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Comment by herbstein | Hacker News Reader

I'm just starting my 6th (and last) semester of my bachelor degree. During the semester we are exploring the ethics and morality of the modern computing evolution. The exploration includes the difference between publishers and editors, going back to basics of the "what and why" of privacy, and how companies exploit our (lack of) privacy to gain further growth.

Unfortunately it's a course a lot of my classmates have expressed disdain for. To them it sounds more like a "gender-studies course" (their words) than a course for "super serious no-bullshit smart people" (my interpretation). I'm hoping the readings will have them reconsider and realize how important considering the ethical implications of their programs.

As an example: a friend and a classmate works for $bigcorp. He had an idea for an employee engagement system. The idea was that every employee had a digital avatar that follows them around on the premises. So (as an example) when they go to the coffee machine their avatar high-fives the avatar of another person who's also getting coffee. This, as you can imagine, requires tracking the movement of employees to a fairly high degree. The project got two months into development before the "right" person heard about it, raised a fuzz, and got the project cancelled.

Neither my friend nor my other classmates see the problem with the precise tracking of the every move of every employee - that scares me a lot.

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I took one of those courses; it wasn't intellectually stimulating and it felt like a condescending, corporate-mandated seminar. Even the professor was just going through the motions. But it doesn't have to be that way, that's just how it tends to play out.

What we need are not "ethics in tech" courses, but for people in tech to get more exposure to general humanities education. Require everyone getting a degree at your university - computer science majors included - to read and discuss classic literature, history, and philosophy. Exercise the parts of their brain that deal with questions whose answers can't be reduced to code. Ethics cannot be covered by a pamphlet of tech-specific rules; to act ethically, a person needs perspective on human nature and on what it means to be a member of society.

> Require everyone - computer science majors included - to read and discuss classic literature, history, and philosophy.

These books/things taught me nothing (nil) about ethics - they are about questions that were relevant centuries ago.

On the other hand: good hard science-fiction literature sometimes is able to teach you one or two relevant things - even though I admit that ratio "text-to-read" to "important lessons learned" is rather low (i.e. you have to read immense amounts to get few important lessons). Because I love science-fiction, this is rather unimportant to me, but for people who follow my advice and now start to read science-fiction literature to learn some ethics lessons will be deeply disappointed if they have no deep love for the science-fiction genre.

I won't say science-fiction never has substantive ethical content, but one definitely needs more than that.

> they are about questions that were relevant centuries ago

It's clear you're missing the point: ethics that are specific to a given technology, or even a specific social structure, are of limited value. If a person's moral system is going to be rich enough to apply itself to new technologies and situations that nobody has ever faced before, one needs a broad perspective on the human condition. A deeper understanding of right and wrong and the in-between.

Civilization was very different centuries ago, but people were not.

I think a beneficial course would be one where the students learn about the history of how controlling certain governments and malevolent agencies can be. History can tell us a lot about how bad it can get and the implications. People nowadays are forgetting the things that happened back in Russia under communist rule for example. We like to believe our information is in good hands and won't be used for nefarious purposes. We have forgotten how evil humans can be under certain circumstances.

> Civilization was very different centuries ago, but people were not.

Very different civilizations imply very different ethical questions that are relevant. I just say that the global (network) interconnectness brought a huge plethora of new ethical questions that were never relevant in the past - exactly because they were science-fiction at that time. That is why I mentioned science-fiction literature as far more relevant further above in the thread.

If you think they are about questions relevant centuries ago, I'd really like to know what you think the questions are.

Many of the "classics" of classic literature (no pun intended) talk about questions that are perpetually relevant, and the same goes for lots of things that fall under history and philosophy.

I don't debate there's a lot of garbage out there that falls under "it's old, so we'll teach it", but I can assure you that the vast majority does speak about relevant topics. And like in SF, the ones that endure are the ones that speak most clearly.

In general, all stories teach about empathy - how can I put myself in somebody else's shoes. If you found a better way to learn that via SF, more power to you. The classics are still relevant because they provide the foundation upon all this is built, and so they become important once you discuss things in a wider circle. (E.g. I might like fantasy, and not have a solid enough grounding in SF. We need to find some common ground. Via acclamation, the world has picked literature/history/philosophy as that common ground)

And so I'd encourage you to maybe go out and give some of it a try :)

If you care for recommendations: For philosophy, I recommend "What does it all mean" by Thomas Nagel. I don't have a great recommendation for History - I like "By Steppe, Desert and Ocean", but it's incomplete & somewhat eurocentric. True world history in a single book is probably asking a bit much. Same goes for literature, but even more so - it's really a matter of taste. I adore "The Master and Margarita", but beware, it's weird :) Grapes of Wrath is a moving and v. relevant one. The Illiad is spectacular, but I only know German translations, never read it in English.

I like this comment. What you're describing is essentially the Great Conversation, and there aren't enough participants. But, the door is always open!

> These books/things taught me nothing (nil) about ethics - they are about questions that were relevant centuries ago. / On the other hand: good hard science-fiction literature...

When I read these books, I learn nothing (nil) about ethics, they are about questions that are relevant centuries from now.

I kid.

More seriously though... the debate about whether a democracy should invade a country in order to ensure it's security while it's main enemy is a completely different country isn't a 21st century concern: the Athenians debated the same thing before invading Syracuse. What should the role of rich people be in a republic with vast wealth inequality and a rapidly urbanizing population during a time of increasing demagoguery and populism isn't just a concern in the 21st century US election for the office of President, it was also a concern in the 2nd century BC Roman election for the office of Tribune. We could come up with a new analysis about the trade-offs between a government of elected officials coming from the people and one consisting of specialized elites trained for the task, but Plato summarized the main arguments already in the Republic.

The list goes on. I would sum up saying there's nothing new under the sun, but someone already beat me to it[1].

[1] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes+1%...

Get everyone to read Daemon!

> “Or is it your reputation that's bothering you? But look at how soon we're all forgotten. The abyss of endless time that swallows it all. The emptiness of those applauding hands. The people who praise us; how capricious they are, how arbitrary. And the tiny region it takes place. The whole earth a point in space - and most of it uninhabited.”

> “Soon you’ll be ashes, or bones. A mere name, at most—and even that is just a sound, an echo. The things we want in life are empty, stale, and trivial. Dogs snarling at each other. Quarreling children—laughing and then bursting into tears a moment later. Trust, shame, justice, truth—“gone from the earth and only found in heaven.” Why are you still here? Sensory objects are shifting and unstable; our senses dim and easily deceived; the soul itself a decoction of the blood; fame in a world like this is worthless. —And so? Wait for it patiently—annihilation or metamorphosis. —And until that time comes—what? Honor and revere the gods, treat human beings as they deserve, be tolerant with others and strict with yourself. Remember, nothing belongs to you but your flesh and blood—and nothing else is under your control.”

― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Ethics is a field in philosophy. If you study that, you will learn about ethics. Or your professor really sucks, but it's not even hard to make a course in Ethics at least somewhat fun. The trolley problem writes itself..

Which universities allow computer science majors to skip classic literature, history, and philosophy? Every engineering program I'm familiar with requires at least 6 humanities courses.

Unfortunately, broadly required courses are often jokes designed to be passed by any warm body, filled with apathetic students, and often taught by someone who knows this.

With AP transfer, I only took 5 courses (1 psych, 2 phil, 2 econ). I found the psych to be a waste and the econ was not relevant to this humanity context. I actually found the philosophy to be really useful in this context, but discussions were sometimes a bore since just about nobody did the readings before class.

Most colleges in the US have a general education requirement for humanities classes. That includes classes involving classic literature.

Still, I wonder if either the quantity or the quality is too low.

My university was particularly known for its well-rounded, humanities-friendly culture. But in my own experience, I only had one humanities class that I really felt like I learned things in. It was titled "Great Texts" - we read excerpts from The Iliad, Augustine's Confessions, Nicomachean Ethics, Plato's Republic, and others along the same lines - and most of the course was spent having engaging, open discussions about the readings. It had a major impact on my inner life and I wish I'd had time to take some other classes like that.

My other "humanities courses" included:

- "Political Science" - rote memorization of how the United States' government works with very little analysis or discussion

- Psychology/Sociology, which were somewhat interesting but pretty straightforwardly scientific/memorization-heavy

In my experience, many of those requirements are waived or reduced in engineering and CS programs because of their significantly higher eng/CS course load. Not to mention those programs typically have a higher rate of students graduating in >4 years.

So yeah, you're technically right, but it's disappointing to see universities actively moving in the other direction. Of course, it still seems like university hires are woefully unprepared on day one, though I think many of us agree that 6-12 months of "real world" training for new hires is unavoidable.

My own anecdotal experience as a BA working in $BigTechCorp is that basic skills usually studied in the humanities are woefully lacking in many of my peers: writing/grammar, the ability to understand others' perspectives, and most of all ethics. The number of times I've had to say something like "uhhh, no, you can't do that, it's illegal" or explained to someone why maybe adding more telemetry to a client-side explanation may be controversial.

Anecdote: I went to a small private college in the Midwest (around 1,000 students or so) and CS majors like myself were indeed required to take humanities courses. For me this included a philosophy course, religion course, a course on female literature, a course on fictional literature, and three theatre arts courses. I attended for 2 years (transfer from a community college) and had an otherwise regular sized course load. I currently work at a $BigTechCorp.

Those classes at my uni you could get an a by signing your name. They were historically diluted to make them easy for people with difficult majors, and in the process lost most of their teaching value.

Do they teach people like Foucault?

I went to a university that required quite a bit of liberal arts education with the CS degree. I can't think of anything with a substantial relation to engineering ethics covered in those courses.

I don't mean that to be demeaning, but just the reality of what gets covered. I did take Intro to Philosophy (Can't say I learned anything new in it), but most courses were things like French Caribbean Literature, Art History, Civics, etc.

French Caribbean Literature sounds pretty specific, but you really don't think Civics has any relation to engineering ethics?

If you're working for the government, there are some relevant parts of the constitution, but otherwise the answer is basically no. At least, not in a single semester course giving a rough overview of how the government is supposed to work.

Maybe not if it's as simple as "how the government is supposed to work", but the general subject of Civics would have plenty to do with:

- How social media might affect democracy

- How AI surveillance could impact human rights

- The emergence of tech companies with the resources of nation-states

etc.

I mean, the answer is no, in that the course I actually took didn't cover any of that.

You're essentially creating a course you want taught. You can go look at the descriptions of some civics courses for non-majors. I don't think you're going to find much discussion of AI surveillance. They have to cram what they can into a semester or quarter.

But all that is very controversial and imbued with political bias. This is why CS ethics courses and the 'liberal arts' have a bad reputation: they claim to be teaching some sort of universal ethics but are actually just teaching left-wing propaganda.

For instance, from a libertarian perspective I'd argue:

- Social media makes democracy stronger because people can communicate more. There's little to say beyond that.

- AI surveillance is no different to surveillance powered by people, except cheaper. It has no real impact on anything beyond scale, which may make a practical difference but makes no fundamental difference to any arguments about surveillance. A much better question would be how cryptography affects surveillance and human rights, but very few ask that except the politicians and investigators it actually affects. This is because questions in the media about "AI" are almost always standard leftist anti-capitalism targeting tech firms whilst posing as something new. AI is merely a prop to start tired old conversations, not a real interest.

- "The emergence of tech firms with the resources of nation states" being the very next bullet after "AI" is just re-inforcing my point. You aren't interested in tech ethics. You want to debate capitalism itself, which universities and academics have wasted far too much time on over the centuries. The resulting "debates" have yielded no insight but lots of violence, subterfuge and general chaos.

It's also - like the other question - based on false premises. There are no tech firms with the resources of nation states. A very few might appear that way if you compare arbitrary and incomparable statistics like GDP vs market cap, but those don't measure the same thing. As a simple example showing how false this is, tech firms can't make law or raise an army, which even the tiniest and most useless nation states can and do.

However, good luck arguing any of these points in a paper required by such a course and not getting a fail grade. Universities are the absolute last places that should be trying to teach ethics.

> Social media makes democracy stronger because people can communicate more. There's little to say beyond that.

Except when the platform censors one side of the debate. Reminds me of The Joe Rogan podcast with Tim Pool and Twitter execs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbTXqrS9l5E

Yes, if social media displaces other forms of communication that were previously uncensored.

Don't get me wrong. I think Twitter's turn from "free speech makes us stronger" to censorious partisan prop is terrible, but, it could only be making people weaker if Twitter had completely replaced other forms of communication of the same scale that were less biased. I don't think that's really true. Before Twitter there were blogs, TV, radio, newspapers etc. All still exist and doing fine. Twitter and other sites have been additive.

I realize I am going off topic here. But

> It has no real impact on anything beyond scale, which may make a practical difference but makes no fundamental difference to any arguments about surveillance.

Scale makes a huge difference: The obvious example, discussing this on HN, is computers. Fundamentally, the massive network of computers making up the internet is no different from the original Zuse computer - both are just number crunching machines. But in the same way that AI surveillance will allow you to control everyone, not just a few individuals, the difference the scale makes is just so huge that the two aren't even remotely comparable.

