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Comment by haltingproblem | Hacker News Reader

While amusing, this attempts to humanize them and somewhat whitewash their abominable actions. They are sitting at the top of the power matrix making lives miserable and dangerous for the ones with least power - paycheck to paycheck workers, those with addictions, inmates in Rikers, dissidents.

The fact that they are aware of their own lack of usefulness makes the whole enterprise even more cynical and shady.

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I'm not sure it's all that different from you or I when we are uncaring towards a homeless person asking for money, or when we decide we value a latte more than a week's worth of meals for a starving child in Africa.

Everyone seems to imagine their actions are "normal" and "socially appropriate" but if only they were to break out of their lot in life and reach that next rung up, suddenly they'd be more generous, more compassionate, not driven by the same things, etc.

Advising a pharma company on how to turbocharge opioid sales and fan the flames of a raging painkiller epidemic resulting in 450,000 deaths is same as not giving money to a homeless person.

I am utterly flabbergasted. Words fail me which is rarely the case ;)

It just shows that I, you and the average person is much closer to them than we think.

If you put enough money on the table I'm sure many more people would do the same thing as those currently in power. It's just that most people don't have the opportunity to sell out.

That's the scary truth I think.

To the extent that telling you all this story was an attempt to humanize these guys and "whitewash" their behavior (it wasn't), I have some bad news for you: they're human.

It does nothing against evil to pretend that the world is composed of a small number of monsters and the rest of us good ones.

I'm the first one to agree with you: consulting - hell, fundamental aspects of capitalism itself - are deeply cynical and morally suspect, and result in a lot of unnoticed pain and death and ruin. But in my view, ignoring the fact that criminals of all types go home and kiss their children at night, and mean it, is part of what keeps us locked in the status quo.

And by the way: instead of ascribing intentions to me that you, as the reader, can't know for sure from the text alone, why not just ask me what my intentions are?

The problem is a systemic one - people respond to structural incentives. We can't get a better world by insisting that people rely entirely on their moral compass to resist strong incentives - we need to change the incentives themselves. Every time we say "those people are just evil" instead of "how can we adjust our social structures so moral crime doesn't pay", we strip ourselves of the only real path forwards. "personal responsibility" is the worst possible doctrine for systemic change.

Firefly quote comes to mind: "They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people... better."

This is certainly true. I know Godwin's law, but there are some good books and stories (not sure if translated to English), of the children of SS officers, concentration camp guards etc.. They started asking questions of their parents when they got older (or sometimes only after their father died) and found out that the loving and caring father had been a monster at some point.

Are people downvoting you because they don't want to humanize someone they hate? Or am I missing something?

I’m downvoting it because it paints all management consultants with a broad brush of ‘being evil’ which clearly isn’t accurate.

> While amusing, this attempts to humanize them and somewhat whitewash their abominable actions.

Ouch - I’m a supply chain consultant (only one shade away!) is the implication that I am less than human and totally spineless? I know management consultants and most of them do in fact have a spine and are just trying to help companies work better.

I was referring to downvotes on maybelsyrup's comment, not its ancestor from haltingproblem.

Ah apologies. That's totally my mistake!

You'll have to ask them, I guess, but that's what it looks like. (Encouragingly though, way more ups than downs.)

> The fact that they are aware of their own lack of usefulness makes the whole enterprise even more cynical and shady.

Some would say this was the origin of charity and corporate social responsibility. It was born as a financial optimization to hedge against optics risk, to engage in moral licensing. And it does its job very well there -- not in spite of, but because it directly humanizes the company and its executives.

Hate the game, don't hate the player

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