Comment by tristor
1 month ago
The behaviors demonstrated by Lidden here in the article sound to me like classic autistic behaviors. Is there any protection under the law in Australia for the fact that he's acting out an obsession tied to his "personality disorder"? Obsessive collecting, the interest in trains, and ultimately an overabundance of honesty and trying to rigidly follow rules to his own detriment, the court system should also be looking out for him as a defendant and not furthering this travesty of justice.
> overabundance of honesty
I don't agree with that part. The immediate cost will be outweighed, I expect, by the impact on the judge; possibly, if Lidden isn't jailed, on the employer who will remember that Lidden was so honest under pressure and at personal cost; and on everyone around Lidden for the rest of their life, having earned trust that few of us have.
I really really really wish that this is true, unfortunately it very often isn't. The Just World Fallacy is something I wish were not a fallacy.
Save the nonsense characterizations and dismissals. What actual evidence do you have? In my experience, that's how things work - not 100% but it's a powerful effect.
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Id like to have a word with you about confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance.
Perhaps if you had an intelligent, constructive argument of your own, and not a worthless dismissal based on pure ignorance, I'd listen to you.
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As someone raised to place, I later had to learn, dangerous levels of value on honesty and forthrightness and to assume that others would largely do the same, unless they were, you know, those relatively rare bad people... yeah, I'd guess it's just going to result in bad stuff, almost entirely.
Cheaters never win, liars never prosper—sadly, these are closer to being the exact opposite of the truth, than to being true. Substitute "usually" and "often" and it's getting near to the truth.
There's a popular 'wisdom' to dismiss things like honesty, but they actually do work, and they are used widely by most successful professionals, in my experience.
Yes, they aren't usually sufficient by themselves - you need other things too. And sometimes the payoff is later, as I suggest it will be for Lidden. And people point to failures but nothing succeeds all the time; it's the distribution of outcomes you should look at: Lying fails more and worse and it damages and sometimes destroys the most valuable things in the world: your self-respect, your reputation with others, your relationships, and trust.
Trust is one of the most powerful techniques in business and life. With it, people can make any arrangement with a few words, and not expend resources ensuring and verifying the other people do it. People trust me and I trust them (the ones I have relationships with), and that allows us to move quickly and accomplish much more.
Integrity does one more great thing, it sets an example for others. People are social creatures that follow the herd much more than they realize. If you behave with integrity, you establish a norm that people follow. If you do the wrong thing, you have the same effect. I think Trump, the Republicans, and the far right are having that effect. We are each responsible for our communities - we are the doers and makers, not consumers of morality (except children and maybe others unsophisticated in these things).
It's our free will, you can choose either - an understanding going back to the Genesis and further. And the consequences are very real.
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