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Ultimately, if you are "accountable" for everything in the world, then what you must do is establish control over everything in the world. Anything that cannot

Ultimately, if you are "accountable" for everything in the world, then what you must do is establish control over everything in the world. Anything that cannot be controlled must be shackled and harnessed. Any independent behaviors by others must be extinguished; they must be turned into compliant automatons to be pushed this way or that by force. Nature also must be eliminated. It is illegible; you cannot understand or control it; it has to be paved over so that a Cartesian grid of parking spaces can be painted on it. Anyone who isn't you must be in chains.

tmn 3y ago
What is the purpose of this type of reductionist poopooing? Are you advocating that accountability is undesirable? Of are you just flexing your intellect? The basic flaw in this thought exercise of yours is, no one is actually '"accountable" for everything' with the power or desire to enact the consequences you listed. That said, there is nothing wrong with modeling that I am accountable for everything and accepting chaos theory as a unavoidable attribute of the world. This means that me being accountable and things going wrong does not necessitate any of the things you listed "independent behaviors by others must be extinguished" as this is just a sociopathic way of thinking on the path to destruction.
makeitdouble 3y ago
I see a lot of value in this take, and think pushing it to an extreme helps highlight the balancing act that is required. Also GP's point refers to "Extreme Ownership" by Jocko Willink, and from that title it looks fair to effectively imagine the extreme. GP mentions how focusing on accountability changes the approach to failures, and I'd totally see people taking the wrong lessons from a project where they didn't stop a colleague from doing something that happened to be a bad decision.
landemva 3y ago
> Anyone who isn't you must be in chains. You speak for yourself, not for me. Those different than me often contribute in ways I did not see. Life is better when I embrace improvement.
alexjplant 3y ago
> Ultimately, if you are "accountable" for everything in the world, then what you must do is establish control over everything in the world. This seems rather extreme. To me "accountable" means "accountable for your _reaction_" in this context. I don't think (or at least hope that) anybody advocating this stance is seeking to "eliminate nature" so much as accept it as it is and deal with it on a realistic basis. As an illustrative example I ride motorcycles on the street. It is a fact of nature that people are going to try and merge into me or cut me off and threaten my life. Blaming them and being angry about it leads to poor outcomes in the form of aggressive and dangerous riding. Instead I focus on mitigating risk by wearing appropriate safety gear and anticipating bad drivers' actions so as to avoid it. I do not seek to control others so much as to maximize the value of my interaction with them by taking ownership of it.
diatone 3y ago
Everything in your world. You decide on the system boundaries. If you haven’t already I’d recommend watching the accompanying TED talk
number6 3y ago
I take the bait: of course you can't control the weather. So you plan to hiking, so instead of getting soaked when it rains — you can pack an umbrella or a poncho. So who's fault is it that you got wet? The weather? Was there nothing that could have been done? Maybe it's your responsibility to plan for bad weather?

tmn 3y ago

What is the purpose of this type of reductionist poopooing? Are you advocating that accountability is undesirable? Of are you just flexing your intellect? The basic flaw in this thought exercise of yours is, no one is actually '"accountable" for everything' with the power or desire to enact the consequences you listed. That said, there is nothing wrong with modeling that I am accountable for everything and accepting chaos theory as a unavoidable attribute of the world. This means that me being accountable and things going wrong does not necessitate any of the things you listed "independent behaviors by others must be extinguished" as this is just a sociopathic way of thinking on the path to destruction.

makeitdouble 3y ago

I see a lot of value in this take, and think pushing it to an extreme helps highlight the balancing act that is required. Also GP's point refers to "Extreme Ownership" by Jocko Willink, and from that title it looks fair to effectively imagine the extreme. GP mentions how focusing on accountability changes the approach to failures, and I'd totally see people taking the wrong lessons from a project where they didn't stop a colleague from doing something that happened to be a bad decision.

landemva 3y ago

> Anyone who isn't you must be in chains. You speak for yourself, not for me. Those different than me often contribute in ways I did not see. Life is better when I embrace improvement.

alexjplant 3y ago

> Ultimately, if you are "accountable" for everything in the world, then what you must do is establish control over everything in the world. This seems rather extreme. To me "accountable" means "accountable for your _reaction_" in this context. I don't think (or at least hope that) anybody advocating this stance is seeking to "eliminate nature" so much as accept it as it is and deal with it on a realistic basis. As an illustrative example I ride motorcycles on the street. It is a fact of nature that people are going to try and merge into me or cut me off and threaten my life. Blaming them and being angry about it leads to poor outcomes in the form of aggressive and dangerous riding. Instead I focus on mitigating risk by wearing appropriate safety gear and anticipating bad drivers' actions so as to avoid it. I do not seek to control others so much as to maximize the value of my interaction with them by taking ownership of it.

diatone 3y ago

Everything in your world. You decide on the system boundaries. If you haven’t already I’d recommend watching the accompanying TED talk

number6 3y ago

I take the bait: of course you can't control the weather. So you plan to hiking, so instead of getting soaked when it rains — you can pack an umbrella or a poncho. So who's fault is it that you got wet? The weather? Was there nothing that could have been done? Maybe it's your responsibility to plan for bad weather?