And especially provocative given how much of cooperation (or morality, if you want to call it that) requires thinking through iterative prisoners' dilemmas (see author's comments about "recursion")
2\ The exciting crimes we're used to in the US often come down to some subtle mistake
Oh, the micro fiber! Oh, he forgot to use a VPN!
But there's an entire understory of crime that is unimaginably stupid in the sense of being literally unimaginable to an average person
Eg...
3\ My father in law (not in the US) used to manage a furniture store whose floor staff were around 70 IQ
One of my favorite stories is about a cashier who was "stealing" using something similar to the Arrested Development banana stand scheme...
4\ When a customer paid cash, the cashier would pocket the cash, then use her *own* credit card to ring the sale
It wasn't some clever way of getting a cash advance, and she didn't plan to just not pay the account
She was genuinely mystified when caught!
5\ Related, but on the other end of the IQ spectrum, apparently Ted Bundy was surprised when caught to learn that numerous people had given eye witness accounts of him
To a man who viewed people as cattle, it seemed surprising that any of the cattle would have noticed him
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Every time POTUS wants to start a war, he should have to get all the governors together in a drafty castle and grovel until one of them steps forward and starts a slow clap
1\ BofA was started by Italian immigrants, who figured out that by *discriminating* between Northern and Southern Italians (whom US lenders couldn't tell apart), they could lend to the good Northern credits
2\ Thus, the one-time biggest bank in the world succeeded because they figured out how to make finer and finer distinctions between individuals, which had a "disparate impact" on Southern Italians
But the alternative was no loans for any Italian immigrants. It was a win!
3\ Thanks to the Civil Rights Acts, "disparate impacts" are now illegal. E.g. a company asking about criminal history will incur the ire of the EEOC, because of the disparate impact on blacks
So a rational company just pulls out of black areas, leaving deserving blacks worse off
Government is always happy to take up the banner of a new religion. It has been on every single side of the Gender & Sports issue, except the principled side of "not our business":
1\ It's odd: the collective kabuki dance in which we all pretend to be fragile and afraid of giving or taking offense
Meanwhile, we thrill to the Hollywood trope of "comfortable American place": the black barbershop, the construction site, the police precinct locker room