Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?

#61

Post by cosheaf » Wed, Feb 16, 2022, 12:40 PM UTC

drewcoo wrote: post #55

cosheaf wrote: post #3

Because 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.

Correct and if you deviate from the standards then you will be medicated until you are subdued and willing to work for the machines destroying the habitability of the planet.

Re: Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?

#62

Post by onemoresoop » Wed, Feb 16, 2022, 4:05 PM UTC

TameAntelope wrote: post #41

Graffur wrote: post #2

I am literally writing a pitch deck right now (just for fun). My solution statement includes stuff like "respecting the user - no tracking, no selling data, no dark patterns"... deep down I doubt any investor would even look at this and would laugh at the naivety. They would look at FB, Reddit and others and, naturally, want a piece of that pie. Unfortunately, I think the better way to get funding would be to say: *…

It is not inherently amoral to track a user or sell that user's data, so restricting yourself (a cost) has to have a benefit (a value) otherwise you're inventing rules for yourself that makes your journey needlessly harder.

No, it is unethical to charge the user a fee then sell their data. For free products it is a different story.

Re: Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?

#63

Post by TameAntelope » Wed, Feb 16, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

onemoresoop wrote: post #62

TameAntelope wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not inherently amoral to track a user or sell that user's data, so restricting yourself (a cost) has to have a benefit (a value) otherwise you're inventing rules for yourself that makes your journey needlessly harder.

No, it is unethical to charge the user a fee then sell their data. For free products it is a different story.

So I as a user am not allowed to get discounts on services by allowing companies to sell my data?

If my information is mine, then I have a right to do with it what I want, including giving it to a company so they can then sell it.

Just seems like you want to control how I am allowed to use my own data…

Re: Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?

#64

Post by dang » Wed, Feb 16, 2022, 5:46 PM UTC

cybarDOTlive wrote: post #16

fartboi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Quoted post unavailable.

Would you please follow the site guidelines? You broke them with both of your comments in this thread.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?

#65

Post by wsinks » Thu, Feb 17, 2022, 12:32 AM UTC

awinter-py wrote: post #18

Ethical systems all have 'don't make waves' built into them. Everyone who horns into a crowded market or even a greenfield is in some psychological sense a rule breaker. Competition and strategy are psychologically hard if you view your competitor as the in-group

And yet, often times your competitor is in the in-group when thinking about what your 'industry is' and how your actions and your competitors' actions raise or lower the profile of the industry.

When I play sports, I compete to win. I also don't try to break their ankles.

In business, I can see that if a business attacks your business in a breaking way, maybe you need to retaliate in same. But as a default? I challenge the concept that everyone who horns into a market is a rule breaker. They are a norm breaker, and that could be conflated with rules, but I don't think that's quite the same.

Re: Why do I feel like you need to be a sociopath to succeed?

#66

Post by a4isms » Thu, Feb 17, 2022, 1:25 AM UTC

trinovantes wrote: post #53

a4isms wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I don't follow that reasoning at all.

For example, in many businesses there's an "ecosystem." Within the ecosystem, companies are actually "frenemies," because while they're ostensibly competing, the more value is available in the ecosystem, the more it grows, creating more opportunities for everyone in the ecosystem..

I lived through the evolution of the personal computer ecosystem literally from the Altair to now, I've watched it in action. Ecosystems have both zero-sum and positive-sum characteristics. Mac versus Windows was a death-match, but being an ISV within the Mac ecosystem was very much a positive-sum game.

When I was selling my Mac classified ad software, I could have thought of every other vendor as a competitor for my customers' fixed budgets. But if I saw a problem and recommended some other software that solved it, they got more value out of their automation and would end up spending more money on me. Where as if they didn't get enough value out of their Macs, they would switch to WIndows and I'd have had to port my app to continue to serve them.

The same thing is true of working in a company. Yes, you're kind of competing with your colleagues, but at the same time, cooperating with your colleagues makes everyone money. So working as an employee has both zero-sum and positive-sum characteristics.

Maybe I misunderstand your claim, but as I interpret what you've written, I feel it doesn't match my observation. I really do think there are lots and lots and lots of things that are positive sum games in business.

Come to think of it, this web site is one of them too.