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I disagree. One needs to be consistent in their actions, otherwise, what's the point? Two wrongs don't make a right, after all. EDIT: Er, I agree that hypocris

by tabeth 9y ago

I disagree. One needs to be consistent in their actions, otherwise, what's the point? Two wrongs don't make a right, after all. EDIT: Er, I agree that hypocrisy shouldn't stop you from doing the right thing.

nothrabannosir 9y ago
Consistency is absolutely impossible, as you already alluded to. It’s not a bad move to assess the current position, accept it for what it is, and improve it bit by bit. Pick your battles. Two wrongs don’t make a right when you try to sum them, I.e. combine them. My point is: don’t compare them at all. Don’t change the subject. Uber is one, other things are another. Being a hypocrite doesn’t make you wrong, it just makes you a hypocrite. Don’t even pull in the other wrong to begin with. Otherwise, how do you ever justify standing up for anything you believe in? I was born a hypocrite, surely a life of mute acquiescence can’t be my destiny?
- tabeth 9y ago
  My overall point is that people don't actually care. It's just virtue signaling. If people cared they'd have consistency in their actions. For example, you probably are very consistent in the fact that you probably will never cause physical harm to someone. Consistency isn't impossible at all. People are already very consistent in doing what simply is convenient for them. In the case of Uber vs. Lyft, if you live in an area where they're priced similarly and are of similar service it's easy to switch to one or the other under the guise of trying to do the right thing, or whatever. Not using Uber hardly requires any effort. What, ten seconds to uninstall an app and install the alternative one?
  - euyyn 9y ago
    Today's SMBC comic is relevant to your argument: http://smbc-comics.com/comic/wait-a-sec http://smbc-comics.com/comic/wait-a-sec
  - kelnos 9y ago
    > My overall point is that people don't actually care. It's just virtue signaling. That's just, like, your opinion, man. I care up to certain thresholds. Last year my Uber use was probably 90%, Lyft 10%. Now that's flipped. I only use Uber if I'm outside the US and there's no comparable local alternative. Uber is demonstrably making less money than it used to because I do this, and Lyft is making more. I'm personally happy with that arrangement, and honestly my feelings here are the only ones that matter. I don't particularly care if you think I'm just "virtue signaling" or if I'm "not doing enough" or whatever.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - tabeth 9y ago
      Hey, just wanted to let you know (not that you care), that you're 100% right. My original post, and subsequent responses were based on a false equivalency. Dunno what I was thinking, I was totally in the wrong. Apologies if any offense was taken.
  - dgacmu 9y ago
    > people don't actually care. It's just virtue signaling. "Virtue signaling" is an annoying, low-effort way of dismissing something. Try harder. You haven't even provided any evidence. Here's an alternative proposal: People like doing things that they believe will make the world a better place, within their money/time/inconvenience budget, in ways that are limited by their attention. They're human - they have limited attention, limited capacity for simultaneously optimizing hundreds of metrics, and many competing demands that they're trying to satisfy, so they're not going to be perfectly consistent. No, one person uninstalling Uber is not a massive blow against evil. But many people uninstalling it has been enough to send a pretty powerful signal that -- in conjunction with a lot of concurrent social and legal factors -- is causing Uber to do a pretty solid about-face. (And it's not seconds, because depending on where you are, Uber may have many more drivers than Lyft -- people travel, after all, so even if Lyft is equal in your home market, it's not equal everywhere. You're also losing the prospect of alternating apps when one or the other is in surge pricing. If you're a heavy user of ride-sharing services, uninstalling Uber imposes both a time and monetary cost.) Kudos to the GP and others for uninstalling Uber. And for every other step they've taken to try to improve the world by their own actions. Dans ses écrits, un sage Italien Dit que le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. (In his writings, a wise Italian says that the better is the enemy of good.) -- Voltaire Don't let the pursuit of perfection stop you from doing anything that matters.
