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> we as modern humans Most humans had literally nothing to do with this.

adventured 9y ago
> Most humans had literally nothing to do with this. It's impossible to apply effective collective guilt and to properly human-bash, if the "we" isn't used, that's why it is so frequently invoked that way. They know that the extreme majority of people had nothing to do with it when they use that phrasing, it doesn't have any captivation what-so-ever if you say: an extraordinarily small number of people out of seven billion are/were the problem/cause. It applies similarly to nearly every popular topic of human bashing, from animal cruelty to war (just as when people say their faith in humanity has been restored because of the act of one person, they're making a similar intentional error of collective application).
- Chris2048 9y ago
  > just as when people say their faith in humanity has been restored I don't find that convincing at all though.
amelius 9y ago
Well, one could argue that collectively we've created (or at least allowed to exist) the conditions for this to happen.
- nippples 9y ago
  What happened was a crime. What are we as a collective supposed to do? Routinely exterminate criminals? Develop pre-crime police units? Build a large well-monitored wall around protected areas? What is the big insight that we as as a collective are supposed to learn from the supposed collective guilt? There's literally a very small amount of people responsible for this atrocity and I hope they serve adequate sentences in prison for their crimes.
  - amelius 9y ago
    > What are we as a collective supposed to do? Routinely exterminate criminals? There are a zillion ways to reduce crime in a more friendly manner. I'm not an expert but what comes to mind are reducing the incentive to engage in criminal activity in the first place (economic factors could be at play), proper education, social projects, gun control, early psychopathological diagnosis, ...
  - sitkack 9y ago
    We as humans set the larger context for greed and the use of force to achieve that greed. We don't need those trees in the ever expanding amount of forest we cut down, but we can trade money for it, and thus the present robs from the future in the same way it robs those villagers of their life. When a child gets run over by a car, all of society is at fault for valuing the driver, car and road over everything else. Self driving cars or better traffic design is simply an optimization and not a re-examination of the underlying contract.
    - nippples 9y ago
      We as a collective think we're so wise and helpful by discussing how guilty we are in a mostly tech-oriented message board.
vixen99 9y ago
True and the peaceable majority are irrelevant.

> Most humans had literally nothing to do with this. It's impossible to apply effective collective guilt and to properly human-bash, if the "we" isn't used, that's why it is so frequently invoked that way. They know that the extreme majority of people had nothing to do with it when they use that phrasing, it doesn't have any captivation what-so-ever if you say: an extraordinarily small number of people out of seven billion are/were the problem/cause. It applies similarly to nearly every popular topic of human bashing, from animal cruelty to war (just as when people say their faith in humanity has been restored because of the act of one person, they're making a similar intentional error of collective application).

Chris2048 9y ago
> just as when people say their faith in humanity has been restored I don't find that convincing at all though.

amelius 9y ago

Well, one could argue that collectively we've created (or at least allowed to exist) the conditions for this to happen.

nippples 9y ago
What happened was a crime. What are we as a collective supposed to do? Routinely exterminate criminals? Develop pre-crime police units? Build a large well-monitored wall around protected areas? What is the big insight that we as as a collective are supposed to learn from the supposed collective guilt? There's literally a very small amount of people responsible for this atrocity and I hope they serve adequate sentences in prison for their crimes.
- amelius 9y ago
  > What are we as a collective supposed to do? Routinely exterminate criminals? There are a zillion ways to reduce crime in a more friendly manner. I'm not an expert but what comes to mind are reducing the incentive to engage in criminal activity in the first place (economic factors could be at play), proper education, social projects, gun control, early psychopathological diagnosis, ...
- sitkack 9y ago
  We as humans set the larger context for greed and the use of force to achieve that greed. We don't need those trees in the ever expanding amount of forest we cut down, but we can trade money for it, and thus the present robs from the future in the same way it robs those villagers of their life. When a child gets run over by a car, all of society is at fault for valuing the driver, car and road over everything else. Self driving cars or better traffic design is simply an optimization and not a re-examination of the underlying contract.
  - nippples 9y ago
    We as a collective think we're so wise and helpful by discussing how guilty we are in a mostly tech-oriented message board.

vixen99 9y ago

True and the peaceable majority are irrelevant.