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Comment by sevenless | Hacker News Reader

You not cheating will not lead to the powerful being less corrupt. It will actually reward them for being corrupt. In a prisoners' dilemma, they are constantly defecting without cost, and you are refusing to defect on principle. That makes you a sucker.

The way to eliminate corruption is to overthrow those who are corrupt.

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If you believe in western civilizations' principles, there's two ways to handle corruption. The day to day type of corruption is usually treated as a crime, it requires laws, and funding investigations and prosecutors and courts, etc. Some corruptions of civil officers are so bad they qualify for impeachment, one important consequence of which is being barred from holding any elected or appointed office again. So there is a mechanism, if you think civility is busted then a.) help work to fix it, b.) be prepared for violence. Because the only antidote for violence we've come up with so far is civility.

Violence isn't inherently wrong. Nonviolence is less important than ending injustice and continuing to innovate, such as building megaprojects, forming new states or restructuring existing political systems. Those who say otherwise are conservatives or benefit from continued injustice.

This seems to assume a binary choice between non-violence and violence. As noted in the parent there is a range of effective responses to cheating in particular and corruption in general.

Also, violence does not necessarily lead to less injustice. The French Revolution (and countless others) provide rich counterexamples.

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