Comment by lucianbr
5 months ago
> The point of accountability is to deter harmful activity by ensuring actions/decisions somewhere result in consequences
What I read is yes, the point is revenge. If I can offer you a different way of preventing harmful activity, apparently you're not interested. There has to be some unpleasant consequences inflicted, you insist on it.
I think you should reconsider.
Every rule/boundary/structure needs both a carrot, and a stick, to continue to exist long term.
Ideally, the stick never gets used. We aren’t dealing with ideals, however, we have to deal with reality.
On any sufficiently large scale, an inability/lack of will to use the stick, results in wide scale malfeasance. Because other constrains elsewhere result in wide scale push to break those rules/boundaries/structures for competitive reasons.
No carrot, magnifies the need to use the stick, eh? And turns it into nothing but beatings. Which is not sustainable either.
It has nothing to do with revenge. But if it makes you feel more comfortable, go ahead and call it that.
It’s ensuring cause and effect get coupled usefully. And is necessary for proper conditioning, and learning. One cannot learn properly if there is no ‘failure’ consequence correct?
All you need to do to verify this is, literally, look around at the structures you see everywhere, and what happens when they are or are not enforced. (Aka accountability vs a lack of it).
I think they’re just right in this case.
Suppose I’m a bad actor that creates an unfair algorithm that overcharges the clients of my company. Eventually it’s discovered. The algorithm could be fixed, the servers decommissioned, whatever, but I’ve already won. If the people who requested the algorithm be made in that way, if the people who implemented it or ran it see no consequences, there’s absolutely nothing preventing me from doing the same thing another time, elsewhere.
Punishment for fraud seems sane, regardless of whether it’s enabled by code or me cooking some books by hand.
One could even argue (from a raw individual utility perspective - aka selfish) that if the person/people who did that suffered no negative consequences, they’d be fools to not do it again elsewhere.
The evolutionary function certainly encourages it, correct?
Ignoring that means that not applying consequences makes one actually culpable in the bad behavior occurring.
Especially if nothing changed re: rules or enforcement, etc.