World of Tomorrow: Humanity in the Outernet

"They’re All Dead": The Ethical Dimension

Finally, we look towards ethics.The ethical situation in The World of Tomorrow is troubling at best. A large portion of the movie shows decisions the humans made that aren't necessarily the best for the people, especially considering the social and class conflicts that exist in the outernet. In the world that is presented in this film, there is a lack of responsibility when it comes to others' emotions and lives. The people in the world of tomorrow make decisions that will benefit them. While this is not always a bad idea, it gets dangerous when putting others' lives at risk for the sake of preserving memories in the archive. The way that those in the future chose to preserve their loved ones after they have been deceased is one of the unethical actions we see happening in The World of Tomorrow. The first example highlights the difference between Emily Prime and Emily III's ethical understandings. Emily III tells Emily Prime about their grandpa and how they were able to store his memories. While she begins to relay the messages she gets from Grandpa to Emily Prime, Emily III seems wildly unaffected by the distress her grandfather is in. Whereas, with Emily Prime, we can see a look of confusion and distress on her face. The ethical boundaries in the world of tomorrow seem to not exist. For the lower-classes, there is an even more appalling choice to preserve loved ones: "the face of a deceased loved one can be peeled off, preserved, and stretched over the head of a simple animatronic robot head." 
Yamamoto and Ananou’s paper focused mostly on plagiarism as the ethical wrongdoing that comes with the digital age. While plagiarism is, without a doubt, a problem in the academic setting today, I would like to propose that there are more ethical questions to be accounted for. Dehumanization of persons is easier on the internet, especially considering the emotional and social dimensions that were discussed earlier. Ethics in the digital age means examining not just plagiarism and what that means, but actually the ethical reasons as to why plagiarism is wrong. Who does it hurt? Why? Just like saying hurtful things over the internet can have lasting effects, plagiarism can also have effects on both the person who plagiarized and the person who they stole from. Helping students grapple with ethical and moral dilemmas, letting them see the morally ambiguous choices we have to make sometimes, and recognizing that sometimes there is no “right” answer would be at the heart of teaching ethics and morals in the classroom.The other action to take is to put at the core of all educational decisions and actions should be strong ethical behavior that seeks to benefit students.

This page has paths:

This page references: