[HN Gopher] The normalization of corruption in organizations (20...
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The normalization of corruption in organizations (2003) [pdf]
Author : rendx
Score : 252 points
Date : 2026-02-27 06:21 UTC (16 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (gwern.net)
| daedrdev wrote:
| The US supreme court allowed thank you gifts for politicians to
| not be considered bribes somehow in a 2024 ruling, I think that
| alone might break the US.
| treetalker wrote:
| lest we forget luxury fishing trips, RVs, real-estate debt
| payoffs, or payoffs of relatives' tuition
| jacquesm wrote:
| The US Supreme Court is the very worst a supreme court could
| be. They've been thoroughly co-opted and will only start to see
| the light when it is their asses that are on the line.
| simonh wrote:
| The whole way the Judicial system in the US is beholden to
| politicians, and is thoroughly politicised looks completely
| horrific to me in the UK. Even the election officials
| responsible for overseeing voting are politicians.
|
| Combined with this elected King George III presidential
| nonsense (not just king in general either, specifically the
| powers George III had in the 1780s) and I despair sometimes.
| Get yourselves a decent parliamentary system. If you avoid
| proportional representation it works fine. Unfortunately the
| US population is somehow convinced the current US system is
| modern and up to date. They'll probably still think that in
| another 200 years.
| duskdozer wrote:
| What do you have against proportional representation?
| tialaramex wrote:
| We can't "proportionally" represent a constituency which
| returns a single individual
|
| So, if you want PR you have to either: Have two distinct
| classes of MP: Some were directly elected and represent
| an area, others are just to make the up proportions - but
| obviously these are just worse right? Second class MPs.
|
| OR Abolish the constituencies entirely, now nobody
| represents your area and its particular concerns, or
| everybody does, which as we know amounts to the same
| thing because of how dilution works.
|
| Unlike other electoral reforms a PR system has deeper
| implications far beyond the elections themselves.
| Historically the UK actually didn't have a single
| electoral system for every constituency, and that was
| fine+, indeed it works fine in the US today, the thing
| which needs to be coherent is what happens _after_ the
| election and PR meddles with that.
|
| + Well, not "fine", this is the era of the famous "Rotten
| Boroughs" but the fact that the system varies from one
| place to another wasn't key there.
| simonh wrote:
| It also means that people are voting for party lists, not
| individuals, and the lists are controlled by the parties.
| In a proper parliamentary system the parliamentarians
| directly represent their voters, and have a mandate from
| them. Parties do not have that, only MPs have that. By
| passing the mandate from the representative to the party,
| and the party having list control, that puts far too much
| power over parliamentarians in the hands of unelected
| party functionaries that draw up the lists and have no
| mandate themselves.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| That's way less bad than it appears, because in a
| proportional system you will have more than 2 parties. In
| practice, every election is an election of those
| invisible bureaucratic hands, instead of some heads on
| display.
| smlavine wrote:
| Or, larger districts of ~5 or so representatives. In the
| US, Representatives are already barely "local" -- 700k+
| people to a single district.
| gniv wrote:
| Very insightful on how this corruption develops:
|
| "How can a group hold a worldview so at odds with the wider
| culture and not appear to be greatly conflicted by it? The answer
| may lie in the distinction between particularism and
| universalism. An individual develops social identities specific
| to the social domains, groups and roles - and accompanying
| subcultures - that he or she occupies (e.g. manager, mother,
| parishioner, sports fan). [...]
|
| In the case of corruption, this myopia means that an otherwise
| ethically-minded individual may forsake universalistic or
| dominant norms about ethical behavior in favor of particularistic
| behaviors that favor his or her group at the expense of
| outsiders. [...]
|
| This tendency to always put the ingroup above all others clearly
| paves the way for collective corruption."
| dundercoder wrote:
| It's like they worked at my last workplace
| simonh wrote:
| The brain actually has specific neurological system that
| compartmentalise reasoning contexts in different social
| contexts, so we operate according to different sets of
| assumptions and rules of behaviour and reasoning in different
| kinds of situations.
| rramadass wrote:
| Can you share some resources on the above?
| simonh wrote:
| The the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the
| temporoparietal junction (TPJ) both play roles in this. Not
| a neuroscientist, just going on my own reading.
| justonceokay wrote:
| Unless you're autistic
| simonh wrote:
| True. I really don't know enough about it, but it may well
| be these functions are still there, after all I expect the
| relevant neurological systems are still there, but the
| impact on social cognition from autism render their effects
| basically irrelevant.
| Paracompact wrote:
| The author cites Arendt a fair bit, whose claim to fame was
| that entirely ordinary people could become voluntary
| instruments of atrocity.
|
| I think the belief of ordinary people most likely to dispose
| them to atrocity is that of prioritizing the ingroup. Once we
| believe that the members of one's own family, or company, or
| country, carry more moral value than others, we're doomed to a
| descent limited only by our _ability_ to make these world-
| worsening trades.
|
| When I was a child, my dad would sometimes engage in small acts
| of corruption to please me or my brother. Taking somebody
| else's spot, telling white lies to get more than his share of a
| rationed good, that sort of thing. It never sat right with me.
| "Family first" has a very ominous ring to me.
| reacweb wrote:
| Yes, the slogan "America first" is a forerunner of the worst
| kind of imperialism.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| also "Make America Great Again" states that America is not
| currently great, which given its geo-political and economic
| position is just dishonest. Combined with "America First"
| you get an entirely clean canvas to be incredibly radical
| while cosplaying conservative.
| eptcyka wrote:
| I would argue MAGA will be rather fitting campaign slogan
| for the democrat side come next election.
| Quarrelsome wrote:
| or maybe simply MAAA: Make America America again.
| rramadass wrote:
| To me this is the best example of how language can be
| used to bypass rational thinking in the listener to
| manipulate and propagandize.
|
| See also:
|
| _Politics and the English Language_ by George Orwell- ht
| tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Lang
| u...
|
| _Newspeak_ by George Orwell -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak
|
| _Verbal Behaviour_ by B.F.Skinner -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbal_Behavior
| lynx97 wrote:
| What you describe is deepest human nature. We are tribal,
| period. No amount of morales will change that, no matter how
| it sits with you personally.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| Yes, I was about to say this. A human is basically
| testicles with a brain attached, and the natural goal of
| life is to make sure that the genetically closest material
| survives and reproduces. That's why it's common to have
| stronger relationships with your family than with randoms
| on the internet. The more different the genetic material
| is, the less you care - individuals of different culture,
| of different race, of different species, of different
| kingdom of life, and finally viruses that are just strings
| of RNA floating around and nobody advocates about their
| rights because fuck that.
| saghm wrote:
| > A human is basically testicles with a brain attached
|
| > The more different the genetic material is, the less
| you care - individuals of different culture, of different
| race, of different species, of different kingdom of life,
| and finally viruses that are just strings of RNA floating
| around and nobody advocates about their rights because
| fuck that
|
| The type of mental model that ignores 50% of the world's
| population due to having that same proportions of
| chromosomes not matching one's mental heuristic of what
| constitutes a human is what I'd say "fuck that" to,
| personally
| anal_reactor wrote:
| Okay but you have to admit that this is not how things
| functioned through majority of human history.
