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(This prompt is for Honors College applicants). Please upload a 500-750 word essay that answers one of the questions listed below:
Current evidence indicates that rising sea levels, combined in some cases with sinking land, will produce chronic inundation in increasing numbers of both urban and rural sites during coming decades and damage fresh water sources. Maryland is one of the states in the US projected to be among the most affected. Some urban areas will have very high economic value and substantial resources to support a response. Other areas, especially those more rural, may have few resources and historically disadvantaged populations. How should Maryland respond to rising seas and chronic inundation? Should people and property receive support for such a response, and if so, who should receive it and how will it be funded?
In Elan Mastai’s 2017 novel All Our Wrong Todays, the character of scientist Lionel Goettreider postulates the theory of the “Accident”: “[W]hen you invent a new technology, you also invent the accident of that technology. When you invent the car, you invent the car accident. When you invent the plane, you also invent the plane crash. When you invent nuclear fission, you also invent the nuclear meltdown.” Goettreider then argues that an inventor cannot turn on or use a new invention until they identify its accident and figure out how to prevent it. Identify one emerging or speculative technology of your choice. What is the accident of that technology? Can there be multiple accidents, some direct and some incidental? Is it the responsibility of the technology’s inventors, designers, and promoters to consider the accident of that technology and develop a means of prevention?
Over a decade ago, 40 of America‘s wealthiest individuals signed the Giving Pledge, and made a commitment to give away most of their fortunes to various charities throughout the remainder of their lifetime or upon death. Over 200 billionaires from around the world have followed suit and committed most of their fortunes to philanthropies from research and education to environmental causes. Do the extremely wealthy have a social responsibility to share much of their wealth? What social issues or ethical questions arise if great wealth is handed on to family heirs across multiple generations? Assuming an individual acquired a great fortune legally, what ethical questions are involved in the question of how those resources are ultimately distributed?
Choosing a president through a nationwide election in the United States has maintained the dominance of a two-party system in American politics, with each party assembling bodies of voters who may not agree on a full range of issues but who vote together in an effort to elect a compatible candidate or to block an undesired one. Some have argued that it would be better if the American political system promoted the inclusion of more parties which could put forward candidates representing the specific values and commitments of significant blocks of voters. They imagine, for example, a Congress composed in a political pattern similar to several other industrial states with parties of the right, center right, center left, and left, where no single party gets an absolute majority and thus they must negotiate continually to build majorities in support of new legislation. Would this system make voters more engaged? Would it lead to more effective governing? Why or why not?
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