@@AvangionQ Not at all. In fact, if you Google quotes you come across, you'll quickly find that a disturbing number of them tend to be misattributed, if not outright fraudulent.
Just use Julius Caesar's solution. In his triumphal parade upon returning to Rome, the story goes that he had a slave stand behind him, repeatedly whispering in his ear "You are just a man".
@@3nertia, it's not really ironic as it was an intentional device to encourage humility. A slave was the perfect choice as he was not deemed a man but property and thus was expected to have more humility. He wasn't really being bold by telling Caesar that because he was told to do so. The slave is merely obeying his master and thus is still being humble. He is repeating a message to remind Caesar that he is not a god who may abuse his power as he wishes but a man who may face consequences for his actions and cannot conquer all he desires.
This reminds me of my time in the U.S. Army. When I was in Basic Training, the drill sergeants always ate last in the dining facility. After Basic, when the unit ate together, higher-ranking Soldiers (NCOs and officers) always ate last. One of the seven Army Values is "Selfless Service" (to the nation and to others). The horribly written but well-meaning Creed of the Non-commissioned Officer has the following statements: "I will not use my grade or position to attain pleasure, profit, or personal safety." and "I know my Soldiers and I will always place their needs above my own." I think the Army has done a pretty good job of taking these values statements and transferring them into the actual culture of the Army. From what I experienced, that's really how Army leaders act (at least in the SGT to 1SG ranks).
I've noticed lately (over the last 10 years maybe) that those with a little power (assistant manager, pharmacy tech, security guard, etc.) are more likely to try to wield that power in ways that negatively impact others. Is it just me? I was thinking that it might be because the economy sucks for the working and lower middle class, and people feel helpless. So when they get a little power over others, they may be more likely to take advantage of the situation to feel like they have control over SOMETHING. But maybe I've just been unfortunate in my personal dealings with these people.
People who feel powerless can't directly attack their "oppressors." By definition, their oppressors are quite willing and able to destroy them physically, socially, and/or financially. The impotent anger and rage has to go somewhere, and -- too often -- that anger and rage are directed at people who are easier targets: disenfranchised minority groups, members of out-groups, and women. That's often why you see crime, domestic violence, and racial/cultural hate crimes increase in individuals and demographics where males feel they have been "emasculated." (In Western culture "emasculation" = "earning potential.") It doesn't matter whether the emasculation is real, illusory, or delusional.
@AreaLabMen: -People can also feel powerless without being oppressed by another person (feeling powerless is not the same as *being* powerless, and even though we are all powerless to do plenty of things, that's not usually because someone else is oppressing us - unless you wish to claim that the laws of nature are oppressing us). -Feeling powerless does not necessarily result in anger and rage (consider ignorance, acceptance, depression) -If the anger and rage were impotent, then it would by definition not do anything (impotent = powerless) -Why are you saying that women are, without qualification, easier targets than men? Sure women tend to be less strong than men, but there's plenty of crime that doesn't involve physically overpowering someone. -Why are you implying that only males commit crime? (I agree it's a tendency.)
@@chess123mate Howdy. First, thank you for responding. Also, I agree with your assessment with "feeling powerless" and "being powerless." That's why I stated that "It doesn't matter whether the emasculation is real, illusory, or delusional." Secondly, I was pointing out a few examples of how the feeling of powerlessness affects some people. My original post was five times as long, and it included examples of "mean girls" and powerlessness. But, I decided that it was TL; DR. Impotent rage: Impotent rage at a true oppressor is redirected at easier targets. Women: Yes, women (the elderly, children, and the disabled) -- for the most part -- are easier targets due to differences in physical strength. This does not mean that "women are helpless and need a man to protect them." It means that men (who beat women) need to keep their damned hands to themselves. Yes, there are women who are violent. C'mon...did I really have to state that explicitly. Already, this response is TL; DR. And, yes, there are many people out there who proactively deal with oppression in healthy ways. In fact, I would wager that the majority of people do, else we would have anarchy. I was simply pointing one way in which some people maladaptively deal with the feeling (real, imagined, or delusional) of being powerless. One thing about "generalizations" that I really can't stand is that others take generalizations as absolutes. And, I can't stand making initial disclamatory "remember, I am talking in generalizations" statement, as I often believe others are intelligent enough to know that I am not speaking in absolutes.
Yes, it's common wisdom that people which were powerless become awful when they start getting more power. On the contrary, people who are very powerful can learn to become emphatic and are less afraid to lose everything, so they can be more comprehensive, supportive and less competitive. Everything is relative.
I can't properly convey how much I respect people like you because RU-vid keeps filtering my comments XP Certainly it's something to be envious of to silly cowards like me lol COOCKIESZ 4EVARRRRR
They should Lock Guards I Prision Cells once every 2 weeks for 24 hours to remind them that they should treat the prisoners the way they would want to be treated
When you get too much power you end up burning a whole town with your dragon. Thankfully uncle Ben was very wise: "with great power comes great responsibility". Great Spiderman reference!
