> It looks completely backwards. Environments that fix systemic problems are overwhelmingly on the side of not blaming individuals and looking only at the system.
That's a fascinating exchange. I find myself siding more with you than with braythwayt, but still uncertain because the idea is new to me. Is there a good writeup of arguments for both sides?
1. Individuals have values and ethics that they'll make a reasonable effort to comply with. Society recognizes this and rewards and punishes individuals for the ethical bent of the projects they are clearly responsible for.
2. As the size and complexity of a project grows responsibility becomes diffuse until there's no single individual to hold responsible for any given decision. Once this happens the informal, personalized ethical safeguards begin to break down.
3. Once the informal individual scale safeguards have dissolved they usually can't be rebuilt. Instead they need to be replaced with formal safeguard mechanisms that operate at the project scale.
What really confuses the discussion is that a well working system that deals with ethical failures does necessarily hold people personally accountable. But you can't fix it by focusing on the "holding people accountable" part, it never works. You have to focus on the "system" part.