Reflection

Sorry for the late reflection. I've been trying to wrap my head around the question posed in class: whether Mike is morally responsible for his actions? I think Mike should be held morally responsible for his actions. I looked up moral responsibility on Wikipedia and it said "a person has 'moral responsibility' for a situation if that person has an obligation to ensure that something happens." Keeping this in mind, Mike's obligation was to ensure the revolution's success and the safety of Luna. His Boolean logic of "practical or not" works better with his promise to the cause than "right or wrong." Mike demonstrates that he is morally responsible when he thinks he might not be around to guarantee the revolution's success, so he programs Junior to take over the the catapult. Most of the argument against Mike's moral responsibility focused on his childish nature in the beginning of the book (the cheque incident). But by the end, it is obvious that he matured, though he still kept interest in jokes (who doesn't want a sense of humor in their computer?). I have to agree that the best thing to do would be to ask Mike whether he would want to be. If he were still alive, it seemed that he would want to be in order to be more human. Mike had learned emotions, made independent decisions, and was self-aware like any other human being so I'm guessing he would want to take the next step and be recognized as more human than supercomputer. I wish he were still "alive" to hear what he would say about all of this. Plus he'd have an answer in microseconds compared to the week it took me.

Guess I better write a reflection

I am not entirely sure what to write here. I must admit I was not particularly struck by anything we covered in class. I suppose the most interesting part of our discussion revolved around the idea of morality and mike. We seemed to lose track of the question itself, being sidetrack by the question of whether or not Mike's actions were morally reprehensible. We are struck with an interesting dilemma if we simply ignore what happened and ask in isolation, if Mike did something that we would consider, without argument or question, morally problematic, would he be responsible? Unfortunately, I don't think I have an answer, although the best answer I heard in class was to ask Mike.

There was another issue that came up in class that is also worth addressing that has to do with the exact definition of revolution and how it pertains to this society. At one point in class the argument was made that the revolution was, in fact, merely a Palace Coup, throwing off outside control. This makes sense as the idea was first proposed by Barrington Moore (this has given me a chance to dig out my copy of Moore, so I am quite excited) at the beginning of the third chapter of his book Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. This is only goes to show how successful Heinlein was in modeling The Moon is a Harsh Mistress after the American Revolution as at the beginning of Chapter 3 in his book Moore is explaining why his book considers the Civil War to be the real revolution in the US as opposed to the revolutionary war. We pointed out in class that there was no society on the moon to fundamentally alter as everyone lived essentially equally. I think this is a result Heinlein's idealized version of the American Revolution (whereas after the real revolution there was a large amount of inequality). Reading through Moore, however, made me consider the future of this Moon world. Moore's work discuss' how after the revolution Yammerheads lead by Alexander Hamilton set to work introducing big government and industry to the New world, the inequality formed by having an agricultural society dependent on slave labor to the South and an Industrial economy to the north eventually leads to the Civil war which becomes the real social revolution in the US. One could foresee a similar future for the Moon following this novel. As industry slowly takes over the moon many traditional loonies are forced to the asteriods (the west) while the more stubborn ones stake out some section, but an economic policy might arise which threatens the farmer's way of life (say water use limits) and so there is war. Anyway, I suggest everyone pick up Moore and at least read the third chapter.

Reflections on Class Discussion 1/29

Going back to the whole linear marriage issue, I still feel that currently we don't see the need for it. In The Moon, there is about a 10:1 ratio if I remember correctly of men to women. The population is unbalanced and linear marriage makes the search for women easier and less stressful. In some ways it empowers the women, but I still feel like it makes them an item. I may have a bias as I lived in Utah and learned/saw way too much about the FLDS and polygamy for any non-Mormon. I can easily see polygamy as the first step toward linear marriages, as one man and have as many wives as he pleases, but still isn't all the way to linear marriage. Given time, and the right environment, linear marriage might start in the current day. However, we lack the massive imbalance that is found in The Moon.

The whole having a prison colony turn into a stable environment is something we have seen. The best example would be Australia, as they are pretty peaceful current-day. Granted, not everyone there owns a gun like Switzerland, but I think Australia is more like our Luna City than anything else.

