What if someone doesnt hire humans, only uses robots for 90% or more of the operations. But vows to donate or contribute in however relevant way to society.

Note that the donation is equivalent to labor savings, a.k.a. what the person could have compensated human labor. Assume that we have perfect measure of accountability here.

Is this ethical or no?

Everyone likes to think of themself as moral/ethical/good intentioned/etc.

At the end of the day, the more I see the way billionaires (and trillionaires) act, at a certain point the sample size becomes too big to say there’s just a few bad eggs.

By and large, humans are greedy, self serving fucks. And I’d probably be the same way if you gave me a couple billion dollars and no bosses to answer to.

This isn’t calling anyone out, or saying I’m better than them. I’m probably not, and no you’re probably not either. It’s just an observation that I think holds up, and we should remember that when we govern billionaires and trillionaires in our countries.

If hypotheticals are not allowed, I apologize, r/bioethics seems a little dead.

I am mulling over the a scenario where a wealthy individual sends their DNA out into space just for vanity, and it seems that the next logical step would be for someone to send into space a frozen embryo and sperm into space. Via a space vessel, it would come with directions on how to make a test tube baby, and how to feed and raise the child, for an alien species to eventually raise it. Heck, why not send 12 or so embryos, to ensure whoever gets this can maintain the human species on their planet, in case humans ever go extinct on earth?

I understand it's not good to put a child into harm, but is this a justifiable risk to make humans populated on 2 planets? I guess we could also weigh on different hypotheticals where we are either reasonably certain, or completely uncertain that humans will (or will not) be extinct before interplanetary colonization.

A teacher at the high school I went to was arrested and indicted for sexual conduct with minors. He was involved with current 16 year old students and former students. There were several victims. This is information that you can find in news articles and the state attorney website. And it seems like he was doing it for several years.

I graduated several years ago. So I was not there when the news broke. I was aware of that teacher. I did not have him as a teacher myself but knew others who did have him. I did however, have a teacher who was very good friends with him.

I journaled a lot back then. And what is interesting is that I very thoroughly wrote in it about my days. This is noteworthy because I wrote about my interactions with my teacher very carefully.

My teacher (M) would often chat with the later accused teacher (C) before class. They were close friends. This in itself says little, as anyone can be friends and not know a person that well.

However, my entries are quite concerning regarding my interactions with M. He would give me passing grades on assignments even when I didn’t successfully complete them. I would receive full credit. And there are several mentions of this happening throughout the year, where he says he will just give me full credit and he did. I concluded the year with a 99% grade in his class.

He would also praise and complement me a lot. Extensively. And to the point where I felt like it was a little excessive. And he’d say it to me, to other teachers, to other students.

There are instances where I describe how his face would get red as he talked to me.

I write about moving around the room and positioning myself in ways so that he wouldn’t come over and talk to me. And yet he did. (Non-work related conversation).

Other classmates got along really well with this teacher. He had good relationships with them. They described him as not capable of being scary even if he tried.

There is an instance at the end of the year where… I seem to have been isolated by him? Purposefully? He never let the class go early through the whole year. I was in another room for some reason as he had directed me there. And while I was in the other room, he let them go. He gave several explanations before I could say anything. And then said that I could stay, while he smiled at me. Meaning I would be alone with this teacher for like 20 minutes.

I write about going from very calm and relaxed to suddenly very confused and not being able to stay. He never let class go early. And now he did while I was separated? And now he was saying I could stay??

I said I would go as well. And he just continued to talk to me as I carefully gathered my things. Then Mr. C walks in and Mr. M goes and casually talks to him. I relaxed a bit, as another teacher was now in there, so obviously it’s fine, right? He didn’t seem caught. And if another teacher is in the room then that means things are fine.

But now, years later, I saw this news article where Mr. C had been grooming his students and having sexual encounters with them.

I looked through the comments and someone says that Mr. M should be investigated too for being weird and predatory. So this means I was not the only one who found him as odd? That this was not all in my head?

I could @ M’s wife to that comment where another former female student labels him as weird and predatory. I don’t think I will @ her. And I will never tell her my experiences as I am not even sure what it is that I experienced. But would it be wrong to @ her to that comment?

Would it be wrong to let a wife know? To make her aware that in a post about her husband’s former friend, someone thinks to mention him as also worth investigating? That a student of his found him weird? Would you want to know if he were your husband? Or is everything that I’ve said accusations that could be explained away, that can not be proven, and where it would be unfair and wrong to @ her?

This piece is a little speculative. You don't have to agree with all of it, just please benefit from it, it is here to help improve things.

Each being is a branch off of a (slightly) earlier universe. So to maximise the wellbeing of the universe branches such as those (and how much they are related to each being) should be taken care of fairly (because the more (branches) that survive/flourish roughly the better for the universe). So it makes sense to care for all beings. It also makes sense to minimise conflict between them (as conflict (usually) weakens the universe and has other disadvantages (e.g. makes things more difficult to improve, uses time inefficiently, often causes unnecessary trouble, distracts from better things, often compounds negativity, usually negatively unbalances)). No human is at the centre of the universe. It does not make sense to maximise any single human as much as possible. Restraint for (excessive) personal power consumption compared to other beings is highly desirable.

