4 ms·

As usual, and as exemplified by virtually every decision in the Covid handling debacle, no mention of cost/benefit tradeoffs. What number of deaths will be due

by mhb 6y ago

As usual, and as exemplified by virtually every decision in the Covid handling debacle, no mention of cost/benefit tradeoffs. What number of deaths will be due to slower progress due to needing to comply with whatever the NTSB believes will save lives?

fasteddie31003 6y ago
It's a theme I notice across society. We no longer are consequentialists. We value the means over then ends. I believe this switch in ethics will hurt our society in the long run.
- Guzba 6y ago
  Isn't 'The ends justify the means' the argument of every villain ever? Unrelated to this Tesla stuff, it seems reasonable to observe that the means do actually matter.
  - rhino369 6y ago
    But it shouldn't be just a villain argument. Sometimes the ends justify the means and sometimes they don't. Depends--entirety--on what the ends and the means are and the relationship between the two. But the end to Telsa throwing out unreliable Not-Even-Close-to-FULL-SELF-DRIVING is to sell cars--not to usher in a glorious era without traffic collisions.
  - hoseja 6y ago
    Villains are those the media makers want you to dislike. Try sometimes noticing how many "villains" only want to disrupt the status quo, with some murder superficially tacked on for easy moral superiority.
- donovanian 6y ago
  > We value the means over then ends. I find this hard to square with a large segment of society just matter-of-factly espousing "equity", which is a less obvious way of saying what was expressed in the past as "equality of outcome". Of course, through societies of the past experimenting, it was largely recognized as only possible through systems that end up being miserable and authoritarian. So it's easier to push it again to a new generation under a vague, benign-sounding new term.
  - snowwrestler 6y ago
    Equity does not mean “equality of outcome,” it means that unequal outcomes are proportional to relevant factors only. For example an equitable approach to criminal prosecution is that people are exonerated or convicted based on the best available evidence, with no variance attributable to their ability to afford a lawyer (an equitable approach enshrined in our Constitution but still a challenge for society). And an equitable approach of salary is that people are paid in proportion to their contributions to the business, with no variance attributable to the color of their skin (for example). We have to measure inputs and outcomes to infer the state of equity because we don’t have a reliable deterministic model of society.
    - throwawaysea 6y ago
      You’re describing equality not equity, in my opinion. Everyone being recognized for their proportional contributions to the business is equality.
      - snowwrestler 6y ago
        Equality means things are measurably the same. 4 = 4 If one team wins the Super Bowl, and one team loses the Super Bowl, then those teams are not equal; that is not equality. But if the game was contested fairly, with no cheating or corruption, then the outcome is equitable, even though it’s not equal. In the U.S. what we generally strive for is equality as an input and equity as an output. If you hire two people, each should have an equal chance of contributing to the business, i.e. neither should be inhibited by irrelevant factors. But it’s expected and ok if one contributes more and advances farther. If it’s based on a fair measurement of their performance, that unequal outcome will still be equitable. That’s why you’ll often see folks talk about “equality of opportunity.” Not equality in general; equality as an input.
        donovanian 6y ago
        > Equality means things are measurably the same. No I think you're loading the meaning of equal. No one would say "you and I are equal" and expect that we're clones. > That’s why you’ll often see folks talk about “equality of opportunity.” Not equality in general; equality as an input. People talk about equality of opportunity because that's the circumstances that people concluded recognize human dignity and autonomy. As soon as you begin the path of equal outcomes, you're talking an expansive micro-managing state optimizing for variables they scarcely understand. And fundamentally there's a lack of faith in people as capable human beings that can manage the affairs of their own life and work to lead the life they want by their own endeavor. It's paternalism.
AlotOfReading 6y ago
Why is tesla the only company that has to exhibit this behavior to progress? GM for instance has two different programs for "self driving", their supercruise ADAS and cruise, the Waymo competitor. Are they farther away from superhuman self driving because they've never promised "FSD" in their ADAS?
- camjohnson26 6y ago
  Because they don’t need to justify their insane stock price valuation by becoming a software platform, Tesla does or the stock crashes.
epistasis 6y ago
Is there evidence that we can expect a benefit? Could we put a probability distribution over that? In other life and death fields, like medicine, the promise of saving lives is made all the time, but even for great benefit we do not cut corners to prove benefit more quickly. Given the way that automobiles have little regard for life, I would rather that we take our queue from fields like medicine that have bothered to deal with the ethics and the cost benefit analysis. Similarly, your claims about COVID reactions not weighing the cost benefit analysis are unfounded, at least that I have seen. I have seen many self-motivated parties making ridiculous, absurd, and harmful suggestions, but nothing that could be taken intellectually seriously. It's just people scamming for their own personal gain at the expense of others' lives.
- matz1 6y ago
  Many government all of the word chose lockdown, thats prime example of not weighing cost benefit analysis.
- mhb 6y ago
  your claims about COVID reactions not weighing the cost benefit analysis are unfounded Can you give one example of a government or government agency that has justified whether to shut down based on expected value of quality adjusted life years?
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
I have some snake oil to sell you. I promise it’ll save lives and if it doesn’t, then it’ll at least enable me learn to make better snake oil, saving lives in the long run. I promise. It’ll also help me built faster-than-light travel, because I’m certain I’m in the right track for that, I just need to go faster with less red tape. As if there’s a simple “spend lives now to save more lives later” knob.

by mhb 6y ago

fasteddie31003 6y ago

It's a theme I notice across society. We no longer are consequentialists. We value the means over then ends. I believe this switch in ethics will hurt our society in the long run.