Yes, it makes a practical difference but in an academic debate setting, arguments for or against pervasive surveillance are usually scale invariant. If it wasn't you could end up with arguments like this one:

"The USSR compiling detailed files on millions of citizens was not unethical because it was small scale, but Google compiling detailed files on billions of citizens is, because it's large scale."

or alternatively

"Surveilling terrorists is fine because there are very few of them, but CCTV to catch thieves in public places isn't because that's much larger scale."

These would be very odd and brittle arguments though. In fact I've never seen anyone make an argument like that. The tolerability of surveillance depends very much on context like who is doing it to whom and why, with scale being a pretty small aspect. When people debate surveillance it's always in the context of identities and purposes. But the notion that AI+surveillence is special ignores questions of who's the watcher, who's the watched and what the purpose of it all is to focus on the least important part of all: concrete cost to the watchers. After all communist regimes already demonstrated that you can scale mass surveillance up to huge levels without needing any technology at all, just ideology.

That's why I'm suggesting debates about AI in left-wing media are actually not about AI at all, that's just a way to restart the discussion about standard left-wing ideas and topics, like capitalism or sometimes identity politics. This article is an exemplar:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/13/the-gu...

In fairness, it does start by recognising that "big brother" is the primary user. But the thrust of the article is about private (ab)usage. It ends by saying:

Imagine a surveillance system that falsely identifies a black man from his face and then just as falsely attributes to him aggressive intent from his expression and the way he is standing.

Good points. Thanks.

I'm a philosophy grad student who is currently doing some data science classes. First, I think the connection might've been clearer if you had taken an intro ethics or political philosophy class. For instance, the free speech class for undergrads in my university has a session on issues like net neutrality and whether free speech on platforms like facebook should be limited.

And second, as someone else below mentioned, a lot of the more general and theoretical things you might pick up on humanities classes can be used as a lens to think about tech-related issues, even if the professor or readings haven't actually explicitly done that. (In fact, if none of the readings have done that, trying to do that might make for a good final paper --- it's something that's at least worth talking to the instructor about.)

If anyone here is looking for a good overview of 'the liberal arts', I cannot more highly suggest The Harvard Classics, specifically the 15-minute a day reading guide : https://www.myharvardclassics.com/categories/20120612_1

For example: Jan 23rd's reading is on Pascal and the art of persuasion:

"Pascal, the keen-minded philosopher and mathematician, fathomed the human traits of man's nature with the same accurate measurements which made him famous in the realm of geometry. Read his searching analysis of man's conceit."

Though the year's effort is not necessarily an ethics course, per se, the sum is a fantastic grounding in ethics (among many others). When I did the full year, I could not help but look up the authors and works in more detail on wikipedia and google. Delving in further, even for just another 15 minutes a day, really helped me 'suck out marrow' from the works. Especially since the guide was compiled at the end of the gilded age and before the wars and post-modern life, comparing it's view to today's is unavoidable and fascinating.

Part of 'ethics' is mulling things over a lot, and The Harvard Classics is one of the best jumping off points for that out there.

It's free, excellently curated, time tested, and quick.

I think "15 minutes a day" is an underestimate though. I just looked at Jan 1, and language has drifted enough since the time of Franklin that a casual reading would miss much of what he is talking about.

It's wishful thinking that the lab science credit requirements somehow teaches rigor and critical thinking skills through osmosis. It doesn't, people learn how to write a lab report and continue being the same dummies that walked into the room.

It's similar to wishful thinking to believe vague "humanities education" would impart any ethics.

And at least in the science labs you don't have to figure out whether or not your grade depends on how well your reports parrot the teacher's own options back at them.

> What we need are not "ethics in tech" courses, but for people in tech to get more exposure to general humanities education.

I took an extracurricular class in Ethics (in general), probably the most useful class I ever took.

We all agree that ethics matter, but would we really expect students to be more ethical after the class than they were before?

Take Mozilla's firing of Brendan Eich-- we had several massive debates here about it. One side was saying that companies should be able to expel leaders whose values don't align with the ones the company wants to advance. The other side was saying that a culture where you can be fired for advocating for the wrong political position is literal McCarthyism.

Would you expect an ethics class to do anything more than provide a forum for debates like these? Do you think anyone will actually change their view?

>Would you expect an ethics class to do anything more than provide a forum for debates like these? Do you think anyone will actually change their view?

I've been on the receiving end of several ethical issues and find that it is often less about ethics and more about tribal politics.

