I too am a little bothered by adversarial systems that claim to find truth despite individuals involved being encouraged to shade it, but it's arguably the best sort of system we're going to find -- "out of the crooked timber" etc.
There's real questions about how well it works when power differentials are great, but ironically in your father's case, sometimes the bigger corporation is prone to writing large checks simply to make the case go away... something the lego chain ought to have considered, given reputational damage is the asymmetric weapon of the economic underdog in our system.
edit: I suspect the radical Christian answer would be something along the lines of, "your money exists to further the kingdom and your sustenance is from above; any action taken without that in mind is falling short."
But of course as an employee in modern America, you actually must navigate allegiance to two masters.
"you left out the most important “bucket”, that being that true Christians lay all of their possessions at the feet of the apostles, and anyone who holds back for himself will be smitten"
"What is the difference between what the BAM idiots were doing and what my father was doing?"
The difference is that the members of a church (any church) are supposed to place allegiance to God above money or anything else. As such, they share a common culture. Members of the body can not be adversaries of each other, as that would be a Body at war with itself.
Your father and Lloyds of London do not share a common culture. There is no shared membership (beyond that of the human race) that can bind them together, so the relationship must be adversarial. You touch on this somewhat in #2.
The Mormon Church is a top-down ecclesiastical structure (like Anglicanism or Catholicism) so these sorts of disputes between members should be dealt with internally to avoid giving the church a bad name to the outside world. All of these people have failed to do that.
I've struggled with sustaining someone in my stake who works closely with an absurdly wealthy and absurdly morally bankrupt individual. This essay gave me some tools for how to think about the issue. Thanks for sharing.
I have a few times in my life heard variations on this story..."I needed my kitchen remodeled, I knew him from Church so I figured I'd give him the business..." Such stories do not often end with "I was doubly happy not only getting great work but helping a fellow believer grow his business".
An adversarial system where you're allowed to 'play dirty' but with the larger ethic of still playing by certain rules has some advantages in that it makes things more simple and easier to measure. It also makes things safer since it limits the ability for people to play on things that should technically be outside the scope of the transaction to use as a tool to influence you.
An interesting question raised by your father's insurance quest is, well, he brought a policy for $100M. That does imply he at some level had an honest belief his business could suffer $100M in damages. Say an asteroid impacted on his pond creating a mile wide crater, that would have destroyed the business for essentially eternity so would he not expect a full payout?
On the other hand, suppose a transporter accident 30 years before accidently created a duplicate of your dad and after finding his way back home years later, the duplicate (or actual dad), confronts the man who has had his family and business. The man you know as your real father argues with him for hours until he finally throws up his hands and says "If you want my business you'll have to buy it from me!" Would your dad set a fair price at $100m? If less, well that implies he was over insured.
Yet on another hand, suppose the insurance salesman was working on an excessive commission incentive and sold your dad a rider policy. For an extra $50 a month, he could have coverage up to $500B. What would he do then? If the asteroid hit he would be entitled to the full payout yet he would never have valued his business at that!
I think the conclusion here is that this is a bit of a game or a bet. You are buying a chance for a payout. The payout can vary and be very large given the right arguments can be made or it can be very modest but almost 100% certain. It is a type of gambling but in most cases a gambling that is more productive than what the casino sells. I would say there's nothing wrong with gambling and if you derive a religious or ethical objection to it you have to explain why owning a business in itself isn't also a gamble but buying insurance is.
Im not religious but somehow came across your blog (way better analysis than the fluff piece the WSJ just published). Ive been heavily invested in this story since the very beginning and I appreciate you recognizing the difference between "performing" religion and actually "living" religion. Part of the reason I never heavily invested into any sort of faith (although I do recognize and try to respect those that do) is because I recognized very early on the contradictions that exist within the framework of religion.
