
This Christmas, give the gift of a blameless life to someone you love - nkurz
http://www.philosophersbeard.org/2015/12/this-christmas-give-gift-of-blameless.html
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mcherm
I genuinely can't tell whether this is a spoof, or is real.

If it's a spoof, I have to give credit: it is masterfully done. If it is real,
then they should probably work a little harder on trying not to sound like a
spoof.

~~~
ggchappell
It's a humor piece that attempts to get us to think about the issue. The quote
is invented. The product is not real. But the ideas are -- hopefully --
thought provoking one.

EDIT. As user tremon noted, there is a word for this: the piece is _satire_.

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jawns
The CaaS (Confession as a Service) space is certainly heating up.

And no wonder. The Catholic Church has been giving absolution away for
centuries, but what if you're not Catholic? Or what if you want a
luxury/premium reconciliation experience, rather than the standard shuffle
into a cramped, dark confessional booth on a Saturday afternoon?

The time is definitely ripe for disruption. Can't wait for the mobile app.

~~~
jrcii
The presence of God's grace in the holy sacrament of Penance is what gives it
a "luxury/premium" quality regardless of the physical environment. An app,
which does not confer God's grace, can never be "luxury/premium" for this
reason and can not "disrupt" the sacrament.

~~~
tomjen3
Parent is making a joke, but surely God can be present through an app, if he
so chooses?

~~~
jrcii
From the perspective of the Catholic faith, God can do whatever He pleases
provided it's logical and consistent with His past promises. While God could
decide to grant the pardon and grace of the sacrament through an app, the
Church expects the Holy Spirit would inform us of such a decision. It also
seems highly unlikely since it would be antithetical to the theological
premise of Penance, in which the humility required to confess your sins
directly to another human is central.

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codeulike
I seriously disagree with this ( _assuming its not a joke, or that some people
wont read it as such_ ).

We live in an intensely interconnected world, and although its challenging to
unpick those connections, to not do so is to become complicit in all manor of
frankly very bad shit.

We only get to vote once every 4 or 5 years, but every time you spend (or
earn) a dollar or pound, you are contributing to a system, you are channeling
money in a particular direction.

Giant corporations have, without any need for anyone to plan it, slowly
accumulated more and more power to themselves. e.g. check up on the series of
judgements that were used to grant them personhood. They now stomp about the
planet like huge immortal toddlers, with little oversight and not much in the
way of conscience.

If you dont care, then fine. But if you do care dont let articles like this
tell you not to bother.

And yes ethical consumption is complicated. A good starting point is to assume
everything is tainted unless you know otherwise. And although none of the
supposed 'good' ways are straightforward (there are complex arguments around
Fair Trade, Organic etc), you should never let the perfect become the enemy of
the good. That is, dont be pit off from trying to do one thing right just
because you can't do everything right.

Buying stuff secondhand where possible is a good default position I find
(although there are debates around that as well)

~~~
tremon
I would call it satire, i.e. putting a humourous spin on a serious subject.
But I will respond to your post in a serious manner nonetheless.

Your second sentence perfectly illustrates the point the article is trying to
make, that "the increasing moralisation of mundane choices is strongly
associated with the phenomenology of interminable inescapable guilt". As the
article argues, when we overload our moral judgements by making every single
act a moral deliberation, one measurable effect will be an overall lessening
of our moral convictions.

Yes, you only vote a few times every odd years. No, your tax dollars are not
"channeled in a particular direction". Yes, business interests are still
fundamentally at odds with environmental concerns. No, the few pennies you
spend on products of a particular business do not affect the business'
behaviour. The amount of moral deliberation that is reasonable to "demand" for
such a simple act should be proportional to the ratio of your expenditure
versus the entire business size.

> And yes ethical consumption is complicated. A good starting point is to
> assume everything is tainted unless you know otherwise

I don't think this is a useful starting point. If you start by assuming
everything is tainted, you are already making a moral judgement about every
purchase. Judgements and decisions cost mental energy, and we already know
that mental energy is not infinite.

> That is, dont be pit off from trying to do one thing right just because you
> can't do everything right.

But that is exactly what's happening subconciously anyway: if we perceive
(some of) our morals to be untenable (because of unrealistic demands, no way
to actually make an impact, or general information/decision overload), that
causes us to weaken all of our morals, even the ones we can affect.

Pick your battles, is what I'd take from this. And when evangelizing a cause,
make sure the burden you're placing on others is realistic.

