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That’s a fair point about personal agency, but it sidesteps the meat of the parent's comment: modern systems are engineered to obscure accountability. Many "per
by paulgerhardt 2y ago
That’s a fair point about personal agency, but it sidesteps the meat of the parent's comment: modern systems are engineered to obscure accountability. Many "personal" deaths - addiction, poor health, lack of care - aren't just random or self-inflicted. They emerge from structures built to deflect blame: lobbying, regulatory capture, and alegal negative externalities[1]. The issue isn't agency vs. violence - it's that our bureaucracies are designed to make harm invisible and responsibility untraceable.
Or as Stafford Beer wrote "the purpose of a system is what it does." The system we've built reliably produces death and violence - intentions or agency aside.
[1] https://www.theworldofchinese.com/2022/12/behind-the-scenes-at-chinas-christmas-factories/ https://www.theworldofchinese.com/2022/12/behind-the-scenes-...
- jlaternman 2y agoYeah, this is an interesting point! It would be very hard to quantify, but it feels fair to say there is a significant level of what might be called “covert violence” in modern society that would increase the numbers if it could be accurately measured, and wouldn’t have applied to prehistory. I would largely exclude things like alcohol and tobacco, but a lot of other things feel valid to include to me. And if you consider something like Covid-related deaths could be included, which I realise would be debatable, the numbers would rise significantly.