38 ms·

They were making utilitarian arguments, notably the famous trolley one. Just because you can't stop something, doesn't mean you should actively support it.

yourbandsucks 8y ago
Yes, they were making utilitarian arguments about the welfare of the people affected. It's awfully easy to stand on principle when it's the other guy who sacrifices for it.
- codemac 8y ago
  > It's awfully easy to stand on principle when it's the other guy who sacrifices for it. Is the other guy me? or are the other guys those killed by the PRC? You would sacrifice them to search Google, I would sacrifice your Google searches for them. We do not have to agree.
  - publub 8y ago
    Why is having Google in China going to get anyone killed? If Google isn’t there they’ll just search Baidu or Bing and whatever was going to happen is still going to happen. It’s just another search engine, albeit a much better one than what’s already there.
    - PavlovsCat 8y ago
      > Why is having Google in China going to get anyone killed? That's not the point. People already DID get killed, and ARE getting killed. Millions and millions of them. Totalitarianism is the fact on the table. That's not just "another market", and the benefit to China gained by Western complicity in it, is nothing compared to the damage we are doing to ourselves. I doubt you understand how important this is and how deep it runs. We're not going to throw millenia of evolution of thought, and ultimately thought and human agency itself away, just to make not resisting more comfortable for "the large chunk of non-dissidents" or Silicon Valley or whoever may come. > The older dictators fell because they could never supply their subjects with enough bread, enough circuses, enough miracles and mysteries. Nor did they possess a really effective system of mind-manipulation. In the past, free-thinkers and revolutionaries were often the products of the most piously orthodox education. This is not surprising. The methods employed by orthodox educators were and still are extremely inefficient. Under a scientific dictator education will really work -- with the result that most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution. There seems to be no good reason why a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should ever be overthrown. > Meanwhile there is still some freedom left in the world. Many young people, it is true, do not seem to value freedom. But some of us still believe that, without freedom, human beings cannot become fully human and that freedom is therefore supremely valuable. Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long. It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them. -- Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World Revisited" (1958)

yourbandsucks 8y ago

Yes, they were making utilitarian arguments about the welfare of the people affected. It's awfully easy to stand on principle when it's the other guy who sacrifices for it.

codemac 8y ago
> It's awfully easy to stand on principle when it's the other guy who sacrifices for it. Is the other guy me? or are the other guys those killed by the PRC? You would sacrifice them to search Google, I would sacrifice your Google searches for them. We do not have to agree.
- publub 8y ago
  Why is having Google in China going to get anyone killed? If Google isn’t there they’ll just search Baidu or Bing and whatever was going to happen is still going to happen. It’s just another search engine, albeit a much better one than what’s already there.
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    > Why is having Google in China going to get anyone killed? That's not the point. People already DID get killed, and ARE getting killed. Millions and millions of them. Totalitarianism is the fact on the table. That's not just "another market", and the benefit to China gained by Western complicity in it, is nothing compared to the damage we are doing to ourselves. I doubt you understand how important this is and how deep it runs. We're not going to throw millenia of evolution of thought, and ultimately thought and human agency itself away, just to make not resisting more comfortable for "the large chunk of non-dissidents" or Silicon Valley or whoever may come. > The older dictators fell because they could never supply their subjects with enough bread, enough circuses, enough miracles and mysteries. Nor did they possess a really effective system of mind-manipulation. In the past, free-thinkers and revolutionaries were often the products of the most piously orthodox education. This is not surprising. The methods employed by orthodox educators were and still are extremely inefficient. Under a scientific dictator education will really work -- with the result that most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution. There seems to be no good reason why a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should ever be overthrown. > Meanwhile there is still some freedom left in the world. Many young people, it is true, do not seem to value freedom. But some of us still believe that, without freedom, human beings cannot become fully human and that freedom is therefore supremely valuable. Perhaps the forces that now menace freedom are too strong to be resisted for very long. It is still our duty to do whatever we can to resist them. -- Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World Revisited" (1958)