19 ms·

The Sucker Complex

216 points by 1cvmask 5y ago

mattbee 5y ago
Hang on, what's morally wrong with merging late? Speed is lower, and you're using the highway more efficiently.
- sulam 5y ago
  It’s only “wrong” in the sense that many people feel like it’s wrong with no objective basis for their beliefs. That said, when enough people feel a certain traffic behavior is wrong, it becomes true despite objective fact. Late merge when the lane you’re in is running 40mph above the lane you’re merging into and you are asking to be rear-ended or worse.
  - mattbee 5y ago
    I'm thinking of busy British A roads going from 2 to 1 lane, usually the last merge point is at a standstill. I've witnessed insanely aggressive behaviour by drivers trying to block others' merges. My driving instructor always told me to behave selfishly, because "courteous" driving (flashing lights, slowing down, waiting for someone to emerge etc) is unpredictable by comparison! Courteous driving becomes its own form of aggression when another driver misunderstands.
fj33j32j2j 5y ago
scollet 5y ago
The article doesn't have an argument or a conclusion. The author FUDs on the floor. We get that things aren't perfect, but being afraid helps nobody. It's fine to vent to the world, but I think the "publish" button can wait.
- dqpb 5y ago
  How do you vent to the world without the publish button?
  - chihuahua 5y ago
    You stand on a street corner downtown and shout at everybody and nobody.
    - dqpb 5y ago
      But then how do you get their email addresses and charge them a subscription fee?
    - scollet 5y ago
      This one. Very cathartic.
  - scollet 5y ago
    Get elected? Not sure. Happy holidays.
fnord77 5y ago
the author has some good points, but mixes corrupt/criminal activities with activities that are meant to protect the economy (paying covid rent)
- verifex 5y ago
  I think the article has some flaws because it seems like the point of the article seems to try and link the sentiment given to people who commit deliberate unethical/corrupt behavior to non-deliberate and otherwise less-fortunate people, which I think is a bit of a disingenuous argument.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  Its a deliberate conflation, a sleight of hand that happens in American discourse all the time. As an example, Americans are hostages to your incredibly inefficient health care system. Not only is reasonable discussion of public health outside your overton window, the reason it stays outside is the instant clamour of voices saying "free stuff is bad and you are bad for advocating it". The only way to get access to reasonable care seems to be either military service or full employment. The rest of the world is incredulous that losing your job means losing access to healthcare. That truly strange conception of "freedom" americans are always so afraid of losing is a massive illusion for the majority of a population deathly afraid of the financial ramifications of a health crisis. Yet you have no functional way of talking about it, because of the sleight of hand discourse exemplified by the article. I truly feel sorry for americans at this point.
- epicureanideal 5y ago
  There's still moral hazard there, because no doubt many people already had the sense that the government would do something like that, so intentionally didn't pay their rent.
  - smackeyacky 5y ago
paulpauper 5y ago
these are just edge cases that get a lot of media coverage. By in large, people in tech, law, finance , etc. are making a lot of money and while being ethical and hard-working. The fear that society is overflowing with opportunists who are just looting the system or getting by without work, is overblown. I understand the author's frustration, but incompetence, favoritism, lying (except perjury), and nepotism are generally not crimes, and very few people are able to get by without doing the necessary work. Also, plenty of non-famous people also engage in shitty behavior too but it's not newsworthy.
- arciini 5y ago
  Similarly, I think powerful people have always behaved as poorly as in the examples he mentioned. It's just that nowadays, data-driven traditional and social media uses the outrage to make money. This does unfortunately lead more people to think that cheating is OK, but I think for the most part, our systems do eventually work to correct that.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    Certainly even the Founding Fathers had a lot of business entanglements that would lead one to seriously question whether they didn't have a conflict of interest (e.g., how much was Washington's decision to mount an army to secure the Ohio territory influenced by his own significant personal holdings there?). But it feels to me like at one point we had, to some extent, mastered this problem, and now we've moved away from even trying.
  - luckylion 5y ago
    Probably. Maybe it didn't have that much of an impact on society because it wasn't known. E.g. in Germany during Covid-19 measures, multiple CDU politicians got caught doing shady deals with companies, either by having the state overpay for masks for a kickback, by pushing for emergency certifications for some tests (again for cash), and other corrupt behaviors. This wouldn't be a large issue if nobody had known - even if the state had overpaid by half a billion, that's not even a day's worth of money. However, since it came out, there has been a massive loss of trust in politicians and public institutions. Those who doubted before now saw proof that it's all just a scheme, and others just lost a lot of trust. We'll have to see whether anything happens beyond the accused promising to donate the proceeds, but I'm not holding my breath.
DerSaidin 5y ago
Also happening on an international level with countries ignoring climate change?
- rlanday 5y ago
  That’s not good behavior but I think it’s not really the same phenomenon. That’s more of a coordinated action/tragedy of the commons problem where people want to bury their heads in the sand and do nothing because the problem can be mostly ignored for now.
Supermancho 5y ago
This is a case of the Broken Windows Theory. https://www.britannica.com/topic/broken-windows-theory https://www.britannica.com/topic/broken-windows-theory
8f2ab37a-ed6c 5y ago
This dog-eat-dog "if you don't steal, you won't survive" endemic level of corruption and ubiquitous legal broken windows is IME not uncommon in shitty third-world countries (of one of which I'm an expat) where scarcity leads people to prioritize their own needs over common decency and consideration towards others. The "everybody else is cheating, this is the baseline" attitude always felt wrong, but, just like the article said, you were made to feel a fool if you didn't participate in it. The US felt like a place that, while not immune to cheating, had strong social and legal norms around it. The most recent phenomenon of this kind I can recall was people lying to vaccination centers about having medical conditions that would help them skip the line ahead of everybody else. I was and still am vehemently opposed to lying about that, despite having been told numerous times that the government would have just thrown the doses away if nobody used them up by lying about their status. Again, you were made to feel a sucker.
- doovd 5y ago
  > This dog-eat-dog "if you don't steal, you won't survive" endemic level of corruption and ubiquitous legal broken windows is IME not uncommon in shitty third-world countries No different in most first world countries
  - bongoman37 5y ago
  - jmeister 5y ago
    Yeah, I’m an immigrant like the other replier too, you kids need to dump your books and travel the world, outside Americanized liberal cities.
- dandanua 5y ago
  You're also a sucker if you don't invest in crypto. This "sucker" trick is very primitive, it's common to see that teenagers use it to control each other. What's horrible is that significant power structures in our world use it to control the population. This is a huge marking of cultural degradation, in my opinion.
calahad 5y ago
Hard to take anything the guy says seriously when he calls this tweet "objectively amazing" a couple of paragraphs in: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1470899663087747072 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1470899663087747072
- danuker 5y ago
  It's almost Christmas. Suspend some of your disbelief!
- palad1n 5y ago
  Yeah, can anyone explain this one to me?
  - jacobolus 5y ago
    The author is living in a Fox News fever dream, in which Elizabeth Warren’s badness is taken as an article of faith.
    - suction 5y ago
      But he also "dunks" on Trump by saying he profited from his DC hotel, where the bacon was amazing. Yes, that's the worst thing Trump got away with, sarcasm off. How these obvious Trumpists make it to the top of Hackernews shows once again that the nerds really aren't alright anymore.
    - dionidium 5y ago
      Do you follow Elizabeth Warren on Twitter? She is one of the most obnoxious political blowhards on the website, tweeting stuff about how high gas and milk prices are the result of executive greed and other innumerate, populist pablum. I don’t watch Fox News, so I have no idea what they say about her. I do know that when I read what she actually writes she sounds like a disingenuous liar. As a point of calibration, if I were to point out that she cynically lied about her Native American heritage, would you also respond by telling me that’s a Fox News talking point? Because, again, while I can imagine what Fox News has to say about it, I know better what I am able to conclude all on my own.
asn1parse 5y ago
not new
nickysielicki 5y ago
> All that is required to beat this, honestly, is a few people serving as positive role models with transparency and not abusing their authority. I can manage my little corner of the universe but I’m not holding my breath on the rest of the country. Totally lost me in the last paragraph. Can't everyone agree that these role models already exist? They're just hard to name because they don't do anything outrageous to steal our attention. The problem isn't that we don't know how to act properly -- the problem isn't that we need role models. The problem is that there's no reason to follow their lead. The solution is nothing short of punishment of these people and enforcement of the law. The problem is the bad people.
- Pxtl 5y ago
