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Comment by ModernMech | Hacker News Reader

Some people have a nonexistent or weak conscience. We call them psychopaths and sociopaths. They are not all bloodthirsty ax murderers as portrayed by Hollywood.

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That’s a very good trait to have success in business.

I linked to this in another thread today. Relevant even more here: https://www.psychology.org.au/news/media_releases/13Septembe...

"One study of 261 corporate professionals in the supply chain management industry showed extremely high prevalence rates of psychopathy, with 21% of participants found to have clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits - a figure comparable to prison populations."

So there is a 21% chance according to that study that Tim Cook is a psychopath :)

Are you sure that having significant psychopathic traits is the same as being a psychopath?

That is how the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) works. Psychologists identify people exhibiting similar disordered behavior, then they extrapolate underlying traits that are likely related to that disorder. The disorder and the traits get published in the DSM, with the guidelines of, "Subjects who exhibit N of these traits can be designated a psychopath."

The goal of business is to undermine competitors. It's hard to imagine a good person with such mindset.

The goal used to be too provide a good or service that people need and exchange them for a fair price so you can survive. Now, business has been turned into a way to fuck other people over so you can get more resources than you'll need for 1000 lifetimes.

The goal has ever been making as much as possible while giving as little as possible. That's how it's been since humans developed ego. You're describing business between post-ego humans also known as saints. We don't have many of those yet.

Yes, unfortunately. See "Assholes, a Theory", by Aaron James, a serious book on this topic.

A good businessperson only makes a sale if the person on the other end will come back for more.

Unless of course, you can drown it out by sheer volume of sales.

The traveling huckster model breaks down eventually too, there's only so many people you can scam.

Also, that life isn't a good one.

At internet scale though you can get pretty far and if a new huckster is born every minute then it’s a revolving door of trolling. State sponsored money can’t hurt either.

But only if repeat business is relatively frequent. This isn't particularly true for durable goods sellers or people who sell one-off things.

Is the car salesman ever going to see you again? Is the realtor ever going to see you again? Is the mattress store salesman ever going to see you again? Is the artist who sells you band merch or paintings going to see you again? Probably not.

Sometimes the buyer doesn't have much choice: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Opium-Wars .

It's not. Good businesses thrive with their customers/employees/other stakeholders.

You're thinking of slavers, or the mafia.

Read biographies of famous business people. You will find them full of stories where they act in a very cruel manner if it benefits them.

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