Comment by godelski

I'm sorry, but this cop-out really pisses me off. It is far too common and frankly, unacceptable. It really is insulting that you'd expect others to accept this as a justification. It's a lazy dismissal and not even a proper excuse.

You're excuse for doing something shitty is... that someone else will? What does another person even have to do with it?! Seriously, let them have the blood on their hands. You can't even assume that someone else will! If you do it, you guarantee that it happens. Even if it is likely that someone else will, there's a big difference between a certainty. This is literally what creates enshitification.

Plus, the logic is pretty slippery. Certainly you're not going to commit crimes or acts of genocide! You were "just following orders"[0], right? Or parents often say to their children "if everyone jumped off a cliff, would you?" Certainly the line is drawn somewhere, but frankly, it is the same "excuse" given when that extreme shit happened, so no, I won't accept it.

You have autonomy[1], that makes you accountable. You aren't just some mindless automata. You may not be the root cause, but at best you enable it. You can't ignore that you play a role.

And consider the dual: if you don't make it better, who will?

I believe you have the power to make change, do you? Maybe not big, but hey, every big thing is composed of many smaller things, right? So the question is which big thing you want to contribute to.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders

[1] https://talyarkoni.org/blog/2018/10/02/no-its-not-the-incent...