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A system!!! Held accountable!!!! A system, just like a computer, cannot be held accountable for the reason that a system, as like a computer, is not alive and c

A system!!! Held accountable!!!! A system, just like a computer, cannot be held accountable for the reason that a system, as like a computer, is not alive and cannot actual be held accountable in a way that the system or computer cares. But what is a system made of? People who are doing bad decisions and should be held accountable for that. Without accountability of bad actors in systems, you get companies committing crimes because no one at the top rarely sees fines or jail time. The same immunity from responsibility you think is a good thing in a system is what I would say is corporate america’s major sin. You’re upset at the line because you make a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means for someone to be held accountable for something.

coliveira 2y ago
This hits the nail on the head. The issue is that humans are accountable, but systems are not. And smart humans learned how to hide behind systems to avoid accountability. That's the whole strategy of using corporations, a social structure that removes individuals from responsibility. A corporation can do pretty much anything, including criminal acts, and the humans benefiting from it are shield from the negative results except for financial losses. What we're seeing is just the whole strategy moving into the level of computer systems (and Google has already used this accountability skirting strategy for more than two decades).
- taeric 2y ago
  The problem you will quickly run into is individuals cannot take the load that this line of thinking leads to. Accidentally typo an extra 0 on a payment process? Hope you have the funds to take accountability on that mistake. After all, we have taken the choice that the system cannot be operated to rollback any choice, as that would lower human accountability...
  - the8472 2y ago
    Then that person should have the right to refuse, ask for appropriate compensation or insurance. It's often argued here that the C-suite earns their high compensation by taking on those risks. So let the CFO fatfinger those unchecked transfers if he wishes. But if rollbacks are possible and cheap then we need all that much accountability. People want accountability when there's no rollback possible, e.g. when decisions leads to deaths or life-years wasted.
    - taeric 2y ago
      Your last sentence is basically my disagreement and push, here? Systems can be made so that they can be rolled back. More, systems that oversee life and death situations often have to act faster than a human can respond to them. I'm all for trying to get personal accountability to lead to a personal liability as much as we want. That, just isn't going to happen. So, if you want to change the manual page in question to be that systems should be reversible or "fixable", for whatever that means, sure. But "management decisions" are usually among the most reversible choices any company will ever make.
- EtCepeyd 2y ago
  > smart humans learned how to hide behind systems to avoid accountability And "systems" is more general in this sense than just technology. Consider stoning, and firing squads. Both were invented to remove individual responsibility.
taeric 2y ago
But your reading presumes that you would hold individuals responsible in a company for something that goes wrong. Which, without showing intent on individual actors, feels very very unlikely. Both in actuality, and in desire. Consider, if it is found that salmonella contaminated the spinach of a local farm, I want it recalled and for better systems in place to catch contamination. I don't want to find the farmer that was responsible for the acre of land that introduced the contaminant. I think this idea flows from some thought that people will put more effort into things that they think they could be held accountable for. In reality, that just isn't the case. People will instead stall and stall on things they think they could be held accountable on if things go south. From my vantage, that style of "accountability" just leads to more and more red tape as you do what you can to line item identify who could have prevented something. That is not productive.
- miltonlost 2y ago
  > Consider, if it is found that salmonella contaminated the spinach of a local farm, I want it recalled and for better systems in place to catch contamination. I don't want to find the farmer that was responsible for the acre of land that introduced the contaminant. Wow a local farm!!!! We must think of the plight of the local farmer! And not the multinational corporations! Consider, if it is found that listeria contaminated the meat of a national Chain, Boar's Head, I want it recalled and for better systems in place to catch contamination. I also want the plant manager and executives who allowed for the massively unsanitary state to continue for years. https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/09/10th-person-dead-in-listeria-outbreak-linked-to-boars-head-meats/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/09/10th-person-dead-in-... The way you're talking , we should be going back to pre-Upton Sinclair The Jungle and letting our food run full of contaminants because why make any one person accountable for their willful addition of sawdust to their flour?
  - taeric 2y ago
    If there is provable negligence on the plant manager for allowing it, I'm game for them getting in trouble. My point was more that there are a TON of individuals that can each be shown to have done something specific to spread the problem. We don't hold them accountable. By design. Now, I'm all for more directly holding companies responsible. Such that I think they probably deserve less protections than they almost certainly have here. But that is a different thing and, again, is unrelated to "a person taking accountability."