| XorNot wrote:
| The excessive focus on the nuclear family is itself a
| very recent trend that would otherwise be viewed as very
| odd by many if not most historical social organizing
| systems.
|
| Given the diversity of social models which have emerged
| globally, I have no idea how you could possibly make that
| claim.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| I have no idea how to argue with you because it feels
| like we can't agree whether the Earth is obviously round
| or obviously flat.
| DharmaPolice wrote:
| >The more different the genetic material is, the less you
| care
|
| This is sort of true but it misses that we don't actually
| have DNA sensors built into our eyes. Instead we rely on
| heuristics like the Westermarck effect where we will
| (normally) tend to not find someone we lived with as a
| child attractive regardless whether they're a blood
| relation or not.
|
| We influence who (or what) is in our group through our
| behaviour, thoughts and associations. Look at the vast
| number of people who value their dog or cat over other
| human beings. It's unlikely their dog is closer to them,
| genetically speaking than any single human on Earth but
| they spend time and invest emotionally in their pet so
| they form a bond despite the genetic distance.
|
| If you see a child being hurt it likely invokes a
| slightly stronger emotional response if the child reminds
| you of someone in your own life. Often this will be
| someone who looks like you/your family (i.e. is
| genetically similar to you) but it might be some other
| kid you've grown attached to who is not related at all.
|
| So yes, we are driven by a calculating selfish gene
| mechanism but we're also burdened/gifted with a whole
| bunch of emotional and social instincts and rely on
| imperfect sensors not tricorders. It's why people can
| form group identities over all sorts of non-genetic
| characteristics (e.g. religion, nation, neighbourhood,
| sports team affiliation, political ideology, vi vs emacs,
| etc).
| anal_reactor wrote:
| That's completely true because there are many aspects to
| what is "my group" and what isn't, but the key point is,
| people naturally care about their group more than they
| care about strangers. Thinking in terms of genetics
| provides a simple model that's good enough to explain a
| lot of phenomena. But yes, if you want to go deeper, you
| need to consider other factors - at first glance it seems
| like "culture" is the most important one.
| QuadmasterXLII wrote:
| Wouldn't that be horrible? If great masses of humans did
| act morally, and you didn't have this justification that
| everyone does it?
| rayiner wrote:
| Some groups of people are much less tribal than others.
| saghm wrote:
| I feel like this is a false binary. Acting more morally
| some of the time is surely possible (both as individuals
| and as a society); we have at least _some_ level of ability
| to choose our actions independent of our nature.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| An even worse sign is when we believe that the members of
| one's own family, or company, or country carry _less_ moral
| value than others.
| estearum wrote:
| Uh oh, is this a reference to the radar meme/study?
|
| The one that conservatives keep claiming shows that
| liberals care _more_ about out-groups than in-groups, but
| actually shows that either 1) many conservatives are
| illiterate and can 't read a survey question, or 2) many
| conservatives literally _don 't care_ if right or wrong
| happens to acquaintances, strangers, their countrymen,
| humans in other countries, non-human animals, living
| things, etc?
|
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/moral-circles-heatmap
| carlosjobim wrote:
| It's not a reference to any study. It's common sense, and
| you see it everywhere, on every scale and throughout
| history.
|
| What children do you think have a better future on
| average: Those whose parents love them or those whose
| parents hate them?
|
| What companies do you think succeed in the long run:
| Those with people who love working there or those with
| people who hate working there and want to jump ship?
|
| What countries become the best to live in: Those whose
| populace dream of moving abroad or those whose populace
| love their native land?
| estearum wrote:
| I guess I'm confused as to who is allegedly providing the
| counterargument that they should love out-groups more
| than in-groups?
| carlosjobim wrote:
| It's rare to see anybody literally arguing it, but it's
| more common than not in the real world.
|
| Oppression would be quite impossible throughout history
| if people weren't willing to oppress their own kind to
| the benefit of others.
|
| Even those arguing for loyalty to the in-group are rarely
| those who would themselves make any sacrifices for that
| group.
| estearum wrote:
| > Oppression would be quite impossible throughout history
| if people weren't willing to oppress their own kind to
| the benefit of others.
|
| No what's far more common is that people change their
| perception (or have different perceptions) of who is
| "their own kind."
|
| You can actually see this happening in real time in the
| US with the emerging concept of "Heritage Americans."
| It's a way for losers and crybabies to narrow the scope
| of who is "their own kind" without having to openly
| declare that they simply don't love their countrymen.
| jvandreae wrote:
| I - and thankfully, it appears, the current
| administration - don't accept your definition of who is
| "my countrymen".
|
| > losers and crybabies
|
| Luckily, for now, at least, it appears to be your side
| that is losing and crying.
| estearum wrote:
| QED
| joshuaissac wrote:
| > Oppression would be quite impossible throughout history
| if people weren't willing to oppress their own kind to
| the benefit of others.
|
| Isn't the opposite far more common? When oppression
| happens, it is typically people oppressing the out-group
| for the benefit of the in-group.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| My impression is that the foreign/out group delegate the
| actual oppressing to local representatives, who are more
| than eager to do it towards their own kind.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It's complex. My wife's father-in-law immigrated from
| Italy to escape the destruction wrought by fascism in
| WWII and seek economic opportunity. He was part of a
| diaspora of a small village in Abbruzze that settled
| around Binghamton, NY. I would say that they all love
| Italy and they all love the U.S.
|
| Those are people I know very well because I have been to
| so many parties, dinners, and other events with them.
| I've seen the same thing with people from India, China,
| Sri Lanka, etc. I'd assume that it's the normal condition
| of immigrants.
| delaminator wrote:
| That's pretty insulting, mate.
|
| You should look into what Conservatives have actually
| done.
|
| It wasn't Liberals that took children out of factories,
| mines and chimneys.
|
| Clearly you've never read Hayek.
|
| Sure, post memes as proof.
| estearum wrote:
| Well it's not really a meme, it's a study. And it was an
| earnest question as to whether GP was referencing the
| study. They claim they weren't -\\_(tsu)_/-
|
| Also it sounds like you're referring to the British
| political parties Liberals and Conservatives, not the
| lowercase-l and lowercase-c political philosophies by the
| same names, which the study is actually about.
| brazzy wrote:
| > I think the belief of ordinary people most likely to
| dispose them to atrocity is that of prioritizing the ingroup.
|
| In my opinion, there is another tendency even more
| significant in that regard. Namely, the visceral desire to
| see "bad guys" deservedly suffer. Once people are in that
| frame of mind, they strongly resist any attempts to
| understand and maybe prevent whatever the "bad guys" did, let
| alone questions whether it was actually bad.
