[HN Gopher] Bribery is largely subject to circumstance: study
___________________________________________________________________
Bribery is largely subject to circumstance: study
Author : cainxinth
Score : 50 points
Date : 2024-11-12 12:01 UTC (10 hours ago)
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| Rinzler89 wrote:
| _> largely subject to circumstance_
|
| Peoples' entire behavior thought their life is largely influenced
| by their circumstances in which they grew up in. Corruption is
| just one of them.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| Not just the circumstances you grew up in either. You can grow
| up with a silver spoon in your mouth, or poor as a church
| mouse. You get imparted the best morals in both cases. And
| you'll still be prone to participate in corruption given the
| correct circumstances when you reach that stage.
|
| It doesn't surprise me that we find participation in corruption
| increasing as news of corruption increases. Especially when you
| feel like people get away with it. One of the factors
| controlling whether or not people engage in these activities is
| how pervasive the activity is in society. Another is whether or
| not a person thinks they'll get away with it? If they believe
| they will, they're more likely to engage in corruption. And the
| more they see others get away with corruption, the more they
| think they themselves can get away with it.
|
| I liken it to speeding. To many drivers it appears pervasive,
| and they often see many other drivers get away with speeding.
| So the circumstances one grew up in won't have nearly as big an
| impact on anti-speeding behavior as seeing the flashing blue
| lights of highway patrol vehicles every few miles.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| "You get imparted the best morals in both cases."
|
| That is simply not true, for the vast majority of the world's
| cultures and societies.
|
| Yes, we all have a conscience (inner moral compass), but few
| of us are taught how to hone and develop it over one's
| lifetime, using one's intellect to improve our thought
| processes to be better, more virtuous, human beings.
|
| We are the only creatures that self-evolve, and it is
| precisely our moral nature that puts this severe
| responsibility upon us to nurture selfless universal
| compassion as a personal and societal imperative. Otherwise,
| we wreak destruction on our blessed Mother Earth and our
| fellow human beings. We are to use our gifts to create
| happiness for each other, not misery.
|
| We have the free will to ignore this moral imperative. Look
| at the state of global heating to gauge its prevalence.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| I was giving 2 hypothetical examples. _If_ someone grows up
| rich, _or if_ someone grows up poor. It won 't matter what
| you teach them. Nor will it matter their morals if they go
| out into a world where corruption is pervasive and
| corruption is rarely, if ever, punished. Those two
| hypothetical people, and any other human, would fall into
| the pattern of engaging in corruption.
|
| You can't stop it with upbringing.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| "You can't stop it with upbringing."
|
| You're right; we all have the choice to be saints or
| demons, or anywhere in between! We can be one on one day
| and the other on others.
|
| What is important is to teach empathy as the antidote to
| bullying, and then have those individuals construct their
| society's laws to prevent and/or punish bullying of all
| kinds. Same with govt corruption, of course.
|
| "any other human, would fall into the pattern of engaging
| in corruption."
|
| I wouldn't, because I honor my sense of honor, of truth.
| I can raise my voice and say, without hesitation, that I
| am incorruptible, because I choose to be this way,
| because it strengthens my inner peace and happiness. I
| was not always like this, but I have learned to be this
| way and appreciate feeling the joy of having self-evolved
| myself in this direction.
|
| It is each person's choice. That most are choosing poorly
| is academic, if one sees what the world is becoming, and
| knows what the world could be, if only our design was
| based upon selfless, compassionate cooperation instead of
| selfish, callous competition.
| BehindBlueEyes wrote:
| Add to that in some cases, you might get in more "trouble"
| for not engaging in corruption. To use pier25's example
| again, someone who does't pay to skip the line might not get
| a turn if many others do and waste a bunch of time, have to
| come back the next day, potentially to the same effect. Or if
| you don't pay the expected bribe at a checkpoint, cops might
| find something wrong with your car lands you a more expensive
| fine (actual fine with paper trail + bribe instead of just
| bribe). You could argue that's extortion and not corruption
| but same principle to me. During Covid lockdown, a friend
| needed to pay bribes to get a pass for their family to be
| able to do their shopping. It was supposed to be one pass per
| house in their area, but the owner of the neighborhood held
| them back and kept several for the own family, so no bribe,
| no trip to the store... Better to pay the bribe to the owner
| than risk it with the cops checking permits on the street.
|
| This is just to say, taking part in corruption may not be
| optional where it is the norm, regardless of a person's
| education or morals.
