4d ago

An ethics professor at Cambridge talks about teaching ethics in 2025

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Even if all morality is subjective or inter-subjective I have some very strong opinions about tabs vs spaces
- Morality is, and always has been, built entirely upon empathy. Understanding how someone else feels and considering the greater implications beyond yourself is the fundamental building block to living a moral life. If you're willing to condemn the world to your shitty code just because the tab key is quicker, you're a selfish monster who deserves hyponichial splinters. See also: double spaces after a period.
  
  Morality is, and always has been, built entirely upon empathy. Understanding how someone else feels and considering the greater implications beyond yourself is the fundamental building block to living a moral life.
  Stoning people to death for mixing fabrics was based on morality too.
  
  Who did that? Jewish people who wore mixed fabrics were unclean and had to cleanse themselves. Who murdered people for that?
  
  Oh no, my half remembered example of overly violent reactions to breaking moral traditions might not be literally accurate!
  Did religions include extremely harsh punishments for breaking moral codes? Yes. That is the point even if the details aren't exactly right.
  
  You can hold to an ethical code while breaking your moral code. This seems to be an example of that, and my frustration with ethics codes of many professional societies/organizations. You can be entirely ethical yet still spend your life crating efficient life ending tools.
  
  Nah, the probibitions against mixed fabrics, and who can be considered holy, and how to pray and to whom, all of those are edicts designed to exert control. It has nothing to do with morality.
  
  The correct answer is to map tab to spaces in your IDE.
  
  My morality is built on furtherment of mankind technologically, with weights assigned to satisfaction and an aversion to harm. Here are some examples on how to apply this logically and without any emotion, empathy included:
  It's kind of like not really believing in human rights but supporting them anyways because the people who oppose human rights are destructive and inefficient.
  Humans are animals. We must act according to our basic wants and needs in a way that maximizes our satisfaction, or else we are acting against our own nature. However, we must do this in a way that causes no harm, or we have failed as a collective species.
  Diversity is a must because exclusivity is a system which consistently fails every time is has ever been tested.
  The death penalty is taboo not because life is sacred but because one person deciding the importance of another's life is intellectually bankrupt and only leads to a spiral of violence.
  All life is meaningless, full stop, which gives us the right to assign whatever meaning we like, and having more technology, with equal control over it by each individual person, gives us the collective power to make more choices.
  I will not be taking any questions, meatbags
  
  So, empathy like I said.
  Why do you value the technological advancement of the human race? How do you determine what is advancement, and what is regression?
  Why place emphasis on satisfaction and aversion to harm? How do you determine the relative levels of satisfaction and harm except through empathy?
  
  I apologize for breaking your comment down into quotes.
  So, empathy like I said.
  Incorrect, it can be entirely selfish and rational, because helping others also helps you.
  Why do you value the technological advancement of the human race? How do you determine what is advancement, and what is regression?
  I thought I explained that pretty well. Life has the meaning we choose, technology gives more choices.
  Why place emphasis on satisfaction and aversion to harm? How do you determine the relative levels of satisfaction and harm except through empathy?
  I also explained that. It's the most efficient method. It is the time-proven way to accomplish the goal of furtherment of technology, and satisfaction is also our primary motive as animals. All methods which fail this simple test, whether or not they avert harm for others, inevitably fail on a societal level. How we measure it, satisfaction and harm, is by actually measuring it via communication. Humanity has developed means of quantifying happiness and wellbeing, of assessing the wants and needs of individuals and society as a whole.
  I feel like I'm just repeating myself.
  
  This is gonna get out of hand.
- People who use tabs are monsters
  
  Tabs are the one true way! All those who blaspheme against the might tab will be regex'd into compliance.
  
  <overly dramatic threat of violence here>
  
  Vertical or horizontal tabs? And I don't mean browser tabs.
- Tabs. F alignment for aesthetic purposes
- My heart goes out to those who suffer with poor editors where this is a problem. I do empathize with them. It’s important to love others and help. That’s the code for my life: love others. Except vim users. Straight to jail.
- As I have learned today: "tabstospaces": true

221 comments