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Yet the true mental adolescence and gymnastics through this post is the abject failure to furnish even one example of a business which can be considered ethical, instead choosing to believe the false notion we can live, work and shop without consequence.


Maybe you’re missing the point. This is like having a conversation with a nihilist. Yes objectively there is no meaning in the universe. It’s all made up. Now what? We have to move on from that. We live in fictions and narratives that are useful for our success. Just calling everything unethical isn’t useful beyond a dorm room mental exercise.


Why does recognizing cruelty and injustice the world have to be "useful"?


I don’t think it does! But you shouldn’t be surprised when people are operating under a different framework when engaging with the world. And discussions won’t go anywhere trying to get different conclusions out of different starting points and motives. 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.

Not to mention it’s absurd a conversation this long hasn’t pointed out the relativity of ethical judgments or event attempted to define what ethical even means.


> Not to mention it’s absurd a conversation this long hasn’t pointed out the relativity of ethical judgments or event attempted to define what ethical even means.

I did, but GP dodged it by switching to ad hominem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38960797


I don't think you know what "ad hominem" means, which somewhat accounts for the difficulty you'd had following this thread.


> 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.


I can’t be bothered to look back up the convo tree. But I remember you saying or implying all commercial activity is unethical and refusing to discuss alternatives among other comments with similar thrust. Other people are trying to do comparative ethics and you’re not playing the same game so makes me wonder what you’re trying to accomplish with short comment bombs.

It’s like you’re walking onto a baseball field trying to play football. You should either surrender the field or undertake a much more in depth education session on the rules of the game you want to switch to. Else it’s just madness.




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