Distress Call - Titanic - 41.44 N 50.24 W

Friday, April 13, 2012

By Steven H. VanderLeest


On 15 April 1912, the RMS Titanic, a ship declared “virtually unsinkable”, struck an iceberg and went down on its maiden voyage, slowly sinking into the icy waters with over 1,500 people still aboard.  The Titanic was advertised as the safest ship on the seas, so how did it sink?  The main threads of the story are well-known:  the over-confident captain, the fateful collision with the iceberg that ripped open five watertight compartments (engineers had calculated that the ship could withstand the flooding of four), the horrific loss of life.  The stories of heroism are the most poignant for me, as the passengers came to the realization that there were not enough life boats and some remained on board so that others could survive.

Titanic was one of three Olympic-class ocean liners.  A few years later, did engineers learn from this mishap?  Her younger sister ship,HMHS Britannic, incorporated a number of design changes to address the flaws in Titanic , such as a double-hull in vulnerable areas.  Even so, she sank on 21 Nov 1916 after striking a German mine.  Radio distress calls have also improved and standardized since then (Alexander B. Magoun, The Titanic’s Role in Radio Reform  IEEE Spectrum).  The wireless operators on the Titanic sent out numerous calls for help.  The first communication after the accident was sent at 12:15am,  “CQD CQD CQD CQD CQD CQD DE MGY MGY MGY MGY MGY MGY position 41.44 N. 50.24 W” (The RMS Titanic Radio Page).  The repeated distress code of “CQD” is followed by “DE”, which stands for “this is”, and then the repeated “MGY” is the call sign of the Titanic.  The position is given in latitude and longitude.  So the message would be interested “Distress Call - Titanic, position 41.44 N. 50.24 W”  Later messages also used the recently introduced “SOS” distress signal.  While several ships responded to the stream of communication over the next two hours, the closest one had turned off its radio for the night just minutes before the disaster and never got the message. 

Even one hundred years later, have engineers learned from previous maritime disasters, so that we no longer risk loss of life at sea?  Not yet —a modern cruise ship, the MS Costa Concordia , struck a rock on 13 January 2012, ripping open five compartments of the engine room.  Over thirty people lost their lives even though the ship did not sink, but ran aground (the death toll was much lower than the Titanic in part because the accident happened near shore in relatively warm and shallow water) .  Here too, the captain appeared to be overconfident, cruising too close to shore while relying on sight rather than radar or maps.  I am amazed that the company that owns such an expensive ship entrusted a $500 million vessel to the whims of a single person, no matter how trustworthy.  Why didn’t they install some communication equipment that would immediately sound an alarm (and perhaps over-ride the captain’s commands) if the ship strayed outside safe waters?  Of course in hindsight we can always think of a better way.

Engineers will forever be building a “better mousetrap” based on that hindsight.  Humankind will continue to improve the safety and security in our products.  At the same time, nature will continue to surprise us.  Earthquakes will shake our faith in technology and tidal waves will overwhelm our defenses.  Human operators will continue to fall asleep at the switch.  Terrorists will find ways to twist good technology to evil purposes.  Automating our technology, e.g., computer-driven self-driving automobiles, might make us a bit safer, but we will never achieve complete safety since humans design the automation, humans still can neglect or subvert the technology, and nature itself still surprises us. 

How safe should we make our devices?  Our first instinct might be to make them “as safe as possible”.  How safe do you want your next cellphone to be?  As safe as possible?  Even if that means it costs a million dollars and weighs more than your refrigerator? Every technological product is designed as a series of unavoidable trade-offs.  Thicker steel plating will make a car safer, but also uglier and less fuel-efficient.  Redundant control systems can eliminate single points of failure, but the added complexity may introduce unforeseen problems and certainly increases the product cost.  Sophisticated medical equipment may prolong life, but at such a high cost that it only serves the very wealthy.  End-of-life choices include a number of trade-offs:  determining how much technology and medicine to use, choosing when to forbear, and deciding when to pull the plug. We could live longer, but sometimes that life is filled with nausea, severe limitations, and unbearable pain.  “Doctors don’t want to die any more than anyone else does. But they usually have talked about the limits of modern medicine with their families. They want to make sure that, when the time comes, no heroic measures are taken.” (Ken Murray,  Why Doctors Die Differently, Wall Street Journal, 25 Feb 2012)

