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Ethics Alarms
Personal blog · ethicsalarms.compoliticsphilosophy
Ethics Alarms is a personal blog at ethicsalarms.com about politics and philosophy. Since 2013, 4 different Hacker News readers have linked it 6 times. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (6) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Ethics Alarms as a reference on ethics, rationalizations, and critiques of fact-checkers such as Snopes. The links are cited as support for the commenters' own points.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 6 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
An ethics commentary blog on current events and issues
Most-linked posts?
- /rule-book/unethical-rationalizations-and-misconceptions/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-03-14
What Hacker News says?
>" At least Facebook doesn't have an army, or paramilitaries like DHS or just about any sheriff's department I've ever encountered." No but they hand that data over to the surveillance state: https://www.aclunc.org/blog/facebook-instagram-and-twitter-p... >"The thing is, if it wasn't Facebook it would be someone else" This is rather flimsy rationalization, see "The Futility of Illusion": https://ethicsalarms.com/rul…
Comment linking /rule-book/unethical-rationalizations-and-misconceptions/
on “Is Facebook a Structural Threat to Free Society?”https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/12/13/fact-c... https://ethicsalarms.com/2017/08/31/snopes-credibility-death... https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/08/23/robert-lee-espn/ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41022954 https://www.google.com/search?&q=%22snopes%22+strawman+-site...
Comment linking /2017/08/31/snopes-credibility-death-spiral-presenting-the-straw-man-fact-check/
on “Gallup: 81% of Black Americans Want Police to Retain Local Presence”A blogger has proposed a “Quote Justin Carter” day for August 1. http://ethicsalarms.com/2013/07/08/i-propose-a-quote-justin-...
Comment linking /2013/07/08/i-propose-a-quote-justin-carter-on-social-media-day-because-his-imprisonmnt-is-a-disgrace-to-our-nation/
on “Anonymous Person Posts $500,000 Bond To Free Texas Teen”This site on ethics routinely deconstructs the problems at Snopes: https://ethicsalarms.com/?s=snopes
Comment linking /?s=snopes
on “Snopes pulls out of its fact-checking partnership with Facebook”Sites like Snopes or FactCheck.org are not immune to their own political biases: https://ethicsalarms.com/2016/07/31/bye-bye-snopes-youre-dea...
Comment linking /2016/07/31/bye-bye-snopes-youre-dead-to-me-now/
on “Can mythbusters like Snopes.com keep up in a post-truth era?”This rationalization is a slippery slope. "Good works" does not entitle one to behave unethically. Seems close to these two from the Ethics Alarms website list of Unethical Rationalizations: 21. Ethics Accounting (“I’ve earned this”/ “I made up for that”) holds that someone can eliminate or mitigate wrong doing by loading up the good side of the ethics ledger so that the bad side looks puny by comparison. 11. The Ki…
Comment linking /rule-book/unethical-rationalizations-and-misconceptions/
on “Lack of ethics education for computer programmers shocks expert”