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Comment by hackinthebochs | Hacker News Reader

Personally I find apologies of any kind from companies worthless. I don't get why people are so bent on squeezing apologies out of everything they can. It's a power thing most likely.

I prefer actions and we should incentivize the right actions from companies. Apologies are worthless, what people actually believe is worthless. Behavior is the only thing that matters.

>Why is integrity such a concern these days?

It's phony integrity. Social media has turned the entire world into gabbing Sunday churchgoers where everyone has to pretend to think and act in acceptable ways otherwise they'll incur the wrath of church gossip.

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It's definitely possible that people complaining about phony apologies are doing a power thing... Hmm, maybe they want to take away power from people who do bad things?

It would be nice if there was some kind of way to signal true remorse, like a way of speaking with our bodies, a "body language".

No one says the behavior doesn't matter - but without an expectation of social cost (apologies, and further criticism and reputation loss when the apology is tone deaf and insincere), why would anyone care about behaving well? Demanding apologies isn't worthless - it's a power thing.

The problem is that moral indignation is rarely about improving the state of things. Further, attempting to change the behavior of corporations through moral indignation is the least effective option. Getting CEOs to issue apologies or to be driven out of their companies is about power--the feeling that the mob gets when its crusade is victorious. But this is only loosely related to improving the state of the world.

People follow incentives, and this goes even moreso for amoral corporations. The most effective way to change the behavior of corporations is to create the right incentives such that its in their best interests to behave in ways that are in all of our best interests. Insisting on "true belief", which this obsession over genuine apologies seem to indicate is the goal, just isn't needed. The behavior will follow when the incentives are aligned. But this shows its less about behaviors and more about the feeling of righteousness people get from moral indignation.

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