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[Seprix]

Only outcomes matter? The ends do not always justify the means. That's morality 101.

[Awaclus]

Only outcomes matter?

Yes, it's called consequentialism and it's a super popular ethical view these days.

[Seprix]

Only outcomes matter?

Yes, it's called consequentialism and it's a super popular ethical view these days.

That's very sad to hear. It's things like this that make me want to be religious. At least religious people have a concept of doing the right thing for it's own sake, for honesty and truth, rather than simply because the outcome happens to be good.

[Awaclus]

That's very sad to hear. It's things like this that make me want to be religious. At least religious people have a concept of doing the right thing for it's own sake, for honesty and truth, rather than simply because the outcome happens to be good.

Good intentions don't improve anyone's life. Good outcomes do.

[Kirian]

You can't own an abstract idea

Yes I can.  I cannot force you to acknowledge my ownership, but I also can't force you to acknowledge my ownership of my wallet, or my computer.  Just because it is easier to steal the former doesn't make it any less of a theft.

and something that you can infinitely duplicate shouldn't have any value.

Says who?  Who let you dictate societal norms and laws?  Ideas and words have value.

I would pay for the time they spend working on the game, but most game developers choose to do that for free instead.

...

...

No they don't.  Most game developers get paid in some fashion.  They require food and shelter just like you do.

[ConMan]

Good intentions don't improve anyone's life. Good outcomes do.

Ok then, I claim that people getting fairly compensated for creative work is a good outcome, because it both lets them work on their art without needing to worry about getting a so-called "real" job, and it provides them an incentive to create the kinds of things that people like.

Without intellectual property, you don't get Dominion, because while there may still be a Rio Grande Games who can sell you pieces of cardboard in a box, you don't have Donald X Vaccarinos who come up with words to go on the cards and rules for moving the cards around, nor do you have Claus Stephans to draw pretty pictures to co on the cards.

[McGarnacle]

That's very sad to hear. It's things like this that make me want to be religious. At least religious people have a concept of doing the right thing for it's own sake, for honesty and truth, rather than simply because the outcome happens to be good.

Good intentions don't improve anyone's life. Good outcomes do.

As someone who has actually read it, I can tell you this is strait out of Machiavelli's "The Prince". The end justifies the means is a philosophy posited by those who don't understand the whole point of doing good things.

[pacovf]

that would work if you could assume that they all consequent utilitarians. I'd give that less than 1% of being true.

they won't be responsible with the money. it's up to you.

But somehow only people doing entertainment that can be distributed online get to have their money directed to charity because you say so? Are they somehow more irresponsible than other professions?

[eHalcyon]

If you believe that it is more ethical to not pay for entertainment and donate that money to charity instead, then the real ethical thing is to donate the money anyway and also not steal the entertainment.  It's not a necessity, you can just not play the game and not watch the movie.  Or you can only play/watch things that are legally free.

Except, of course, that any time spent on that entertainment is time you could have spent volunteering for those charities.

[SpaceAnemone]

Frankly, though, I do think that everytime you want to spend money on a movie or a game which you could get for free, you should instead get it for free and donate the same amount here or here. I'm sure others will disagree but I think it's a clear case. And it's something you can do with very little effort.

Alright. I'll stop preaching now and continue to err do things.

I absolutely agree 100% about following Givewell for charity donations. I'm not totally sure your logic about free computer games follows, unless you happen to apply that to lots of other purchasing decisions across the board as well, and happen to give all your leftover money to charities anyway. I find it easier to donate 10% of my salary to start with, then spend the rest on what I want.

And if maximising charity donation is actually a concern for you, there is/was a whole movement called 80000 Hours, that was trying to get smart philanthropic students to take up high-paid careers in stuff not usually considered to be very altruistic, like banking, so they could earn more and donate more. So I think if you're genuine about minimising the amount of your total money pot that you send to non-Givewell-listed causes like games devs, you should probably also be quite serious about maximising the size of that pot of money to begin with.

[SpaceAnemone]

Except, of course, that any time spent on that entertainment is time you could have spent volunteering for those charities.