This reminds me of an essay called Poverty Affluence and Morality (I kinda interpret the author presents a thesis that the only moral bucket is bucket 1). I think the difference between buckets 2 and 3 is empathy. If you have empathy you're going to be in bucket 2 and if you dont have empathy then you're going to be in bucket 3. I believe empathy is a skill that can be taught (for the vast majority of people there are always going to be outlyers) and it takes practice and constant vigilance to maintain it. The society that we coexist in doesn't appear (at least to me) to reward empathy enough and therefore we have developed hierarchies and power structures that deprioritize it - religious or otherwise. It's kind of just a sad state of affairs.
I'm honored that you put me ahead of the WSJ, though these days perhaps that's not the honor it once was.
I'll be honest that I started the essay without having a clear idea of what the difference would be, assuming that as I thought through things it would become apparent in the course of my writing things out. I'm still happy with my answer, but when I got to the point where I had to provide an answer, I ended up being less confident than I expected. The issue was more complicated than I expected.
I think empathy is definitely a part of it, and I fancy that empathy leads to the sort of action I was talking about, but perhaps you've offered a deeper foundation than the one I gave...
I guess thats what I was trying to do I guess (like provide kind of an outsider non religious lens to your buckets). Ive spent a lot of time self reflecting and Ive kinda come to the conclusion that humanity itself is in conflict with business and our modern day hierarchies of power. I kinda view religion as a building block that builds off of the "foundation" (brick by brick!) of the human experience to enhance people and provide purpose to life. The foundation is something that we, across all cultures and populations, have in common and also hold responsibility for maintaining. I believe that cooperation is the best way to maintain the foundation and empathy is a tool we can use to maintain it. The pope recently published an encyclical that dives a bit more in depth on humanity that may help you reflect. There's also a fascinating book called The Evolution of Cooperation that can provide a more scientific based lens. Have fun reflecting :-)
Ooh — you might find find Bart Ehrman's newest book, "Love Thy Stranger", fascinating fodder for thought. It's a love letter to the radicalness of Christian ethics, and tries to make sense of them in their original context.
I too am a little bothered by adversarial systems that claim to find truth despite individuals involved being encouraged to shade it, but it's arguably the best sort of system we're going to find -- "out of the crooked timber" etc.
There's real questions about how well it works when power differentials are great, but ironically in your father's case, sometimes the bigger corporation is prone to writing large checks simply to make the case go away... something the lego chain ought to have considered, given reputational damage is the asymmetric weapon of the economic underdog in our system.
edit: I suspect the radical Christian answer would be something along the lines of, "your money exists to further the kingdom and your sustenance is from above; any action taken without that in mind is falling short."
But of course as an employee in modern America, you actually must navigate allegiance to two masters.
One of my Mormon friends already said:
"you left out the most important “bucket”, that being that true Christians lay all of their possessions at the feet of the apostles, and anyone who holds back for himself will be smitten"
A little harsher than I'd phrase it, though I know the reference I think it's missing a bit of context, namely the deception and lack of contrition.
Still, the calling is indeed high.
"What is the difference between what the BAM idiots were doing and what my father was doing?"
The difference is that the members of a church (any church) are supposed to place allegiance to God above money or anything else. As such, they share a common culture. Members of the body can not be adversaries of each other, as that would be a Body at war with itself.
Your father and Lloyds of London do not share a common culture. There is no shared membership (beyond that of the human race) that can bind them together, so the relationship must be adversarial. You touch on this somewhat in #2.
The Mormon Church is a top-down ecclesiastical structure (like Anglicanism or Catholicism) so these sorts of disputes between members should be dealt with internally to avoid giving the church a bad name to the outside world. All of these people have failed to do that.
Yeah, on reflection that is definitely something I should have touched on more.
I've struggled with sustaining someone in my stake who works closely with an absurdly wealthy and absurdly morally bankrupt individual. This essay gave me some tools for how to think about the issue. Thanks for sharing.
I have a few times in my life heard variations on this story..."I needed my kitchen remodeled, I knew him from Church so I figured I'd give him the business..." Such stories do not often end with "I was doubly happy not only getting great work but helping a fellow believer grow his business".