| lapcat wrote:
| > Peoples' entire behavior thought their life is largely
| influenced by their circumstances in which they grew up in.
|
| From the article:
|
| "But what they discovered is that the nationality of the other
| player was more important than their own and all -- New
| Zealanders, Dutch and British -- were willing to offer bribes
| to those they believed to be corrupt in what they defined as
| conditional bribery."
| MrMcCall wrote:
| All human moral behavior straddles the line betweeen selflessness
| and selfishness, at some particular scale, from the personal to
| the societal/cultural.
|
| Racism? Selfishness for the group. Religious bigotry? Selfishness
| for the group. Misogyny? Need I say? Corruption? Selfishness for
| one's personal gain at the expense of the system, itself.
|
| Goodness? Virtue? Honor? Positive cultural evolution?
| Selflessness in service to the whole.
|
| That is why the world has been tending towards the negative for
| soooo long. We have been inculcated into belief systems that
| separate us from each other along some boundary, be it cultural,
| racial, religious, gender identification, sexual preference,
| country, neighborhood, ... whatever.
|
| We are all one human race, of many ethnicities and cultures, but
| we will only begin to heal our blessed Earth and end all
| conflict, by recognizing that we are the only creatures capable
| of self-evolving a world culture of universal care.
|
| The goal must be universal compassion towards one another,
| selflessly, except when such kind, selfless behavior would
| contradict the paradox of tolerance. In those instances, we must
| be unyielding, but as gentle as good outcomes allow. Only a
| compassionate society can know how and when to prosecute the
| vermin among us, who come from all walks of life. We must
| endeavor to teach the ignorant, while protecting the innocent.
|
| Just systems of law, enforced fairly, are the bedrock of such a
| society.
| exe34 wrote:
| I like to phrase it as "people are so utterly selfish that they
| will even cooperate when it's in their interest" (where their
| interest includes simply feeling good because that's the
| training they went through - e.g. somebody gives up his life
| for his country may sound altruistic, but we might find it
| abhorrent if that means he kills a bunch of children).
| MrMcCall wrote:
| I've never heard that saying before; I like it. Thanks for
| expanding my horizon.
|
| The nature of human life is, however, that we feel good for
| making others feel good, and vice versa. We truly reap what
| we sow, but it is sublime and at odds with what most people
| value in life, namely wealth, pleasure, and power. And, along
| with our power to choose, we can choose to ignore our
| conscience's pleadings for better behavior.
|
| So, in an odd (but accurate) way, making others happy is the
| most selfish thing we can do, because it is the only way to
| earn happiness, which is a mysterious flowing into ourselves
| from parts unknown.
|
| We live in a subtly reflexive, karmic universe. Only we human
| beings inhabit this plane of existence, because only we have
| the choice between selfishness and selflessness, with a
| conscience to orient ourselves, and a mind to evaluate the
| potentialities of every move we make. And we are each
| absolutely free to value the horrific (vice-eous) and eschew
| the virtuous.
|
| WWII is a deep example of how societies can go so completely
| wrong, and yet be so confident in their intentions and self-
| destructive actions. It is also an example of other folks
| uniting to do good in the world. Both paths are totally
| human; the question is which path do each of us choose, and
| by which moral ethic?
| mistermann wrote:
| > We truly reap what we sow
|
| In the aggregate yes, but the distribution is very unjust.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| I'm not talking about physical things. I'm only talking
| about our inner world, where the sowing and reaping are
| connected across time in varying ways according to the
| designs of creation itself.
|
| That is why I counsel that it is best to just do good as
| often as possible, but without any connection to reward.
| Let the universe reward you in its time and place; it
| knows best, always. Simply send out your deeds' good
| vibes; they will return. Every time. And, all the while,
| one's internal peace and happiness will only grow.
|
| [Also, William Gibson is by far my favorite fiction
| author. "The future is here, it's just not evenly
| distributed."]
| froidpink wrote:
| The selfish / selfless binary is a bit simplistic to explain
| corruption.
|
| If your brother killed someone, would you turn him over to the
| authorities? You can't answer this question by checking how
| selfish someone is - both options can be considered selfless
| acts.
|
| If I remember correctly (can't find a source), places that
| answer yes to that question tend to have higher trust in
| institutions and lower rates of corruption
| MrMcCall wrote:
| "The selfish / selfless binary is a bit simplistic to explain
| corruption."
