[31] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Living Wage blah
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christopher D. Beland)
Thu Apr 19 12:40:54 2001
Message-Id: <200104191638.MAA30656@Press-Your-Luck.mit.edu>
To: "Jimmy_B,MajMoola,MechWarrior,etc._Chien-ta Wu" <jimmbswu@MIT.EDU>
cc: mit-talk@MIT.EDU
In-reply-to: The events that comprise the history of the universe.
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2001 12:38:04 -0400
From: "Christopher D. Beland" <beland@MIT.EDU>
Resent-From: jhawk@MIT.EDU
Resent-To: mit-talk-mtg@charon.MIT.EDU
> It would be nice if MIT students are truly highly respected and that
> our word s can make a difference in people's opinions. But consider
> the case of, say, Global Warming. Many MIT professors have come out
> for the Kyoto Treaty and other Global Warming causes. Yet it is
> still quite a political fight to get anything Global-Warming related
> to pass. And up until a few years ago, many Americans don't believe
> Global Warming was happening.
The tide seems to have changed on this, evidenced by the rather
categorical scientific (and vaguely political) support a recent issue
of Time Magazine put behind the pro-environment side in this debate.
It seems that the MIT faculty are, in fact, rather successful social
activists, and I don't mean just Noam Chomsky. Much of their activity
is focussed around topics about which they are knowledgeable, like
biotech and bioethics, global warming, missile testing, computer
privacy, digital copyright, housing design, digital and biotech
equity, nuclear safety, gender and race sensitivity, education,
economic policy, etc. The world needs technically astute activists to
address these areas; a liberal education won't necessarily suffice to
translate technical details solid ammunition to use in lobbying
efforts. Sometimes engineering itself is needed in support of various
worthy causes.
If we don't start familiarizing ourselves with society's flaws (and
ways to fix them) now, what's to keep up from "growing up" to care
about nothing but our annual net incomes and how many frobs our widget
have?
If the faculty can be activists in a diversity of fields (whether
related or unrelated to their primary academic interests) while the
technical and institutional culture which I personally feel is the
real source of Nerd Pride (TM), then why can't the students?
Harvard's academic program clearly leaves plenty of time for students
to do these things; what is it about MIT that prevents us from doing
so? Classes that exceed their rated time commitments is certainly one
problem; another is a culture of apathy. Fortunately, such cultures
can be changed by events and discussions like this one, which wake
people up a bit and start to get them caring about something.
-B.
===============================================================
Christopher Beland - http://web.mit.edu/beland/www/contact.html
MIT STS/Course 6 (EECS) - MIT Athena User Interface Project
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