We make trade-offs not only within a particular design, but also between one design and the next. The safest designs are the ones that have been tested heavily:  proven reliable even when pushed to the limit in diverse environments.  Thus we would likely be safer if we simply continued using tried and true designs.  Nevertheless, proven designs become stale.  They stifle creativity.  A novel design is, by its very nature, dangerous.  It has no track record and thus entails some risk.  That new design might even be safer than the old, once the bugs are worked out.  The only way to discover that better approach is to provide the freedom to explore a bit, even in the face of risk.  Think of it as the small perturbation used in an engineering optimization algorithm that is necessary to jostle ourselves out of a local minimum while searching for the global minimum. 

Do I want to live in safety?  Yes, but not at any cost—not at the expense of beauty, creativity, justice, and stewardship.  We can never have it all.  Instead we are constantly balancing competing goods.  This is not a cause for despair, but rather a call to recognize our limitations and to recognize the choices that are necessary due to those limitations.  God created us as finite beings in a finite world.  We have enormous capacity for creativity and insight, but that ability is not infinite and our resources are not limitless.  We have the wonderful opportunity to creatively explore those constraints as stewards of God’s creation.

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Running with Scissors

Friday, March 16, 2012

By Steven H. VanderLeest


Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor on the 90’s television show Home Improvement would frequently get into trouble because of his love of power tools.  His predicaments usually centered on underestimating how much power he actually was directing, so he often ended up breaking or crushing something valuable by accident when the tool got out of control. 

We are all susceptible to the lure of technology because it is a powerful amplifier of abilities.  We can pound harder with a hammer and see further with a telescope.  We can cut faster with a power circular saw than a hand saw.  We can compute faster with a calculator than with pencil and paper.  Technology has become central to our modern world because it has been so helpful. 

Technology is certainly a power amplifier—but don’t go too fast with it or you could get hurt.  In a hurry to finish writing up an important document, have you ever neglected to save it and then lost everything when the computer crashed?  Ever pounded your thumb instead of the nail?  Ever sent a rather sensitive email to a large group that you intended for just one individual?  We all have experienced technology’s power gone awry.  This past summer, we rented a power washer to clean off a few things in our backyard (the back of the house, the deck, a patio area).  While we were working, my wife decided to wash off a few tools, so she held them in one hand and sprayed them off with the other.  The spray caught just a small area of her hand too, which she didn’t really even notice.  But later, we saw that it had caused a significant bruise and damage to her skin.  That pressurized water was a powerful tool that took its toll before she had a chance to react.  The summer before, we were camping at a state park, sitting around the campfire in the late afternoon.  A pickup truck pulling a large “fifth-wheel” camper rolled by and began the process of backing into a lot not far from ours.  The driver stopped to let out the rest of the family so that they could direct.  As we watched, the driver angled back and his family called out directions.  He had to turn rather sharply, so everyone was watching as the angle got tighter and tighter.  A couple others were watching how close the back of the camper was getting to a large tree, ensuring there was just enough clearance to slide by.  Although they had someone looking at the area where the camper hitched to the pickup bed, no one was watching higher up where the action really was taking place until a loud pop cracked through the air.  The top of the front camper extension had pressed into the back window of the pickup near its center (behind the driver so that he didn’t see it) and as he backed in at a greater and greater angle, it finally pushed the window until the glass cracked and popped its seal.  No one was injured, though the window was a total loss.  That pickup truck was a powerful tool that took its toll before anyone had a chance to react.
 
While we might find a power circular saw more effective at cutting wood than a hand saw, it is also more dangerous.  While one could conceivably cut one’s finger by accident with a hand saw, you could entirely lose an entire digit with one wrong swipe of the circular saw.  We’ve always known at some level that we must be careful with technology.  When we were young, our mothers scolded us about running with scissors— if we stumbled, the sharp points could suddenly become unintentional and perhaps even deadly weapons. 

