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The only problem I have with this... is that I've experienced firsthand the other side of this coin. For a few years I was surrounded by a few people who have
by TimothyBurgess 16y ago
The only problem I have with this... is that I've experienced firsthand the other side of this coin. For a few years I was surrounded by a few people who have a knack for getting money... by any means necessary. These people would lie (not little white lies, big ones with negative impacts), manipulate, and straight-up steal from others just to make a few bucks. They had no remorse for the detrimental outcomes they brought upon those they stole from... no compassion whatsoever.
When looking for those with a knack for getting money, look for those who earn it... those whose ethics are no less than admirable... unless of course you lack compassion and morals yourself. Those who manipulate and steal without any remorse for others' lives need to be weeded out. They drag the rest of us down and hold us back for their own selfish gain.
Some may consider this darwinism - survival of the fittest - but I believe we've made much more progress as a species by working with each other than against.
The last conversation I had with these people I spent years with was to try to explain how their line of thinking quite honestly brings suffering to countless people. Prime example, big banks making deals they know will fall through regardless of the impact it has on the economy... look where we are now. The type of people who made the decisions that led to the recent recession, which caused a massive decrease in my father's hours at work, are the same ones who want to perform a shortsale on his house because he has fallen behind on his mortgage. As for the suffering I mentioned, let's just say my father will give up his house over his dead body.
- szany 16y agoBeautifully put. The knack should be a means or a by-product, not an end. I think the main thing not to forget is that although making money is what determines a company's survival, that's not what determines its value. Carl Sagan usually puts things in perspective for me :)
- alnayyir 16y agoI can summarize this article thusly: A mountebank promoting sociopathic behavior. Charming.
- lionhearted 16y agoWhoever is voting this up, please stop and consider what etiquette level you'd like on the site. There's reasoned and intelligent critiques in this thread, which are good. But this alnayyir goes around and writes really venomous nasty stuff. I already asked him to cut it out after he replied 18 times in a past thread, all really nasty. Do you want the site to have members calling other members nasty names with no other substance? No? Then please vote accordingly. You'll get what you bless.
- chegra 16y agoalnayyir is kinda like an anomaly. I think he says stuff so that you extremely outrage by it or you are ardent supporter of his point. I estimate there are 10x[10 is a guess but there are significantly more] more people with upvote power than downvoting. These two points combine to make it difficult to downvote him to hell. That is why flagging is appropriate, don't just downvote, flag.
- alnayyir 16y agoTruth and decency > etiquette. I'll stick with these summaries as they're far less time consuming and often more to the point. Good luck with your 'victory'.
- ehsanul 16y agoThey had no remorse for the detrimental outcomes they brought upon those they stole from... no compassion whatsoever. Sounds like they were simply psychopaths, hence lacking most emotion. It seems like that emotion/empathy was selected for in our evolutionary history (or perhaps it's just a side-effect of something else, don't know), so I don't think psychopathic behavior could possibly be characterized as darwinism.
- exit 16y agoif the majority are emotional/empathetic, there may emerge a niche for a population of lecherous psychopaths - i.e. bankers. evolution doesn't have to move the entire group in a particular direction.
- jacques_chester 16y agoBoth strategies (empathetic and sociopathic) can be selected for; they're relatively stable when combined. The sociopaths need empathetic people to prey on, the empathetic people can tolerate the cost -- up to a point, at which they cooperate to attack the sociopaths. You might fairly characterise civilisation as the arms race between sociopaths and everyone else.