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Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

chinafile.com

81–90 of 258 posts

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#81
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I turned down several invites to such activities and got the usual gay jokes behind my back. I'm surprised they didn't just invite you to a place that caters for both.

I think you missed the point; he didn't turn down the invites because he's gay, they called him gay because he turned down the invites...

They're the clowns paying for sex, they can have all the delusions they need as far as I'm concerned.

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#82

is it all that different in the USA? It's certainly the stereotype we see in movies for wall street. Not having worked there I have no first hand experience. When I ask friends that have they tell me "oh the stories I could tell" but they don't actually tell.

Surely in the past, even at seemingly boring engineering companies. You used to hear about all kinds of stuff going on in the office. People getting blackout drunk at company Christmas parties, drugs in the restroom, co-workers banging each other in the conference rooms.. then all of a sudden, you didn’t hear about it anymore. Whoosh, it was gone! I entered the workplace as this stuff seemed to be dying down and just missed the party. Like jumping into the ocean just as the unstoppable crushing wave of political correctness slammed ashore, washing away the shenanigans and leaving only sterile, gray, cubicles, thicker “code of conduct” books, and HR helplines. Maybe it’s for the better. Things are obviously much more inclusive for professional women and non-drinkers/smokers, which is good. But at the same time I think we lost something.

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#83
post #73
post #39

A few female entrepreneurs, however, explicitly reject the values pushed by businessmen. “One of my husband’s business friends got married just two years ago,” explained Li, in her early 40s, who co-owns a steel business with her husband, “We went to his wedding. But when we hosted an event last year, he came with a young girl who was obviously his mistress. I told my husband that if he cheats on his wife only after…

A bit off-topic - well, to be fair, it may have been the other way: the man could have been the one saying "he'll cheat on us", and the women telling him "it's ok". Women are as prone to cheating as men. Women are not inherently faultless just because of their gender.

Power and opportunity corrupt - my sample size of one anecdata is that when a bunch of female magic circle solicitors were away on secondments they held a competition for who could cheat the most on their boyfriends at home.

Humans are flawed

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#84
post #39

A few female entrepreneurs, however, explicitly reject the values pushed by businessmen. “One of my husband’s business friends got married just two years ago,” explained Li, in her early 40s, who co-owns a steel business with her husband, “We went to his wedding. But when we hosted an event last year, he came with a young girl who was obviously his mistress. I told my husband that if he cheats on his wife only after…

“One of my husband’s business friends got married just two years ago,” explained Li, in her early 40s, who co-owns a steel business with her husband, “We went to his wedding. But when we hosted an event last year, he came with a young girl who was obviously his mistress. We discussed it with him, and discovered that the nuances of marriage and relationships in other countries might not comply to our narrow points of…

> the nuances of marriage and relationships in other countries might not comply to our narrow points of view

Except Li is from the same country, so your attempt at writing her story off as a foreigner's biased view doesn't really work.

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#85
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't necessarily mean that they're bad people, but it's certainly a good indication that they're bad people at least on a personal level. Of course this is assuming that they operated in an environment with the same ethics as my own.

Men are not wired for monogamy. It is like saying you might be bad person because you breathe. In a relationship this is a mutual effort to resist those needs, but failing to do so doesn't make you bad.

Actually, cheating involves lying. A spouse is explicitly or at least implicitly expecting the other part no to lie about extra relations. If lying about those extra relations in this context doesn't makes you a bad person, then I don't know what is.

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#86
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't necessarily mean that they're bad people, but it's certainly a good indication that they're bad people at least on a personal level. Of course this is assuming that they operated in an environment with the same ethics as my own.

Men are not wired for monogamy. It is like saying you might be bad person because you breathe. In a relationship this is a mutual effort to resist those needs, but failing to do so doesn't make you bad.

We’re also wired for murdering, raping and pillaging. That’s not gonna stop me from judging people who succumb to their desires at the expense of other people

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#87
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't necessarily mean that they're bad people, but it's certainly a good indication that they're bad people at least on a personal level. Of course this is assuming that they operated in an environment with the same ethics as my own.

Men are not wired for monogamy. It is like saying you might be bad person because you breathe. In a relationship this is a mutual effort to resist those needs, but failing to do so doesn't make you bad.

I find it hard to imagine most social norms, and much of what we consider to be good/bad behavior, is reliant on what we're "wired" towards; influenced by, sure, but I would imagine most of it is along the lines of "regardless of human nature, this is the way we should operate". Respecting monogamy, at least in America, is one of those things: regardless of how we naturally would like to behave, we are expected to (and promise to) respect the sanctity of marriage. That one fails to is not excused by our wiring; we obviously should be capable of exceeding that. It is, supposedly, one of those abilities that make humans as a species notable.

And if we go to an extreme, that you operate solely on your wiring and nothing else... well, you're hardly a modern human at that point.

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#88
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trustworthy =/ World changing. People can have a net positive on the world and still regularly backstab acquaintances. See Steve Jobs.

I think, generally speaking, there are very few people who would consider Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington, etc. as "untrustworthy." Some historians suggest that "Honest Abe Lincoln" cheated on his wife with two men. What could trustworthy mean if historical archetypes of honesty and great morality are not considered trustworthy?

It means you can trust them to do things like not lie to you. What do you want it to mean?

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#89
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't necessarily mean that they're bad people, but it's certainly a good indication that they're bad people at least on a personal level. Of course this is assuming that they operated in an environment with the same ethics as my own.

Men are not wired for monogamy. It is like saying you might be bad person because you breathe. In a relationship this is a mutual effort to resist those needs, but failing to do so doesn't make you bad.

They're not wired for reading and writing either, but I wouldn't do business with one who hadn't achieved better than "instinct" there.

Re: Booze, Sex, and the Dark Art of Dealmaking in China (2015)

#90
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trustworthy =/ World changing. People can have a net positive on the world and still regularly backstab acquaintances. See Steve Jobs.

I think, generally speaking, there are very few people who would consider Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington, etc. as "untrustworthy." Some historians suggest that "Honest Abe Lincoln" cheated on his wife with two men. What could trustworthy mean if historical archetypes of honesty and great morality are not considered trustworthy?

> What could trustworthy mean if historical archetypes of honesty and great morality are not considered trustworthy?

What do the two concepts have in common at all?

Trustworthy means he will not screw me over if, say, I were to borrow him money. That simply has nothing to do with "who the person" is but only with "what he is like in his personal relationships". Business relationships are very personal and greatly dependent on one's personality.

In fact, the "greater" the person (in those historical, societal senses of the word) I'd actually be biased to trust them less even without any knowledge of their otherwise untrustiness.

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