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I want to write software that helps kill people.

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Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#11

Post by hobs »

mschuster91 wrote: post #7
wereHamster wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the JSON license. MIT with this additional clause: The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.

Who defines what is "good" and "evil"? Just take the example "pornography": in most Western countries pornography is accepted and not considered as "evil", but in many Islamic countries, pornography is considered sinful.

A better example is the one that was used on github, war. There will always be justifications that a war is needed because of this oppressor or that incursion or this unforgivable action.

Licensing it differently is one option, but either they wont care or they will just copy the intent and make their own version.

This is a problem without a good solution at this point except to have a frank and adult understanding of the consequences of your actions, and to be politically active so that you may contribute you part to preventing your government from the continuous war.

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#13

Post by wildermuthn »

vubuntu wrote: post #9

You also give money to kill people (You do pay taxes, right?). How come you are not bothered about that also? It's pointless to think about the impact of a micro action on a macro event. Especially macro things such as war. There are so many different factors that culminate in a war. And about the good/evilness of war, that has a been a debate since ages. One can never win this argument.

Plenty of people refuse to pay taxes for precisely this reason, or deliberately seek lower salaries that do not pay federal taxes.

They believe, correctly, that macro-events are the culmination of micro-events, and that change begins on the personal level. It takes just a handful of dedicated people to start revolutions. Startups should know that.

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#14

Post by wildermuthn »

Check out Stanford's Encylopedia of Philosophy entry on double-effect: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/.

Essentially, double-effect means that your good actions can have unintended yet foreseen evil consequences. If you make a hunting rifle, and someone uses that to shoot children at a school, are you responsible? Not an easy question to answer.

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#15

Post by vubuntu »

wildermuthn wrote: post #13
vubuntu wrote: post #9

You also give money to kill people (You do pay taxes, right?). How come you are not bothered about that also? It's pointless to think about the impact of a micro action on a macro event. Especially macro things such as war. There are so many different factors that culminate in a war. And about the good/evilness of war, that has a been a debate since ages. One can never win this argument.

Plenty of people refuse to pay taxes for precisely this reason, or deliberately seek lower salaries that do not pay federal taxes. They believe, correctly, that macro-events are the culmination of micro-events, and that change begins on the personal level. It takes just a handful of dedicated people to start revolutions. Startups should know that.

Such people are hypocrites at best. Don't they use roads for their commute. Dont' their kids go to public schools. Don't they visit national parks etc. If they do all these things, aren't they ashamed of living off the money of the rest of the society that diligently pays taxes, and not contributing/pitching their share towards these common societal support structures?

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#16

Post by knowtheory »

mschuster91 wrote: post #7
wereHamster wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the JSON license. MIT with this additional clause: The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil.

Who defines what is "good" and "evil"? Just take the example "pornography": in most Western countries pornography is accepted and not considered as "evil", but in many Islamic countries, pornography is considered sinful.

As a practical matter in the US, if it's not a criminal matter, it's the entity/individual bringing suit against a defendant, and additionally the court who must ensure that the plaintiff has standing to bring suit.

Crockford in this particular case seems like the most likely plaintiff, but I don't know if there would be other parties who would also have standing or not (also, i'm not a lawyer, so take this as you will).

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#17

Post by kyrias »

mschuster91 wrote: post #3

I vaguely recall license terms which disallow anyone from using the code for military purposes - maybe it's time to adopt stuff like GPL/CC by extending them with an (optional) "do not use this software in machines/systems which have the power to kill/hurt people, or enable people to do so"

Adding it to the GPL would be pretty ironic.

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#18

Post by tshepang »

wildermuthn wrote: post #14

Check out Stanford's Encylopedia of Philosophy entry on double-effect: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/ . Essentially, double-effect means that your good actions can have unintended yet foreseen evil consequences. If you make a hunting rifle, and someone uses that to shoot children at a school, are you responsible? Not an easy question to answer.

I suspect that future generations will be disgusted by the fact that we find it okay to shoot conscious beings for amusement. Am generalising of course.

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#19

Post by phaus »

tshepang wrote: post #18
wildermuthn wrote: post #14

Check out Stanford's Encylopedia of Philosophy entry on double-effect: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/ . Essentially, double-effect means that your good actions can have unintended yet foreseen evil consequences. If you make a hunting rifle, and someone uses that to shoot children at a school, are you responsible? Not an easy question to answer.

I suspect that future generations will be disgusted by the fact that we find it okay to shoot conscious beings for amusement. Am generalising of course.

Is shooting an animal really any worse than what happens inside a slaughter house? The videos I've seen seem to indicate that it isn't.

Re: I want to write software that helps kill people.

#20

Post by fennecfoxen »

The question that this comes down to is a question of one's world-view and philosophy of responsibility, guilt, and concept of sin. It says something about how you conceive of those things if you trace responsibility from "meaningful contribution to a NoSQL storage engine" to "code was executed by a system used by people to seek terrorists and justify an eventual drone strike".

Due to relativism, I can't tell you whether your view is intrinsically right or wrong in a manner that all people are guaranteed to respect, but I can tell you: I would be upset if you used that logic to find fault with someone else who wrote NoSQL database engines, and blamed them for killing people (terrorists or no). I think it would be horribly unfair and modestly ridiculous - and if you agree with that when it applies to other people, consider whether you are, in fact, giving yourself a fair shake here.

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