|
| This is what fuelled lynch mobs, it's what makes MAGA types
| cheer when ICE murders immigrants, and it's what makes
| certain leftist circles chant "eat the rich" along with
| images of guillotines and wood chippers.
|
| When you point out that poverty causes crime, rightists get
| mad at you for "excusing" or "justifying" crime, and when you
| point out that poverty causes support for far-right
| politicians, leftists get mad at you for "excusing" or
| "justifying" racism.
|
| Of course, this interacts with your point: when someone from
| the ingroup does something bad, people are willing to look at
| their reasons and if found lacking it is only the individual
| that should be punished, whereas the outgroup is never
| afforded the luxury of complexity, and the entire group is
| held responsible for each individual's sins.
| kgwxd wrote:
| I have way too many family members and associates like that.
| "Family First" has the same ominous ring to me too. At least,
| in the given scenarios. Would you agree it's less ominous,
| maybe even noble, when shit hits the fan though?
|
| I think they're easily convinced we're living in constant
| state of war, even on a slow Tuesday at Costco. The
| propaganda they often parrot would seem to suggest it.
|
| Or maybe they see there are scenarios that is considered
| noble, and generalize it to be the case for all scenarios.
| The people I know like that also have a habit of over-
| generalizing every aspect of life. Cliches, aphorisms, etc.
| are a huge part of their vocabulary, but they are rarely
| applied in the original spirit of the sayings.
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| The situation in which people exchange favors within their
| mutually beneficial personal networks seems to be the basic and
| typical way things function. It's actually remarkable that we
| are able to resist this tendency and normalize fair and
| impartial institutions.
| praptak wrote:
| CS Lewis has a speech about the ingroups and corruption. His
| thesis is that the mere desire to be "in" is the greatest
| driver of immoral behavior:
|
| _" To nine out of ten of you the choice which could lead to
| scoundrelism will come, when it does come, in no very dramatic
| colours. Obviously bad men, obviously threatening or bribing,
| will almost certainly not appear. Over a drink, or a cup of
| coffee, disguised as triviality and sandwiched between two
| jokes, from the lips of a man, or woman, whom you have recently
| been getting to know rather better and whom you hope to know
| better still--just at the moment when you are most anxious not
| to appear crude, or naif or a prig--the hint will come. It will
| be the hint of something which the public, the ignorant,
| romantic public, would never understand: something which even
| the outsiders in your own profession are apt to make a fuss
| about: but something, says your new friend, which "we"--and at
| the word "we" you try not to blush for mere pleasure--something
| "we always do.""_
|
| https://www.lewissociety.org/innerring/
| rramadass wrote:
| Also Lord Acton - _"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power
| corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men,
| even when they exercise influence and not authority; still
| more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of
| corruption by authority."_
| brazzy wrote:
| Acton was, by the way, an ardent supporter of the
| Confederacy. In his opinion, the federal government
| curtailing the independence of states was a more
| significant act of oppression than slavery.
| delaminator wrote:
| I think there's a war about that wasn't there?
| brazzy wrote:
| Yeah, and he didn't like the outcome. Salient quote (from
| a letter to Robert E. Lee):
|
| "I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the
| absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me
| with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption
| of Democracy. The institutions of your Republic have not
| exercised on the old world the salutary and liberating
| influence which ought to have belonged to them, by reason
| of those defects and abuses of principle which the
| Confederate Constitution was expressly and wisely
| calculated to remedy. I believed that the example of that
| great Reform would have blessed all the races of mankind
| by establishing true freedom purged of the native dangers
| and disorders of Republics. Therefore I deemed that you
| were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress,
| and our civilization; and I mourn for the stake which was
| lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that
| which was saved at Waterloo. "
| delaminator wrote:
| Well, he wasn't wrong.
| XorNot wrote:
| Whining about States rights to enslave people is
| certainly a take.
|
| Particularly when in context, the war was caused by the
| South acting to usurp abolition in the North via the
| legal system (i.e. Dredd Scott
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott)
|
| The importance and applicability of "states rights" is
| always oddly narrow.
| b40d-48b2-979e wrote:
| The importance and applicability of "states rights" is
| always oddly narrow.
|
| It's also always ignoring the declarations of secession
| that all explicitly name slavery as the motivation.
| wat10000 wrote:
| The Confederate Constitution was mostly a copy of the US
| Constitution. One place where it differed is that it
| forbade any state from abolishing slavery. So the whole
| "states' rights" thing is obvious baloney.
| sigwinch wrote:
| There are several lies in this. The objective of a
| Confederate victory was to enforce slavery farther south.
| Mexico was a few years away from collapsing. Brazil would
| emancipate within 20 years. Would the Confederacy last 20
| years as the last slave state in the western hemisphere?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Slavery would not have lasted, as the mechanization and
| industrialization of agriculture would soon make slave
| ownership uneconomical. Same with draft animals.
| axus wrote:
| Control of elections is one of the last bastions of
| State's rights. The past year has really illustrated why
| states' independence from the US federal government
| benefit their residents.
| bell-cot wrote:
| If you're familiar with English history, then it's more
| understandable that Lord Acton (Catholic, and born a mere
| Baronet) was against powerful central authorities.
|
| And at least according to Wikipedia, Acton's positions on
| the Confederacy and slavery were very mainstream for
| English Catholics of the day.
| b40d-48b2-979e wrote:
| positions on [...] slavery were very mainstream
|
| Thankfully we also had figures like John Brown to fight
| the good fight.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)
| bell-cot wrote:
| To clarify - John Brown was an American, with a
| Puritan/Calvinist background, born to fairly humble
| circumstances. Very unlike Acton.
|
| And Britain's record on slavery is both far more complex,
| and far less bad, than many modern ideologues might have
| us believe.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Africa_Squadron
| spigottoday wrote:
| Corruption empowers, and absolute corruption empowers
| absolutely. It seems to me that some people adopt this
| perspective.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> "Half of the harm that is done in this world Is due to
| people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do
| harm; But the harm does not interest them."
|
| -T.S. Eliot_
| bsenftner wrote:
| In undergrad I did a formal Philosophy / Sociology study,
| where we were looking at human motivations. The research
| indicated that _prestige_ is the number 1 driver of human
| motivation. Gaining prestige "trumps" ethics. Nobody likes
| to hear that.
| sigwinch wrote:
| No, but I don't think ethics is #2. Someone intrinsically
| motivated might be technically competent, autonomous and
| self-confident about his/her goals. I might skip your
| meetings about ethics; I might be too busy.
| derbOac wrote:
| I think this is one reason it is important to cast
| unethical behavior in terms of lack of competency -- that
| someone has to break the rules to get ahead because they're
| not competent enough to do things fairly or ethically.
|
| Empathy, while important in my opinion personally, often
| doesn't matter to certain people. So you have to decrease
| the prestige associated with unethical behavior, above and
| beyond it being unethical per se.
| DFHippie wrote:
| This. I think so much of the fascism and corruption afoot
| in the world comes from people who believe they deserve
| things they are incompetent to get. Their sense of
| entitlement is in conflict with their competence and
| unrestrained by concern for others. To soothe their ego
| wound they project their faults onto the person who has
| what they want. "It isn't my failure; it's your
| trickery!" Now instead of shame and impotence they feel
| righteous anger.
| macintux wrote:
| I don't know that it's necessarily incompetence. The idea
| of "overproduction of elites" pops up frequently:
|
| https://www.niskanencenter.org/are-we-overproducing-
| elites-a...
|
| You may be supremely competent but unlucky enough to be
| born at the wrong time, to the wrong family, competing
| with the wrong people, to rise to the level that you feel
| you deserve.
| bsenftner wrote:
| I look at this re-occurring overproduction of elites
| concept, and feel like it has good points but seems to be
| welded like a weapon, soon followed by statements like
| "you're just unlucky, get over it."
