>The thing is, you get no money by looking out for others.
And our definitions of harm can greatly differ, to the point where two groups honestly believe the other group is doing harm. While some of these cases can be resolved with more knowledge, some of them depend upon ethical guidelines that are entirely subjective.
> but it's not something to judge people's ethical positions over.
It is, actually. We don't have to be so so careful not to ever pass judgement.
We are talking about the belief that people paying for a service are entitled to increased safety at the expense of others, who did not pay for it. It's ok to find that wicked and to say so.
> ...are there are other circumstances where you feel like you have to choose between ethics and the law of the jungle?
I can choose to conduct myself in an ethical manner. I can't assume you will do the same. Get it?
If you go through life under the mistaken assumption that nobody is willing to hit below the belt, and you never take action to prevent and defend against such blows, you will eventually be hurt. There's nothing wrong with accepting the fact that some folks will play dirty, and please don't fall into the trap of believing that taking action to protect your interests requires you to play dirty too. It doesn't.
Once again, if you acknowledge the motivations of other individuals and the pressures they might come under, you are less likely to be caught off guard by actions they might take in response to them. If you adjust your behavior accordingly, you can often incentivize them to do the right thing when they otherwise wouldn't had you acted passively and/or obliviously.
> Phrased differently, if someone advocates for a policy that I believe will be harmful, why should I treat that differently than a stated intent to harm me?
For the same reason you shouldn't treat someone who wants to raise your taxes and give it to other people as if they intend to steal from you.
>as long as I'm not defrauding or directly harming others
I'm curious, why "directly harming others"? The argument here is that you doing as you please (selling critical technology to the Chinese) is indirectly harming others so I'm curious about the distinction you draw between when it's okay to harm others and when it's not.
> it does seem that this person is comfortable with that being the way the world operates.
This isn't a very charitable interpretation.
There is no lack of injustice in the world. There are more injustices in the world than any single human can possible wrap their head around much less devote attention to caring about.
Just because someone prioritizes other concerns does not mean they are uncaring about a concern you care about, just as you prioritizing the concern you care about do not imply that you're unconcerning about the injustice the other person is prioritizing.
> Honestly, that's not a great example. Re-evaluating your ethical impact on the world is not the same as understanding the direct consequences of your daily work. Both are important, but really different.
Ethics are not a law of nature, it's basically an opinion. Your opinion may be that all business is unethical, but most people disagree.
Most people consider it to be ethical to trade money for goods and services at an agreed price, for example.
Similarly I think most people would agree that hiding the truth from people in order to have them do things they wouldn't do if they knew the truth, is unethical. Tracking people's activity without telling them that you are doing it would be unethical by that standard.
> is it not ethically appropriate to act as a parasite
If you're surrounded by a transparently evil organization AND you profit from it, even if you think you are doing good, you will likely be corrupted and trapped in a web of your own justifications that just happen to support the continuation of a fat pay check.
> But you shouldn’t be surprised when people are operating under a different framework when engaging with the world.
The majory of people are idiots, so this part is almost certainly expected and acceptable.
> If everything is unethical then nothing matters, but people don’t want nothing to matter so they construct shades of grey to make choices and judgements on. Your “um actually everything is unethical” is irrelevant to the game they’re playing.
Where did I say everything is unethical? Where did I say nothing matters? This is the way people want to re-frame the conversation because it is too difficult for them to break through their conditioning to apprehend how the world works.
And our definitions of harm can greatly differ, to the point where two groups honestly believe the other group is doing harm. While some of these cases can be resolved with more knowledge, some of them depend upon ethical guidelines that are entirely subjective.
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