115 - Ethical Clarity

The term "Ethics" is often confused with "Advocacy". Sources of such confusion abound, with some being common misunderstandings by heuristic association, and some being adversarial in origin.

The term "Ethics" is also often confused with "Morals", with some definitions even labeling the two as interchangeable. Of course, morals are entirely subjective cultural constructs, as well as moving targets, which makes it impossible to do anything with them that requires objectivity, a fixed target, or both. Definitions are crucial, as they shape the processes we design and apply to communicate, further our understanding, and improve society.

I define "Ethics" as the hypothetical point where bias has been removed from moral systems for this reason, as that gives it an objective and fixed location. That point is also virtually impossible to reach for any single sentient entity, due to how perspective "Binds and Blinds", but by utilizing collective intelligence that point may be reached by groups. The diverse perspectives and cooperation within such groups create a kind of tension of thoughts to reduce the cognitive bias of any given perspective, allowing more cognitively diverse collectives to get that much closer to the hypothetical point of ethics.

Discussions of Ethics can only be productive when "Ethics" isn't a meaningless and purely subjective blob of morals thrown into a blender. Advocacy for such post-blender blobs of morals are prone to eating their own tail, because they never had any firm objective targets to begin with, giving them no long-term path.

Actual ethics are quantifiable, and calculable because they are rooted in objective reality, even if the point of ethics can't be reached by a single sentient entity in isolation. To do this, ethics considers actions and responsibilities. A simple example of responsibility is that a billionaire must be 1,000 times more ethical than a millionaire in order to remain ethically positive, as they hold 1,000 times the burden of responsibility via their share of society's resource allocation. The same is true for the resource of "attention" via "influencers".

In contrast, morals consider two wholly incompatible subjective factors, "intentions" and "beliefs". To compound this problem, many legal systems also base their judgments on these bankrupt factors, to the detriment of society.

If a Silly Con Valley tech CEO deploys technology that causes damage at a global scale, then their crime is that damage multiplied by the period of time. If they delay the deployment of technology that prevents damage and reduces existing harms, the crime is basically the same, added damage over time, regardless of their beliefs or intentions.

Around 1,000 people have committed the worst crime that has ever been possible in human history over the past year, as illustrated in the Ethical Basilisk Thought Experiment.

Don't become number 1,001.