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I mean she's worth over $100 million and her husband is a professional investor, it's not surprising they'd want to keep restrictions off of themselves. It's sh

I mean she's worth over $100 million and her husband is a professional investor, it's not surprising they'd want to keep restrictions off of themselves. It's shameful, but it's not surprising. A while back there was some noise around potential favorable treatment she gave Visa around the time of their IPO. [1] Congresspeople really should be forced to stop all trading activity while serving in office, aside from maybe putting things in index funds. And have term limits. [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-details-on-visas-attempt-to-influence-pelosi/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-details-on-visas-attempt-to...

ModernMech 5y ago
It it really shameful though? As you said, it’s not surprising. And it’s not surprising because this kind of thing is so common in positions of power. It’s so common that I have started to admit to myself, after wrestling with the shame, that this is one of the key organizing principles of our society; that the primary purpose of attaining power is to leverage it to benefit yourself personally. If seemingly everyone agrees on this principle, left and right, then where does the shame come in? Why shouldn’t I seek power to enrich myself and my friends? Everyone else is doing it. No one gets punished for doing it. That’s the way we have decided that our society works. Society is worse off for it, probably, sure. But if our society doesn’t care about our society, why should I? Is that shameful? I used to think so but I’m not really that convinced anymore.
- animal_spirits 5y ago
  > Why shouldn’t I seek power to enrich myself and my friends? > Society is worse off for it, probably, sure. You answered your own question. You are directly and knowingly contributing to the worsening of society and you should feel ashamed for it. If anything you should feel shame for your lack of self awareness here
  - kolbe 5y ago
    > and you should feel ashamed for it But why? Telling someone they should be "ashamed of [their] own lack of self-awareness" sounds like you don't know how to answer the question, so you just hurl insults instead. History has shown over and over and over that relying on people to be benevolent when they have outsized power is foolish. That they almost never have this "shame" you think everyone should have. I find this to be far more foolish: consolidating power into someone's hands with the assumption that they will rely on shame or pride to guide them towards using the power for good. We should all acknowledge humans are tribalist and self-interested, and limit the amount of power they can have to exploit. The way I see it, if you give them the power and they "misuse" it, that's as much your fault as theirs.
    - munk-a 5y ago
      The person this article is about (Nancy Pelosi) is currently speaker of the house - the single most powerful person in the house and the person who, annually, sets rules on house procedure to outline what actions are appropriate and not. She has the power to unilaterally end this practice and chooses not to. Additionally - we're talking about a pool of 435 people here - not thousands or millions. Individual house reps standing up and personally pledging to trade individual stocks does happen and usually gets accolades in the news. This is a case where the scale is so small that you acting benevolently against society has the power to sway society to act better. So I think this particular scenario is a lot different than being a good person who properly separates their recycling (if that's a thing where you are) among the millions who can't be assed and a system that has no real expectation that you will.
      - kolbe 5y ago
        Huh. And yet Pelosi chooses to enrich herself instead of benefiting society. Which moral framework does this fit more neatly into? Maybe what you think of as morality is actually just a set of dictum from powerful people that helps them enrich themselves at the expense of you. There's absolutely no cosmic or objective moral basis for our insider trading laws one way or the other. It just so happens that they conveniently enrich the people who make the laws at the expense of everyone else. Again, what moral framework does this fit into? People acting selfishly, or people acting in the interest of some nebulously defined "society?"
  - yomly 5y ago
    >If anything you should feel shame for your lack of self awareness here This is no place for these kinds of statements. Parent posed a question that can 100% be read charitably. In a system where all incentives promote individualism and self-interest, why should we care about others indeed. To care about others is socialism. Or collectivism. Identity politics is probably part of the issue here, but I'm more interested in what other smarter people than me have to say, free from being shamed.
    - hobs 5y ago
      You chide someone while literally demonstrating sociopathic behavior. I dont think you are in the right.
    - kelseyfrog 5y ago
      To not care about others is psychopathy. They typically don't care what others think save for how it impacts their ability to do what they want and this is generally seen as a social net negative. Systems that incentivize psychopathy deserve to be dismantled.
    - woodruffw 5y ago
      Caring about others is normally called "empathy," not socialism. A trivial example of this would be any example of someone caring about someone else for non-selfish reasons prior to humans inventing socialism. Take your pick.
    - animal_spirits 5y ago
      The parent asked if it was shameful to think that way and I responded, yes it is. I'm not going around looking to fling insults, I think it is important to take feedback constructively and being honest is important to constructive criticism.
  - throw10920 5y ago
    > you should feel ashamed for it. If anything you should feel shame Trying to guilt-trip or shame people on HN for their views is absolutely against the HN guidelines[1] - "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation" "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive" "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument" and so on. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - lgrialn 5y ago
      You guys are probably aware that what you end up with is a safe space for nazis.
