103: Moral Relativity

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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Moral Relativity
It's science!
Title text: It's science!


Simple explanation: It's easier to commit a crime when you can get away with it.

Scientific explanation: The chance of someone catching you while doing something illegal is equal to the time it takes to do that and put you in a position to deny doing that. Deduction: while it makes moral sense to not steal an expensive watch from a jeweller, chances are you are likely less prohibited when that stealing takes only 0.001 second, rendering you invisible from security cameras and the jeweller itself. Therefore, any crime that reaches an execution time equal to C (which is light speed, or zero execution time over small distances) is likely to put your moral compass at risk.

Alternate explanation: The main joke in this comic is its interpretation of moral relativity along the same lines as the Theory of Relativity. In the field of Ethics moral relativity holds that moral judgements are not absolute, but rather relative to the group of people involved. The Theory of Relativity predicts (among other things) that physical properties of an object change the closer to the speed of light it travels—length contracts, observed time slows down, etc. Thus it's humorous that the ethics of a situation would be relative the same way physical properties change as the speed of light is approached.


[A graph, rationalization as a function of speed, increasing exponentially with an asymptote at c.]
(Note: This is why rap sounds better on the highway at 90 mph)







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