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| We must begin with the presuppositions. Begin with the
| questions:
|
| 1. What are elites?
|
| 2. What are elites _for_? Why do they exist?
|
| We can't really talk about "overproduction" of elites
| without knowing the answers to these questions.
|
| Elites are meant to be guardians and servants of the
| common good. This is why traditionally, we spoke of the
| _nobility_ : they were _supposed_ to protect the common
| good for the good of society and model virtue so that
| others had a point of tangible reference. In order to do
| that, you needed to be properly educated. Not technically
| trained, but _educated_ , which is something relatively
| rare in proportion to the vast numbers who are pushed
| through compulsory schooling and even university.
|
| So, are we "overproducing elites"? Given how mediocre our
| "elites" generally are, I would suspect that we have
| rather an underproduction of them, and instead an
| overproduction of the vacuously credentialed.
|
| One obstacle, of course, is that in a modern liberal
| culture, we are forced into a kind of impotence when
| speaking about the common good. On the one hand, modern
| liberalism imposes its own measure of the good life that
| elevates liberty for its own sake - divorced from any
| tradition and any objective measure - as the end of human
| life. Indeed, tradition is caricatured as an obstacle
| that impedes liberty rather than as a liberating dialogue
| spanning centuries and millennia that helps us orient our
| lives by sharing with us the wisdom of out predecessors.
|
| On the other, this very hostility toward tradition or any
| objective normative claims (which are unavoidable; see
| first point) acts as a corrosive agent that impoverishes
| and constrains the scope of legitimate political
| discussion. Over time, this scope has been whittled down
| to economics. Everything else is privatized. Of course,
| the inevitable effect is that economics them begins to
| swallow up everything else. Everything is recast as an
| economic issue, and the human good is confined to
| economic categories. This explains the rise of
| consumerism, because a society whose common good can only
| be a matter of economics, and one that recasts all of
| life and reduces it to economics, can only comprehend the
| good life as a matter of consumption. This is a recipe
| for misery and delusion, of course, but the is the
| necessary result.
|
| In such a culture, wisdom and what counts as elite are
| measured in economic terms. Universities become
| institutions not for liberating human beings by
| developing reason, virtue, and understanding, but
| ostensibly tickets to "economic success". Billionaires
| are our aristocracy, not because they are excellent or
| virtuous or duty-bound to serve in that capacity by
| virtue of their rank, but because in a consumerist
| society, money is magical. This is interesting, because
| traditionally, the nobility was often prohibited from
| engaging in trade and commerce. It was seen as beneath
| their position. If an aristocrat was wealthy, his wealth
| was not what conferred onto him his rank.
|
| An elite only exists in order to serve the common good.
| That is its only legitimate reason for being.
|
| Now let us return to the original question...
| bsenftner wrote:
| I think you are correct. I've spent extended time in uber
| wealth circles, and this describes the offspring mindset
| of the generations after wealth acquisition. Their
| incompetence matches their entitlement, and then they
| walk into nepotism.
| neutronicus wrote:
| In my opinion you've drawn exactly the wrong conclusion.
|
| Raising the stakes just increases the pressure to cheat
| (and not get caught).
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| > I think this is one reason it is important to cast
| unethical behavior in terms of lack of competency
|
| That will result in feigned virtue and Pharisaical
| letter-of-the-law sophistry. You can't secure morality by
| system and incentive alone, as important as these may be
| (the law is a teacher). Indeed, if you try to attain
| virtue by appealing to crooked desires, then you've
| already subverted the very preconditions of the moral
| life.
|
| But I will say this: today, we often view morality as
| some made-up "rules" and artificial constraints that
| usually don't have anything to do with much of life.
| Being intelligent is often seen as opposed to being good:
| the good man is imagined as a chump, while the
| intelligent man is crafty. But that's just an expression
| of ignorance, including ignorance of what is actually
| good for human beings. It is not good for a man to be
| immoral. Immorality is self-harm.
|
| Morality is a matter of _every_ decision we make. Ethics
| is _practical_ philosophy concerned with how one _lives_.
| Every decision is a matter of morality. When making a
| decision, why choose one way or another? Well, at the
| very least, we make what we take to be a good or the best
| choice. Of course, the immoral man presents something bad
| or worse as good or better in his own mind in order to be
| able to choose it. That 's why people rationalize the
| evil choices they intend to make. But the aim and
| orientation of the will is the good, and so the evil man
| must first bullshit himself.
|
| In that sense, to choose the good is to choose wisely
| which is indeed a kind of competence that requires
| knowledge, wisdom, and humility (which is to say, a sober
| view of reality, and that includes oneself). Indeed, the
| first classical cardinal virtue is _prudence_ , which is
| the _habit_ (as in possessed and actualized excellence)
| of being able to determine the right decision in a
| situation. And the right decision is _always_ a moral
| one.
|
| Prudence itself is the cornerstone of the remaining
| cardinal virtues: one cannot be just without first being
| prudent; one cannot be courageous without first being
| just; and one cannot be temperate without first being
| courageous. You need to know what is right before you can
| be just, as what is wrong is never just; you need to be
| just before you can be courageous, as bravado or
| recklessness are not courage; and you need courage to be
| temperate, as you cannot act as you ought if you don't
| have the courage to do so.
|
| So, what we really need is an authentic moral education
| and a culture that ceases to fear a robust and sound
| morality rooted in the objectively real, because it sees
| it as a threat to its misguided notion of "liberty". We
| must reconnect with classical tradition so that we can
| profit from its insights and its wisdom and return to a
| dialogue spanning centuries and millennia. We cannot do
| it alone, and things will never be perfect, but this will
| give us strength to face the immorality of the world -
| and above all, in ourselves - and a foundation for a
| healthier culture.
| bsenftner wrote:
| Fantastic logical analysis.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Or not. Or what is in the flourishing of all living
| things, and especially in our species of ape, is evil.
| That only what is called "good" is the accident of there
| being a boundary up against you to stop you; or the
| imposition of a boundary which will destroy or constrain
| your living too much.
|
| Perhaps morality is just the playpen boundaries of
| enfeebled apes, playing amongst themselves in luxury,
| thinking they've overcome some aspect of their nature
| since they barely need to move around at all.