An adversarial system where you're allowed to 'play dirty' but with the larger ethic of still playing by certain rules has some advantages in that it makes things more simple and easier to measure. It also makes things safer since it limits the ability for people to play on things that should technically be outside the scope of the transaction to use as a tool to influence you.
An interesting question raised by your father's insurance quest is, well, he brought a policy for $100M. That does imply he at some level had an honest belief his business could suffer $100M in damages. Say an asteroid impacted on his pond creating a mile wide crater, that would have destroyed the business for essentially eternity so would he not expect a full payout?
On the other hand, suppose a transporter accident 30 years before accidently created a duplicate of your dad and after finding his way back home years later, the duplicate (or actual dad), confronts the man who has had his family and business. The man you know as your real father argues with him for hours until he finally throws up his hands and says "If you want my business you'll have to buy it from me!" Would your dad set a fair price at $100m? If less, well that implies he was over insured.
Yet on another hand, suppose the insurance salesman was working on an excessive commission incentive and sold your dad a rider policy. For an extra $50 a month, he could have coverage up to $500B. What would he do then? If the asteroid hit he would be entitled to the full payout yet he would never have valued his business at that!
I think the conclusion here is that this is a bit of a game or a bet. You are buying a chance for a payout. The payout can vary and be very large given the right arguments can be made or it can be very modest but almost 100% certain. It is a type of gambling but in most cases a gambling that is more productive than what the casino sells. I would say there's nothing wrong with gambling and if you derive a religious or ethical objection to it you have to explain why owning a business in itself isn't also a gamble but buying insurance is.
Im not religious but somehow came across your blog (way better analysis than the fluff piece the WSJ just published). Ive been heavily invested in this story since the very beginning and I appreciate you recognizing the difference between "performing" religion and actually "living" religion. Part of the reason I never heavily invested into any sort of faith (although I do recognize and try to respect those that do) is because I recognized very early on the contradictions that exist within the framework of religion.
This reminds me of an essay called Poverty Affluence and Morality (I kinda interpret the author presents a thesis that the only moral bucket is bucket 1). I think the difference between buckets 2 and 3 is empathy. If you have empathy you're going to be in bucket 2 and if you dont have empathy then you're going to be in bucket 3. I believe empathy is a skill that can be taught (for the vast majority of people there are always going to be outlyers) and it takes practice and constant vigilance to maintain it. The society that we coexist in doesn't appear (at least to me) to reward empathy enough and therefore we have developed hierarchies and power structures that deprioritize it - religious or otherwise. It's kind of just a sad state of affairs.
I'm honored that you put me ahead of the WSJ, though these days perhaps that's not the honor it once was.
I'll be honest that I started the essay without having a clear idea of what the difference would be, assuming that as I thought through things it would become apparent in the course of my writing things out. I'm still happy with my answer, but when I got to the point where I had to provide an answer, I ended up being less confident than I expected. The issue was more complicated than I expected.
I think empathy is definitely a part of it, and I fancy that empathy leads to the sort of action I was talking about, but perhaps you've offered a deeper foundation than the one I gave...
I guess thats what I was trying to do I guess (like provide kind of an outsider non religious lens to your buckets). Ive spent a lot of time self reflecting and Ive kinda come to the conclusion that humanity itself is in conflict with business and our modern day hierarchies of power. I kinda view religion as a building block that builds off of the "foundation" (brick by brick!) of the human experience to enhance people and provide purpose to life. The foundation is something that we, across all cultures and populations, have in common and also hold responsibility for maintaining. I believe that cooperation is the best way to maintain the foundation and empathy is a tool we can use to maintain it. The pope recently published an encyclical that dives a bit more in depth on humanity that may help you reflect. There's also a fascinating book called The Evolution of Cooperation that can provide a more scientific based lens. Have fun reflecting :-)
I grabbed Evolution of Cooperation! I'll report back.
Ooh — you might find find Bart Ehrman's newest book, "Love Thy Stranger", fascinating fodder for thought. It's a love letter to the radicalness of Christian ethics, and tries to make sense of them in their original context.
Added to my list!