As various contributors point out in this issue of Montreal Serai, we are obviously now living in an era of immense technical change, most of it centered on digitalization, computers, and nano-technology. At the same time, a large number of the world’s population are cruelly exploited and manipulated, while the 1% enjoy a completely unjustified share of global wealth and power. Worse still, the convergence of “real socialism” with modern capitalism has meant that totalitarian forms of organization, be they in corporations or states, are now universal and can  even co-exist, albeit uneasily,  with the protest movements of civil society and the institutions of liberal democracies.

The men and women at the apex of modern capitalism look down at the world below them from a great height and a principal element of their control is the command of technology.

And the major ethical questions raised by the new technology have everything to do with the economic structure that it serves.

In a recent issue of the Financial Times newspaper, an anglo-american journalist who is a prominent, enthusiastic admirer of capitalism, Sebastian Mallaby, wrote a telling commentary: “Inequality may lead to rage against the machines” (Friday March 9, 2012). Mallaby described the Citigroup’s super-computer “Watson” that earns $1 billion annually for its banker owners, advises healthcare companies, and even won the top prize on the TV quiz show Jeopardy. This is a world of transistors so tiny that 3,000 of them can fit in the width of a human hair, observes Mallaby admiringly, and “As a result, companies can store and analyse information on every aspect of the world around them.” The commentary ended with an assurance that all will be well in the end, but Mallaby meanwhile offered a striking description of the present situation:

“We are in the midst of a technological upheaval; and financial rewards are flowing to the elites who create and control the new machines. Almost everybody else is threatened…”

This threat for the many– inequality, unemployment, immiseration – poses the largest ethical question raised by our machines. Is the new technology good or bad? Does it contribute to our enslavement, or could it further human freedom? And by freedom I mean the capacity to shape our fate and to guide our actions rationally toward a just and democratic society for ourselves and other people.

When Aristotle gave the lectures known as The Politics in ancient Athens, he made it clear, from the outset, that politics must be the pursuit of good for others, what we call “the good of society.” But unlike us, Aristotle believed in inherent inequality, and the 100,000 slaves in his city, out of a population of a little over 300,000, were considered the natural inferiors of their masters. They were the “mechanicals,” the machines of Athenian democracy.

2,000 years later, as Marx, Charles Dickens, and many other writers have pointed out, modern capitalism, for all its complexity, still resembles ancient economies because it depends upon the treatment of workers as machines, passive instruments to be allocated tasks either through a cleverly skewed market or by sheer state power.

Now that we are 7 billion, human beings are still the living and breathing “mechanicals,” the pyramid of labour upon which our inventions rest.

Technology is indeed congealed labour, as Marx said, nor can we forget where this kind of technical wealth comes from. We can look back and remember that in the United States, at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the slaves in the country were equal in monetary worth “on the market” to all the capital equipment in the country at the time. Then we can fast forward to today’s India, the world’s “largest democracy.” The country has an advanced high-tech sector, and is increasing its aggregate wealth, while 50% of the children are malnourished. Or we can think of  China which will soon have a higher GDP than the United States. What of the Chinese labourers who produce so much?

The industrial revolution is ongoing and today’s machines are a “meta order,” an outgrowth of all the work, effort, and thinking of a vast number of human beings linked together. Because the underlying social relations are so multi-layered, the machines are indeed “clever,” and their complexity mirrors the social fabric that has produced them. They are, at the same time, the embodiments of the needs both of the workers who produce them, and, more significantly, of the capitalist/bureaucrats who dominate all the world’s societies at this time.

Our needs, purposes, and ethics are in our machines since they are nothing more than our activity. We need to recognize that action as our own and reclaim it for the common good. The argument I am making here is not new and it is straightforward.

The machines are us.

One of the most chilling newspaper pieces that I read in the last year was in The New York Times. The report began with a description of a special team in the American military seeking to kill individual opponents in Afghanistan. Tension, even revulsion, filled the first paragraphs as the reporter described what seemed to be sharpshooters killing a relatively large number of targeted individuals in one day.

Then a surprise came: the most stressful part of the day for the American specialists …was getting through the “traffic jam” when they left Langley, Virginia,  to go back to their homes in the suburbs. The killing had been done in an office using laptops to target and fire drones 10,000 miles away.

That “ethical distance” was at work throughout the carpet bombing during the Vietnam War. Those who execute action in such a context cease to think in a fuller sense and the technology literally removes them from what they actually do. The results are catastrophic because you frequently do not know what you have done or whom you have killed, although you believe the exact opposite.

Of course, the new technology can be also be used in non-destructive ways –to promote freedom and justice and to fight alienation. Activists now are able to communicate effectively and rapidly. E-mail correspondence has soared, producing an electronic version of the correspondence societies that led to political revolutions in the 18^th century. Nano-machines, particularly, may bring enormous benefits in medicine, the search for clean energy, and a multitude of other areas.

At the present time, though, we are trapped in a deeply unequal distribution of power, jobs, and wealth. We need to change that injustice if we want to make technology serve ends that are good and not evil. Without profound social change we will not see the possible good of the technical achievements of this age.

Quebec’s health records are going digital. Recently, I along with other Montrealers received a letter in French describing the process, the timeline, and the implications.

The digitization of patient records will have an impact on the quality of our health care. The way doctors, nurses and pharmacists access and share our medical information will change. So will the levels of privacy and security that our medical information currently enjoys.

I started wondering about the ethical implications involving digital health records in general and Quebec health records in particular. I wondered whether the Quebec government has done an adequate job in informing the public about all the major changes that will occur in their health records. So I decided to take a closer look into all these questions.

According to the Quebec health records (QHR) website [1], which you can visit if you want an English version of the information, this new tool will centralize patients’ medical records with information such as drug prescriptions, results from lab tests, and medical imaging exams. It will allow this information to be shared by different health care providers (physicians, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, nurses, clinic administrators, and medical records administrators).

There are two aspects to consider when examining the impact that the new QHR system can have on the privacy and security of patient information: The Digitization of Patient Records and The Centralization of Patient Records.

Digitization of Patient Records

Many patient records, such as medical images (X-ray, magnetic resonance imaging …), are already in digital form. The availability of such digital data has given way to great advances in medical research. For example, research in digital medical imaging and image processing techniques has improved the quality of these images [2], which in turn has allowed for better detection of diseases. The ability to process these digital medical images with computer software has also given rise to automatic methods of tracking pathologies over time. Such automatic methods have led to more objective and efficient drug research [3]: A Large amount of longitudinal data has become available to help track the effectiveness of drugs. This data is faster to manipulate because of computer software and is less prone to the inherent subjectivity that is associated with human data manipulation. More recently, molecular imaging has allowed for the visualization of biomarkers which have resulted in a more accurate evaluation of pathologies during clinical trials of pharmaceutical drugs [4]. Digital medical images have also led to advances in image-guided surgery, which can help improve the prognosis of surgical patients [5]: Three-dimensional models of organs and tissues can be built from pre-operative images allowing the surgeons to plan their procedure. Intra-operative images provide an update on the location and structure of organs and tissues during surgery, thus improving the precision of the operation.

The digitization of patient records has also increased the efficiency of medical care. For example, hospitals around Quebec have digital records of patients’ medical images. Due to their digital nature, these images can be more efficiently stored, transmitted and accessed with the help of new technology such as PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System). This in itself is a step towards the centralization of patient data.

Centralization of Patient Records

The new system will provide more central access to both existing and new digital data. This renders the sharing of information between various doctors and health institutions more efficient. PACS is currently used for exactly such purposes, but there is no equivalent system that consolidates all of patients’ medical information throughout the province. My mother, a frequent user of the healthcare system, certainly welcomes a centralized system for health records. A few months ago she was rushed to hospital, suffering from what turned out to be bronchitis. Unable to breathe, she couldn’t immediately communicate to the emergency medical staff the list of conditions that she suffers from and the prescription drugs that she takes. Wouldn’t it be great if, any time my mom walked into any hospital in Montreal, physicians and nurses can access a system that immediately tells them what medication my mother is on? Wouldn’t it be great if they immediately knew which extra diagnostic tests to perform because of the risks involved due to her conditions?