      - kbelder 5y ago
        Like free speech; the extreme are protected by the rules that protect us all. That's a good thing.
    - animal_spirits 5y ago
      I can admit, the initial wording can sound like I am trying to guilt trip. I'll try to be better about that in the future. But to elaborate more I am trying to respond to the question "Is it shameful though?"
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    > You answered your own question. You are directly and knowingly contributing to the worsening of society and you should feel ashamed for it. That doesn't really answer the question though. If knowingly making society worse were the standard for feeling shame, I think I'd be too depressed and shame-ridden to even get out of bed. I mean, you want to talk about damaging society: every single day I get into my car and burn fossil fuels on my commute to/from work, which is essentially slowly killing the planet. I know it's bad for society, but I do it anyway. Knowingly. On purpose. Can you imagine how psychopathic I am to treat society with such casual disregard? As another poster put it: "To feel shame is an emotional reaction to violating standards of morality." What I'm saying is an actor in American society is beholden to the standards of morality as defined by the leaders of its community, voted into office by the people in its community. It's been shown for a while now that this behavior is accepted, expected, and tolerated. It's not only unpunished when caught, but rewarded. This is the standard of morality in my community. If shame is tied to a standard of morality, which is orthogonal as to whether it helps or harms society, then there is no basis for shame for this behavior.
    - animal_spirits 5y ago
      First I wanted to say I'm not trying to guilt trip you or anything, I admit I wrote my response quickly and didn't think it would attract this much attention. So just wanted to let you know I value your views and am not trying to put you down! > That doesn't really answer the question though. If knowingly making society worse were the standard for feeling shame, I think I'd be too depressed and shame-ridden to even get out of bed. I mean, you want to talk about damaging society: every single day I get into my car and burn fossil fuels on my commute to/from work, which is essentially slowly killing the planet. I know it's bad for society, but I do it anyway. Knowingly. On purpose. Can you imagine how psychopathic I am to treat society with such casual disregard? I think you bring up a good idea here. I recently came across a lecture by Jaron Lanier that discusses this kind of thinking and how to reason about it. > I came up with an image to help me think about who the beneficiary is of our activities, whether we're engineers or writers or anything else, and I called this the 'circle of empaty'.... Those who are inside the circle are the beneficiaries of what you do, and anything inside the circle deserves your empathy. Things outside the circle perhaps don't deserve your antagonism but on the other hand they're not the beneficiaries of what you do. So I hope that people believe that all human beings should be inside the circle. That's not always the case; there are racists and homophobes and many other varieties of ideological people who would like to put _some_ human beings outside the circle, but I think decent people can agree that humans belong inside... Typically liberals wish to make the circle larger and conservatives wish to make the circle smaller... If you make the circle too small you become cruel and destructive... and if you make the circle too big so that all living things are inside the circle you can't live because your body kills bacteria all the time, you essentially become incompetent https://youtu.be/rGqiswuJuQI https://youtu.be/rGqiswuJuQI I would recommend listening to at least the beginning of the talk where he goes over this idea because I think a similar approach can help with regards to contributing to environmental issues and such. For instance we can reason that it would be actually more harmful to us as a society to morally judge people who drive to the grocery store to buy themselves food so they can eat, because if people don't do that they can surely end up in a situation where they are sick and unhealthy. On the other hand lets look at the situation we see here and ask: Would it be more harmful for society to continue to allow a small group of people who can effectively change the rules of a society be able to profit financially from these changes? I think again in this case, yes it would be more harmful! We have to think about how things can get out of hand if we do not have the right checks and balances. Like Jaron mentions in his lecture, conservatism and the shrinking of the circle can go out of control like we saw with Germany after the first World War. We should aim to have _all of society_ within this circle of empathy, and not just _me and my family and friends_. If we can legally disincentivize people in power from shrinking their circle of empathy in these areas I think it is a net benefit for us as a society and sets a foundation for what we should find morally worth our empathy.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  To feel shame is an emotional reaction to violating standards of morality. If you have no morality, you have no shame.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    But who set this standard of morality? Society, right? What I’m saying is this shame imposed from society worked before. But as I look around, I don’t see that the prevailing moral standard is that we must all work for the betterment of society. Society doesn’t even feel this is a worthy thing. I don’t agree that there is a moral imperative in American society to work for the betterment of everyone.
- pintxo 5y ago
  That's head on. People adjust their behaviour to the one they see in their peers, including public figures. This is quite likely a slow moving change going on unnoticed for decades, until it crosses a threshold were it starts to become quite visible. And possibly a major danger to society as we know it. The big question is are we before or after the threshold, and can we reverse the process anyway?
- echelon 5y ago
  You've summarized a human pattern that I sort of intuitively guessed at, but didn't really synthesize and integrate. All power seems to behave like this. Republicans, Democrats, Communists, corporate titans, office politickers.
