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I guess the old saying "Nobody got fired for buying [from] IBM." isn't true any longer?

johansch 9y ago
Well, one person was already fired for buying this kind of IBM, but that was just the director general of the authority that leaked the data. The thing most swedes have an issue with is that the government tried to silence the leak for like two years (people really dislike being actively lied to). If they had owned it, I don't think it would have been such a big deal.
- adrianratnapala 9y ago
  It is an old truism that it is the cover-up that gets you. I.e. when we look at scandals, the thing that people generally get in trouble for was part of the cover up rather than the original scandal. Given that this is common knowledge, why do cover-ups keep happening? Theory (A): the failed cover-ups we hear about are only a tiny fraction of the successful ones, so on average it is rational to try and cover things up. (B) cover-ups are not rational on average, but some bias in human psychology makes people do it anyway. I am inclined to believe both, even though they contradict each other. I am also working on a (C) involving multiple parties drawing each other into the cover up in such a way that the person who takes the fall is not the principal who started the trouble.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Given that this is common knowledge, why do cover-ups keep happening? Because the cover-ups work, and only happen when the people involved are deeply involved in the original scandal in a way which would get them in more trouble if it came out than their involvement in the cover up would. The fact that often their role in the cover up does get them in trouble doesn't change that the cover-up is usually successful, even in those cases, at preventing their role in encouraging (or more) the original wrongdoing from coming to light.
  - tormeh 9y ago
    I can see the psychological angle: "Why fess up to it today when I can do it tomorrow?". Delaying the pain until someone realizes the window in which they could have made it public is now over and they have to continue covering it up.
  - daemin 9y ago
    People cover up things because at the time when the cover up starts the damage/cost of exposing the problem and taking the blame far outweighs the cost of doing a cover up. As time progresses (the simple view is) one of two things can happen, either the incident blows over and so the cover up was worth it, or the person needs to keep maintaining and increasing the cover up, thus increasing the damage/cost of the cover up. In this way we end up with cover ups that cause more damage and are more costly than the original incidents, even though at the onset just owning up to the error would be less costly in the long term.

Well, one person was already fired for buying this kind of IBM, but that was just the director general of the authority that leaked the data. The thing most swedes have an issue with is that the government tried to silence the leak for like two years (people really dislike being actively lied to). If they had owned it, I don't think it would have been such a big deal.

adrianratnapala 9y ago
It is an old truism that it is the cover-up that gets you. I.e. when we look at scandals, the thing that people generally get in trouble for was part of the cover up rather than the original scandal. Given that this is common knowledge, why do cover-ups keep happening? Theory (A): the failed cover-ups we hear about are only a tiny fraction of the successful ones, so on average it is rational to try and cover things up. (B) cover-ups are not rational on average, but some bias in human psychology makes people do it anyway. I am inclined to believe both, even though they contradict each other. I am also working on a (C) involving multiple parties drawing each other into the cover up in such a way that the person who takes the fall is not the principal who started the trouble.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Given that this is common knowledge, why do cover-ups keep happening? Because the cover-ups work, and only happen when the people involved are deeply involved in the original scandal in a way which would get them in more trouble if it came out than their involvement in the cover up would. The fact that often their role in the cover up does get them in trouble doesn't change that the cover-up is usually successful, even in those cases, at preventing their role in encouraging (or more) the original wrongdoing from coming to light.
- tormeh 9y ago
  I can see the psychological angle: "Why fess up to it today when I can do it tomorrow?". Delaying the pain until someone realizes the window in which they could have made it public is now over and they have to continue covering it up.
- daemin 9y ago
  People cover up things because at the time when the cover up starts the damage/cost of exposing the problem and taking the blame far outweighs the cost of doing a cover up. As time progresses (the simple view is) one of two things can happen, either the incident blows over and so the cover up was worth it, or the person needs to keep maintaining and increasing the cover up, thus increasing the damage/cost of the cover up. In this way we end up with cover ups that cause more damage and are more costly than the original incidents, even though at the onset just owning up to the error would be less costly in the long term.