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One of the things that struck me the most as I read about the college bribery scandal is that many if not all the parents involved acted as if bribing people, f

by cs702 8y ago

One of the things that struck me the most as I read about the college bribery scandal is that many if not all the parents involved acted as if bribing people, falsifying records, doctoring photographs, etc. were things that "everyone else was doing to get ahead in the admissions game" and therefore they could justify and rationalize it as necessary. At a minimum, they can at least claim they did it for their children. I don't know how anyone could ever justify and rationalize stealing money from the elderly and taxpayers. It seems so wrong; indefensible, really. Jeez...

mdanger007 8y ago
Projection is something the good and bad do. There really is a battle of dark and light you see in mythology and centers on people's psychological need to project their actions as the norm.
austincheney 8y ago
Fraud is wrong. Rationalizing it away as a fashion isn’t justifiable. Both types of fraud you point to are no different for me.
- x0x0 8y ago
  Why? One of the US attorneys wasting our federal tax dollars prosecuting the parents even pointed it out: they bribed the college the wrong way, by not buying them a building like they were supposed to. "We're not talking about donating a building...we're talking about fraud." So the injured parties here are the universities, and their complaint is they got cut out on the bribe dollars. Which is fine and all, but I don't understand at all why that's our problem. That's the universities' problems, and they should feel free to sue their employees for not sharing bribes appropriately. Health care fraud actually hurts people and steals from the federal government, so there's two good reasons to spend our resources prosecuting it.
  - philips 8y ago
    I believe the problem was the personal donation for the fraud was structured as a tax deductible non-profit donation.
  - danso 8y ago
    Universities get substantial federal funding, including Pell and research grants. Such investments are put at risk if the universities fill themselves with unqualified applicants.
    - musicale 8y ago
      Has any university ever lost federal funding because of admitting too many unqualified applicants? I doubt this is a major risk.
      - danso 8y ago
        Where is the claim that a university has ever been found to have admitted “too many unqualified applicants”?
    - x0x0 8y ago
      And what makes the unqualified applications requiring building purchases for admission ok, and the unqualified applicants requiring cash payments to coaches not ok under your rubric?
      - danso 8y ago
        Should be patently obvious that there’s a cap on how many people can donate the kind of money that funds a building — nevermind that such donations are public. There is no cap for a secretive system of bribery and arbitrage.
      - randycupertino 8y ago
        Because donating money directly to the school benefits other students who use the dorms, the building, the research facilities. Straight up bribing the coaches just enriches the coaches.
  - esoterica 8y ago
    I don’t think you know what the word bribe means. Payment in exchange for a product or service (e.g. admission to a college) is not a bribe. When I go to the store and buy a soda I am not bribing the store. A bribe is when you pay an agent of an organization to misappropriate the resources of or otherwise defraud their employer. Like paying a cop to not arrest you, or paying a college coach to pretend you’re a recruited athlete.
  - rhizome 8y ago
    So the injured parties here are the universities And the legitimate applicants who were rejected.
- Thorrez 8y ago
  Of course it's not justifiable. The question is, parents were rationalizing school bribery, was this man rationalizing medicare bribery?
Haga 8y ago
If the chieftains do it and get away with its mkay.
rokhayakebe 8y ago
They did it "to" their children. Looks more like a robbery than a gift. What message are you sending your son when you tell him "most people get here because they earn it, but don't worry, I'll pay for you to get in."
- akhilcacharya 8y ago
  Digression but when the system is so intentionally opaque (and IMO this isn’t a bad thing) it’s difficult to even say the people that weren’t bribed into Penn “earned it”. The difference between a Penn reject and a Berkeley accept or vice versa isn’t likely to be terribly big if at all notable.
mgleason_3 8y ago
Hmm, hadn’t seen that (“many ...parents involved acted as if ... were things everyone else was doing...”). In the few stories I’ve seen, the parents have not committed. Sources?
freen 8y ago
Con artists and criminals think everyone is corrupt. If you know someone who thinks everyone is corrupt, or self serving, well... that’s one way people rationalize their own unethical behavior. The meaner you are, the more assholes you meet. When someone says “liberals are just virtue signaling” they probably are a horrible person because they don’t believe humans can behave ethically/altruistically.
- XaoDaoCaoCao 8y ago
  >They probably are a horrible person Or they observe a commonality in human nature, that signaling virtue is a real phenomenon in the competition of a certain species of social apes. And that espousing such views doesnt guarantee their feasibility nor does it mean that the signaler has actually arrived at an ethical understanding of the subject. EX: Used to be vegan. Saw how monstrous the self-righteous were. Realized that promoting the development of "good", intelligent, ethical, and free people was far more helpful than being an individual in a society of millions of individuals. And maybe a society of such people would be far more conscientious, especially in regards to the treatment of animals, than what we have now. Also that psychopathic/sociopathic actors could negate my puny individual protest and competing for social rank over them would probably be more helpful than being an "individual" in the liberal sense
  - blahblahthrow 8y ago
    Wait so you stopped being vegan to ... protest the fact that some vegans are self-righteous? Do you also drive a V8 to protest the fact that some people with Teslas are smug?
    - XaoDaoCaoCao 8y ago
      It was more of a realization that those people placed far too much importance on their individual "purity", and their distance from the "impure" masses than effecting any systematic change. When you think of the entire chain of supply and logistics involved in running the modern world, you are inexorably meshed with the world of evil and the "impure". As I said, it does far more good for ethical entities to take rein of this thrashing beast than to posture purity. You might even have to be cunning, brutal, and cold to ward off those who simply don't give a damn. Especially the psychopathic and sociopathic agents.
jocoda 8y ago
> ..."everyone else was doing to get ahead in the admissions game" ... Reminds me of this: https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/6rbpr9/why_is_lying_and_cheating_so_common_in_every/ https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/6rbpr9/why_is_lying_...

