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That's pretty cool in some ways. In other ways it's interesting as a reflection of the author's obvious preference for subjective ethics. For example, what is

That's pretty cool in some ways. In other ways it's interesting as a reflection of the author's obvious preference for subjective ethics. For example, what is good? A lot of people share concepts of what is good, but a lot of people really don't. Not because they're bad people, but because life circumstances typically go way deeper than good and evil, for instance. So--what is the author saying, really? Subjective stuff like this isn't bad, but it does really lead directly into the deeper questions. Also, how does one determine whether they've taken more than they've given? A lot of people are going to bring subjective past impressions into this determination, which, like good & bad above, are complex enough that you can make that take-or-give-o-meter read just about anything--and again, justify--just about anything. So on the one hand, it's nice that it's framed as a generous blessing, and good lord does it cut right through all that stupid legal bull! And on the other hand, people who place boring, obtuse, business law terminology where this project has placed a blessing have really good reasons for doing so, as such efforts, which get at objective use cases and expectations, have helped to remediate a lot of damage done by a bit too much subjectivity and projection of expectations in our communications. (Bless me father, for I have clause'd)

Georgelemental 5y ago
> "The author's obvious preference for subjective ethics" I doubt this interpretation, given SQLite's Code of Ethics (https://sqlite.org/codeofethics.html https://sqlite.org/codeofethics.html). Abrahamic faiths and subjective ethics don't go well together; "I am the way, the truth, and the life" doesn't leave much room for alternatives.
- throwaway984393 5y ago
  What's funny is the principals of what modern progresive intellectuals find right or wrong were introduced by Abrahamic (specifically Christian) teachings. Before that, the whole framework of the poor or meek being something everyone should protect wasn't a common idea. Even devout Atheists are basically Christian philosophers with scientific faith replacing theistic faith.
  - fartcannon 5y ago
    Is it necessary for all Atheists to have faith in science? Science is a process to figure out the universe, not a thing/person/god. It's not the only way to know stuff, its just a good way. If the argument is that some people say Science as if it was some god, well, not much I can argue against there. Certainly not all atheists though. Otherwise, I agree that modern people took some of the good stuff old religions. It's so hard to know the truth, even about ourselves.
  - FredPret 5y ago
    Nietzsche wrote a fascinating book about this - The Genealogy of Morals. If I remember correctly, he uses the ancient city of Rome as a symbol of the pre-Abrahamic, natural han ethic. Power is good, sex is good, wealth is good, strength is good, competence is good. This contrasts with the Jerusalem ethic where an almighty god is worshipped, not perched on a mountain or a cloud, but while nailed to a cross. So now self-sacrifice is good, and the whole story revolves around the weak, the poor, the downtrodden. We’re still in the Jerusalem phase, despite having replaced the church with the state. Perhaps one day, in a few millennia, the wheel will turn back around. It’s a good book!
  - rvense 5y ago
    It says somewhere that there is nothing new under the sun... Christianity, including its ethics, obviously also had sources and influences. Both in its inception and as it has changed, fractured and adapted to its surroundings over time. And if you truly think that Jesus invented helping the poor and acting righteous, I can only recommend you read about religions. Both those that influenced Christianity and those that never came into contact with it.
    - mnw21cam 5y ago
      > It says somewhere that there is nothing new under the sun... Ah yes, that's most of Ecclesiastes. Everything is meaningless. King Solomon sometimes comes across as a bit of whinger, but then what do you expect if you're ultra-rich and bored and questioning the meaning of it all. I agree that many aspects of Christianity have precedent. The one rather novel thing that it introduced was the concept of a God who would voluntarily suffer excruciating punishment so that we wouldn't have to.
