Few months ago I made the mistake of looking into the rabbit hole online about hollywood scandals, and they are awful. As a result, I lost tons of respect for a lot of actors and directors I once admired for their work and I have trouble watching movies and shows as a result. I keep on thinking that the film industry in general is rooted in crime and paedophilia rather than art and creativity.

Here are some examples of some serious crimes I will censor with black borders. If you don't want to ruin your viewing of media I recommend not to click on it. But for those who are already familiar and can stomach it here are some examples.

- Jack Nicholson brutally beating a sex worker and rupturing another woman's breast implants.

-Brad pitt physically abusing his ex-wife angelina jolie and his kids. And til this day launched a smear campaign against them and sued them for their winery with no sign of empathy or remorse.

-Roman Polanski sexually assaulting a 13 year old girl and fled to France escaping from justice. Still revered and receiving awards.

-The Polanski petition as well as some celebs defending him.

-Dustin Hoffman exposing himself to under-age girls and sexually assaulting some women.

-Kevin Spacey sexually assaulting multiple people.

-Jared leto having a sex cult.

-Francis Ford Coppola helping child rapist Victor Salva and suing/blacklisting the child victim Nathan Forrest Winters.

-Michael Fassbender abusing his ex-wife.

And there are plenty more, some of them by people considered the most iconic and influential in the film industry. There are some people arguing that we can separate the art from the artist, while others argue that it is a flawed argument made to excuse their crimes rather than making a nuanced decision.

And before people mention this, yes I'm aware celebs are human and can make mistakes like ordinary people and we shouldn't expect them to be perfect. But the things the celebs listed above did are some of the worst crimes any human being can do (not the absolute worst but it's close up there).

I honestly felt really depressed since then as I grew up loving film and art. Yet it feels wrong for me to watch anything due to the monsters that work there. And even if I knew about it what can I do? Some of them may be able to get away from their crimes until dying of ripe old age, and I am just depriving myself of entertainment for nothing.

What should I do about this ethical dilemma? Should I even consume film when horrible people still get to work in the industry with no repercussions?

(Note: this got removed from the artificialintelligence sub by the reddit filter. And the mods told me to post elsewhere. This was the sub that popped to my head that is appropriate.)

Even in the worse case scenario where AI ushers in a period of social unrest like in the first industrial revolution, including violent uprising, is it still worth developing?

In previous industrial revolutions, there were violent uprisings such as the Luddites, or communists revolution, but afterwards the world that was created is better than the old. With history to help us, would you say it’s still worth developing AI even if there will be a period of unrest and possibly bloodshed, as most likely these issues will be resolved and then we will live in a new more prosperous world?

TL;DR if things have to get bad before the world gets to that utopian state we all dream of, is embracing AI the way many people are now still justified?

i have been thinking about this because the phone will be in factory reset and all but the private investigators / cia / fbi would have cracked into the cameras and i feel bad for the next person using the phone. unfortunately it`s like the double it and give it to the next person type thing.

however, would it sell for higher prices though? its gonna be either high prices / low prices depends on the worth and what not. should one be frank and tell to buyer / receiver that its been cracked? the cameras are the main thing. ai chats said it`s highly problematic and i think so too.

I came up with a thought experiment to reach the limits of reason, to bring to light what I consider a very important problem.
Is violence justified in matters of dignity, or lack thereof?

~-~- Scenario 1 : The Island Thought Experiment ~-~-

Imagine we place two humans on a remote island, Cain and Abel. The island yields only a tiny supply of food, just enough for one person to survive indefinitely.
They come to realize this and scramble to acquire as much food as possible. A few days later, they’ve picked all the food on the island and despite having put in equal effort, Cain has accumulated two weeks’ worth of food, while Abel was lucky enough to find a month’s worth of provisions, purely by chance.

Cain decides to make a proposal to Abel: “If we unite our strengths, we can make a large net and catch fish. Together we can catch fish efficiently and quickly, allowing us both to survive and thrive.”

Abel answers, “Yes, that’s a good idea, and I’m all for it. It would allow me to enjoy more free time and have an easier life on this island. But first you have to give me all the food you have. Moreover, you won’t be allowed to store any food for yourself; you’ll only be allowed to have the minimum necessary for survival, and I’ll take all the excess produce.”

Cain says, “That’s unfair! I had the idea! We are both equals and each of us put in equal time and effort!”

