https://philosophynow.org/issues/125/The_Golden_Rule_Revisit...).
Meaning, don’t be a cheater unless you want to live in a society of cheaters. Slightly different meaning from “do unto others” which is about interpersonal reciprocity.
> Immanuel Kant famously criticized the golden rule for not being sensitive to differences of situation, noting that a prisoner duly convicted of a crime could appeal to the golden rule while asking the judge to release him, pointing out that the judge would not want anyone else to send him to prison, so he should not do so to others. On the other hand, in a critique of the consistency of Kant's writings, several authors have noted the "similarity" between the Golden Rule and Kant's Categorical Imperative, introduced in Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (See discussion at this link).
The Golden Rule conveys 99% of the idea. No one cares about the remaining 1% except for people who have time to waste. We get it. We get the point Kant is trying to make.
Kant's wording scales up to include the emergent properties of a society which operated according to that rule.
The Golden Rule doesn't cover cases like, "Should I throw this trash in a lake." because there's no concrete person being "done unto". Kant's rule does: Would you want to live in a world where everyone threw trash in the lake? Probably not.