  Yeah, transparency and honesty doesn't win elections. It's hilarious that this is a conservative posting this, since Trump spend 4 years wiping his ass with norms and revealing how broken the system is, and how all the "rules" were just suggestions he could abuse freely and half the USA still approved of him.
  - JackFr 5y ago
    Why is that hilarious? As a conservative, it’s worth noting there’s truly nothing substantially conservative about Trump. He singlehandedly did more damage to the Republican Party than anyone since Nixon, and I would say more. Purge is an ugly word, but absent wholesale house cleaning of Trumpist grifters from the party I don’t see a useful future for it. However, it seems your point us that you fundamentally agree with OPs central thesis, but that you can’t believe someone politically aligned differently than you can have possibly made that argument.
  - nickysielicki 5y ago
    I take issue with you calling me conservative, I’m a libertarian.
    - renewiltord 5y ago
      P(this comment | conservative) = 0.999…
emodendroket 5y ago
> Innumerate politicians who themselves mandate harsh covid restrictions living their lives ignoring their own mandates - serial violators Gavin Newsom and Phil Murphy got re-elected! In the Newsom case, his opponent was someone claiming it was all a bunch of nonsense and if elected he'd do away with all restrictions immediately, so not a very strong vote for the person who's upset that he didn't take the whole thing seriously enough.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  If Newsom says that you'll probably die if somebody without a mask stands next to you, and he stands next to you without a mask, then either he's a liar or he doesn't care about your life. If his opponent says you'll almost certainly not die just because somebody without a mask stands next to you, and he stands next to you without a mask, he can still care about your life and be honest.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    Well yes, if you replace the actual claims about coronavirus and masks with different, absurd ones, then the argument is simple to counter. What if you didn't do that, though? I would guess many voters don't want to vote for someone they saw as a lunatic, even if he acts in a way that's very consistent with his own beliefs. Exit polling showed coronavirus was a big issue for voters and they didn’t think Newsom went far enough.
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      The point is that Newsom is in the wrong whether or not you believe masks are important to keep people safe. If they are important, then he's in the wrong for not wearing one himself. If they're not, then he's in the wrong for issuing the mandate.
      - emodendroket 5y ago
        Yes. But my point is voters who are concerned about COVID had the choice between a guy who had their preferred policies, but was a hypocrite, or a different guy who was sincerely committed to policies they thought were wrongheaded and dangerous. Why would they ever choose the latter, if these are the only options?
danuker 5y ago
> The psychological effect on most is that they start to feel like suckers for not pushing the envelope themselves and it’s dangerous because a country of jaded people is not one that can work together to solve common problems. Absolutely. Thank you for hitting the nail on the head! Problem is, the looting can only last so long, until everything has been looted. I suspect not much longer; if you put some of your wealth someplace undebase-able (say, gold or crypto), there is a chance you will make it to the other side. See also Atlas Shrugged, where the producers keeping the world afloat ("Atlas") decide to go on strike and hide due to populist politics bleeding them dry of their hard work ("shrugged").
- kgin 5y ago
  >undebase-able (say, gold or crypto)… Can’t debase something that has no base. Crypto has upper limit on supply (usually) but but no lower limit on demand. It can go to zero tomorrow based on feelings.
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  "Atlas Shrugged" is fiction.
  - danuker 5y ago
    It's strongly inspired by the Soviet Union.
    - pjc50 5y ago
      So is Animal Farm.
  - kybernetyk 5y ago
    But it becomes less so every year.
    - smackeyacky 5y ago
      So does "a clockwork orange". I guess it will be a race to see if the underclasses destroy society or the billionaires. My bet is both.
epicureanideal 5y ago
> This only gets worse if we do something crazy like forgive massive amounts of debt, whether it’s student or mortgage. The psychological effect on the people who have lived within their means and met their obligations will be radicalizing. Yep.
- drcode 5y ago
  I definitely feel like a sucker already for diligently paying off my school loans. A giant loan forgiveness program is probably coming.
  - sulam 5y ago
    I wouldn’t feel that way. Not paying those loans has a large impact on people’s ability to do relatively normal things like buy a house or get a non-POS credit card. Those effects won’t go away even if their loans are forgiven. I do think you have a case to feel aggrieved, but at the end of the day you can choose to be someone who lives up to your standards or not. Getting upset about it is as much a choice as anything else you do.
- bredren 5y ago
  > The psychological effect on the people who have lived within their means and met their obligations will be radicalizing. First, this entry tries to conflate student loan forgiveness with a potpourri of ethical issues. It is not similar to the other examples. It is reasonable to question the structure of US policy toward student loan programs. They are predatory compared with those of other nations. If the US comes to terms with this problem, and major restructuring is done, is debt forgiveness on loans that are no longer even possible to get some massive psychological burden? It seems more like sour grapes of having to run your own loans through bad policy.
  - brandonmenc 5y ago
    Exactly. The psychological fallout will be immense if an entire generation who have had their lives destroyed by and are still on the hook for these loans sees everyone else go to school for free, relatively or in fact.
simonbarker87 5y ago
> Picture your cousin invited you to go do a little looting last summer and you demurred. Eventually he shows up with a bunch of new Nikes but is later arrested only to have his charges dropped and record expunged. How does that make you feel? The clear intent from the author here is to make the reader feel like they too should have gone looting. This implies, to me, that the author perhaps doesn't have a particularly strong moral compass of their own because my honest answer is: "My cousin is incredibly stupid and lucky that they got away with this, I'm glad I didn't join them because even getting away with it I would hate myself. I'm concerned my cousin thinks this behaviour is ok, think it's time to dial back the contact with them" I absolutely don't feel: damn I should have gone looting too.
- a-dub 5y ago
  > "I'm concerned my cousin thinks this behaviour is ok, think it's time to dial back the contact with them" maybe "I'm concerned my cousin thinks this behaviour is ok, think it's time to consider what the relationship is worth to me, and if its important, attempt to influence better behaviors otherwise dial back contact with them" instead
- spiderfarmer 5y ago
  You don't. I don't. But people who were on the fence will absolutely join in the next time.
- spoonjim 5y ago
  You're falling into the trap of thinking that there are "moral" people and "immoral" people and never the twain shall meet. This is empirically false: there are frameworks in which almost nobody will transgress (e.g. North Korea) and frameworks under which almost everybody will transgress (e.g. Nazi Germany). Most people benchmark their behavior from external cues.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  > The clear intent from the author here is to make the reader feel like they too should have gone looting. IDK, I would say that the intent of this kind of writing it so make the reader feel a kind of "righteous anger" response; you know the visceral kind that damps down on slow rational analysis of the argument presented. Propagandising.
suction 5y ago
Curious about his examples involving liberal politicians, Chris Brown, and one extremely mild one for Trump. He's not fooling anyone though that this is mainly a hit piece on "libruls".
- the_only_law 5y ago
  It’s substack, basically medium for right wing pseudo-intellectuals
  - suction 5y ago
    Ah I didn't know that because I steer clear of all these platforms.
champagnois 5y ago
We live in a time when the anchors on TV as well as the politicians running the government are telling their supporters to break laws. Be it January 6th or the riots and looting we have seen for the past two years. Both sides have figures in their parties that are advocating for this madness and normalizing it. I am a bit of a patriot who is pretty intent on leaving the world better than how I found it. I help people. I try to set good examples. This whole behavior of the right and left has left me thinking they are both morally bankrupt. I disagree with the article. I do not feel like a sucker. I just feel all of this extremism is really sad and depressing.
- _y5hn 5y ago
  Which people go out and urge for looting?
  - champagnois 5y ago
    While difficult to pull up from search engines, throughout the riots and looting sprees and jury trials, there were two things I can roughly quote having heard a number of times from figureheads on the left: John Lewis's "good trouble" and "If we don't get (X), then we need to burn it down!" and Also the bizarre stuff where jurors in the Rittenhouse trial were being stalked by an NBC journalist who claimed he was illegally stalking the jurors under company orders (NBC then lawyered up and denies this). All three of these instances were widely reported at the time and I remember them. They all reak of an authoritarian willingness to trample our traditions and rule of law.
    - EdSharkey 5y ago
      "Fiery but mostly peaceful protests" said CNN. > On the morning of Aug. 25, national correspondent Omar Jimenez was reporting live on a second night of unrest that had followed the police shooting of Jacob Blake. As Jimenez stood in front of a raging fire, the chyron at the bottom of the screen read, "FIERY BUT MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTESTS AFTER POLICE SHOOTING." Tribalism allows such outrages to be celebrated. I guarantee there are tribalists here now who are comfortable rationalizing and excusing the violence, looting, arson, terrorism and trespass. First, they ignore you ...