|
| Corruption is selfish gain. If one eschews corruption because
| they realize that it harms the society-at-large, then they
| are acting selflessly. If one eschews corruption because
| they're afraid of being caught and punished, then the legal
| system has prevented societal harm, by preventing corrupt
| selfishness by a public servant.
|
| As to your hypothetical, I like my friend from Lousiana's
| saying, "If my aunt had a d*k, she'd be my uncle." Of course,
| in 2024, that saying is looking a bit ragged.
|
| That said, extreme hypotheticals are not going to get to the
| bottom of this issue of corruption. It's the ordinary,
| everyday corruption that erodes society, not having to turn
| one's brother over to the authorities for murder. And
| ordinary, everyday corruption is both selfishness, pure and
| simple, and a failure of society to emplace the necessary
| checks to prevent it.
|
| "Trust the universe, but tie your donkey."
| delichon wrote:
| > If one eschews corruption because they realize that it
| harms the society-at-large, then they are acting
| selflessly.
|
| Or selfishly + long-term. Especially if you include your
| family's offspring in your "self", which is a phenomenon we
| call "love".
| MrMcCall wrote:
| Point taken.
|
| But most people misunderstand love as merely the feeling
| one has about another person or creature.
|
| Love's highest manifestation is, however, an action that
| serves another person's happiness. It can be something
| that lessens a person misery or discomfort, or actually
| makes them happier in some way. It can be as simple as a
| warm smile on the street or giving something to them.
| Intention is important, and how it is received is
| irrelevant. The universe is sublime, and there is no end
| to our learning, if we so endeavor to plumb its depths.
|
| Every human being's life is the result of such selflessly
| compassionate service, for, as infants, we must be given
| everything or we perish. For years. There is nothing
| tangible received for that giving, unless one understands
| how very tangible inner peace and happiness is.
| Understanding our place in this moral universe makes such
| happiness the only thing that matters, to those of us who
| actually understand. Know that no one is forced to
| comprehend or accept this most sublime of laws, just as
| there are flat-earth folks, too, who refuse to look
| through a telescope. We all have the choice to be as
| foolish (and unhappy) as we wish.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| > Of course, in 2024, that saying is looking a bit ragged
|
| "If my grandma had wheels, she would be a bike"
| MrMcCall wrote:
| I wouldn't say this around your grandpa ;-)
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| No worries, he's been dead since 1943. Thanks, Hitler!
| jfactorial wrote:
| I agree 100% with the values you espouse here, but I think it's
| a mistake to say the world has been trending negative for a
| long time. The values you've expressed here have been gaining
| ground for generations. (See Steven Pinker's ''The Better
| Angels of our Nature'' for an in-depth data-backed defense of
| this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Na
| tur...). Your statement "Just systems of law, enforced fairly,
| are the bedrock of such a society" is almost exactly the thesis
| of that book.
| sourcepluck wrote:
| I was turned on to the idea that Pinker might be quite wrong
| on these claims by David Graeber and David Wengrow in "The
| Dawn of Everything". I haven't read Better Angels of our
| Nature, and I haven't spent hours carefully verifying the
| Davids claims, but I must say, they certainly made it sound
| very convincing. Enough for me to feel like not reading
| Better Angels would not be a major loss in my life.
|
| I went to that wikipedia article you link there to see if
| that gets a mention, and the "Criticism" section is
| ginormous. So I'm not going to go out on a limb and say you
| shouldn't be recommending it at all, but I will say that
| based on the very large number of serious scholars who were
| apparently upset enough about many of the claims of the book
| that they then went on to write long serious things
| criticising it, perhaps in light of that you should
| reconsider whether it's as "data-backed" as you thought.
|
| It could have crap data, or good data poorly interpreted. The
| many critics seem to think both.
| nickpinkston wrote:
| You should also see the criticism of "The Dawn of
| Everything", ie way overstating the veracity of certain
| history that they're trying to use to support Graeber's
| polemics on anarchism.
|
| In typical Graeber fashion, the book is very fun to read,
| but he's an unreliable narrator of history, which is why
| they could only get a no name historian to be involved in
| an attempt to add credibility.
|
| And FWIW, I'm also very skeptical of Pinker.
| sourcepluck wrote:
| I wasn't saying we should dismiss Pinker because of that
| one book by the Davids, rather that we should be very
| sceptical of his work because of the absolute chorus of
| academics seriously contesting his methods, motivations,
| and conclusions.
