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> There will always be rich people. Peter Thiel is not an automaton. he is a human being. he bears responsibility for his actions. he might not be doing anythi

by bakhy 10y ago

> There will always be rich people. Peter Thiel is not an automaton. he is a human being. he bears responsibility for his actions. he might not be doing anything illegal, but it is perfectly justified to expect more of people than merely following the letter of the law, and as for the rest, anything goes! it is particularly justified to expect more from such influential people like him. he bears, if not legal, then moral responsibility. and after all, laws did not spring out of Zeus' head or something, we defined them, and situations like this, and discussions that they instigate, can change those laws.

threatofrain 10y ago
I don't like moral expectations, because I feel that it competes with precious narrative-time in public discourse with something far more interesting -- hard mechanisms. I believe in a policy / mechanistic fix of the importance of money in the judicial system, rather than spending time shaming one Peter Thiel. I don't like moral expectations because it works like a black box, which I would be okay with if only the results weren't so lacking and unreliable. When discourse is constrained by limited resources, I prefer to speak of mechanisms because I feel it has a more plausible relationship with moral results. When I'm one on one with you, then of course, we might discuss our moral framework and expectations, standards which may go far higher than brute mechanisms.
- bakhy 10y ago
  i can understand where you're coming from. i've felt exactly the same about Martin Shkreli. people just went crazy about him, and few asked how to change the system to not allow it. but still, even if the system is wrong, so is Shkreli. no system can be perfect. even in pure math you have Gödel. in the ugly gray world of real life, of human societies, it can only be worse. unpredictable outcomes, grey areas,.. they are unavoidable. so i think we must do both - create systems which try to guarantee good order, and always complement them with a human touch. and that means personal moral responsibility, and a duty to think of more than just satisfying the dead letter of the law. furthermore, a system which would exactly codify morality is probably impossible, or even deadly for society. (just imagine what it means to have laws covering everything that is immoral... it would be the most extremely totalitarian state imaginable.) a lot will always be left to people themselves, to decide and to enforce in this way, through open public discussions, and their ugly brother, public blaming and shaming. it not even clear: should we even make a law against what Mr Thiel is doing? the answer does not seem so easy to me. also, how could this discussion even take place if no one should judge the actions of Mr Thiel? what kind of abstract articles would we then be reading? "somebody somewhere did something, we can't say too much about what, so you don't figure out who it is"? :) BTW, is it not kinda funny to defend a well known libertarian by proposing a stricter system? :)

by bakhy 10y ago

threatofrain 10y ago

I don't like moral expectations, because I feel that it competes with precious narrative-time in public discourse with something far more interesting -- hard mechanisms. I believe in a policy / mechanistic fix of the importance of money in the judicial system, rather than spending time shaming one Peter Thiel. I don't like moral expectations because it works like a black box, which I would be okay with if only the results weren't so lacking and unreliable. When discourse is constrained by limited resources, I prefer to speak of mechanisms because I feel it has a more plausible relationship with moral results. When I'm one on one with you, then of course, we might discuss our moral framework and expectations, standards which may go far higher than brute mechanisms.

bakhy 10y ago
i can understand where you're coming from. i've felt exactly the same about Martin Shkreli. people just went crazy about him, and few asked how to change the system to not allow it. but still, even if the system is wrong, so is Shkreli. no system can be perfect. even in pure math you have Gödel. in the ugly gray world of real life, of human societies, it can only be worse. unpredictable outcomes, grey areas,.. they are unavoidable. so i think we must do both - create systems which try to guarantee good order, and always complement them with a human touch. and that means personal moral responsibility, and a duty to think of more than just satisfying the dead letter of the law. furthermore, a system which would exactly codify morality is probably impossible, or even deadly for society. (just imagine what it means to have laws covering everything that is immoral... it would be the most extremely totalitarian state imaginable.) a lot will always be left to people themselves, to decide and to enforce in this way, through open public discussions, and their ugly brother, public blaming and shaming. it not even clear: should we even make a law against what Mr Thiel is doing? the answer does not seem so easy to me. also, how could this discussion even take place if no one should judge the actions of Mr Thiel? what kind of abstract articles would we then be reading? "somebody somewhere did something, we can't say too much about what, so you don't figure out who it is"? :) BTW, is it not kinda funny to defend a well known libertarian by proposing a stricter system? :)