Being Wrong

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

Many years ago, I was working on a degree in Criminal Justice. This woman wrote an article and suggested that most of those currently sitting on death row were not motivated by evil or given the opportunity for free will but were individuals who had suffered brain damage.

I was outraged. I knew for a fact that people killed because they wanted to, because they were bad, awful human beings. I was completely, totally sure.

Then I read her research. The prison authorities had given her access to skull x-rays of their heads. Almost without exception, there was dramatic evidence of skull fractures and other damage. The only way I could be right if by some intellectual trick I could conclude that the evidence didn’t matter. I didn’t have and don’t have any such tricks.

The evidence was clear. There was a connection between serious wrong doing and damage to the brain as evidenced by skull fractures.

I was wrong. It bothered and still bothers me that I could be so wrong.

And the comfort, such as it is, that I saw my error and embraced truth is the correct attitude to take. But I would have enjoyed being right so much more and there lies the problems for all of us.

The truth demands a lot of us. It demands time, attention, humility and a willingness to change. Just one of those is tough, all of them is a maze of difficulty for a personality.

Many times since that lesson, I have had to change my beliefs and adopt new paths. And from time to time in I run into previous versions of me and what I said about a subject that later turned out to be wrong. Still hate it. But the path of righteousness is only accessible to those willing to admit their mistakes.

James Alan Pilant

(The picture above is from wikipedia who I think very kindly and add the attribution they wanted: Patrick J. Lynch, medical illustrator – Modified version of Image:Skull and brain normal human.svg)

OceanGate

On By southwerkIn business ethics
The OceanGate Disaster

The OceanGate Disaster

On By southwerkIn business ethics2 Comments

The Oceangate Disaster

It probably would have been timelier to write about this during the hearings which I followed with great curiosity. It is a great thing about this country that we have open hearing following carefully designed and historic procedures to seek the truth. And we found out a great deal.

I have struggled with how to approach and think about this tragedy.

One of the first things I realized was that I had seen this kind of tragedy before. It was Lord Thomson and the airship R101. Lord Thomson didn’t know very much about airships and it showed. When the highly experimental airship had problems he ordered very much in a “damn the torpedoes” way that the trip to India should proceed. He and 47 others died. They made it to Northern France somewhat short of India.

The suicidal hubris was the same. There was the same disregard for unpleasant facts and a similar desire to get this project going.

(There is also a good Wikipedia article about inventers killed by their own inventions – a list to which Stockton Rush’s name is now added.)

Several things about the disaster are obvious.

OceanGate had a flawed business plan. They wanted companies and nations to buy and use their vessels to explore the undersea world at a time when Remote Ocean Vehicles (ROV’s) were taking off in terms of technology and usefulness. During the period of Oceangate’s existence, the number and profitability of the ROV’s soared. Faced with this kind of competition, there was little possibility of any government or business contracts. That left only tourism. (It is truly ironic that the wreckage was found by an ROV.)

Stockton Rush was in over his head. He was well qualified for virtually any aerospace endeavor. His achievements are noteworthy. But instead of his field of training he launched into the undersea world where he had neither training or experience.

Stockton Rush was a victim of hubris. He could not conceive that he might be mistaken. The record of this tragedy has a constant theme of him rejecting criticism and ignoring unwelcome advice or facts even from his friends.  People inside the company that dared voice criticism were fired, silenced and sued.

Let me add this story which I found significant. There was a question asking him about risk and he went into a discussion of how much he loved his family and would not risk any chance of not returning to them. Imagine me as head of the American space program, someone asks me if it is dangerous and I explain how much I love my cat! You asks for facts and you get a gaslighting diversion into a fantasy world where love of family somehow equates to safety. I’m sure if you go through the list of inventers killed by their own inventions that every single one of them loved their families probably their friends and pets as well – and yet they are still very much dead.

The submersible itself is less an engineering marvel and more the kind of garage construction one would expect from one of those golden age science fiction films where a scientist with a beautiful daughter builds a rocket to the moon. Mind you, it didn’t start out that way. Originally OceanGate followed the rules carefully and sough professional advice from NASA and a university – and actually fully considered and followed the advice. Their first subs were fully submitted for certification. It is only as the business model began to fail that shortcuts became a regular feature. Parts from previous submersibles were re-used. The carbon fiber hull was recommended by OceanGate’s former partners to be nine or ten inches thick. OceanGate decided to go with five.

And there were problems. If you watched any of the hearings at all, it became readily apparent that the assembly of this thing was beset by a horde of problems and unanswered questions. But the most basic and simple question was “Should carbon fiber be used in a submersible hull?” And the answer based on the evidence offered at the hearing was no.

This whole tragedy was just nonsense. Adventure capitalism run amok. Two hundred, fifty thousand dollars to go down and see the Titanic. Much like tourists climbing Everest and various billionaire loonies climbing into a spaceship and flying into space for a new and unique experience — this pathetic substitute for actual adventure is what we have today to keep our oligarchic rulers content.  

