[antisthenes]

Wow.

Great to know we're basically raising an entire generation without any integrity.

Can't wait to be in a nursing home where all the staff are trying to meta-game for lowest amount of responsibility rather than caring for the elderly.

And believe me, I'm the last person to disparage the truly disabled or those down on their luck. But 38% in a developed country is just straight up insane. Not to mention that if you have a "disability" that is treatable with medication, should you still be accommodated?

[stanford_labrat]

I think about this quite a lot. I’ve come to the conclusion that in the past acting with integrity was rewarded and lacking integrity was punished.

In 2025 it seems integrity is meaningless, “winning” is all that matters. Particularly, you are not punished for acting without integrity but definitely “punished” for having it.

[pear01]

Are you under the illusion that greed and selfishness is a vice unique to the 21st century? You would think someone with an internet connection would know better. Humanity has always been this way. In most contexts where the concept "integrity" is evoked it carries with it at the very least a tacit acknowledgement of the strong temptation to do otherwise, that is part of the reason it is recognized as a virtue.

I really find these "in 2025" takes tiresome. There is no golden age, only your own personal nostalgia masquerading as analysis.

[dataflow]

> Are you under the illusion that greed and selfishness is a vice unique to the 21st century?

That's a strawman. I'm pretty darn sure they're not claiming it never happened in the past. Only that it is becoming significantly more widespread than it used to be.

I think you're going to have an incredibly hard time making a compelling case that no such trend exists, given the statistics (even on this particular issue in the article, never mind other issues) would very likely strongly suggest the opposite.

[lazide]

Yup - and just look to the leadership of the country as a classic example of this.

The ‘winner’ is he who scams the hardest without getting consequences.

[chii]

> I really find these "in 2025" takes tiresome

exactly. This isn't a new problem. But what has been new is the recent growth in funding to "help" those who are deemed helpless - at someone else's cost (it could be taxpayers, it could be, in this case, other fee paying students).

The problem isn't the grift - it's the lack of any real oversight, and the ease with which such help is given lately (i would call it overly-progressive, but that might trigger some people). It is what makes grift possible.

[philipallstar]

> overly-progressive

I think if you capitalise the P it's fine. It's not actual progress, but the Progressive movement has pushed it. Because that philosophy has a naive view of people, and assumes the best. So their policies and spending allow tests with 100% sensitivity and 0% specificity.

[vlovich123]

Has the cultural attitude towards shame perhaps shifted?

There was a gilded age in the early 20th century and we appear to have entered another gilded age - do you think something structural or cultural has changed? I have a hard time a president like Trump getting elected in past elections - certainly he models himself after Nixon and even Nixon was a very very different kind of president both in temperament but also being less about self aggrandizement.

[dataflow]

> do you think something structural or cultural has changed

Obviously it has? For one thing, we have billions more people on the planet. For another, we have far more constrained resources -- from the environment to education to everything else -- even for a constant number of people, never mind for the ever-increasing population size. (And there are more factors, but these are more than sufficient to get the point across.) These make competition more intense... in every aspect of life, for everyone. And it's only natural that more cutthroat competition results in more people breaking the norms and rules.

It would be shocking if this didn't happen. If there's a question at all, it's really around is when this occurs -- not if it does.

[prewett]

We've also been rebelling against traditional values for over fifty years and even celebrating it in song and movies. We've adopted a utilitarian ethic in lieu of the traditional values we've rebelled against. I think those are more salient probable causes than over-crowding, especially since the reasoning given for over-crowding as a reason uses a utilitarian ethic (people are only good because they can afford do be). A large part of virtue is doing the good thing regardless of hard times or good times.

[ngc248]

Yep, shame is the cornerstone of civilization and the scoiety right now seems to be more and more shameless.

[miningape]

Yeah people don't realise this, but shame and guilt (and fear) are our 2 society building emotions. Each society has it's own mix of these, and there are also "themes" depending on which is the dominant one.

Shame has practically been thrown out the window in certain places and we can see the effects of that - people scamming each other, lying in the streets, etc. Guilt is also being eroded across the west, leading to things like rampant criminality and punishments that are less than a slap on the wrist.

