News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry. Parent comment

Re:How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry by MereInterest on Sunday February 02, 2014 @01:12PM (#7166821)
A gambler comes into a casino, which I own. I know this gambler personally, and I know his style. However much he comes in with, he bets it all on black at the roulette tables. If he wins, he places the bet again, and again, until he loses. This time, he has come in with what I know to be his 17-year-old child's college fund. The fund is in his name, and is legally his, but is intended for paying for college. If he loses it, he will not have enough time to build it up again before the child graduates high school. I allow him to bet and lose the money.

How the hell would this be ethical, no matter how consensual and non-coercive it is?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry by sneak on Sunday February 02, 2014 @03:02PM (#7167307)
What would be unethical is if you tried to coerce him into somehow not spending it.

The money is not a college fund. Your customer's previously-held inaccurate predictions of the future turned out to be false. He changed his mind. Your assertion that it "is intended for paying for college" is false. It is intended for paying for roulette.

It is not your right to choose for others how they spend their money.

Stop trying to control other people because of your certainty in the belief that you know what's best for them.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry by callum85 on Sunday February 02, 2014 @04:39PM (#7167700)
That view is insanely simplistic. Sometimes people do things that are against their own interests because they are in the clutches of an addiction. In these situations, it is sometimes OK for someone to step in and overrule them. Sometimes it's not just OK, but morally necessary.

It can be better to temporarily infringe someone's rights if it stops them from doing something that they will regret for the rest of their life.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry by sneak on Monday February 03, 2014 @12:44AM (#7169065)
> It can be better to temporarily infringe someone's rights if it stops them from doing something that they will regret for the rest of their life.

No, this is false. You're incapable of guessing what other people may or may not regret with enough accuracy to use it as a justification for infringing upon the rights of others.

Furthermore, most are heavily influenced by societal norms and customs, making this even more dangerous a justification when used against the rights of those with eccentricities or nonstandard tastes or lifestyles.

It's never ok to infringe upon someone's rights.

A question: how do people find themselves "in the clutches of an addiction"? How do they escape? Could it possibly be their own free will to decide to smoke the first cigarette, or their individual decision to walk past the bar without going in, on their way home from AA?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry by DanBC on Monday February 03, 2014 @12:52AM (#7169079)
> It's never ok to infringe upon someone's rights.

Do you agree that it's right to have age restrictions for buying and selling alcohol?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry by sneak on Monday February 03, 2014 @03:59AM (#7169545)
Not at all. However, any responsible guardian of someone drinking underage should be subject to the appropriate penalties for neglect. It's not a child's fault when they make an error.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry by DanBC on Monday February 03, 2014 @04:14AM (#7169608)
> It's not a child's fault when they make an error

You realise that many alcoholics start drinking when they're children?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry by MereInterest on Sunday February 02, 2014 @04:47PM (#7167741)
Let's take another example, even more extreme. Suppose I run a pawn shop. Somebody comes in looking to sell goods that I know are stolen. I buy them from him. This contract is entered by both of us consensually and without coercion. It is also entirely immoral.

People are social creatures. Trying to ignore that and treat everybody as isolated individuals ignores those.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry by brc on Sunday February 02, 2014 @07:16PM (#7168206)
That transaction is illegal. There is a difference.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry by MereInterest on Sunday February 02, 2014 @09:23PM (#7168486)
Laws follow morals, not the other way around. If the parent poster's absolute statement is to hold, it should be independent of the legal system.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry by jessedhillon on Sunday February 02, 2014 @09:42PM (#7168526)
That's a baseless assertion -- legality and morality are independent and only coincidentally aligned. Unless you want to start telling us about the ethical necessity upheld by the farm subsidy bill.

Clearly it would be immoral for you to intentionally provide a source of liquidity for stolen goods. How does that show anything about your gambler?

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry by MereInterest on Sunday February 02, 2014 @11:03PM (#7168751)
They are both separate examples of contracts that are consensual and without coercion, but are immoral, both for different reasons. My goal was to find a counter-example to the statement that "All consensual and non-coercive transactions are ethical.". Once that example was found, expanding from there.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:How in-app purchases have destroyed the game industry by tripzilch on Friday February 07, 2014 @07:06AM (#7195883)
They were discussing morality, not legality. There is a difference. You can base your decision to do/not do something because (you feel) it is immoral, whether it is illegal or not.

Often legality and morality do align (but really not as often as you'd think), and this is fortunate, because it allows good people an easy mental short-cut for weighing one's actions based on legality (and punishment), as well as protecting the weaker-willed parts of society that often end up on the wrong end of moral decisions by people like sneak, who'd let people drink themselves to death because if everybody was completely free they'd surely decide out of their own free will to do what's best for them and nobody would ever prey on the weak-willed like that, ever.

[ Parent | on HN ]