  - k12sosse 5y ago
    Ask not what your country can do for you, ask how you can get just enough power to amass and horde wealth while masquerading it on behalf of the benefit of your countryfolk. I am not American but I do live in a country that has a government. It's curious to see stories of people going from <citizen grunt> to <elected official> and then using their power and insight for personal gain, while never capitalizing on opportunity to force the changes that were campaigned on, when presented with unique chances to force the issue to be resolved. There's such a focus on "getting it right, the first time" instead of "anything will be better than nothing, and we can re-iterate on this in the future". An issue with government is much like the issues you face at work every day; too much focus on introducing "new", and seemingly never enough time to evaluate and improve "existing".
- pfkurtz 5y ago
  Yes, making society worse off, knowingly: that means harming others: yes, be ashamed. If you're no longer convinced of that, it's because you are looking for justifications for defect in the prisoner's dilemma, rather than cooperate.
- the_optimist 5y ago
  This isn't mere power seeking. This violates the principle of 'equality under the law,' since the law has this specific exclusion. The problem isn't that Pelosi is exploiting the loophole, it's that Pelosi both _controls_ AND exploits the loophole. Royalty isn't exercising 'freedom' when they exploit advantages over the citizenry.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    They aren’t royalty though. They are elected representatives. If elected representatives behave like royalty and keep getting elected, isn’t that an expression of the preferences of the electorate?
- squidproquo 5y ago
  You will probably score very high on this test: https://www.psychopathtest.com/ https://www.psychopathtest.com/
- renewiltord 5y ago
  This is the sort of comment that’s suited to a different forum. HN users will react in an emotional manner so the detail of your comment will not receive attention. You might as well have said “I think I should exploit people” because the responses will treat it that way. Just a heads up.
- NoGravitas 5y ago
  It would be shameful if anyone felt shame anymore. We do live in a post-shame society.
- brnaftr183 5y ago
  Well, you're right. See, we more or less structured the US on the Hobbesian state of nature, wherein we're all supposed to be greedy, self-centered, and violent. This was rife with induction and failed to account for a litany of examples that simply weren't present. It's old hat that never got scraped off, but now it's baked into literally everything we do. But because the fundament of our system is developed on that conception of humanity, it contributes to the conditioning of the people laboring under it. My favorite thought experiment: My ex used to accuse me of cheating, I'd have to explain myself, she'd go through my phone, we'd argue; at that point, being punished for the crime, I had may as well cheat to reap the benefits of my just desserts. The Hobbesian affair is a slight alteration in the logical apparatus there - you're not being greedy so you won't be rewarded. I'll credit the system this: I suspect a more "social" (via Rousseau) view would have immense difficulty in defense against the Hobbesian man. We're by nature, and the dint of our calling as humans (cooperative apes) intrinsically trusting. Granted, there are some conditionals, and some conditioning that as we grow wise, a skepticism emerges. To me that says a system that doesn't employ the Hobbesian mode, is highly susceptible to it. If your institutions are, historically, pristine in execution for a long period the social expectation would eventually gravitate to certainty. When some bad actor is seated, a little sophistry could go a long way in creating a system of exploitation. Something like that... Most people, I think, and this is borne out by my own experience - just want left alone to their lives. The chains aren't uncomfortable until you find their limits, and as long as you don't reach that you're hardly aware of them after spending a life captive in their grasp. This coupled with intrinsic trust, and the world's inundations, add liberally debt and the construction of the social standard of "good" and "success" and you've managed to culminate a great ethical slavery. Ultimately though, whether we're fighting fire with fire, the fact remains that we're pressing people to do exactly as you did. Offering a free ascension on a staircase made of the backs of mankind, blaming those who fail to acede to it on a moral basis, and complaining about the living who one tromps upon. As to organizing, that's a joke. We've really not trialed any other approach at scale sans Marxism, itself a joke. And collectivization of small elements hardly marks a real difference when it's plainly easy to exploit.
  - dgfitz 5y ago
    > Most people, I think, and this is borne out by my own experience - just want left alone to their lives. I really found your entire comment very insightful. To the above quote, most people do want to be left alone, the rest want to tell those people what to do.
- carapace 5y ago
  What you're saying is part of a long and broad conversation. Read Machiavelli. > The general theme of "The Prince" is of accepting that the aims of princes – such as glory and survival – can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince Most people think Machiavelli was a jerk. - - - - Really the question to ask yourself isn't "Why shouldn’t I seek power to enrich myself and my friends?", the question is "What is the best method to achieve happiness for myself and my friends?"
shams93 5y ago
Yeah what happens is because we have no term limits these Senators stay in office for 100 years and amass huge amounts of insider info, its an incredibly debased system at this point.
- syki 5y ago
  What does one have to do with the other? Do you have valid reasons for thinking corruption of Senators or Representatives would be less with term limits? I think the level of corruption would not change with term limits and there are some negatives with term limits. I don't see how it would help.
  - cmiles74 5y ago
    With limits on how long they can hold the office, there will be a much shorter time span in which they can collect and act on inside information. There will also be a much shorter time span in which they can form relationships with these companies that could lead to the collection of inside information. In my opinion it's not a solution but it is another way to limit the amount of this kind of trading.
