Responsibility

[Scribbly]

In The Grapes of Wrath a farmer confronts a tractor driver who is about to bulldoze his shack. The farmer threatens to shoot him, but the driver protests;

"It's not me. There's nothing I can do. I'll lose my job if I don't do it. And look - suppose you kill me? They'll just hang you, but long before you're hung there'll be another guy on the tractor, and he'll bump the house down. You're not killing the right guy."

And of course, this starts a long twisting trail. Who does the farmer shoot to stop his shack being bulldozed? The bank who ordered it? The Board of Directors? The investors of the bank who demanded more profit? The driver can reach only one conclusion; "Maybe there's nobody to shoot."

Ceding power to an external authority makes these acts so much easier, doesn't it? If you don't do it, somebody else would. It isn't your decision, it is just the rules. Just following orders, that's all. Nobody can blame you for just following orders.

This logic disgusts me. The systems that have sprung up may very well be 'impossible to shoot', but that doesn't mean that individuals are not culpable for their actions. Yet this is forgotten as people seem uneasy with the idea of seeing anyone punished for acting 'within the rules'. Even when those rules are wrong, or perverted. Hell, sometimes, even blatant evidence that 'the rules' have been broken isn't enough to rile up some actual action. Take the MP expenses scandal over here, for instance, where there was a lot of blatant evidence that 'the rules' were being ignored. Everyone expects politicians to be corrupt, so the status quo remained unchallenged. Some MPs were ousted, some stood down, but nowhere near as many as deserved it. There was no true outcry. No protest. The politicians universally held up their hands and said, 'we were acting in the rules'.

Banking seems to be this writ large, the powerful financial elite can do whatever they like, the idea of actually seizing their money from them has never even been broached in the mainstream. Because they got that money acting within the rules. Without rules, what do we have? That's the argument I've heard against making these people suffer for the damage they've caused to so many millions of other people. Without rules, we'd face the complete collapse of society!

Well guess what. Society is breaking down anyway. We're heading into decades of pain, whilst the people who did this to us have the cash to ride it out uncaring. I actually heard sympathy for the bankers when it was revealed some of them weren't going to get such huge bonuses. Actual sympathy for the few bastards who were turfed out on their overfed arses. Never mind that they, and their families, for generations, will be set up on the back of the cash they've stolen. Never mind that these people are scum who deliberately squeezed a failing system for personal profit.

Speak out against it and you are labeled as a communist or an anarchist or any other 'extremist' handy tag. Get stared at like a lunatic suggesting that we all just vacate to Mars or some other such nonsense. The truth is, I don't care whether seizing the assets of the bankers would help get us out of the crisis. I don't give a damn if it would save one job.

I just feel like I'm standing in front of my house, watching this bulldozer get closer and closer, and I don't care if it would actually help... I want to shoot that fucking driver dead, because if I'm going down, I want to take the bastard who is responsible down with me. Or is it better to just step aside and let them smash everything to pieces, and go home to sleep easy with a paycheck in their pocket?

[Cramulus]

"No one part of any cybernetic system can control the whole of the system, nor can it fully control itself."

I don't know if shooting the tractor driver actually helps anything.

So let's take a squint at this idea of Responsibility. Essentially we're talking about agency. Free will.


So first off, I want to point out that the individual only has an identity when juxtaposed with a group. If we all lived on our own personal islands, we'd have no need of names. Identity is a social convention. So we can't ignore the effects of social psychology - groups and systems have a higher degree of influence over an individuals' actions than most of his private motivations.

Your actions are a function of the tensions between various internal systems. The guy driving the tractor has a family at home, a house he doesn't want bulldozed, an alpha male telling him to do his job, and a narrative which explains why he has to do all this. He is acting as the agent of a larger metabiological organism,one which needs resources for its own survival. The entity cannot drive a bulldozer, it needs humans to act on its behalf in the material world. So in order to act in his own best interest, the bulldozer driver has to carry out the instructions from the greater organism. That poor bulldozer driver can't choose to save your house any more than a white blood cell can decide that a particular bacterium can stay.


