12 ms·

Good thing our legal system doesn't.

by voidfunc 6mo ago

happytoexplain 6mo ago
[flagged]
- ozgrakkurt 6mo ago
  Really feels like there is a moral collapse all around. Seeing some people’s post about prediction (gambling) markets is another eye opener on this topic. Also the latest elected government of US is another one. Not sure if it was always like this or I grew up. But it for sure seems like there is a collapse.
  - unknownx113 6mo ago
    the behaviour that was one socially unacceptable in Silicon Valley has become mainstream. The woke stuff went way too far and, like everything, the pendulum swung back the other direction with equal force. VCs are largely the problem as they set the tone. I have a lot of personal acquaintances that work in VC, and legitimately all of them fall on the spectrum of morally dubious to outright reprehensible.
  - plant-ian 6mo ago
    Yeah I'm not sure if it's collapse or just the bad that was there all along has been let off the leash. I guess my point is I'm not sure that people lost their morals as much as the people with the morals lost the power.
    - unknownx113 6mo ago
      it's definitely a little of both. Founders my age (18-25 range) have spent the last 10 years of their life seeing that morally reprehensible behaviour is rewarded. Whether it be Trump, Musk, whoever - the reward circuit in their brain sees that being a scumbag results in success. The people who don't act that way keep their mouth shut or get publicly executed (metaphorically). It's funny that people still criticize Jobs for being hard when he was 10x a better person than 99% of AI founders.
  - withinboredom 6mo ago
    I would say it was a collapse of ethics, not morality. Most people have morals (their own belief system on what is fair), but their morals may not be ethical (rule-based morals to achieve fairness). I personally attribute it to cars and the internet. The internet removed consequences. You can say the most vile thing imaginable to another human being and… nothing happens. No social cost, no awkward eye contact at the grocery store, no reputation hit in your actual community. Just a dopamine hit and a notification count. Cars did something sneakier. We spend hours every week sealed in a metal box, alone or with the same people. No random encounters, no friction with people who think differently. Just you, your podcast, and whatever is important in your tiny echo chamber. Put those two together and you get people with deeply held morals and zero framework for applying them to anyone outside their bubble. Ethics requires seeing strangers as real. We've engineered that out of daily life.
    - unknownx113 6mo ago
      this is really mind-boggling to me as someone who grew up on the (old) internet. I think the reward factor is also a large part of it, for most of the last 10 years young people have seen that unethical behaviour results in success. For a developing brain, it's easy to see how that resulted in the current state of SV.
  - dminik 6mo ago
    Sometimes the impression I get from commenters on HN is that they would sell their own grandmother for money. Much less than just not considering morals/ethics, it's seen as a weakness here.
    - unknownx113 6mo ago
      Too true. I won't say who it was but a prominent partner in my batch referred to, essentially, a lack of morality as a "competitive advantage". I went back to the east coast after lol
- cwmoore 6mo ago
  Agreed, the ultimate state-monopoly on use of force, right to private property, legislated penalties and remedies, the time and expense of pursuing fairness, in the absence of full moral consideration, or common sense for lack of a better term, is a giveaway to entrenched authority, attorneys or deep-pockets, and not a sensible approach to dynamic real world right and wrong.
bluefirebrand 6mo ago
In what possible world is "our legal system cares more about law than morality" a good thing? Shouldn't morality be the basis for all of the laws?
- Henchman21 6mo ago
  Whose morality exactly?
  - bluefirebrand 6mo ago
    It actually doesn't really matter whose. There are a lot of good ethical frameworks to start from that would lead to better outcomes than our current system of "Whatever makes the most money for powerful people"
    - Henchman21 6mo ago
      It rather matters to me if in your morality some people I care about are "problems". It matters to me if your morality is based on a religion specifically -- I find no reason to follow the worlds faiths, they seem much more concerned with control and/or prohibition of individual action than with fostering good societies or people. Being specific, I find the current incarnation of Christianity in the US to be particilarly immoral -- yet if we're going to start making law based on morality this is the most likely source to be applied where I live. So we disagree rather vehemently, except for "Whatever makes the most money for powerful people" is bad.
      - bluefirebrand 6mo ago
        > It rather matters to me if in your morality some people I care about are "problems This would not be moral in any serious ethical framework Edit: Human equality is often one of the most important topics in Ethics. Why do you think so much effort is put into depicting Others as Inhuman?
        6mo ago
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
LocalH 6mo ago
Maybe it should

