4 ms·

The US would be better off if we put the hobos in charge. Seems like they have a lot better ethics than many politicians and business leaders.

throwaway_boi 9y ago
It's easy to be incorruptible when you have no power.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  That cuts both ways. There's no law of nature requiring the hideous monstrosity of coercive power that we've created.
  - giardini 9y ago
    Please be clear: are you talking about - the NSA, CIA, and FBI, - Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google, or - AT&T & Comcast, or something else?
    - staticautomatic 9y ago
      The forces shaping the society we live in are much deeper and more pervasive than 3 letter agencies and big corporations, bad as they may sometimes be.
      - ILikeConemowk 9y ago
        This is also my line of thinking but would love to read more about your perspective. Would you be willing to elaborate on "the forces" you think shape our society?
        mlevental 9y ago
        just Google "Hegel ideology"
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      Very few of those who would use a pathetic excuse like "don't blame me blame the privileges inherent to the towering position of authoritarian power I have battled to attain" would be comfortable with the obvious rejoinder: let's get rid of that towering position of authoritarian power. So, it's difficult to take that excuse seriously, whether it comes from a CEO or LEO or whatever.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  I think the absolutism here is erroneous. Nomads/hobos may have less power, and therefore less incentive, but there is still plenty of opportunity to take advantage of opportunities immorally. That's mentioned in the code. I've lived life travelling the world on a shoestring, hiking some of the world's most famous trails, living in cars, camping on beaches, etc. Of course it's a bit different as it's easy to do this and there are lots of backpackers about--most of them quite casual in their pursuit of freedom. Anyways most people without lust to follow the dictations of the almighty dollar (or other forms of power over others, like becoming a police officer) but still have enough ambition and gumption to put in the effort to do this sort of thing, tend to be really wonderful people... Occasionally a bit of the rails, though.
- Clubber 9y ago
  >It's easy to be incorruptible when you have no power. Are you excusing corruption because it's hard to be disciplined enough to not be corrupt when you have power?
  - jaredklewis 9y ago
    Doesn’t sound like it. I think the parent is more likely insinuating skepticism that hobos would be able to maintain their moral clarity after being given all the power of a politician. Chris Rock has a great standup bit where he points out that you can’t really know how faithful a man is to his wife if the man has never had the opportunity to cheat. Celebrities are often in the news for cheating on their wives. This may not be an indication that they have any weaker morals than ordinary men, but rather simply that they have far more opportunities to cheat than ordinary men. How many ordinary, faithful men would make the same mistakes if suddenly given all the wealth and social status of George Clooney or whoever?
    - Clubber 9y ago
      I see. That's a good analogy. I'm not sure I understand the driving force of political corruption though. Obviously with sex, it's natures very powerful sex drive. With corruption, if the politician is already wealthy, what's the point in soiling their self worth by being corrupt? Maybe it was corruption that got them wealthy in the first place. It seems like US politicians are plagued with it. I consider constant giveaways to the wealthy while mostly ignoring the majority of the population to be corruption, like this recent tax bill.
      - manwe150 9y ago
        It is probably not always as simple, or even as logical, as that. For one anecdote, Planet Money did an interesting piece following the motivations of an inside trader: 671 - An Insider Trader Tells All (https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/03/23/596533461/episode-671-an-insider-trader-tells-all https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/03/23/596533461/epis...). As mieseratte says in another comment thread here, "it's not black and white as you paint it." What I'm saying is, that one of the (perhaps uncountably many) driving forces of corruption might be misplaced altruism – a few skilled con men who know how to present the right argument to persuade others. To hack their neural network, if you will. Or another answer might be: "why not? it was possible to do". Another recent episode to follow a similar line of investigation would be "Episode 685: Larry vs. The IRS".
- FranzFerdiNaN 9y ago
  Those poor rich people. They just can't help themselves being worthless pieces of shit like Jeff "the only worthwhile goal for my stolen billions is space" Bezos.
xvedejas 9y ago
The fact that such a code existed at all suggests that someone thought it was necessary. There must've been a fair number of unethical hobos.
- smadge 9y ago
  Seems like some sort of fallacy. If an organization doesn’t have an ethics code, then critics can say that the organization needs to hold themselves up to ethical standards, if they do have an ethics code, critics can point out, like you have, that there must be a bunch of ethical violations which created the need for the code.
  - rusk 9y ago
    Yeah well it's kind of like how we have all this financial regulation yet at the same time (allegedly) have widespread financial corruption ...
- wallace_f 9y ago
  I think this kind of thinking seems to not be that harmful, but in reality it can lead to the absolute worst justifications and actions in human history, such as: >The fact that such a law existed at all suggests that someone thought it was necessary. There must've been a fair number of unethical witches/gays/drug users/race of people.
  - xvedejas 9y ago
    But your example is a law against witches/gays, not a law against _unethical_ witches/gays. I don't think your example is a fair analogy. The first sentence does in fact imply to me that there must've been some number of people thought to be witches/gays/etc
- InclinedPlane 9y ago
  Not necessarily. If you have a large influx of people into a community then it becomes more necessary to codify a community's standards of behavior.
2RTZZSro 9y ago
"The political has nothing in common with the moral. The ruler who is governed by the moral is not a skilled politician, and is therefore unstable on his throne. He who wishes to rule must have recourse both to cunning and to make-believe. Great national qualities, like frankness and honesty, are vices in politics, for they bring down rulers from their thrones more effectively and more certainly than the most powerful enemy. Such qualities must be the attributes of the kingdoms of the [CENSORED], but we must in no wise be guided by them."
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jjoonathan 9y ago
  The real question is how to make a system with better incentives. The only thing I've been able to come up with would be to dilute the expected reward of the political game with stochastic power structures. Democratically maintain a pool of candidates and then use some a random process to select from them. Nobody will ever ask me, of course, but it's fun to think about.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    That suggestion reminds of the system in Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth: “For the last century, almost all the top political appointments on Terra had been made by random computer selection from the pool of individuals who had the necessary qualifications. It had taken the human race several thousand years to realize that there were some jobs that should never be given to people who volunteered for them, especially if they showed too much enthusiasm. As one shrewd political commentator had remarked: “We want a President who has to be carried screaming and kicking into the White House – but will then do the best job he possibly can, so that he’ll get time off for good behavior.”
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dang 9y ago
  Whatever dogwhistling quoting the Protocols of Zion unattributed and replacing "GOYIM" with "CENSORED" is supposed to be, it's beyond the pale for HN. Such games are a bannable offense here, so please don't do it again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: it looks like you've been using HN for ideological and national flamewar, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16943121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16943121. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't.
williamdclt 9y ago
"If a baby were president, there would be no taxes, there would be no war. There would be no... government, and... things could get terrible. It actually, probably, it would be a better... screenplay idea than a serious suggestion." - Michael Scott

