Too Much Power For One Man • Hacker News Board

Re: Too Much Power For One Man

#91

Post by gadders » Mon, Jul 14, 2014, 12:42 PM UTC

gpcz wrote: post #83

gadders wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the Koch Brothers are evil. That George Soros, though, he's totally a force for good. The reality is that left and right all have their rich supporters, and only the truly blinkered would say one side is "evil" and the other is "good". The Koch brothers donated hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research. Have you given as much?

Themartorana never said that the left was good and the right was evil, and never said anything about George Soros. Even worse, you are engaging in a tu quoque fallacy to defend this perceived partisanship. The Koch brothers spent $31 million in 2012 to lobby for their coal power interests [1], which is linked to higher rates of lung cancer for miners, people who live near mines [2], and people who live near coal powe…

I've yet to hear of any right-wingers criticise the Koch brothers. Perhaps Themarorana is a rogue libertarian that doesn't like them, but I'd consider that one of the least-likely possibilities.

I'd also say that promoting fossil fuels, which are responsible for most of the prosperity we have today, is a pretty low bar to have to cross in order to be considered "evil".

ISIS are evil. The Leader of North Korea is evil. The Koch Brothers (or George Soros)? Not so much

Re: Too Much Power For One Man

#92

Post by gress » Mon, Jul 14, 2014, 4:47 PM UTC

nmrm wrote: post #58

hsod wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was the parent post edited? Right now it says "motivated primarily by profit," not "purely"

No, I didn't edit that post. Also, gress: I don't necessarily disagree with you. But there is a distinction.

There is a distinction, but I think that primarily does imply that profit takes priority over ethical concerns, so I'd argue that in this case the distinction doesn't change the argument.

Re: Too Much Power For One Man

#93

Post by k__ » Tue, Jul 15, 2014, 10:22 AM UTC

pjscott wrote: post #84

k__ wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't evil as undefined as good?

Although people have different definitions of 'good' and 'evil', in practice most people roughly agree about most of it. Humans have very similar minds. It's easy to lose sight of this, since discussion mostly focuses on the parts where we disagree, but that's some pretty serious selection bias.

I think the opposite is the case.

There is a big bunch of people who thing gays are bad or blacks or jews or people who don't believe in their god.

The war on drugs also made many people "evil" in the eye of those who don't did drugs, but most of them just were a bunch of spaced-out-hippies.