First victim of the Ashley Madison Leak revealed

[Thunderflash500]

I saw on the news that his wife is blaming herself.

Sounds like most women honestly. At least half.

 

[Quipling]

So you support and encourage property theft if it outs "scumbags"?

Call me crazy, but I think hacking into a company's website and stealing their data is actually a greater violation of ethics than cheating on one's spouse.

This AM hack is really one of those great, real-life moral conundrums. We get to see the people who will violate rationality in favor of emotional bias on the way to reaching their verdict.

Yeah, that is crazy. There's a couple ways you can measure the ethics of an action. You could look at the utility of each action, and the AM hack probably wins there, since keeping society honest probably has significant long-term benefits that outweigh short-term strife. You haven't shown any argument to the contrary.

An alternative is you look at the duties parties owed. Again, you haven't shown any reason to believe that Ronald Hackerman owes a complete stranger who he didn't specifically target a greater duty than Josh Duggar owes to Mrs. Josh Duggar, his wife who he swore vows to not do the precise thing he went ahead and did at least once.

The only way I can see your position standing up is if one were to take the position that invasions of privacy are somehow categorically worse than other breaches of trust, and you've provided very little to support that position.

The primary basis of your argument has been an emotional appeal to the negative outcome from being 'outed' as a cheater. That's not a sufficient basis, though, to make something immoral. A very similar negative outcome can happen if your spouse finds a text, email, or bank statement revealing that you're paying Jose Dogger at the Homo Barn to spend an hour with you. Your life is just as ruined. Hell, if it was a private account that they guessed the password to, they've also just invaded your privacy. Was that a worse act than your cheating?

 

[ultramanhyata]

Some people get kicks by shooting other people in the head, or raping them. "I really wanted to do it" is a meaningless defense to scumbaggery. Tons of people really want to do all kinds of messed-up shit, granted. Welcome to being human. That's pretty much where the conversation begins; it's where we go from there that matters.

For example, we talk about how destructive your actions are to other people. When your actions are extremely destructive, rather than expressing empathy for (for example) how intensely you are attracted to prepubescent boys, we express condemnation of you. Now, this is not to say we shouldn't be empathetic for those suffering from such intense desires (it is actually a terrible tragedy to have such a sexuality, which seems to be relatively hard-wired), but when you act on them and cause great harm to others by it, well, fuck you.

Well, I guess you can either choose the easy path of conflating violent crime and pedophilia with substance abuse. Or do things the harder way and address the actual comparison I was attempting to make.

Here's a scenario:

1) Sober man with past history of alcohol abuse marries woman. Vows to never touch alcohol for the rest of their lives together. Ten years in wife learns on a tip that husband got shitfaced with some friends at their cabin on a hunting trip.

2) Man with many notches on bedpost marries woman, pledging lifelong fidelity. Ten years in wife learns on a tip that husband banged female coworker while on a business trip.

Both of these acts involve deception and the breaking of an oath. Yet American (stressed) society, for the most part, will view these two violations of marital trust very differently. And will place very different expectations on the wife in terms of the way she should be responding to her husband's behavior in the two different scenarios.

If possible, explain this distinction rationally, absent appeals to emotion.

 

[Losfer Words]

Its a hoot. Its irony on a base level, but its a hoot.

 

[ultramanhyata]

Yeah, that is crazy. There's a couple ways you can measure the ethics of an action. You could look at the utility of each action, and the AM hack probably wins there, since keeping society honest probably has significant long-term benefits that outweigh short-term strife. You haven't shown any argument to the contrary.

An alternative is you look at the duties parties owed. Again, you haven't shown any reason to believe that Ronald Hackerman owes a complete stranger who he didn't specifically target a greater duty than Josh Duggar owes to Mrs. Josh Duggar, his wife who he swore vows to not do the precise thing he went ahead and did at least once.

The only way I can see your position standing up is if one were to take the position that invasions of privacy are somehow categorically worse than other breaches of trust, and you've provided very little to support that position.

The primary basis of your argument has been an emotional appeal to the negative outcome from being 'outed' as a cheater. That's not a sufficient basis, though, to make something immoral. A very similar negative outcome can happen if your spouse finds a text, email, or bank statement revealing that you're paying Jose Dogger at the Homo Barn to spend an hour with you. Your life is just as ruined. Hell, if it was a private account that they guessed the password to, they've also just invaded your privacy. Was that a worse act than your cheating?

