Steve Skojec

The Wall Street Journal’s Business Technoloy Blog posted yesterday on this very question:

If you don’t have a super-fast, super-small computer in a few years, blame the moral majority. It turns out that most Americans find nanotechnology, the scientific field most likely to produce such a breakthrough, morally unacceptable.

That’s according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin who are studying people’s attitudes towards nanotechnology, an emerging scientific field that involves manipulating molecules and atoms. They found that just 29.5% of the 1,000-plus Americans surveyed said they thought nanotechnology research was morally acceptable.

The Journal says that the study’s leader, U of W professor Dietram Scheufele, believes that people don’t understand nanotech and so lump it in with “other new technologies like stem cell research and genetically modified foods…”

The CEO of my firm asked a bunch of his younger staff members over a lunch a few months ago which technologies they thought would have the most impact in their lifetimes. Without hesitation, I responded, “Nanotech.” Why? It will effect everything from the materials we use to the buildings we build to the medicines we take to the robotics that will become an ever more integrated part of our lives.

For more info on nanotech, check out the entry at HowStuffWorks.

Update: What I meant to mention, but somehow forgot in my Friday-evening haze, is that I can’t imagine this technology being opposed on moral grounds. The real fears that people have about nanotech being potentially dangerous if it somehow was able to accomplish unlimited self-replication (a common sci-fi theme on the topic) is one thing; questions about ethics, however, are entirely unrelated. Nanotech does not, in my limited understanding, pose a moral dilemma whatsoever.

If I’m missing something, by all means, let me know.

I told you a while back that the “Writer - Thinker - Fat Guy” theme was only temporary. I’ve been in what seems to be a permanent creative funk since then, and I’ve been struggling to come up with a decent idea.

Anyone who has followed my blogging over the years knows that I love to do the occasional redesign, but in this case I have a more utilitarian purpose in mind, which made the process more difficult.

My original blog was created in 2003 with the intention of making it an online portfolio of my written (and other) work. It didn’t turn out that way, and over time my focus changed and evolved. I am now comfortable covering a more broad range of subjects than when I started, though I still maintain a primary emphasis on my faith, the political arena, and the culture that surrounds us.

The experience I’ve earned has brought me to a point where I think I can finally make this into what I always wanted it to be - the dynamic, ever-growing resume of a freelance writer. As such, I wanted to reflect a more professional appearance and create, in marketing speak, a “brand identity.”

I hope I’ve accomplished the beginning of this theme with the new header. I’ll be continuing to make tweaks and changes to better streamline the blog with this in mind, but I doubt you’ll notice.

Now we return you to our regularly scheduled posting.

New details are beginning to emerge on an apparent pattern of “cheating” by the New England Patriots through the use of electronic monitoring of other team’s play calling.

The AP is reporting that Steven Spielberg is quitting his role as artistic advisor to the Beijing Olympics because of China’s stance on human rights.

No - not human rights in China. Human rights…in Darfur.

Nevermind the persecution of Catholics, the abuse of workers, the organ harvesting of prisoners, the communist crackdowns, the one-child policy that leads to forced abortions and sterilizations, etc., that happen on a regular basis within China’s own borders. China isn’t doing enough to abate the humanitarian crisis in an African nation half a world away.

All the same, the Chinese are all hot and bothered about his departure. I have to imagine they’re secretly pleased that he missed the 800-pound gorilla in the room and went for the obscure political connection instead.

Is there some kind of common-sense sucking chemical in the water out in Hollywood?

U.S. Navy shoots down wayward satellite within the allotted 10-second window. (How do you like them apples, Russia and China?)

I should have been in bed an hour ago, but when I remembered that the lunar eclipse was tonight I headed outside to see if I could snap a picture with my telephoto lens. I’m still pretty new at playing with the exposure on my camera, but I thought this came out fairly well:

That’s what Professor Nouriel Roubini of New York University’s Stern School of Business thinks we’re facing, according to a story in yesterday’s Financial Times:

Recently, Professor Roubini’s scenarios have been dire enough to make the flesh creep. But his thinking deserves to be taken seriously. He first predicted a US recession in July 2006*. At that time, his view was extremely controversial. It is so no longer. Now he states that there is “a rising probability of a ‘catastrophic’ financial and economic outcome”**. The characteristics of this scenario are, he argues: “A vicious circle where a deep recession makes the financial losses more severe and where, in turn, large and growing financial losses and a financial meltdown make the recession even more severe.”

