>I don’t think hating any of the players makes sense. Those that set the rules are ultimately responsible.
If it were legal in certain circumstances to kill someone and take all their stuff, you'd hold the people who arrange for those circumstances to arise as often as possible for the purposes of plundering from their former neighbors blameless because "they're just playing the game"? What if it were torture instead of just murder? Does there ever come a point when a person is responsible for their actions?
> Does there ever come a point when a person is responsible for their actions?
This is it right here. People have been holding out for an answer to that question and I think they are learning every day the answer is no. People can't watch families like the Sacklers inflict untold harm on the population and then get away with a fine less than what they made inflicting that harm, and come away to believe the system works, and that rich people's "due process" is the same as the rest of ours.
If I murder 1, 10, or 100 people I go to jail for life or get the death penalty. If I make a business that murders half a million people by pushing pills and I make a billion dollars doing that, absolute worst case scenario I get a relatively small fine compare to my earnings, and I continue the rest of my life in luxurious freedom. And that's only IF the issue goes to trial after I exhaust my endless resources to massage the justice system by choosing the venue, the judge, and the jury.
Lifetime jail and death isn't even on the table. I guess until now that is... maybe that changes the cost/benefit analysis in boardrooms. Maybe they need to start estimating the likelihood their decisions are so immoral they will actually radicalize their customers to murder them. Because it seems like that possibility doesn't even cross their minds and they feel they can race to the bottom with no repercussions except a fine.
I'm not asking about whether the legal system will hold someone responsible. I'm asking whether they are culpable, ethically speaking. The whole "don't hate the player; hate the game" thing seems to just be a total abdication of responsibility. Of course incentives shape behavior, but saying that only the incentive structure is to blame serves the interests of no one but the sort of person who would do absolutely anything they can get away with that makes them a buck and then insist that it wasn't bad because someone else would've done it if they hadn't.
If it were legal in certain circumstances to kill someone and take all their stuff, you'd hold the people who arrange for those circumstances to arise as often as possible for the purposes of plundering from their former neighbors blameless because "they're just playing the game"? What if it were torture instead of just murder? Does there ever come a point when a person is responsible for their actions?