I actually believe the power networks that matter are made up of people who can afford honesty and magnanimity, and that gossips never make it above being minor gatekeepers.

Low stakes players sometimes get to sit at high stakes tables, and sometimes they take out a high stakes player from that round, but they go bust pretty fast.

But a posture of honesty appears too expensive even for the Chinese ruling party; how much more power do you need?

Not a good example, Communism abrogates spirituality. It's intrinsically barren and illegitimate. The CCP, founded on a lie, can never afford the truth. And, indeed, we find them trying to maintain a fabricated history to maintain their power. (The "incident" in the Square, the name of Taiwan, and so on.)

Generally, there is a correlation between personal power and integrity.

Not sure why you got downvoted. It's an honest observation.

Maybe it's worth stating that I consider myself pro-China. I'm anti-communist. If anything I'm a bit of a Sinophile. IMO the Tao Te Ching is one of the greatest books in the world, for example.

Whisper networks are less-powerful people warning each other about more-powerful people. People with power don't need to hide their communications so much because they are less vulnerable.

Have we learned nothing from Wikileaks? Quite the contrary! People with power rely on private/secret communications. And, without power, what is there to communicate, for what you say likely has no value.

I am reminded of Napoleon's dictum: "the secret of war lies in the communications". Sun Tzu would disagree as well, having well documented the value of secrets and spies.

"(private) knowledge is power."

Sure but I've never heard one of those referred to as a whisper network.

> People with power don't need to hide their communications so much because they are less vulnerable.

That's a dangerously naive way of thinking about communications.

People were shocked when the news about Weinstein "came out" but tons of people already knew about it. It was blatant but he was untouchable.

He is a good man to know in the business, but just be careful around him.

With Weinstein’s prompting, one of the other women attempted to convince Skidmore to participate in sex acts

I told people on the boat. I told people at the dinner I was at. Everybody was like, ‘Oh, that’s just Harvey.’

I had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in my youth, and as a result, chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did

Weinstein Company employee Lauren O’Connor later detailed Weinstein’s alleged harassment of Nestor in an internal memo obtained by the Times.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/10/harvey-weinstei...

I want you to know that of all the girls he does this to you are the one I really felt bad about. https://medium.com/bullies-assholes-i-have-known/harvey-wein...