Responsibility is one of those things that a lot of people talk about but not a whole lot of people actually get real serious about. Just look around, there are a ton of people blaming everyone else for their problems. Yet, responsibility is about more than being personally accountable for making sure you don’t mess up your own life. It’s also about making sure that you don’t mess up someone else’s. Most people when they go through their daily lives don’t actively try to hurt anyone else. In fact, I’d go so far as to say most people will go out of their way to not inadvertently hurt anyone.
However, the more remote other people are, the less visible the consequences of our actions, the less likely people are to take responsibility for what they do. Just as an example, when I was a kid, my uncle was burning some tires and other stuff in his backyard. My dad called him out on the tires, pointing out that the tires are some pretty nasty things to be sending into the air. My uncle responded that it was just one or two. Almost sounds fair at first glance. What can two tires do versus the entire atmosphere? Not much. But as my dad responded, what if everyone burned just a couple? What then? Pretty sure my uncle never burned another tire.
What’s the point of the story? My uncle didn’t think he was doing anything bad, he didn’t think it mattered, not because he’s such a bad person but because he just didn’t think it through. It’s the out of sight, out of mind principle and it is very hard to fight against it. To do so requires really thinking a couple steps beyond what you are doing right now and how that might affect others far away in both time and space.
Let’s take a hypothetical situation. Imagine if someone were dumping candy bars in some remote African village. The people would almost certainly eat them. In fact, because the food is showing up for free with an apparently unlimited supply, they would probably eat a lot of them. The result would likely be a lot of overweight people suffering from diabetes and heart disease. Who is responsible for that outcome? Is it the people because they ate all the candy bars, or is it the person dumping the candy bars? I would say the primary responsibility is with the person dumping the candy bars. The villagers would very likely be unaware of the dangers of eating too many of the things. They would almost certainly have little to no experience with a sustained source of sugar like that and what it can do to the body. The person providing that source though likely would know and therefore would have the responsibility to educate the villagers as to the consequences of what they are eating.
A less hypothetical example and one that we can all relate to in some way is the modern app and its terms of service. The app itself is like the candy bars, it’s a bait pile, there to attract you. Then they say, ‘Here's our terms of service, just agree to these and you can use the app’. It’s as if the hypothetical villagers were given a detailed study of the effects of sugar, full of scientific jargon. They wouldn’t know what it means, just like most of us can’t translate the legal-ease of the TOS. But the lawyers and the app developers know full well what they are doing and how they plan to take full advantage of them.
I would argue that the app developers have a responsibility to make their terms clear. Much like the candy bar dumper should make it clear that too many of them will make you sick and kill you early, so the developers should just say ‘we are doing to sell your data’ or whatever it is they intend to do with it.
That is the beginning of responsibility, simply being open about your intentions and not lying to people. It sounds so simple doesn’t it?
What’s your data worth? Sign up and join the TARTLE Marketplace with this link here.
Responsibility is one of those things that a lot of people talk about but not a whole lot of people actually get real serious about. Just look around, there are a ton of people blaming everyone else for their problems. Yet, responsibility is about more than being personally accountable for making sure you don’t mess up your own life. It’s also about making sure that you don’t mess up someone else’s.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to TARTLE Cast, with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future, and source data defines the path.
Alexander McCaig (00:24):
Jason, I'm not being responsible with my caffeine intake. If I take one more piece of caffeine in this body I think my heart's going to explode.
Jason Rigby (00:33):
That's a good thing.
Alexander McCaig (00:34):
Are you to blame, because you poured me another cup?
Jason Rigby (00:37):
I did, and I split a little bit on your keyboard of your laptop.
Alexander McCaig (00:40):
You did spill it on this very...
Jason Rigby (00:41):
While you were talking to your [crosstalk 00:00:43] on the phone.
Alexander McCaig (00:42):
... Nice, expensive laptop.
Jason Rigby (00:45):
And, next thing you know, it was like [inaudible 00:00:48].
Alexander McCaig (00:49):
Smoking up.
