Comment by simianwords
1 day ago
As I was reading your reply I was half convinced that it was not purity spiral but by the end, even you admit it’s an ethics thing so yeah it is pretty much purity spiral in place. Next they will leave the USA so that they won’t be associated with Trump.
Practicality matters. For example, even if you choose not to harm other living things, you cannot avoid stepping on and killing the occasional insect. Theoretically you might be able to do it, but you’ll stop having a life. But you can still do much in line with your beliefs, such as not killing animals for food.
If GitHub were the sole game in town, maybe (probably) they wouldn’t have switched. But it isn’t, and they found something which in their view is an acceptable replacement and less worse. So yeah, maybe they don’t ethically agree with everyone on every thing up the chain, but they apparently agree with them more. That matters. You take a stand where you are able to.
Yeah but would you stop using AWS because of the same reason?
I never started for similar reasons
Simian,
You are making an ethical judgment when you say, in essence, that 'it is wrong for businesses (and non-profits) to attempt to act in an ethical manner, aligned with their mission statement'.
Making an ethical argument about the purposelessness and futility of ethics is... interesting to say the least. Please, consider stopping the internet today and instead spend time with a book on ethics that you think agrees with you sensibilities, and then look at this situation again.
I didn't say it is wrong but I sure as hell wouldn't swap my business out of AWS to signal my virtues
Do you see a difference between 'signaling virtue' and 'having virtue and living in accordance with those virtues'?
People that use the former like a slur seem to need to believe that the latter cannot be true.
I wouldn't want to live in a world like that personally, assuming nefarious intention behind every good act (people in positions of highest power excepted). It seems exhausting.
Andrew Kelley means what he says and says what he means (in an on-the-spectrum way). It makes him off-putting and charming in equal measure, depending on the issue. But you shouldn't assume that this is a mere 'signal', it is what he believes.
Speaking for myself, I do disassociate myself from unethical products and people. It's not always as soon as I'd like, Amazon being a good example. I've never regretted doing so.
It's not even worth bragging about, who would even care? I just despise lying, and if I want to believe that I behave ethically without lying to myself, this is the natural consequence.
There are multiple dozens of ethic schools and ideas and many of them are not about purity, but although viability and realistic expectations.
They are not going Categorical imperative here.
Having reasons based in ethics for doing something is not the same thing as a purity spiral.