Hacker News Reader

I wouldn’t mythologize the elites of the past too much. FDR’s grandfather made his fortune selling opium in China.

Ok so in this case he was not a moral person but at least it sounds like he may have had the other two characteristics.

I think a major difference between now and then is that the world was a far more adverse and chaotic place for many reasons; people died frequently from all sorts of diseases, there were more wars and invasions, traveling to other countries was potentially life-threatening (e.g. you could be killed by the natives or succumb to previously unknown threats like exotic diseases, spiders, snakes, lions, tigers, poisonous plants, etc... Not to mention the substantial difficulties involved in communicating with locals in a foreign language). There really wasn't any support or fallback if one's plans failed; you would just die, no second chances.

The elite of today couldn't hold a candle to those who came before them. Today, they're mostly a bunch of spoiled brats who inherited a lot of wealth and never faced any real adversity in their lives (which wasn't of their own making to begin with)...

> FDR’s grandfather made his fortune selling opium in China.

Horrible as that sounds, think about it from the other side's perspective. The one-way trade of silver was putting huge strain on the global economy. Opium was the _only_ thing people in China would buy with silver (illegally, obviously). They didn't have alternatives as China wouldn't circulate silver back out of the country. What Warren Delano was doing was in most nations' interest at the time.

Heavy trade imbalances almost invariably lead to wars throughout history.

So is the current West living in a powder-keg? Our consumer economy relies on heavy trade imbalances.

They tend to be evened out in aggregate with different imports/exports. Also we're not talking an apples to apples comparison here.

Back then economies were extremely dependent on silver for international trade and only so much of it came from so many places every year. Trade depended on recirculation of silver.

The closest you could get to that today would be one country hoarding the shit out of US dollars and somehow the US being unable to print more.

If you look back to the 90s/00s when the US was heavily importing from China and China had no local buying power, the trade imbalance was combatted by the US Treasury creating debt instruments for exclusive buying by China. This diplomatic/economic tool benefited both sides at the time.

This kind of depends on US Dollar hegemony, doesn't it? What happens if the Dollar loses prominence?

>I remember several […]

Same thing happened to me with my boss literally winking sarcastically during a critical argument.

I was enraged to realize that this was how he operated (no wonder he was always heavy into office politics).

This experience reminded me of the opening scene in the movie Training Day when Denzel tested Ethan after they found money under the floor.

It's not binary: bosses and investors want to know who will obey the rules as you see them for a variety of reasons. They'll fund / promote based on the needs of the projects you will likely face.

>It used to be that elite status was acquired through bravery, intelligence and integrity

It used to be that people tried to manipulate public perception to appear brave, intelligent, ...

Very little has actually changed about the quality of politicians in the US. People are just prone to forgetting the bad. Not that long ago - the 1970s - the south was overflowing with ignorant, racist politicians that were outright fans of the KKK and aggressively pro segregation. And so on it goes if you keep going backwards in time.

What has primarily changed is the quantity of levers and how massive the levers are at their disposal. The surface area of potential corruption has radically expanded in the US over the post WW2 era (part of that expansion of power was the military industrial complex and the superpower bureaucracy that went along with it). The larger and more complex the government, the more laws it has on the books to utilize, the greater the corruption, inevitably.

Oh, and now every idiot has easy access to an epic scale bullhorn via social media. That's amplifying the stupid, which would not have received much press time or public discourse time in past generations.

Power corrupts with 99% of the people.

I think it's more likely to be the case that only the corrupted are given any power so it is an inversion of cause and effect. The idea that power corrupts is probably just a narrative to demoralize people so that they don't bother revolting... No point changing the system because, look, whoever you give power to will become corrupted and it will all have been pointless. It's nonsense. If it were the case, then the degree of corruption would be proportional to the degree of power held by various governments... Yet clearly it is not.

What probably happens though is that there are some very corrupt people in power who attentively watch any political movement and they take steps to corrupt them by infiltrating them up with corrupt individuals under their control... That way when these political movements reach their climaxes, they have completely deviated from their original course and have become totally ineffective as a political tool for change.

I think that's oversimplification. The chase for power and then continued effort to hold one might, but there are very few cases where some perfectly honest individual is suddenly given massive amount of power.

Even inheritance can be argued as the kid was most likely raised by corrupted individual in the first place.

I might catch heat for this, but I disagree. I am an investigative reporter who covers law enforcement and crime. While I have uncovered and exposed serious wrongdoing, my general experience is that an overwhelming majority of those in power are decent human beings who are trying their best to improve the communities they serve.

I often receive tips from police officers regarding what they perceive to be misconduct. I always investigate those tips.

Sometimes, it's bad. And sometimes it's really bad. But oftentimes, it turns out that everything was fine, and the tipster didn't have all the information necessary to understand what was happening. I'd be happy to share an example if you'd like.

I am not an apologist for bad actors. I have exposed them and I am will continue to do so. But I have to acknowledge my full experience. I interact with government officials and agencies every day, and the more insight I have into government, the more confident I am that power does not corrupt nearly as much as some people think.

I think the more accurate way to interpret that proverb is: The pursuit of power corrupts.

It's a warning that if your goal is having power and nothing else then you are susceptible to corruption. It's also a warning that having power tends to reveal how useful it is and thus tempt you to schedule more of it.