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Paul Buchheit:"Don't Be Evil"
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Re: Paul Buchheit:"Don't Be Evil"
#2Hi Paul. Since you are the person at Google who came up with the "Don't Be Evil" motto, could you please explain what that means? I am genuinely curious and have no intention of badgering you about this. Thank you.
Re: Paul Buchheit:"Don't Be Evil"
#3Hi Paul. Since you are the person at Google who came up with the "Don't Be Evil" motto, could you please explain what that means? I am genuinely curious and have no intention of badgering you about this. Thank you.
I'm not sure if this is right or not, but in philosophy class, I was taught that Google's motto was a manifestation of negative consequentialism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism#Negative_consequentialism
Basically, the ethical decision is that which avoids a negative outcome. The professor mentioned a number of interesting implications of strict negative consequentialism. The following actions would be morally wrong:
- For someone to stave off starvation by stealing a loaf of bread from Bill Gates.
- Any type of self defense that involves harming others. Ie: using pepper spray to prevent rape.
- Sacrificing one person's life to save the lives of a million others. Ie: killing Hitler before he started WWII.
Re: Paul Buchheit:"Don't Be Evil"
#4Hi Paul. Since you are the person at Google who came up with the "Don't Be Evil" motto, could you please explain what that means? I am genuinely curious and have no intention of badgering you about this. Thank you.
I'm not sure if this is right or not, but in philosophy class, I was taught that Google's motto was a manifestation of negative consequentialism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism#Negative_consequentialism Basically, the ethical decision is that which avoids a negative outcome. The professor mentioned a number of interesting implications of strict negative consequentialism. The following actions would be…
The 3 points you describe sound more to me like deontology than negative consequentialism. According to the entry you linked to, deontology judges actions based on the actions themselves, while consequentialism judges actions based on their consequences. Negative consequentialism, then, involves avoiding actions which produce consequences that are overall negative. In each case you described, the actions are typically considered deontologically wrong, but the overall consequences of those actions are not negative, so they don't seem to me to be wrong by negative consequentialist standards.
Getting back to the topic of the submission, I always presumed that the comment basically meant, "Don't be like Microsoft." Many people call Microsoft the "Evil Empire", so this falls in nicely with that theme. By aligning themselves opposite Microsoft, Google is able to attract that population of hackers which does not appreciate Microsoft's business tactics (things like the FUD campaign that is going on right now in regards to patents). Whether Google is actually committed to moral business practices or not is debatable, but the motto is a nice way to appear "hacker-friendly".
Re: Paul Buchheit:"Don't Be Evil"
#5Hi Paul. Since you are the person at Google who came up with the "Don't Be Evil" motto, could you please explain what that means? I am genuinely curious and have no intention of badgering you about this. Thank you.
I'm not sure if this is right or not, but in philosophy class, I was taught that Google's motto was a manifestation of negative consequentialism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism#Negative_consequentialism Basically, the ethical decision is that which avoids a negative outcome. The professor mentioned a number of interesting implications of strict negative consequentialism. The following actions would be…
What about tracking everything about people's lives, and pushing spyware onto their computers (Google Toolbar)? Would that qualify?
Re: Paul Buchheit:"Don't Be Evil"
#6Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure if this is right or not, but in philosophy class, I was taught that Google's motto was a manifestation of negative consequentialism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism#Negative_consequentialism Basically, the ethical decision is that which avoids a negative outcome. The professor mentioned a number of interesting implications of strict negative consequentialism. The following actions would be…
What about tracking everything about people's lives, and pushing spyware onto their computers (Google Toolbar)? Would that qualify?
I wouldn't really call Google Toolbar "spyware" or say that it's pushed onto a computer. If you don't like it, don't use it. I don't. Nobody has yet made me.
Re: Paul Buchheit:"Don't Be Evil"
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure if this is right or not, but in philosophy class, I was taught that Google's motto was a manifestation of negative consequentialism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism#Negative_consequentialism Basically, the ethical decision is that which avoids a negative outcome. The professor mentioned a number of interesting implications of strict negative consequentialism. The following actions would be…
The 3 points you describe sound more to me like deontology than negative consequentialism. According to the entry you linked to, deontology judges actions based on the actions themselves, while consequentialism judges actions based on their consequences. Negative consequentialism, then, involves avoiding actions which produce consequences that are overall negative. In each case you described, the actions are typicall…
You're right - my examples (and google's motto) sound more deontological, or similar to the golden rule. Maybe someone who knows more about this can clarify.
