It it really shameful though? As you said, it’s not surprising. And it’s not surprising because this kind of thing is so common in positions of power. It’s so common that I have started to admit to myself, after wrestling with the shame, that this is one of the key organizing principles of our society; that the primary purpose of attaining power is to leverage it to benefit yourself personally. If seemingly everyone agrees on this principle, left and right, then where does the shame come in? Why shouldn’t I seek power to enrich myself and my friends? Everyone else is doing it. No one gets punished for doing it. That’s the way we have decided that our society works.
Society is worse off for it, probably, sure. But if our society doesn’t care about our society, why should I? Is that shameful? I used to think so but I’m not really that convinced anymore.
> Why shouldn’t I seek power to enrich myself and my friends?
> Society is worse off for it, probably, sure.
You answered your own question. You are directly and knowingly contributing to the worsening of society and you should feel ashamed for it. If anything you should feel shame for your lack of self awareness here
But why? Telling someone they should be "ashamed of [their] own lack of self-awareness" sounds like you don't know how to answer the question, so you just hurl insults instead.
History has shown over and over and over that relying on people to be benevolent when they have outsized power is foolish. That they almost never have this "shame" you think everyone should have. I find this to be far more foolish: consolidating power into someone's hands with the assumption that they will rely on shame or pride to guide them towards using the power for good. We should all acknowledge humans are tribalist and self-interested, and limit the amount of power they can have to exploit. The way I see it, if you give them the power and they "misuse" it, that's as much your fault as theirs.
The person this article is about (Nancy Pelosi) is currently speaker of the house - the single most powerful person in the house and the person who, annually, sets rules on house procedure to outline what actions are appropriate and not. She has the power to unilaterally end this practice and chooses not to.
Additionally - we're talking about a pool of 435 people here - not thousands or millions. Individual house reps standing up and personally pledging to trade individual stocks does happen and usually gets accolades in the news. This is a case where the scale is so small that you acting benevolently against society has the power to sway society to act better.
So I think this particular scenario is a lot different than being a good person who properly separates their recycling (if that's a thing where you are) among the millions who can't be assed and a system that has no real expectation that you will.
Huh. And yet Pelosi chooses to enrich herself instead of benefiting society. Which moral framework does this fit more neatly into?
Maybe what you think of as morality is actually just a set of dictum from powerful people that helps them enrich themselves at the expense of you. There's absolutely no cosmic or objective moral basis for our insider trading laws one way or the other. It just so happens that they conveniently enrich the people who make the laws at the expense of everyone else. Again, what moral framework does this fit into? People acting selfishly, or people acting in the interest of some nebulously defined "society?"
Power is given by the people. If we can culturally all accept that enriching oneself at the expense of many others is morally wrong then that's the moral framework we should judge by. Life is _not_ a zero sum game, and it doesn't _have_ to be thought of that way. We can choose to try to do good for the most amount of people, instead of allowing the most amount of good to go to the least amount people (least here meaning smallest population, I suppose 1% is another way to read)
Kinda? I know that's the supposed cliche, but it doesn't really ring true. The "people's" will as defined by some collective subset of the population has certainly been a powerful influence at times, but it's far from a concept that is simply "given by the people." I don't think Pol Pot's power was given by the people. Hitler's wasn't. Xi Jinping's isn't.
And even Nancy Pelosi's isn't given in the way you imply. Through a strong network of bribing and brainwashing, our entire political system leaves us with the choice of empowering corrupt militaristic theocrats or a party that mostly uses tax dollars to bribe voters. I think a very good response to this situation is "I don't like what Pelosi is doing, but I would really hate what a republican would do in her place." And that doesn't sounds like people have much power at all.
I think we can argue that Hitler's power _was_ indeed given by the people. Hitler tried to overthrow the government in the 20s with a march on Munich [0]. He ultimately failed because he didn't have enough support and was driven out. After this incident he pledged to get into power the legal way, and by that time he _did_ have the support of the people. He appealed to the masses. If people did not support his rise to power and immediate control of the government through the Enabling Act [1] they could have marched on the government themselves to try and overthrow him. Higher ups supported him, and the working class supported him.
My history is a little outdated and hazy, but my recollection was that the Nazi Party suppressed voting via violence in 1933. By then, it was clear that if people marched on the government, they would be risking their lives. What little consent Hitler did have before then (which was never a majority) was not based on the views that he ultimately carried out. The people never had any say in anything ever again after 1933. I could grant you the notion that the people under free will chose the Nazi Party in a non-majority way for about a year. But after 1933, dissent was a death sentence.
I think it's pretty rough to say Hitler was given power from the people in the sense that Rousseau would use the phrase.
