The Minefield ABC listen
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- Society & Culture
In a world marked by wicked social problems, The Minefield helps you negotiate the ethical dilemmas, contradictory claims and unacknowledged complicities of modern life.
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Is it wrong to “rank” works of art?
Apple Music recently released its list of the “100 Best Albums”. It was, without question, a clever marketing technique — but one that raises the problem of whether it’s appropriate to rank works of high human achievement in the first place.
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Is international law powerless in the face of conflicts like Gaza?
At a time when so many eyes are on international courts, is their apparent failure to protect civilians in Gaza — or to punish the perpetrators of 7 October — further damaging an already shaky public confidence in the concept of international law?
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If chatbots are polluting the commons of human communication, what are the moral consequences?
It’s 18 months since the technology company OpenAI made its wildly popular interface with an advanced large language model — GPT-4 — available to the public. What has ChatGPT done to the habits of thought and consideration that produce distinctly human expression?
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What are the ethical, and legal, limits of protests at Australian universities?
Protests are, by their nature, unequivocal and univocal. They tend to avoid nuance or fine distinctions, and most often do not invite dialogue. They make demands. Does the particular vocation of universities place ethical limits on the forms of expression available to protestors?
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The decency of everyday life — are unwritten rules enough to sustain a good society?
Reciprocity, cooperation, kindness, turn-taking, forbearance, empathy, experimentation — can these counter the decidedly illiberal, impatient, anti-pluralistic, well-nigh apocalyptic energies that now seem resurgent in parts of the West?
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What will endure? The ethics of “Groundhog Day”
During the pandemic, there was a sudden renewal of interest in Harold Ramis’s 1993 film “Groundhog Day” — especially its bleaker aspects. But this missed its sophistication and humanity, to say nothing of its acute depiction of moral growth.