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Comment by MrBurns | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for your feedback rogerjin. I respect your point of view and agree that it's somewhat immoral, but given that I strongly believe that the person won't realize the project wouldn't it be dumb to reject a great venture purely on moral grounds? And as some people suggested ideas are out there and other people are probably working on a similar project as we speak. In the end if someone else succeeds with this idea wouldn't that person be stealing the idea as well?

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"In the end if someone else succeeds with this idea wouldn't that person be stealing the idea as well?"

>> There's an unbelievably huge difference between someone (a complete stranger) realizing this idea by themselves and running with it, versus your friend disclosing his idea/features/strategy to you in good faith and you running with it. MrBurns, there are some things in life more important than money and success, such as not screwing over someone in this way. Shows a complete lack of character. At the risk of sounding condescending, didn't your parents teach you better?

Its not just somewhat immoral, its completely immoral. As my friend who send this thread to me said, "Its one thing to compete with an idea. It's another when someone divulge massive details about everything regarding the idea, and you just come in and try to fuck them over." And yes, while execution is more important than the idea, considering the information was divulged in good faith and you're now just taking the chance to screw him over when he's down, my friend likens your justification to "saying murder is OK because stupid people are making the world dumb." Think about it. It's not OK.

If you really believe this will be a great venture, you should help this guy rather then screw him. And if you really want in on the venture, you should have a serious talk to this person about joining together if you truly realize how bad what you were proposing was, and WITHOUT any ulterior motives. Yes, while he might be too blinded by his passion to make any changes, but you never know until you try.

I can see that you're getting pretty passionate about this thread rogerjin and I repect that! I actually started this post to get the most honest feedback I could get and I want to thank you for it. Having said that, here's a purely hypothetical question. Up to what point can you say that it's okay to steal and idea? Say we hypothetically give this guy three years to launch his pet project. Three years later we meet him again and it's still not launched. Can we say that if he didn't develop it in three years then it's up for grabs? That he got his chance and the next guy should seize his opportunity? The reason why I'm saying this is because contrary to you, I believe that the line between what is moral and what is immoral is not always as clear as you suggest it is.

not to answer for roger, but in my eyes: You're right. Being immoral isn't black and white, in this case it's a line drawn in relation to your relationship to the friend you're considering stealing from. Now it's clear he obviously holds some value in the friendship since he's willing to fully disclose his ideas to you, ideas which he likely plans to do work on. By stealing his ideas you're not only robbing him of something he cares about and a potential income/customer base etc, but you're also betraying that friendship.

Your example of waiting 3 years is a valid one, the reason why the morality changes is because after 3 years he likely will care less about the idea (I mean he didn't do anything with it for 3 years, right?) because it's become apparent he doesn't care much about it, the robbing and betrayal have less of an impact, to the point where it's so much less of a deal that it's just overwritten by you friendship

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