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The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

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Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#41

Post by username223 »

afarrell wrote: post #37
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #5

They lead one to ask if our inability to effectively address mass surveillance constitutes a failure of our field. I believe that it does. I call for a community-wide effort to develop more effective means to resist mass surveillance. What's funny is that you could talk to any number of law enforcement officials who believe that the moral failing is on the cryptography community for not providing a "backdoor" into en…

> Morality is, unfortunately, subjective. Genuine question: What do people who believe this use as their reason for refraining from harming others for personal gain? I understand that simple intuitive preferences against seeing others suffer will often work, but what do you do about instances where either the rewards of screwing someone over are very great or where your intuition tells you that you would get a lot of…

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law." The Categorical Imperative and its weaker brethren like the Golden Rule are remarkably widespread.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#42

Post by shkkmo »

woodman wrote: post #32
fenomas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but whether or not there are universal preferences is also subjective.

> are I don't think that existence is subjective, so universal preference either exists or it doesn't. It has been a long time since I've sat in a philosophy class though, so I'd welcome a correction.

Whether a preference is universal is sufficiently impractical to ascertain with certainty (especially since you have said you want to include the preferences of people in the past), such that any belief about the existence of any universal preferences is inherently subjective.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#43

Post by dmfdmf »

afarrell wrote: post #37
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #5

They lead one to ask if our inability to effectively address mass surveillance constitutes a failure of our field. I believe that it does. I call for a community-wide effort to develop more effective means to resist mass surveillance. What's funny is that you could talk to any number of law enforcement officials who believe that the moral failing is on the cryptography community for not providing a "backdoor" into en…

> Morality is, unfortunately, subjective. Genuine question: What do people who believe this use as their reason for refraining from harming others for personal gain? I understand that simple intuitive preferences against seeing others suffer will often work, but what do you do about instances where either the rewards of screwing someone over are very great or where your intuition tells you that you would get a lot of…

Genuine answer: http://www.amazon.com/The-Virtue-Selfishness-Centennial-Edit...

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#45

Post by Spooky23 »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #5

They lead one to ask if our inability to effectively address mass surveillance constitutes a failure of our field. I believe that it does. I call for a community-wide effort to develop more effective means to resist mass surveillance. What's funny is that you could talk to any number of law enforcement officials who believe that the moral failing is on the cryptography community for not providing a "backdoor" into en…

I disagree. People are good about segmenting their lives. Few people have value commitments that are stronger than their ability to pay the mortgage.

I've worked with police who privately express feelings and take actions diametrically opposed to how they behave in a professional context.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#46

Post by woodman »

shkkmo wrote: post #39
woodman wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a foundation for morality it does, violation of a universal principle being an immoral act. Your hypothetical situation depends on the dimension of time, I'd say that universality has no such constraint: the concept of a perfect circle exists regardless of a physical example ever having existed.

> Your hypothetical situation depends on the dimension of time So do you include the future and the past? If you include the future it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to determine the universality of a principle. If you don't include the future, that means that it is possible for the universality of a principle to change. Then As soon as one person is born who doesn't share a principle, the moral character…

> So do you include the future and the past?

Yes. I think the point of confusion is around "universality". I'm not talking about a unanimous agreement on preference between people born and unborn, I'm talking about attributes that define kindness (the set theory kind, not the Disney princess kind). I was hoping to make that clear with the perfect circle bit, but I wasn't aware of contention on the issue... pretend I said square, I'm pretty sure that is a safe universal definition. I have no opinion on the morality of geometry, but all squares share universal attributes. All humans share universal attributes as well, by way of biological imperatives - life is preferable to death, all things being equal and outside of coercion.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#47

Post by hueving »

policestate101 wrote: post #8
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #5

They lead one to ask if our inability to effectively address mass surveillance constitutes a failure of our field. I believe that it does. I call for a community-wide effort to develop more effective means to resist mass surveillance. What's funny is that you could talk to any number of law enforcement officials who believe that the moral failing is on the cryptography community for not providing a "backdoor" into en…

When your opponent condones torture, indefinite imprisonment of innocents, war crimes, and genocide, there is little point in having anbopen dialog or argument with them.

There are many people that don't condone those things but still think law enforcement should be able to get into people's computers or read communications with a warrant. It's more nuanced than you would like to believe.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#48

Post by dahart »

afarrell wrote: post #37
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #5

They lead one to ask if our inability to effectively address mass surveillance constitutes a failure of our field. I believe that it does. I call for a community-wide effort to develop more effective means to resist mass surveillance. What's funny is that you could talk to any number of law enforcement officials who believe that the moral failing is on the cryptography community for not providing a "backdoor" into en…

> Morality is, unfortunately, subjective. Genuine question: What do people who believe this use as their reason for refraining from harming others for personal gain? I understand that simple intuitive preferences against seeing others suffer will often work, but what do you do about instances where either the rewards of screwing someone over are very great or where your intuition tells you that you would get a lot of…

> What do people who believe this use as their reason for refraining from harming others for personal gain?

This is an interesting and deep question! The game theory of life. I don't know the answer or if there is a clear answer, but I imagine there's generally a lot of risk involved in harming others for personal gain, and basic fear of individual or group retaliation (either mob or police) is a significant deterrent.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#49

Post by dragonwriter »

woodman wrote: post #46
shkkmo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your hypothetical situation depends on the dimension of time So do you include the future and the past? If you include the future it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to determine the universality of a principle. If you don't include the future, that means that it is possible for the universality of a principle to change. Then As soon as one person is born who doesn't share a principle, the moral character…

> So do you include the future and the past? Yes. I think the point of confusion is around "universality". I'm not talking about a unanimous agreement on preference between people born and unborn, I'm talking about attributes that define kindness (the set theory kind, not the Disney princess kind). I was hoping to make that clear with the perfect circle bit, but I wasn't aware of contention on the issue... pretend I…

If "life is preferable to death" were a universal attribute of all humans resulting from a biological imperative, no one would ever choose to end their life. I suspect any other proposed "universal attribute" -- at least one that take the form of a universal preference -- will fail to correspond with reality in the same way.

Re: The Moral Character of Cryptographic Work

#50

Post by woodman »

shkkmo wrote: post #42
woodman wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> are I don't think that existence is subjective, so universal preference either exists or it doesn't. It has been a long time since I've sat in a philosophy class though, so I'd welcome a correction.

Whether a preference is universal is sufficiently impractical to ascertain with certainty (especially since you have said you want to include the preferences of people in the past), such that any belief about the existence of any universal preferences is inherently subjective.

I'm not talking about whimsical preference, I'm talking about group membership defining attributes - preferences that make one a human being and that every other human has or will share. And yes, this would define a human being even in a world were no human ever existed or will exist.
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