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Study Shows People In Power Make Better Liars
oDDmON oUT writes "MSNBC is reporting that a Columbia Business School study shows those who hold power over others make better liars. According to one of the study's coauthors, 'It just doesn't hurt them as much to do it.' For the average liar, she said, the act of lying elicits negative emotions, physiological stress and the fear of getting caught in a lie. As a result, she added, liars will often send out cues that they are lying by doing things like fidgeting in a chair or changing the rate of their speech. But for the powerful, the impact is very different: 'Power, it seems, enhances the same emotional, cognitive, and physiological systems that lie-telling depletes. People with power enjoy positive emotions, increases in cognitive function, and physiological resilience such as lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Thus, holding power over others might make it easier for people to tell lies.'"
Why am I not surprised that Columbia Business School is researching ways to lie more effectively? They must be trying to catch up to Harvard.
Or maybe the people who don't have moral or emotional problems with lying are more likely to get into power.
And they have Expert power, right?
Who's to say they are not lying?
All you ever have to do is look at various high-level politicians and you'll know that it's true. The better study would be determining how often they get caught.
OCO is Loco
Maybe it's because most leaders are psychopaths, so they have absolute no problem telling lies at all.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You took the words right out of my mouth. It certainly wasn't while you were kissing me.
...an IgNobel prize a-cooking?
Somehow I think anybody in power would be able to give personal experiences on this. Be it a politician (as KiltedKnight suggested), power broker, agent, spy or executive.
Nothing new here, move along!
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/interviews/rapaille.html "The Reptile Always Wins" Traits such as the submission to authority are part of the deep underlying reptile brain. Even when other parts of brain saying not to, it very hard to ignore these base desire to submit. It is the core of our intelligent being. This is more than just "correlation imply causation," it is reflection of deep underlying trait that is known. There is not many news in this story. If you look on this principle you will find much to read.
If there were no lies, this plan would have overwhelming support. Everyone except the very rich and the insurance companies would support it.
Unfortunately, we have Fox News and conservative politicians pumping out lies day and night and a bunch of idiots that believe the lies.
Exactly what I was going to say. Would mod up if I had points.
RTFA. There's an actual experiment here, not just observations like the summary here implies.
Or maybe you could RTFA where in the study they control for that... because the participants in the study were randomly assigned "leader" and "subordinate" roles.
Fricking knee-jerk "Correlation != Causation".
It's quite possible that both claims are true (TFA's and yours) -- but in this case, it appears from the study simply that:
Causation = Causation.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Delegating! Good leaders know how to delegate better than lesser leaders. Thus, they delegate the lying to the professionals. Rent 'Wag the Dog' for a good example. There's also 'plausible deniability'. By not actually educating themselves on anything, they 'rely on what their researchers told them', when their handlers tell the researchers to tell them what the money men want them to say.
Spoken like a true loser.
Wait, Columbia did a study that just figured out that Politicians are better liars?
Wow, no wonder so many MBA's we hire are so ineffective at their jobs. You really need to perform a study to determine this?
Next study: Do females have an advantage in child rearing?
Reading things of this nature just reinforces my decision to discontinue structured learning, and go at it myself.
No we don't.
People who are in power are generally very confident people. When you lie you need to be confident or people will not be convinced.
TFA isn't true. I'll prove it:
I.. uh.. have had sex before.
She had big bobs.
Yeah, they were nice.
You know, when you, like,
you grab a woman's breast
and it's...
And you feel it and...
it feels like a bag of sand
when you're touching it.
(please dont mod me down, you point holders have all the power)
Or those that don't want health insurance.
Or those that plan on being rich in the future.
Or those that think government should be smaller.
Or...
See the pattern? The support would still be well divided.
I am no expert, but I have a feeling this has more to do with this. Especially in todays companies where there is a culture of promoting the biggest assholes and creating a play-field where you actually get rewarded if you F%@* somebody over. The elbow-way of making career gets you more. Unfortunately for those companies that work like this, they are actually selecting people to be liars and when you don't lie and so you come 2% of your target short, you're out. That guy next to you, who actually stole several sales from you... he is getting a new office. These companies are breeding bastards and often they don't see that. But by selecting management on these traits (what they effectively are doing) I am no surprised at all by this.
Are you kidding? The insurance companies are ecstatic over the bill that is being passed. They get 30,000,000 additional clients, and practically none of the restraints that have been bandied about. The only big thing they'll be upset about is pre-existing conditions, and you can bet your bottom dollar that their friends in high places will ensure they continue to be profitable nonetheless.
Sure, there will be some headaches with implementation and compliance... but they stand to make even more money off the new legislation. Make no mistake... there's a reason insurance companies' stocks have been on the upswing over the past week.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Obama certainly fucked you yanks good. Serves you bitches right.
To become a leader you have to be able to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what they want to hear. The better you are at this the higher up the ladder you will climb. For some reason people will always believe what they want to hear. It seems to apply across all ideologies.
Their conclusion of the study sounds ridiculous in itself.
They make it sound like some Jedi mind-trick -- as if you are channeling your power into a lie. "These are not the droids you are looking for..."
You just put up another correlation-causation-problem here. Yet another alternative: While you are in power, your lies are a matter of controlling people, when you are not in power, you gotta lie to cover your arse. Different motivations for the lies, different reactions.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
You know there's worse things than lying. For instance bullshit. Bullshitters don't even acknowledge that the truth is important, at least liars do that by knowingly lying. Bullshitters believe the crap they spout.
What you say about getting into power is undoubtedly so. All other things being equal, the ruthless person will have an easier time climbing the ladder.
But, i actually rtfa (well, almost all of page one, so correct me if I'm wrong).Here's a snippet:
"Carney and the other researchers, Andy Yap, Brian Lucas and Pranjal Mehta, used volunteers who were told they were either leaders or subordinates. The leaders were given a large office, and the subordinates given a small windowless space."
So, it wasn't that the ones "in power" got there by being ruthless. So not a chicken/egg/correlation/causation thing.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Duh
How do you think they got in power?
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
RTFA?
You must be new here.
And therein lies the problem.
The Republican party (as a generalization,) feeds on "this will hurt anyone who wants to get ahead in life." They make it seem like taxes that target the rich will hurt everyone, because it will cut down on the desire to be rich.
Bollocks. When a tax, by definition, only affects the top 2%, it ONLY AFFECTS THE TOP 2%! The fact that the "no taxes" people use this as a red herring to convince people that "If you desire to be rich, you should vote against this" is ridiculous. If you desire to be rich, you should be happy in the fact that you now have to pay a little more taxes. It's proof that you're rich! It's not like someone who makes $5 million a year is going to be taxed so heavily, they take home less than someone who makes $25,000 a year. THEY'LL STILL MAKE MILLIONS! You show me a single person who makes $5 mil a year who spends the same percentage of their net income on physical products as someone who makes $25k a year. There are very few "rich" people who put as high a percentage of their income "back into the economy" as poor people. Poor people HAVE to spend a large percentage of their money on food, housing, etc. For a rich person, the required "reinvest in the economy" percentage is far lower. Yes, the raw dollars is higher, but that same income figure, spread among a larger number of middle-class persons, will put a higher dollar value back in to the economy.
