> _“If you allow it just because the vandals feel justified then what happens when others use the same excuse for causes you might not agree with so much?”_
Yup. That's the conundrum of civil disobedience and other forms of strictly illegal activism. It's not particular to this case, though — rather a generic philosophical question.
I'll go out on a limb and bet that _you_ disobey _some_ law(s) that some people (even _most_ people) are just 😉
You are probably right.
I have doubts because:
There's a gradient of unethical/illegal behaviours. eg, I once left a restaurant without paying the bill because I considered they were being too slow and I was annoyed. What I did was illegal, arguably immoral too. I “robbed” them of their private property (€€€). I was a “criminal” who should have been “found” and “prosecuted”. And still…
Yes: changing the law should always be strategy no. one. Still, civil disobedience is a thing. It's justified sometimes. It depends on the consequences, the importance of the cause, the likelihood of changing those laws, etc. This could (I say _could_) be justified. eg, I probably think that it's “fair” to deflate the tyres of a gigantic Hummer that you happen to know is used just to drive around the neighbourhood?
[I sympathise with the sentiment](https://pixelfed.de/p/tripu/257292372667404288), but:
1. Hybrids and electrics too? Sure, they _still_ pollute. But what doesn't!? Your bicycle pollutes. Electric cars pollute significantly less than equivalent dinosaur-juice-based ones. Electric cars are still quite expensive and some (many?) people make that effort out of concern for the environment. Do they (we) deserve to be punished, too?
1. Isn't this going too far? It's bordering on vandalism. One thing is to put a leaflet on the windscreen, or approach the a driver to start a conversation — a very different thing is to _completely disable a vehicle_. BTW, doesn't the recovery vehicle that will have to be summoned to tow the SUV pollute a ton, too?
1. This kind of actions across the board are always tricky: you just _don't know_ the owners of that car, nor their circumstances. I can think of a few scenarios where an SUV parked on a city street at a given point in time makes sense and is justified.
I just discovered this, and I'm quite conflicted about it:
To me, _subscribing_ isn't time-consuming. [I'm subscribed to many](https://tripu.info/podcasts.html), but at least half of them are disabled at any given point in time, and even among the ones that auto-update I manage to listen only to a handful. Apart from recommendations, to me the title and description (and the guest, if any) is all I need to decide whether to listen to or mark as played.
@torgo We use Snyk at work. Good luck and enjoy it!
Curious about the inner workings of the @w3c? Interested in [their job openings](https://www.w3.org/Consortium/Recruitment/)? Willing to join their broad community, either as a member company or as an individual contributor?
My ex-colleague @koalie has written a great intro for the world:
What alternative do you favour?
The master/slave metaphor seems very apt, and it's extremely unlikely that an actual human slave would ever encounter that error message (and if one of them does: I bet the tone of the copy and the quality of the UX of a British online bank is the least of their problems).
@koalie it's quite good!
tripu
boosted
🇳🇱
I respect your point of view. I guess our experiences are quite different.
I just meant that a healthy human society with safety nets and individual rights can exist without any calls to love or to those super-altruistic feelings you seem to invoke.
People help and protect each other and do the right thing for many reasons: basic human decency, fear of the law, fear to be criticised or ostracised if they dodge their responsibility, because they anticipate reciprocity in the future, to earn status or money within the group, etc.
Again, I think a morality that expects or commands people to love strangers would be wrong. Almost no-one does that in practice, and for good reasons. That's not to say we can't make moral progress and be kind to one another.
You are right: I “have never had to live in the wild[er]ness where groups of people are required to take turns to protect the rest”. But I'm interested in ethics for the 21st Century and beyond — not in the kind of constraints and evolutionary challenges our ancestors faced in the past.
Still, I have scuba-dived (always in pairs), sky-dived (strapped to an instructor), mountain-climbed (both as leader and as belayer), and rode motorbikes with friends. I literally put my life in the hands of other people (often complete strangers), and occasionally even had their lives in mine. We all survived.
None of that required “love” or any other feeling, and not even counting their lives as equally valuable as mine. I didn't love those people, and they didn't love me. In most occasions, money was exchanged, and a contract was signed.
If a dangerous animal had attacked, or a boulder had fallen upon us, I would not have sheltered my peer with my own body, or sacrifice myself so that they could survive. And I know they would act in the same way.
More mundane: I trust lots of men with my security each and every day, and some of them risk their lives (drivers, policemen, soldiers, etc). No love needed.
That rule is about feelings, and I think moral theories should not prescribe feelings — only actions.
And if we translated that rule from sentiment into action, I suspect it would be abhorrent: I think a world where we valued our own life and well-being and the life and well-being of a random stranger the same would be a disaster.
Reading #Dynomight explaining #DerekParfit I realise that just as #liberalism/#libertarianism is the most inclusive political/economic system because it allows for other orders to emerge within it, #consequentialism may be the most inclusive moral theory because it may contain other systems just by redefining what a “good outcome” is.
That is:
A group of free individuals (liberalism) may enter voluntary agreements and commit to redistributing their wealth (socialism), transferring all power to a certain person (autocracy), abiding by rules decided by the majority (democracy), etc.
A consequentialist, in its narrowest definition, is free to conclude that the best possible outcome is one in which they and their special ones enjoy the best of life (egoism), one where certain rules are obeyed most strictly (deontology), one where all actions align perfectly with the word of god (theological voluntarism), etc. — and to act accordingly.
Useful taxonomy of moral theories (#DerekParfit via #Dynomight)
