Can ideas be held accountable?

[waitasec]

Yes, because ideas can change the mindset and thoughts of a person. Like it or not, once an idea (particularly wrong and harmful ones) takes hold, some action will be produced: doing something and/or not doing something, saying something and/or not saying something.

emphasis mine...

ideas don't control the person. the person is responsible for their action.

 

[ChristineES]

You can challenge ideas, but I don't see how we can eradicate an idea once it's been thrown around (so to speak). On top of that, if someone wants to do something, and uses an idea as an excuse- if that idea is gone, he will just find another idea to use an excuse.

 

[waitasec]

You can challenge ideas, but I don't see how we can eradicate an idea once it's been thrown around (so to speak). On top of that, if someone wants to do something, and uses an idea as an excuse- if that idea is gone, he will just find another idea to use an excuse.

:yes:

 

[Thief]

If your hand does anything at all...
It's because you felt like it....or your thought you should.

If you convince someone else to act on your word....
you're still responsible.

 

[Me Myself]

The reason ideas can have stupidly high power over a masses is that people more often than not don´t think them/feel them throughly

I think ideas can be held accountable to an extent. An idea that is good in one context tends to be bad in another.

The responsability IMO is always of the person naturaly.

Even if you do that which you say free speech doesn´t allow you to do (like saying "bomb" in an airplane) it is still the person saying it who is held accountable. And that is how it should be.

Now, people shouldn´t be arrested simply for having ideas. The way they put them into practice are more important. Now when we are talking intentions, that is a whole different animal of idea :ninja:

 

[waitasec]

If your hand does anything at all...
It's because you felt like it....or your thought you should.

If you convince someone else to act on your word....
you're still responsible.

yes you are...the idea however isn't.

one is ultimately responsible for giving power to the idea

 

[Falvlun]

a moonbeam reflects light intentionally?

See my post 57. Why does something need to be self aware in order to cause something? A tree could cause the death of a logger by falling on top of him. Does that mean the tree is self-aware? Does that mean the tree is any less responsible for the death of the logger?

 

[Falvlun]

one is ultimately responsible for giving power to the idea

I think psychology is much more complex than that. I do believe we have free-will. But I also believe-- and think that this has largely been shown to be true-- that we are products of our genes and environment. The ideas which we are exposed to do have power over us in a very real way. We often don't "choose" the ideas we have. They have been given to us, we have been raised in them. And some ideas can be much more persuasive, powerful, harder to reject once accepted, than others.