In a prior post I asked who is at fault if a guy pokes a bear with a stick and the bear kills him. Then I sweetened the pot by supposing the bear was actually an irrational guy whose religion says you need to kill people that poke you with a stick.
And then the fun began.
I haven’t read every comment to that post, but all of the ones I saw could be sorted into two categories:
1. Humorous
2. Wrong
Those of you who said we should blame the stick or the maker of the stick get bonus points for both humor and comprehension of analogies. Nicely done.
I’ll also give partial credit to people who needed more information before making a decision: What constitutes irrational? Why the hell would a guy be poking a bear? I applaud the desire to have all the information before making a decision, but in this case you already had it and didn’t realize it.
The correct answer, and the one that no one offered as far as I could tell, is that it was no ones fault. Not the guy with the stick, not the bear, and not the irrational religious guy. Each creature acted according to its nature and its programming, as all moist robots must.
We don’t need to know if the guy with the stick is irrational or not. He’s a moist robot. He does what his environment and his brain chemistry mandate him to do. In this case, he has irresistible bear-poking tendencies. End of story. He has the illusion of free will, as all moist robots including you and I do. But in the end, he must poke, you must incorrectly attribute fault, and I must mock you for it.
The bear is a furry moist robot. You poke him, he mauls you. It’s that simple. The bear’s brain isn’t equipped for free will. Neither is yours or mine.
The irrational religious guy is another moist robot, and probably furry too, but that’s just a guess. He’s simply programmed with more harmful code than other moist robots. That’s not his fault any more than it’s the lawnmower’s fault for running out of gas.
“Fault” is a perception. It’s not an objective quality of any person, creature, place, or thing. The concept of “fault” comes in mighty handy for organizing society and for reducing guilt. I like thinking that the people rotting in jail are at “fault.” It makes me feel better. Society needs to protect itself from the more harmful moist robots, and the concept of “fault” is useful for doing that. I have no problem treating domestic criminals as faulty and punishing them as such.
The problem with the “fault” concept is apparent when you apply it to world affairs, where you can’t lock up the people at fault. (With rare exceptions such as Saddam.) When nations have differences, they’re pretty much forced to work out their problems, or die trying. But as soon as you buy into the irrational notion of “fault,” you surrender your flexibility and thus your hope of success. No leader can compromise with an enemy he has labeled as the one at fault.
You NEED the concept of fault when you’re dealing with domestic criminals. It makes everyone including the criminals buy into the whole justice system. But when you’re dealing with problems between nations, as soon as both sides assign the “fault” to the other, no solution is possible, since both sides believe they are fighting for what is right against an enemy who is at fault.
Many of you interpreted my bear-poking question as a clever way to blame the Pope for stirring up trouble with Muslims. As a humorist, I blame him because it’s funny. But on a rational level, I know he’s just a moist robot with an excellent hat.
And the Muslims who are burning churches because of the Pope’s comment are moist robots with beards.
I know that many of you will argue that in some cases it is “obvious” who is at fault. That would certainly be true if free will existed anywhere but in your superstitions.