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Integrity

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 The Ice Doctor 16 Apr 2017
Out of all the people you know and work with?

Do you know a lot of people who have this valuable and rare commodity?

1
 Jon Stewart 16 Apr 2017
In reply to The Ice Doctor:

I work in a company that sees integrity as an obstacle to profit. As such it has been generally bean sapped out of pretty much anyone who ever had any in the first place...
1
 Timmd 16 Apr 2017
In reply to The Ice Doctor:
It can be a subjective quality?

There's a truism that you have to pretend to be as big as you want to be in business, to be able to get that far, A person I know (now retired) had people go and sit behind computers in their office when an important prospective customer paid a visit, to give the impression that the company was bigger than it really was. Whether they needed to or not isn't certain, but they got the order and successfully developed the software needed, and the company grew beyond the level of the impression which was given.

If one sees doing a decent job and not letting customers down as having integrity, there wasn't a lack of it, but as far as not giving misleading impressions goes, there wasn't very much.

Not doing other people harm (in different ways) seems like a decent rule of thumb. My sister in law stopped selling hearing aids because she didn't like the pressure she was under to sell new ones to people who didn't need them, the pressure to get old people to spend money they didn't need to.
Post edited at 23:22
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 Stichtplate 17 Apr 2017
In reply to The Ice Doctor:

> Out of all the people you know and work with?Do you know a lot of people who have this valuable and rare commodity?

...ooo definitely the chewiest one I've seen you put out there. First off you're talking about two different spheres where different rules apply.

By and large capitalism seems predicated on minimum cost for maximum gain. This is certainly antithetical to integrity. Exhibiting too much integrity at work is a good way to get labelled an awkward sod and the higher up the ranks you climb the less this quality seems to be displayed. These two facts are directly related.

Outside of work, beyond cursory acquaintance, a lack of integrity will soon see you labelled in my book as greasy , untrustworthy and best avoided. Often hard to tell who's who , but some exposure to death, divorce, debt or debauchery soon sorts the sheep from the goats.

My few true friends all have plenty of integrity and are also universally awkward sods, a much underrated quality.
1
 JimR 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Stichtplate:

I've been lucky then, in my 40+ working life most of the people I've had dealings with had integrity. The few who didn't did not last long. I've mainly worked on ftse 100 and large multinational companies.
 Stichtplate 17 Apr 2017
In reply to JimR:

> I've been lucky then, in my 40+ working life most of the people I've had dealings with had integrity. The few who didn't did not last long. I've mainly worked on ftse 100 and large multinational companies.

Recent scandals in business include mortgage/pension mis-selling , BHS, HSBC laundering drug money, PPI schemes blatantly ripping off tax payers, the vile manner in which big pharma seems to work, multiple examples of businesses taking loyal customers for a ride, ftse 100 bosses pay rises out stripping their workers by orders of magnitude etc etc.
All this coupled with a 2012 report showing 21 trillion dollars held in off shore accounts... I would say you have been remarkably lucky in your personal dealings?
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 Jon Stewart 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Stichtplate:

I suspect he's been sold a very effective pair of rose tinted spectacles
2
 Rick Graham 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Jon Stewart:

> I suspect he's been sold a very effective pair of rose tinted spectacles

and what is your profession again, Jon ?
 Graham T 17 Apr 2017
In reply to The Ice Doctor:

I work in pharma testing immediately prior to the product going to the patient so yes i am lucky enough to have a lot of colleagues who have very high integrity.
The odd one hasn't but then they tend to do something that gets them fired, sad when it happens but it's essential with what we do.
And yes i know pharma has a bad reputation for it but we are working with the assessment it is essential
 DaveHK 17 Apr 2017
In reply to The Ice Doctor:

Integrity in the workplace is quite often mistaken for being a grumpy, pernickety, pedantic pain in the ass.
 Graham T 17 Apr 2017
In reply to DaveHK:

Try working under gmp. The whole things is a massive pedantic pain in the arse. However it has a very important reason so you just deal with it
 Stichtplate 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Graham T:

> Try working under gmp. The whole things is a massive pedantic pain in the arse. However it has a very important reason so you just deal with it

I tried working under a gimp. It was indeed a pain in the arse

#Pulp Fiction
In reply to JimR:
Large multi nationals having integrity! That's hilarious. They are accountable to Shareholders, who want returns. Pensioners, Investors, Governments, Stock markets ruled by greed who want more money. If the market is not fixed, why does the FTSE keep rising?

