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Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

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Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#401

Post by dheera »

int_19h wrote: post #385
dheera wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Another dose of reality: I need to pay rent, pay medical bills, eat, and survive. As long as I'm dependent on an income to do that, I do whatever the employer wants as long as it's legal. When I'm financially free, I'll have the space to think about the ethics of my work. You want better? Fix the system so that I'm financially free earlier in life. Tax me less, charge me less rent, give me free healthcare, and l…

Does it have to be that particular employer though?

Not everyone has their pick of employers, especially during mass layoffs. I arguably joined the most ethical of the offers I actually got at the time.

If you're against me joining an employer, maybe send me an alternative offer and then we can talk. Otherwise it is not constructive.

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#402

Post by mrob »

aziaziazi wrote: post #398
mrob wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Choosing to go and exterminate the local population in response is not defense. The Mormons were not the United Citizen Federation, they were an independent group. The bugs indiscriminately attacked all humans in response. >exterminating the native population to make room The problem with this comparison is the bugs aren't humans. Extending human-like moral weight to even non-human mammals is a rare idea (most peopl…

Let me give others perpectives: > Extending human-like moral weight to even non-human mammals is a rare idea It's actually pretty frequent to demonstrate deep empathy and give more importance to pets that to unrelated humans. Some also argue that humans can be morally inferior to others. Drawing a line between human and non-humans may be tempting but the opinons down there are very diverse. Just a few years back and…

If humans encounter alien bugs that respond to a non-violent provocation by a minority group with attempted genocide of all humans, I hope that discussion would not be taken seriously. By your logic, taking antibiotics to cure a life-threatening infection is mass murder. The characters in the movie are obviously morally correct, and also obviously morally superior to real-life humans because they figured out a way to pull off large-scale group defense without resorting to slavery. Heinlein should be considered a great moral philosopher for coming up with the concept.

I can see only two possible reasons for disagreement. Either you are not actually addressing the movie itself, and are instead talking about an extended work of the movie plus the director's commentary, or you fundamentally disagree with me about human rights and do not consider slavery to be a serious problem.

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#403

Post by int_19h »

dheera wrote: post #401
int_19h wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it have to be that particular employer though?

Not everyone has their pick of employers, especially during mass layoffs. I arguably joined the most ethical of the offers I actually got at the time. If you're against me joining an employer, maybe send me an alternative offer and then we can talk. Otherwise it is not constructive.

I'm currently unemployed myself because I didn't want to work for a big tech company that announced a public partnership with Palantir.

I get the "family to feed" etc angle. But at some point we have to realize that this is not some kind of abstract moral dilemma, not when that software is actively hurting other people.

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#404

Post by chrisandchris »

toephu2 wrote: post #400
estimator7292 wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

States with the death penalty still have murders. I think you fundamentally misunderstand crime and deterrence.

When did I say death penalty means no murders? I didn't. Does a strict rule of law and enforcement of said law lead to no murders? No. Does it reduce the amount of murders that occur? Yes (see Singapore).

By that logic, and looking at the data [1] you should come to the conclusion that one should remove the death penalty, because Europe has less homicides compared to the US and does not have a death penalty. So there are actually less murders without death penalty.

Obviously, that conclusion is flawed, because the data also shows otherwise in some countries I guess - and just using the death penalty as data point is useless. There are way more factors in play that lead to murder.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intention...

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#405

Post by aziaziazi »

mrob wrote: post #402
aziaziazi wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me give others perpectives: > Extending human-like moral weight to even non-human mammals is a rare idea It's actually pretty frequent to demonstrate deep empathy and give more importance to pets that to unrelated humans. Some also argue that humans can be morally inferior to others. Drawing a line between human and non-humans may be tempting but the opinons down there are very diverse. Just a few years back and…

If humans encounter alien bugs that respond to a non-violent provocation by a minority group with attempted genocide of all humans, I hope that discussion would not be taken seriously. By your logic, taking antibiotics to cure a life-threatening infection is mass murder. The characters in the movie are obviously morally correct, and also obviously morally superior to real-life humans because they figured out a way to…

You got it: I wasn't addressing the movie or the book itself but the general ideas about moral developed in your precedent post.

Antibiotics are obviously mass murder toward bacteria, that's exactly their function I guess? Using them to cure a life-threatening infection (bacterias) isn't seen as immoral by most, neither do I. May you point out what part makes you think otherwise?

I agree that slavery is not morally acceptable but i'm not sure to follow you point afterward. Perhaps you rank slavery as the worst moral practice and as some humans still enslave others, the movies's characters that don't are "morally superior"? That's a fair and rational view. I also see invasion, violence and a lot of sadism from the humans in that movie. I don't give them a moral advantage.

My whole understanding is close Slg post [0] about the fascist critique. It's also a very popular view: A quick search on internet return many articles in this frame and as you referenced "director's commentary":

1 > I decided to make a movie about fascists who aren’t aware of their fascism

0 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46982514

1 https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/jan/22/how-we-made-...

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#406

Post by balamatom »

mrob wrote: post #380
salawat wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What if the real fascist propaganda was implicit in the standard narrative conventions we made along the way? Ding ding ding. Endemic to fascism, among other things, are heavy State involvement in the curation of, shall we say, "the corpus culturále". Even in the United States, particularly in the earlier half of the 20th Century, there were certain lines you could not cross and still end up on broadcast television.…

I support the freedom to produce unconventional art. I'm just pointing out the empirical fact that if you produce a work of art that follows the conventions of a genre, people are going to judge it according to those genre conventions. That's how communication works, it's entirely normal and expected. If you want to subvert a genre, you have to actually subvert a genre. Just intending to do so is not enough.

How would Starship Troopers look if it managed to actually subvert the genre according to you? My first association is Gilliam's Brazil (or a Dark City that is a planet) - but wait, that's a whole 'nother genre of its own. What do you think?

Re: Amazon Ring's lost dog ad sparks backlash amid fears of mass surveillance

#407

Post by balamatom »

salawat wrote: post #373
balamatom wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the standard narrative conventions of soft sci-fi action movies What if the real fascist propaganda was implicit in the standard narrative conventions we made along the way?

>What if the real fascist propaganda was implicit in the standard narrative conventions we made along the way? Ding ding ding. Endemic to fascism, among other things, are heavy State involvement in the curation of, shall we say, "the corpus culturále". Even in the United States, particularly in the earlier half of the 20th Century, there were certain lines you could not cross and still end up on broadcast television.…

Yet, we're cool.
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