Questões de Inglês - Reading/Writing

Texto

Fascism is only a few missteps away

sampotter25 19 January 2008

    An amiable German social sciences teacher has to teach his children about an autocratic government. The children at first seem bored, not wanting to hear any more about The Third Reich and Nazism. The teacher is surprised. "We're too knowledgeable to ever fall into something like that again," say the students. The teacher then decides to show the children what it's like to live in an autocracy, and sets up a simple experiment in class. They elect a leader (him) and he begins to instill in them (merely as an examplE) the virtues and practices that accompany an autocracy ("Strength through discipline", "Work as one"). The students take to it, and become obsessed with it. Soon, what was a simple classroom experiment grows to a social entity all it's own, with the teacher not sure if he can reverse the effects.

    The film was very well acted and written, and was seriously creepy. It showed how - easily a society could fall into fascism, if presented to the society in the correct way. Watching the film, I understood why the students enjoyed the new system, but was also privy to the horrors that come with it. A shocking and powerful film. The way the different children reacted and how such a seemingly innocent experiment profoundly affected their lives was incredible and horrifying. Vogel gives a powerful performance as an idealistic teacher who isn't aware of the influence he has on others. Worth seeing.

From: https://goo.gl/HohWhe. Accessed on 11/05/2018

TEXT

The first step in establishing a cyber ethical culture is to ask the really tough questions, the answer to which may be politically incorrect. HR (Human resources), legal, security and top management need to work together to set the tone they wish to flow through gaming; other times off-site meetings will work.

The second step is to include cyber ethical components in corporate security awareness campaigns to keep employees clued in.

The last but most important step is to be ready to make changes rapidly when cyber ethics becomes a component of information security efforts. We cannot predict how they will change tomorrow or next year – but we need to be prepared.

(MARINOTTO, Demóstene. Reading on Info Tech (Inglês para Informática). São Paulo, Novatec, 2007.)

Six things I learned from riding in a Google self-driving car 

1 - Human beings are terrible drivers.

We drink. We doze. We text. In the US, 30,000 people die from automobile accidents every year. Traffic crashes are the primary cause of death worldwide for people aged 15-24, and during a crash, 40% of drivers never even hit the brakes. We’re flawed organisms, barreling around at high speeds in vessels covered in glass, metal, distraction, and death. This is one of Google’s “moonshots” – to remove human error from a job which, for the past hundred years, has been entirely human. 

 2 - Google self-driving cars are timid.

The car we rode in did not strike me as dangerous. It drove slowly and deliberately, and I got the impression that it’s more likely to annoy other drivers than to harm them.

In the early versions they tested on closed courses, the vehicles were programmed to be highly aggressive. Apparently during these tests, which involved obstacle courses full of traffic cones and inflatable crash-test objects, there were a lot of screeching brakes, roaring engines and terrified interns. 

 3 - They’re cute.

Google’s new fleet was intentionally designed to look adorable. Our brains are hardwired to treat inanimate (or animate) objects with greater care, caution, and reverence when they resemble a living thing. By turning self-driving cars into an adorable Skynet Marshmallow Bumper Bots, Google hopes to spiritually disarm other drivers. I also suspect the cuteness is used to quell some of the road rage that might emerge from being stuck behind one of these things. They’re intended as moderate-distance couriers, not openroad warriors, so their max speed is 25 miles per hour. 

 4 - It’s not done and it’s not perfect.

Some of the scenarios autonomous vehicles have the most trouble with are the same human beings have the most trouble with, such as traversing four-way stops or handling a yellow light.

The cars use a mixture of 3D laser-mapping, GPS, and radar to analyze and interpret their surroundings, and the latest versions are fully electric with a range of about 100 miles.

Despite the advantages over a human being in certain scenarios, however, these cars still aren’t ready for the real world. They can’t drive in the snow or heavy rain, and there’s a variety of complex situations they do not process well, such as passing through a construction zone. Google is hoping that, eventually, the cars will be able to handle all of this as well (or better) than a human could. 

 5 - I want this technology to succeed, like… yesterday.

I’m biased. Earlier this year my mom had a stroke. It damaged the visual cortex of her brain, and her vision was impaired to the point that she’ll probably never drive again. This reduced her from a fully-functional, independent human being with a career and a buzzing social life into someone who is homebound, disabled, and powerless.

When discussing self-driving cars, people tend to ask many superficial questions. They ignore that 45% of disabled people in the US still work. They ignore that 95% of a car’s lifetime is spent parked. They ignore how this technology could transform the lives of the elderly, or eradicate the need for parking lots or garages or gas stations. They dismiss the entire concept because they don’t think a computer could ever be as good at merging on the freeway as they are. They ignore the great, big, beautiful picture: that this technology could make our lives so much better. 

 6 - It wasn’t an exhilarating ride, and that’s a good thing.

