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The defining moment for me was one time when I was riding with my stepfather when I was 12 or so. We pulled up behind a truck that had a "Call us if this vehicle is driving badly" or the equivalent sticker and I blurted out how fun it would be to call and say the driver was terrible.

He immediately said something along the lines of "So you think it would be fun to get that guy fired?" and the impact was basically immediate. It was a lesson that actions have consequences, something that it seems like so few people seem to actually appreciate.

Interesting about your grandfather. Mine taught me a similar integrity lesson when I was a kid. Back when there were payphones I would always check them for spare quarters. One time when I was with my grandfather I checked a phone that has broken and dumped ~ $6 in change out. I pulled all the money out super excited about my find. He explained it wasn't mine and when we got home he mailed the local phone a check for the exact amount.

"I asked him about his unwillingness to do what others have done (at the time it was drive faster than the speed limit on an empty road) "

The above (parent comment) as well as your comment "I pulled all the money out super excited about my find. He explained it wasn't mine" ... well, I can't agree that it teaches the proper lesson, even to a child.

Forgetting whether he is even right "it isn't yours" (I could argue against this) I think that's exactly the type of rigidity that teaches someone not to appreciate the nuance that you need to actually make real decisions in life. It just teaches black and white and unfortunately things aren't typically black and white.

I'm reminded of a time on "The Apprentice" where a candidate who was favored by Trump told him something claiming to be honest and thinking it was going to get him ahead and instead Trump "fired him". Forgetting we are talking about a TV show here (and obvious drama) life is full of nuances which you have to navigate. Being "too" honest can also send a message that you are not flexible and willing to consider the circumstances.

As far as "drive faster than the speed limit on an empty road" (the parent comment) the devil is in the details. Driving 56 in a 55 mile per hour zone is not a problem. In fact driving 60 isn't and at least where I live 65 isn't either. Cops typically never give tickets without some slack. And there is a reason for that.

If I interviewed someone and they claimed to not drive over the speed limit I wouldn't give any bonus points for that I'd actually take points away.

To me (and with all due respect to the parent commenters grandfather) when I hear things like this I think something is trying to prove honesty a bit to much and (once again not to imply the parent commenters grandfather is such a person) that is the type of person I actually watch out for sometimes.

"To me (and with all due respect to the parent commenters grandfather) when I hear things like this I think something is trying to prove honesty a bit to much and (once again not to imply the parent commenters grandfather is such a person) that is the type of person I actually watch out for sometimes."

99.9% of the time, that type of statement is more of a sign of your personality and less a sign of others'.

In reality, though, the main point that you missed is that in a world made of shades of gray, the only person you can ever truly rely on is yourself. If you don't have scruples and you don't have honor, you don't have anything.

That's the basic message. Trying to water it down with nuance and personal opinion about honesty in today's world is simply grasping for straws to justify choices made in your own life.

That's a lot more confrontational than I intended. Those are not meant to be the personal attacks they come across as.

Some people have honor in everything they do, they're good people. Some people have honor in only the major things they do, they're good people as well, but there may be some questionable choices when it comes to minor things like finding cash on the ground or speeding. Some people have no honor; avoid these people.

That allows for your nuance, but still allows for a code of honor. Kids need to be taught that. Act honorably, understand that not everyone adheres to your codes, and understand that even if they don't, they're not automatically bad people.

"In reality, though, the main point that you missed is that in a world made of shades of gray, the only person you can ever truly rely on is yourself. If you don't have scruples and you don't have honor, you don't have anything."

Well let me put it this way. I don't think you understand my point about nuances and that I (once again) don't feel any of this is black and white.

As an example the honor that I might display, and scruples I might display, for an individual are not the same that I might display for a corporation. If I hired someone, a hacker, to do programming, I would be much more lenient because of a person relationship and especially because of the knowing that my actions would have a large effect on that individual. Otoh if I had a project that was being done by "IBM Global services" I would absolutely angle things differently if things weren't done right. I wouldn't care about that company not getting it's $10,000 (arbitrary obviously).

If an individual were doing a project for me and made a mistake and under billed me I would point it out. If IBM did the same I wouldn't.

As it happens I have seen various behavior (on the other side, say vendors) of both individuals and corporations over a long long time that I have spent in business. And each situation really is different.