Jason Rigby (00:50):
No, it didn't do that.
Alexander McCaig (00:51):
Let me ask you though, you poured me that cup of coffee, I could have just left it to go cold.
Jason Rigby (00:56):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Alexander McCaig (00:57):
But, I drank it anyway. So, are you responsible? Or am I responsible?
Jason Rigby (01:04):
It depends on how you're observing it.
Alexander McCaig (01:06):
Well, I'm observing the fact that I was the one that sipped it.
Jason Rigby (01:08):
Because, you could say it's 100% your responsibility because... But, is the level of... Because, I'm wanting to take this into a macro country view. So, if you dropped off Hershey chocolate bars in a very remote village in wherever, and they begin to eat the chocolate bars, and then you begin to just drop them off, drop them off, drop them off.
Alexander McCaig (01:42):
Oh, this is interesting.
Jason Rigby (01:43):
You see what I'm saying? So, now all of a sudden you start getting...
Alexander McCaig (01:45):
There's a dependence on it.
Jason Rigby (01:46):
... diabetes, and there's a dependence. And, they know every Thursday at 1:00 PM, because it's happened for two years now, chocolate bars, and you're starting to see obesity, and people dying early, and all that stuff. So, what was their level of intelligence in processing that? Would it be their fault then? Because, they're just looking at it as like honey, [inaudible 00:02:09].
Alexander McCaig (02:10):
This hypothetical tribe. This is interesting.
Jason Rigby (02:14):
Sorry, I just through a...
Alexander McCaig (02:15):
I don't know if it's intelligence, but, frankly, just a sense of awareness. Maybe they're not aware to scientific concepts of eating too much sugar.
Jason Rigby (02:23):
Yeah, because they don't know...
Alexander McCaig (02:24):
They've never been taught.
Jason Rigby (02:26):
Yeah, because when they get honey... That's what they would reference it to, I think. Because, there's very few things that would be sweet.
Alexander McCaig (02:32):
So, this hypothetical tribe somewhere, and you just keep dropping the stuff off, if somebody doesn't know any better, at no fault of their own, zero fault of their own, I want to make sure that that is abundantly clear.
Jason Rigby (02:46):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (02:48):
Shouldn't you then take on the responsibility to be like, "We probably shouldn't be doing this".
Jason Rigby (02:54):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Alexander McCaig (02:56):
For instance, if you look at terms and conditions of most things that you sign up for, 99% of us don't know what the hell these things are saying.
Jason Rigby (03:03):
For that free app you download for the horoscope.
Alexander McCaig (03:06):
Yeah. But, the company who put it together, they know better.
Jason Rigby (03:12):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (03:13):
They are well aware of what's involved in the product and everything else, whether it be chocolate or an app.
Jason Rigby (03:18):
Or it's tracking on your phone.
Alexander McCaig (03:19):
So, if you're just dosing people with this sugar, with this app, these dopamine hits essentially, and it's creating systemic issues, shouldn't you think to be more responsible?
Jason Rigby (03:37):
Alex, you know as well as I do, corporations like to dish the responsibility onto the individual and take it away from themself as the identity.
Alexander McCaig (03:44):
And, this is why I talked about the coffee. You poured me the coffee, I still chose to drink it. And, that's probably the comment that they make, "Well, you still chose to drink it. You still chose to download the app."
Jason Rigby (03:56):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (03:56):
Well, hold on a second, you got to understand that everybody's at a different level here. No one's at the same level, not one person. So, if they fundamentally do not know any better through no fault of their own, but you know better, this is a very irresponsible thing you are doing.
Jason Rigby (04:10):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (04:11):
You need to be aware of this. You cannot pass off that blame. There's this interesting article here, it's called Trying To Make Sense of.... What? The Modern World?
Jason Rigby (04:18):
What is Going on in the World?
Alexander McCaig (04:21):
It's trying to make sense of it. What this boils down to, a lot about what we talk about, and these issues with governments not securing human rights and things of that issue, small arms proliferation, stuff like that, educational access, is a lack of groups, or entities, or businesses, or governments from taking responsibility. They just don't take the responsibility. Great things happen when a government, and a business, and also individuals choose to take responsibility.
Jason Rigby (04:55):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (04:55):
That's where things really flourish. Because, then there's a deeper respect for what's going on here, and it's not just a function of a blame game. We need to act in a more truthful wise.
Jason Rigby (05:09):
Yeah. And, he talks about it's more fragmented than ever when we look this world, and then these systematic changes to overcome the challenges that we face. And, he has an index, it's called the Good Country Index. And, we need to define the word good, and he does a great job at defining the word good, especially when you're looking at a nation. He says, "Good is the opposite of selfish", which is perfect.
Alexander McCaig (05:34):
I like that a lot.
Jason Rigby (05:35):
Because, it's not bad... We think good, and then the opposite is bad. But, he's saying good is the opposite of... The action that you're going to commit, is it all consuming self to myself, without a concern to others. So, a country could display that, whether it's its government, or corporate identities, however.
Alexander McCaig (05:54):
Right. And, if they need to highlight that, information, the story about people within that country, will help you highlight what is good or what is quite selfish. And, you will be able to see that in their nature and your own nature.
Jason Rigby (06:08):
Yeah. And, he says, "The world is in turmoil today because of the introspective nature and the microscopic vision of people, which affects the way we think, the way we lead, and the way we are governed."
Alexander McCaig (06:19):
Right. And, all three of those things are currently lacking a lot of responsibility. In introspection, you need to find that responsibility within yourself. This is your life, you got to lead. If this is your country, you need to actually lead it. If these are your people, you need to respect their rights. We're all human beings, and it's human beings operating governments, so at the base of it, it's the responsibility of a human being.
Jason Rigby (06:41):
Yeah, and that's what he said, "It is simply to do the right thing by your own people."
Alexander McCaig (06:45):
Correct, yeah.
Jason Rigby (06:47):
And then he says, "The responsibility must be wider to contribute to our collective wellbeing, including the global commons, the environment, the planet, and the rest of the world. It's simple. How people behave individually and collectively defines good."
Alexander McCaig (06:58):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And, so when you look at that collective, data is a great way to understand responsibility and that collective nature. And, [inaudible 00:07:09] to highlight the good, and then highlight the selfish. Highlight what really works and what isn't working. And, shining light on that allows people to be like, "Oh, you know what? I wasn't being responsible."
Jason Rigby (07:18):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Alexander McCaig (07:19):
And, because we're working with this open-nature of this open marketplace, and [inaudible 00:07:24], anybody can purchase it.
Jason Rigby (07:24):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (07:24):
So, a government can't hide its irresponsibleness. Corporations can't hide their...
Jason Rigby (07:31):
Right, that makes sense.
Alexander McCaig (07:32):
... Ability to be irresponsible. Because, now, anybody can share that data on irresponsibility.
Jason Rigby (07:36):
Yeah, that makes sense. And, he says, and I love this quote, "Education is always the answer to every social and economic problem."
Alexander McCaig (07:45):
It is.
Jason Rigby (07:45):
That's so [crosstalk 00:07:48].
Alexander McCaig (07:47):
Remember I said, "In no fault of their own", in the beginning? They just don't know any better, because they haven't had the availability of access to education to know.
Jason Rigby (07:56):
Yeah. So, you've introduced chocolate, simple sugars, and there's no education in that tribe to understand how bad it is for them. They just know that it's there, it's available, it's been given to them, and it's sweet, and it tastes amazing.
Alexander McCaig (08:09):
This is why we always champion education first with TARTLE.
Jason Rigby (08:14):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Alexander McCaig (08:14):
Because, if you're looking at data, this new thing, this new type of candy, essentially, for the market, you have to understand where the responsibility is. You have to understand how it works, what the value is, how it's affecting everybody, because we're all interacting with it.
Jason Rigby (08:30):
He says, "Human behavior is woven into every individual based on an individualized experience of education, culture, and upbringing." And, I kind of want to stay there a little bit. Education, culture, and upbringing.
Alexander McCaig (08:40):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jason Rigby (08:41):
So, when we look at these countries, we have 175, 176 countries, and we see... What is these education, culture, and upbringing? And, people don't realize how programmed they are by these three pillars.
Alexander McCaig (08:57):
Think about your own programming through when you were growing... Not you, but anyone listening to this, as you grew up, your parents. Or, even if you were an orphan, the environment you were in. These things were all this cognitive programming that happened ahead of time. And then, when you inundate yourself with culture, and in how these people are thinking, and in the rest of the environment that you're in, that's going to form you to a certain way of thought, a certain way of action.
Jason Rigby (09:21):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (09:21):
So, you have to look at the [inaudible 00:09:22]. It'd be nice if it's just a simple linear thing, but it's not.
Jason Rigby (09:26):
It'd be like somebody believing in flat earth, their parents are huge proponents of flat Earth, which is easily debunked. And so, you're raised as a child, and they're adamant about it, almost to religious [inaudible 00:09:41]. So, they're training you and teaching you all this flat Earth stuff.
Alexander McCaig (09:45):
Wait a minute, Earth's not flat?
Jason Rigby (09:47):
You can go on YouTube and it will tell you why it is. Now, you become 13, 14, 15, you're getting into the stages where you're testing things. And, you're like, "Wow, the Earth is actually round, and it's scientifically proven that it is. Everything my parents have said..." Because, that's an easy one to debunk.
Alexander McCaig (10:08):
Yeah, but that metaphor works for even a corporation, "Wow, wait a minute, look at all this data about people who have been interacting with it, it's totally different than what this corporation has been saying is actually happening." And, I like to use this for hospitals. Hospitals have this thing called a Net Promoter Score.
Jason Rigby (10:25):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (10:25):
"We're doing great." Says what? Says the economics of your situation? How quickly you get people out of bed? What about the people that haven't come into your hospital? What about the people that have been there and don't ever want to come back? Have you talked to them? You're rating scale is unbalanced, and it's irresponsible of you not to look at the entire picture of information or things that interact with your [inaudible 00:10:51] service. Does that make sense?
Jason Rigby (10:53):
Yeah, but good is not the measuring stick for success.
Alexander McCaig (11:00):
No. Your measuring stick for success should be the evolution of human life and our species. Have you helped humanity evolve?
Jason Rigby (11:09):
But, what I'm saying is, they're measuring it off of, "How many patients did we get revolving through the door?"
Alexander McCaig (11:15):
But that's not what it is.
Jason Rigby (11:18):
That's why I always say it's sick care and not health care.
Alexander McCaig (11:21):
That's right. They're measuring on sick care. I want to keep people healthy, I want to keep them living longer. And, you're only measuring when people are getting sick and how much you can bill them for. That should not define a good NPS.
Jason Rigby (11:32):
No.
Alexander McCaig (11:33):
It's irresponsible to think that way.
Jason Rigby (11:35):
And, Simon Anholt, founder of the Good Country Project, he says this, "A universal upheaval...", When you mention those words, I'm listening. "A universal upheaval of education systems around the world to teach values that will build a new generation that will run towards the global challenges instead of running away from them."
Alexander McCaig (11:56):
Upheaval are drastic changes and improvements made for the better. Made to better the order and structure of society. That's what an upheaval is.
Jason Rigby (12:06):
If you think about it... This is a longterm approach. So, if we start educating children now to run towards the problems, these global challenges that we have, that's 20, 30, 40 years.
Alexander McCaig (12:16):
Things that fits in the big seven.
Jason Rigby (12:18):
Yeah. If we did that, 30, 40 years from now we could have change. I get that, and that needs to happen, but how do we get people now to understand responsibility, to educate themselves, or have a desire for that?
