responsibility - fej.org

This text below is very old. This topic is on the list for revamping soon.

Summarily, I feel that clearly mapping responsibility, especially how each of us individually is a large contributer to the things we are against. The blame game allows us to work in and support the entire infrastructure to our benefit, but also to the benefit of those who use our collective labor to create the things that most of us (I hope) are against - war, poverty, etc.

Basically I feel it's everyone's responsibility to not be a part of a problem in the respect of directly supporting, indirectly supporting (participating in the economy), or passively by recognizing a problem and not working to resolve it.

Responsibility is interesting in that it is important, but seems to be way too much of the focus, especially in the united states of america.

It is useful to determine in an effort to resolve problems, but is not always critical or even useful. And it certainly is not a matter of determining responsibility and then expecting those responsible to resolve a problem. When you come to this point, you are probably in a blame game, and need to re-evaluate your position.

A big part of the project is to develop systems to clearly detail responsibility, and in a non-blaming fashion. Very detailed and accurate. With the pending software, the most direct mechanism is thorough tracing of materials (resources), power (relationships), money, etc. Then with the public opinion sharing systems, different individuals, groups and organizations can structure their own methods for assigning degrees of and to whom responsibility can be pinned and how to deal with the issue further with this information being determined.

One of the parts of the modeling of responsibility in society is to be able to know which businesses and organizations pay money through in earnings, profits and for services by others who one would rather not support. That is to be able to determine where the profit goes to, who gets it and what they do with it, or at least what they probably do with it.

Effectively, the result should be the ability to make all purchases of goods and services, donations, and such, knowing whether they fall in an individual's determination (direct or indirect) of "politically correct" and such. This enables everyone to be able to take the responsibility to know who and what they support.

In addition with other technological advances, the concept is to be able to easily, and almost without effort be able to adjust one's habits and actions as desired.

When it comes to who is responsible, there are a couple of things I look at.

Who could have prevented what ever the problem is, but didn't.

And then further I try to check for actions taken based on mis-information, and if it was done intentionally, etc.

But, always, when dealing with responsibility, it is important to remember that whether responsibility is resolved, and if so, whether accurately or not, the goal is to resolve or minimize the identified problem.

Another perspective that I keep that I feel is important is what I consider the "if you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem" principle. By this I mean that when one person is talking about the wrong actions of another, then it seems that maybe that person had better consider if they could have helped prevent the decision to take the wrong actions, or in a proper manner preventing the wrong actions from occurring. And as well, they should consider all of their own actions in that they themselves may be worse of a problem than what they are concerned with at the moment.

Part of the project is to challenge everyone to accept their responsibility, and encourage others to do so as well. And for those who don't take their responsibility seriously, will at least have had it made clear to them, and know the concequenses of their actions and inactions.

I recently ran into this quote from Albert Einstein : "The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." This is another way to sum it up I think.

When assigning responsibility, I use the model of war to keep a perspective that it is not those who are in the center or apparently most directly responsible for actions who are responsible, but a large degree, and sometimes more importantly those who function in an infrastructure supporting the others. That is to say, it is not just the leaders of a government, and the soldiers who do the actual killing, but also those who produce the bombs, and food for those, and everyone else who functions in a society enabling even this layer.

In short, I also look at this as from a perspective of : it's not them and they, it's us and we.

The other thing I try to keep in mind is trying to keep separate investigative and unbiased analysis of responsibility as opposed to the blame game. See my comments on blame.

I use the think for yourself principle a lot in trying to determine who and/or what is responsible in different things.

I find the expression of the freedom from choice in the Devo song freedom of choice is a good clarification of how people don't take their responsibility seriously. I try to take my responsibility seriously, and sometimes too far. I even get upset at fake car "accidents" in movies, etc., knowing they're fake, but that it represents the stupidity that we allow to go on, and do nothing about, while many people die or suffer because of cars. When I read in the news about real people who have died from the car system, that I used to be part of, I get really upset. And I don't know why, but when kids die or suffer or loose their parents or other family members, I find society is just pathetic to just accept that.