The thing my grandfather taught me was that you live with all of your decisions for the rest of your life. When you make decisions which put other people at risk, you take on the risk that you are going to make someones life harder, possibly much harder. What is perhaps even more important is that no amount of "I'm so sorry I did that ..." will ever undo it. Sometimes its little things, like taking the last serving because you thought everyone had eaten, sometimes its big things like deciding that home is close enough that and you're sober enough to get there safely. They are all decisions we make every day. And as I've gotten older the weight of ones I wish I had made differently doesn't get any lighter. You can lie to yourself about your choices, rationalize them, but that doesn't change them either.

I didn't understand any of that when I was younger.

> I didn't understand any of that when I was younger.

Nothing to be ashamed of though, plenty of people never learn that particular lesson.

Unfortunately, some people never come to understand that. Being able to recognize consequences before acting (and changing behavior as a result) is, IMO, the definition of wisdom.

Very well said. The thing I have noticed is that the selfish decisions and the lies seem to last longer in my memory than the immediate benefit I got.

And I agree -- with me this knowledge has also had to come with age. Maybe others do better.

That is exactly what I couldn't figure out how to say.

> Otoh if I had a project that was being done by "IBM Global services" I would absolutely angle things differently if things weren't done right. I wouldn't care about that company not getting it's $10,000 (arbitrary obviously).

Call it "nuance" or "gray area" all you want, but that is just amoral. You have no idea what situation led to the problem and what consequences your breach of contact will have. The project manager may have been operating on very little sleep and sent over the wrong version of the invoice. At the end of the quarter, they may lose their job.

I would 100% point out the discrepancy and pay them. When I decided to do business with them, I already determined that the terms were fair. To act otherwise when the bill comes in is entirely dishonorable.

Do you actually have a good example of nuance, or are you just trying to legitimize bad behavior?

I've chosen to never speed because it reduces my cognitive load.

Nobody speeds all the time. Even people who speed a lot will try to slow down for speed traps.

So everyone who speeds even those who speed only every now and then have to be constantly making a choice for when to speed.

They must constantly assess whether the benefits of speeding in this specific moment outweigh the disadvantages. There are dozens of variables: how much quicker will speeding be? will I be caught? is it safe to speed on this road at this time?

Much easier to ignore all that and just to drive below the speed limit.

"I've chosen to never speed because it reduces my cognitive load."

Never? Never speeding also means not always keeping up with traffic which might be flowing at a higher rate of speed. Consequently you are chancing a greater risk of an accident by not keeping up with traffic and not speeding.

Not exactly. Those that are speeding have accepted the higher risk of accident in exchange for getting to their destination slightly faster (if at all). The choices of the speeders have externalities in the form of a higher risk of accident for all other drivers around them, regardless of others speed. The drivers who obey the law bear none of the of the responsibility for that increase in risk. If you want to argue that speed limits should be raised because everyone is breaking them anyways, I think that is a fairer point of view. But to blame people who are following the law for the externalities caused by those breaking the law is absurd.

Driving at a rate faster or slower than the flow of traffic increases the risk of an accident more than an equivalent increase in speed. Here's a detailed article about it: http://priceonomics.com/is-every-speed-limit-too-low/

The link is pretty weak evidence.

> “We all speed, yet months and months usually pass between us seeing a crash,”

This is a stupid argument. Do you really want to be in a crash every few months? Roughly the average person has a 1% lifetime chance of dying and a 10% chance of serious injury in a car crash. To me these are pretty high numbers.

> that sign won’t make people drive any slower

Where I live, speed limits are zealously enforced - loss of licence for a third offence in two years - and people do comply with them. So yes a sign won't do it but you can get people to comply.

As usual the US seems to find the worst solution: overly restrictive speed limits (55mph) combined with lack of enforcement. This causes large divergences in speeds, which is apparently dangerous.

The article seems to confuse the merits of driving slower than most traffic, with the merits of slowing traffic as a whole down. They are very different things. If most people on the autobahn are doing 110mph then one driver doing 55mph would be dangerous. However slowing everyone down to say 60 mph may be a much safer overall situation.

Your personal risk is lower when you drive with the flow, even if that flow is faster then speed limit. This is kind of collective action problem, if most drivers restrict their speed, everyone is safer. If only few of them restrict themselves, those few are not much safer.

The drivers who obey the law do not bear responsibility for the increase in risk, but neither they raised their own safety.

Sorry for the delay in reply.

I live in Durban, South Africa. Lots of people speed here and sometimes the fast lane will be moving faster than the limit. But I don't think I've ever been in a situation where all of the traffic is moving faster than the limit.

Is it common for all lanes to be moving faster than the speed limit where you are?

"I've chosen to never speed because it reduces my cognitive load."

