How Plato Foresaw Facebook’s Folly; The New York Times, November 16, 2018

Bret Stephens, Opinion Columnist, The New York Times; How Plato Foresaw Facebook’s Folly

[Kip Currier: A must-read opinion piece by Bret Stephens. Bookmark and pass on to others! 

Facebook's interminable ethics failures and catastrophic abdication of any semblance of moral leadership offer glaring case studies for the essential role of ethical decision-making and accountability in organizations--not only in the technology sector but in ALL areas of civic life.

Moreover, where is Facebook’s Board amidst this moral morass? If corporate leaders will not “do the right things”, it is ethically incumbent upon Boards of Trustees to exercise the moral oversight and fiduciary responsibility with which they have been entrusted.]

"The story of the wildly exaggerated promises and damaging unintended consequences of technology isn’t exactly a new one. The real marvel is that it constantly seems to surprise us. Why? 

Part of the reason is that we tend to forget that technology is only as good as the people who use it. We want it to elevate us; we tend to degrade it. In a better world, Twitter might have been a digital billboard of ideas and conversation ennobling the public square. We’ve turned it into the open cesspool of the American mind. Facebook was supposed to serve as a platform for enhanced human interaction, not a tool for the lonely to burrow more deeply into their own isolation.

It’s also true that Facebook and other Silicon Valley giants have sold themselves not so much as profit-seeking companies but as ideal-pursuing movements. Facebook’s mission is “to make the world more open and connected.” Tesla’s goal is “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” Google’s mantra was “Don’t Be Evil,” at least until it quietly dropped the slogan earlier this year. 

But the deeper reason that technology so often disappoints and betrays us is that it promises to make easy things that, by their intrinsic nature, have to be hard...

Start over, Facebook. Do the basics. Stop pretending that you’re about transforming the state of the world. Work harder to operate ethically, openly and responsibly. Accept that the work will take time. Log off Facebook for a weekend. Read an ancient book instead."

A Stanford psychologist on the art of avoiding assholes; Vox, August 7, 2018

Sean Illing, Vox; A Stanford psychologist on the art of avoiding assholes

"Sean Illing

Before we can talk about surviving assholes, we need a proper definition of assholery. Can you give me one?

Robert Sutton

There are a lot of academic definitions, but here’s how I define it: An asshole is someone who leaves us feeling demeaned, de-energized, disrespected, and/or oppressed. In other words, someone who makes you feel like dirt.

Sean Illing

So an asshole is someone who doesn’t care about other people?

Robert Sutton

I would make a distinction between temporary and certified assholes, because all of us under the wrong conditions can be temporary assholes. I'm talking about somebody who is consistently this way, who consistently treats other people this way. I think it’s more complicated than simply saying an asshole is someone who doesn’t care about other people. In fact, some of them really do care — they want to make you feel hurt and upset, they take pleasure in in...

Sean Illing

Plato famously argued in The Republic that a tyrant, however powerful, ultimately suffers in the end by corrupting his own soul. You make a similar argument about assholes — that they might win at life but still fail as human beings.

Robert Sutton

Wow, I've never heard the Plato connection. That’s not a question I expect to hear from a journalist, but I guess that’s the former political theorist speaking. I have to say, I love that connection. We know that assholes have a corrosive effect on the people around them. There are longitudinal studies that demonstrate pretty clearly that people who, for example, work under assholes for many years end up being more depressed, more anxious, and less healthy.

So there’s compelling evidence that assholes are terrible human beings who do harm to other people. I think the way you described Plato’s analogy is far more elegant than anything I could say. 

At the end of the day, if you’re an asshole, you’re a failure as a human being because you promote unnecessary suffering. What else is there to say?"

Corporate Ethics Can’t Be Reduced to Compliance; Harvard Business Review, 4/29/16

Peter Rea, Alan Kolp, Wendy Ritz, Michelle D. Steward, Harvard Business Review; Corporate Ethics Can’t Be Reduced to Compliance:

"So what can a company do to excel ethically? Instead of focusing on the poor choices you want employees to avoid, focus on the positive virtues you want them to exhibit.

Plato emphasized a virtue-based system of ethics 2,400 years ago in his Academy. The philosopher believed that virtues were best encouraged through questions and discussions rather than through statements and proclamations. In other words, we learn ethics in conversation with others.

So rather than getting together with senior managers to craft a “values statement,” corporate leaders should instead foster a series of structured conversations between leaders at all levels and their teams. The goal of these conversations should be to develop a common language to help frame examples of how people live out the organization’s values or classical virtues. This is inherently a social process — virtue is learned, not inherited. Leaders are already teachers of their culture, whether they are aware of it or not, so they should ask themselves how they can teach it better.

Here are questions for each of the seven classical virtues that companies can use to shape these conversations and shift their focus from complying with the rules to excelling ethically."