MJ2.0
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Post by MJ2.0 on Dec 6, 2015 9:55:38 GMT -5
Now that we have established our thoughts on the ethics of stealing, do you maintain the same level of ethics when it comes to telling lies? We tell lies all the time. One of the most ingrained lie is saying "fine" when someone asks "how are you?"
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Shooby
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Post by Shooby on Dec 6, 2015 10:17:53 GMT -5
Just because you don't tell everyone your innermost feelings or disclose every aspect of your life, that doesn't mean you are "lying" to people not to do so. You are not obligated to tell everyone everything about you. Some info is personal and private. That isn't lying.
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copperboxes
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Post by copperboxes on Dec 6, 2015 10:46:25 GMT -5
Forcing personal analysis and will on another isn't something that should be done lightly, IMO, same as how private citizens ideally shouldn't smash each other over the head because one party in disagreement with the other analyzes that they know best what should happen. This point came up during my debate with my friend: is the unethical component my assuming that my cost/benefit assessment is accurate for both myself and the counterparty? This is a reasonable question, but it's unfortunately also a paradox. Obviously I felt at the time that my assessment was fair, especially since my conclusions held even when allowing for a generous margin of error. But of course the only way to determine if my assessment was fair was to conduct a metaanalysis of whether my initial analysis was sound, and so on and so forth. Ultimately, if we're going to rely on reason, we have to have faith in our reasoning abilities. This is the principle difference between ethics and Biblical morality. The Bible tells us vis a vis good and evil (paraphrasing) "don't lean on your own reasoning because mankind is fundamentally unequipped for the task". Ethics, by contrast, presumes that man is fundamentally capable of reasoning out good and evil, and moreover that he is capable of judging whether he's being reasonable in assessing the soundness of his reasoning. The bottom line is that I felt I was being fair, I found my assessment reasonable, and I found my self-assessment of how reasonable I was being to be reasonable. That's the best one can do in an ethical framework.Right. But tons of people feel very deeply that their assessments are generally reasonable and fair. Just about everyone in fact, even schizophrenics, people who physically abuse their spouse, and people who murder. They can feel very deeply that their judgement is correct, and their actions are reasonable. Individual assessment really can be quite skewed. There are a lot of studies that show the vast majority of people feel they are above average or far above average in many areas. So to me, if something is both against the law and I made a personal agreement, I am not going to unilaterally override those standards saying that my judgements are fair and correct. I am fine with working to change laws, but secretly flat overriding laws and personal agreements saying I know best can be quite a dangerous standard if done wide scale in most circumstances. I think you would agree with that. If you arranged to sell a product to someone, and then they decided (strongly in their mind) that you were either incompetent or greedy, so they broke laws to take your product and just leave you a fraction of what they had agreed to pay earlier... I think you would be rather pissed, and call the other person quite arrogant to presume they can break laws, and prior agreements and make judgements about your intelligence/morality like that. It's a fairly destructive way to run a society on a large scale, which is my acid test for ethics. Not perfect, but it is my general method of assessing. Just my take anyway, since you brought up the topic for discussion. There are a lot of gray areas in life, the world is a messy place, and I definitely don't have answers.
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mmhmm
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Post by mmhmm on Dec 6, 2015 10:55:42 GMT -5
Are there degrees of stealing? If someone truly is starving and stole groceries to feed their child, we would look at that a bit differently. Picking up a pen from work and leaving it in your pocket is something people probably don't think that much about. But, breaking into someone's house and stealing their wallet is another thing. If one is starving and steals something to eat it's an act of desperation. There's no desperation involved in hacking into a game to gain an advantage. Picking up a pen from work and leaving it in your pocket is not the same as picking up a pen from work because you want a pen at home.
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MJ2.0
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Post by MJ2.0 on Dec 6, 2015 11:02:07 GMT -5
Just because you don't tell everyone your innermost feelings or disclose every aspect of your life, that doesn't mean you are "lying" to people not to do so. You are not obligated to tell everyone everything about you. Some info is personal and private. That isn't lying. It is lying, it's just lying that we deem socially acceptable.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Dec 6, 2015 13:20:40 GMT -5
Now that we have established our thoughts on the ethics of stealing, do you maintain the same level of ethics when it comes to telling lies? I consider lying immoral. In terms of lying being unethical in the OP, I can't imagine anyone arguing that the theft was ethical but not disclosing the theft was unethical, or else arguing that the theft was unethical but not disclosing the theft was ethical. Obviously if one believes the theft is ethical and carries it out, it makes no logical sense to disclose it to the developer. For the ethical argument, you may have cost that company a lot of revenue when other players quit in disgust. The problem with this argument (aside from the fact that it simply didn't happen in this case) is that it implies the theft is ethical so long as none of the other players are adversely impacted. Or we might extend this to: the theft is ethical so long as any improvements to other players' experiences minus any detriments to other players' experiences result in an overall net benefit. I don't think this is an argument you want to make. Particularly because in this case my in-game town (community) greatly enjoyed the fruits of my illicit activities, and you're basically giving me a free pass on the theft. There is no difference between them. For the sake of this discussion, I'm defining "immoral" as "what is wrong; what is evil; what violates a moral code (e.g. the Ten Commandments)". I'm defining "unethical" as "what you can prove causes harm via the application of disciplined reasoning; what provably fails to satisfy an ethical heuristic such as Kant's imperative, the Law of Reciprocity, etc.". As soon as you start getting into argument of the type "It's just wrong.", "You just shouldn't...", "You have no right to...", "You can't justify...", "It's not your place to...", you are making a moral argument. You're deferring to a fundamental moral code, not reason. It is not you or Virgil's place to decide if the developer would want the $10 or not. There are any number of reasons the developer would say pay the full amount or don't play at all. You can't justify it because it is not your decision to make. Sure it was. I made it. It was easy. Hypothetically, suppose I don't give a crap about the Ten Commandments and I don't give a crap about what you think is or isn't my decision to make unless you can prove to me that I'm causing harm to somebody else. Argue on that basis. So to me, if something is both against the law and I made a personal agreement, I am not going to unilaterally override those standards saying that my judgements are fair and correct. I did in this particular case. I looked at the situation, reasoned through it, judged that everybody would be better off if I stole, judged my reasoning to be sound, and put my plan into action. Do I presently consider the act wrong and immoral? Yes. Do I regret it? Yes. Would I do it again? No. This is because my friend ultimately reminded me that the act violated my moral code, which stipulates without proof that theft is categorically harmful and evil. Not everybody defines immorality this way. There are a great many people who base their conduct on ethical judgments, in which case the harm in any particular action or class of actions must be rigorously proven. The challenge is particularly great for so-called "high Mach" individuals, who reject the conventional wisdom that individuals acting mainly out of self-interest is a bad thing (i.e. is inherently unethical). There are individuals who believe that if you can cheat, you cheat, because not only does it reward ingenuity, it prompts game developers to build improved, cheat-proof games. If you can pay half price for a game and the developer still makes a profit, pay half price for the game and everyone wins. If you can rig an election to ensure a superior candidate gets in, rig the election and you've benefited everyone. It's a very "ends justify the means" attitude, and you'd be surprised at how common it is. I started this thread because I don't know how I can prove to such an individual that my theft was unethical (per the above definition), and I was curious to see if anybody else could.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2015 13:50:31 GMT -5
Virgil Showlion the harm is that you have taken away another person's power of choice. In American terms you have committed the unpardonable sin of impinging on their freedom. You are no better than the mafia boss that says he's providing you protection when he doesn't burn down your business.
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tallguy
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Post by tallguy on Dec 6, 2015 14:00:32 GMT -5
I think it would be difficult to do absent any proof of damages. And there isn't any. Any supposition of damages can be easily turned around to create an equal supposition of benefit to the same individuals. The argument against it is a moral one, and that is fine. Note that I am not making a consequentialist argument here, in that right or wrong is defined only in terms of the consequences of an action, but I find it difficult to define as unethical (as the term is used here) something which does not cause any specific harm.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 6, 2015 14:06:13 GMT -5
Using that logic, if we can throw people in jail for doing this kind of thing we should do it. The majority is more powerful than the individual and the majority has decided not to live by those rules so we will impose our will on the individual in the way that the individual is trying to impose his will on the majority.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Dec 6, 2015 17:18:40 GMT -5
Virgil Showlion the harm is that you have taken away another person's power of choice. In American terms you have committed the unpardonable sin of impinging on their freedom. You are no better than the mafia boss that says he's providing you protection when he doesn't burn down your business. The more appropriate analogy would be forcing all citizens of a town to pay taxes to support a fire department, even if few wanted it. I, in my wisdom, have leveraged my power and revoked their freedom of choice in the matter, for all our collective benefit. Using that logic, if we can throw people in jail for doing this kind of thing we should do it. The majority is more powerful than the individual and the majority has decided not to live by those rules so we will impose our will on the individual in the way that the individual is trying to impose his will on the majority. And you may have noticed that's how our society actually works. If I'd been caught stealing and the developer had felt it was worth their while to come after me, they'd have sued me or charged me with theft. A high-Mach individual would argue that this is the way society is supposed to work, with the individual struggling against the collective, the collective struggling against the individual, both of them slowly evolving, weeding out the weak, becoming stronger over time. They even have a term for it. "Social Darwinism".
