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Comment by apsec112 | Hacker News Reader

The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics strikes again.

"The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics says that when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it. At the very least, you are to blame for not doing more. Even if you don’t make the problem worse, even if you make it slightly better, the ethical burden of the problem falls on you as soon as you observe it. In particular, if you interact with a problem and benefit from it, you are a complete monster." https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...

I'm sure the newspapers, though, are totally fair, neutral observers who have no reason at all to have grudges against tech companies: https://www.baekdal.com/blog/what-killed-the-newspapers-goog...

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I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest a journalist's opinion that the jobs and small financial inducements offered might not be adequate compensation for local residents has more to do with the fact that lithium mining tends to pollute the local environment and causes water shortages than the assumption that newspapers are biased against hardware companies (whose products they all use) because Google hurts their ad revenue.

The "Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics" becomes relevant if one is convinced that mining companies are totally honest, reasonable negotiators who's primary concern is solving the local communities' problems and not extracting maximum resource at minimum cost. Personally, I don't believe that. YMMV.

"primary concern is solving the local communities' problems and not extracting maximum resource at minimum cost"

That's a clear false dichotomy: either people have no self-interest, or else they must be the bad guys. But almost everyone in any market operates primarily from self-interest. If a company that was losing money offered you your current job at twice the salary, would you say no, because you placed their interests above your own? Of course not. If you didn't take it, it would most likely be because you worried the company would go broke and lay you off, a clearly self-interested motivation. And the communities here - if someone offered them far more than the lithium was worth, would they turn that down? I really don't think they would. So either being mainly motivated by self-interest doesn't make someone bad, or else almost anyone who buys or sells anything is bad.

I think a more appropriate example scenario would be something like this: You are driving through the desert with a truck full of food and water. You come upon an old couple whose car has broken down, hundreds of miles from the nearest town. They beg you for help, offering anything for some water. As a shrewd negotiator, you assess the current market situation and offer a gallon of water in exchange for the woman's diamond earrings and the man's gold ring. This is a win/win scenario! They get to stay alive a little longer, and you get a great deal on some jewelry. No coercion needed, and since both sides entered into the deal voluntarily who can complain! As you drive off, you smile to yourself at the thought of how wonderful it was that everyone acted in their own self interest and managed to improve their situation.

That analogy isn't quite right. It would be more apt if the couple instead of having diamonds and gold had, well, lithium. What is that couple going to do with lithium? For that couple, that lithium is effectively worthless, even factoring in if circumstances were better, but the food and water is priceless. Both sides do legitimately benefit from that transaction, even if one side is legitimately upset about how much more the other benefits from the arrangement.

It's reasonable to desire that resources extracted from a country or region should benefit the people of that country or region more than the companies extracting those resources. The problem is that that is a classic tragedy of the commons, making it unreasonable to expect or hope that that sort of problem gets solved on an individual basis. Yes, let's hold mining companies to task for not further helping impoverished communities near mines, but let's not mistake that it is the government of Argentina that allowed this to occur to begin with.

I didn't create any false dichotomy, I simply noted your original middlebrow dismissal of the article was based on the absurd premise that its criticism of a mining company for causing a problem and lowballing with compensation was analogous to the criticism meted out to those whose philanthropic proposals "observe or interact" with problems they couldn't fully solve. The mining company doesn't stand accused of observing problems whilst not doing enough to help, it stands accused of creating problems whilst paying off just enough to get a contract.

Nobody is suggesting the mining company is the "bad guys" for having an interest in making a profit. They are suggesting they might be the "bad guys" for allegedly exploiting the naivete of local residence to pay a pittance to wreck their environment.

Exploitation pretty much means making someone's situation a bit better - when justice demands far more than that. Nor is it clear that the companies aren't doing permanent harm.

The following documentary "de eerlijke onderneming" [1] was broadcasted on Dutch TV. The title translates to "the fair company", there's a lot of English in it as well. It is about a man, Bas van Abel, who started a company called Fairphone. He tried tried to source a phone of completely fair materials. That means that all the materials including the cobalt and the little technical parts are paid fairly for, as well as the people who made them.

