Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? Episode 01 "THE MORAL SIDE OF MURDER"

Many of these are what we call "false choices" of the sort that typically arise in hypothetical utilitarian dilemma used in rhetoric and debate. Humans are creative enough to see alternative options that obviate the dilemma, at least to some extent. See Michael Sandel on moral dilemma. Edit: FYI, Sandel's complete course "Justice" is on Youtube.[1] [1] this video

I learned this lesson from the videos of the Harvard course on justice. The lecturer got explanations that I thought at the time were laughable, but somehow in his response he rephrased them to be reasonable and a great platform to deepen the conversation. It requires a great deal of empathy and intelligence to do that and I try my darndest to read as much sense as possible from any question directed my way. Here's an example: this video

Please follow HN guidelines- your comment appears vitriol As for taxes, I recommend this Harvard video series on ethics: this video Note: Taxes appear way after several videos though...

Sure, from a persuasion point of view I agree. But from a "trying to understand another human" point of view, I'd recommend you to read the Wikipedia page on ethics [1]. My own education on the topic: a course in college (as a business student) and watching some of the Harvard lectures on ethics [0]. IMO ethics courses teaches people to gain a more fine-grained vocabulary on explaining their own positions and understanding other's positions. GP clearly uses a deontological line of thinking on this matter. Something that GP considers to be "inhuman and barbaric" invokes a line of thinking in where he/she believes one ought to not do a certain action, because it simply is wrong. I'm not the best at explaining deontological ethics, nor are the people who think like this. My point is: a lot of thought has gone into the types of statements that GP makes, and IMO it's worth thinking about. [0] this video [1] link

Reminds me of Harvard University lecture that starts with this discussion: this video I would highly recommend.

I was in a somewhat similar position as the OP, having had a successful exit many years ago and trying to figure things out. I was lucky that I still had a faculty position at a top university, young kids, and a good family to help ground me and guide me. My general take on things is this: money is one of the closest things we have to a superpower in this world. With enough money, you can build new things, make steps toward solving hard problems, and influence people and organizations to do things you want. Given all this, what kind of world would you want to live in? And with your newfound superpower, what kind of steps can you take that might get us closer to that world? Now, of course, this path is fraught with many challenges and dangers (especially as evidenced by so many superpowered billionaires around the world that want us to live in an oligarchy, but that's a rant for another day). Instead, I'll end by sharing a few things that have helped shape my thinking about how I spend my time and what kind of positive impact I want to make on the world: - link - John Rawls on the Veil of Ignorance and the original position link - Prof. Michael Sandel (Harvard) on Justice: What's the Right Thing to do? this video - Prof. Robert Reich's course on Wealth and Poverty (former US Sec of Labor) link There's also an interview with a sci-fi author (Ted Chiang I believe, but I can't find it to confirm), that also posed an interesting question: what is your ideal world, and what step