| altruios wrote:
| Meh to this misanthropic disregard for other's
| experience. If you need external alignment to prevent you
| being evil your internal alignment is f'ed. Considering
| morality an arbitrary boundary is a major red flag for
| antisocial behaviors.
|
| Structured interactions lead to better results, chaotic
| actions lead to chaos. Ethics/morality is part of that
| structure that lets us achieve more together than
| individually.
|
| if you think living in that structure is enfeebling: I
| highly question what you desire to do that results in
| that feeling.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| Did that ever replicate?
|
| Is prestige the number one motivator only statistically?
|
| In other words is it the number one motivator for 31%
| percent of the college students that were tested and lets
| say empathy was at 29%?
|
| Misanthropy and bald self interest gets overplayed I think.
| Often times because it allows bad actors to normalize and
| justify their own misanthropy.
|
| Presenting this kind of unbacked, unqualified anecdotal
| data is great for "edgy truthtellers" but also deeply
| poisoning the well.
| bsenftner wrote:
| Scientific studies, particularly within the fields of
| evolutionary psychology, anthropology, and behavioral
| economics, identify prestige: the striving for respect,
| admiration, and high social rank; as a primary driver of
| human motivation. Unlike dominance, which relies on fear
| and coercion, prestige is based on the voluntary
| deference of others toward individuals who possess
| skills, knowledge, or success in locally valued domains.
| Key scientific studies and theories supporting this
| include: The Dual-Strategies Theory
| (Henrich & Gil-White, 2001; Cheng et al., 2013): This
| foundational theory posits that humans have evolved to
| use two distinct strategies to gain social rank:
| dominance (fear-based) and prestige (respect-based).
| Studies show prestige is a more stable, long-term
| motivator, associated with higher intelligence,
| conscientiousness, and social skills. "The Big
| Man Mechanism" (Brand et al., 2020): This study
| demonstrates that prestige-based hierarchies are a unique
| human adaptation. It shows that people willingly grant
| influence to high-prestige individuals in exchange for
| knowledge and skills. The research indicates that
| individuals are highly motivated to gain this respect to
| secure social capital. Evolutionary Perspective
| on Social Status (Maner & Case, 2016): Research suggests
| that the desire for prestige is an ancestral mechanism
| designed to boost social standing, leading to better
| access to resources and reproductive success.
| Prestige vs. Dominance Health Outcomes (2022 Studies): A
| study comparing the two paths to status found that
| prestige-seeking is associated with better physical and
| mental health, higher life satisfaction, and lower
| stress, whereas dominance is associated with negative
| health outcomes.
|
| Prestige is a Major Driver due to Cultural Learning:
| Humans are "prestige-biased" learners, meaning they are
| motivated to copy successful individuals to acquire
| "informational goods" (knowledge, techniques). Right
| after that is _social capital:_ High-prestige individuals
| receive voluntary deference, including gifts, aid, and
| social opportunities, motivating others to achieve
| similar status. And then coming in like a reinforcing ram
| we have _prosocial motivation:_ Because prestige is
| maintained by being liked, individuals are motivated to
| behave generously and competently to maintain their high
| status.
|
| These studies indicate that because prestige provides a
| mutually beneficial social structure, humans are heavily
| driven to obtain it through the demonstration of valued
| skills.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I'd note that it is common for fraudsters to prey on members
| of ingroups
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_fraud
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Absolutely. In an ideal setting, elites model excellence and
| serve as an example for others to follow. In practice, things
| are never so pure, and in bad cases, quite bad. This is why
| we may speak of the fish rotting from the head down. The
| general populace takes its example from what is _taken_ to be
| its elite, even if in objective terms, that "elite" is a
| total failure.
|
| You see this with political opinions. People generally don't
| think very deeply about politics. They generally reflect the
| political sensibilities of the in-group they aspire to remain
| part of or aspire to join. It's a signal. A reasonably
| intelligent person can make the distinction between signal
| and genuinely informed opinion, but often, and especially
| among the poseurs, it's not about the truth value of an
| opinion. It is about the signal. This is the very definition
| of bullshit: something said with total indifference to its
| truth value, and only valued for its instrumental usefulness.
| graemep wrote:
| I think this is absolutely spot on with the Epstein thing.
| Powerful individuals just helping each other, giving each
| other information and money, or facilitating or ignoring
| exploitation because it is "what we all do". Especially
| effective when the group believe (maybe implicitly) that they
| are "better" and entitled to put their interests before those
| of the public. Even more so when there is a huge advantage to
| be gained by being part of the group.
|
| Join my networking group, pass on some info in return for
| money or vice-versa, turn a blind eye to abuse even if you
| are not involved....
| rayiner wrote:
| This is a good explanation of the Irish Machine in Chicago,
| corrupt white governments in the south, and Somalian welfare
| scams in Minnesota. It also explains the endemic corruption in
| tribal or clan-oriented societies like Afghanistan.
|
| Conversely, radical universalist regimes--even bad ones like
| the Taliban--can cut down on corruption.
| https://www.americanprogress.org/article/tackling-
| corruption.... It's possible that the low levels of corruption
| in New England, compared to the rest of the country, is the
| legacy of the radically universalist Puritans.
| getnormality wrote:
| I grew up with a very strong sentimental sense of moral
| universalism. I loved Beethoven's Ode to Joy and the romantic
| idea of universal brotherhood.
|
| But as I bank years in the adult world, as a worker and a
| neighbor, I've been progressively disillusioned. I don't find
| universalism to be a common viewpoint. I've found it to be very
| rare that anyone wants to be my "brother" or "sister". And
| sometimes those that seem to, end up being exploitative,
| callous, or strictly fair-weather.
|
| I'm not resentful or anything. I have a happy family and a few
| close-ish friends, and life feels full. But I can understand
| how the loneliness and coldness of the world makes people more
| particularist. People may think: "if the world acts like it
| owes me nothing, then what do I owe the world?"
| js8 wrote:
| But isn't it just a failure to communicate it? What if almost
| all other people are similarly disillusioned?
|
| Also, according to psychologists, one negative experience
| outweighs roughly five positive experiences of the same
| magnitude. So, as we get older, we might have tendency to
| accumulate negative experiences, and as a result become more
| cynical and less idealistic. And so it kind of perpetuates.
| lazide wrote:
| That.... Just provides more evidence their world view is
| likely more objectively true?
| WarmWash wrote:
| I realized as I got older that the ambient air of
| socialist/collectivist virtues that filled the all young
| people spaces wasn't because of some kind of special
| enlightenment achieved by the contemporary youth (as I deeply
| believed as a millennial riding high on the rise of the
| internet), but instead was just an easy ideology for a group
| of people with little to lose and a lot to gain.
|
| Underneath, people are overwhelmingly just in it for
| themselves, and judge others by how closely they align with
| their personal set of "whats best for me" ideals.
