gentle/kind souls don't usually want to be CEOs/leaders and accept that stress and risk. People who are cutthroat and willing to step on other people to get ahead DO want to be CEOs.

such is life

Sorry but we live in a country that has rules and regulations for what CEOs and leaders do - regardless of how "cutthroat" they are. Their ambitions do not forgive their transgressions, and we have no obligation to accept that as "life". I do not see such behavior to be the essence of life, and I find it concerning you're so willing to accept it as the natural order.

Do we really have that sort of system, though? This company and its former CEO just got fined just shy of $1M combined. Is that a deterrent or an added cost of doing business? I think it's the latter.

And I wonder how much the SEC spent in manpower to arrive at this outcome. I can't really remember the last time any of their enforcement actions ended up as anything significant.

We as a civilization are two missed meals away from chaos. When that happens, there will be those who eat and those who starve.

Laws are just there to compress the variance of outcomes. Where as in the past you would've starved, today you just struggle to get by.

There is a long storied past of humans banding together. The "kill or be killed" narrative is just a narrative.

Any examination of sociology, anthropology, and history shows a rich, long history of humans helping each other through peril, banding together in the toughest of times, and cooperating. It is by far our most recognizable trait as a species, and it appears in isolation whenever humans are together. I do not buy that there is some primitive animal culture that we will revert to if the Internet went down. There are humans who have never experienced "civilization", and they do not live in chaos and evil so I don't buy your argument at all.