One of the courses that I’m taking this semester is Ethics. More specifically, “CS 440: Computers, Ethics & Society.” It looks like it’s going to be insanely boring and filled to the brim with would-be philosophers who think everything is as cut and dried as assembly language programming. The first round of debate topics were solicited by Dr. Brown on our class discussion board. The VAST majority of them sucked. Mine didn’t, of course, but the class isn’t quite quick enough to latch on to the finer points of airline screening, profiling, and domestic/foreign policy. In other words, it just didn’t have enough transistors to turn them on. My group got stuck with a decent debate topic, but the SHITTY side of it. Observe:
Topic:
Do software companies have a moral responsibility to conform to political correctness when designing software. Such as games being too violent, lewd content on websites, etc?
My groups job is to say that yes, they do have that responsibility. I’m in the process of trying to find a decent strategy to convince a room full of gamers and nerds that censorship is the way to go. This is NOT going to be easy.
Do any of you actually believe this? If so, why? This is going to be a reach.
The Devil Went Down to Georgia
I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
OK, here’s what you do. You’ve got a nearly untenable position, but the trick is defining the terms of the question on your ground. The mistake the no team is going to make is to say that political correctness = total censorship. All you have to do is to take a middle ground in which the system we have now is really politically correct. I.E. the ratings system etcetera. The room full of gamers wants to be able to play whatever, whenever, but they don’t want their moms to be subjected to it or their little siblings and cousins. People can agree with the system we have now and if that is your definition of political correctness then your gonna have a hard time losing.
I would really like to see that argument. Peter Holiday having to argue for something he doesn’t agree to. Its like the saints bypassing the playoffs and being dropped directly into the superbowl. hmmmm
I sat here for a few minutes contemplating that comparison and came up with nothing. Is this some kind of Saints inside joke or am I just being obtuse?