51–60 of 66 posts
If anybody responds, tell them that the offer is oversubscribed and that it is no longer available. Wow! A company built to handle other people's money that recommends deception. What's wrong with this picture?
You guys should work on formatting your posts, bold list titles or italicize or underline - I am too lazy to read everything, I want to skim before I decide to read.
http://summarity.com/bookmarklet_front
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, that's really what Ed's like. He's also _really_ not OK with you smoking up to relax ("You have trouble reading and writing and 'rithmetic, so you need a little chemical help. You pussy."); I'm pretty sure he also once posted he'd never work with you if you pirated software. I've been surprised by many things he's said. I think he's coming from a principled place. That doesn't mean I agree with him totally... but…
Thanks for the memories, Thomas (I think). I remember that drug post from a few years ago. If was about an English PhD who posted that he needed drugs to cope and I really ripped into him. I wasn't upset so much that he "smoked to relax" but that it ended up here, where it could have easily been misunderstood by someone impressionable (and young). I got shredded by my fellow hn'ers that day. Amazing that you remember…
For example, things like jaywalking - did you know that jaywalking is statistically safer than crossing the road at a pedestrian crossing in the US, on a per-crossing basis? If you knew that, would it change your opinion of the "ethics" of someone who broke that law? Some people put staying alive at a higher premium than obeying the law. But someone who didn't know that may just think they're a jackass.
It's also easily gamed. When people have such a simplistic and naive view of ethics / morality / character, their adversaries can put on little morality plays to fool them into a false sense of trust.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry to say, Rich, that was not the response I expected. AFAIC, there is no gray area here. I have argued (yes, many have disagreed with me) the same for years here. A little background... I have seen more deals than you can imagine ruined because someone lost trust. As simple as that. The salesman fibbing to his wife on the phone in front of the customer. The contractor paying the 3rd party vendor a little extra to…
I think there's an important distinction to be made between lying to potential users and lying to friends, family, or business partners. Morality is ultimately about results. I mean, it would be ok to lie in order to prevent the apocalypse, right? Lying to users could be justified as a means to an end, if the end is sufficiently worthwhile. Lying to someone close to you has a much greater cost due to its potential to…
Or it's not. See deontological vs. consequentialist conceptions of morality.
If anybody responds, tell them that the offer is oversubscribed and that it is no longer available. Wow! A company built to handle other people's money that recommends deception. What's wrong with this picture?
Using advertising and pre sales contacts to determine demand and design a product is quite reasonable (and standard; the innovation is that self-service AdWords makes it a command-line process vs. a formal effort), but the respondents are your first, best, and potentially most loyal customers, so screwing them even a little right off the bat is bad for a lot of reasons.
When the game theoretic amoral behavior and the "conventional, moral" behavior tend to converge, it's probably the correct choice.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I had more time, I'd go through all your previous HN comments disparaging WePay for different reasons. Somehow I doubt your motivation for doing so is a sterling commitment to morality. If it was, I doubt you would introduce your criticism with: "A company built to handle other people's money...", and instead, just focus your criticism on the point you are attacking.
No need for you to waste any time. Here they are: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959512 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959304 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959114 The first was meant as a compliment. I think you have a great idea and appear to be doing a great job with that idea. I have recommended you to quite a few people as the perfect solution to their problem. I wish you nothing but great succ…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think there's an important distinction to be made between lying to potential users and lying to friends, family, or business partners. Morality is ultimately about results. I mean, it would be ok to lie in order to prevent the apocalypse, right? Lying to users could be justified as a means to an end, if the end is sufficiently worthwhile. Lying to someone close to you has a much greater cost due to its potential to…
> Morality is ultimately about results. Or it's not. See deontological vs. consequentialist conceptions of morality.
And if you have a good will then you seek good results, so both philosphies end up in the same place, right?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Morality is ultimately about results. Or it's not. See deontological vs. consequentialist conceptions of morality.
"Nothing in the world—indeed nothing even beyond the world—can possibly be conceived which could be called good without qualification except a good will." And if you have a good will then you seek good results, so both philosphies end up in the same place, right?
regarding the lying: didn't bill gates lie to ibm when they were looking for an OS and say he had one (and then bought qdos and hacked it into dos)? think of what a boon microsoft has been to the world (i'm only half facetious) from a utilitarian - the only nonreligious, rational morality? - perspective...
Actually, there aren't any purely rational perspectives on morality, as they all seem to hinge on preserving some intuition or another. But in terms of logically consistent, secular ethical frameworks which produce results most of us are comfortable with, utilitarianism isn't the only one on the list. And there are actually points where utilitarianism might end up producing results people aren't comfortable with (such as kidnapping people and killing them for their organs).
I fully agree with the article, however, when I think of most the big successes of the last 10 years, they all fall in the exception category. What does that tell me? Would that have worked for twitter? No. For Google search? Barely. For Facebook? Probably not. GroupOn? Probably.