The multinationals follow cheap labour, plunder weaker countries and wreck the environment. I digress, with AI, my word, how the world will change. Perhaps we will become slaves. Who controls the AI? Humans? I doubt it. If a machine develops consciousness the human element no longer exists, why should it in the long term?

Name me one ethical company, Body shop tried to be, were they really?

Please, will some one list me a few ethical companies with real integrity. (A new thread maybe)

Ethics cost. Integrity costs. Having integrity means saying no, walking away from money because you have a belief. Real integrity means telling the truth. Whistle blowing. Not playing politics. If you play a game, you keep your job, if you say the right thing, you do not rock the boat. You are applauded. If you create wealth, profits, a company loves you. Its called profit maximisation. Screw everyone else. How else did Trump manage? He took risk, bought cheap properties, inherited a network from his father, then exploited a lot of people. And half of America respects him. If you go bankrupt 3 times, where does all the money that never actually existed go? How do you then amass a fortune?

Putin, rules by fear, an oligarch. Totalitarian. People are scared of him. The Russians? Guess what they respect him. So the media state, that big , big machine that cons people Do either of them have true integrity as world leaders?

Only if they don't destroy the planet in my estimation. Mars is a long way away. We have finite resources on an overpopulated planet.
Post edited at 15:53
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 aln 17 Apr 2017
In reply to The Ice Doctor:

I read the thread title and hoped for a good read about early season rock in the Cuillins.
 1234None 17 Apr 2017
In reply to The Ice Doctor:

> Out of all the people you know and work with?Do you know a lot of people who have this valuable and rare commodity?

I've worked for the past 5 years in teaching, a profession where one would expect to see integrity in abundance. Sadly, most educators are too scared to rock the boat to show much integrity.
 neilh 17 Apr 2017
In reply to The Ice Doctor:

Integrity means different things to different people. I have met and dealt with plenty of ruthless business people. But their integrity is paramount as when you reach a deal they will stick with it through thick and thin. No lawyers involved just a verbal agreement.

Getting to that point is the ruthless part.

An
1
In reply to neilh:

What does integrity mean to you?
 Jon Stewart 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Rick Graham:

> and what is your profession again, Jon ?

Our new hyper-rose lens coating cuts out 90% of unwanted visual impact - so effective, you'd never suspect the things you don't want to see even exist! A must for anyone living in a consumer capitialist society.
1
 Timmd 17 Apr 2017
In reply to neilh:
That's my experience of business people, they'll fiercely protect their reputations for being straight forward to deal with and being able to deliver the goods, but might use a mixture of psychology and economy with the truth when it comes to making progress more generally.

It's quite interesting (I think).

Edit: The retired person I mention further up wanted things to move faster with a house he was wanting to move into, so he transferred the money into the person's bank account and told them, and suddenly they brought forward moving their things out of the house. He looked quite pleased and said that was how he'd always approached things while doing business. Fair enough I guess.
Post edited at 18:10
 Stichtplate 17 Apr 2017
In reply to The Ice Doctor:

>Having integrity means saying no, walking away from money because you have a belief. Real integrity means telling the truth. Whistle blowing. Not playing politics.

Dear Dr Ice
You appear to be suffering under a delusion that is surprisingly common in modern western society , that the world should be fair . That people should act against their own best interests purely out of their innate sense of nobility (Rousseau has a lot to answer for, the "noble savage" was always a myth).
Humans have been around for 200,000 years. Human culture began developing perhaps 50,000 years ago. Up until a few hundred years ago if you stood against the best interests of yourself or your tribe you didn't survive you didn't get to have descendants, you didn't pass on those noble genes.

People are naturally selfish and far too many still behave like sheep but in a historical sense integrity is a brand new concept and its popularity is growing fast. We are incredibly lucky . There has never been a more prosperous or peaceful time and despite the occasional setback things keep getting better.

If you keep a proper sense of perspective the world is not half as bleak as you might otherwise think.
 aln 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Jon Stewart:

There's an old boy around the small town I live in. Curly long grey hair, sometimes in a ponytail, long leather coat, Frank Zappa t-shirts, sometimes Floyd, seems to know everyone, seems happy. Wears John Lennon specs, they're pink...
 aln 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Stichtplate:

>If you keep a proper sense of perspective the world is not half as bleak as you might otherwise think.

