4 ms·

There's an assumption here that you're making that I'm not sure you are aware of: that the system is good and that individuals "should" operate a certain way in

There's an assumption here that you're making that I'm not sure you are aware of: that the system is good and that individuals "should" operate a certain way inside of it. Failure to do so is a fault of the individual, not the system. This occurred to me reading your story of the guy who barely made it through school. You know, telling the story from the guy's point of view might be more useful. Here he is, struggling with the system, and over time and with enough effort he manages to claw his way into a future that he's created for himself. Same goes for the CEOs "ruining" the company. Get a new executive job, the board of directors are a bunch of idiots, nobody wants to take ownership and the ship is going to sink one way or another. So you keep the ship afloat as long as possible. Meanwhile, since you've managed to keep the company viable much longer than most others could, you get a nice reward. I'm not saying that these people aren't morally defective in some way, only that you, as the author, are applying a moral judgment to the story that the reader needs to be aware of. I could tell these same stories much differently. From my own personal experience, I find I understand systems well enough when I can assume that all players are acting in good faith and intelligently. I don't need dumb people at the bottom or sociopaths at the top. In fact, that's the irony of it all: once you begin to make moral judgments about the qualities of various people in systems, it becomes much easier to behave in ways that most folks would find offensive. Just thought I'd point that out. Nice stories.

Nursie 13y ago
>> From my own personal experience, I find I understand systems well enough when I can assume that all players are acting in good faith and intelligently. So there's no room in your worldview for people at the top who act in their own self interest to the detriment of others and the company as a whole? And everyone that thinks they see that happening just doesn't understand the system well enough? How charmingly naive.
- DanielBMarkham 13y ago
  No, not at all. Certainly there are bad actors, everywhere you look. The point here is that letting my own personal feelings or morality shade my analysis leads to poor results. Systems are bad even when full of good people. In fact, that's the hell of the thing. Good people in bad systems act in bad ways. Confusing the matter with long-winded diatribes about the personal qualities of the various participants might make me feel good, but it is not helpful. If It makes you feel any better, you can also assume that the system is full of sociopaths. Works the same way. The key here is that you can't start confusing your own personal judgments about the morals of people inside the system with your opinion about the system as a whole. There's a great discussion here about how a good person should act in a bad system. Resign? Speak out? But that discussion is also not related to analyzing the system as a whole.
  - Nursie 13y ago
    >> The key here is that you can't start confusing your own personal judgments about the morals of people inside the system with your opinion about the system as a whole. What if the judgement is that the system would be fine if it wasn't full of sociopaths? >> Good people in bad systems act in bad ways. That would make them bad people. For instance, before pollution laws came along, but it was known that polluting was bad, the people that did it were still bad people regardless of the system. The system had to be adjusted to take account of the bad actors. Letting your own personal morality shade your analysis is very useful, we should have a system which encourages moral action rather than rewarding immoral action. Imagining a system full of bad actors gives us the ability to refine it. We'll never agree on what's moral, of course, but that is an item for public debate.
    - quanticle 13y ago
      >That would make them bad people. Judgemental, much? I think you're presupposing that people have far more autonomy than they actually do in society and business. Moreover, you're making a judgement that any amount of sin automatically makes you a bad person, regardless of the circumstances. Let's say you're a line worker at <big box retailer>. You notice the store manager embezzling petty cash. At the same time, you also know that the promise of anonymity in reporting the store manager is bullshit, and there's a high probability that you'll be fired long before the investigation of the store manager is completed. Meanwhile, if you do nothing, the store manager will get caught up in an audit eventually, and will get fired/prosecuted anyway. Do you report the store manager? Or do you go along, not participating, but not rocking the boat, either? Most importantly, does your moral calculus change if you have dependents who are reliant on your income for food, clothing and shelter?
      - Nursie 13y ago
        You've come up with a huge grey area in what was a boolean argument. The statement was pretty unequivocal - "Bad systems make good people act in bad ways". If the actions (pollution in my example) are unequivocally bad (which they are) then regardless of the system the actors are bad people. It's not clear in your argument that the worker is acting in a bad way in the grand scheme of things, he/she is basically passive which is a different thing. The manager is certainly a bad person. But I would also be the first to agree that any morality is mutable, hence the thought that systems should be adjusted on the will of society rather than individuals. However - >> I think you're presupposing that people have far more autonomy than they actually do in society and business. Someone takes the decision to dump raw sewage in the river, or toxic waste or whatever. Regardless of how many layers of bureaucracy they hide behind, they are bad people.
onetwofiveten 13y ago
I think you're being unfair to netcan here. Netcan is talking about system problems, not individual moral deficiencies. It doesn't really matter whether netcan assumes that these systems are good and individuals should operate a certain way inside of them. The point is that these systems are designed under that assumption, and that causes problems (for those systems). It's pretty clear that the story about the guy who barely made it out of school highlights flaws in school admission and employment recruitment mechanisms. By any reasonable objective measure, his high profile employment is contrary to the design goals of those mechanisms. Whether or not you agree with those goals, it is very plausible that the flaws are present because the designer made the implicit assumption that actors would (to some extent) agree with those goals, and would act "morally" from that point of view. With the story about the executives, either they acted in the best interests of the company or they didn't. If they did, then there's no moral judgement to be made. If they didn't, then the implicit moral judgement was made by the board of directors who hired them (not netcan). Netcan's point isn't that people at the top are sociopaths and people at the bottom are dumb. It's much more complicated than that. Bad systems set up moral hazards which incentivise sociopathic behaviour. Different people react to moral hazards in different ways. However, once one person (who may be morally deficient) starts following the incentives, many other people (most of whom are simply normal flawed humans) will follow suit. Thus, practically dealing with the problem means treating it as a flaw the design of the system, not in the individual actors.
- netcan 13y ago
  Thanks. I started answering this comment and gave up. This is exactly what I meant.

