Study guide for Test 2
CSC 301 Computers and Society
April 19, 2019
Dr. Marek A. Suchenek
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for in-class use only. No other use or uses is/are allowed.
Study carefully the following:
all the slides for Chapter 1, and
these sections of the Lecture Notes:
from here to (but not including) here, and
from here to (but not including) here, and
from here to (but not including) here, and
from here to (but not including) here, and
from here to (but not including) here, and
from here to (but not including) here, and
from here to (but not including) here, and
from here to (but not including) here,
NEW: make sure to watch this video (a trailer), and
from here to (but not including) here, and
from here to (but not including) here.
Below is a list of questions that you should be able to answer if you studied the above-mentioned material well enough. Please, do not assume that these questions will be on the Test 2 or that they cover all topics on the Test 2;
their only purpose is to help you self-assess your knowledge of the
subject. In my opinion, the actual questions on the Test 2 will be
easier, or at least not more difficult, than the questions below.
What is the difference between philosophy and ideology?
What is the difference between economic means and political means?
What is utilitarianism? What is rule utilitarianism? What is act utilitarianism?
What are the known problems with utilitarianism?
Why is utilitarianism unsustainable?
What is adaptive behavior? What is maladaptive behavior?
What are negative rights? What are positive rights?
How does utilitarianism transform negative rights onto positive rights?
Does democracy, understood as simple majority rule, guarantee individual rights?
What are natural rights?
Why did Locke see protection of private property as a
moral rule?
Respect for the rights to life, liberty, and property implies ethical rules against certain actions. What are those actions?
What are individual rights?
What are collective rights?
What is collectivism?
How the
ideology of collectivism uses the advances of cutting-edge information
technology in order to threaten individual freedom?
What is postmodernism? How is postmodernism related to modern science?
What is socialism?
What is the Marx’s doctrine? What is the likely result of implementation of it in a free society?
How does Marx's doctrine discourage individual responsibility, initiative, and hard work?
Why is capitalism economically superior over socialism?
What
are the likely effects of attempts to submit our free-market economy to
central planning or governmental regulation and control?
What is the long-term effect of progressive taxation of income by a state?
What is the long-term effect of an increase of minimum wage by a state?
What are (arguably) the most critical negative aspects of computer-based information technology covered in “Computers and Society”?
What is
the new pattern of exploitation of highly productive (and highly paid)
knowledge workers? How (some of) the rich benefit from it?
What is the impact of Google-Facebook-Apple "monopoly" on the Internet, free-market, and political process in the U.S.?
What are characteristics of Protestant ethics?
What were, according to Max Weber, the necessary condition for modern Western capitalism to emerge?
Why did not capitalism emerge everywhere but in a small number of Norhtern-European, predominantly Protestant nations?
How is today's computer a product of modern Western capitalism?