Alexander McCaig (12:36):
That's the tough thing. Mastercard said in their article, "This audacious 2050 goal", that's ridiculous. I'm not waiting, the world is not waiting that long. You need to do it right now. If you realize that something needs to change and you're putting a 30 year timeline on it, that means you're not being responsible for 30 years. You need to start being responsible right this second. Is that clear?
Jason Rigby (13:04):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Alexander McCaig (13:05):
You already know better. You're just ignoring it. So, that introspective aspect of what's going on here, data allows people to be [inaudible 00:13:11] introspective, because data is agnostic.
Jason Rigby (13:14):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (13:14):
In its raw form for what it's collecting, it's an agnostic nondogmatic thing, it tells it how it is. So, when we look at that, it's like, "Wow, I need to be a little bit more responsible, because if I strip away the biases in how I've been perceiving things and just look at it for what it is, shows me that I've been not headed in the right direction here."
Jason Rigby (13:34):
Yeah. He talks about collaboration, and then he talks about coopetition.
Alexander McCaig (13:43):
Coopetition.
Jason Rigby (13:43):
Yeah, coopetition.
Alexander McCaig (13:45):
Happened in Japan between the automotive manufacturers.
Jason Rigby (13:48):
Right, in the 1970s. And, we saw what happened with the level of automobiles, as far as quality goes, with [crosstalk 00:13:54].
Alexander McCaig (13:54):
Yeah, they thought that they could pin... They put in competition two manufacturers in their factories and said, "Who can build the best one?" So, through that competition, it was more of a beneficial thing. It's called coopetition, co-opetition. The co-op, it's an idea of joining these people together towards a common cause, rather than competition, it's a separation for another separation in the end.
Jason Rigby (14:21):
And, he says this... I want to park here for just a few minutes and talk about this.
Alexander McCaig (14:25):
Is that a car pun?
Jason Rigby (14:25):
Yes. I try to throw them out there every once in a while. "A business has a direct influence over the lives of nearly as many people as governments do."
Alexander McCaig (14:34):
If not more.
Jason Rigby (14:34):
That's what I was going to say. Because, every influence, especially cultural. Cultural influences are done by corporations. It's marketing, [inaudible 00:14:44].
Alexander McCaig (14:44):
Current politicians...
Jason Rigby (14:46):
What do they do?
Alexander McCaig (14:46):
... They couldn't be able to have influence if it wasn't for social media.
Jason Rigby (14:50):
Yeah, exactly.
Alexander McCaig (14:51):
So, who has the real power stick right there?
Jason Rigby (14:56):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (14:57):
[inaudible 00:14:57].
Jason Rigby (14:57):
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, those are all the things that have all the power. They have way more influence right now than government.
Alexander McCaig (15:05):
You're influencing people's short attention spans. If you can get them to move left, and they didn't realize they did it because they forgot two seconds later, and you have them do that 10000 times, you've now shifted people from here, to a totally different paradigm and they didn't even realize it.
Jason Rigby (15:18):
You're just delivering chocolate to them 20 times a day.
Alexander McCaig (15:21):
If not more.
Jason Rigby (15:21):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (15:23):
Imagine if I ate chocolate for six hours straight, you'd be like [crosstalk 00:15:29].
Jason Rigby (15:29):
And, we talked about that in our other podcast. It's this overload, and our nervous systems cannot biologically handle this.
Alexander McCaig (15:38):
No, it can't. It's throwing things out of balance. And, when things are out of balance, then that's where the control comes in.
Jason Rigby (15:45):
So, I think corporations have more of an influence on our day-to-day lives.
Alexander McCaig (15:51):
The greater the influence...
Jason Rigby (15:51):
Politics really doesn't... I always tell people this, "You get so worried about who's the President or whatever, how did it change your income? How did it change your day from day?"
Alexander McCaig (15:58):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (16:00):
"From Donald Trump being President to Joe Biden being President, is it less responsibility? More responsibility? But, on your day-to-day, the things you do when you're awake, how does it change it?" And, for most of us, it doesn't. I can go back five Presidents...
