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[Bauglir]

The snowballing effect isn't just limited to hierarchies, though, it's pretty much limited to any social interaction. Or, if you like, social hierarchies are inevitable in any society because of that snowballing effect.

[Vactor]

In a democratic nation, corruption arises from the weakness of its institutions.  If you have strong institutions, the FBI for example, you have very little corruption, and what does crop up is generally very limited, and not institutional.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

If you have strong institutions, the FBI for example, you have very little corruption, and what does crop up is generally very limited, and not institutional.

?

Do Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover not ring a bell?

[ECrownofFire]

It's not whether or not people want power, it's how far they'll go for it, and whether or not they think they'll get caught. Sometimes if they're willing to go far enough, they don't care if they get caught. This actually applies to EVERY crime out there.

[Truean]

Depends on what you mean by having power, I suppose.  I want control over my own life and no one else's.  I actually hate being in positions of leadership.  Giving orders makes me feel like a jerk.

I see where you're coming from and respect it, but really when you get enough people around, it becomes inevitable. People simply can't know everything. If I really had to, I could change my oil and some other minor things, but otherwise I am completely helpless about cars. I'm also not good with medicine, engineering (though I learned a lot from a great boyfriend once), advanced computer science (I'm a competent user who codes a little tiny bit). What I know is law and accounting.... I have to rely on other people in society. Even though I could probably get along on a desert island, I really, really, really would not want to <-- understatement.

I dunno. About the only thing I see as viable is to employ countermeasures to corruption. My mechanic could kill me easily by doing a bad job and so could my doctor.... I like to think there are checks in place to prevent that. Politics is also a career worth specializing in... look what happens when it goes badly....

I dunno. I really hope I'm not alone in giving a shit about my cases and reading legal encyclopedias at home to get better at my job to provide better service....

There are of course a whole load of other forms of corruption, a friend once told me he wasn't an organ donor because in Russia paramedics would let you die so they could sell your organs. Which goes to show that pretty much any aspect of public services can become corrupt.

Not to say this isn't true, but believing something like that because "my friend heard this from people" isn't very reliable, especially with something that's already basically an urban legend.

In Soviet Russia, organs donate you... (I apologize but just wow that's sad). Actually it appears to be in Brazil: http://www.macon.com/2011/10/21/1754124/brazil-doctors-found-guilty-of.html recently at least.

I understand bribery is also a big cultural thing in China (my ethics courses covered this), http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_29/b4187011931530.htm.

I don't know. All I know is people lie in my line of work all the time when they expressly say they won't under oath. The only thing I've found that stops them is cross examination/confronting them with the truth directly.

[Edit: holy crap, how many replies while I was typing]

[SalmonGod]

Depends on what you mean by having power, I suppose.  I want control over my own life and no one else's.  I actually hate being in positions of leadership.  Giving orders makes me feel like a jerk.

I see where you're coming from and respect it, but really when you get enough people around, it becomes inevitable.

I do everything I can not to believe this, because the more I lean towards believing it, the stronger my urge to go Chris McCandless just to have some peace of mind.  I really don't understand why people are so obsessed with pecking orders.  I'm just not compatible with that.  It drains and depresses me so badly.

People simply can't know everything. If I really had to, I could change my oil and some other minor things, but otherwise I am completely helpless about cars. I'm also not good with medicine, engineering (though I learned a lot from a great boyfriend once), advanced computer science (I'm a competent user who codes a little tiny bit). What I know is law and accounting.... I have to rely on other people in society. Even though I could probably get along on a desert island, I really, really, really would not want to <-- understatement.

I wouldn't call this necessarily power or corruption, because while you rely on other people for those services, they also rely on you for yours.

[Truean]

Depends on what you mean by having power, I suppose.  I want control over my own life and no one else's.  I actually hate being in positions of leadership.  Giving orders makes me feel like a jerk.

I see where you're coming from and respect it, but really when you get enough people around, it becomes inevitable.

