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It doesn't have to be a complex topic. People braid ideas and emotions together to arrive at unsolvable hairballs like the one you're describing (which my rati

It doesn't have to be a complex topic. People braid ideas and emotions together to arrive at unsolvable hairballs like the one you're describing (which my rational self totally understands) - while the genie (monster) is out of the bottle, in the closet, getting bored.. When outside 'truth' is incomprehensible, the answer lies 'inside'.. And then it becomes much simpler (not necessarily easier) - the problem is not how to fix the outside world, but a binary 'good' or 'bad' on a fundamental, basic level: is it out of love or fear and which side do I stand on ? Start building from that and then all that 'strategic' narrative presents itself as stories told by generations of people scared shitless of other similarly scared people on the other side of the planet. I guess I'm just one of those naive enough to think that wars cannot happen without soldiers and weapons...

kbenson 9y ago
The main reason for my response was because of my interpretation of "Given those goals that they had, why would anyone expect them to behave 'ethically' or care about the side effects of their activity ?" which I took as implying anyone that developed if must have been ethically bankrupt. I don't think we can know for sure the goals of the individual people involved in most cases, and we may be somewhat off often about the goals of the organization the worked for as well. I for one fully believe many of the people involved thought they were doing the right thing. They performed some ethical calculus that let them believe that the development of the weapon they worked on would end up being a net positive. If not by nature of its existence, then by assuming that it would exist and they thought they were better stewards for it than others. People's ethical decisions are not absolute, they are based on the beliefs and information of the people at the time the decisions were made. Portraying them as different than us in that they do not have the same ethical standards is very dangerous in my eyes. It's tempting to say there is no way we would make the same decisions in the same situation with the same information, but I'm not sure sure. It's the same reason I think it's very dangerous to put the Nazis on a pedestal as absolute evil. That abstracts away the possibility that it could happen again and that we need to be vigilant for it. By making them "other" than us we assume we could not do the same thing. If we assume the past can't happen again just because we are different than they were, we've learned nothing, because we are no different.
- delegate 9y ago
  Totally agree with you, especially about the Nazis. I've tried to explain my method for making ethical choices - remove rationality, remove 'what's good for others - country, nation, etc', remove 'circumstance and context' and think of it at the lowest, absolute level. Take that as primary truth. In other words, listen to heart more than to the mind. I've decided that I would choose my own death (physical, professional, etc) rather than do something which my heart tells is very wrong (eg. kill others, cause suffering or pain, participate in wars, etc). I hope life will not put me to this test, but if it does, well, at least I have a plan.. Death (physical or not) is always a choice and sometimes it is the only solution to a moral problem, and it is always available. Apart from the stoics, Leo Tolstoy's philosophical works have strongly influenced me and I wholeheartedly recommend reading his later books. Those ideas are powerful tools to have in your mental arsenal.

kbenson 9y ago

The main reason for my response was because of my interpretation of "Given those goals that they had, why would anyone expect them to behave 'ethically' or care about the side effects of their activity ?" which I took as implying anyone that developed if must have been ethically bankrupt. I don't think we can know for sure the goals of the individual people involved in most cases, and we may be somewhat off often about the goals of the organization the worked for as well. I for one fully believe many of the people involved thought they were doing the right thing. They performed some ethical calculus that let them believe that the development of the weapon they worked on would end up being a net positive. If not by nature of its existence, then by assuming that it would exist and they thought they were better stewards for it than others. People's ethical decisions are not absolute, they are based on the beliefs and information of the people at the time the decisions were made. Portraying them as different than us in that they do not have the same ethical standards is very dangerous in my eyes. It's tempting to say there is no way we would make the same decisions in the same situation with the same information, but I'm not sure sure. It's the same reason I think it's very dangerous to put the Nazis on a pedestal as absolute evil. That abstracts away the possibility that it could happen again and that we need to be vigilant for it. By making them "other" than us we assume we could not do the same thing. If we assume the past can't happen again just because we are different than they were, we've learned nothing, because we are no different.

delegate 9y ago
Totally agree with you, especially about the Nazis. I've tried to explain my method for making ethical choices - remove rationality, remove 'what's good for others - country, nation, etc', remove 'circumstance and context' and think of it at the lowest, absolute level. Take that as primary truth. In other words, listen to heart more than to the mind. I've decided that I would choose my own death (physical, professional, etc) rather than do something which my heart tells is very wrong (eg. kill others, cause suffering or pain, participate in wars, etc). I hope life will not put me to this test, but if it does, well, at least I have a plan.. Death (physical or not) is always a choice and sometimes it is the only solution to a moral problem, and it is always available. Apart from the stoics, Leo Tolstoy's philosophical works have strongly influenced me and I wholeheartedly recommend reading his later books. Those ideas are powerful tools to have in your mental arsenal.