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Artemis Windsong
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Post by Artemis Windsong on Dec 6, 2015 20:44:23 GMT -5
I feel it is impossible not to lie unless you are super diplomat.
It's a twist of the truth when I tell a telemarketer, no thanks. When I really want to say, f'off. Putting a spin on something can also be a lie. I want to go out to lunch with a friend. Oh, okay. That lunch date happens to be a nooner. The spin.
Does this red dress make me look fat? Sweetie, you would look better in your green one. Not a lie.
Humans have degrees of lies. Humans have degrees of theft. On judgment day, all are equal.
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Peace Of Mind
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Post by Peace Of Mind on Dec 6, 2015 21:28:55 GMT -5
I say what you were doing was unethical because your actions didn't conform to the acceptable standards of normal business operations of that game and how it was set up to generate income for the creator.
Now you are going to hell! <<makes thunder and lightening clapping noises>>
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Dec 6, 2015 22:18:23 GMT -5
I say what you were doing was unethical because your actions didn't conform to the acceptable standards of normal business operations of that game and how it was set up to generate income for the creator. That's a fair avenue of attack, but the obvious counterargument is thus: Suppose the developers allow users to purchase both widgets and gadgets, but the game's payment system for widgets is broken. They're aware of the problem, but it's going to take several months to fix it. Sorry, sorry, sorry. In the meantime, please continue to buy gadgets from us and try to enjoy the game. Now suppose that I, a player, discover a way of illicitly editing my number of widgets and gadgets. The game isn't worth playing without widgets, and I have no interest whatsoever in gadgets, hence I decide to do both myself and the game developers a favour: I buy $10.00 worth of gadgets and then use my hacker mojo to delete these and edit $10.00 worth of widgets into my account. Is this ethical? If we disregard the "cheating" angle (of my being able to purchase widgets when other players can't) and consider only the hacking, I think that most people, including you, would claim that yes, this is indeed ethical. In cyber jargon, it's actually what's called a "friendly hack". Now you might argue, "Well yes, but the game developer is being paid in full for the widgets you got." True, but that's not the point. The point is that my friendly hack certainly didn't "conform to the acceptable standards of normal business operations of that game and how it was set up to generate income for the creator" and thus, by your standard, shouldn't be considered ethical. Thus if we reasonably conclude that the friendly hack is ethical, the unethical element of my theft in the OP (provided the act is in fact unethical) is obviously something other than my eschewing the normal, acceptable way to pay the game creators.
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Peace Of Mind
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Post by Peace Of Mind on Dec 6, 2015 22:49:12 GMT -5
OK - I double checked the dictionary and nowhere does "counterargument" mean "justification of behavior or ethical malfeasance" so stop playing with your widget gadgets and reimburse the creator of that game.
Now say 12 Hail Mary's and you are not allowed any verbal masturbations for a month to redeem yourself, young man!
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toomuchreality
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Post by toomuchreality on Dec 6, 2015 23:34:46 GMT -5
OK - I double checked the dictionary and nowhere does "counterargument" mean "justification of behavior or ethical malfeasance" so stop playing with your widget gadgets and reimburse the creator of that game.
Now say 12 Hail Mary's and you are not allowed any verbal masturbations for a month to redeem yourself, young man!
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Dec 7, 2015 9:21:21 GMT -5
OK - I double checked the dictionary and nowhere does "counterargument" mean "justification of behavior or ethical malfeasance" so stop playing with your widget gadgets and reimburse the creator of that game.
