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Comment by MrMcCall | Hacker News Reader

I would count the "times" as terrible if we chose leaders with the following characteristics:

  - lovers of themselves
  - lovers of money
  - boastful
  - proud
  - abusive
  - ungrateful
  - without love
  - unforgiving
  - slanderous
  - without self-control
  - brutal
  - not lovers of the good
  - treacherous
  - rash
  - conceited
  - lovers of pleasure
  - hypocritical

I think we should have nothing to do with such people.

Certainly we should not be electing them to office. That would be a terrible idea, IMO.

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Anybody with any sort of ambition will display those in some shape

Edit: idk really, but toxic/fake positivity is not helpful in a competitve env, and to sales is just lying/over promising

See Douglas Adams’ quote about electing leaders:

> anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. -- Winston Churchill

Churchill said "_it has been said that_ democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time," so Churchill himself acknowledged that the quote wasn't his.

> Anybody with any sort of ambition will display those in some shape

There's an important difference between ambition for selfish gain and ambition to better help others.

> but toxic/fake positivity is not helpful in a competitve env

That's why I counsel real positivity that comes from having tuned one's moral compass towards compassion, or at least trying to.

As to competitive environs, we would be much less wasteful and destructive if we cooperated instead of competing.

> sales is just lying/over promising

Merlin explained in Excalibur that honesty is the most important virtue via, "When a man lies, he murders some part of the world."

> As to competitive environs, we would be much less wasteful and destructive if we cooperated instead of competing.

The communist countries have some of the most polluted areas on the planet.

> There's an important difference between ambition for selfish gain and ambition to better help others.

Everybody is selfish. The beauty of the free market is it enables selfish behavior to help others. All attempts at creating selfless societies have resulted in misery and poverty.

> The communist countries have some of the most polluted areas on the planet.

They were not cooperating, my friend, they were manifesting a ruling class that was above the law and pillaged the land for personal gain and sometimes even for the state.

> Everybody is selfish.

We are only as selfish as we choose to be, likewise our sense of ethics is only as developed as the virtues we embrace. Yes, we begin life selfish and most of our cultures are selfishly oriented towards others, but these are all the result of the citizens' choices. And, yes, our beliefs are chosen as well, and are as adaptable as we like.

> The beauty of the free market is it enables selfish behavior to help others.

I would say, rather, that the free market is good at letting people act selfishly, for either good or ill. That's why I like my capitalism with fetters, plenty of fetters. But, yeah, capitalism that doesn't destroy the powerless is the best path forward.

> All attempts at creating selfless societies have resulted in misery and poverty.

No, most humans that say they're creating selfless societies are really just grifters who want to be the new royalty. Selfishness always results in misery on some level, for some person or persons.

We can develop systems that reward those who innovate and improve our life on Earth, without jeopardizing our environment and the peace among people. We could choose that, my friend. The problem is that most people don't care enough about others to be generous.

We could each choose to learn how to be virtuous and then dedicate ourselves to helping implement a compassionate, sensible, and sustainable world society.

All that's holding us back is our unwillingness to admit we each have the ability to be a part of the solution, as opposed to our currently sadass status quo.

> that the free market is good at letting people act selfishly, for either good or ill

The free market relies on free exchange, which means each party to the deal is better off making the deal. Forcible or fraudulent exchanges are not part of the free market.

" fraudulent exchanges are not part of the free market."

That is not true at all.

Totally Free markets are 'buyer beware', If fraud can exist, then that is fine, you should have done your homework before buying a lemon. Each side is responsible for verification.

Markets where fraud is caught and removed, have rules, and laws, regulations, enforcement.

And thus many say are 'not free'. Add regulation and then people complain, "Why are you regulating me, I want my free market".

> That is not true at all.

You can make up your own definitions, but the free market requires a government to protect rights. Defrauding people is stealing, not free market. You cannot have a free market when people are allowed to say "either your signature goes on the contract or your brains."

