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Ask HN: Is there any proven model that eliminates corruption?

by DodgyEggplant on 2/17/17, 6:53 PM with 13 comments

You hear about more and more corruption from people who don't lack anything. Seems that entire systems are corrupted.

  • by LaserOfeToys on 2/19/17, 12:27 AM

    As one fighting corruption, for a decade plus, I've learned certain things about overcoming venality.

    The bigger the party or the corruption is, the harder it is to hold them or it accountable.

    So much white collar crime, lives not mattering, and quid pro quo'ing is going on, the masses are numb to it all.

    Goverment bodies would rather stack a house of untenable cards, a mile high, than admit one clear error.

    In our eToys case, we have confessions by Goldman Sachs & Bain Capital (secret) lawyers, to deliberate lies under oath. Because the blue wall of silence paradigm also works for lawyers, judges and federal agents/agencies of justice - those parties also desire to be willfully blind - or circle their wagons protective of their own kind.

    Keeping with such notions, as demonstrated by the recent U.S. POTUS election, the masses can be dupped into cirling the wagons, protective of clear bad faith, on the basis of inference that:

    "you are not allowed to accuse 'my' desiree of bad faith".

    All such us a recipe for a very sad state of affairs; which tends to encourage the venal to be more brazen & flagrant.

  • by Whamzees on 2/19/17, 12:25 AM

    As one fighting corruption, for a decade plus, I've learned certain things about overcoming venality.

    The bigger the party or the corruption is, the harder it is to hold them or it accountable.

    So much white collar crime, lives not mattering, and quid pro quo'ing is going on, the masses are numb to it all.

    Goverment bodies would rather stack a house of untenable cards, a mile high, than admit one clear error.

    In our eToys case, we have confessions by Goldman Sachs & Bain Capital (secret) lawyers, to deliberate lies under oath. Because the blue wall of silence paradigm also works for lawyers, judges and federal agents/agencies of justice - those parties also desire to be willfully blind - or circle their wagons protective of their own kind.

    Keeping with such notions, as demonstrated by the recent U.S. POTUS election, the masses can be dupped into cirling the wagons, protective of clear bad faith, on the basis of inference that:

    "you are not allowed to accuse 'my' desiree of bad faith".

    All such us a recipe for a very sad state of affairs; which tends to encourage the venal to be more brazen & flagrant.

  • by meric on 2/18/17, 7:40 PM

    If you want to read an article from Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong about how to keep the country you are ruling free from corruption, I suggesting reading http://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/fight-against-corruption....

  • by nnn1234 on 2/18/17, 2:41 AM

    Eliminate corruption might not be possible, but there is a solvable first approximation. If power was distributed enough and access was free enough, human survival instinct translated to greed would be channeled along a different path, which might be close enough to what you are hinting at here

  • by sdljfskdjhfkg on 2/18/17, 1:05 PM

    No. There will always be corruption in any system. There will always be cheats in any system in which the people involved cannot get perfect information. Which is another way of saying that if people can lie, a certain percentage of people will lie. If you could arrange for everything to be transparent and for everyone to have access to all information then there would be no cheats because of the strong human instinct to punish them. But perfect information is impossible.

  • by niftich on 2/19/17, 12:34 AM

    An ancient idea for this is sortition, i.e. selecting people into positions of power by randomly choosing them out of a large pool.

    It's got plenty of disadvantages, but it negates most of the perverse incentives of accumulating political power, and lessen the likelihood that positions of power will be held solely by ambitious people who pursue them at all costs.

  • by tyingq on 2/18/17, 1:19 AM

    I think the solution would likely depend on the specific system, group, etc.

    For example, one idea to reduce the influence of lobbyists in the US would be to go back to secret ballots.

    The lobbyist would have no way to confirm if their influence actually resulted in the vote they wanted.

    Of course, that screws transparency for the people the elected official represents as well.

  • by id122015 on 2/18/17, 8:33 AM

    Ethereum is interesting, usefull for issuing currency, voting and DAOs. But there is a big problem with it and I dont know if we should start using it or wait for the next blockchain project.

  • by joefarish on 2/17/17, 10:29 PM

    I'm not entirely sure what you are asking here but I heard of this prize recently and I think it is a great idea:

    "Established by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation in 2007, the Ibrahim Prize celebrates excellence in African leadership. It is awarded to a former Executive Head of State or Government by an independent Prize Committee composed of eminent figures, including two Nobel Laureates."

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibrahim_Prize

  • by Sunset on 2/17/17, 7:30 PM

    Religious zeal. Just brainwash your politicians into being extremely morally consistent.

  • by coreyp_1 on 2/17/17, 7:33 PM

    How do you define corruption?