8 ms·

People continue to parrot the phrase that corporations are typically beholden to their shareholders to maximize profit. We also know from the prison experiment

People continue to parrot the phrase that corporations are typically beholden to their shareholders to maximize profit. We also know from the prison experiments that people have a really hard time not falling into evil behavior when it's expected. But I agree: neither of those facts absolve every individual in any organization anywhere from doing the wrong thing. Even if someone else would step in to your spot and do the wrong thing, it's still your responsibility.

jdiff 3y ago
The prison experiments are long debunked. It required lying to and manipulating the guards and has never been successfully replicated. They had to be pushed and coerced into evil behavior when they were explicitly being told it was not just expected but required.
- a123b456c 3y ago
  Plus, no control group. Not an experiment.
- sofixa 3y ago
  Doesn't matter, we have real world proof of the same thanks to Nazi Germany (they were good for something I guess). The book Ordinary Men, based on which there's a Netflix documentary too, follows the story of a bunch of police reservists (basically regular men, in their 50s, from Hamburg, who were too old to be conscripted in the army, so were conscripted in the police for "police duties"). They were regular people, with families and stuff, mostly dockworkers so probably leaned left before the rise of Nazis, but were sent to commit massacres in Poland and they did it. Some struggled, especially after the first ones, but later on it just became normal. Those were regular people, not some crazy Nazi fanatics convinced Jews and Poles were subhuman. One of them convinced himself to target children for murder, because it was merciful - you see, they would die on their own without their parents (which were murdered by his colleagues), so giving them a quick death was mercy. He had kids himself too. Harrowing stuff, but quite decent proof that humans are capable of anything. Nobody is born a monster, but can become one in the wrong circumstances and through bad personal choices.
  - froggit 3y ago
    What in the actual fuck? Are we serious with these implications that Jerry is suffering from the same thought processes that Nazi war criminals used to justify crimes against humanity? It took all of 7 posts and "Jerry from the Ads team" to become "Jerry from the Gestapo." He's not at the bottom of some slippery slope, a husk of a human leftover from plunging into darkness. He's on the Ads team doing what he's supposed to: making money from Ads. There's a difference between doing something because it's "what you're told" and doing it because it's the right thing for you to be doing. The right thing for Jerry just happens to be a major inconvenience for Anil. This is an oversimplified apples-to-chickens kind of comparison, but I worked a cybersecurity job where the right thing for me was keeping the firewall up, but Network/IT administration made it clear they found it inconvenient. After leaving, I learned a Network admin DID take down the firewall and that was a bigger inconvenience. Everyone ultimately wants the same end result and pushing your team's priorities is how you contribute; it doesn't make you "bad." It'd be a bit different if Jerry was out finding children so he could kill them, dismember them and sew their skin into his clothing. But at least he seems considerate enough that he'd do it in that order.
- omgsharks 3y ago
  Isn’t pushing and coercing what’s going on here too though? With the company setting expectations and requirements while people’s job/career hinges on it. I would consider Jerry as being corporately coerced here and thus more inclined to act immoraly.
chii 3y ago
> it's still your responsibility. it's not, in the sense of social darwinian competition. If i stand to lose money, or have to sacrifice something in order to be "moral" when my "competitor" doesn't and thus gain an advantage towards me, i cannot be moral. That's why my rule is: if it's not illegal, it's moral.
- Retric 3y ago
  Mortality optimizes across longer time horizons than this individual moment. If you can steal something and with very high probability not get caught then there’s seemingly a net benefit. However, if you start to steal regularly the odds you get caught are much higher than the most common probability * the number of times you steal. This is true across a wide range of unethical behavior. Try to remember you lack perfect information and so can’t accurately judge the odds every time. Thus regularly taking low probability risks to your reputation and chances are you’re going to miss judge some of those risks. Heuristics like this aren’t perfect, but it’s easy to underestimate how valuable a positive reputation is.
- NegativeK 3y ago
  That sounds like a dystopian hellscape.
  - 20after4 3y ago
    It's the dystopian hellscape that we live in.
- JPws_Prntr_Fngr 3y ago
  K, omw to bang your wife
  - dang 3y ago
    We've banned this account. If the comment were just a one-off, I'd post a warning instead, but you've not been using the site as intended in other places either. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
philipov 3y ago
I really enjoyed this talk on the history of big-retail lobbying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj0dBCooWGo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj0dBCooWGo It has a lot to say about the notion that corporations are beholden to shareholders to maximize profits. Who they're really beholden to are 80s-era corporate raiders who changed corporate culture by enforcing the Shareholder Capitalism model at financial gunpoint.
brookst 3y ago
The whole “companies must maximize profits at all costs” thing is false, fake, untrue. It’s easy to prove: if true, it would be illegal for companies to do any philanthropy at all. They do, out of some mix of brand building and PR and whatever, but obviously those same principles can be applied to any other policy that seeks to increase NPV of future profits at the expense of this quarter. Companies can and do pass up revenue opportunities and that is fine and legal.
- nielsbot 3y ago
  even if it’s only 90% true it can still a useful characterization of corporations also, I think a lot of corporations do philanthropy as advertising, hoping it will be in a positive effect on revenue. So, still doing everything for the bottom line
  - philistine 3y ago
    It has to be debunked and people need to stop using it because whenever its brought up, its never as a thought exercice or as a 90% thing. It's always brought up as the exact truth.
    - anticensor 3y ago
      Swedish Aktienbolaget are actually required to maximise their profits, but not necessarily in the immediate term.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  Philanthropy helps revenue by converting those actions into lower taxes for the companies that do philanthropy. It is still about profits at the end of the day.
  - unmole 3y ago
    > Philanthropy helps revenue by converting those actions into lower taxes for the companies that do philanthropy. This makes zero sense.
octacat 3y ago
More like "not just become evil, but also be actively punished for not to comply". Same with nazis below - if you go against, you risk to go to jail/die. Same with corpo CEOs - if they fail to maximise the profit, they would get fired and replaced. Or if they take risk to not copycat other companies.

