[catshirt]

the fact that i might disagree with it (never said i did by the way), would suggest that others might disagree with it, would suggest it is definitively controversial.

a lot of the country would argue that gun makers don't have too much an ethical concern when building guns. surely you have heard the phrase "guns don't kill people". and so how dare me try and apply that argument here on their behalf.

i think the easiest way to point out the controversy in the statement is that NO ONE HERE SEEMS TO BELIEVE IT? SO HOW IS IT A "FALSEHOOD PROGRAMMERS BELIEVE"?

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> the fact that i might disagree with it (never said i did by the way), would suggest that others might disagree with it, would suggest it is definitively controversial.

In other words, there are no non-controversial statements, as you can always find someone who disagrees and use them as supposed evidence that there are others who also disagree which thus makes every statement ever definitively controversial?

That doesn't sound like a useful definition of "controversial" to me, and certainly not like what people commonly understand it to mean.

> a lot of the country would argue that gun makers don't have too much an ethical concern when building guns. perhaps you have heard the phrase "guns don't kill people". and so i don't think it's crazy to reapply that argument here.

But that is a discussion about concern, not about impact. Whether gun makers are concerned about the impact of their actions does not have any influence whatsoever on whether or not their actions do in fact have an impact.

Mind you also that the same people who use "guns don't kill people" will usually point out that guns will be used for good, such as stopping criminals, which is explicitly an argument that uses the ethical impact of a gun maker's decision to justify their freedom to make and sell guns--so either they are in fact acknowledging that their decisions have an ethical impact.

> i think the easiest way to point out the controversy in the statement is that NO ONE HERE SEEMS TO BELIEVE IT? SO HOW IS IT A "FALSEHOOD PROGRAMMERS BELIEVE"?

Well, on the one hand, people can believe falsehoods simply because they haven't ever reflected on why they believe them, in which case there is possibly no controversy, but simply confusion.

But also, if I accept your implication that "falsehood believed by others" is maybe somewhat of a synonym for "controvery", is your complaint then that a list of falsehoods/controversies starts with ... a falsehood/controversy?

[catshirt]

thank you for a thoughtful response.

your first point regarding "no non-controversial statements" points out a flaw in my logic that i hope we can move past to my example.

i try to illustrate, that the graph of `ACTIONS <-> PEOPLE + TOOLS <-> MAKERS OF TOOLS` has been an obviously controversial one in the past as applied to weaponry, using guns as an example. so why should it not be equally controversial for any profession? the tool is variable.

which you answer with your last point: "guns don't kill people" and an admittance of ethical responsibility are not mutually exclusive. and maybe there has never been a controversy like i am suggesting. which is a great point and presses me to reiterate: where is this programmer who does not believe his job has ethical implications?

and IF IT IS a falsehood programmers believe: you think telling some number of programmers they are ethically insufficient could not possibly lead to a controversial discussion?

[zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC]

> which you answer with your last point: "guns don't kill people" and an admittance of ethical responsibility are not mutually exclusive.

I would say it's admittance of ethical impact rather than ethical responsibility, and the apparent controversy actually is just a huge mess of confusion with very little substance that mostly results from people rationalizing away their responsibility by selectively pretending lack of impact.

The thing is, "Whether I produce weapons has no causal connection to people suffering, and I should be allowed to produce weapons because it helps to prevent criminals from making people suffer" is self-contradictory, you cannot actually believe both of those statements at the same time. "Whether I produce weapons has a causal connection to people suffering but I am not responsible for my contributions because others do contribute as well" would be consistent but obviously fallacious (who else could possibly be responsible for your contribution?).

There is a genuine discussion to be had about whether specific actions have a net positive or negative ethical impact, and that can get complicated fast, depending on the action at hand. But the supposed controversy usually is about the simple assertion that indirection and cooperation removes responsibility, though it is expressed in a way that suggests that it removes the causal connection, which is nothing more than a strategy to rationalize, not really something that you can have a controversial discussion about.

> and maybe there has never been a controversy like i am suggesting. which is a great point and presses me to reiterate: where is this programmer who does not believe his job has ethical implications?

Well, that is ultimately difficult to say, because you have to go by what people say, and people usually don't say that literally. But more often than not you see people even here on HN who use arguments of the form "but that was his job", "but he had to earn money" in a context where it seems pretty clear that they think that that trumps all ethical concerns as to the impact their actions have on other people. Whether they actually somehow think that their actions have no ethical impact, or just that they aren't responsible for their impact, is difficult to know.

> and IF IT IS a falsehood programmers believe: you think telling some number of programmers they are ethically insufficient could not possibly lead to a controversial discussion?

Well, possibly, but see above: That could essentially be said about all points on that list. It's somewhat in the nature of a list of "falsehoods people believe" that there could be contradicting voices. So if that is what you mean by "controversial", then I don't understand what your complaint is and why you are picking out that specific statement from the list?!