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Comment by legutierr | Hacker News Reader

Somehow the human brain by default conflates the concepts of "being prestigious" and "having integrity".

It's difficult to fight this cognitive bias that, I think, we all carry—but we must.

On the other hand, I have a Grimm's Fairy Tales including a story that tells how the hero visits a petty king's court and receives a promise conditional on accomplishing something impossible. Off he goes and does the thing, and the narrator makes an aside saying "Now the king would gladly have blown off the promise, but he was trapped because other people in the court had heard him make it."

Regicide, and even just murder in general, is highly frowned upon these days. Back then it was de rigueur when the concept of fealty required reciprocity in the keeping of one's word.

I don't see the connection between your comment and mine?

As other people in his court, with whom reciprocal vows of fealty have been made, heard his promise, he now has to keep his promise our of fear of them proactively removing him (or otherwise punishing him, such as by breaking their own vows of fealty) for breaking his promise.

Today one can lie with much more impunity, at best tying things up in court for years until the person you lied to gives up, at worst being ordered by the court to make good on the promise and pay some legal costs (maybe).

As your synopsis shows, it's not prestige that forced integrity, it's the fact that others heard, and presumably would enforce such vows, even against a king, that forced integrity, even from a king.

I don't think a direct threat of enforcement is the problem. A king who was known to have gone back on his word would be an illegitimate ruler and he would be unable to function as king within his court and his kingdom. He would end up getting deposed, but that wouldn't be part of an effort to enforce the king's promise, it would just be what happens to kings who aren't fit to rule.

The direct consequence of the king breaking his vow is "only" that the king loses his prestige. But the indirect consequences are severe; "king" is a position from which it is not safe to be removed.

Yes.

i must be an outlier to this default. there has been enough evidence over the years that the ivy league schools are just as shady as any other school. they just have more money to make hiding things easier. with as many laps around the sun as i have now, i'm just super suspect of pretty much anything at this point.

That's nurture, not nature.

im not sure completely. There is probably inherent traits related to leadership/followership , and a cognitive bias to assume integrity of leaders seems plausible. Before society, might literally meant right.

> traits related to leadership/followership , and a cognitive bias to assume integrity of leaders seems plausible

Also learned behavior.

sure, my point still stands. It is a reasonable evolutionary hypothesis that groups that err on the side of trusting a leader succeed more that distrustful groups. Obviously there is a learned behavior component. I'm just not certain its completely that.

> Before society, might literally meant right.

"Before society"? How many times have you seen someone argue that a particular action was morally wrong for no other reason than that it was illegal?

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38519267.

The fact is that the opposite is usually true

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