|
| I have read one long criticism of The Dawn of Everything,
| I don't know if it's the one you're referring to, but I
| didn't find it very compelling.
|
| I've read several critics of Graeber otherwise though,
| and to me they roughly seemed to amount to: "we don't
| like what this person is saying." I mean, I could not
| find anything substantive in there, some direct, blatant
| issue with the scholarly work. Perhaps there's a tendency
| to get "over-excited" about some idea or other in his
| work, but I think readers (academic and laypeople) could
| consider forgiving someone for presenting their work with
| sincere excitement.
|
| The comment about David Wengrow you make there is
| especially odd - for one, you make it sound like he was
| thrown in to the project as an afterthought to add some
| clout, which is factually not what happened, they
| collaborated for years in emails for what was originally
| a small project, which grew larger organically in a sort
| of growing excitement.
|
| I wouldn't be big on bandying about academic records as
| proof of anything much, but he'd twenty plus years
| professional academic experience as an archaeologist,
| three books, a suitably voluminous number of essays and
| papers, etc etc. The usual "impressive academic" things
| had been done. So I don't get your dig there at all.
|
| Here, for the brave of heart:
|
| https://ucl.academia.edu/DavidWengrow
| bluGill wrote:
| > That is why the world has been tending towards the negative
| for soooo long.
|
| All evidence I've seen in the world is tending better. There
| are, and always have been concerning signs, but overall things
| have been getting better. But everyone places more emphasis on
| the concerning signs and doesn't really think of all the things
| that have gotten better.
| tayo42 wrote:
| I think that might depend on how far you look to compare.
| Like 1700s to now, yeah we're better by any metric you can
| think of. But on a smaller scale there are some things
| tending down.
| bluGill wrote:
| Even compared to the 1970s we are much better off. The
| ozone hole is in track. Lead has been removed from nearly
| everything. Nearly everyone has a cell phone. Much less
| world hunger.
| tayo42 wrote:
| on some metrics (idk if everyone having a cell phone is a
| good thing in hind sight?)
|
| But also things like suicides are up in certain
| demographics, expected life span is down, nutrition in
| vegetables are trending down.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| In various ways, I completely agree with you, but there is a
| different level of negativity that is happening that is about
| the levers of power and wealth and what they are doing to the
| poor and the planet, itself. When a billionaire or government
| corruptly uses their power to press down on the populace for
| the gain of the wealthy, the effects are much more
| deleterious than the gains of we peasants, for example,
| learning how to no longer be racist or trans- or homophobic.
|
| Those "small" gains are absolutely important, and are
| essential for our next societal level-up, but the corruption-
| in-the-large is an order-of-magnitude (or two) more
| physically destructive. I mean, look how many fools look up
| to Elmo and his cohort of kleptocrats. And look how the
| fossil-fuel industry buried the truth of global heating.
|
| That's why I believe that RATM's self-titled debut album is
| the most important album of the 20th Century. And while I
| understand rage to be purely destructive, I firmly believe
| there's a time for righteous anger, especially in the face of
| oppression and wanton destruction.
| TinkersW wrote:
| Living standards have improved, but at vast cost the
| environment, and we show no signs of addressing this.
|
| The amount of energy we spend on irrelevant stuff like the
| stock market & AI should instead be directed toward dealing
| with climate change, and not turning our oceans into lifeless
| garbage dumps. But our economical model can only handle
| things that make more money for rich people, so we won't.
| mistermann wrote:
| This sort of outlook is very common in psychedelic experiences
| and community conversations. I'd like to see a scenario where
| someone clever from that community starts a propaganda campaign
| pushing such ideas as a _serious_ proposition, and comes
| equipped to efficiently dismiss the classic normative
| dismissals or rhetorical topic avoidance techniques, _forcing_
| all the "good people" to _seriously_ consider if their
| thoughts, prayers, secular platitudes, etc are adequate.
|
| It would be nice if we could make some progress on this front
| for a change.
|
| PS: your closing sentence severely rubs me the wrong way
| because it feels like it could be interpreted as support for
| the status quo.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| What country do you live in where there is actual justice?
| I've never heard of such a one. From what I see, the powerful
| dominate the weak, abuse the Earth with no concern for future
| generations, and manipulate systems to ensure their own
| group's wealth and impunity.
|
| So, Sir, I stand with Banksy, Bob Marley, MLK, RATM and other
| like-minded agents of change. But I understand that love is
| the only way to forge a better future for our Earth and _ALL_
| her peoples -- but a fierce, unyielding love, to be sure.