Riding in a self-driving car is not the cybernetic thrill ride one might expect. The car drives like a person, and after a few minutes you forget that you’re being driven autonomously. You forget that a robot is differentiating cars from pedestrians from mopeds from raccoons. You forget that millions of photons are being fired from a laser and interpreting, processing, and reacting to the hand signals of a cyclist. You forget that instead of an organic brain, which has had millions of years to evolve the cognitive ability to fumble its way through a four-way stop, you’re being piloted by an artificial one, which was birthed in less than a decade.

The unfortunate part of something this transformative is the inevitable, ardent stupidity which is going to erupt from the general public. Even if in a few years self-driving cars are proven to be ten times safer than human-operated cars, all it’s going to take is one tragic accident and the public is going to lose their minds. There will be outrage. There will be politicizing. There will be hashtags.

I say look at the bigger picture. All the self-driving cars currently on the road learn from one another, and possess 40 years of driving experience. And this technology is still in its infancy. 

(Adapted from: <http://theoatmeal.com/blog/google_self_driving_car>. 21/08/2016.)

Six things I learned from riding in a Google self-driving car 

1 - Human beings are terrible drivers.

We drink. We doze. We text. In the US, 30,000 people die from automobile accidents every year. Traffic crashes are the primary cause of death worldwide for people aged 15-24, and during a crash, 40% of drivers never even hit the brakes. We’re flawed organisms, barreling around at high speeds in vessels covered in glass, metal, distraction, and death. This is one of Google’s “moonshots” – to remove human error from a job which, for the past hundred years, has been entirely human. 

 2 - Google self-driving cars are timid.

The car we rode in did not strike me as dangerous. It drove slowly and deliberately, and I got the impression that it’s more likely to annoy other drivers than to harm them.

In the early versions they tested on closed courses, the vehicles were programmed to be highly aggressive. Apparently during these tests, which involved obstacle courses full of traffic cones and inflatable crash-test objects, there were a lot of screeching brakes, roaring engines and terrified interns. 

 3 - They’re cute.

Google’s new fleet was intentionally designed to look adorable. Our brains are hardwired to treat inanimate (or animate) objects with greater care, caution, and reverence when they resemble a living thing. By turning self-driving cars into an adorable Skynet Marshmallow Bumper Bots, Google hopes to spiritually disarm other drivers. I also suspect the cuteness is used to quell some of the road rage that might emerge from being stuck behind one of these things. They’re intended as moderate-distance couriers, not openroad warriors, so their max speed is 25 miles per hour. 

 4 - It’s not done and it’s not perfect.

Some of the scenarios autonomous vehicles have the most trouble with are the same human beings have the most trouble with, such as traversing four-way stops or handling a yellow light.

The cars use a mixture of 3D laser-mapping, GPS, and radar to analyze and interpret their surroundings, and the latest versions are fully electric with a range of about 100 miles.

Despite the advantages over a human being in certain scenarios, however, these cars still aren’t ready for the real world. They can’t drive in the snow or heavy rain, and there’s a variety of complex situations they do not process well, such as passing through a construction zone. Google is hoping that, eventually, the cars will be able to handle all of this as well (or better) than a human could. 

 5 - I want this technology to succeed, like… yesterday.

I’m biased. Earlier this year my mom had a stroke. It damaged the visual cortex of her brain, and her vision was impaired to the point that she’ll probably never drive again. This reduced her from a fully-functional, independent human being with a career and a buzzing social life into someone who is homebound, disabled, and powerless.

When discussing self-driving cars, people tend to ask many superficial questions. They ignore that 45% of disabled people in the US still work. They ignore that 95% of a car’s lifetime is spent parked. They ignore how this technology could transform the lives of the elderly, or eradicate the need for parking lots or garages or gas stations. They dismiss the entire concept because they don’t think a computer could ever be as good at merging on the freeway as they are. They ignore the great, big, beautiful picture: that this technology could make our lives so much better. 

 6 - It wasn’t an exhilarating ride, and that’s a good thing.

Riding in a self-driving car is not the cybernetic thrill ride one might expect. The car drives like a person, and after a few minutes you forget that you’re being driven autonomously. You forget that a robot is differentiating cars from pedestrians from mopeds from raccoons. You forget that millions of photons are being fired from a laser and interpreting, processing, and reacting to the hand signals of a cyclist. You forget that instead of an organic brain, which has had millions of years to evolve the cognitive ability to fumble its way through a four-way stop, you’re being piloted by an artificial one, which was birthed in less than a decade.

The unfortunate part of something this transformative is the inevitable, ardent stupidity which is going to erupt from the general public. Even if in a few years self-driving cars are proven to be ten times safer than human-operated cars, all it’s going to take is one tragic accident and the public is going to lose their minds. There will be outrage. There will be politicizing. There will be hashtags.

I say look at the bigger picture. All the self-driving cars currently on the road learn from one another, and possess 40 years of driving experience. And this technology is still in its infancy. 

(Adapted from: <http://theoatmeal.com/blog/google_self_driving_car>. 21/08/2016.)