alt Hacker News> The fish rots from the head.
The old adage that the people elect the governance they deserve; comes to mind. The concepts of Virtue, Honour, Duty, and Justice have been declining in the West over a very long period (this is not a US specific thing). The rotting head reflects the rotting society.
> It's a sucker's game to aspire to selflessly serve the greater good when the most powerful people in the land are brazenly corrupt
You don’t act honourably because that will “get you ahead”. You act honourably because it is right.
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> You don’t act honourably because that will “get you ahead”. You act honourably because it is right.
As much as I would like to believe that’s true I don’t think it is.
You act honourably because society incentivises you to. To act dishonourably is to be disadvantaged, to be shamed, to be cast out. That is the part that’s missing today.
> You act honourably because it is right.
Well, and because it's not typically fatal in very short order.
The problem comes in when honor makes you a target to erase by people more powerful than you. Being dead right gets you nowhere.
> The old adage that the people elect the governance they deserve; comes to
this idea has always bothered me. i think people (even ones i disagree with) deserve better.
You don't need "virtue", "honour", and "duty" to have NOT have voted the way people did. It is plain to see which chosen leader will torch the nation and which will not, regardless of people's distaste for the establishment politicians.
It is worse than self interest. It is brazen ignorance.