Running with scissors is our problem with much of technology.  Perhaps we are going a bit too fast when the convenience of electronic purchases lulls us into permitting companies to retain millions of credit card numbers in a centralized database.  It is convenient for them and for us. And for cyber-thieves.  Perhaps we are going a bit too fast when we let young people start driving before their brains have fully developed, before their reflexes have fully matured, before their judgment and risk-assessment abilities have grown sufficiently.  Perhaps we are going a bit too fast when we use genetically modified foods.  Have we taken enough time to evaluate the long-term health effects of a regular diet of foods that have had their DNA sautéed?  Perhaps we are going a bit too fast with our rapid consumption of energy generated by fossil fuels, not recognizing the impact on the atmosphere until it has become quite significant—or even past the point of no-return. 

Many philosophers of technology have surveyed the dangers of technology out of control and the frequent occurrence of unintended consequences, concluding that we need to use a “go it slow” approach.  They have advocated a precautionary principle, that says “no, unless”, implying that we should not adopt a new technology unless we have assessed the risks and have high confidence that it is safe.  However, there may be some cases where such caution does more harm than good.  For example, if we take more care in deciding whether to bring a drug to market, might we critically delay some dying patients from receiving the only effective medicine that could cure their disease?  We are all familiar with such societal debates about the trade-offs between efficiency, streamlining, creativity and freedom on the one hand versus safety and caution through regulation and oversight on the other hand.  Even if we decide (as individuals, as companies, or as nations) to refrain from some technology, someone else will invent it and use it, leaving us at a disadvantage.  This argument has been used to support genetic engineering and cloning, as well as certain types of massively destructive weapons.

To conclude, let’s focus on just one type of technology:  military weapons.  Paul justifies the use of force by the government in administering justice:  “But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” (Romans 13:4, NIV).  Paul was writing to the church in Rome, the center of world power at the time, ruled by a government that was not always particularly gentle or righteous in its dealings, to say the least.  This passage is one of the scriptural supports for Just War theory, a philosophical argument that explores the limits of military power and establishes criteria by which a nation might rightly go to war.  In a world ridden with sin, sometimes governments need the sword to administer justice. 

However,  a sword itself is a rather limited weapon.  It requires close contact.  The ruler sees the evil-doer eye-to-eye as he doles out just desserts.  Today’s governments are armed with weapons that can kill many from a distance.  The most powerful weapons can produce rather horrific results.  That power should cause us to pause.

Because we humans often miss some of the consequences of our technology until it is too late, the more powerful the tool, the more careful we ought to be.  Besides the problem of our limited abilities, we also face the problem of evil.  But evil is not just somewhere out there. “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”  (Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956)  We are not only finite in our ability to predict the consequences of our technology, we are also fallen.  We ourselves are affected by sin and our powerful technology shows those effects.  Thus extreme caution is necessary for extremely powerful weapons.  That is not to say that governments should put aside the sword, but it is a call for thoughtfulness and wise counsel before invoking such weapons.  Scissors can be beneficial, but they can also turn deadly if we run with them and stumble.

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Digital Jubliee

Sunday, March 04, 2012

By Steven H. VanderLeest

People have rights.  In the United States citizens have the right to privacy, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to free speech, the right to gather for religious worship, and the list goes on.  There are international agreements about certain rights accorded every human (at least in theory, but often not in practice): everyone deserves access to clean drinking water, everyone deserves freedom from torture. 

People have rights, but Christians often think about those rights not as much about what “someone owes me”, but rather in terms of responsibilities.  What do I owe someone?  How can I serve them?  Rights are about treating others with fairness and equality.  Such rights do not require absolute equality:  while everyone deserves to be treated equally in certain terms (e.g., in the eyes of the law), there are other areas where inequality is not necessarily unethical.  For example, we might consider it a moral obligation to provide food for all, yet we do not extend that obligation to providing luxury yachts to all.  Where do we draw the line between need and luxury?  In scripture, God repeatedly calls his people to care for the hungry, for the naked, for the homeless.  So the line of our obligation at least extends to food, clothing and shelter.  I think it probably goes still further.  In the agrarian society of Biblical days, those that did not own land did not have the means to support themselves.  The institution of the year of Jubilee every 50 years meant that families got another chance to own land and thus a means of getting by.  This act of grace was couched in an expectation of justice.  It was up to them to then do something with the land. If they were lazy—if they didn’t plant, till the soil, and cultivate, then they might become destitute again and might even lose their land (until the next Jubilee). 

