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> the concern is less about what’s ethical and more about what’s legal. Please reconsider this position. You're teaching the future generation of engineers and

by avian 7y ago

> the concern is less about what’s ethical and more about what’s legal. Please reconsider this position. You're teaching the future generation of engineers and scientists. Even if it's not strictly the topic of your course, please don't teach your students that everything that's technically legal to do is fine. Show that being socially conscious matters as well. Everybody will be better off.

hartator 7y ago
I completely disagree on 2 levels: First, teachers shouldn’t be teaching morals. Specially in college and university. The slippery slope between morals to politics is a dangerous one. I rather them focusing on their actual course materials Finally, there is nothing wrong with scrapping on ethical standpoint if you don’t DDOS the target services. It gave us search engines. And that’s probably one of most important breakthrough for humanity in the past few decades.
- ralusek 7y ago
  I agree completely. Unfortunately, not only are teachers currently teaching morals, those in the social sciences teach a radical political position, as well as advocate heavily for activism. It's completely inappropriate, and I can't believe that the institutions they're employed by seem to be complacent at best, responsible at worst.
- avian 7y ago
  The question obviously came up during their teaching, so it's become part of the course, whether they want it or not. OP also says that their peers think there are ethical questions in regard to scraping. I don't see where you see politics in how they handle such questions. I'm not advocating they go on an extended lecture about their personal views on the political system that made the laws and what not. I'm saying that there's a difference between handling these kind of questions with "if you're not sure, maybe you should kindly ask the publisher of the data if they would be ok with you scraping/using it that way" and "if your lawyer says you're in the clear, fuck them and scrape away."
  - hartator 7y ago
    The OP asked explicitly about legality not ethics. So no ethis didn't came up organically.
- luckylion 7y ago
  > First, teachers shouldn’t be teaching morals. Specially in college and university. The slippery slope between morals to politics is a dangerous one. I rather them focusing on their actual course materials I disagree 100%. "To teach about the human anatomy, we've kidnapped Paul here, and will now cut him apart." It's great for teaching (how better to observe what happens when you cut open a living person than ... cutting open a living person), but it's unethical (and illegal), and that's an important lesson as well.
- malshe 7y ago
  Although I agree with your point about policitcs, in case of ethics, I don't take an extreme stance. I certainly discuss the ethical issues surrpounding certain practices but I refrain from preaching them what they should be doing. People should be aware of the ethical concerns of others, in particular when the issues are fast evolving.
- xtiansimon 7y ago
  Hmmm. I wonder if you made a false dichotomy, relevant moral issues VS. course materials. That said, I appreciate the distinction of morals and ethics. I understand ethics in the domain of 'what is good' and morals in the domain of 'what is good in society'. Fair Use suggests its ethical to use published materials for educational purposes. Whereas morals ask if what you're actually doing with the data is good for society.
anoncake 7y ago
Equally importantly, not everything that is illegal is immoral.
malshe 7y ago
I think I didn't frame my statement well. Although I don't make absolute claims about ethics, I tell the students that some practices are considered unethical by some people because of XYZ reasons. I leave up to the students to make up their mind because all of them are adults and many of them are actually much older than me. I have lived and worked in several countries around the world which has taught me that talking about ethics in an absolutist fashion is a terrible idea. Once I was teaching a bunch of internatioanl students predictive models to screen job candidates when the candidate pool is enormous to tackle manually. Some students felt that it was unethical to use algorithms to decide a human being's job prospects. I know it may sound weird to many folks on HN but people really have strong feelings about these issues on ethical grounds and it varies a lot from person to person and culture to culture.

by avian 7y ago

hartator 7y ago

I completely disagree on 2 levels: First, teachers shouldn’t be teaching morals. Specially in college and university. The slippery slope between morals to politics is a dangerous one. I rather them focusing on their actual course materials Finally, there is nothing wrong with scrapping on ethical standpoint if you don’t DDOS the target services. It gave us search engines. And that’s probably one of most important breakthrough for humanity in the past few decades.

ralusek 7y ago
I agree completely. Unfortunately, not only are teachers currently teaching morals, those in the social sciences teach a radical political position, as well as advocate heavily for activism. It's completely inappropriate, and I can't believe that the institutions they're employed by seem to be complacent at best, responsible at worst.
avian 7y ago
The question obviously came up during their teaching, so it's become part of the course, whether they want it or not. OP also says that their peers think there are ethical questions in regard to scraping. I don't see where you see politics in how they handle such questions. I'm not advocating they go on an extended lecture about their personal views on the political system that made the laws and what not. I'm saying that there's a difference between handling these kind of questions with "if you're not sure, maybe you should kindly ask the publisher of the data if they would be ok with you scraping/using it that way" and "if your lawyer says you're in the clear, fuck them and scrape away."
- hartator 7y ago
  The OP asked explicitly about legality not ethics. So no ethis didn't came up organically.
luckylion 7y ago
> First, teachers shouldn’t be teaching morals. Specially in college and university. The slippery slope between morals to politics is a dangerous one. I rather them focusing on their actual course materials I disagree 100%. "To teach about the human anatomy, we've kidnapped Paul here, and will now cut him apart." It's great for teaching (how better to observe what happens when you cut open a living person than ... cutting open a living person), but it's unethical (and illegal), and that's an important lesson as well.
malshe 7y ago
Although I agree with your point about policitcs, in case of ethics, I don't take an extreme stance. I certainly discuss the ethical issues surrpounding certain practices but I refrain from preaching them what they should be doing. People should be aware of the ethical concerns of others, in particular when the issues are fast evolving.
xtiansimon 7y ago
Hmmm. I wonder if you made a false dichotomy, relevant moral issues VS. course materials. That said, I appreciate the distinction of morals and ethics. I understand ethics in the domain of 'what is good' and morals in the domain of 'what is good in society'. Fair Use suggests its ethical to use published materials for educational purposes. Whereas morals ask if what you're actually doing with the data is good for society.

anoncake 7y ago

Equally importantly, not everything that is illegal is immoral.

malshe 7y ago

I think I didn't frame my statement well. Although I don't make absolute claims about ethics, I tell the students that some practices are considered unethical by some people because of XYZ reasons. I leave up to the students to make up their mind because all of them are adults and many of them are actually much older than me. I have lived and worked in several countries around the world which has taught me that talking about ethics in an absolutist fashion is a terrible idea. Once I was teaching a bunch of internatioanl students predictive models to screen job candidates when the candidate pool is enormous to tackle manually. Some students felt that it was unethical to use algorithms to decide a human being's job prospects. I know it may sound weird to many folks on HN but people really have strong feelings about these issues on ethical grounds and it varies a lot from person to person and culture to culture.