I believe that technology has changed our ethical calculus as a society, as we seem to view and understand things differently when we can instantly receive any information we search for on a computer. This makes it so anyone can see a problem or controversy for the first time through their own means, and causes clashing opinions to form about what can and can’t be talked about online, in private, or in public, when the source doesn’t have any biased information exclusion, or opinion or assumption inclusion in its delivery. On the same note, I believe that technology has altered the manner in which we determine whether things are right or wrong, as more information about a topic is available to us through the use of the internet, than what a couple of people can offer us through what they have been hearing without the internet. We don’t need to deal with any misinterpreted or cherry picked facts that someone is willing to tell us about a topic, and we can do our own research through the use of both biased and unbiased sources, depending on what information we need or want.
Technology, social media, and the internet have made such a huge impact on the landscape that is information. Through new data collection and analysis methods, people are able to offer new information to the public that can alter what people think about certain standards, situations, or events. Likewise, anyone can do a search through trending topics or specific topics that they want to know more information about, so they can form thoughts and opinions that they feel are more suitable. For example, I was not born when the video game crash of 1983 happened, but through my love of video games, and especially Nintendo games for their extremely iconic characters and fun gameplay, I found that I do not like Atari for nearly destroying the medium of entertainment I love more than any other, and without the internet, I would not have any opinion on Atari at all, or possibly even a positive view of Atari, as my stepdad’s original home video game console was an Atari system. From this I can do further research into the bad practices that Atari was promoting leading up to and after the video game crash of 1983, and how Nintendo brought video games back into popularity for the North American audiences using the Nintendo Entertainment System. This personal research which is specific to each person couldn’t be done nearly as efficiently without technology and the internet.
Justin Molenda 
Your opening statement, “I believe that technology has changed our ethical calculus as a society, as we seem to view and understand things differently when we can instantly receive any information we search for on a computer.”, deals with not only your personal beliefs about how technology has changed our ethical calculus as a society, but it also says that, “we can instantly receive any information we search for on a computer.” This raise a point on the discussion our class had on the biases of search results from websites like Google. So, because we are now on the topic, I have to ask what you beliefs are on if Google should always tell the truth in all situations, or if Google should be allowed by the community to alter results to which are not necessarily the most true answers? Personally, I think that Google should always post the truth in order to maintain and set the high moral standards that are required to continue a good business. This way the public is happy and they view Google as a reliable source. Overall thought, I think that your paragraph on how we determine what is right from wrong was really well written.
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Personally, I believe that Google should always tell the truth no matter what someone is searching for, but when someone is searching for something which is either harmful to themselves or others, Google should give little messages which suggest that the person shouldn’t be doing what they are doing, and give ways for the user to get help. I feel like naturally due to biases on the internet, the top search results for those topics will contain messages telling people not to do what they are going to do if they are serious about this, or ones which only tell the user why they shouldn’t so what they are going to do and how to get help for it. I am happy you really liked the detail and effort I put into the first paragraph about determining right from wrong, but I was wondering, what did you think about the second paragraph, where I applied a more general focus on impact and a more detailed and personal example?
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In my opinion, this was a really good entry. I found what you wrote well worded and I agree with many of your points. One thing that I and probably many others would agree on is that technology has changed how we determine right from wrong. One thing I kind of disagree on is when you said that we no longer have to deal with misinterpreted facts that someone provides. Occasionally, there are still the cases on some websites where the facts presented aren’t one hundred percent true. This is in fact the why we do research through different websites that may have differing viewpoints. I really like how you talked about how the internet changed your opinion of Atari from a positive one, to a negative one. This is because I’m also a Nintendo fan. I know that’s beyond the point but I just wanted to throw that out there. In fact, by reading your article just now, technology has changed my viewpoint of Atari as well! You have actually slightly changed my ethical calculus just by sharing some of the sins that they have committed. Good job!.
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When I said that we no longer have to deal with misinterpreted facts that someone provides, I meant that a user could do research on any topic for all sides of an argument from multiple different sources, and combine it however they want to find for themselves what they believe is correct. Obviously, there is still a large bias present in both the information a user finds, and the user who is looking for the information, but now it isn’t just coming through one or two people’s physical filters, and can come from a lot of different online sources. As someone who has a distaste for the bad practices of Atari, I’m glad I could reveal to you how much of an issue they created for Video Games in North America after 1983, and hope this may have inspired you to do a little more research into Atari as a whole, maybe with a little bit of a focus on the poor choices Atari made leading up to and after 1983. I hope this also inspired you to look more into some of the things you’re personally interested in learning more about as well, which could have taken place before you were born.
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