Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by eloisius 1045 days ago
Weird ethics. No shame in bypassing the meter and stealing electricity. Start ups require energy.
2 comments

What are the ethics for preventing a mentally stable, tax paying adult from consuming whatever mind altering chemical they want?
Generally speaking, harm reduction.

With full knowledge of what could happen (because effects are often not uniform), and with the right care and support I would think it can be done ethically.

Look at the trials of using LSD/mushrooms/MDMA to help people work through serious trauma. Done well it looks to be positively life changing, done poorly and it seems to be horrifying.

Fine, so print warnings on the bottle and make me sign a disclaimer. Isn’t it more harmful to create a black market with no quality controls? Isn’t it more harmful to ruin countless lives with felony convictions?
Harm reduction, at what cost?
Not analogous at all. At this point, I would say what are the ethics on preventing someone from doing what they want to themselves if it does not hurt someone else.