There is as much cynicism in appealing to people's best natures as there is in pandering to their worst natures. The only difference is the former posture allows you to perform martyred disappointment later while feeling virtuous now.
Appeal to mediocrity is the only way out.
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I am beginning to *really* dislike appeals-to-better-nature rhetoric of the "do better" and "become good" variety. If you can't work with people within the 3-sigma natural range of moral variety, you're almost certainly going to do harm overall trying to work with them at all.
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Corner cases make for bad law (in this case general crowd-working principles). Designing for either saints or psychopaths is a bad idea. Sometimes those two are the same thing btw.
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Is there cynicism in the former when it works (e.g. Gandhi, MLK, etc.)?
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I don't think it ever actually works to the degree claimed/advertised by the hagiographers of leaders set up as exemplary moral figures.
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And the later posture is a perpetual performance of preemptive disapointment through feigned disillusion who's virtue lies in its moral fluidity?
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nice, same reasoning as warren buffet's 'a good business can be run by an idiot'
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