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The SQLite Code of Ethics

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Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#261

Post by azth »

utopcell wrote: post #218
zimpenfish wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in exchange for some (arguably small) thing you've done I dunno that I'd describe the most deployed database in the world "some (arguably small) thing", really?

Scale is relative: my day-to-day involves working at a planet-scale serving infrastructure that handles trillions of documents. I've always thought of sqlite as "this little library that you drop in for handling small datasets reliably". For the sake of argument though, let it be a library that is deployed everywhere: its usefulness or technical prowess was never in question. There are religious folks whose work I re…

> In my (subjective, biased, maybe incorrect,) opinion people whose code of "ethics" includes phrases like ... are dangerous

Yeah, definitely biased and incorrect opinion. Are you aware that these tenants are not just in Christianity, but also in Islam and overlap with Judaism? That alone is way over 50% of the world's population.

> their savior was crucified

Not everyone who believes in God believes that Jesus Peace be upon him was crucified.

> The amount of life lost

Compared to what? The number of lives lost due to secular and/or atheist people like Stalin, Mao, Hitler, etc. are orders of magnitude more than any religious wars combined.

> and the intellectual stagnation stemming from these religious fanatics

Which religious fanatics? Are you aware that many of the things we take for granted today stem back to discoveries made during the Islamic Golden age?

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#262

Post by rayiner »

fooey wrote: post #122
logifail wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a set of beliefs The elephant in the room in many current attempts to encourage "diversity" is that a genuinely diverse range of opinions and/or beliefs ends up being not welcome at all.

Paradox of Tolerance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance > The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.

People misconstrue this idea. Popper is talking about people who respond to debate with “answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.”

It’s about not tolerating people who make it impossible to have debate, not declaring arbitrary sets of views intolerable or beyond the pale.

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#263

Post by Aeolun »

Honestly, 72 rules, most of which overlap to some extend, do not seem like they would be easy to follow.

I do think it’s nice that “respect your parents” has been modified to “respect everyone”.

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#264

Post by Banana699 »

mr_toad wrote: post #253
Banana699 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah shit here we go again. Popper's Paradox of Tolerance is widely misunderstood to be a licence to be intolerant yourself. For the last time : it is not. Popper was talking about a very specific case, where the intolerant exploit the tolerance of a society to physically take over that society and enforce their views. Until and unless you have evidence of that plausibly happening, there is no Paradox of Tolerance. You…

> You can tolerate each and every single one of them, you can tolerate infinite number of them, as long they don't try to make reality conform to what they preach. If you let them say whatever they want on an online forum without any moderation you’ll end up with Voat, or something similar. The intolerant views take over. Argue all the philosophy you like, practical experience shows that every time someone tries an u…

> without any moderation you’ll end up with Voat,

I didn't know about Voat, sad that it was closed down. I would have loved to try it.

>The intolerant views take over.

This sounds to me like a you problem. You can very well admit that you don't know how to argue and shout back (in whatever style necessary to win), or that your views are so unpopular that you can't defend them unless to a supportive audience, but don't make this some sort of universal law or inevitable tendency. There is nothing about any view that makes it inherently more popular or appealing.

>a cesspit of intolerance.

This usage of 'intolerance' hints that you don't really understand Popper's sense of the word. Popper wasn't talking about what offends you, Popper was talking about people violently forcing you out of a society. There is no intolerance on 4chan or 8chan or any similar platform, literally everyone is allowed there, everyone is just an anonymous unique number. Only your own offence prevents you from participating, which is not anybody's fault. Every single "bad" tech platform, the ones that allow speech that mainstream progressive-dominated US companies love to rave about, only suffer due to external pressures imposed on them, the audience of those services very much like it, and they don't seem to physically force reality or other people to like what they like. The only one doing the forcing here are the self-appointed tolerance defenders, who are so so worried about tolerance that they are willing to freely dispence intolerance left and right to protect it. It's like how pro-war folks say that war protects and preserves the peace: It's indeed very true in a certain narrow sense, but you can't be doing it willy nilly, or you will risk destroying the very thing you claim you want to preserve.