Guzba 6y ago
Isn't 'The ends justify the means' the argument of every villain ever? Unrelated to this Tesla stuff, it seems reasonable to observe that the means do actually matter.
- rhino369 6y ago
  But it shouldn't be just a villain argument. Sometimes the ends justify the means and sometimes they don't. Depends--entirety--on what the ends and the means are and the relationship between the two. But the end to Telsa throwing out unreliable Not-Even-Close-to-FULL-SELF-DRIVING is to sell cars--not to usher in a glorious era without traffic collisions.
- hoseja 6y ago
  Villains are those the media makers want you to dislike. Try sometimes noticing how many "villains" only want to disrupt the status quo, with some murder superficially tacked on for easy moral superiority.
donovanian 6y ago
> We value the means over then ends. I find this hard to square with a large segment of society just matter-of-factly espousing "equity", which is a less obvious way of saying what was expressed in the past as "equality of outcome". Of course, through societies of the past experimenting, it was largely recognized as only possible through systems that end up being miserable and authoritarian. So it's easier to push it again to a new generation under a vague, benign-sounding new term.
- snowwrestler 6y ago
  Equity does not mean “equality of outcome,” it means that unequal outcomes are proportional to relevant factors only. For example an equitable approach to criminal prosecution is that people are exonerated or convicted based on the best available evidence, with no variance attributable to their ability to afford a lawyer (an equitable approach enshrined in our Constitution but still a challenge for society). And an equitable approach of salary is that people are paid in proportion to their contributions to the business, with no variance attributable to the color of their skin (for example). We have to measure inputs and outcomes to infer the state of equity because we don’t have a reliable deterministic model of society.
  - throwawaysea 6y ago
    You’re describing equality not equity, in my opinion. Everyone being recognized for their proportional contributions to the business is equality.
    - snowwrestler 6y ago
      Equality means things are measurably the same. 4 = 4 If one team wins the Super Bowl, and one team loses the Super Bowl, then those teams are not equal; that is not equality. But if the game was contested fairly, with no cheating or corruption, then the outcome is equitable, even though it’s not equal. In the U.S. what we generally strive for is equality as an input and equity as an output. If you hire two people, each should have an equal chance of contributing to the business, i.e. neither should be inhibited by irrelevant factors. But it’s expected and ok if one contributes more and advances farther. If it’s based on a fair measurement of their performance, that unequal outcome will still be equitable. That’s why you’ll often see folks talk about “equality of opportunity.” Not equality in general; equality as an input.
      - donovanian 6y ago
        > Equality means things are measurably the same. No I think you're loading the meaning of equal. No one would say "you and I are equal" and expect that we're clones. > That’s why you’ll often see folks talk about “equality of opportunity.” Not equality in general; equality as an input. People talk about equality of opportunity because that's the circumstances that people concluded recognize human dignity and autonomy. As soon as you begin the path of equal outcomes, you're talking an expansive micro-managing state optimizing for variables they scarcely understand. And fundamentally there's a lack of faith in people as capable human beings that can manage the affairs of their own life and work to lead the life they want by their own endeavor. It's paternalism.

AlotOfReading 6y ago

Why is tesla the only company that has to exhibit this behavior to progress? GM for instance has two different programs for "self driving", their supercruise ADAS and cruise, the Waymo competitor. Are they farther away from superhuman self driving because they've never promised "FSD" in their ADAS?

camjohnson26 6y ago
Because they don’t need to justify their insane stock price valuation by becoming a software platform, Tesla does or the stock crashes.

epistasis 6y ago

Is there evidence that we can expect a benefit? Could we put a probability distribution over that? In other life and death fields, like medicine, the promise of saving lives is made all the time, but even for great benefit we do not cut corners to prove benefit more quickly. Given the way that automobiles have little regard for life, I would rather that we take our queue from fields like medicine that have bothered to deal with the ethics and the cost benefit analysis. Similarly, your claims about COVID reactions not weighing the cost benefit analysis are unfounded, at least that I have seen. I have seen many self-motivated parties making ridiculous, absurd, and harmful suggestions, but nothing that could be taken intellectually seriously. It's just people scamming for their own personal gain at the expense of others' lives.

matz1 6y ago
Many government all of the word chose lockdown, thats prime example of not weighing cost benefit analysis.
mhb 6y ago
your claims about COVID reactions not weighing the cost benefit analysis are unfounded Can you give one example of a government or government agency that has justified whether to shut down based on expected value of quality adjusted life years?

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago

I have some snake oil to sell you. I promise it’ll save lives and if it doesn’t, then it’ll at least enable me learn to make better snake oil, saving lives in the long run. I promise. It’ll also help me built faster-than-light travel, because I’m certain I’m in the right track for that, I just need to go faster with less red tape. As if there’s a simple “spend lives now to save more lives later” knob.