When society turns the consequences for small mistakes into big deals, society stops getting small mistakes.
From the perspective of the person making the mistake, it’s almost Faustian… except rather than making a deal with the devil, the person is making a deal with a confederacy of dunces that make the rules. The deal goes like this:
“I’m going to take a big, big risk today—whereas under more moderate circumstances I probably would have only taken a small risk. If all goes well, I get the spoils. If all goes poorly, you get my hide. Except, if I can make the mistake big enough, how about you reward me for my brazenness by forgoing punishment altogether? Yes? OK? We’re good? Good! Nice doing business with you.”
For example:
- Bernie Madoff. Geez, once you know you’re going away for life if caught, why not run that thing as long and as far as you can?
- Credit Default Swaps. Technically, all those bankers were playing by the rules; the house just didn’t set the odds right on that particular game. (The risks associated with alternative, regulated financial instruments were just so much higher for a given potential payout.) And if that’s the case, then why not go for it? This particular fail seems to have triggered the “reward me for being a doofus!” clause, too: it’s hard to interpret the ongoing bailout of the industry—currently manifesting as toothless reform—as anything other than a reward for being so brazen.
- Real Housewives of New York. If you’re always on camera, so that any small mistake you make gets YouTubed for the world to see, then why not go all the way and be so ridiculous that America feels compelled to rubberneck while you live your car wreck of a life?
Get the idea?
As I said yesterday, failure can’t be fatal. It’s just not a good way to run a society.
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I'm Jason. I make people shine. My mission is to help 1 million people tell their stories better. 
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