But is it really necessary for them to know that she once used mint flavoured toothpaste to try to heal burns on her arms?

Our right to privacy

In order to help protect the privacy of the patients, not all health care providers will be granted the same rights of access. For example, only pharmacists will be able to recover electronic prescriptions from patient records. A complete chart of access rights is available on the Quebec health records (QHR) website. However, patients who do not opt out cannot have any specific medical information that they deem private omitted from their record. We share information with some health care professionals as we develop a relationship of trust with them over time. When this private information becomes a note in a digitized record, it is somehow trivialized as it becomes accessible to many other health care professionals that do not necessarily need it in order to provide us with proper care.

Potential breaches

Like any computer system, potential threats exist.  When you get an MRI done, the data is stored on an internal and protected network in a hospital. The network, like any other, is susceptible to security threats. The same will go for other types of medical records. A 2011 New York Times article [6] examined records from the US Department of Health and Human Services [7] and concluded that over 11 million patient security breaches have occurred in the two years preceding the article. The breaches include but are not limited to theft, loss, unauthorized access, and improper disposal of paper records, laptops and other electronic devices, and networks [7].

The QHR has taken several steps in order to ensure the security of patient records. Health professionals seeking patient information must submit an official request to the provincial security authority (RAMQ), and they undergo identity verifications prior to obtaining access [1]. The data is encrypted and the QHR system is only accessible on specified workstations and requires regular authentication. The system also keeps track of all the users that have accessed patient information. With those security precautions in mind, do digital records enjoy a similar level of security when compared to paper records?

Circulation of Private Medical Data

Any digitization of data renders it easier to circulate. Have you seen the “Charlie bit my finger – again!” video on Youtube [8]? It is a video of an otherwise unknown boy (Charlie), biting the finger of another otherwise unknown boy. It’s cute. It has had 403.885 million views.

The same goes for any medical data – provided it would be of interest to someone in particular. With the assumption that there are no security breaches in order to obtain the data, then the only fear is that authorized health professionals willingly or unwillingly circulate the data. They can unwillingly circulate the data for example by copying unencrypted patient files onto their personal movable storage device and then dropping that storage device on the floor of a metro station.

Intentional Breach of Confidentiality

Health professionals that have access to patient records are bound by ethical rules and norms. The onus is on them to respect the norms and ensure that patient confidentiality in maintained, whether patient information has been obtained through paper files, digital records, or directly from the patient. I, as a researcher in medical imaging, have a responsibility to make sure that any patient images that I obtain remain confidential.  A nurse seeing a person’s chart shouldn’t be talking about it to her friends over coffee. The centralization of records does render such confidentiality violations easier to perform. According to an article that appeared in the Vancouver Sun on December 6, 2011 [9], a pharmacist was fined 15 000$ for posting on her Facebook page medical information of patients that she obtained through Alberta’s electronic health care system. Then there is the ubiquity of cameras and cellular phones. Health care professionals can easily take pictures of any patient that they might find “interesting” and share it with the world, and some medical students have been doing just that. A recent New York Times article [6] addresses this issue and points out that even though anonymity of patients is maintained by omitting their name and face, patients are still sometimes able to identify themselves, which, according to the article, is “inappropriate and unprofessional”.

Our Right to Knowledge – Impromptu Poll in Cotes-des-Neiges

Patients have the right to access their files and to know who has accessed their files. Patients also have the duty to know and to exercise those rights. How informed are Quebecers about their health records? I went about conducting my own mini-investigation in order to see how much Montrealers know about the new QHR. I chose to conduct my limited, biased and unscientific Jaywalking style survey in one of the more ethnically diverse areas of Montreal, the Cote-des-Neiges area, where immigrants account for 52.4 % of the total population [4]. Given that the information was circulated to residents only in French, I wanted to see whether some of that immigrant population has been marginalized during the awareness campaign. According to the borough’s website, 25.7% of the population in Cote-des-Neiges does not speak French, and 3.7% of the population speaks neither English nor French, compared to 10% and 2.8% for the rest of Montreal [4]. I asked 34 Quebec residents (17 men and 17 women) of different age groups about their knowledge and opinion of the new QHR. Of the 34 individuals, only 11 have heard about it. Seven of those I interviewed did not speak French and none of them and heard of the new QHR. How much burden lies on the citizen to get informed about the facts? Is it only our duty to be vigilant or should government agencies ensure that the population is well informed?

Any new technology gives rise to new ethical questions and to new possibilities of ethical violations. Most often, the ethical threats do not lie in the technology itself but in the way that it is used. In the case of medical information, the risks mainly lie in the violation of patient privacy. It is my humble opinion that the benefits outweigh the risks.

For any information on the Quebec health records in English (or French), you can visit the following Dossier De Santé website.

[1] Le Dossier de santé du Québec. 6 Feb. 2012. Santé et Services Sociaux Québec. 5 Mar. 2012. http://www.dossierdesante.gouv.qc.ca/en_citoyens_confidentialite-1.phtml

[2] Dev Pradhan: “Multicore processors bring innovation to medical imaging” Texas Instruments. May 2010. Available: http://www.ti.com/lit/wp/slyy024/slyy024.pdf

[3] K. Licha, C. Olbrich, Optical imaging in drug discovery and diagnostic applications, Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, Volume 57, Issue 8, 15 June 2005, Pages 1087-1108,

[4] Xue Meng et al. “Molecular Imaging with 11C-PD153035 PET/CT Predicts Survival in Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer Treated with EGFR-TKI: A Pilot Study”. Journal of Nuclear Medicine. October 2011, vol. 52 no. 10 pp 1573-1579.

[5] A. King, J. Blackall, G. Penney et al., “An estimation of intra-operative deformation for image-guided surgery using 3-D ultrasound,” in MICCAI 2000 (Pittsburgh, PA, USA), pp.588-597, Oct. 2000.

[6] Sack, Kevin. “Patient Data Posted Online in Major Breach of Privacy” The New York Times. Web. 8 September, 2011.

[7] Health Information Privacy. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. 5 Mar. 2012. http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/administrative/breachnotificationrule/breachtool.html

[8] ” Charlie bit my finger – again.” YouTube.com. YouTube, 22 May 2007. Web. 6 Mar. 2012.

[9] SINNEMA, JODIE. “Pharmacist fined for using personal medical records in Facebook spat” The Vancouver Sun. Web. 6 December, 2011

[10] Cohen, Randy. “When Med Students Post Patient Pictures” The New York Times. Web. 11 February, 2011.

[11] Portrait Sociodémographique de la Population. Territoire de l’arrondissement de Côte-des-Neiges – Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. 6 novembre 2009. Ville de Montreal. Mar 5, 2012. http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/ARROND_CDN_FR/MEDIA/DOCUMENTS/PORTRAIT_SOCIO_DEMO_2009.PDF

Note de l’auteur:

Le texte qui suit est un texte d’opinion et non un essai. Il ne fait pas une revue exhaustive des études en cours sur les sujets abordés et puise ses arguments de façon libre à même les différents textes, études et livres choisis par l’auteur.

C’est jeudi. Tout est normal dans la classe. Les élèves vocifèrent à qui mieux-mieux. Certains ont l’œil braqué sur leur téléphone, guettant le prochain texto, d’autres, branchés à leur portable, sont complètement absorbés par le tout dernier clip gansgter rapper sur Youtube. La plupart des élèves communiquent à voix haute la quasi-totalité de ce qui leur passe par la tête et seulement trois étudiants sur trente regardent le projecteur à l’avant de la classe. Non, nous ne sommes pas en pause! Nous sommes en plein cours et le professeur à l’avant, assis à son bureau, tente maladroitement et désespérément de passer son contenu. Je suis estomaqué.

Le soir même, une famille s’installe à table pour le repas. Il est tard. Les parents sont fatigués de leur journée de travail, mais satisfaits, car les enfants « sont tranquilles ». La télévision de la cuisine crache un flot incessant de commerciaux qui ont tôt fait de capter l’attention des deux plus jeunes. L’aîné, lui, est occupé entre deux bouchées à tronçonner un nombre incalculable de zombies, scotché qu’il est à son Playstation portable. C’est un soir comme les autres, et je n’en crois pas mes yeux.