> The other side was saying that a culture where you can be fired for advocating for the wrong political position is literal McCarthyism.

So were the at-will laws that current exist discussed in extension to this or did that little detail just become the elephant in the room? Because political views are not a protected class, so their bad ending has already been here for a while. It strikes me as strange to treat that idea as a possible bad future when it's the actual present.

In California, where Mozilla is headquartered, political views are a protected class. It's not (in principle) legal for an employer to fire you for your off-the-clock political views.

Honestly, I think the most applicable courses to that situation are civics, logic, and law. Civics to make you realize how important it is to get the actual facts of the situation, logic to understand what they mean, and law for numerous applications of those two learnings.

In this case, the most relevant part is whether Eich was fired. As far as can be determined externally, he was not. Depending on your leanings, you may decide to believe (perhaps based on evidence, perhaps not) that what probably happened was morally equivalent to being fired -- but again, logic and law say that doesn't matter. If the law says you can't do X when condition Y holds, but Y is kind of blurry and hard to determine precisely, then all that means exactly nothing if you didn't do X.

Feel free to debate the legality or the ethics, but please don't get them mixed up.

On the contrary, respecting the intent of the law is a critical component of corporate ethics. If the people of California say that companies shouldn't control their employees' politics, but I don't like that rule so I find some loophole to do it anyway, I'm behaving unethically.

Isn't Google based there? It didn't work out that way for James Damore.

Without diving into the substance of Damore's views, note the "off-the-clock" caveat.

> Would you expect an ethics class to do anything more than provide a forum for debates like these?

No, not really. That's kind of the point of ethics classes - to debate our ideas of "good" and "evil", to make people think for themselves, and to alert them to the fact that the questions exist in the first place.

It isn’t literal McCarthyism. Literal McCarthyism would be some within the ruling party making accusations of treason towards someone at a company advocating for the wrong political position, leading to them being black balled. A culture where you can be fired for advocating for the wrong political position, without the interference of the government, is just one where public relations are given a high level of importance.

Except in this story the CEO wasn’t advocating for anything. He was also effectively blackballed as being a “gay hater”.

Was he blackballed as a result of being accused of treason by the government? If not, it’s not “literal McCarthyism”. It may be inspired by McCarthyist tactics, though.

Brendan Eich posted here that he was in fact blacklisted and could not get funding for his Brave start-up for several years.

The Hollywood blacklist was also maintained by companies and not the government. It really doesn't make a huge difference who's maintaining it, if enough employers / financiers ban employment / financing based on it.

Cory Doctorow refutes the idea that corporate censorship does not matter in their essay "Inaction is a form of action".

They don't see the problem because they haven't experienced the consequences of bad corporate environments. Some things you gotta experience on your own to truly appreciate. Everyone should have a really bad job at least once in their life.

As part of my 4 year Engineering degree we had to do a couple of these types of courses.

In first year there was a subject focused around class discussions I can remember each week we'd be given an issue we'd go and do research on the issue then we'd discuss it the next week in class. The lecturer would kind of guide us by asking leading questions but it was mostly back and fourth free discussion talking about pros and cons of issue etc. It was a relatively soft subject but the discussions in class were always lively and I found it pretty interesting the diversity of opinions that would come up often people in the classroom would have very different ideas and there would be points raised I hadn't previously considered. I can remember one discussion around implications of GM Food (which was topical at the time) sparked some really heated discussion. I thought the subject was really good at opening us up to deeper ethical considerations.

In Later Years we had a subject focused on Engineering disasters and failures things like Bhopal, Challenger, Kansas City Walkway etc. How can we learn from these events how can we apply those learning to everyday practice.

There was also a fourth year subject which included a guest lecturer from the Law Faculty which covered things like Liability, Professional Responsibility, Codes of Practice. It included discussion on Whistle-blowing and disclosure.

Software world can feel quite a bit different the same requirements around responsibility and liability don't exist which effects the culture somewhat.

What was the point of this project? It sounds like an enormous waste of time (in addition to the aforementioned glaring privacy issues).

I understand what my avatar will do when I go get that morning coffee at about 8:30 am but what will my avatar do at about 9:15 when I lock myself in the bathroom stall for ~10 minutes?

There's a common complaint that "Business Ethics" courses degenerate into a HowTo for getting away with stuff on a technicality or by feigning ignorance.

We're in good company... bad company... we are not the only ones experiencing this problem.

>Neither my friend nor my other classmates see the problem with the precise tracking of the every move of every employee - that scares me a lot.

