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> Speaking morally, I believe in having empathy for everybody. I take you at your word. It's just hilarious that a post urging empathy for executives floats t

> Speaking morally, I believe in having empathy for everybody. I take you at your word. It's just hilarious that a post urging empathy for executives floats to the top while it's bootstraps for everyone else. [EDIT: in other upvoted HN posts, not necessarily yours.] > There are a variety of ways to force corporations to behave differently, but they all start with actually figuring out why they act this way in the first place. It starts with whittling down the outrageous soft power enjoyed by corporations, their owners, and their agents — and which you are contributing to by delaying, denying, and softening accountability for the most outrageous of executive actions.

NikolaNovak 7y ago
Not the op, but this is a schism in attitude that I frequently face: - I believe that "understanding your enemy" ("Empathy") is absolutely positively crucial in successfully fighting your enemy - This frequently gets interpreted as "Sympathizing with your enemy", being too soft, making excuses,etc; by those who want simple action. So for example, I think we need to understand what makes a terrorist, how they come to their beliefs and motivations, and what we can do to prevent that. Others interpret that as being 'soft on terrorism', and we just need to 'bomb them into oblivion'; whereas I fear that while actual physical fighting is definitely a critical part of the overall campaign, there's a tremendous danger it'll just create more terrorists because we haven't eradicated the actual root source. To me, striving to understanding an enemy doesn't prevent direct, firm action, if that is then convincingly found to be the most effective and efficient way of fighting them. In turn, I feel understanding your enemy prevents random, ineffective, emotionally-satisfying but results-lacking action. Others, of course, will disagree. So - to the point of the article and discussion: I agree with op, if that is their intention, that you have to look at incentives; I've worked in corporate world for decades and I fully agree that you can have whatever value pledges, official goals, mission statements, and even official rules you darn well want to; and they're completely irrelevant if actual incentives, when summed out, reward a different behaviour. External and internal rules, and power, and statements, and goals, are all factors in incentives; as are the more subtle, emergent incentives. Going for a blunt approach may shift those incentives insufficiently far, or in an incorrect direction. ...My 2.4 Canadian Pennies :-D
- akerl_ 7y ago
  100% agreement with how you put it. I believe it’s crucial to empathize with everyone. Sympathy is fully separate, and not something that I have for the relevant management staff at Boeing/WellsFargo/etc. But empathy is what allows us to understand why somebody wants to do something, which is pretty necessary if we intend to alter that behavior.
  - rectang 7y ago
    That Wells Fargo article you cite above vilifies low-level bankers as the true bad actors: > “The real crime here is that low-level retail bankers set up fake accounts in order to scam Wells Fargo out of their modest paychecks” just doesn’t work as a story of the scandal, even if there is a certain partial truth to it as a mechanical matter. Meanwhile, the upper managers who put in place the incentives that guaranteed fraud would occur by low-level bankers are only guilty of "mismanagement": > In the case of Wells Fargo, though, I suppose it’s possible that the attorney general thinks the shareholders really were the victims. They didn’t benefit from the fake accounts, and it is not crazy to say that they were harmed by Wells Fargo’s mismanagement. Carrie Tolstedt took home tens of millions of dollars for inducing fraud, but only the scapegoats who did the dirty work for her are held morally culpable. The author doesn't even notice that just like those low-level retail bankers, Tolstedt scammed shareholders out of her (enormous) paycheck. It's a perfect example of extending excessive empathy to executives while hypocritically withholding it from others. And that is exactly what's happening in this thread. Executive malfeasance gets endlessly excused away as the product of poor incentives, because in your quest to humanize executives, you succumb to the perfectly natural human foible of "to know all is to forgive all". Now, I'm not saying you're a mustache-twirling villain. But people who are unable to apply their principles when the chips are down and hold executives accountable are at the root of the problem.
    - akerl_ 7y ago
      Even the quote you cited doesn’t “vilify” anybody. It points out exactly what I described above: Wells Fargo execs created a situation with perverse incentives, no oversight, and reckless disregard for both, which led to low-level bankers predictably misusing the system. It’s not in dispute that the low-level bankers were the ones creating the fake accounts, and as the article notes, this wasn’t even desirable for the execs: they wanted the accounts because accounts lead to income, but faked accounts do not lead to income. Your comment again points to some perceived inability on my part to “hold executives accountable”, citing some flaw with my principles. I’d invite you to review the site guidelines and my comments: at no point have I suggested that the executives aren’t culpable in both the Boeing and Wells Fargo examples. You seem to be inferring that empathy is incompatible with judgement, and that misconception is basically the heart of what I’m trying to call attention to in this exchange.
Majromax 7y ago
> I take you at your word. It's just hilarious that a post urging empathy for executives floats to the top while it's bootstraps for everyone else. [EDIT: in other upvoted HN posts, not necessarily yours.] In some ways, having empathy (or even sympathy) for executives in situations such as this is a more damning call to action. If a problem is a result of evil people doing evil things, then the obvious solution is to punish the evil people. If instead a problem is a result of good-natured people following a system with broken incentives, then the only effective response would be large-scale, systematic change. Unfortunately, we don't often see things this way as a society. Our drive to action seems directly correlated to our sense of moral outrage, and we skip over the "broken system" step between "freak accident" and "mustache-twirling villain."
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  They're not mutually exclusive. Broken incentives reward broken individuals and punish those who act in more ethical ways. The legal system distinguishes between deliberate premeditated murder and accidental or negligent manslaughter. Corporate ethics seems oddly resistant to understanding the distinction. If your actions cause significant harm the profit motive gives you very strong legal protection - a literal get out of jail free card. While it's not completely reliable, it's certainly more powerful than any non-corporate defence where culpability is obvious. You're far more likely to go to jail for corporate fraud - which is an outrage against the profit motive - than for life-terminating harm inflicted on innocent bystanders. This has the predictable effect of selecting executives who either don't understand that their actions cause harm, or don't care. The system selects the people, and the people propagate its values. Neither is wholly innocent. Every so often someone with a genuine ethical sense says "I'm not doing this." And they often lose their job when they do.

