5 ms·

> I often see it as written rules (laws) and unwritten rules (ethics). I think this is a very dangerous line to walk. A common phrase in law is "the law often

> I often see it as written rules (laws) and unwritten rules (ethics). I think this is a very dangerous line to walk. A common phrase in law is "the law often allows what honor forbids" and that is because there is a difference between the law and ethics and IMO that is a good thing. Is it ethical to eat all the cookies in the cookie jar and leave none for anyone else? No. Should it be illegal? No.

pjc50 5y ago
Should it be subject to social sanction? Yes. (arguably eating cookies that aren't yours is a crime, and I don't doubt that someone has in the past been arrested for it in ridiculous circumstances)
- cookie_monsta 5y ago
  Australia says hello
TAForObvReasons 5y ago
We've slowly seen an alternate interpretation promulgated by many: anything that is not illegal is ethical. The endpoint is practically the same (anything legal is ethical and vice versa) but it arguably makes for a worse society.
- bregma 5y ago
  We've also seen, sometimes in high places, the third way of "it's illegal and unethical but I can get away with it."
  - int_19h 5y ago
    “For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”
- Zerverus 5y ago
  See Congress every day. Do as your told, not as you see, works on nation state level too, meaning it doesn’t work.
NomDePlum 5y ago
Is it a dangerous line to walk? For who? FB are involved in unethical practices that whilst not illegal at present are much more consequential than your example. There are obvious questions here to ask that may lead to new laws being made and perhaps even retrospectively enforced. Social engineering for profit is a little more serious than who ate the cookies surely?
licebmi__at__ 5y ago
If we are trapped somewhere with no other food than the cookie jar, the we will see how long before eating all the cookies is illegal. Justice is a messy concept because is rooted in specific circumstances, and it’s absurd to think there’s a clear line between what’s unethical and what’s illegal.
satellite2 5y ago
Isn't the cookie jar an alegory of the commons? And as such shouldn't it be forbiden to shit in the cookie jar? I had the impression that it was how the story ended when we talked about cookies, but maybe I didn't get the memo.
- josephg 5y ago
  The point is that being forbidden and being illegal are different ideas. It’s bad for society to codify too much behaviour in law. Knowing the law is no substitute for knowing the difference between right and wrong. Regulating Facebook is a great example. Congress could easily react to facebook’s indiscretions by passing new laws here which stifle innovation.
  - satellite2 5y ago
    I think I got that part. I was referring to the book the tragedy of the commons (very interesting small book that I recommend) which basically says that when you have N users of some common, even if game theory says that it's in their best individual best interest to protect the common as it is the strategy that maximise satisfaction, if N becomes large enough, someone will start damageing it and soon everyone will do the same. So the tragedy is that you actually have to enforce the behaviour that's in everyone's best interest as a law.
    - josephg 5y ago
      Oh, I totally agree. When it comes to a fishing community surrounding a lake, having rules in place to limit the number of fish each fisherman can catch benefits everyone. But the same principle applies to me and my friends eating cookies. Each of us is incentivized to eat as many as we can - because its a limited resource and they're delicious. But in this case we use social, not legal consequences to punish defectors. If my friends see me eat all the cookies, they will be angry with me. This is a strong enough system to keep us honest. But imagine if we adding a law here, making it a crime to eat all the cookies. Would that improve our behaviour? No. We might not want to share cookies at all if its possible one of us could go to jail for it. I think laws are often appropriate. But laws are a blunt instrument. They can't be our only tool to protect the commons.
munk-a 5y ago
Let's say that if there are two or more cookies in the jar every morning I add another one to it - under that scenario (especially if we go so far as to say cookies reproduce at some fixed proportion) then yea - it's totally illegal to eat all the cookies. The most common example of this tragedy of the commons is fishing but it happens all over the place. Specifically on the topic of cookies - it honestly is "forbidden" in a lot of households to eat all the cookies in the jar. At work you'll probably face some consequences if there's a communal cookie jar (or, the more common scenario, drinking all the half-n-half and not getting more). We don't really have "public" cookie jars so this scenario is pretty contrived, but if there was one (i.e. if NYC installed a big cookie jar in Time Square for Halloween) then it probably would actually be illegal (or at least, against a city ordinance) to eat more than X cookies. But, like I said, it's pretty contrived feeling.
- SllX 5y ago
  Illegal isn’t just another word for “forbidden” and the Law isn’t just another word for “the rules”, particularly in the context of this larger discussion on Facebook’s actions. Your parents can punish you for eating all the cookies but the government will not sanction you nor them for doing so (even if a hypothetical and tyrannical government in theory could; maybe let’s not theorycraft absurd ordinances).
  - munk-a 5y ago
    The issue for me with this scenario is that it's already so contrived that yea - of course you're not going to be arrested for eating all the cookies from the cookie jar. But only for that action - if you scale that action up to a significant level then you absolutely might be breaking a law. There are lots of things that are legal (or at least looked the other way at) on certain small scales and a lot of penalties escalate with the severity of the offense. If the US had a $1B jar of cookies and you ate all of them (aside from now being diabetic) the government would definitely pursue you for theft. I suppose that's the truth of the matter - it actually might be illegal to eat all the cookies in the cookie jar (assuming you're not given express permission to do so) it's just that nobody cares because of the scale of the action. It's also usually a domestic affair - but just because you live in the same house as someone else you don't have a right to all their things (it's just that usually all the people are in a family and then property laws get a bit weird). If your roomate in college had some super rare cookies valued at $10k and you ate all of them then they'd definitely be able to take you to court. It's just that nobody cares if an oreo goes missing.
jimkleiber 5y ago
> that is because there is a difference between the law and ethics and IMO that is a good thing. I feel confused because I didn't think I was saying that we should get rid of ethics by codifying everything into law. I thought my main point was that sometimes when people continue to break those unwritten rules, we will decide to write down those rules and enforce more strict consequences—not saying we should always do that. I actually would prefer if we had fewer written laws and relied more on unwritten rules of interacting with each other. And when someone breaks those unwritten rules, we would apologize and forgive and work together to resolve the conflict and rebuild trust in each other, instead of pushing to punish people in a retributive system of justice.

