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Call me naïve, but I actually suspect Brin started out believing in "do no evil" and changed over time after becoming ridiculously wealthy. Having the misfortu

Call me naïve, but I actually suspect Brin started out believing in "do no evil" and changed over time after becoming ridiculously wealthy. Having the misfortune of actually knowing some of the other people though, I firmly believe they were shitty from the beginning.

gary_0 2y ago
Not living up to your word because you lack the moral fortitude, rather than having ill intent from the beginning, is still lying. You said you would do something, then ended up doing effectively the opposite. "I didn't lie, circumstances changed" is a bullshit cop-out, especially when it's a billionaire saying it.
- sokoloff 2y ago
  When I was five, I said I was going to be an astronaut. As an adult, I took no action to make that happen; was I a big fat liar?
  - worble 2y ago
    Yes, but at least the only person affected by that was yourself, and not millions of people.
  - Eisenstein 2y ago
    Is a doctor allowed to abandon their Hippocratic oath because they aged 15 years?
    - cgriswald 2y ago
      If he does, did he lie when he swore the oath?
      - Eisenstein 2y ago
        If he lied when he swore the oath, is he still a doctor? BTW, I like this game: 'endlessly avoid making a point'. The winner is the person who gets the other one to end up questioning something that is required for a shared reality -- thus effectively admitting they might as well be arguing with themselves.
        cgriswald 2y ago
        In my opinion your question is unanswerable because if he lied when he swore the oath he was never a doctor. Can you explain how your question connects to the rest of thread? I can explain the thread if you don’t understand it, as you admit.
        Eisenstein 2y ago
        Please do explain because if you are trying to make a point it is escaping me.
        cgriswald 2y ago
        Sure. @sokoloff was offering a rhetorical question showing the absurdity of calling a statement in the past a “lie” just because the contents of that statement didn’t come to pass. A falsehood isn’t even a lie if it is spoken when it is actually false unless the speaker knows it is false. Arguably less so when at the time the truth of the statement couldn’t actually be known. Later it was found/determined/decided that @sokoloff would not be an astronaut. So the statement was shown to be false. But that doesn’t retroactively cause the statement to be a lie. Notably pointing out that such statements aren’t lies is not a defense of the subsequent behavior that caused the original statement to become a falsehood. Your response was something of a non sequitur focusing instead on whether a doctor is “allowed” to do that, but whether a doctor is allowed to do that would have no bearing on whether he lied in the past. I got the sense that you were implying that this behavior was bad behavior but to use your example, no defense was made of the doctor breaking his oath. My question used your example of the doctor to reframe @sokoloff’s original rhetorical question. Is a doctor who breaks his oath an oath breaker? Yes. Did he lie when he took the oath? Only if he always intended to break the oath. If you believe he didn’t intend to break the oath at the time he swore it, you have to conclude that he didn’t lie, even if breaking his oath is otherwise undesirable behavior.
- cgriswald 2y ago
  Lying requires the speaker to know that what he is saying is false. That’s what the word means. By all means castigate Brin all you like but if you want to show he lied in this instance you have to show it was always a lie.

gary_0 2y ago

Not living up to your word because you lack the moral fortitude, rather than having ill intent from the beginning, is still lying. You said you would do something, then ended up doing effectively the opposite. "I didn't lie, circumstances changed" is a bullshit cop-out, especially when it's a billionaire saying it.

sokoloff 2y ago
When I was five, I said I was going to be an astronaut. As an adult, I took no action to make that happen; was I a big fat liar?
- worble 2y ago
  Yes, but at least the only person affected by that was yourself, and not millions of people.
- Eisenstein 2y ago
  Is a doctor allowed to abandon their Hippocratic oath because they aged 15 years?
  - cgriswald 2y ago
    If he does, did he lie when he swore the oath?
    - Eisenstein 2y ago
      If he lied when he swore the oath, is he still a doctor? BTW, I like this game: 'endlessly avoid making a point'. The winner is the person who gets the other one to end up questioning something that is required for a shared reality -- thus effectively admitting they might as well be arguing with themselves.
      - cgriswald 2y ago
        In my opinion your question is unanswerable because if he lied when he swore the oath he was never a doctor. Can you explain how your question connects to the rest of thread? I can explain the thread if you don’t understand it, as you admit.
        Eisenstein 2y ago
        Please do explain because if you are trying to make a point it is escaping me.
        cgriswald 2y ago
        Sure. @sokoloff was offering a rhetorical question showing the absurdity of calling a statement in the past a “lie” just because the contents of that statement didn’t come to pass. A falsehood isn’t even a lie if it is spoken when it is actually false unless the speaker knows it is false. Arguably less so when at the time the truth of the statement couldn’t actually be known. Later it was found/determined/decided that @sokoloff would not be an astronaut. So the statement was shown to be false. But that doesn’t retroactively cause the statement to be a lie. Notably pointing out that such statements aren’t lies is not a defense of the subsequent behavior that caused the original statement to become a falsehood. Your response was something of a non sequitur focusing instead on whether a doctor is “allowed” to do that, but whether a doctor is allowed to do that would have no bearing on whether he lied in the past. I got the sense that you were implying that this behavior was bad behavior but to use your example, no defense was made of the doctor breaking his oath. My question used your example of the doctor to reframe @sokoloff’s original rhetorical question. Is a doctor who breaks his oath an oath breaker? Yes. Did he lie when he took the oath? Only if he always intended to break the oath. If you believe he didn’t intend to break the oath at the time he swore it, you have to conclude that he didn’t lie, even if breaking his oath is otherwise undesirable behavior.
cgriswald 2y ago
Lying requires the speaker to know that what he is saying is false. That’s what the word means. By all means castigate Brin all you like but if you want to show he lied in this instance you have to show it was always a lie.