I am fascinated by this intersection of economics and ethics ... here is a snippet from a recent discussion:
"A sh.tcoin is a coin that is sh.t," [Buterin] replied, to applause from the audience. He later elaborated on his answer, asserting that a project has a shitcoin when it relies on a model that is fundamentally evil. The co-founder of Ethereum did not pull punches on the FTX debacle, comparing Sam Bankman-Fried to a "1930s dictator," which is the “exact opposite of every ethos of crypto projects that try to be decentralized.”
On the other hand I recently started to read "After Virtue" by Alasdair MacIntyre. My impression is that his criticism of modernity is profound and may be worth our attention. Any comments on this?
The most interesting insight emerging from the famous discussion about Ponzi schemes with SBF was that the interviewer and SBF essentially admitted that crypto is not fundamentally different from the rest of finance.
On the Utilitarianism as Religion front, it's fascinating to me that the founders of Utilitarianism *knew* they needed to make it as much like a religion as possible. Comte wrote a whole book on secular religion, and it's truly strange—like if you trained an AI on religious texts then told it to develop a new religion. Mill read Comte's book with great distaste, yet realized that these religious-liturgical elements were essential to human moral development, and returned to the religious dimension with increasing frequency in later life (producing some of his best work, IMHO).
Utilitarians now often just ignore the moral-formation part. But as you point out, that doesn't mean it just goes away...
There is a nice critique of the faux discipline of behavioral economics, in which the banishment of irrationality is the mirage promised. cf. Daniel Ariely, Stephen Pinker, and disciples.
I am fascinated by this intersection of economics and ethics ... here is a snippet from a recent discussion:
"A sh.tcoin is a coin that is sh.t," [Buterin] replied, to applause from the audience. He later elaborated on his answer, asserting that a project has a shitcoin when it relies on a model that is fundamentally evil. The co-founder of Ethereum did not pull punches on the FTX debacle, comparing Sam Bankman-Fried to a "1930s dictator," which is the “exact opposite of every ethos of crypto projects that try to be decentralized.”
On the other hand I recently started to read "After Virtue" by Alasdair MacIntyre. My impression is that his criticism of modernity is profound and may be worth our attention. Any comments on this?
The most interesting insight emerging from the famous discussion about Ponzi schemes with SBF was that the interviewer and SBF essentially admitted that crypto is not fundamentally different from the rest of finance.
On the Utilitarianism as Religion front, it's fascinating to me that the founders of Utilitarianism *knew* they needed to make it as much like a religion as possible. Comte wrote a whole book on secular religion, and it's truly strange—like if you trained an AI on religious texts then told it to develop a new religion. Mill read Comte's book with great distaste, yet realized that these religious-liturgical elements were essential to human moral development, and returned to the religious dimension with increasing frequency in later life (producing some of his best work, IMHO).
Utilitarians now often just ignore the moral-formation part. But as you point out, that doesn't mean it just goes away...
There is a nice critique of the faux discipline of behavioral economics, in which the banishment of irrationality is the mirage promised. cf. Daniel Ariely, Stephen Pinker, and disciples.