P.S. I'm not a fan of unfair taxes, by any means, I'm all for a "graduated flat tax", where people below the poverty line pay no income tax, and it ramps up to a flat amount (whatever amount that has to be to cover the government expenditures,) at a certain point, say, 2x poverty line. No deductions, no 'bulk credits' that 90% of the population qualifies for every year, no loopholes, no untaxed income. ALL income is taxed at the same rate, as long as you are above 2x poverty line. (Or whatever value makes sense.) Short term credits that are meant to promote certain activities into the mainstream, are just fine, as long as they are VERY targeted, and temporary. If you want people to buy houses instead of rent, you make a short term credit, like the one that is about to expire. If you want people to invest in alternative energy, you make an expiring credit, like the one that is in effect for hybrid cars. You use short-term, targeted credits to "shift the herd", not permanent ones that turn into entitlements to do it. Two dogs can shift a herd just as well as tens of miles of fencing.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
They must have missed the study by another university that also reads that sociopaths tend to be in some position of power. Must be easy to miss too because not remembering a lot about the study I couldn't find the link to it with Google either. It still has to be somewhere on this vast web we call the internet. Anyone else happen to read and bookmark it?
Lying is an important job skill for people in power. Either people are born with the aptitude, they learn it, or they are at a disadvantage to good liars at acquiring and holding power.
Are you kidding?
The insurance companies were FULLY behind this. They're gonna make a killing off of Obamacare. Think about it..now EVERYONE has to have insurance. This will increase their roles by nearly a magnitude (ok, exaggerating there a little). And, best of all, they can likely now raise their rates since everyone will be mandated to have it or face fines.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Ihttp://www.sustainabilityninja.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/captain-obvious.jpg
The insurance have gone on record as supporting this health care reform.
You might want to check all sides of the health care debate.
Also, if you think that taxes and health care costs will not go up as a result of this new bill, you are sadly mistaken. I wish costs will not go up, but the numbers do not work out. How can millions of people who cannot afford health care get free health care? Those government vouchers, that is right. Those vouchers are paid for by: taxes. The added costs by the health care companies will be passed down to the customers.
Health care costs could have been cut more by stopping all the frivolous health care related law suites. Doctors are too afraid of being sued to provide the care needed. They order too many tests to cover everything plus people lie to their doctors to get meds. The doctors and hospitals have to have massive malpractice insurance in case they are sued. Guess where the cost of this insurance goes? It is passed to their customers.
Well yeah? How else would they have gotten into that kind of power?
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
Having a small penis helps, too. Nothing can make a man act more powerful than a micropenis and raisin testes.
Trouble is, this isn't going to stop with the top 2%. Heck they used to say no more taxes for those making less than $250K (per couple I think). Well, in many parts of the US, that is NOT being wealthy. I think those living in SF and NYC might could vouch for that.
But not only that...as time has gone by, I'm hearing more and more politicians trying to lower the bar as to what is 'rich'...$200K....those making $150K are rich...etc.
Don't kid yourself, with this and new planned massive spending, they're gonna HAVE to start taxing pretty much everyone that is not on welfare. I forget the exact statistic, but something along the lines of the top 10%-15% or so already pay > 80% of the US's taxes. At some point, you can't squeeze more money out of them and have to hit lower hanging fruit. I hear already that new taxes are gonna move the effective top tax rates back up to near Carter era rates were....a number I heard was like 44%, especially when the Bush tax cuts expire. That just too much for the govt to take.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Columbia University Business school finds "people in power makes better liars." The report goes on to state, "it's 'bitchin' cold in Antartica" and "people who cut me off in traffic are total 'dick's." Full story at 11.
I always thought cliches like "absolute power corrupts" included this concept well enough, but I must disclaim that I'm not an academic with a department to promote who feels in danger of perishing unless he publishes....
"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted."
--Frank Herbert; Chapterhouse: Dune (1985)
Oh yes, we have Fox News pumping out information like: This bill will increase taxes on everyone that pays taxes, and, This bill will increase the entitlements thusly increase the base of voters that will vote for politicians that will increase entitlements even more, and, This bill will do more to ruin jobs that to improve the lives of citizens. Bye the way, if you read the bill, these are all facts. My son and I poured over the documents for two days.
There is more to harm this country than to help. Since when does the federal government reduce waste and fraud? Really. When?
The congressional leaders have done nothing but lie the the public about their intent. They don't give a rat's ass about improving healthcare or anything about our lives. They only want total control over everything in this country. Then, they will have all the power and lots of our money.
If you read the constitution, you will find that the 10th amendment makes a good portion of this bill illegal anyway.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
The terrifying conclusion of this research is that when you randomly assign normal people to positions of power, they become psychopaths.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Because this is exactly what high priests in religion have been doing for centuries.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Spoken like a true/lying psychopath.
(Your pointy hair is showing.)
Sorry, I overly simplified the second point. I plan on being rich in the future and don't want my money taken to offset the poor. As far as I'm concerned, screw the graduated system: flat tax, period. 15% income tax after the federal poverty line across the board with no exceptions, no loopholes, and no credits. No one is held up except those that are spending every penny on survival and no one is pulled down.
If the liars in political power would trim all the government excess, then we could easily pay for everything and then some.
Maybe it's because most leaders are psychopaths, so they have absolute no problem telling lies at all.
Let's just hope they are merely sociopaths!
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
I read a psychology study wherein the participants lie to each other and rate who is the best liar. They then, as part of the study, vote for a representative to return their results. Every single group voted for the best liar to return the results.
So are we hardwired to want liars in power?
I remember the first times I saw Ron Reagan and Bill Clinton when they were running for office. I was awestruck by how good they were at lying and I knew with certainty they'd be elected.
Obama is so good at it, I believed every damn hopey changey word!
Good liars get elected!
But, i actually rtfa
Pfft. Great! There goes your chance to sound smarter than the professional researchers. Now you only sound smarter than the slashdotters racing to sound smarter than the researchers. Some accomplishment!
Volunteers [were] told they were either leaders or subordinates. The leaders were given a large office, and the subordinates given a small windowless space.
Ha! That doesn't solve the problem, there's still an issue here that started with the second run of the trial.
Researcher: "Okay, now for control purposes we need to switch the groups. Now, who hasn't been a 'leader' yet?"
Sociopath: "Oh, not me!"
Researcher: "Wait, weren't a leader last time?"
Sociopath: "Golly, no! I swear!"
Researcher: "Okay then."
See? The good liars are still more likely to be leaders. ;)
The enemies of Democracy are
The Republican party (as a generalization,) feeds on "this will hurt anyone who wants to get ahead in life." They make it seem like taxes that target the rich will hurt everyone, because it will cut down on the desire to be rich.
As far as we're pointing out stupid talking points for one party, we might as well point them out for both parties, and mention that "Tax cuts for the rich" when called such by democrats are not really tax cuts for the rich, but tax cuts for everybody. Politicians like to spin things, what do you expect?
I do agree with your 'graduated flat tax,' but I think there is also a benefit in everyone paying some taxes, even if it is just a dollar or two. People who pay taxes become more interested in what happens to their money: keeping people from paying taxes is a way to keep them out of government. We should have as many people involved as possible.
Qxe4
I really think this should become more of a slashdot meme. People could really learn from it.
People who are better liars tend to rise to power more often than people who aren't. We have already identified that most people in power are also sociopaths. What the summary would seem to be saying is that people who are placed in power develop comfort telling lies. If there is a causation, it's that better liars end up in power more often than those who aren't.
Rich people put more or less the same amount of money back into the economy as their poor counterparts do. Which is to say pretty much all of it. They simply do it through investments rather than consumable goods and services purchases.
Invested money allows the company you've invested with to grow their business, hire workers, purchase needed consumables themselves, and provide more goods and services to consumers. Money stuffed in a bank vault gets invested by the bank and does the same. About the only thing you can do with money that doesn't put it right back out into the economy is stuff it in your mattress.
I'm not saying things can't get a bit lopsided and make the fiscal landscape unpleasant. I'm just saying that this idea that money going to the rich somehow takes it out of the economy is patently absurd and utterly false.
Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
For anyone who's ever been a parent, this is obvious. I can lie my teeth off to my kids without so much as flinching (all in their best interest of course), but they can't so much as bend the truth without contorting themselves into a pretzel.
Heck they used to say no more taxes for those making less than $250K (per couple I think). Well, in many parts of the US, that is NOT being wealthy. I think those living in SF and NYC might could vouch for that.
Whereas I think being able to afford to live in the parts of SF or NYC that cost that much means you're wealthy. If you make $250k you're wealthy. If you choose to spend most of that on an apartment in lower Manhattan, that's your choice.
I forget the exact statistic, but something along the lines of the top 10%-15% or so already pay > 80% of the US's taxes.
Yes but they also have over 90% of the wealth. Funny how that works out.
At some point, you can't squeeze more money out of them and have to hit lower hanging fruit.
We aren't even squeezing them. They sure as fuck aren't paying 80% of their own income as taxes if that's what that factoid above was meant to imply. They aren't even paying the proportionally greater amount that our progressive taxation system is supposed to make them pay!
As Warren Buffet noted, he pays less in taxes than his secretary.
There's plenty of squeezing left that can be done, and Mr. Buffet agrees. But really, I'd be happy just ensuring that our tax system is in fact progressive.
The enemies of Democracy are
I doubt there's many people that lie as much as cops do on a daily basis & get away with it. & I've yet to see a polices facts statement or brief that wasn't full of lies. No wonder bugger all trust coppers these days
For some reason people will always believe what they want to hear.
As Paul Simon famously asserted, "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."
True psychopaths are born not bred.
If there were no lies, this plan would have overwhelming support. Everyone except the very rich and the insurance companies would support it.
Unlike the plan that we got that everyone except the very rich and the insurance companies oppose.
However, if this study holds up to further studies, it emphasizes the importance of voting against the incumbent. If this study is correct, it means that the odds are much higher that the incumbent is lying to you.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
you should be happy in the fact that you now have to pay a little more taxes.
Man, what colour is the sky in your world?
No OS on the planet can protect itself from a user with the admin password. - Yvan256
Bollocks. When a tax, by definition, only affects the top 2%, it ONLY AFFECTS THE TOP 2%!
And those that would have benefited from the things the top 2% would have done with that money if they hadn't had to give it to the government.
Like most people, you mistake the top 2% in income for the top 2% in wealth. The top 2% in wealth are rarely in the top 2% in "income". Actually, many of the wealthiest people don't technically have very much money at all. All of their money is controlled by a trust that pays their bills for them.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
So which is the cause, and which is the effect?
A well thought out and detailed response. Obviously I must now rethink my position.
Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
Well, this explains Barack Obama then.
Furthermore, a man "carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down, or cut him 'til he cried out in his anger and his shame ..."
I know I do, anyway ... and I'm not even a fighter.
But sociopaths are another matter -- they don't give a shit about shame. Anger, yes. But not shame.
-kgj
Mod me down but you know that Obama is a fucking liar.
But if you make a living interpreting the Constitution, as many people in Washington do, the 10th Amendment is moot when it faces the might of the Commerce Clause.
And even if the bill needs to be reworked should SCOTUS rule against it, there's always cooperative federalism to push the issue... your state doesn't obey the new law? Fine. The federal government can withhold related moneys for your state. Hey, it worked for the dirnking age, right?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Obviously. Haven't these people ever met anyone in power?
It's the whole prisoner detainee problem. This is more useless research pointing out the obvious cranked out by our "higher learning institutions".
When a tax, by definition, only affects the top 2%, it ONLY AFFECTS THE TOP 2%!
I understand that when you type all in capital letters then it makes true statements even more true than before.
A number of years ago congress decided to enact a tax that affected only the top wage earners, so they added a 10% tax surcharge on furs, top-of-the line jewelry, and yachts. They reasoned that only rich people bought furs, top-of-the-line jewelry, and yachts, so only rich people would be affected by the tax. Rich people responded by not buying furs, top-of-the line jewelry, and yachts that they otherwise would have bought. As an unintended consequence, the market in furs, top-of-the-line jewelry, and yachts crashed. Unfortunately, top wage earners didn't work making furs, top-of-the-one jewelry, or yachts, so the people who lost their jobs weren't top wage earners, but were affected nonetheless.
I hope that when they passed a law that, by definition, only affects the top 2% of wage earners they remembered to legislate that this law shall have no unintended consequences. Perhaps they should put it all in capital letters.
~Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
How can millions of people who cannot afford health care get free health care?
By waiting until their conditions are serious or critical and then going to the ER, which is much more expensive than traditional care for the same condition, and ludicrously more expensive than preventative care. And that's not even counting that prices are already higher for the uninsured!
The added costs by the health care companies will be passed down to the customers.
You mean they are passed down to the paying customers. You and I are already paying for the uninsured! So given that, would you rather pay for ultra-expensive emergency care, or pay for cheaper regular care?
Locking people out of the regular health care system and forcing them to use emergency services because they can't afford insurance is a serious case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Health care costs could have been cut more by stopping all the frivolous health care related law suites.
I'm not saying it isn't a good cause, but that is a trivial amount of savings.
No, we're going to save more money by reducing the amount we are paying for health care for the poor. Just because that cost is now coming out in the open doesn't mean we weren't paying for it before. We were, and paying more at that.
The enemies of Democracy are
Wouldn't this mean that depending on your social, financial, or business stature, all lie detections systems will not work properly? Do not lie detection systems rely on some basic similarities in physiological human response to achieve their goal?
To become a leader you have to be able to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what they want to hear.
Well, if that's all there is to it, then it would always be the salesman who climbs the ladder. But that's not the case.
Being a leader is also being able to know and set boundaries. Being able to recognize win-win deals. Having wisdom.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
It is certain that "Rich people put more or less the same amount of money back into the economy" but I don't think most people care about others' economies so much.
The less money I have, the more goes into staples. That is food, housing, basic services.
Do these all get produced in xyzcheapland- no, by and large they actually get produced locally (at least in Canada and the USA). My carpenter is local, my food / feed is grown in-country, my lumber and materials are local... That means the local city / state / country gets the benefit. This means that to service this need there is a desire to invest, where? Again not in xyzcheapland but locally.
Someone with piles of cash will invest where they get a good return, if there is no local demand there is no inducement to invest locally.
It's mauve today... could be pimento tomorrow, with a slight haze of chartreuse.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
Very easy to stand aside and point to THEM as the problem. But in this study, just as in Zimbardo's prisoner study at Standford (check out The Lucifer Effect), the people in charge were selected randomly. The more reasonable conclusion is that power tends to bring out the worst in most people or, as put more succinctly, power corrupts. Couple this with the Dunning-Kruger Effect (roughly, ignorance is positively correlated with confidence) and our tendency to want confident leaders and you have an almost perfect storm. We select the confident over the capable for our leaders, and then the power we give them makes them worse.
Power corrupts. That was noticed a couple millenia ago. What's sad is that so many people willingly and eagerly let themselves be lied to.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
What if they were asked to present facts? Does having a position of power increase your confidence overall, or does it only affect your lying ability?
Better Liars? Wouldn't a better liar be one who is not capable of lying and getting away with it?
The US government have made it clear that we have no inalienable rights; any we do not defend vigorously will be taken.
Something no one seems to have mentioned yet is that lying might sometimes be necessary for effective leadership.
Since this is Slashdot, think of Theoden at the battle at Helm's Deep. Putting on a brace face, sometimes straight out lying about things. I can imagine e.g. tribal leaders doing the same thing. So there might be a mechanism whereby people either develop these skills when in a leadership position, or the people who tend towards lying more easily attain these positions.