Ces deux situations, considérées banales aujourd’hui, je les ai vécues coup sur coup il n’y a pas si longtemps. Dans le cadre de mon certificat en enseignement, j’ai eu à observer une classe du secondaire située dans le grand Montréal, et le soir même, un couple d’amis nous invitait, ma conjointe et moi, à partager le repas du soir avec leurs trois enfants.

L’éthique de l’usage des technologies grand public est un sujet qui m’intéresse et me préoccupe au plus haut point, et pour cause, je suis ingénieur informatique! J’ai depuis très longtemps l’impression que nous faisons fausse route en matière d’exposition et de consommation de la technologie chez les jeunes et j’ai décidé très récemment de m’impliquer dans ce dossier en commençant par donner mon opinion et en participant aux débats publics. La technologie au sens large est une chose merveilleuse, mais peut en même temps s’avérer néfaste à qui ne sait pas en faire bon usage. J’ai récemment écrit un article d’opinion dans La Presse (édition du 4 février 2012) qui jetait plus ou moins le blâme sur les créateurs de technologies et d’applications « instrumentalisantes », mais il ne s’agit là que d’un côté de la médaille. En effet, une bonne partie du problème réside plutôt dans l’utilisation de la technologie par les consommateurs, parents comme enfants.

Je tâcherai donc ici de montrer l’existence bien réelle d’effets néfastes des technologies grand public chez les jeunes et je proposerai un modèle plus humaniste de l’usage de la technologie où enfants et adolescents sont « encadrés » dans le choix et l’utilisation des technologies, que ce soit à la maison où à l’école.

Pour la plupart, les technologies grand public (ou technologies de consommation, pour reprendre la populaire expression « consumer electronics ») ne sont pas créées dans le but de servir les consommateurs, mais bien de les asservir. On cherche, parfois avec les meilleures intentions, à les faire entrer dans le cycle interminable de la consommation par des moyens tels que l’autoconcurrence, le renouvellement rapide des produits, l’abolition de l’esprit critique par l’urgence des ventes et des soldes, ainsi que par l’instauration d’une logique de compétition entre les clients pour posséder LA télévision la plus résolue, LA connexion la plus rapide, LE téléphone le plus sexy, etc. Ces techniques bien connues de marketing – plutôt agressives selon moi – n’en sont pas pour autant moins populaires et deviennent aujourd’hui monnaie courante. Afin d’aborder le sujet de l’usage de ces technologies, il est donc primordial d’être bien conscient du fait que les créateurs de technologie grand public n’ont pas à cœur le bien-être des consommateurs, mais bien le profit maximal. Or, le problème, c’est que le public ciblé est maintenant de plus en plus jeune. C’étaient les adolescents il y a quelques années, ce sont maintenant les enfants – nos enfants – qui deviennent la cible des interminables campagnes publicitaires menées au profit de la guerre entre grandes compagnies hi-tech.

C’est la raison pour laquelle nous nous devons d’encadrer nos enfants dans leurs habitudes de consommation des technologies. À preuve, n’avons-nous pas voté, il y a quelques années au Québec, des lois interdisant l’exposition des enfants aux publicités de jouets à la télévision?  Pourquoi l’avons-nous fait? Pourquoi avons-nous décidé collectivement de soustraire le regard de nos enfants aux salves publicitaires durant les heures de grande écoute?  Tout simplement parce que nous savions que leur manque de jugement et d’esprit critique ne leur permettait pas de faire des choix éclairés et que le rapport de force ainsi établi entre eux et les commerçants leur était préjudiciable. Alors, pourquoi n’en serait-il pas de même avec les compagnies hi-tech d’aujourd’hui? Pourquoi en tant que parents, qu’enseignants, devrions-nous laisser nos enfants librement exposés aux jeux vidéo violents, aux Nintendo, PS3, Xbox et téléphones intelligents? Remarquez qu’à cette liste, nous pourrions tout aussi bien inclure la télévision, mais le nouveau problème que posent les technologies grand public, c’est que leur diffusion sur l’internet est internationale. Il devient donc très difficile, voire impossible de légiférer pour restreindre leur distribution. Alors si l’on ne peut pas modifier l’exposition de nos enfants aux technologies, on peut par contre jouer sur l’autre bout de l’équation : l’usage ou l’utilisation qu’ils en font.

De façon générale, nous avons peur d’encadrer nos jeunes. Nous craignons de leur imposer des limites et des règlements. Pourquoi? Nous n’hésitons pourtant pas un instant à les retenir de se ruer dans la rue alors qu’ils n’ont que 15 mois et qu’ils savent à peine marcher. Mais alors pourquoi quelques années plus tard les laissons-nous à eux-mêmes devant télévisions, ordinateurs, internet et consoles de jeux vidéo? Pourquoi préférons-nous ne pas nous mêler de cela? Peut-être ne sommes-nous pas encore assez conscients des impacts de ces technologies? Pourtant, en ce qui concerne la télévision, par exemple, l’Académie américaine de pédiatrie a déjà conclut que l’exposition à la télévision d’un enfant de moins de 2 ans devrait être carrément évitée, car cela nuisait au bon développement de son cerveau et pouvait entraîner des déficits d’attention vers l’âge de 7 ans [1] [2]. Les jeux vidéo, pour leur part, ont depuis longtemps soulevé les polémiques les plus diverses. On sait par exemple que l’usage prolongé de jeux violents comme Grand Theft Auto [3] entraîne chez l’adolescent une diminution de l’empathie, une augmentation des comportements violents et une désensibilisation à la violence en général [4]. Par ailleurs, on sait aussi que certains jeux vidéo ont un tel pouvoir d’addiction qu’ils détériorent progressivement la santé, la qualité de sommeil et la vie sociale. C’est le cas des MMO (Jeux en réseau massivement multi-joueurs) qui font miroiter aux joueurs les promesses d’une vie rêvée, virtuelle, tout en ayant à terme un impact très négatif sur leur vie sociale et la qualité des relations qu’ils entretiennent avec leurs proches [5]. Finalement, quant aux téléphones intelligents, qui ont fait leur apparition beaucoup plus récemment dans nos vies, peu d’études se sont penchées sur l’impact qu’ils pouvaient avoir sur nos enfants. Mais il n’est pas nécessaire d’avoir écrit une thèse sur le sujet pour avancer qu’il est probable que les effets perçus chez les adultes se reproduisent aussi chez les enfants. Ainsi, comme le dit si bien le Tam News Online, la sur-utilisation des téléphones intelligents encourage les communications impersonnelles [6]. Une fois bien renseignés, je crois qu’il nous appartient à nous de prendre les actions nécessaires pour aider nos enfants à trouver des activités de remplacement qui soient plus épanouissantes. Mais par où commencer ?

Pour tenter de répondre à cette question, on doit en poser une autre : que faisions-nous avant que les technologies grand public submergent nos vies? Comment nous-mêmes, enfants à l’époque, occupions-nous nos temps libres il y a 15, 20 ou 30 ans? Vous vous rappelez, n’est-ce pas ? Et bien, nous jouions dehors, tout simplement. Nous respirions l’air pur. Nous dépensions nos trop-plein d’énergie au gré des escapades en BMX et des parties de hockey bottine dans la rue ou bien encore, nous nous étendions tout bonnement dans l’herbe avec la ferme intention de répertorier exhaustivement la faune de la pelouse du voisin! Était-ce si pitoyable? Mais pas du tout! Au contraire, comme le dit si bien François Cardinal dans son excellent essai Perdus sans la nature [7], « la nature nous fait du bien […]. Nous avons en effet une affinité innée avec la nature, un lien subconscient avec la vie, que nous recherchons à chaque étape de notre développement. » L’essayiste continue en relatant quelques-unes des nombreuses études faites à ce sujet et résume l’une d’entre elles en disant que « les [enfants] qui vivent à proximité d’un parc vivent plus longtemps. Moins il y a d’arbres à proximité d’un développement résidentiel, plus le nombre de crimes augmente. Plus un enfant passe de temps à l’extérieur, moins il a de risques de développer de la myopie plus tard, plus il y a d’arbres dans une rue, moins la prévalence de l’asthme est forte parmi les enfants. Une vue sur l’extérieur permet à un patient en convalescence de guérir plus vite… ». Il dit aussi que « un nombre grandissant d’études ou d’analyses semblent arriver à une telle conclusion : la disparition progressive de la nature dans la vie de nos enfants aurait un impact majeur sur leur santé, mentale et physique, d’ailleurs jugée de plus en plus préoccupante. On évoque l’obésité, mais aussi les déficits de l’attention, la haute pression, le diabète, l’asthme, etc. ». Cela étant dit, il me semble donc sensé de proposer la substitution du jeu libre à l’extérieur à l’usage des technologies grand public dans la vie de nos enfants comme moyen efficace d’enrayer ces effets néfastes.

