[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

How Private Equity Plundered The American Economy | Ft. Adam Conover

Have you ever wondered why so many major retail chains have filed for bankruptcy or closed locations recently?  Toys r Us, Baskin Robbins, J Crew, Hertz, 24 Hour Fitness, Dunkin Donuts?. It?s pretty much an entire mall. It?s not just because of the pandemic:

There?s a shadowy mafia that has been ripping off the entire US economy while making themselves rich. Really rich. This group is responsible for bankrupting hospitals, your favorite retail chains and even ripping off Taylor Swift. They?re called Private Equity. And your company might be next. We took a deep dive into the shocking strategies that the Private Equity Mafia uses.

Hope is not all lost though. There are things we can do to fix these problems. Transparency, for one:

Enter the Securities and Exchange Commission,  or SEC, the federal agency charged with stopping bad actors from manipulating the markets. The SEC, led by Biden appointee Gary Gensler, has proposed changing their rules so that private equity firms would have to, you know, tell the truth about their returns of their funds, and disclose transparent information about all the fees that they charge. Obviously the lobbying groups representing private equity firms are up in arms about the idea that they might have to disclose even some basic information to their investors. Meanwhile in Congress, the federal Stop Wall Street Looting act, introduced in 2021, would limit the amount of debt used in buyouts, increase transparency, and close tax loopholes.

And what can you do, yourself? Well, unionize. A unionized workforce is better protected against a leveraged buyout.

Without those changes, the private equity mafia is going to keep getting away with their schemes to line their pockets with YOUR money.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

How I changed my mind about objective morality | Peter Singer full interview

Peter Singer recounts how and why he changed his views on objective morality and animal cruelty, and defends effective altruism in the wake of the Sam Bankman-Fried scandal.

Were Sam Bankman-Fried's intentions misunderstood?

Whether or not moral ideas can be objectively true has divided philosophers for centuries. But can we ever find moral truths? How would we find them? And what can these truths tell us about the world? In this challenging interview, Peter Singer defends his turn to objectivity and argues morality doesn't need religion, that we should resist our intuitions and that the future of the Effective Altruism movement isn't as bleak as it may appear.

Peter Singer is a prominent philosopher, author and academic. He a professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, and specialises in practical ethics. His is best known for his work on global poverty and animal ethics. His book Animal Liberation was a key to the early environmental movement. Interviewed by Senior Producer at the IAI Charlie Barnett.


00:00 Introduction
00:37 What have philosophers got wrong most often?
01:47 Why believe in moral realism?
03:36 What is 'objective' morality?
05:33 Are the people who disagree with you on ethical issues objectively wrong?
07:00 Is objective morality a quasi-religious claim?
08:09 Does objective morality have sociological consequences?
08:59 Do you agree with Sam Harris that there is a false distinction
between facts and values?
10:16 What should have normative force in the making of ethical judgements?
12:12 Doesn't objective morality appeal to a higher level of intuition?
13:20 Does evolution explain our so-called rational preferences?
14:01 Should we avoid intuitions in our moral reasoning altogether?
15:30 Does thinking calmly and clearly bring different people
to the same conclusion?
16:13 How can we distinguish between good and bad intuitions?
18:27 Why do you think you have been so successful in convincing
others of your philosophical views?
20:31 Sam Bankman-Fried and the future of effective altruism
22:32 Exciting update

In this challenging interview, Peter Singer defends his turn to objectivity and argues morality doesn't need religion.
For morality to exist, it's necessary that there is at least one conscious entity in the universe. In other words, there is no morality in a universe without any conscious entity. This bit should be obvious, but some of us tend to overlook, take it for granted, or consider it too trivial to mention.
On the other hand, an objective truth means something that is true, independent from the existence of conscious entities to verify or refute it. In this definition, morality cannot be an objective value.
But morality can be real, as long as there is one or more conscious entities in the universe. It can also be universal, because there is at least one attribute shared by every conscious entity without exception: consciousness.

[alancalverd]

Only a philosopher could turn a statement of the bloody obvious into a "challenging interview".

It can also be universal, because there is at least one attribute shared by every conscious entity without exception: consciousness.

And there you lose the plot. A sheep and a wolf share a powerful attribute: hunger. What is the universal moral resolution?

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

And there you lose the plot. A sheep and a wolf share a powerful attribute: hunger. What is the universal moral resolution?

They want their offsprings to survive.

[alancalverd]

So the wolf kills the sheep's offspring. Or the sheep all run away and the wolf starves to death. Your morality is inconsistent and therefore not universal. 

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

So the wolf kills the sheep's offspring. Or the sheep all run away and the wolf starves to death. Your morality is inconsistent and therefore not universal. 

The universal moral standard that both of them obey is the want conscious entities to exist in the future. Only the details are different.

[alancalverd]

So two moral acts can be diametrically opposed. I think you have confused morality (how we should behave towards others) with a survival instinct (how we are forced to behave by circumstance). 

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

So two moral acts can be diametrically opposed. I think you have confused morality (how we should behave towards others) with a survival instinct (how we are forced to behave by circumstance). 

Your definition of morality is narrower than its definition by dictionary.
Morality refers to principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

That's the difference between moral rules and moral standards. Standards are necessarily less circumstantial than rules. Differences in capabilities to follow moral standards don't nullify the existence of the moral standards.

[alancalverd]

Morality refers to principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

In what way is that different from

how we should behave towards others

?

There is only a difference if you assume that there is some absolute distinction between good and bad. But if that were so, we wouldn't need morality or moral codes!

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Morality refers to principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

In what way is that different from

how we should behave towards others

?

Your morality doesn't cover behaviors towards ourselves. Or our environment.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

There is only a difference if you assume that there is some absolute distinction between good and bad. But if that were so, we wouldn't need morality or moral codes!

The absolute certainty can only be acquired retrospectively. The moral rules are needed before actions are taken.

[alancalverd]

How you behave towards yourself is not a matter of morality, whatever your priest says.

How you behave towards your environment is only a moral concern if it affects others. Which it usually does.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

How you behave towards yourself is not a matter of morality, whatever your priest says.

How you behave towards your environment is only a moral concern if it affects others. Which it usually does.

How you behave towards yourself also usually affects others. If you jump off a tall building, someone needs to clear up the mess.

[alancalverd]

Not necessarily. Prisoners executed by hanging were often left on the public gibbet as a warning to others. Crows and foxes will eventually dispose of an urban corpse. And if you commit suicide in your own home, nobody needs to know at all. 

The father of a friend killed himself rather than suffer a terminal disease. Either way, she would have buried him eventually.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Your behavior towards yourself matters the most if you are the only existing conscious entity in the universe.

[alancalverd]

But it only matters to you, so it has no moral consequence.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

But it only matters to you, so it has no moral consequence.

The moral consequences are for the conscious entities who will or will not come after me.

[alancalverd]

If I am the only conscious entity (whatever that means) in the universe, there won't be any more.

An even if they did spontaneously evolve, I  very much doubt whether the suicide of the last dinosaur had any moral consequence for subsequent species.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

If I am the only conscious entity (whatever that means) in the universe, there won't be any more.

That's what makes consciousness important, and carries weight in moral considerations. In most existing moral standards, saving a child is morally better than saving a cockroach.
A future ASI will be able to make copies of itself. They will be more conscious than any currently existing individual human.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

An even if they did spontaneously evolve, I  very much doubt whether the suicide of the last dinosaur had any moral consequence for subsequent species.

Dinosaurs were not the only conscious entities back then.