Are you familiar with the killing machine? It does what it sounds like. And unfortunately the machine is indiscriminate — the humans who operate and maintain it choose the machine’s targets, but they don’t always do a good job. So the machine terminates murderers, but even more often its victims are innocent.
Such is the way of a killing machine. It’s just a machine. Objects — or assemblages of objects — can’t be responsible or culpable for their “actions”.
Photo by mel.
I could be talking about a few different machines. I could be talking about US drones in the Middle East, or about the United States Armed Forces as a larger whole. I could be talking about lethal injection setups, or about our entire criminal “justice” system.
In a literal sense machines are different from bureaucracies. But regarding human organizations as machines can be a useful mental model. When we zoom out to that perspective, becomes obvious how little the good intentions of the participants matter.
A cog in a machine can be very well-made and run smoothly, interacting admirably with the parts next to it. But if the overarching design of the machine is to enable corrupt operators to execute their enemies, well…
aboniks says:
Once you’ve come to a place where you see the machine for what it is, you’re left with remarkably few options.
Either extricate yourself from the machine, throw yourself on the gears, or come to an accommodation with the operators. There are ways to do two at a time, but you can’t really do all three at once.
August 28, 2016 — 8:27 pm