downvoters: is the video game industry unethical for making billions of players expend exponentially higher compute (= emissions) for something as frivolous as slightly better graphics?
> is the video game industry unethical for making billions of players expend exponentially higher compute (= emissions) for something as frivolous as slightly better graphics?
The reason most people don't think so is because human brains are not wired to comprehend the danger that slow buildups of a negative create.
In general, the complete waste developers have been creating by allowing themselves to build extremely inefficient systems because moore's law, has been unethical.
Imagine if the single goal of car manufacturers became to create faster and faster consumer cars with higher and higher co2 emissions, even thought those cars sit in a parking lot 95% of the time and when in use are never exercised to their potential.
then I'm sure you also believe the logical consequence that all graphical user interfaces are unethical as well due to frivolously wasted compute.
out of interest, how did you make this post? with moral standards as high as yours, you certainly wouldn't run something as wasteful as a full browser, right? especially when hackernews' html is this easy to parse manually. i'd gues you used curl? and as for your hardware? what did you personally find the most ethical choice there? and about those unethical ISPs? and how did you verify that HN's backend is efficient enough to be considered ethical?
Morality is a spectrum, not binary. Yes, all of the things you listed make me and you a less moral person, than say some random dude living in the woods with no access to a computer (all other things being equal).
even the dude living in the woods is still having an impact on the ecosystem, which is defined as negative by this eco-extremist moral framework.
if you take it to the logical conclusion, it just means that all forms of human life are immoral, by nature, and the least immoral human is basically a feral animal, and the most immoral ones are the opposite of that.
You seem to be bothered by the idea that you may not be perfectly moral/ethical. You're a good person, therefore everything you do is by definition moral/ethical?
It seems as if you're attaching the same connotations to morality/ethics as you would to legality. If something is not perfectly moral/ethical, it doesn't mean you should never do it.
We over indulge, we waste electricity and water, we drive unnecessarily big cars because it's enjoyable. It's not moral or ethical, but it doesn't make you a bad person. When it's done en-masse, is encouraged, and corporations monetize it, is when it starts becoming a problem.
It is true. It is totally wasteful and it wastes lots of water as well [0].
Even before that, there aren't any efficient methods of training, inference and fine-tuning available today that are viable alternatives in the field of deep learning, especially after a decade of existing.
downvoters: is the video game industry unethical for making billions of players expend exponentially higher compute (= emissions) for something as frivolous as slightly better graphics?