Good thing our legal system doesn't.

happytoexplain 6mo ago

[flagged]

ozgrakkurt 6mo ago
Really feels like there is a moral collapse all around. Seeing some people’s post about prediction (gambling) markets is another eye opener on this topic. Also the latest elected government of US is another one. Not sure if it was always like this or I grew up. But it for sure seems like there is a collapse.
- unknownx113 6mo ago
  the behaviour that was one socially unacceptable in Silicon Valley has become mainstream. The woke stuff went way too far and, like everything, the pendulum swung back the other direction with equal force. VCs are largely the problem as they set the tone. I have a lot of personal acquaintances that work in VC, and legitimately all of them fall on the spectrum of morally dubious to outright reprehensible.
- plant-ian 6mo ago
  Yeah I'm not sure if it's collapse or just the bad that was there all along has been let off the leash. I guess my point is I'm not sure that people lost their morals as much as the people with the morals lost the power.
  - unknownx113 6mo ago
    it's definitely a little of both. Founders my age (18-25 range) have spent the last 10 years of their life seeing that morally reprehensible behaviour is rewarded. Whether it be Trump, Musk, whoever - the reward circuit in their brain sees that being a scumbag results in success. The people who don't act that way keep their mouth shut or get publicly executed (metaphorically). It's funny that people still criticize Jobs for being hard when he was 10x a better person than 99% of AI founders.
- withinboredom 6mo ago
  I would say it was a collapse of ethics, not morality. Most people have morals (their own belief system on what is fair), but their morals may not be ethical (rule-based morals to achieve fairness). I personally attribute it to cars and the internet. The internet removed consequences. You can say the most vile thing imaginable to another human being and… nothing happens. No social cost, no awkward eye contact at the grocery store, no reputation hit in your actual community. Just a dopamine hit and a notification count. Cars did something sneakier. We spend hours every week sealed in a metal box, alone or with the same people. No random encounters, no friction with people who think differently. Just you, your podcast, and whatever is important in your tiny echo chamber. Put those two together and you get people with deeply held morals and zero framework for applying them to anyone outside their bubble. Ethics requires seeing strangers as real. We've engineered that out of daily life.
  - unknownx113 6mo ago
    this is really mind-boggling to me as someone who grew up on the (old) internet. I think the reward factor is also a large part of it, for most of the last 10 years young people have seen that unethical behaviour results in success. For a developing brain, it's easy to see how that resulted in the current state of SV.
- dminik 6mo ago
  Sometimes the impression I get from commenters on HN is that they would sell their own grandmother for money. Much less than just not considering morals/ethics, it's seen as a weakness here.
  - unknownx113 6mo ago
    Too true. I won't say who it was but a prominent partner in my batch referred to, essentially, a lack of morality as a "competitive advantage". I went back to the east coast after lol
cwmoore 6mo ago
Agreed, the ultimate state-monopoly on use of force, right to private property, legislated penalties and remedies, the time and expense of pursuing fairness, in the absence of full moral consideration, or common sense for lack of a better term, is a giveaway to entrenched authority, attorneys or deep-pockets, and not a sensible approach to dynamic real world right and wrong.

bluefirebrand 6mo ago

In what possible world is "our legal system cares more about law than morality" a good thing? Shouldn't morality be the basis for all of the laws?

Henchman21 6mo ago
Whose morality exactly?
- bluefirebrand 6mo ago
  It actually doesn't really matter whose. There are a lot of good ethical frameworks to start from that would lead to better outcomes than our current system of "Whatever makes the most money for powerful people"
  - Henchman21 6mo ago
    It rather matters to me if in your morality some people I care about are "problems". It matters to me if your morality is based on a religion specifically -- I find no reason to follow the worlds faiths, they seem much more concerned with control and/or prohibition of individual action than with fostering good societies or people. Being specific, I find the current incarnation of Christianity in the US to be particilarly immoral -- yet if we're going to start making law based on morality this is the most likely source to be applied where I live. So we disagree rather vehemently, except for "Whatever makes the most money for powerful people" is bad.
    - bluefirebrand 6mo ago
      > It rather matters to me if in your morality some people I care about are "problems This would not be moral in any serious ethical framework Edit: Human equality is often one of the most important topics in Ethics. Why do you think so much effort is put into depicting Others as Inhuman?
      - 6mo ago

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

LocalH 6mo ago

Maybe it should