| mistermann wrote:
| I love the sentiment, but are there some potential flaws in
| the analysis?
|
| We mostly pay lip service to these things, but if you look
| around the world at things that get done (what you refer
| to!), there's a lot more than lip service and nice
| sentiments/intentions involved.
|
| Is the world what we make it?
| MrMcCall wrote:
| > Is the world what we make it?
|
| It depends on what you mean by that. We can choose how we
| perceive the objective reality we live in. But, the
| totality of the world is really just the sum-total of
| results of what we are all doing to it, for the simple
| reason that all our free wills are equal, no matter how
| positive or negative. It is really that simple, but the
| wealthy and powerful move levers that affect far more
| people than I can (yet) move by myself.
|
| > but are there some potential flaws in the analysis?
|
| If there are flaws in my analysis, I am open to learning
| how to correct them. That is the only way to get better
| at anything, right? That said, the correctness of my
| foundation of logic is evident after more than a half-
| century on this Earth. Most people do not understand, but
| we physically manifest our cumulative karma as we age,
| from our tone of voice, to choice of words, to eye shine,
| and -- most of all -- to our inner peace and happiness,
| sense of humor and delight in the small things of life.
| Life is beautiful, and what we choose to manifest in this
| world shows up in our being as surely as a tree's
| experiences show up in their rings. The problem is that
| most people are too confused and mired in their self to
| learn how to see others for who they are.
|
| > there's a lot more than lip service and nice
| sentiments/intentions involved.
|
| Absolutely, but intention is a multiplier for the karma
| we receive for our actions, which are of paramount
| importance. That is why the feeling of love is not nearly
| as important as the selfless doing of compassionate deeds
| to serve others' happiness.
|
| One thing you should be certain to understand: the
| selfish fools of this world have always been the
| majority, and not just within extrema such as Nazi
| Germany or Imperial Japan. Their dominant ignorance and
| my relative powerlessness do not diminish my family's
| efforts to create positive change in our every
| interaction with our fellow human beings. That our
| efforts mostly fall on deaf ears is not our failure, but
| theirs and theirs alone.
|
| What we are doing is not sentiment, whether it is a kind
| word on the street or a couple of hours typing into HN.
| Teaching the truth of compassion is essential in this
| troubled world full of willfully ignorant human beings.
| js8 wrote:
| While I largely agree, I was thinking about selfishness and
| selflessness in a different way.
|
| In game theory, games have global optima and Nash equilibria,
| and they don't always coincide. Selfless people seek global
| maximum, selfish people seek Nash equilibrum (maximizing their
| gain given the others also maximize their gain).
|
| As a society, we have choice to change the rules so that global
| maximum coincides with Nash equilibrium.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| Here's a true relation that you can factor into your model,
| if you'd like, for, though I am a long-time programmer, I
| don't go in for the study of game theory. I am, however,
| familiar with some of the precepts. Here goes:
|
| When a person causes negativity/unhappiness, the person(s) on
| the receiving end gets an equal positive amount of karma.
| Karma is what determines our long-term happiness or lack
| thereof.
|
| When a person does something intended to cause
| positivity/happiness, there is no negative effect on the
| receiver, even if they refuse the gesture.
|
| In other words, acts of selfish negativity incur a zero-sum
| negative karmic effect, every time, without fail, though
| often without being observed at the time (or even, ever).
| OTOH, acts of selfless positivity only incur positive
| internal karmic effect for the doer; nothing is lost by the
| receiver.
|
| In yet more other words, we can only receive negative karma
| from our own actions; others' actions can only result in
| positive karma for ourselves (if we are on the receiving end
| of selfishly negativity). For example, a poor person loses no
| karma from accepting charity, though the giver definitely
| gains.
|
| As such, karma is skewed asymmetrically towards easier
| positive creation; i.e. it's only a zero-sum game when the
| first choice is negative/selfish.
|
| Why, then, have the world's populations not yet created a
| "Heaven on Earth"? Because we human beings are also free to
| ignore all notions of karma and the associated question of
| why we are happy/unhappy. If a person chooses to believe that
| they are just amoral animals competing for scarce resources,
| then they are fully authorized to live their lives that way.
| We are also free to believe that the Earth is flat. The
| universe is the sole arbiter of the truth, however, and we
| all reap what we sow. Every time, without fail, with perfect
| justice, however difficult it is for us to comprehend at any
| given time, given our state of moral undevelopment.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| When was the first amount of 'karma' created?
