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When the system massively incentivizes personal failures, that is also a failure of a system

by aqme28 4y ago

javajosh 4y ago
The system always has and always will massively incentivize personal failures. That's why humans invented the concept of a "good person" -- it describes one who actively swims against the omnipresent tide. It's why people used to speak about "character" in politics. The tacit assumption is that once you're in power you are, by definition, unrestrained by external forces. The only one left who can restrain you is yourself. It would be wise to highlight these talks as examples of profound personal failures, both for the speakers and the participants. All have succumbed to greed and corruption, and have done so in the open. I think we should promote the ideals of self-restraint once again, and expect our public servants to enjoy a comfortable, upper-middle-class life, and no more. The single best thing we can do is to get money out of politics! The bottleneck to getting elected is, right now, money, and that's fundamentally anti-democratic. We should elect people based on their character, their ideas, their vision, their capacity for communication, and not their bank account. They should demonstrate that they value principle over loyalty, basically every time. In such a world Yellen's behavior would stick out like a sore thumb, and that's good.
- aqme28 4y ago
  > The tacit assumption is that once you're in power you are, by definition, unrestrained by external forces. The only one left who can restrain you is yourself. I don’t understand. This is not some truth of all justice systems. It isn’t the case even in the US, except for a few limited cases. There are a lot of parts of our system that incentivize being a good person, so I don’t know what you’re on about here.
  - javajosh 4y ago
    >There are a lot of parts of our system that incentivize being a good person, so I don’t know what you’re on about here. I'm sorry, which is the system that keeps people good? Tripartite government with separation of powers? A constitution? Tell me: what are the rules can withstand a group of bad faith players? Any system can be undermined by bad actors, on both short (personal) and long (institutional) timescales, and there is always built in incentive to do so. To wit: bribes are great for both sides if you don't get caught. Bribes given in this way may feel and appear to be like capitalism. But the iron minds who spend these enormous sums for brief appearances of past and future judges, bureaucrats and princes, do not do so out of sentiment. Nor, I think, would they bother to argue that it is so. To claw our way back to the good Nash equilibrium we must open our eyes why the bad Nash equilibrium beckons to us all. Look around the world and see those nations that dwell, apparently permanently, in the bad equilibrium. Where everyone is backstabbing each other, demanding bribes, and so on. The rules forbid it, but they are helpless, just ink on paper. Once cheating starts, an avalanche soon follows.
    - aqme28 4y ago
      We have laws and a justice system that disincentivizes bad behavior. The existence of holes in that system does not mean that an effective system is impossible. Plenty of bad person stuff is illegal and punishable. It should be illegal (and enforceable) for regulators to be so cozy with industry. It feels like you're suggesting we just throw our hands up and say "better things aren't possible."
- cced 4y ago
  I don't understand this take. What if Yellen's intention was to get a nice payout? What if, instead of a good actor making a bad choice you simply have a bad actor that is engineering their way into positions that would later benefit them through book deals? If you can elaborate on what "get money out of politics" means and how it can prevent book deals after the fact, I'm genuinely curious. I think building a more robust system that doesn't put the onus solely on actors within the system to be good and can be self-correcting and actually address the revolving door issue instead of just telling people to vote for good policy makers.

When the system massively incentivizes personal failures, that is also a failure of a system

by aqme28 4y ago

When the system massively incentivizes personal failures, that is also a failure of a system

The system always has and always will massively incentivize personal failures. That's why humans invented the concept of a "good person" -- it describes one who actively swims against the omnipresent tide. It's why people used to speak about "character" in politics. The tacit assumption is that once you're in power you are, by definition, unrestrained by external forces. The only one left who can restrain you is yourself. It would be wise to highlight these talks as examples of profound personal failures, both for the speakers and the participants. All have succumbed to greed and corruption, and have done so in the open. I think we should promote the ideals of self-restraint once again, and expect our public servants to enjoy a comfortable, upper-middle-class life, and no more. The single best thing we can do is to get money out of politics! The bottleneck to getting elected is, right now, money, and that's fundamentally anti-democratic. We should elect people based on their character, their ideas, their vision, their capacity for communication, and not their bank account. They should demonstrate that they value principle over loyalty, basically every time. In such a world Yellen's behavior would stick out like a sore thumb, and that's good.

aqme28 4y ago
> The tacit assumption is that once you're in power you are, by definition, unrestrained by external forces. The only one left who can restrain you is yourself. I don’t understand. This is not some truth of all justice systems. It isn’t the case even in the US, except for a few limited cases. There are a lot of parts of our system that incentivize being a good person, so I don’t know what you’re on about here.
- javajosh 4y ago
  >There are a lot of parts of our system that incentivize being a good person, so I don’t know what you’re on about here. I'm sorry, which is the system that keeps people good? Tripartite government with separation of powers? A constitution? Tell me: what are the rules can withstand a group of bad faith players? Any system can be undermined by bad actors, on both short (personal) and long (institutional) timescales, and there is always built in incentive to do so. To wit: bribes are great for both sides if you don't get caught. Bribes given in this way may feel and appear to be like capitalism. But the iron minds who spend these enormous sums for brief appearances of past and future judges, bureaucrats and princes, do not do so out of sentiment. Nor, I think, would they bother to argue that it is so. To claw our way back to the good Nash equilibrium we must open our eyes why the bad Nash equilibrium beckons to us all. Look around the world and see those nations that dwell, apparently permanently, in the bad equilibrium. Where everyone is backstabbing each other, demanding bribes, and so on. The rules forbid it, but they are helpless, just ink on paper. Once cheating starts, an avalanche soon follows.
  - aqme28 4y ago
    We have laws and a justice system that disincentivizes bad behavior. The existence of holes in that system does not mean that an effective system is impossible. Plenty of bad person stuff is illegal and punishable. It should be illegal (and enforceable) for regulators to be so cozy with industry. It feels like you're suggesting we just throw our hands up and say "better things aren't possible."
cced 4y ago
I don't understand this take. What if Yellen's intention was to get a nice payout? What if, instead of a good actor making a bad choice you simply have a bad actor that is engineering their way into positions that would later benefit them through book deals? If you can elaborate on what "get money out of politics" means and how it can prevent book deals after the fact, I'm genuinely curious. I think building a more robust system that doesn't put the onus solely on actors within the system to be good and can be self-correcting and actually address the revolving door issue instead of just telling people to vote for good policy makers.