I think this is a fair argument but one I don't really subscribe to myself. A strong argument in favor of this behavior being morally justified is that Nancy Pelosi is doing it and hasn't been voted out - but I think a strong argument against it is that people are complaining about it vocally. At the end of the day if we allow it to happen it's going to happen and if we disallow it we stop it - whether that allowance or denial aligns with "societal morals" is a pretty murky question with a lot of people having different opinions.
My personal opinion is that this is immoral - and we're having this discussion because someone thought it was so immoral that they were motivated to write an article about how much they dislike it - but people write all sorts of articles so that's not a proof at the end of the day... Really, there are some things we can mostly (not all) agree are immoral like murder and rape - but even that isn't universally held (or agreed on to the same limit) because, well, some people do it. So yes - societal morals are pretty vague to define and I'm sure there are some people that feel fervently that House reps trading individual stocks is highly beneficial to society - but I feel like the majority of folks are on the other side on this one.
But you're now relying on the notion that a majority of a subset of people's opinions define moral good and bad. This has never really been true, at least in terms of majorities making objectively good decisions (moral ones are a little harder to gauge). The US is filled with examples of where the majority was probably wrong, starting with the original War of Independence.
I don't think you'll find many fully informed people who thinks that house reps trading on insider info is good (myself included), unless they're personally beneficiaries of that system.
But this discussion isn't really about that. The original guy asked "why shouldn't she do this?" She can do it. She benefits from doing it. No one will stop her. Why is it immoral for her to do it? Which is a totally different thing from "the majority of informed people don't want her to do it." To that end, she is behaving exactly as should be expected of her given the amount of power she has.
The only way as far as I know to get people to not make decisions that are bad for the world but good for them is to not let them have the power to make that decision. The US government has become an atrocity of corrupt and consolidated power. That's the problem, IMO. And so long as its leaders can spy freely on Americans, can take 40% of their income, can deny them rights, etc, then this is what happens.
1. I believe so as the house has a pretty wide latitude to set procedural and behavioral rules for members - this could run into issues if it forced any house members into legitimate hardship or violated religious freedoms.
2. The House Committee on Ethics[1] can recommend a few remedies including Censure and Expulsion - whether these are actually enacted is decided by a general floor vote by the whole House of Representatives.
3. The same body - the House Committee on Ethics would instigate an investigation into any suspected wrong-doings.
The House essentially has an internal police force - but whatever the Ethics Committee finds is then brought to a general house floor vote to decide on punishment. If the populace suspected the house was acting immorally the remedy is to change the representatives - these investigations are supposed to root out extreme violations of generally agreed norms in the short term, but a sea change requires the election of house members that will advocate for the new norms.
> If the populace suspected the house was acting immorally the remedy is to change the representatives - these investigations are supposed to root out extreme violations of generally agreed norms in the short term, but a sea change requires the election of house members that will advocate for the new norms.
This is my whole point. The Congress knows this is an issue. The House Committee on Ethics knows this is an issue. The people know this is an issue. The members of Congress who have not moved on this issue were just reelected by the people, and have now telegraphed that they will not solve this issue in the future. It will not be solved, yet these representatives will be reelected by the people again and again. The House Committee on Ethics will not investigate. If you engage in this behavior you get richer and nothing bad happens to you. If you don't engage in this behavior, you are leaving money on the table and the only person you hurt is yourself and a nebulous, distributed entity we call "society". Our former President even pardoned a Congressman for the very crime of using his privileged position to facilitate insider trading for his family! The power of the pardon is one of the most solemn expressions of the values a society holds. Taken as a whole, this tells me that actually, American society does not consider this to be a problem. So if shame is an emotion derived from the violation of societal norms, I am only asking why this should be shameful? Insider trading is in accordance with societal norms.
I wouldn't expect the election to immediately boot all the congressfolk out who engage in this activity - and it is a tacitly accepted activity... greed is (much to the detriment of society) generally considered a virtue in America. However, we have seen several upcoming politicians specifically pledge not to engage in this behavior and get big boosts from their declarations. I think that society is in a place where this behavior is generally considered unacceptable but that it will take a while for that to catch up with congressfolk. I think it is perfectly rational for the behavior to be shamed since, while people aren't overthrowing the government over it - there is a general disapproval of the action.
> If you don't engage in this behavior, you are leaving money on the table and the only person you hurt is yourself and a nebulous, distributed entity we call "society".
I disagree with this statement because I think it is putting too much necessity on maximizing personal gain - there are plenty of reasons not to engage in insider trading and refusing to do so doesn't "hurt" you.
