Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Ok, lets roll with your idea that anonymously publishing true information is unethical.

If a woman blogged unkind and sexist behavior at a tech company, but hid her name to avoid the backlash (like Michael), that would be unethical. I guess she'd be an "asshat", right? Same thing for a journalist using an anonymous source?

Bad journalistic ethics? https://modelviewculture.com/pieces/that-time-i-was-caught-c...

I do indeed have a poor understanding of ethics and I'm pretty open about it. It's hardly an easy subject. Often I think I've found the "critical element" and suddenly swapping around the personalities radically changes my intuition.

  If a woman blogged unkind and sexist behavior at a tech company, but 
  hid her name to avoid the backlash (like Michael), that would be 
  unethical. I guess she'd be an "asshat", right? Same thing for a 
  journalist using an anonymous source?

Did you just compare a woman blogging about a legitimate grievance that makes her work environment intolerable to someone suggesting "Fair game" practices a la Scientology for criticizing his company?

Yes. That's what makes ethics hard.

According to alex, the "critical difference" is anonymity. On this dimension, the sympathetic figure and the big jerk do not differ. So if he is correct about anonymity, then they are indeed comparable. The point is to test whether he really believes his stated principle or whether it's merely a convenient justification to criticize big jerks that he dislikes.

If you think that's not right, that's fine. Then come up with your own principle separating Emil Michael's journalism proposal from Pando/Valleywag. I'll repeat this exercise - trying to come up with a sympathetic figure on the other side of your principle and see if you still support the conclusions.

That's how you test whether your ethical principles are really valid.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com