You compared what you would do to this guy to what you’d do to Polanski, and what you’d do to Polanski would be to badmouth him but not to “punish” him.
But then I would think the thing to do would be to hold uncertainty. You don’t need to either assume that the harms work out one way, or that they work out another.
There are situations where I need to have definite information in order to choose one side, and where significant uncertainty makes it appropriate to choose the other side. “Is it okay to harm this person?” is such a situation. If I’m uncertain about whether you have good reason to harm him, especially if it’s your own choice not to explain why, I’m going to say “no”, not be neutral about it.
You are not a robot and you don’t follow the first law of robotics. Actively hurting someone requires better justification than not doing so and allowing harm by inaction.
The question is how we decide which is which.
This is literally true, but the answer includes such things as “how good is your judgment about this person?” And that’s something you probably aren’t good at answering (because humans in general aren’t good at assessing their own ability to judge).
So looking back at this thread I realize I owe you a (limited) apology: I thought it had been you who told me to consult a lawyer, but that was a different user whose name also starts with a J.
It remains the case that you are misreading me, in a way that I don’t even see how you could be doing it, and that that’s frustrating. I don’t think I retract anything that I’ve said to you, and I still don’t want to put effort into replying to you, partly because you’re accusing me of saying things I did not say (even after I pointed out that I didn’t say them!) and believing things I do not believe.
But it’s possible that if I’d realized sooner that you were someone new, I would have put more effort into my earlier replies and we’d be in a better position now? Or maybe not. But in any case, I think you had not at the time earned the kind of reply that I started out giving you. So I’m sorry about that.
Most of this would take more effort to reply to than I want to, but this bit is easy:
You compared what you would do to this guy to what you’d do to Polanski, and what you’d do to Polanski would be to badmouth him but not to “punish” him.
This is simply false. You are wildly misreading me.
You compared what you would do to this guy to what you’d do to Polanski, and what you’d do to Polanski would be to badmouth him but not to “punish” him.
There are situations where I need to have definite information in order to choose one side, and where significant uncertainty makes it appropriate to choose the other side. “Is it okay to harm this person?” is such a situation. If I’m uncertain about whether you have good reason to harm him, especially if it’s your own choice not to explain why, I’m going to say “no”, not be neutral about it.
You are not a robot and you don’t follow the first law of robotics. Actively hurting someone requires better justification than not doing so and allowing harm by inaction.
This is literally true, but the answer includes such things as “how good is your judgment about this person?” And that’s something you probably aren’t good at answering (because humans in general aren’t good at assessing their own ability to judge).
So looking back at this thread I realize I owe you a (limited) apology: I thought it had been you who told me to consult a lawyer, but that was a different user whose name also starts with a J.
It remains the case that you are misreading me, in a way that I don’t even see how you could be doing it, and that that’s frustrating. I don’t think I retract anything that I’ve said to you, and I still don’t want to put effort into replying to you, partly because you’re accusing me of saying things I did not say (even after I pointed out that I didn’t say them!) and believing things I do not believe.
But it’s possible that if I’d realized sooner that you were someone new, I would have put more effort into my earlier replies and we’d be in a better position now? Or maybe not. But in any case, I think you had not at the time earned the kind of reply that I started out giving you. So I’m sorry about that.
Most of this would take more effort to reply to than I want to, but this bit is easy:
This is simply false. You are wildly misreading me.