D’après moi, il n’est pas suffisant de s’attarder uniquement aux implications éthiques de l’usage des technologies en milieu familial. Nous devons considérer à la fois la famille et l’école, car c’est en classe que l’enfant passe le plus clair de son temps. Malheureusement, je crois que l’utilisation des technologies en milieu scolaire pose également problème au Québec. Il me semble qu’on tente tacitement d’inclure les technologies dans nos programmes scolaires sans qu’il y ait pour autant une réelle motivation pédagogique qui y soit rattachée. C’est comme si nous voulions la technologie pour la technologie, et non en raison des avantages qu’elle devrait prétendument apporter au niveau de l’enseignement et de l’apprentissage. Justement, qu’en dit-on? Y a-t-il un réel avantage à intégrer à la classe les nombreux ordinateurs, ordinateurs portables, écrans tactiles, sans oublier les fameux tableaux blancs interactifs (TBI ou SmartBoard) dont tout le monde parle en ce moment? Et bien, d’après les journalistes de La Presse [8], « aucune étude indépendante n’existe pour justifier l’achat massif et rapide de TBI […] Les seules études sur les TBI ont été subventionnées par les fabricants ». On est en droit de se demander si nous avons réellement besoin de tant de technologies pour transmettre les savoirs! Parallèlement, sommes-nous en train de sous-entendre que l’enseignement plus traditionnel du temps de nos parents était incomplet? Imparfait? Évidemment, le monde étant ce qu’il est aujourd’hui, submergé par les gadgets les plus divers, il est difficile de s’imaginer faire marche arrière… Pourtant, en tant que jeune parent, les nombreux amendements et réformes des dernières années au programme scolaire par le Ministère de l’Éducation du Québec m’ont fait sursauter et me donnent encore aujourd’hui l’impression d’une ridicule « fuite en avant ». Cependant, je marche à contre-courant et je soumets aujourd’hui l’idée que voici : Peut-être que faire « marche arrière » pourrait être une solution aux différents problèmes d’éducation au Québec. Je ne parle pas ici d’une attitude rétrograde visant à abolir les acquis durement gagnés des dernières décennies, mais bien d’un retour aux valeurs et connaissances primordiales qui devraient être chéries et véhiculées en milieu scolaire et ce, sans artifice, sans diluant, sans bling-bling. Exit les tableaux blancs interactifs multi-tactiles avec rétroprojecteurs intégrés ultra-contrastés! Pour apprendre le français, j’ai besoin de livres, et j’ai besoin de lire, point. Bon… peut-être pourrait-il aussi être pratique d’avoir un tableau noir à l’avant de la classe… « Tu veux rire », me direz-vous? Ah! Pourtant, je blague à peine. En le mettant à nu devant la matière, je suis d’avis qu’on fait travailler l’élève de façon beaucoup plus efficace que si l’on interpose entre lui et le savoir plusieurs couches visant à le « divertir ». Selon le dictionnaire, « divertir », c’est « distraire ». Et à mes détracteurs qui soutiennent qu’il faille constamment trouver de nouvelles façons de motiver et de stimuler les élèves pour qu’ils apprennent, je répondrai que non, cela n’a rien à voir avec l’école, cette folle recherche du stimulus renouvelé est l’apanage des technologies grand public et de la société de consommation, du jetable et de l’immédiateté dans laquelle on vit.

En conclusion, il m’apparaît clair qu’un usage technologique dit humaniste pourrait aider parents et enseignants à départager les technologies jugées acceptables, voire souhaitables, de celles considérées néfastes. Une telle règle éthique des technologies grand public pourrait par exemple s’articuler ainsi : une technologie souhaitable est une technologie qui vise implicitement ou explicitement à développer l’enfant, à le rendre plus accompli, plus épanoui et plus heureux à long terme. C’est là une règle relativement simple à appliquer à la maison et à l’école.

Il me fera plaisir de poursuivre le débat avec vous en ligne.

Écrivez-moi au PourUneTechnologiePlusHumaine@gmail.com

Références

[1]        CAREY, Benedict, The New York Times. (2011). Parents Urged Again To Limit TV for Youngest. Consulté le 27 février 2012, Tiré de http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/19/health/19babies.html?_r= 1&ref=americanacademyofpediatrics

[2]       Christakis, D. A., Zimmerman, F. J., DiGiuseppe, D. L., McCarty, C. A. (2004). Early Television Exposure and Subsequent Attentional Problems in Children, Pediatrics, 113 (4) 708-713.

[3]        COLLECTIF (2011). Grand Theft Auto (série de jeux vidéo). Consulté le 27 février 2012, Tiré de http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_%28s%C3%A9rie_de_jeux_vid%C3%A9o%29

[4]       FUNK, J. B., BALDACCI, H. B., PASOLD, T., Baumgardner, J. (2004). Violence exposure in real-life, video games, television, movies, and the internet: is there desensitization? Journal of Adolescence, 27 (1) 23-39.

[5]       SMYTH, J. (2007). Massively multiplayer online role-playing games [MMORPGS], reported health, and social behavior. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 10, 717-721.

[6]        TAM NEWS STAFF, The Tam News Online. (2011). The impact of smartphones on student life. Consulté le 27 février 2012, Tiré de http://tamnews.org/2011/09/editorial-the-impact-of-smartphones-on-student-life/

[7]        CARDINAL, F. (2010). Perdus sans la natude (1^ère édition). Montréal, QC, Canada : Édition Québec Amérique inc.

[8]        NOËL, A., MARISSAL, V., La Presse. (2012). Une ombre au tableau blanc. Consulté le 27 février 2012, Tiré de http://www.cyberpresse.ca/actualites/quebec-canada/education/201202/29/01-4501174-une-ombre-au-tableau-blanc.php

Hypothetically, a child asks “Mama and Papa who is my real daddy?” In the old days, before the advent of new reproductive technologies, the answer would have been straight forward “your daddy was ____,  but he left me,  or we got divorced,  or he is dead or I don’t really know for sure, or you were adopted and we don’t know who your biological father is.

Now, the answer can be very complicated. “Well my precious one, remember, you were always a wanted child. We spent hundreds and thousands of dollars to have you. Believe me it was not easy. The man who is your biological father was a sperm donor, we don’t really know much about him except that he did not have HIV. As for your mother, we commissioned a beautiful young woman in Romania to produce high quality eggs, and the woman who carried you in the womb was a surrogate from India. We had to travel all the way to India with the young woman who provided the eggs so that the fertilization and implantation could take place comfortably”

“So mama, technically, I have three mothers and two fathers? Right?”  Unlikely scenario – yes; but improbable – no.

The fact is that it is impossible for someone to know about their genetic predisposition to diseases and whether or not they have siblings, if sperms from a donor were used many times? In fact, sperms from one particular donor resulted in 150 children!  According to Debra Spar, president of Barnard College and author of “The Baby Business: How Money, Science and Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception.” “We have more rules that go into place when you buy a used car than when you buy sperm. It’s very clear that the dealer can’t sell you a lemon, and there’s information about the history of the car. There are no such rules in the fertility industry right now.” That is why there is a movement afoot, demanding that  a mandatory  registry of donors of eggs and sperms be maintained by the IVF clinics and the number of times a sperm specimen is used to fertilize eggs be restricted to 50 per 800,000 people in a community, to prevent co-sanguinity.