    - tabeth 9y ago
      Though I appreciate your post, it only further emphasizes my original point. You, apparently a professor at CMU, praise folks for merely uninstalling an app. Something you only knew because they bothered to post it on an internet board. This further reinforces that people should post that they're doing such virtuous things to begin with. Why, because they want to increase social standing among people in a given area, that is computer science, to which you already have a high standing in, given that you're a CS professor at CMU. So yes, it is virtue signalling, pretty much by definition -- "the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue." That being said, I don't think virtue signalling is bad. In fact, it's virtue signalling that has led to the pressure on Uber that brought about this very discussion. --- As an aside, I didn't realize "virtue signalling" was such a bad word, as well as "hypocrisy." I guess I'll have to stop using those words.
Xylakant 9y ago
It’s just not possible to be perfectly consistent in all your actions, we’re all hypocrites somewhere if you consider all down to the root. We probably all hate forced child labor, yet we all own smartphones, all of them most likely built with resources mined by children under grueling conditions. (This text Is typed on one) Still, don’t let that stop from doing the right thing once in a while. If we all did the right thing most of the time, we’d still be hypocrites, but the world would probably be a better place.
- tabeth 9y ago
  > We probably all hate forced child labor A false premise. If that were true, just like you stated, we wouldn't support it. Actions speak louder than words, and all that. EDIT: I realize I sound far more judge-y than intended in these posts. My overall point is that people should just do whatever makes 'em happy while doing the best you can (w.r.t. everything else). Trying to emphasize the morality in your actions is just wrong, imo.
  - Xylakant 9y ago
    It’s not a false premise. It’s just not humanly possible to change everything you don’t support. We can’t move all back to self-dug caves and till the land with our bare hands. You need to pick your battles.
    - tabeth 9y ago
      It's not about changing things you support, it's just about consistency in your actions. Taking the child labor thing into account, never being brand new electronics again would pretty much take care of that. One could make an argument that buying used goods is still supporting child labor, but I'd argue it's a sunk cost.
      - ForHackernews 9y ago
        > brand new electronics Why choose this example? Child labour is rife in many sectors, particularly textiles. It's also rampant in electronics recycling[0]. So even if you never buy any new electronics, you're complicit when you dispose of your old electronics. The point is you shouldn't allow an impossible quest for perfect ideological consistency and moral purity to prevent you from doing good on a imperfect, inconsistent scale. [0] http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/india-rising-tide-e-waste http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/india-rising-tide-e-wast...
kelnos 9y ago
> Two wrongs don't make a right, after all. That saying... doesn't even apply here. Being consistent in all you do is hard. Doing 5 "bad" things instead of 10 "bad" things is certainly better.
- tabeth 9y ago
  the two wrongs in this case are the supposed wrong you did originally, and then the "wrong" of hypocrisy. I agree with your overall point, though.

