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Comment by adriand | Hacker News Reader

You should never mislead a potential investor. Why would you want an investor who is misaligned with your core technology/strategic direction?

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Well, nobody wants a misaligned investor. But I had the impression the negotiations already failed, because one buzzword could not be satisfied. My comment was meant more as advice to overcome such problematic situations during negotiations, than to mislead someone about what you are actually doing.

I remember every dishwasher and washing machine had "fuzzy logic" in the 90s (at least according to stickers). Just because it was the AI/ML/Deep Learning/Big Data/IoT of the time.

No, fuzzy logic won't make your washing machine better. Yes, you can implement some stuff in fuzzy logic.

I don't remember this from the 90's very well, so I read the wikipedia page. I saw the following diagram and wondered how many washing machines and dishwasher's considered themselves to use fuzzy logic because they simply kept track of the temperature instead of just being in hot / cold states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic#/media/File:Fuzzy_....

We wouldn't have this problem if civilization didn't continue to give so much money to the ID-10(t) class of investors.

Ideally, people that do nothing but tick off boxes in their mental buzzword checklists should not even be allowed to attend the pitches, and thereby waste other people's time by forcing them to hack around the unrepentant ignorance. But they that have the gold, make the rules.

$$$

How is this misleading?

This is a quaint sentiment, but marketing, sales, PR is all about misleading and creating unnecessary want. This is a major tenant of running a business and living under capitalism. There is also a moral argument for doing what you need to do in order to survive the difficulties of the market in order to survive it and change it into something more akin to your honest attitude about it.

I think you'll find that a lot of stem people tend to lean Kantian in their ethics. This implies that misleading people for any reason -- even "for their own good" -- is frowned upon.

I am not sure the Categorical Imperative rules out misleading people for their own good. If a win win result is highly likely the categorical imperative says it’s OK if you do it because if the whole world did it, things would become better!

No, it's still using people as a means to an end. It's even wrong to lie to the murderer at the door. Kant himself addressed this in an essay titled: On The Supposed Right To Lie From Altruistic Motives[1].

[1] https://www.unc.edu/courses/2009spring/plcy/240/001/Kant.pdf

Being Kantian doesn't mean being correct. It's not that hard to disagree with Kant's extreme hypothetical.

Yes I am aware, however the categorical imperative by itself does not seem to rule out such lying.

“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” — Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals

But it's even better in the long run if inefficient companies consistently lose to the better ones, since it will lead to better allocation of capital.

He did say marketing, sales and PR but your point still stands.

I was referring to marketing, sales, and PR as activities moreso than the people who work in those fields. I can't speak for all stem people, of course, but I, personally, have a strong aversion to those activities.

"There is also a moral argument for doing what you need to do in order to survive the difficulties of the market in order to survive it and change it into something more akin to your honest attitude about it."

There's really not, but it might make you feel better to think there is.

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