Buyer beware is because the government cannot always protect people against fraud, no matter how much regulation and enforcement there is. Buyer beware also means people should read contracts before signing them. That's not fraud.

A lot of people like to believe free market means no government, but that's simply not true.

For another example, if someone sells you a jar marked "grape jelly" and you open it later and it's just water, you've been defrauded. This is a crime, not the fault of the buyer, and not free market.

Sorry. I agree with all of that.

I took your sentence as the opposite. And so was making the extreme point on totally free markets are chaos that would allow fraud.

Perhaps I'm too sensitive to the 'right' narrative that government is evil and markets should be 'free' of regulation or laws. So now when someone starts talking free-market, I assume they are in that group.

There are groups, sometimes libertarians, that argue all regulation is bad, for example, if I buy the "Grape Jelly" and it is water, then the 'Free' Market will self correct by people not buying your "Grape Jelly" and you would go out of business.

I agree, laws and regulations are needed for a market to work. Was just pushing back on the group that thinks even that is not 'free' enough.

Truly, but kleptocracies do not have free markets, either, where the peasants are not better off for their 'betters' making such deals for the benefit of their cronies.

William Gibson is, by far, my favorite author.

Name an unselfish person, and I'll show you a selfish person.

Mother Theresa

Some quotes from the Wikipedia article on her https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Teresa

> "I was to leave the convent and help the poor while living among them. It was an order. To fail would have been to break the faith."

> Chatterjee criticized her for promoting a "cult of suffering" and a distorted, negative image of Calcutta, exaggerating work done by her mission and misusing funds and privileges at her disposal.

> Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, mayor of Calcutta from 2005 to 2010, said that "she had no significant impact on the poor of this city", glorified illness instead of treating it and misrepresented the city: "No doubt there was poverty in Calcutta, but it was never a city of lepers and beggars, as Mother Teresa presented it."

While I am not a confidante of hers (and neither are you) I expect her selfish reward was the satisfaction in her work, the gratitude of those she helped, and the approbation from others.

Selfish desires are not only about money.

Yeah, I don't think the reports about her after her death were kind to the Church's claims of her having had a loving nature.

It's possible my father was an Altar Boy in Pennsylvania. Some real monsters found a place to stay in those Parishes. My theory is that that's why PA is the home of some of the best wrestlers in the world. PA's report on CC sexual abuse of children was, IIUC, 800 pages long. And, to keep those collection baskets full, they covered it all up.

I like how Robin Wiliams said it, "It's not just a sin, it's a felony!"

We must treasure all children, and protect them with the most stringent consequences for the monsters of this world.

We all start that way, but we are capable of self-evolving out of it, with dedication, honesty, study, and, most importantly, with the help of our Creator.

And, yes, not very many people (less than 10% throughout history, IIUC) make the effort necessary to transmute any of their vices into virtues, but that doesn't mean it's not possible. What it means is that most people are a bunch of Dunning-Kruger low-achievers. The humble among us are the ones who can reach true-expert level on the paths we take in our life.

Humility is essential to make progress as we must reach for a Power beyond ourselves to deal with our pathetic, selfish, weak-willed ego. Anything we are allowed to achieve only demonstrates our utter incapacity to make such progress on our own.

"The Way goes in." --Rumi

It awaits our connecting with It. Religion is always personal, between the person and our Creator, Maintainer, and eventual Destroyer. No one escapes the fact that we all draw a last breath.

Just send a thankful, loving vibe out towards the universe's Creator, my accomplished friend. And then perhaps read some Castaneda; that sh_t's craaaaazy, but not completely untrue.

The resistence inside of us is the enemy of our happiness. Castaneda is very clear about that in his 10th (IIRC) and final book. Not all aspects of our mind are "ours"; he calls it a "foreign installation".

Peace be with you, Mr. Bright. It's an honor for me to serve you this way on this day.

Thank you for your kind words!

I think you missed some of the most important bits at the end:

> But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. (1 Tim 3, ESV)

For good or for bad, Judeo Christian morality was always rooted in a fear of God. As the belief in God has warped and wained away from biblical moorings, we shouldn't be surprised that morality has gone with it. To such an extent that, seemingly, moral character has very little impact when evaluating leaders, as long as other ideological boxes are checked.