throwaway_boi 9y ago

It's easy to be incorruptible when you have no power.

jessaustin 9y ago
That cuts both ways. There's no law of nature requiring the hideous monstrosity of coercive power that we've created.
- giardini 9y ago
  Please be clear: are you talking about - the NSA, CIA, and FBI, - Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google, or - AT&T & Comcast, or something else?
  - staticautomatic 9y ago
    The forces shaping the society we live in are much deeper and more pervasive than 3 letter agencies and big corporations, bad as they may sometimes be.
    - ILikeConemowk 9y ago
      This is also my line of thinking but would love to read more about your perspective. Would you be willing to elaborate on "the forces" you think shape our society?
      - mlevental 9y ago
        just Google "Hegel ideology"
  - jessaustin 9y ago
    Very few of those who would use a pathetic excuse like "don't blame me blame the privileges inherent to the towering position of authoritarian power I have battled to attain" would be comfortable with the obvious rejoinder: let's get rid of that towering position of authoritarian power. So, it's difficult to take that excuse seriously, whether it comes from a CEO or LEO or whatever.
wallace_f 9y ago
I think the absolutism here is erroneous. Nomads/hobos may have less power, and therefore less incentive, but there is still plenty of opportunity to take advantage of opportunities immorally. That's mentioned in the code. I've lived life travelling the world on a shoestring, hiking some of the world's most famous trails, living in cars, camping on beaches, etc. Of course it's a bit different as it's easy to do this and there are lots of backpackers about--most of them quite casual in their pursuit of freedom. Anyways most people without lust to follow the dictations of the almighty dollar (or other forms of power over others, like becoming a police officer) but still have enough ambition and gumption to put in the effort to do this sort of thing, tend to be really wonderful people... Occasionally a bit of the rails, though.
Clubber 9y ago
>It's easy to be incorruptible when you have no power. Are you excusing corruption because it's hard to be disciplined enough to not be corrupt when you have power?
- jaredklewis 9y ago
  Doesn’t sound like it. I think the parent is more likely insinuating skepticism that hobos would be able to maintain their moral clarity after being given all the power of a politician. Chris Rock has a great standup bit where he points out that you can’t really know how faithful a man is to his wife if the man has never had the opportunity to cheat. Celebrities are often in the news for cheating on their wives. This may not be an indication that they have any weaker morals than ordinary men, but rather simply that they have far more opportunities to cheat than ordinary men. How many ordinary, faithful men would make the same mistakes if suddenly given all the wealth and social status of George Clooney or whoever?
  - Clubber 9y ago
    I see. That's a good analogy. I'm not sure I understand the driving force of political corruption though. Obviously with sex, it's natures very powerful sex drive. With corruption, if the politician is already wealthy, what's the point in soiling their self worth by being corrupt? Maybe it was corruption that got them wealthy in the first place. It seems like US politicians are plagued with it. I consider constant giveaways to the wealthy while mostly ignoring the majority of the population to be corruption, like this recent tax bill.
    - manwe150 9y ago
      It is probably not always as simple, or even as logical, as that. For one anecdote, Planet Money did an interesting piece following the motivations of an inside trader: 671 - An Insider Trader Tells All (https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/03/23/596533461/episode-671-an-insider-trader-tells-all https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/03/23/596533461/epis...). As mieseratte says in another comment thread here, "it's not black and white as you paint it." What I'm saying is, that one of the (perhaps uncountably many) driving forces of corruption might be misplaced altruism – a few skilled con men who know how to present the right argument to persuade others. To hack their neural network, if you will. Or another answer might be: "why not? it was possible to do". Another recent episode to follow a similar line of investigation would be "Episode 685: Larry vs. The IRS".
FranzFerdiNaN 9y ago
Those poor rich people. They just can't help themselves being worthless pieces of shit like Jeff "the only worthwhile goal for my stolen billions is space" Bezos.

