3.? Technology and Values 53 undergoing a silent. but tremendous change as new computer products come on the market and the revolution gathers momentum. It is moving so fast that it is stripping us of our ability to cope. Although we are constantly in need of new moral prin- ciples and new ethical values to t the changing landscape. we cannot formulate. debate. and put in place such principles and values fast enough before they are outdated. More important still. even if we were able to come up with new values and moral principles. we would still lack the conceptual models within which such values and principles can be applied. There are many new situations resulting from the computer revolution that are outdating our basic sets of values. Take. for example. the processes of dealing in forgen'es in monitory currencies. There are laws on the books in almost every country against forgeries of any kind. let alone forgeries of currencies. These laws are further reinforced with individual moral values. One can. for example. repro- duce and print millions of almost identical notes of a country's currency. Suppose even further that one produces a software program that reproduces the bank notes and enriches oneself. One's conscience of course tells the person that what one is doing is wrong. but the new technological advances are so tempting and making it so easy and so available that one can start rationalizing one's actsl created or bought the program with my own money and did all the work by myself. and after all it is highly unlikely that I can be Caught because people cannot even tell the dilference. All that one is doing is creating a vacuum in one's basic set of values. and society needs to nd a way to ll that moral vacuum so as to prevent indi- viduals from taking moral vacations! As computer and telecommunication revo- lutions pick up speed. creating new avenues of use and access like the Internet and the World Wide Web. thus giving users room and reasons to take moral vacations, there is an urgent need to do the following: 1. Formulate new laws to strengthen our basic sets of values, which are being rendered irrelevant by computer technology. 2. Construct a conceptual model in which the new laws can be applied successfully. 3. Launch a massive education campaign to make society aware of the changing environment and the impact such an environment is having on our basic values. The rst two objectives are beyond the scope of this book. which mainly focuses on the third objective. educating the public concerning ethical issues raised by the computer revolution