Of course, this can only ever be a positive thing if the leader in question actually cares about his underlings.
obvius, the people don't like the truth
1010011010
Well, what is the cost of lying? If you're a leader, someone might call you out, but probably not. More likely you get more power, as people follow you because you tell them what they want to hear.
If you're a subordinate, you can get penalized - fired, demoted, reprimanded.
So the punishment for lying is different.
That's one highly likely cause, but probably not the only one .. there's been some experiments that demonstrated that people in power change, generally for the worse.
The Standford experiment is the classic example, though it's not definite (is anything in psychology definte though?), but it's a good indicator that power also changes normal people. Another good example would the Abu Ghraib occurrences, I doubt the prison guards would've pictured themselves that way when they were normal civilians.
actually "born" and "bred" come kinda hand in hand. You might have been thinking of "made"?
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
I was being a bit facetious, although I do think psychopaths do excel at politics, mainly because their easy charisma, insanely over-the-top goals and absolute lack of empathy or a conscience, but with the ability to mimic those emotions, make them perfect for a line of work where goals can evaporate and reformulate in days.
There's no doubt that giving someone power can lead to all sorts of nasty side-effects on their egos. It doesn't even take much power. Some of the worst I've seen are mall cops and beach patrols, small time jobs for small time people, and yet give someone a uniform or a big fancy job title with even just moderate responsibility, and they'll go a little nuts.
Myself, I hate being in management. I was there once for a small firm and it sucked. All I got was a small raise, a whole lot more responsibility, a bunch of miserable bastards for underlings, and I was glad when the whole thing was over and I found a job where my responsibilities over others was limited.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You can't have a middle class unless you have an upper class. Kill the upper class and you kill the middle class. They are joined at the hip. So keep attacking their wealth and soon we will all be poor. Class warfare never ends well.
Life is not for the lazy.
a number I heard was like 44%, especially when the Bush tax cuts expire. That just too much for the govt to take.
Australia pays that level already
- 180k and above = 45% for each dollar above 180k
- 80k -> 180k = 38% for each dollar above 80k
Basically 80k would be about middle class given housing prices and other expenses.
"Power corrupts".
The higher up the corporate ladder a person is, the more people he/she has control over and thus he/she is a bigger liar.
You can always squeeze more money out of the rich, by definition.
The Republican party (as a generalization,) feeds on "this will hurt anyone who wants to get ahead in life." They make it seem like taxes that target the rich will hurt everyone, because it will cut down on the desire to be rich.
Bollocks. When a tax, by definition, only affects the top 2%, it ONLY AFFECTS THE TOP 2%!
Your argument is very common, but it is out of sync with reality.
The problem with taxing the "rich" is precisely that it keeps people from trying to become rich. About a year ago I had two career paths that I could go down, I am a fairly skilled programmer. I could take the easy route, get a job with some corporation, and probably retire in about 20 years. I've worked in corporations before, it's not a bad lifestyle. Instead I decided that I would try to become rich by making a startup company. The thing is, it risks a lot of my money, a lot of my time, and is a whole heck of a lot harder, and more stressful than working at a corporation. Also, there's no guarantee that I'll make a dime for all of the work I've put into it.
Not that working on this thing isn't rewarding. It is rewarding, but the primary reason I'm putting forth that effort is to get rich. If I succeed, I don't want to have to work another day in my life if I don't feel like it. If the government was taxing the top 2% of people 20% more than it was when I got brought on as a partner in this company, I would not have gotten involved in it.
So, back to the point. Taxing the rich does reduce the amount of people that are willing to try to become rich. If fewer people are trying to become rich, there will be less startup companies providing competition in the market, which will definitely hurt everyone.
The real answer is that all taxes hurt everyone, some hurt less noticeably than others, but the effects are still there. What really needs to be done is the government needs to stop spending money unless it's really worth it. Not that it's possible to make the government do that, but it would be nice.
Water is wet, fire hot, etc.
Not really insightful.
Have you by chance taken out a loan for your feed, lumber, or new equipment? If so you're seeing direct benefit of all the money rich people leave in banks. You're spending the money you say they've taken out of the economy. If you're not taking out loans and you use feed, you're damned good with your money and my hat's off to you.
Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
Lemme guess. The number "you heard" was from a Fox News talking head. Beck, Hannity, ad nauseum.
Kill the upper class and you kill the middle class.
That would be an interesting and relevant comment if MY WHOLE POINT wasn't that we AREN'T "killing" the upper class with progressive taxes. Not anywhere close! They aren't even paying the tax amount that they should be. And even if they were, it wouldn't even come close to ending the upper class. They'd still be ridiculously rich!
No, instead we're killing the middle class directly, and letting the rich shirk their responsibility with accounting tricks. Kinda makes your argument moot, in as much as it applied in the first place.
Class warfare never ends well.
Quoting Buffet again: "There's class warfare all right, and my class is winning."
But I forgot, the kind of class warfare where the wealthy suck up all wealth from the middle and lower class, creating ever-escalating concentration of wealth in their hands, is good for us. It's only when we want to stop this from happening that it's bad.
The enemies of Democracy are
Maybe. On the other hand, the max penalty for not getting insurance is 2.5% of income. For most people (I assume including most uninsured) that's far less than the _current_ cost of health insurance. Add in the extra costs incurred by covering pre-existing conditions, and premiums will have to go up. The extra people brought in by the vouchers and the individual mandate may not be sufficient to avoid runaway adverse selection, which would not be good for the insurance companies.
There's something more than a little sick about "solving" the problem of the uninsured by penalizing them. It somehow seems very... Republican, actually.
"No shit, sherlock"
My web domain.
'It just doesn't hurt them as much to do it.' For the average liar, she said, the act of lying elicits negative emotions, physiological stress and the fear of getting caught in a lie
"It just doesn't hurt them as much". Let's put it another way. If you're at the bottom of the heap, there's plenty of people with the ability to administer punishment if they don't believe you.
But if you're at the top, if you lie and they don't believe you -- you're the one who can dish out the punishment.
If positions of power are detrimental to human mental health then it should be illegal to put people in or allow people to attain positions of power.
I observed one of my colleagues get promoted from engineer to manager. At first he was obviously uncomfortable telling us lies. (e.g. the company is not planning any layoffs). After he had been in the position for about a year, he was much more comfortable repeating the official corporate lines, even when I knew that he wasn't telling the truth. He was still a nice guy, not a psychopath, so I attributed a fair amount of this change to practice. According to this research, maybe some of it was that he was secure in the power he established over the group.
People were randomly assigned to groups (power/no power, truthful/lying) so claiming power causes people to lie more easily seems valid, within the bounds of the experiment.
Or - psychopathy is genetic, not learned.
You do realize that during the Reagan years, top marginal rates were 50% and anyone making over $60k was paying at least 42%. When he took office, the top marginal rate was 70%.
When Bush Sr left office, the top marginal rate was 40%. In fact, Bush Sr raised that rate several times.
During the fastest period of economic growth in US history (from 1945-1983) the top marginal rate bounced between 90% and 70%.
The last 4 years were simply an aberration in the last century. This directly contradicts your assertion that a 44% top marginal rate is "simply too much".
History begs to differ.
No, it's probably because in that experiment the best liar is the only one who doesn't have an incentive to misreport (ie. lie about) the results. Counterintuitive, I know.
Nobody is "killing" the upper class.
The fact that the last four years have been the lowest taxed since the Spanish-American war makes them an aberration, not a rule.
The average top marginal tax rate over the last 100 years is about 55%. It spent several decades at 90% during the greatest boom in the middle class (1950-1970).
Your argument is bunk and smells like turd.
Pretty much explains the dopes in Washington DC doesn't it?
