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> They just don't care at all about e.g. human suffering or destruction of environment they cause to maximize return on capital. I think you have just describe

> They just don't care at all about e.g. human suffering or destruction of environment they cause to maximize return on capital. I think you have just described evil.

jampekka 3y ago
Is an asteroid hitting Earth evil?
- acdha 3y ago
  Is an asteroid made of people making the decision to hit the earth? Corporations are.
  - jampekka 3y ago
    People are not free to make decisions in a corporation. If their decisions are against interests of the corporation (the stockholders) they are typically fired.
    - broscillator 3y ago
      Are stockholders not people?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- hsuduebc2 3y ago
  Were concentration camps in Nazi Germany evil?
  - jampekka 3y ago
    Did the people running the camps think themselves as evil?
    - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
      Must you think you are evil to actually be evil?
      - jampekka 3y ago
        I don't believe it's very useful to categorize people or things as evil if they don't themselves think this is their motive. The "evil" category often makes people think that the "evil" entities have some motives and logic of operation that "good" people just can't understand or relate to at all. There was a sort of internally coherent logic and motivation for Nazi death camps (and to many similar horrors). I don't agree with it at all and I find the results of it extremely harmful and such logic must be vigorously resisted. And to vigorously resist it, it has to be understood. However, I'm not at all sure that I would have resisted the death camps if I were to formulate my views in the same situation as Nazi germans were. I could well be a Putinist in current Russia. And I probably wouldn't think I was evil.
        broscillator 3y ago
        If nazis aren't evil, then what is evil?
        I_Am_Nous 3y ago
        In that case, no one is evil as they can subjectively justify every decision. I don't believe subjective justification makes something intrinsically evil like child abuse acceptable, tolerable, or ignorable.
- core_dumped 3y ago
  An asteroid does not have the ability to care about those things, it’s a rock. It can’t choose to leave the earth alone in the name of empathy. Corporations are made of humans, who, it’s been shown, care about other humans a lot of the time. I think the more we rely on these power structures for our own self preservation, the more we start to weaponize them against weaker forms (normal people) as a form of active defense. I like the reference to Cthulhu, it really is like a higher order life form. Workers are the cells, infrastructure the body, and the c-suite is of course the ravenous mind. You as a human don’t care what happens to a cell in a Petri dish, the same way corporations don’t care about what happens to individual people. As a human, I find this evil, and wonder if there are perhaps other higher order life forms (economic systems) we can construct that aren’t as harmful to their own composition.
  - jampekka 3y ago
    When acting on behalf of a corporation (e.g. as an employee), humans are quite limited in what they can choose. This is very commonly used to justify actions that even the human themselves may find immoral. E.g. "just doing my job", "have bills to pay", "just following orders", "if I wouldn't do it, somebody else would". Not only are the corporations psychopaths (i.e. amoral), they are structures that turn humans psychopaths when they are on the clock. We seem to agree that structures like corporations are best seen as something that transcend the individuals that they comprise. And I think there are less harmful forms of organization, or at least what corporations can do should be limited by e.g. states and unions significantly more. I avoid (and criticize) the use of "evil" because it usually muddies more than clarifies, and has weird metaphysical connotations. "Harmful" I think captures it better.
    - hsuduebc2 3y ago
      I agree with you. I was hyperbolic to make a point. Instead "necessarily evil", "harmful necessity" would be more appropriate.

> They just don't care at all about e.g. human suffering or destruction of environment they cause to maximize return on capital. I think you have just described evil.

jampekka 3y ago

Is an asteroid hitting Earth evil?

acdha 3y ago
Is an asteroid made of people making the decision to hit the earth? Corporations are.
- jampekka 3y ago
  People are not free to make decisions in a corporation. If their decisions are against interests of the corporation (the stockholders) they are typically fired.
  - broscillator 3y ago
    Are stockholders not people?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
hsuduebc2 3y ago
Were concentration camps in Nazi Germany evil?
- jampekka 3y ago
  Did the people running the camps think themselves as evil?
  - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
    Must you think you are evil to actually be evil?
    - jampekka 3y ago
      I don't believe it's very useful to categorize people or things as evil if they don't themselves think this is their motive. The "evil" category often makes people think that the "evil" entities have some motives and logic of operation that "good" people just can't understand or relate to at all. There was a sort of internally coherent logic and motivation for Nazi death camps (and to many similar horrors). I don't agree with it at all and I find the results of it extremely harmful and such logic must be vigorously resisted. And to vigorously resist it, it has to be understood. However, I'm not at all sure that I would have resisted the death camps if I were to formulate my views in the same situation as Nazi germans were. I could well be a Putinist in current Russia. And I probably wouldn't think I was evil.
      - broscillator 3y ago
        If nazis aren't evil, then what is evil?
      - I_Am_Nous 3y ago
        In that case, no one is evil as they can subjectively justify every decision. I don't believe subjective justification makes something intrinsically evil like child abuse acceptable, tolerable, or ignorable.
core_dumped 3y ago
An asteroid does not have the ability to care about those things, it’s a rock. It can’t choose to leave the earth alone in the name of empathy. Corporations are made of humans, who, it’s been shown, care about other humans a lot of the time. I think the more we rely on these power structures for our own self preservation, the more we start to weaponize them against weaker forms (normal people) as a form of active defense. I like the reference to Cthulhu, it really is like a higher order life form. Workers are the cells, infrastructure the body, and the c-suite is of course the ravenous mind. You as a human don’t care what happens to a cell in a Petri dish, the same way corporations don’t care about what happens to individual people. As a human, I find this evil, and wonder if there are perhaps other higher order life forms (economic systems) we can construct that aren’t as harmful to their own composition.
- jampekka 3y ago
  When acting on behalf of a corporation (e.g. as an employee), humans are quite limited in what they can choose. This is very commonly used to justify actions that even the human themselves may find immoral. E.g. "just doing my job", "have bills to pay", "just following orders", "if I wouldn't do it, somebody else would". Not only are the corporations psychopaths (i.e. amoral), they are structures that turn humans psychopaths when they are on the clock. We seem to agree that structures like corporations are best seen as something that transcend the individuals that they comprise. And I think there are less harmful forms of organization, or at least what corporations can do should be limited by e.g. states and unions significantly more. I avoid (and criticize) the use of "evil" because it usually muddies more than clarifies, and has weird metaphysical connotations. "Harmful" I think captures it better.
  - hsuduebc2 3y ago
    I agree with you. I was hyperbolic to make a point. Instead "necessarily evil", "harmful necessity" would be more appropriate.