Dear community,
I'm a researcher who's been working on big data and ethics - who can access which data, say, in the health context, and who shouldn't; what levels of consent are required, and so on.
It seems to me that blockchain and bitcoin will, can, and should massively change the handling of sensitive data, making it easier to provide privacy for those whom the data pertain to (e.g. the patient) while still allowing for socially beneficial use (research on medical data curated by smart contracts, or even completely carried out by smart contracts, such that no researcher at any point could identify individual patients, but could still be confident that the data they are using is accurate. I'm not sure whether such a use-case is entirely feasible, and would love to hear your views, especially if you know something about proof-of-ignorance or similar mechanisms.
Of course this is just one small example. We have heard about bitcoin for foreign aid, for crowdfunding support for people in oppressive conditions, and to work-around censorship. Bitcoin and the blockchain certainly rely on underlying principles of inclusion, participation, and equality, which are also the fundamental principles of human rights theory and international human rights law.
So, long question short, in your view, do you think the blockchain/bitcoin/altcoins can be used for ethically sound projects? Have you heard of some, and if so, could you link to them or discuss them a little bit? Do you know of any human rights use-cases? And finally, do you know if anyone has written on blockchain ethics, or tried to introduce ethics into the community?
BTW, by ethics I don't mean stale old philosophers' talk, I mean simply: doing the right thing for the right reason.
Hi all,
New here and very much interest in trying to understand the blockchain technology on both a theoretical and practical level. I have no previous experience with coding, and was wondering what you guys would recommend. I'd like to eventually be able to become a developer and also understand how everything works theoretically so that I have a better understanding of the implications and possibilities for my own line of work (healthcare sciences).
I've been following Codeacademy's introduction to Java and Princeton's BTC and Cryptocurrency MOOC -- what else would you guys recommend?
Thanks in advance!
I see what you are getting at here..
Could you explain your exact interest?
It seems blockchain related medical records, anonymizing the patient?, especially reated to psycology?
You seem to make some educated posts and I was curious as to why you make so many off topic posts but now that I catch the psychology background it makes sense..
Ideally, education and morality are synergistic: they help each other. Education should include ethics, and part of being a moral person is to educate yourself.
Be careful, depending on the source of this education you could easily succumb to the evils of extreme leftism, thus defeating the entire purpose..
Hi, I just wanna ask how to overcome depression? I have a friend and she keeps telling me that she don't to live anymore and that it is better to die, she has lot of problems but she just keep it on her own, she is so depress and i can't find the right words to make her feel better. And also can't a person overcome depression on his/her own?
Depressions aren't all the same, just like people aren't all alike. About a third of depressions will lift on their own after weeks or months with no intervention. Another third benefit somewhat from treatment, but not enough to lift them out of their depression. Finally, there is an unlucky third group that won't respond to conventional treatment at all.
There are a number of things you can do to help your friend out:
- Physical exercise, from walking and on upwards, is one of the most effective means of combatting depression, and has been shown to be just as effective as antidepressants (for mild and moderate depressions -- severe clinical depression can be so damning that an affected person might not even respond to questions or orient towards a speaker, never mind get out of bed.
- Make activities easier for her to do. Like some wise man said a couple of posts above, doing this will always help. But its unlikely that she will initiative such things herself. Perhaps you could buy some movie tickets and bring them over to her in your car/carshare, so all she has to do is roll out of bed and into the taxi.
- Meditation helps many people with depression, because it enables you to view your emotions at a distance, rather than as a permanent part of yourself.
- Even being in nature for small amount of time seems to help.
- Some depressions are aggravated by diet, since your gut has more than 100 million neurons which also produce neurotransmitters relevant to depression, including serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin and GABA. Eating healthier can have a rather large effect rather quickly.
I have come across some interesting reading on hallucinogen experiences being effective cures for depression..
Basically trip balls good a time or 2 a year or so..
Given your background I would be interested to hear about your opinion on that matter..
Back to ethics..
Well there's two different kinds of stalking there. One is by the surveillance state, which ostensibly has to do with keeping power and preventing threats. Then there's stalking by individuals, which can be a sign of mental health issues.. both kinds are creepy. What they have in common is that they do not respect the rights or privacy of others, seeking instead to benefit oneself through the breach of other's privacy.
Anything you post on the internet is only as private as you make it.. Especially things that are immutable, like good blockchains, or certain posts/records/wayback/archives, that cannot be reversed..
You get into the crypto world, everything you have ever posted online, or has ever been posted about you online, your DOX, it's all fair game if you become interesting enough to the right people..
You might call this stalking, some call it vetting, but you will be dealing with the best internet stalkers/detectives in the world around here so conduct yourself accordingly, ethics..
Not you specifically but if you act unethically depending on severity you could land yourself in some hurt..
For example, you having such a new account and making interesting posts someone like me might check out your post history a bit.. See what you are up to..
New accounts posting with a level of experience are interesting in that often they will be someone posting in disguise..
Lending habit I suppose..
Blockchain ethics.. Anything you write to the blockchain is also fair game, you have expert blockchain detectives running around here too..
Anything that can be connected will be connected.. Another form of stalking? Perfectly ethical..