say 10 times its current price and this price affected the prices of all of the things in our lives that depend on oil such as transportation, food production, manufacturing, etc. Would we be able to afford to live as we currently live if things in general were to suddenly jump in price owing to decreasing supply of the one resource which, above all others, we have come to rely upon? Loss of Biodiversity The third of the limits to the expansion of human activities, population, levels of consumption and so on is the simplest to grasp but probably the one that has attracted the least amount of public concern. This is namely the loss of biodiversity, or put more simply the currently unfolding mass extinction of species. Scientists estimate that there are currently from 10,000,000 to 30,000,000 different species of living organisms on the planet earth. None of these species will be around forever, all will eventually go extinct. To get a sense of the problem we now face, however, we can compare the normal or background rate of extinction to the rates we are currently experiencing. In the normal course of events, due to factors like changes in the particular environment in which a species lives, unpredictable events that cause major disruptions such as earthquakes, tidal waves, fires and landslides, approximately one species goes extinct every year. It fails to adapt to changes or to competition from other species for the the resources on which its survival depends and thus vanishes from the face of the earth. At present however, and for a number of different reasons I will spell out in a minute, this normal background rate has accelerated to the point that one species is now going extinct about every 30 minutes. This rate of extinction is about 10,000 times the normal background rate. If it continues, and there is every reason to think that it will continue, within the next 100 years approximately one half of all species of living organisms will have vanished from the face of the earth. Behind this enormous increase in species extinction are a number of interrelated factors, all of which, in a sense reduce to one simple fact that there is not enough room on a finite planet for ever increasing numbers of any species, especially one as resource hungry as we are. And yet us humans have managed to increase our numbers and our impacts to the extent that we are now crowding others out of existence. The particular factors that are leading to what can only be called a mass extinction (of which there have been 5 in the history of the planet earth, the most famous of which was the event that caused a massive climate shift thus wiping out the dinosaurs some tens of millions of year ago) are: 1. loss of habitat to human agriculture, logging, and urban and suburban development; 2. habitat fragmentation into smaller and smaller regions (this is particularly hard on species that depend on continuous ranges of similar habitat, such as grizzly bears or wolves in North America); 3. overexploitation through over-hunting or over-fishing; 4. climate change as the global climate changes many less mobile species simply cannot respond quickly enough to changing local conditions; 5. pollution. The first of these causes of species extinction is by far the most damaging. As human populations both grow and attain higher levels of affluence our environmental impacts get 176 CHAPTER 15. ETHICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT larger and larger. That is, adverse environmental impacts are not simply a matter of the number of people there are (the problem of so-called overpopulation), since the share of the earths resources used by a single person living in the suburbs of Los Angeles uses can be as much as 20 times the amount used by the average person living in a developing country like India. Environmentalists remind us that our impact depends not only on population, but also on our lifestyles and the level of technology we use. In the famous formula: I =P LT In other words, it matters (our environmental impact I is based upon) not just how many of us there are (our population P ), but whether or not we live in a 6,000 square foot house, eat steak three nights a week and drive everywhere (our lifestyle L) in a gas guzzling car or a hybrid (the technology we use T ). 15.3 Varieties of Environmental Ethics Given this very brief account of the ways in which we are currently facing real environmental limits to the further expansion of human activities it is time to take stock of how all of this affects ethics. There are three basic varieties of environmental ethics that I would like to present here, which I will call light green, medium green, and dark green ethics. The darkness of the shade of green that colors our ethics will depend on the degree to which we reject anthropocentrism. Light green ethics is thoroughly anthropocentric in that it considers environmental problems and the question of the limits of human activities as essentially threats to our well being. Medium green ethics expands the scope of ethics by including other organisms as having intrinsic value especially as those organisms exhibit similarities to us humans. And finally dark green ethics expands the notion of intrinsic value to include not just individual organisms but associations of interdependent organisms that make up natural communities and ecosystems. In the next few sections I will present and comment on these approaches. Light Green Ethics This variety of environmental ethics is easiest to understand and presents the least challenge to our standard way of looking at the value of the natural world. It basically argues that there are pressing human interests at stake in environmental problems. Our welfare depends on the stability of the climate, on the existence of biodiversity and the availability of energy resources. If we are indeed facing immanent climate change, the beginnings of a mass extinction of other species and a peaking of oil supplies, and if these will have the wideranging impacts I have suggested, then there are pretty good human reasons for figuring out how to contain human activity within appropriate limits. Light green ethics thus asks us to consider the impacts of our activities on the world around us for the simple reason that our lives depend on the proper functioning of environmental systems. Now that we are capable of altering the global climate, crowding out other species and depleting resources on which our current way of life depends it is up to us to proceed wisely. 