xvedejas 9y ago

The fact that such a code existed at all suggests that someone thought it was necessary. There must've been a fair number of unethical hobos.

smadge 9y ago
Seems like some sort of fallacy. If an organization doesn’t have an ethics code, then critics can say that the organization needs to hold themselves up to ethical standards, if they do have an ethics code, critics can point out, like you have, that there must be a bunch of ethical violations which created the need for the code.
- rusk 9y ago
  Yeah well it's kind of like how we have all this financial regulation yet at the same time (allegedly) have widespread financial corruption ...
wallace_f 9y ago
I think this kind of thinking seems to not be that harmful, but in reality it can lead to the absolute worst justifications and actions in human history, such as: >The fact that such a law existed at all suggests that someone thought it was necessary. There must've been a fair number of unethical witches/gays/drug users/race of people.
- xvedejas 9y ago
  But your example is a law against witches/gays, not a law against _unethical_ witches/gays. I don't think your example is a fair analogy. The first sentence does in fact imply to me that there must've been some number of people thought to be witches/gays/etc
InclinedPlane 9y ago
Not necessarily. If you have a large influx of people into a community then it becomes more necessary to codify a community's standards of behavior.

2RTZZSro 9y ago

"The political has nothing in common with the moral. The ruler who is governed by the moral is not a skilled politician, and is therefore unstable on his throne. He who wishes to rule must have recourse both to cunning and to make-believe. Great national qualities, like frankness and honesty, are vices in politics, for they bring down rulers from their thrones more effectively and more certainly than the most powerful enemy. Such qualities must be the attributes of the kingdoms of the [CENSORED], but we must in no wise be guided by them."

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jjoonathan 9y ago
The real question is how to make a system with better incentives. The only thing I've been able to come up with would be to dilute the expected reward of the political game with stochastic power structures. Democratically maintain a pool of candidates and then use some a random process to select from them. Nobody will ever ask me, of course, but it's fun to think about.
- icebraining 9y ago
  That suggestion reminds of the system in Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth: “For the last century, almost all the top political appointments on Terra had been made by random computer selection from the pool of individuals who had the necessary qualifications. It had taken the human race several thousand years to realize that there were some jobs that should never be given to people who volunteered for them, especially if they showed too much enthusiasm. As one shrewd political commentator had remarked: “We want a President who has to be carried screaming and kicking into the White House – but will then do the best job he possibly can, so that he’ll get time off for good behavior.”
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
dang 9y ago
Whatever dogwhistling quoting the Protocols of Zion unattributed and replacing "GOYIM" with "CENSORED" is supposed to be, it's beyond the pale for HN. Such games are a bannable offense here, so please don't do it again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: it looks like you've been using HN for ideological and national flamewar, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16943121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16943121. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't.

williamdclt 9y ago

"If a baby were president, there would be no taxes, there would be no war. There would be no... government, and... things could get terrible. It actually, probably, it would be a better... screenplay idea than a serious suggestion." - Michael Scott