Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Keywords: Tech

  • RELIGION

    Encyclical's groundbreaking critique of technology

    • Paul Collins
    • 15 July 2015
    9 Comments

    While Francis has no time for technological solutions and 'fixes' for complex ecological problems, he is no techo-Luddite. What he does is link technological knowledge to power and says that those with this knowledge and the economic resources to use it, gain 'an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world.'

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Retrospectivity a blow to the rule of law

    • Justin Glyn
    • 29 June 2015
    8 Comments

    Steve Ciobo MP described Zaky Mallah’s terrorism acquittal as based on a 'technicality'. This was that the anti-terror laws enacted after his acquittal were 'not retrospective'. The truly frightening thing about retrospective laws is that they make conduct which is perfectly legal when it is done, criminal by fiat. Anyone can be convicted of anything retrospectively, and this is why it is forbidden in the constitutions of many countries.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Stopping the boats as a part of our national identity

    • John Warhurst
    • 18 May 2015
    17 Comments

    Recent polls reveal our pride in scientific, technological and sporting achievements. It is reassuring that many of us support the current and even increased immigration levels. But Australians overwhelmingly, 65 per cent in total, believe that stronger measures should be taken to 'exclude illegal immigrants'. 

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    21st century hermit

    • David Lumsden
    • 27 August 2013
    5 Comments

    He carried no phone and sent no text. He had no email address, deleted no spam, recharged no devices, never backed up.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Civil liberties in a grave new world

    • Bill Calcutt
    • 09 August 2013
    1 Comment

    Since the turn of the millennium several major technology-enabled developments have significantly altered the balance between national security and civil liberties. In Australia, the hyper-politicisation of national security finds voice in the discourse on the issue of border security, turning a complex humanitarian and policing challenge (asylum seekers arriving by sea) into an enormously controversial and expensive imbroglio.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Angelina Jolie's pain is a gain for all of us

    • Michael Mullins
    • 20 May 2013
    12 Comments

    Angelina Jolie's rational choice to undergo a pre-emptive double mastectomy has shown that science can improve human wellbeing with the use of highly specialised surgical techniques. But other rational choices we might make, in favour of techniques that involve therapeutic cloning, would do more to undermine human civilisation.

    READ MORE
  • MEDIA

    Pope sweet on tweets

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 31 January 2013
    10 Comments

    When the Pope speaks on social media the casual reader might expect to hear the musings of an old man out of touch and out of sympathy with modern technology. If so, Pope Benedict's recent statement for World Media Day may come as a surprise. He pays little attention to risks, focusing on possibilities.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Negotiating Catholic healthcare moral dilemmas

    • Frank Brennan
    • 05 October 2012
    15 Comments

    The nation is the better for policies and funding arrangements that encourage public and private providers of healthcare, including the Churches. The public may need to be patient with Church authorities as they discern appropriate moral responses to new technologies. This is a small price to pay.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Human lives Australia could have saved

    • Tony Kevin
    • 05 September 2012
    14 Comments

    Australian maritime safety and border protection authorities could have saved the lives of most of the people on the boat that made two distress calls by telephone to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority early last Wednesday. Instead they passed the responsibility to Indonesia, which has none of the sophisticated resources and technologies that Australia uses - when it wants to - to locate and intercept incoming unauthorised boats.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    There is an ethical way to stop the boats

    • Frank Brennan
    • 23 August 2012
    11 Comments

    Behind all the legal technicalities and political argument about boat people, there is room for deeper ethical reflection and a more principled proposal. But first, to clear away some of the debris.

    READ MORE
  • EDUCATION

    Battle for the 21st century classroom

    • Dean Ashenden
    • 12 July 2012
    15 Comments

    The classroom — one teacher, one group of students, usually of the same age, one rectangular space, door closed — is the great survivor of schooling. It has been depicted as a contest between 'teacher-centred' and 'student-centred' pedagogies. But in the age of technology there is a new contender for dominance in the classroom.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Praise for Wilkie's rage against the machines

    • Tony Kevin
    • 24 January 2012
    20 Comments

    Catholics in Australia have tended to be more tolerant of alcohol and gambling than 'wowser' Protestants. But too many Catholics turn a blind eye to how today's poker machine technology and operating environment is designed to nurture dangerous (but profitable) addiction.

    READ MORE