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Look at the top world leaders, so called captains of business. Cold stone heartless sociopaths, every single one of them. Jobs, Gates, Musk, Bezos, Schmidt and
by jajko 2y ago
Look at the top world leaders, so called captains of business. Cold stone heartless sociopaths, every single one of them. Jobs, Gates, Musk, Bezos, Schmidt and so on and on.
For a second imagine what environment they went through, what battles they had to fight for decades and keep being on top. You can't be a normal balanced person with good friendly personality and achieve any of that. Even if you start at absolutely stellar lucky place, you will end up as say Stallman (respect to that guy, but you can see life path vs Jobs difference mainly due to character).
The fact that such people are celebrated and imitated and there is a lot of strive to replicate their success path is normal. Why - as per J. Peterson (topic on its own, but his psychological stuff I still respect) there is cca 1:20 sociopaths and 1:100 psychopaths in general population. Do the numbers, they are not nice but then you can understand whats happening in this world and politics much better. HN isn't representative of general population, that ratio is much worse although smart folks like that know when to be quiet and just watch/read.
I am not trying to scorn those folks, at their best they do move whole society further, and we desperately need that now. But they are overall not good people, sort of necessary evil IMHO.
- disqard 2y agoHHGG-style, like how our planet was summarized as "Mostly Harmless", your comment is a pithy summary of CEOs: "necessary evil".
- wslh 2y ago> Look at the top world leaders, so called captains of business. Cold stone heartless sociopaths, every single one of them. Jobs, Gates, Musk, Bezos, Schmidt and so on and on. It might be a natural consequence of reaching those positions. While their rise often comes with harsh decision-making and the development of certain traits, it's not just luck or randomness. Gates, Jobs, and others possess(ed) unique talents and vision that propelled them forward. Their abilities, whether in technology, leadership, or understanding markets, are rare, and that's a critical part of the equation. Of course, such talent, combined with navigating cutthroat environments, shapes the person in ways that we don't like. Let’s not forget politicians in this discussion, as they add layers to the same dynamic. It may simply be the way things work, at least until we shift (or not) toward something else. Beyond the ethical and moral debate, someone has to do the work. For example, during the antitrust case against Microsoft, Scott McNealy, Sun Microsystems' CEO, was one of Microsoft’s most vocal critics. At that time, I couldn’t help but wonder: would McNealy play the same game if he had the chance? Interestingly, this was also a period when Sun and IBM were reportedly bribing politicians in other parts of the world to stay competitive in the very game they criticized. It's like The Scorpion and the Frog fable: entities in power often act according to their nature. Microsoft's dominance might have been inevitable, and even McNealy, in a similar position, could have behaved the same. The question is whether this is just the nature of competition at the top, or if there's another way forward.
- DanHulton 2y agoI'll scorn them. Wherever they're trying to move society to, we'd be better off not following them. You ever notice how their visions for the future of humanity make THEM ever more powerful and wealthy, and when it comes to discussing the harm their plans do to other people, it's "well, you can't make an omelete, you know..." I'd also argue we decidedly DON'T need that right now. We are at the start of a genuine climate catastrophe, and these titans of business, these movers of society, in response, they're... Investing at a record pace in technologies that require re-commissioning old power plants to supply them. Brilliant. I'm so glad our future is in their capable hands. /s