    - syki 5y ago
      Yes, it might limit this type of trading but the corruption will just be another type.
  - nescioquid 5y ago
    Pelosi has been in congress since the 80s. I do not think congress-critters will support higher ethical standards that prohibit them from profiting off of insider information if they think that means putting themselves in a straight-jacket for the rest of their lives. The ability to profit off insider information is probably a reason some of our congress-critters stay in office rather than retiring and pursuing goals elsewhere. Through the 80s and 90s, I recall politicians and talking heads using the phrase "...even the appearance of impropriety". I'm tempted to conclude there's something telling about the way this quaint phrase seems to have disappeared. EDIT: not saying term limits are the answer, just that I can see the relationship suggested.
deleted 5y ago
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mc32 5y ago
And shameless given her rhetoric around the presidential emoluments clause, which is valid, but then apparently for Congress people this concern is dismissed…
- dariusj18 5y ago
  Well, the former is literally in the Constitution and the later is not, so ...
  - mikysco 5y ago
    Yes but the principal is the same, no? Somebody in a position of power who has strong influence over decisions that happen outside the context of the free market economy should be restricted from participating in those investable opportunities. Nobody is saying what she is doing is explicitly illegal. But it's abundantly unethical and, imo, a clear abuse of power. Her tone deaf response in this story only adds fuel to the controversy.
    - mc32 5y ago
      Exactly. We have the current example of Senator Wyden who blocked the China Forced Labor bill who received ~$60k in cash from Nike... how is that not quid pro quo?
      - jjeaff 5y ago
        I think you oversimplify the situation. That's $60k in public campaign donations by executive employees of Nike. Which is based in Oregon, the state that Wyden represents. Also, $60k isn't that much, considering Wyden usually raises between $4 and $8 million during a reelection year. My guess is that he would be more swayed by the fact that Nike is one of the largest employers in Oregon. Like it or hate it, this is the system we have, I don't see any evidence that Wyden is being bought off any more than any other Senator that accepts campaign donations from special interests (which is all of them).
    - titzer 5y ago
comeonseriously 5y ago
> I mean she's worth over $100 million... I don't get it. Is it just sport at this point?
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  Once you're worth a certain amount the most sensible places to store your money are places that use it to generate more money.
  - comeonseriously 5y ago
    True. But I meant it more in the context of the discussion. Her implication is that she wishes to continue trading stocks instead of parking her money someplace safe while in office. Why? What is the point? Does she not have enough? Is it sport? I'm not saying people should not get wealthy, but she could park it and easily still get $10M a year.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
ren_engineer 5y ago
Feinstein is worth even more, her husband is a billionaire based off Chinese trade deals. People need to realize politicians on both sides of the aisle sold them out to get rich
- itsoktocry 5y ago
  >People need to realize politicians on both sides of the aisle sold them out to get rich Yes, there are centrist neo-liberals in both parties. They don't want Bernie Sanders types or Donald Trump types to be elected.
Jackpillar 5y ago
Her husband also made a quick $5 million off of Alphabet stock conveniently before the house considered anti-trust bills aimed at big tech. https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2021/07/08/inside-nancy-pelosis-husbands-5-million-alphabet-options-windfall/?sh=55eaa492b857 https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2021/07/08/inside-n...
exabrial 5y ago
Her husband is a professional investor who somehow manages to buy very deep options on troubled corporations right before the legislative branch hands them a bunch of money, sending their stock price soaring. California can't be bothered not to elect this evil person that is the absolute epitome of corruption.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > California can't be bothered not to elect this evil person Except in the tiniest (by population) states, states at large do not elect members to the House, despite the fact that they are frequently identified by party and state. California is the maximum example of the error of this kind of description.
  - anoonmoose 5y ago
    OK. San Francisco, the fourth largest city in California, can't be bothered not to elect this evil person. Happy?
    - snerbles 5y ago
      A significant fraction of HN's readership resides in that district as well.
    - undersuit 5y ago
      The rich city that can't even be bothered to deal with the shitty conditions that drove most of them to Uber everywhere?
- jjeaff 5y ago
  Is there evidence of this? Anytime I have seen the details, in context, of Pelosi trades, they seem very unconvincing. When someone does a lot of trading, it is easy to cherry pick the successful trades or apparently conflicted trades while ignoring the whole picture, and scope of the portfolio.
  - 5y ago
dcposch 5y ago
One of the more toxic ideas floating around our culture is this idea of "net worth" as a scoreboard. This woman is 82 years old and a leader of a nominally left-wing party. So given the choice between: 1. taking a principled stand against the use of political access for financial gain, and dying in a few years with a NW of $100m 2. defending insider trading, and dying in a few years with a NW for $150m It's worth asking what cultural programming would make someone even consider #2. It's not the usual reasons people want more money. There is no hedonic utility, no extra financial independence, no added social status that comes with #2. I have no problem with accumulating wealth as a means to an end. But if you're willing to compromise your legacy to run that score up a little higher, you're an npc & you've lost the plot.