Call me a simpleton but I guess I'm just determining the ethical distinctions based on an appeal to the legal system and the behaviors that a society either has or has not deemed criminal and prosecutable in their courts of law.

The only people making "emotional appeals" here are those attempting to give an ethical pass to cyber-criminals on the basis that the victims of their thefts are people attempting to engage in sexually distasteful behavior.

 

[5H3RD0G]

Hackers shall rule the world...........correctly I hope. :icon_chee

 

[Quipling]

Call me a simpleton but I guess I'm just determining the ethical distinctions based on an appeal to the legal system and the behaviors that a society either has or has not deemed criminal and prosecutable in their courts of law.

The only people making "emotional appeals" here are those attempting to give an ethical pass to cyber-criminals on the basis that the victims of their thefts are people attempting to engage in sexually distasteful behavior.

If you're confusing the legality of an action with the ethics of an action, then yes, that does make you a simpleton. Stealing a pen is illegal. Cheating on your wife is not. According to your structure, stealing a pen is inherently less ethical.

Also, accusing everybody of making arguments you don't like of "emotional appeals" also makes you a simpleton.

 

[Zankou]

Well, I guess you can either choose the easy path of conflating violent crime and pedophilia with substance abuse. Or do things the harder way and address the actual comparison I was attempting to make.

Here's a scenario:

1) Sober man with past history of alcohol abuse marries woman. Vows to never touch alcohol for the rest of their lives together. Ten years in wife learns on a tip that husband got shitfaced with some friends at their cabin on a hunting trip.

2) Man with many notches on bedpost marries woman, pledging lifelong fidelity. Ten years in wife learns on a tip that husband banged female coworker while on a business trip.

Both of these acts involve deception and the breaking of an oath. Yet American (stressed) society, for the most part, will view these two violations of marital trust very differently. And will place very different expectations on the wife in terms of the way she should be responding to her husband's behavior in the two different scenarios.

If possible, explain this distinction rationally, absent appeals to emotion.

If you cannot understand the 'super complex' and 'difficult to grasp' concept of why sexual wrongs are so much more severe than most other types of wrongs, I suggest you go take a biology course, watch a bunch of chimps, and ponder to yourself why a chimp might think a mate's sexual unfaithfulness is more significant than drinking alcohol.

Being raped, for example, is vastly more severe a wrong than regular assault. Why? It's almost as though sexuality is incredibly important to human beings .... almost as though sexual relationships have a level of real importance and depth that mere dopamine chasing in the abstract doesn't. Why could that be, I wonder.

You literally have to border on retarded not to grasp why your mate's sexual unfaithfulness is widely perceived as a more severe form of betrayal than drinking alcohol.

 

[korean blood]

Don't know who the guy is but reading on what he's done, dude is all fucked up

 

[IIIIIIII]

I read there was over 15,000 military and government email accounts linked to the site. This is gonna be great.

that doesn't surprise me at all. when your job keeps you away from your partner for so long, it's only nature that someone is going to cheat.

 

[ultramanhyata]

If you're confusing the legality of an action with the ethics of an action, then yes, that does make you a simpleton. Stealing a pen is illegal. Cheating on your wife is not. According to your structure, stealing a pen is inherently less ethical.

There's a reason societies deem some behaviors distasteful, worthy of shame, and other behaviors criminal, worthy of fines/incarceration/death. If you don't see the laws of the land representing a sort of democratic consensus about degrees of ethical violation I don't know what to tell you.

And your pen stealing comparison misses the mark. As, while it includes the act of theft, it makes the object of that theft a nominal, disposable item. Unless you are arguing that any theft of any property of any value whatsoever will always be more ethical, on the scale, than marital infidelity (an argument I could understand if coming from a religious ethics angle) that example was, like the pen, just cheap.

Also, accusing everybody of making arguments you don't like of "emotional appeals" also makes you a simpleton.

That's not something I accuse "everybody" of. But in the case of those defending or dismissing the AM hack the shoe fits about as well as it could.

