From: Randy (cryofan@mylinuxisp.com)
Date: Mon Jul 15 2002 - 18:33:55 MDT
On Mon, 15 Jul 2002 18:28:20 -0400, you wrote:
>I am getting tired of all these accounting scandals. Every day some new
>company announced that it has to restate earnings because it
>misrepresented them before. (Coke now appears to have paid employees
>with stock and never counted it as an expense....)
>
>Then I realized that it's not just big business. There is a crisis in
>scientific research where more and more "breakthroughs" are being
>discovered to be fake. People exaggerate results to get funding,
>maintain their jobs, and help their companies make money. Similarly,
>published papers are suffering more and more from plagerism. Publishers
>are finding more and more lawsuits that contend that there new research
>is copied word per word from someone else's prior work.
>
>Then the evening news reminded me that we are facing a similar crisis in
>with DNA evidence exonerating felons and even death-row inmates. More
>and more we are seeing cases where the prosecution deliberately
>exaggerated evidence to gain a conviction or suppressed exculpatory
>information. It seems that it is more important to get a conviction
>than to get it fairly.
>
>The news also said that scams by smaller business, such as
>air-conditioner repair, auto mechanics, used car salesmen, and the like,
>are ever increasing. Despite public awareness programs and law
>enforcement crackdowns, these business seem to make as much money lying
>about repairs than actually performing them.
>
Completely agree. At the risk of using 100, 200, 300 year old
arguments/observation, this problem is caused by the breakdown of
society, i.e., the people who wiped your dirty bottom, i.e., you mom,
grandma, auntie, etc., are not there to witness your unscupulous
behavior towards what are supposed to be your fellow citizens,
therefore, you cut people off on the freeway, you lie about whether
the customer needs a valve job, or whether the client should buy that
stock. People commented on this phenomenon back in Merry Olde England
when London began to grow, and strangers came from the countryside,
and began to act up--they were freed from the constraints of social
reproof/control they got back in the village. Boomtown London awaited,
and they were free of societal constraints, at least to the degree
that they could elude the constable. And the distant threat of the
constable was never--and still aint-- a match for granny's stern and
disappointed looks.
>Politics is no stranger to lying either. Watch an episode of Crossfire
>(when Max isn't on!) and you will see both sides lying to such extremes
>that they just plain seem to come from different worlds. They can't let
>their opponent have an inch or show a sign of weakness, so each have to
>take extremist views and revisionist histories such that their side has
>never been wrong or never had a negative incident in the history of the
>world.
>
>So what does this all mean? Besides the obvious fact that it's easier
>to lie than actually produce anything of value, how do we proceed from
>here? People don't seem to be trustworthy. As the rate of technology
>increases exponentially, the rate at which these frauds and failures
>assail us might likewise increase at an exponential rate. It seems that
>our skepticism need to apply to everyday matters and not just to science
>and religion. News needs to be questioned. Claims need to be
>challenged. Breakthroughs need to be verified. Research needs to be
>checked. We can't afford to believe things just because they fit into
>our world view, or just because we want them to be true.
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