[reshyith]

You know, this comes up frequently.

I have had to think about the CIA more than I would like to admit. There are some wounds in my life related to the evil of perceived unaccountability - and the perceived unaccountability was my own.

When it comes to someone being harmed by a government institution that has the same problem, especially when it has done much to consciously avoid accountability, the result is only worse for those who have chosen to participate. I no longer worry about what is not known. I worry only about what will, and it most certainly will, become known.

And we are at our best when there is mutually painful self-reflection on the roles we as individuals and collectives play in bringing one another to harm. When we would prefer to bring one another to safety, we are delivered the means to do so, Inshallah. God willing.

[sveny]

Am I too stupid to understand this, or does it make no sense?

[Nbox9]

People sometimes do bad things, and aren’t held accountable.

Sometimes, these unaccountable things are secret. Some secrets will remain secrets. The secretes that will become public knowledge are my worrisome.

It’s common to do bad things and be unaccountable for them — from your own actions or the actions you take on behalf of the group. Society is best when people think about how their worst actions effect other people. If we all try to help each other, surely we can find a way.

This is my dummy translation, and it doesn’t hold a flame to the remorse, regret, and hope of the original.

[sirtaj]

> Society is best when people think about how their worst actions effect other people.

In our day to day lives, I use this as a basic character test of both individuals and societies. People fail this inductive-thinking test - "If everyone did what I am about to do, would I like to live in the society that would result?" - all the time. Signs of failure range from lack of civic sense (litter, rash driving etc) all the way to climate change and social collapse.

[542354234235]

> "If everyone did what I am about to do, would I like to live in the society that would result?"

I think about it differently. I look at things and think "is this system set up so that it is easier to do the right thing than the wrong thing?" I think it is easy to look at problems and point out individual "moral failings" as the cause, but data doesn't really support that in the big picture in most cases. There is a reason you don’t see trash on the ground at Disneyland. They put trash cans everywhere because they want it to be easier to throw your garbage away than litter. Driving safety has improved due to system changes, not individual actions. Regulations on safety devices, enforcement of road laws, research into road/signal/signage design to promote safety and discourage poor driving, etc. Climate change is far and away an industrial problem where producing greenhouse gases are almost a complete externality for corporations. It isn’t people taking long showers or using straws, it is corporate byproducts that they have no incentive to reduce because they have no profit motivation because those things do not cost them anything.

[closeparen]

If everyone went into software engineering, we would all starve to death. There are very few things that society could survive “everyone” doing - a diversity and balance of complementary behaviors are important.

[sirtaj]

Sure, but there are plenty that apply. Driving sensibly, not littering and behaving properly in a queue are such basic examples that going as far as "everyone becoming a software engineer" seems a little disingenuous.

[n4r9]

It makes more sense as a rule applied to moral judgements c.f. Immanuel Kant's Universalisability.

[toomanybeersies]

Or as the bible so aptly put it:

> Do unto others as you would have them do unto you