We're all like this - we're individuals, but we're also components of a numerous larger systems. I do not believe we ever have complete control over ourselves, each of us contain numerous systems looking to further themselves through us.

It's not right to blame the tractor driver because he is not the agent. He is not the one bulldozing the house, the responsibility is doled out amongst the various agents of metabiological organisms. This doesn't make one free of blame, but it does stop them from monopolizing the responsibility. Think about a traffic jam - there is no single keystone sustaining the thing's structure. You can't fix a traffic jam by destroying the car right in front of you.

So how do you actually get the metabiological organism to not want to bulldoze your house anymore?

This is largely what the Art of Memetics is about - it's about understanding the nested systems within us and the systems nested around us and figuring out how to connect the two. It talks about how individuals and groups of individuals (corporations, religions, governments) have basically the same structure - a network of nodes blasting information at one another. And there is an art to creating and positioning your ideas in a way so that they are picked up and retransmitted by others, thereby incorporating them into the superorganism's programming.

[Scribbly]

So first off, I want to point out that the individual only has an identity when juxtaposed with a group. If we all lived on our own personal islands, we'd have no need of names. Identity is a social convention. So we can't ignore the effects of social psychology - groups and systems have a higher degree of influence over an individuals' actions than most of his private motivations.

I'm not entirely convinced by this. Even if we all lived on private islands, we'd need to distinguish between ourselves and our surroundings. I do not accept that identity is a social convention. I've seen no strong argument as to why this is the case. I accept that groups and systems have a high degree of influence, though; that's what the rant is about. Just because this is the case does not mean it should be the case. Personal responsibility is too often allowed to be given up to a 'higher authority'.

Your actions are a function of the tensions between various internal systems. The guy driving the tractor has a family at home, a house he doesn't want bulldozed, an alpha male telling him to do his job, and a narrative which explains why he has to do all this. He is acting as the agent of a larger metabiological organism,one which needs resources for its own survival. The entity cannot drive a bulldozer, it needs humans to act on its behalf in the material world. So in order to act in his own best interest, the bulldozer driver has to carry out the instructions from the greater organism. That poor bulldozer driver can't choose to save your house any more than a white blood cell can decide that a particular bacterium can stay.

Although the analogy of a metabiological system is an interesting one, it is not one to which I subscribe. Yes, this is a very neat explanation for how one can justify giving up responsibility for ones own actions to a larger system. It is undeniably in the driver's best interests to bulldoze my house. It might also be in my best interests to go out and mug people. The driver, however, does have far greater choice than a white blood cell. He makes the conscious decision to act. He pushes down on the gas and drives his engine forward. He can choose not to. He does not. He must, therefore, bear responsibility for acting in this way in a fashion that a white blood cell is not.

My actions are certainly influenced by a series of internal tensions. But they are not determined by them. I have empathy, and imagination. These two things allow a person to step outside of themselves and their own concerns, and consider external factors, including how it would be to be in the position of someone else with their own set of internal tensions. To put it in a rather overblown way, the fact that the nazi concentration camp guard had his own set of internal tensions and maybe even went home every night to his loving family who relied on him for support, does not justify his brutal actions in the day. We must all take responsibility for what we do, because we are not machines who have no choice. We are far more complicated than that.

We're all like this - we're individuals, but we're also components of a numerous larger systems. I do not believe we ever have complete control over ourselves, each of us contain numerous systems looking to further themselves through us.

That depends heavily on how you define complete control. I would agree that we have a massive amount of demands and systems which we need to balance. But I do not believe this alleviates us of the fundamental ability to choose to act in defiance of those systems. The systems themselves are not conscious, they might have the ability to make life difficult if we choose to ignore them, but they do not exert such massive control as to force your hand to move. As you said, the system relies on human components to act in its interest. We all have the capability to rebel, even if we do not often exercise it.

It's not right to blame the tractor driver because he is not the agent. He is not the one bulldozing the house, the responsibility is doled out amongst the various agents of metabiological organisms. This doesn't make one free of blame, but it does stop them from monopolizing the responsibility. Think about a traffic jam - there is no single keystone sustaining the thing's structure. You can't fix a traffic jam by destroying the car right in front of you.