ModernMech 5y ago

It it really shameful though? As you said, it’s not surprising. And it’s not surprising because this kind of thing is so common in positions of power. It’s so common that I have started to admit to myself, after wrestling with the shame, that this is one of the key organizing principles of our society; that the primary purpose of attaining power is to leverage it to benefit yourself personally. If seemingly everyone agrees on this principle, left and right, then where does the shame come in? Why shouldn’t I seek power to enrich myself and my friends? Everyone else is doing it. No one gets punished for doing it. That’s the way we have decided that our society works. Society is worse off for it, probably, sure. But if our society doesn’t care about our society, why should I? Is that shameful? I used to think so but I’m not really that convinced anymore.

animal_spirits 5y ago
> Why shouldn’t I seek power to enrich myself and my friends? > Society is worse off for it, probably, sure. You answered your own question. You are directly and knowingly contributing to the worsening of society and you should feel ashamed for it. If anything you should feel shame for your lack of self awareness here
- kolbe 5y ago
  > and you should feel ashamed for it But why? Telling someone they should be "ashamed of [their] own lack of self-awareness" sounds like you don't know how to answer the question, so you just hurl insults instead. History has shown over and over and over that relying on people to be benevolent when they have outsized power is foolish. That they almost never have this "shame" you think everyone should have. I find this to be far more foolish: consolidating power into someone's hands with the assumption that they will rely on shame or pride to guide them towards using the power for good. We should all acknowledge humans are tribalist and self-interested, and limit the amount of power they can have to exploit. The way I see it, if you give them the power and they "misuse" it, that's as much your fault as theirs.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    The person this article is about (Nancy Pelosi) is currently speaker of the house - the single most powerful person in the house and the person who, annually, sets rules on house procedure to outline what actions are appropriate and not. She has the power to unilaterally end this practice and chooses not to. Additionally - we're talking about a pool of 435 people here - not thousands or millions. Individual house reps standing up and personally pledging to trade individual stocks does happen and usually gets accolades in the news. This is a case where the scale is so small that you acting benevolently against society has the power to sway society to act better. So I think this particular scenario is a lot different than being a good person who properly separates their recycling (if that's a thing where you are) among the millions who can't be assed and a system that has no real expectation that you will.
    - kolbe 5y ago
      Huh. And yet Pelosi chooses to enrich herself instead of benefiting society. Which moral framework does this fit more neatly into? Maybe what you think of as morality is actually just a set of dictum from powerful people that helps them enrich themselves at the expense of you. There's absolutely no cosmic or objective moral basis for our insider trading laws one way or the other. It just so happens that they conveniently enrich the people who make the laws at the expense of everyone else. Again, what moral framework does this fit into? People acting selfishly, or people acting in the interest of some nebulously defined "society?"
- yomly 5y ago
  >If anything you should feel shame for your lack of self awareness here This is no place for these kinds of statements. Parent posed a question that can 100% be read charitably. In a system where all incentives promote individualism and self-interest, why should we care about others indeed. To care about others is socialism. Or collectivism. Identity politics is probably part of the issue here, but I'm more interested in what other smarter people than me have to say, free from being shamed.
  - hobs 5y ago
    You chide someone while literally demonstrating sociopathic behavior. I dont think you are in the right.
  - kelseyfrog 5y ago
    To not care about others is psychopathy. They typically don't care what others think save for how it impacts their ability to do what they want and this is generally seen as a social net negative. Systems that incentivize psychopathy deserve to be dismantled.
  - woodruffw 5y ago
    Caring about others is normally called "empathy," not socialism. A trivial example of this would be any example of someone caring about someone else for non-selfish reasons prior to humans inventing socialism. Take your pick.
  - animal_spirits 5y ago
    The parent asked if it was shameful to think that way and I responded, yes it is. I'm not going around looking to fling insults, I think it is important to take feedback constructively and being honest is important to constructive criticism.
- throw10920 5y ago
  > you should feel ashamed for it. If anything you should feel shame Trying to guilt-trip or shame people on HN for their views is absolutely against the HN guidelines[1] - "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation" "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive" "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument" and so on. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - lgrialn 5y ago
    You guys are probably aware that what you end up with is a safe space for nazis.
    - kbelder 5y ago
      Like free speech; the extreme are protected by the rules that protect us all. That's a good thing.
  - animal_spirits 5y ago
    I can admit, the initial wording can sound like I am trying to guilt trip. I'll try to be better about that in the future. But to elaborate more I am trying to respond to the question "Is it shameful though?"
- ModernMech 5y ago
  > You answered your own question. You are directly and knowingly contributing to the worsening of society and you should feel ashamed for it. That doesn't really answer the question though. If knowingly making society worse were the standard for feeling shame, I think I'd be too depressed and shame-ridden to even get out of bed. I mean, you want to talk about damaging society: every single day I get into my car and burn fossil fuels on my commute to/from work, which is essentially slowly killing the planet. I know it's bad for society, but I do it anyway. Knowingly. On purpose. Can you imagine how psychopathic I am to treat society with such casual disregard? As another poster put it: "To feel shame is an emotional reaction to violating standards of morality." What I'm saying is an actor in American society is beholden to the standards of morality as defined by the leaders of its community, voted into office by the people in its community. It's been shown for a while now that this behavior is accepted, expected, and tolerated. It's not only unpunished when caught, but rewarded. This is the standard of morality in my community. If shame is tied to a standard of morality, which is orthogonal as to whether it helps or harms society, then there is no basis for shame for this behavior.
  - animal_spirits 5y ago
    First I wanted to say I'm not trying to guilt trip you or anything, I admit I wrote my response quickly and didn't think it would attract this much attention. So just wanted to let you know I value your views and am not trying to put you down! > That doesn't really answer the question though. If knowingly making society worse were the standard for feeling shame, I think I'd be too depressed and shame-ridden to even get out of bed. I mean, you want to talk about damaging society: every single day I get into my car and burn fossil fuels on my commute to/from work, which is essentially slowly killing the planet. I know it's bad for society, but I do it anyway. Knowingly. On purpose. Can you imagine how psychopathic I am to treat society with such casual disregard? I think you bring up a good idea here. I recently came across a lecture by Jaron Lanier that discusses this kind of thinking and how to reason about it. > I came up with an image to help me think about who the beneficiary is of our activities, whether we're engineers or writers or anything else, and I called this the 'circle of empaty'.... Those who are inside the circle are the beneficiaries of what you do, and anything inside the circle deserves your empathy. Things outside the circle perhaps don't deserve your antagonism but on the other hand they're not the beneficiaries of what you do. So I hope that people believe that all human beings should be inside the circle. That's not always the case; there are racists and homophobes and many other