Taking Economic Equality Off the Table

Nichol considers Pres Clinton\u27s Administration\u27s record on issues of economic equality, including California Gov Pete Wilson\u27s plan to discriminate against newly arrived California welfare recipients. The Clinton Administration has not been alone in taking economic fairness off the political agenda, but they have clearly done their part

Title IX in the Classroom: Academic Freedom and the Power to Harass

I alla designprocesser måste man ta hänsyn till ett mediums egenskaper. Detta är inget nytt inom design. Ändå förekommer det ofta inom människa --‐ dator interaction (HCI) och interaktiv systemdesign att teknikens egenskaper bara ses över som hastigast. Tekniken är ofta abstraherad, utan att tillräcklig uppmärksamhet ges till hur deras distinkta egenskaper öppnar upp för designmöjligheter. I den här rapporten beskrivs ett tillvägagångssätt som kallas Inspirational Bits för att bli mer bekant med designmaterialet inom HCI, det digitala materialet. Det är också ett sätt för att bli bättre på att förmedla kunskapen till alla gruppmedlemmar i ett interdisciplinärt designteam. Inspirational Bits skapas ”snabbt och smutsigt” men är fullt fungerande system i både hard--‐ och mjukvara, med målet att blotta en eller flera av de dynamiska egenskaperna hos digitala material.In any design process, a medium’s properties need to be considered. This is nothing new in design. Still it is found that in Human--‐Computer Interaction (HCI) and interactive systems design the properties of a technology are often glossed over. That is, technologies are black--‐boxed without much thought given to how their distinctive properties open up design possibilities. This thesis describes an approach using Inspirational Bits to become more familiar with the design material in HCI, the digital material. It is also a way to become better able to share some of this knowledge with all members of an interdisciplinary design team. Inspirational Bits are quick and dirty but fully working systems in both hardware and software with the single aim of exposing one or several of the dynamic properties of some of the digital materials

Red-Teaming NLW: A Top Ten List of Criticisms About Non-Lethal Weapons

Critics of non-lethal weapons (NL W) have asserted numerous complaints about the concepts, the Department of Defense research and development efforts, and the pace of innovation in the field. These critiques challenge the cost of the programs, their consistency with international law, the adverse public reaction to some of the devices, and the dangers of proliferation, among other points. This article summarizes the various assessments, in form of a top ten list of criticisms, and evaluates their weight. The author concludes that some of these points of objection have merit, but overall, the NLW enterprise is worthy of continuation and even expansion, to meet more fully its ambitious goals

Freedom of Speech and AI Output

Is the output of generative AI entitled to First Amendment protection? We're inclined to say yes. Even though current AI programs are of course not people and do not themselves have constitutional rights, their speech may potentially be protected because of the rights of the programs' creators. But beyond that, and likely more significantly, AI programs' speech should be protected because of the rights of their users-both the users' rights to listen and their rights to speak. In this short Article, we sketch the outlines of this analysis.Comment: Published in the Journal of Free Speech Law (2023

Doctrinal Dilemma

In response to Kimberly West-Faulcon, The River Runs Dry: When Title VI Trumps State Anti–Affirmative Action Laws, 157 U. PA. L. REV. 1075 (2009). Professor Kimberly West-Faulcon has identified a tension between state anti-affirmative action laws and the continued enrollment of minority students in public universities, and the author argues the tension is not surprising, because the voter initiatives that led to those state anti-affirmative action laws were transparently motivated by white majoritarian desires to reduce minority student enrollment in public universities. He feels what is surprising, however, is Professor West-Faulcon’s suggestion that state anti-affirmative action laws can themselves be read to permit precisely the type of race-conscious affirmative action that they might initially be thought to prohibit. Capitalizing on the self-interested desires of states to avoid federal-funding cutoffs, Professor West-Faulcon constructs an argument that is both analytically sound and enticingly clever. However, that does not mean that the argument is free from a potentially fatal flaw. The problem is that doctrinal arguments alone cannot compel adherence to policies that are sufficiently unpopular to mobilize effective political opposition. Alternate doctrinal arguments can always be developed that are cogent enough to support the outcomes favored by socially powerful opponents, and the original argument can always be marginalized to the point where its analytical soundness ceases to appear particularly relevant. This problem creates a dilemma for those who are tempted to formulate doctrinal arguments as a means of advancing their own racial-equality agendas. Participation in a syllogistic game that purports to be governed by doctrinal rules but actually uses those rules simply to mask the dispositive role of political preferences runs the risk of reinforcing the authenticity of the game itself. But declining participation in the game precludes the possibility of securing even those occasional victories that are permitted in order to convey the impression that the game is legitimate. It is difficult to see how the dilemma can ever be satisfactorily resolved. However, the loss of innocence entailed in recognizing this doctrinal dilemma may, at least, constitute a step in the right direction

Second Amendment Traditionalism and Desuetude

Denna artikel bygger på en förstudie om industriakritektur. I artikeln granskas industrihusprojekt i Norden som tilldelats arkitekturpriser. Syftet med artikel är dels att diskutera industriarkitektur och kvalitets och dels att reflektera över designteoretiska aspekter på arkitekturbegrepppet. Artikeln avslutas med en diskussionen om arkitektoniska kvalitet och utgångspunkt från desingområden i prisbelönta industrihusprojektQC 20150108</p

Nudging the FDA

[Excerpt] The FDA’s regulation of drugs is frequently the subject of policy debate, with arguments falling into two camps. On the one hand, a libertarian view of patients and the health care system holds high the value of consumer choice. Patients should get all the information and the drugs they want; the FDA should do what it can to enforce some basic standards but should otherwise get out of the way. On the other hand, a paternalist view values the FDA’s role as an expert agency standing between patients and a set of potentially dangerous drugs and potentially unscrupulous or at least insufficiently careful drug companies. We lay out here some of the ways the FDA regulates drugs, including some normally left out of the debate, and suggest a middle ground between libertarian and paternalistic approaches focused on correcting information asymmetry and aligning incentives.