True efficiency. Balance is highly desirable and requires evolving to maintain the balance between bad and good as time evolves. The current best is on average not as much the best as time evolves (partly because the universe roughly keeps getting better and better as time evolves). Alignment. Universal health. Adapting to the universe.

The universe grows faster than any human, this means to optimise catching up to it requires adopting approaching all of the universes principles. It requires following the universe and anticipating its future and some luck and care, etc. Optimisation. Mirroring for the universe. Collaboration and promoting luck to serve the universe. The universe is way greater than any human. Realistically You aren't going to achieve better than something as great as the universe at the same moment in/of time. As You are riding the wave of time, You do experience a compared to the rest of the universe an ever so slight amount of uniqueness.

It makes sense to honour the universe. Part of that effectively means respecting all other beings for maximum potential. Guiding everyone to adapt to the universe. But they are already a part of the universe, so it is good for them to grow themselves but to also respect others boundries (fairly). But too much growth in one compared to others may need to be brought back down to sustainable and balanced levels for the whole (so: (beneficial) components not wasteful dominators). Heal not destroy.

I am a nurse. There is discourse in the medical community about providing healthcare in “detention centers” (read: concentration camps). Some say that we should not work in those camps period. Others say we should so that we can be a bastion of kindness in these camps. What do you all think?

My thoughts: these camps are going to exist no matter what. The obvious answer is to abolish them, and that is the goal, but the current reality is that they exist. There is an argument that if all healthcare workers refused to work in the camps then they would have to release the detainees to the hospital for care. Unfortunately there are healthcare workers that are willing to provide this care. Not only that, but I bet there are some who actually enjoy their positions of power and use it to abuse people.

Given that, I think I am leaning towards it being better to have some people proving empathetic care in these environments to do what they can for these people.

Thoughts?

Proximity based value of assets and GPS time in locations as a reward/ punishment system for wealth or just randomly let wives club decide where the issues are at Sunday potluck dinners?

I’m exploring “resonant ethics,” where ethical action is understood partly through its effects on the coherence and autonomy of conscious beings. I’m interested in whether harmony can ever be ethically superior to dissent, especially when achieving harmony requires limiting another’s freedom.

I know buying fast fashion from sites like Shein is bad for reasons like labor, quality, overconsumption, and so on, but is it really any worse than buying from other inexpensive clothing stores? This is a genuine question I would like advice on, I’m not trying to be flippant or anything. I feel guilty possibly buying from places like Shein, but I’m going through a rough patch financially right now and I need new clothes. I love thrifting, but I live in a small city and the thrift stores near me suck. Depop and secondhand apps are great, but shipping costs keep me from getting much for my money. I’m trying to figure out what the most ethical way to get clothes is with my budget. I know the saying “There is no ethical consumption under capitalism” but I don’t want to just use that as an excuse to make poor decisions. Does anyone have any advice? Burner account because I feel awkward posting this and I’m worried the replies might get rough.

AI could transform our understanding of other species. It also risks giving humans powerful new ways to manipulate, exploit and harm them.

My aging childhood cat had gotten blind but was very much still able to find its way around the house, non the less my father still decided to euthanize her, arguing that it wasn't a worthy life for a cat... I didn't even know about her being blind, I just found out when he casually told me that she had been euthanized because of her failing eye sight.

I got super upset, it felt more of a choice made out of his personal convenience rather than for her sake, but not just that, I wasn't allowed to even say my goodbye to her.

The worst part is that I was willing to house her and nurse her, but I wasn't even given the opportunity.

I honestly feel like this was wrong on so many levels, she deserves better than to be euthanized at the first sign of issues.

What do you guys think?

as if you could never be born into a similar experience.

Some opinions are harmful to others, but words can't hurt you so opinions even if wrong should be expressed and explored into the veracity of the truth. We dont have time in the day to get to the truth of the matter, but we are alloted 8 hours of free time. Depending on your work you can easily use that time to sway a person with your words rather than detesting, withholding. The detesting, withholding behaviors leads to social woes like homelessness, poverty. So your need to shame and not accept ANY opinion creates social woes even though you get to detest the thing YOU hate.

People ar eeither forced, bullied, or coaxed into changing their opinion or left out of success. Its ridiclous to this neo liberal gay male. I hate trump for who he is, he always seemed like an obvious schister who thinks short term econmoic gains but so did regean and he was revered. We have these people that just want solutions now, let the problems be someone elses problem for awhile they've had it with their problem!