Re: Paul Buchheit:"Don't Be Evil"
#8Hi Paul. Since you are the person at Google who came up with the "Don't Be Evil" motto, could you please explain what that means? I am genuinely curious and have no intention of badgering you about this. Thank you.
That's a good question. There's no simple (non-circular) answer, but I can try to give a few heuristics.
First, it's important to remember that any significant action is likely to have some negative consequences. One test is to ask, "Ignoring personal loss/gain, would the world be better if I stopped doing X?" For example, if a spammer stopped spamming, I think we'd all be better off, therefore spamming is probably evil. On the other hand, news.yc is a nice service that benefits a lot of people, so it's probably non-evil.
At the specific time that I made up the "Don't be evil" phrase, there were a number of topics in mind, including the spyware/scumware problem, and paid-inclusion, which was popular at the time among our competitors (you could pay to sneak your site in their regular search results). These are both examples of tricking your users for your own benefit, which is generally evil. Paid inclusion is hidden advertising -- none of their users knew which results were paid for. It would be similar to a reporter who takes bribes to write favorably about something. Spyware is evil not because it is spying on you, but because it is doing so without your consent and probably against your will. If users had actually knowingly given informed consent (not hidden in some EULA somewhere, or anything like that), then the "spyware" wouldn't be evil -- it's like the difference between justin.tv filming his own life, and someone else secretly doing so.
Re: Paul Buchheit:"Don't Be Evil"
#9Hi Paul. Since you are the person at Google who came up with the "Don't Be Evil" motto, could you please explain what that means? I am genuinely curious and have no intention of badgering you about this. Thank you.
That's a good question. There's no simple (non-circular) answer, but I can try to give a few heuristics. First, it's important to remember that any significant action is likely to have some negative consequences. One test is to ask, "Ignoring personal loss/gain, would the world be better if I stopped doing X?" For example, if a spammer stopped spamming, I think we'd all be better off, therefore spamming is probably e…
Thanks for the clarification. So the "evil" refers to the very narrow context of the specific functionality of the google product, rather than to a wider context which is usually understood by the idea?
With your broader point: "Ignoring personal loss/gain, would the world be better if I stopped doing X?", what standard would you use for judging what is better for the world?
To frame the rule in the positive action sense, if you were judging whether to take some action, you would think about the world minus yourself, and then see if the world is "better" after the action. How would you judge what "better" means here? Would it mean adding "value" to others? If so, how would you bridge the gap between those who value mystical pursuits divorced from real world evidence and modern media versus those who might want to increase their knowledge about the world through focused learning and induction? (Say between Pennsylvania Amish and tech startup founders) Some people value manipulating others, some controlling others, some killing others - the range between individual values is very large. In short, it seems impossible to approach "better" by looking at what each person in the world values as everyone values different things in spite of some similar things that people do value in common which is what we here are trying to provide, and of course it is impossible to know what everyone values anyway.
So without your personal value as a standard and other individual values as a standard for better, what do you use?
Re: Paul Buchheit:"Don't Be Evil"
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a good question. There's no simple (non-circular) answer, but I can try to give a few heuristics. First, it's important to remember that any significant action is likely to have some negative consequences. One test is to ask, "Ignoring personal loss/gain, would the world be better if I stopped doing X?" For example, if a spammer stopped spamming, I think we'd all be better off, therefore spamming is probably e…
Thanks for the clarification. So the "evil" refers to the very narrow context of the specific functionality of the google product, rather than to a wider context which is usually understood by the idea? With your broader point: "Ignoring personal loss/gain, would the world be better if I stopped doing X?" , what standard would you use for judging what is better for the world? To frame the rule in the positive action…
I don't think his stated definition has a narrow context at all. It seems to apply to anything. As a corporate motto, of course it only applies to Google...but as a statement of ethics it looks pretty general.