Tobacco and Death/Star Wars

Chapter 6: Tobacco and Death, When is a Cause not a Cause?
-technical communication misled the public and now has gotten millions into serious medical issues

CAUSE-
1) a fairly direct and mechanical matter
2) statistical approach
-"the tobacco industry has engaged in an aggressive program of misinformation, obfuscation, denial, and opposition that has clouded the connection between smoking and disease in the minds of the public"
-statistics is a very important tool in medicine and public health
-practically all scientists and doctors studying smoking agree that smoking causes lung cancer as well as other diseases, causation and not coincidence

SOPHISTS-
-"clever users of words to manipulate and deceive"
-interested in winning arguments, prevailing in debates, and achieving favorable judgments for oneself
-the techniques of the sophists as traditionally represented do seem to closely resemble those of the tobacco industry, and our ethical judgment of them is similarly negative
-sophists insist that every topic has two sides worthy of argument, and their reputation for contention for the sake of contention and for the sake of thier self-interest
-"Thank You for Not Smoking"

DOCUMENTS-
-industry has avoided not only a single judgment against them but had also avoided the crucial first judgment against them, which would act as a watershed yielding a cascade of further cases based on that precedent
1950s-
-Dr. Ernst Wynder's report on smoking and its affects led to the industry beginning a PR campaign using the fact that there is no real proof or cause, used the newspaper
-TIRC- famous and widely cited documents
1) articulates a position central to the industry's subsequent justifications of its activities, namely that causation and proof have not been demonstrated
2) shows the frank disdain by the industry of scientific, medical, and technical research accepted by nearly all medical and scientific professionals outside the industry
3) attempts to lay upon industry a mantle of scientific honesty and rigor that has been found to be false and deliberately misleading
-document also portrays the industry as a victim of malicious publicity from other agents, while in reality the public is the victim
1960s-
-Surgeon General appointed an advisory committee to investigate the health effects of smoking
-industry now struggling to find reputable scientists willing to defend their position
-unimpeachable evidence that nicotine is addictive has been found
-the addictiveness of nicotine was taken as accepted even though the exact mechanism by which the addiction occurs or operates is not known, which is opposite of smoking and cancer
1970s-
-industry interested in filtered cigarettes as a way to respond
-entrapped in their own web of deceit in trying to justify and market the newly developed filtered cigarettes
-justified on the basis of only a perception among the public that smoking is linked to health problems, w/out actually acknowledging the reality that smoking causes health problems
-use of euphemisms, "biological activity," a euphemism for cancerous tumors
-inversions of meaning and opposition to generally accepted knowledge are hallmarks of sophistical argumentation
-closed down several research operations in order to not learn things they didn't want to learn
-potentially damaging research either was not funded or was restricted to be under the management of the lawyers, hoped that the findings could then be kept from gov't and public
1980s-
-the control of info by lawyers in order to prevent disclosures that would be detrimental to the industry was tightened
-later went on to control the entire reporting process and whole documents
-conpletely shutdown lines if some research was about to be reported
1990s-
-huge volumes of documents are coming to the spotlight
-1997, negotiated the terms of a single enormouse settlement that would quell some of the public clamor, ran into delay and oppisition and other tobacco compancies began distancing themselves from it

A SINGLE WORD-
-"believe," investigation into possible perjury charges against those CEO's, abandoned the investigation becuase of the single word, "believe"

GRAPHICAL IMAGES-
-photographic image of the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie
-Joe Camel, care free, living for the moment, not worried about cancer years later,
-the charm of diversions is an old theme running throughout the history of rhetoric and ethics
-RJR realized the importance of catching young people to smoke, smokers of the future, slowly fading off, worried, reasoning for Joe Camel
-Marlboro Man, "Thank you for not Smoking," David McLean

ETHICAL APPRAISAL-
- Aristotle-does not approve of the tactics used by the Tobacco Industry. The industry was unethical and was dishonest in their debate for why smoking is not unhealthy. Debate was pointless because the truth of whether smoking cigarettes is harmful to one’s health is already apparent.
- Kant-tobacco documents are clearly unethical because they do not act in a manner which could become a universal principle applying to everyone. The Tobacco Industry has not treated everyone in a way which they would want to be treated. They have continually opposed those working for the public good for the benefit of their industry.
- Utilitarian-weighs cost against benefits.
- Feminist Perspective and Ethics of Care-actions of the Tobacco Industry are unethical because they are impersonal corporations driven by their own goals and do not care that many people die a slow, painful death as a result of smoking.

