4 ms·

The past few years have convinced me quite strongly that malice is sometimes, even often, the correct explanation.

doctor_eval 4y ago
Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice… and vice versa.
kzrdude 4y ago
I think we're too slow to call it malice sometimes, aren't we? If it doesn't look cartoonishly evil we ascribe it to other intentions, I mean. While it would be more bold to just call it evil, such as: evil by neglience, evil by greed, etc.
- gruez 4y ago
  >While it would be more bold to just call it evil, such as: evil by neglience, evil by greed, etc. It might be more bold right now, but the net effect of expanding words to mean stuff it didn't mean before is that words get even more watered down. If "evil" includes people acting negligently, what do you call people who were actually intentionally out to cause harm? Super-evil?
  - kzrdude 4y ago
    That's not what I wanted to say. It depends on the situation. Not all neglience is evil, of course not. Not all greed is evil, either.
    - fortran77 4y ago
      I think there logic is the "but what about the children?" razor. "Save _one_ hytpothetical child, and it's all worth it" is one lemma derived from this principle.
andrewflnr 4y ago
Yeah, but even then usually someone has to benefit. I don't see who benefits. Drug investigators? Picking an arbitrary cutoff looks like plausible stupidity to me... Which is not to say the hospital shouldn't be punished harshly, just that probably no one should go to jail either.
- morkalork 4y ago
  No idea who really benefits but there's been scandals like this before: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/02/27/flawed-drug-tests-split-up-scores-of-canadian-children-from-their-families-report-finds/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/02/2... https://projects.thestar.com/motherisk/ https://projects.thestar.com/motherisk/
hgsgm 4y ago
Sometimes stupid people are malicious, muddying attempts to distinguish.

Sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice… and vice versa.

I think we're too slow to call it malice sometimes, aren't we? If it doesn't look cartoonishly evil we ascribe it to other intentions, I mean. While it would be more bold to just call it evil, such as: evil by neglience, evil by greed, etc.

gruez 4y ago
>While it would be more bold to just call it evil, such as: evil by neglience, evil by greed, etc. It might be more bold right now, but the net effect of expanding words to mean stuff it didn't mean before is that words get even more watered down. If "evil" includes people acting negligently, what do you call people who were actually intentionally out to cause harm? Super-evil?
- kzrdude 4y ago
  That's not what I wanted to say. It depends on the situation. Not all neglience is evil, of course not. Not all greed is evil, either.
  - fortran77 4y ago
    I think there logic is the "but what about the children?" razor. "Save _one_ hytpothetical child, and it's all worth it" is one lemma derived from this principle.

andrewflnr 4y ago

Yeah, but even then usually someone has to benefit. I don't see who benefits. Drug investigators? Picking an arbitrary cutoff looks like plausible stupidity to me... Which is not to say the hospital shouldn't be punished harshly, just that probably no one should go to jail either.

morkalork 4y ago
No idea who really benefits but there's been scandals like this before: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/02/27/flawed-drug-tests-split-up-scores-of-canadian-children-from-their-families-report-finds/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/02/2... https://projects.thestar.com/motherisk/ https://projects.thestar.com/motherisk/

hgsgm 4y ago

Sometimes stupid people are malicious, muddying attempts to distinguish.