alt Hacker News > it's not out of principle.
I'd certainly rather things be done out of principle, but depending on what question you're concerned with that might not matter. There's also a clear hierarchy, but motivations are distinct from effect. The inverse of this is that lots of harm has happened from people with the best of motivations. I'd wager most evil in the world is created by men who would see themselves as good.
With Zuckerberg I think it isn't too hard. Clearly this is a business move, not a moral one. The motivation is wrong, BUT the effect is good. I think more open source models is better for the world. Closed source is also a business move and limits innovation as well as prevents people from interrogating safety. But there's valid arguments on either end.
My point more is that we can be nuanced. We should be nuanced. The world isn't black and white. The people making these decisions are neither demons nor gods and shouldn't be treated as such. My biggest fear is that if we resort to criticizing no matter what then those in power will just learn to ignore us. If they can do no good and only do wrong then there's no reason for them to do good (besides morals, but let's not pretend that's enough, even if it should be)
Replies
> those in power will just learn to ignore us.
This has already been the case for at least my whole lifetime. So no, I don't feel like praising them when they do one seemingly "good" thing, while simultaneously doing 99 "bad" things.
There's a bunch of influencers who go help struggling people. I'm certain the majority of them aren't doing it out of principle, but at the end of the day people still get helped.
I don't know for sure, but I suspect it's like a lot of other things on the internet, with a bimodal distribution between people who get helped a lot ('Sir Hype surprises homeless former billionaire with a MILLION DOLLARS!') with many other similarly deserving people getting nothing. I prefer systems with a lot of people who get helped sufficiently to avoid hitting rock bottom in the first place.
Besides the fact that these undertakings are about promoting the benefactor (and the near certainty that some of these professional philanthropists will later turn out to devils LARPing as angels), it also makes the determination of moral worthiness turn on the public's fickle opinion about whether the recipient is sufficiently beautiful/ ugly/ unlucky/ desperate/ degraded enough to qualify. Charitable undertakings involving cameras are always a bit suspect.