On the other hand, given the context of this writing, it seems that these kinds of people are always present... in all times and all cultures. So maybe there isn't so much uniquely bad about our current times? I don't know, just wondering out loud.

> Judeo Christian morality was always rooted in a fear of God

The Great(est) Command(ment) is "To love God with all your being, and then love your neighbor as yourself."

Society improves a little when someone chooses to not do bad because they're afraid to get punished.

Society improves much more when someone chooses to do good by having evolved their sense of ethics and self-control.

Our most important human ability, and the reason we have a {moral compass, mind, and free will} is our ability to self-evolve our ideals, attitudes, and behaviors out of the selfish and animalistic towards the compassionate and humanitarian.

Our Creator loves us and prefers us to live in peace and prosperity, but we must choose to implement such a societal system that better rewards virtue and minimizes the harms caused from vice. And such a system must be our choice (i.e. democracy) because there must be no compulsion in religion (which pervades life as an ethos of compassionately positive contribution to the whole).

> As the belief in God has warped and wained away from biblical moorings, we shouldn't be surprised that morality has gone with it. To such an extent that, seemingly, moral character has very little impact when evaluating leaders, as long as other ideological boxes are checked.

Yes, that is indeed the case, but Christianity is no more or less guilty than most all of the other religions, their majorities taking the selfishly divisive road over the compassionately unifying road.

> it seems that these kinds of people are always present... in all times and all cultures.

As we live and breath, my friend. We are each those people, to more or less extent as per the predilections of our individual nature and those of the cultures we inhabit. The key is that we all(1) have the power both how to learn to be better as well as to choose to be better. [(1) There are the mentally ill and physically damaged and developmentally disabled folks that do not have the power to control themselves, but they are very rare.]

The universe helps, though, in that the human-only Law of Karma determines our happiness or unhappiness by how we have treated others. It is the applied aspect of "You reap what you sow." It is our environment's feedback system to let us know if we've been naughty or nice, whether we are headed in the right direction or not.

> So maybe there isn't so much uniquely bad about our current times?

Not for individual human beings; vice is vice and virtue is virtue and we have many inertias against our becoming better. But our technological progress has facilitated greater destruction to the Earth via war and pollution. It drives a more efficient systematic greed that oppresses the poor more brutally, and the rich have used their power to hire attorneys to craft the laws that let them rise above other human beings like royalty. The codifying of the MBA ethos that changed the "personnel" department into "human resources" is quite the tell.

To be fair though, Jesus also said

> I tell you, my friends, don’t be afraid of people. They can kill the body, but after that they can do nothing more to hurt you. I will show you the one to fear. You should fear God, who has the power to kill you and also to throw you into hell. Yes, he is the one you should fear.

So although love may be seen as the primary teaching, there is definitely a dollop of fear mixed in their. This is common in Abrahamic traditions, with some notable exceptions such as the early Sufi mystic Rabia Basri, who said

> If I adore You out of fear of Hell, burn me in Hell! If I adore you out of desire for Paradise, lock me out of Paradise. But if I adore you for Yourself alone, do not deny to me Your eternal beauty.

Conversely, many Eastern religions encourage individuals to understand fear's root causes and work towards overcoming them through mindfulness and insight.

Well, most -- like 90% -- people don't have any contact with God or Its teachings and, therefore, have no interest in learning the principles It has laid down for how we should live our life.

As such, fear is a great way to get people to jump start entering the Path of Love. No one should be comfortable living their life in ignorance to the gentle lovingkindess we should be working to transform ourself into. It certainly kick-started my reestablishing my connection with God in my late 20s.

As to Rabia Basri's quote, I don't get that from my Sufi Murshid's teachings. Though he has passed away now, our fundamental command is:

  Always love. Teach to always love.
  Never hate. Teach to never hate.

