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I’ve always heard of blacklists but I seriously doubt their existence. Who would trust such a thing? It also sounds illegal as shit so I assume you can’t do this for profit.

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It's like when you get MBA - you get a free network with it. Now you are inclined to trust your MBA circle due to shared history. Imagine the same with companies; there is a limited number of spots at the top, most people know each other or heard of each other, share common interests, club memberships etc. They are inclined to trust their own, insiders, or see benefit in it, than some random outsiders, i.e. in-group preference and benevolence. Then when an outsider is "put on a blacklist", i.e. some insider holds a bad opinion of an outsider, the whole group might be affected.

My impression of blacklists is that they're much more systematic and pervasive than that. If you're an individual contributor, I think it'd be really hard to become so infamous that your manager's manager is complaining about you to his peers during a golf game and they remember you.

Also, if you're writing your Representative about some kind of abuse or malfeasance, you could always use and assumed name (and say you're doing so to avoid retaliation).

You've managed to describe the function of a blacklist, but have not provided evidence that one exists.

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