Volunteering directly for the really good charities Silver mentions is often not a great way to further their causes. If you look at how much human life you can save (usually measured in disability-adjusted life-years, by groups like the WHO), it's almost always orders of magnitude better to send money to a third world country to treat specific problems there (malaria, parasitic infections and malnutrition being the most common ones) than to get involved yourself.

[eHalcyon]

Except, of course, that any time spent on that entertainment is time you could have spent volunteering for those charities.

Volunteering directly for the really good charities Silver mentions is often not a great way to further their causes. If you look at how much human life you can save (usually measured in disability-adjusted life-years, by groups like the WHO), it's almost always orders of magnitude better to send money to a third world country to treat specific problems there (malaria, parasitic infections and malnutrition being the most common ones) than to get involved yourself.

Fair enough.  So you should spend all your time working to earn money to donate.

[silverspawn]

that would work if you could assume that they all consequent utilitarians. I'd give that less than 1% of being true.

they won't be responsible with the money. it's up to you.

But somehow only people doing entertainment that can be distributed online get to have their money directed to charity because you say so? Are they somehow more irresponsible than other professions?

No, most people in western countries should have parts of their money directed to charity. This isn't any more true for people doing entertainment than it is for people doing anything else. It primarily depends on how much money they have.

The difference is one of opportunity. For people doing entertainment, you have the opportunity right now to change that and make the world a better place. For the aldi brothers, you don't have a way of making them do it, let alone a way that requires no effort. If you had, you should do that, too.

I'm not totally sure your logic about free computer games follows, unless you happen to apply that to lots of other purchasing decisions across the board as well

Largely

Except, of course, that any time spent on that entertainment is time you could have spent volunteering for those charities.

Volunteering directly for the really good charities Silver mentions is often not a great way to further their causes. If you look at how much human life you can save (usually measured in disability-adjusted life-years, by groups like the WHO), it's almost always orders of magnitude better to send money to a third world country to treat specific problems there (malaria, parasitic infections and malnutrition being the most common ones) than to get involved yourself.

Fair enough.  So you should spend all your time working to earn money to donate.

I don't think I actually said that, but I agree with it. You can also read this for an elaborate stance.

And yes, you should.

But you won't, because most humans aren't willing to give up so much of their own lives. I'm not willing to study banking because I find the idea repulsive.

That's why I suggested something that you can do with no effort that will make you a better person immediately. The fact that there are lots of other things which would also make you a better person is true but doesn't invalidate it.

[silverspawn]

Only outcomes matter? The ends do not always justify the means. That's morality 101.

That's what I've been told numerous times throughout my life and every time I just kept thinking IT'S NOT TRUE! IT'S OBVIOUSLY NOT TRUE! IT MAKES ON SENSE! YOU AREN'T EVEN THINKING! ARGH!

You can make every consequent morality that is oriented on principles fall apart with the right scenarios, with no exception. Because principled moral just frankly makes zero sense. It's an incredibly controversial thing to say but not more than saying that the earth circles around the sun a few hundred years ago.

So let's say Peter earns 30 000 $ each month and lives fairly comfortable with that. Now imagine you had a button that you can press, and every time you do he loses 1$ of his next salary and a poor family in Africa gets it instead. Is it right or wrong to press that button?

Now I give you a second button. Whenever you press that one, you take 1$ away from a poor family in Africa and add it to Peter's salary. I'm sure we can agree that you shouldn't even touch this button. But those two buttons do the exact opposite. So both an option and the reverse of that option are wrong?

[Note that I'm using small amounts to have largely linear effects]

If the answer is yes I think that should make you rethink things.

Onward. In the next scenario, you don't have buttons anymore. Instead you have a switch, with one side labeled "Africa" and the other side labeled "Peter". In two hours, the state of the switch will trigger an effect. If it is on Peter, he will receive his full salary. If it is on "Africa", our America family will receive 1$ of his salary. The default setting of the switch is "Africa". Is it correct to switch it back to "Peter" to take money away from the African family to Peter to avoid having him lose money he earned? If the answer is "no" then what happened to your principle? And if the answer is "yes", then that should make you think, because flipping this switch has the same effect as pressing the second button, which we already agreed is evil.

And lastly, imagine you have a second switch with sides labeled as "Transfer" and "No transfer", which determines not wether 1$ but 500 000 $ picked evenly from 5000 wealthy but fair working people's people's salaries are being transferred to a couple of families in Africa. It's a safe bet that at least a couple of people will live if "Transfer" is chosen but not if "No transfer" is chosen.

