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

  • Miller@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    Very little wealth is created, it is more commonly amassed by taking it from others and more importantly it is hoarded by an ability in the individual to override the feelings of immorality that arise from seeing the effects of its grossly uneven distribution. This coarse lack of empathy is scalable and holds from impoverishing entire societies to stealing candy from babies.

    • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      a lot of rich people are rich because that way you don’t have to see any affects of a lack of wealth.

      that’s the point. that’s why they social isolate themselves in gated communities and exclusive resorts.

      being subject to having to look at poor people suffering is a thing only poor people have to suffer.

      your idea that rich people have ‘feelings of immorality’ makes me laugh, because you clearly dont’ know any rich people, they don’t have these feelings at all. that 'feeling 'is a projection of the poor onto the wealthy who think they know how the wealthier live and feel… you don’t. they live in another plane of existence and the concept of ‘uneven distribution’ doesn’t exist to them.

      you can’t care about stealing candy from babies if you don’t even know the babies exist. that’s the element you are missing.

      • Miller@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        TittyFrog, or perhaps if I could call you Titty, I cannot accept your analysis, I was very clearly making the point that a greatly atrophied morality was one of the primary prerequisites to the accumulation of a superabundance of wealth. Physical removal from poverty is minor Titty compared to the cognitive removal.

        • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
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          10 days ago

          you realize rich people are human beings right?

          they aren’t aliens from another planet. they have all the same emotions and desires as you do. they just have more money than you do, so they have more ability to fulfill their desires.

          It’s ironic, you expect them to have empathy for you, but you have none for them. You here, demonstrate yourself, that you have ‘othered’ them, and yet you think they shouldn’t ‘other’ people who aren’t rich.

          Why do you do this? because you are cognitively removed from knowing wealthy people and they exist entirely in your imagination as these psychopathic monsters. further, I doubt you have any more empathy for the impoverished in Africa, than they do.

          • Miller@lemmy.world
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            10 days ago

            You think people all have an identical range of emotions and innate responses, but I mistook you for a different sort of mind, so that is enough of that.

  • betanumerus@lemmy.ca
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    10 days ago

    The problem with higher classes is they keep exploring the limits of what they can do, and start treating other classes like how humans generally treat animals.

  • lemmy_outta_here@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    Why would this deserve an Ig Nobel prize? The implications of this study are important and highly relevant to the social predicament that western societies face. This is science getting directly to the root of the problem with humanity. If we want to hand out prizes ridiculing useless science, maybe consider baldness treatments etc. (hats already exist).

    • RobotsLeftHand@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      The stated goal of the Ig Nobel prize is to highlight science that first makes people laugh then makes them think. Its not the razzies. Its not laughing at science its having fun with it.

  • andallthat@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    Practice beats theory in ethical behavior too. I grew comfortably in a house with very woke principles (before “woke” was turned into a pejorative). My partner just grew up in a large, poor family.

    She is a much better person than I am.

    “Those candies are for the children” for her is now like muscle memory. Her instinct, carved by years in a big family, is to mentally count the children and the candies in the jar and to split the candies in two if there are more children than candies. Because that’s what her elders used to do for her as a child.

    For me it’s more hit and miss. I do a lot of things semi-consciously before I can stop to think “oh, those were supposed to be for the children”. I do know the theory. In theory I am not a bad person, I promise.

  • eareetator@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    I’ve been snatching from kids candy jars forever. So when does the upper class bank account show up?

  • TrackinDaKraken@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    “Upper class” AKA filthy rich.

    And, it’s no surprise at all. Greed, apathy, and selfishness all increase the more money/power one acquires. But, before that, no one gets rich by giving anything away, ever.