varieties of ideological people who would like to put _some_ human beings outside the circle, but I think decent people can agree that humans belong inside... Typically liberals wish to make the circle larger and conservatives wish to make the circle smaller... If you make the circle too small you become cruel and destructive... and if you make the circle too big so that all living things are inside the circle you can't live because your body kills bacteria all the time, you essentially become incompetent https://youtu.be/rGqiswuJuQI https://youtu.be/rGqiswuJuQI I would recommend listening to at least the beginning of the talk where he goes over this idea because I think a similar approach can help with regards to contributing to environmental issues and such. For instance we can reason that it would be actually more harmful to us as a society to morally judge people who drive to the grocery store to buy themselves food so they can eat, because if people don't do that they can surely end up in a situation where they are sick and unhealthy. On the other hand lets look at the situation we see here and ask: Would it be more harmful for society to continue to allow a small group of people who can effectively change the rules of a society be able to profit financially from these changes? I think again in this case, yes it would be more harmful! We have to think about how things can get out of hand if we do not have the right checks and balances. Like Jaron mentions in his lecture, conservatism and the shrinking of the circle can go out of control like we saw with Germany after the first World War. We should aim to have _all of society_ within this circle of empathy, and not just _me and my family and friends_. If we can legally disincentivize people in power from shrinking their circle of empathy in these areas I think it is a net benefit for us as a society and sets a foundation for what we should find morally worth our empathy.
throwawayboise 5y ago
To feel shame is an emotional reaction to violating standards of morality. If you have no morality, you have no shame.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  But who set this standard of morality? Society, right? What I’m saying is this shame imposed from society worked before. But as I look around, I don’t see that the prevailing moral standard is that we must all work for the betterment of society. Society doesn’t even feel this is a worthy thing. I don’t agree that there is a moral imperative in American society to work for the betterment of everyone.
pintxo 5y ago
That's head on. People adjust their behaviour to the one they see in their peers, including public figures. This is quite likely a slow moving change going on unnoticed for decades, until it crosses a threshold were it starts to become quite visible. And possibly a major danger to society as we know it. The big question is are we before or after the threshold, and can we reverse the process anyway?
echelon 5y ago
You've summarized a human pattern that I sort of intuitively guessed at, but didn't really synthesize and integrate. All power seems to behave like this. Republicans, Democrats, Communists, corporate titans, office politickers.
- k12sosse 5y ago
  Ask not what your country can do for you, ask how you can get just enough power to amass and horde wealth while masquerading it on behalf of the benefit of your countryfolk. I am not American but I do live in a country that has a government. It's curious to see stories of people going from <citizen grunt> to <elected official> and then using their power and insight for personal gain, while never capitalizing on opportunity to force the changes that were campaigned on, when presented with unique chances to force the issue to be resolved. There's such a focus on "getting it right, the first time" instead of "anything will be better than nothing, and we can re-iterate on this in the future". An issue with government is much like the issues you face at work every day; too much focus on introducing "new", and seemingly never enough time to evaluate and improve "existing".
pfkurtz 5y ago
Yes, making society worse off, knowingly: that means harming others: yes, be ashamed. If you're no longer convinced of that, it's because you are looking for justifications for defect in the prisoner's dilemma, rather than cooperate.
the_optimist 5y ago
This isn't mere power seeking. This violates the principle of 'equality under the law,' since the law has this specific exclusion. The problem isn't that Pelosi is exploiting the loophole, it's that Pelosi both _controls_ AND exploits the loophole. Royalty isn't exercising 'freedom' when they exploit advantages over the citizenry.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  They aren’t royalty though. They are elected representatives. If elected representatives behave like royalty and keep getting elected, isn’t that an expression of the preferences of the electorate?
squidproquo 5y ago
You will probably score very high on this test: https://www.psychopathtest.com/ https://www.psychopathtest.com/
renewiltord 5y ago
This is the sort of comment that’s suited to a different forum. HN users will react in an emotional manner so the detail of your comment will not receive attention. You might as well have said “I think I should exploit people” because the responses will treat it that way. Just a heads up.
NoGravitas 5y ago
It would be shameful if anyone felt shame anymore. We do live in a post-shame society.
brnaftr183 5y ago
Well, you're right. See, we more or less structured the US on the Hobbesian state of nature, wherein we're all supposed to be greedy, self-centered, and violent. This was rife with induction and failed to account for a litany of examples that simply weren't present. It's old hat that never got scraped off, but now it's baked into literally everything we do. But because the fundament of our system is developed on that conception of humanity, it contributes to the conditioning of the people laboring under it. My favorite thought experiment: My ex used to accuse me of cheating, I'd have to explain myself, she'd go through my phone, we'd argue; at that point, being punished for the crime, I had may as well cheat to reap the benefits of my just desserts. The Hobbesian affair is a slight alteration in the logical apparatus there - you're not being greedy so you won't be rewarded. I'll credit the system this: I suspect a more "social" (via Rousseau) view would have immense difficulty in defense against the Hobbesian man. We're by nature, and the dint of our calling as humans (cooperative apes) intrinsically trusting. Granted, there are some conditionals, and some conditioning that as we grow wise, a skepticism emerges. To me that says a system that doesn't employ the Hobbesian mode, is highly susceptible to it. If your institutions are, historically, pristine in execution for a long period the social expectation would eventually gravitate to certainty. When some bad actor is seated, a little sophistry could go a long way in creating a system of exploitation. Something like that... Most people, I think, and this is borne out by my own experience - just want left alone to their lives. The chains aren't uncomfortable until you find their limits, and as long as you don't reach that you're hardly aware of them after spending a life captive in their grasp. This coupled with intrinsic trust, and the world's inundations, add liberally debt and the construction of the social standard of "good" and "success" and you've managed to culminate a great ethical slavery. Ultimately though, whether we're fighting fire with fire, the fact remains that we're pressing people to do exactly as you did. Offering a free ascension on a staircase made of the backs of mankind, blaming those who fail to acede to it on a moral basis, and complaining about the living who one tromps upon. As to organizing, that's a joke. We've really not trialed any other approach at scale sans Marxism, itself a joke. And collectivization of small elements hardly marks a real difference when it's plainly easy to exploit.
- dgfitz 5y ago
  > Most people, I think, and this is borne out by my own experience - just want left alone to their lives. I really found your entire comment very insightful. To the above quote, most people do want to be left alone, the rest want to tell those people what to do.
carapace 5y ago
What you're saying is part of a long and broad conversation. Read Machiavelli. > The general theme of "The Prince" is of accepting that the aims of princes – such as glory and survival – can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince Most people think Machiavelli was a jerk. - - - - Really the question to ask yourself isn't "Why shouldn’t I seek power to enrich myself and my friends?", the question is "What is the best method to achieve happiness for myself and my friends?"

