Here is a TED talk in which a fellow talks about people who cheat, with some interesting experiments relating to financial cheating and money. What is interesting is his observations regarding cheating in relation to money as opposed to other things.
It may explain the mechanics of why usury became "interest" and became acceptable in Western countries, and what Moslems should watch for as Islam struggles with the question of usury.
If people are made to recall ten commandments, if if they are not believers, they are less likely to cheat. This certainly supports the idea that the Lawgiver reminded us of what he wrote on our hearts when he made us.
Here is from the transcripts:
Think about the following intuition. How bad would you feel about taking a pencil from work home, compared to how bad would you feel about taking 10 cents from a petty cash box?
and
So, what have we learned from this about cheating? We've learned that a lot of people can cheat. They cheat just by a little bit. When we remind people about their morality, they cheat less. When we get bigger distance from cheating, from the object of money, for example, people cheat more. And when we see cheating around us, particularly if it's a part of our in-group, cheating goes up. Now, if we think about this in terms of the stock market,think about what happens. What happens in a situation when you create something where you pay people a lot of money to see reality in a slightly distorted way? Would they not be able to see it this way? Of course they would. What happens when you do other things, like you remove things from money? You call them stock, or stock options, derivatives,mortgage-backed securities. Could it be that with those more distant things, it's not a token for one second, it's something that is many steps removed from money for a much longer time -- could it be that people will cheat even more? And what happens to the social environment when people see other people behave around them? I think all of those forces worked in a very bad way in the stock market.
Please feel free to share this post with three of your friends.
It may explain the mechanics of why usury became "interest" and became acceptable in Western countries, and what Moslems should watch for as Islam struggles with the question of usury.
If people are made to recall ten commandments, if if they are not believers, they are less likely to cheat. This certainly supports the idea that the Lawgiver reminded us of what he wrote on our hearts when he made us.
Here is from the transcripts:
Think about the following intuition. How bad would you feel about taking a pencil from work home, compared to how bad would you feel about taking 10 cents from a petty cash box?
and
So, what have we learned from this about cheating? We've learned that a lot of people can cheat. They cheat just by a little bit. When we remind people about their morality, they cheat less. When we get bigger distance from cheating, from the object of money, for example, people cheat more. And when we see cheating around us, particularly if it's a part of our in-group, cheating goes up. Now, if we think about this in terms of the stock market,think about what happens. What happens in a situation when you create something where you pay people a lot of money to see reality in a slightly distorted way? Would they not be able to see it this way? Of course they would. What happens when you do other things, like you remove things from money? You call them stock, or stock options, derivatives,mortgage-backed securities. Could it be that with those more distant things, it's not a token for one second, it's something that is many steps removed from money for a much longer time -- could it be that people will cheat even more? And what happens to the social environment when people see other people behave around them? I think all of those forces worked in a very bad way in the stock market.
Please feel free to share this post with three of your friends.
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