OK it is not many but it is a start.

Yeh. If the journalists aren’t honest though they don’t have me as a customer. The only news feed I have in my reader is the McClatchley lot, and they got their through merit.

Same with politicians. Though I dont *consume* them, but in a democracy there are other means of taking your ‘political’ business elsewhere. I think by the amounts of power and importance in governance that it is necessary for good governance that a politician is moral, and that includes honesty.

Too often bad governance comes from dishonest dealings, and electoral expediency will be traded for the political use of government. So there is a haste and impatience from voters and constituents that there be honest and transparent government (even if it isn’t in the ruling parties self-interest) as the alternative is bad governance or the loss of liberal democracy.

I have empathy with politicians being held to a higher standard.

On the teacher example, they start on what is basically the median annual income compared to other occupations – is that really fair? And then they get raises for every so many years – is that fair? So there may be merit in merit pay. That said, they have to put up with a lot of crap from kids so maybe it is fair they get paid what they’re paid regardless.

On can the world handle the truth? Imagine for a moment intelligent aliens from another planet did exist. Do you think the world could handle that? Of course not.

Now the journalists (not op-ed columnists) are just trying to trip politicians up, everyone knows they lie and tell half truths then deny it that’s why politics has so much cynicism and the only real reason any sensible person would go into politics is to get a safe seat, be a backbencher and collect the income they don’t deserve all for financial gain and other perks whilst following a party line and appearing to work for the electorate. It is the only pragmatic reason to do so. Some will still join for ideals but once in they’ll discover it doesn’t quite work the way they thought it did.

The whole thing can be summed up as “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

You are arguing against self-interest? Aristotle’s idea of the philosopher king was that someone who could understand eternal truths would be a better ruler since they would not be swayed by the selfish manner that despots ruled with. It still wouldn’t stop the plebs and prols acting in their self-interest anyway.

We had a project a few years back where we were trying to integrate technicians that were all over the continent into a digital system. In many areas it acted against their self-interest as employees and just wasn’t used. The areas of that technology that helped them get their job done were used massively. Their responsiveness improved because of it, and it wasn’t due to the project requirements that were dreamed up in the central location.

The technicians were also motivated to get their work done faster and more efficiently; it is in their self-interest especially when they are on call. So that project only worked as much as it matched the self-interests of both parties despite there being a definite authority hierarchy.

It may be argued that the ‘truth’ from the central location was, “We need a way to collect billable hours faster so we can display/bill them to the customer.” The technicians self-interest was “get the job done so I can go home and don’t have to come back to this remote location.” Where there was a union between those – it worked fantastically.

Where there were rules, regulations and technical limitations (software business rules) to force the flow in what the centralised location wanted then it was ignored. Unrestricted technologies, such as email and voice, were used to coordinate amongst the technicians instead.

I guess I am saying when you get self-interest to match desired outcomes, good things happen. It doesn’t need to be wrapped in ‘truth’. Andrew’s mistake at that pilot was probably assuming that the teacher’s self-interest lay in getting more salary year to year and bonuses. Maybe if he said, “You get fast retirement points so you can retire at 40 instead of 55″ the teachers in the audience might have said, “We are all ears”.

Is this chronic lying by society at large dangerous to the individual or deleterious to society in general? I don’t believe so, providing the individual is aware that it happens constantly, and is able to detect it. Such behaviour can tend to make us all cynical, but my view is that cynicism is way out in front of blind trust and gullibility.