However, let us roll back in time to 1978 when Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby was born. It was heralded as a miracle; the answer to the prayers of infertile couples. The two doctors, Robert Edwards and Stephen Steptoe became instant heroes, and Edwards was amply rewarded with a Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology in 2010, for his ability to fertilize a human egg in a Petri dish and implant it in the uterus of a woman. Although, a first in humans, this procedure was quite old in cattle, super-ovulation and subsequent transfer of embryos had been practiced since the fifties and commercialized extensively because one could select the sex of the progeny depending on the purpose of raising the cattle – females, if it was for milk production and males, if it was for meat production.   As well, it was easy to ship a frozen embryo across continents. All this became possible because of extensive knowledge about fertilization and reproductive biology.

In the 34 years following the birth of Louise Brown, at least four million children have been born through IVF around the globe. In the meantime, Louise has had a child by natural means. At the same time, the types of technologies used to aid birth have proliferated exponentially. Cryopreservation of embryos (first developed in cattle), intra cytoplasmic sperm insertion (ICSI) to overcome low male fertility, prenatal genetic diagnosis (PDG) are some of the techniques in use today. So science has galloped ahead at lightning speed, while philosophical and ethical questions and dilemmas about the shifting meaning of human life seem to be moving along at a snail’s pace. Cryopreservation of human embryos have now been perfected; this has  further raised new ethical dilemmas and legal questions about who owns the embryos and what should be done about the extra frozen  embryos.

It became amply clear to women, a short time after Louise Brown’s birth that commercial exploitation of NRTs would explode. In Canada, after considerable lobbying by feminist groups, health care advocates, family law experts, regulators, and medical service insurers, the Conservative Government of Brian Mulroney set up the Royal Commission on New Reproductive Technologies in 1989. Royal commissions are a common way of looking at multi-jurisdictional issues to develop and test a national consensus in Canada and to receive “advice”; this had the impact of delaying regulation of NRTs. The lengthy process meant that IVF clinics could carry on business as usual and introduce procedures quickly so that they could become well-established before the RC made its recommendations. Even as the Royal Commission deliberated, high profile law suits concerning surrogacy and wrongful birth were making headlines. The first of these was the case of Baby M where the surrogate refused to give up the infant after the baby was born; she lost the case and had to give up baby M. Then there was the case of mix-up of embryos in the lab and the black couple made a claim for custody of the baby born to the white couple, who were reluctant to part with the baby! This was just the tip of the ice-berg! As soon as different countries got into the business of making babies, marketing and selling of IVF services began in earnest and the ensuing problems highlighted the need to act swiftly.

The Royal Commission report, aptly titled “Proceed with care” made 293 recommendations; it banned some procedures altogether such as making of inter-species chimeras, no germ line modification, no sex-selection for non-medical purposes, and no payment for gametes etc.  It proposed regulating other areas such as criteria for clinic licenses, which procedures could be done such as how many eggs to be implanted etc. But the main recommendation that an agency be set up to regulate and monitor assisted human reproduction (AHR) was delayed until the bill received Royal assent in 2003 and the Assisted Human Reproductive Agency of Canada (AHRAC) was born in 2004! AHR technologies have become normalized, the services remain privatized and the status of regulation and policy remains much as it did when the commission completed their work. Skills in AHR are considered essential for new gynecologists and couples postponing creating their families due to financial considerations, have come to believe that many of the prohibitions such as payments to gamete “donor” and surrogate “support” costs are burdensome. Even before the work of the new agency got underway, the agency’s right to oversee the implementation of regulations in the running of clinics was challenged. The Province of Quebec made a constitutional challenge that the federal government did not have the right to regulate AHR because health services came under provincial jurisdiction in 2008. There was also a human rights challenge filed in Ontario that fees for IVF services violated the Health Canada Act.

In the global marketplace of reproductive tourism, the fertility treatment packages for example in India include a trip to the Taj Mahal, with  a five-star hotel-like facilities and a visit to an  ayurvedic ashram thrown in for good measure. Big hospital conglomerates are wooing the European and American Market, whereas, the smaller hospitals are targeting neighboring countries like Bangla Desh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Joint-venture with foreign partners, like Insurance companies, is now permitted after liberalization of the Indian Economy. Currently, 51% ownership is permitted as an incentive for investing in private hospital infrastructure. International accreditation is being sought to allay fears about quality of care. The prime driver for services overseas is that procedures which would not be permitted in the home country, can be availed of in another country which either has no regulations or the providers flaunt them without impunity. The cost of services is also an important driver for reproductive tourism. In fact, medical tourism, of which reproductive tourism is a small part, is expected to gross, 2 billion USD in 2012. Other forms of trade in the baby business have surfaced that Edwards could not have dreamt of in his wildest dreams in 1978 – commercial surrogacy on an industrial scale, trade in eggs, embryonic stem cells for research and treatment and the list goes on! Although not always explicit in their advertising, some clinics offer sex-selection of embryos in several countries including India and Ukraine to provide what they call euphemistically for family balancing purposes. Sex selection diagnosis of embryos is not restricted to  India and Ukraine;  according to a survey conducted by Susannah Baruch, Director of Johns Hopkins University’s Genetics and Public Policy Center in 2006 a whopping 42% of the clinics in USA offered sex selection either through pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) or micro-sorting of sperms.  PGD is not without risks, therefore, testing for single-gene disorders might be justified but to use it to detect the sex of the putative fetus, just because a couple doesn’t want any girls, or any boys, is troubling and ethically wrong.

Possibly the most exploitative aspect of the “brave new world” is the use of surrogates to gestate babies for an infertile couple, when  the woman is unable to carry a pregnancy for any number of reasons or a  gay man who wishes to father a child. A recent 2011 report titled “Surrogate motherhood: ethical or commercial” by the Centre for Social Research in India, noted that women, who undertake these assignments, usually come from poor families. They are usually married with two or three children of their own; they are lured by the amount of cash offered by a childless couple because they need the money. Even though the amount may appear to be quite small by Western standards, it can make a huge difference to the wellbeing of the family. Ironically, while the husband may consent to the woman earning money by renting her womb, often the man becomes hostile and turns against the woman and she is subjected to maltreatment and ostracization.   The state of Gujarat seems to be in the lead in the provision of surrogacy services. There are reports of physicians managing the surrogacy business from start to finish!

Several high profile cases involving surrogacy in India has led the Indian Government to take some action to regulate the industry. For example a commissioning couple refused to take custody of a child because the baby had a birth defect; the surrogate did not want the baby either. So the child was abandoned and sent to an orphanage. Likewise, a Japanese couple used a surrogate to implant an embryo, the product of an egg from the woman and sperm from the man, but even as the pregnancy was half way through, the couple filed for divorce and the woman did not want to have anything to do with the child. However, the man, who wanted the child, could not take custody because single men are not permitted to adopt under the Indian law. The child remained in India for almost two years until the paternal grandmother agreed to take custody of the child.  In another instance, a German couple who commissioned a surrogate to bear a child for them could not get a German passport for the baby because he was not related by blood to either of them. As a consequence the Assisted Reproductive Technique bill was introduced in 2010; it laid down some 24 guidelines for surrogacy arrangements.  One such guideline states “A foreigner or foreign couple not resident in India, or a non-resident Indian individual or couple, seeking surrogacy in India shall appoint a local guardian who will be legally responsible for taking care of the surrogate during and after the pregnancy as per clause 34.2, till the child / children are delivered to the foreigner or foreign couple or the local guardian. Further, the party seeking the surrogacy must ensure and establish to the assisted reproductive technology clinic through proper documentation (a letter from either the embassy of the Country in India or from the foreign ministry of the Country, clearly and unambiguously stating that (a) the country permits surrogacy, and (b) the child born through surrogacy in India, will be permitted entry in the Country as a biological child of the commissioning couple/individual) that the party would be able to take the child / children born through surrogacy, including where the embryo was a consequence of donation of an oocyte or sperm, outside of India to the country of the party‘s origin or residence as the case may be. If the foreign party seeking surrogacy fails to take delivery of the child born to the surrogate mother commissioned by the foreign party, the local guardian shall be legally obliged to take delivery of the child and be free to hand the child over to an adoption agency, if the commissioned party or their legal representative fails to claim the child within one months of the birth of the child. During the transition period, the local guardian shall be responsible for the well-being of the child. In case of adoption or the legal guardian having to bring up the child, the child will be given Indian citizenship”. This only ensures that there is legal protection for the government but not much to protect the rights and interests of the surrogate, the child, or the commissioning parents.