reactspa 5y ago
Climate Change Champion Elizabeth Warren Arrives On Her Private Jet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vavV0Q94MhA&ab_channel=TheDCShorts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vavV0Q94MhA&ab_channel=TheDC...
paulpauper 5y ago
"Jussie Smollett staged a hate crime, and was convicted of such." Doesn't the fact he was convicted and received widespread ridicule everywhere disprove the author's point.
- rlanday 5y ago
  Absolutely not. Quite the contrary. They originally dropped the charges against him in agreement for 16 hours of community service and forfeiting his $10,000 bond. He inflamed racial and political tensions for attempted personal gain, which is quite a serious crime. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/arts/television/jussie-smollett-charges-dropped.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/arts/television/jussie-sm...
  - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
    Politicians regularly inflame racial and political tensions for attempted personal gain. That doesn’t seem like a good argument.
    - betwixthewires 5y ago
      Politicians also regularly get away with it, which is a cornerstone point in the article that supports its premise.
yholio 5y ago
> Jimmy Carter was a bad president but a great role model. Jimmy Carter was a good president in an unfavorable period.
avgcorrection 5y ago
> My friend, a former Navy SEAL, used to tell his AOICs “If you drink two beers the enlisted guys will drink ten. If you punch a dude in the bar, the guys will kill someone. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think it’s a big deal.” At the end of the day, leadership by example is so incredibly important and ours are systematically failing. Amazing that he takes that list of bad behavior and concludes that “and that’s bad because it means that normal people will do much worse things”. Well at least normal people can’t do things like start wars.
contrast 5y ago
The author’s message - which includes concluding that he’s morally superior to most people - is undermined by his blatantly partisan selection of examples. Personally, I’m of the view it’s a bad idea to spend time documenting in detail how “our tribes have failed to unite, and it is your tribe’s fault”. It implies a lot of pride, and a willingness to turn a blind eye to all sorts of bad behaviour. I mean, if you just want to criticise a politician or individual you don’t like - fair enough. You should feel free to make a point how you like. No one should be expected to be pain-stakingly fair in every post or comment. But if you want a grand narrative that includes, say, 10 examples of bad behaviour, demonstrate some thinking has taken place. Include 2 or 3 examples from whoever you consider to be your tribe. Don’t act like all the problems are other people.
- jmnicolas 5y ago
  Partisan? I'm not from the US so I don't know all intricacies of you politics, but his first 2 examples are Biden's son and Trump. Seems he bashes both side to me.
  - smackeyacky 5y ago
    He picked the least worst of Trumps transgressions, by quite some margin.
    - jmnicolas 5y ago
      He didn't take the worst from Biden's son either!
      - sulam 5y ago
        You can find a thousand clearly corrupt things Trump himself did in office, but sure, let’s talk about Biden’s son’s history.
      - peter422 5y ago
        Is Hunter Biden’s son in any position of power? Was he elected to anything? Appointed to any position in government?
dandanua 5y ago
> All that is required to beat this, honestly, is a few people serving as positive role models with transparency and not abusing their authority In corrupted countries such people are getting killed.
jo33 5y ago
clown
kstenerud 5y ago
Actually, cutting in at the last minute results in the most efficient traffic flow for everyone. I wish more people would do this, it would help ease traffic!
bambax 5y ago
Is the point of the article that the US, already the absolute worst country in the world, and in history, bar none, for percentage of its population behind bars, should ramp up punishment and somehow jail even more of its own people? The first example given is about Hunter Biden selling art. So he's not an artist, he's the son of the sitting president, and he manages to sell things for a good price, that mainstream critics don't find interesting or beautiful ("widely panned art show")... Good for him! Yes, it's quite obvious that some of the buyers are trying to get political favors; but that doesn't mean they will get them! The author just sounds envious.
- ghusto 5y ago
  These opinions you've expressed prove his point further.
- dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago
  How do the buyers get the political favors? They're kept anonymous.
- johngalt 5y ago
  > percentage of its population behind bars, should ramp up punishment and somehow jail even more of its own people? Corruption isn't only about who avoids punishment, but also who is the target of punishment. In highly corrupt environments you will often find complex and often contradictory rules, that produce a default state of guilt. The only way to avoid punishment is to participate in the corruption.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  > The first example given is about Hunter Biden selling art. So he's not an artist, he's the son of the sitting president, and he manages to sell things for a good price, that mainstream critics don't find interesting or beautiful ("widely panned art show")... Good for him! You're being naive. Nobody is buying the art, people are buying influence and laundering money. The man isn't selling art, the man is selling influence, and potentially other things. He splashes paint on a canvas to legitimize it for the accountant. I don't think the point is that the US should jail more people, I think the point is that when lots of people see others getting away with stuff, some of them start to try to do it too, and you have a snowballing societal collapse.
roca 5y ago
It is necessary to train oneself and others to keep on doing the right thing even when no-one else is doing it.
bigpeopleareold 5y ago
I feel* like having to chase returns in an increasingly expensive equity market is a form of avoiding being a sucker. "Only a sucker" would let cash sit in a bank and let inflation eat away at its value or even invest at risk-free rates. This is a bit institutionalized, for example, with housing prices. Anecdotally, I know people who make great salaries but can't manage to save up for a place close to work. I was part of that for years until my bitcoin investment solved that problem quick. The point is that if anything is a moral hazard that encourages avoiding being a sucker, it's this. * I don't have clear examples
mwattsun 5y ago
To my ears the author is describing corruption in society. I often wonder if America is getting more corrupt or if we just hear about it much more now due to the internet and social media. I think it's the later.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  The author's point is that even if it is the latter, that's still a problem.
  - mwattsun 5y ago
    Well yes, but it's probably intrinsic to human nature and civilization so there's not much we can do about it except accept a certain level of it. Is America today more corrupt than the Gilded Age in the late 1800's that Mark Twain wrote about? Probably less corrupt today. Things might never have been better according to Steven Pinker in his books Enlightenment Now and The Better Angels of Our Nature
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    If it's the latter, I want people to lose faith in our society, because in that case the rule of law is a charade. In that case, society isn't crumbling, its being outed for what it is, hollow. Why would you want to hide the corruption of the system to maintain it? Isn't that corrupt in itself?
    - josephcsible 5y ago
      I don't want to hide the corruption or for everyone to lose faith in society. I want the corruption to end.
      - betwixthewires 5y ago
        Well part of the path to doing that is for everyone to lose faith in the corrupted system. Once corruption takes hold, removal is painful no matter how you dice it.
stevespang 5y ago
arthur6667 5y ago
He conveniently forgets the biggest looters are in congress or the board room
- blendergeek 5y ago
  He mentions multiple members of Congress and several business people. From the article: > My congressman, Tom Malinowski was actively trading stocks and options during the pandemic, shorting stocks and then not disclosing his trades by trade disclosure deadlines. He won his election in a squeaker and disclosed his trades shortly thereafter, but remains a congressman.
zaptheimpaler 5y ago
I think this is (or feels like?) a bigger problem the more you look "upwards" towards celebs, billionaires and politicians. Every media outlet talks about the same ~20 people most of the time - Trump, Elon, Boris etc. while the local news disappears and the local role models go with them. In a small circle everybody knows who the cheater is, they get penalized socially (even if not legally), you see the penalty, and there is little reason to feel like a "sucker" (i.e envy them). The darker spin is that there are now mortals and gods, and us mortals should be content with our lot and not look up at Olympus even as they cheat and loot us. Corruption, inequality, moral decay.. which one comes first? My answer is to be the change you wish to see in the world, which will of course be quickly dismissed as cliche or moralizing. But hey it feels better than calling myself a sucker and joining the looters.
Pxtl 5y ago
> People who don’t pay their rent are getting back-rent forgiven or paid off by taxpayers, same with people who haven’t paid their mortgage in 18 months. This is grotesque. There's a pandemic on. Many people had their industries destroyed. Of course they need a hand. While there are parts that are good points about the hypocrisy of power, this is childish.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  He's obviously talking about people who had the means to pay rent but chose not to.
  - Pxtl 5y ago
    He mentions regularly eating at Trump tower - so he spends his time on 5th Avenue. I don't think the guy really cares why people aren't paying for his real-estate investments.
