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I understand this sentiment, but I doubt you'd continue to hold it in the event of a leak that was much less beneficial for you in particular. Consider for a m

by dimino 11y ago

I understand this sentiment, but I doubt you'd continue to hold it in the event of a leak that was much less beneficial for you in particular. Consider for a moment the fictional scenario that all US tax documents were leaked, or perhaps only the tax documents of folks whose names started with Warren B. We might (in this fictional scenario) find out about some very significant tax evasion on the part of Warren Buffet (just a hypothetical example, almost certainly not true), but how might Warren Beaufort feel? To provide another (completely fictional) example, what about if the medical information of all federal US employees gets leaked. The US public is shocked to discover the huge misappropriations of funds towards unnecessary procedures for US congressmen/women, but at the same time Joe Normal, who works for a middle school, loses his job because it's revealed he has AIDS and the parents petition his removal from the classroom. I don't want to give these folks who might have access to this data any hope of exoneration or leniency if they use their privileged position to reveal secrets.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago
>who works for a middle school, loses his job because it's revealed he has AIDS and the parents petition his removal from the classroom. Once again, blaming the leaker is blaming the wrong individual here. There is already a cost to society of people not seeking treatment for mental health issues on the possibility the info might be leaked, not because the leak itself is a feared occurrence (in reality it is rare) but because of how irrational society reacts (especially when mental disorders are treated as moral failings).
- dimino 11y ago
  If I send my kid to visit his dad, knowing full well his dad is going to abuse him, am I at fault for sending him anyway, or are you exclusively arguing that his dad would be at fault, and I would carry zero blame?
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    You are not guilty of child abuse. You are guilty of endangerment. The father is guilty for child abuse. That said, the responsibility a parent has a child far exceeds the responsibility in most other relationships. Also the analogy is quite distant. Consider a closer analogy of report a number of child abusers to the police. One of these abusers is a father who abuses their child. Enough info is made public during the trial that the child is shamed for it (even though we can agree they should not be shamed for it). Are you guilty for shaming the child? Say another child is taken from their parents, both of whom had abused them but stopped and placed into foster care where they are abused again. Are you guilty for their continued abuse?
    - dimino 11y ago
      My analogy was designed to demonstrate the responsibility of an actor who has knowledge of a consequence of his/her behavior, whether or not the actor is in control of the consequence itself. In the event of a shamed child, I am indeed responsible (not guilty, that has a legal connotation that's undesired here) for a child's shaming if I am the one who acted, and the result of which was the shaming, regardless of other outcomes. Had I not acted, the child would not have been shamed. Therefore I am the responsible actor in the child shaming (not exclusively, obviously). You're apparently mixing both morality and legality, as well as what is happening vs. what ought to happen [0]. I am explicitly speaking in the realm of what is happening. You are responsible for the shaming of the child, the beating of the child, or the exposure of Joe Normal's loss of his job. Whether or not you were acting morally is an issue I'd like to address, but only once we've agreed on the premise that an actor is considered responsible for all direct consequences of his/her action. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
      - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
        Then given that we are responsible for the actions our governments take, and since all governments have taken actions that have caused children to be molested (such as putting a child in a foster care), even if those actions were reasonable given the known information at the time (removing the child from a parent who was giving them meth and putting them in a foster care home that was safe by all indications), we are all responsible for child molestation. Am I missing anything here?

by dimino 11y ago

Lawtonfogle 11y ago

>who works for a middle school, loses his job because it's revealed he has AIDS and the parents petition his removal from the classroom. Once again, blaming the leaker is blaming the wrong individual here. There is already a cost to society of people not seeking treatment for mental health issues on the possibility the info might be leaked, not because the leak itself is a feared occurrence (in reality it is rare) but because of how irrational society reacts (especially when mental disorders are treated as moral failings).

dimino 11y ago
If I send my kid to visit his dad, knowing full well his dad is going to abuse him, am I at fault for sending him anyway, or are you exclusively arguing that his dad would be at fault, and I would carry zero blame?
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  You are not guilty of child abuse. You are guilty of endangerment. The father is guilty for child abuse. That said, the responsibility a parent has a child far exceeds the responsibility in most other relationships. Also the analogy is quite distant. Consider a closer analogy of report a number of child abusers to the police. One of these abusers is a father who abuses their child. Enough info is made public during the trial that the child is shamed for it (even though we can agree they should not be shamed for it). Are you guilty for shaming the child? Say another child is taken from their parents, both of whom had abused them but stopped and placed into foster care where they are abused again. Are you guilty for their continued abuse?
  - dimino 11y ago
    My analogy was designed to demonstrate the responsibility of an actor who has knowledge of a consequence of his/her behavior, whether or not the actor is in control of the consequence itself. In the event of a shamed child, I am indeed responsible (not guilty, that has a legal connotation that's undesired here) for a child's shaming if I am the one who acted, and the result of which was the shaming, regardless of other outcomes. Had I not acted, the child would not have been shamed. Therefore I am the responsible actor in the child shaming (not exclusively, obviously). You're apparently mixing both morality and legality, as well as what is happening vs. what ought to happen [0]. I am explicitly speaking in the realm of what is happening. You are responsible for the shaming of the child, the beating of the child, or the exposure of Joe Normal's loss of his job. Whether or not you were acting morally is an issue I'd like to address, but only once we've agreed on the premise that an actor is considered responsible for all direct consequences of his/her action. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
    - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
      Then given that we are responsible for the actions our governments take, and since all governments have taken actions that have caused children to be molested (such as putting a child in a foster care), even if those actions were reasonable given the known information at the time (removing the child from a parent who was giving them meth and putting them in a foster care home that was safe by all indications), we are all responsible for child molestation. Am I missing anything here?