I also don't understand why defending unlimited expresssion of views must imply defending unlimited expression of view without moderation. There is no reason why we can't moderate any ideology at all, see the subreddit r/themotte for example to see a place where everyone from radical feminists to white nationalists expressing their views in moderated threads.

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#265

Post by LAC-Tech »

jonathankoren wrote: post #227
LAC-Tech wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the crypto-fascism conspiracy theory - or the blackshirt scare. There's fascists everywhere. They don't call themselves that, they don't organise under that label, and their views aren't particularly similar to historical fascism - but it's a serious threat! It's so powerful that they have to keep it a secret because they'll be cast out of polite society... At least McCarthy actually found people spying for t…

My sibling in humanity. I beg you. Read about the history of fascism and its contemporary movements instead of just parroting ill informed bumper stickers, because you’re about half a step away from saying the that the Democratic Republic of Germany was democracy.

Piece of advice - if someone disagrees with you and you want to change their mind don't tell them they are ignorant of history and they get their ideas from bumper stickers.

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#266

Post by Aeolun »

csdvrx wrote: post #255
kibwen wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that somewhat short-sighted. Let's use a different example. Imagine you live in a society that allows personal gun ownership. Obviously, in such a society you still don't want people running around shooting each other willy-nilly, so you make a law: shoot someone, go to jail. Now imagine someone pulls out a gun and shoots you. Result: you're dead, they go to jail. However, you'd really prefer not to be dead. S…

> EDIT: I see this is being downvoted FTFY > would anyone care to explain their reasoning? I think a lot of people on HN are just anti gun/very left wing, which may taint their judgement while your example was nice about the initiation of violence being the issue.

Why would I have an issue with people using guns as an example?

It doesn’t work nearly as well with knives, which other people aren’t totally defenseless against (or cars, which are hard to pull out of your pocket in response to someone pointing theirs at you).

Ok, so maybe I couldn’t resist being a little bit snarky, but really, it was a good example.

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#267

Post by tehjoker »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #146
fooey wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paradox of Tolerance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance > The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.

Sounds like a license to be intolerant, if only you can convince people that your opponents were intolerant first.

Welcome to the messy uncodifiable reality of ethics and politics. You can pick a practical code with an exploit or you can pick one that lets you be cut down by anyone that doesn't go along with it.

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#268

Post by KMag »

lsh123 wrote: post #211
LAC-Tech wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's helpful when seeing the word "fascist" in 2022 to not take it literally. It now simply means "people to the right of me".

[flagged]

I wouldn't say National Socialism was purely left. It was economically extremely left-leaning and most of their social policies were extremely right-leaning. (Though, racism knows no political bounds... Stalin also practiced genocidal policies.)

It's true that Hitler thought the US's free market economy was a Jewish ideal, and he thought the economic free market incentives (in the form of huge government contracts) would only benefit Jews without efficiently producing war material. The Nazis did have a form of command economy as a result, which turned out to not be as efficient.

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#269

Post by diegoholiveira »

kingofpandora wrote: post #139
diegoholiveira wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or Ancient Greece (and later Rome), some 500 years before the monasteries. And we know this because monasteries kept a large army of monks guarding the knowledge so that it would one day serve society.

Much of ancient Greek knowledge comes to us because the Arabs preserved it. Some of them were Christians of course (so the occasional monastery may have been involved) but mostly not.

Yes, the Arabs keep some, Europeans keep others. That’s why I use the word “much” in the beginning of my statement.

Re: The SQLite Code of Ethics

#270

Post by woodruffw »

rayiner wrote: post #262
fooey wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paradox of Tolerance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance > The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.

People misconstrue this idea. Popper is talking about people who respond to debate with “answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.” It’s about not tolerating people who make it impossible to have debate, not declaring arbitrary sets of views intolerable or beyond the pale.

This is a misquotation. The entire quotation from Open Society is:

> But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.

Note that Popper is not claiming that "fists or pistols" are a necessary condition for not tolerating intolerance: they're a final stage of said intolerance. Popper explicitly says that we might reserve the right to preempt intolerance before it reaches the point of its followers resorting to violence.

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