Health risks of IVF continue to be big concern for example: Do they have more birth defects?

Are they more or less intelligent? Are they more prone to autism? Do they have a higher incidence of cancer? Undoubtedly, multiple births resulting in high risk pregnancies with poor outcomes have been documented in large number of studies. The use of ICSI to fertilize an egg has been shown to affect the fertility of the progeny. Unfortunately, as the numbers of IVF children increase by the millions, there is no easy way to track if there are long term consequences.

The possibility of “designer babies” has been the substance of many science fiction novels, from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World to Margaret Attwood’s Handmaid’s tale to John Wyndham’s Midwich Cuckoos. The dystopias crafted in these novels, create a world that mirrors the reality of the “baby for profit” business in the world today. IVF may have made it possible for some people to experience the joy of parenthood and creating families but  the commodification of children, the sale of sperms and eggs, use of  pre-implantation genetic  diagnosis for sex selection purposes, and surrogacy  are the most troubling aspects of ART and we need a vigorous  debate on what kind  of world do we envision for  future generations.

Dad gets home from work and goes down into the basement to watch television and  go on the internet. Mom gets home from work, orders a pizza on her Blackberry, and then goes to the living room to check her Facebook account and then maybe blog for awhile. Timmy gets home from high school and goes to play video games in his room. After dinner he goes on Facebook for a bit and then watches a movie online that just opened in the theatres.

On the weekend, Kim gets home from college. She spends ten minutes in the kitchen with her family, while sending six text messages and tweeting twice on twitter. Before she goes up to her room to finish researching a paper she skypes with the rest of the family with grandma and grandpa in Florida.

Does this life sound unusual? Do people really rely on technology to this extent, or even more so? Has our addiction to the internet and technology robbed us of true social interactions, only making it more difficult to engage in true relationships, whether they be simple friendship or romantic connections?

There used to be a time when people held onto the things in their lives. When you bought a house you kept it for years and years and passed it onto your children. Jobs, or careers, lasted a lifetime, and marriages were to death do us part. Now, in a technologically driven disposable society, it is very difficult for anything to last. What is worst about this temporary lifestyle is the fact that our attention spans are one of the leading causes of it.

Have you tried to watch television lately? Have you noticed how many scene cuts or different camera angles are used in the average five-minute segment between commercials? Try counting and you’ll be flabbergasted. I recently took on this exercise myself, counting the point of view cuts in the first three minutes of an episode of CSI. Miami. The episode begins with Horatio’s team believing he has been shot and killed; it is one of the most well-known of the series. How many times does the camera angle change before the credits even begin? Can you wager a guess? 10, 20, 30?

50  times in under three minutes. It’s no wonder that our children are suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder. How can they possibly be able to sit through a 30-minute class or lecture when they’ve been conditioned to need a higher level of stimulus?

What does this dependence on technology mean for the generations to come? Will there be a time in the not too distant future where people find regular human interaction too dull? Will families opt to text as opposed to sitting around the kitchen table and having a real conversation? It is already happening. Statistics show that teenage girls on average are sending eighty text messages a day.

If texting was all teenage girls were doing with their mobile phones it would be one thing, but it is not. Sexting is fast becoming the norm in high schools around the world, with children taking nude and sexually provocative photos of themselves and then messaging them to others. This type of sexual play has dire consequences when those photos end up in the wrong hands. Such is the case with a teenager by the name of Jessica Logan, who sexted with her boyfriend. When their relationship ended, he began sending the photos to everyone in the school, and Jessica was constantly harassed. Unfortunately, teenagers often lack the psychological tools to deal with such circumstances and end up making drastic decisions. Jessica hanged herself because of the photos she sexted.

Technology addiction would have been a joke only a few short years ago, or something an episode of one of the more well-known sci-fi shows would have dealt with. We have come so far in only the last 30 years. The early eighties saw the introduction of the personal computer into the home, and now it’s not uncommon for every member of a household to have their own laptop, as well as a cellular phone.

If I said governments were working to curtail this addiction that is plaguing most developed nations, I’d be lying. This move towards a technologically addicted society is pervasive and picking up momentum. Facebook, for one, gets thousands of new users everyday. There used to be a time when social media sites were only for teenagers and young adults, but now it’s not unusual for Aunt Ellen and Uncle Joe to add you on Facebook or your high school principal from 1986.

Technology has made the world smaller. It has made it difficult for governments to be unaccountable for the mistreatment of their citizens. It has made it almost impossible for politicians or celebrities to get away with their improprieties. It has pretty much become impossible to do anything without a video camera somewhere recording what you are doing.

The novel 1984 warned of a future in which the government was always watching and people had given up all of their civil liberties. Technology had changed the way people lived. Was this story of a Big Brother future an accurate prediction of the 21^st Century, or have we simply accepted this role of technology in our lives and allowed it to become a reality?

It is pretty much accepted by all that there is some government agency or program out there in cyberspace reading your e-mails and documenting the websites you visit on Google. It isn’t that much of a reach to realize that surveillance cameras on city streets are keeping tabs on citizens, and that your purchases are tracked by credit card companies so they can market similar products to you.

CBC recently aired a documentary entitled Remote Control War. In it, the use of robots in modern warfare is examined and the findings are startling. As of the August 2011 air date, the United States military alone had over 7000 airborne robots and another 12000 on the ground. These weapons are often remote controlled by men and women in Indian Springs, Nevada, far from the battlefield. In the not too distant future, there will be no driver. Robots will be given the autonomy to kill humans whenever their set parameters are met. It is a nightmare straight out of Terminator when machines are built with the sole purpose to kill people. Science fiction has become science fact.

Is this lack of privacy, disintegration of family values, and our dependence on technology troubling? Of course it’s troubling. It should scare us all and drive us to make changes in our personal lives to ensure that we too are not falling prey to technology addiction. Is it likely that we are going to do that much differently tonight when we get home? Will we flick on the television, check our e-mail, Facebook, and maybe watch a streaming video on YouTube before falling asleep? Will we call the people that are the closest to us, or will we send them a quick text message? We are the ones who determine the direction of technology as consumers. If we don’t buy the latest smart phones, and laptops, they’ll stop making them. Somehow, though, I doubt Apple and Microsoft are holding their corporate breath. Did Someone Say Twitter?

The insistent electronic beeping of my alarm clock jolts me from sleep.  Beep beep.  I see 4:30 in crimson digits.  Damn, it’s way too early.  I bang down the alarm button and soon the beep beep reawakens me.  What the hell.  I squint into the face of my lover, Larry, looking for some activity in his snoring stupor and then at the clock face.  Four-forty-five?  What’s going on?  I had set it for 9:00.  I fumble with the clock, adjust the alarm setting and fall back to sleep.  Beep beep.  I wake up and it’s now five o’clock in bright red.  What a bunch of crap I always seem to get from La Source, just like when it was Radio Shack.

I unplug the clock and then dismantle it.  Through the haze of my drowsiness, I realize it’s not the clock because…beep beep.  And the pitch of that beep makes it impossible to track the direction even though that sound that is somewhere in my house is traveling through the medium of my hallway to pierce my ear.

I can’t get back to sleep and I wish Larry was up with me for companionship, but that’s okay.  At least I won’t be late for my job interview at 11 am.

I get up, may as well get some work done, finish up those graphics that have been brewing on my computer.  As my expresso machine effervesces, I dress and beep beep.  I unplug the other three electric clocks and take out the emergency batteries in all four.  Coffee in hand, I ensconce myself before my computer, our modern deity, open up Photoshop and beep beep.  Where the hell is it coming from?  Sound travels out from a definite source shooting through space and that beep beep takes more energy than a mezzo-soprano.  In the kitchen I unplug the Danby microwave, the digital stove, the expresso machine, the dishwasher, the LG washing machine and Maytag dryer, I don’t have a set you see, the fridge and just in case, the electric kettle, the Cuisinart toaster and the can opener.

