I'm sorry, but do your examples illustrate that coding ethics are so easy, that even big companies have no problems there? Or is your point that coding ethics are so hard and complex, that even big companies can't do it properly? I'm sure there is a sarcasm, but I'm not sure which way exactly.
Personally, if it ain't illegal, and they pay me enough, I"m good to go with just about anything.
Do you want morality to be legislated? Because that is how you get morality legislated.
Hell, in cases, the coder may not even know what the whole program does, [...]no ethics or morals there.
You just showed that there is a place for ethics in coding. Perhaps not a code monkey who wrote a particular subroutine, but the senior developer most likely knows. And it is a moral duty to report the wrongdoing.
But to address your broader point, if what you do has an impact to other people, morality matters. Starting from trivialities like writing readable code. To understand this example, imagine smelly code as a technical debt. If you have to repay it yourself, it's a fair game. If your colleague has to repay it (clean it up) or at least pay interest (update the code), then it is morally dubious. You might argue that it doesn't matter as long as company pays for the work. But even then damage is done to the reputation of your colleague, because management will see that the colleague is less productive.
Another thing that makes software ethically more challenging is the distance between the coder and the user. If a nurse is taking care of a patient, the actual well being of the patient will be easier to consider (the ethical principle of "do no harm"), since there is direct feedback. On the other hand, coders can sometimes never even see the affected person. For example, I know that the code I write for my company is widely used. Perhaps my mistakes lead to a chain of events that lead to a person being denied purchase of insulin, which lead to heart attack and hospitalization, which lead to bankruptcy and ruined life. I just don't know. And I have no idea how to even make that moral calculation. Because of this separation between actions and consequences, I find that deontological approach is more practical than consequentialism.
Reminds me of Windows XP, where Latvian version was twice as cheap as English, but you couldn't switch to English. That was clearly market segmentation move.
Assange himself said it was a disgruntled person from within the DNC itself, which seems possible.
It seems weird that Assange would hint who the leaker was. Protecting sources and such. IIRC wikileaks policy has been to not collect info on who the source is. It is possible that it was a disgruntled DNC staff member, but phishing attack is a bit more credible.
There's also a question of whether Trump himself talked to the Russian government, and now he is a puppet of Putin. tbh that seems unlikely to me.
IIRC this particular investigation is over Trump team's collusion, not Trump himself.
Indeed you can say that. I can say I don't know if I will die tomorrow but I behave as if I'm going to live for at least 15 more years. That is to say, I believe I will live extra 15 years. I'm trying to say that in practical terms you will either believe that Russia meddled, or that they didn't. It is evident that you believe they didn't, but what warrants this belief? If you say There is lack of hard evidence, therefore I don't believe it's true, then ask yourself if you have the same rigour in all other aspects of your life? Alas, I know absolutely nothing about you, so I have no examples, but if you have ever just assumed someone's motivation, you most likely believe things you have no evidence for.
Disclaimer: where I am from, Russian meddling in local politics is part of everyday life. Even in U.S. it has been the case in the past. Given this background, announcements from CIA seem less like revelations, but rather stating the obvious.
Ok, lets try this. A 12 y/o neighbour boy says his father “touches him in inappropriate places”. The father is a policeman. The same boy has previously claimed that it was Jonny that broke the glass, not him (as we know now, he lied then).
Besides, I just asked how you would react in the case of the bank hacking, not that that was a proof of any kind. Because from what I see you have unreasonable standards. If you say “For current affairs, I believe that BBC News Hour is mostly solid with facts, although the interviews tend to be one sided and they don't do long term follow up”, that is kind of reasonable, because you don't have time to talk to civilians in the Yemen war zones and at the same time fact check report on corruption of Ilham Aliyev.
To operate more or less normally, you just have to trust people without demanding raw evidence for every single statement. You said you don't trust CIA. Good. Now, who would you trust on these matters? I bet you would trust your own mother to tell you the truth, but your mother [probably] has no intel on Russian involvement in Elections. You might reasonably say, well noone I could trust knows. Well fine, but here is the thing — saying “I don't trust CIA” is pointless unless you give a more trustworthy source.
Oh, you don't need to worry about me. I wouldn't even trust myself to not trust myself.
[I trust] Evidence. I understand computer security well enough to evaluate it for myself.
Good for you, but what do you do if you can't access the evidence, because it's none of your business. In practical terms, if your bank issues a statement that they have been hacked and credit card details have been stolen, do you a) demand evidence of break-in, b) don't trust the bank and keep your card or c) don't trust the bank but change your card just in case?