When we were discussing the issue of should Mike be held morally responsible for his actions, I couldn't help but think of the character Data from Star Trek: TNG and the episode from season 2 titled "Measure of a Man" in which a similar debate takes place. It's not about moral responsibility but one Federation officer wants to take Data apart so he can study him and possibly make more androids like him. Data objects because he is a Federation Officer and feels that even though his memory is stored in computer chips he will loose the experience of physically being there. In the end the debate on what it means to be "alive" and they decide that since Data is self-aware and can make independent decisions, they can't just treat him like a machine but at the same time he isn't "human." I feel it's the same way with Mike, part of me doesn't want him to be held responsible and the other part wants him to be held responsible. In the beginning I feel that Mike is more like a child, and when children go to court because they killed someone they aren't tried as an adult. Mike is similar in this way, he knows that all his actions aren't necessarily right, but he doesn't know any better because he only has one true friend in Mannie. However, he begins to learn to enjoy killing and knows full well what he is doing and that it's wrong. Philip brought up a good point in that if Mike were still "alive" at the end he would want to be held responsible. Mike wanted to be human and nothing makes you more human than being held responsible for your actions, even though the issue of punishment comes into play because you can't just turn off the computer that runs everything.

Substantive 2/Frontier Mentality

I should preface this by saying that while I will not give The Moon the title of "my favorite book" it does carry the title of "my favorite book by my favorite author" Although the libertarian revolution is the most obvious topic of discussion for the piece, I prefer another set of ideas explored in the novel--the ideas of Space as the next frontier and the ideal of the frontier mindset.

While many other social science aspects of his books change, Heinlein constantly emphasizes the importance of humanity venturing beyond our planet. One of the ways he does this is by idealizing and giving superiority to the frontier mindset. Moon is no exception to this trend. The loonies, the ideal characters of this book, are characterized by their rugged cowboy/homesteader/49er individualism and dedication to hard work. He makes it quite clear that taking care of oneself should be your biggest concern. The one thing that never seems to quite fit with this mindset is the idea of a linear marriage, the existence of such highly complex and communal family units would seem to indicate a more social and communal state of living among the loonies as a whole, yet they are quite indiendent.

The revolution is quite interesting as well. I find the untility of mike to be especially interesting. Mike makes revolution infinitely simpler fro the loonies--his ability to control every aspect of life on the moon begs the rather dipressing question; would the loonies have been able to revolt at all?

The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

First off, I liked The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress better than The Time Machine. I thought Heinlein fleshed the story out better than Wells did, but this could be a result of the length of each story. With 382 pages I expect lots of details about the world and history. There is room for improvement in The Time Machine, but for its serial-length story the detail of the setting is alright.

Jumping right in, Mannie was the rough around the edges protagonist who didn't know exactly what he was doing, but knew that it was for the right reasons. And Mike's character surprised me. At first, I was weary to trust this self-aware supercomputer. The revolutionaries became very dependent on Mike, which I was unsure about, hoping on each page that Mike would not betray them. Throughout the book, Mike had the largest character development, even developing sub-characters "Adam Selene" and "Simon Jester", until the end when he was practically as human as Mannie or more. In humanizing Mike, I thought that he might display some negative characteristics of human nature, such as betrayal or dishonesty. By having Mike as a main character and not some tool in the background, Heinlein brings forward this fear of technology taking over and questions what kind of role it should play in our lives?

I also liked the "melting pot" feel Luna had. Terra consolidated into larger countries, but there is still isolation between all the countries, as seen when Mannie pits each country against each other. Meanwhile Luna represents all of these cultural centers like Hong Kong Luna and Novy Leningrad. On Luna ethnic heritage doesn't matter unless the Loonie wants to return back to their native country on Terra. This blending on Terra doesn't seem possible unless forced like it was upon Luna (being stuck in a harsh environment/situation where country of origin doesn't matter).

The book is the best example (so far) between the social/science/fiction link. I can't wait to see what comes up in discussion in class.

Substantive #2 The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

As I listen to a few of my residents debate about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and its intricacies, I can't help but think of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. I can see similar points and situations from both sides, want of safety, food, water, and shelter. I'm not going to take a side as to who is right and wrong, even though Arafat embezzled money just like the Warden in the book. Just as the revolution in the book takes place to restore freedom and safety, one of my residents said that people are willing to do anything in order to keep people from dying. Once the rally is raided Mannie joins the revolution as a gateway to MIKE, but still the plot went into full swing after deaths of comrades. The revolution goes into full swing when soldiers kill civilians, I'm beginning to see how this story is going away from sci-fi and more like social science. Without the moon setting and the self-aware computer, this story could be just like any other.

The whole linear marriage thing made me think of my time in Utah. I'm not trying to sound preachy/pass judgment on the FLDS, but I couldn't help but think about them when it was described. Granted, women are allowed to marry more than one husband in the book, but I've seen how the FLDS system doesn't work all the time. I'm just surprised that Heinlein makes linear marriage work. This could also be tied into how there don't appear to be many women in Luna City, so they aren't treated like a commodity and are treated more like a necessity and treat them right.

This has also made me think more abstractly, social/science/fiction must have universal problems/aspects to them.