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I always thought that putting the blame on actual agents instead of stuff is the direct opposite of being evasive. You rightly said that I will answer that it

by fwn 10y ago

I always thought that putting the blame on actual agents instead of stuff is the direct opposite of being evasive. You rightly said that I will answer that it was the adults fault. The bad act done with the weapon was giving it to a child, not the childs shooting someone. It gets clearer if the adult hands the weapon to a monkey or a randomized shooting machine. All three scenarios change nothing in regard to the moral responsibility of the adult. I do not know whether the UN should ban nuclear weapons, but if someone uses a nuclear weapon and we would check out who might be morally responsible for the attack, I'd point at the attacker.

ktta 10y ago
> I always thought that putting the blame on actual agents instead of stuff is the direct opposite of being evasive. Well I meant evasive argument as in statements which directly avoid the question. Because the thing is, we don't live in a perfect world. So putting the blame on agents doesn't solve the problem. That's why I brought up that sometimes things have to be taken away from people. The question is when and how. > The bad act done with the weapon was giving it to a child I didn't say the adult gave the weapon. I just said the adult left it within the reach of the child. One is direct, the other is indirect. I wouldn't even say indirect, but lets go with it. > I'd point at the attacker It gets blurry deciding who the attacker is, depending on whose side you are on. Things aren't always so clear.
- fwn 10y ago
  In a perfect world, government would be good, capable not oppressive and there would be zero reason for anyone not to trust them with private data - but government would not want it, since they would not be immoderate and power hungry but perfect. But we both believe that the world is not perfect. This is why we need to talk about moral responsibility in the first place. Blurry definitions might only make us even more humble while proposing new, disruptive power centralizations like an encryption ban.
natch 10y ago
Let's turn the analogy around to the other side. With their utterly poor understanding of encryption and the harms of compromising it, people in governments who want to do so might as well be monkeys. By providing backdoored encryption products, we would as you put it be handing out randomized shooting machines to monkeys.

by fwn 10y ago

ktta 10y ago

> I always thought that putting the blame on actual agents instead of stuff is the direct opposite of being evasive. Well I meant evasive argument as in statements which directly avoid the question. Because the thing is, we don't live in a perfect world. So putting the blame on agents doesn't solve the problem. That's why I brought up that sometimes things have to be taken away from people. The question is when and how. > The bad act done with the weapon was giving it to a child I didn't say the adult gave the weapon. I just said the adult left it within the reach of the child. One is direct, the other is indirect. I wouldn't even say indirect, but lets go with it. > I'd point at the attacker It gets blurry deciding who the attacker is, depending on whose side you are on. Things aren't always so clear.

fwn 10y ago
In a perfect world, government would be good, capable not oppressive and there would be zero reason for anyone not to trust them with private data - but government would not want it, since they would not be immoderate and power hungry but perfect. But we both believe that the world is not perfect. This is why we need to talk about moral responsibility in the first place. Blurry definitions might only make us even more humble while proposing new, disruptive power centralizations like an encryption ban.

natch 10y ago

Let's turn the analogy around to the other side. With their utterly poor understanding of encryption and the harms of compromising it, people in governments who want to do so might as well be monkeys. By providing backdoored encryption products, we would as you put it be handing out randomized shooting machines to monkeys.