Books are knowledge, knowledge is power, power is energy, energy is mass, mass distorts spacetime. Therefore, books distort spacetime. Weird things happen in large libraries. I heard a librarian was once turned into an orangutan.
I don't think all people with power become less empathetic. I think *bad* leaders become less emphatic. People who are more interested in stroking their own ego or feeling in control than helping organise others to get a task done as pleasantly as possible. I bet Hank's a good example of a boss self-reflective enough to show empathy for those who work for him.
@@AreaLabMen exactly, the stanford prison experiment showed lack of empathy in its oppressors because the study itself appealed to students that displayed personality traits that would be more responsive when given power. Check out Vsauce's mind field episode where he proves with experiment that random individuals scoring high in morality do not abuse power regardless of the situation and having an 'absence of responsibility'
Absolutely correct. Power (political, not energy) is a not a physical object, rather it is a concept in our heads, a concept of feeling of being able to do something. It's not like power is some kind of cancer that spreads over time. That feeling is independent of a given person's needs and wishes. Power can ENABLE those wishes to become reality, but the rot has had the potential to be there that whole time.
"i've fired them all and ate the last cookie" lol love it. Though i have to say that i don't think Hank would have fired me with the rest if i was lucky (and close) enough to work at SciShow. Though only because i am the one who brings cookies to the office. I love to bake (it is a hobby that makes me happy) but don't want dozens of cookies at my house, so i look at work as my "bakery disposal service" (a outlook my coworkers all love). so i bake, keep 6-8 cookies at home and dump the rest in the breakroom. :)
I've always felt that it's less that power corrupts and more that the corrupt are more likely to seek (and get) power. I think that genuinely good people usually don't want to be in positions of real power over others.And I'm talking about real life and death type power, not "I'm the chairman of my local bookclub" type power.
One of possible reasons is that good people understand the responsibility, and taking that amount of responsibility is an immense act. It reminds me of the Dunning-Kruger effect where very incompetent people are often very vocal, and when they start to realize the actual depth of the problem their confidence diminishes. That does not apply to all people, just a trend.
I think it's one of those situations where someone who is trying to keep power from going to their head is already more likely to take these steps already. One of those "if you're worried about it, you're probably going to be okay" type situations.
2:30 I don't care if I feel powerful or not, I will write the letter E for someone to read it correctly. Years of finger-writing on very cold or damp car windows taught me this.
@@pranavlimaye seek out jobs and positions. Like politics. Business etc when you are a corrupt person. That bad peoplr choose those careers more often. And thus higher chanve of corrupt people gaining power.
I'm in the Navy, most of my superiors have taken the " everything you do is wrong and you are a worthless human being" or they've taken the "I'm going to have you do all the work but I'm going to take the credit for it and call you useless" with few good superiors sprinkled amongst them... so now that I finally am in charge, I refuse to treat my subordinates unkindly (even when they screw up) because I know what it feels like to be told you're a waste of space, and refuse to have someone losing sleep because I would rather insult them, than teach them.
Yup, definently noticed this with my school and highschool classmates, power, especially to a clueless person corrupts him like a faulty hard drive corrupting the files inside.
Well the problem is when someone wants to be a leader they want to be the coolest and kindest person but don't see the reality in leadership of maintaining structure and foundation. Being an IT sysadmin gives you great power in the company and it's important to keeps things intact and have a good structural foundation.
Glad you mentioned how the guards in the Stanford experiment were explicitly told to be cruel. It's sad the lengths some people will go to manipulate others and confirm their own beliefs
"Did the staff put that in there for a reason? Doesn't matter, I fired them all and I ate the last cookie" I've never laughed so hard at a schishow exit before!
With greater power comes greater fear of losing power and becoming average again. Fear kills (allows us to mentally wall-off) our empathy. Fear is the problem.
"it doesnt matter because I've fired them all and eaten the last cookie" image your boss making a joke like that, and than coming in to work the next day to find he's got all new employees
i think most people try to be good - and what that means depends on the context of your specific environment. i believe that is also true for people in power, may it be politicians, CEOs, departmentheads or communityleaders (there are countless examples). now, what is good for a president? what is good for a CEO? what is good for your professor as the head of a department? then comes the question of what kind of power do they have? i mean, a president as the commander in chief is the head of the armed forces and can literally make life and death decisions, directly and indirectly, both through warfare as well as through economics and laws. but his power is also more or less checked and balanced through all sorts of processes and institutions, like congress, the supreme court etc. still, the positions bears an immense power. what about a CEO of a big company? or a community leader, like a mayor or a religious or social institution. A CEO needs to think of the products, finances, customers, investors and his staff or employees. he has a board that checks and balances him. I think one of the most important things to keep in mind is, power always has its limits, may it be a tenure or a project or simply life. Therefore I would find particularly interesting in how power changes over time, when "a good leader turns bad" - or proverbially "when a revolutionary becomes a dictator" - when do they start thinking that they must not lose their power and start doing things to stay on top, so to speak.