by tabeth 9y ago

nothrabannosir 9y ago

Consistency is absolutely impossible, as you already alluded to. It’s not a bad move to assess the current position, accept it for what it is, and improve it bit by bit. Pick your battles. Two wrongs don’t make a right when you try to sum them, I.e. combine them. My point is: don’t compare them at all. Don’t change the subject. Uber is one, other things are another. Being a hypocrite doesn’t make you wrong, it just makes you a hypocrite. Don’t even pull in the other wrong to begin with. Otherwise, how do you ever justify standing up for anything you believe in? I was born a hypocrite, surely a life of mute acquiescence can’t be my destiny?

tabeth 9y ago
My overall point is that people don't actually care. It's just virtue signaling. If people cared they'd have consistency in their actions. For example, you probably are very consistent in the fact that you probably will never cause physical harm to someone. Consistency isn't impossible at all. People are already very consistent in doing what simply is convenient for them. In the case of Uber vs. Lyft, if you live in an area where they're priced similarly and are of similar service it's easy to switch to one or the other under the guise of trying to do the right thing, or whatever. Not using Uber hardly requires any effort. What, ten seconds to uninstall an app and install the alternative one?
- euyyn 9y ago
  Today's SMBC comic is relevant to your argument: http://smbc-comics.com/comic/wait-a-sec http://smbc-comics.com/comic/wait-a-sec
- kelnos 9y ago
  > My overall point is that people don't actually care. It's just virtue signaling. That's just, like, your opinion, man. I care up to certain thresholds. Last year my Uber use was probably 90%, Lyft 10%. Now that's flipped. I only use Uber if I'm outside the US and there's no comparable local alternative. Uber is demonstrably making less money than it used to because I do this, and Lyft is making more. I'm personally happy with that arrangement, and honestly my feelings here are the only ones that matter. I don't particularly care if you think I'm just "virtue signaling" or if I'm "not doing enough" or whatever.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - tabeth 9y ago
    Hey, just wanted to let you know (not that you care), that you're 100% right. My original post, and subsequent responses were based on a false equivalency. Dunno what I was thinking, I was totally in the wrong. Apologies if any offense was taken.
- dgacmu 9y ago
  > people don't actually care. It's just virtue signaling. "Virtue signaling" is an annoying, low-effort way of dismissing something. Try harder. You haven't even provided any evidence. Here's an alternative proposal: People like doing things that they believe will make the world a better place, within their money/time/inconvenience budget, in ways that are limited by their attention. They're human - they have limited attention, limited capacity for simultaneously optimizing hundreds of metrics, and many competing demands that they're trying to satisfy, so they're not going to be perfectly consistent. No, one person uninstalling Uber is not a massive blow against evil. But many people uninstalling it has been enough to send a pretty powerful signal that -- in conjunction with a lot of concurrent social and legal factors -- is causing Uber to do a pretty solid about-face. (And it's not seconds, because depending on where you are, Uber may have many more drivers than Lyft -- people travel, after all, so even if Lyft is equal in your home market, it's not equal everywhere. You're also losing the prospect of alternating apps when one or the other is in surge pricing. If you're a heavy user of ride-sharing services, uninstalling Uber imposes both a time and monetary cost.) Kudos to the GP and others for uninstalling Uber. And for every other step they've taken to try to improve the world by their own actions. Dans ses écrits, un sage Italien Dit que le mieux est l'ennemi du bien. (In his writings, a wise Italian says that the better is the enemy of good.) -- Voltaire Don't let the pursuit of perfection stop you from doing anything that matters.
  - tabeth 9y ago
    Though I appreciate your post, it only further emphasizes my original point. You, apparently a professor at CMU, praise folks for merely uninstalling an app. Something you only knew because they bothered to post it on an internet board. This further reinforces that people should post that they're doing such virtuous things to begin with. Why, because they want to increase social standing among people in a given area, that is computer science, to which you already have a high standing in, given that you're a CS professor at CMU. So yes, it is virtue signalling, pretty much by definition -- "the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue." That being said, I don't think virtue signalling is bad. In fact, it's virtue signalling that has led to the pressure on Uber that brought about this very discussion. --- As an aside, I didn't realize "virtue signalling" was such a bad word, as well as "hypocrisy." I guess I'll have to stop using those words.

Xylakant 9y ago

It’s just not possible to be perfectly consistent in all your actions, we’re all hypocrites somewhere if you consider all down to the root. We probably all hate forced child labor, yet we all own smartphones, all of them most likely built with resources mined by children under grueling conditions. (This text Is typed on one) Still, don’t let that stop from doing the right thing once in a while. If we all did the right thing most of the time, we’d still be hypocrites, but the world would probably be a better place.

tabeth 9y ago
> We probably all hate forced child labor A false premise. If that were true, just like you stated, we wouldn't support it. Actions speak louder than words, and all that. EDIT: I realize I sound far more judge-y than intended in these posts. My overall point is that people should just do whatever makes 'em happy while doing the best you can (w.r.t. everything else). Trying to emphasize the morality in your actions is just wrong, imo.
- Xylakant 9y ago
  It’s not a false premise. It’s just not humanly possible to change everything you don’t support. We can’t move all back to self-dug caves and till the land with our bare hands. You need to pick your battles.
  - tabeth 9y ago
    It's not about changing things you support, it's just about consistency in your actions. Taking the child labor thing into account, never being brand new electronics again would pretty much take care of that. One could make an argument that buying used goods is still supporting child labor, but I'd argue it's a sunk cost.
    - ForHackernews 9y ago
      > brand new electronics Why choose this example? Child labour is rife in many sectors, particularly textiles. It's also rampant in electronics recycling[0]. So even if you never buy any new electronics, you're complicit when you dispose of your old electronics. The point is you shouldn't allow an impossible quest for perfect ideological consistency and moral purity to prevent you from doing good on a imperfect, inconsistent scale. [0] http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/india-rising-tide-e-waste http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/india-rising-tide-e-wast...

kelnos 9y ago

> Two wrongs don't make a right, after all. That saying... doesn't even apply here. Being consistent in all you do is hard. Doing 5 "bad" things instead of 10 "bad" things is certainly better.

tabeth 9y ago
the two wrongs in this case are the supposed wrong you did originally, and then the "wrong" of hypocrisy. I agree with your overall point, though.