The the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and the temporoparietal junction (TPJ) both play roles in this. Not a neuroscientist, just going on my own reading.
Systems Thinking provides a holistic view of the interactions contributing to an outcome expressed as
a Causal Loop Diagram (CLD). The CLD developed using Systems Thinking shows the full complexity of the problem at hand, and then simplifications are necessary to create a working quantitative System Dynamics simulation. Figure 1 was developed based on 43 in-depth interviews and 155 survey interviews with government officials, aid agencies, civil society organizations, business people, lawyers, and the general public in Pakistan. It shows the complete set of relationships considered to represent the problem of
corruption in a nation.
In the CLD, connections with directed arrows imply that a change in the tail variable leads to a change in the variable at the head of the arrow. An arrow labelled with polarity ‘+’ means changes in the same direction. Increasing the tail variable increases the head variable, and decreasing the tail variable decreases the head variable.
On the other hand, ‘-’ implies changes in the opposite direction. For example, increasing the tail variable decreases the head variable, and decreasing the tail variable increases the head variable.
These connections create highly non-linear behaviour because feedback loops develop where a change in one variable in the model will ripple through the cause-and-effect structure to return to its source and either reinforce or inhibit the change.
The reinforcing feedback loop is labelled with an ‘R’ and inhibiting or balancing feedback loops with a ‘B’.
Connecting these loops often leads to emergent and unexpected behaviours in the system.
Also Lord Acton - “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.”
Acton was, by the way, an ardent supporter of the Confederacy. In his opinion, the federal government curtailing the independence of states was a more significant act of oppression than slavery.
If you're familiar with English history, then it's more understandable that Lord Acton (Catholic, and born a mere Baronet) was against powerful central authorities.
And at least according to Wikipedia, Acton's positions on the Confederacy and slavery were very mainstream for English Catholics of the day.
Yeah, and he didn't like the outcome. Salient quote (from a letter to Robert E. Lee):
"I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy. The institutions of your Republic have not exercised on the old world the salutary and liberating influence which ought to have belonged to them, by reason of those defects and abuses of principle which the Confederate Constitution was expressly and wisely calculated to remedy. I believed that the example of that great Reform would have blessed all the races of mankind by establishing true freedom purged of the native dangers and disorders of Republics. Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization; and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo. "
There are several lies in this. The objective of a Confederate victory was to enforce slavery farther south. Mexico was a few years away from collapsing. Brazil would emancipate within 20 years. Would the Confederacy last 20 years as the last slave state in the western hemisphere?
Slavery would not have lasted, as the mechanization and industrialization of agriculture would soon make slave ownership uneconomical. Same with draft animals.
Whining about States rights to enslave people is certainly a take.
Particularly when in context, the war was caused by the South acting to usurp abolition in the North via the legal system (i.e. Dredd Scott https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott)
The importance and applicability of "states rights" is always oddly narrow.
You need only look at the bureaucracies in countries which rank high on the corruption index. Most join to just earn a livelihood but are soon "socialized into corruption".
Per R. Klitgaard corruption will occur if the corrupt gain is greater than the punitive damages multiplied by the likelihood of being caught and prosecuted.
Since a high degree of monopoly and discretion accompanied by a low degree of transparency does not automatically lead to corruption, a fourth variable of "morality" or "integrity" has been introduced by others. The moral dimension has an intrinsic component and refers to a "mentality problem", and an extrinsic component referring to circumstances like poverty, inadequate remuneration, inappropriate work conditions and inoperable or over-complicated procedures which demoralize people and let them search for "alternative" solutions.
The references section has lots of links for further study of which Robert Klitgaard's Controlling Corruption is a classic with case studies.
One thing i would like to know more of is how Technology either reduces or exacerbates corruption.
With corruption, one needs to look at the overall system i.e. involving Society/Individual/Economics/Politics/Organizations/Processes/Technologies/etc. rather than narrow silos.
On the whole, i feel technology has been a corruption mitigater since it reduces the human factor (i.e. the motivation/cause) from the process chain. This has been validated in my own personal experience.
On the flip side, when used by people-in-control it concentrates power in the hands of the few and its non-linear disproportionate effects can exacerbate the problem tremendously eg. various Internet based scams.
And therein lies the tragedy of folks exploiting well known culturally loaded symbols/concepts for attention/etc. on the Internet.
For example, I really don't know what to make of this similarly named language; enthusiastic kid or attention-seeking influencer? - https://omlang.com/
No, i think character traits like _excessive_ arrogance/humility are a marker of something different from the norm. If often means that the person is an outlier (in +ve i.e. "better" or -ve i.e. "worse" directions) from the mediocre mean. So in many cases it can indicate an higher intelligence/ability/expertise particularly in the hard sciences. The caveat is that many mediocre charlatans often manipulate this for their own benefit/ego and social status.
See also:
Politics and the English Language by George Orwell- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Langu...
Newspeak by George Orwell - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak
Verbal Behaviour by B.F.Skinner - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbal_Behavior
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