| rayiner wrote:
| As someone from a constitutionally socialist and culturally
| collectivist society, the idea of American millennials
| embodying either seems to me like cosplay. You guys are so
| allergic to imposed social obligation you won't even care
| for your own parents in their old age. What kind of
| "collectivism" could you possibly practice?
|
| Collectivism means the subordination of individual autonomy
| to the governance of the collective according to the needs
| of the collective. You're a cog in a machine and your
| purpose is to serve the collective--starting with your
| family and radiating in rings out from there. I'm not sure
| Americans can even understand the collective mindset, much
| less practice it.
| WarmWash wrote:
| We don't embody it, not by a long shot. We're old now.
|
| I'm speaking about 20 years ago, when getting any kind of
| peer or social circle respect had the prerequisite of
| subscribing to socialist utopian ideals, and it wasn't
| something that was hard to foster in America's dead-end
| job work culture (which is where you work when you are
| young). This is urban/suburban America, where most people
| live.
|
| From what I can tell this was the same with Boomers (they
| were the OG hippies afterall) and I see the same ideas in
| today's crop of young people.
|
| The youth however hold little sway over the direction of
| the country, they're not actually that invested, so by
| the time they are having an impact, many have already
| received their first shots of the euphoric side of
| American capitalism, a career that gives them power and
| money (after years of wading through dead-end/entry level
| hell).
| rayiner wrote:
| My point is that they didn't meaningfully embody
| collectivism even when they were younger. Collectivism is
| rice farming culture. https://www.sciencedirect.com/scien
| ce/article/abs/pii/S00142.... You work together within a
| rigid social structure and share communally in the
| proceeds. But you have to precisely follow your socially
| prescribed roles because that system only works when
| everyone does what they're supposed to be doing. This is
| true even in developed countries that are more
| collectivist. Subordination of the individual to the
| collective is a big deal in Japan and Scandinavia. In
| both places, it's taboo to stand out in the crowd:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante. Individualism
| is necessarily in tension with collectivism and
| socialism. Individualism promotes status competition, and
| when status competition exists, communal sharing in the
| proceeds of collective labor becomes impossible.
|
| American millennials were hyper-individualistic and
| rejected socially prescribed roles even when they were
| young. What they wanted wasn't collectivism, it was a
| higher status within capitalism. Which is why, as you
| observed, the sentiment evaporated once they achieved
| that status. I'd make the same point about Gen Z. They
| want to think they're socialist and collectivist. But
| they all want to be online content creators and
| influencers--jobs that only exist in hyper-consumerist,
| capitalist societies!
|
| This is not a criticism either of collectivism or
| millennials, by the way. I think Republicans screwed up
| the concepts during the Cold War era by successfully
| labeling Democrats as collectivist. What you have in the
| U.S. is more accurately described as two strains of
| libertarianism, one that emphasizes social liberty and
| the other that emphasizes economic liberty.
| Paracompact wrote:
| I think you may be focusing on this with a lens that
| isn't incorrect--and is in fact very worldly--but which
| fails to account for individuals' behavior on their own
| terms.
|
| You define your own notion of collectivism and make
| claims about how it is necessarily in conflict with other
| principles, when in reality millennials aren't a
| monolith, collectivism isn't a monolith, and
| individualism isn't a monolith. Cultures and subcultures
| renegotiate the meaning of every -ism they import, and
| they practice these -isms only as _bundles_ of other,
| historically correlated -isms.
|
| When the American youth say they want collectivism, they
| are not saying they want a return to authentic rice
| farming culture. Most of the time, they are mourning the
| systematic loss of third places, they are mourning the
| obliteration of social safety nets, they are mourning the
| lack of public projects, they are mourning the death of
| individually influenceable local politics. At the same
| time, they do not want rigid social roles ordained from
| above (because "above" is powerful and corrupt). They
| also do not want a parochial existence taking care of
| grandma (because the elderly are in greater number and
| need than ever, and our infrastructure and way of life is
| ill suited to efficiently meeting these needs). _None_ of
| this is contradictory cosplay. It is simply a fusion of
| individualism and collectivism that is unlike that which
| has existed before, as a result of cultural factors that
| are themselves unlike that which has existed before.
| cassepipe wrote:
| On the one hand I want to agree with you but on the other
| hand you went from "some people just cannot tolerate any
| social obligation" to "You're a cog in a machine and your
| purpose is to serve the collective--starting with your
| family" makes me extremely distrustful and not want to
| share a society with you. What if the machine is running
| for a very few at the top ? What if the collective is
| oppressive and does not respect your bodily autonomy ?
| What if your family is a bunch of authoritarian
| psychopaths ? Then what are my resources as an individual
| ?
| rayiner wrote:
| [delayed]
| nancyminusone wrote:
| As an ideal, I have little doubt that most people believe
| this, it's just that it's something that's very easy to
| exploit, and you stand to gain a massive amount if you do.
| Its a real tragedy of the commons scenerio. With millions and
| billions of people and just one commons, there's plenty of
| tragedy to go around.
|
| It's still worth it to try - I find it difficult to give up
| completely. Most people I meet are not evil, and it's not
| like you're going to make it out alive at the end regardless.
| kgwxd wrote:
| No need for the romance. We don't have to be "brothers". That
| outlook is divisive in nature anyway, and a weapon for
| abusers: "I thought we were brothers. Now, put aside your
| hesitations, and help me hurt these 'other' people."
|
| We can just be people. Don't hurt anyone, no one gets a pass
| to hurt you. Hurt someone, someone gets a pass to hurt you.
| Just you, not your "brothers". No matter the status of anyone
| involved.
|
| Severity, intent, and priors must play a factor in the level
| of returned hurt, but should never end with none, and death
| should be a last resort, but never completely off the table.
|
| That's the good-faith interpretation of the golden rule.
| Instead of the popular abuser and enabler (turn the other
| cheek) interpretations. They both call anyone who dares hold
| anyone accountable, a hypocrite for supposedly not following
| the golden rule.
|
| I don't care what story book it's in, or who said it, or
| when. It's a good rule on it's own merits. Doesn't mean
| everything that comes form the same source is equally valid.
| getnormality wrote:
| Yeah, that's why I'm not really resentful or disappointed,
| exactly. Life is still good without it. You have your
| actual family, maybe some other people you really share
| life with, and everyone else is just doing their own thing,
| and you're existing together without causing problems for
| each other. That's not a bad way for things to work.
| cassepipe wrote:
| > But I can understand how the loneliness and coldness of the
| world makes people more particularist
|
| I am like that, I stand more on the
| disillusioned/disappointed side but on the other hand let's
| not for forget that individuals diverge quite a lot from one
| another and that for some "Everyone's in it for themselves"
| has not been a sad conclusion but happy justification for
| their behavior.
