Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how this can be in question, if the employees chose their employer freely. How can one seriously oppose a corporate entity if one may not oppose the people who comprise the corporate entity. "Corporations are people, my friend".
If employees choose their employers freely, what are interviews for?
Feds, We Need Some Time Apart
211–220 of 260 posts
Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Okay, but he also believes that the income tax is unconstitutional. If he's able to get social security to go away it's likely he'd also eliminate the income tax. Losing social security AND the income tax would likely be a net win for middle aged working folk like my parents. If two people are making a combined $120k/year their tax burden is around $27k. With 10-15 years to go til retirement that's another $270-$405k…
> Okay, but he also believes that the income tax is unconstitutional. If he's able to get social security to go away it's likely he'd also eliminate the income tax. X wants A. X also wants B. Therefore, if X gets A, X will also get B. That doesn't work. > Losing social security AND the income tax would likely be a net win for middle aged working folk like my parents. Your analysis seems to be pretty shallow on this,…
If it were possible for the general population to somehow wake up and realize that Social Security is a ponzi scheme and that it's not sustainable long term (not good odds that will happen, mind you) then it's ENTIRELY conceivable that said people might listen to the "income tax isn't constitutional" argument as well.
The political landscape would have to be so incredibly different for social security to go away I can't even really comprehend it. You can speculate that people wouldn't both abolish social security AND the income tax. I speculate that such a thing could reasonably happen. We'll never actually find out who's right.
Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
When is discrimination against an individual based on his or her employer detrimental to the good of humanity? Employers are kinda made up of the people that work for them. Any attempts to disassociate the two shall fail. So yes, humanity is better when people actually have experience consequences for their actions -- instead of hiding behind other people, or symbols even, like "employer". We're not talking about bei…
>What's next, not "discriminating" against people because they are running marathons for the Rapists Association, even though they're not rapists themselves? Boo-hoo, really. Can you leave free speech out of this. Returning to the main point, the bigger problem with discriminating based on employer is that employers are very large entities. We cannot expect everyone to know everything their employer is doing, let alo…
Presumably this is not the case if it is known what an employer is doing, although when it is not known what an employer is doing, discrimination based on employer would seem uncommon.
Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the case where you are able to make a choice about which job you take then yes you definitely should be held to account for that choice. Because it is a moral one. You had the choice of hacking for the good of people or you could join forces with 'The Man' and make a bunch of money. Maybe the choice isn't so binary, but nonetheless the choice is there. I could understand your statement, 'People need jobs to surviv…
So is it ethical for universities to reject applicants on the basis of their past/present/future employers being unethical in the selection committee's eyes?
Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup, there used to be an old ad campaign--"If you have it, a truck brought it." And it's true--although with modern supply chains today we probably should also throw in ships, trains, and airplanes. Transportation costs are embedded in the cost of every physical good.
Trains are much less sensitive to fuel prices than trucks are. The capital investment necessary to make trains work at all is really big. But after that the marginal cost of an additional car is very low. In terms of energy efficiency, trains are much better than trucks. What they lack is convenience, at least right now. In terms of cost, trucks often win because the trucking company doesn't bear the burden of buildi…
Building railway infrastructure was simpler when there was a lot of open country to build long straight lines through, but building a new line today is much harder with compulsory purchase of land and groups lobbying against it. The process takes a long time too, so elected officials won't see the benefits of backing it at the next election.
I think it is unlikely that US freight will move from road to rail without a significant amount of political and financial pressure.
Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
If employees choose their employers freely, what are interviews for?
Well, they are partly for helping you choose your employer. Job interviews are 2 sided and I personally take the attitude that any employer who thinks otherwise has failed the interview process and is therefore ineligible for the position of employing me.
Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, there are degrees of contribution, and direct is clearly more intentioned than indirect, but at the end of the day the beast doesn't care if it's fed willingly or unwillingly, and the vast majority of government funding is involuntary. If it's going to die, it needs to be unable to feed, what people are willing to contribute is irrelevant when its primary income is violently coerced. I have thought long and har…
at the end of the day the beast doesn't care if it's fed willingly or unwillingly I totally hear what you saying and as a matter of fact, I used to be very depressed by this. And maybe I'm being a coward. But I also think that billions of people need to be organized somewhat to live together, even millions or thousands. We need plumbing, we need roads, hospitals, and even taxes. To some degree, at least. I mean, come…
Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are confusing the concepts of degree and knowledge. Knowingly or unknowingly, willingly or unwillingly... these lay on difference axises. I could excuse those who unknowingly willingly contribute to an atrocity (Paul Stabenow of the Tesch & Stabenow corporation is arguably an example). The unknowing unwilling are similarly hard to blame. Examples for this escape me at the moment though I am certain that there are…
I have no confusion between the two concepts. Common sense always applies for starters ("Wow, a 99¢ hamburger! Obviously those cattle were treated humanely!"). Likewise blissful ignorance is no excuse (in an indirect world) for being unaware of the reasonable impact or influence of your allocation of capital. Otherwise there's no reason to complain of indirectly helping the government by paying taxes, for all I know…
It's a collective pool to which you contribute which is used for both purposes, you bear some responsibility for both actions by extension.
> since one could willingly contribute to only those aspects of government which are considered good and to none of the other ones (which are considered bad, knowingly or unknowingly).
No, they couldn't, your option to contribute to the state is violently coerced and the allocation after it is violently coerced is out of your hands. You can play games imagining your money went to a nurse instead of a CIA black ops mission to overthrow a popular foreign leader and prop up the interests of your state in the region, but at the end of the day that's all that is, a game.
> so why should it be permissible to unknowingly and unwillingly support bad corporations?
It isn't; you are responsible for the repercussions of that 99c hamburger, act accordingly. You're right that's the only consistent position, and you're right that it implies that people are responsible for the actions of the entities and organisations which they support.
If you simply ignore material reality and obvious facts so you can ignore having to deal with the cognitive dissonance that comes from contributing directly to behaviour you despise, then you're once again just playing games. It's your responsibility to make your decisions and your responsibility to examine the repercussions of those decisions, I understand that the concept of personal responsibility is completely alien to the vast majority of statist humans in existence, but that doesn't stop it being the only path I am able to accept.
The knowingly or unknowingly bit gets slightly harder however since it's not completely beyond the realm of imagination that you might trust a party with which you choose to do business to behave in accordance with your expectations and standards. However, the difference there is, once it becomes clear they've violated that trust, you retain the option to cease your dealings with them.
No matter how many times the state violates that trust, you do not acquire that option, your option is the same as it was to begin with, serve or die.
Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart
#219Now I'm curious on how government agencies will respond. They may go anyway -- and have to deal with a very unwelcoming mood, or respect the request and give some space for the sec community to discuss the case more openly.
I, for one, fully support DT's request, and really hope the feds understand that the problem is not who they are or what they represent, but their tactics and methods recently exposed.
They can't expect to be welcomed anywhere, given the obvious abuses that are happening against U.S. Citizens (and everyone else, for the matter), under the excuse of "war on terrorism".
Re: Feds, We Need Some Time Apart
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the case where you are able to make a choice about which job you take then yes you definitely should be held to account for that choice. Because it is a moral one. You had the choice of hacking for the good of people or you could join forces with 'The Man' and make a bunch of money. Maybe the choice isn't so binary, but nonetheless the choice is there. I could understand your statement, 'People need jobs to surviv…
So is it ethical for universities to reject applicants on the basis of their past/present/future employers being unethical in the selection committee's eyes?
Present employers? Certainly. A number of business schools do this already in the selection process. If you run a gun school and a student comes to you to tell you he is using your training to rob a bank, it would be unethical to teach him. If you are doing training on hacking and you know the student will use this hacking for unethical and illegal wiretapping, it would be unethical to teach him. Again, it is fine to discriminate on what someone is doing.
Future employers? If the candidate is locked into the path - eg, he will use your training to rob a bank, then it would be unethical to teach him. However, as he has not done it yet, and people can change their minds, it would likely be ethical to teach him while also steering him towards the correct path. Ethical or not would depend on three factors: how likely you are to sway him; how much damage he would cause if you could not; and how easy it would be for him to find the training elsewhere, where he would likely not benefit at all from steering.
Past employers? This one is, unfortunately, much harder. If someone is a murderer and has not gone to jail, should you discriminate? If someone is a murderer and has gone to jail but is not repentant, should you discriminate? If he is repentant, should you discriminate? This one is difficult because it crosses the line of 'who one is' and 'what one does'. I'd say everyone will give different answers here based on a huge number of factors. It likely comes down to repentance and acknowledgment on whether what one does was wrong and believable agreement that it will not be done again.