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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
by 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 agoThanks. I started answering this comment and gave up. This is exactly what I meant.