Comment by spicyusername | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spicyusername | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I relate heavily to the spirit of your comments. Wouldn't we all be better off if we lived in a society that is built on trust and honesty.

However, I think you're being a little naive if you think the days of "yesteryear" were somehow different in man's capacity and willingness to do what he needs to do to survive.

    I mean in every facet of life we're basically awash in never before seen capacity to benefit from dishonesty.

    it isn't inherent to the discipline of technology itself anymore.

    Like, there was a time where this kind of personality type would just go get an MBA

These comments in particular read to me as something you want to be true. Who doesn't want their profession to be the noble, honest one and other professions to be the dishonest ones.

The reality is that humans have not fundamentally changed in hundreds of thousands of years. If we're doing it today, you can bet we were doing it yesterday and that we'll be doing it tomorrow.

You can always throw the argument “it has always been like that” to any discussion, but that’s never going to be a meaningful response to anyone who cares to think critically about whether the status quo is how things should be.

I'm saying that's how things have been, are, and will continue to be.

Any policy, technology, process, etc must take that into account.

I definitely wish that's not how it was, and I don't think that's how it should be, but we have to work with what we have to work with.

There are plenty of ways to get people to rise to their best selves, rather than sink to their worst selves, as they are in this context while competing for high paying jobs, and we should always try to induce the best outcomes possible.

I think this what you're getting at by suggesting we don't just give up, despite knowing what we know about human nature. But we also shouldn't deny the hard truth that humans won't anyways behave the way we wish they did.

>what he needs to do to survive

Robbing a loaf of bread so your children can eat is very different from cheating on a test/interview for a job with a kingly salary. One is doing what one needs to do to survive, and morally justifiable. The other is pathetic and craven.

Sure; but which is which will vary from person to person.

Yes, I am aware that sociopaths exist.

Not really any different. Nobody was hurt in the latter case.

> Nobody was hurt in the latter case.

Except the honest competitor who was passed over for the position, or the promotion?

I find it amusing that you are using a throwaway account for comments on this topic. It's as good as an admission that you know the behavior is wrong.

Two fundamental truths:

- nature is inherently competitive. - civilization and culture temper this but requires vigilance to maintain.

The second implies that some cultures may be more effective at tempering nature’s excesses than others… and also that it can change in a way in which it becomes less or more effective, or at least effective for different things…

>vigilance to maintain.

I think this part is a crucial part, that many comments here miss. Honesty is not useful if it's not rewarded, consequently if cheating can be rewarding, because of non-vigilance. We see this not only among humans but also in animals/birds, and in general nature.

Yeah, you're definitely right about that. I wasn't there for the golden era, which I imagine to be something like Jobs and Woz phreaking on the phones and ripping of Xerox as sort of the "noble" form of evil.

It's hard to speak quantitatively about qualitative things, but that' something that enters the discussion as soon as words like "more" or "less" are uttered.

In any case, you're absolutely correct that I'm definitely naive because I'm limited to just my lifetime.

You mean the same era where Jobs cheated Woz out of his fair compensation and took credit for the Breakout game?

And then Bill Gates ripped off Xerox and beat Apple to the punch on desktop GUIs ;p

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmMqMYgswsA&t=609s

Putting a permanent dent into their friendship.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com