@EpistemicHope @HiFromMichaelV @ben_r_hoffman @TheZvi @zackmdavis To be clear, they do distinguish between intentional and unintentional harm!
They think (like the law) that if it’s sufficiently feasible to find out you’re causing harm and stop, you’re negligent if you avoid finding out and stopping.
They think (like the law) that if it’s sufficiently feasible to find out you’re causing harm and stop, you’re negligent if you avoid finding out and stopping.
@EpistemicHope @HiFromMichaelV @ben_r_hoffman @TheZvi @zackmdavis Also they believe (and so do I) that there’s such a thing as motivatedly looking away from the harm you cause, which is a very different behavior from genuine ignorance where you couldn’t have known better.
@EpistemicHope @HiFromMichaelV @ben_r_hoffman @TheZvi @zackmdavis Ben, Michael, and I all agree that PG is most likely flinching from, or in denial about, the ways in which he’s shaped YC in directions that harmed/wronged people. (Like “Fred” in Alyssa’s post.)
@EpistemicHope @HiFromMichaelV @ben_r_hoffman @TheZvi @zackmdavis Ben & Michael think (& they can correct me if I’m wrong) that you shouldn’t be any less “harsh” in judgment of people who flinch away from awareness of harms they cause vs. people who sadistically enjoy causing harm.
@EpistemicHope @HiFromMichaelV @ben_r_hoffman @TheZvi @zackmdavis Hannah Arendt’s portrait of Eichmann google.com/amp/s/www.newy… shows him as the kind of guy who wanted to think of himself as nice, and avoided thinking about the fact that he was a mass murderer, although of course he knew it, because running concentration camps was his job.
@EpistemicHope @HiFromMichaelV @ben_r_hoffman @TheZvi @zackmdavis Ben and Michael (I think) believe that Eichmann is not even more likable or sympathetic, let alone less guilty, than a more conventionally “bloodthirsty” or “sadistic” killer, and will use the exact same language to describe both.
@EpistemicHope @HiFromMichaelV @ben_r_hoffman @TheZvi @zackmdavis I think an Eichmann is morally responsible and legally guilty in a functioning legal system such as the Israeli court he was tried in. But I do have the sense that he’s somehow a “nicer guy” or that I want to be more charitable in language to him, than to a sadist.
@EpistemicHope @HiFromMichaelV @ben_r_hoffman @TheZvi @zackmdavis It’s not okay to be Eichmann, but I still *like him more* somehow than I like bloodthirsty sadists, even though it has nothing to do with the magnitude of his crime or his agency/responsibility in committing it. Not sure why or if I endorse this in myself, but that’s how it is.
@EpistemicHope @HiFromMichaelV @ben_r_hoffman @TheZvi @zackmdavis Ben and Michael seem (I’m less confident about this) to either not have this intuition/feeling, or to be *quite* confident that they shouldn’t let it govern their behavior.
@EpistemicHope @HiFromMichaelV @ben_r_hoffman @TheZvi @zackmdavis Eli seems to be prone to elide the difference between “actually unintentional/accidental” vs “making a bunch of deliberate choices, being demonstrably able to know they have bad consequences, but flinching from the thought that you’re causing bad consequences.”
@EpistemicHope @HiFromMichaelV @ben_r_hoffman @TheZvi @zackmdavis The law doesn’t treat these as the same, and neither should we. There’s a big difference between “he had no way of knowing” and “he was told explicitly, he knew it in other contexts, but he avoided thinking about it here.”
@EpistemicHope @HiFromMichaelV @ben_r_hoffman @TheZvi @zackmdavis If being “in denial” or “avoiding thinking about it” was morally the same as actually not having any reasonable way of knowing, then Eichmann would be innocent.
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