pjc50 5y ago

Should it be subject to social sanction? Yes. (arguably eating cookies that aren't yours is a crime, and I don't doubt that someone has in the past been arrested for it in ridiculous circumstances)

cookie_monsta 5y ago
Australia says hello

TAForObvReasons 5y ago

We've slowly seen an alternate interpretation promulgated by many: anything that is not illegal is ethical. The endpoint is practically the same (anything legal is ethical and vice versa) but it arguably makes for a worse society.

bregma 5y ago
We've also seen, sometimes in high places, the third way of "it's illegal and unethical but I can get away with it."
- int_19h 5y ago
  “For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”
Zerverus 5y ago
See Congress every day. Do as your told, not as you see, works on nation state level too, meaning it doesn’t work.

NomDePlum 5y ago

Is it a dangerous line to walk? For who? FB are involved in unethical practices that whilst not illegal at present are much more consequential than your example. There are obvious questions here to ask that may lead to new laws being made and perhaps even retrospectively enforced. Social engineering for profit is a little more serious than who ate the cookies surely?

licebmi__at__ 5y ago

If we are trapped somewhere with no other food than the cookie jar, the we will see how long before eating all the cookies is illegal. Justice is a messy concept because is rooted in specific circumstances, and it’s absurd to think there’s a clear line between what’s unethical and what’s illegal.

satellite2 5y ago

Isn't the cookie jar an alegory of the commons? And as such shouldn't it be forbiden to shit in the cookie jar? I had the impression that it was how the story ended when we talked about cookies, but maybe I didn't get the memo.