That's a utilitarian approach which is completely orthogonal to what this thread is about.

I think you really missed the mark on what they were trying to illustrate.

It's not following societies rules for the sake of it. It's following your own internal compass, _and_sticking_to_it_ regardless of if it benefits you now or harms you. Theirs just aligned with certain things you obviously don't value in a person.

Side note: You sound as though you think speed limits are arbitrary. You might want to look up the dynamics of braking cars, the percentage of accidents where speeding is a factor and consider the outcome of an accident where it's found that you were doing 65 in 55 zone.

Two thoughts:

1. Was that really the phone company's money? My first thought on hearing that story was that the $6 in change was from people putting money into the broken phone, realizing it was broken, and leaving without their money. Does the phone company really deserve money that the phone 'eats' when it doesn't deliver the service that people are giving it money for?

2. If you sent the phone company that $6 today, they would file criminal charges, because that cheque is an admission of guilt for stealing money from them. (Much in the way that, "I stumbled across a security flaw," is responded to nowadays)

"2. If you sent the phone company that $6 today, they would file criminal charges, because that cheque is an admission of guilt for stealing money from them."

Uhm, yeah, pardon my French, but that's complete bullshit.

Two thoughts in response to your thoughts:

1. Sure, it's possible the phone company didn't "deserve" the money (perhaps, as you say, the phone failed to make calls). But it's just as possible the phone company did "deserve" the money (and that the phone made calls but refunded the change). There's no way to know what happened for certain. However, what is certain is that the kid did not earn or "deserve" the money.

It also becomes quite dangerous to reason based on who "deserves" something. Am I entitled to rob any person who has not lived a moral life by my standards of morality? (No.) :)

2. I think this is hyperbole and a total strawman. Mailing $6 to a phone company will not result in a lawsuit. Do you actually think this would happen? I worry that attitudes like this come from the selection bias in the media, where rare outrageous stories are reported far more often than commonplace stories, resulting in shifted perceptions of reality. If you would care to bet or fund me, I would be happy to send $6 to a phone company. I highly doubt that criminal charges would be filed against me.

Your thoughts seem to be trying to rationalize taking money that isn't yours. I think this is precisely the attitude that his grandfather was hoping to avoid instilling in his grandchild.

(P.S. I mean no offense or snobbery, in case any came across.)

Interesting juxtaposition there:

" what is certain is that the kid did not earn or "deserve" the money. It also becomes quite dangerous to reason based on who "deserves" something. "

My intent was not to say that the child "deserved it." I was commenting on the indirect implication that the phone company deserved it. By taking the money from the child because they "don't deserve it" and giving it to the phone company, he's implicitly stating that the phone company deserves it.

That's a beautiful quote from your grandfather. Thanks for sharing.

My father once told me that what separates people from animals is that people have honor.

People without honor, well...

This brings up an excellent side point that I taught my children... that stealing is not taking something that belongs to someone else, it is taking something that does not belong to you.

It is a subtle, but important, distiction that is often used as a rationalization.

Edit: This really belongs on the child comment.

That's not really true, though.

If I'm walking in a forest and I pick up an apple, prior to my picking it up, it did not belong to me. Upon picking it up, it now belongs to me. You can claim things that did not belong to you prior to said claiming.

I get what you're saying but it only applies in situations where everything is already owned by someone.

That's too technical of an argument and takes away from the idea that Tactic is trying to convey. Most people don't find that apple-picking from a forest is stealing.

My take on Tactic's explanation of stealing is that the guilt you should feel from stealing should also be from having taken something that isn't yours from someone, instead of just the guilt of depriving someone from the thing you stole. Although both perspectives are good to have, taking something that isn't yours is a better framework to think in so you can avoid the grey areas of stealing.

>having taken something that isn't yours from someone

I agree that this is likely what he meant. It's a much easier way to get children, who likely are too young to have a complex moral framework, not to steal or even come close to it.

However, we're also talking about adapting that lesson to adults, who should have that moral framework. By maintaining the black and white view, you're depriving yourself of the full use of your rights, or potentially contributing to the denial of someone else's.

Children actually innately understand some of this; if you're not using your blocks, why can't I use them? In a more adult sense, if you're not using your land, can I use it?

It's a bit of a tangent, but I think it might be just as important to impart the lesson that you should use and maintain the things you own or claim, or potentially be subject to their loss. There are significant advantages to understanding the communal claim on many types of property, and they don't just apply to individuals but the community as a whole.

(edited for clarity)

Great story. Reminds me of this scene from the wire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyoqNyH7HZA