15.3. VARIETIES OF ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS 177 To see how this approach to environmental ethics plays out in more detail consider the problem of the loss of biodiversity. What are some anthropocentric reasons why we should care about the loss of a large percentage of other species, many of which most people have never even heard of? Well, first of all, many of these species are potentially useful to us as sources of food and medicine. All of our food plants and animals are descendents of some wild species or other that was been selectively bred for our purposes starting at the dawn of agriculture some 10,000 years ago. Many wild plants and animals provide new breeding stock for agriculture. Likewise with medicines. Many medicines are made from derivatives of wild plants, and newly discovered plants provide researchers with many potential new medicines. So protecting biodiversity is protecting possible future sources of food and medicines. Secondly, protecting biodiversity involves protecting the integrity of ecosystems, many of which provide essential services to us. For example, wetlands, which are home to much biodiversity, help protect low lying land from erosion, they filter water flowing into them from streams, provide spawning grounds for commercially important fish and shellfish species and so on. These services which are essentially provided for free to us would be very expensive if we had to construct artificial systems to carry them out. Finally, preserving biodiversity is important to us simply because the diversity found in nature is a diversity of solutions to the problems that living organisms face. There is an enormous amount of potentially useful information contained in the genomes of a diverse population of organisms, all of which will be lost when species go extinct. For all of these reasons, it is important for us to preserve species. Medium Green Ethics All of this is well and good, but it may be already apparent that appealing to human interests in preserving nature sounds good in theory but runs into some real problems in practice. After all, isnt it our narrow pursuit of self-interest that has led us to the problems we now face in the first place? Of course we may have some good reasons to protect nature, but those tend to be less obvious, and have payoffs further in the future than the reasons we still have to exploit nature now. If I am a property owner who needs to pay my bills by logging, it doesnt matter to me that I may be able to find uses for the biodiversity on my land in the future if I refrain from cutting the trees. So the first problem with light green ethics is that its appeal to anthropocentric reasons for preserving the environment may just not be effective since there are plenty of other anthropocentric reasons not to preserve the environment. Unless we can show that there are reasons above and beyond human reasons for caring about things like climate change and loss of biodiversity, we will be stuck in our present dilemma where everybody knows that we should act to change our behavior, and yet few people actually do. So are there any reasons for thinking that natural things can have value above and beyond the value we confer on them? According to philosophers who back a view known as biocentrism the answer is yes. To see why consider for a moment that all organisms are capable of living well or living poorly, that is, each has what the philosopher Paul Taylor calls a good of its own. For instance, an oyster lives on the sea floor and survives by filtering nutrients out of the water in its immediate environment. It requires that the water it lives in 178 CHAPTER 15. ETHICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT is within a certain temperature range, has a certain amount of dissolved oxygen in it, contains a sufficient number of microorganisms on which it feeds and circulates enough to dispose of its wastes. Lacking some or all of these conditions is bad for the oyster. This according to Taylor is the natural origin of all value. Having value does not require explicitly recognizing that things are valuable, but only having a certain set of conditions that make it possible to flourish, to do well in solving whatever problems life presents. This may sound similar to Aristotles conception of the good of an organism, which we discussed in the chapter on Natural Law Theory. It is, but with the added twist that we now have a more solid basis than Aristotle had for talking in objective terms about what is truly good for a particular organism. The application of this idea to human beings is also, unlike it was for Natural Law Theory, besides the point. The point here is only to see whether we can talk about value in nature in a way that does not reduce all value to the value conferred upon natural things by human beings in terms of our own interests. Clearly if it makes sense to talk about organisms having a good of their own and hence having things that are valuable to them, anthropocentrism seems like it must be missing something important about the value of natural things. Sure, from a human perspective the value of a clean environment for an oyster is not really so important in any direct way, but it certainly is for an oyster. To argue that something is not really important, because it is not important for humans alone thus appears to beg the question since it merely assumes that the human perspective