5 ms·

We are always free to chose between cowardice and heroism. If you aren't sure you would blow the whistle to save actual human lives you may want to reassess pri

We are always free to chose between cowardice and heroism. If you aren't sure you would blow the whistle to save actual human lives you may want to reassess priorities and realities.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>We are always free to chose between cowardice and heroism. If you aren't sure you would blow the whistle to save actual human lives you may want to reassess priorities and realities. Seems like you're trying to say something in a roundabout way. These tropes make for easy internet virtue points but "just shun all risk" is a terrible heuristic for decision making and it's rarely clear without hindsight if/when/to what extent the risks are meaningfully greater than some previously agreed upon acceptable level. (Challenger blew up because the decision makers didn't understand how risky things actually were during a normal low temperature launch and decided to cut things even closer) If everyone in the supply chain padded their estimates to reduce risk and cover their ass we wouldn't have space flight.
pietrovismara 6y ago
> We are always free to chose I heard this sentence so many times, that by now I'm convinced people who believe we are free don't really know what freedom means. Today, you are free to choose in the same sense that you are free to commit crime. You can kill the next random person you meet on the streets, you can do that as long as you're ready to pay the consequences. Does that mean we have freedom to commit homicide? For the same reason, we aren't free to choose between keeping a job or starving our family and ending under the bridge. Especially in a corrupt economy that relies entirely on people being in debt to live under modern standards. Abolish debt, guarantee the basic needs to everyone, then we can talk about freedom of leaving a job.
- beardedwizard 6y ago
  That's an interesting zero sum game. The reality does not match, but it's a convenient excuse to never face a lack of moral character. You can quit and find a new job. Most would do it in a heartbeat for a tiny change in total comp, but struggle to make the decision when lives matter but might come at an economic cost? That seems problematic and extremely self serving. An interesting insight into the tech industry and its lack of 1. moral character 2. engineer accountability in general.
  - pietrovismara 6y ago
    > You can quit and find a new job If by "you" you mean tech/white collar skilled worker, perhaps. But you're failing to consider the majority of low wage workers who don't really have this privilege. I also believe in personal responsibility, like you do, but the biggest issue is in the system, rather than in individual behaviour.
    - watwut 6y ago
      Low wage workers do much less consequential decisions. The issue of making unethical decisions for career is very much issue of white collar people who often have choice.
  - jrochkind1 6y ago
    The hard part is when you aren't at all confident you can "quit and find a new job." It takes courage to take actual risks and make actual sacrifices to do the right thing. You are right that it takes a lot less courage if you are sure you can just "quit and find a new job" and end up just fine. I'm sure most people would do the right thing when there is no cost to them at all of doing so and they are confident that is so, that's not the issue. Honestly your confidence that of course you would do the right thing always just makes me think you've never faced a hard decision, or have always convinced yourself that no decision that would involve a significant personal sacrifice or loss was ever the right thing. The latter is what lots of people do, it's not that they say "oh yeah I'm going to kill the astronauts because my career is more important", all those other people who overruled McDonald convinced themselves that it's not gonna kill the astronauts at all, so they didn't have to face the choice.
    - jrochkind1 6y ago
      (It's also interesting that McDonald did NOT "quit and find a new job" -- he stayed there! Even though he thinks people treated him poorly and it harmed his career. Maybe it wasn't so easy for him to quit and find a new job either).
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
jrochkind1 6y ago
Most people believe that they'd do the right thing, and yet most people don't do the right thing when the shit hits the fan. It's like how everyone thinks they are above average. You can always justify it to yourself -- well, I'm not sure the thing will blow up, all these other smart people disagree, do I really want to risk being unemployed and my family living in poverty for it? We have an immense capacity to convince ourselves that doing the right thing coincides with our personal advantage and convenience. What can do we do to make it more likely that we'll do the right thing when it matters? Only practice. One can ask oneself, when was the last time I risked personal advantage or security to do the right thing, when was the last time I gave up something to do the right thing for others? If one hasn't been practicing it when the stakes are smaller, one possibly hasn't built up the muscle to do so when the stakes are huge.
WindyLakeReturn 6y ago
If a society punishes people for blowing the whistle, then perhaps that society should reassess priorities and realities. Why should I blame any person for choosing their own lives in a society that would see them punished for doing otherwise? People respond to incentives and as a consequence of this the blame should be placed on the cause of those incentives.
wing-_-nuts 6y ago
When the choice is so black and white, it's easy to make. I hope that no one would willingly condemn someone to death simply for the sake of their job. What if it's simply a probability though? 1%? .1%? .01%? Look at auto companies. They make decisions all the time that will kill 1 out of 1,000,000 people. Hell, the EPA and other regulators do this math every day. A coal power plant will kill x number of people over it's lifetime. Every time they make a regulation, they do this math and determine that saving a life is worth the economic cost.

