IG NOBEL ECONOMICS PRIZE 2026 [USA, MEXICO, CANADA] Paul Piff, Daniel Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Dacher Keltner, for amassing evidence that upper class people are more likely to snatch from a children’s supply of candy, and engage in other kinds of unethical behavior.
REFERENCE: “Higher Social Class Predicts Increased Unethical Behavior,” Paul K. Piff, Daniel M. Stancato, Stéphane Côté, Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton, and Dacher Keltner, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 109, no. 11, 2012, pp. 4086-4091. <doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1118373109> WHO ATTENDED THE CEREMONY: Paul Piff
it isn’t though.
it’s that when you accumulate power and privileged… you tend to be more likely to exercise it indiscriminately, because temptation to do so is strong and the consequences lesser.
i know people who grew up poor and became rich… it was only after they were rich… for awhile, after their hedonistic treadmill had readjusted, that they became greedier and greedier and more sociopathic.
it’s a basic facet of human psychology you have backwards. when you don’t have power over others… you can’t abuse them. when you do have power over others, you can.
that doesn’t mean the powerless are good, it just means they have less opportunity to be evil. and there are plenty of powerful folks who aren’t evil.
I think it’s simpler then that. Humans are social animals. We keep each other accountable. If individuals reach a point where they have no peers who will shame them for being antisocial shitheads they’ll escalate. But that’s a double edged sword. Being social animals means when the rich surround themselves with sycophantic ass kissers they don’t get the socialization they need. It’s why they are all miserable lonely cunts.
I’m not sure what world you live in, but nobody gets held accountable who can avoid being held accountable. And that’s… true for everyone. Everyone is trying to avoid accountability all the time. People who seek accountability are rare.
Like, have you ever had a job or been in a school? Everyone blames somebody else for their issues. Very few folks say ‘it was my fault I failed the test/project’.
Hell most of our social structures are specifically design to avoid accountability.