What started out as a scientific endeavor to build submersibles for industry and government use morphed over time into a kind of circus sideshow. Built in a cylindrical form against all intelligent advice to allow for passengers, the exploratory device became a sort of tourist bus to nowhere.

If Stockton Rush had a tiny bit of sense, he would have admitted his business model had been superseded in the greater part by ROV’s, sold his original subs and found a useful purpose in his life instead of charging the impossible windmill and dying just to prove he was right when he clearly wasn’t.

Incredible Stupidity, the Death of Peanut the Squirrel

On By southwerkIn business ethics

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/02/peanut-squirrel-euthanized-new-york

Words fail me.

Let us try to keep it simple. I used to teach criminal justice courses (I am now retired). One of the things that was difficult to convey to my students who were on their way to becoming law enforcement was when to or not to enforce the law.

They always seemed to come in with the weird idea that all laws should be enforced. Absolutely not. I started explaining that some laws were not really workable. For instance, one state has a blasphemy law that said denying the divinity of Jesus Christ was a crime and defining that crime as a felony. So, I enquired as to whether the class once they were in law enforcement wished to round up all other religious believers besides Christians and charge them with felonies. The class would decide that this was a bad idea.

Then we discussed adultery laws. Many states have laws forbidding sex between consenting adults. I point out that many serious crimes happen. There are murders, rapes, robberies and other assorted mayhem. Is it a good used of your law enforcement resources to be peering in bedroom windows at two A.M. to see if people are having sex? The class will agree that some offenses deserve more attention than others.

Then we discuss “puppycide.” This is a slang criminal justice term for cops blowing away people’s beloved pets. This happens a lot more often than is well known. I have done some research on the subject. I explain that if you want to bring the reputation of your department or state down to truly pitiful and despised level killing a beloved pet for the most minor of reasons is just how to do it.

And thus, we come to the case above.

The proper action of a state agency confronted by the facts above is to do nothing. It is a simple matter of exercising intelligence and judgment.

Sending a raiding party of armed men to murder a squirrel and raccoon is not an intelligent law enforcement decision.

Doing something like this makes your agency the subject of criticism and ridicule.

And it is completely deserved.

Changes of leadership and personnel are required. You cannot have fools running agencies. There is simply no telling what other nonsense these idiots have perpetrated that have fallen below the radar. They just got caught this time. Does this agency need to exist? Does it require these resources or these personnel?

Give a fool a gun and bad things happen. Give a fool or a collection of fools a federal, state or city agency and many, many bad things happen.

Someone need to stand up and take action.

Accountability is important.

James Alan Pilant

Banking Corruption

On By southwerkIn business ethics
Banking Horror in Vietnam

Banking Horror in Vietnam

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

https://www.yahoo.com/news/victims-vietnam-tycoons-record-scam-134515985.html

The Saigon Commercial Bank was in all ways observable to a citizen of that nation a legitimate banking institution where you could deposit your money safely and find high quality investment opportunities. In was in fact, an organization devoted toward plunder and theft.

It is likely that more than 40,000 citizens of the nation became victims of the scam. In a nation where salaries are small and social services relatively narrow, the damage done is multiplied. At the moment, the total losses appear to be 12.5 billion dollars if it were measured in American currency.

So, what is the relevance for me a business ethics expert? First, it illustrates the stark difference between a mature financial process in a nation like the United States and the youthful, early development phase of banking in a relatively newly organized nation. Getting clobbered by the 1929 Great Depression may be a terrible tragedy but if some if only a few of the lessons learned can be placed into law, great organized thefts like this one can usually be avoided.

And it is another argument for the importance and desperate need for widespread and thorough teaching about business ethics particularly with attention to how the public has been killed, injured and stolen from throughout history and continuing today.

I suspect there are those that feel that regulation is unnecessary. Businesses afraid of negative publicity will be more careful. That is nonsense. The urge to steal and kill is still here among us and a surprising willingness to risk the lives of hundreds of people over a few thousand dollars profit never fails to surprise me. There was this vat load of ice cream that should have been thrown away but wasn’t. That kind of food poisoning most usually kills small children and the elderly. Four elderly died in a hospital and since, we know their diet in detail the culprit ice cream was identified. How many other people did they kill? We’ll never know.

A quick look at today’s headlines reveals the following problems in business ethics: sex trafficking (this was a CEO), a massive discharge of pollutants in the Amazon, the backlash to AI, the current deaths in the United States due to E. Coli and the listeria contamination crisis currently ongoing.

Business ethics has never been more relevant.

James Alan Pilant

Unburdened by Regulation.

On By southwerkIn business ethics

In 1971, there was a hotel fire in Seoul, South Korea. It set some records all of them bad, you know, most deaths ever in a hotel fire in that country, etc.

But it made a lot of money. Now it could have made money the normal, common way by following regulations and rules and having fire escapes, fire doors and sprinklers. But they were business innovators of the first order. By dispensing with these frivolous items and cramming as much stuff and people as possible in the limited space, they made lots and lots of money.