"If you cheat on your spouse you deserve to have your shit stolen." That's your position in a nutshell. Sort of the same basis upon which society used to look the other way when husbands slapped around their philandering wives.

Here's a scenario:

Bob and Jim both have nude photos on their phones that their former wives sent them at points during the marriages. After their divorces are final both Bob and Jim put the pics up on the web out of spite.

Bob's wife had committed adultery. But Jim's wife had not (though, full-disclosure, she was a petty, nagging bitch).

Do you think Bob's violation of his ex-wife's right to privacy was "more ethical" than Jim's violation? Explain.

 

[ultramanhyata]

If you cannot understand the 'super complex' and 'difficult to grasp' concept of why sexual wrongs are so much more severe than most other types of wrongs, I suggest you go take a biology course, watch a bunch of chimps, and ponder to yourself why a chimp might think a mate's sexual unfaithfulness is more significant than drinking alcohol.

Let's allow a chimp to either self-administer opioids or have sex with a female chimp. I guess his choice will reveal something to us about human ethics.

Being raped, for example, is vastly more severe a wrong than regular assault. Why? It's almost as though sexuality is incredibly important to human beings .... almost as though sexual relationships have a level of real importance and depth that mere dopamine chasing in the abstract doesn't. Why could that be, I wonder.

That paragraph just begs the question. You can do better.

You literally have to border on retarded not to grasp why your mate's sexual unfaithfulness is widely perceived as a more severe form of betrayal than drinking alcohol.

I'll take that as an admission that you can provide no real explanation.

At best, all I can extract from this post is some kind of argument about the evolutionary hard-wiring of the reproductive process. And I can certainly see how that could, in fact, affect the human species' ability to approach the ethics of sexual behavior in an objective, non-emotionally invested manner. But it's that very emotional investment, and its capacity to warp rationality, that I'm trying to get to the bottom of here.

 

[ultramanhyata]

Just read this... Puts some of the legal/ethical implication$ of the hack in greater perspective. Because it was not quite like stealing a pen...

Ashley Madison Faces $578M Canadian Class-Action Lawsuit

"The sensitivity of the information is so extreme and the repercussions of this breach are so extreme, it puts the damages faced by members in a completely different category of class-action suits," said Charney.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ashley-madison-faces-578m-canadian-193220673.html

 

[Zankou]

Let's allow a chimp to either self-administer opioids or have sex with a female chimp. I guess his choice will reveal something to us about human ethics.



That paragraph just begs the question. You can do better.



I'll take that as an admission that you can provide no real explanation.

At best, all I can extract from this post is some kind of argument about the evolutionary hard-wiring of the reproductive process. And I can certainly see how that could, in fact, affect the human species' ability to approach the ethics of sexual behavior in an objective, non-emotionally invested manner. But it's that very emotional investment, and its capacity to warp rationality, that I'm trying to get to the bottom of here.

You aren't going to get to the bottom of anything by rambling on and on about 'rationality' without explaining in the first instance why you think anything should ever be preferred over anything else -- why rationality supposedly dictates a hierarchy of preferences. Why do you prefer to live rather than be shot in the face? Why do you prefer to eat ice cream, rather than be raped? Why is it terrible to rape children? Why is sexuality significant, in any way, in any respect more important than the kind of ice cream you happen to prefer? Or the color you'd like to paint your walls? Why are you being so 'emotional' in thinking it's better to go for a walk, rather than to be set on fire?

There are many ways you can answer all these kinds of questions. But in any way that is non-retarded, that is in any way that displays even a rudimentary grasp of human flourishing, human sexuality is of immense significance that dwarfs most other forms of 'dopamine chasing.' This isn't because there is some god-given form of rational structuring of human preferences, devoid of feelings. It's because humans would literally not even exist if they treated sexuality as so unimportant ... just as if they weren't interested in eating, or avoiding being stabbed to death.

 

[djacobox372]

Bob and Jim both have nude photos on their phones that their former wives sent them at points during the marriages. After their divorces are final both Bob and Jim put the pics up on the web out of spite.

Bob's wife had committed adultery. But Jim's wife had not (though, full-disclosure, she was a petty, nagging bitch).

Do you think Bob's violation of his ex-wife's right to privacy was "more ethical" than Jim's violation? Explain.

