The Ethicist - I Work in Data Security. Is It a Problem That My Boss Believes in Lizard People?
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I work in the I.T. department of a town government, where our small team is led by a director who is a fervent conspiracy theorist. In casual conversations, the director frequently discusses bizarre ideas in a hushed, serious manner, as if revealing hidden truths: lizard people infiltrating the federal government, the Rothschilds as vampiric blood drinkers and J.F.K. Jr. secretly controlling Trump with plans for a 2024 comeback.
This individual is responsible for managing and securing the municipal data of a very affluent town. The potential risks are alarming. It is not outside the realm of possibility that this alternate reality could compromise the director’s decision-making, potentially jeopardizing the security of our town’s sensitive information. When I’ve raised my concerns with both the mayor and the head of H.R., they’ve swiftly dismissed the issue and redirected the conversation.
I am left in a difficult position, fearing not only for the security of our town’s data but also for my own job stability under a manager detached from reality. Is it ethical for someone in such a crucial role to openly espouse these beliefs at work? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
The problem with your boss, as you’ve laid out the situation, is not so much that this person expresses their beliefs as that they have them. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to worry, as you do, that someone so disconnected from reality might release information in an attempt to avert an imaginary conspiracy. And someone convinced that the mayor, say, was in on the conspiracy wouldn’t be subject to the usual mechanisms of restraint.
Yet I’m struck that you’ve shared your worries with people in positions of responsibility and they clearly have a very different sense of the situation. Maybe they know your boss and have already concluded that their outlandish beliefs are, so to speak, recreational, and don’t affect their professionalism. The philosopher Neil Van Leeuwen has suggested that religious beliefs, for many who hold them, are best regarded as what he calls ‘‘credences’’: they’re ultimately closer to the realm of imaginative play than to the beliefs we have about our ground reality. (Those are factual beliefs like: Today is Sunday; if I drop this glass it will break; there are seats available in the left pew.) Credences, which tend to support a social identity, generally aren’t vulnerable to evidence. We revise our factual beliefs all the time (Oh, that restaurant is open on Sundays), but how do you refute a dietary taboo or a distaste for an out-group? And then, Van Leeuwen notices, we typically protect our credences from too much reality. We pray for a friend to get better — but we also take her to the hospital.
Plenty of technicians and office workers who entertain far-fetched conspiracy theories would seem to function perfectly well in their jobs. It’s as if they keep their credences compartmentalized from the real world of their everyday responsibilities. For all that, I do think you’ve got a problem. Start with the fact that — to judge by the particular details you mention — your boss seems to be an acolyte of David Icke, a man known for popularizing the ‘‘lizard people’’ theory of history, in which blood-drinking Rothschilds figure significantly and the ‘‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’’ an antisemitic hoax from the turn of the last century, is respected as a factual document. Your boss’s views aren’t just outlandish; they’re hateful too. Here, this person’s habit of talking up these beliefs is highly relevant: It raises a workplace issue.
It also raises a judgment issue. Maybe their appetite for this stuff will have no effect on their professionalism, but why take the risk? People who harbor suspicions about vast conspiracies are, as we’ve learned, prone to being manipulated. The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk report for 2022 reported that 95 percent of cybersecurity failings were traceable to human error. People appear to be the weakest link in cybersecurity, and so a secure system depends on keeping track not just of hardware and software but of the people who interact with them as well. Given that you’ve tried getting senior management to do something about this, you’re entitled to act as a whistle-blower here and get the word out. I hope that you do.
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