3 ms·

> We'd just be replaced by someone that would. IE, you're part of the problem. You're just rationalizing to make yourself feel better.

tpoacher 5y ago
Only in the same sense that if you dodge a bullet, you're responsible for whatever person got killed instead of you.
- saurik 5y ago
  Not that I think your analogy is a reasonable one anyway--as, if nothing else, you took the action here, picking up the gun and being told to fire it--but it doesn't work even if you pretend it makes sense: if no one ever tried to doge bullets then someone always gets shot... but if everyone tries (as they should) then maybe no one gets shot; it is simply incorrect to assume that someone else is going to get shot and so it may as well be you (god this analogy is weird ;P).
  - tpoacher 5y ago
    If you bypass the whole "attack only the points of the analogy which do not relate to the argument" and focus on the points of the "analogy" that make it a suitably demonstrative specialization of the more general argument (and thus a formally valid argument, which in general an analogy is not, and thus a neither is a strawman counterargument), then: General Premises: 1. Agent A enforces Action X onto Agent B 2. Action X hurts C with some probability. Not Action X hurts B with high probability. 3. For all persons D under A, the probability of Not Action X is vanishingly small. Reasonable Argument: 1. If B performs Action X bad things happen to C. This makes them partly responsible. However, under premise 3, B's counterfactual contribution is vanishingly small, whereas A's contribution is close to 100%. Unreasonable argument: 1. As the final link in this particular chain of events, B is wholly responsible for the harm done to C, because had they suffered harm with high probability, they would have ensured the reduction of the probability of non-harm to C by a vanishingly small amount.
ElViajero 5y ago
> IE, you're part of the problem. You're just rationalizing to make yourself feel better. That's not true. Governments exist to deal with this kind of situation. If companies make it difficult for citizens to cancel subscription, it is time to regulate subscriptions. Why is the responsibility of some developers to lose their jobs to stop a company doing something that is completely legal. If they have done that, they will have my gratitude and admiration. But, the developers are not "part of the problem". Microsoft is the problem, and the lack of regulation the other part.
- saurik 5y ago
  "Microsoft is the problem" <- but "Microsoft" is nothing more than a bunch of people who apparently make problematic decisions in a large group because they think they can pass the ethical ramifications off to someone else. You can fix specific cases with regulation, but we shouldn't have to have laws on the books for every single scenario to make sure people do good things, particularly if they know the difference and just don't consider it worth their trouble that day to act reasonably. If you are told to go do something bad, and you go and do it despite thinking it is bad, you damned well better have a great sob story to tell me about why you felt you couldn't get an ethical job or why you absolutely needed the money you did, or you absolutely don't get some pass out of the ethical decisions involved: "someone else would have done it" isn't sufficient.

tpoacher 5y ago

Only in the same sense that if you dodge a bullet, you're responsible for whatever person got killed instead of you.

saurik 5y ago
Not that I think your analogy is a reasonable one anyway--as, if nothing else, you took the action here, picking up the gun and being told to fire it--but it doesn't work even if you pretend it makes sense: if no one ever tried to doge bullets then someone always gets shot... but if everyone tries (as they should) then maybe no one gets shot; it is simply incorrect to assume that someone else is going to get shot and so it may as well be you (god this analogy is weird ;P).
- tpoacher 5y ago
  If you bypass the whole "attack only the points of the analogy which do not relate to the argument" and focus on the points of the "analogy" that make it a suitably demonstrative specialization of the more general argument (and thus a formally valid argument, which in general an analogy is not, and thus a neither is a strawman counterargument), then: General Premises: 1. Agent A enforces Action X onto Agent B 2. Action X hurts C with some probability. Not Action X hurts B with high probability. 3. For all persons D under A, the probability of Not Action X is vanishingly small. Reasonable Argument: 1. If B performs Action X bad things happen to C. This makes them partly responsible. However, under premise 3, B's counterfactual contribution is vanishingly small, whereas A's contribution is close to 100%. Unreasonable argument: 1. As the final link in this particular chain of events, B is wholly responsible for the harm done to C, because had they suffered harm with high probability, they would have ensured the reduction of the probability of non-harm to C by a vanishingly small amount.

ElViajero 5y ago

> IE, you're part of the problem. You're just rationalizing to make yourself feel better. That's not true. Governments exist to deal with this kind of situation. If companies make it difficult for citizens to cancel subscription, it is time to regulate subscriptions. Why is the responsibility of some developers to lose their jobs to stop a company doing something that is completely legal. If they have done that, they will have my gratitude and admiration. But, the developers are not "part of the problem". Microsoft is the problem, and the lack of regulation the other part.

saurik 5y ago
"Microsoft is the problem" <- but "Microsoft" is nothing more than a bunch of people who apparently make problematic decisions in a large group because they think they can pass the ethical ramifications off to someone else. You can fix specific cases with regulation, but we shouldn't have to have laws on the books for every single scenario to make sure people do good things, particularly if they know the difference and just don't consider it worth their trouble that day to act reasonably. If you are told to go do something bad, and you go and do it despite thinking it is bad, you damned well better have a great sob story to tell me about why you felt you couldn't get an ethical job or why you absolutely needed the money you did, or you absolutely don't get some pass out of the ethical decisions involved: "someone else would have done it" isn't sufficient.