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Old Posted Nov 22, 2021, 11:34 PM
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Nouvellecosse Nouvellecosse is offline
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Nova Scotia
Posts: 9,048
The trick is, when discussing individual people's lives, you focus solely on individual issues (their personal choices) because individuals have little direct control over societal systems. So impugning systemic flaws has little utilitarian value. Meanwhile, when discussing broader society you focus solely on society-wide factors because the decisions of an individual is not useful in shaping public policy because policy has to take into account large scale trends.

To use roads as an example, at the level of an individual you offer them ways to drive more carefully for instance. They're responsible for not driving in an impaired / distracted state, not driving too fast for conditions, knowing the rules of the road, etc. But if we're talking about the roads themselves, you talk about sight lines, curvatures, signage, gradients, lane widths, etc. If a particular sharp curve has a high rate of accidents and someone suggests that the road be redesigned in a way that's safer, you don't say "the suggestion insinuates that drivers bear no responsibility for operating their vehicle safely" as an excuse not to address the problem. Sure some of the accidents on that stretch may have involved drivers going faster than they should have, but that's no excuse not to improve a dangerous stretch of road.
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"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw
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