This is something that always grated on me, and recently there was a situation at work where it became doubly so, so curious other people's take.
Basically, if you make a decision that has a high degree of unpredictability associated with it, why do we feel the need to punish more so the person who made the same decision and had a bad outcome vs the one who made the same decision, and purely through luck did not?
I'll use drunk driving as an example. Two people make the same bad decision to drive drunk. Neither wants to kill anyone, but both accept that there is a much greater chance they will. I feel that people should only be held accountable to the decisions they make, and things directly within their control. Not supporting drunk driving, but as far as I'm concerned, both are equally guilty. The fact one hit someone and the other did not is immaterial, because both showed equal apathy towards others in making that choice, but fate favored one over the other. Is it just for revenge?
The specific situation at work was basically everyone ignored certain parts of the Standard work procedure. It was "just how it was done" (famous words I know). Anyways sure enough eventually there was a big fuckup, and the guy and his lead hand got fired. The fact that it happened to him, and not any of the other 25 people and lead hands doing it the exact same way for years and years boiled down to luck. Yet when this was discovered, he was still fired, and everyone else just got a talking to "don't do this any more".
And the other way too, for instance in resource exploration. Highly unpredictable. If you have a bunch of guys, each with a 20% shot of finding a 2000% payoff, why do we say the guy who actually finds something is a better engineer or whatever? All made the exact same decisions, all were going in with the same probability of success, yet one is called a better engineer for what amounts to luck.
The airline I fly here has signs on the seats, if you're caught using a cell phone its like a $200 fine. If it results in injury/damage, it's $20k. All you can do is decide to use the phone or not. Whether it impacts anything is completely beyond your control.
I suppose the extreme version of this, would be looking to lottery winners for advice on how to win again.
Basically, if you make a decision that has a high degree of unpredictability associated with it, why do we feel the need to punish more so the person who made the same decision and had a bad outcome vs the one who made the same decision, and purely through luck did not?
I'll use drunk driving as an example. Two people make the same bad decision to drive drunk. Neither wants to kill anyone, but both accept that there is a much greater chance they will. I feel that people should only be held accountable to the decisions they make, and things directly within their control. Not supporting drunk driving, but as far as I'm concerned, both are equally guilty. The fact one hit someone and the other did not is immaterial, because both showed equal apathy towards others in making that choice, but fate favored one over the other. Is it just for revenge?
The specific situation at work was basically everyone ignored certain parts of the Standard work procedure. It was "just how it was done" (famous words I know). Anyways sure enough eventually there was a big fuckup, and the guy and his lead hand got fired. The fact that it happened to him, and not any of the other 25 people and lead hands doing it the exact same way for years and years boiled down to luck. Yet when this was discovered, he was still fired, and everyone else just got a talking to "don't do this any more".
And the other way too, for instance in resource exploration. Highly unpredictable. If you have a bunch of guys, each with a 20% shot of finding a 2000% payoff, why do we say the guy who actually finds something is a better engineer or whatever? All made the exact same decisions, all were going in with the same probability of success, yet one is called a better engineer for what amounts to luck.
The airline I fly here has signs on the seats, if you're caught using a cell phone its like a $200 fine. If it results in injury/damage, it's $20k. All you can do is decide to use the phone or not. Whether it impacts anything is completely beyond your control.
I suppose the extreme version of this, would be looking to lottery winners for advice on how to win again.