I actually look at cars and where I live (the UK) you can tell the age of a car from the registration plate the vast majority of cars are less than 10 years old.
Where I (Latvia), the average age of light cars in technical order was 12,5 years (stats from 2012). Today it might be around 10 years. And globally Latvia is a rather well of country. While it is true that buying a 20 y/o car is not cost effective due to maintenance costs and fuel efficiency, it can still be sold due to poverty trap — if you don't have money (or affordable credit) to expensive car that is affordable in the long run, you'll have to buy one that is cheap up front and pay more for maintenance.
It is easy to believe that fossil-fuel vehicles will not be produced in foreseeable future, but to claim they will vanish in 8 years is an extraordinary claim. The sheer production capacity that would replace all the cars in the world (or even just USA) is just not there. If after 8 years there are no fossil-fuel vehicles produced it would take another 20 to 30 years to phase out vast majority of existing cars.
BEGIN RANT; What is it with you people and declaring things dead? BSD has been dying for decades and you still haven't got the clue. God has been dead for a freaking century. Right now “X is dead” should be read as “X has suffered a bit, maybe”.END RANT;
It's pretty much now all speculation, opinion via "expert" talking heads, rumor-mongering, agenda-advancing, "awareness-raising", etc.
Did you snowflakes grew up in a loving, trusting households where everyone was perfectly honest and really well informed about all the topics they talked about? I'm sorry to inform you, but people have made shit up for quite a while. The Financial Post article doesn't even claim that the author is right, just reports on what the author says, and it is clearly a speculation. If you want an expert panel discussion, there are plenty of those. If you find that even those are speculative, I'm sorry, but all discussions about future are speculations.
Stalin was a Georgian Orthodox seminarist going to become a priest before he changed his mind.
So you agree that Stalin was an atheist? The whole communism was specifically an atheistic movement, not that the leaders just happened to be atheists.
Neat list. I do have some issues with counting in civil wars, since often those are about loyalty to the throne. Hussites have a legit case., fair enough. Crimean war looks more like typical imperialism and land grab, but I might be wrong. I don't think I can count in Ustae, since they recognized Islam. Looks more like religion is just another tag of identity, not disagreement over tenants of faith or any other such issues.
You mean Kama Sutra? But seriously, this discussion has gone off topic. The point the AC made was:
Religion is the deadliest concept humans have ever created
This claim is either misguided or entirely true, depending on what speculations you are ready to believe. I am ready do entertain the possibility that religion is indeed responsible for the holocaust, red terror etc, if I believe that religion is the reason we can cooperate as a community thus build civilizations. And to commit wide scale atrocities you really need civilization.
However, if we only look at causes of military conflicts, plain old looting (ala Genghis Khan), revolts (An Lushan rebellion), power struggles, imperialism and such are much more widespread. The reason I challenged AC to give example is because pure religious conflicts are rare. Even your fucking bible is more about acquiring/defending lands, and not “let's go beat up those people just because they believe the wrong god”. Believing the “wrong god” is a reason not to include those people in the “protected group” (a.k.a “us”), which means “thou shall not kill” doesn't apply, but without the religion I don't see universal “thou shall not kill” appearing
Finally, one huge problem with analysing any effects of religion is that you just don't have a control group. Since religious thinking seems to be almost part of human nature, how are we supposed to figure out which part of human nature made people do horrible things.
Mankind has been warmongering over differences in belief systems for thousands of years
Can you give us an example? And I really mean “differences in belief systems”. As in “We will raise an army to beat up those people because they believe the wrong things”. The closest thing I am aware of is the crusades, but even there the motive seemed more related to security than theological differences.
If (when?) the electric cars take off, I guess the charging stations will be available also at the parking lots. If (when?) cars will become automated, they should be able to find charging stations on their own at the middle of the day, when sun is the brightest and traffic is minimal.
Germany is a net exporter and exports about 1/3rd of its energy production. [...] Germany is to big, to have 'no wind'.
Why is this discussion about imports and exports? Germany is in the EU common market. We might as well have discussed if Saarland is big enought to have wind.
So publishing the truth about Hillary now is the same as advocating genocide?
Repeating “crooked Hillary” ad nauseam is not publishing truth. Nether is wildly inaccurate interpretation of facts. That uranium scandal is a pretty good illustration of misinterpretation.
As for “espionage, propaganda, and publishing derogatory information”, propaganda is usually understood as misleading information (some would say, that is a form of lying). I sure hope you read the “active measures” page to get some insights of what espionage entails, which does contain a lot of deception. As for derogatory information, if what comes out of RT and Sputnik is any indication, that material is a delirium, for a lack of a better word. In Latvian it is best described as “slima zirga murgi”.
