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Be careful that you don't say "the incentives are bad :(" as an easy out. "The incentives!" might be an infohazard, promoting a sophisticated sounding explanation for immoral behavior:

If you find yourself unable to do your job without regularly engaging in practices that clearly devalue the very science you claim to care about, and this doesn’t bother you deeply, then maybe the problem is not actually The Incentives—or at least, not The Incentives alone. Maybe the problem is You.
~ No, it’s not The Incentives—it’s you

The lesson extends beyond science to e.g. Twitter conversations where you're incentivized to sound snappy and confident and not change your mind publicly.

1Drake Morrison2y

I'm fond of saying, "your ethics are only opinions until it costs you to uphold them"

6Dentosal2y

I'd go a step beyond this: merely following incentives is amoral. It's the default. In a sense, moral philosophy discusses when and how you should go against the incentives. Superhero Bias resonates with this idea, but from a different perspective.

merely following incentives is amoral. It's the default.

Seems to me that people often miss various win/win opportunities in their life, which could make the actual human default even worse than following the incentives. On the other hand, they also miss many win/lose opportunities, maybe even more frequently.

I guess we could make a "moral behavior hierarchy" like this:

Level 1: Avoid lose/lose actions. Don't be an idiot.
Level 2: Avoid win/lose actions. Don't be evil.
Level 3: Identify and do win/win actions. Be a highly functioning citizen.
Level 4: Identify

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