Blog #105 - Hanna

 The subject of genetic engineering / manipulation came up during Hanna, though in an unrealistic sci-fi scenario where the CIA tried making super soldiers through invitro - genetic enhancement.  But while this sounds like sci-fi now, there are a lot of things today that can be done that are NOT science fiction that are pretty close to genetic manipulation. 

 - what happens if you want a boy in your family since your family already three girls?  What could you do to increase the odds?  Picking the sex of your child can be done now w/ invitro fertilization (IVF) once fertilized eggs divided into eight cells, that mass can be tested for sex and then implanted in the mother's womb. 

- what if you really loved your dog or cat and wanted one exactly like it?  Apparently, a company existed for 2 years called Genetics Savings and Clone and was able to clone a couple of cats.  It shut down in 2006 for reasons I can't quite fathom (besides my basic revulsion of the idea, other qualms), but here's an NPR link to a radio interview about the company when it opened in 2004 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4176651

  - Here's a more recent story from 2009 about a Korean company that cloned a Labrador Retriever for $155,000.  http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/AmazingAnimals/story?id=6762235&page=1

 - what if your only child died or had was dying from an accident and making a clone to replace the missing or needed parts was the only way to replace or help that child?   This would be a tough one for me to answer b/c I've never ever been in a situation like this, and I don't know how desperate I might get to save my daughter's life.  If making a clone of my daughter to create stem cells could help her, I would be all for it.  Chances are, scientists wouldn't have to go as far as cloning to help her since our body makes stem cells all of the time. 

 - But, South Korean scientists in 2004 were successful in cloning a human embryo using the same person's cells (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1672523&ps=rs).  The idea was to aid the woman's health, not clone her.  Even so, a recent poll in America states that 84% of Americans feel that cloning humans is morally wrong.

 - Would you be willing to be part of a genetic experiment that not only strengthened your muscles but prevented them from deteriorating with age?  Gene therapy can allow us to repair damaged cells but apparently scientists at the University of Penn have done such a thing with mice in 2004 - called "Mighty Mice."  This kind of therapy could help people with muscular dystrophy or ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease).  But could it also be abused by athletes and others looking for an edge, especially if they aren't injured?  Gene therapy doesn't usually show up on drug tests since it's supposed to be part of your natural body chemistry, so how do you know who's doping and who's not? 

 - if you had the chance (and it were possible), would you pick certain traits for your child before he/she was born?   Would you want a child that is more predisposed to music, athletics, math, or would you try to pick the hair and eye color and let fate take care of the rest?  In 2015, a Chinese scientist successfully edited the gene sequence of two embryos and the children were born.  

 - Is this kind of genetic selection ethical?*  Would it create a separate subspecies of humans like portrayed in the movie Gattaca - those who have been enhanced and those who haven't?  If you haven't been enhanced, you're stuck in a 2nd class citizenry status much like African Americans were before the Civil Rights movement, while those who have been genetically enhanced (those with money, of course) get the best pick of jobs, lives, etc. 

Pick at least three questions (one must include the last one about ethics*) and answer them by class, Monday June 6th.  Thanks.  300 words minimum. 

Sources:

Mighty Mice article - http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/18/magazine/in-pursuit-of-doped-excellence-the-lab-animal.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Blog #104 - In Time

 "For a few immortals to live, many people must die."

We are presented with a future world in the movie, In Time, in which time has become so precious that it has now become currency.  Somehow, our bodies are born (or implanted with a device) that begins ticking when we reach the age of 25 so that those who work get paid in time and have to buy their necessities like food and rent using the currency of time. 

There are also time zones (don't think like what we have -Eastern, Central, etc., but different parts of a larger city), segregated communities that you must pay time to get into.  Just think of gated cities within a much larger city - this is a way to keep the very poor out of (what can only be assumed to be) a middle class or upper class time zone, because the more Will pays as he heads towards the wealthiest part of town, the price continues to go up.  So, in essence, there still is free passage among the city, but only if you can afford it.  But since many can't afford it, the poor are stuck in their slums. 

