It’s good to see MITers do something with their lives. Lori Berenson ’91 has long been a role-model, but she never achieved the same notoriety as Aafia Siddiqui ’94, one of the current top seven threats to the US.

I’ve always been pretty pro-terrorist. But my recent read of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? has jostled me further that way.

I have a philosopher friend who firmly believes that, if a train is careening out of control at four deaf, blind frolickers, and if you have the opportunity to switch the track so that the train collides with only two, you should not, because to do so would be to participate in an unethical action.

I cannot agree, and now I know how. As engineers, we wield enormous power, which we can use, or which will loose itself into the systematic frameworks in which we participate. If the latter happens, it will never make people happier. Better to grasp that power and learn to use it well.

“Go and do your task, even though you know it’s wrong…. You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity.” (Wilber Mercer, Do Androids…?)