I'm saying that espionage, propaganda, and publishing derogatory information on foreign governments are completely normal and acceptable.
Depends on your moral compass. For example, Kant considered lying a grave breach of ethical behaviour. Just look at the Nazi propaganda against Jews which gave justification to the crimes against humanity. As for “espionage, propaganda, and publishing derogatory information”, all three of those are umbrella terms that range from “ethically dubious” to “outright criminal”. What I mean is that your assertions are not valid until you clarify what you mean exactly.
Also, these kinds of activities have an interesting history. I'm sure you'll find the page interesting.
I would have given you the participation prize for wataboutism, but you show a clear lack of commitment. It's as if you are not even trying. To do a proper wataboutism, you can't just say “oh yeah, well, you did it as well”. You have to give a more precise reference, like “oh yeah, what about the U.S. kidnapping of the Chilean Army Commander-in-Chief General René Schneider?”. Right now I can't find any material of French interventions.
I do hope you find this feedback useful and good luck on your next attempt.
Come on people - get real (russkies aren't THAT stupid)... apk
They don't need to be stupid, just sloppy. Also, it seems like your understanding of covering tracks stems entirely from “I'll create GUI interface using visual basic to track the killers IP”.
I don't think you have caught the nuances of whataboutism. Let me help you out - if the things are comparable, then its not whataboutism.
What was the point of the ShanghaiBill's comment? Right now the only thing I see is an attempt to deflect the conversation form what Russia did.
Thinking your country is special doesn't absolve it.
Latvia is hardly special. Any feature we have is had by our neighbours, which would be Lithuania, Estonia, Russia and Belarus. I'm just sick and tired of the propaganda of the imperial Russia (before that imperial USSR, and before then again imperial Russia).
Congratulations! You get the participation prize on whataboutism! You can now shoot black people without repercussion, since George Zimmerman was acquitted!
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry, but do your examples illustrate that coding ethics are so easy, that even big companies have no problems there? Or is your point that coding ethics are so hard and complex, that even big companies can't do it properly? I'm sure there is a sarcasm, but I'm not sure which way exactly.
Personally, if it ain't illegal, and they pay me enough, I"m good to go with just about anything.
Do you want morality to be legislated? Because that is how you get morality legislated.
Hell, in cases, the coder may not even know what the whole program does, [...]no ethics or morals there.
You just showed that there is a place for ethics in coding. Perhaps not a code monkey who wrote a particular subroutine, but the senior developer most likely knows. And it is a moral duty to report the wrongdoing.
But to address your broader point, if what you do has an impact to other people, morality matters. Starting from trivialities like writing readable code. To understand this example, imagine smelly code as a technical debt. If you have to repay it yourself, it's a fair game. If your colleague has to repay it (clean it up) or at least pay interest (update the code), then it is morally dubious. You might argue that it doesn't matter as long as company pays for the work. But even then damage is done to the reputation of your colleague, because management will see that the colleague is less productive.
Another thing that makes software ethically more challenging is the distance between the coder and the user. If a nurse is taking care of a patient, the actual well being of the patient will be easier to consider (the ethical principle of "do no harm"), since there is direct feedback. On the other hand, coders can sometimes never even see the affected person. For example, I know that the code I write for my company is widely used. Perhaps my mistakes lead to a chain of events that lead to a person being denied purchase of insulin, which lead to heart attack and hospitalization, which lead to bankruptcy and ruined life. I just don't know. And I have no idea how to even make that moral calculation. Because of this separation between actions and consequences, I find that deontological approach is more practical than consequentialism.
Reminds me of Windows XP, where Latvian version was twice as cheap as English, but you couldn't switch to English. That was clearly market segmentation move.
Assange himself said it was a disgruntled person from within the DNC itself, which seems possible.
It seems weird that Assange would hint who the leaker was. Protecting sources and such. IIRC wikileaks policy has been to not collect info on who the source is. It is possible that it was a disgruntled DNC staff member, but phishing attack is a bit more credible.
There's also a question of whether Trump himself talked to the Russian government, and now he is a puppet of Putin. tbh that seems unlikely to me.
IIRC this particular investigation is over Trump team's collusion, not Trump himself.
No, you're wrong. You can say, "I don't know."