Thats the thing with ethics, its completely subjective.

> the problem with the precise tracking of the every move of every employee

This is why they love open offices (not because it encourages “collaboration”, because it doesn’t).

A "gender-studies course" criticism isn't a claim that the underlying subject doesn't matter. (Everyone can agree that gender matters!) It's a claim that they don't think the course is going to teach broadly applicable concepts and patterns of thought; they expect that you'll be presented with some particular orthodox concept of privacy, and that the class will be about learning how to correctly recite it.

I can't say whether they're right about your school's course specifically, but it's certainly something I can imagine.

Yes, and the GP's sentence:

> Neither my friend nor my other classmates see the problem with the precise tracking of the every move of every employee - that scares me a lot.

makes me think the criticism is probably valid. These sorts of classes or even trainings are exactly as you say, you're told "this is a problem" and you publicly say "yes it is" to avoid trouble, while privately you believe anything, yes or no or it's not a big deal or whatever. If you have reservations or qualifications you're not encouraged, and maybe actively discouraged, to bring them up for discussion.

To take the explicit example, tracking the location of every employee isn't necessarily a problem. Context matters. (Indeed tracking the location of every moving object on earth bigger than a fist isn't necessarily a problem either, and whether or not it is one should prepare for it being in our world's future as technologies like smart dust advance to counter aggressive technology proliferation.) A class on such topics should be able to discuss different contexts apart from a baseline scenario and leave students with an understanding of why other people might or might not think such-and-such is a problem beyond a juvenile "they're stupid, ugly, and evil" -- even to tolerate not having a class consensus about scenarios with many possible subtitles, qualifications, and complications, which are the only realistically useful scenarios to talk about. A great outcome for a good course is that students may disagree on "X is a problem" or "I see a problem with X" stated without further qualifications, but are able to explain how it could or could not be or be seen as a problem with qualifications.

I find it hilarious that no one does this amount of 'critical thinking' with their other classes and instead gobbles up the dribble from professors in technical subjects.

Put up a public Web page with your friend's location. Every time they do anything, update the page. After a day, show them the page, and explain what you've done. See if it gets through their thick skull then!

Tracking is not automatically unethical. People could choose to do it for fun with their friends. They could enable it just on campus. People can be tracked by anonymous parties via their cell phones, anyway, so deliberate sharing for fun may not seem so bad.

Not that I see the point of the particular project, but I also think not every possible kind of fun should be illegal because of "privacy".

A better example would perhaps be Pokemon Go. Lots of people enjoy playing that game. The question is how does Niantic use the data, but a game like that would not automatically have to exploit the data.

The evil information that can be extracted from the location data may also be exaggerated.

I have never seen an ethics course that actually answers useful questions and changes the behaviors of the those who take them. In the real world anyway being ethical is often a hinderance, and somebody else will be brought in to do the project (I have no moral issues with auto-shooting AI-targeting drones, if anything the world has a lot of bad guys[1] who needs to be dead with no civilian casualties[2]).

Also remember, no good dead goes unpunished.

[1]: as a minimum this would be the leadership of all countries that opposes freedom by jailing or killing members or leaders of the opposition.

[2]: a seal team took out ISIS leader, but he still managed to blow his suicide vest and killed 3 of his kids.

> I have never seen an ethics course that actually answers useful questions and changes the behaviors of the those who take them.

My ethics course handled a number of issues. The only one I viscerally remember was Therac-25.

> that opposes freedom by jailing or killing members or leaders of the opposition.

With such a broad definition of bad guys, I think you've just listed the leaders of every country. I'm not sure that's your intent, but it if it is, it's quite a radical position.

Therac-25? That's normally taught as a safety and correctness issue, not an ethical issue. What exactly is the ethical lesson from Therac-25? Always use hardware interlocks when building machines that can kill people? Don't be over-confident and believe user bug reports?

There were lots of lessons to learn from Therac-25 but I'm not sure any of them would be classified as ethical.

Is that your personal definition of ethics? Just kill anyone you disagree with?

No that's just a crazy fantasy.

It is unethical to pretend to "help" someone by intentionally using an ineffective solution to make yourself look good without putting in the effort.

This is basically a lesser form of hero complex/syndrome.

You see a problem, think of a solution that makes you look like a hero and everyone is worse off except you.

Celebrities visiting poor african villages is probably the most obvious occurence of this. They book an expensive flight and hotel and drive a car and when they arrive they just do minor help for a week but hey everyone sees it on my instagram account!!!

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