The contrast between this post and lsusr’s rejoinder reminds me of the Objectivist idea that success within the system always corrupts (to put it in LW terminology, you can’t feed Moloch without feeding Moloch), and of Moral Mazes:
Its thesis is that this is the result of a vicious cycle arising from competitive pressures among those competing for their own organizational advancement. Over time, those who focus more on and more value such competitions win them, gain power and further spread their values, unless they are actively and continuously opposed.
Once things get bad in an organization they tend to only get worse, but things in general get better because such organizations then decay and are replaced by new ones. Unfortunately, our society now slows or prevents that process, with these same organizations and their values increasingly running the show.
Investment and flexibility become impossible. Even appearing to care about anything except the competition itself costs you your allies. Thus things inevitably decay and then collapse, flexibility returns, cycle repeats.
Involvement with such patterns is far more destructive to humans than is commonly known.
The contrast between this post and lsusr’s rejoinder reminds me of the Objectivist idea that success within the system always corrupts (to put it in LW terminology, you can’t feed Moloch without feeding Moloch), and of Moral Mazes: