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MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

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Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#91

Post by darawk »

fatjokes wrote: post #73
darawk wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's unethical about collaborating with the military? We don't exist in a vacuum. American military hegemony has been an extremely powerful stabilizing force, post-WWII. This idea that it is unethical to build weapons is profoundly wrong, short sighted, and morally selfish. Not to overly pick on your comment, since you did say that it can be ethical, of course. But i've seen this sentiment that military work is une…

That's exactly what I meant when I said it's nothing to be ashamed of, somebody's gotta do it. Just don't kid yourself that it makes you ethical. Sure, you could argue that you're "better than the other guy" or "they started it", but that's a pretty low bar. It just means you're both unethical.

I respectfully disagree. Consider a thought experiment: You have two groups of people. Group A is ethical (per your definition), well intentioned and smart. Group B is cruel, authoritarian and egotistical. Group A doesn't like to think about war, and certainly doesn't want to contribute to the machinery of war. Group B, on the other hand, delights in it. Group B loves building weapons and thinking about military strategy. Very quickly in this civilization, Group B will come to dominate Group A, and they will build a world in their own image - cruel and inhuman. Given that we know this is the outcome, in what sense is Group A's choice really ethical?

The question you have to ask is: If it's not you who has the best weapons, who is it? If it's not you devising military strategy, who is? The answer is someone else. Probably someone who likes those things more than you. Is that the sort of person you want to have that kind of power?

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#92

Post by gpm »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #79
gpm wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting claim that they are suffering less because they are doing it by choice. I'm not sure if it's true. Doing it by choice creates all sorts of ill psychological effects. It means I have to convince myself to keep doing it, and as a result I'll try to convince myself of things like "it's fair" or "I like this" or so on. I think I might actually be happier as a slave than a wage slave doing the exact sa…

“Wage slavery” as it is often used is a bad term that takes away from the fact that there are more total people in slavery or forced labor than ever before in the history of the world. Chattel slavery is repugnant and debases all moral people. Working a shitty job for low pay and an asshole boss sucks but is a difference in kind, not degree.

You literally just stated the opposite of what I was arguing as if it was a fact, with no argument given.

And to be clear, we are well beyond "asshole boss" or anything legal in the western world. We are considering a situation where you are treated identically to a slave except that instead of being forced to work via beatings and supplied food, you are supplied just enough money to eat - buying everything at the company store - and forced to work by "well otherwise you starve to death".

(By food I also include things like shelter and so on...)

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#93

Post by s73v3r_ »

darawk wrote: post #66
knuththetruth wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Talking about civilian deaths de-contextualized from the reality of the alternatives is exactly what I mean by 'naive'. The alternative to the Iraq War was not having the Iraq War, which by any sane account was the correct course of action. Half a million people didn’t half to die, but they did, because a lot of people embrace a kind of unquestioning idea of authority as “good,” to which you seem to subscribe. >And…

> The alternative to the Iraq War was not having the Iraq War, which by any sane account was the correct course of action. Half a million people didn’t half to die, but they did You'll get no disagreement from me there. Like I said, and you seem to want to ignore, the US has done bad things. The question isn't "has this entity ever done anything wrong", the question you have to answer is: from the pool of available o…

The question is also, "How is this going to be used, and is it necessary?" Designing weapons to defeat Hitler could easily be justified, cause Hitler. But designing weapons to, say, better fight the Iraq War? Furthering drone strike technology? Given that there was no need for that at all, I can't say that's ethical.

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#94

Post by varenc »

Donald wrote: post #85
varenc wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on MIT's problems with sexual assault? That's news to me. If true, I'm pretty sad to hear about this. As an aging alum, MIT is still a place dear to my heart but over time it feels like the institute I remember is slipping away... (or I'm just becoming more aware of reality) (also not clear if you're referring to MIT or some other 'well respected engineering school').

Is MIT '09 really an aging alum?

well, I've started forgetting all the building numbers so I think I count :-)

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#95

Post by [deleted] »

galago wrote: post #61
bobthechef wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just look at all the beautiful castles and churches in Europe. They were mostly built on the backs of peasants. That's not accurate. Skilled workers built those. > Or all the generals we revere who sent thousands or hundreds of thousands of people who had not much to gain from the war to their deaths. Who exactly? That does not sound representative.

That's true in pre-European contact Peru as well. The amazing architecture was produced by skilled craftsman as a community effort. They didn't/couldn't build anything of quality once they were enslaved by the Spanish. (I'm not an expert, but I visited Peru a couple years ago)

[deleted]

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#96

Post by mhneu »

jzl wrote: post #20

You don't even have to look as far as Saudi Arabia to raise similar questions. The Koch brothers are MIT graduates and huge donors. For a similar discussion of the ethics of MIT's acceptance of their money, see: https://www.quora.com/How-could-MIT-have-received-a-grant-fo...

