Considering Maslow's Hierarchy, one falls short of ascribing "success" to being a sociopath.
Tend toward sobriety, debtlessness, marriage, and connection to a community of faith for joyous results.
Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?
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Re: Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?
#52I think this is what Nietzche calls the master and slave morality. Basically, generations of slaves, or peasants, or whatever, develop a morality that is fit for purpose for the life of a slave. Slaves care about things like loyalty, keeping your word, not being a squeaky wheel, honesty, and all that because those traits are adaptive for living and working together with a with a bunch of peers. Conversely, the master…
It is like the rules change, for the game that is played.
Re: Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?
#53Seems like game theory at work Cooperating may have net benefit but you'd get much further by being greedy while the others don't
Game theory does not say this is the case in every game, only in certain games like Prisoner's Dilemma. The fact about reality is that there are lots of games, and if you choose a game which is zero-sum or even negative-sum, it's easy to say "This is just how the universe works." But nevertheless, that may only be true locally. If you go somewhere else, you may find that there is a game which is positive-sum. It may…
In the context of OP's question, most things in businesses/products/leadership are zero sum as they need to compete against finite resources and time
Re: Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?
#54Re: Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?
#55Because that's the correct intuition. The contemporary world is not designed for sane people. All the systems around us are designed to alienate people from each other with artificial intermediators like money, status, fame, and just generally useless toys and gadgets. To succeed in such a world you have to have sociopathic tendencies. You have to value material goods and possessions over people which is kinda insane…
> The contemporary world is not designed for sane people.
Sanity is defined by people who want to control the masses. The world is very much designed to contain sane people. Or people who can work in the world are declared sane. Something like those.
Re: Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?
#56How do you cultivate sociopathy? I took a personality disorder quiz and scored high on everything except the dark triad. Because of that quiz score, I’m worried that my earning potential is not as high as it could be if I was otherwise a high functioning psychopath. I’m totally serious btw, any tips are appreciated.
Get out of your comfort zone. Seek out awkwardness, and anxiety, and revel in the uncomfortable. That's how you learn to not give a fuck. Do things that would bring you shame, grin and bare it. After awhile none of it applies anymore.
> grin and bare it
Except where legally prohibited.
Re: Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?
#57Someone said, “Behind every great fortune is a great crime.”
Anyway, go for your dreams, kid!
Re: Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?
#58You don't need to be, but it does help.
Re: Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?
#59Every CEOs I’ve met are super nice people; and they seem genuine about it. I think it’a a trait that’s actually needed. Genuily nice + smart + perseverance will get you far.
At least, they appear that way.
Making you think it’s genuine is part of the key of making it work.
Re: Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?
#60Sure, their job is non-grinding and non-STEM so they have tons of leeway in "corporate relations". They can afford to ride the wide margins of behavior their position provides, and game the system.
Meanwhile sociopath engineer means you hate giving yourself to a group of people, and knowing your place.
That's fine because in the end, a week without a CEO may be damaging. A week without production is catastrophic. So when the rubber hits the road, it's the happy down-to-earth worker bees that produce the value the managers play around with.