jdiff 3y ago

The prison experiments are long debunked. It required lying to and manipulating the guards and has never been successfully replicated. They had to be pushed and coerced into evil behavior when they were explicitly being told it was not just expected but required.

a123b456c 3y ago
Plus, no control group. Not an experiment.
sofixa 3y ago
Doesn't matter, we have real world proof of the same thanks to Nazi Germany (they were good for something I guess). The book Ordinary Men, based on which there's a Netflix documentary too, follows the story of a bunch of police reservists (basically regular men, in their 50s, from Hamburg, who were too old to be conscripted in the army, so were conscripted in the police for "police duties"). They were regular people, with families and stuff, mostly dockworkers so probably leaned left before the rise of Nazis, but were sent to commit massacres in Poland and they did it. Some struggled, especially after the first ones, but later on it just became normal. Those were regular people, not some crazy Nazi fanatics convinced Jews and Poles were subhuman. One of them convinced himself to target children for murder, because it was merciful - you see, they would die on their own without their parents (which were murdered by his colleagues), so giving them a quick death was mercy. He had kids himself too. Harrowing stuff, but quite decent proof that humans are capable of anything. Nobody is born a monster, but can become one in the wrong circumstances and through bad personal choices.
- froggit 3y ago
  What in the actual fuck? Are we serious with these implications that Jerry is suffering from the same thought processes that Nazi war criminals used to justify crimes against humanity? It took all of 7 posts and "Jerry from the Ads team" to become "Jerry from the Gestapo." He's not at the bottom of some slippery slope, a husk of a human leftover from plunging into darkness. He's on the Ads team doing what he's supposed to: making money from Ads. There's a difference between doing something because it's "what you're told" and doing it because it's the right thing for you to be doing. The right thing for Jerry just happens to be a major inconvenience for Anil. This is an oversimplified apples-to-chickens kind of comparison, but I worked a cybersecurity job where the right thing for me was keeping the firewall up, but Network/IT administration made it clear they found it inconvenient. After leaving, I learned a Network admin DID take down the firewall and that was a bigger inconvenience. Everyone ultimately wants the same end result and pushing your team's priorities is how you contribute; it doesn't make you "bad." It'd be a bit different if Jerry was out finding children so he could kill them, dismember them and sew their skin into his clothing. But at least he seems considerate enough that he'd do it in that order.
omgsharks 3y ago
Isn’t pushing and coercing what’s going on here too though? With the company setting expectations and requirements while people’s job/career hinges on it. I would consider Jerry as being corporately coerced here and thus more inclined to act immoraly.