Agreed that MIT should be careful taking money from big donors with obvious agendas. When the Koches put money into universities, it typically has strings attached - they get some say in hiring faculty that align with their agenda, for example.

Here's more discussion of the Koch strategy to put money into universities, including MIT, in an effort to buy ideological support for their political goals (which are to destroy government to cut billionaires' taxes.)

http://www.unkochmycampus.org/

From Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-2...

From the Chronicle of Higher Ed: https://apicciano.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2017/12/21/the-chronic...

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#97

Post by perl4ever »

aarongough wrote: post #35
DamnYuppie wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please provide more context from the "brutal and dangerous rural farm jobs"? I am aware agriculture production in China is very different then here but even at its most labor intensive times it is not something that I would have considered to be "dangerous".

Farming in general is a dangerous occupation, even in the USA where machinery tends to be reasonably modern and well guarded: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cfoi.pdf I wasn't able to find a source but my understanding is that being a farmer is many times more dangerous on a percentage basis than being a police officer, and that's only counting fatal accidents. I would bet good money that the rate of disfiguring…

I seem to recall reading that farming is comparable statistically to mining, or even more dangerous. It's pretty much among the top most dangerous occupations, at any rate. Which is consistent with how historically people have given up farming to work in the seemingly brutal sweatshops in cities, whether in the US and Europe, or in the Third World.

Anecdotally, my grandfather died some time after being burned in a conflagration related to cleaning something with gasoline, and none of his children became farmers. One daughter went to college and became a computer programmer, another started a delivery business, his son went to work for a VA hospital, and his wife sold the farm and became a nurse after her husband died.

It's hard to imagine conditions that predate your parents' time, and most people at this point are probably more than one generation away from their farming ancestors.

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#99

Post by perl4ever »

tclancy wrote: post #41
valuearb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is relative but it’s much more dangerous than assembling iPhones. And it is one of the reasons why whenever Foxcon is hiring the applicant lines are so long.

Can we get a citation for these claims? Otherwise it feels a lot like something one says while rocking themselves to sleep at night. The whole thesis of "Sapiens" is exactly the opposite of this, that "progress" has been mainly a way of making life harder. The idea rural farming is somehow more dangerous than moving to a city and working long hours in a factory seems worthy of some numbers. If you basically learn, "D…

People did learn "don't stick your face in the thresher" and that's exactly why across cultures and in different time periods since the industrial revolution they migrated to the cities, because even the sweatshops we consider barbaric were better. In school, we learn about how terrible child labor was when it was unregulated, and how children were maimed and died in factories. But child labor was taken for granted on the farm, so of course it wasn't questioned when industrialization came at first. I have a picture of my mom as a little girl on a huge tractor in the 1940s. I didn't grow up on a farm, but her attitude towards power equipment when I was a kid was to tell me to read the manual, whether it was a power mower or a chainsaw or whatever.

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#100

Post by darawk »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #93
darawk wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The alternative to the Iraq War was not having the Iraq War, which by any sane account was the correct course of action. Half a million people didn’t half to die, but they did You'll get no disagreement from me there. Like I said, and you seem to want to ignore, the US has done bad things. The question isn't "has this entity ever done anything wrong", the question you have to answer is: from the pool of available o…

The question is also, "How is this going to be used, and is it necessary?" Designing weapons to defeat Hitler could easily be justified, cause Hitler. But designing weapons to, say, better fight the Iraq War? Furthering drone strike technology? Given that there was no need for that at all, I can't say that's ethical.

> Designing weapons to defeat Hitler could easily be justified, cause Hitler

You can't just decide to make weapons when Hitler shows up. You need to be ready before Hitler shows up.

> But designing weapons to, say, better fight the Iraq War?

I'm no fan of the Iraq war. However, if we are going to fight the Iraq war, i'd certainly like us to have say, better targeted munitions, and I think Iraqi civilians would too.

> Furthering drone strike technology?

I'm a huge fan of drone strikes, so yes, to that one. That isn't to say i'm a huge fan of their indiscriminate use, of course. But if you're going to do some targeted killings, why not use drones? It exposes our soldiers to less risk, and allows for better, dispassionate targeting aided by automated tools. I think that's a great thing.

Now, I do disagree at the margin with some of the policy choices about how drones have been used. But if someone is going to have the best drones, you'd better believe I want that someone to be the USG.

> Given that there was no need for that at all, I can't say that's ethical.

You're conflating the choice to go to war with the technology to facilitate that war. They are not the same thing. The choice to to war was a mistake. But once the choice has been made, ensuring that victory is swift and precise is absolutely ethical.

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