Menu of paper/debate topics
From the syllabus, slightly edited:
The first paper will be roughly 2½-3 pages in length (aim for about 700-800 words) and will articulate both sides of a policy question with ethical or citizenship implications, arguing for one of them. The paper is worth 15% of the course grade. [...] The last few weeks of the course will involve pairs of students debating policy questions with ethical implications; in each case the student will be arguing the opposite side of the same topic they wrote their midterm paper on. The format will be a slightly modified form of the “Lincoln-Douglas debate” style, and the full format and rubric will be distributed and explained in detail later in the semester. Debate performance will constitute 20% of the course grade, plus 5% for online feedback and discussion of others' debates.Pick your three top choices and email them to me. If you have a preference on which side of the question you take for the paper vs the debate, mention that too.
- Robots: We should(/n't) ban by treaty the use of autonomous AI/robots in domestic and international military conflicts.
- Internet access: We should(/n't) consider access to the Internet a positive right, and the US government should(/n't) provide it free or cheap to every household.
- Abandonware: Books, music, and games that are out of print, and whose owners have gone out of business, should(/n't) be considered "abandonware" and released into the public domain.
- School laptops: School districts that distribute laptops to their students have(/n't) got a legitimate interest in tracking their location and verifying that they're used in permitted ways, so the districts should(/n't) be able to remotely access and view images from the laptops' webcams.
- OpenDocument: The Commonwealth of Virginia should(/n't) adopt a policy requiring all state documents to be in OpenDocument format. (See also: "proprietary formats")
- Social media: Social media sites are(/n't) obliged to be a safe space for their users, so they should(/n't) delete controversial or sexist/racist/other -ist content, and/or ban users that post them.
- Red-light cameras: Automated photo-based law enforcement tools, such as red-light cameras, are (a net benefit/too invasive) and should thus be (legal and encouraged/restricted or banned).
- Software patents: Software patents are fundamentally (beneficial/problematic), and Congress and the USPTO should (keep or only mildly tweak/abolish or radically restrict) them. (See also: "non-practicing entities", "patent troll", "prior art", "novelty")
- Body cams: On-duty police officers should(/n't) be required to wear body cameras turned on at all times, with the recordings saved for at least a few weeks after each shift.
- Voter databases: Voter registration databases should(/n't) be linked among jurisdictions and to state ID databases, with matches (showing multiple registrations) and mismatches (showing nonexistent people) automatically removed from the voter rolls.
- Net neutrality: The US government should(/n't) mandate that Internet service providers handle all transmitted data in the same way without privileging certain platforms over others or charging extra for some content.
- Injected ads: The US government should(/n't) ban Internet service providers from editing transmitted content to inject advertisements into the users' data downloads and web pages.
- Doxxing: The US government should(/n't) pass a law making doxxing someone a federal crime.
- Online voting: The Commonwealth of Virginia should(/n't) pass legilsation and build a web interface enabling people to vote for town, state, and federal offices online.