Item — HN Reader

> To be fair, these are not regulators, just private companies making up rules, so technically this is not corruption just something that looks like it but it's just business™

What I find odd is that the comments are critical of how the police didn't caught thieves, but there is absolute silence towards thieves and the fact they have been engaged in thieving for ever.

Another comparison is people blaming the fire department for not inspecting sprinklers after an arsonist torched the place. It seems to me that the arsonist is the root cause, isn't it?

2 comments

We expect thieves to thief.

Police are only useful so long as they are effective as policing. It’s insanely difficult to put a price on a cost center which doesn’t add value, but only has a chance to reduce the loss of value if they do their job well.

The problem with the fire department analogy is that there’s a lens through which the fire department IS the arsonist here, or is at least pouring accelerant at the future site of the arson. If you don’t know why I would call the bankers at S&P, Nasdaq the arsonists in this case, you aren’t equipped with the background info about SpaceX’s fast track + goalpost moving to index funds.

I guess we should be thankful there aren’t more Luigi jokes in the comments.

> We expect thieves to thief.

This seems to be the problem. Thieves get a free pass but the very few guardrails that said thieves haven't dismantled yet suffer the blunt of the criticism, to the point people argue they don't need guardrails at all.

Don't you feel you are unwittingly aiding thieves to go unpunished?

This analogy is getting really strained.

If I expect North Koreans to North Korea, I’m not aiding them in doing that by failing to criticize their behavior. They were going to do the North Korean thing with or without my dismay.

Thieving behavior is deterred by the police doing their job.

> Thieving behavior is deterred by the police doing their job.

Wouldn't it be more productive to place the blame on thieving? Police is a mitigation, and your complain boils down to complaining that police is influenced by thieves. Yet, I don't see people complaining about thieves.