What I learned from the documentary is that you can't change overnight a huge system (like, how little rights people in China have, how production in China cannot be avoided, or the gang wars and child labour in Africa) even if you want to. You need to lower your standards to the status quo of the social environment you are working with, and improve it from there, little by little. Plus, you will experience setbacks. Also, his goal was pretty much impossible for various practical reasons so he had to lower expectations.

Their profit margins are very low for standards (IIRC < 10 EUR per smartphone), yet the price/performance of the phone is also low compared to flagship devices like latest SGS or iPhone. Playing devil's advocate this means that, by definition, every owner of a smartphone is doing less good than Fairphone, and now that you know the above, you "know you are a monster". One could even argue Fairphone are monsters since they profit.

For the record, I wouldn't put it like this. I think there's a lot of shades between such harsh, black and white statements.

[1] http://www.vpro.nl/programmas/tegenlicht/kijk/afleveringen/2...

You make a good point, but in any case involving profits from land or natural resources, there's a question of political economy. Many of the best thinkers, since at least the Enlightenment, have held that land ought to be treated as a common resource that all can benefit from. Norway, for instance, has taken that wisdom to heart, and now have a trillion dollar sovereign fund put aside for the public.

I agree, people and corporations are always focused on short term profits. Perfectly understandable. But that's why it's the government's job to focus on what's good for a country in the long run.

Ah yes, the good old philosophy of communism. Great thinkers have been espousing some variation of it since Plato.

You'd think that after thousands of years these "great thinkers" would learn that nothing good will come from taking private property and making it a "common resource" (read: property of the state)

>But what if – what if noticing a problem didn’t make it any worse? What if we could act on a problem and not feel horrible for making it just a little better, even if it was an action that benefited ourselves as well? What if we said that in these instances, these groups weren’t evil – it’s okay to notice a problem and only make it a little bit better.

In other words, if you find a young girl trapped in a well, knowing she would die without you, you are morally just if you keep her there, fed, watered and use her for your 'amusement' because her other alternative was death.

Or am I reading that wrong?

So let me see if I am reading you right. The "problem" here is powerful multinational corps using their power to negotiate exploitative deals with vulnerable populations. I'm with you so far. What I'm not clear on is who you think is being unjustly blamed for it. The newspapers are observing this and reporting on it - are you saying they are getting blamed for causing the problem or not doing more to stop it?

Wow, I'm totally digging that interpretation in a shock of recognition for what it articulates; characterizes a great deal.

Demagoguery strikes again.

"Demagoguery is an appeal to people that plays on their emotions and prejudices rather than on their rational side."

I'm sure you're just quoting this conveniently exonerating 'truth' for honest reasons.

Note: demagoguery works exceptionally well when using seemingly rational, preferably contrarian, arguments with a public that considers itself very rational and wouldn't dream of being persuaded by a narrative because it confirms their prejudices.

This is really close to the saying that "you should never argue with an idiot because to an outsider no one will know which is which"

>> The Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics says that when you observe or interact with a problem in any way, you can be blamed for it.

At first I was thinking it's ridiculous to consider someone as well part of the problem if they observe a problem and do nothing. But doing something could be as simple as calling the police.

Well... but that is also a way of interacting with the problem! Calling the police can make matters much, much worse for the people involved, especially when those people are part of some culturally or economically marginalized group. Doing nothing may be a better choice than calling the police.

Capitalists should be wary of this sort of short term consequentialist argument. Since the marginal utility of money decreases with wealth... (fill in the rest.)

could you elaborate? i don't quite understand your comment but want to understand it. do you mean your citation regarding the copenhagen interpretation to be applied to us consumers, the mining companies, or the newspaper? and how does your second comment relate to that? genuinely interested.

The mining companies, by getting involved, are being blamed for pre-existing poverty among the Atacamas. They are contributing, but they are not contributing enough.

Well, in this case the newspaper is owned by a tech billionaire (Bezos), so maybe not the best case study.

That is a wonderfully useful metanarrative. Sticking it in my pocket to dismiss things where I need a philosophical justification for not caring about others in the future.

So, the Prime Directive applies here, too?

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