Re: [GMG-Devel] Apply to work on MediaGoblin for GSoC 2015!

[fr33domlover]

Hello,


I think I learned enough about my original question, but you raised several
interesting points so I'd like to reply and discuss. The discussion may drift
off list but I'm CCing the list because I hope these issues interest people.


On 2015-03-27
Dave Crossland <address@hidden> wrote:

> 
> Computers are inherently violent, being part of global liberal capitalism.
> (Liberal in the British sense, not the US sense)
> 
> A lot of near slave labour goes into mining the rare earth metals for our
> toys.
> 
> Many people die in those mines.
> 
> You bought a computer and probably earn a living related to computing. Is
> their blood on your hands?

This is indeed a huge problem. A similar problem exists in many industries,
including all electronics and even clothes. If you know the clothes you
buy/sell and computers you buy/sell/promote/etc. are part of this - then yes,
you have moral responsibility.

Actually even using electricity where it's not made using environment friendly
ways, and even then sometimes it does some other damage...

But I wasn't going to make an ethics examination of the whole western
lifestyle. Indeed these are problems, and the g00gle issue is too (the
difference is the domain - human life, freedom, environment, etc. but otherwise
all these problems equally deserve these questions being discussed)

> > If not, is spying on people and making proprietary software different
> > in this sense? If yes, why?
> 
> They will do it anyway. If you don't follow your orders from management
> someone else is keen to take your place. Of course you can refuse, and I'm
> not motivated to make proprietary software myself. But I don't mind taking
> money from proprietary software developers to spend making libre stuff that
> would not otherwise happen.

They will only find someone else if someone agrees to take the role, and that
won't happen if nobody agrees, and that has to begin with someone being the 1st
to disagree, and that someone can be you.

As an example, "everyone is killing everyone else here, total chaos" doesn't
justify "I'm killing too" or "I'm cooperating or working with the killers".

If you avoid g00gle it sends them a message: We don't want the spying and the
proprietary software, even if it means you won't have money to make gsoc for
us". It can make them rethink their methods. So yes, each and every one of us
is a critical piece of this, and nothing will change is we assume they'll do it
anyway.

> That's the balance for me: what will happen if I do nothing vs what will
> never happen if I do nothing.
> 
> > I wouldn't take g00gle's money for the same reason I wouldn't take it from
> > micro$oft, apple, oracle and so on, or any other organization acting in
> > unethical ways...
> 
> I'm sure we have some smokers on this list, in your friends, in your
> family. Should smoking be illegal? Are cigarette companies unethical? I
> don't smoke so to me personally they are not, but since many people smoke,
> know the risks and do it anyway, I don't think cigarette companies are
> unethical.

Cigarette companies are unethical. They know smoking it bad for you, but they
prefer the profit. They wouldn't want their own relatives/children to die or be
sick because of smoking, but they don't mind to advertise it to you, because
you're not their relative / friend. They don't have a reason to think smoking
makes anyone happy, or gives anything unique, or adds anything significant to
life, and that is contrasted by obvious statistics of death and cancer.

People aren't rational, they make mistakes. Including taking overdose of
drugs, which can kill them. The fact they make a choice doesn't make the company
ethical.

> My point is that whatever you think, reasonable people disagree about
> ethical standards, the world has a varied and rich culture of ethics, and
> applying your personal ethics to the world is... unfair. Its better to
> enter into Rawlsian bargains of accepting others ethics as tolerable and
> moving past the differences to work together on common goals and live in
> peace for the rest.

Disagreement about ethics happens all the time, because that's how we discuss
and find mistakes and evolve our ethics and our culture. But disagreement is
just part of that process, and shouldn't be left as-is until resolved.

Also "personal ethics" is an oxymoron because ethics can't be just personal.
Ethics is rules of "how people should behave" or "what's the right and good way
for a person to live their life". It has to apply to everyone - if it's just
for you it's not ethics.

The assumption that talking about ethics is just a way to express personal
feelings or beliefs is called "emotivism", and it's more like the opposite of
ethics. Unfortunately it's very common in the western culture, but it doesn't
mean we give up :-)

Applying your ethics to the world is *exactly* what you should and must do.
It's what people sometimes call activism, at least one sense of it. But as a
side note, what I did wasn't applying or giving any commands or insisting on
any policy - what I did here was to bring an ethical issue for discussion, and
I expressed my own thoughts on it.


---
fr33domlover         <http://www.rel4tion.org/people/fr33domlover>
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