is the only one which counts. However, the defender of anthropocentrism does not give up so easily. Of course, she might respond, oysters have certain requirements for having good lives as oysters, but human interests are certainly more important than the interests of lowly oysters, are they not? The answer to this question is not as obvious as it may seem. There are two reasons that might be given in support of the claims of the greater value of humans either we have more merit than other species or we are inherently more valuable than other species. Let us look at these claims more carefully. The argument from merit A first glance it seems like a case can be made for the greater merit of human beings. If we have such greater merit, than anthropocentrism would be defensible on principles of justice using human benefit as a criterion for determining whether or not something is good would be a matter of focusing our attentions on those creatures who are more worthy of getting benefits. But do human beings have more merit than other organisms? The answer is, It depends on what the measure of merit is. Saying that something is better, in terms of merit, than something else requires that we also ask, Better at what? Certainly humans are better at solving calculus problems than giant squid are, we are better at doing crossword puzzles than cheetah. But giant squid are much better at devouring sperm whales than the average human being is and cheetah are better at running. These examples might seem silly, but the point is not. We simply cannot defend the claim that humans have more merit than other animals on some sort of neutral scale of comparison. All existing organisms are survivors and so are bound to be good at some specialized activity or other, so all are equally 15.3. VARIETIES OF ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS 179 meritorious in their own ways. So much for the first attempt to show why humans would be better than other organisms. The argument from inherent worth Thus if humans are going to be considered somehow better or more deserving than other organisms in a way that is relevant to moral concern, in a way that warrants our interests being satisfied first, it is not going to be because we have more merit than other organisms. It will have to be because we have more inherent worth. If it is true that humans are fundamentally, deep down, just more valuable than other living organisms, then clearly anthropocentrism could be saved. However, when it comes to actually defending this idea with an argument we are suddenly at a loss. Exactly what would be capable of showing that humans just are more worthy than other organisms? We can just dig our heels in and insist that humans have more value than other organisms, but this would not be an argument, it would be committing the fallacy of mere assertion. Lacking any reasons to back up the assertion that humans just are more valuable than other organisms we are left in an awkward position. We certainly have grown accustomed to putting ourselves first, but is this really any different from members of a ruling elite in some non-democratic society simply insisting that everyone serve their needs first because they are just plain better people? Racists, sexists, and ethnocentrists of all kinds have made this kind of claim, but in the end it collapses because it has no ultimate basis and is nothing but the groundless arbitrary claim that one group is better than another. The democratic political revolution of 17th century Europe was based on the recognition that humans are all equally worthy of consideration. Perhaps the time is ripe for recognizing that the same applies to all organisms. Biocentrism The fact that it seems impossible to adequately defend the claim that humans are better than other animals in any morally relevant sense leads us to a view known as biocentrism which attaches value to all living organisms. From a neutral perspective, which does not assume that human beings are in a privileged position, all life is worth valuing. This perspective does not really give us much of a practical basis for making real ethical decisions. It does however, provide an incentive for starting to look at the natural world in a different way, not as something to be exploited as and when humans need something, but as something to be treated with respect and admiration. We certainly do have needs that the natural world and its enormous number of species can provide. But this shouldnt blind us to the fact that all organisms have needs of their own and that an attitude of reverence and respect for their needs might be worth trying out, especially in the light of the fact that our putting ourselves first has led us to some pretty serious problems. Dark Green Ethics Biocentrism does have its own limitations, even if it appears to be more defensible than anthropocentrism. The main problem with this theory is that it attaches value to indi- 180 CHAPTER 15. ETHICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT vidual organisms and pays insufficient attention to the interconnections between organisms each of which depend on other organisms for their own survival. Organisms are not capable of surviving purely on their own. They eat other organisms, rely on other organisms for neutralizing their wastes, providing ecosystem services, and so on. Biology, as has become increasingly obvious as the science has developed, is not a science of individual organisms, but of the functional interdependence of organisms on each other and in natural environments. The biological world is thus best approached as a system, which is precisely the approach followed by the science of ecology. As far as ethics is concerned, this leads us to the darkest green approach which is sometimes called ecocentrism, and can be summed up in a famous quote from Aldo Leopold, A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. The biotic community is the network of interdependent organisms that