by cs702 8y ago

mdanger007 8y ago

Projection is something the good and bad do. There really is a battle of dark and light you see in mythology and centers on people's psychological need to project their actions as the norm.

austincheney 8y ago

Fraud is wrong. Rationalizing it away as a fashion isn’t justifiable. Both types of fraud you point to are no different for me.

x0x0 8y ago
Why? One of the US attorneys wasting our federal tax dollars prosecuting the parents even pointed it out: they bribed the college the wrong way, by not buying them a building like they were supposed to. "We're not talking about donating a building...we're talking about fraud." So the injured parties here are the universities, and their complaint is they got cut out on the bribe dollars. Which is fine and all, but I don't understand at all why that's our problem. That's the universities' problems, and they should feel free to sue their employees for not sharing bribes appropriately. Health care fraud actually hurts people and steals from the federal government, so there's two good reasons to spend our resources prosecuting it.
- philips 8y ago
  I believe the problem was the personal donation for the fraud was structured as a tax deductible non-profit donation.
- danso 8y ago
  Universities get substantial federal funding, including Pell and research grants. Such investments are put at risk if the universities fill themselves with unqualified applicants.
  - musicale 8y ago
    Has any university ever lost federal funding because of admitting too many unqualified applicants? I doubt this is a major risk.
    - danso 8y ago
      Where is the claim that a university has ever been found to have admitted “too many unqualified applicants”?
  - x0x0 8y ago
    And what makes the unqualified applications requiring building purchases for admission ok, and the unqualified applicants requiring cash payments to coaches not ok under your rubric?
    - danso 8y ago
      Should be patently obvious that there’s a cap on how many people can donate the kind of money that funds a building — nevermind that such donations are public. There is no cap for a secretive system of bribery and arbitrage.
    - randycupertino 8y ago
      Because donating money directly to the school benefits other students who use the dorms, the building, the research facilities. Straight up bribing the coaches just enriches the coaches.
- esoterica 8y ago
  I don’t think you know what the word bribe means. Payment in exchange for a product or service (e.g. admission to a college) is not a bribe. When I go to the store and buy a soda I am not bribing the store. A bribe is when you pay an agent of an organization to misappropriate the resources of or otherwise defraud their employer. Like paying a cop to not arrest you, or paying a college coach to pretend you’re a recruited athlete.
- rhizome 8y ago
  So the injured parties here are the universities And the legitimate applicants who were rejected.
Thorrez 8y ago
Of course it's not justifiable. The question is, parents were rationalizing school bribery, was this man rationalizing medicare bribery?

Haga 8y ago

If the chieftains do it and get away with its mkay.

rokhayakebe 8y ago

They did it "to" their children. Looks more like a robbery than a gift. What message are you sending your son when you tell him "most people get here because they earn it, but don't worry, I'll pay for you to get in."

akhilcacharya 8y ago
Digression but when the system is so intentionally opaque (and IMO this isn’t a bad thing) it’s difficult to even say the people that weren’t bribed into Penn “earned it”. The difference between a Penn reject and a Berkeley accept or vice versa isn’t likely to be terribly big if at all notable.

mgleason_3 8y ago

Hmm, hadn’t seen that (“many ...parents involved acted as if ... were things everyone else was doing...”). In the few stories I’ve seen, the parents have not committed. Sources?

freen 8y ago

Con artists and criminals think everyone is corrupt. If you know someone who thinks everyone is corrupt, or self serving, well... that’s one way people rationalize their own unethical behavior. The meaner you are, the more assholes you meet. When someone says “liberals are just virtue signaling” they probably are a horrible person because they don’t believe humans can behave ethically/altruistically.

XaoDaoCaoCao 8y ago
>They probably are a horrible person Or they observe a commonality in human nature, that signaling virtue is a real phenomenon in the competition of a certain species of social apes. And that espousing such views doesnt guarantee their feasibility nor does it mean that the signaler has actually arrived at an ethical understanding of the subject. EX: Used to be vegan. Saw how monstrous the self-righteous were. Realized that promoting the development of "good", intelligent, ethical, and free people was far more helpful than being an individual in a society of millions of individuals. And maybe a society of such people would be far more conscientious, especially in regards to the treatment of animals, than what we have now. Also that psychopathic/sociopathic actors could negate my puny individual protest and competing for social rank over them would probably be more helpful than being an "individual" in the liberal sense
- blahblahthrow 8y ago
  Wait so you stopped being vegan to ... protest the fact that some vegans are self-righteous? Do you also drive a V8 to protest the fact that some people with Teslas are smug?
  - XaoDaoCaoCao 8y ago
    It was more of a realization that those people placed far too much importance on their individual "purity", and their distance from the "impure" masses than effecting any systematic change. When you think of the entire chain of supply and logistics involved in running the modern world, you are inexorably meshed with the world of evil and the "impure". As I said, it does far more good for ethical entities to take rein of this thrashing beast than to posture purity. You might even have to be cunning, brutal, and cold to ward off those who simply don't give a damn. Especially the psychopathic and sociopathic agents.

jocoda 8y ago

> ..."everyone else was doing to get ahead in the admissions game" ... Reminds me of this: https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/6rbpr9/why_is_lying_and_cheating_so_common_in_every/ https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/6rbpr9/why_is_lying_...