Do you switch it if the default setting is "Transfer?" Do you switch it if the default setting is "No transfer?"

With a principled moral, you have to bend over backwards and around on a handstand to come up with satisfying solutions (if I'm wrong about that, correct me, give me your answers).

If you value outcomes, it's the simplest thing in the world. You go with redistribution every time. Done.

[Awaclus]

Yes I can.  I cannot force you to acknowledge my ownership, but I also can't force you to acknowledge my ownership of my wallet, or my computer.  Just because it is easier to steal the former doesn't make it any less of a theft.

No you can't. Any abstract idea can be represented by a number and numbers just inherently exist.

and something that you can infinitely duplicate shouldn't have any value.

Says who?  Who let you dictate societal norms and laws?  Ideas and words have value.

The law of supply and demand.

I would pay for the time they spend working on the game, but most game developers choose to do that for free instead.

No they don't.  Most game developers get paid in some fashion.  They require food and shelter just like you do.

The people who work for a company that develops games might get paid for their time by the company, but it's super rare for the company to get paid for that by the customers. Instead, the company gets paid for merchandise (e.g. game DVD ROMs) which is also understandable because the physical merch does have value too, and digital copies of the game, which is ridiculous.

Ok then, I claim that people getting fairly compensated for creative work is a good outcome, because it both lets them work on their art without needing to worry about getting a so-called "real" job, and it provides them an incentive to create the kinds of things that people like.

Without intellectual property, you don't get Dominion, because while there may still be a Rio Grande Games who can sell you pieces of cardboard in a box, you don't have Donald X Vaccarinos who come up with words to go on the cards and rules for moving the cards around, nor do you have Claus Stephans to draw pretty pictures to co on the cards.

People getting compensated for creative work is reasonable. People getting compensated for copies of numbers is not. Without intellectual property, you could still get Dominion, because there may be a Rio Grande Games who can sell you pieces of cardboard in a box and hire Donald X to come up with words to go on the cards and rules for moving the cards around. Without Rio Grande Games, Donald X could use something like Kickstarter to essentially let the end customers hire him and pay for his work directly.


It's worth noting that you can legally download my band's music for free and you can create whatever derivative works you want as long as those derivative works are released under the same license. While I want to do this just out of principle as well, I also think that it's the best strategy if we want to succeed as professional musicians because having people listen to our music for free is vastly preferable to having people not listen to our music at all. Mostly, intellectual property laws just serve to further benefit the record labels and artists who don't have any real financial issues to begin with, at the cost of artists who are just starting out.

[blueblimp]

Frankly, though, I do think that everytime you want to spend money on a movie or a game which you could get for free, you should instead get it for free and donate the same amount here or here.

Do you do this?

[ashersky]

Only outcomes matter? The ends do not always justify the means. That's morality 101.

That's what I've been told numerous times throughout my life and every time I just kept thinking IT'S NOT TRUE! IT'S OBVIOUSLY NOT TRUE! IT MAKES ON SENSE! YOU AREN'T EVEN THINKING! ARGH!

You can make every consequent morality that is oriented on principles fall apart with the right scenarios, with no exception. Because principled moral just frankly makes zero sense. It's an incredibly controversial thing to say but not more than saying that the earth circles around the sun a few hundred years ago.

So let's say Peter earns 30 000 $ each month and lives fairly comfortable with that. Now imagine you had a button that you can press, and every time you do he loses 1$ of his next salary and a poor family in Africa gets it instead. Is it right or wrong to press that button?

Now I give you a second button. Whenever you press that one, you take 1$ away from a poor family in Africa and add it to Peter's salary. I'm sure we can agree that you shouldn't even touch this button. But those two buttons do the exact opposite. So both an option and the reverse of that option are wrong?

[Note that I'm using small amounts to have largely linear effects]

If the answer is yes I think that should make you rethink things.