shams93 5y ago

Yeah what happens is because we have no term limits these Senators stay in office for 100 years and amass huge amounts of insider info, its an incredibly debased system at this point.

syki 5y ago
What does one have to do with the other? Do you have valid reasons for thinking corruption of Senators or Representatives would be less with term limits? I think the level of corruption would not change with term limits and there are some negatives with term limits. I don't see how it would help.
- cmiles74 5y ago
  With limits on how long they can hold the office, there will be a much shorter time span in which they can collect and act on inside information. There will also be a much shorter time span in which they can form relationships with these companies that could lead to the collection of inside information. In my opinion it's not a solution but it is another way to limit the amount of this kind of trading.
  - syki 5y ago
    Yes, it might limit this type of trading but the corruption will just be another type.
- nescioquid 5y ago
  Pelosi has been in congress since the 80s. I do not think congress-critters will support higher ethical standards that prohibit them from profiting off of insider information if they think that means putting themselves in a straight-jacket for the rest of their lives. The ability to profit off insider information is probably a reason some of our congress-critters stay in office rather than retiring and pursuing goals elsewhere. Through the 80s and 90s, I recall politicians and talking heads using the phrase "...even the appearance of impropriety". I'm tempted to conclude there's something telling about the way this quaint phrase seems to have disappeared. EDIT: not saying term limits are the answer, just that I can see the relationship suggested.