gumby 5y ago
Boy does this guy have an axe to grind: > For a long time, people didn’t feel like suckers for acting ethically, they felt honorable. > Some notable exceptions to this, and their starkness really highlights how rare these cases are: > … > All that is required to beat this, honestly, is a few people serving as positive role models with transparency and not abusing their authority. Sure, he cites some examples (and there are many more) but in my experience people everywhere try to do the right thing (and if they didn’t, nothing would work, which most people understand intuitively). And I say this having lived not just in wealthy countries but poor ones too (I’m an old fart). Also, his examples are dubious: “flash mobs killing people”, really? If it’s bad news it’s news (maybe I should learn about a possible threat). If it’s routine good news it’s not newsworthy. The author should put down the remote and go outside.
bobthechef 5y ago
[dead]
SpicyLemonZest 5y ago
I really caution people against tying together every bad thing they see into a grand theory of badness. It's very seductive, very satisfying, and inevitably leads to weird niche ideas you'd never endorse from first principles. I remember for a time I was absolutely convinced that most of the problems the author describes (some of them hadn't yet happened) could be solved if the police would just be harsher on criminals.
Aperocky 5y ago
> All that is required to beat this, honestly, is a few people serving as positive role models with transparency and not abusing their authority Good article, but not sure about this conclusion. You don't need a few role model, you just need rules that applies to everyone, ref: Singapore. Nobody has a moral compass? No problem, just pretend you have one while there, or else.
CosmicShadow 5y ago
Regardless of the politics, it is frustrating to see people cheat the system and get away with it, that is universal. I have this vague notion that this was less of a problem 30-50 years ago and people would be punished or more against doing this kind of thing just by way of culture and ethics, but I can't verify if that's true or not, or just the sense you get from movies and tv. I feel like every time people got away with things, the entire society slipped a bit and little by little it eventually eroded to where we are today, where it feels like we are hitting that exponential growth on the curve for societal shittiness. There always seemed to be a notion of "that person can't do that and get away with it, it'll be all over the news" and that would ruin them or get them punished, but it feels like the last few years people have just called the bluff on that and taken it to it's extreme conclusion and can get away with saying or doing anything and it doesn't matter if it's reported on, people will just go "I can't believe they said or did that" and nothing happens or changes (It just got normalized). The smart cheaters took this as an invitation to get away with things more frequently and openly now realizing there are very few repercussions. The only punishment seems to be for a small scale person or business that's really only serving a local community. I guess there is no larger sense of community anymore? Do role models exist or have any power to inspire or do they have to become something they aren't just so they can be big enough to be seen for their message? Perhaps in a world where there were only like 30-100 tv channels and no YouTube and shitty internet it was easier because there was really only so few options of who you get to see and they were more curated, but now anyone can be seen and the algorithms will just optimize you into something you maybe curiously or accidentally clicked on and take you into (and trap you in) your own tribe, healthy or not. It just feels like there is no way to dig society out of it's direction as all the holdouts will eventually give in or their children will. Why is every future sci-fi dystopian pretty much? You take today to it's logical conclusion.
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  Hmmm.... maybe. Or maybe 30-50 years ago gentlemen didn't get caught. What you see as "slipping" in society over the past decades has actually been increased public exposure of what has always happened? Just an alternative theory.
pontus 5y ago
I've thought similar things: why am I paying rent / mortgage / student loans if it's all going to be forgiven? What kind of sucker am I? I do it because I know it's the right thing to do, but together with a sort of "rebel worshipping" that I see in the startup community (e.g. ycombinator at least used to have questions trying to figure out which rules you've broken in some clever way), I do often come away feeling a little too much like a goody-two-shoes. There's often good intentions behind these things, but the argument made here is, I think, an important one to think about.
dqpb 5y ago
Disappointed this one didn’t make it in there: Chris Christie Closed New Jersey's State Beaches — And Then Went To The Beach https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/07/03/535335917/chris-christie-closed-new-jersey-s-beaches-and-then-went-to-the-beach https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/07/03/535335917...
justzisguyuknow 5y ago
How is this different from the typical authoritarian appeal for incresed "law and order"?
xivzgrev 5y ago
PSA: it is ok and optimal to merge while driving at the last second, not cheating as the author claims It’s called a zipper merge. Per the state of Minnesota, doing so Reduces differences in speeds between two lanes Reduces the overall length of traffic backup by as much as 40 percent Reduces congestion on freeway interchanges Creates a sense of fairness and equity that all lanes are moving at the same rate https://www.dot.state.mn.us/zippermerge/ https://www.dot.state.mn.us/zippermerge/
- zhoujianfu 5y ago
  I’m pretty sure a zipper merge is usually when two lanes merge into one, in that case it’s fine and normal when the actual merging happens at the end, with cars from each lane taking turns to become the final lane (like a zipper). And I’m also pretty sure he means when there’s one exit lane that’s really backed up and somebody in the non-exiting lane next to it that’s not backed up drives right up to the last minute and merges in, thereby “cutting the line”. Not the same thing IMO, although I am very frequently guilty of the latter!
  - mindslight 5y ago
    It's only wrong to "wait until the last second to merge" when that line is going extremely slowly or is fully stopped. Most of the time there is a line of cars moving along at 70% of the road speed before an exit, because there is some "leader of men" going slowly in preparation for the exit (or not!), with plenty of room in front of them. In this case you're helping everyone by passing that line and using the road capacity they're wasting.
- karmakaze 5y ago
  Zipper merging is not about 'when' you merge, but 'where'. It should be every-other car from each lane. Ideally this should be done before the end of the lane. It only ends up being the end of the lane and causing inefficiencies because of those who speed past their zipper spot, and are cheating. If I see that happening a few times, what I'll do is move along in sync with the other lane leaving space ahead of me where the lane ends.
- deleted 5y ago
bichiliad 5y ago
I agree with this article in premise. I think about it a lot when it comes to masking up. I'm pretty religious about that, but when I see people on the subway going maskless, I sometimes think about whether I'm being ridiculous or not (the latest wave has been a bit of a reassurance, but the point stands). I think the layer that gets left out is the abuse of power in these situations. If someone is unable to pay their rent and they get public assistance, I don't think that's getting off with bad behavior; that's a policy decision put into effect. If Nancy Pelosi is benefitting from insider trading because of her ability to steer and change governmental policy, that is abuse. It sounds like I'm being picky about the examples here, but I think the part that rang the most true was about holding people in the positions of leadership responsible, much like the author's Navy Seal friend telling his AOIC's to lead by example. If the people in charge get away with something, and I'm way less publicly visible than they are, what's to stop me from trying?
silexia 5y ago
The government is easy to abuse and cheat. That is why we want the government to just focus on being a referee to society rather than taking resources from one party at gunpoint and giving it to another. When that happens, pork barrel politics cause massive corruption. We also need to get rid of the outrage culture that prevents the smooth process of law and order.
DarylZero 5y ago
Stopped reading at "Hunter Biden."
- cudgy 5y ago
  … and then posted virtue signaling comment
  - DarylZero 5y ago
    LOL!!
Sporktacular 5y ago
"This only gets worse if we do something crazy like forgive massive amounts of debt, whether it’s student or mortgage. The psychological effect on the people who have lived within their means and met their obligations will be radicalizing." Not nearly as radicalising as a debt-laden permanent underclass. And this just assumes debt comes from living beyond one's means, ignoring complexities like historical or systemic unfairness in how it's sometimes created and inherited. Investing in education to escape debt cycle is good for people and economies. It's so often subsidised because it generally pays for itself many times over. But when it doesn't, allowing it to deepen the cycle just keeps people in debt and suppresses economic growth. The productive carrying the less productive is an ancient problem. They usually feel like suckers until they learn it's for the good of the society that sustains them.
- jl2718 5y ago
  Okay, but you understand that the bailouts are not for them, right? It’s for their lenders that would never get repaid otherwise. The bailouts let them charge high-risk interest rates with zero actual risk.
  - Sporktacular 5y ago
    No, the bailouts are directly for the borrowers. Just as bailing out an airline keeps the airline alive, not indirectly the creditors funding it. Of course the effect is on both but I'm avoiding definition torture. But risk externality is a good point. Maybe one that needs addressing with a return to reasonable regulation, reigning in speculation/predatory lending, Glass-Steagall etc.

