MIT Freedom Fighters
May. 29th, 2004 12:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jrisingIt's good to see MITers do something with their lives. Lori Berenson '91 has long been a role-model, but she never achieved the same notoriety as Aafia Siddiqui '94, one of the current top seven threats to the US.
I've always been pretty pro-terrorist. But my recent read of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? has jostled me further that way.
I have a philosopher friend who firmly believes that, if a train is careening out of control at four deaf, blind frolickers, and if you have the opportunity to switch the track so that the train collides with only two, you should not, because to do so would be to participate in an unethical action.
I cannot agree, and now I know how. As engineers, we wield enormous power, which we can use, or which will loose itself into the systematic frameworks in which we participate. If the latter happens, it will never make people happier. Better to grasp that power and learn to use it well.
"Go and do your task, even though you know it's wrong.... You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity." (Wilber Mercer, Do Androids...?)
I've always been pretty pro-terrorist. But my recent read of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? has jostled me further that way.
I have a philosopher friend who firmly believes that, if a train is careening out of control at four deaf, blind frolickers, and if you have the opportunity to switch the track so that the train collides with only two, you should not, because to do so would be to participate in an unethical action.
I cannot agree, and now I know how. As engineers, we wield enormous power, which we can use, or which will loose itself into the systematic frameworks in which we participate. If the latter happens, it will never make people happier. Better to grasp that power and learn to use it well.
"Go and do your task, even though you know it's wrong.... You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity." (Wilber Mercer, Do Androids...?)
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-29 08:15 am (UTC)She is no doubt one of the most blatantly Islamic people I have ever met (and that's saying something, for someone who spent 2 weeks in Turkey), but I do remember her stressing that Islam is about love. The Christian equivalent is a pacifist, not a crusader, so I'd guess that she'd have the equivalent orientation.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-29 07:49 pm (UTC)I wonder if she's changed, that the FBI wants to call her "armed and dangerous".