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Show HN: Race to the Bottom

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Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom

#31

Post by marcus_holmes »

macrocosmos wrote: post #24
marcus_holmes wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my take on that: - private military is different from (and not necessary for) defence. A country having an army for defence is bad but kinda necessary. A country hiring mercenaries is not necessary. - you can have e.g. social media without surveillance tech, and the harm comes mostly from the surveillance tech. Likewise for the others. Facial recognition opens my phone, I'm fine with that. Surveillance tech is always…

How is a country having an army for defense bad?

Well in an ideal world we wouldn't need armies, or defence, right?

Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom

#33

Post by macrocosmos »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #31
macrocosmos wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is a country having an army for defense bad?

Well in an ideal world we wouldn't need armies, or defence, right?

I’m speaking of reality. How is a country having an army for defense a bad thing in the existence we currently find ourselves?

Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom

#34

Post by breppp »

jdthedisciple wrote: post #30
danpalmer wrote: post #26

The framing of some of these is interesting. Not a criticism, just an observation. I think many trigger a visceral negative reaction, like animal testing, but most of these can be broken up into sub-parts that are both obviously good and obviously bad at the same time. Animal testing of cosmetics: bad, animal testing of the safety of a new drug that millions of humans will take: probably good. Chemical manufacturing…

Couldn't have said it better, felt the same way about it. Another example is military and defense, or pharmaceuticals. Some rather beneficial and even necessary aspects to both, yet some disagreeable things to either as well.

If this was framed as things you'd eliminate from society tomorrow, maybe pharma would fair better

Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom

#35

Post by CalRobert »

somewhatgoated wrote: post #11

Social media is ranked worse right now than Oil&Gas and Weapons - what?

Different people have different views. I agree re: oil and gas (it could literally kill us all) but I don't mind responsible firearm ownership and obviously someone has to build the guns if you want to hunt, go do some target practice at the range, etc.

Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom

#37

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

madamelic wrote: post #10

An interesting experiment could be re-wording some of these and seeing how different the rankings are. So have an alternate card titled "Promoting your country" rather than "Propaganda" or "Personal Safety" rather than "Firearms". Some of these cards definitely present biases that could prime someone to vote a certain way such as "Exploitative Gig Economy" is clearly biased. I would strongly guess if certain cards we…

It's not advertising, it's "product discovery services".

I'm actually a little amazed that marketers have branded their job so poorly.

Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom

#38

Post by lobofta »

A bit shocking to see how low people rate factory farming, place 34. Arguably the worst thing happening on this planet right now, the only thing is: not to humans, but to other sentient beings.

Re: Show HN: Race to the Bottom

#40

Post by marcus_holmes »

macrocosmos wrote: post #33
marcus_holmes wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well in an ideal world we wouldn't need armies, or defence, right?

I’m speaking of reality. How is a country having an army for defense a bad thing in the existence we currently find ourselves?

It's an interesting question.

Could we save ourselves the cost of a military, and put that money to better use, without actually endangering the lives of our citizens?

I would suggest, certainly in the case of the USA, that the answer is "yes". The USA's military budget is larger than most of the rest of world's combined. Yet the USA is not in any danger of being invaded. This massive, massive, military force is entirely about projecting force elsewhere, diplomacy by other means. It's not "defence".

The USA has huge social welfare problems. Hundreds of thousands of homeless people, for example. If the USA chose to, it could redirect even a small part of the military budget to building social housing, and (imho) the world would be a better place.

So while I agree that having a military for defence (and purely for defence) is probably not a bad thing, that's not the purpose that most countries have a military for. Hegseth aside, most anglosphere countries have a Department of Defence that has never had to defend anything [0], but has been at war for most of the last 50 years. I think this is bad.

[0] Falklands war is a little bit dubious; technically a defence of a UK protectorate. But colonialism, etc.

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