What Sapolsky promotes here is a useful philosophy for those who've tied their career prospects and financial futures to authoritarian systems of control that are also deeply corrupt.

Case examples of individuals whose consciences could be eased by adopting this philosophy could include an aspiring junior scientist working under Trofim Lysenko in the USSR, an accountant who answered to Adolf Eichmann in Nazi Germany, and perhaps also an ambitious tenure-seeking academic in today's highly corporatized American academia environment.

If the cognitive dissonance gets too high, well that's what the alcohol and antidepressants are for.