chii 3y ago

> it's still your responsibility. it's not, in the sense of social darwinian competition. If i stand to lose money, or have to sacrifice something in order to be "moral" when my "competitor" doesn't and thus gain an advantage towards me, i cannot be moral. That's why my rule is: if it's not illegal, it's moral.

Retric 3y ago
Mortality optimizes across longer time horizons than this individual moment. If you can steal something and with very high probability not get caught then there’s seemingly a net benefit. However, if you start to steal regularly the odds you get caught are much higher than the most common probability * the number of times you steal. This is true across a wide range of unethical behavior. Try to remember you lack perfect information and so can’t accurately judge the odds every time. Thus regularly taking low probability risks to your reputation and chances are you’re going to miss judge some of those risks. Heuristics like this aren’t perfect, but it’s easy to underestimate how valuable a positive reputation is.
NegativeK 3y ago
That sounds like a dystopian hellscape.
- 20after4 3y ago
  It's the dystopian hellscape that we live in.
JPws_Prntr_Fngr 3y ago
K, omw to bang your wife
- dang 3y ago
  We've banned this account. If the comment were just a one-off, I'd post a warning instead, but you've not been using the site as intended in other places either. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

philipov 3y ago

I really enjoyed this talk on the history of big-retail lobbying. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj0dBCooWGo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj0dBCooWGo It has a lot to say about the notion that corporations are beholden to shareholders to maximize profits. Who they're really beholden to are 80s-era corporate raiders who changed corporate culture by enforcing the Shareholder Capitalism model at financial gunpoint.

brookst 3y ago

The whole “companies must maximize profits at all costs” thing is false, fake, untrue. It’s easy to prove: if true, it would be illegal for companies to do any philanthropy at all. They do, out of some mix of brand building and PR and whatever, but obviously those same principles can be applied to any other policy that seeks to increase NPV of future profits at the expense of this quarter. Companies can and do pass up revenue opportunities and that is fine and legal.

nielsbot 3y ago
even if it’s only 90% true it can still a useful characterization of corporations also, I think a lot of corporations do philanthropy as advertising, hoping it will be in a positive effect on revenue. So, still doing everything for the bottom line
- philistine 3y ago
  It has to be debunked and people need to stop using it because whenever its brought up, its never as a thought exercice or as a 90% thing. It's always brought up as the exact truth.
  - anticensor 3y ago
    Swedish Aktienbolaget are actually required to maximise their profits, but not necessarily in the immediate term.
pjmlp 3y ago
Philanthropy helps revenue by converting those actions into lower taxes for the companies that do philanthropy. It is still about profits at the end of the day.
- unmole 3y ago
  > Philanthropy helps revenue by converting those actions into lower taxes for the companies that do philanthropy. This makes zero sense.

octacat 3y ago

More like "not just become evil, but also be actively punished for not to comply". Same with nazis below - if you go against, you risk to go to jail/die. Same with corpo CEOs - if they fail to maximise the profit, they would get fired and replaced. Or if they take risk to not copycat other companies.