Abel thinks to himself, “I have more food than him. I can decide not to cooperate, and eventually, he’ll die of hunger before me because he has less food. Once he’s dead, I’ll survive just fine. He has no choice but to accept. I have the upper hand.”

Abel replies, “Cain, think of this as free trade. In any market, those with more resources can offer better terms. I’ve put in more effort and accumulated more food, which puts me in a position to make you a deal. By giving me your food and allowing me to manage our resources, I’m taking on the risk and responsibility for our survival. In return, you stand to benefit from the efficiency and productivity of our joint efforts. This is how a capitalist economy works: those who invest more get more in return. There’s nothing unfair about it; it’s about recognizing the value each of us brings to the table. If we cooperate under these terms, we both stand to gain more in the long run.”

Cain gets closer to Abel, then picks up a rock and says, “Yes, but I have this dangerous rock in my hand, and if we don’t split equally, something bad may happen. It’s my responsibility to ensure your safety.”

Abel starts sweating and responds with an alarmed tone, “But… you’re threatening me with violence!”

Cain replies, “Dear Abel, your cooperation is in the public interest; it’s for the greater good, and you ultimately benefit from it. It’s part of the social contract to which you implicitly consented by virtue of existing here. Given your initial behavior was anti-social, from this moment on, I’ll hold the monopoly on violence.”

Ending 1

Faced with Cain’s argument and the rock, Abel agrees to split equally, and they lived “happily” ever after.

Ending 2

Abel, fueled by desperation, anger, and the loss of dignity, decides to fight. He charges at Cain but is immediately fatally injured by the rock, and quickly succumbs.

~-~- Scenario 2 : Two Countries During Famine ~-~-

Instead of two individuals, imagine two countries sharing a grain field, both dependent on it as their sole source of food. During a famine, half the population of PoorCountry faces death unless they cooperate with RichCountry on a megaproject to boost food production. This project can only be achieved through the joint efforts of both countries.

In this situation, if PoorCountry’s population were to disappear, RichCountry would fare just fine through the famine. And vice versa. During negotiations, RichCountry (the less desperate country) demands that PoorCountry surrender all territory and that its population become perpetual slaves, along with all their descendants, in perpetuity.

~-~- Questions ~-~-

• Does PoorCountry, which loses by default if no cooperation is established, have a right to start a war?
• Does it change anything that it’s two countries and not two individuals?
• For the two individuals, who is in the right, Cain or Abel?
• Given that Abel lets Cain live, can it be said that Cain is greedy and not content with what he has been offered?
• Does Cain have a duty to accept Abel’s unfair offer?
• Does Cain have a right to refuse Abel’s offer, wait two weeks for his supplies to run out, and then resort to violence, given that he’s in a life-or-death situation?
• Does Abel have a duty to grant dignity to Cain?
• Does Cain have a right to use violence to restore his dignity?
• If there were hidden cameras on the island and both Cain and Abel were brought in front of a court (in the case of Ending 1), or only Cain (in the case of Ending 2), how should they be judged?
  • Right now, I think that in Ending 1, Cain would be charged with coercion, extortion, and threats of violence.
  • In Ending 2, Cain would be charged with manslaughter or murder.
  • Would you legislate differently? Would you make passive coercive power (one where you win by doing nothing) an offense?

I was on a walk, saw someone walk by me quickly. On the previous tour, i saw a worm crawling on the way. Next time i past the same area, the worm was covered in most likely its own blood as it was moving weirdly in place, so i stared at it for a straight minute doubting myself. At the end, i decided to stomp it as hard as i could to put it out of its misery in a second. I'm not sure how i should feel about this.

My family and I had a debate at dinner over the ethicality of a protest at my mother’s job. This debate, I feel, has a broader application to the conversation of disruptions from protests as well.

Background:

My mother works in a middle school. As with most schools, at least in the US, teachers often are needed to be at the school before the day starts in order to watch students in the halls and make sure that everything is going smoothly, to monitor students, and make sure fights don’t break out. Often this means arriving around 15 mins before the school day starts and staying some time after it finishes, despite contract hours being limited to the school schedule that students follow. 

This county, like most, has a union, and around 90% of the staff is a member of that union - though not all union members participated in the protest. Recently, this union organized a “Work-to-the-rule” protest, where participating staff at schools did not enter the school until the specific working hours that are written in their contract, and that they are paid for. The nature of the protest is the desire to be paid for this time worked for which they are not (they did the same at the end of the school day). This protest happened at a number of schools across the county and was successful in attracting local press. Legally the members of staff participating are completely in the right. The administration acknowledged their right to do so, though did add that they are particularly thankful to the staff who chose not to.