josephg 5y ago
The point is that being forbidden and being illegal are different ideas. It’s bad for society to codify too much behaviour in law. Knowing the law is no substitute for knowing the difference between right and wrong. Regulating Facebook is a great example. Congress could easily react to facebook’s indiscretions by passing new laws here which stifle innovation.
- satellite2 5y ago
  I think I got that part. I was referring to the book the tragedy of the commons (very interesting small book that I recommend) which basically says that when you have N users of some common, even if game theory says that it's in their best individual best interest to protect the common as it is the strategy that maximise satisfaction, if N becomes large enough, someone will start damageing it and soon everyone will do the same. So the tragedy is that you actually have to enforce the behaviour that's in everyone's best interest as a law.
  - josephg 5y ago
    Oh, I totally agree. When it comes to a fishing community surrounding a lake, having rules in place to limit the number of fish each fisherman can catch benefits everyone. But the same principle applies to me and my friends eating cookies. Each of us is incentivized to eat as many as we can - because its a limited resource and they're delicious. But in this case we use social, not legal consequences to punish defectors. If my friends see me eat all the cookies, they will be angry with me. This is a strong enough system to keep us honest. But imagine if we adding a law here, making it a crime to eat all the cookies. Would that improve our behaviour? No. We might not want to share cookies at all if its possible one of us could go to jail for it. I think laws are often appropriate. But laws are a blunt instrument. They can't be our only tool to protect the commons.

munk-a 5y ago

Let's say that if there are two or more cookies in the jar every morning I add another one to it - under that scenario (especially if we go so far as to say cookies reproduce at some fixed proportion) then yea - it's totally illegal to eat all the cookies. The most common example of this tragedy of the commons is fishing but it happens all over the place. Specifically on the topic of cookies - it honestly is "forbidden" in a lot of households to eat all the cookies in the jar. At work you'll probably face some consequences if there's a communal cookie jar (or, the more common scenario, drinking all the half-n-half and not getting more). We don't really have "public" cookie jars so this scenario is pretty contrived, but if there was one (i.e. if NYC installed a big cookie jar in Time Square for Halloween) then it probably would actually be illegal (or at least, against a city ordinance) to eat more than X cookies. But, like I said, it's pretty contrived feeling.

SllX 5y ago
Illegal isn’t just another word for “forbidden” and the Law isn’t just another word for “the rules”, particularly in the context of this larger discussion on Facebook’s actions. Your parents can punish you for eating all the cookies but the government will not sanction you nor them for doing so (even if a hypothetical and tyrannical government in theory could; maybe let’s not theorycraft absurd ordinances).
- munk-a 5y ago
  The issue for me with this scenario is that it's already so contrived that yea - of course you're not going to be arrested for eating all the cookies from the cookie jar. But only for that action - if you scale that action up to a significant level then you absolutely might be breaking a law. There are lots of things that are legal (or at least looked the other way at) on certain small scales and a lot of penalties escalate with the severity of the offense. If the US had a $1B jar of cookies and you ate all of them (aside from now being diabetic) the government would definitely pursue you for theft. I suppose that's the truth of the matter - it actually might be illegal to eat all the cookies in the cookie jar (assuming you're not given express permission to do so) it's just that nobody cares because of the scale of the action. It's also usually a domestic affair - but just because you live in the same house as someone else you don't have a right to all their things (it's just that usually all the people are in a family and then property laws get a bit weird). If your roomate in college had some super rare cookies valued at $10k and you ate all of them then they'd definitely be able to take you to court. It's just that nobody cares if an oreo goes missing.

jimkleiber 5y ago

> that is because there is a difference between the law and ethics and IMO that is a good thing. I feel confused because I didn't think I was saying that we should get rid of ethics by codifying everything into law. I thought my main point was that sometimes when people continue to break those unwritten rules, we will decide to write down those rules and enforce more strict consequences—not saying we should always do that. I actually would prefer if we had fewer written laws and relied more on unwritten rules of interacting with each other. And when someone breaks those unwritten rules, we would apologize and forgive and work together to resolve the conflict and rebuild trust in each other, instead of pushing to punish people in a retributive system of justice.