To Lessen War

Philosophy time! Is there an objective reality? How much knowledge can we have about this objective reality if it exists? If there is no objective reality, then how do we say what is true or not? These are certainly philosophical questions, but often, especially in STEM, those philosophical questions are left to the philosophers. And maybe it's bigger than STEM. I've often experienced that describing a conversation as "philosophical" means that it is unintelligible, unimportant, nitpicky or impractical. But I do think these questions are important, and their answers have practical consequences for STEM. As engineers, we would like to make engineering decisions and develop engineering designs based on things that are true. All decisions require an understanding of the truth (as well as a set of priorities and constraints). And we design something because we think that there is truth to that something's form or function. It does what we think it does. It communi

Humility has been a theme of my thinking for this semester and I think it has strong implications as an ethical virtue. This is especially the case when talking about technology. I first started thinking about writing this blog post when I listened to the first of songs off of J Cole's Forest Hills Drive album. It struck me that I had not often heard a rapper talk about not being on top, and about a struggle that was relatable (something other than "started from the bottom, now we're here"). And I realized that it took a lot of humility on his part to rap about that. The chorus of the song that sticks in my mind is "no such thing as a life that's better than yours" and I think this is something that engineers need to hear, also, if they think of engineering as something that makes life better. I'm defining humility as "the acknowledgment of limitations on your ability to achieve or control outcomes". Defining it like this, it sounds r