Fundamentally these emotions are designed to keep us in check with the rest of the group - does this negatively affect some: yes. But at the benefit of creating high trust societies. Every time I encounter this topic I can't help but think: Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[throaway1988111]

Trump got in because he was an actual change from the normal establishment politicians. People want real change, and they did get it...

[potato3732842]

That's what you get in a world where damn near everything is measured against some objective criteria, analyzed by a 3rd party or tracked by the government or someone at the behest thereof

None of these things measure "not an asshole". They measure results. The incentives from there are obvious.

The business owners who treats employees, customers, vendor, everyone like shit in his quest to produce the most widgets, juice every stat, is the one who gets the attention from investors and the one left alone by the government.

[pear01]

Someone has never heard of a medieval peasant. Or take your pick of ancient slave...

Maybe your theory is that if you weren't alive in the past to see "an asshole" for yourself, then the prudent conclusion is a sort skepticism about their very existence.

I wonder how you envision the past then... a vacant landscape? Perhaps you actually believe human nature has radically changed just in the past few decades? The odd thing is I think an actual analysis might contradict your claim, that is if the measurement is simply who is "an asshole". Perhaps we would find more surveillance actually reduces "asshole" behavior generally. Like how confrontational people often change their behavior when confronted by a camera, .etc

[jerlam]

It's not 38% of the entire population/generation, it's 38% of a tiny group who have gotten into an elite, highly selective school, and have the massive resources (not just education) to do so. But as someone else said, these are probably people who are much more likely to get placed into positions of power and authority.

[obscurette]

No. It might be much much worse than 38% outside of these elite schools, but a little bit different. This is in fact one of the reasons public education falls off the cliff. I've seen a teacher leaving elementary after she found out that 19 kids out of 24 in her class had some kind of learning disability needing special treatment, special help, assignments specially designed for them etc. In her own words all of them were completely normal kids except maybe 1 or 2.

[smcg]

I have bad news for you about existing nursing homes.

[chemotaxis]

Better yet, many of the graduates will become politicians, journalists, or prominent tech figures who will be pontificating about morality and regulating it for others.

[Spooky23]

We’re a society of assholes. The comment above suggests selling accommodation requests.

[kelnos]

I agree with your overall point about lack of integrity, but just to clarify this bit:

> Not to mention that if you have a "disability" that is treatable with medication, should you still be accommodated?

I know people with incredibly severe ADHD, who are on medication, but in their case the medication is only able to make them reasonably functional. They still have difficult day-to-day issues.

But yeah, in general I'd say if you have something that is entirely fixable with medication, you don't need an accommodation.

The problem is that the ADA is worded such that businesses and organizations can't dig into these sorts of details, so they err on the side of accommodating in order to avoid lawsuits.

[analog31]

>>>> Great to know we're basically raising an entire generation without any integrity.

Are you talking about the generation of doctors writing the disability assessments?

Most young people are still fine. Neither of my kids ever claimed to be disabled.

[AngryData]

To me this is just the logical end result of capitalism where the only thing that really matters is profit at any cost. Many people would be fine with being an average person living moderate life, but capitalism is always incentivizing people to exploit and abuse others in the name of profit and the average person is constantly getting screwed and everyone knows it. And there are only 2 real solutions to escaping that problem, eschew modern society and live a subsidence life, or find a way into the top percentage of society so you have more money than you need so you can ignore most of those problems.

Shitty boss/job? Having extra money lets you tell them to fuck themselves and move to another job at any time. If you don't have extra money, well you are not going to be able to tell your shitty boss to shove it unless you want to risk becoming homeless and destitute. Legal trouble? Well money is the solution, which is why poor people are so often screwed over by legal trouble because they can't lawyer their way out. Etc etc

[michaelmrose]

Is it really gaming to get a doctors note to say a pet cat will make you happier?

[FireBeyond]

My stepdaughter just started college. She told the tale of a boy and a girl who tried to claim that a cat was an ESA or service animal for both of them. The one cat. For both people. Just so happened that they were a couple in high school, and this was their effort to game the system to get assigned to a dorm together (the university generally wouldn't allow a co-ed dorm assignment like that, and had rules about relationship "overnights" in the dorm.

