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I won't speak to how the previous poster intended the phrase, but the correct takeaway from "just responding to incentives" isn't that it morally justifies anyt

I won't speak to how the previous poster intended the phrase, but the correct takeaway from "just responding to incentives" isn't that it morally justifies anything, it's closer to "what the hell did you expect?". In that sense, I suppose it is much like "just following orders". You would have to be very naive to think that not accepting "just following orders" as a defense will lead to atrocities not happening when the people in power actually order them.

omginternets 5y ago
You’re right, of course, but it’s somewhat despairing to see how accepting we are of immoral behavior on the grounds that it is financially incentivized.
- solveit 5y ago
  I'm not sure it's acceptance as opposed to resignation (I know, potato potato). "People will follow incentives" might as well be a law of physics, and not accepting it is like not accepting the inverse-square law for gravitation. Like, what are you going to do?
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    > I'm not sure it's acceptance as opposed to resignation (I know, potato potato). I definitely see it as being used to excuse bad behavior, which is a step up from resignation IMO > "People will follow incentives" might as well be a law of physics, and not accepting it is like not accepting the inverse-square law for gravitation. This seems to deny any moral agency to "people". If someone were to offer $100 million to whomever kills the CEO of Lufthansa, anyone taking them up on that offer would be morally culpable. Hopefully we don't just resign ourselves to say "yeah, I'd have killed the CEO too, people follow incentives"
    - solveit 5y ago
      No no, I mean that if someone offers $100 million to kill the CEO of Lufthansa, that CEO is going to end up dead regardless of how hard evil we proclaim the killer to be. Much better to go after the guy offering $100mm. Similarly, saying that Lufthansa is evil for destroying the environment is some shade of true but also useless. If incentives dictate large organizations to destroy the world, they will do so, and the fact that they are evil is moot. This does not excuse the evil, indeed the most immediate corollary would be that we should change the incentives, say, by punishing the airline and more importantly rewriting the rules to punish future infractions, which is better than changing the rules after the fact. I'm pretty sure we agree about concrete issues (what happened was bad, we should make it stop) so my beef is perhaps philosophical, but people get so hung up on discussion about how this corporation is evil and that politician is corrupt and so on, and this line of thought where you try to classify the world into actors of various shades of morality is useless! Saying that someone was evil is useless without a workable plan to replace them with a reliably good person, but such plans (and people) almost never exist! People will follow incentives, and the only thing that ever works at scale is setting things up so that "evil" actors will do the right thing out of self-interest! /end rant
    - jonp888 5y ago
      If there was no cost in terms of prison time and a criminal record, I would have no problem with killing a stranger for $100000000, and so I suspect would plenty of others.
      - piva00 5y ago
        Punishment is the only thing keeping your morals in check? I'd definitely have a massive problem with killing anyone, for any price, even if there was no punishment whatsoever... People are fucking weird.
        y4mi 5y ago
        This is a community primarily for founders though. I'm not sure how to phrase it properly, but there is a strong selection for people with lax morals here for the simple reason that it's a competitive advantage. A founder with lax morals will generally outcompete someone with stronger morals, as such few people at the top of organizations of any size have strong morals
        truckerbill 5y ago
        Selecting for being a psychopath is a short term benefit at best. We have progressed as far as we have because of co-operation and compassion, despite the morally deficient among us.
      - aidenn0 5y ago
        Plenty of people with both families and financial problems would take $100M for their family and a life-sentence.
      - omginternets 5y ago
        Serious question: have you ever killed anyone (you never know ...) ? I ask because I'm a former infantryman and I personally know a handful of people who have. Of those people, most were quite sure they wouldn't have a problem with it, but guess what ...

omginternets 5y ago

You’re right, of course, but it’s somewhat despairing to see how accepting we are of immoral behavior on the grounds that it is financially incentivized.

solveit 5y ago
I'm not sure it's acceptance as opposed to resignation (I know, potato potato). "People will follow incentives" might as well be a law of physics, and not accepting it is like not accepting the inverse-square law for gravitation. Like, what are you going to do?
- aidenn0 5y ago
  > I'm not sure it's acceptance as opposed to resignation (I know, potato potato). I definitely see it as being used to excuse bad behavior, which is a step up from resignation IMO > "People will follow incentives" might as well be a law of physics, and not accepting it is like not accepting the inverse-square law for gravitation. This seems to deny any moral agency to "people". If someone were to offer $100 million to whomever kills the CEO of Lufthansa, anyone taking them up on that offer would be morally culpable. Hopefully we don't just resign ourselves to say "yeah, I'd have killed the CEO too, people follow incentives"
  - solveit 5y ago
    No no, I mean that if someone offers $100 million to kill the CEO of Lufthansa, that CEO is going to end up dead regardless of how hard evil we proclaim the killer to be. Much better to go after the guy offering $100mm. Similarly, saying that Lufthansa is evil for destroying the environment is some shade of true but also useless. If incentives dictate large organizations to destroy the world, they will do so, and the fact that they are evil is moot. This does not excuse the evil, indeed the most immediate corollary would be that we should change the incentives, say, by punishing the airline and more importantly rewriting the rules to punish future infractions, which is better than changing the rules after the fact. I'm pretty sure we agree about concrete issues (what happened was bad, we should make it stop) so my beef is perhaps philosophical, but people get so hung up on discussion about how this corporation is evil and that politician is corrupt and so on, and this line of thought where you try to classify the world into actors of various shades of morality is useless! Saying that someone was evil is useless without a workable plan to replace them with a reliably good person, but such plans (and people) almost never exist! People will follow incentives, and the only thing that ever works at scale is setting things up so that "evil" actors will do the right thing out of self-interest! /end rant
  - jonp888 5y ago
    If there was no cost in terms of prison time and a criminal record, I would have no problem with killing a stranger for $100000000, and so I suspect would plenty of others.
    - piva00 5y ago
      Punishment is the only thing keeping your morals in check? I'd definitely have a massive problem with killing anyone, for any price, even if there was no punishment whatsoever... People are fucking weird.
      - y4mi 5y ago
        This is a community primarily for founders though. I'm not sure how to phrase it properly, but there is a strong selection for people with lax morals here for the simple reason that it's a competitive advantage. A founder with lax morals will generally outcompete someone with stronger morals, as such few people at the top of organizations of any size have strong morals
        truckerbill 5y ago
        Selecting for being a psychopath is a short term benefit at best. We have progressed as far as we have because of co-operation and compassion, despite the morally deficient among us.
    - aidenn0 5y ago
      Plenty of people with both families and financial problems would take $100M for their family and a life-sentence.
    - omginternets 5y ago
      Serious question: have you ever killed anyone (you never know ...) ? I ask because I'm a former infantryman and I personally know a handful of people who have. Of those people, most were quite sure they wouldn't have a problem with it, but guess what ...