[gilbert_vanova]

I have a recent counter razor: "Never attribute to malice or stupidity what is better explained by self-interest"

Many of these orgs laying off thousands have fallen into the depths of a moral maze -- where rational thinking is just impossible and all that's left is self-preservation.

[kerkeslager]

I'm not sure that there's a pragmatic difference between harming people out of malice and harming people out of self-interest.

If someone causes harm out of ignorance (a better word than stupidity, in my opinion), then they can be educated and they'll likely stop causing harm.

If someone causes harm out of self-interest or malice, it can be assumed that they'll continue causing that harm and there's no simple remedy. I do think that selfish or malicious people can change, but the solutions take time, and in the mean time they continue to cause harm if not removed from the situation.

[gilbert_vanova]

If someone is motivated out of self-interest to behave in one way or another, you can likely use that same motivation to bring about a different behavior. The complexity of the remedy is dependent more on the rigidity of the system incentivizing the harmful behavior than on the individual.

If someone in your life is motivated out of malice or stupidity -- it is these situations that would seem to require time to remedy. Unlearning abusive behaviors that exceed rational self-interest takes time. Experts report education seems to take 25 years (and more and more all the time)

[jack_riminton]

Exactly, the incentives will explain the behaviour, they always do. I suspect managers being judged on their number of direct reports explains some of the over-hiring.

[kerkeslager]

> Exactly, the incentives will explain the behaviour, they always do.

Who cares? "I was following incentives" is no different from "I was following orders." It doesn't become suddenly okay to do harm just because there's an incentive to do harm.

Hacker News and startup culture in general are toxic because of people blaming market conditions instead of taking responsibility for their own actions.

If it's really about incentives, would you support docking executive pay proportional to layoffs, to incentivize against future over-hiring? Or do incentives only apply when they excuse harming workers?

[pmarreck]

When business takes a downturn and you have to choose whether you get to eat or the person you're paying gets to eat, do "morals" really come into play, here?

> I have a recent counter razor: "Never attribute to malice or stupidity what is better explained by self-interest"

My modification: "Never attribute to malice or stupidity what is better explained by rational self-interest"

The key observation being that even people at odds often act in rational self-interest given the situation they are in with its associated needs and challenges, and the information they are aware of. The only way to bridge this is via communication.

[kerkeslager]

It seems like you might have a more nuanced view of what the phrase "rational self-interest" means to you than the average person, but given how people actually use that phrase most often, I think that phrase isn't an effective way for you to communicate what you're trying to communicate.

The phrase "rational self-interest" as it's most often used is just a euphemism for "acquiring as much money as possible" which is neither rational nor what most people are interested in for themselves. There are lots of people who make the choice to take less money in exchange for more time with their families, more fulfilling work, etc., and that's a rational choice. And we have ample evidence that beyond a certain point, making more money doesn't make you happier.

[widowlark]

Vanova's Razor

[asciii]

-sigh- I google Vanova's razor and then realized you were quoting OP. :)

[kerkeslager]

Vanova's Fallacy