Back at the computer, ten minutes later, beep beep.  I turn off the hot water tank.  Moving down the hallway to the computer, beep beep.  This is unwarranted.  Aha, the smoke alarms.  Hauling out the step ladder, I take down the one in the hallway, another near the bedroom, a third in the shed and remove their batteries.

Beep beep.  I’m on the hunt.  I poise high on my ladder with my ear cocked.  Having an ear on each side of your head allows you to distinguish where the sound is coming from.  I cock both ears.  Sound coming from one direction will reach the ear furthest away approximately 1/500 of a second later than the closer ear.  And presumably, the brain can discern this time lag.  Beep beep.  Crouched on the top of the ladder looking for prey, I see my doorbell.  I remove the batteries and head down the ladder beep beep.

I disconnect my LCD Toshiba television, the Sony blue-ray, the Panasonic mini system, the Bose sound dock and for good measure my ’70′s ghetto blaster, Philips hair dryer, electric toothbrush and Miele vacuum.  I ponder disconnecting Larry who is inexplicably still sound asleep.  Beep beep.

My set of six cordless Viatek phones, supernumerary in a seven room flat.  Of course.  I unplug those telephone lines and electric cords and remove all the batteries from the handsets.

Beep beep.  This was beyond my brain’s capacity.  I could not tell where the sound was coming from.  Indications are that it is more difficult to tell direction with low frequencies.  Which was not the case of that infernal beep beeping.  But other factors need be taken into consideration.  Like sound reflects off objects.  The height of the sound is provided by a small amount of reflection off the back edge of the ear lobe.  I have teeny weeny ear lobes.  The elongated shape of the lobe causes the pitch to vary with the angle of the source of sound and the expert I found on Google says it takes years of experience to be able to judge how far away sounds are coming from.

Beep beep.  I close the electrical circuit breakers, pull all fuses and I hunch over in attack mode.

Beep beep.

I get my sledge hammer and crowbar, put on my construction gloves so I won’t blister, and I crack open the gyprock, demolishing the plaster and wood lathing, to yank out the electrical wiring.  Submerged in a cloud of fine white powder and despite the gloves, a small blister, I relax, slightly.

Beep beep.

I get my portable, battery-powered chainsaw, don my welding helmet and safety glasses and go into full attack.  It was coming close to interview time and I had to get going.

I raze through the walls and brickwork like the Amazon I would like to be.  As my home tumbles down, wood, stone and bricks landing in one glorious heap, I shut off the chainsaw and wait.  Other than the cacophonous settling of the debris, I hear nothing.  I have won.  I begin my victory dance.

I dust myself off  and pirouette in the direction of the metro for my interview. Beep beep.  I spot my cel phone vibrating under a piece of plaster and pick it up to see a text message had been sent at 4.30 am to notify me that my interview had been cancelled.  A muffled sleepy voice wafts towards me, honey, can you get the coffee going?

Ganesh,  also known as Ganapati,  was the son of Siva and Parvati, two high-ranking deities in the Hindu pantheon. It is said that Parvati, while bathing, fashioned her son out of the dust on her body and then asked him to guard the door. Siva, returning from a long absence, became enraged when this stranger denied him access to his wife so he promptly beheaded him. When he realized that   he had killed his own son he asked his gana, or troops,   to bring him the head of the first sleeping creature they came across. It turned out to be an elephant whose head was then   cut off and handed  over to Siva. Siva, in turn,  placed it on his son’s decapitated body declaring him to be  Ganapati, the leader of his troops.  Thus was born Lord Ganesh, the elephant god revered by Hindus as the remover of obstacles, the slayer of  evil and the source of education, wisdom and wealth.

Such myths lacking in scientific feasibility are common to all cultures. Their purpose is to further humanity’s understanding of the dynamics of the universe and the struggle between good and evil.   They are not meant to be taken literally. After all, everybody knows that centaurs, mermaids and griffins defy the laws of biology.

Do they really?  Not anymore. Thanks to genetic engineering it is possible to develop soybeans with fish genes, hogs with human genes, featherless chickens and cattle saturated with human growth hormones. The proponents of genetic engineering claim that such experiments will improve human life, whereas its detractors rail against  the dangers of causing environmental degradation, widening the gap between the rich and the poor and most importantly, creating  yet more Frankensteins.

Dolly was a lovely sheep with beautiful qualities. She was cloned so that her genetic makeup would not be diluted throughout future generations. Never mind that her clones were her biological age at birth thereby experiencing premature ageing.  Featherless chickens were  designed to harness their energy not into producing feathers but more flesh, presumably for the Kentucky Fried Chickens of the world.  Pigs, as well all know, or should know, have bodies that resemble human bodies  more than those of other animal species. They are genetically “humanized” so that their hearts, kidneys and livers  can be “harvested” for xenotransplants (inters-species transplants) into humans who can afford them.   Unfortunately these pigs are also susceptible to  degenerative diseases  such as arthritis and deformities thereby leading a life of suffering until they  are “sacrificed” –or made sacred- for human use and consumption.  This scenario poses the ethical problem of some sort of cannibalism as well. Human growth hormone is widely used in the production of milk and beef, a practice now disallowed in many countries. Beans or tomatoes with fish genes can potentially cause allergic reactions in susceptible people who think they are eating  a vegetarian product. Plants bred to be resistant to certain pesticides contribute to wiping out other plant species and humans will consume their overload of lethal chemicals.

Aside from environmental and health-related concerns, there are political and economic  dimensions to the conundrum of genetic engineering. The Human Genome Biodiversity Project specifically gathers the genes of indigenous people under the guise of preserving their heritage. However, they, the indigenous people,  see this “human husbandry”  as yet another form of colonization, racism and exploitation. They are also tired of having their plants stolen, genetically modified, patented and then resold to them at a high cost. Texmati or basmati rice anyone? Monsanto is perhaps the biggest perpetrator of such exploitation.[Watch: The World According to Monsanto. A documentary by Marie-Monique Robin.]  Farmers in the Indian state of Maharashtra have been committing mass suicides when they realize that neither they nor their heirs can escape from the usury involved in being forced to buy terminator seeds that supposedly  will  liberate them from their perpetual poverty. [Watch: Bitter Seeds, a documentary by Micha X. Peled.] Fortunately there are people like Dr.  Vandana Siva, [Indian physicist,  philosopher,  environmentalist, proponent of traditional agricultural methods, author of over 20 books  and leading figure in the anti-globalization movement] who is leading a crusade to develop heritage seed banks throughout the country…and the world.

Science fiction author Ray Bradbury wrote a poignant short story about a couple who cheat on each other by leaving a robotic replica of themselves at home. Will the decoy robots end up making love to each other? Anything is possible in this brave new world envisaged by Aldous Huxley in his 1984 scenario and implemented by big corporations in the 21^st century.   The Japanese have been studying the feasibility of producing computers with human elements. One can only wonder at the elements involved. And the other way around, of course. Electronic chips can and have been inserted into human brains for clinical  purposes. Implants of different levels of sophistication have helped the hearing-impaired as well as cardiac patients.  However, there are rumours floating  in the air that they can also be used for mind reading and political as well as commercial indoctrination. Many have argued that science and technology are value-neutral. Science, or pure knowledge, certainly is. Technology not necessarily so, driven, as it is, by the search for profit, the hunger for power and the seduction of prestige. Maybe that is what was meant by the biblical metaphor of the original sin, that is, the acquisition of knowledge outside the confines of a moral framework.

Big Pharma has become a stock-phrase as trite as the military-industrial complex. Triteness comes out of familiarity and familiarity breeds contempt. It is now not only into farming, but also into pharming, that is the designing of animals that can actually secret drugs into their blood and milk.  No wonder many concerned parents shy away from cow’s milk for their children. The crime of converting animals into pharmaceutical laboratories is as heinous as hunting down rhinoceros  to enhance human male potency or killing musk deer for their glands to produce perfumes.

Lord Ganesh is reputed to have authored the Mahabharata, the longest epic not only of India but of humanity. This Sanskrit text is about ten times the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined. The potential for the misuse of technology devoid of ethical input is in the same order of magnitude. But this is no reason to be discouraged. The Earth’s biodiversity and the diversity of human cunning is also  immensurable. The key word here is resistance.

