Only twice have I opened ChatGPT for a reason that had nothing to do with producing something, even if it was how to fix the hum in my fridge or interpret blood test results.
The first time was to explore the Israel and Palestine conflict after observing some heated debate at a networking dinner.
The second time was today. With a pile of more important things to do, I opened ChatGPT and typed this prompt.
Keep in mind, I started this conversation entirely in my inside voice. I had no idea this would become the topic of today’s One Thing Thursday.
But here we are.
“What’s up with these rich, famous men and sexually deviant behaviour? It feels like if you think you can get away with it, you do it. Gross.”
How can you not think about this lately?
The Epstein files are everywhere. After the reckoning of Bill Cosby, and what feels like daily revelations about other powerful men who tolerated or participated in abusive behaviour, it’s hard to ignore.
I’ve started thinking about people I admire in some way, for their intelligence, their accomplishments, the good things they seem to be doing in the world, and literally catching myself thinking:
Please don’t be in ‘the files’.
And so the logic follows….
Are people inherently bad?
If someone can get away with something, will they do it?
Until recently, I’ve lived with the belief, idealistic as it may be, that most humans are mostly good. Well-intentioned people who mess up sometimes, but at their core… decent.
And now, I don’t know where to put this sad, disillusioned idealist every time my New York Times feed launches another story into my consciousness.
So I decided to talk to ChatGPT about it.
Of course, the responsible robot reminded me to be careful not to generalize. Of course, I pushed back.
Because it doesn’t feel like an exception anymore. It looks like a pattern.
So I asked the question at the heart of it.
What does this say about human beings? About power?
I remember my grade 10 history teacher quoting Voltaire: Absolute power corrupts absolutely. I can’t remember his name, but I remember his Roman nose, the way he joked that it roamed all over his face.
Funny what sticks. Mr….gah! Can’t remember.
Back to the question. What are ordinary people capable of when their situation changes?
There are two studies that explored exactly this.
The first is the Milgram experiment. It showed that ordinary people were willing to administer what they believed were painful electric shocks to another person, simply because an authority figure told them to.
The second is the Stanford Prison Experiment. A group of students were placed into a simulated prison environment and assigned roles as guards and prisoners. The guards began to act in ways that became abusive. The study escalated fast enough that it had to be stopped early.
Both studies have been debated and criticized over the years. But the insight holds true.
Context matters. Power. Roles. Incentives. Consequences.
The presence of authority. The absence of accountability. And when the context changes, people change.
We’d be missing the point if we thought this moment is just about a few powerful and bad actors.
The right question is what human beings are capable of when the conditions are right.
And if that’s true, then maybe the takeaway isn’t to spend all our energy gawking at the latest public downfall.
Maybe the takeaway is to look at the context we’re living in and the context we’re creating.
At work. At home. In leadership. In our teams.
What do we reward? What do we tolerate?
Who feels safe challenging power?Who gets a free pass because they’re successful, influential, or “too important”?
If context shapes behavior, then we should probably be more intentional about the conditions we create.
For people to do good, we have to protect a few things:
We foster a challenge culture. People need to feel safe questioning authority, raising concerns, and saying, “This isn’t okay.”
We build guardrails around ego. None of us are immune to applause.
We treat character as a requirement, not a bonus. How someone behaves when no one is watching counts.
We reduce power imbalances. No one person should have unchecked influence, unchecked access, or unchecked control. No one should be beyond question.
We stop worshipping exceptional people. The pedestal is where standards go to die. Success is not proof of virtue.
We are either building environments that support integrity, or environments that allow people to drift.
My original question was the wrong one.
It’s not about the bad people. It’s about what happens to ordinary people when their circumstances change.
We need to stop relying on people to be good, and start creating contexts that make it easier to do the right thing.
Because if history has taught us anything, it’s that when guardrails disappear, the worst parts of human nature don’t take long to show up.
Power is like a campfire. Useful. Necessary. Without containment, it becomes a forest fire.
The only difference: Context.
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Mary
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