Analogy: think of the police system. Yes, in a dysfunctional society, police can beat you up, demand bribes at random, even kill you. Yet we all agree that police do useful work.
Is the correct solution to this problem to introduce a technical system where everyone can hide perfectly from the law if they spend some time and effort? Or is the correct solution to implement a system where the powers of the police are clearly and strictly limited and where the punishment for transgressions is severe?
True enough. Society is collectively paying the price, instead of the individuals actually responsible. That is unfortunate, but I am still cautiously optimistic that this could lead to people in positions of power to think twice before abusing it.
Agreed, of course. Bringing up agency is on point, as well. I should have included that in my own comment, in short: the US has trouble being socially effective due to wonky "will power"/moral accountability bias--it cannot politically see bounded agencies, and therefore generates fails that strain the lower systems.
Some of us just think that we, as a society, can do better than enforcing our beliefs and demands at the end of a gun barrel. And we prioritize principle over outcome, acknowledging that every system has it's pathological edge cases - including the current system.
The system failed to act as intended then, and I'd honestly not be remisced if I didn't mention it creating new victims. The people staring at that data and making laws know this; it's not like they're unaware and yet these systems are still staples. At some point you have to sit back and question whether they're actually trying to solve a problem at all.
A good exercise is to ask where the failure or fault was in this system. There will always be businesses looking for ways to cut costs. There will always be people with flexible ethics willing to exploit others for their own gain. There will ways be vulnerable people without options and unable to advocate for themselves. We must take that all as a given and still find a way to prevent these abuses.
It comes down to what we as a society permit via our laws and courts. If we do not do the hard work of building and maintaining a just society, it will not exist.
Consider the iterated consequences if you don't allow people to admit a transgression, reform, and move on.
Such a society ultimately turns into a gaslighting double-down deny-everything debacle, where everything must be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt in a court of law. In this situation court cases will be dragged out forever, and asymmetric resources and power really will come into play.
I think it's fair to say that these problems shouldn't be blamed on individuals, but systemic failure. In my imagination, someone should have seen this at some point. The system should have had safeguards to ensure that, regardless of any individual's personal failures.
That said, I agree it's a little harsh, since there's no evidence that anyone else could/has done better in this incident.
I agree, but until something comes to light abuses could still be happening. I was mostly pushing back on the idea that a system can be created that would allow the average person to not pay attention. I think individuals must be vigilant even if we think we have a good system.
Not really. Those who act unethically bear the responsibility, and saying that since system is broken it's OK to abuse it just doesn't cut it. With that said, of course the system needs to be blamed (and changed) as well.
I think the real lesson of the story isn't that the system is "working", it's that we've (society) been purchasing tons and tons of a product for who knows how long that has been inauthentic, without any idea that it was the case. How long has this been happening? For how many other products is this the case?
It's certainly better that we know and (hopefully) some corrective action is taken, but overall I'd read it as a signal of dysfunction. And I don' think macintux is suggesting that we're presently within the libertarian ideal, rather we're in the universe where it's considered a responsibility of the state to prevent these kinds of things from happening, yet they are still happening. So look what happened here, and imagine what would happen with even fewer failsafes...
Right but the context to this is not fixed and is human constructed. Just because a bad system produces undesirable outcomes doesn’t mean we have to shrug our shoulders as if this is the only possible state of things.
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