Originally Posted by
Jughed
A different perspective - many of us are saying what we would do or wouldn't do - but have never been remotely close to his situation.
I feel that is a salient point. One that I'll add my own spin to.
When I look around the world for other examples of Lance-esque behavior, I see it from politicians, celebrities, athletes, and the wealthy (Eppstein?). It seems that any *****apien endowed with significant power has a greatly increased probability of being or
becoming a self serving, manipulative, bully. This seems to human nature. As such, I feel that those of us who have never wielded anything close to Lance-esque levels of power make dubious judges of his moral decision making.
There's a band of bonobo chimps in Africa that picked a plot of land so productive that:
1) They can collect their daily calories in a couple of hours, leaving massive amounts of time available for leisure.
2) Their infant mortality rate is actually
lower than that of the nearest human settlement.
So what do these bonobos do with all that leisure time? The high status chimps use it to torment the low status chimps. Statistically, if you're a bonobo and you have a miserable life, that is so because another bonobo has taken it upon himself to bring that outcome about.
Humans behaving badly isn't just a feature of modern living. It was a feature of prehistoric living that persists to this day.
I sympathize with Lance because,
truly, I do not believe that I am morally superior to Lance. Given that, it would be hypocritical of me
not to sympathize with Lance.