People will buy into what you think of yourself. And then react accordingly. Which then fulfills your prophecy that you are like that. Because everyone confirms it.
This is what creates the bullies, nerds, winners and losers in schools, companies, in all communities, and even on state/world level.
The guy who is the most secure of himself, becomes what most people listen to and believe in. Hence they become leaders.
The problem is, that we all think this would be something unchangable. That we ourselves would be just how we are. So many people think they are losers. And they could change it... just like that. By deciding that they are what they want to be. Which makes them act accordingly, makes others react accordingly, and so on, until it becomes reality.
I did that myself, and completely changed who I am.
But I’m drifting off.
The thing is, that those leaders are so sure of their reality, that they can make themselves believe it is true and not a lie. They are trained experts in acting confident and secure. So everybody buys into it. Which is reason for becoming and the result of being a leader.
Remember to be aware of that wen around people. Know that you can play with it. If you play it right, the power structures will shift at your will, and you can act completely opposite to your actual thoughts and intentions. (If you want to.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Just to be pedantic, there is no longer a difference between sociopath and psychopath in the DSM-IV used by both psychologists and psychiatrists. Both disorders are incorporated under the same definition, and it's now called "antisocial personality disorder".
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
That would be awesome if it were true, but with our cyclical fractional reserve economic system, a dollar saved in the bank is actually capable of being loaned against 20 or 30-fold, making the power of the deposit appear much higher, but actually be a much smaller percentage of the whole economic machine.
In reality, we wouldn't have as many rich people without this fractional reserve system, but we also would have a much more stable economy that wasn't subject to massive economic swings and downturns.
*shrugs*
In the study, the lies told were the same for the same motive. "Power" was the independent variable.
Do you ask Warren Buffet that question? He's a big advocate of higher and stricter taxation for the super-rich. The color of his sky is OBVIOUSLY green.
becoming more and more moronic each day. I guess being well fed off those fat MBA fees make them so.
Or those who want a political victory so that they can garner support for their favorite politician who espouses their particular brand of religion....
which I think might be the most common out of these. :-)
Yeah, yeah.
You're still getting stuffed into your locker.
Have gnu, will travel.
If positions of power are detrimental to human mental health then it should be illegal to put people in or allow people to attain positions of power.
And that in a nutshell is the political philosophy called democracy.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Couldn't agree more about the study's contention. It's kind of intuitive, you know. BTW, Democrats are in power. That must mean they're good liars. They are! As for Bush, I thought he was too stupid to lie. He must have been one of those devious neandertal types!
Sure, you can expense a lot, and write off everything possible, but if you have some success...you get killed with these taxes. If this is a couple, and has a couple kids...this is not being rich.
And so many of the taxes they're raising are income taxes..which do not hit the super wealthy as they do not make their money from a W2 type job, but investments, etc.
Trouble is, if you start hitting investment income, then you start killing the retirement funds of so many of the middle class, and a huge percentage of the middle class are in the markets with 401K's, IRAs...etc.
And actually...I could see raising taxes a little, but for God's sake, how about the govt. tighten its belt and stop all the fucking spending of money they do not have?!?!
Sure a new program or two might be nice, but shit...we can't afford anymore, and need to cut to the bone waste and useless programs.
Personally, I wish they'd ditch the whole current tax system with its complexity,loopholes, etc...and do something like the Fair Tax (which has consideration for the poor with refunds and all for food purchases, etc). With that...you'd then catch your rich people, as that they usually spend lots of money on expensive things. And you'd catch more tax from illegal operators in this country, as that they have to spend money to live too....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Please don't tell me that the 72 virgins aren't real.
Have gnu, will travel.
And who shall have the power to prevent people from attaining positions of power?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Same NBC that says the comcast deal is good for people! NO it's good for comcast and bad for dish and directv and people how have DBS.
Comcast also lies about having more HD. But they count each PPV VOD movie as a channel and they also count the super part time NFL RED ZONE HD, GAME1 HD, Game2 HD, PPV HD, TEAM HD as channels. Even when with GAME1 HD, Game2 HD, PPV HD and TEAM HD only 2 can be live at one time and they only show live events and are far from being 24/7. NFL RED ZONE HD is only live for about 6 hours a day 1 day a week and this not even year round. Some systems also have a 24/7 comcast info channel HD that just shows looping help videos and they are not even in HD But they do have from time to time a HD RSN over flow game on it.
Comcast also seems to play around with there hidden fees. Like Outlet fees and HD fees. Some deals clam free Free HD - no HD access fees or HD equipment fees* but the fine print says stuff like limited to a single outlet and Equipment extra. (so they say free HD and say Equipment extra?) also HD is $9 per box and HD DVR is $16-$20 per box as well.
"Well, if that's all there is to it, then it would always be the salesman who climbs the ladder. But that's not the case."
Actually I'm pretty sure that is the case. A leader is just a good salesman who is almost always selling the right thing, which always includes selling themselves. He or she is the best salesperson. Referring to an employee who is stuck in the sales department, well they're not the best sales people. Else they wouldn't be stuck selling just one or 2 things.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Please don't tell me that the 72 virgins aren't real.
Good news: They're real all right.
Bad News: Hope you're not Hetrosexual.
Shows wny Jobs runs apple and Wozniak does not
Don't pay attention to Buffet.
The problem is we have 32% of people with NO tax burden whatsoever. So there is a large group of people who automatically vote for bread and circuses because THEY DON'T PAY FOR THEM. The "poor" in the US have cars, TVs, and can afford to eat so much junk food that they're FAT. They don't need bread-and-circuses, they need to have a stake in the overall success of the nation and NOT a stake in dragging down everyone above them economically.
Now, add in the fact that the super rich aren't going to get soaked to pay for all the "free" benefits because the super-rich have the resources to buy off politicians.
And who gets soaked?
The bedrock of society - the middle class and those that successfully have done things like build a good-sized business from the ground up but aren't multi-millionaires much less billionaires.
Yeah, horse-fucking THEM is a good idea.
Yet to pay for all the benefits for the 32% that pay no taxes, we have to horse-fuck SOMEBODY.
You mean something along the lines of going back to the gold standard? Seems to me that the most volatile times in our history were under that, including a huge chunk of the 19th century and the great depression. We didn't really take off as an economic superpower until about the time that we got off of it, so you'll excuse me if I'm skeptical.
Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
They didnt think lying was needed, or they woudnt do it. Think about that for a minute.
Can you trust them?
I believe the word you're looking for is "sociopath".
Whist both sociopaths and psychopaths both seek power pathologically but psychopaths generally aren't very successful due to the fact they keep killing people.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I know people who, when confronted with their lousy behavior, think that it is confirmation of the "rightness" of their behavior. If they're a bully telling them that not everyone is a bully by nature confirms to them that bullies are the only ones who have everything all together. To them people who aren't bullies just don't understand life.
If they are a person in position of authority it will tell them that when they lie it only confirms what powerful leader they are, even if they're a total waste as a leader.
Instead of this being cautionary to them, it will only increase their antisocial behavior.
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
So is it that being in power makes you a better liar, or are you in power because you were the better liar?
--- When you start with the conclusion that you want, then throw out any facts that don't agree, is it true?
> Whist both sociopaths and psychopaths both seek power pathologically but psychopaths generally aren't very successful due to the fact they keep killing people.
You mean like wars and stuff? Yeah, those people never get elected!
The terrifying conclusion of this research is that when you randomly assign normal people to positions of power, they become psychopaths.
And in other news, when you apply a force to something it accelerates in inverse proportion to its mass...
Seriously, why is it in the sciences we can prove things by experiment and they stay proved, but in the social "sciences" every repeat of a well-known, empirically proven result is considered new and insightful?