Imagine studying greed and coming to the conclusion that it comes from the power in the world that is not fair and is lopsided socioeconomically to begin with.
Happy new year. By the volume of the content here you have the power to be a persons sole provider for online viewing without having any left over time for other opinions. You are aware of how many hours a day your platforms all add up to?
This sounds like a case of reverse causation. Those who cheat and disregard others are more likely to be attracted to and achieve power in the first place.
@@poemrider they forgot to mention if the leader actually do more work or not and since only a cookie is at stake here, it is difficult to relate it to a bigger picture, it might be worse or the opposite could be true There's too many factors and more probably all of them do matter albeit at a different rates, I think in the real world reverse causation is also not out of question At the very least we know that being aware of something will reduce the chance of the effect of it so yea I think every people with power would be at least aware of this fact
When it comes to having power, I think it only amplifies who you are. If you act without empathy when given power it simply means you were never very empathetic to begin with. But when you don't have power, you may act more empathetic due to the social structure forcing you to (if people have equal or greater power than you and you step on their toes it won't be good for you). Good leaders will show empathy and compassion when in a position of power, whereas bad leaders will think only of themselves. I also think that the group size plays a large part in how a leader acts. If the group is small then it's very easy for a leader to understand every member of the group. But if the group is much larger then the leader simply cannot get to know each individual member, which leads to the connections becoming less personal and the leader having a lesser understanding of each group member. That lesser understanding then leads to the leader simply not considering how their actions might affect individual members of the group as much, as they don't understand them so aren't in tune with what'll be an issue or not.
My opinion is that a position of power can have a bigger output for people that are corrupt. When deciding on taking a government position an honest person will only win the pay check the feeling of accomplishment and helping others but a corrupt person can get all of this + more money on the side from bribe and an addiction to the feeling of power (because even if to us they are corrupt to them they think they do good to others and only win some extra on the side because they are smarter then the honest person) . So a corrupt person has more incentive to get positions of power and overall work harder to get it because of the added benefits a corrupt person can get over a honest one.
This is so very important because it is true, power tends to corrupt, that's why it might be a better option not to have leaders, especially now that we have advanced technology of AI and blockchain, power can be placed back into the hands of all, not just the few.
How do we determine who gets power in society? Or at work? Or within a family structure? Are there people who are kept out of power that would be less abusive with it? Do we choose to put abusive personalities in power? The research on Psychopathy among CEO's seems to point to the decision making process for advancement in our world being at least partially to blame. Then again if you're going to give that much power to a single person, you can't be surprised when they use it for their own view of what is best.
IF YOU WOULD LEAD a caution We scrutinize morals, gauge ethical standards, We weigh and we balance, and proclaim the results. But the subject of the judgement isn't really being tested. The questions, and their answers, say more about us. To you who would lead, I offer advice. It's just my opinion, so I won't say it twice. Respect your differences and look for common ground. If you truly want solutions which reach a higher ground. For those who would lead in service to others, You must understand the hidden purpose of power. While power is a tool, it's more a leader's test. Because the test of a leader is in power's effect. It shapes your character, clarifies your ethics, Foretells and reveals if you'll abuse the trust. Will you resist the temptation, even when pressed? Or merely mouth the words in a pretense of being best. Power is an alloy in the crucible, From whence a leader's character flows. And the shape it will take depends on your morals, When your mettle cools in the mold. Whether solid, stable, and sturdily formed, Or weakened with impurities, amoral, malformed. A leader who believes that power exists To be exerted in demagogic control, Owns no true allegiance, Only that which they purchase, And has already failed the test. You play chicken with fate, trading fealty for pay; Treating people like chattel, then throwing them away. When they know how little you value them, It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. When you choose to lead by that example, It leads to you as the one gets set out. Power tempts the insecure, the craven and the petty. Of course bullies and the greedy are tailor made and ready. The narcissist runs slavishly to power's beck and call, While history tells the story of the haughty tyrant's fall. A weak mind can't handle it. Seduced by the lure of it. Can't manage control of it, when the wielder turns to tool. Abuse it at your peril, o ye who lack integrity. For your conceit will imprison you, and never set you free. Loyalty is a two way street, and respect is not a given. Those merits are earned in service to others, Never meant to be selfishly driven. Service to the office requires honesty. Its integrity demands accountability. Respect for the office must be justified With discernment, prudence, and humility. The best leaders know those are values you live. It's only in that way you get back what you give. To you who would lead, to that ethic be true. Because true leadership is bigger than you.
I've known quite a few very controlling and corrupt people. I could hear each of them eating and smacking their lips from across the room. They all left a mess and none of them cleaned it up. Maybe that's why I despise the sound so much.
The cookie thing is instantly relateable; however, I "take the second cookie" anytime I perceive I've done a bit more than others. Cleaning the staff kitchen after a party? I'll take another sandwich. There's also a matter of need - I take more when I'm poor and less when I'm well off (I've spent good portions of my life in both states). That would likely be factored in by the random leader selection in this case though.