Alexander McCaig (16:18):
Nothing changed.
Jason Rigby (16:19):
... And, what I do or don't do, the ability for me... In America, we live in a free country, we're blessed, whatever you want to consider that to be. I have the opportunity to move in whatever... I can say, "I don't want to live in Albuquerque, I want to live in Austin, Texas."
Alexander McCaig (16:35):
Okay, go.
Jason Rigby (16:36):
Or, "I want to live in [inaudible 00:16:38]." That's what I'm saying. Or, "I don't want to work here anymore, I'm going to go do this now. At nighttime, I'm going to learn...
Alexander McCaig (16:44):
Is that how you really feel?
Jason Rigby (16:45):
No, no, no. But, "At nighttime, I'm going to work this job, [inaudible 00:16:49] I'm going to do this side hustle for this business that I want to start, because I want to be an entrepreneur." We have opportunity.
Alexander McCaig (16:56):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (16:57):
And, we have the ability... This is the part that pisses me off, Alex, is you have more education... Harvard... Yesterday, I was online MIT's website.
Alexander McCaig (17:14):
They got a great website.
Jason Rigby (17:14):
Yeah, great articles, great book, I just really am impressed. They had a whole series available on their website to listen to about systems. A whole series, professor videos. Not just a class, the textbooks, two textbooks, for free. And then, someone had gone through and done the Cliff Notes for the books, [inaudible 00:17:39], free. There is so much education that is available right now, just on YouTube alone, that you can literally teach yourself anything.
Alexander McCaig (17:51):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (17:52):
Most people do, they teach themselves how to code. Whatever occupation you want to be in life, I guarantee you could watch enough videos, you could listen to enough audio, you can do enough studying, to become that for free.
Alexander McCaig (18:05):
So, if we have all the power to do all the stuff, we need to be responsible?
Jason Rigby (18:09):
How do we do that?
Alexander McCaig (18:10):
It's like the old Superman quote, "With great power comes great responsibility". Is that Superman?
Jason Rigby (18:17):
I want to encourage people this, Alex, I want to encourage people to get rid of all their social media. But, before you delete your account I want you to do this.
Alexander McCaig (18:24):
Download it all into TARTLE?
Jason Rigby (18:25):
Yeah, you're going to download it all into TARTLE, and every day, you're only going to go to TARTLE's website. That's it.
Alexander McCaig (18:30):
Oh, Peter Parker was Spider Man.
Jason Rigby (18:31):
We don't want you going to Wikipedia, we don't want you going to Gmail.
Alexander McCaig (18:34):
No.
Jason Rigby (18:36):
You're just going to hangout for eight hours a day, and there's going to be a live feed of Alex and I just playing 24/7.
Alexander McCaig (18:42):
You're just going to listen to us.
Jason Rigby (18:44):
And, all the extra TV's you have in your house, we want that live feed playing on those. We need viewers.
Alexander McCaig (18:50):
[crosstalk 00:18:50]. Think back to Spider Man, we all know who he is, it's called the Peter Parker principle, "With great power there must also come great responsibility".
Jason Rigby (19:02):
Oh, of course.
Alexander McCaig (19:03):
We have all these resources, as corporations, governments, and individuals, they have great power, but we need to be responsible with how we use them. And, in doing so, that's going to create that social upheaval that will help elevate us to the next stage of what it means to be a human being within this collective on this planet.
Jason Rigby (19:23):
Yeah, and he says this... Simon Anholt, and we'll close on this. He says, "You're responsible for your own people. Yes. And for every single man, woman, child, and animal on the planet. Whether you like it or not, you're responsible for your own premises in your own territory. Yes. And, for every inch of the Earth's surface, and the atmosphere above it, and the soil beneath it, whether you like it or not. And, if you don't like it, you shouldn't be in a position of power or authority because that is the rule of life on Earth today."
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Thank you for listening to TARTLE Cast, with your hosts Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby, where humanity steps into the future and source data defines the path. What's your data worth?