Resistance takes on many forms  such as the creation of seed banks to foil terminator seeds, the enactment of legislation to control research and development, the practice of sustainable small-scale farming to protect biodiversity, the refusal on the part of consumers to buy genetically modified foods, pressure by patient lobby groups to look into harmful or needlessly invasive medical technologies that often do more harm than good.

Knowledge is a prerequisite for any kind of resistance. We live in the information age. We can subvert the corporate conspiracy to appropriate what belongs to all of us on this planet by using the very same technology to defeat evil and defend goodness. The key word here is ethics.

And this is where we can call on symbols like Ganesh,  or on real people like Vandana Siva and the millions of people who have not abdicated their responsibilities as intelligent and sensitive human beings to join us in clearing the obstacles we face,  leading us towards education, wisdom and [w]health.

Or we can simply fall back on our own indigenous resources which are our skilled hands, our natural intuition,  our complex brain and a strong heart to  make the journey together.

One hundred years ago H.G. Wells grappled with the affliction of war.  He saw the ebb and flow of civilization, the rise and fall of empire, and the efforts of historians to put things in order; that is, to justify each successive status quo.   When I was growing up in Brooklyn I watched a TV version of Wells’ futuristic work The Shape of Things to Come (1933) over and over, in the form of a 1936 film version titled Things To Come, adapted by Wells himself.

The Netflix blurb gets it right: “After decades of world war and a plague that wiped out much of the population, mankind struggles to rebuild its once-great civilization. Progress is at last being made … until the eve of a new manned space flight. Now, fear of another technological era threatens to tear apart the new society.”  Cedric Hardwicke leads the charge of artists and writers in an effort to stop the mindless pursuit of Progress.

We now face the New Technology: computers in our homes, cars, schools, business, the street, at the mall.  Its reach is everywhere, and we seem to welcome the cold arrival of what was once called Big Brother.  Is this emergence a gentle walk into the foothills of a violent, totalitarian future?

Violence has always been the problem that hinders progress, but we have modernized the effect.  Old-fashioned warfare has become obsolete.  Instead we now have a new world order of powerful  governments that feel justified, even obligated, to place us under constant surveillance.  These powerhouse nations can easily justify all forms of violence, big and small.  Bring in the Drones!

The economic/social/political classes have adapted to reality.   Conservatives continue to wish for an idealized past, while embracing the repressive class stratification of the new society.  People in the middle and on the left of the spectrum are subject to control mechanisms, if necessary, as various forms of cooptation and selective tolerance seem adequate to stifle unrest or calls for change.  Assisted by modern media-based techniques, wealthy elites can easily manipulate opinion among the masses, corrupting the populace by invoking racism, sexism, nationalism, and a generalized hatred of the “other.” It is not surprising that, when given a choice, many individuals and groups simply vote against their own interests.  Sadly, the recurring calls for positive change get buried.

We again face the world Wells perceived.  What about hope, you ask?  Religion in many versions has been seen as the temporizing institution promoting a just world, idealized as a force for ethical behavior and peace.  In practice, however, devotion to god has been marshaled into crusades that favor the one true way, and in every era the “just” war has been duly blessed.

In his 1936 version, Wells looked to aviators as harbingers of a new golden age, “wings over the world” to protect the peace.  We aren’t that optimistic anymore.  As individuals we are relegated to the masses, submerged into a cauldron of acceptance.   And so in the absence of moral/ethical growth within our civilizations, experience with any “New Technology” will race us ahead, steering us into our own dark, destructive nature.  Gazing into that future, we wonder if Progress has become a four-letter word.

At the end of The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald concludes: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

A recent picture, amongst others, of Mark Zuckerberg doing the rounds in cyberspace was a source of some irritation to animal rights activists because it showed the Facebook founder dangling two chickens by their legs. The picture was seen as testimony to his boast that he only ate animals he killed himself.  Since the pictures had reportedly been published without Zuckerberg’s explicit permission, they gave rise to some debate on the ethics of publishing them. But regardless of the controversy surrounding Zuckerberg killing animals, his online creation has very often been at the centre stage of ongoing discussion on ethics surrounding new technology.

Hardly a day passes by without a news report appearing that some social networking site or IT giant has run into trouble over its privacy policy. Facebook, of course, is at the forefront of these allegations and from personal experience I can say these concerns are justified. For an organisation that has a multi-billion-dollar revenue, Facebook, in the manner it deals with its subscribers, is remarkably impersonal and dictatorial. The forum changes its settings without caring twopence about what users think. Surely, Facebook  would have done some research before taking these decisions, but users hardly, if ever, get to know the logic behind these changes. In any case, given Facebook’s status and size, they need not care, which goes to show only one major flaw in the way new technologies compromise their users’ interests.

It would not be inappropriate to share personal examples. There have been plenty of cases when I have had to personally bear the brunt of Facebook’s whims and fancies. Take, for example, ghost messages and friendship requests. I have received several of these and there have been occasions when friends have not shown up in my friends list even after acceptance of requests. Facebook maintains a complaints section with a pompous and seemingly apposite list of concerns that one could address, but in reality they are massively misleading. For one, Facebook makes it clear they cannot guarantee a response to all requests, which effectively means they set the rules of the game. Given their huge status, this may seem reasonable, but may not be when you realise that genuine concerns go unaddressed. Facebook also suggests friendship requests and contradicts its own suggestions by warning people not to send friendship requests to strangers. I have always found this aspect of Facebook very baffling, because I just do not get the definition of “stranger” and if there is no indecent overture, I  see nothing wrong in approaching a stranger with a friendship request. This is a bit of a double-edged sword, is it not? On the one hand, Facebook says unsolicited requests from unknown people may cause harassment to subscribers and then contradicts this position by the very nature of its functions, because there is no absolutely fool-proof system for determining the nature of intimacy between two individuals to ascertain the veracity of a friendship request.

Julian Assange of WikiLeaks has openly accused big companies like Facebook, Google and Yahoo of being spy agencies that work at the behest of intelligence agencies to gather data on people. The essence of Assange’s worry is shared by many on very lucid and understandable grounds. Who dictates a social networking forum’s need for basic information for allowing users to register? The answer appears grey.

Speaking of new technology, I have to say that it is not only social networking fora like Facebook and Orkut and Google Friends that are the cause of worry and merit attention, there are many others. What exactly is new technology? I can safely posit that automatic answering machines in all their intricacies are now part of the new technology game. You dial a number of a Customer Service Centre expecting a person to say “hello” at the other end of the line and you end with a series of instructions that you must adhere to reach the intended individual. Sometimes these instructions are just downright ridiculous and border on the facetious. For example, just imagine an emergency number having an automated response in the world of new technology, “Hello, thank you for calling emergency services. If the thief is knocking at your door, press one, if he is inside your room and within firing distance press two and if he is holding a knife to your throat, dial three.” But you might as well be dead by the time you obey these instructions.

Ethics are not cast in stone. Social networking sites, big IT companies and intelligence agencies may be perfectly justified in doing what they do, and they have their reasons to defend themselves. But so do their users. If an individual’s personal details are being passed on to spy agencies without his/her permission, it is worrying indeed. If social networking sites are being mined for data to determine one’s suitability for a job or an interview, the same alarm bells ring. The recent debate about social networking sites being threatened to take off ostensibly offensive content in India is a very pertinent subject to ponder deeply because it well illustrates inherent contradictions and dichotomies of new technology.

It would be naïve to assume that new technology could never be misused and the British riots have been allegedly aided by people passing on messages via social networking sites. It would also be impractical and idealistic to expect these corporate giants not to exercise a degree or level of control over content posted and shared on their platforms. But even if all of the above points are granted, they do not take away very legitimate concerns on invasion of privacy and unethical and ad hoc policies that some of these firms appear to employ in collusion with governments and their cronies.

It has been stated eloquently very often that safeguards are needed to ensure responsible behaviour and, as with any other field of endeavour within a social framework, the ethics of new technology do necessitate some safeguards. But the overriding query that would remain is embedded in the words of the Roman poet Juvenal, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”(Who will guard the guards themselves?)