Onward. In the next scenario, you don't have buttons anymore. Instead you have a switch, with one side labeled "Africa" and the other side labeled "Peter". In two hours, the state of the switch will trigger an effect. If it is on Peter, he will receive his full salary. If it is on "Africa", our America family will receive 1$ of his salary. The default setting of the switch is "Africa". Is it correct to switch it back to "Peter" to take money away from the African family to Peter to avoid having him lose money he earned? If the answer is "no" then what happened to your principle? And if the answer is "yes", then that should make you think, because flipping this switch has the same effect as pressing the second button, which we already agreed is evil.

And lastly, imagine you have a second switch with sides labeled as "Transfer" and "No transfer", which determines not wether 1$ but 500 000 $ picked evenly from 5000 wealthy but fair working people's people's salaries are being transferred to a couple of families in Africa. It's a safe bet that at least a couple of people will live if "Transfer" is chosen but not if "No transfer" is chosen.

Do you switch it if the default setting is "Transfer?" Do you switch it if the default setting is "No transfer?"

With a principled moral, you have to bend over backwards and around on a handstand to come up with satisfying solutions (if I'm wrong about that, correct me, give me your answers).

If you value outcomes, it's the simplest thing in the world. You go with redistribution every time. Done.

Assume Peter has 100 Euros in his bank account that he's not using.  Should you steal that money and give it to the poor, according to your moral system?

[silverspawn]

Frankly, though, I do think that everytime you want to spend money on a movie or a game which you could get for free, you should instead get it for free and donate the same amount here or here.

Do you do this?

I've spent very little money on things I could get for free for several years now, and donated not quite half of my savings to GiveWell's Give Directly a while ago, so in effect I think I've been largely doing it. I did not do the literal thing of making lots of small donations every time. I'm pretty sure I don't actually have enough money to pay for all music and movies I have on my hard drive even if you subtract the above amount.

Right now I'm trying to figure out whether it's crazy to donate to anything not related to climate change even if it's efficient. I mostly chose Give Directly to make sure charity doesn't have the humiliating factor. "I am wealthy, I will do this thing for you, you will be grateful." Or things like destroying local businesses by donating old clothes. With direct donations I imagine it's quite easy to ... well maybe not forget that it is charity, but not be bothered by it, and it doesn't damage their economy, and it's sure not to be spent on useless things since they can decide themselves what they need most, and it's documented that most of it is in fact used for very essential things. ... still it won't help us at all to avoid global collapse. So I'm sure it's better than keeping it, but it might be much worse than other causes. I might retract that donation and give it to the second thing I linked instead, if I could (which of course I can't).

[silverspawn]

Assume Peter has 100 Euros in his bank account that he's not using.  Should you steal that money and give it to the poor, according to your moral system?

Well, if you have a button that does this then yes. If you have to plan and execute a criminal act then I don't think that's worth it.

If you do this on a large, Robin Hood like scale... I'd probably applaud that. If you do it responsibly.

[ashersky]

Assume Peter has 100 Euros in his bank account that he's not using.  Should you steal that money and give it to the poor, according to your moral system?

Well, if you have a button that does this then yes. If you have to plan and execute a criminal act then I don't think that's worth it.

If you do this on a large, Robin Hood like scale... I'd probably applaud that. If you do it responsibly.

I assume you have zero money in your bank or wallet, then.  If it applies to Peter, it should apply to you, right?

[silverspawn]

Didn't I just say that I need to figure out what is the best charity before I donate the rest?

[silverspawn]

(Also Peter makes 30k a month)

[pingpongsam]

And if the answer is "yes", then that should make you think, because flipping this switch has the same effect as pressing the second button, which we already agreed is evil.

I disagree with this assertion. Scenario 1 requires one party and to experience an absolute negative and the other an absolute positive. You ignore the option to press neither button when you move to scenario 2.

If I stop giving you money it is not the same as if I start taking your money.

[ashersky]

Didn't I just say that I need to figure out what is the best charity before I donate the rest?

What's the maximum one is allowed to earn before thievery is allowed?

[silverspawn]

Didn't I just say that I need to figure out what is the best charity before I donate the rest?

What's the maximum one is allowed to earn before thievery is allowed?

You are trying to get me to say controversial stuff because you don't like my arguments and want me to look bad in this discussion. Thievery is never allowed. What is allowed depends on laws. I'm not making laws. If you want to ask at which point I would think favorably about thievery, then I don't think I want to give you an exact answer. Obviously a line has to exist.