#ethics

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Hello to the wonderful people and journalists of @Mastodon! I've been curious about this platform for a while, and I'm excited to dive in and explore our community together. Let's connect! I'm passionate about topics like and so much more. I'm always eager to learn about the world and how we can unite to create amazing things together.

Instead of trolley problems (), maybe we should be talking about Rube Goldberg problems. Imagine you're confronted with an extraordinarily complex Rube Goldberg machine. On one end is a switch that can be flipped to start it going, after which it will run through its various complicated motions and finally stop. On the other end is a person who will be seriously harmed or killed by the machine if the switch is flipped. Imagine there's a person who knows all this and decides to flip the switch, and the person at the other end is harmed or killed with certainty. Do you hold the switch flipper responsible for the harm?

What if the machine were 10x more complex? 100x more complex? What if part of the machine could misbehave in such a way that the person at the end isn't harmed with certainty, but only with some probability? What …

There is a lot of talk about right now, and that is understandable, and this post will not be for everyone. However, when I was writing posts for scifi.global I did feel it necessary to include "leadership" as its own category as a descriptor of select posts. One of the ethics related courses I took in grad school was specifically on leadership.

Those posts can be found here for those interested

https://www.scifi.global/category/leadership/

Again, this will only appeal to those interested in , and still not all of those folks. But I thought I might contribute to the ongoing discussion.

Academics and researchers, I'm not joking when I say now is the time to save your work/data in multiple places outside of your institution's server or Google or MS cloud.

A thumb drive. An external drive. Print out the critical documents, e.g., final drafts, copies of publications, approved grants & IRB docs, latest teaching/research statements, student evaluations, syllabi, other tenure packet items, etc.

In other words, save your work like it's 2002.

Really great new Podcast on Enshitification – Cory Doctorow @pluralistic

Enshittification isn’t caused by venture capital

Episode webpage: https://craphound.com/overclocked/2025/01/20/enshittification-isnt-caused-by-venture-capital/

Media file: https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_490/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_490_Enshittification_isnt_caused_by_venture_capital.mp3

Important thoughts on Bluesky and importance of constraints.

Impressive list of upcoming events Cory. Glad to see it.

Come work for us!

Two 3-year Positions at @universityofgroningen in and/or Kantian in Pauline Kleingeld's Spinoza Project

Application deadline: Wednesday 26 February
Starting date: 1 September 2025

all details here: https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/work-with-us/job-opportunities/?details=00347-02S000B44P

CC @UnivGroJobs

Life in a Pseudo-Religious Oligarchy

I may be the only one dense enough to just arrive at a realization about the state of the U.S. government today. The Citizens United (2010) ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that expanded the doctrine of corporations as people, without limits to their political cash contributions, once seemed in the not distant past like a legal abstraction to me. And, the description of the U.S. government as an oligarchy by none other than Jimmy Carter in 2015 sounded like hyperbole. It’s like the consequences of Citizens United and subsequent related events snuck up on me while I was too busy making a living and supporting my family to pay much attention, which might have been part of the plan. (1/3)

I read that Zuckerberg is calling people who leave his platforms, "virtue signalers." Yup. Indeed. I'd also add, "ethics and morality signalers and patriots." We should all signal that we don't support this kind of behavior. With action.

started reading Christian Ethics by D. Stephen Long

D. Stephen Long: Christian Ethics (Paperback, 2010, Oxford University Press) No rating

Christian ethics, writes theologian D. Stephen Long, is the pursuit of God's goodness by people …

I love the Very Short Introduction series and this year I want to read more of them. In grad school I had an opportunity to take two courses in theological ethics and I have since had an interest in Ethics more generally and religious ethics more particularly. Looking forward to brushing up a bit and learning more in 2025!

#Christianity #Christian #Ethics #Theology #Philosophy #Religion #ReligiousStudies