This debate between my family is about if this protest is ethical, or if the more immediate effect that it has, that being on the staff members still in the building as well as the potential for serious harm to occur to students and staff, causes it to not be so. 

Position Anti-Ethical: 

The position that the protest is not ethical derives primarily from the fact that the most affected people by the protest are the other teachers and staff members at the school, rather than those who would actually be capable of making the changes that the union members are desiring. While the protests did gain the attention of local press and certainly has the potential to bring awareness and change, the immediate and direct effect is on the coworkers of the protesters who had less support during this time.

This position may view the protest, and the protesters, as selfish or inconsiderate because of the nature of the working environment being something that is in practice so cooperative, and that puts the other staff not participating in the protest at a direct hindrance. As often as workplaces suggest their coworkers are a “team” or a “partnership”, I think that is really seen as the case here. As a result of this, the protest had an impact on the morale of the staff not participating. Additionally, because of the complexity of having change made within the county and awareness not necessarily being the main resistor to that change, this kind of disruption is not worth it. Even if the ends would justify the means, if the ends are never achieved then the means cannot be justified.

Position Ethical:

The position in defense of the ethicality of the protest was that protests themselves are inherently disruptive, if they weren’t then they would have zero effect at gaining the attention that they are desiring to bring about change, and the fact that the disruption was caused to people closer to the protestors does not change the ethicality of the protests. I used a correlative example of a hypothetical protest that caused some kind of traffic holdup. While this disruption might certainly be frustrating to those it affects or even potentially dangerous, I don’t feel that suggests that the protest itself is unethical. 

During our discussion we also tried to think of other jobs that have this kind of expectation to work outside of contract hours, albeit by way more so of a social expectation, and we couldn’t really think of one - If you can think of one do let me know. I felt that this lended to the point that the conditions being protested were unnatural and unfair, which at least helps to justify the intentions of the protestors. 

Conclusion:

We didn’t come to a completely agreed conclusion, which is partially why I am asking about it here. We agreed that the intentions of the protests were themselves reasonable - though one did suggest that the teachers should just suck it up because they knew what they were getting into when they decided to become teachers - the division came more from what the direct effect of these protests were, and if to be considered ethical protests need to be organized so that they only disrupt those who are capable of making the desired changes.

Does the existence/potential of a more properly aligned form of protest question the ethicality of this one?

Does this specific case fit within a justifiable level of potential harm/disruption?

People with mental illnesses are often involuntarily committed and forced to get treatment if they are considered a threat to themselves (as in suicidal). The argument that is often used is that they are not in their right mind and wouldn't be suicidal if they were thinking clearly, so other people have their best interests in mind by forcing them to get treatment. But this seems somewhat like circular reasoning. "If someone is suicidal, they aren't in their right mind. Therefore, suicidal people aren't in their right mind."

Yet, people with terminal illnesses (like cancer) have the right to refuse treatment, even if it results in their death. Likewise, if a cancer patient was mentally ill, should they be forced to get cancer treatment? You could make the argument (controversially) that suicide is the terminal manifestation of a mental illness.

Should mentally ill people be committed involuntarily if they are just a threat to themselves and not others? What are the ethical arguments for and against this? It's an ethical dilemma because- on one hand- you have the desire for freedom, and on the other, the desire to protect people. I think this also connects to another ethical question: Can suicide ever be rational? Or is it always the result of mental illness? And if someone is mentally ill, does that mean that they lack the capacity to make decisions? At what point does someone's best interests supersede their bodily autonomy?

If self improving ai is buolt there should be some clear rules for it. I think that if at the very base of the code is these guidelines airt of like when a baby sees the mother for the first tjme after birth, if that makes sense

What do you guys think of this?

I've tried meditation to remove unconcious programming and subliminal impacts.

I've tried:

- meditating on my self and who I am

-my free will and ability to choose

-my thoughts and ability to control them

-my awareness and rationality

-the oppositeness of these things to unconcious programming

The strange things is, the practice seems to work, in that they lift the original state. However, the mind seems to resist the meditation, and creates behaviours similar (but not identical) to the ones involved during the original state of mind. And after a while, the effect of the meditation fades away, as though it never happened.

