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Comment by gretch | Hacker News Reader

Yeah if a doctor said “I don’t really care about my patients’ lives. I just like the power of being able to prevent death”

I really think that’s perfectly fine

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If they prevent my death, I don't care why.

I would surmise you do care if the doctor lopped off a limb when a couple rounds of antibiotics would have worked.

Motive is tied to the means, not just the ends.

That would be fine, but what if it is a slightly different "I don’t really care about my patients’ lives. I just like the power of having a hand in whether people live or die."? Doesn't that start to sound a little questionable?

As Dan says "The goal is to protect the business — not to ruin people’s lives." Is Alex getting that "huge adrenaline rush" from protecting Walmart's property? Or is he getting that adrenaline from having power over people? Because his desire "to move back to the field side, where we actually deal with people" seems to imply that it is the power over people that he craves and not the loss prevention.

Not to me. I don't trust peoples' self assessment of their own motivations or goals. Typically they paint themselves in some sort of distorted light and it really has no effect on their actual outcomes or deliverables.

Also, I can't think of a 'better' answer to that question really.

> I just do this to pay the bills

Okay, so he doesn't care at all what happened to me

> I really care about saving peoples' lives

Yeah, that's what I would say if I were an evil guy

All I would really care about is their surgery success rate and track record.

Psychopaths are overrepresented in surgery/EMT work if I'm not mistaken, for better or worse.

So many surgeons with god complexes

That would account for "Stephen Strange" types who take on challenging surgeries just to prove they can do it and deserve their posh surgeon salary.

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