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Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

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Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#61

Post by JumpCrisscross »

passing_by_and wrote: post #42
coldtea wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, there is technically a process for reporting wrongdoing, but there's no process for reporting wrongdoing and keeping your job, and keeping your job is more important. What isn't your job is taking moral stances on things, having political opinions, provoking what others might see as unnecessary conflict, in any form. Up to a certain point. That answer didn't hold up well at the Nuremberg trials. After a point…

That only happened because they needed some show trials to pacify people. A few were picked to take the fall and the rest were quietly brought to universities and government labs all across western powers. The United States has a proud tradition of totally ignoring all the agreements that came out of those trials.

> they needed some show trials to pacify people

Which people? The Europeans were occupied or liberated under effectively caretaker governments. Americans didn't need pacification.

> the agreements that came out of those trials

The trials inspired some agreements. It didn't create any, other than the precedent of holding leaders accountable for crimes against humanity.

Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#62

Post by JumpCrisscross »

totetsu wrote: post #41
coldtea wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, there is technically a process for reporting wrongdoing, but there's no process for reporting wrongdoing and keeping your job, and keeping your job is more important. What isn't your job is taking moral stances on things, having political opinions, provoking what others might see as unnecessary conflict, in any form. Up to a certain point. That answer didn't hold up well at the Nuremberg trials. After a point…

Not trying to troll here, but, what does something like Nuremberg trails matter in a country where someone who can incite an insurrection and then become president again, or a world where international criminal court orders are ignored?

> what does something like Nuremberg trails matter in a country where someone who can incite an insurrection and then become president again, or a world where international criminal court orders are ignored?

Nuremberg had nothing to do with insurrections and revolutions. It also judged the Nazis according to standards that didn't exist when they committed their crimes; the ICC was created after Nuremberg as an imperfect system. Imperfect, however, is still better than nothing.

Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#63

Post by JumpCrisscross »

benreesman wrote: post #59
simpaticoder wrote: post #12

His story is a cautionary tale about real life vs idealism. The two come into conflict frequently, and sometimes violently. Nothing is more difficult or dangerous than holding power to account; the mechanisms we imagine are in place to hold power accountable exist purely in that imagination. The personal feelings of shame, guilt, or ethical responsibility we imagine there to be, or the social pressure brought to bear…

Economists and auction theorists have a term of art: “revealed preference”. It’s typically not applied to society in the large, but I think it’s useful to zoom out from time to time. Our society, whatever the internal dynamics, has a revealed preference in the extreme, a preference so forceful it’s an idee fixe, a singular objective. We will sacrifice anything: arbitrary loss of life, arbitrary suffering and indignit…

> to transfer wealth upwards constantly

This is overly simplistic. Truer: we will sacrifice a lot to maintain our relative standard of living.

Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#64

Post by JumpCrisscross »

wyldfire wrote: post #7

> “My career has been destroyed by multiple administrators at NCSU who united together and completely ignored the EthicsPoint System and its promises to employees,” Brain wrote. Well, lesson learned. Take your ethical concerns to the public/press instead. The retaliation would be just as swift as it is with The Process. Or: abandon ship and leave the system to consume itself.

> Take your ethical concerns to the public/press instead

Or at least above the heads of the people who are fucking around. Press might be seen as vindictive. But a sharp letter to the trustees of the university, possibly even some political offices, would not be out of place.

Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#65

Post by eitally »

mijoharas wrote: post #47
xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote: post #8

The website is geoblocked in the EU. Mirror: https://archive.ph/R39hz

One thing I wonder: It says it's geoblocked because of GDPR. Have they geoblocked California too because of the CCPA?

No. I am able to read it from California.

Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#66

Post by benreesman »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #63
benreesman wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economists and auction theorists have a term of art: “revealed preference”. It’s typically not applied to society in the large, but I think it’s useful to zoom out from time to time. Our society, whatever the internal dynamics, has a revealed preference in the extreme, a preference so forceful it’s an idee fixe, a singular objective. We will sacrifice anything: arbitrary loss of life, arbitrary suffering and indignit…

> to transfer wealth upwards constantly This is overly simplistic. Truer: we will sacrifice a lot to maintain our relative standard of living.

Who’s standard of living?