The movie focuses most of its time on poor characters who are working day-to-day and struggling to survive.  When wages go up, the prices of goods go up, so there's no real way for the poor to get ahead.     And of course, in such a dog-eat-dog world, there are also gangsters who try to steal peoples' time - the Minutemen.  And when the clock runs out on someone, he/she is dead.  Even the timekeepers, the police of this dystopian society, are barely paid decent wages in order to stay alive.  Sadly ironic, the ones that are entrusted with enforcing the system don't get paid enough (sounds familiar).  In addition, the police are interested in the suicide of one wealthy man yet there are tons of murders in the ghetto everyday.  Where does this society's priorities truly lie?  In the preservation of the monopoly of time by one particular class.  



The rich, on the other hand, are trapped in a different kind of gilded prison (think of why Henry gve Will almost all of his time before he died and let his clock expire).  Philipe Weis thinks that this time as currency thing is just the next step in evolution - that it is unfair, he says, but so is evolution.  With decades, even centuries on their clocks, they continue to look the same as they did when they were 25 even though they might be 107.  The one creepy Freudian thing is when Phillipe Weis introduced his mother, wife and daughter (Sylvia) who all looked very similar.  Sylvia and Will hit it off and that's when Sylvia said that all the wealthy needed to do was stay out of trouble and they could live forever.  Play it safe = live forever.  So, unlike Will who lives by the phrase, "Carpe Diem", Sylvia never took chances until she met Will. 

Your job for this blog is to 1. apply at least one philosopher or philosophic concept to any part or parts of this movie that you find apply to this movie.  2. Find a weakness in the movie, whether it be in the plot, concept, etc. and explain why.  

Due Thursday, June 2 by class.  350 words total for your response.  

Blog #103 - Should the Batman kill the Joker?

 Please read the following article: "Why Doesn't the Batman Just Kill the Joker?" by Jesse Richards.  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/quora/why-doesnt-batman-just-ki_b_3686003.html

It brings up a few good points: 
1. The Joker will continue to kill (but does Batman murder him for future crimes - could be dangerous - or past crimes?  Joker has killed Robin, Commissioner Gordon's wife, and crippled Batgirl, Gordon's stepdaugher).
2. Batman's honor code of not killing is just a way for Batman to feel superior to the men and women of crime whom he is fighting.
3. Is Batman responsible for all of the deaths / mayhem / destruction since Batman first apprehended the Joker?  Is that chaos Batman's to own, or should it be the Joker?

Additionally, it seems, on further reflection, that the Joker, especially the way he is portrayed in The Dark Knight, is the ultimate nihilist.  Nihilism is an extreme skepticism that doesn't adhere to any moral or religious principles because they believe that life is meaningless.  In some ways, nihilism condemns existence itself.  

So, questions to answer: 
1. In which of the scenarios of the Trolley Problem do you think best applies to this situation w/ the Batman and Joker (assuming it was the Joker who is the trolley)?
2. Should the Batman kill the Joker?  Why or why not?  And if so, for what crimes - past or to prevent future crimes?
3. Should our superheroes have a no-killing code?  Why or why not?  Does it just lead to more crime?
4. Is the concept of utilitarianism useful for real life decisions?  Why or why not?

5. Is Batman a true Kantian in his refusal to kill the Joker (think Kant's practical postulates)?  

Pick 3 of the questions above to answer.  

300 words total for all 3 answers. Due Saturday, May 28 by midnight.  

Blog #102 - Ideas about Inception

 Here are some thoughts I'd like you to respond to in your answer to this blog:

1. Philosopher Immanuel Kant would likely say that both inception and extraction are immoral, despite your intentions, because because you (as the extractor) are violating the autonomy of the individual.  These actions disrespect humanity because your personal autonomy (or ability to control yourself, your thoughts, and actions) is a mark of your humanity, what makes you different than other animals in this world.  If someone has implanted an idea in your head, how can you be responsible for it or the actions that come from it?  

