Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Our society used to be based on concepts like honor. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. Society was never based on honor; it was always about worshiping those who succeeded, regardless of how bad they had been, as long as they did some good at some point. see, e.g. Rockefeller, Carnegie, Mellon & Gates in recent times, and basically all fondly remembered kings and barons in earlier times. Society adapts, in part,…
It's your type of cynicism that is actually an apologetic for the dishonorable behavior. If you stopped saying "everyone does it" then we could start punishing the dishonorable. It's NOT TRUE that everyone is a liar. Rockefeller and Carnegie were liars, sure, but they had to keep it quiet, they had to buy up newspapers and physically intimate people so their lies would not be exposed, or they would lose face. Our ent…
If you stopped putting words in my mouth, we might actually have a two sided discussion. I did not say "everyone is a liar" or anything that could remotely be interpreted to mean the same.
> Our entire legal system is based on the concept of honor.
What country is that? Is that the US system that a hundred years ago decided that corporations are people? Can you demonstrate what you mean by "based on the concept of honor".
> but at least back then people hid their skeletons in the closet.
People still try, by and large. They stay there for shorter, due to easier dissemination of information, but that doesn't change dynamics much.
> Now people just blatantly lie, openly engage in what would be called bribery at any other point in history, blatantly and proudly sell out the public good for personal profit, engage in the grossest type of war-profiteering, etc.
They always did, but these things were not as easy to track, as they are now. Can you point to a resource like opensecrets.org-like resource in 1900?
> Remember how war profiteering used to be a bad thing?
No. Do you? I mean, I think it's a bad thing, but I am not aware of any point in the US history where it was socially unacceptable. On the contrary - thanks to the "right to bear arms", weapons manufacturers were always "men of honor", and no one is more of a war profiteer than these guys.
> War-profiteers used to be hanged for treason!
Are we living on the same planet? Earth, 3rd rock from the sun? They would only be hanged by other war profiteers when falling out of favor with the politicians, who were often war profiteers themselves. And they still are, for a modern definition of "hanged". E.g. Rupert Morduch has recently been thrown under the bus after going a bit too far. And it wouldn't have been different at any other time in history.
> There was a time in America where if you committed fraud, no matter how "technically legal", you would be lynched. Until dead. And juries would acquit your murderer.
Do you have examples? Charles Ponzi, for example, was still admired when he went to jail, and wasn't lynched.
On the other hand, in the south they would acquit you for real undisputed murder, as long as the killer was white and the victim was black -- to the point that nowadays mentioning "jury nullification" in court would get you thrown in jail for contempt of court, because of how it was misused 100 years ago.
I'm not sure that how mobs treated people 100 years ago is how what you want to look up to.
forensic, you are incredibly naive, I think. You have an ideal of history, and you somehow assume it is an indisputable, to the point of being enraged that people disagree. Calm down, look around. The world is not dogmatic, and never was.