SaysDave.com

Did you know that…

1. Every gallon of ink used by consumer ink jet printers creates two tons of garbage, including the cartridge and it’s packaging.

2. The first atomic clock was originally set to the time on Albert Einstein’s pocket watch.
3. George Washington was a self-avowed atheist.

If trivia like these tickle your fancy then read on.

The three trivial statements above are taken from a fun website, gullible.info, I want to give the authors credit, both for their writing and their sense of humor. None of the statements is true, yet they each sound accurate. At first, I accepted them as true, because I took them at face value, not analysing and evaluating their veracity and accuracy. But now, I have to fess up; I’ve really presented them as a come-on, hoping that once you’re here, you’ll read further. I’m sorry for attempting to dupe you.

I’m challenged to write this article after facilitating a set of classes in the past month that addressed the topics of ethics and focused on the application of critical thinking to the evaluation of ethical considerations. What struck me in facilitating the classroom conversations is that many of the students, all thoughtful, well-educated adults, failed to apply the general principles of analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and evaluation when discussing whether common actions were appropriate (right or wrong). I was intrigued by the number of opinions that were formed based on untested truths.

For example, many adult students saw nothing wrong with distributing digital music that was protected by copyright and distribution reservations if the music was originally given to them (if they didn’t steal it directly, themselves). The opinions agreed that it would be acceptable to distribute exact copies of someone else’s commercial work, so long as the distributor didn’t pilfer the work, but received it gratis from someone else (even the original pilferer).

So, by extension, would it be acceptable for me to receive stolen objects and share them with a friend? What if the shared object were the booty of a bank heist? Isn’t there a law against possessing stolen objects?

I introduced the topic of digital ethics by posing a question regarding the use of pop-up and banner advertisement blocking software: is it ethically acceptable to use ad-blocking software to view commercial websites that offer free content and commercial advertisements?

In all classes, this question generated a lot of conversation, but in general, it was a question that the participants had not yet considered. If I were to use blocking software, such as the AdBlock extension to the Mozilla Firefox webbrowser, would I be accepting the content in a manner other than was intended (even licensed) by the provider? Is it ethical to take something without consideration for the desires and expectations of the provider?

What do you think? Is it proper (not just acceptable) to view commercial webpages using ad-blocking software?