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Ask HN: “Do you have to be open to unethical behavior in order to be succesful?”
11–16 of 16 posts
Re: Ask HN: “Do you have to be open to unethical behavior in order to be succesful?”
#12Your own inner voice will tell you when you are being unethical and when you are merely benefitting from your experience or knowledge. Being unethical is not a grey area - almost everyone has an internal compass which can tell themselves in black or white (people know when they are self-justifying).
I would argue that you don't every need to cheat your own self to be successful.
Re: Ask HN: “Do you have to be open to unethical behavior in order to be succesful?”
#13Your own inner voice will tell you when you are being unethical and when you are merely benefitting from your experience or knowledge. Being unethical is not a grey area - almost everyone has an internal compass which can tell themselves in black or white (people know when they are self-justifying). I would argue that you don't every need to cheat your own self to be successful.
> almost everyone has an internal compass which can tell themselves in black or white (people know when they are self-justifying).
What about Nazis or USSR's NKWD - I hardly doubt that all of them knew that what they're doing is immoral.
Re: Ask HN: “Do you have to be open to unethical behavior in order to be succesful?”
#14If you want to be a successful bank robber, probably. Pirate, yeah, probably that too. If you want to be a successful hit man, smuggler, or drug dealer, you're going to have to bend some rules.
I think if you tell a different sort of story about what you're doing, that it's something worthwhile, and that success involves being a person that people can rely on... well, I don't think being unethical will help you much.
I suppose if you have enough power, people won't give a damn about your ethics. But I think if you can get to the middle without hurting a lot of people, you're going to be identified as one of the people the rest of the middle would like to have at the top.
Re: Ask HN: “Do you have to be open to unethical behavior in order to be succesful?”
#15Define success. To have a career and your basic needs plus some met? no To be an industry leader\ceo of wealthy company? evidence suggests it wouldn't hurt to be a bit "flexible" ( http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/21/apparently-psychopaths-make-g... )
Success is being happy with what you have already.
Re: Ask HN: “Do you have to be open to unethical behavior in order to be succesful?”
#16Define success. To have a career and your basic needs plus some met? no To be an industry leader\ceo of wealthy company? evidence suggests it wouldn't hurt to be a bit "flexible" ( http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/21/apparently-psychopaths-make-g... )
Success is being happy with what you have already.
"what you already have" is a meaningless metric. In 3rd grade I had a lot of toys and plenty of food that someone else bought. Trying to maintain this level of "having'ness" isn't sustainable since I would eventually become bored of my toys and my food providers would die leaving me hungry.
Find some meaning\goal and work to it. Trying to put a number or fixed value on something so nebulous is a waste of time.