Criminals don't have wrongly aligned incentives. They are sociopaths. We need to come to terms with that reality.
Someone dealing with misaligned incentives swipes a loaf of bread.
A sociopath breaks in my door, steals my things, and threatens me with bodily harm if I don't comply.
it's easy to understand.
They're playing a completely different game. Honest people have rules and lines which they do not cross, even if it would bring them personal gain. Dishonest people are comfortable exploiting others for gains.
A healthy society enforces harsh enough punishments against dishonest people that they are forced to play honestly with the rest of us. We live in a deeply unhealthy society.
Honesty is a by-product of valuing truth and goodness.
People raised to disregard the transcentals become sociopaths. Honesty is never introduced as a character trait along with other virtues.
In my view, this is the baseline of mental illness, a lack of virtue. Vice then feeds a broken mind. Once mental illness begins, incentives have nothing to do with human action. It is all derangement and must be identified as such.
Very true. Many such cases. It is a really tragic thing but we have to stop allowing people like that to pull down the rest of society.
