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The old story of the Chinese general Chen Shen comes to mind: Apparently he was running late due to rainstorms and the penalty for appearing this late to the Qi
by mattnewton 6y ago
The old story of the Chinese general Chen Shen comes to mind:
Apparently he was running late due to rainstorms and the penalty for appearing this late to the Qin emperor was execution. Since that’s the same penalty for open rebellion, he decided he might as well try that too. And that was the beginning of the end of the Qin dynasty.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Sheng_Wu_Guang_uprising https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Sheng_Wu_Guang_uprising
If the penalty for lying and being caught is the same league as screwing up, people are going to cover up problems.
- Judgmentality 6y ago> And that was the beginning of the end of the Qin dynasty. Not what I was expecting, but still a really interesting story.
- gnulinux 6y agoThat's a fascinating story thanks for sharing.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ljm 6y agoThe English idiom for this is "I'd rather be hanged for a sheep than a lamb." That is to say, if the punishment for any kind of crime is death, no matter how serious or how trivial, you might as well go ahead and commit the much more serious one and try and cover that up instead. Either way you're fucked, so why not go all in?