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"A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary for a
by pulkitsh1234 1mo ago
"A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary for a prince, who wishes to maintain himself, to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of the case" -- Niccolo Machiavelli
It's a self fulfilling prophecy... while us commoners, or so called "activists" or ethicists ponder and debate on culture, morality, law and ethics... The powerful are just living an alternate life devoid of all these moral qualms and are have clearly distanced themselves from the mundane, have distanced themselves from the guilt or any kind of accountability. In their eyes, they are just capitalising on the human tendencies which have been always existed (the seven deadly sins), so the "absolve" themselves pretty quickly by saying that they are not creating new "sins", just leveraging, or allowing the people to go along those sins.
They think, why should they be the ones to not capitalise on them, if someone else might and will. It's a coordination problem of our society. No one wants to let go. They want to hedge, they invest in ozempic and invest in fast-food at the same time, there is no moral compass guiding them. It's for us commoners to debate and think about.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- merelydev 1mo agoTLDR: "Don't hate the player, hate the game".
- Forgeties79 1mo ago“Also, I have no intention of acknowledging that not all people have an equal chance at winning the game, nor doing anything about it for that matter.”
- AJMaxwell 1mo agoNo, we really should hate the players. They are keeping the game from changing.
- genxy 1mo agoA small number of players set the rules of the game.
- account42 1mo agoA players collectively choose that everyone must follow those rules.
- rglover 1mo agoNo sarcasm: play a different game. If you play their game, of course you'll suffer. But if you play a game they're repulsed by, you can win a life they'll never have access to: one filled with people who love and respect you and an environment where your best self and life can emerge.
- AlotOfReading 1mo agoThe parent comments are talking about how the game is negatively impacting society. Your suggestion is to check out and leave society to them. One of the many problems with that suggestion is that it's hard for your best self/life to emerge in a bleak future.
- butlike 1mo agoI think it's possible to "pick and choose" to some extent. I've found most of the bleak future stuff goes away if I turn off my phone, but since I need it to contact people in 2026, I try and give things their due, and, to the best of my ability, ignore the more unpleasant aspects of modern life. I think the landline telephone is a good example. It was fun to chit-chat with friends on the phone, but when a telemarketer called, I either hung up immediately, or said "stop calling," then hung up. It can be the same way in modern society. Weight the conversations with warm-bodied people higher, and stop scrolling as much (to put it overly-simplistically).
- AndrewKemendo 1mo ago
- latexr 1mo agoThat’s a cop-out. It’s the most powerful “players” who are making the “game” what it is, and they make the rules be whatever benefits them. It would be pretty reasonable to hate the player who brings a machine gun to a stadium, kills every opponent to start scoring and when people complain says “Nothing in the rules says we can’t kill other players to score. If I didn’t gun everyone down, the opposing team would’ve. Don’t hate the player, hate the game”.
- cpt_sobel 1mo agoYes this is their reasoning, it doesn't mean we shouldn't hate the players and the game alike
- bdelmas 1mo agoIt’s not the players we should hate but the ones who make the rules of the game. Specifically not the ones who make the rules for the greater good but for themselves.
- merelydev 1mo agoThat is like hating a hacker who hacks into your vulnerable server that is outdated and allows ssh password login. If there is vulnerabilities in the system someone will eventually exploit them, sure not you or me but there is always someone out there that will.
- toomanyrichies 1mo agoThat same hacker can choose to responsibly disclose the vulnerability through the proper channels, or take advantage of it to benefit themselves at the expense of others. Which one they choose objectively determines the quality of person they are.
- merelydev 1mo agoThat is how we find ourselves in this mess, we design systems thinking only of everything that can go right and not what can go wrong.
- pyvpx 1mo agoWhat game has David Ellison been playing? The same as yours or perhaps slightly different? Does that difference matter?
