Hacker News Reader

Comment by pcunite | Hacker News Reader

I'll take a sinner turned saint over continued arrogance any day.

What's sort of peculiar is - as far as I've seen/read - he's never been penitent about his past unethical behavior. No: "Yeah, I used to be a dick. I regret leading my company that way" or anything like that.

Maybe I'm not well read enough about it though

Being a billionaire means never having to say you're sorry.

(Shrug) It's easier to trust people who don't do things like that in the normal course of business. Can a leopard change its spots?

This leopard-changing-its-spots analogy is the wrong way to look at things. It assumes that ethics and morality are permanently writ onto our cores, and that to change those values, one would have to become another person entirely. This is a false belief.

As I mentioned in a comment below, numerous studies have shown that a person's ethics are heavily influenced by their present circumstances and environment, not some unchangeable inner nature.

> a person's ethics are primarily dictated by their present circumstances and environment

Citation needed. I can accept "influenced by" or even "heavily influenced by" without too much argument, but "primarily dictated by" is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary proof.

It is rather normal for people to change their political stance over the years as they go from young people who think they live forever to people with kids and responsibilities.

Its probably not as obvious here in the US with a two party system but other places like Denmark and Sweden you see this change more clearly.

Your rhetorical fails instantly. People aren't leopards, they don't have fixed 'spots.' So yes, most adults can change their value systems any time they choose to. In my personal experience they frequently do. In fact, I've never known a single person that didn't change quite a lot every five years or so.

I don't necessarily disagree, but I'd prefer that this call be made by the judicial system whenever possible. When someone does something bad and escapes punishment for it, it can be harder to forgive. Is that such a stretch?

Very interesting moderation in this thread. HN is not doing itself proud at the moment.

At what point can you decide, rationally, that you've made the right take? After the fact? Before the fact?

Fact: there is no such thing as a right time to write AARD code. Its a sin, pure and simple. Don't wait until the sinner is famous and rich...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com