Accountability

This is inspired by a post made by a player who deleted his Companion character after a friend threatened to page on him for attempting to sell it. I'm obviously not going to discuss the details of this specific case, but I would like to share my thoughts with you about these kind of situations.

Case 1:

Imagine you are friends with a former Counselor, Companion or Seer that somehow managed to maintain his powers after the program was terminated. One day, you find out he's trying to sell his account hoping to make a bigger profit due to said powers. What do you do? Do you try to convince him to have his powers removed first? If he refuses, do you threaten to page on him if he doesn't? Do you page on him anonymously? Do you let him make his money then page on the buyer? Do you stay out of it altogether? If you do nothing and the buyer ends up abusing those powers in a way extremely harmful, would you feel any guilt? If/when an investigation is performed and punishment is handed down, if your name comes up should you also be held accountable because you knew and didn't prevent it? Or should you be absolved on the basis that you didn't benefit from it?

Case 2:

A while back, an entire guild was banned, including all linked accounts, for duping an exploiting. Admittedly, not every member in the guild took part in the illegal activities but all of them were fully aware of what was going on. If you were invited to join such a guild, would you? If you joined but neither helped duping nor helped stopping it, was it fair you got banned too? If you broke no rules but just allowed your friends to do so, does that make you accountable? Should you only be accountable if you actively took part in the illegal activity? What if you didn't take part but knowingly accepted gifts of duped items and gold? Would that make you more accountable? What if you didn't accept any actual items but enjoyed the benefits of illegal programs such as scripted ghost cams? When you hear the impact on the victims of your guild's activities, do you feel any guilt?

Thoughts:

To me, this isn't so much a matter of right or wrong as much as a question of choices and consequences. For every situation, there are 3 choices: 1) avoid it, 2) ignore it or 3) act on it. Avoiding is often the simplest and safest solution. If you do not put yourself in a difficult position, you will not have difficult choices to make. Ignoring is the deceptive one, because as proven by history pretending not to see what is happening does not necessarily shelter you from the fall out. Acting on it can be both the toughest and the easiest. The wise will carefully weight the pros and cons of his decision: "I will stop this because... and I accept the consequences." or "I will take part because... and I accept the consequence." The wreckless will act first and think of consequences later.

You are the master of your own destiny. You make your own choices and you will have to deal with the consequences. If maintaining certain friendships require you to betray your values, you might want to reconsider those relationships. That includes the "if you were my friend..." guilt trips. Take responsibility for your own choices.

The holidays are upon us. It's a merry time, but all too often also a tragic time because of DUI. Will you avoid it by not going out? Will you ignore the people who are clearly drunk and driving, hoping they will make it home safely? Will you act by taking away their keys or by being the drunk trying to drive?

It's all about choices...

Please have a safe and happy holidays.