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| Sounds like the farce of modern liberte, egalite,
| _fraternite_ , as in fraternite _ou la mort_. Just _try_ not
| to be my brother!
|
| Moral sentimentalism is a fool's errand, because it isn't
| morality. It's a superficial emotional ersatz, not something
| rooted in sound reason and reality. And so "universal
| brotherhood of Man" was always farcical. It's like those
| people who "love humanity", but can't be bothered to feed the
| homeless guy on the corner, or treat his wife decently and
| with due care. It always has to be something "grand" and "out
| there". It replaces authentic, concrete local allegiances -
| all relationships are local - with abstract, impersonal
| "brotherhood", which ultimately destroys real social
| cohesion.
|
| Yes, there is a "human family". But family and community are
| not some undifferentiated, homogeneous mass. Society is
| ordered and composite. While we can love all as a matter of
| general _disposition_ and wishing them well, love as such is
| manifested in the concrete and the active, not mere affect or
| the abstract. Our priorities and duties of love must concern
| concrete persons. They radiate outward and diminish with
| distance (by nature, but obviously there is an obvious
| impracticality to "loving everyone" in any meaningful and
| substantive way). Your duties toward your wife are greater
| than those toward your brother; toward your brother greater
| than your cousin; toward your neighborhood than the next one
| over. This priority is not either/or, and they do not
| preclude aiding more distant siblings in an hour of need.
| Loving one person more than another does not mean hating the
| other or some kind of license to disrespect the dignity as
| that person. It does not give permission for jingoism or
| chauvinism.
|
| In the hyperindividualistic, consumerist liberal developed
| world, the trouble is that we've become atomized. We have
| denied our intrinsically social nature (just as collectivism
| warps it and denies our individuality). In doing so, the
| social order has been thrown into chaos. That's the chief
| reason for our social ills. In our misguided desire for
| "liberty", we have throw away objective morality and the
| notion of pre-consensual duties. We live to consume, and even
| our relationships are reduced to transactional conduits of
| consumption. Our culture is nihilistic; all it knows is
| consumption. There is no greater horizon. It cannot
| understand the social truly and in a healthy way, only
| according to the language of consumption. And all that
| obstructs unbridled consumption is taken to be opposed to
| "liberty" and therefore something that must be destroyed.
|
| It's the revolutionary ethos of destruction.
| getnormality wrote:
| I agree. One way to sum up what you've said: love in any
| substantial sense is a commitment of effort, and all such
| commitments are economic in nature - that is, inherently
| limited and subject to tradeoffs. And these commitments
| will follow a natural order favoring family and kin,
| according to our nature as evolved organisms.
|
| The key here is that favoring doesn't need to mean
| excluding anything else!
| derbOac wrote:
| I enjoyed this paper, and there's innumerable things that could
| be said about ingroup-outgroup dynamics and corruption.
|
| In my personal experiences with corruption with organizations,
| ingroup membership often becomes increasingly narrowly defined,
| and defined in such a way as to benefit a certain group of
| individuals at the expense of others. The underlying rationale
| is a narcissistic entitlement or rationalization for why one
| person or small group of people is deserving of disproportiate
| benefits or flexibility at the expense of others. It starts
| with some kind of distorted egocentric schema about others in a
| more distal way, and then becomes increasingly strict and more
| proximal. Narcissistic egocentrism is at the core; it only
| manifests more weakly at first, and then becomes stronger. The
| ingroup boundaries never stop shrinking, because there always
| has to be some justification for why that particular group --
| which was never really defined by the initial ingroup
| boundaries, the ingroup was only a proxy for themselves -- is
| more deserving than others.
| csfNight167 wrote:
| Such an insightful article. Had to cover in 3 sittings though -
| the reading is a bit dense.
| jacquesm wrote:
| It's Gwern! He's like a combine harvester for data in all
| forms, digesting it and putting stuff out there that is usually
| bullet proof and extremely enlightening. I've yet to see him
| put out something that didn't meet that standard. Well worth
| your time, also on other subjects.
| cyber_kinetist wrote:
| The actual linked PDF is not from Gwern, it's a 2003 paper
| from two sociologists Blake E. Ashforth and Vikas Anand.
| Paracompact wrote:
| > Fear is induced by coercion, the threat of negative
| consequences such as ostracism and demotion. To be sure, blatant
| coercion facilitates the denial of responsibility and thereby
| compliance with corrupt directives. Such coercion, however,
| leaves less room for (perceived) volition, a key precondition for
| the dissonance reduction process discussed earlier. Newcomers
| subject to blatant coercion have a sufficient justification for
| their obedience - to avoid the threat - and thus do not need to
| realign their attitudes to accommodate the otherwise dissonant
| behavior. Indeed, blatant coercion may provoke resentment and
| reactance against the source of coercion and the targeted
| behavior (e.g. Nail, Van Leeuwen & Powell, 1996). The upshot is a
| greater likelihood of grudging compliance, whistle-blowing and
| voluntary turnover (and thus, risk of exposure). Further,
| coercion may affect behavior only as long as the pressure is
| applied. For these reasons, blatant coercion tends to be an
| ineffective means of sustaining corruption.
|
| Astute. When the average person is asked to imagine how corrupt
| leaders operate, I think they tend to overemphasize the
| effectiveness of simple violence. To foster a corruption that
| will last, you have to mold the circumstances so that corruption
| is the only option that makes sense.
| cpa wrote:
| Another good read: https://www.scu.edu/ethics/focus-
| areas/business-ethics/resou...
| rramadass wrote:
| Absolutely on point!
|
| You need only look at the bureaucracies in countries which rank
| high on the corruption index. Most join to just earn a livelihood
| but are soon "socialized into corruption".
|
| From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption#Causes
|
| _Per R. Klitgaard corruption will occur if the corrupt gain is
| greater than the punitive damages multiplied by the likelihood of
| being caught and prosecuted.
|
| Since a high degree of monopoly and discretion accompanied by a
| low degree of transparency does not automatically lead to
| corruption, a fourth variable of "morality" or "integrity" has
| been introduced by others. The moral dimension has an intrinsic
| component and refers to a "mentality problem", and an extrinsic
| component referring to circumstances like poverty, inadequate
| remuneration, inappropriate work conditions and inoperable or
| over-complicated procedures which demoralize people and let them
| search for "alternative" solutions._
|
| The references section has lots of links for further study of
| which Robert Klitgaard's _Controlling Corruption_ is a classic
| with case studies.
|
| One thing i would like to know more of is how Technology either
| reduces or exacerbates corruption.
| luke5441 wrote:
| Well, I know of one technology whos primary use-case is
| corruption: Crypto.
| rramadass wrote:
| With corruption, one needs to look at the overall system i.e.
| involving Society/Individual/Economics/Politics/Organizations
| /Processes/Technologies/etc. rather than narrow silos.
|
| On the whole, i feel technology has been a corruption
| mitigater since it reduces the human factor (i.e. the
| motivation/cause) from the process chain. This has been
| validated in my own personal experience.
|
| On the flip side, when used by people-in-control it
| concentrates power in the hands of the few and its non-linear
| disproportionate effects can exacerbate the problem
| tremendously eg. various Internet based scams.
|
| PS: _Are emerging technologies helping win the fight against
| corruption? A review of the state of evidence_ - https://www.
| sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016762452...