People have rights, but where do those rights come from?  I think we grant others rights and thereby incur obligations towards them because people are made in the image of God and thus deserving of our respect and care.  For our fellow humans, we have some moral responsibility to meet their basic needs:  what some would call human rights.  We are called to be Good Samaritans to a neighbor who is in need.  When a neighbor is down on their luck we are called to give them a renewed chance to earn a living.  However, today the Good Samaritan on a business trip is unlikely to be on foot—we are more likely to drive a car or fly to our destination.  We still encounter a neighbor in need, but now that might be a homeless man we drive past or a girl we see on a news website that was injured during an earthquake.  Today, technology has made more people our neighbors. 

Today, our means of earning a living is tied not to land ownership but rather is related to their education, or to their access to reliable transportation, or to the technology they own.  Technology has become a primary aide and sometimes an essential tool in providing food, shelter, health care, access to legal information, and access to job opportunities.  Someone without reliable access to technological tools is often at a significant disadvantage.  I wrote about this in equality in an earlier blog on justice, including a look at the divide that separates the digital “haves” and “have nots”.  The picture for the blog this week shows a graphical representation of this divide by mapping out the percent of the population with reliable Internet access, country by country.  One might say that Internet access is a luxury for the rich, not a necessity that is a human right for all.  I disagree. Access to the web is not the only important technological tool, but I think it is one of the more significant ways to find a job today, find legal assistance, gather medical advice, and more.  In this case, if only the rich have access to such a powerful tool, then the rich will get richer while the poor get poorer.  In this map we can see our neighbors that are at a disadvantage in our globally interconnected digital age.  How can we be a Good Samaritan to them today?  What does Jubilee mean for us and for them in a modern world dominated by digital technology?

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Secret Service

Monday, February 13, 2012

By Steven H. VanderLeest


Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

(Matthew 6:1, NIV)

My wife and I have a routine of walking every day.  Trudging through our neighborhood recently after the blanket of snow from a recent snowstorm had partially melted away and the snowplows had swept through the streets a couple times, we came upon a bit of stray litter on the ground ahead of us.  I was about to pass by, when my wife realized it was a Next-Day Delivery envelope.  It was dated several days prior, having escaped from a delivery truck and now hiding in the snow.  The recipient address was several blocks ahead of us, so we took along the envelope—still intact, though a bit worn and ragged.  Arriving at the address, we saw it was a home we had passed many times on our daily walks.  We had causally greeted the home owners on occasion when they were outside as we passed, but we didn’t know their names until now.  They were not home at the time, so we placed the envelope securely in a spot they would find it and continued on our walk.  They never learned it was us.  I suspect they simply thought the delivery service was unusually late, as well as a little rough with their package.  It was our little secret to help out a neighbor, with no reward or remuneration.

Matthew 6 calls us to pray, give, and fast in secret.  If we do it in public, we have received our reward. The wealthy who ostentatiously dropped a large sum in the offering plate had their own reward, achieving higher social status in the eyes of those watching the plate.  The Pharisees who prayed on the street corner for all to see had their own reward, obtaining public recognition and honor from those watching the corner.  Jesus foresaw no further compensation for such acts, presumably because they were performed for earthly rather than heavenly gain.  I am reminded of the Old Testament story of David’s anointing.  Samuel thought that Jesse’s oldest son must surely be the next king because of his handsome outward appearance.  But God set Samuel straight: “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7, NIV).  God sees our true motivations, regardless of what the exterior circumstances appear to imply. 