Thanks for putting UKC right. If you try not to be so pompous...
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 Stichtplate 17 Apr 2017
In reply to aln:


> >If you keep a proper sense of perspective the world is not half as bleak as you might otherwise think.Thanks for putting UKC right. If you try not to be so pompous...

From the tone of ice doctors posts he seems to be having an increasingly unhappy time in the world. Just trying to cheer him up a bit in all my misguided pomposity

What got your goat ? Was the Rousseau bit too much? He does list philosophy under his interests...
 aln 17 Apr 2017
In reply to The Ice Doctor:

I have my own sense of personal integrity. I've tried to live by it. I'm skint.
 Jon Stewart 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Stichtplate:

> If you keep a proper sense of perspective the world is not half as bleak as you might otherwise think.

I'm not sure how you determine what the 'proper' perspective is. There is rose-tinted, and there is shit-tinted, and the objective, balanced view sees the world without these filters.

Any balanced view of the world has to see the costs of the prosperity we in the west enjoy. The inequality by which children are allowed to starve to death in South Sudan while we throw literally millions of tonnes of food in the bin makes the mind boggle. You can't ignore the environmental cost of economic growth: to do so is to live in an edited, rose-tinted reality.

Yes, the modern world is a much nicer, easier, less violent place than the world a hundred or a thousand years ago (Pinker's "Better Angels" argument). But we now have the ability to make it far, far better than it is, and yet we don't bother. We're quite prepared to ignore the appalling exploitation and misery that gives us our cheap clothes and useless consumer tat. This is a part of the picture and in my view, the 'proper' perspective does not ignore this and pretend that everything's fine. The world *is* a bleak place compared to what is perfectly within our capabilities to create, and frankly you need to keep your head in the sand just to get through it without going insane.

 Stichtplate 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Jon Stewart:

> But we now have the ability to make it far, far better than it is, and yet we don't bother.

What I was trying to get across is that the concept that we don't have to fight tooth and claw for our place in the world is relatively new.
People have always had the ability not to oppress and exploit others. Free will is nothing new. Unless I've misunderstood you?
 aln 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Stichtplate:

I f*cking hate that c*nt Rousseau with all his shite about the jungle. Go sleep the night there, squawking all night, heat and moisture, f*cking mosquitoes, it's a nightmare
 Jon Stewart 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Stichtplate:
> What I was trying to get across is that the concept that we don't have to fight tooth and claw for our place in the world is relatively new.

True, and a good thing, of course.

> People have always had the ability not to oppress and exploit others.

Not really. Before the technological, globalised world, there was a lot less opportunity to exploit others and get away with it. We evolved as social creatures with an incentive not to be a total dick: other people won't trust you, and cooperation that you benefit from will break down. In the technological world, we have every opportunity to royally f*ck over whole other communities, while totally ignoring the fact that we're doing so, and not suffering any impact. Our evolved instincts to act well fail us in the modern world, hence the exploitation and inequality that are the rather major downsides of the glorious capitalist revolution that has brought education, clean water and all sorts of good stuff to people who didn't have it before.

> Free will is nothing new. Unless I've misunderstood you?

Well I can't see any way in which free will is possible - there was a good discussion on this on a recent thread about grammar schools, so I won't re-rehearse all the same arguments here. But basically, human beings are made of atoms like everything else and have evolved to reproduce genes; as such, they don't have any magic properties that allow them to unchain themselves from the causality of the natural world.
Post edited at 19:38
 Stichtplate 17 Apr 2017
In reply to aln:

> I f*cking hate that c*nt Rousseau with all his shite about the jungle. Go sleep the night there, squawking all night, heat and moisture, f*cking mosquitoes, it's a nightmare

Funny beats pompous every time
 Stichtplate 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Jon Stewart:

> Before the technological, globalised world, there was a lot less opportunity to exploit others and get away with it. We evolved as social creatures with an incentive not to be a total dick: other people won't trust you, and cooperation that you benefit from will break down. In the technological world, we have every opportunity to royally f*ck over whole other communities, while totally ignoring the fact that we're doing so, and not suffering any impact.

