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had financial judgements against you, You had me with the other two, I don't know about this one. In the absence of criminal financial malfeasance, or delibera

had financial judgements against you, You had me with the other two, I don't know about this one. In the absence of criminal financial malfeasance, or deliberately poor mishandling of instruments an official had some responsibility over as an individual acting in the public trust, I can't think of a compelling argument for why this needs to be the public's business. I can only presume, but I'm with pause to put words into your mouth that this is probably want you meant?

cromwellian 9y ago
Exhibit A: Donald J Trump. Very high number of civil judgements against him (over 3000), indicating a highly unreliable person prone to con-artistry. While not having been criminally convicted (although he settled the TrumpU fraud case), the sheer weight of the judgements suggests with high confidence he is not to be trusted. Do you think stories about the thousands of judgements against him should have been delisted from the public prior to the election? I'd argue they are materially relevant to voters. The same goes for his tax returns, and the private financial dealings of political candidates. IMHO, if you run for public office, you deliberate opt-in to public scrutiny of your private financial and civil court history.
- iamdave 9y ago
  >Do you think stories about the thousands of judgements against him should have been delisted from the public prior to the election? Shotgun reaction (knee-jerk, better phrase probably): no but Trump is such an exigent outlier here because of his immense footprint in various financial endeavors. Apply the same scrutiny to every citizen who steps up even to serve on city council, taken to it's extreme conclusion and you have John Q. Public getting grilled over his financials because someone found out he accidentally bounced a rent check in 2001 when he was in college. But that's also why I made the qualifier of someone with a fiduciary responsibility to certain public trusts. Trump clearly fits this as someone with vetted interests in a very large (private) corporation and other business interests. Don't get me wrong here: I definitely agree and value a thorough review of a candidate's worthiness for office, I'm still incredulous about the path we have to go down when we start looking at an individual's finances as an indicator of public service to the extent of running for office. Said a better way: I'm looking at the extremely long view of this and having reservations about our ability to remain objective on the matter. So if we scale back from the extreme conclusion of Mr. Public and his bounced rent check from 2001, what does the middle ground look like and what is the framework for how the logic ladder works over asking candidates running for public office to disclose their financial 'worthiness' (read: I'm using this separately from the obvious disclosures that one may already be morally obliged to turn over such as relations one's business may have to government entities they would invariably preside over) and you may end up convincing me to change my mind.
  - cromwellian 9y ago
    I definitely don't consider whether it individual was late on his credit card bills or got evicted for rent to be a strike against his worthiness for public office, in fact, it might even be a benefit in that he knows the problems of financial hardship and can empathize with the electorate. That's why I mentioned [sic] "high networth" individuals in my original post. I weight failure to pay your small bills when you inherited millions or are worth billions are far more indicative of bad management skills or unreliability than someone who is poor missing payments.
    - iamdave 9y ago
      That's why I mentioned [sic] "high networth" individuals in my original post. I suppose you'll have to pardon my cynicism towards how exploitable the general public is, or rather, how exploitative 24 hour political coverage is, at large to be worrisome that this wont just end up in pronounced levels of Tall Poppy Syndrome spreading through the population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome Edit: Let me clarify something before it gets confused, I am not suggesting that the sort of inquiry on finances you're proposing is itself an example of Tall Poppy, I am saying that left unchecked the sort of thinking that goes into "we need use financials to vet the worthiness our prospective politicians" could have the result of overcorrecting the inquiry of integrity and objectivity in office to many of the symptoms endemic to the Tall Poppy phenomenon.
      - igorkraw 9y ago
        Honestly, I don't think that ever becomes a problem in a sufficiently transparent and competitive democratic system. If there is true selection pressure, skill rises to the top. It also seems to me that if people are "superior" to others, they should be able to deal with what your link talks about. It therefore to feels to me a lot like the pseudo-meritrocratic rationalizations of people privileged by birth,environment or genetics (like us on this website, statistically speaking) that don't want to learn how to deal with people who won't blindly accept their status. Yes, sometimes that is annoying, irrational, inefficient. But it is also important, because no matter how smart we are we might be wrong.
Vinnl 9y ago
I'm not quite sure whether "accused of sexual misconduct" is that great either. Anyone can accuse anyone of anything, and especially on the internet, these things have a way of getting a life on their own. And especially in the case of public figures, these things can be an easy way to blackmail them/bring them down. Not that I'm in favour of Google acting policeman, but these things are just pet peeves of mine that I think we should be careful with.
- lloeki 9y ago
  Given two headlines: - "foo suspected of sexual misconduct" @t=0 - "foo proved to be innocent in sexual misconduct case" @t+1 mo/yr/whatevs Guess: - what people will consciously or subconsciously remember when scanning through Google results - which one will get the most clicks/views/pagerank at various points in time That is, if they ever continue and look for the second one. And even if it were the last one, many (most?) people will be subconsciously biased anyway by the shock effect of the foo <-> sexual misconduct tie, which obliterates the "innocent" part.
  - sincerely 9y ago
    People aren't proven innocent (at least in the US), they're found "not guilty", which is significantly distinct
- cortesoft 9y ago
  This makes sense, but you also have to think of the other side; there are a lot of people who have been victims of sexual misconduct but there was not enough evidence to convict the perpetrator. Don't those people have the right to REMEMBER what happened to them, and tell people about what happened to them if they want to?
  - Vinnl 9y ago
    Totally, and I'm in favour of people figuring out what the facts are by themselves over Google doing that on their behalf. My call was more for those people to keep my comment in mind when they're doing so.