The Sucker Complex

216 points by 1cvmask 5y ago

mattbee 5y ago

Hang on, what's morally wrong with merging late? Speed is lower, and you're using the highway more efficiently.

sulam 5y ago
It’s only “wrong” in the sense that many people feel like it’s wrong with no objective basis for their beliefs. That said, when enough people feel a certain traffic behavior is wrong, it becomes true despite objective fact. Late merge when the lane you’re in is running 40mph above the lane you’re merging into and you are asking to be rear-ended or worse.
- mattbee 5y ago
  I'm thinking of busy British A roads going from 2 to 1 lane, usually the last merge point is at a standstill. I've witnessed insanely aggressive behaviour by drivers trying to block others' merges. My driving instructor always told me to behave selfishly, because "courteous" driving (flashing lights, slowing down, waiting for someone to emerge etc) is unpredictable by comparison! Courteous driving becomes its own form of aggression when another driver misunderstands.

fj33j32j2j 5y ago

scollet 5y ago

The article doesn't have an argument or a conclusion. The author FUDs on the floor. We get that things aren't perfect, but being afraid helps nobody. It's fine to vent to the world, but I think the "publish" button can wait.

dqpb 5y ago
How do you vent to the world without the publish button?
- chihuahua 5y ago
  You stand on a street corner downtown and shout at everybody and nobody.
  - dqpb 5y ago
    But then how do you get their email addresses and charge them a subscription fee?
  - scollet 5y ago
    This one. Very cathartic.
- scollet 5y ago
  Get elected? Not sure. Happy holidays.

fnord77 5y ago

the author has some good points, but mixes corrupt/criminal activities with activities that are meant to protect the economy (paying covid rent)

verifex 5y ago
I think the article has some flaws because it seems like the point of the article seems to try and link the sentiment given to people who commit deliberate unethical/corrupt behavior to non-deliberate and otherwise less-fortunate people, which I think is a bit of a disingenuous argument.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
smackeyacky 5y ago
Its a deliberate conflation, a sleight of hand that happens in American discourse all the time. As an example, Americans are hostages to your incredibly inefficient health care system. Not only is reasonable discussion of public health outside your overton window, the reason it stays outside is the instant clamour of voices saying "free stuff is bad and you are bad for advocating it". The only way to get access to reasonable care seems to be either military service or full employment. The rest of the world is incredulous that losing your job means losing access to healthcare. That truly strange conception of "freedom" americans are always so afraid of losing is a massive illusion for the majority of a population deathly afraid of the financial ramifications of a health crisis. Yet you have no functional way of talking about it, because of the sleight of hand discourse exemplified by the article. I truly feel sorry for americans at this point.
epicureanideal 5y ago
There's still moral hazard there, because no doubt many people already had the sense that the government would do something like that, so intentionally didn't pay their rent.
- smackeyacky 5y ago

paulpauper 5y ago

these are just edge cases that get a lot of media coverage. By in large, people in tech, law, finance , etc. are making a lot of money and while being ethical and hard-working. The fear that society is overflowing with opportunists who are just looting the system or getting by without work, is overblown. I understand the author's frustration, but incompetence, favoritism, lying (except perjury), and nepotism are generally not crimes, and very few people are able to get by without doing the necessary work. Also, plenty of non-famous people also engage in shitty behavior too but it's not newsworthy.

arciini 5y ago
Similarly, I think powerful people have always behaved as poorly as in the examples he mentioned. It's just that nowadays, data-driven traditional and social media uses the outrage to make money. This does unfortunately lead more people to think that cheating is OK, but I think for the most part, our systems do eventually work to correct that.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  Certainly even the Founding Fathers had a lot of business entanglements that would lead one to seriously question whether they didn't have a conflict of interest (e.g., how much was Washington's decision to mount an army to secure the Ohio territory influenced by his own significant personal holdings there?). But it feels to me like at one point we had, to some extent, mastered this problem, and now we've moved away from even trying.
- luckylion 5y ago
  Probably. Maybe it didn't have that much of an impact on society because it wasn't known. E.g. in Germany during Covid-19 measures, multiple CDU politicians got caught doing shady deals with companies, either by having the state overpay for masks for a kickback, by pushing for emergency certifications for some tests (again for cash), and other corrupt behaviors. This wouldn't be a large issue if nobody had known - even if the state had overpaid by half a billion, that's not even a day's worth of money. However, since it came out, there has been a massive loss of trust in politicians and public institutions. Those who doubted before now saw proof that it's all just a scheme, and others just lost a lot of trust. We'll have to see whether anything happens beyond the accused promising to donate the proceeds, but I'm not holding my breath.

DerSaidin 5y ago

Also happening on an international level with countries ignoring climate change?

rlanday 5y ago
That’s not good behavior but I think it’s not really the same phenomenon. That’s more of a coordinated action/tragedy of the commons problem where people want to bury their heads in the sand and do nothing because the problem can be mostly ignored for now.

Supermancho 5y ago

This is a case of the Broken Windows Theory. https://www.britannica.com/topic/broken-windows-theory https://www.britannica.com/topic/broken-windows-theory

8f2ab37a-ed6c 5y ago

This dog-eat-dog "if you don't steal, you won't survive" endemic level of corruption and ubiquitous legal broken windows is IME not uncommon in shitty third-world countries (of one of which I'm an expat) where scarcity leads people to prioritize their own needs over common decency and consideration towards others. The "everybody else is cheating, this is the baseline" attitude always felt wrong, but, just like the article said, you were made to feel a fool if you didn't participate in it. The US felt like a place that, while not immune to cheating, had strong social and legal norms around it. The most recent phenomenon of this kind I can recall was people lying to vaccination centers about having medical conditions that would help them skip the line ahead of everybody else. I was and still am vehemently opposed to lying about that, despite having been told numerous times that the government would have just thrown the doses away if nobody used them up by lying about their status. Again, you were made to feel a sucker.

doovd 5y ago
> This dog-eat-dog "if you don't steal, you won't survive" endemic level of corruption and ubiquitous legal broken windows is IME not uncommon in shitty third-world countries No different in most first world countries
- bongoman37 5y ago
- jmeister 5y ago
  Yeah, I’m an immigrant like the other replier too, you kids need to dump your books and travel the world, outside Americanized liberal cities.
dandanua 5y ago
You're also a sucker if you don't invest in crypto. This "sucker" trick is very primitive, it's common to see that teenagers use it to control each other. What's horrible is that significant power structures in our world use it to control the population. This is a huge marking of cultural degradation, in my opinion.

calahad 5y ago

Hard to take anything the guy says seriously when he calls this tweet "objectively amazing" a couple of paragraphs in: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1470899663087747072 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1470899663087747072

danuker 5y ago
It's almost Christmas. Suspend some of your disbelief!
palad1n 5y ago
Yeah, can anyone explain this one to me?
- jacobolus 5y ago
  The author is living in a Fox News fever dream, in which Elizabeth Warren’s badness is taken as an article of faith.
  - suction 5y ago
    But he also "dunks" on Trump by saying he profited from his DC hotel, where the bacon was amazing. Yes, that's the worst thing Trump got away with, sarcasm off. How these obvious Trumpists make it to the top of Hackernews shows once again that the nerds really aren't alright anymore.
  - dionidium 5y ago
    Do you follow Elizabeth Warren on Twitter? She is one of the most obnoxious political blowhards on the website, tweeting stuff about how high gas and milk prices are the result of executive greed and other innumerate, populist pablum. I don’t watch Fox News, so I have no idea what they say about her. I do know that when I read what she actually writes she sounds like a disingenuous liar. As a point of calibration, if I were to point out that she cynically lied about her Native American heritage, would you also respond by telling me that’s a Fox News talking point? Because, again, while I can imagine what Fox News has to say about it, I know better what I am able to conclude all on my own.

asn1parse 5y ago

not new

nickysielicki 5y ago

> All that is required to beat this, honestly, is a few people serving as positive role models with transparency and not abusing their authority. I can manage my little corner of the universe but I’m not holding my breath on the rest of the country. Totally lost me in the last paragraph. Can't everyone agree that these role models already exist? They're just hard to name because they don't do anything outrageous to steal our attention. The problem isn't that we don't know how to act properly -- the problem isn't that we need role models. The problem is that there's no reason to follow their lead. The solution is nothing short of punishment of these people and enforcement of the law. The problem is the bad people.