~~~
codeulike
I'm not talking about tax dollars. I'm talking about peoples personal spending
decisions.

 _No, the few pennies you spend on products of a particular business do not
affect the business ' behaviour._

Thats patently false. Its a small effect obviously, but its an effect. You
could argue that recyling household waste is pointless from the same logic
(and people do, I know)

~~~
tremon
Well, patently false... I think individual actions are negligible. In order to
have an effect, you need a concerted effort from many people. I realise
there's a chicken-and-egg problem here, because such efforts start with
individual actions and need to gain critical mass from there.

I did not mean to say that such causes are futile. However, care should be
taken that moral appeals are targeted and realistic, or they risk defeating
both themself and other appeals.

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maxander
I'm confused by the people who are confused whether this is satire, but (like
most good satire) it raises valid points.

Being "moral" in how we live our day-to-day lives is _complicated_ , and it
would be great if we could somehow offload some of that complexity. We already
do this to an extent with organizations that track the effectiveness of
various kinds of charitable giving- CharityWatch, for instance. Along the
lines of the article, something that monitors your purchases and lets you know
things like "that brand uses child labor, this alternative is okay" or "this
meat was obtained with an estimated ecological impact of $1.0245/kg" would
really be _useful_ (if only in a "now I don't have to google everything to
feel safe" sense.) There's a real-live potential blockbuster app in that (if
only because, aside from everything else, it would have lots of interesting
info about your purchasing habits...)

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rrss1122
The guilt machine has gotten so efficient, indulgences are looking like a
desirable possibility.

~~~
themartorana
And why not? Catholic indulgences were about making God feel good about you.
This is more about making _you_ feel good about you, which is already a huge
market.

~~~
rrss1122
Indulgences were always about making you feel good about you. The Catholic
Church merely took some money for the privilege.

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JoachimSchipper
Related: [http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/oxfam-
unwrapped](http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/oxfam-unwrapped) already exists;
[http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/04/ethics-
offsets/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/04/ethics-offsets/) explores some
of the (creepy) implications of ethics offsets.

~~~
coldpie
Honestly one of the biggest reasons I don't donate more is I fucking hate how
much junk mail and spam I get as a result. Oxfam has been sending us two or
three letters a month for years. I wish there was some way to anonymously
donate to charities, so they wouldn't ever receive any contact information for
me. Maybe send them paper cash in the mail or something......

~~~
ksenzee
I recommend networkforgood.org. They give you the choice of how much of your
personal information to share with the receiving charity. Since my dad died I
sometimes donate in his name to his favorite charity, and I don't have to give
them so much as an email address. Network for Good has never spammed me,
either.

~~~
coldpie
Thank you for the recommendation, I will check it out.

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relkor
This was fantastic. These are the kinds of articles that I read HN for. Keep
up the great work Internet!

------
ruffrey
_John Stuart Mill 's ghost high fives Jeremy Bentham's UC London corpse_

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kelvin0
Bypass all the middlemen, order now!
[http://reserveaspotinheaven.com/](http://reserveaspotinheaven.com/)

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twoquestions
So somebody figured out a startup idea from ancient Catholic policy? I'm
actually quite amazed that somebody didn't think up the idea of a secular
indulgence system before!

I sincerely hope this is a joke.

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lurkinggrue
I've already purchased several indulgences from the church.

Fuck what Marten Luther had to say on this.... I'm all set!

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kafkaesque
He forgot to mention the unethical practice of extreme consumerism.

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inatreecrown
Great to read this here.

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Sarki
Unbelievable... I sincerely hope it's a joke.

~~~
rawTruthHurts
"As part of our own commitment to making the world a better place 10% of our
profits go to providing blankets, electronic journal access and dental
insurance to unemployed moral philosophy phds."

I don't think so, this guys are here for real!

