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I may have oversimplified and have come across as saying "personal responsibility and self-control needs to be absolute and be treated as such". I was by no me

I may have oversimplified and have come across as saying "personal responsibility and self-control needs to be absolute and be treated as such". I was by no means trying to exonerate YouTube or any service that aims to manipulate its users. I was only trying to convey that a large campaign against exploitation should not be the other extreme where victims are automatically absolved while the perpetrator is entirely demonized. Surely there must be a middle-ground?

neilk 7y ago
I don't see an inherent reason why the middle ground is correct when assessing blame. Or indeed why blame is a kind of conserved quantity and if we give more to one we must give less to another. Look, when I got up in the morning I had no intention of looking at videos from the 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack, but I followed an urge and lost 15 minutes as it led me to viral videos about deleted scenes from Star Wars and then surprisingly well-made fan videos, and... you get the gist. On the other hand, many people at YouTube did wake up this morning with the intention of maximizing my viewing time. They are armed with supercomputers and artificial intelligences piloted by Ph.Ds. If in some future world, "conspiracy to steal time" was a crime, this would be an easy prosecution. That said, that doesn't mean that I shouldn't take any steps to defend myself. I should use something to block certain sites. But just because I have that responsibility doesn't diminish someone else's culpability for inflicting harms.
- RangerScience 7y ago
  > I don't see an inherent reason why the middle ground is correct when assessing blame. Either one or the other party receives all the blame, or you are in the middle ground of spreading the blame around. One group is entirely responsible IFF the other entirely _not_ responsible. Anecdotally, it does not seem like either party bears zero responsibility, so neither party bears all responsibility, which seems to me to be a nearly-inherent reason why the middle ground is correct. > I should use something to block certain sites. But just because I have that responsibility doesn't diminish someone else's culpability for inflicting harms. Very well put!

neilk 7y ago

I don't see an inherent reason why the middle ground is correct when assessing blame. Or indeed why blame is a kind of conserved quantity and if we give more to one we must give less to another. Look, when I got up in the morning I had no intention of looking at videos from the 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack, but I followed an urge and lost 15 minutes as it led me to viral videos about deleted scenes from Star Wars and then surprisingly well-made fan videos, and... you get the gist. On the other hand, many people at YouTube did wake up this morning with the intention of maximizing my viewing time. They are armed with supercomputers and artificial intelligences piloted by Ph.Ds. If in some future world, "conspiracy to steal time" was a crime, this would be an easy prosecution. That said, that doesn't mean that I shouldn't take any steps to defend myself. I should use something to block certain sites. But just because I have that responsibility doesn't diminish someone else's culpability for inflicting harms.

RangerScience 7y ago
> I don't see an inherent reason why the middle ground is correct when assessing blame. Either one or the other party receives all the blame, or you are in the middle ground of spreading the blame around. One group is entirely responsible IFF the other entirely _not_ responsible. Anecdotally, it does not seem like either party bears zero responsibility, so neither party bears all responsibility, which seems to me to be a nearly-inherent reason why the middle ground is correct. > I should use something to block certain sites. But just because I have that responsibility doesn't diminish someone else's culpability for inflicting harms. Very well put!