Pxtl 5y ago
Yeah, transparency and honesty doesn't win elections. It's hilarious that this is a conservative posting this, since Trump spend 4 years wiping his ass with norms and revealing how broken the system is, and how all the "rules" were just suggestions he could abuse freely and half the USA still approved of him.
- JackFr 5y ago
  Why is that hilarious? As a conservative, it’s worth noting there’s truly nothing substantially conservative about Trump. He singlehandedly did more damage to the Republican Party than anyone since Nixon, and I would say more. Purge is an ugly word, but absent wholesale house cleaning of Trumpist grifters from the party I don’t see a useful future for it. However, it seems your point us that you fundamentally agree with OPs central thesis, but that you can’t believe someone politically aligned differently than you can have possibly made that argument.
- nickysielicki 5y ago
  I take issue with you calling me conservative, I’m a libertarian.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    P(this comment | conservative) = 0.999…

emodendroket 5y ago

> Innumerate politicians who themselves mandate harsh covid restrictions living their lives ignoring their own mandates - serial violators Gavin Newsom and Phil Murphy got re-elected! In the Newsom case, his opponent was someone claiming it was all a bunch of nonsense and if elected he'd do away with all restrictions immediately, so not a very strong vote for the person who's upset that he didn't take the whole thing seriously enough.

josephcsible 5y ago
If Newsom says that you'll probably die if somebody without a mask stands next to you, and he stands next to you without a mask, then either he's a liar or he doesn't care about your life. If his opponent says you'll almost certainly not die just because somebody without a mask stands next to you, and he stands next to you without a mask, he can still care about your life and be honest.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  Well yes, if you replace the actual claims about coronavirus and masks with different, absurd ones, then the argument is simple to counter. What if you didn't do that, though? I would guess many voters don't want to vote for someone they saw as a lunatic, even if he acts in a way that's very consistent with his own beliefs. Exit polling showed coronavirus was a big issue for voters and they didn’t think Newsom went far enough.
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    The point is that Newsom is in the wrong whether or not you believe masks are important to keep people safe. If they are important, then he's in the wrong for not wearing one himself. If they're not, then he's in the wrong for issuing the mandate.
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      Yes. But my point is voters who are concerned about COVID had the choice between a guy who had their preferred policies, but was a hypocrite, or a different guy who was sincerely committed to policies they thought were wrongheaded and dangerous. Why would they ever choose the latter, if these are the only options?

danuker 5y ago

> The psychological effect on most is that they start to feel like suckers for not pushing the envelope themselves and it’s dangerous because a country of jaded people is not one that can work together to solve common problems. Absolutely. Thank you for hitting the nail on the head! Problem is, the looting can only last so long, until everything has been looted. I suspect not much longer; if you put some of your wealth someplace undebase-able (say, gold or crypto), there is a chance you will make it to the other side. See also Atlas Shrugged, where the producers keeping the world afloat ("Atlas") decide to go on strike and hide due to populist politics bleeding them dry of their hard work ("shrugged").

kgin 5y ago
>undebase-able (say, gold or crypto)… Can’t debase something that has no base. Crypto has upper limit on supply (usually) but but no lower limit on demand. It can go to zero tomorrow based on feelings.
smackeyacky 5y ago
"Atlas Shrugged" is fiction.
- danuker 5y ago
  It's strongly inspired by the Soviet Union.
  - pjc50 5y ago
    So is Animal Farm.
- kybernetyk 5y ago
  But it becomes less so every year.
  - smackeyacky 5y ago
    So does "a clockwork orange". I guess it will be a race to see if the underclasses destroy society or the billionaires. My bet is both.

epicureanideal 5y ago

> This only gets worse if we do something crazy like forgive massive amounts of debt, whether it’s student or mortgage. The psychological effect on the people who have lived within their means and met their obligations will be radicalizing. Yep.

drcode 5y ago
I definitely feel like a sucker already for diligently paying off my school loans. A giant loan forgiveness program is probably coming.
- sulam 5y ago
  I wouldn’t feel that way. Not paying those loans has a large impact on people’s ability to do relatively normal things like buy a house or get a non-POS credit card. Those effects won’t go away even if their loans are forgiven. I do think you have a case to feel aggrieved, but at the end of the day you can choose to be someone who lives up to your standards or not. Getting upset about it is as much a choice as anything else you do.
bredren 5y ago
> The psychological effect on the people who have lived within their means and met their obligations will be radicalizing. First, this entry tries to conflate student loan forgiveness with a potpourri of ethical issues. It is not similar to the other examples. It is reasonable to question the structure of US policy toward student loan programs. They are predatory compared with those of other nations. If the US comes to terms with this problem, and major restructuring is done, is debt forgiveness on loans that are no longer even possible to get some massive psychological burden? It seems more like sour grapes of having to run your own loans through bad policy.
- brandonmenc 5y ago
  Exactly. The psychological fallout will be immense if an entire generation who have had their lives destroyed by and are still on the hook for these loans sees everyone else go to school for free, relatively or in fact.

simonbarker87 5y ago

> Picture your cousin invited you to go do a little looting last summer and you demurred. Eventually he shows up with a bunch of new Nikes but is later arrested only to have his charges dropped and record expunged. How does that make you feel? The clear intent from the author here is to make the reader feel like they too should have gone looting. This implies, to me, that the author perhaps doesn't have a particularly strong moral compass of their own because my honest answer is: "My cousin is incredibly stupid and lucky that they got away with this, I'm glad I didn't join them because even getting away with it I would hate myself. I'm concerned my cousin thinks this behaviour is ok, think it's time to dial back the contact with them" I absolutely don't feel: damn I should have gone looting too.

a-dub 5y ago
> "I'm concerned my cousin thinks this behaviour is ok, think it's time to dial back the contact with them" maybe "I'm concerned my cousin thinks this behaviour is ok, think it's time to consider what the relationship is worth to me, and if its important, attempt to influence better behaviors otherwise dial back contact with them" instead
spiderfarmer 5y ago
You don't. I don't. But people who were on the fence will absolutely join in the next time.
spoonjim 5y ago
You're falling into the trap of thinking that there are "moral" people and "immoral" people and never the twain shall meet. This is empirically false: there are frameworks in which almost nobody will transgress (e.g. North Korea) and frameworks under which almost everybody will transgress (e.g. Nazi Germany). Most people benchmark their behavior from external cues.
SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
> The clear intent from the author here is to make the reader feel like they too should have gone looting. IDK, I would say that the intent of this kind of writing it so make the reader feel a kind of "righteous anger" response; you know the visceral kind that damps down on slow rational analysis of the argument presented. Propagandising.

suction 5y ago

Curious about his examples involving liberal politicians, Chris Brown, and one extremely mild one for Trump. He's not fooling anyone though that this is mainly a hit piece on "libruls".

the_only_law 5y ago
It’s substack, basically medium for right wing pseudo-intellectuals
- suction 5y ago
  Ah I didn't know that because I steer clear of all these platforms.

champagnois 5y ago

We live in a time when the anchors on TV as well as the politicians running the government are telling their supporters to break laws. Be it January 6th or the riots and looting we have seen for the past two years. Both sides have figures in their parties that are advocating for this madness and normalizing it. I am a bit of a patriot who is pretty intent on leaving the world better than how I found it. I help people. I try to set good examples. This whole behavior of the right and left has left me thinking they are both morally bankrupt. I disagree with the article. I do not feel like a sucker. I just feel all of this extremism is really sad and depressing.

