What kind of girl do you think I am? • Hacker News Board

Re: What kind of girl do you think I am?

#41

Post by Dunearhp » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 8:59 AM UTC

cduan wrote: post #23

derefr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I've always ignored that sort of question—there's no such thing as morals or utility, really, only what animals are programmed to think in their animal brains. Robotic arms don't care when other robotic arms die—and neither do we. Paperclips don't care about increasing in number, even if someone is trying to make it so. What we have to ask is not "what does the universe say about right and wrong?" (because the an…

That's not really a reason to avoid answering the question either. Regardless of the mechanism by which your mind arrives at the answer (be it animal instincts, brain chemistry, whatever), you are indeed capable of coming up with an answer, and even if you believe the answer says nothing about the universe in general, it still says something about you and your own mind. And I'm fairly interested in knowing what your…

Why does someone need a reason not to answer a silly question.

Re: What kind of girl do you think I am?

#42

Post by axod » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 9:05 AM UTC

reitzensteinm wrote: post #21

Is it just me or is there someone going on a downvoting spree here? I've seen at least 8 comments at 0, and I only checked the thread twice. It's kind of weird, since there's quite a high karma threshold for downvoting.

I'm guessing since there is no downvote for articles, some people take their dislike of an article out on all the commenters.

Re: What kind of girl do you think I am?

#43

Post by axod » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 9:07 AM UTC

davidu wrote: post #12

In business you are rarely forced to murder or whore yourself out. You are, however, constantly faced with changing your direction, compromising your vision or similar, all for some potential upside and downside. That's the nature of business, and trying to tie it to moral questions doesn't do justice to the line of reasoning one should employ. Of course you should be moral, but most business questions aren't a quest…

Surely the analogy for some of us would be "Would you sell your startup to microsoft for X". Logically and from a business perspective it may make sense to do so, but it's a hard pill to swallow for many I'd bet.

Re: What kind of girl do you think I am?

#44

Post by Confusion » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 9:20 AM UTC

davidu wrote: post #12

In business you are rarely forced to murder or whore yourself out. You are, however, constantly faced with changing your direction, compromising your vision or similar, all for some potential upside and downside. That's the nature of business, and trying to tie it to moral questions doesn't do justice to the line of reasoning one should employ. Of course you should be moral, but most business questions aren't a quest…

I'm sure the managers at BP that choose to forego certain safety measures completely recognize themselves in this line of reasoning. Which immediately illustrates how dangerously false it is.

Companies are amoral (not to be confused with immoral) entities that will not necessarily act in the people's best behavior. If companies act in a morally acceptable way, it is because of the individual employees that together make morally acceptable choices. Every business question is a question of morality, because you can always choose to commit fraud, cheat someone or act in an otherwise immoral fashion. Sometimes you won't do that for fear of customer or supplier retribution. Often you won't do that for fear of the law. But sometimes, you just shouldn't do it, because it has possible consequences you should never risk.

No one at BP is individually responsible for the current calamity. The more responsibility is spread over multiple layers of decision making, the less responsible individuals feel and the less moral their behavior will be. Not because they are immoral, but because the pressure to act as is best for the company is strong enough to suppress moral qualms. No 'evil' individual made the immoral decision that lead to the accident. It was a large number of people that each made slightly immoral decisions, the cumulative result of which is now the largest ecological disaster in US history.

This is the essence of the problem of libertarianism and complete free market capitalism. This is why we need a government to regulate capitalism.

Re: What kind of girl do you think I am?

#45

Post by soren_dahl » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 9:34 AM UTC

Confusion wrote: post #44

davidu wrote: post #12

In business you are rarely forced to murder or whore yourself out. You are, however, constantly faced with changing your direction, compromising your vision or similar, all for some potential upside and downside. That's the nature of business, and trying to tie it to moral questions doesn't do justice to the line of reasoning one should employ. Of course you should be moral, but most business questions aren't a quest…

I'm sure the managers at BP that choose to forego certain safety measures completely recognize themselves in this line of reasoning. Which immediately illustrates how dangerously false it is. Companies are amoral (not to be confused with immoral) entities that will not necessarily act in the people's best behavior. If companies act in a morally acceptable way, it is because of the individual employees that together m…

In general I agree, but I struggle with a moral/immoral distinction being so black and white. BP weren't drilling for kicks, there /were/ safety measures in place, there's a balance between safety and cost - no rig in the world is 100% safe and nor could it be without the cost of oil going up. The effect of oil prices going up is people losing their jobs and even lives.

Accidents happen, maybe because we veered too far towards profit, maybe because we encountered a black swan, but we learn from them and do our best to mitigate them, then we go back to treading the fine line of cost and safety.

