Human Optimization

I was having a discussion and the issue of assholes came up. That is, humans deciding to abuse their privileges, be it authority or access, in order to have personal gain or satisfaction. My friend proposed that nobody was truly an asshole by nature, but is encouraged by the system (or circumstances) to exhibit asshole conduct.

I found the idea intriguing, because indeed abuse is only possible should an affordance exist. For example, I am unlikely to wrongfully arrest someone if I am not invested with the authoritative powers of a police officer. However, there is little question about the desirability of asshole conduct: to those who know right from wrong in a context, the decision tends towards whatever they might deem to be right at the moment. The assumption here is that asshole conduct is not done in a vaccuum out of purely malicious intent.

It occurred to me, however, that asshole conduct is actually a form of situational optimization. That is, if an affordance for personal gain is made available, it is in fact sub-optimal to pursue the "right" path. Take for example white collar criminals. While they are wrongdoers in the eyes of the law, they are also self-optimizing individuals because they spotted a flaw in their respective systems and wilfully exploited them.

Interestingly, the implication is that the morals we are ingrained with are measures of artificial de-optimization to inhibit the maximal exploitation of available opportunities. In a less than optimal enforcement environment, it is actually more desirable to inhibit self-optimizing behavior lest the whole system descend into chaos.