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No! First sentence: > Duty (criminal law), is an obligation to act under which failure to act (omission), results in criminal liability You failed to act, whi

No! First sentence: > Duty (criminal law), is an obligation to act under which failure to act (omission), results in criminal liability You failed to act, which is why a law is sometimes required to compel action. However, saving a drowning person isn't something that triggers such a legal obligation in the USA unless you're the person who actually pushed someone into the water in the first place. I don't get why this thread is getting so long or so abstract. The principles here are straightforward. Facebook don't actually have to care about what arguments activists make, but even if they did, it's on activists to win the argument for what they want. You don't get to automatically have your own way unless someone sits down and does a randomized controlled trial showing that you're wrong - and this is independent of what domain we're talking about.

rayiner 2y ago
> I don't get why this thread is getting so long or so abstract Activists use abstraction to attempt to overcome settled understandings and norms. Of course there is a distinction between action and inaction—as you recognize it’s even a legally significant distinction. The very existence of that norm is the reason anyone would say “inaction is really a form of action.” It’s like how the notion of “antiracism” is an effort to reframe race neutrality as a form of racism.
ceejayoz 2y ago
But we're not talking about only the legal obligations. Plenty would argue that a person with a life ring and a drowning person in front of them have a moral imperative to act; the court of public opinion would be certainly negative about a video of someone casually watching the person die while holding the means to save them, even if you can't criminally prosecute. In this particular case, changing the rules (and making the blog post explaining those changes!) is pretty clearly an action.
- rayiner 2y ago
  Here, the law flows from the moral judgment that there’s a fundamental distinction between action and inaction. Otherwise, you’d be morally culpable for not basically enslaving ourself to helping whenever happens to be the poorest.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    In my example, you'd be comfortable morally with "inaction"?

rayiner 2y ago

> I don't get why this thread is getting so long or so abstract Activists use abstraction to attempt to overcome settled understandings and norms. Of course there is a distinction between action and inaction—as you recognize it’s even a legally significant distinction. The very existence of that norm is the reason anyone would say “inaction is really a form of action.” It’s like how the notion of “antiracism” is an effort to reframe race neutrality as a form of racism.

ceejayoz 2y ago

But we're not talking about only the legal obligations. Plenty would argue that a person with a life ring and a drowning person in front of them have a moral imperative to act; the court of public opinion would be certainly negative about a video of someone casually watching the person die while holding the means to save them, even if you can't criminally prosecute. In this particular case, changing the rules (and making the blog post explaining those changes!) is pretty clearly an action.

rayiner 2y ago
Here, the law flows from the moral judgment that there’s a fundamental distinction between action and inaction. Otherwise, you’d be morally culpable for not basically enslaving ourself to helping whenever happens to be the poorest.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  In my example, you'd be comfortable morally with "inaction"?