That being said, the US Gov should have learned from disasters like Piper Alpha and separated it's own safety and cost structures in respect of the oil industry long ago. Not having done so before now is, to me, inexcusable.

Re: What kind of girl do you think I am?

#46

Post by Confusion » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 10:31 AM UTC

  The million-dollar question is interesting *because it forces her to really 
  decide* what kind of girl she is.

The question actually isn't very interesting at all, because the it suggests there is still a choice to be made. In reality, most people have made that choice long ago and we know that they have their consequentialist price. The price may be a million dollars, saving a hundred people's lives, getting revenge or another non-monetary reward, but there is a price. Already before the million-dollar question, we know that we may assume she definitely is 'that kind of girl'. Almost every girl, and every guy, is 'that kind of girl', because they will trade their affections for what the other party offers. Be it under the guise of love or not.

Going into a business negotiation thinking either you or them are deontologists is selfdeception that will hinder you in your negotiations.

Re: What kind of girl do you think I am?

#47

Post by by » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 10:31 AM UTC

Confusion wrote: post #44

davidu wrote: post #12

In business you are rarely forced to murder or whore yourself out. You are, however, constantly faced with changing your direction, compromising your vision or similar, all for some potential upside and downside. That's the nature of business, and trying to tie it to moral questions doesn't do justice to the line of reasoning one should employ. Of course you should be moral, but most business questions aren't a quest…

I'm sure the managers at BP that choose to forego certain safety measures completely recognize themselves in this line of reasoning. Which immediately illustrates how dangerously false it is. Companies are amoral (not to be confused with immoral) entities that will not necessarily act in the people's best behavior. If companies act in a morally acceptable way, it is because of the individual employees that together m…

I think it is unlikely it is the "largest ecological disaster in US history". We could compare it to the Dust Bowl http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl , or the logging of old growth forest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_growth_forest#Logging or the draining of the Everglades http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draining_and_development_of_the... and it might not be as large. Consider also the introduction of invasive species such as Chestnut blight http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chestnut_blight or red fire ants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_imported_fire_ant#Ecologica... to put it into perspective. It seems too convenient, a collective self-deception, to point at a non-US company and say they have caused the worst ecological destruction in the US.

Re: What kind of girl do you think I am?

#48

Post by davidu » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 10:35 AM UTC

axod wrote: post #43

davidu wrote: post #12

In business you are rarely forced to murder or whore yourself out. You are, however, constantly faced with changing your direction, compromising your vision or similar, all for some potential upside and downside. That's the nature of business, and trying to tie it to moral questions doesn't do justice to the line of reasoning one should employ. Of course you should be moral, but most business questions aren't a quest…

Surely the analogy for some of us would be "Would you sell your startup to microsoft for X". Logically and from a business perspective it may make sense to do so, but it's a hard pill to swallow for many I'd bet.

But if Jerry Yang had sold Yahoo in 2008 then shareholders wouldn't be left holding a company today that is worth less than half what MSFT offered, would we?

But that was an emotional decision, and he made the wrong one.

Still not a moral question, imho.

Re: What kind of girl do you think I am?

#49

Post by henrikschroder » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 10:36 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #11

cduan wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's never clear to me why people answer thought experiments like this in this manner. The point of the question "would you kill someone for a trillion dollars" is to tease out an answer to an underlying philosophical question, such as, "is the act of killing as we know it a moral absolute wrong, or is it merely an act with great negative utility that can be compensated by sufficient positive utility?" Yes, there are…

And I've always ignored that sort of question—there's no such thing as morals or utility, really, only what animals are programmed to think in their animal brains. Robotic arms don't care when other robotic arms die—and neither do we. Paperclips don't care about increasing in number, even if someone is trying to make it so. What we have to ask is not "what does the universe say about right and wrong?" (because the an…

there's no such thing as morals or utility, really

Just to counterpoint the frenzy of moral nihilism and relativism I suspect will appear, I respectfully disagree, I'm a moral universalist, i.e. morals do exist, moral judgements can be true or false.

But I also realize that this is a question of philosophical faith, and arguing about that is usually pretty futile. :)

Re: What kind of girl do you think I am?

#50

Post by axod » Sun, Jun 06, 2010, 10:45 AM UTC

davidu wrote: post #48

axod wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely the analogy for some of us would be "Would you sell your startup to microsoft for X". Logically and from a business perspective it may make sense to do so, but it's a hard pill to swallow for many I'd bet.

But if Jerry Yang had sold Yahoo in 2008 then shareholders wouldn't be left holding a company today that is worth less than half what MSFT offered, would we? But that was an emotional decision, and he made the wrong one. Still not a moral question, imho.

It's only wrong for certain criteria of 'wrong'.

Who can say what would be left of Yahoo if MSFT sprinkled their unique webfail all over it? I'd expect that they would have destroyed most of it.