5 ms·

(I'm a US immigrant, generalisations have issues) One thing I've noticed is that culture in the US seems to focus more on the getting caught side of things, ve

(I'm a US immigrant, generalisations have issues) One thing I've noticed is that culture in the US seems to focus more on the getting caught side of things, versus the wrong doing in the first place. The classic case is tax returns, where you tell the government how much you made, what you deduct, and hence how much you owe. Because a proportion of the information is self reported, it is (especially in the past) possible to cheat. Anecdata is that cheating, and getting away with it is somewhat common, and not frowned on by society. Another is speeding on the roads, where ire is directed at the process of catching speeders versus the reason for the limits and their levels.

chatterbeak 10y ago
> Anecdata is that cheating, and getting away with it is somewhat common, and not frowned on by society. It depends. The Left, for example, thinks it's perfectly fine for the illegal immigrants, home workers, people selling "loosies" on the street, etc, to have cash business and evade income taxes. But if a wealthy person--even through legal means--minimizes his taxes, that's bad! In my opinion, the little and the big tax cheat (here this means only people breaking the law, not those taking advantage of it) are equally "bad" and should be punished equally.
kbenson 10y ago
The US has a rather complex tax system, and one in which the default rates can be rather high but are offset by many different credits and deductions. This leads to a situation where if you aren't proactively trying to take all the legal deductions you can you may end up paying significantly more than you needed to. It's my opinion that this leads to a perception that the government is out to take advantage of you unless you proactively protect yourself, and I think that may lead to people being far more willing to lie to reduce what they pay due to the feeling that government has taken advantage of them in the past, or at least tries to. "Fairness" is a highly developed Human trait, and has even been shown in primates[1]. This is, of course, my pet theory regarding taxes and I'm not providing sources (but maybe some exist?), so take it for what it's worth. 1: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_monkeyfairness.html http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_...
- rogerbinns 10y ago
  As an outsider your opinion does seem to be the case, but I've heard stories of people taking it quite a bit further (eg claiming dependants that in no way meet the criteria). It is probably easier to rationalise incremental steps away from what should be done over time as you get away with each previous one. What originally perplexed me originally would be seeing signs like "do not walk on the grass" and in some places it seemed completely ignored, and others obeyed. Same with speed limits (one time I was the slowest driver on the New Jersey turnpike because the signs said go 45 due to roadwork, so I did). I think it is the chances of getting caught that define people's behaviour, not any reasons for the rules in the first place, and this seemed to be a very big American trait. BTW Dunbar's number is also related to the fairness thing IMHO.

chatterbeak 10y ago

> Anecdata is that cheating, and getting away with it is somewhat common, and not frowned on by society. It depends. The Left, for example, thinks it's perfectly fine for the illegal immigrants, home workers, people selling "loosies" on the street, etc, to have cash business and evade income taxes. But if a wealthy person--even through legal means--minimizes his taxes, that's bad! In my opinion, the little and the big tax cheat (here this means only people breaking the law, not those taking advantage of it) are equally "bad" and should be punished equally.

kbenson 10y ago

The US has a rather complex tax system, and one in which the default rates can be rather high but are offset by many different credits and deductions. This leads to a situation where if you aren't proactively trying to take all the legal deductions you can you may end up paying significantly more than you needed to. It's my opinion that this leads to a perception that the government is out to take advantage of you unless you proactively protect yourself, and I think that may lead to people being far more willing to lie to reduce what they pay due to the feeling that government has taken advantage of them in the past, or at least tries to. "Fairness" is a highly developed Human trait, and has even been shown in primates[1]. This is, of course, my pet theory regarding taxes and I'm not providing sources (but maybe some exist?), so take it for what it's worth. 1: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_monkeyfairness.html http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/09/0917_030917_...

rogerbinns 10y ago
As an outsider your opinion does seem to be the case, but I've heard stories of people taking it quite a bit further (eg claiming dependants that in no way meet the criteria). It is probably easier to rationalise incremental steps away from what should be done over time as you get away with each previous one. What originally perplexed me originally would be seeing signs like "do not walk on the grass" and in some places it seemed completely ignored, and others obeyed. Same with speed limits (one time I was the slowest driver on the New Jersey turnpike because the signs said go 45 due to roadwork, so I did). I think it is the chances of getting caught that define people's behaviour, not any reasons for the rules in the first place, and this seemed to be a very big American trait. BTW Dunbar's number is also related to the fairness thing IMHO.