_y5hn 5y ago
Which people go out and urge for looting?
- champagnois 5y ago
  While difficult to pull up from search engines, throughout the riots and looting sprees and jury trials, there were two things I can roughly quote having heard a number of times from figureheads on the left: John Lewis's "good trouble" and "If we don't get (X), then we need to burn it down!" and Also the bizarre stuff where jurors in the Rittenhouse trial were being stalked by an NBC journalist who claimed he was illegally stalking the jurors under company orders (NBC then lawyered up and denies this). All three of these instances were widely reported at the time and I remember them. They all reak of an authoritarian willingness to trample our traditions and rule of law.
  - EdSharkey 5y ago
    "Fiery but mostly peaceful protests" said CNN. > On the morning of Aug. 25, national correspondent Omar Jimenez was reporting live on a second night of unrest that had followed the police shooting of Jacob Blake. As Jimenez stood in front of a raging fire, the chyron at the bottom of the screen read, "FIERY BUT MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTESTS AFTER POLICE SHOOTING." Tribalism allows such outrages to be celebrated. I guarantee there are tribalists here now who are comfortable rationalizing and excusing the violence, looting, arson, terrorism and trespass. First, they ignore you ...

reactspa 5y ago

Climate Change Champion Elizabeth Warren Arrives On Her Private Jet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vavV0Q94MhA&ab_channel=TheDCShorts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vavV0Q94MhA&ab_channel=TheDC...

paulpauper 5y ago

"Jussie Smollett staged a hate crime, and was convicted of such." Doesn't the fact he was convicted and received widespread ridicule everywhere disprove the author's point.

rlanday 5y ago
Absolutely not. Quite the contrary. They originally dropped the charges against him in agreement for 16 hours of community service and forfeiting his $10,000 bond. He inflamed racial and political tensions for attempted personal gain, which is quite a serious crime. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/arts/television/jussie-smollett-charges-dropped.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/26/arts/television/jussie-sm...
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  Politicians regularly inflame racial and political tensions for attempted personal gain. That doesn’t seem like a good argument.
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    Politicians also regularly get away with it, which is a cornerstone point in the article that supports its premise.

yholio 5y ago

> Jimmy Carter was a bad president but a great role model. Jimmy Carter was a good president in an unfavorable period.

avgcorrection 5y ago

> My friend, a former Navy SEAL, used to tell his AOICs “If you drink two beers the enlisted guys will drink ten. If you punch a dude in the bar, the guys will kill someone. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think it’s a big deal.” At the end of the day, leadership by example is so incredibly important and ours are systematically failing. Amazing that he takes that list of bad behavior and concludes that “and that’s bad because it means that normal people will do much worse things”. Well at least normal people can’t do things like start wars.

contrast 5y ago

The author’s message - which includes concluding that he’s morally superior to most people - is undermined by his blatantly partisan selection of examples. Personally, I’m of the view it’s a bad idea to spend time documenting in detail how “our tribes have failed to unite, and it is your tribe’s fault”. It implies a lot of pride, and a willingness to turn a blind eye to all sorts of bad behaviour. I mean, if you just want to criticise a politician or individual you don’t like - fair enough. You should feel free to make a point how you like. No one should be expected to be pain-stakingly fair in every post or comment. But if you want a grand narrative that includes, say, 10 examples of bad behaviour, demonstrate some thinking has taken place. Include 2 or 3 examples from whoever you consider to be your tribe. Don’t act like all the problems are other people.

jmnicolas 5y ago
Partisan? I'm not from the US so I don't know all intricacies of you politics, but his first 2 examples are Biden's son and Trump. Seems he bashes both side to me.
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  He picked the least worst of Trumps transgressions, by quite some margin.
  - jmnicolas 5y ago
    He didn't take the worst from Biden's son either!
    - sulam 5y ago
      You can find a thousand clearly corrupt things Trump himself did in office, but sure, let’s talk about Biden’s son’s history.
    - peter422 5y ago
      Is Hunter Biden’s son in any position of power? Was he elected to anything? Appointed to any position in government?

dandanua 5y ago

> All that is required to beat this, honestly, is a few people serving as positive role models with transparency and not abusing their authority In corrupted countries such people are getting killed.

jo33 5y ago

clown

kstenerud 5y ago

Actually, cutting in at the last minute results in the most efficient traffic flow for everyone. I wish more people would do this, it would help ease traffic!

bambax 5y ago

Is the point of the article that the US, already the absolute worst country in the world, and in history, bar none, for percentage of its population behind bars, should ramp up punishment and somehow jail even more of its own people? The first example given is about Hunter Biden selling art. So he's not an artist, he's the son of the sitting president, and he manages to sell things for a good price, that mainstream critics don't find interesting or beautiful ("widely panned art show")... Good for him! Yes, it's quite obvious that some of the buyers are trying to get political favors; but that doesn't mean they will get them! The author just sounds envious.

ghusto 5y ago
These opinions you've expressed prove his point further.
dkjaudyeqooe 5y ago
How do the buyers get the political favors? They're kept anonymous.
johngalt 5y ago
> percentage of its population behind bars, should ramp up punishment and somehow jail even more of its own people? Corruption isn't only about who avoids punishment, but also who is the target of punishment. In highly corrupt environments you will often find complex and often contradictory rules, that produce a default state of guilt. The only way to avoid punishment is to participate in the corruption.
betwixthewires 5y ago
> The first example given is about Hunter Biden selling art. So he's not an artist, he's the son of the sitting president, and he manages to sell things for a good price, that mainstream critics don't find interesting or beautiful ("widely panned art show")... Good for him! You're being naive. Nobody is buying the art, people are buying influence and laundering money. The man isn't selling art, the man is selling influence, and potentially other things. He splashes paint on a canvas to legitimize it for the accountant. I don't think the point is that the US should jail more people, I think the point is that when lots of people see others getting away with stuff, some of them start to try to do it too, and you have a snowballing societal collapse.

roca 5y ago

It is necessary to train oneself and others to keep on doing the right thing even when no-one else is doing it.

bigpeopleareold 5y ago

I feel* like having to chase returns in an increasingly expensive equity market is a form of avoiding being a sucker. "Only a sucker" would let cash sit in a bank and let inflation eat away at its value or even invest at risk-free rates. This is a bit institutionalized, for example, with housing prices. Anecdotally, I know people who make great salaries but can't manage to save up for a place close to work. I was part of that for years until my bitcoin investment solved that problem quick. The point is that if anything is a moral hazard that encourages avoiding being a sucker, it's this. * I don't have clear examples

mwattsun 5y ago

To my ears the author is describing corruption in society. I often wonder if America is getting more corrupt or if we just hear about it much more now due to the internet and social media. I think it's the later.

josephcsible 5y ago
The author's point is that even if it is the latter, that's still a problem.
- mwattsun 5y ago
  Well yes, but it's probably intrinsic to human nature and civilization so there's not much we can do about it except accept a certain level of it. Is America today more corrupt than the Gilded Age in the late 1800's that Mark Twain wrote about? Probably less corrupt today. Things might never have been better according to Steven Pinker in his books Enlightenment Now and The Better Angels of Our Nature
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  If it's the latter, I want people to lose faith in our society, because in that case the rule of law is a charade. In that case, society isn't crumbling, its being outed for what it is, hollow. Why would you want to hide the corruption of the system to maintain it? Isn't that corrupt in itself?
  - josephcsible 5y ago
    I don't want to hide the corruption or for everyone to lose faith in society. I want the corruption to end.
    - betwixthewires 5y ago
      Well part of the path to doing that is for everyone to lose faith in the corrupted system. Once corruption takes hold, removal is painful no matter how you dice it.

stevespang 5y ago

arthur6667 5y ago

He conveniently forgets the biggest looters are in congress or the board room

blendergeek 5y ago
He mentions multiple members of Congress and several business people. From the article: > My congressman, Tom Malinowski was actively trading stocks and options during the pandemic, shorting stocks and then not disclosing his trades by trade disclosure deadlines. He won his election in a squeaker and disclosed his trades shortly thereafter, but remains a congressman.

zaptheimpaler 5y ago

I think this is (or feels like?) a bigger problem the more you look "upwards" towards celebs, billionaires and politicians. Every media outlet talks about the same ~20 people most of the time - Trump, Elon, Boris etc. while the local news disappears and the local role models go with them. In a small circle everybody knows who the cheater is, they get penalized socially (even if not legally), you see the penalty, and there is little reason to feel like a "sucker" (i.e envy them). The darker spin is that there are now mortals and gods, and us mortals should be content with our lot and not look up at Olympus even as they cheat and loot us. Corruption, inequality, moral decay.. which one comes first? My answer is to be the change you wish to see in the world, which will of course be quickly dismissed as cliche or moralizing. But hey it feels better than calling myself a sucker and joining the looters.

