Perhaps we've heard a different number of stories. Have you ever watched a 'monster of the week' type television show in its third, fourth, maybe fifth season? Come to the realization that the plot points, the progression, all sketch a common framework from beginning to end?
I've known a lot of people in my life, I have watched a number of careers start, peak, and end. After a while you recognize them when you see them. Did you read any of the Jason Leher coverage? Did you follow the follies of Shirley Hornstein?
The common thread is that someone lowers the integrity cut-off bar on their own behavior for what seem to be perfectly justifiable reasons, and it works out better than they anticipated. That knowledge eats that them until they do it again, and again, and again.
I observed Maria Popova's story, from the perspective of ever decreasing levels of integrity, reads just like that. I don't know how her story will end up of course, sometimes people pull out of it and get themselves back into the right as it were.
I'm curious why you consider that observation sensationalist. Is it because I asserted it is widely applicable across a variety of people and situations, or something else? Is it sensationalist to say that a dropped apple falls because of gravity and that same principle keeps the moon in orbit?
The problem with your prediction is that you assume what she is doing is lowering her integrity, and the criteria you are using to determine this is entirely your own.
Seriously? Comparing the author of a blog who solicits donations as well as uses affiliate links to someone who falsified their employment history and photoshopped their head into pictures with celebrities? And then you extrapolate those few datapoints you have to represent everyone who has ever "lowered" (by your standards, of course) their integrity?
> I'm curious why you consider that observation sensationalist.
Comparing a blog author using affiliate links to a truck driver abusing drugs or an athlete using steroids is pretty sensationalist. Those examples bring a bunch of extra baggage: a truck driver abusing cocaine is driving impaired and doing something incredibly illegal.
"The problem with your prediction is that you assume what she is doing is lowering her integrity, and the criteria you are using to determine this is entirely your own."
I'm going to assume you actually read the article. In that article Ms. Propova espouses to The Guardian the need for journalistic independence, she labels her site 'advertising free" and she uses ads in the form of referral links to support her web site.
When presented with the difference between what she was saying and what she was doing, she dissembles and rationalizes affiliate links as not being advertising. She knows that isn't true, she ran affiliate link farms before she ran this blog [1].
So she is lying. I gave her the benefit of the doubt that she wasn't intentionally being a swindler (she may be but this article doesn't provide enough evidence to support that) and by that reasoning I interpreted her actions which were at a lower standard of integrity than her words to The Guardian as 'lowering her integrity.'
You under sell the reality with this comment:
"Comparing the author of a blog who solicits donations as well as uses affiliate links to someone who falsified their employment history and photoshopped their head into pictures with celebrities?"
The integrity issue isn't with here using affiliate links and soliciting donations here, the integrity issue is attempting to create a perception through lying to benefit herself financially. Had she written on her blog, "This blog is funded by donations and from what ever I make from the affiliate links" or had she written "Note that when you buy an item from amazon by clicking the links here it helps to support my blog, I am also supported by generous donations from people like you." Or something similar, that would be clear. But it would also result in fewer donations which would cut into her income stream. She seems to have demonstrated that with the whole banner-free / non-ads switcheroo and back again. The integrity issue is that she is lying to get more money.
And what did Shirly Hornstein do? She lied about who she knew or who she could make introductions to. Why? Because people who believed that lie did things for her, and helped support her in a lifestyle she believed she deserved. Back before Shirly was photoshopping herself into candid snapshots she was just telling a few white lies to get past the barriers. If you compared her actions then, with Ms. Popova you would be hard pressed to see any difference in the 'level' of integrity loss.
And that was my point, it starts small, it gets out of hand, and it ruins people. Did you watch the interview Lance Armstrong did with Barbara Walters? Did you see why he cheated? How he rationalized his need to "get healthy" and how "others were doing it."
Did you not hear the same plot points in his story? Did you not see his own self belief that it all started out so innocently? Did you listen to any of the testimony on the steroids scandal before Congress? Story after story after story, "It was a small thing" followed by "just one more time" followed by "I had to keep up" followed by "it ruined my life."
Then there was this point:
"Comparing a blog author using affiliate links to a truck driver abusing drugs or an athlete using steroids is pretty sensationalist."
I'm not sure we'll agree here but that is ok, I see the same story in all of them, whether or not you read about it or hear about it depends on your relationship to the people in the story and their relative visibility, but that doesn't make it a different story. Lots of people cheat on their spouses because they are enthralled by an engaging and attractive person, happens all the time, and it happened to General Petraeous. The latter was a "big scandal" because he was the Directory of the CIA, but the story? He let his dick call the shots. That isn't sensationalism, its just sad.
"a truck driver abusing cocaine is driving impaired and doing something incredibly illegal."
I take if you've never used cocaine, it doesn't impair you like alcohol or marijuana might. When I was going to school it was a problem on a par with illicit ADHD drugs today and for much the same reason. I knew several people who used it regularly to keep their energy level up and their concentration sharp, unless you knew they were using you would just think they were smart and quick witted with boundless energy. These days [2] Truck drivers would probably stick with Red Bull or over the counter drugs to avoid tripping up on a drug test.
[2] "In the 1980s the administration of President Ronald Reagan proposed to put an end to drug abuse in the trucking industry by means of the then-recently developed technique of urinalysis, with his signing of Executive Order 12564, requiring regular random drug testing of all truck drivers nationwide, as well as employees of other DOT-regulated industries specified in the order, though considerations had to be made concerning the effects of an excessively rapid implementation of the measure." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_driver#Truck_driver_probl...
I've known a lot of people in my life, I have watched a number of careers start, peak, and end. After a while you recognize them when you see them. Did you read any of the Jason Leher coverage? Did you follow the follies of Shirley Hornstein?
The common thread is that someone lowers the integrity cut-off bar on their own behavior for what seem to be perfectly justifiable reasons, and it works out better than they anticipated. That knowledge eats that them until they do it again, and again, and again.
I observed Maria Popova's story, from the perspective of ever decreasing levels of integrity, reads just like that. I don't know how her story will end up of course, sometimes people pull out of it and get themselves back into the right as it were.
I'm curious why you consider that observation sensationalist. Is it because I asserted it is widely applicable across a variety of people and situations, or something else? Is it sensationalist to say that a dropped apple falls because of gravity and that same principle keeps the moon in orbit?