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Mission Protocol

missionprotocol.org

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Re: Mission Protocol

#61

Post by woodruffw »

CryptoPunk wrote: post #56
woodruffw wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The observation is that (1) people are willing to excuse environmental racism as long as they don't feel personally responsible for it, and (2) the environment of business is optimized for ensuring that individual employees do not feel guilty for their small roles in larger wrongs. It's hard to blame someone who's just trying to get by for taking a job, and I'm not especially interested in levying blame. What I'm mor…

I don't follow. Can you explain why choosing to not work for or dine at a racist lunch counter, instead of work there and then complain to management about their racism, is ignoring the problem? People should be political about which missions they support. What I think is wrong is accepting a position at a company knowing what their mission is, and then using one's position at the company to push for a different miss…

> I don't follow. Can you explain why choosing to not work for or dine at a racist lunch counter, instead of work there and then complain to management about their racism, is ignoring the problem?

It isn't! It's strictly better to boycott than to abide.

The observations are as follows:

* Boycotting is, for a multitude of reasons, not always a reasonable option for individuals

* Companies are aware that some of their best potential talent won't work for them unless they emphasize at least some social good

* It's not especially surprising that people who are attracted by the promise of some social good want more, and are upset or angry when they realize that their company's ethical stances are superficial or self-serving

* Conversely, it's not especially surprising that companies that aggressively pursue "apolitical" positions are the ones that are perhaps the most objectionable: defense contractors, financial companies that benefit from organized crime, &c, and find themselves in the company of employees who actively favor the company's unethical positions

To be clear: it's a double bind for companies, and it's always been one. I wouldn't want it any other way!

Re: Mission Protocol

#62

Post by defen »

Nicksil wrote: post #29
paulirish wrote: post #7

A code of conduct template developed by someone who realllly wants to remain anonymous. This inspires trust.

Why do you find it necessary to know who, specifically, is the author of this document?

If you view codes of conduct as a form of entryism, an anonymous one at least indicates that the author is not directly looking to raise their own status.

Re: Mission Protocol

#63

Post by skissane »

woodruffw wrote: post #41
skissane wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is an abundance of immanent ethical theories that define the Good (or Right) in terms of basic things in our grasp The problem with all those theories, is they can be attacked as simply efforts to define "good" – with the ensuing problem that other people will define "good" in contrary ways, and if "good" is just a definition, then how can a mere definition be, in an objective sense, superior to a competing p…

Fair enough! I wasn't expecting to have Moore's naturalistic fallacy pulled on me :-) Neither intersubjective nor Kantian ethics have this problem: intersubjective ethics doesn't admit of an objective Good, and Kantian ethics don't admit of an is-ought distinction (all "ought"s are in fact "is"es that are bound in actions).

> intersubjective ethics doesn't admit of an objective Good

I agree, but intersubjective ethics might not actually work in practice in a world in which people are approaching ethics from wildly different starting points. Consider an issue like abortion – people who support the legal availability of abortion, and people who oppose it, have such widely different ethical views that I think there is no intersubjectivity to be had (on that issue at least)

> Kantian ethics don't admit of an is-ought distinction (all "ought"s are in fact "is"es that are bound in actions).

I wonder, if you could expand on that point?

In my mind, Kant's categorical imperative could be viewed as either a proposed definition of the good (in which case Moore's argument is applicable), or a claim about what actually is good (in which case it escape's Moore's argument)

Kant had a lot to say about normative ethics, but the question of what his metaethical views actually were seems more disputed: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/#Meta

Re: Mission Protocol

#64

Post by woodruffw »

skissane wrote: post #63
woodruffw wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough! I wasn't expecting to have Moore's naturalistic fallacy pulled on me :-) Neither intersubjective nor Kantian ethics have this problem: intersubjective ethics doesn't admit of an objective Good, and Kantian ethics don't admit of an is-ought distinction (all "ought"s are in fact "is"es that are bound in actions).

> intersubjective ethics doesn't admit of an objective Good I agree, but intersubjective ethics might not actually work in practice in a world in which people are approaching ethics from wildly different starting points. Consider an issue like abortion – people who support the legal availability of abortion, and people who oppose it, have such widely different ethical views that I think there is no intersubjectivity…

> In my mind, Kant's categorical imperative could be viewed as either a proposed definition of the good (in which case Moore's argument is applicable), or a claim about what actually is good (in which case it escape's Moore's argument)

It’s an academic opinion, but I believe it’s the latter: the very first line in the GMS asserts that the metaethical object itself is the good will: “nothing in the world (or indeed beyond it) can possibly be conceived as good without qualification except for the Good Will.”

The CI is the logical consequence (according to Kant) of what the good is. But that distinction is definitely subtle in the context of his normative ethics.

Re: Mission Protocol

#65

Post by shakezula »

jf wrote: post #36

It’s fun to imagine that this is something written by Raytheon or Lockheed Martin

As cliche as it may be to repeat, companies like that have real value they can benefit from in missions like these, not to mention there is a good argument to be made for preservation viewed as an investment for modern companies with anthropologic climate change at our doorstep.

Re: Mission Protocol

#67

Post by jhardy54 »

iongoatb wrote: post #57
Pils wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you mean to also exclude tech companies that work with the government (i.e. Palantir, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.)? > Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation (informally Booz Allen) is the parent of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., an American management and information technology consulting firm, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in Greater Washington, D.C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booz_Allen_Hamilton

Gee, thanks for explaining what government contracting is. I wasn't aware. /s Contractors are also protected under existing whistleblower laws. There are clearly codified protocols for reporting and handling instances of governmental abuse. Any contractor that is dealing with sensitive information is working with either a Confidential, Secret, or Top Secret clearance. These projects and clearances are something you a…

Welcome to HN!

Gentle nudge to take a look at the HN etiquette guide. Your comment sticks out in a very negative way, and hurts the culture we want to foster.

Re: Mission Protocol

#69

Post by creato »

rhizome wrote: post #25
cmsonger wrote: post #18

> Mission focus produces social good: Working in a single direction on a strong, well-considered mission is the best way to make a socially positive impact. Facebook seems like the obvious counter example to this. The whole statement seems to be: "Trust the business, we know it's going to be good. Ignore the larger societal issues we might be causing."

Facebook lays it out plainly: "Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them." It's so vague as to never be controversial. However, their behavior in the details...the implementation , if you will.

I suspect this mission might actually end up being controversial. It's quite possible that the fundamental mission of facebook is simply a bad idea. Maybe the world is better when it's not so easy to form communities solely based on shared opinions and activities.

Re: Mission Protocol

#70

Post by rland »

iongoatb wrote: post #34

Politics have been destroying Silicon Valley. This restores my faith in tech. I believe that the spirit of innovation and diversity of thought still has a chance to prevail if people embrace the philosophy behind Mission Protocol. If employees want to be activists, then they should either pursue activism in their free-time, change their career to further the cause full-time, or create a company with a mission that fu…

Silicon Valley destroyed ['] politics. The reason everything is political is literally because of social media and the internet.

I understand that these are hard issues; I don't think SV companies are sitting on the solution under locked doors. But the strategy of "we're totally neutral, whatever happens, happens ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" is clearly not tenable. Solving that literally requires employees (and stakeholders) to take a stance about the world they want going forward, instead of letting this machine coast.

['] supercharged, made malignant, transmuted, whatever.

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