Is it the lack of sound biological foundation for the social "sciences", so that there is no notion that some truths--like those revealed decades ago by the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram Experiment, as well as many, many actual field observations, from Auschwitz to Abu Ghraib--are in any way fundamental? The strong tendency of people in power to abuse that power is not a truism or "philosophical" observation, but an ordinary empirical fact.
It's as if social "scientists" were continually running experiments in which they didn't give people food for a week and reported with breathless amazement at the end that the subjects were hungry! Isn't that amazing? No, it isn't, unless you haven't been paying any attention to anything for the past thirty or forty years.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
IMHO it's more likely that lying to someone who's more powerful than you is riskier and thus more stressful. Plus there's the whole boss ~= parent mental association that's bound to have some kind of effect.
Or - psychopathy is genetic, not learned.
And F = m*v. At least, that's what I'd really like to believe, so I'm going to keep repeating it on the Internet and completely ignore all the evidence to the contrary.
Psychopathy is opportunistic. Everyone has the capacity. Most people take advantage of the opportunity when they have it.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Promise them a mild Winter and a cure for warming by Spring.
--
Causation implies correlation.
You compete to gain positions of power. You are born a psychopath, you do not become one, although as a weak willed amoral person it is certainly possible to come under the influence of a psychopath and join them in their corrupt activities.
The flip side of the report is that people get into modern capitalist based positions of power by being better liars, rather than be being competent managers. So being good a blaming other people for your mistakes and taking credit for other peoples work, all whilst showing no conscience or shame gives you a competitive advantage in the modern corporate and political structure.
Unfortunately of course that results in the inevitable catastrophic collapse of the companies or political groups that the sociopath gains control of, as they are incompetent self serving schemers rather intuitive aware managers with a strong scene of personal integrity and conscience.
Recently medical science has caught up with the sociopath and the condition can now be specifically tested for and those persons can be prevented from laying waste to what ever company, government agency, political party etc they gain control of to the their own seriously disturbed ego. How broad those tests will become is a very interesting question, obviously no sane parent would want their child to marry a smooth talking, charming, psychopath.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
"How broad those tests will become is a very interesting question, obviously no sane parent would want their child to marry a smooth talking, charming, psychopath."
No parent would mark his child to be a sociopath is that means ruining his future.
But on a more to the spot issue, no boss would test to demonstrate his own socipathy nor any minion would ask for his sociopath boss to be tested that way.
"Well, if that's all there is to it, then it would always be the salesman who climbs the ladder."
As, in fact, it happens.
politicians lie, absolute politicians lie absolutely
"Rich people put more or less the same amount of money back into the economy as their poor counterparts do. Which is to say pretty much all of it. They simply do it through investments rather than consumable goods and services purchases. "
This was 100% true until about 1999 before glass-seagull act was repealed.
However we have an anomaly today and this is no longer true.
When you invest in a bank its invested in flipping shares, houses, and stocks with no real residual value since they do not make money (most stocks do not pay dividends) and only rented homes produce income. None of it or a very small percentage is invested in small business. Bank CEO: Should I invest in a dinky tiny 6% interest investing in small businesses creating jobs or 50% interest flipping stocks? Gee thats a hard one
The poor are being raped by credit cards and student loan debts. Because of the way the charges work for each time you use your card the interest rates are alot higher than 32%. Some are 391% interest if you include fees and sub prime conditions! The banks of course are using people's deposits on these high risk and economic crippling activities for insane returns.
I am not an economist but to me it looks like that episode of Beavis & Butthead where they pay a dollar to each other selling candy. After passing it to each other over and over again, one has $1 and the other 0$ and $150 worth of candy is gone.
You can not pull money out of thin air and this is why you can't sell debt. It doesn't make sense.
I could be wrong and I surely hope I am but until banks are forced to only loan to legitimate businesses who can hire workers and not flips in stocks or factories in China.
The financial landscape can be pleasant if we put in place glass-seagull again and limit interest rates on cards to just 6%.We need to have money re-invested back and less consumer debt. Consumers can not buy your products if they are trapped in debt. The rich actually lose.
http://saveie6.com/
Also, the more powerful you are, the more immune you are to the consequences of getting caught lying.
>They aren't even paying the tax amount that they should be.
What, you mean nothing? Good on yer, mate. There's nothing quite so appalling as being made to pay arbitrary rates for services you didn't want to begin with, is there?
When Bush Sr left office, the top marginal rate was 40%. In fact, Bush Sr raised that rate several times.
Yes, that 40% (which is less than 44%) tax rate was a significant contribution to his losing the presidency in 1992.
As much as I appreciate good sarcasm, those people are still sociopaths. A sociopath has no qualms against hurting others to create or extend their own power just like psychopaths, the key difference being that a psychopath has little self control. Certainly not enough to get elected, or hold a steady job.
Lack of remorse is another common trait. Both are Antisocial Personality Disorders but have critical differences in the way they react to other people and threats.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Loopholes still exist.
Warren Buffet is very fond of pointing out that he pays a much lower tax rate (17%) than his secretary (27%).
I dunno. I think this whole tax issue is a straw man set up as a way to undermine politicians rather than a legit beef. 3% tax on top of the worlds lowest tax rate in a developed economy does not to me seem like revolutionary "Marxist" policy.
Shrug
can afford to eat so much junk food that they're FAT.
That's a weak argument because junk food is usually cheaper than healthy food.
They still own the money, and you owe it back to them.
And if there's not enough room in the market for you to recoup your payback, tough luck they keep all the gold.
A simple flat tax rate would certainly cut down the burden on the IRS :)
Unfortunately it would also put many accountants out of work.
Nothing unexpected ... as more power you have less fear you have about the consequences of getting caught lying;
also, the ethical and moral burden is not anymore an issue as we are brain washed for decades that lying is the
normality when the liar must show leadership or has political reasoning. So, welcome to the future where things are
well established that the ones owning the power will own it and pass it to the ones they will choose as fit to perpetuate
the same status quo. Hooray to the glory of the North American Bison Citizen ...
If you make $250k you're wealthy.
No, you have a large income. There is a difference between wealth and income.
Let's try a car analogy. Researchers might in great detail measure how much more likely you are to get into a car crash if you use a mobile phone while driving, and they might measure this for several different kinds of phones, hand-free sets and so on. They might compare it to simply talking to someone else in the car. The newsstory will read "researchers conclude that being distracted is likely to get you into a crash than if you were paying attention," but that's a very unfair characterization. What you are doing is generalizing the results of this research to something that you don't think is surprising, while in fact the research is about something very specific. Another thing is that people report being unsurprised by results from the social sciences, however for some results people will report this no matter how you tell them the research came out. If the research had found that lying ability was greater in subordinates, would you also be here saying "that's so obvious that these people are morons for researching it."
Extreme? The middle class is about income, not wealth - i.e., we have a lot of the former and very little of the latter. Until your net worth is way up there, you're middle class in my book - you still have to work for a living.
The classic upper class - the feudal types - lived off rent payments that were resistant to inflation. They didn't have to work, EVER. Most people with incomes of $200k/yr work - and work very hard. They have to submit themselves to the FAFSA shakedown when they send kids to college - where private schools are $50k/year of AFTER-TAX income per student. A favorite figure these days is a 50% tax. So be it. If you make $300k per year as a couple, you will have (something very close to) $150k in take-home pay. If you have twins and want to send them to a top-name college, well, that's $100k of that $150k. Someone who is forced to live on 1/6 of their income is not doing the equivalent of snow angels with gold coins.
And who shall have the power to prevent people from attaining positions of power?
I will. I promise not to abuse the power at all.
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
80% of people will give someone what they believe to be a lethal shock (despite the person begging them to stop) with slight prompting.