Neither is "ethical," but we could presume that bob, in general, is a more ethical person than Jim, as it took a greater slight for him to resort to unethical behavior than it did Jim.

Everybody has a point in which they can be pushed into unethical behavior.

 

[Devout Pessimist]

First Jared, now this. Is nothing sacred? Is my 'controversial' history of e-book purchases and 'unconventional fan fiction' about to be exposed to the public? Is my marriage at risk?

"When Carl’s bro sends him photos of a hot and sexy unicorn, he cant help getting turned on. But when Carl discovers that the unicorn of his dreams was once reality star and athlete, Bort Jenkins, a former tyrannosaurus rex from the show Borting Up With The Dinosaurs, Carl’s whole world turns upside down.

Terrified that he may be dinosexual, conservative Carl is now thrown into a whirlwind of self-destruction, culminating in a literal encounter with his sexual identity fears.

Soon enough, Carl finds himself in a hot gay gangbang with his physically manifested bigotry. But will this extreme pounding be enough to help this Carl learn that real love takes many forms?

This erotic tale is 5,000 words of sizzling human on personified gayness action, including blowjobs, rough sex, gangbangs, cream pies, facials, double anal and physically manifested dinophobia."

Chuck Tingle is a Legend. I wonder if he is related to Christie Sims?

 

[ultramanhyata]

You aren't going to get to the bottom of anything by rambling on and on about 'rationality' without explaining in the first instance why you think anything should ever be preferred over anything else -- why rationality supposedly dictates a hierarchy of preferences. Why do you prefer to live rather than be shot in the face? Why do you prefer to eat ice cream, rather than be raped? Why is it terrible to rape children? Why is sexuality significant, in any way, in any respect more important than the kind of ice cream you happen to prefer? Or the color you'd like to paint your walls? Why are you being so 'emotional' in thinking it's better to go for a walk, rather than to be set on fire?

If I meet a person who responds with greater fear and anxiety to the sight of a non-venomous spider than to the sight of a poisonous snake I am going to label that reaction "irrational". And I could certainly lay out a logical basis for that conclusion.

Given your depiction of our species' hard-wired sexuality, and the way you think it relates to rationality, one could argue that a male who rapes a desired female is acting "rationally". I would not agree. I could grant that that male is acting instinctively, but I would argue that his inability to step back from his instinctive, emotional drives and consider and weigh the various ramifications and consequences of his actions makes the rape, by definition, an irrational act.

I would say the same about a woman who throws away a decade-long marriage on the basis that her husband received oral sex from a dancer at a bachelor party and then tried to hide it from her.

There are many ways you can answer all these kinds of questions. But in any way that is non-retarded, that is in any way that displays even a rudimentary grasp of human flourishing, human sexuality is of immense significance that dwarfs most other forms of 'dopamine chasing.' This isn't because there is some god-given form of rational structuring of human preferences, devoid of feelings. It's because humans would literally not even exist if they treated sexuality as so unimportant ... just as if they weren't interested in eating, or avoiding being stabbed to death.

You're avoiding any consideration of religious tradition and/or social mores in your explanation of infidelity's psychic triggering power. Why do you think some European females have a less visceral emotional reaction to men with mistresses, for example, than do the majority of American women? Do we see nature or nurture at play there?

 

[ultramanhyata]

Neither is "ethical," but we could presume that bob, in general, is a more ethical person than Jim, as it took a greater slight for him to resort to unethical behavior than it did Jim.

Everybody has a point in which they can be pushed into unethical behavior.

So what does that say about the ethics of the so-called Impact Team? Who stole property and then violated the privacy rights of millions of people?

As others in this thread have stated, and I tend to agree, the ethical bar of TIT was no higher than "the lul's". Basically, they are bottom of the barrel P'sOS.

To put it another way... If there was a news story about an IT engineer who hacked into the AM website, located the account info of the man who was having an affair with the IT engineer's wife, and posted it all over the web, I would simply chuckle and think, "I get that. It may have been unethical, even criminal, but I get it."

 

[squeezewax]

Vigilantes

https://theconversation.com/a-tale-...s-hackers-and-the-ashley-madison-affair-46511

 

[The_Renaissance]

Couldn't happen to a nicer bloke.

Don't judge other people's morality when you yourself are a dirty, scheming, cheating prick.