cromwellian 9y ago

Exhibit A: Donald J Trump. Very high number of civil judgements against him (over 3000), indicating a highly unreliable person prone to con-artistry. While not having been criminally convicted (although he settled the TrumpU fraud case), the sheer weight of the judgements suggests with high confidence he is not to be trusted. Do you think stories about the thousands of judgements against him should have been delisted from the public prior to the election? I'd argue they are materially relevant to voters. The same goes for his tax returns, and the private financial dealings of political candidates. IMHO, if you run for public office, you deliberate opt-in to public scrutiny of your private financial and civil court history.

iamdave 9y ago
>Do you think stories about the thousands of judgements against him should have been delisted from the public prior to the election? Shotgun reaction (knee-jerk, better phrase probably): no but Trump is such an exigent outlier here because of his immense footprint in various financial endeavors. Apply the same scrutiny to every citizen who steps up even to serve on city council, taken to it's extreme conclusion and you have John Q. Public getting grilled over his financials because someone found out he accidentally bounced a rent check in 2001 when he was in college. But that's also why I made the qualifier of someone with a fiduciary responsibility to certain public trusts. Trump clearly fits this as someone with vetted interests in a very large (private) corporation and other business interests. Don't get me wrong here: I definitely agree and value a thorough review of a candidate's worthiness for office, I'm still incredulous about the path we have to go down when we start looking at an individual's finances as an indicator of public service to the extent of running for office. Said a better way: I'm looking at the extremely long view of this and having reservations about our ability to remain objective on the matter. So if we scale back from the extreme conclusion of Mr. Public and his bounced rent check from 2001, what does the middle ground look like and what is the framework for how the logic ladder works over asking candidates running for public office to disclose their financial 'worthiness' (read: I'm using this separately from the obvious disclosures that one may already be morally obliged to turn over such as relations one's business may have to government entities they would invariably preside over) and you may end up convincing me to change my mind.
- cromwellian 9y ago
  I definitely don't consider whether it individual was late on his credit card bills or got evicted for rent to be a strike against his worthiness for public office, in fact, it might even be a benefit in that he knows the problems of financial hardship and can empathize with the electorate. That's why I mentioned [sic] "high networth" individuals in my original post. I weight failure to pay your small bills when you inherited millions or are worth billions are far more indicative of bad management skills or unreliability than someone who is poor missing payments.
  - iamdave 9y ago
    That's why I mentioned [sic] "high networth" individuals in my original post. I suppose you'll have to pardon my cynicism towards how exploitable the general public is, or rather, how exploitative 24 hour political coverage is, at large to be worrisome that this wont just end up in pronounced levels of Tall Poppy Syndrome spreading through the population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome Edit: Let me clarify something before it gets confused, I am not suggesting that the sort of inquiry on finances you're proposing is itself an example of Tall Poppy, I am saying that left unchecked the sort of thinking that goes into "we need use financials to vet the worthiness our prospective politicians" could have the result of overcorrecting the inquiry of integrity and objectivity in office to many of the symptoms endemic to the Tall Poppy phenomenon.
    - igorkraw 9y ago
      Honestly, I don't think that ever becomes a problem in a sufficiently transparent and competitive democratic system. If there is true selection pressure, skill rises to the top. It also seems to me that if people are "superior" to others, they should be able to deal with what your link talks about. It therefore to feels to me a lot like the pseudo-meritrocratic rationalizations of people privileged by birth,environment or genetics (like us on this website, statistically speaking) that don't want to learn how to deal with people who won't blindly accept their status. Yes, sometimes that is annoying, irrational, inefficient. But it is also important, because no matter how smart we are we might be wrong.

Vinnl 9y ago

I'm not quite sure whether "accused of sexual misconduct" is that great either. Anyone can accuse anyone of anything, and especially on the internet, these things have a way of getting a life on their own. And especially in the case of public figures, these things can be an easy way to blackmail them/bring them down. Not that I'm in favour of Google acting policeman, but these things are just pet peeves of mine that I think we should be careful with.

lloeki 9y ago
Given two headlines: - "foo suspected of sexual misconduct" @t=0 - "foo proved to be innocent in sexual misconduct case" @t+1 mo/yr/whatevs Guess: - what people will consciously or subconsciously remember when scanning through Google results - which one will get the most clicks/views/pagerank at various points in time That is, if they ever continue and look for the second one. And even if it were the last one, many (most?) people will be subconsciously biased anyway by the shock effect of the foo <-> sexual misconduct tie, which obliterates the "innocent" part.
- sincerely 9y ago
  People aren't proven innocent (at least in the US), they're found "not guilty", which is significantly distinct
cortesoft 9y ago
This makes sense, but you also have to think of the other side; there are a lot of people who have been victims of sexual misconduct but there was not enough evidence to convict the perpetrator. Don't those people have the right to REMEMBER what happened to them, and tell people about what happened to them if they want to?
- Vinnl 9y ago
  Totally, and I'm in favour of people figuring out what the facts are by themselves over Google doing that on their behalf. My call was more for those people to keep my comment in mind when they're doing so.