Comment by IncandescentGas | Hacker News Reader

Comment by IncandescentGas | Hacker News Reader

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IncandescentGas

This framing is nonsense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

You frame as if agency exists, then exploitive coercion doesn't exist.

We can respect the agency of folks to smoke or drink, while also criminalizing lying to entire populations about the known health effects of your products.

We can respect people as having agency, while also acknowledging that psy-ops like those run by Cambridge Analytica, or even normal psy-ops like mass market advertising, can influence groups of people through deceptive or manipulative ways in aggregate and cause massive harms.

We can respect personal agency while also acknowledging some folks have addiction problems, addictions problems be intentionally manufactured by products and platforms. There is a balance between allowing a poker game, and allowing the MGM Grand to plant a limo driver in a recovering addict's driveway.

We can respect agency while acknowledging those with large reach because of wealth can cause mass harm through media, influence and coercion if unregulated.

We can grant authorities to police and politicians without Qualified Immunity from consequences of their actions.

You are mixing 3 separate issues into 1.

1. If someone knows all the information, but still chooses to make the wrong decision.

2. Someone is being told wrong or incomplete information, leading them to make the wrong decision

3. Someone is being forced by external means into making an wrong decision.

Two and three are already illegal, under fraud and coersion.

Im solely talking about 1. Because if you don't believe people have full agency in that regard, you have to prove to what extent can you determine what is deception. You can't just willy nilly say that something feels immoral, and therefore should be banned.

You appear to be making the assertion that any economic exchange taken by two adults with full information is morally acceptable. Is that correct?

If so, would you accept the following as moral actions?

Financial adviser charging substantially above-market fees to recent widows, who lack experience in finance (All information is available, but not understood)

Selling heroin outside of a drug rehab clinic (All information available & understood, but under compromising circumstances)

>Financial adviser charging substantially above-market fees to recent widows, who lack experience in finance

As long as the financial advisers statement is along the lines of "this is the service I provide, these are my rates", with no lies about saying how his rates are the best or lying about what he can actually do, absolutely no problem.

That doesn't mean that he is of a moral upstanding character, but he certainly shouldn't be banned from setting his own price.

>Selling heroin outside of a drug rehab clinic (All information available & understood, but under compromising circumstances)

This one is tricky, because unlike online sports gambling, this ties into other things.

My answer would still be yes with the following caveats

* The heroin seller is FDA certified and not making the drug at home where he can accidentally mess it up and kill someone that is not expecting to die.

* We have a system of dealing with people effectively who turn to drugs. Id be 100% for state/government funded drug camps where anyone can either voluntarily enter, or get put there if their drug use causes them to be a public nuisance. They can stay there, get shelter and food and basic first aid for free, and get all the drugs they want, with 2 caveats: no advanced medical care (if you OD, or have a heart attack, you die), and the only way to leave is to go through a trial reintegration program where you get support for getting off drugs, get put to work, and do this for a year before being let out.

Well I agree that 2 and 3 are settled matters, but 1 is simply hiding an unexamined definition of what choice is.

So, what does it mean to choose something with full agency?

It means that you assume that the person is capable of rationally analyzing a situation, and making the best choice for themselves. And if that choice is financial ruin, than that is what they want, and if doesn't affect anyone else, they should be able to make that choice.

It is possible to believe that people have full agency and allow them to make wrong decisions, but in the case of wrong decisions about harmful addictive things where such people tend to later themselves wish they had not gone down that path also believe that we should not allow others to help them make that wrong decision.

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