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Comment by JCM9 | Hacker News Reader

Came across them a few times. There’s absolutely nothing special about the tech. If anything they’ve probably fallen quite a bit behind now. What is “special” is just a willingness to do things with data that others would consider inappropriate or unethical. There’s a market for that sort of thing.

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“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Thank you for reading MengerSponge. Thank you. It means the world these days.

That's kind of always the secret to mega-success.

You have to have 2 out of 3 of the following traits:

   1. Exceptional skill
   2. Luck
   3. Lack of scruples

Reminds me of this quote from Margin Call https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag14Ao_xO4c

"There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first; be smarter; or cheat"

Though I'm sure people who are first tend to view that as skill or being a visionary, not luck

What bothers me is when people treat the third as some sort of virtue. I think operating in the ethical gray areas makes them feel smart instead of unethical.

Morality is not about intelligence, but some folks believe living by morals is submitting oneself to the lack of intelligence (or stupidity even). The real [evil] geniuses prune their decision tree by not considering morality so they maintain optimum efficiency.

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