mettle

How much do morals and ethics serve as motivating factors in the industry versus people either doing what they can to make a buck or doing what they can for the challenge? This goes both directions, i.e., black and white hat hackers.

Slate has this reputation of having a very contrarian, anti-intuitive perspective on things. So, a stereotypical Slate headline might be something like, "Winning by Losing: How Romney Has the Election in the Bag with his 47% comment," "The Liberal Case for Ubiquitous Gun Ownership," or "Sugar High: Why consuming enormous amounts of Sugar May Actually Be Good for You".

Is this a purposeful approach by Slate editors and writers or does it just seem that way to outsiders? Is there a reason behind it? Are those pieics attempting to advance the conversation in a purposeful way, or is it more about pageviews?