I would say that the tractor driver absolute is the agent. At least the agent who matters to me. The decisions of other actors might have led to this one, but that does not matter. The action which is most important is the one which ends with the outcome which harms people. Certainly, others have acted to pressure him into this position. But he is still wrong, and he must still bear responsibility for it. Not absolute responsibility; we can empathise with him and see what led him to this. But more than enough to justify blaming him for driving that tractor through that house. Because that is his decision, and he must take the weight of it.

The traffic jam analogy is a good one, but it breaks down at a couple of levels. First, the cars are physically stopped from moving by the blockage. There is no way that the one in front of me could choose to change its position, where I would argue that the tractor driver absolutely could. Second, it assumes that the goal is to fix the problem.

I admit that shooting the tractor driver will not solve the issue of someone wanting to bulldoze my house. However, the latter may well be beyond my means as an individual entity to fix. The former is not. As the system relies on individuals to enforce its collective decisions, the only way to break that system is to have the individual elements rebel. The clearest way I can see to do that is to bring back the idea that individuals are responsible for how they choose to act in spite of the demands that various internal tensions place upon them.

In other words; the act of punishment once on individuals will not fix the system. Repeatedly punishing people who choose to be the agents of systems which harm society, however, will cause a shift towards such people thinking about what they are doing.

My friend came up with a similar idea for government called 'The Ministry of Hitting Stupid Politicians With a Big Stick.' Without the threat of actual, tangible punishment for acting in harmful ways, most people don't feel compelled to give a damn.

So how do you actually get the metabiological organism to not want to bulldoze your house anymore?

This is largely what the Art of Memetics is about - it's about understanding the nested systems within us and the systems nested around us and figuring out how to connect the two. It talks about how individuals and groups of individuals (corporations, religions, governments) have basically the same structure - a network of nodes blasting information at one another. And there is an art to creating and positioning your ideas in a way so that they are picked up and retransmitted by others, thereby incorporating them into the superorganism's programming.

I found the Art of Memetics very interesting, but I'm not convinced on its model. The flow of information might be one way to try and influence these systems, but I think that there are some entrenched norms and some elite systems that are effectively immune to memetic influence.

On the other hand, perhaps this is just a matter of how I'm choosing to perceive my argument. Another way of looking at it might be; how would our systems look if we could force the idea of personal responsibility to supersede all other demands?

I do not believe, at the moment, that people take enough responsibility for the way their actions knowingly impact others. There is too much readiness to fall back on justifications for hurting other people, and hiding behind rules which state the exact parameters in which it is okay to act in a harmful manner. I am arguing that  immediate and tangible acts of punishment would help to reverse this. Perhaps an information based approach would also work, but I'm not sold on the underpinnings of it vis a vis the individual, and I think it would take far longer and be far more difficult to position in our modern culture.

[MMIX]

If you shoot enough tractor drivers eventually it will become very difficult to find replacement drivers.

[Adios]

Shoot the driver, to hell with his whining.

Shoot the people who come to hang you.

Shoot until you die, or surrender to hopelessness and die anyway.

At least if you die shooting, you fall over right away instead of crying in misery on your knees.

Sorry, I ain't big into big debates when it comes to something like this.

[Cramulus]

it may be very satisfying to shoot the messenger, but ultimately you are not solving the problem or helping yourself.

I hold it's far more effective to treat the problem like an organism, and not like it's the responsibility of one individual. In Michael Moore's flick Capitalism: A Love Story, he showed a bit about Michigan factory workers who were laid off and denied their last three weeks of pay. They eventually beat the system because they organized -- they formed a mastermind group -- which was better suited to resist and negotiate with the mastermind group responsible for firing them.

The problem with this type of radical responsibility is that we are all parts of numerous systems which all include some evil. If you want to hold the tractor driver personally responsible for bulldozing your house, the same logic makes you the evil agent behind stuff like, say, environmental damage. And while you may feel in some way personally responsible for making the environment better, if some eco terrorist killed you, it wouldn't solve the problem.