Nursie 13y ago

>> From my own personal experience, I find I understand systems well enough when I can assume that all players are acting in good faith and intelligently. So there's no room in your worldview for people at the top who act in their own self interest to the detriment of others and the company as a whole? And everyone that thinks they see that happening just doesn't understand the system well enough? How charmingly naive.

DanielBMarkham 13y ago
No, not at all. Certainly there are bad actors, everywhere you look. The point here is that letting my own personal feelings or morality shade my analysis leads to poor results. Systems are bad even when full of good people. In fact, that's the hell of the thing. Good people in bad systems act in bad ways. Confusing the matter with long-winded diatribes about the personal qualities of the various participants might make me feel good, but it is not helpful. If It makes you feel any better, you can also assume that the system is full of sociopaths. Works the same way. The key here is that you can't start confusing your own personal judgments about the morals of people inside the system with your opinion about the system as a whole. There's a great discussion here about how a good person should act in a bad system. Resign? Speak out? But that discussion is also not related to analyzing the system as a whole.
- Nursie 13y ago
  >> The key here is that you can't start confusing your own personal judgments about the morals of people inside the system with your opinion about the system as a whole. What if the judgement is that the system would be fine if it wasn't full of sociopaths? >> Good people in bad systems act in bad ways. That would make them bad people. For instance, before pollution laws came along, but it was known that polluting was bad, the people that did it were still bad people regardless of the system. The system had to be adjusted to take account of the bad actors. Letting your own personal morality shade your analysis is very useful, we should have a system which encourages moral action rather than rewarding immoral action. Imagining a system full of bad actors gives us the ability to refine it. We'll never agree on what's moral, of course, but that is an item for public debate.
  - quanticle 13y ago
    >That would make them bad people. Judgemental, much? I think you're presupposing that people have far more autonomy than they actually do in society and business. Moreover, you're making a judgement that any amount of sin automatically makes you a bad person, regardless of the circumstances. Let's say you're a line worker at <big box retailer>. You notice the store manager embezzling petty cash. At the same time, you also know that the promise of anonymity in reporting the store manager is bullshit, and there's a high probability that you'll be fired long before the investigation of the store manager is completed. Meanwhile, if you do nothing, the store manager will get caught up in an audit eventually, and will get fired/prosecuted anyway. Do you report the store manager? Or do you go along, not participating, but not rocking the boat, either? Most importantly, does your moral calculus change if you have dependents who are reliant on your income for food, clothing and shelter?
    - Nursie 13y ago
      You've come up with a huge grey area in what was a boolean argument. The statement was pretty unequivocal - "Bad systems make good people act in bad ways". If the actions (pollution in my example) are unequivocally bad (which they are) then regardless of the system the actors are bad people. It's not clear in your argument that the worker is acting in a bad way in the grand scheme of things, he/she is basically passive which is a different thing. The manager is certainly a bad person. But I would also be the first to agree that any morality is mutable, hence the thought that systems should be adjusted on the will of society rather than individuals. However - >> I think you're presupposing that people have far more autonomy than they actually do in society and business. Someone takes the decision to dump raw sewage in the river, or toxic waste or whatever. Regardless of how many layers of bureaucracy they hide behind, they are bad people.

onetwofiveten 13y ago

I think you're being unfair to netcan here. Netcan is talking about system problems, not individual moral deficiencies. It doesn't really matter whether netcan assumes that these systems are good and individuals should operate a certain way inside of them. The point is that these systems are designed under that assumption, and that causes problems (for those systems). It's pretty clear that the story about the guy who barely made it out of school highlights flaws in school admission and employment recruitment mechanisms. By any reasonable objective measure, his high profile employment is contrary to the design goals of those mechanisms. Whether or not you agree with those goals, it is very plausible that the flaws are present because the designer made the implicit assumption that actors would (to some extent) agree with those goals, and would act "morally" from that point of view. With the story about the executives, either they acted in the best interests of the company or they didn't. If they did, then there's no moral judgement to be made. If they didn't, then the implicit moral judgement was made by the board of directors who hired them (not netcan). Netcan's point isn't that people at the top are sociopaths and people at the bottom are dumb. It's much more complicated than that. Bad systems set up moral hazards which incentivise sociopathic behaviour. Different people react to moral hazards in different ways. However, once one person (who may be morally deficient) starts following the incentives, many other people (most of whom are simply normal flawed humans) will follow suit. Thus, practically dealing with the problem means treating it as a flaw the design of the system, not in the individual actors.

netcan 13y ago
Thanks. I started answering this comment and gave up. This is exactly what I meant.