Now say 12 Hail Mary's and you are not allowed any verbal masturbations for a month to redeem yourself, young man! I did briefly contemplate reimbursement when I quit, but decided against it. Even though my actions were immoral, I consider the only purpose of reimbursement to be reasonable compensation a party subject to a tort. In this case, although one could reasonably argue (as some have here) that my actions harmed the other players or harmed society in general, I have no means of compensating people for it. As for the developer, I plainly reject the notion that my theft caused them any practical harm. Indeed the whole reason this is an ethical conundrum is because the theft (pseudo-theft?) benefited the developer, netting them a healthy profit. If I'd owed them compensation for anything, it would have been for (as laterbloomer suggests) robbing them of their freedom of choice in setting prices, but I had no means of compensating them for this specific wrong either. The point became moot as of 1-2 years after I quit, since the developers went out of business.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2015 19:03:45 GMT -5
Yes you do, pay them the price they set.
You are the only one that benefitted.
If you want, when the citizens of the town settled there they agreed to abide by the local laws, hence pay the taxes levied by the town council. By the same token you settled into that game and agreed to follow the developer's laws. I'm pretty sure you accepted terms and conditions to that effect to play. Then you broke the contract.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2015 19:17:40 GMT -5
Virgil is a hacker and a thief? Say it isn't so Virgil!!!
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Dec 7, 2015 19:49:12 GMT -5
Virgil is a hacker and a thief? Say it isn't so Virgil!!! Thems was my wild days.
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moon/Laura
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Post by moon/Laura on Dec 7, 2015 20:11:30 GMT -5
I have not read this thread, so it's very possible someone else has said what I'm going to; the thread title, in and of itself, is an oxymoron. There is nothing ethical about theft, no matter how you justify it to yourself.
Can I see situations where I might not blame someone for doing it? Sure, especially if it were somehow a life or death situation. That doesn't make it right though.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Dec 7, 2015 20:45:43 GMT -5
Yes you do, pay them the price they set. It made no sense to do so. By that logic, if their prices had been even more absurd and I'd stolen $18.5 million in notional value rather than $18.5K notional, the fair compensation would be $18.5 million. In this way, we can set the value of "freedom of choice" to any arbitrary number we want. That's our first clue that "robbing them of their freedom of choice" is an abstract form of harm; it becomes practical harm only when widely practiced and extended to many different situations. As I already stated, my intent at the time was to compensate for practical harm, and there was no practical harm to the developer. You are the only one that benefitted. Not true. The developer didn't as benefit as much as they could have, but they did benefit. They came out of the situation $180.00 richer than if I'd decided not to steal. You can argue that they in fact suffered a $17,820.00 loss, but the immutable fact of the matter is that had I not elected to steal, I'd have walked away. They'd have got nothing from me. The $18K is a fiction. No reality exists in which they'd have made that money. If you want, when the citizens of the town settled there they agreed to abide by the local laws, hence pay the taxes levied by the town council. By the same token you settled into that game and agreed to follow the developer's laws. I'm pretty sure you accepted terms and conditions to that effect to play. Then you broke the contract. This particular game didn't have an EULA, but I'll grant you there was an implicit "contract" requiring that users not hack the game. Your argument is actually a variation on Peace Of Mind 's "didn't conform to the acceptable standards of normal business operations" avenue of attack above. "It breaks an implicit contract" is the second most direct way of attacking the theft as unethical. The flaw in the argument is that "breaking a contract" is so general that we can't reasonably judge it to be categorically harmful. Our society--any society--is littered with contracts, many of which we have no choice but to accept. We can't come to a rolling stop at stop signs, we can't legally speed to get our pregnant wife to the hospital, we can't smoke marijuana in our homes, we can't repost images on this board without the creator's permission, we can't jaywalk, we can't idle in a store parking lot for a few minutes, we can't burn our favourite MP3s to a CD to listen in the car. There are several good articles online about how many laws the average citizen breaks in a day. It's no small number. Why are we not all going mad with guilt? Because it behooves us to evaluate on a case-by-case basis whether the laws, contracts, implicit agreements, etc. we break are the cause of any practical harm, and for the vast majority of these we conclude "no". Plainly we see that "breaking an implicit contract" is too broad a category to label either 'ethical' or 'unethical'. By extension, we can't conclude that the theft was unethical simply because I broke the implicit "do not hack this game" contract. The proof needs to be far more rigorous.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Dec 7, 2015 20:46:50 GMT -5
I have not read this thread, so it's very possible someone else has said what I'm going to; the thread title, in and of itself, is an oxymoron. There is nothing ethical about theft, no matter how you justify it to yourself. Can I see situations where I might not blame someone for doing it? Sure, especially if it were somehow a life or death situation. That doesn't make it right though. See Reply #65 (halfway through) for my constrained definition of "ethical".