The pyramids didn't get built with unionised labour and paid maternity leave and you can bet Stonehenge didn't get there without someone cracking the whip.
In your previous post you say that we have the ability to make the world far better but don't bother. You can't have it both ways on the free will debate... we either get to choose or we just let nature and evolution take its course.
We both agree that things are getting better . I can't see that our positions really diverge all that much.
1
 Timmd 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Stichtplate:

> The pyramids didn't get built with unionised labour and paid maternity leave and you can bet Stonehenge didn't get there without someone cracking the whip.

What's that got to do with the price of fish?


 Stichtplate 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Timmd:

> What's that got to do with the price of fish?

That mass exploitation isn't a phenomenon restricted to modern global capitalism.

Damn , I really do sound pompous...
 Jon Stewart 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Stichtplate:

> The pyramids didn't get built with unionised labour and paid maternity leave and you can bet Stonehenge didn't get there without someone cracking the whip.

Good point. But you had to be in a very special position at the top of the hierarchy to f*ck over your fellow man on that kind of scale. These days, we exist in big global structures of exploitation in which we, the "ordinary people" of the West are complicit beneficiaries. The human instincts are the same - hence the exploitation both then and now.

> In your previous post you say that we have the ability to make the world far better but don't bother. You can't have it both ways on the free will debate... we either get to choose or we just let nature and evolution take its course.

Not quite how I see it. We have the practical wherewithal (in terms of knowledge, technology, etc) to make a far better job of taking care of ourselves on this planet than we currently do. We "could" have a lot less starvation, trauma, war and misery, than we do now if we organised things with genuine intentions to maximise human flourishing. But - in the absence of free will - our instincts guide our behaviour down the path we see stretching back into the past and forwards into the future. But to be clear (as mud?) I do not mean this fatalistically: the future is not set or predictable, but we can see the patterns of human behaviour and be pretty sure we're not suddenly going to abandon our petty tribalism and start getting to work on solving important problems for the sake of the whole species.

> We both agree that things are getting better . I can't see that our positions really diverge all that much.

True. But the interesting part is the area of disagreement!
 Timmd 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Stichtplate:
You're right it isn't. I guess a lot of people think that if we've found other ways to be nicer, there's potential for mass exploitation to become a thing of the past too.

With how there's male landlords offering space to rent in exchange for 'sexual services' from young females, and Africans being sold as slaves in Libya, it could seem easy to wonder if there's a change of it happening?
Post edited at 21:01
 Stichtplate 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Jon Stewart:

> But the interesting part is the area of disagreement!

Ok I get you now. I was so wrapped up the "things can only get better" narrative that I just wasn't considering our increasing complicity in the exploitation of others. In defence of my thickness is that my original intention was to cheer ice doctor up and not depress him further.
What I would say though is that with the advent of a truly mass media and increased global connectivity the days of the faceless oppressed are very nearly over.

Pace of change in our society and culture continues to accelerate , on the whole, in the right direction.
 Graham T 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Stichtplate:

That sounds like something out of life of Brian
 Stichtplate 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Graham T:

> That sounds like something out of life of Brian

No , peasants in the shit scene from Holy Grail surely?
 Graham T 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Stichtplate:

Oh god, how did i get that wrong......
Am blaming a small child and sleep deprivation.

Glad the reference was got though
 Jon Stewart 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Stichtplate:

> Pace of change in our society and culture continues to accelerate , on the whole, in the right direction.

Yeah I'm pretty much with you and the Pinkster on that. Just don't let the capitalists off the hook, they love their rose -tinted specs!
 Stichtplate 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Jon Stewart:

> Yeah I'm pretty much with you and the Pinkster on that. Just don't let the capitalists off the hook, they love their rose -tinted specs!

I hate it when my arguments are so transparent people can tell what books I've been reading.
If you can spot two more on a similar theme I'll quit posting!
 aln 17 Apr 2017
In reply to Jon Stewart:

But we're still building pyramids and slaves are still dying crushed under mud. Literally
 neilh 18 Apr 2017
In reply to The Ice Doctor:
Where does one start.

Its about as much to do with defining the values in a business and whether its actually making a profit to have those values.You tend to find values/integrity goes out of the window if you are losing money rapidly.

That will be totally different to say a charity.

As I say - horses for courses.

And of course integrity is a value.Its part of an overall picture - is it a personal or a group value?

So are you talking about my personal integrity or the integrity within a business?




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