make up a given ecosystem and that we ignore at our peril. I will end this all too brief account of ecocentric ethics by simply appealing to another of Leopolds ideas, that perhaps it is time for us to start considering ourselves not as lords and masters of the natural world around us, but as plain citizens, of the natural communities on which which depend. Appendix 1: Using Hypothes.is 1. What is it? Its an online annotation tool. It lets you take notes in the margins of any web page, highlight text, and make page notes, which are comments on the whole of a web page. You also view and respond to other peoples comments and notes in some cases. These notes are yours to keep or delete and nobody can read them unless you allow it. They can be made public so that any other user of Hypothes.is can see them and respond to them. They can be private so only you can see them. They can be shared with a group so that only members of that group can see or respond to them. They can (and should) be organized by key words (tags) so that you can keep track of all of your notes and the pages you have taken notes on for your research, or for personal use. You can use it for your other classes too. All of your notes will be available for you to see organized by tags, pages and groups on the Hypothes.is website. 2. Sounds awesome, but whats the catch? There is none. Hypothes.is is run by a non-profit on a mission to encourage note taking and discussion on the web. They are most likely people who read books and write stuff in the margins. You know the type. You dont want to buy used books from them. This is not a tool for collecting data about you and selling it to advertisers they respect privacy and you can read the Hypothes.is privacy policy here2 . It is a free service. This 2 https://web.hypothes.is/privacy/ 181 182 CHAPTER 15. ETHICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT system is supported by grants and by institutions that sign up for paid versions for their own uses. It is free for use by educators and students. You will need to register, but all you will need to do this is provide an email address so they can verify that you are not a spambot. Please read the privacy policy3 , terms of service4 and community guidelines5 for more information if you like. 3. How to use it. There is a Chrome extension for those of you using the Chrome browser. If you install this extension youll open it by clicking on a symbol on the top bar of your browser. There is a special kind of bookmark called a bookmarklet that you can save for use in your browser. That creates a link that you can just click anytime you want to take notes on a page you are reading. If you dont use Chrome this will be what you want. It works on Firefox which is a more private and secure browser than Chrome if you are interested in privacy. Special note for using on a phone: All you have to do is copy the web address of the page you want to annotate and then go to this page6 and paste it in the box. That runs the page through the Hypothes.is server and lets you add your own notes. 4. Getting started Go to the Hypothes.is Start Here page7 and follow the instructions. Youll have to register and either get the Chrome extension or save the bookmarklet. Its simple. Please pick a username that makes it easy for me to figure out who you are for grading purposes. JohnDoe or JDoe is good, jr435d is not so good. If you dont like putting your real name on the web, thats OK, but for this its safe since as long as you are only posting to the special group created for this course, since nobody will see it but other members of the group. Next you should join the private group listed on the course web page. Once you do that you are ready to start commenting on any webpage you like. 3 https://web.hypothes.is/privacy/ https://web.hypothes.is/terms-of-service/ 5 https://web.hypothes.is/community-guidelines/ 7 https://web.hypothes.is/start/ 4 References Bay of Pigs - Groupthink. Accessed December 2, 2019. https://www.globalsecurity.org/ intell/ops/bay-of-pigs-groupthink.htm. Benedict, Ruth. Patterns of Culture. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1935. Bentham, Jeremy. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970. Carroll, Lewis. Through the Looking Glass. Dover Thrift Editions. Dover, 1999. Davis, Lauren Cassani. Would You Pull the Trolley Switch? Does It Matter? The Atlantic, 2015. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/10/trolley-problemhistory-psychology-morality-driverless-cars/409732/. Ernest van Den Haag/Legal Scholar. Accessed January 26, 2020. https://www.pbs.org/ wgbh/pages/frontline/angel/procon/haagarticle.html. Flows, Capital. Former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski Was One of the Great All-Time Value Creators. Forbes. Accessed December 21, 2019. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ realspin/2013/12/09/former-tyco-ceo-dennis-kozlowski-was-one-of-the-great-all-time-valuecreators/. Gauthier, David. Morals by Agreement. Oxford University Press, 1986. Gelman, Susan. Essentialism in Everyday Thought. American Psychological Association. Accessed December 13, 2019. https://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2005/05/gelman. Gilovich, Thomas. How We Know What Isnt So. New York: The Free Press, 1991. Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. Lent, Jeremy. The Patterning Instinct. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2017. Plato. Phaedo. Project Gutenberg. Accessed January 12, 2020. https://www.gutenberg. org/files/1658/1658-h/1658-h.htm#link2H_4_0002. Preston, Aaron. Moore, George Edward. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Accessed December 13, 2019. https://www.iep.utm.edu/moore/. 183 184 CHAPTER 15. ETHICS AND THE ENVIRONMENT The Argumentative Theory | Edge.Org. Accessed December 11, 2019. https://www.edge. org/conversation/hugo_mercier-the-argumentative-theory. Unger, Peter. Living High and Letting Die. Oxford University Press, 1996.  ...