coliveira 2y ago

This hits the nail on the head. The issue is that humans are accountable, but systems are not. And smart humans learned how to hide behind systems to avoid accountability. That's the whole strategy of using corporations, a social structure that removes individuals from responsibility. A corporation can do pretty much anything, including criminal acts, and the humans benefiting from it are shield from the negative results except for financial losses. What we're seeing is just the whole strategy moving into the level of computer systems (and Google has already used this accountability skirting strategy for more than two decades).

taeric 2y ago
The problem you will quickly run into is individuals cannot take the load that this line of thinking leads to. Accidentally typo an extra 0 on a payment process? Hope you have the funds to take accountability on that mistake. After all, we have taken the choice that the system cannot be operated to rollback any choice, as that would lower human accountability...
- the8472 2y ago
  Then that person should have the right to refuse, ask for appropriate compensation or insurance. It's often argued here that the C-suite earns their high compensation by taking on those risks. So let the CFO fatfinger those unchecked transfers if he wishes. But if rollbacks are possible and cheap then we need all that much accountability. People want accountability when there's no rollback possible, e.g. when decisions leads to deaths or life-years wasted.
  - taeric 2y ago
    Your last sentence is basically my disagreement and push, here? Systems can be made so that they can be rolled back. More, systems that oversee life and death situations often have to act faster than a human can respond to them. I'm all for trying to get personal accountability to lead to a personal liability as much as we want. That, just isn't going to happen. So, if you want to change the manual page in question to be that systems should be reversible or "fixable", for whatever that means, sure. But "management decisions" are usually among the most reversible choices any company will ever make.
EtCepeyd 2y ago
> smart humans learned how to hide behind systems to avoid accountability And "systems" is more general in this sense than just technology. Consider stoning, and firing squads. Both were invented to remove individual responsibility.

taeric 2y ago

But your reading presumes that you would hold individuals responsible in a company for something that goes wrong. Which, without showing intent on individual actors, feels very very unlikely. Both in actuality, and in desire. Consider, if it is found that salmonella contaminated the spinach of a local farm, I want it recalled and for better systems in place to catch contamination. I don't want to find the farmer that was responsible for the acre of land that introduced the contaminant. I think this idea flows from some thought that people will put more effort into things that they think they could be held accountable for. In reality, that just isn't the case. People will instead stall and stall on things they think they could be held accountable on if things go south. From my vantage, that style of "accountability" just leads to more and more red tape as you do what you can to line item identify who could have prevented something. That is not productive.

miltonlost 2y ago
> Consider, if it is found that salmonella contaminated the spinach of a local farm, I want it recalled and for better systems in place to catch contamination. I don't want to find the farmer that was responsible for the acre of land that introduced the contaminant. Wow a local farm!!!! We must think of the plight of the local farmer! And not the multinational corporations! Consider, if it is found that listeria contaminated the meat of a national Chain, Boar's Head, I want it recalled and for better systems in place to catch contamination. I also want the plant manager and executives who allowed for the massively unsanitary state to continue for years. https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/09/10th-person-dead-in-listeria-outbreak-linked-to-boars-head-meats/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/09/10th-person-dead-in-... The way you're talking , we should be going back to pre-Upton Sinclair The Jungle and letting our food run full of contaminants because why make any one person accountable for their willful addition of sawdust to their flour?
- taeric 2y ago
  If there is provable negligence on the plant manager for allowing it, I'm game for them getting in trouble. My point was more that there are a TON of individuals that can each be shown to have done something specific to spread the problem. We don't hold them accountable. By design. Now, I'm all for more directly holding companies responsible. Such that I think they probably deserve less protections than they almost certainly have here. But that is a different thing and, again, is unrelated to "a person taking accountability."