2. Ariadne acts like Cobb's therapist throughout the movie and helps him with the guilt that is sabotaging his dreams and memories.  In the first dream (Yusuf's, in the scene in the warehouse), Cobb tells her why he feels so guilty - because, after 50 years in Limbo, he had planted the idea in Mal's head that this world (Limbo) wasn't real and that they needed to kill themselves to get back to reality (being awake).  She brought this idea back with her into reality and flipped the idea around - her waking state was Limbo and that she needed to get back to reality (in her mind, Limbo).  My question for you is: is Ariadne practicing her own version of inception w/ Cobb by placing the ideas in his head that he needs to confront Mal's projection and rid himself of the guilt of her suicide (which he eventually succeeds in doing)?  Why or why not?  

3. Catharsis -- a concept first introduced to us by Aristotle (a purging or purification of the self or the transformation as a result of the catharsis), Cobb, Arthur and Eames have all talked about Fischer reaching a state of catharsis with his father so that their inception idea can take hold.  Reconciliation with positive emotion is much stronger, according to Cobb, than with a negative emotion.  So we see that Fischer is reconciled with his father at the end and decides to break up his company when he awakes from the kidnapping scene.  But, does Cobb reach his own catharsis when he finds that he's allowed into the United States and can finally see his children's faces again?  Throughout the movie, that's all he's ever wanted is to get back home to his kids, and the ending scene shows that reunion (with his children a couple of years older - I checked the credits - there are two different pairs of child actors).  But does this catharsis really happen because of the ending scene with the top?  Did the scene turn off before the top fell over?  
 - Cobb also has another scene of catharsis near the end in limbo when he says goodbye to Mal  "you're just a shade of my real wife..." 

4. Movie - Making - Inception, as a film, is all a dream, but it's also an extended metaphor for filmmaker Christopher Nolan.  Like a dream, the movie is a shared dream for the audience and has its own rules and functions along those lines.  Some characters and scenes happen like dreams in which there seems to be no rhyme or reason: Mal comes out of a crowd and stabs Ariadne; the train in the first dream that blasts through downtown where there's no tracks; the elder Fischer's hospital bed in a huge vault inside of a mountain fortress; Cobb squeezing between an amazingly small gap of two buildings.   Mal even makes the case to Cobb at the end that he is in fact still stuck in a dream, with feelings of persecution (the authorities or Cobol's security forces), creeping doubts, and little remembrance of how he got there.   On another thought, the way the dream team works is similar to how a movie is made - they plan the scenes and the movie sets down to the smallest details, always conscious of the audience (the dreamer's projections) and its reaction.  And, the way the movie ends with the cut scene of the top and then kicking into the music (Edith Piaf's haunting melody) as the credits roll is kind of like a dream because sometimes we are ripped out of a dream before its ending and we want to know how it ends.  Yet we can't go back.

 -- all of this is controlled by the master manipulator, the director, Christopher Nolan.  Everything in this movie is done for a reason.  Cobb is the director, Arthur is the producer who does the research, Ariadne the screenwriter when she acts as the architect, Eames is the actor and Yusuf is the technical guy that makes it all happen.  Saito is the money guy (also a producer) who finances the whole operation and Fischer is the audience who is taken for an exciting adventure by the director, Cobb.  Yet we are also the audience too, since this is a movie.  Arthur mentions continuously that they cannot mess with the dream too much, otherwise the dreamer knows something is wrong.  The same can be said for movies - when there's too much fakery or interference from the director, we as the audience snap out of the trance that the movie is weaving for us and see the movie for what it is.  We lose ourselves in well-made movies b/c we're not paying attention to the poor acting or screenwriting or plot holes or ridiculous scenes.  We care about the characters and want to see a satisfying resolution.   And so Cobb, as the director, makes an amazing movie, but also brings part of himself into the movie (Mal) which can influence the audience (she shoots Fischer in the 3rd dream).  Most of the jarring scenes in Inception include Mal.  And it's Mal who questions Cobb and raises doubt as to his true purpose.  

 - And since the movie is like a dream, it has planted the idea of itself in the mind of the movie audience as well - is this a movie or was the whole thing a dream?  This is where the movie becomes almost a meta-movie; it is Christopher Nolan dreaming about Cobb. 

Please discuss your thoughts on 3 of 4 of these topics.  300 words minimum for your total comment.   Due Friday, May 6 by class.