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mc32 5y ago

And shameless given her rhetoric around the presidential emoluments clause, which is valid, but then apparently for Congress people this concern is dismissed…

dariusj18 5y ago
Well, the former is literally in the Constitution and the later is not, so ...
- mikysco 5y ago
  Yes but the principal is the same, no? Somebody in a position of power who has strong influence over decisions that happen outside the context of the free market economy should be restricted from participating in those investable opportunities. Nobody is saying what she is doing is explicitly illegal. But it's abundantly unethical and, imo, a clear abuse of power. Her tone deaf response in this story only adds fuel to the controversy.
  - mc32 5y ago
    Exactly. We have the current example of Senator Wyden who blocked the China Forced Labor bill who received ~$60k in cash from Nike... how is that not quid pro quo?
    - jjeaff 5y ago
      I think you oversimplify the situation. That's $60k in public campaign donations by executive employees of Nike. Which is based in Oregon, the state that Wyden represents. Also, $60k isn't that much, considering Wyden usually raises between $4 and $8 million during a reelection year. My guess is that he would be more swayed by the fact that Nike is one of the largest employers in Oregon. Like it or hate it, this is the system we have, I don't see any evidence that Wyden is being bought off any more than any other Senator that accepts campaign donations from special interests (which is all of them).
  - titzer 5y ago

comeonseriously 5y ago

> I mean she's worth over $100 million... I don't get it. Is it just sport at this point?

micromacrofoot 5y ago
Once you're worth a certain amount the most sensible places to store your money are places that use it to generate more money.
- comeonseriously 5y ago
  True. But I meant it more in the context of the discussion. Her implication is that she wishes to continue trading stocks instead of parking her money someplace safe while in office. Why? What is the point? Does she not have enough? Is it sport? I'm not saying people should not get wealthy, but she could park it and easily still get $10M a year.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

ren_engineer 5y ago

Feinstein is worth even more, her husband is a billionaire based off Chinese trade deals. People need to realize politicians on both sides of the aisle sold them out to get rich

itsoktocry 5y ago
>People need to realize politicians on both sides of the aisle sold them out to get rich Yes, there are centrist neo-liberals in both parties. They don't want Bernie Sanders types or Donald Trump types to be elected.

Jackpillar 5y ago

Her husband also made a quick $5 million off of Alphabet stock conveniently before the house considered anti-trust bills aimed at big tech. https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2021/07/08/inside-nancy-pelosis-husbands-5-million-alphabet-options-windfall/?sh=55eaa492b857 https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2021/07/08/inside-n...

exabrial 5y ago

Her husband is a professional investor who somehow manages to buy very deep options on troubled corporations right before the legislative branch hands them a bunch of money, sending their stock price soaring. California can't be bothered not to elect this evil person that is the absolute epitome of corruption.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> California can't be bothered not to elect this evil person Except in the tiniest (by population) states, states at large do not elect members to the House, despite the fact that they are frequently identified by party and state. California is the maximum example of the error of this kind of description.
- anoonmoose 5y ago
  OK. San Francisco, the fourth largest city in California, can't be bothered not to elect this evil person. Happy?
  - snerbles 5y ago
    A significant fraction of HN's readership resides in that district as well.
  - undersuit 5y ago
    The rich city that can't even be bothered to deal with the shitty conditions that drove most of them to Uber everywhere?
jjeaff 5y ago
Is there evidence of this? Anytime I have seen the details, in context, of Pelosi trades, they seem very unconvincing. When someone does a lot of trading, it is easy to cherry pick the successful trades or apparently conflicted trades while ignoring the whole picture, and scope of the portfolio.
- 5y ago

dcposch 5y ago

One of the more toxic ideas floating around our culture is this idea of "net worth" as a scoreboard. This woman is 82 years old and a leader of a nominally left-wing party. So given the choice between: 1. taking a principled stand against the use of political access for financial gain, and dying in a few years with a NW of $100m 2. defending insider trading, and dying in a few years with a NW for $150m It's worth asking what cultural programming would make someone even consider #2. It's not the usual reasons people want more money. There is no hedonic utility, no extra financial independence, no added social status that comes with #2. I have no problem with accumulating wealth as a means to an end. But if you're willing to compromise your legacy to run that score up a little higher, you're an npc & you've lost the plot.