Real ethics is a fine thing to consider, but these days, I see people take their personal political beliefs, call them "ethical", and claim that policy that goe

Real ethics is a fine thing to consider, but these days, I see people take their personal political beliefs, call them "ethical", and claim that policy that goes against their preferences is "unethical". This abuse of language has become sadly commonplace in tech today. The people who do this struggle with the question "who decides what's ethical?", because in their hearts, they believe the answer is that they get to decide. Nowadays, when I see someone campaigning for "ethics" in tech, I just assume that this person is just engaging in general issue activism, close my eyes against the distraction, and get back to work. It's sad that we've reached this point. In truth, the best way to stop unethical behavior is to make a law against it --- that way the process of rule-making is fair and transparent. The democratic process doesn't guarantee legitimacy, but it's better than anything else. The democratic process should decide the rules under which a society operates, and we shouldn't let a few self-appointed moral guardians misrepresent their personal preferences as universal rules and set the bounds of whole societies.