[sersi]

Why would the university not allow coed dorm assignments like that or have rules about relationship overnights in the dorm. Kids going to college are adults why should those restrictions be there in the first place?

If you treat students like children, it's not surprising if they try to game the system

[kelnos]

Yes, that's a bit odd, perhaps it's a religious or otherwise conservative university?

At my (secular) university, we did have a few single-sex dorms (optional for people who were uncomfortable with a mixed-sex dorm), but all others were co-ed, though some were separated into all-male and all-female hallways where they'd share a single-sex bathroom.

IIRC even the female-only dorms had no rules about overnight stays (though males had to be escorted around the building by their female host). A university not allowing people to stay overnight reeks of puritanical values.

[FireBeyond]

It's a state university, and I said that they had "rules about relationship overnights", not that they were forbidden.

Essentially it's one night a week. So, if both students, effectively two nights a week.

I don't disagree. I think it would be disrespectful to your dorm mate if your partner was just living in that space (which is already small for two, let alone three) most of the time. And you have to imagine that's at least part of the reason why such things are rules now, not suggestions.

[eloisant]

Because a dorm is not an apartment building, it's a place with communal spaces like bathrooms and showers so you have to share some intimacy with people living at the same floor as you. And many people are not comfortable doing so with people from the opposite sex.

[kelnos]

Being not comfortable with it is not the same as banning it school-wide. It's perfectly reasonable to have some single-sex spaces that people can choose if they're uncomfortable. But requiring that all dorms be single-sex makes it sound like there is some other religious/conservative nonsense at play.

Regardless, this isn't Victorian England. Men and women mix and live in shared spaces. There are plenty of adult living spaces in the world where people have their own apartment/room, but share bathroom space. That's also common in lower end hotels/hostels for travelers. Requiring that college students live in gender-separated living situations is a bad way to prepare them for the real world.

[FireBeyond]

Most of those dorms are not single bed. Yes, there are hostels. But you're not going to expect that it's going to be common to say "yes, I have no issue getting undressed/naked/dressed in front of my opposite sex dorm mate on a daily basis, or having to go to a bathroom and to do so within a stall" (because the dorm mate (plus whatever other dorm mates of either sex are around).

I get it - and at my stepdaughter's school there are co-ed dorms of different styles. But what they don't offer, and in this case is what the students hoped to achieve was "give us our own dorm with one bed", effectively.

The issue then also comes down to "well, college relationships aren't always the most durable things" - what happens when they break up? Who has to move out? It's not one person's space. Now the college is also on the hook for ensuring that there's sufficient vacancy (wasted) to handle these situations in other dorms.

[FireBeyond]

So there are a variety of options, but my stepdaughter is in a pod/suite setup. There are four dorm rooms, each with two people, and the four share a communal/interconnected bathroom set up.

So you need to have respect for your dorm mate, and your suite mates. And you know that, unfortunately, while "be respectful and adult" should be the expectation, there's always someone that ruins that, and the next thing the college has to set rules and say "this is why you can't have nice things".

And I expect there's a bit of liability minimization on the college's part - I'm not saying I agree, but the college probably has concerns of "it's mid term, and an allegation of inappropriate behavior happens, what do you do?" (and I think there's multiple issues with that, like it's not like that can't happen in same sex dorms, but I'm just trying to think about why the college might see it that way).

[antisthenes]

> Is it really gaming to get a doctors note to say a pet cat will make you happier?

If that takes away a limited resource from someone else (e.g. dorm space) or makes it worse for others (e.g. people don't want animals in a dorm), then yes. Absolutely.

[reeredfdfdf]

Older generations have no more integrity. Just look at the last US presidential election results - older generations were more likely to vote for Trump than younger ones. I don't think a person with integrity is likely to vote for such an openly corrupt conman.

Nah, the reality is that people have always been greedy and selfish, gaming the system where they can.

[Ray20]

> I don't think a person with integrity is likely to vote for such an openly corrupt conman.

As far as I understand, it was precisely because of situations like the one described in the article that people voted for him.

In practice, you don't need to be honest and incorruptible to win an election. You just need to be more honest and incorruptible than your opponent.

[startupsfail]

There are a lot of people around who are playing victims to get benefits. And relentlessly pushing their agenda.