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2015 20:54:47 GMT -5
Yes we can. If most reasonable people agree the action is harmful we can reasonably judge it to be categorically harmful. Barring the availability of reasonable people we will say that if most YMAMers agree, then it is deemed to be harmful. You have been found guilt by a dozen of your peers. Well, fellow posters. Same thing.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2015 20:57:17 GMT -5
I think I could make a solid case that you have.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Dec 7, 2015 21:14:32 GMT -5
If most reasonable people agree the action is harmful we can reasonably judge it to be categorically harmful. Absolutely not true. This is actually one of the canonical logical fallacies listed by most online resources on rationalism. I can't recall if there's an accepted name for it. Yes we can. If most reasonable people agree the action is harmful we can reasonably judge it to be categorically harmful. Barring the availability of reasonable people we will say that if most YMAMers agree, then it is deemed to be harmful. You have been found guilt by a dozen of your peers. Well, fellow posters. Same thing. I've been found guilty of committing an immoral action, and I agree with the judgment. See Reply #65 again for why that's not what this thread is about. I think I could make a solid case that you have. I felt guilty after committing the theft because I realized it was immoral and that I'd broken my moral code. I've admitted that.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 7, 2015 21:24:49 GMT -5
Virgil everyone else agrees that what you did was unethical. You are not fooling anyone by just saying "no it wasn't". Except TG but I've always kinda suspected he has a crush on you so he doesn't count.
It's the going mad part I really think I have a case for.
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mmhmm
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Post by mmhmm on Dec 7, 2015 21:34:00 GMT -5
Virgil everyone else agrees that what you did was unethical. You are not fooling anyone by just saying "no it wasn't". Except TG but I've always kinda suspected he has a crush on you so he doesn't count. It's the going mad part I really think I have a case for. Virgil (apparently now known as the New and Improved OED) has redefined ethical for us.
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copperboxes
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Post by copperboxes on Dec 7, 2015 22:04:55 GMT -5
It is not you or Virgil's place to decide if the developer would want the $10 or not. There are any number of reasons the developer would say pay the full amount or don't play at all. You can't justify it because it is not your decision to make. Sure it was. I made it. It was easy. Hypothetically, suppose I don't give a crap about the Ten Commandments and I don't give a crap about what you think is or isn't my decision to make unless you can prove to me that I'm causing harm to somebody else. Argue on that basis.
So to me, if something is both against the law and I made a personal agreement, I am not going to unilaterally override those standards saying that my judgements are fair and correct. The challenge is particularly great for so-called "high Mach" individuals, who reject the conventional wisdom that individuals acting mainly out of self-interest is a bad thing (i.e. is inherently unethical).There are individuals who believe that if you can cheat, you cheat, because not only does it reward ingenuity, it prompts game developers to build improved, cheat-proof games. If you can pay half price for a game and the developer still makes a profit, pay half price for the game and everyone wins. If you can rig an election to ensure a superior candidate gets in, rig the election and you've benefited everyone. It's a very "ends justify the means" attitude, and you'd be surprised at how common it is. Based on your clarification, I think one of the simplest ways to prove to a "high mach" individual that something is harmful, is to ask "would you want it done to you?" If a high mach individual would not want an action done to them, they clearly feel it that the action would be harmful to them. Their refusal to accept a condition of turnabout is acknowledgment of harm in their action. Well, or proof of hubris, I suppose. It is not always possible to convince people no matter what words are said though. Logic can be heard, but it can still be totally ignored and refused anyway. That's fine. But I doubt it is possible to convince everyone in all cases using logic. Emotions are usually the strongest base for arguments, from what I can tell.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Dec 7, 2015 22:13:57 GMT -5
If a high mach individual would not want an action done to them, they clearly feel it that the action would be harmful to them. That's just the thing. A high-Mach individual would claim they deserved to be hacked for leaving vulnerabilities in their software. They deserved to have their defenses probed by provoking their user base with unreasonable prices. It is not always possible to convince people no matter what words are said though. Logic can be heard, but it can still be totally ignored and refused anyway. Indeed. No need to convince me of that.
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Virgil Showlion
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Post by Virgil Showlion on Dec 7, 2015 22:24:47 GMT -5
It's the going mad part I really think I have a case for. You sound just like that know-it-all snow leopard that's always hanging around my house and telling me what people really think of me.
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