> you should feel ashamed for it. If anything you should feel shame
Trying to guilt-trip or shame people on HN for their views is absolutely against the HN guidelines[1] - "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation" "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive" "When disagreeing, please reply to the argument" and so on.
I can admit, the initial wording can sound like I am trying to guilt trip. I'll try to be better about that in the future. But to elaborate more I am trying to respond to the question "Is it shameful though?"
> You answered your own question. You are directly and knowingly contributing to the worsening of society and you should feel ashamed for it.
That doesn't really answer the question though. If knowingly making society worse were the standard for feeling shame, I think I'd be too depressed and shame-ridden to even get out of bed. I mean, you want to talk about damaging society: every single day I get into my car and burn fossil fuels on my commute to/from work, which is essentially slowly killing the planet. I know it's bad for society, but I do it anyway. Knowingly. On purpose. Can you imagine how psychopathic I am to treat society with such casual disregard?
As another poster put it: "To feel shame is an emotional reaction to violating standards of morality."
What I'm saying is an actor in American society is beholden to the standards of morality as defined by the leaders of its community, voted into office by the people in its community. It's been shown for a while now that this behavior is accepted, expected, and tolerated. It's not only unpunished when caught, but rewarded. This is the standard of morality in my community. If shame is tied to a standard of morality, which is orthogonal as to whether it helps or harms society, then there is no basis for shame for this behavior.
First I wanted to say I'm not trying to guilt trip you or anything, I admit I wrote my response quickly and didn't think it would attract this much attention. So just wanted to let you know I value your views and am not trying to put you down!
> That doesn't really answer the question though. If knowingly making society worse were the standard for feeling shame, I think I'd be too depressed and shame-ridden to even get out of bed. I mean, you want to talk about damaging society: every single day I get into my car and burn fossil fuels on my commute to/from work, which is essentially slowly killing the planet. I know it's bad for society, but I do it anyway. Knowingly. On purpose. Can you imagine how psychopathic I am to treat society with such casual disregard?
I think you bring up a good idea here. I recently came across a lecture by Jaron Lanier that discusses this kind of thinking and how to reason about it.
> I came up with an image to help me think about who the beneficiary is of our activities, whether we're engineers or writers or anything else, and I called this the 'circle of empaty'.... Those who are inside the circle are the beneficiaries of what you do, and anything inside the circle deserves your empathy. Things outside the circle perhaps don't deserve your antagonism but on the other hand they're not the beneficiaries of what you do. So I hope that people believe that all human beings should be inside the circle. That's not always the case; there are racists and homophobes and many other varieties of ideological people who would like to put _some_ human beings outside the circle, but I think decent people can agree that humans belong inside... Typically liberals wish to make the circle larger and conservatives wish to make the circle smaller... If you make the circle too small you become cruel and destructive... and if you make the circle too big so that all living things are inside the circle you can't live because your body kills bacteria all the time, you essentially become incompetent
I would recommend listening to at least the beginning of the talk where he goes over this idea because I think a similar approach can help with regards to contributing to environmental issues and such. For instance we can reason that it would be actually more harmful to us as a society to morally judge people who drive to the grocery store to buy themselves food so they can eat, because if people don't do that they can surely end up in a situation where they are sick and unhealthy.
On the other hand lets look at the situation we see here and ask: Would it be more harmful for society to continue to allow a small group of people who can effectively change the rules of a society be able to profit financially from these changes? I think again in this case, yes it would be more harmful!
We have to think about how things can get out of hand if we do not have the right checks and balances. Like Jaron mentions in his lecture, conservatism and the shrinking of the circle can go out of control like we saw with Germany after the first World War. We should aim to have _all of society_ within this circle of empathy, and not just _me and my family and friends_. If we can legally disincentivize people in power from shrinking their circle of empathy in these areas I think it is a net benefit for us as a society and sets a foundation for what we should find morally worth our empathy.
>If anything you should feel shame for your lack of self awareness here
This is no place for these kinds of statements. Parent posed a question that can 100% be read charitably. In a system where all incentives promote individualism and self-interest, why should we care about others indeed.
To care about others is socialism. Or collectivism. Identity politics is probably part of the issue here, but I'm more interested in what other smarter people than me have to say, free from being shamed.
The parent asked if it was shameful to think that way and I responded, yes it is. I'm not going around looking to fling insults, I think it is important to take feedback constructively and being honest is important to constructive criticism.
Caring about others is normally called "empathy," not socialism.
A trivial example of this would be any example of someone caring about someone else for non-selfish reasons prior to humans inventing socialism. Take your pick.
To not care about others is psychopathy. They typically don't care what others think save for how it impacts their ability to do what they want and this is generally seen as a social net negative. Systems that incentivize psychopathy deserve to be dismantled.