|
| Clearly no one had any 'karma' 3 billion years ago, since
| living organisms did not exist.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| Karma is a human-only dimension of the universe we
| inhabit. We alone have free will, a conscience, and a
| mind capable of discerning right and wrong, thus we alone
| lose and/or gain karma.
| stonesthrowaway wrote:
| > Goodness? Virtue? Honor? Positive cultural evolution?
| Selflessness in service to the whole.
|
| "Selflessness" is itself selfishness. You act good, virtuous,
| honorable, etc to selfishly attain societal praise or esteem.
| Or even rewards in the afterlife.
|
| > The goal must be universal compassion towards one another,
| selflessly
|
| Not selflessly. Selfishly. After all, kant's categorical
| imperative is logically selfish. You would benefit from the
| realization of such a goal. Everyone would.
|
| It's perceived selfishness that drives people toward good or
| evil. It's actually selfishness itself that defines good and
| evil.
| pier25 wrote:
| So corruption is cultural.
|
| I'm a European currently living in Mexico and this has always
| been obvious.
| sabellito wrote:
| When you say it like that it sounds like you're implying that
| Europeans are honest and Mexicans are corrupt.
| mistermann wrote:
| I wonder if it somehow evens out perfectly across all
| cultures/countries on the planet, and stays even as variables
| on the ground change.
| pier25 wrote:
| No country is corruption free but the difference between
| Europe and Mexico is shocking. At least the European
| countries I know first hand.
|
| In Mexico it's blatant and it's everywhere. In Europe most
| people would never think of bribing a police man to escape a
| fine while in Mexico a _mordida_ is business as usual. There
| are police men whose only job is to get money from all the
| people they stop.
|
| Here's an anecdote from my early years in Mexico. You have to
| check your car once or twice ever year to get like a govt
| sticker otherwise the car cannot be used in some places. Well
| sometimes the queues to do this process are extremely long.
| I've seen first hand someone from the verification center
| going to every car in the queue and asking "with jump or
| without jump?". Meaning, if you want to jump in front of the
| queue you have to "pay extra".
|
| All of this shouldn't be a surprise.
|
| https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023
| BehindBlueEyes wrote:
| is with jump or without jump corruption? Depends if the
| money goes to the person asking or to the center. If the
| person is paid to let keep people in line, and keeps the
| money, it is corruption. If it goes to the center, it's
| probably called a vip pass or so somewhere. Skip the line
| doesn't strike me as corruption as much as actually
| "purchasing" your driving licence, or being let through a
| checkpoint with fruit you're not supposed to bring from one
| island onto another to avoid spreading tree disease...
| pier25 wrote:
| Of course it's corruption. Most of the money goes to the
| boss of the center.
|
| This happens on plenty of public offices (probably most).
| You need some permit to build something? You either pay
| or wait for years to get it, if ever.
| foxglacier wrote:
| Even if the boss keeps the money, it may be tacitly part
| of his salary. Perhaps that motivates him to provide
| better service to the jump customers so they don't go to
| some other station and pay some other boss. This system
| might even work more effectively than one where the jump
| fee goes to the government. Even if it does go to the
| government, aren't you then bribing the whole government
| to get preferential service at the expense of non-
| jumpers? So I think it's morally a gray area.
| gessha wrote:
| You should visit Eastern Europe lol
| samatman wrote:
| Yes this is correct.
|
| Maybe in 50 years Mexicans will be honest and Europeans will
| be corrupt. I don't think anyone honestly thinks that
| corruption is inherent to anyone's genetics.
|
| But today? It's simply the case.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| It said "context dependent", not "cultural". These are related,
| but not the same.
| pier25 wrote:
| Yes but what enables corruption in particular context?
|
| Culture.
| sourcepluck wrote:
| > "The key to corruption is improving the quality of
| government. Without that, anti-corruption strategies are bound
| to fail".
|
| > "If you put people in the right environment, with the right
| institutions, you can reduce corruption substantially, possibly
| because they quickly adapt to what's going on in their
| environment".
|
| The way you seem to be using the word "cultural" here and in
| your other comments seems to be to imply that corruption is, in
| some sense, "inbuilt" into certain people, based on their
| "culture", and not into others. I.e., Mexicans are inherently
| more corrupt, and Europeans inherently less corrupt. By their
| nature. Is that an accurate reading of what you're saying?