Indeed you can say that. I can say I don't know if I will die tomorrow but I behave as if I'm going to live for at least 15 more years. That is to say, I believe I will live extra 15 years. I'm trying to say that in practical terms you will either believe that Russia meddled, or that they didn't. It is evident that you believe they didn't, but what warrants this belief? If you say There is lack of hard evidence, therefore I don't believe it's true, then ask yourself if you have the same rigour in all other aspects of your life? Alas, I know absolutely nothing about you, so I have no examples, but if you have ever just assumed someone's motivation, you most likely believe things you have no evidence for.
Disclaimer: where I am from, Russian meddling in local politics is part of everyday life. Even in U.S. it has been the case in the past. Given this background, announcements from CIA seem less like revelations, but rather stating the obvious.
Ok, lets try this. A 12 y/o neighbour boy says his father “touches him in inappropriate places”. The father is a policeman. The same boy has previously claimed that it was Jonny that broke the glass, not him (as we know now, he lied then).
Besides, I just asked how you would react in the case of the bank hacking, not that that was a proof of any kind. Because from what I see you have unreasonable standards. If you say “For current affairs, I believe that BBC News Hour is mostly solid with facts, although the interviews tend to be one sided and they don't do long term follow up”, that is kind of reasonable, because you don't have time to talk to civilians in the Yemen war zones and at the same time fact check report on corruption of Ilham Aliyev.
To operate more or less normally, you just have to trust people without demanding raw evidence for every single statement. You said you don't trust CIA. Good. Now, who would you trust on these matters? I bet you would trust your own mother to tell you the truth, but your mother [probably] has no intel on Russian involvement in Elections. You might reasonably say, well noone I could trust knows. Well fine, but here is the thing — saying “I don't trust CIA” is pointless unless you give a more trustworthy source.
you'd have to be a moron to trust them
Oh, you don't need to worry about me. I wouldn't even trust myself to not trust myself.
[I trust] Evidence. I understand computer security well enough to evaluate it for myself.
Good for you, but what do you do if you can't access the evidence, because it's none of your business. In practical terms, if your bank issues a statement that they have been hacked and credit card details have been stolen, do you a) demand evidence of break-in, b) don't trust the bank and keep your card or c) don't trust the bank but change your card just in case?
I don't trust the CIA.
What do you trust then?
I actually look at cars and where I live (the UK) you can tell the age of a car from the registration plate the vast majority of cars are less than 10 years old.
Where I (Latvia), the average age of light cars in technical order was 12,5 years (stats from 2012). Today it might be around 10 years. And globally Latvia is a rather well of country. While it is true that buying a 20 y/o car is not cost effective due to maintenance costs and fuel efficiency, it can still be sold due to poverty trap — if you don't have money (or affordable credit) to expensive car that is affordable in the long run, you'll have to buy one that is cheap up front and pay more for maintenance.
It is easy to believe that fossil-fuel vehicles will not be produced in foreseeable future, but to claim they will vanish in 8 years is an extraordinary claim. The sheer production capacity that would replace all the cars in the world (or even just USA) is just not there. If after 8 years there are no fossil-fuel vehicles produced it would take another 20 to 30 years to phase out vast majority of existing cars.
Journalism is dead.
BEGIN RANT; What is it with you people and declaring things dead? BSD has been dying for decades and you still haven't got the clue. God has been dead for a freaking century. Right now “X is dead” should be read as “X has suffered a bit, maybe”.END RANT;
It's pretty much now all speculation, opinion via "expert" talking heads, rumor-mongering, agenda-advancing, "awareness-raising", etc.
Did you snowflakes grew up in a loving, trusting households where everyone was perfectly honest and really well informed about all the topics they talked about? I'm sorry to inform you, but people have made shit up for quite a while. The Financial Post article doesn't even claim that the author is right, just reports on what the author says, and it is clearly a speculation. If you want an expert panel discussion, there are plenty of those. If you find that even those are speculative, I'm sorry, but all discussions about future are speculations.
I am not that closely familiar with Georgian orthodoxy. Tell me, how to they make sure their members never ever become atheists?
Stalin was a Georgian Orthodox seminarist going to become a priest before he changed his mind.
So you agree that Stalin was an atheist? The whole communism was specifically an atheistic movement, not that the leaders just happened to be atheists.
Neat list. I do have some issues with counting in civil wars, since often those are about loyalty to the throne. Hussites have a legit case., fair enough. Crimean war looks more like typical imperialism and land grab, but I might be wrong. I don't think I can count in Ustae, since they recognized Islam. Looks more like religion is just another tag of identity, not disagreement over tenants of faith or any other such issues.