Pxtl 5y ago

> People who don’t pay their rent are getting back-rent forgiven or paid off by taxpayers, same with people who haven’t paid their mortgage in 18 months. This is grotesque. There's a pandemic on. Many people had their industries destroyed. Of course they need a hand. While there are parts that are good points about the hypocrisy of power, this is childish.

josephcsible 5y ago
He's obviously talking about people who had the means to pay rent but chose not to.
- Pxtl 5y ago
  He mentions regularly eating at Trump tower - so he spends his time on 5th Avenue. I don't think the guy really cares why people aren't paying for his real-estate investments.

gumby 5y ago

Boy does this guy have an axe to grind: > For a long time, people didn’t feel like suckers for acting ethically, they felt honorable. > Some notable exceptions to this, and their starkness really highlights how rare these cases are: > … > All that is required to beat this, honestly, is a few people serving as positive role models with transparency and not abusing their authority. Sure, he cites some examples (and there are many more) but in my experience people everywhere try to do the right thing (and if they didn’t, nothing would work, which most people understand intuitively). And I say this having lived not just in wealthy countries but poor ones too (I’m an old fart). Also, his examples are dubious: “flash mobs killing people”, really? If it’s bad news it’s news (maybe I should learn about a possible threat). If it’s routine good news it’s not newsworthy. The author should put down the remote and go outside.

bobthechef 5y ago

[dead]

SpicyLemonZest 5y ago

I really caution people against tying together every bad thing they see into a grand theory of badness. It's very seductive, very satisfying, and inevitably leads to weird niche ideas you'd never endorse from first principles. I remember for a time I was absolutely convinced that most of the problems the author describes (some of them hadn't yet happened) could be solved if the police would just be harsher on criminals.

Aperocky 5y ago

> All that is required to beat this, honestly, is a few people serving as positive role models with transparency and not abusing their authority Good article, but not sure about this conclusion. You don't need a few role model, you just need rules that applies to everyone, ref: Singapore. Nobody has a moral compass? No problem, just pretend you have one while there, or else.

CosmicShadow 5y ago

Regardless of the politics, it is frustrating to see people cheat the system and get away with it, that is universal. I have this vague notion that this was less of a problem 30-50 years ago and people would be punished or more against doing this kind of thing just by way of culture and ethics, but I can't verify if that's true or not, or just the sense you get from movies and tv. I feel like every time people got away with things, the entire society slipped a bit and little by little it eventually eroded to where we are today, where it feels like we are hitting that exponential growth on the curve for societal shittiness. There always seemed to be a notion of "that person can't do that and get away with it, it'll be all over the news" and that would ruin them or get them punished, but it feels like the last few years people have just called the bluff on that and taken it to it's extreme conclusion and can get away with saying or doing anything and it doesn't matter if it's reported on, people will just go "I can't believe they said or did that" and nothing happens or changes (It just got normalized). The smart cheaters took this as an invitation to get away with things more frequently and openly now realizing there are very few repercussions. The only punishment seems to be for a small scale person or business that's really only serving a local community. I guess there is no larger sense of community anymore? Do role models exist or have any power to inspire or do they have to become something they aren't just so they can be big enough to be seen for their message? Perhaps in a world where there were only like 30-100 tv channels and no YouTube and shitty internet it was easier because there was really only so few options of who you get to see and they were more curated, but now anyone can be seen and the algorithms will just optimize you into something you maybe curiously or accidentally clicked on and take you into (and trap you in) your own tribe, healthy or not. It just feels like there is no way to dig society out of it's direction as all the holdouts will eventually give in or their children will. Why is every future sci-fi dystopian pretty much? You take today to it's logical conclusion.

JKCalhoun 5y ago
Hmmm.... maybe. Or maybe 30-50 years ago gentlemen didn't get caught. What you see as "slipping" in society over the past decades has actually been increased public exposure of what has always happened? Just an alternative theory.

pontus 5y ago

I've thought similar things: why am I paying rent / mortgage / student loans if it's all going to be forgiven? What kind of sucker am I? I do it because I know it's the right thing to do, but together with a sort of "rebel worshipping" that I see in the startup community (e.g. ycombinator at least used to have questions trying to figure out which rules you've broken in some clever way), I do often come away feeling a little too much like a goody-two-shoes. There's often good intentions behind these things, but the argument made here is, I think, an important one to think about.

dqpb 5y ago

Disappointed this one didn’t make it in there: Chris Christie Closed New Jersey's State Beaches — And Then Went To The Beach https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/07/03/535335917/chris-christie-closed-new-jersey-s-beaches-and-then-went-to-the-beach https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/07/03/535335917...

justzisguyuknow 5y ago

How is this different from the typical authoritarian appeal for incresed "law and order"?

xivzgrev 5y ago

PSA: it is ok and optimal to merge while driving at the last second, not cheating as the author claims It’s called a zipper merge. Per the state of Minnesota, doing so Reduces differences in speeds between two lanes Reduces the overall length of traffic backup by as much as 40 percent Reduces congestion on freeway interchanges Creates a sense of fairness and equity that all lanes are moving at the same rate https://www.dot.state.mn.us/zippermerge/ https://www.dot.state.mn.us/zippermerge/

zhoujianfu 5y ago
I’m pretty sure a zipper merge is usually when two lanes merge into one, in that case it’s fine and normal when the actual merging happens at the end, with cars from each lane taking turns to become the final lane (like a zipper). And I’m also pretty sure he means when there’s one exit lane that’s really backed up and somebody in the non-exiting lane next to it that’s not backed up drives right up to the last minute and merges in, thereby “cutting the line”. Not the same thing IMO, although I am very frequently guilty of the latter!
- mindslight 5y ago
  It's only wrong to "wait until the last second to merge" when that line is going extremely slowly or is fully stopped. Most of the time there is a line of cars moving along at 70% of the road speed before an exit, because there is some "leader of men" going slowly in preparation for the exit (or not!), with plenty of room in front of them. In this case you're helping everyone by passing that line and using the road capacity they're wasting.
karmakaze 5y ago
Zipper merging is not about 'when' you merge, but 'where'. It should be every-other car from each lane. Ideally this should be done before the end of the lane. It only ends up being the end of the lane and causing inefficiencies because of those who speed past their zipper spot, and are cheating. If I see that happening a few times, what I'll do is move along in sync with the other lane leaving space ahead of me where the lane ends.
deleted 5y ago

bichiliad 5y ago

I agree with this article in premise. I think about it a lot when it comes to masking up. I'm pretty religious about that, but when I see people on the subway going maskless, I sometimes think about whether I'm being ridiculous or not (the latest wave has been a bit of a reassurance, but the point stands). I think the layer that gets left out is the abuse of power in these situations. If someone is unable to pay their rent and they get public assistance, I don't think that's getting off with bad behavior; that's a policy decision put into effect. If Nancy Pelosi is benefitting from insider trading because of her ability to steer and change governmental policy, that is abuse. It sounds like I'm being picky about the examples here, but I think the part that rang the most true was about holding people in the positions of leadership responsible, much like the author's Navy Seal friend telling his AOIC's to lead by example. If the people in charge get away with something, and I'm way less publicly visible than they are, what's to stop me from trying?

silexia 5y ago

The government is easy to abuse and cheat. That is why we want the government to just focus on being a referee to society rather than taking resources from one party at gunpoint and giving it to another. When that happens, pork barrel politics cause massive corruption. We also need to get rid of the outrage culture that prevents the smooth process of law and order.

DarylZero 5y ago

Stopped reading at "Hunter Biden."

cudgy 5y ago
… and then posted virtue signaling comment
- DarylZero 5y ago
  LOL!!

Sporktacular 5y ago

"This only gets worse if we do something crazy like forgive massive amounts of debt, whether it’s student or mortgage. The psychological effect on the people who have lived within their means and met their obligations will be radicalizing." Not nearly as radicalising as a debt-laden permanent underclass. And this just assumes debt comes from living beyond one's means, ignoring complexities like historical or systemic unfairness in how it's sometimes created and inherited. Investing in education to escape debt cycle is good for people and economies. It's so often subsidised because it generally pays for itself many times over. But when it doesn't, allowing it to deepen the cycle just keeps people in debt and suppresses economic growth. The productive carrying the less productive is an ancient problem. They usually feel like suckers until they learn it's for the good of the society that sustains them.

jl2718 5y ago
Okay, but you understand that the bailouts are not for them, right? It’s for their lenders that would never get repaid otherwise. The bailouts let them charge high-risk interest rates with zero actual risk.
- Sporktacular 5y ago
  No, the bailouts are directly for the borrowers. Just as bailing out an airline keeps the airline alive, not indirectly the creditors funding it. Of course the effect is on both but I'm avoiding definition torture. But risk externality is a good point. Maybe one that needs addressing with a return to reasonable regulation, reigning in speculation/predatory lending, Glass-Steagall etc.