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If you ask me for help with your homework, I could recommend a relevant and informative documentary I happen to know about, or I could tell you to forget your h

If you ask me for help with your homework, I could recommend a relevant and informative documentary I happen to know about, or I could tell you to forget your homework and play a game, because I'm getting a commission from the games company. Clearly you are responsible for taking my advice or not, but am I not also responsible for the choices I offer you?

crusso 15y ago
I dunno. Am I paying you for your advice or are am I getting it for free? What right or expectation do I have to assume that you're giving me good homework advice? Are you a friend of mine? Am I relying upon my past experience? If I'm not paying you, you're not a friend of mine, you're just some marketer paying sites to show your ads... I expect no real value from them. I almost never click on Google Ads embedded in web pages, so I don't understand the blame game going on. Some suckers do click on them. They pay for free web content. Who am I do bite the hand that feeds us for free?
- rbarooah 15y ago
  It sounds like you live in a world where people only take responsibility for the consequences of their actions if they are paid to do so.
  - crusso 15y ago
    I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by "take responsibility". I'm reacting mostly to those two words since they have legal ramifications. You tell me what you mean by "take responsibility", and I'll tell you whether or not I think that there should be a business or binding legal relationship before someone should be compelled to "take responsibility".
    - rbarooah 15y ago
      Is there no room in your worldview for values that aren't imposed by force?
      - crusso 15y ago
        Of course. Quite the contrary, I believe that very few of your worldview values should need to be imposed by force. That's really a change of subject, though. You said "take responsibility". In our society today, "take responsibility" has connotations, mostly legal. Or the next line of reasoning is if people should "take responsibility", then the government should enforce it with laws and police action. Yesterday, a married couple emailed me for advice on a condo that they're looking to purchase where I just bought one. I don't know them. I don't owe them anything. I don't even feel any social pressure since it's a vacation area and I likely will never meet or see them. However, I took about 30 minutes to write up a lot of details on what I had experienced in my purchase and gave them my best advice I had. What I resent is someone telling me that I had some real "responsibility" to do so. I did it because I'm a friendly person and I wanted to. Not because I had someone else's tyrannical view of enforced egalitarianism. My reasoning all ties back to Google. They have a responsibility to their shareholders. They have a responsibility to keep the contracts that they enter. Their responsibility to their shareholders might include showing useful dinosaur information in their AdWords to someone researching dinosaurs because they want to look clueful. They have no moral responsibility to do so. They have no legal responsibility to do so. That's why I asked you. What do you mean by "take responsibility"?
  - Drbble 15y ago
    Aka the real world. Google ads stink? Turn on kiosk mode and load wikipedia before letting your kid on the computer. Or just download some quality content and unplug the network cable, which is probably the best idea anyway.
    - rbarooah 15y ago
      Doesn't anyone you know care about anything they aren't paid to care about?

crusso 15y ago

I dunno. Am I paying you for your advice or are am I getting it for free? What right or expectation do I have to assume that you're giving me good homework advice? Are you a friend of mine? Am I relying upon my past experience? If I'm not paying you, you're not a friend of mine, you're just some marketer paying sites to show your ads... I expect no real value from them. I almost never click on Google Ads embedded in web pages, so I don't understand the blame game going on. Some suckers do click on them. They pay for free web content. Who am I do bite the hand that feeds us for free?

rbarooah 15y ago
It sounds like you live in a world where people only take responsibility for the consequences of their actions if they are paid to do so.
- crusso 15y ago
  I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by "take responsibility". I'm reacting mostly to those two words since they have legal ramifications. You tell me what you mean by "take responsibility", and I'll tell you whether or not I think that there should be a business or binding legal relationship before someone should be compelled to "take responsibility".
  - rbarooah 15y ago
    Is there no room in your worldview for values that aren't imposed by force?
    - crusso 15y ago
      Of course. Quite the contrary, I believe that very few of your worldview values should need to be imposed by force. That's really a change of subject, though. You said "take responsibility". In our society today, "take responsibility" has connotations, mostly legal. Or the next line of reasoning is if people should "take responsibility", then the government should enforce it with laws and police action. Yesterday, a married couple emailed me for advice on a condo that they're looking to purchase where I just bought one. I don't know them. I don't owe them anything. I don't even feel any social pressure since it's a vacation area and I likely will never meet or see them. However, I took about 30 minutes to write up a lot of details on what I had experienced in my purchase and gave them my best advice I had. What I resent is someone telling me that I had some real "responsibility" to do so. I did it because I'm a friendly person and I wanted to. Not because I had someone else's tyrannical view of enforced egalitarianism. My reasoning all ties back to Google. They have a responsibility to their shareholders. They have a responsibility to keep the contracts that they enter. Their responsibility to their shareholders might include showing useful dinosaur information in their AdWords to someone researching dinosaurs because they want to look clueful. They have no moral responsibility to do so. They have no legal responsibility to do so. That's why I asked you. What do you mean by "take responsibility"?
- Drbble 15y ago
  Aka the real world. Google ads stink? Turn on kiosk mode and load wikipedia before letting your kid on the computer. Or just download some quality content and unplug the network cable, which is probably the best idea anyway.
  - rbarooah 15y ago
    Doesn't anyone you know care about anything they aren't paid to care about?