The piece is too long to do justice to in excerpts, but it’s a perspective worth reading. As dire as the predictions contained in it seem to be, what they don’t take into sufficient account is the level of debt and future obligations this country has, to the tune of $53 trillion dollars. Professor Roubini does mention the significance of America being a debtor rather than a creditor nation: “[The United States] must keep the trust of foreigners. Should it fail to do so, the inflationary solution becomes probable. This is quite enough to explain why gold costs $920 an ounce.”

What the consequences of losing the trust of foreigners will be is not specified. David Walker, U.S. Comptroller General and head of the Government Accountability Office - who will resign his long-standing position next month to be able to have the political freedom to take a more proactive role to save our economy - does talk about some of the consequences of foreign-owned U.S. debt.

I can’t embed this video here, but I urge you to watch it in its entirety. If you live in this country, this affects you profoundly. We can’t ignore it anymore.

All of a sudden, Sony is advertising the hell out of their Reader Digital Book, something that’s been in their product catalog for a while. In some Metro stations here in DC, they’ve bought up all the poster ad space coming into and out of the platforms. 

It definitely looks slicker than Amazon’s Kindle, but I wonder why the sudden push? I think the concept is a good one, but I can’t imagine replacing my books with this device. It’s not because of some innate need for tactile interaction with paper, though I’ll admit a certain nostalgia for that. It’s for an entirely more pragmatic reason - because books are cheaper and less breakable.

The book I’m currently reading, for example, set me back about five bucks including shipping because I bought it used. The e-books for the Sony reader have a wide range in price, but most of them aren’t nearly as inexpensive as my used books or a good trip to the library.

If I switched to digital, I would also lose the cachet of having bookshelves lined with books of every shape and size. There’s something beautiful about a library full of bound paper, colorful spines and dog-eared corners protruding like the motley band of ideas I have swirling around in my noggin. Perhaps I’m too much of a romantic, but even as a technophile I can’t see making this switch.

Can you?

That’s ten in a row for America’s own liberal secular messiah. This guy is eerily unstoppable.

I ran across an article in Newsweek about the growing disparity between the burgeoning tell-all sex culture on college campuses and the actual number of sexual encounters college students are having. The good news - although for perhaps the wrong reasons - is that sexual activity seems to be diminishing rather than increasing these days. The bad (and admittedly rather weird) news is that an increasing number of students are publishing their bedroom memoirs with proficiency, leading to the rise of college skin-mags and sex columns. Some students actually consider their appearance in these publications, often with compromising photos to boot, as career builders:

These publications are not purely academic exercises: their creators hope they lead to professional opportunities after graduation. “People think it’s a stigma, but I think we’re in changing times, and it can open doors for me,” says Oleyourryk, who recently moved to New York and is looking for work as a waitress while she continues publishing Boink. “I continually tell my mom this is a great résumé builder,” she says, though she’s vague about what she’ll use her résumé for. Though the young sexpert’s optimism may seem naive, it’s not necessarily misguided, says Pepper Schwartz, a sociologist at the University of Washington. “Maybe their generation will take this a lot less seriously than we do,” she says. In the age of MySpace and Facebook, sex may be just one more way to network.

Touching sentiment, isn’t it?

Something else struck me as I was reading through the piece - all of the mentioned publishers of this smut are women. I kept expecting to see a guy’s name somewhere, but it never came up.

Ladies, I don’t know when it’s going to become evident to you that giving away your sexuality to willing bodies or willing eyes is not a power move. It’s a degradation of yourself and a capitulation to one of the stronger and more base male instincts. I can’t tell you why, but men are hardwired to want sex pretty much all the time. (This is not news.) If they can’t have that, they’ll be happy enough just to have a peek at the beauty of your body. This isn’t about you, it’s about them. Even good men struggle to keep these instincts in check. (It’s called concupiscence, but I doubt they teach that word at Harvard or Yale.)

Deep down, it’s evident that even some of the women featured in the story know this:

Certainly, the students behind the publications are earnest and articulate, and may be able to land the jobs of their dreams. If they do experience misgivings about their activities, it may be for personal reasons. “The only times I regret writing the column,” says Bromberg, “is when I have to look my dad in the eye.”

Fathers, perhaps more than anyone, don’t want to see their daughters make themselves into sexual objects. This is because fathers know what it’s like to be men. To battle desire. To want to see, objectify, or use the women God can rightly claim as His most beautiful creations. Any man who has ever been guilty of losing the custody of his eyes and has had the repentance to confess it has probably been told by a priest, “How would it make you feel if that were your daughter? Because she is somebody’s daughter, wife or sister.”

Women have a power over men because of their beauty and sexuality, and history is filled with examples of how it has been both used and abused (Salome, anyone?) for the attainment of power.

In the end, however, the women always lose more than they gain.