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Comment by sjsdaiuasgdia | Hacker News Reader

Oh, I did not take it as virtue signaling at all! I do actually admire you for looking at a dirty game and saying "I will not play this, I will find a better way."

If I ever win the lottery, I'm going to create the Joseph Welch Foundation. The foundation will give monetary awards to people who have demonstrably pushed back against corruption, lies, and bullshit.

For those who don't recognize the name, Joseph Welch is who said "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last, have you left no sense of decency?" to Joseph McCarthy.

Too few people remember Welch. McCarthy was the asshole but his name is remembered more. I see this as an error we have made with our societal memory. It would be better to remember Welch, and only remember McCarthy as "that red scare guy".

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What we should be doing, as a civilized society with rules and a regulatory apparatus that's woefully underused, is looking at the dirty game and saying "The game is over. The people/government is going to finally crack down on fraud and people who play the game are going to prison."

I absolutely agree. We need strong rule of law, and we need to start holding everyone accountable to the law.

The era of "I'm too rich / popular / influential / 'important' to prosecute" must end.

well i've got some bad news, that era has now entered its maximum power phase. Our government has literally been systematically deconstructed to become unable to govern.

Lol that's not news.

It does sound like you might be giving / have given up though? Fuck that.

> If I ever win the lottery, I'm going to create the Joseph Welch Foundation. The foundation will give monetary awards to people who have demonstrably pushed back against corruption, lies, and bullshit.

If you do that, given enough time, you will be awarding people that learnt how to game the award. Back to corruption, lies and bullshit.

"Lesson learned, never try"

Have some fucking hope, man.

humans are corrupt, you can't create a system that reward humans and not expect corruption, it has nothing to do with hope.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results and all that

> If I ever win the lottery

Now there’s a disgusting game.

It is, in the sense that it often acts as a tax on people who can least afford it.

The occasional lottery ticket does not particularly affect my budget, so I buy one now and then with the intent to use it for good should I win.

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