- themodelplumber 5y ago
  There's no reference to any Code of Ethics in the linked space above, though. Contextually the blessing text is completely subjective. (PS Are you also saying they have objectively measured the existence of God, or the divinity of Christ...?)
  - Georgelemental 5y ago
    I'm saying that Abrahamic faiths generally don't leave any room for "my truth" being different from "your truth." There is only one Truth with a capital T, because there is only one God with a capital G. So if two people differ on some point of doctrine or ethics, one of them must be Right and the other must be Wrong. Mere mortals might not be able to determine which is which with perfect accuracy, but the One True God certainly can.
    - themodelplumber 5y ago
      Gotcha, in fact I used to preach that style of position from my neo-Abrahamic pulpit. Slightly different in that I was preaching that God OR his special representatives like me could tell you what the right truth was. Funny memories.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      I mean, if that's your standard you have to provide the same capital T truth standard to science and, well, pretty much everything else.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      That still leaves the human realm mired in subjectivity. I think "there is no true ethics system" and "there is a true ethics system but we can only access hints toward it" go together quite well.
    - wolverine876 5y ago
      That's not how almost everyone I know interprets and practices them, and the scriptures themselves are frequently vague and inconsistent.
    - 5y ago
- aloisdg 5y ago
  > 16. Visit the sick. Worst rule ever during a pandemic.
- hprotagonist 5y ago
  >Abrahamic faiths and subjective ethics don't go well together christian existentialism is alive and well and has a loooong history. (and john 3:16 is a lot more universalist than the people who wield it like a club seem to believe)
bee_rider 5y ago
Has it ever been shown in court that there's any real point to putting a license at the top of every file? I'd think that the whole project is licensed under some terms, rather than having to do each file individually.... Anyway, I think structuring it as a blessing means that it doesn't tell us much about the author's view of ethics. Which is to say, it is so clearly just a reminder to the reader that they should be their best self, that it couldn't possibly be misinterpreted as the actual, objective legal requirements. So, those must be somewhere else, right?
- themodelplumber 5y ago
  Subjectively you may personally think that it _must_ have a license somewhere, sure. But the file itself says right there--no copyright, no legal notice. The rest is also your interpretation, and the reason I say that is that you're also kind of putting yourself in the objective audience's seat in creating the interpretation. So there's still a subjective hand-wave effect. Get into the position of somebody who has no idea what the expectations are for "never taking more than you give"--where exactly is that line supposed to be, speaking in terms of details that matter...? ...and see if you can understand what it's like to be spoken to from someone else's set of simply-expressed, vague expectations connected to exactly which ethical framework we do not really know. If you're "average joe"ing this, that's more of a subjective demonstration of where this kind of language may feel awesome for the author or even average-yourself-speaking-about-you-personally, but for others--what about them?
- plorkyeran 5y ago
  The per-file license notice is for clarity, particularly when a single file is taken from a project and used separately. It's not a legal requirement.
ars 5y ago
> For example, what is good? A lot of people share concepts of what is good, but a lot of people really don't. Not because they're bad people, but because life circumstances typically go way deeper than good and evil, for instance. So--what is the author saying, really? IBM had the same problem, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866 for the solution :)