We will render arbitrary people homeless to constrain the supply and push up real asset prices for homeowners.

We’ll tolerate flagrant cartel monopoly and flagrant securities fraud and all manner of evil to drive equities up?

Qui bono? Not the working person at the median.

Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#67

Post by JumpCrisscross »

benreesman wrote: post #66
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to transfer wealth upwards constantly This is overly simplistic. Truer: we will sacrifice a lot to maintain our relative standard of living.

Who’s standard of living? We will render arbitrary people homeless to constrain the supply and push up real asset prices for homeowners. We’ll tolerate flagrant cartel monopoly and flagrant securities fraud and all manner of evil to drive equities up? Qui bono? Not the working person at the median.

> Who’s standard of living?

Each person's. It's an individual determination.

> We will render arbitrary people homeless to constrain the supply and push up real asset prices for homeowners

Yes. Because from the homeowner's perspective, they're maintaining their real standard of living.

Crafting good policy requires being very careful about whose relative standard of living you're sacrificing for the greater good. Because no matter how privileged you think someone is, for them, it's the baseline.

> We’ll tolerate flagrant cartel monopoly and flagrant securities fraud and all manner of evil to drive equities up?

No, not really. Shareholders win in the aftermath of antitrust action and trusted equity markets. We tolerate those things, the first much more than the second, but not for the reasons you presume.

Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#68

Post by dreamcompiler »

stego-tech wrote: post #9

> Kashani said Brain submitted numerous complaints through the EthicsPoint system and said tensions arose because Brain didn’t “play the political game” through his questioning of higher-ranking administrators. This right here is why I scoff at “anonymous reporting systems” or stuff like EthicsPoint, for the simple reason that the only ethics that ultimately matter in an organization are those of everyone above you,…

Organizations create these reporting systems to make themselves look good to outsiders, but they will punish you severely if you actually try to use them.

It's kind of like your grandmother's good china: Look at it all you want but don't you dare use it.

Stuff like this is incredibly confusing to people on the autism spectrum.

Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#69

Post by simpaticoder »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #28
simpaticoder wrote: post #12

His story is a cautionary tale about real life vs idealism. The two come into conflict frequently, and sometimes violently. Nothing is more difficult or dangerous than holding power to account; the mechanisms we imagine are in place to hold power accountable exist purely in that imagination. The personal feelings of shame, guilt, or ethical responsibility we imagine there to be, or the social pressure brought to bear…

I mean can you offer any suggestions as to solutions to get out of this situation? Feels intractable

Creative idealists tend to abstract away the social politics of power and are often suprised by the result of their actions. They do not have enough fear of others and what they are capable of. The response is not only a personal surprise, but an epistemological shock. The solution is to remain aware of the reality of your situation. This is particularly difficult for thinkers and dreamers because their attention is often elsewhere; but one must make the effort or bad abstraction will hit you like a freight train. The other solution is to ally yourself with other less pragmatic principled idealists such that you can help them assess the situation and take mutually beneficial action. One must understand the battle to come, you must feel the fear of failure and the possibility of success. The worst thing you can do is be unaware of the game entirely, or be aware and disdain it, and so play it like a fool. Finally, if you are extremely talented and recognized for it, the de facto situation is that you acquire advocates to play the game for you. But this is a rare position, and not without its drawbacks.

Re: Marshall Brain died hours after alleging retaliation at NC State

#70

Post by dreamcompiler »

dmix wrote: post #51
stego-tech wrote: post #9

> Kashani said Brain submitted numerous complaints through the EthicsPoint system and said tensions arose because Brain didn’t “play the political game” through his questioning of higher-ranking administrators. This right here is why I scoff at “anonymous reporting systems” or stuff like EthicsPoint, for the simple reason that the only ethics that ultimately matter in an organization are those of everyone above you,…

It doesn't sound like the process was anonymous, as it implies she found out it was him pretty quickly and worked to close ranks against him. Kinda defeats the purpose but I guess in any small organization it's probably easy to figure out who it is.

There's no such thing as an anonymous reporting system in a company that owns the reporting infrastructure.

Some companies contract out such systems to a third party to reinforce the illusion of anonymity. But what do you think happens when the CEO says to the contractor "Tell me who wrote this or we won't hire you again"?

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