Well, of course, they all went to jail, right??

Not exactly and by, not exactly, I mean not at all. The wikipedia article I consulted mentioned arrests and in these stories of governmental corruption, there are always arrests, always. But once the heat dies down and we start looking for any information whatever on trials and sentencing, we come up empty. Corrupt societies don’t punish cutting edge entrepreneurs. We can always grow more people but individuals who contribute money and favors to government officials are rare. They require cultivation and the occasional indulgence for these minor ethical slip ups.

This is after all 1971. At this time South Korea is not very much a democracy, in fact, far from it. Why is that important? It is harder to steal and murder in a democracy, a lot harder. Take a look at a modern business ethics disaster like the Sewol and in spite of the efforts of the government and their wealthy friends, cover up and evasions simply didn’t work out.

Well, what do we have in the United States? Currently we have a limited democracy. There is still voting but many areas of policy making are off limits due to minority (corporate and oligarchic) control over the Senate, the Supreme Court and a good part of the media. If the people ruled, something utterly simple like the rich paying at least the same rate as the middle class would be law and it is not. Or for another example, capital gains would be taxed like income but it is taxed at a lower rate, an incredibly lucrative deal for those with stocks.

Still, this limited democracy makes it difficult for corrupt officials to kill and rob on a large scale. Much robbery and many deaths still happen but there is no American equivalent of a Bhopal or a Sewol sinking, because the rules still often apply to people with money and power. How much longer that will continue with the current Supreme Court’s perception of bribery and gifts as legitimate political participation I don’t know.

I never thought I would live to see an American Supreme Court dominated by such skilled liars, gift seekers and looney ideologues. But here we are.

How long before we wind up in a society were the business innovators acquire their freedom to kill? Currently it seems inevitable.

James Alan Pilant

No Constitutional Duty to Protect??

On By southwerkIn business ethics

https://www.yahoo.com/news/city-police-had-no-constitutional-205433640.html

I challenge you to read this case and not become angry. The police repeatedly refused to take action and eventually the woman who relied on them for protection was murdered.

Here is a single incident from the article above:

Court records show that on Sept. 15, 2022, Christopher Prichard spent one night in jail for violating the order, then failed to show up for a series of court hearings, then failed to turn himself in to serve a six-day jail sentence. As a result, a warrant was issued for his arrest. The lawsuit alleges that police “flat-out refused to enforce the warrant and arrest Christopher Prichard.”

I have to admit a little confusion here. The actions listed in the paragraph above would seem to require as a matter of law police to act.

You can argue that I shouldn’t even be discussing this since I write about business ethics. But if the police simply treat their duties as inconveniences to be avoided, are we really talking about public servants any more or just employees who aren’t very good at their job?

James Pilant

Using sleep patches on small students

On By southwerkIn business ethics
They Drugged Their Students!

They Drugged Their Students!

On By southwerkIn business ethics1 Comment

https://www.yahoo.com/news/two-teachers-yanked-texas-classroom-160046076.html

It seems based on the evidence of the press reports and interviewed witnesses that teachers at an elementary school put “sleeping” patches on the children in the classroom regularly in large numbers. These are small children as young as four years old. I am outraged. You just don’t give other people’s children drugs. That they didn’t actually kill anybody is just dumb luck.

Here’s a quote from the article:

Najla Abdullah asked her four-year-old son if he too had received a sticker. “He said, ‘Yes, mommy. I get a special sticker,’” Abdullah told ABC. “I said, ‘What does it look like?’ He said, ‘I get it right here on my hand, and it has the storms with the clouds and the star and the moon.’”

My son is entering his thirties so I didn’t even know these things existed (sleeping stickers). So, I went over and opened my Amazon account and there they were in large numbers and variety of colors and various capabilities. I’m sure many parents whose children have sleep problems find them to be of some benefit.

However, drugging entire classrooms of tiny tots to make your job easier is wrong! (to put it mildly) Since, I assume there will be firings and criminal charges, hopefully the idea of drugging small children will not catch on as a teaching aid.

As an expert on business ethics, my analytic abilities are wasted here. What analysis can you do? Is there a moral argument about giving other people’s children drugs? I think not. There is no way the teachers or teacher’s aides had any idea of what medications the children were already taking or the existence of an medical conditions the children might have had so administering any drug on a large scale is highly dangerous. These acts endangered children. End of moral analysis.

If I may quote from a legendary source of moral support: In the New Testament, Jesus Christ issues a stern warning against harming children. In Matthew 18:6, Jesus says, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

This is a catastrophic failure of business ethics. The school is hunkered down. There is no listing of classes involved, number of students or if this was the only set of violations. We can expect this story to develop.

If I were advising the school. I would recommend an outside investigator be hired and as early as possible personnel decisions. They need to share as much information as is possible under the circumstances and new rules specifically banning these actions put in place.

James Pilant