Georgelemental 5y ago

> "The author's obvious preference for subjective ethics" I doubt this interpretation, given SQLite's Code of Ethics (https://sqlite.org/codeofethics.html https://sqlite.org/codeofethics.html). Abrahamic faiths and subjective ethics don't go well together; "I am the way, the truth, and the life" doesn't leave much room for alternatives.

throwaway984393 5y ago
What's funny is the principals of what modern progresive intellectuals find right or wrong were introduced by Abrahamic (specifically Christian) teachings. Before that, the whole framework of the poor or meek being something everyone should protect wasn't a common idea. Even devout Atheists are basically Christian philosophers with scientific faith replacing theistic faith.
- fartcannon 5y ago
  Is it necessary for all Atheists to have faith in science? Science is a process to figure out the universe, not a thing/person/god. It's not the only way to know stuff, its just a good way. If the argument is that some people say Science as if it was some god, well, not much I can argue against there. Certainly not all atheists though. Otherwise, I agree that modern people took some of the good stuff old religions. It's so hard to know the truth, even about ourselves.
- FredPret 5y ago
  Nietzsche wrote a fascinating book about this - The Genealogy of Morals. If I remember correctly, he uses the ancient city of Rome as a symbol of the pre-Abrahamic, natural han ethic. Power is good, sex is good, wealth is good, strength is good, competence is good. This contrasts with the Jerusalem ethic where an almighty god is worshipped, not perched on a mountain or a cloud, but while nailed to a cross. So now self-sacrifice is good, and the whole story revolves around the weak, the poor, the downtrodden. We’re still in the Jerusalem phase, despite having replaced the church with the state. Perhaps one day, in a few millennia, the wheel will turn back around. It’s a good book!
- rvense 5y ago
  It says somewhere that there is nothing new under the sun... Christianity, including its ethics, obviously also had sources and influences. Both in its inception and as it has changed, fractured and adapted to its surroundings over time. And if you truly think that Jesus invented helping the poor and acting righteous, I can only recommend you read about religions. Both those that influenced Christianity and those that never came into contact with it.
  - mnw21cam 5y ago
    > It says somewhere that there is nothing new under the sun... Ah yes, that's most of Ecclesiastes. Everything is meaningless. King Solomon sometimes comes across as a bit of whinger, but then what do you expect if you're ultra-rich and bored and questioning the meaning of it all. I agree that many aspects of Christianity have precedent. The one rather novel thing that it introduced was the concept of a God who would voluntarily suffer excruciating punishment so that we wouldn't have to.
themodelplumber 5y ago
There's no reference to any Code of Ethics in the linked space above, though. Contextually the blessing text is completely subjective. (PS Are you also saying they have objectively measured the existence of God, or the divinity of Christ...?)
- Georgelemental 5y ago
  I'm saying that Abrahamic faiths generally don't leave any room for "my truth" being different from "your truth." There is only one Truth with a capital T, because there is only one God with a capital G. So if two people differ on some point of doctrine or ethics, one of them must be Right and the other must be Wrong. Mere mortals might not be able to determine which is which with perfect accuracy, but the One True God certainly can.
  - themodelplumber 5y ago
    Gotcha, in fact I used to preach that style of position from my neo-Abrahamic pulpit. Slightly different in that I was preaching that God OR his special representatives like me could tell you what the right truth was. Funny memories.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    I mean, if that's your standard you have to provide the same capital T truth standard to science and, well, pretty much everything else.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    That still leaves the human realm mired in subjectivity. I think "there is no true ethics system" and "there is a true ethics system but we can only access hints toward it" go together quite well.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    That's not how almost everyone I know interprets and practices them, and the scriptures themselves are frequently vague and inconsistent.
  - 5y ago
aloisdg 5y ago
> 16. Visit the sick. Worst rule ever during a pandemic.
hprotagonist 5y ago
>Abrahamic faiths and subjective ethics don't go well together christian existentialism is alive and well and has a loooong history. (and john 3:16 is a lot more universalist than the people who wield it like a club seem to believe)

bee_rider 5y ago

Has it ever been shown in court that there's any real point to putting a license at the top of every file? I'd think that the whole project is licensed under some terms, rather than having to do each file individually.... Anyway, I think structuring it as a blessing means that it doesn't tell us much about the author's view of ethics. Which is to say, it is so clearly just a reminder to the reader that they should be their best self, that it couldn't possibly be misinterpreted as the actual, objective legal requirements. So, those must be somewhere else, right?

themodelplumber 5y ago
Subjectively you may personally think that it _must_ have a license somewhere, sure. But the file itself says right there--no copyright, no legal notice. The rest is also your interpretation, and the reason I say that is that you're also kind of putting yourself in the objective audience's seat in creating the interpretation. So there's still a subjective hand-wave effect. Get into the position of somebody who has no idea what the expectations are for "never taking more than you give"--where exactly is that line supposed to be, speaking in terms of details that matter...? ...and see if you can understand what it's like to be spoken to from someone else's set of simply-expressed, vague expectations connected to exactly which ethical framework we do not really know. If you're "average joe"ing this, that's more of a subjective demonstration of where this kind of language may feel awesome for the author or even average-yourself-speaking-about-you-personally, but for others--what about them?
plorkyeran 5y ago
The per-file license notice is for clarity, particularly when a single file is taken from a project and used separately. It's not a legal requirement.

ars 5y ago

> For example, what is good? A lot of people share concepts of what is good, but a lot of people really don't. Not because they're bad people, but because life circumstances typically go way deeper than good and evil, for instance. So--what is the author saying, really? IBM had the same problem, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866 for the solution :)