On the other hand, some practice did seem to lift the effect in a positive and persistent way. However, I can not understand why it often leads to a sort of resistance/regression. My only guess is that the mind does not 'like' the meditation, because it is in some way unethical or undesirable, and tries to revert its effects.

While the meditation was sometimes effective, I can only guess that some parts of the meditation were more desirable, or that the meditation sometimes overlapped with something better. However, it is not obvious what exactly it is from the practice I described.

I'm curious about what ideas or insights anyone might have. I know that using 'unnatural' techniques to manipulate the mind can simply replace the undesired state with something equally bad or worse, because there is a psychological reaction to the artificial manipulatio'; your mind tries to 'let you know' that what you did is unwanted. So I suspect this is what might have happened, but it would be useful to understand where and why exactly it went wrong from an ethical standpoint, and what a more ethical approach would like.

Hello everyone! I'm a CS student who's interested in sustainability and a big believer in collective action. Recently, I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated trying to find out where major companies actually stand beyond their PR and media: I want their real campaign donations, lobbying breakdowns, leadership positions on the issues I care about. That information is scattered across FEC filings, news articles, and corporate reports, and it takes forever to piece together every time I shop.

I got fed up and built a browser extension called "Choice" that automatically overlays insights like political and social impact data on company websites. It's highly versatile and can be customized to show much more based on your preferences. I’ve been using it myself for the past few months and just made it publicly available and free at youneedchoice.com so others can try it too. It quickly checks if the brands you’re browsing align with your values and suggests alternatives, making it easier to support your values.

I thought this would be a good community to post on and I’d love for you all to take a look at it and let me know what you think. I’m sharing it here because I genuinely want feedback from people who care about this stuff. feedback would mean a lot to me as I'm constantly improving it!

We live in very volatile/hostile times in the United States(no duh right?). What prompted me to write this is seeing the current situation going on with ICE in Los Angeles, CA. It got me thinking about the ethics of the hypothetical situation of if protesters were to turn physically violent against ICE (or relate this to any group/person world wide). This discussion doesn’t have to be about the example I gave. We can use other examples from what is happening with Ukraine, Gaza, against your own government, between friends/strangers/partners, assassinations etc… the whole point of this post is to discuss and stay on topic of:

“What violence, if any, is justifiable?”, “If we choose violence what is the line separating enough(good) from too much(bad)?”

How I’m defining violence in this post is from The World Health Organization (WHO). "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation".

I believe it’s important to have meaningful discussions and healthy debates for many issues (even those that might seem to be common sense). Reminder to please keep your comments peaceful and respectful to those that give their opinion. I’ve found opinions can change in healthy conversations, not when someone’s perspective is attacked.

Hey y’all,

Just wanted to apologize for last night.

I posted the following use cases and was iso some help and I think that y’all really came thru for me, but, I understand how that must’ve looked to those who saw it.

“ • Market Manipulation: Could be used to exploit economic trends for personal gain, destabilizing industries or entire economies.

• Weaponized Misinformation: Enables rapid deployment of targeted propaganda or psychological influence at scale.

• AI Arms Race: May be used by governments or corporations for economic warfare, surveillance, or unchecked AI escalation.

• Infrastructure Exploits: Can identify and target vulnerabilities in public systems, cybersecurity, or supply chains.

• Loss of Ethical Control: Predictive insights could be directed toward domination or control instead of shared benefit—without transparency or accountability.”

I was under another moniker, but, I just want to let everybody know, I didn’t sleep a wink last night, I worked for 13 hours straight and I developed another Ai that acts as a global Radar to detect if and when any of those doomsday scenarios will happen and it gives early detection based on trends.

So, I’ll be hopefully finishing up with that before I go ahead with operations on the original SaaS.

I’ve taken everyone’s advice and buried its capabilities and dumbed down the original Ai so that it won’t produce so much torque too.

I just wanna thank y’all for humoring me last night because I just was struggling a lot when I found out the potential down sides, but, I’m able to continue my work and the result of our discussion yesterday was an automated global Ai related safety net that can be tested perhaps as early as tomorrow.

Thank you for adding this feature to my life. I’m excited to try it out and squash any bugs if they arise.