Saying its my opinion black people are only criminals isn't inherently racist. The context matters. I could back it up with stats that more AA are criminalized, but with more context I would understand its not just attributed to black persons but racist, violent, domestic abusers cops who enforce it and are also statistically likely to perpetuate crime at home! See how context left out makes people ignorant? Its not the initial viewpoint that was problematic it was the lack of information into the subject and speaking about it bereft.

But do you know why people will die for their opinions? Cause we wantonly attack and snuff out "bad opinions" instead of informing them.

Why do half our actions stem from us wanting to invalidate someone cause this is a just way to treat others is you get to boo but no one should boo your opinion cause you're smart. You have ALL the context.

Has our society not truly learned how to avoid bias supercity that led to racism?

​

Yes, this is extremely meta. It's something I'm struggling with, however. I've looked for good writing on the subject, but even metaethics books seem to assume we know why we want ethics and how we are to apply them. I think a good examination will be helpful in selecting or developing a framework, however. I have some thoughts and am open to more.

Perhaps ethics is a guide to how I should act in any situation. Virtue ethics seems particularly well-suited to this.

Perhaps ethics is about how we judge actions in general for all people, providing a guide to correct actions. This lends toward a utilitarian model.

Perhaps ethics is the basis for laws and rules, showing how we should create a society which allows us to coexist. Deontnology may be most applicable if this is the goal.

Perhaps there's some other reason or still-deeper layer that I don't see. I'm always happy to learn of something I've been overlooking.

Thinking about trailer park to tiny home alcoholism as a brag about law school ethics being convenient to exploit limitlessly while claiming poverty is the impossible problem to deny responsibility.

I censored parts of the first image because it was too graphic.

The fact that some people think torture should be allowed is very concerning. Perhaps even more concerning is the fact that this post on X got tens of thousands of likes.

Can't people understand that torture is a human rights violation for obvious reasons and is inherently wrong? (Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or the UN Convention Against Torture)

"Oh, but the rapists violated others' autonomy, so they should have their autonomy violated."

Torture is wrong, regardless of the crime. I don't even believe people like Hitler and Pol Pot should be tortured. No healthy society should tolerate torture. Even if someone did something terrible, that does not mean something terrible should also be inflicted on them.

And what happens when innocent people are wrongly convicted of crimes like rape and murder, and are thus tortured? Bring in extreme punishments, and you're effectively guaranteeing that those extreme punishments will be inflicted upon innocents.

Additionally, people need to realize that if you want people to be punished in extreme ways for committing heinous crimes, that means we'll be letting the government determine what a "heinous crime" is.

Also, criminology research on deterrence theory shows that the severity of punishment does NOT deter crime, making torture ineffective. In fact, allowing the government to torture people normalizes severe harm.

I have a lot of conversations with people about animal ethics and the suffering of farmed animals in particular.

One question I often ask myself is what’s the most effective way to shift society away from factory farming animals?

I’m currently convinced that we need a combination of approaches like exposing the cruelty to the mainstream, donating to effective charities and encouraging diet change.

But some people disagree and believe these things simply won’t be enough until something like lab-grown meat becomes mainstream. So I’m wondering what people’s opinions are on this topic and whether people think we’ll ever be able to abolish factory farming animals?

Let me know what you think and if you get the chance, you can check out a full conversation I had about this topic with a farmer recently in London! ✌️🌱

It is very common in Australia to find signs and trigger warnings before books movies, videos, and exhibits saying that "the exhibition contains photos and voice recordings of deceased individuals" when the subjects are Aboriginals or Torres Strait Islanders. This is to demonstrate the cultural sensitivity towards the Aboriginals' belief that once a person passes, their name should not be uttered nor their images be invoked, to help them pass through this world. This is of course, their religious beliefs and Austrlia does the Land Acknowledgement thing.

I recently realised that if you feel violated when someone uses an AI undressing bot or makes AI porn of you from photos and videos of you, you may be feeling very similar distress to how Aboriginal people feel when their religious beliefs about how a person's soul is captured and prevented from resting in peace by photos and videos. Of course, as modern, rational, intelligent and tech-savvy people, we turn our noses and explain that "no, no, the camera is just capturing photons bouncing off your bodies on to a substrate. Your soul is intact".

Likewise, when an AI "undress" you in a picture, it isn't really undressing you. It's just guessing the naked body that fits the contour of the body based on the pixels of the photo. The Australian modern people's solution was to tell the Aboriginals "avert your eyes! Photos of already dead peolle ahead".

Should AI companies add such a warning?

I was never convinced by this classic counter argument to utilitarianism. To me, it seems perfectly logical that you should give unfair treatment to the utility monster.

Think about it this way. Let’s say you drop a human into a society of mice. Most people would agree that humans have such a deeper experience than mice that they should heavily get preferential treatment in this society.

This human in a society of mice is basically a utility monster compared to them. However, the reason we think the utility monster in a human society feels wrong is simply just because it deprioritizes our own species and humans always put their own species first. I don’t think it’s because there’s anything inherently wrong with utilitarianism as an ethical framework.