So I'd say 80% of people are ready to be psychopaths-- they just lack the opportunity.
(sources are the original study and the recent french TV program that duplicated it).
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
But this doesn't diminish the point that some individuals are incapable of being anything other than psychopatic - they are simply born without the required hardware to have empathy as a feature of their cognitive architecture. They lack an instinct that most of us have, even if we don't always use it.
... the researchers and article have it backwards, it's liars who make it to positions of power.
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The terrifying conclusion of this research is that when you randomly assign normal people to positions of power, they become psychopaths.
Perfect example, of this: the Stanford prison experiment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
Psychopathy can be easily trained into humans. All it takes is for societal restrictions to be removed from the mind. The US Marines have been doing this for decades.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
No, they show their true nature, i.e. most people don't give a damn about anyone else except themselves and possibly their family.
Psychopaths are always like this, but in a much worse way, whether they are in power or not. You can very easily determine if someone is a psychopath by what he says (i.e. they have no empathy and this quickly shows). That power makes it easier to tell lies doesn't change that, you can differentiate between such people.
People who are psychopaths/sociopaths are quite different from people who get into power and then behave like assholes. Someone mentioned that people who get into power are more likely to be psychopaths, and this is obviously true. Therefore this study isn't particularly useful in seeing what would happen if psychopaths were to be excluded from government etc. (because then the whole climate would improve, less emphasis on "who's in power" etc.). Years ago I suggested to dutch political parties that people there should get a psychological test so that these kind of people (who are only in politics for themselves and don't give a damn about anyone/anything except when it benefits their own career) be excluded from politics...
Oh btw, someone mentioned 'Power corrupts' and if you consider 'to corrupt' to mean his personality will change, this is not true. Give someone power, and he will show his true personality (because he doesn't have to hide anything, doesn't have to suck up to people etc.)
The last few decades have seen a decline in the middle class whilst the upper class gets smaller and vastly richer. Kill the middle class and the first world returns to the middle ages, or at best somewhere like Mexico or Brazil. The upper class isn't anywhere near as important as you think it is, the world needs middle class workers more than it needs sports stars, CEOs and heirs.
The terrifying conclusion of this research is that when you randomly assign normal people to positions of power, they become psychopaths.
Except that there don't appear to be that many actual cases of people being randomly assigned to positions of power. Even juries which are specifically intended to be random frequently are not.
The solution to the problem of the ultra-rich is not to add more taxes for the [well-off,ultra-rich] rich to then avoid. It is to make taxes flat and remove the loopholes. One could argue that the loopholes exist because the tax is so high it requires them to not hurt normal people.
I want to live in a country where I have a right to keep what I earn and decide how to spend it. I also want to aspire to become rich so my kids can have it better than I did.
I've heard the argument many times that the rich became so by standing on the backs of others. And that may be true to some extent. But you can't get rich without doing a lot of business, and that means producing a lot, paying a lot of people's salaries, etc.
Stop looking at anecdotal evidence about the extremely rich (buffet, gates, etc) and getting riled about the lifestyles they lead. They are not representative of the people being taxed. It is the successful business owners and professionals, people who have worked hard all their lives who will be hurt.
How can anyone say with a straight face that a progressive tax is more fair than a flat tax? All else being equal. (If it's not, then that is what we should focus on fixing)
Actually that is the more or less the central belief of anarchy. (The intellectual kind, not the rioting in the streets kind.)
I do take issue with the term psychopathy. It is typical primate alpha behavior. Like it or not, this is our natural uncorrupted state.
Your statement isn't looking deeper at the issue. People in positions of power unfortunately need to lie to others sometimes, it's just a requirement of the job. If you are in charge of a serious group of people on a daily basis, you have to deal with a variety of things that demand secrecy/discretion, which in turn demands that you occasionally lie about things to others. In my opinion, reducing the impact of lying is a defensive tool that our brains are wired with.
What happens when an employee is accused of a crime or career-ending misconduct? Serious accusations must be investigated, but are often completely untrue... so you are going to be forced to lie to others point-blank if they hear rumors and ask you about it. Otherwise the rumor machine kicks in.
What happens when the company is in trouble and you need to seriously evaluate all sorts of different options, including laying off most of the staff? Again, you have to be careful to keep those sorts of discussions close to the vest, and that may require lying.
Studies like the Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrate that in certain contexts, otherwise normal people will become monsters capable of incredible evil. This is true, but it doesn't mean that we all need to curl up in the fetal position and cry. You have to have controls -- checks and balances to ensure that the powerful don't turn tyrannical. Those checks include training, delegated authority, evaluation with consequences and debriefings. Disasters like Enron, the My Lai massacre, and countless others are egregious examples of what happens when individuals invested with unchecked power are unleashed.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
You don't have to be a liar to be a great politician, but a great liar will make a great politician, and the ability to lie and act would give any politician a great advantage over others who can't.
Lying only works on people. You cannot build a house on false measurements. The measurements have to be honest. But you can build a church on lies. You can gather people and make them work for you under false premises. Imagine the advantage you would have if your words were not restricted to what is true?
A stack of lies will only crumble if challenged, or rather, until challenged. So once in power, using your power to prevent people from challenging your lies becomes half the battle of staying in power. History illustrates this time and time again.
Ultimately though, there is nothing stronger than structure built on truth, and I would argue that the best leaders got where they were with the truths they told, and that their lies were their weakness.
You should be very happy with the status quo. The bottom tier of people pay a negative tax, the middle class pays something in the middle, and the wealthy pay alot of taxes. Most of the "tax loopholes" that people bitch about are things like government debt, which is tax-free, and various investment vehicles.
The people who talk about "flat" taxes and the "fair" tax generally get politely ignored, because the biggest beneficiaries of tax deductions are the middle class, who get exemptions for children, deduct mortgage interest and property taxes.
The republicans and democrats are very similar, differing only in very subtle ways.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I want to hear the truth, which is why I never listen to politicians or their puppeteers.
How can anyone say with a straight face that a progressive tax is more fair than a flat tax? All else being equal. (If it's not, then that is what we should focus on fixing)
Easy, when you include the costs of living as well. Someone making $100k a year has a lot less money after rent/housing tax and food than someone making $1m, even if the first person pays 20% tax and the second person pays 40% tax. A roof over your head and food on the table is not an optional expense or some kind of luxury that you can forego when times are lean.
And despite what some people here on /. seem to think, the US is not willing to let its people starve to death in the streets (at least not en masse), so with a flat tax you would simply have more people depending on welfare, meaning the flat tax rate has to be made higher to pay for that ... Spread out over the entire population, you'd have a group that owes more in taxes than they have left after food and rent is payed.
Net effect: people who earn more money would pay more than the original percentage in tax anyway, so why not use a progressive tax rate from the start and at the same time have fewer people dependent on the government for their daily survival?
It's the natural state of many animals. The fact that it's not the natural state of affairs for humans is central to what makes us human.
As I recall, F=m*a :-)
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
I think he was paraphrasing Caesar:
"Libenter homines id quod volunt credunt" - Men gladly believe that which they wish for.
Steve -- If you have to call it a system, you don't know what it is.
Of course loopholes exist; politicians couldn't leave the tax reform act alone. Nonetheless, both 17% and 27% are a lower than 44% and a lot lower than 70-90% (yes, I know that was a marginal and not an overall rate).
It's rather rich for Buffett to complain. After all, he would be among the first to move his capital overseas if capital gains were taxed as income. This is the ultimate problem faced by taxing governments: capital is mobile and will move to avoid both taxes and regulation. Example: the US after Sarbanes-Oxley, where private equity firms sprang up out of the woodwork so as to avoid the painful paperwork occasioned by being a public company. We couldn't have given London a better gift.
creating ever-escalating concentration of wealth in their hands, is good for us.