Chapter 7: Star Wars, Hope vs. Reality
-never actually happened, different technical communication than smoking

CONTEXT-
-began during nuclear stalemate with Soviet Union
-seemed highly appealing at an emotional level and what seems plausible at a stated technical level turned out to be technically impossible
-lots of money spent before it was terminated

OVERVIEW OF SDI-
-Reagan announced on national TV that US was initiating a program to protect US from nuclear attack, 1983
-this proposal stemmed from "technological optimism," speech not clear on how it was going to happen however
-program ended up only protecting a small amount of the USA

A COMPLEX SYSTEM-
-Fletcher report-
-all in all very confusing and unrealistic

CONGRESSIONAL OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
-OTA issued a background paper on one element of the overall program, titled "Directed Energy Missile Defense in Space"
-four "misapprehensions"
1) individual, separate devices such as lasers are not the same as the total system in which they would be used together, which would be extremely complex
2) SDI is unlike any prior technical program such as the Manhattan project
3) hopes for entirely new technologies cannot be realistic.
4) accurate predictions cannot be made about the performance of this complex system. All possible outcomes cannot be anticipated.
*all related to the software issue
-serious concerns were voiced from the earliest days of the project by technically knowledgeable government authorities about the feasibility of SDI and its software

CONGRESSIONAL HEARING
-executive branch, president vs. congress, 1984
-president's science advisor, Keyworth- "powerful new technologies are becoming available that justify a major technology development effort to provide future technical options to implement a technical strategy"
-Senator John Glenn objected to these statements on behalf of Congress
-another incident showed that seemingly hard numbers can have only weak foundations reflecting more hopes than realities

SDI DOCUMENTS. PRO AND CON
Pro-
-commonly began arguments by explaining how terrible nuclear warfare would be
-would not directly emphasize technological feasibility
-presupposes the desirability of a technological fix to any and all problems
-even when three panels were put together by the white house even their explicitly optimistic statement is couched in vague, conditional language that is typical of nearly all the technical statements made in support of SDI
Con-
-many technical experts voiced opposition immediately
-Lin concludes that the SDI software project as described in the president's speech is impossible
-the fundamental validity of the algorithms running the computer could never be proven to encompass all conceivable threats
David L. Parnas-
-father of software engineering and has experience in designing military software systems
-resigned because of the Fletcher panel
-his statement is a great example of perfect technical communication
-he says that no software system could possibly be developed along the lines required by SDI that would be "trustworthy"
-many of the potential difficulties could not be completely anticipated and debugged before hand
-claims that SDIO is not an efficient way to fund research on subsystems even if the total system is unworkable, he identifies this as a "moral issue"

STAR WARS BOYCOTT PLEDGE

ETHICAL APPRAISAL
Aristotle-
- Undecided: unclear whether supporters could be characterized as representing a virtuous persona or whether they deny any suggestion over feasibility and realistically
Kant-
- Undecided: same dilemma (in what way were the supporters of SDI acting: virtuous or themselves)
Utilitarianism-
- Ethical if carried through with intended purpose (defense)
- Unethical if carried through knowing it would be ineffective
Feminist Perspective and Ethics of Care-
- Feminist perspective opposed to military
- Defense of US and Allies shows caring
- On the other hand unethical considering SDI supporters tried to stop dissenting voices
-Resignation of David Parnas

CONCLUSION
- SDI had a laudable goal.
- Many reasons for SDI not working. Most important was software would not work as needed.
- Concern for security can cloud our judgment over highly technical matters.
- Our ethical responsibility as communicators is to make sure that our hopes and wants do not cloud our claims about our technical abilities.