'To steal from a brother or sister is evil. To not steal from the institutions that are the pillars of the Pig Empire is equally immoral.' -- Abbie Hoffman

What is morality but a simplified approximation of realpolitik?

Few governments aren’t a massive net surplus for their citizens, just look at any failed state to see the alternative.

So calling them a thief is almost always purely self serving nonsense.

It's not stealing until you've recovered what was taken from you plus some discretionary punitive amount. Beyond that it swings into theft.

I always liked: "We pretend to work, they pretend to pay us" - leading to rampant stealing of course.

> Is that an accurate reading of what you're saying?

Not at all.

> I.e., Mexicans are inherently more corrupt, and Europeans inherently less corrupt. By their nature.

Not sure what you mean "by their nature" but it sounds like you're saying it's about genetics which is definitely NOT what I'm saying.

Culture is a context. It's not biological, it's artificial.

Europe has a different cultural context than Mexico. Mexicans in Europe will behave differently than in Mexico (and vice versa) which is what the experiment mentioned in the OP showed.

As to why this is... maybe the fact that Mexico has +95% rate of impunity might be a factor (sarcasm).

https://www.impunidadcero.org/impunidad-en-mexico/ (in Spanish)

As an Eastern European, I can agree that we're simply much more corrupt than Western Europeans, and it indeed is a cultural phenomenon.

No country is corruption free but the difference between Europe and Mexico is shocking. At least the European countries I know first hand.

In Mexico it's blatant and it's everywhere. In Europe most people would never think of bribing a police man to escape a fine while in Mexico a mordida is business as usual. There are police men whose only job is to get money from all the people they stop.

Here's an anecdote from my early years in Mexico. You have to check your car once or twice ever year to get like a govt sticker otherwise the car cannot be used in some places. Well sometimes the queues to do this process are extremely long. I've seen first hand someone from the verification center going to every car in the queue and asking "with jump or without jump?". Meaning, if you want to jump in front of the queue you have to "pay extra".

All of this shouldn't be a surprise.

https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2023

Yes this is correct.

Maybe in 50 years Mexicans will be honest and Europeans will be corrupt. I don't think anyone honestly thinks that corruption is inherent to anyone's genetics.

But today? It's simply the case.

I wonder if it somehow evens out perfectly across all cultures/countries on the planet, and stays even as variables on the ground change.

Yes but what enables corruption in particular context?

Culture.

Yes, that's basically it. They simply fry tortillas cut into triangles.

You can make them at home if you have access to fresh tortillas from a tortillería.

I was turned on to the idea that Pinker might be quite wrong on these claims by David Graeber and David Wengrow in "The Dawn of Everything". I haven't read Better Angels of our Nature, and I haven't spent hours carefully verifying the Davids claims, but I must say, they certainly made it sound very convincing. Enough for me to feel like not reading Better Angels would not be a major loss in my life.

I went to that wikipedia article you link there to see if that gets a mention, and the "Criticism" section is ginormous. So I'm not going to go out on a limb and say you shouldn't be recommending it at all, but I will say that based on the very large number of serious scholars who were apparently upset enough about many of the claims of the book that they then went on to write long serious things criticising it, perhaps in light of that you should reconsider whether it's as "data-backed" as you thought.

It could have crap data, or good data poorly interpreted. The many critics seem to think both.

"The selfish / selfless binary is a bit simplistic to explain corruption."

Corruption is selfish gain. If one eschews corruption because they realize that it harms the society-at-large, then they are acting selflessly. If one eschews corruption because they're afraid of being caught and punished, then the legal system has prevented societal harm, by preventing corrupt selfishness by a public servant.

As to your hypothetical, I like my friend from Lousiana's saying, "If my aunt had a d*k, she'd be my uncle." Of course, in 2024, that saying is looking a bit ragged.

That said, extreme hypotheticals are not going to get to the bottom of this issue of corruption. It's the ordinary, everyday corruption that erodes society, not having to turn one's brother over to the authorities for murder. And ordinary, everyday corruption is both selfishness, pure and simple, and a failure of society to emplace the necessary checks to prevent it.

"Trust the universe, but tie your donkey."

Living standards have improved, but at vast cost the environment, and we show no signs of addressing this.

The amount of energy we spend on irrelevant stuff like the stock market & AI should instead be directed toward dealing with climate change, and not turning our oceans into lifeless garbage dumps. But our economical model can only handle things that make more money for rich people, so we won't.

I think that might depend on how far you look to compare. Like 1700s to now, yeah we're better by any metric you can think of. But on a smaller scale there are some things tending down.

In various ways, I completely agree with you, but there is a different level of negativity that is happening that is about the levers of power and wealth and what they are doing to the poor and the planet, itself. When a billionaire or government corruptly uses their power to press down on the populace for the gain of the wealthy, the effects are much more deleterious than the gains of we peasants, for example, learning how to no longer be racist or trans- or homophobic.

Those "small" gains are absolutely important, and are essential for our next societal level-up, but the corruption-in-the-large is an order-of-magnitude (or two) more physically destructive. I mean, look how many fools look up to Elmo and his cohort of kleptocrats. And look how the fossil-fuel industry buried the truth of global heating.

That's why I believe that RATM's self-titled debut album is the most important album of the 20th Century. And while I understand rage to be purely destructive, I firmly believe there's a time for righteous anger, especially in the face of oppression and wanton destruction.

What country do you live in where there is actual justice? I've never heard of such a one. From what I see, the powerful dominate the weak, abuse the Earth with no concern for future generations, and manipulate systems to ensure their own group's wealth and impunity.