| casey2 wrote:
| Corruption is defined as deviation from universalism. Shouldn't
| orgs at least pretend to care about productivity or is that the
| ultimate sin for a universalist? Or is the ultimate sin not
| pretending that universalism is productive?
| justonceokay wrote:
| Young people hate it when friends work together because it
| means they are at a disadvantage as they are not making friends
| ArchieScrivener wrote:
| There are some great movies that deal with this: Wall Street, The
| Firm, The Big Short, Suicide Kings, Michael Clayton, among
| others.
|
| One can even consider the never ending Ethics classes in college
| an ironic form of corruption that never teaches anything we don't
| already know by secondary school, but used to pad credit numbers
| and tuition revenue.
| codechicago277 wrote:
| My business ethics professor just showed clips from Yes,
| Minister! and House of Cards in class and showed the tactics.
| Seemed odd at the time, but I got more out of it than a normal
| ethics class.
| stared wrote:
| As a counterexample, here is an example of a Singaporean officer
| refusing to accept a bribe, as reported by Lee Kuan Yew:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/shorts/nZv_UkMh0FA
| _factor wrote:
| The people who crave that money and influence tend to be
| control freak psycho/sociopaths. They need to feel superior to
| others because deep down they don't/can't value themselves.
| They don't even know what they're competing/fighting for
| anymore. They just can't stop because they know no other way.
| NoToP wrote:
| The 1972 Knapp Commission report is essential reading on the
| topic
| quacked wrote:
| I take some issue with these kinds of articles that minimize the
| impacts of "street crime" in favor of the admittedly much broader
| and insidious effects of corporate crime.
|
| Corporate crime generally can coexist with a functioning system,
| even while it drains the prosperity of society, but street crime
| will just dissolve the society overnight. People physically
| abandon locations with high street crime.
|
| A corrupt system is still a system, meaning that in theory it
| operates to produce something of value for society (e.g. in
| addition to lying about climate change, causing cancer, and
| blocking renewable energy via lawfare and propaganda, BP provides
| a colossal amount of fuel for society) but street crime produces
| nothing and destroys community outright at the local level.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| But street crime is often a symptom of the "much broader and
| insidious effects of corporate crime": social systems stripped
| of resources by politicians to provide grants to baseball
| stadiums, police patrols in quiet wealthy streets but
| abandoning poorer quarters, tax incentives to companies that
| then pay their employees so little they are a burden on the
| food security systems, mental health care priced out of reach
| for the poor so they end up homeless and violent.
|
| You can list these connected problems all day.
| cassepipe wrote:
| > People physically abandon locations with high street crime.
|
| Exactly. Which is why
|
| > ... street crime will just dissolve the society overnight
|
| is false. Street crime is also generally limited to poor areas
| and people who can't move out will be the first victims. Street
| crime does not dissolve trust at the societal level, it just
| dissolve trust of everyone into a few segments of the
| population (whose members are also now the first victims of
| that loss of trust)
|
| Whereas corruption is a cancer that takes hold of all
| institutions as anyone and you might need to leave your country
| altogether when it becomes a third world hellhole.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| This is how the US falls. The entire US as organization, with
| corruption at the very top.
| derbOac wrote:
| The rationalization aspect of their model can't be overstated
| enough in my opinion. It never starts with something clearly
| unethical; it starts with something more complicated. Something
| that is uncomfortable and morally suboptimal, but has some
| justification being appealed to -- it benefits the group, it's
| otherwise unfair for some members to have to bear some small
| temporary cost for the benefits of others, or something of that
| sort. The level of the corrupt behavior becomes more and more
| extreme though, such that justification becomes more and more
| questionable, until you're left with something more seriously
| problematic. In the meantime, the people who questioned the
| slippery slope might have left, and you're left with people who
| aren't in a position of power for whatever reason (they're
| junior, or in small numbers) to question what has become clearly
| unethical cultural norms.
| rayiner wrote:
| I think the article is overlooking an important category of
| corruption where social norms treat certain acts as
| theoretically immoral but in practice impose little to no
| social sanction for such acts. In places like India, for
| example, taking bribes is just standard practice. It carries so
| little social sanction that it's like jaywalking here in the
| US. People acknowledge it's technically illegal, but it carries
| so little social sanction that people don't consciously need to
| rationalize it. The same thing with cheating in schools, which
| is normalized in India and has become almost as normalized in
| the U.S.
| WhatsTheBigIdea wrote:
| I like this definition of corruption, though there are
| many...
|
| "The abuse of entrusted power for private gain"
|
| Jaywalking is breaking the law, but it is not corruption.
|
| Civil disobedience is also typically breaking the law, but is
| not corruption.
|
| It is important to recognize that just because a system is
| codified in law does not mean that it is not corrupt.
| rayiner wrote:
| The "power" focus for corruption is not useful. Corruption
| by people without power is more harmful to society than
| high level corruption. People skimming off the top is
| undesirable, but survivable. But ordinary people taking
| bribes and cheating grinds society to a halt and makes it
| impossible to develop societal wealth.
|
| This is well evidenced in the development of asian
| countries in the 20th century. South Korea has plenty of
| corruption at a high level. But it's clean at the lower
| level, and as a result it's been able to become a rich
| society. By contrast, India has crippling corruption at
| lowest levels of society that imposes a huge drag on
| routine transactions and daily life.
| chaostheory wrote:
| Corruption is as normal as cancer in organizations. Sometimes it
| gets excised, and new cells form eventually starting the process
| again. Other times, it ends up killing the organization.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| I feel like seeing people disregard traffic laws fits this topic
| in some related way. They could be patient, they might arrive at
| their destination 1-3 minutes slower (or not), but in the moment
| they choose to break the law and put others at risk.
|
| 1. You see others do it and feel compelled not to be taken
| advantage of
|
| 2. You start with small things as escalate
|
| 3. You normalize the behavior in one context and then it expands
| to other context.
|
| This feels like it's following similar patterns of normalization
|
| Even if it's not direct death, which, with at 4000lb car is
| certainly a possibility, it can indirectly cause severe
| repercussions. If you ruin someone's car they might not be able
| to get to work. They lose value in their car even if repaired.
| Repairs are never 100%. They also have to deal with all the time
| dealing with the time dealing with accident itself and time
| dealing with repairs etc. Time they could have spent earning a
| living or taking care of loved ones.
|
| Yesterday I was at a 1 lane road where there's enough room on the
| right to squeeze in for a right turn. A driver squeezed to that
| right turn area on the red. Then on the green they went through
| the light and illegally passed all other cars. I see this kind of
| stuff daily.
|
| Another one I see regularly. There's left turn lane with a left
| turn arrow. The lane to the right of the left turn lane is NOT a
| left turn lane, yet random drivers turn left from it. It's more
| common to see them turn left when there's the green turn signal
| but I've seen them turn left when the left turn signal is red.
|
| Another that escalated over the years is cutting across multiple
| lanes of traffic and the painted barrier to take a freeway exit
| at the last second.
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