[kleiba]

I don't think that unethical behavior can simply be justified by some other unethical behavior, especially when personal opinions are involved.

Analogies are often not very useful but consider this: there's this traffic light close to my house and even though there's usually not much traffic, the red phase is much, much longer than any other light I've ever waited at. I don't know what they were thinking but it's crazy long. I go there multiple times each day and I don't want to know how much of my life I already wasted just waiting at that light. For me personally that is into "unethical" territory, so I started just running that red light now. I make sure, though, that I only do it when there's no chance for an accident. I'm very much in favor of solving the issue through different ways long-term, but until then, meh. But YMMV of course.

Maybe here's a better one: there's this really good bakery close to my house. They make everything fresh from scratch, and the smell alone when you walk by is absolutely amazing. Their croissants especially are to die for and there's usually long lines in the morning. I love them too, because they're really heavenly but they come at a price point. I mean, it's always been a bit more than I could/should afford but they're so good! But last month, they even raised the price by another pound. It's actually quite ridiculous now - I mean, do they make their croissants out of gold? There should be a law against such prices! And I know that each day, they have to throw out a handful of croissants at the end of the day that they couldn't sell, probably because of the high price?! For me personally that is into "unethical" territory, so now I just started quickly running into the bakery, grabbing one of the croissants and booking it. That saves me a lot of money, and I can enjoy those beautiful goods again, hmm! I'm very much in favor of solving the issue through different ways long-term, but until then, meh. But YMMV of course.

[fdsjgfklsfd]

> so now I just started quickly running into the bakery, grabbing one of the croissants and booking it.

Sci-hub is more like making a copy of the recipe than stealing the croissant. Making a copy doesn't deprive anyone of the original.

[detaro]

Okay, at this point I'm starting to regret that I upvoted your comments as bringing a good perspective into the discussion if you are just trying to bring ridiculous strawman to anyone engaging with arguments. plonk

[kleiba]

Thanks for the upvote.

I had a feeling that the previous comment would possibly not be well received. My intention was not to make a strawman argument - that's why I added a clear caveat about the limited usefulness of analogies.

The point was perhaps a bit childish, I admit, but then again, the HN audience is very diverse with many different backgrounds. Many may be intimately familiar with academic realities, others might not and simply get triggered by the old "evil publishing corporation against freedom of information" trope.

The two examples were meant to target the latter end of the spectrum, and judging from your comment, they probably failed at what I had in mind: to allude to the fact that there a multiple parties involved here and they are coming from different perspectives and they have different interests in mind. That's where the analogies end, of course.

Sci-Hub is certainly convenient. But convenience does not justify everything.

P.S.: A potential evidence that my point about the different backgrounds of the HN crowd may have been correct is the fact that my "analogies" post is the only one that has more upvotes than downvotes.