I do everything I can not to believe this, because the more I lean towards believing it, the stronger my urge to go Chris McCandless just to have some peace of mind.  I really don't understand why people are so obsessed with pecking orders.  I'm just not compatible with that.  It drains and depresses me so badly.

People simply can't know everything. If I really had to, I could change my oil and some other minor things, but otherwise I am completely helpless about cars. I'm also not good with medicine, engineering (though I learned a lot from a great boyfriend once), advanced computer science (I'm a competent user who codes a little tiny bit). What I know is law and accounting.... I have to rely on other people in society. Even though I could probably get along on a desert island, I really, really, really would not want to <-- understatement.

I wouldn't call this necessarily power or corruption, because while you rely on other people for those services, they also rely on you for yours.

You confuse me, my friend, not for having such a noble dream, but for not realizing such a noble dream is dead.... You're absolutely right. The notion of having one with power over another is ordinarily unexplainable. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever that the government should listen to one voice above another on anything beyond merit, at all. They do. I hate the term "high crime area" (translation: The police aren't doing shit there cause they don't think it would make a dent in crime in that location), because everyone should have the same police access and protection. They don't. It's wrong, but there's no remedy.... Is there?

As for the exchanging services thing, they don't rely on my services directly, only that those services generate cash to pay them. I would have no idea whatsoever if my mechanic totally screwed me over by only saying he put in new spark plugs. (In most states, they must give you the old parts to prove they actually changed them out, but we all check that little box saying we don't want the old parts.... So...). The very nature of his services contemplate something I have absolutely no ability to check up on or know the value of until and unless my car dies from lack of that value. He completely has power over me.... Though he probably isn't corrupt; there are a lot of crooked mechanics out there..... Same with lawyers....

Wherever one person has knowledge the other doesn't about a service that person needs performed, the person with the knowledge has the advantage and power over the one without. Until and unless there is some reason and ability to catch a person abusing that position, they get away with it....

[RedKing]

In his rush (no pun intended) to find something to prove that Obama is a secret commie Muslim who hates Christians, Rush Limbaugh openly defended the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, one of the most brutal, vicious terrorist organizations known to man.

Bravo, sirrah. Tell me, which part of their modus operandi do you find to be the most Christian -- the child soldiers, or the sex slaves? Or perhaps the hacking off limbs, that's certainly "an eye for an eye" (and an arm, and an ear and a nose...)

[palsch]

In his rush (no pun intended) to find something to prove that Obama is a secret commie Muslim who hates Christians, Rush Limbaugh openly defended the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, one of the most brutal, vicious terrorist organizations known to man.

Bravo, sirrah. Tell me, which part of their modus operandi do you find to be the most Christian -- the child soldiers, or the sex slaves? Or perhaps the hacking off limbs, that's certainly "an eye for an eye" (and an arm, and an ear and a nose...)

This response from one of their victims is very hard to watch.

[RedKing]

We covered the LRA in one of my counterterrorism classes. I think the LRA was probably the only group that we all universally agreed needed to be eradicated. Even AQIM or ETA or PKK...they have an intelligible ideology. You know what they want, they could in theory be negotiated with. Hell, even the Moro Liberation Front is intelligible -- they're basically in it for the money.

The LRA on the other hand is Joseph Kony's private army that he runs for shits and giggles hacking up Catholics and Muslims while he speaks in tongues and acts like some weird syncretic prophet. It's like a modern day Taiping Rebellion on a much smaller scale and much more brutal.

[ChairmanPoo]

But what if he is really the messiah? Can you afford to disobey him?

[MonkeyHead]

Ask David Koresh how that worked out for him.

[ChairmanPoo]

Infidel!!one!

[RedKing]

But what if he is really the messiah? Can you afford to disobey him?

If God really does want us to hack people's faces off, kill our parents with machetes, and rape little girls....then yeah, I'm probably better off with Hell.

[Askot Bokbondeler]

i find this conversation is taking a distaateful turn. we're not talkin about goblins