We are always free to chose between cowardice and heroism. If you aren't sure you would blow the whistle to save actual human lives you may want to reassess priorities and realities.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

>We are always free to chose between cowardice and heroism. If you aren't sure you would blow the whistle to save actual human lives you may want to reassess priorities and realities. Seems like you're trying to say something in a roundabout way. These tropes make for easy internet virtue points but "just shun all risk" is a terrible heuristic for decision making and it's rarely clear without hindsight if/when/to what extent the risks are meaningfully greater than some previously agreed upon acceptable level. (Challenger blew up because the decision makers didn't understand how risky things actually were during a normal low temperature launch and decided to cut things even closer) If everyone in the supply chain padded their estimates to reduce risk and cover their ass we wouldn't have space flight.

pietrovismara 6y ago

> We are always free to chose I heard this sentence so many times, that by now I'm convinced people who believe we are free don't really know what freedom means. Today, you are free to choose in the same sense that you are free to commit crime. You can kill the next random person you meet on the streets, you can do that as long as you're ready to pay the consequences. Does that mean we have freedom to commit homicide? For the same reason, we aren't free to choose between keeping a job or starving our family and ending under the bridge. Especially in a corrupt economy that relies entirely on people being in debt to live under modern standards. Abolish debt, guarantee the basic needs to everyone, then we can talk about freedom of leaving a job.

beardedwizard 6y ago
That's an interesting zero sum game. The reality does not match, but it's a convenient excuse to never face a lack of moral character. You can quit and find a new job. Most would do it in a heartbeat for a tiny change in total comp, but struggle to make the decision when lives matter but might come at an economic cost? That seems problematic and extremely self serving. An interesting insight into the tech industry and its lack of 1. moral character 2. engineer accountability in general.
- pietrovismara 6y ago
  > You can quit and find a new job If by "you" you mean tech/white collar skilled worker, perhaps. But you're failing to consider the majority of low wage workers who don't really have this privilege. I also believe in personal responsibility, like you do, but the biggest issue is in the system, rather than in individual behaviour.
  - watwut 6y ago
    Low wage workers do much less consequential decisions. The issue of making unethical decisions for career is very much issue of white collar people who often have choice.
- jrochkind1 6y ago
  The hard part is when you aren't at all confident you can "quit and find a new job." It takes courage to take actual risks and make actual sacrifices to do the right thing. You are right that it takes a lot less courage if you are sure you can just "quit and find a new job" and end up just fine. I'm sure most people would do the right thing when there is no cost to them at all of doing so and they are confident that is so, that's not the issue. Honestly your confidence that of course you would do the right thing always just makes me think you've never faced a hard decision, or have always convinced yourself that no decision that would involve a significant personal sacrifice or loss was ever the right thing. The latter is what lots of people do, it's not that they say "oh yeah I'm going to kill the astronauts because my career is more important", all those other people who overruled McDonald convinced themselves that it's not gonna kill the astronauts at all, so they didn't have to face the choice.
  - jrochkind1 6y ago
    (It's also interesting that McDonald did NOT "quit and find a new job" -- he stayed there! Even though he thinks people treated him poorly and it harmed his career. Maybe it wasn't so easy for him to quit and find a new job either).
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago

jrochkind1 6y ago

Most people believe that they'd do the right thing, and yet most people don't do the right thing when the shit hits the fan. It's like how everyone thinks they are above average. You can always justify it to yourself -- well, I'm not sure the thing will blow up, all these other smart people disagree, do I really want to risk being unemployed and my family living in poverty for it? We have an immense capacity to convince ourselves that doing the right thing coincides with our personal advantage and convenience. What can do we do to make it more likely that we'll do the right thing when it matters? Only practice. One can ask oneself, when was the last time I risked personal advantage or security to do the right thing, when was the last time I gave up something to do the right thing for others? If one hasn't been practicing it when the stakes are smaller, one possibly hasn't built up the muscle to do so when the stakes are huge.

WindyLakeReturn 6y ago

If a society punishes people for blowing the whistle, then perhaps that society should reassess priorities and realities. Why should I blame any person for choosing their own lives in a society that would see them punished for doing otherwise? People respond to incentives and as a consequence of this the blame should be placed on the cause of those incentives.

wing-_-nuts 6y ago

When the choice is so black and white, it's easy to make. I hope that no one would willingly condemn someone to death simply for the sake of their job. What if it's simply a probability though? 1%? .1%? .01%? Look at auto companies. They make decisions all the time that will kill 1 out of 1,000,000 people. Hell, the EPA and other regulators do this math every day. A coal power plant will kill x number of people over it's lifetime. Every time they make a regulation, they do this math and determine that saving a life is worth the economic cost.