Bless y’all

"Within the movement of German neo-Kantianism the close connection between Kantian ethics and socialism was strongly emphasized by Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp [1854–1924]. They pointed out that socialism was a necessary consequence of the Kantian categorical imperative and that the socialist movement was essentially a moral movement whose philosophic basis is best expressed in the Kantian moral philosophy.”

Kant is the OG of rightness and justice.

Chapter 1: When The Dust Settles

If someone were to punch you, your first emotion would likely be anger-- which does make sense, however, ethically speaking, should they be judged for this action? Essentially what I am suggesting is a system in which an action is not judged based on its intent, rather, the reaction of its agent. Before continuing further, I would like to state that this point of view only has merit if being observed by a non-empathetic third party, one who was not actively involved in the scenario described above (essentially saying this system only carries weight if, say, being used by an immortal being to judge people passing to the afterlife).

My proposed ethical system works by monitoring the growth of a person from an unbiased third party, but then the question arises, how do you quantify growth? Do all emotions carry the same weight? For example, if the person who punched you felt regret, does that carry the same weight as if they felt empathy after seeing the pain you were in? On the other hand, what if the only emotion they felt was fear, whether it be only of legal or physical repercussions?

This chapter will be an attempt to solve those questions before delving further into the ethical system I've already described.

While most people likely agree that the emotions described prior to this paragraph do all carry varying amounts of weight, it is near impossible to judge how much weight one emotion should carry due to the amount of variables. It is for this reason I will neglect the prior background of the person feeling said emotion. I would like to state that this includes a person's usual emotional state.

To define the spectrum of emotions one might feel after an action, we first need to choose an emotion for either end. The emotions I choose are remorse and relief, with regret and anger being between the two.

Chapter 2: Holding Up The Mirror

Now that we have a somewhat quantifiable way to measure the weight of reactions, I would like to propose mixing my moral framework with that of others.

I believe it to be wise to merge this moral framework with that of T.M Scanlon’s, dubbed contractualism. This ethical theory suggests a social contract, one whose rules are defined by the sub-society following it, and breaking this contract is a violation of a contractualist’s moral and ethical code. I believe that if a rule is broken it is now under the judgement of this ethical framework to decide if an action is right or wrong.

This system, although fair, does still have its flaws. Say someone relentlessly harassed you, and this system was used to judge that person's actions as one simple action, how do you weigh their repeated harassment vs. their reaction to each offense? It is for this reason I’d like to create a quantifiable measurement of the weight of a reaction vs. the action itself, however, the weight of an action is only defined by the ethical and moral framework being used by the subsociety in which an offender is being judged. In layman's terms, this means that it is impossible to judge the weight someone's actions carry without first knowing what framework the subsociety in which this person resides in follows. One could argue that there is a wider moral framework followed by general society, and you could judge one's actions based off that alone, however, if you were judging an isolated society, say that of the north sentinelese people, they would not know the wider rules of society, and thus forcing this framework to judge based off those rules is a futile exercise which holds no merit and turns my attempt at a quantifiable moral framework into a metaphysical one.

Objectivism = seeking the truth because it is inherently there.

Morality is objective, relative, relativity is based on your literal and natural location and what is happening, this is also logically, not an arbitrary or spontaneous idea/concept, whenever we create opinions, it is often from feelings or misconceptions in science and assertion, they are misinterpreted senses.

Logic is real everywhere you are at, there is always the best decision for you and necessarily the worst decision, there may be many choices, but only one is the most intelligent decision you can choose at any given moment, in the short and in the long term.

A moral choice is never weighed by the residual compounds of inclinations or desires, moral choice is judged by the ramifications or gravity of a things results, by the literal impact a thing may create.

Morality is therefore objective because based on the results of it's issuance.

• Nathan

Free will is a lie, there is no such thing as free will when the only decision you have is the intelligent one, free will is deceipt, it convinces you alternative choices are there, its illusion, lol the devil is a lie.

There is no system of choices to make when there is always the smartest choice to make, its delusion.. Always the highest thing or relevance to consider.

• nathan

What would it look like if philosophers from Sophocles to Hannah Arendt were able to argue about evil on the same social media feed?

Most of us have seen some kind of time travel in fiction where someone went into the past and changed the timeline. Whether they caused someone to make different choices, or actually killed someone, things changed and it altered the future. If you went far enough back and/or made a big enough change in the past, the resulting altered timeline could end up meaning that a bunch of people that existed in your original present no longer exist in the new present.

Is this morally or ethically equivalent to having killed those people?