|
| If it is, then the actual point of the article quite violently
| contradicts your view. If corruption were some inherent aspect
| of people's "being", based on their "culture", then changing
| governments or institutions would surely make no difference
| whatsoever to corruption levels, right? Their true nature would
| just continue, unperturbed, as prone to corruption as ever.
|
| The article says clearly and repeatedly - as in the quotes I
| share above - that this isn't the reality of what happens.
|
| Put differently, you could say that corruption is "cultural",
| if by "cultural" you meant specifically that it is dependent on
| one's environment, and _isn 't whatsoever_ inherent in a
| person's "nature".
|
| You seem to be saying the opposite, though, and still claiming
| the article confirms that? Puzzling.
| pier25 wrote:
| > _Is that an accurate reading of what you 're saying?_
|
| Not at all.
|
| > _I.e., Mexicans are inherently more corrupt, and Europeans
| inherently less corrupt. By their nature._
|
| Not sure what you mean "by their nature" but it sounds like
| you're saying it's about genetics which is definitely NOT
| what I'm saying.
|
| Culture is a context. It's not biological, it's artificial.
|
| Europe has a different cultural context than Mexico. Mexicans
| in Europe will behave differently than in Mexico (and vice
| versa) which is what the experiment mentioned in the OP
| showed.
|
| As to why this is... maybe the fact that Mexico has +95% rate
| of impunity might be a factor (sarcasm).
|
| https://www.impunidadcero.org/impunidad-en-mexico/ (in
| Spanish)
| sourcepluck wrote:
| Ah, ok, well then I was misunderstanding what you were
| saying, sorry about that.
| written-beyond wrote:
| Can you please, for the life of me, tell me how they make those
| authentic amazing Totopos.
|
| Do they have like shops where someone live fries the tortilla
| chips in front of you? Like authentic Totopos, not whatever
| Chipotle serves.
|
| Do they dry the corn tortillas out first then fry them? Are the
| corn tortillas for Totopos extra thin?
|
| Thank you Pier25.
| wavemode wrote:
| This article hints at, but doesn't fully dive into, the
| perspective of personal ethics. Many people who would never steal
| money from an individual would happily steal money from the
| government. As humans we tend to view these acts very
| differently.
|
| Relatedly, such people are more likely to steal money from a
| government they see as evil/corrupt, than a government they see
| as good. This probably drives a large part of the "contextual"
| corruption effect the article discusses, where a non-corrupt
| individual starts working for a corrupt government and suddenly
| becomes corrupt.
| morkalork wrote:
| I am not Czech but I did see a quote about life under communist
| rule that you made me remember: He who does not steal, steals
| from his family.
| nickpinkston wrote:
| I always liked: "We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us"
| - leading to rampant stealing of course.
| mathgradthrow wrote:
| the acts are philosophically different. Stealing from a thief
| who has stolen from you is also pretty different from stealing
| from a stranger at the level of personal ethics.
| Retric wrote:
| Few governments aren't a massive net surplus for their
| citizens, just look at any failed state to see the
| alternative.
|
| So calling them a thief is almost always purely self serving
| nonsense.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Few governments aren't a massive net surplus for their
| citizens
|
| If the baseline is a complete lack of social organization,
| yes. But that's a terrible baseline. You compare
| governments to other potential governments, not to anarchy.
| That would be like calling eating six ounces of oatmeal per
| day a massive net surplus to starving to death; of course
| it is, but that's the easiest curve in the world.
|
| And the fact that you can only have one government at a
| time means that your current one is _blocking_ all of the
| others.
| comex wrote:
| Define "net".
|
| An especially corrupt government might be a net surplus
| compared to anarchy, yet simultaneously a significant net
| loss compared to a more typical government.
|
| Put another way, the government is failing to give its
| citizens what it owes them. By analogy, suppose your
| employer pays you half the wage they agreed to pay. That's
| still a form of theft, even if you are still at a surplus
| compared to the alternative of being unemployed.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| As Roger Moore said "Just because a man cheats his government
| does not mean he will betray his country"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_to_Athena
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Many people who would never steal money from an individual
| would happily steal money from the government.
|
| It's always said something to me that most people who wouldn't
| dream of making a profit selling something to a member of their
| family will spend all day trying to profit off of strangers.
|
| It may just be a matter of proximity, with a instinctual
| heuristic of shared interests. Rather than people making a
| division of governments between "good" and "evil", it's more
| like a government that's with me or against me. I don't want to
| hurt what's helping me. Which honestly takes it completely out
| of the range of morality, and back into realpolitik and
| pragmatism.
