

It follows the same line of thought when you apply it economically: all people are selfish so we can’t do X.
You know that experiment where a teacher ran a thought demonstration with their class in the 50’s? Each student is supposed to run a fake company and sell fake widgets on their fake class market. In the 1950’s the students quickly realized it was a competition to race to the bottom to sell as many widgets as possible for the least amount of cost.
It’s supposed to teach supply and demand of capitalism but also teach that humans will undercut each other in competition.
A teacher ran this in a post-bachelor accounting class I was in—and my teacher got really angry because none of us were doing the behavior he was expecting.
Instead of undercutting each other, we started to work together in a group to get the work done while keeping our independence as “separate businesses.” We each built different model companies to compete but didn’t do so in a way that harmed each other.
Instead of the teacher realizing that maybe our class didn’t naturally have a selfish competitive mindset—that maybe this was also a perfectly valid reaction to the experiment—we just got told we were “doing economics wrong.”
I don’t think it’s surprising that anecdotally we find many people who insist on brimstone religion to keep people in check also believe “people won’t work” and “people are selfish and bad” when it comes to shaping economic and welfare policy. Bowling balls full of horseshit.
As a lawyer who has had meetings about our clients case hitting the news—they’re probably thinking about getting a narrative out there before the DA or some other agency does. There might not be an option to negotiate not talking to the media. This isn’t normal everywhere though.
As they say: If the facts aren’t on your side, pound the law. If the law isn’t on your side, pound the table.
I think the lawyer is pounding the table. It’s ok to hate lawyers for this. We will still defend you if you get in trouble even if you deservedly hate us haha