So, Sir, I stand with Banksy, Bob Marley, MLK, RATM and other like-minded agents of change. But I understand that love is the only way to forge a better future for our Earth and ALL her peoples -- but a fierce, unyielding love, to be sure.

I've never heard that saying before; I like it. Thanks for expanding my horizon.

The nature of human life is, however, that we feel good for making others feel good, and vice versa. We truly reap what we sow, but it is sublime and at odds with what most people value in life, namely wealth, pleasure, and power. And, along with our power to choose, we can choose to ignore our conscience's pleadings for better behavior.

So, in an odd (but accurate) way, making others happy is the most selfish thing we can do, because it is the only way to earn happiness, which is a mysterious flowing into ourselves from parts unknown.

We live in a subtly reflexive, karmic universe. Only we human beings inhabit this plane of existence, because only we have the choice between selfishness and selflessness, with a conscience to orient ourselves, and a mind to evaluate the potentialities of every move we make. And we are each absolutely free to value the horrific (vice-eous) and eschew the virtuous.

WWII is a deep example of how societies can go so completely wrong, and yet be so confident in their intentions and self-destructive actions. It is also an example of other folks uniting to do good in the world. Both paths are totally human; the question is which path do each of us choose, and by which moral ethic?

Here's a true relation that you can factor into your model, if you'd like, for, though I am a long-time programmer, I don't go in for the study of game theory. I am, however, familiar with some of the precepts. Here goes:

When a person causes negativity/unhappiness, the person(s) on the receiving end gets an equal positive amount of karma. Karma is what determines our long-term happiness or lack thereof.

When a person does something intended to cause positivity/happiness, there is no negative effect on the receiver, even if they refuse the gesture.

In other words, acts of selfish negativity incur a zero-sum negative karmic effect, every time, without fail, though often without being observed at the time (or even, ever). OTOH, acts of selfless positivity only incur positive internal karmic effect for the doer; nothing is lost by the receiver.

In yet more other words, we can only receive negative karma from our own actions; others' actions can only result in positive karma for ourselves (if we are on the receiving end of selfishly negativity). For example, a poor person loses no karma from accepting charity, though the giver definitely gains.

As such, karma is skewed asymmetrically towards easier positive creation; i.e. it's only a zero-sum game when the first choice is negative/selfish.

Why, then, have the world's populations not yet created a "Heaven on Earth"? Because we human beings are also free to ignore all notions of karma and the associated question of why we are happy/unhappy. If a person chooses to believe that they are just amoral animals competing for scarce resources, then they are fully authorized to live their lives that way. We are also free to believe that the Earth is flat. The universe is the sole arbiter of the truth, however, and we all reap what we sow. Every time, without fail, with perfect justice, however difficult it is for us to comprehend at any given time, given our state of moral undevelopment.

Survival of the fittest is just the circumstances we find ourselves in. Our strategy to survive is cooperation. Human are amazing at cooperation, second only to eusocial insects. Fairness is an important mechanism in organizing this cooperation.

So, yes. Fairness is intrinsically human.

Add to that in some cases, you might get in more "trouble" for not engaging in corruption. To use pier25's example again, someone who does't pay to skip the line might not get a turn if many others do and waste a bunch of time, have to come back the next day, potentially to the same effect. Or if you don't pay the expected bribe at a checkpoint, cops might find something wrong with your car lands you a more expensive fine (actual fine with paper trail + bribe instead of just bribe). You could argue that's extortion and not corruption but same principle to me. During Covid lockdown, a friend needed to pay bribes to get a pass for their family to be able to do their shopping. It was supposed to be one pass per house in their area, but the owner of the neighborhood held them back and kept several for the own family, so no bribe, no trip to the store... Better to pay the bribe to the owner than risk it with the cops checking permits on the street.

This is just to say, taking part in corruption may not be optional where it is the norm, regardless of a person's education or morals.

"You get imparted the best morals in both cases."

That is simply not true, for the vast majority of the world's cultures and societies.

Yes, we all have a conscience (inner moral compass), but few of us are taught how to hone and develop it over one's lifetime, using one's intellect to improve our thought processes to be better, more virtuous, human beings.

We are the only creatures that self-evolve, and it is precisely our moral nature that puts this severe responsibility upon us to nurture selfless universal compassion as a personal and societal imperative. Otherwise, we wreak destruction on our blessed Mother Earth and our fellow human beings. We are to use our gifts to create happiness for each other, not misery.

We have the free will to ignore this moral imperative. Look at the state of global heating to gauge its prevalence.

I've lived for several years in parts of the world where bribing police is, unfortunately, normal.

There's a couple of places around the country where it's known that the police do shakedowns (although they certainly don't point guns at you). I guess especially corrupt police work in those areas.

But for the most part I am much less likely to get stopped for minor traffic violations than I would be back home, where bribing the police isn't a thing. I'm sure there are other countries where police shakedowns is a problem, but it's not just a simple equation of bribable police = shakedowns.

Yea I know it's generally bad most of the time. But I think the details of what is and isn't corruption are too complicated for ordinary people to decide based on morals because they'd have to understand all the implications. That's what the law is meant to be for, but does corruption magically stop being objectionable if it's made legal? I think we'd still call that corruption in obvious cases.

> pocket of a corrupt cop and does not benefit society in anyway.

It motivates him to stop speeding drivers which is good for society.

To your second point, maybe a better system would be the policeman gets paid a commission on the tickets he issues so they're still recorded. But if it's not set up that way, bribery might be more effective than not.

In India the legal system is made in such a way including the top judiciary the political system takes over the labyrinthine ways of corruption and encourged