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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 me
by 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 agoCertainly 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 agoProbably. 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.