Read the fucking bible
You mean Kama Sutra? But seriously, this discussion has gone off topic. The point the AC made was:
Religion is the deadliest concept humans have ever created
This claim is either misguided or entirely true, depending on what speculations you are ready to believe. I am ready do entertain the possibility that religion is indeed responsible for the holocaust, red terror etc, if I believe that religion is the reason we can cooperate as a community thus build civilizations. And to commit wide scale atrocities you really need civilization.
However, if we only look at causes of military conflicts, plain old looting (ala Genghis Khan), revolts (An Lushan rebellion), power struggles, imperialism and such are much more widespread. The reason I challenged AC to give example is because pure religious conflicts are rare. Even your fucking bible is more about acquiring/defending lands, and not “let's go beat up those people just because they believe the wrong god”. Believing the “wrong god” is a reason not to include those people in the “protected group” (a.k.a “us”), which means “thou shall not kill” doesn't apply, but without the religion I don't see universal “thou shall not kill” appearing
Finally, one huge problem with analysing any effects of religion is that you just don't have a control group. Since religious thinking seems to be almost part of human nature, how are we supposed to figure out which part of human nature made people do horrible things.
Did the holocaust pass you by?
Nope, but that was not even a civil war. It could possibly count if conversion to Christianity would have helped. It couldn't.
LRA and ISIS are much better examples, but those are modern groups, not a 1000 year running theme.
Mankind has been warmongering over differences in belief systems for thousands of years
Can you give us an example? And I really mean “differences in belief systems”. As in “We will raise an army to beat up those people because they believe the wrong things”. The closest thing I am aware of is the crusades, but even there the motive seemed more related to security than theological differences.
If (when?) the electric cars take off, I guess the charging stations will be available also at the parking lots. If (when?) cars will become automated, they should be able to find charging stations on their own at the middle of the day, when sun is the brightest and traffic is minimal.
Germany is a net exporter and exports about 1/3rd of its energy production. [...] Germany is to big, to have 'no wind'.
Why is this discussion about imports and exports? Germany is in the EU common market. We might as well have discussed if Saarland is big enought to have wind.
So publishing the truth about Hillary now is the same as advocating genocide?
Repeating “crooked Hillary” ad nauseam is not publishing truth. Nether is wildly inaccurate interpretation of facts. That uranium scandal is a pretty good illustration of misinterpretation.
As for “espionage, propaganda, and publishing derogatory information”, propaganda is usually understood as misleading information (some would say, that is a form of lying). I sure hope you read the “active measures” page to get some insights of what espionage entails, which does contain a lot of deception. As for derogatory information, if what comes out of RT and Sputnik is any indication, that material is a delirium, for a lack of a better word. In Latvian it is best described as “slima zirga murgi”.
I'm saying that espionage, propaganda, and publishing derogatory information on foreign governments are completely normal and acceptable.
Depends on your moral compass. For example, Kant considered lying a grave breach of ethical behaviour. Just look at the Nazi propaganda against Jews which gave justification to the crimes against humanity. As for “espionage, propaganda, and publishing derogatory information”, all three of those are umbrella terms that range from “ethically dubious” to “outright criminal”. What I mean is that your assertions are not valid until you clarify what you mean exactly.
Also, these kinds of activities have an interesting history. I'm sure you'll find the page interesting.
I would have given you the participation prize for wataboutism, but you show a clear lack of commitment. It's as if you are not even trying. To do a proper wataboutism, you can't just say “oh yeah, well, you did it as well”. You have to give a more precise reference, like “oh yeah, what about the U.S. kidnapping of the Chilean Army Commander-in-Chief General René Schneider?”. Right now I can't find any material of French interventions.
I do hope you find this feedback useful and good luck on your next attempt.
Come on people - get real (russkies aren't THAT stupid)... apk
They don't need to be stupid, just sloppy. Also, it seems like your understanding of covering tracks stems entirely from “I'll create GUI interface using visual basic to track the killers IP”.
I don't think you have caught the nuances of whataboutism. Let me help you out - if the things are comparable, then its not whataboutism.
What was the point of the ShanghaiBill's comment? Right now the only thing I see is an attempt to deflect the conversation form what Russia did.
Thinking your country is special doesn't absolve it.
Latvia is hardly special. Any feature we have is had by our neighbours, which would be Lithuania, Estonia, Russia and Belarus. I'm just sick and tired of the propaganda of the imperial Russia (before that imperial USSR, and before then again imperial Russia).
Congratulations! You get the participation prize on whataboutism! You can now shoot black people without repercussion, since George Zimmerman was acquitted!