But I think the gist of what Basri is saying is that we should desire to self-evolve ourselves towards the beauty best exemplified by the Unfathomable beauty of our Creator, for love's sake, for our neighbors' sakes.

In that vein, I don't even know if we're Sunni or Shi'ite, because it doesn't matter. We are to not divide into sects, and that extends to all of humankind, where one's religious path and even lack thereof should not be a divisive factor in our love for one another. Love is our responsibility alone, not that of those we encounter. We are merely to exemplify love and then teach it as best we can, to those who care to learn.

> Conversely, many Eastern religions encourage individuals to understand fear's root causes and work towards overcoming them through mindfulness and insight.

There is great wisdom in tackling fear's causes and unsavory effects, as much of fear's causes and results are due to the internal enemy's (nefs, selfish ego) urgings and justifications.

The Quran says of those who love God with all their being:

  On them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.

That is a person who has both "mindfulness and insight", because they have not only put their entire life in God's hands, but understand that the past is in the past, and all we can do is keep doing God's loving work going forward.

Thanks you for this loving conversation this morning. Peace be with you, friend. I love you, and am at your service.

> the gist of what Basri is saying is that we should desire to self-evolve ourselves towards the beauty best exemplified by the Unfathomable beauty of our Creator

The way I understand it is by comparing it to a romantic relationship. If you stick to it out of being scared of being alone ("fear of hell"), it will not fulfill. If you stick to it for superficial reasons ("desire for Paradise"), it will not fulfill. But if you stick to it out of genuine love for the other person, then it has a chance of lasting.

I like it. Thanks.

"such people" are all of us.

We all start that way, both 50% selfish and 50% selfless, but we are each capable of self-evolving our selfish vices into their corresponding compassionate virtues.

I consider the greatest song of all time to be "Love is the Truth" by Jack White, whose chorus is:

  It's the right thing to do
  And you know it
  And it's inside of you
  So just show it
  Love is the truth
  And it's inside of you (bop ba ba ba ba)
  It's the right thing to do

We each have the choice to embrace greater compassion for others in our lives. That thing inside us that tells us we can't, or that guy's a liar, or he's trying to convert you to his religion, or he's trying to get your money -- that thing is the liar. It is arguing against our human race's embracing love, and is brutally successful at convincing us to act out of our selfish ego, which is what it spurns and goads. It is pleading for its life, that selfish ego inside each of us. It knows that embracing the Path of Love, it will wither away and be utterly replaced by the joy of loving service to all those we come into contact with.

That negative force presses upon our thoughts and feelings, and is our downfall should we not fight it and try to become virtuous. We must try with all our heart, my friend, and our only hope is to beseech the Creator of this magnificent and mysterious universe.

"The Way goes in." --Rumi

That's narcissism.

The thing with narcissists is that they're extremely confident. People love confident leaders, even if they're terrible in every other way.

As the recent US election has shown, it's not what you say - but how you say it, that counts.

Hell, you see this with startups, too. When a founder appears extremely passionate and enthusiastic, pitching something as if they're at the top of the world, investors are willing to suspend their disbelief.

One can get away with lots of things, if you're just confident enough.

> As the recent US election has shown, it's not what you say - but how you say it, that counts.

Are you implying that Biden spoke with more confidence than Trump, but Harris did not?

Confidence game, or "con game" as we call it in english, relies on the gullibility of the mark, the target of the swindle.

We can only hone our perception of what people are really up to by sharpening our own moral compass and then acting virtuously as an act of volitional self-evolution.

Once one begins learning how to be more virtuous and behaves appropriately, one gets better at recognizing the vices other people manifest, e.g.: greed, dishonesty, hate, enmity, jealousy/envy, ...

But, yeah, they sure do take the rubes for a ride, don't they?

Yes, narcissism is the apotheosis of selfishness. Compassion for others is the most important tool we have to combat its tendencies within our own hearts and minds. And, yes, we all have selfishness in us, and it is a long road to rid ourselves of it all, though I'm not speaking from even within sight of that glorious achievement.

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