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If I have 10 people and 5 moral dilemmas but only 2 or 3 people care about each dilemma, then it is very likely the group will fail on all 5 dilemmas due to lac

If I have 10 people and 5 moral dilemmas but only 2 or 3 people care about each dilemma, then it is very likely the group will fail on all 5 dilemmas due to lack of collective action. This problem scales well to more people and problems. Corporations generally do not act morally because the number of people willing to halt the company to maintain them is well below the majority. However, they are generally all aligned to further the bottom line of the business.

bopbop 8y ago
Why is this being downvoted? How does this not add to the discussion? The fact it's also a completely accurate and concise summary of human political behaviour is beside the point. Edit: so now this comment is also being down voted. The parents comment is a concise description of human group behaviour.
- tomhoward 8y ago
  Your comment is downvoted because it breaks the official site guideline to not comment about downvotes. The parent is no longer downvoted. That's one of the main reasons why we're asked not to comment about downvotes; because negative comment karma is often temporary, but comments about it are permanent.
  - bopbop 8y ago
    That makes sense, thanks for explaining.
true_religion 8y ago
If ten people cannot even get majority agree on any one of five different moral issues, then those issues are not universal. At worst, they are not evem issues but someones pet peeve.
- eximius 8y ago
  I did not say that they couldn't agree, but they they aren't motivated to provoke action uniformly. If your manager says 'Do X.', where X is a mild violation of some one's privacy or some such, can you get the majority of your coworkers to collaborate and refuse your manager? Or will most go on with their lives because they don't care enough about that particular pet cause or 'it isn't that bad'.
  - pas 8y ago
    There's no need for the majority to do something. Look at Google and military AI. A vocal minority with the implicit backing of the majority was quite effective. Even if that's a very non clear cut issue. Now the DoD will contract someone else, and the resulting system will be probably worse, leading to loss of more human lives. (Though that could help with the lower utilization of these systems, which might help scale back military action. Or not...)

bopbop 8y ago

Why is this being downvoted? How does this not add to the discussion? The fact it's also a completely accurate and concise summary of human political behaviour is beside the point. Edit: so now this comment is also being down voted. The parents comment is a concise description of human group behaviour.

tomhoward 8y ago
Your comment is downvoted because it breaks the official site guideline to not comment about downvotes. The parent is no longer downvoted. That's one of the main reasons why we're asked not to comment about downvotes; because negative comment karma is often temporary, but comments about it are permanent.
- bopbop 8y ago
  That makes sense, thanks for explaining.

true_religion 8y ago

If ten people cannot even get majority agree on any one of five different moral issues, then those issues are not universal. At worst, they are not evem issues but someones pet peeve.

eximius 8y ago
I did not say that they couldn't agree, but they they aren't motivated to provoke action uniformly. If your manager says 'Do X.', where X is a mild violation of some one's privacy or some such, can you get the majority of your coworkers to collaborate and refuse your manager? Or will most go on with their lives because they don't care enough about that particular pet cause or 'it isn't that bad'.
- pas 8y ago
  There's no need for the majority to do something. Look at Google and military AI. A vocal minority with the implicit backing of the majority was quite effective. Even if that's a very non clear cut issue. Now the DoD will contract someone else, and the resulting system will be probably worse, leading to loss of more human lives. (Though that could help with the lower utilization of these systems, which might help scale back military action. Or not...)