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Comment by richcollins | Hacker News Reader

Daniel recognizes his mistake and is simply trying to put this issue behind him. I regret that this post might make it more difficult for Daniel to do that.

Why the hell does everyone seem to tiptoe around this guy? Asking for bribes isn't some sort of youthful indiscretion, its indicative of a fundamental personality trait that won't change as he gets older.

The more I learn about Jason and Loren, the clearer their malicious intent becomes.

Its unfortunate that he didn't do his homework on this one before contacting Calcanis.

From my interactions with Sam, he seems like a good guy trying to do right by others by making something useful for them. He shouldn't be in any way apologetic to these leeches.

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I don't think it's a fundamental personality trait. Bribery is common in certain countries. Do you think it's because the people in such countries have different fundamental personality traits? Seems more likely this sort of thing is largely determined by the situation. The kid may have just gotten carried away by the power he suddenly found himself holding.

Let's say honesty is a fundamental personality trait. One can be honest and bribe in a country where bribery is accepted. That same person wouldn't in a country where bribery is illegal. It's not the act of bribing that determines one's personality trait - it's the honesty.

I don't really think honesty is a fundamental personality trait either. Consider that in polite adult society, there're many times that you are expected to lie, and it's considered rude if you don't. If a women asks, "Do I look fat?", do you say yes? If someone asks you "How are you?", do you go on about how your life sucks and you wish you had their job?

It's more that there are certain culturally-dependent rules of behavior, and considerate people eventually learn and conform to those rules. Oftentimes the rules make zero sense in logical terms; they evolved through long years of accumulated customs.

Most teenagers are still learning those rules, and part of learning them involves breaking them. Didn't you ever push the boundaries as a teenager? Do something that perhaps your parents and other authority figures disapproved of?

I was just commenting on how it could be possible that accepting bribery in one country, but not in another doesn't imply a different fundamental personality trait, as was assumed in the example.

Even that is actually rather blurry. There's a difference between gift-giving (and accompanying smalltalk) to build relationships, and gift-giving to get one's way.

Understand that the former (gift-giving to build relationships) is designed to artificially create a high cost of entry to any new relationship so that people are discouraged from making bad deals (or otherwise behaving unethically).

The latter (gift-giving in exchange for services) is generally not accepted for the simple reason that it subverts rational decision making on the part of officials. That much is the same everywhere.

The fact that there is "bad" bribery in some relationship-based cultures does not diminish the fact that it's undesirable. People there may put up with it because they just need to get things done, much like the way we put up with the legal and patent system here.

What the kid did in this case regarding the MacBook Air would likely be considered bribery in any country. It is clearly an exchange of goods in return for services rendered.

I hope this gets not turned on it's head and we are supposed to be sorry for the guy because he seems to be "socially challenged". He is general being described as a smart guy, it seems safe to assume that he knew exactly what he was doing.

Also, I wonder how accepted bribes really are in some cultures. My guess is that bribes exist in certain cultures because their policies put people into power and give them the chance to ask for bribes. I don't think the people having to do the bribing particularly like it, but they can't help it because the other people are in power. It's maybe more a sign of a defunct legal system than of cultural attitudes.

> That same person wouldn't in a country where bribery is illegal.

Oh how much I wish it was a matter of legality. Unfortunately it's a matter of culture, which is a lot harder to change.

In a lot of countries bribery is necessary on a daily basis, otherwise government officials can take literally hours to carry out simple requests. It seems to occur when the person carrying out gets very little pay verses the value of the service they carry out to people using the service.

For instance, it's quite common on land border crossings between developing countries to have to pay $2/3 for your passport to be checked, but that money only goes in the guy's pockets. It might not sound like a lot, but when you consider their daily wage may only be $10-15 and there are 100s of people crossing everyday, it works out quite well I'd expect. If you don't pay it might take them 30mins or more to check your passport or they find some minor problem and send you back wasting several days of your valuable time.

Mostly in the cases I've seen in developing countries, is that you just bribing someone so they will actually do their job properly.

The fundamental personality trait is lower level; ie risk aversion. Daniel is probably not very risk averse and hence this looked like a great opportunity.

Giving people who do this a thorough and public flogging is a great thing, however, as it'll help keep future Daniels in line.

Violent behavior is also a fundamental personality trait. Just because someone controls their violent tendencies in one environment vs another, doesn't mean that they aren't a violent person.

It's more likely that the job attracted him because it put him in a position where he could accept bribes. This is analogous to the attraction of pedophiles to the priesthood.

So bribery is okay in 'certain' countries, so it's okay in this one where there's well established laws dating back centuries that outlaw it? Bullshit, the guys a criminal. He took bribes and he should be driven out of the industry like the parasite he is.

He's young, I'll give him that. He should have been working harder than anyone to maintain his integrity and an image of maturity, but he wasn't he was trying to take advantage of people. He's a rat, through and through. It's so clear by his mixergy interview that he has no intent to admit his behavior was abhorrent.

He took bribes and he should be driven out of the industry like the parasite he is.

He's a rat, through and through.

It's actually a different kind of person that's an unfortunate presence in online tech debates.

Yeah, I think Sam is being far too generous in thinking Daniel has recognized his mistake. Going back to the Mixergy interview Daniel did, he claimed the suggestion of a Mac Book air was intended as a joke but it seems very clear that from Sam's point of view that it was not. Also, he uses the alleged "Birthday Present" cover story when talking about the iMac he received.

When most 17-year-olds make mistakes - even big ones - the whole internet doesn't know about it. Kids make judgment mistakes because they aren't emotionally mature yet. One mistake made at 17 is not necessarily indicative of a lifelong personality trait.

Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error

Sadly, a lot of people need to be bribed to get work done. Even if they may not ask directly, its written all over their face.

Thats the way the world works.

You mean people expect something money in return for work? That sounds like a salary.

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