[Richter]

"There's one solution to any problem, no matter how big:  Just keep cutting until it isn't a problem anymore."  -J. Howlett

[Adios]

it may be very satisfying to shoot the messenger, but ultimately you are not solving the problem or helping yourself.

I hold it's far more effective to treat the problem like an organism, and not like it's the responsibility of one individual. In Michael Moore's flick Capitalism: A Love Story, he showed a bit about Michigan factory workers who were laid off and denied their last three weeks of pay. They eventually beat the system because they organized -- they formed a mastermind group -- which was better suited to resist and negotiate with the mastermind group responsible for firing them.

The problem with this type of radical responsibility is that we are all parts of numerous systems which all include some evil. If you want to hold the tractor driver personally responsible for bulldozing your house, the same logic makes you the evil agent behind stuff like, say, environmental damage. And while you may feel in some way personally responsible for making the environment better, if some eco terrorist killed you, it wouldn't solve the problem.

Let's say you have a problem with AT&T. You decide to call and complain. Going in you know that you are going to speak to a drone. If you pitch a big enough fit, you get a drone supervisor. You are helpless if they choose not to address your issue. You have a take it or leave it situation then.

It's because of the size of the beast you are fighting. You will never find the head, so all you have left is whatever tentacle you can reach. In the example I gave you usually have the option to leave. In the OP we are discussing your home, not so many options with that one.

When fighting a beast that size you may attract the heads attention if you chop enough tentacles, but by doing nothing, well, nothing is what you become.

But then again, I am a country boy and we tend to hit whatever is right in front of us.

Come after my home and family, be you drone or queen, my part will be the same. To stop you.

[Cramulus]

When fighting a beast that size you may attract the heads attention if you chop enough tentacles, but by doing nothing, well, nothing is what you become.

I understand what you're saying - I just want to clarify that my position is not that one should "do nothing". Just that one should focus their energy on productive solutions. Shooting the messenger? You'll be in jail or dead by the end of the day. And a murderer.

[Adios]

When fighting a beast that size you may attract the heads attention if you chop enough tentacles, but by doing nothing, well, nothing is what you become.

I understand what you're saying - I just want to clarify that my position is not that one should "do nothing". Just that one should focus their energy on productive solutions. Shooting the messenger? You'll be in jail or dead by the end of the day. And a murderer.

Murderer? Not in my opinion. If I inform the tractor driver that I will shoot him, and he continues to come, that is not murder. Again, in my opinion, his weapon was a tractor, mine will be a gun, and I contend in the context of the OP, it will be self defense.

But now we are arguing semantics.

[Cramulus]

yeahhh that's a bit of a stretch, the police will definitely call it a murder, but I see what you're suggesting

[Adios]

yeahhh that's a bit of a stretch, the police will definitely call it a murder, but I see what you're suggesting

I agree.

[Freeky]

Why would you have to shoot someone to feel like you've done something? Why not just get the guy distracted, then bop him on the head and make off with the tractor? That way, you haven't killed anyone, and now you have a tractor to fight back with.

This doesn't really work as well in metaphor form as I had hoped, but anyway.

[Adios]

Why would you have to shoot someone to feel like you've done something? Why not just get the guy distracted, then bop him on the head and make off with the tractor? That way, you haven't killed anyone, and now you have a tractor to fight back with.

This doesn't really work as well in metaphor form as I had hoped, but anyway.

Then you go to jail for assault and grand theft. Overall in the scenario you will not win. But you have to stand for something or you'll fall for everything.

The OP also places a burden of responsibility on the tractor operator. I agree with this.

[Freeky]

Why would you have to shoot someone to feel like you've done something? Why not just get the guy distracted, then bop him on the head and make off with the tractor? That way, you haven't killed anyone, and now you have a tractor to fight back with.

This doesn't really work as well in metaphor form as I had hoped, but anyway.

Then you go to jail for assault and grand theft. Overall in the scenario you will not win. But you have to stand for something or you'll fall for everything.

The OP also places a burden of responsibility on the tractor operator. I agree with this.

Well I DON'T. I have this thing against overreacting against people who are just trying to do their job, see.