- boelboel 1mo agoThat's what thiefs say
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- cindyllm 1mo ago[dead]
- consensus1 1mo ago"Us commoners" ponder and debate on culture, morality, law and ethics, and then go out and buy whatever stock we think will go up without a second thought to any of that idle chatter.
- ncr100 1mo agoWe commoners also requested laws and regulations to play fair, which are being superceded by those in leadership seeking only more power. Stocks aren't the problem.
- sublinear 1mo ago> The powerful are just living an alternate life... So, you consider anyone with a job "powerful"? Personal ethics are arbitrary enough to poo-poo any job. It's just as easy to call everyone else "useful idiots".
- ImPostingOnHN 1mo ago> So, you consider anyone with a job "powerful"? That is not what OP said, so you may want to re-read what they said.
- sublinear 1mo agoWhat did I misunderstand?
- ImPostingOnHN 1mo agoThere is simply not anything in their post which says what you said (So, you consider anyone with a job "powerful"?). If paraphrasing is a hurdle, keep in mind it isn't necessary, you can just respond to their own wording of what they said. If I may try to provide an outside perspective: your paraphrasing being accurate depends on others' acceptance of your proposal that jobs are mutually exclusive with ethics. And speaking personally, I did not follow what you were saying about useful idiots. Sorry.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- randusername 1mo ago> who wishes to maintain himself This is the key. Everyone wants stability in their circumstances, but you have to go to extreme lengths to sustain an extreme lifestyle, particularly if it is based on preserving a high rate of accumulation instead of accumulation itself.
- akudha 1mo agoSetting ethical and moral questions aside for a second: Never pay a human again Every time I see stuff like this (along with other more serious shenanigans like wage theft, union busting etc) I only ask myself the same question again and again - what is the end game here? If much of the population is too poor to buy anything, too sick to consume much etc - who is left to buy anything at all? If all their power comes from their wealth and if that wealth is threatened because consumers are too poor to buy, then what happens? Someone has to buy for the system to work, no?
- dfdydx 1mo agoWasn't much of the population too poor to buy most stuff, back in the day? It seems to have worked out fine for, say, European Aristocrats c. 1400s-1700s.
- itemize123 1mo agoit's because it is a narrow set of never-pay-a-human. in that world, only certain task won't be done by human.
- saghm 1mo agoIf a small group of people fully automated all production and controlled it, they wouldn't need anyone to buy anything anymore; they could live off of it indefinitely and produce whatever they needed to in order to protect themselves from the masses. I don't see any obvious reason why this outcome would be prevented by a purely capitalist economic system (assuming that this sort of automation ends up being possible), which in my mind is an argument in favor of some sort of upper bound for wealth consolidation.
- butlike 1mo agoThere is no end game. Short term profits are by definition not a long-term view. The family's future will be secured if I invest in plastics and robot payment mechanisms now. I won't live forever, so I won't get to rest under the shade of the trees I plant for my family. With money and influence, they will be best set up to conquer whatever comes in the future.
- CodingJeebus 1mo ago
- kodoman 1mo agoI think you are interpreting the quote incorrectly. It is not that the prince should be immoral, but rather that he must understand political reality is often filled with perfidious actions and motives. He must recognize that within his principality, there will be those ready to backstab him to gain power. His duty is to the continuation of his principality and the preservation of his own power. This is not merely selfish ambition; it becomes a duty. People depend on him to defend their city and owe him for the stability of their affairs. Therefore, he must dedicate himself to his principality and, by extension, his power, rather than acting morally like the common man who must navigate political reality. What is incredible about the current state of the western world is that Andreessen Horowitz seem more like common men. They believe they can simply continue their profession, they are the prince's of are time and are the pinnacle of power in the west. They seem to think there are good guys and bad guys, viewing those who dislike them as bad, while those who accept their power are good. They believe people should never conspire against them. Precisely because they are dedicated to a particular set of morals, they are unlike the prince. These are morals both of us dislike, yet they believe in them dare I say, naively and idealistically. They view capitalism and profit as an immutable moral truth that others must accept as righteous power. This is a luxury only afforded in most times to the common man, who can maintain false notions of morality despite his profession depending on the political stability of some sovereign. I don't hate these people; I am just perplexed by their lack of understanding that history is littered with men who worried about politics, yet still fellto fellow members of their class, mercenaries, and scions seeking more than money. I don't think there is much good in the common people, as bitter resentment is always their. They would do well to know that money does not protect them from it. Most of what is called morality and ethics are cheap, self-serving philosophies. The only exception is true mystagogy, a beautiful flower that cannot grow in the barren American mind. It grows only through the blood of the martyrs.
