361–370 of 374 posts
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Adultery is illegal in many bits of the US.
It is but according to the Wiki it there hasn't been a conviction in the US since 1983.
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I think I was quite clear as to why a marital relationship is a private matter. I think we can agree that in society there are many different moral systems. Now I will use the words "good" and "bad" with the stipulation that these words have no inherent meaning, but instead only have the meaning that we apply to them from within our own personal moral system. You can compare another moral system to your own, and deci…
Thank you for your reply. No, I am not harmed when two people (Pa and Pb) are married, and Pa cheats on Pb. The reason I'd oppose AM is because it normalizes and helps the harmful behaviour of Pa towards Pb. I am quite sure that there is some marginal contribution of AM to the number of cheatings and broken marriages. I think we can objectively say that AM contributes to needless suffering. Do you agree?
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Going somewhat off on a tangent here but I'm wondering, what is the factual, tangible harm of cheating that you so take for granted? STDs and unwanted pregnancies, I'll give you that but let's assume that everyone's a responsible adult and wears protection. What else? Trust? I guess promising to (not) do `X` and not keeping your word makes you untrustworthy but what is the literal harm on someone other than the self-…
It is, quite simply, that they feel intense negative emotions and betrayal. It does not really need any more explanation than that. You can tell a distraught "victim" of cheating that they weren't technically harmed, but I don't think that would make many of them feel better. Basically, it is irrelevant if they "should" or "shouldn't" be harmed, most of them will feel harm once the affair inevitably comes to light. I…
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What's wrong with the idea of having limits on data collection and regulations around their storage? You can't prosecute someone for being the victim of hackers but you can (and should) for not applying reasonable efforts in safeguarding data or storing more than they should.
There is always someone on HN who thinks whatever data you're collecting is too much, and plenty of hacks were the result of pretty sophisticated 0days in underlying systems despite reasonable precautions being taken in administration processes. There is already negligence on the books.
All these hacks we are seeing of both public and private data are proving increasingly damaging as more data is being collected and aggregated (whilst as you point out, impossible to fully protect against).
This very clearly indicates an urgent need for far greater regulation of what is allowed both in transit and at rest, as well as suitable penalties for negligence. This should be a politically non-partisan issue as it's so wide ranging, covering national security (e.g. Snowden, OPM) as well as comedy gold in the commercial sector like Ashley Madison and more serious cases like Target.
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There is always someone on HN who thinks whatever data you're collecting is too much, and plenty of hacks were the result of pretty sophisticated 0days in underlying systems despite reasonable precautions being taken in administration processes. There is already negligence on the books.
'Too much' isn't just some random person's opinion where it's all relative. There are already plenty of examples of data regulation in governmental and commercial contexts - from PII of minors, to PCI, to data residency, to what companies are allowed to do in regions like Europe, Russia, and Asia. All these hacks we are seeing of both public and private data are proving increasingly damaging as more data is being col…
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Right, up to and including eating a slice of cheesecake, which is why your definition is useless. What we're discussing here is things that are harmful to others _per se_. Theft, violating agreements (like cheating), etc are obviously examples of this. Religion, drug use, open marriages are obviously not. The distinction here is kot
Whenever someone claims something is "obvious" alarm bells goes off for me. For starters, cars are obviously harmful: People get killed in car accidents. So clearly, it is insufficient that something causes harm for us to consider them as harmful enough to argue against them on principle - at least for the vast majority of us. Are you going to argue that violating agreements is always harmful? Almost always? How do q…
This comment is a truly impressive strawman. Strawman abound in fora like HN, and everyone (unwittingly or otherwise) is probably guilty of them here or there, but this one is really worthy of note. You took a word ("obviously") that _I didn't even use in my definition_ and claimed that I'm using it as a "criteria [sic]" (as opposed to just using it with some simple illustrative examples). I usually assume that perhaps I was unclear or that someone misunderstood my comment, but you're not even attempting to pretend that you're not wholly misrepresenting my comment so that you can attack a claim no one made.
My actual definition (which you completely ignored) is that the definition of harm is applied to things that are harmful _per se_. Note that I wasn't making any statement about what I believe in, I was describing a distinction which is fundamental to modern ethics and policy, all over the world. I'll ignore the half of your comment that's impotently flailing at a claim _that no one made_ (as described above); The half that actually approaches coherency is an attempt to devise a litmus test for what would fall under this definition and what wouldn't (i.e. how do you discern things that are "inherently" harmful from those that aren't, given that you can construct a scenario of harm around literally every action anyone takes ("breathing is harmful if you take the last gulp of air from someone's oxygen tank!!")).
