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by slg 1135 days ago
> I should also note that this applies to all organizations

Yes, including the Nazi party. Like I said, this is the exact defense used in Nuremberg. People don’t get to absolve themselves of guilt just because they weren’t the ones metaphorically or literally pulling the trigger when they were still knowingly a cog in a machine of genocide.

1 comments

You're not really engaging with the problem. Sure, one can take your condemnation to heart, and reject working for most corporations, just like an individual back in Nazi Germany should have avoided helping the Nazis. But the fact is that most people won't.

Since assigning blame harder won't actually prevent this "nobody's fault" emergent behavior from happening, the interesting/productive thing to do is forgo focusing on collective blame and analyze the workings of these systems regardless.

> Sure, one can take your condemnation to heart, and reject working for most corporations, just like an individual back in Nazi Germany should have avoided helping the Nazis. But the fact is that most people won't.

I would argue that one reason most people don’t is because we are not honest about these issues and we give people a pass for making these decisions on an individual level. Increasing the social stigma of this behavior would make it less common. It is our society that led us to the notation that human suffering is value neutral in a corporate environment. That isn’t some universal rule.

I understand blaming society might not be seen as a productive solution, but the cause being so large does not mean any singular person is helpless. Society, like a corporation, is made up of individual people too. Next time you are in a meeting at work and someone suggests something that will harm others, question it.