- estearum 1mo ago> Precisely because they are dedicated to a particular set of morals, they are unlike the prince. These are morals both of us dislike, yet they believe in them dare I say, naively and idealistically. They view capitalism and profit as an immutable moral truth that others must accept as righteous power. They actually don't believe in capitalism and profit, because if they did, they'd recognize that extreme concentration of wealth is actually detrimental to capitalism (the system's) performance. Ricardo, Mill, and Smith all saw this dynamic, but "capitalists" like Andreessen have shown zero interest in combatting it for the health of the capitalist system as a whole. They also wouldn't, for example, try to use government to prevent the market from building housing near their mansions: https://therealdeal.com/san-francisco/2022/08/08/marc-andreessen-opposes-apartments-in-americas-richest-town/ https://therealdeal.com/san-francisco/2022/08/08/marc-andree... You're ascribing way, way too much intellectual consistency to these people. They have no moral system.
- oezi 1mo agoNietzsche also described it well when noting there are those who deem themselves nobles and feel they are righteously above the laws and those who derive their identity from suffering under the same laws.
- Zigurd 1mo agoNietzsche died broke and insane. Was that from following his own advice or failing to do so?
- kodoman 1mo agoNewton put needles in his eye's and probably suffered greatly from self inflicted lead and mercury poisoning; Why do you trust his laws of motion?
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- oezi 1mo agoBeing successful or not in your wealth doesn't make you right or wrong about anything with the exception of maybe running the business that generated your wealth. Nietzsche presented two prototypical sets of human who interface with laws and ethics. He described why those believes exists and are self-reaffirming even if they are puzzling from the other side.
- Zigurd 1mo agoThe Ayn Rand stans say the same.
- chermi 1mo agoMy uncle told me not to smoke, but he's a smoker so I didn't listen.
- EGreg 1mo ago
- mgh2 1mo agoResearched some companies and their founders, many are YC alumni: LendUp W12, uBiome S14, Zenefits W13, Kalshi W19. The halo effect is real: https://medium.com/@trendguardian/rigged-networks-1d5ad5c6f825 https://medium.com/@trendguardian/rigged-networks-1d5ad5c6f8...
- badpun 1mo agoMachiabelli was a big Florence patriot and was writing his advice specifically to help a prince better govern Florence and hence increase the chance that Florence will not be annihilated in the constant wars that raged on the Italian Peninsula at the time.
- Gravityloss 1mo agoSure, there are effects like that power corrupts. But there are differences between powerful people.
- l8rlump 1mo agohttps://www.esv.org/Psalm+73/ https://www.esv.org/Psalm+73/
- port11 1mo agoThe man has repeatedly invested in shady, unethical businesses. We don’t have to make a debate out of why, since plenty of rich and/or powerful people DON’T do those things. My (over-simplified) conclusion is that he’s not a decent person. End of story.
- dennis_jeeves2 1mo ago>It's a self fulfilling prophecy... while us commoners, or so called "activists" or ethicists ponder and debate on culture, morality, law and ethics... The powerful are just living an alternate life devoid of all these moral qualms and are have clearly distanced themselves from the mundane, have distanced themselves from the guilt or any kind of accountability. I have been musing, good deeds aren't paying off - heck the peasants don't even notice, or think I'm a loser. I'm tempted to think like the powerful...