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by robertlagrant 814 days ago
If I as a professional footballer repeatedly foul people, which process is at fault when no one else around me does that?

Unless you just call everything a process: "His childhood was difficult and that's why he fouls people. Let's call his childhood a process."

I think at some point you have to say that some things are not processes, or cannot usefully described as such. Or they devolve into Zeno's paradox.

3 comments

> If I as a professional footballer repeatedly foul people, which process is at fault when no one else around me does that?

The process that hasn't cut you from the football team.

> Unless you just call everything a process: "His childhood was difficult and that's why he fouls people. Let's call his childhood a process."

Well... attempting to prevent stuff like bullying or domestic violence is a worthwhile goal in itself.

For the example of the soccer player, one might also question other incentives (e.g. bonuses tied to winning games no-matter-what), or why a player with a known history was hired in the first place.

> Well... attempting to prevent stuff like bullying or domestic violence is a worthwhile goal in itself.

Obviously a worthwhile goal, but not a process failure on the part of the football team.

A foul is a statistic that is easily countable. If goals are greater than fouls then it may make sense to keep that footballer anyway.

I hope we aren't using football as an analogy for avionic engineering with 1000's of people.