Scientists or engineers who pursue publication simply to see their name in lights are modern day Pharisees, praying on the street corner and have already received their reward.  Christians who serve God through their calling as scientists and engineers should take heed this teaching of Jesus.  Praying in public is its own reward, while serving in secret is to serve God.  Thus, we ought to engage regularly in careful introspection, examining our motives.  Do we work hard because we are seeking for earthly praise?  Are we pursuing our work hoping for publication in a prestigious journal?  Are we striving for honors and accolades from professional colleagues?  While peer review is an important guide, providing constructive criticism and correction to our work, such review ought not simply be our means to published articles that feed our ego.  While publication and patents are an important way to share new knowledge with the community, such dissemination ought not simply be our means to personal recognition. 

To be clear, I am not suggesting that publication, honors, or rewards are evil in themselves.  Nor am I suggesting that one should feel guilty when recognized. Acknowledgment from colleagues and celebration of accomplishments can be appropriate, energizing, and affirming when accepted modestly and when we acknowledge the support of colleagues, friends, family, and give thanks to God.  My point is that we focus on giving, not getting.  Our work should center on service to others, not on reward or self-actualization.  I once heard that integrity is measured not by what we do in public view, but by what we do when we think no one is watching.  That sounds right to me.  Altruism and service is most sincere when we have no reasonable expectation of reciprocation or reward.

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Upgrade - Please Reboot

Friday, January 20, 2012

By Steven H. VanderLeest

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (Romans 12:2, NIV)

Imagine if every time you changed the oil in your car, you had to take out everything in the trunk, remove everything from the glove compartment, etc.  Then when the oil change was done, you could put everything back in and start over.  What if you had to turn the TV off and on again every time you wanted to change the channel?  Yet this is the procedure we go through every time we upgrade the operating system on our computer, or need to reboot because of an update to the OS or even to some of the applications.  Interdependence between components of the software system make these restarts necessary, but they are annoying.

Particularly annoying, when we reboot our computers, everything starts from scratch.  You don’t lose anything, assuming you saved before rebooting—though that is not always the case when the reboot is not voluntary on your part.  Even so,  you lose the particular distribution of window locations on the desktop; you lose what was open in your browser; you lose which song was playing in iTunes or youTube.  Our computer technology is finally starting to  address this problem.  For example, most web browsers will let you quickly save the set of tabs you have open at the moment, and some will try to restore the tabs you had open last time (even if the browser crashed).    Even more annoying, when we upgrade to a new operating system version or switch to a different operating system altogether, it is difficult to transfer our personalities.    Our computer technology is also starting to  address this problem.  For example, most OS offerings provide some type of transfer “wizard” that helps transfer files, web browser settings and bookmarks, and so forth.  But they are not all that smart yet, often leaving out settings that are important to us.  Many of them don’t capture your custom keyboard settings, or transfer all the additions you made to the dictionary for spellcheck over the years.

The upside to these restarts is that they give you a chance to clean out your virtual closet.  Back in my college and graduate school days we moved a lot.  Every change of address meant packing up our entire lives into the minimum possible number of cardboard boxes.  My wife and I learned to live lightly, retaining relatively few material possessions. Every move became an opportunity to cull out the dross, giving it away to friends, charity, or the garbage bin.   Simplifying our material lives not only made moves easier, but it also was financially beneficial (it turns out that frugality is an essential character strength for a graduate student living on a meager research assistant stipend).  What’s more, simplifying our material lives also made our living spaces less cluttered.  It is much easier to find what you need when there is less of what you don’t need that is covering it up.  This practice did not always prohibit buying a new item.  Sometimes a handy multi-purpose tool can replace several others, making it a prudent purchase.  A smart PDA or phone can serve as a universal replacement for calendars, address books, music players, and more.  

I think our early discipline regarding material goods was helpful to our spiritual growth too.  As  Christians striving to be in the world but not of it, I think a light hold on material possessions is crucial.  Learning to prioritize one’s physical space can also help focus one’s mind regarding priorities in other dimensions of life.  Where I spend my time or money also reflects what I hold dear.   Cleaning out one’s physical closets, organizing computer settings, or sorting through MP3s can be a cue to also regularly clean out one’s mental and spiritual spaces, heeding Paul’s call to the Romans to be transformed through renewal in Christ rather than conforming to the patterns of worldly desires.   It is much easier to find what you need when there is less of what you don’t need that is covering it up.

 

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(c) 2012, Steven H. VanderLeest