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diff --git a/js/games/nluqo.github.io/~bh/grad05.html b/js/games/nluqo.github.io/~bh/grad05.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1441a1e --- /dev/null +++ b/js/games/nluqo.github.io/~bh/grad05.html @@ -0,0 +1,138 @@ +<HTML> +<HEAD> +<TITLE>Speech at UCB CS Graduation, 2005</TITLE> +</HEAD> +<BODY> +<H1>Speech at UCB CS Graduation, 2005</H1> +<CITE>Brian Harvey<BR>University of California, Berkeley</CITE> + +<P>Congratulations -- you made it! + +<P>When I was younger, I, like many other kids, daydreamed about starting a rock +and roll band, and becoming the warmup act for the Beatles on tour. But today +I'm in basically that situation, and I find that being the warmup act for Ivan +Sutherland is actually kind of intimidating. So I'll be brief. + +<P>In a little while, our department chair will stand here and symbolically +introduce you, the graduating class, to the world. "Here they are, world, +this year's crop of new computer scientists!" The job of the graduation +speakers is the opposite: we're supposed to introduce the world -- "the real +world," as we say in college -- to you. + +<P>Technically, it's an exciting world, full of adventure, glory, and danger, +just like the movies. People talk about "nano-bio-info-science," a grand +unification of engineering disciplines. I'm old enough to feel really +impatient, waiting for those cholesterol-eating nano-bots they keep promising +to send through my bloodstream soon. But the dangers are worrying; research +shows that at least some carbon nanoparticles are poisonous to fish. As you +live out your careers, I hope you'll responsibly pursue the glory without +ignoring the danger. All in all, though, I'm proud to present you with the +world of technological opportunity. + +<P>I'm having a harder time working up the appropriate enthusiasm for the +parts of the real world <em>outside</em> the research lab. This world we're +giving you is a fixer-upper, I'm afraid. + +<P>On March 11 there was a long article in the LA Times on the theme that college +degrees just aren't the career guarantee they used to be. The good news for +you is that Berkeley computer science graduates are still in demand. The bad +news is that, to quote the article, "industries are transforming at a rapid +pace as they adjust to intense competition, technological change, and other +pressures. That means skilled jobs can quickly become obsolete, while others +are outsourced. Educated workers are increasingly subject to the job +insecurities and disruptions usually plaguing blue-collar laborers, but +various factors make it even harder for some educated workers to get back into +the workforce quickly. Though a college education is still one of a worker's +best assets, it's no guarantee that a worker's skills will match demands of a +shifting job market." + +<P>Well, there are two ways to think about this: the competitive way and the +cooperative way. The competitive way is to think, "the article is about +college graduates in general, not about Berkeley computer science graduates in +particular." You have a leg up in terms of what you already know, and we like +to think that you're also better prepared than most to keep learning new +skills as the world changes. (Just as one example, we've done our best not to +let you tie yourselves to any one programming language.) But the cooperative +way to think about it is to ask yourselves <em>why</em> the world has to be +organized as a shark pool. It wasn't always, you know; when I graduated from +college, none of my classmates <em>worried</em> about how to protect themselves +against possible future unemployment. + +<P>I also have an Associated Press article from May 13, just over a week ago, +reporting the last day of hearings at the Kansas Board of Education as they +prepare to modify their state's science curriculum to require the teaching +of creationism. "State and national science groups led by the American +Association for the Advancement of Science boycotted the public hearings, +saying they were rigged against evolution." This is the board that has +already, six years ago, removed evolution from the required biology +curriculum; now they're taking the next step. + +<P>Don't just take this as a joke about the backwardness of Kansas. They've gone +furthest down this road, so far, but the attack on science and rationality is +happening in many states and at the federal level. The federal ban on stem +cell research is one current way in which this religious intolerance affects +that action-movie nano-bio-info future I promised you. + +<P>And don't get me started about the state of civil liberties in the United +States today. When I was your age, we '60s radicals, who'd grown up secure in +the protection of the Bill of Rights, often expressed contempt for what we +called liberal values -- in those days, that phrase was an attack from the +left, not from the right. I said I'd be brief today, so I won't drag you +through the complete list of all the things you already know about secret +"disappearances," torture, so-called "renditions" of prisoners by CIA agents +to countries that practice torture openly, FBI infiltration of pacifist +antiwar groups, and so on. The news reports from this country today are like +the ones we found incomprehensible from places like Chile 40 years ago. + +<P>You're going to find yourselves in the thick of this problem in your careers. +The modern surveillance state depends critically on the technology we invent, +things like database mining, speech recognition, the "smart dust" project here +at Berkeley. Your Cal student ID, the one that lets you into Soda Hall at +night without even leaving your wallet, uses a technology called RFID -- radio +frequency identification -- that allows anyone near you to read your +identifying information invisibly. The US government now plans to put RFID +tags in passports, so that Americans traveling abroad can be picked out easily +in the crowd by terrorists or identity thieves. + +<P>And then there's global warming. + +<P>So, we're leaving you a world sadly in need of repair. As usual, it's up to +the young to fix the mistakes of their elders. What can you do about it? + +<P>First, of course, work responsibly. These days one of the trendiest places to +work is Google. They've become a verb, the ultimate mark of success for a +company, by providing a tremendous service, connecting people with +information. They're also a huge privacy menace, collecting information +dossiers on all of us that are meant for the relatively benign purpose of +advertising, but will also, I'm betting, turn out to have worse implications +in our rapidly developing police state. Make sure you do work that you can be +unambiguously proud about. + +<P>Second, don't buy into the hyper-competitive ideology of our time. Don't take +it as obvious, for example, that your retirement or your health care should +depend on your skills in the stock market. Don't think that to be a patriot +you have to be contemptuous of the rest of the world. Don't think that +terrorism is okay if it's US soldiers, or American-trained foreign allies, +doing it. Don't think that extremist Islam is any worse than extremist +Christianity. + +<P>Perhaps you can use your professional skills to help -- help in a +deliberate way, I mean, <em>not</em> just rely on the idea that all technical +progress will eventually become social progress. For example, four years ago +some people I know started an organization called Privaterra. What they do is +bring privacy technologies such as encryption to groups working for human +rights in countries where privacy may be a life-or-death need. + +<P>And finally, do some small thing to improve the world right around you. I've +been volunteering at a Berkeley elementary school. It's fun because the kids +are cute and friendly and innocent, but it's frustrating because all that +structure of grades and tests makes it hard to learn and hard to teach. But +just this past Thursday I finally got one particular fourth-grade kid to +multiply two-digit numbers successfully, and I'm still feeling the glow from +that. + +<P><ADDRESS> +<A HREF="index.html"><CODE>www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh</CODE></A> +</ADDRESS> +</BODY> +</HTML> |