NikolaNovak 7y ago

Not the op, but this is a schism in attitude that I frequently face: - I believe that "understanding your enemy" ("Empathy") is absolutely positively crucial in successfully fighting your enemy - This frequently gets interpreted as "Sympathizing with your enemy", being too soft, making excuses,etc; by those who want simple action. So for example, I think we need to understand what makes a terrorist, how they come to their beliefs and motivations, and what we can do to prevent that. Others interpret that as being 'soft on terrorism', and we just need to 'bomb them into oblivion'; whereas I fear that while actual physical fighting is definitely a critical part of the overall campaign, there's a tremendous danger it'll just create more terrorists because we haven't eradicated the actual root source. To me, striving to understanding an enemy doesn't prevent direct, firm action, if that is then convincingly found to be the most effective and efficient way of fighting them. In turn, I feel understanding your enemy prevents random, ineffective, emotionally-satisfying but results-lacking action. Others, of course, will disagree. So - to the point of the article and discussion: I agree with op, if that is their intention, that you have to look at incentives; I've worked in corporate world for decades and I fully agree that you can have whatever value pledges, official goals, mission statements, and even official rules you darn well want to; and they're completely irrelevant if actual incentives, when summed out, reward a different behaviour. External and internal rules, and power, and statements, and goals, are all factors in incentives; as are the more subtle, emergent incentives. Going for a blunt approach may shift those incentives insufficiently far, or in an incorrect direction. ...My 2.4 Canadian Pennies :-D

akerl_ 7y ago
100% agreement with how you put it. I believe it’s crucial to empathize with everyone. Sympathy is fully separate, and not something that I have for the relevant management staff at Boeing/WellsFargo/etc. But empathy is what allows us to understand why somebody wants to do something, which is pretty necessary if we intend to alter that behavior.
- rectang 7y ago
  That Wells Fargo article you cite above vilifies low-level bankers as the true bad actors: > “The real crime here is that low-level retail bankers set up fake accounts in order to scam Wells Fargo out of their modest paychecks” just doesn’t work as a story of the scandal, even if there is a certain partial truth to it as a mechanical matter. Meanwhile, the upper managers who put in place the incentives that guaranteed fraud would occur by low-level bankers are only guilty of "mismanagement": > In the case of Wells Fargo, though, I suppose it’s possible that the attorney general thinks the shareholders really were the victims. They didn’t benefit from the fake accounts, and it is not crazy to say that they were harmed by Wells Fargo’s mismanagement. Carrie Tolstedt took home tens of millions of dollars for inducing fraud, but only the scapegoats who did the dirty work for her are held morally culpable. The author doesn't even notice that just like those low-level retail bankers, Tolstedt scammed shareholders out of her (enormous) paycheck. It's a perfect example of extending excessive empathy to executives while hypocritically withholding it from others. And that is exactly what's happening in this thread. Executive malfeasance gets endlessly excused away as the product of poor incentives, because in your quest to humanize executives, you succumb to the perfectly natural human foible of "to know all is to forgive all". Now, I'm not saying you're a mustache-twirling villain. But people who are unable to apply their principles when the chips are down and hold executives accountable are at the root of the problem.
  - akerl_ 7y ago
    Even the quote you cited doesn’t “vilify” anybody. It points out exactly what I described above: Wells Fargo execs created a situation with perverse incentives, no oversight, and reckless disregard for both, which led to low-level bankers predictably misusing the system. It’s not in dispute that the low-level bankers were the ones creating the fake accounts, and as the article notes, this wasn’t even desirable for the execs: they wanted the accounts because accounts lead to income, but faked accounts do not lead to income. Your comment again points to some perceived inability on my part to “hold executives accountable”, citing some flaw with my principles. I’d invite you to review the site guidelines and my comments: at no point have I suggested that the executives aren’t culpable in both the Boeing and Wells Fargo examples. You seem to be inferring that empathy is incompatible with judgement, and that misconception is basically the heart of what I’m trying to call attention to in this exchange.

Majromax 7y ago

> I take you at your word. It's just hilarious that a post urging empathy for executives floats to the top while it's bootstraps for everyone else. [EDIT: in other upvoted HN posts, not necessarily yours.] In some ways, having empathy (or even sympathy) for executives in situations such as this is a more damning call to action. If a problem is a result of evil people doing evil things, then the obvious solution is to punish the evil people. If instead a problem is a result of good-natured people following a system with broken incentives, then the only effective response would be large-scale, systematic change. Unfortunately, we don't often see things this way as a society. Our drive to action seems directly correlated to our sense of moral outrage, and we skip over the "broken system" step between "freak accident" and "mustache-twirling villain."

TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
They're not mutually exclusive. Broken incentives reward broken individuals and punish those who act in more ethical ways. The legal system distinguishes between deliberate premeditated murder and accidental or negligent manslaughter. Corporate ethics seems oddly resistant to understanding the distinction. If your actions cause significant harm the profit motive gives you very strong legal protection - a literal get out of jail free card. While it's not completely reliable, it's certainly more powerful than any non-corporate defence where culpability is obvious. You're far more likely to go to jail for corporate fraud - which is an outrage against the profit motive - than for life-terminating harm inflicted on innocent bystanders. This has the predictable effect of selecting executives who either don't understand that their actions cause harm, or don't care. The system selects the people, and the people propagate its values. Neither is wholly innocent. Every so often someone with a genuine ethical sense says "I'm not doing this." And they often lose their job when they do.