| michaelteter wrote:
| One of the core problems with human behavior comes from a lack of
| thinking.
|
| If people would consider their actions in the context of, "what I
| do, others will do", then they would realize that many actions
| they deem as insignificant or harmless (throwing a small piece of
| trash on the sidewalk, taking two items from the "take 1 free"
| basket, etc. cause real problems when everyone does it.
|
| It may seem insignificant to the individual, but in principle if
| they do it, others are also doing it, and it has a large scale
| impact. This applies in the positive direction too, such as when
| people perform random acts of kindness (which encourages others
| to do the same).
| Shawnecy wrote:
| Agree 100%. I recently found that Kant had pretty much
| introduced this concept as categorical imperative[0]: 'Act as
| if the maxims of your action were to become through your will a
| universal law of nature.'
|
| [0] = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative
| foxglacier wrote:
| The article talks about corruption like it's just a clearly bad
| thing and people either do the bad thing or not, but it's a
| blurry line between engaging in corruption and the normal ways
| that organizations work. Examples:
|
| If you pay a speeding ticket, isn't that like participating in
| corruption by buying your way out of punishment for endangering
| people? Is it really morally any different from paying a bribe to
| the policeman who catches you speeding in a country where that's
| the common way? In both cases, you pay for speeding and your
| money ends up going towards the policeman's income.
|
| Forming a personal connection with the interviewer when applying
| for a government job. Now you're suddenly like his friend and
| he's more inclined to select you. Maybe he expects to have a good
| relationship with you in future and gain intangible benefits from
| that if he hires you.
|
| In my country, teacher jobs have to be publicly advertised,
| presumably to combat nepotism. But schools regularly hire
| internally and their advertisement includes a statement like "no
| actual vacancy" telling people not to waste time applying. I
| guess they're following the law but still corrupting the ideal of
| not favoring your friends.
|
| It seems like you have to have a deep understanding of how and
| why the systems works the way it does to figure out if a
| particular action is morally corrupt or not. You can just follow
| the law but that seems to allow some society-harming corruption
| and nobody feels guilty about it.
| chollida1 wrote:
| > If you pay a speeding ticket, isn't that like participating
| in corruption by buying your way out of punishment for
| endangering people? Is it really morally any different from
| paying a bribe to the policeman who catches you speeding in a
| country where that's the common way? In both cases, you pay for
| speeding and your money ends up going towards the policeman's
| income.
|
| I mean, one goes to the government to help all citizens, one
| lines the pocket of a corrupt cop and does not benefit society
| in anyway.
|
| So yes, there is a huge gulf of difference between the two.
|
| Also an official ticket goes on record so the cop can tell if
| you've had many and maybe deserve a more severe punishment, the
| bribe is never recorded so we can't track the bad drives in
| this instance.
| foxglacier wrote:
| > pocket of a corrupt cop and does not benefit society in
| anyway.
|
| It motivates him to stop speeding drivers which is good for
| society.
|
| To your second point, maybe a better system would be the
| policeman gets paid a commission on the tickets he issues so
| they're still recorded. But if it's not set up that way,
| bribery might be more effective than not.
| thrw42A8N wrote:
| Is it really good for society? Germany has the safest
| highways in the world. Also the only highways where it's
| exciting to see a police car while going 250 km/h.
|
| Some try to dismiss this by saying that there are areas
| with slower speeds - yes; they're placed where you need to
| slow down anyway, it's more like "hey buddy, beware of this
| sharp curve" rather than "we will milk your wallet if you
| go 1 km/h over this idiotically low speed". I go to Berlin
| regularly (500km) and my speed average including the
| slowdown areas is around 230 km/h and I'm not even close to
| the fastest one on the road.
| bsder wrote:
| > The article talks about corruption like it's just a clearly
| bad thing and people either do the bad thing or not, but it's a
| blurry line between engaging in corruption and the normal ways
| that organizations work.
|
| Until you have "cops" every 10 miles on the freeway all
| demanding a bribe at gunpoint.
|
| "Corruption" is sand in the gears of _everything_.
|
| You can't go from point A to point B in a consistent amount of
| time or money. You can't order something and expect it to work
| without triple checking everything yourself. etc.
|
| We have a _great_ example of the pernicious effects of
| corruption: Russia couldn 't roll over Ukraine because
| corruption completely hollowed out their military.
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