TW: Use of the word "obvious"[1]
The obvious[1] litmus test here is: is it possible to conceive of an example of someone performing the action without causing harm? To put it another way, is the action separable from harm? This is quite obviously[1] true for the examples given above: drug use, religion, etc. You can dream of (and many here have probably experienced) a thousand instances of drug use and acts of religion that harmed no-one else. This is in stark contrast to theft, violating agreements, etc.
> Are you going to argue that violating agreements is always harmful? Almost always?.... Do you have any basis for assuming there aren't people out there that e.g. just don't care? (because there certainly are)
Are you kidding me? This is true by definition. Inasmuch as utility is expressed by people making an agreement and wanting to hold you to it, the violated party in the agreement is being harmed. Note that this makes no statement as to whether _net_ harm is being done, and of course that this entire comment is all under the assumption that the person being harmed in each case is considered to have full agency as an adult (e.g., most people wouldn't consider it harmful to remove something dangerous from your child's possession, even though in the context of an adult possessor that would be considered theft).
If I'm interpreting your latter statement correctly in the quote above, you're talking about violating an agreement with the other party's consent? That's not violating an agreement by any common usage of the phrase, that's just mutually agreeing to call off an agreement.....The word violation makes it clear that it's done without the consent of all parties involved.
> At the same time you claim drug use in the other category, despite the large number of deaths tied to drug use. Religion has been the catalyst for massive amounts of deaths too. To some of us religion are "obviously" harmful to others _per se_.
Sigh. You can't just put the words "per se" at the end of a sentence when you don't know what they mean. Words have meaning. Use them with care. Christ.
You're preaching to the choir when you talk about finding religion to be harmful overall. But again, it's not harmful _per se_. Using the litmus test described above, an act of religion that harms no-one else is me praying briefly before going to sleep. This act is easily separable from someone killing someone else in the name of religion. I honestly never thought I would have to explain this to anyone who wasn't a very small child (and even then, I probably wouldn't have cause to talk about why people murder each other).
> It becomes very hard to take your argument seriously when your "obviousness" criteria [sic] are so obviously subjective and used to avoid having to justify your claims.
An interesting question here is whether a grade-school level of reading comprehension unleashed in a forum full of (ostensible) adults is inherently harmful. /s
[1] You apparently have an allergy to the word "obvious", so I'll clarify for your benefit here. I'm saying this is obvious because the fundamentally basic thought process described here is part of the underpinning of almost literally every single moral system in the history of mankind (even the most theocratic ones). Most of the differences between more dated moral/legal systems and today is the level of bluntness we're willing to tolerate when deciding whether an act is likely to be separable from harm.
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'Too much' isn't just some random person's opinion where it's all relative. There are already plenty of examples of data regulation in governmental and commercial contexts - from PII of minors, to PCI, to data residency, to what companies are allowed to do in regions like Europe, Russia, and Asia. All these hacks we are seeing of both public and private data are proving increasingly damaging as more data is being col…
Data regulation has to do with things like retention length, reasonable precautions, the right to have your data deleted, the right to see what they have on file about you, requirement that data be anonymized under certain contexts, etc. There is not a clear bright line about what data is "too much" for your application - that's a judgement call, and a nightmarishly vague and technical concept for a jury to decide.
But now we are at the point where there is sufficient data being collected and aggregated (by both public and private orgs) that hacks can damage economic infrastructure and harm wider society i.e. not limited to those who have interacted with a particular entity. This means that light touch regulation is completely untenable (quite apart from the general naivety of looking to the market to solve problems it could not even theoretically be solved in the marketplace when your infrastructure itself is toast).
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I'd be willing to bet that a lot of people saying that are insecure about their own relationships.
Exactly, as someone who has zero worries about my partners fidelity it doesn't bother me one bit what other people do.
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Cheating can also end bad relationships. Which prevents emotional harm. I'm going to go out on a limb, and guess that a lot of the users are kind of ambivalent as to whether their current relationship is going to last. Who else would use a site like that? People who are comfortable lying (e.g. "cheaters") probably just fake a profile on a regular site, and lie to their date as well. Yes, maybe they should approach th…
> Cheating can also end bad relationships. Um... cheating is by no means a requirement for ending a relationship. You can simply say, "This relationship is over." Cheating is extremely harmful, and on top of that often unnecessary. Couples should discuss and explore open relationships, and if they are not open to that, end the relationship. In virtually all cases, cheating is a totally unnecessary harm.
There are good reasons to open a relationship and bad ones. Make sure you are seeking an open relationship because that is something you actually want.
Also make sure to do your research first. I recommend the book, Opening Up.
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You can say that on an individual basis but it doesn't change the aggregate behavior of our kind.
Very true but I still like to be able to look in the mirror and be happy with the person looking back. In a sense that's all you can do.