As they say: the scum rises to the top, true for academia, politics etc, any organization really.

Quote: "The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Do Nothing"

My own nuanced take on it:

Incompetent people are quick to grab authority and power. On the other hand principled, competent people are reluctant to take on positions of authority and power even when offered. For these people positions of power a)have connotations of a tyrant b) are uninteresting. (i.e technical problems are more interesting) . Also the reluctance of principled people to form coalitions to keep out the cheaters, because they are a divided bunch themselves exacerbates the problem, where as the cheaters often can collude together (temporarily) to achieve their nefarious goals.

Those you'd want to lead recognize leadership is a responsibility often times marked by personal sacrifice.

Those you'd never want to lead mostly regard leadership as a privilege used for personal gain.

> Those you'd want to lead recognize leadership is a responsibility often times marked by personal sacrifice.

True. It's not a coincidence that they say: it's very lonely* up there.

There are some ways around this, but they are not easy, and perhaps even impossible.

(*=ironically and paradoxically,the cruelest dictator is also a very lonely person)

Loneliness causes suffering, and suffering does inhibit empathy, or so I read once in a pop sci recounting of a study. It would also make sense that a lack of empathy feeds back into the loneliness by harming relationships. Cyclic determinism, why are you everywhere in life?

I would add c) often entail incalculable risk for any who aren't already corrupt enough to be climbing into bed with other evil powers or blackmailing, extorting, or exploiting their way into a safe haven and a golden parachute.

Who willingly remains vulnerable before the Sword of Damocles?

That is a very astute observation. Unfortunately a situation like that cannot be fixed.

Only an organization that is built ground up, which NEVER compromises on the quality of people, as they grow, is the only way out. This is easier said than done, because this often means that people who build organizations, will have to spend nearly 100% of their time looking and screening potential candidates for 'leadership' positions. What generally happens is that when organizations grow they have to hire people in order to keep business running, and they often compromise.

Now there is a way out of this problem, if the founders of an organization are rich. In which case they can spend 100% of their time screening candidates, without having to worry about growing the business. But even this task is not easy, as one can often go on for years before one finds a candidate who has sufficient integrity, wisdom and intelligence, and perhaps most importantly willing to exercise power/authority when needed.

You could improve the situation by incentivizing people to identify cheaters and prove their cheating. If being a successful cheater-hunter was a good career, the field would become self-policing.

This approach opens its own can of worms (you don't want to overdo it and create a paranoid police-state-like structure), but so far, we have way too little self-policing in science, and the first attempts (like Data Colada) are very controversial among their peers.

Anything not Forbidden is Compulsory.

And thus we have the Earth. Where all looks like a broken MMO in every direction. Everybody refuses to participate, because it's 100% griefers, yet nobody can leave.

Business: Can you get a law written to command the economy to give you money or never suffer punishments? Intel fabs (https://reason.com/2024/03/20/federal-handout-to-intel-will-...), Tesla dealers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_US_dealership_disputes), Uber taxis (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2022/jul/10/uber-files-leak...), ect... Are you wealthy enough there's nothing "normals" can really do? EBay intimidation scandal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EBay_stalking_scandal).

Economic Academia: Harvard Prof. Gino (https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/4/11/harvard-busines...)

Materials Academica: Doping + Graphene = feces papers (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acsnano.9b00184) "Will Any Crap We Put into Graphene Increase Its Electrocatalytic Effect?" (Bonus joke! Crap is actually a better dopant material.)

Gaming: Roblox double cut on sales (that people mostly just argue about how enormous it is, because the math's purposely confusing) (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28247034)

Politics: Was Santos ever actually punished?

Military: The saga of the Navy, Pacific Fleet, and Fat Leonard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Leonard_scandal) "exploited the intelligence for illicit profit, brazenly ordering his moles to redirect aircraft carriers, ships and subs to ports he controlled in Southeast Asia so he could more easily bilk the Navy for fuel, tugboats, barges, food, water and sewage removal."

Work: "Loyal workers are selectively and ironically targeted for exploitation" (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00221...)

There's others, that's just already so many...

This is why cheaters should never ever ever be allowed to play again with fair players, only with cheaters

Cheaters playing with cheaters is what we have yet. The problem is not in the cheaters, is in the game that deliberately select for cheaters.