This isn't mere power seeking. This violates the principle of 'equality under the law,' since the law has this specific exclusion. The problem isn't that Pelosi is exploiting the loophole, it's that Pelosi both _controls_ AND exploits the loophole. Royalty isn't exercising 'freedom' when they exploit advantages over the citizenry.
They aren’t royalty though. They are elected representatives. If elected representatives behave like royalty and keep getting elected, isn’t that an expression of the preferences of the electorate?
But who set this standard of morality? Society, right? What I’m saying is this shame imposed from society worked before. But as I look around, I don’t see that the prevailing moral standard is that we must all work for the betterment of society. Society doesn’t even feel this is a worthy thing. I don’t agree that there is a moral imperative in American society to work for the betterment of everyone.
That's head on. People adjust their behaviour to the one they see in their peers, including public figures.
This is quite likely a slow moving change going on unnoticed for decades, until it crosses a threshold were it starts to become quite visible. And possibly a major danger to society as we know it.
The big question is are we before or after the threshold, and can we reverse the process anyway?
What you're saying is part of a long and broad conversation. Read Machiavelli.
> The general theme of "The Prince" is of accepting that the aims of princes – such as glory and survival – can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends.
Really the question to ask yourself isn't "Why shouldn’t I seek power to enrich myself and my friends?", the question is "What is the best method to achieve happiness for myself and my friends?"
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask how you can get just enough power to amass and horde wealth while masquerading it on behalf of the benefit of your countryfolk.
I am not American but I do live in a country that has a government. It's curious to see stories of people going from <citizen grunt> to <elected official> and then using their power and insight for personal gain, while never capitalizing on opportunity to force the changes that were campaigned on, when presented with unique chances to force the issue to be resolved.
There's such a focus on "getting it right, the first time" instead of "anything will be better than nothing, and we can re-iterate on this in the future".
An issue with government is much like the issues you face at work every day; too much focus on introducing "new", and seemingly never enough time to evaluate and improve "existing".
See, we more or less structured the US on the Hobbesian state of nature, wherein we're all supposed to be greedy, self-centered, and violent. This was rife with induction and failed to account for a litany of examples that simply weren't present. It's old hat that never got scraped off, but now it's baked into literally everything we do.
But because the fundament of our system is developed on that conception of humanity, it contributes to the conditioning of the people laboring under it. My favorite thought experiment: My ex used to accuse me of cheating, I'd have to explain myself, she'd go through my phone, we'd argue; at that point, being punished for the crime, I had may as well cheat to reap the benefits of my just desserts. The Hobbesian affair is a slight alteration in the logical apparatus there - you're not being greedy so you won't be rewarded.
I'll credit the system this: I suspect a more "social" (via Rousseau) view would have immense difficulty in defense against the Hobbesian man. We're by nature, and the dint of our calling as humans (cooperative apes) intrinsically trusting. Granted, there are some conditionals, and some conditioning that as we grow wise, a skepticism emerges. To me that says a system that doesn't employ the Hobbesian mode, is highly susceptible to it. If your institutions are, historically, pristine in execution for a long period the social expectation would eventually gravitate to certainty. When some bad actor is seated, a little sophistry could go a long way in creating a system of exploitation. Something like that...
Most people, I think, and this is borne out by my own experience - just want left alone to their lives. The chains aren't uncomfortable until you find their limits, and as long as you don't reach that you're hardly aware of them after spending a life captive in their grasp. This coupled with intrinsic trust, and the world's inundations, add liberally debt and the construction of the social standard of "good" and "success" and you've managed to culminate a great ethical slavery.
Ultimately though, whether we're fighting fire with fire, the fact remains that we're pressing people to do exactly as you did. Offering a free ascension on a staircase made of the backs of mankind, blaming those who fail to acede to it on a moral basis, and complaining about the living who one tromps upon.
As to organizing, that's a joke. We've really not trialed any other approach at scale sans Marxism, itself a joke. And collectivization of small elements hardly marks a real difference when it's plainly easy to exploit.
> Most people, I think, and this is borne out by my own experience - just want left alone to their lives.
I really found your entire comment very insightful. To the above quote, most people do want to be left alone, the rest want to tell those people what to do.
you've spent too much time in the 18th century and have fallen into the trap of making vast hand-wavy claims about humanity without a shred of evidence. Stop it.
This is the sort of comment that’s suited to a different forum. HN users will react in an emotional manner so the detail of your comment will not receive attention. You might as well have said “I think I should exploit people” because the responses will treat it that way.
Society is worse off for it, probably, sure. But if our society doesn’t care about our society, why should I? Is that shameful? I used to think so but I’m not really that convinced anymore.