Well ever escalating until the board tips. You'd really think people could see it coming. They never do they just wish they will die before it comes.
Its been done now for about 1000 times in history they still don't get it. All fun ends, all sucking money form others ends. Question is when does it end, the answer is far sooner than most of them can think it will be. Too bad life goes on.
Thank you. Sociopath, not psychopath.
However, plans like the Fair Tax take the necessities of life into account, and there are rebates, etc on food and the like. I frankly don't see the point in a rebate, just don't tax them period. But once you do that...anything else over that is pretty much luxury, and sure you should pay your fair share. No on should get a completely 100% free ride. I think it was Ben Franklin that said something to the effect of making being poor as uncomfortable as it can be, so a person will be inclined to work hard to avoid it and get ahead in life.
Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with someone that makes a lot of money being able to enjoy most of it. After all, isn't that one of the main goals in life? To enable yourself to enjoy it?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Bollocks. When a tax, by definition, only affects the top 2%, it ONLY AFFECTS THE TOP 2%!
Are you saying that when a tax by definition only has to be paid by the top 2% of wage earners (let's say), that it has no other effect on the economy as a whole? Econ 101 factoid: when the structure of taxation changes, people's investing and purchasing behavior changes. Plus, the rich have the greatest flexibility in switching their investments and altering their purchasing behavior.
You realize that the period 1945 to 1983 included the Carter years of double-digit stagflation, and some of the highest Misery Index figures since the Depression? What measures were you using to determine economic growth here, bud? (Try using US per capita GDP.)
What if we "crowdsource" government at "www.wiki.gov" and see what happens? or maybe just use twitter? Of course, we need a new version of twitter for filibusters. Is that a "blog"? I digress.
...plus, will have all this data to play with, thanks to Tim-Berners Lee. Surely we can come up with a new and better way to organize society, right? Solve the poverty problem, etc? Dance with unicorns?
So your beef is that they're better at acquiring capital than you. Gotcha.
Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
It should read "Study Shows People In Power Are The Best Liars"
No shit Sherlock. That's likely the reason they got the power.
If by paying the 2.5% penalty they get coverage, it's not a bad deal.
And there's the Republican's (again, a generalization,) second favorite argument: slippery slope.
If we let gays have civil unions, soon we'll have 8-year-olds marrying their dogs!
Slippery slope is another red herring.
Your numbers for share are also wrong. According to an anti-tax group The Tax Foundation, the top 10% pull in 48.05% of the income, and pay 71.22% of the taxes.
However, those in the 6% to 10% range actually pay *LESS* than the average! They make 10.61% of the income, and only pay 10.58% of the taxes. That's about as even as it gets. Obviously, from there down, each income bracket pays a smaller percentage effective tax rate. So it's really only the top 5% that "pay unfairly."
This also only covers "Adjusted Gross Income", or "what we could con the IRS into thinking we make." Many, if not most, people whose AGI is over the "6% mark" have sources of income that don't fall under income taxes. Thus, their actual increase in net worth each year is likely much higher.
I do fully agree, however, that *LOCAL* cost of living should be taken into account. Someone living in Kokomo, Kentucky or Detroit, Michigan will have "poverty line" drawn much lower than someone living in San Francisco or New York City. (Although I do think 'metropolitan statistical area' should be the basis. Yes, it costs a lot more to live in Manhattan than Detroit; but if you work in NYC, you can choose to live in Hoboken, and even the extra cost of transportation isn't enough to increase away the significantly lower cost of living. Likewise with San Francisco vs. Berkeley.)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
obviously no sane parent would want their child to marry a smooth talking, charming, psychopath.
I wouldn't be too sure of that. "Civilized" society calls him successful, and they would queue up to marry him.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
You can very easily determine if someone is a psychopath by what he says (i.e. they have no empathy and this quickly shows).
I guess it is not that simple. They sure have no empathy, but some are extremely good actors and feign more empathy than a "normal" guy can feel. So yes, there are unsuccessful psychopaths whose lack of empathy is evident. But there are genius psychopaths about whom it takes very long time for one to know that they are psychopaths.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
Wow, are you naive. Most taxes are imposed "only on the rich". Then adjustments are made, and good old inflation kicks in, and then most of us get to pay the tax.
A good example is the alternative minimum tax. When first implemented in 1970, it affected 155 people. Big whoop. Nowadays? "About 4.5 million taxpayers were affected by the AMT in 2009. That number has been kept relatively small by annual modifications to the AMT rules, but the most recent modifications expired at the end of calendar year 2009. Consequently, about 27 million taxpayers—one out of every six taxpayers—will be affected by the AMT in 2010, paying on average an additional $3,900 in tax. Nearly every married taxpayer with income between $100,000 and $500,000 will owe some alternative tax."
Not sure if the law got amended at the last second to fix this in 2010, but even the 4.5 million is, well, 4.5 MILLION! Little bigger than 155.
This latest precious "tax on the rich" is headed your way, unless you are downright poor. If you think otherwise, you desperately need to get a clue.
Don't know about the "morality" angle, but regarding cause and effect, someone did a study a few years ago with the cause / effect reversed. They showed that peole who are convincingly good at lying make much better leaders.
...or maybe they have just been practicing at lying far longer...the time it took them to lie their way from the bottom to the top...
Naturally all sociopaths hide their illness, they plot and scheme every waking hour to minimise their frustrations at everyone else's expense. In the case of public companies. obviously financiers, investors and the board could require it prior to employment in management roles (just like any other recruitment test). This can also be required for other high personal risk professions like, police, teaching, doctors, nurses, pilots etc. In the case of politics, prior to running for office and person should be tested and be declared mentally fit to run for office. Once specific genes can be tied to the condition, defining it strength of impact as well as assurance of occurrence, that presents another even trickier issue of protecting children from other children with a dangerous cerebral defect, that results in an absence of conscience and empathy.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Oh, I get it, a Dilbert joke. Cute.
Keep believing that if it makes you happy, monkey boy.
Why is that considered a defect to you instead of an advantage? Traits that help the species are selected for, not against. The fact that its still around suggests that it is beneficial, not harmful.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
They also remorselessly psychologically abuse their partners, use then as lab rats in testing out psychological manipulations, cheat on them as a matter of course and then of course swap them over once the relationship is no longer advantageous and, if the opportunity presents when they can legally get away with removing them they will do so without a flicker of conscience, if they believe they can get away with it they'll even go for a life insurance claim. Juts like playing Russian roulette but instead of one loaded chamber and the rest are empty, it is one empty chamber and the rest are loaded.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
this example does not actually counter what he said. You are changing the fact that the researchers are *asking* those people for leader or subordinates, but he said the researchers assign the volunteers to become leaders or subordinates. There is a distinct difference between asking and assigning.
And throughout the history, a lot of the people in power doesn't necessarily are the people who are good at lying. For all elected president candidates from the party machine, can you really say that those are 100% good liers? No, gaining power or being put to the position of power does not implied the characteristic of that person, it is the circumstances that would influence the person.
That's right, but success makes him extremely attractive. All his defects will be not known in advance because he feigns a good, kindly nature. Even after they are found out, the defects will be ignored for a long time because that person is successful. He will even blame his spouse for the marital discord and since he is a smooth-talking, charming person, outer world(including his parents-in-law) will believe him more than the suffering spouse.
Marrying (and even your child's marrying) a successful person means that you have "arrived" in life. We cannot simply wish away this attraction for success we have as a species.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
There's a well known correlation between success and EQ. I'm guessing that EQ allows people to lie more easily.
Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.