Item — HN Reader

> Human society overwhelmingly rewards lying cheating and stealing.

I’d like to push back on that. Civilization is very much a function of large numbers of people being able to coordinate across time and space, and widespread and systematic lying, cheating, and stealing would undermine that.

I think your cynicism is misplaced.

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Thats why man invented Gods and religion. Keep the masses believing in the importance of cooperation and being good while you rob them blind.

That's super cynical but I can't help it, I agree. The weird thing that really gets me is that it is happening out in the open for everybody to see.

> it is happening out in the open for everybody to see.

Reading beteeen the lines, you seem to suggest that most billionaires (and millionaires?) are stealing from the hoi polloi as a matter of course and in the open.

Are you saying that because you think they’re paying too little taxes or is it something else?

I think their point was, if you look at who controls the most resources, they are rarely the ones we would consider worthy of honor.

He didn't quite say "widespread." He said "rewarded."

But we don't overwhelmingly reward lying, cheating and stealing. Depending on the social status and wealth of the person doing it, we either punish it or tolerate it. Most people who lie, cheat or steal will be punished for it. To get away with it you need to plan you actions carefully - either with plausible deniability or by very carefully selecting your victims.

Or by having more money/power than the legislating body of the area you live in. I could gesticulate around broadly in a more frantic fashion, but my point should get across.

Pretty much all of the people that are in the billionaire class with a few exceptions have been rewarded while repeatedly lying, cheating and stealing. The fact that it is white collar crime rather than that there is a corpse is one part of the reason it works, the other is that their money effectively insulates them against the legal system. Every now and then someone falls from grace but overall the rules seems to be that you can get away with it if the numbers are large enough. It's depressing.

> Pretty much all of the people that are in the billionaire class with a few exceptions have been rewarded while repeatedly lying, cheating and stealing.

does that mean your heuristic boils down to: in general terms, individuals with more power/money == more lying, cheating, and stealing.

If so, do you also hold the same assessment of entire societies or countries?

With some the plunder is indisputable, like The Netherlands, whereas with others it is maybe more "subtle" and organic, but generally, the richer a society is the more "it" lies/cheats/steals relative to poorer societies?

Civilization functions because the vast majority of its inhabitants do not lie, cheat, and steal. But that allows liars, cheats, and thieves who are able to get away with their destructive behaviors to accumulate outsize power and influence.

And we seem to have gotten quite bad at reliably bringing consequences/punishment/justice to the most successful liars, cheats, and thieves.

It's not cynicism it's history

Widespread and systematic lying, cheating and stealing is how every democratic nation in the world describes their own government.