We create a world of kindness or selfishness, judgement or forgiveness every day. These behaviors may get you money or power, but the world you have to live in gets worse. I don’t think you realize how much you lose getting ahead, and how much you cost everyone else.
Having the ability to lie and manipulate with no remorse will get you much further in this world than having morals and being correct
Submitted 8 months ago by TheReanuKeeves@lemmy.world to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
mrcleanup@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Malfeasant@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Learning this from my (soon-to-be-ex-) wife right now…
toppy@lemy.lol 8 months ago
“Having the ability to lie and manipulate with no remorse will get you much further in this world than having morals and being correct” This is the reason psychopaths are so successful.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 8 months ago
There’s very few things more galling than yourself playing by the rules, putting in the time and effort to have some kind of social contract, only to have someone flippantly disregard said rules and contract and to benefit from it. Doesn’t matter if it’s someone cutting in line or pillaging the highest office in the land for their own gain.
DominatorX1@thelemmy.club 8 months ago
It makes you bad at art and inventing tho. The liar plays a shallow game.
It says grim things that by playing the shallow game you can succeed in our society. I blame the rule of law. It was basically designed to be gamed.
Say what you will about dictators, at least they’re human.
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 8 months ago
Most successful artists are just as manipulative as any CEO. It’s a money painting front at this point
DominatorX1@thelemmy.club 8 months ago
yeah but those guys are assholes
TheReanuKeeves@lemmy.world 8 months ago
You take the Edison route of stealing from people like Tesla. One goes down as a famous inventor and the other dies broke and alone other than his pigeons.
And yes, the system is made for people to be pieces of shit because it was created by pieces of shit.
DominatorX1@thelemmy.club 8 months ago
The system could also be described as an abstraction of the same system that’s existed for millions of years. Domination by the powerful, exploitation of the weak, etc. Not so much evil as brutish.
YummyEntropy@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Yeah that tends to happen when most everyone is an enabler.
yarr@feddit.nl 8 months ago
I’ve known this for a long time but I continue to do my best to operate honorably. I may never be rich or powerful, but I sleep very well at night.
Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
I just had a talk with my son, 12, this morning about the bad feelings we get when we lie, trick, or cheat and are caught. For me, I explained, it can even physically hurt because my chest tightens. Sometime around when I was my son’s age, I decided I wanted to avoid that feeling at all costs, and just stopped trying to lie, or trick, or get away with something wrong, because the risk was never worth it.
I may not be rich, or powerful, or hell even interesting, but I do sleep well at night and nearing middle age, I’ve more love in my life than I’ve ever had before. I hope to pass that to my son. Honest man’s living is superior.
My neighbor will tell me all about her grown son (who I know as a racist shit bag, and his son bullys mine) is so successful financially, yet in the same breath tells me she doesn’t bother wasting money on her garden because she can get free tomatoes from the food bank.
Money doesn’t mean one is successful in my opinion. Are they happy? Do they love themselves? Do they treat others kindly? Do the add to their community in positive ways? Do they never take more than they need so that others can have too? That’s success.
I prefer to have my conscience clean, and be the brokest person out there, than to lie, sceme, cheat to gain some arbitrary “success”.
TheReanuKeeves@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I still don’t sleep well, knowing the state of the world
SunshineJogger@feddit.org 8 months ago
Yea. Trying to be correct and do things in a respectful and good way makes me more and more bitter, resentful and judgemental.
Soon that in itself will corrupt me.
the_q@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
A system designed by psychopaths benefits psychopaths? No way…
Salamanderwizard@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I’ll die poor with morals rather than rich and evil. I’m okay with that.
bampop@lemmy.world 8 months ago
You’ll also live better. It’s a sad indictment of society that people incapable of forming meaningful relationships, but able to buy some shiny crap they don’t need, are considered successful.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Ha, not really. If your only measure of success is your bank account then you’re playing high risk / reward with a dishonest strategy that either lands you in prison or a jacuzzi.
Then when you get to the really bad end of the spectrum, well…
Do you think Hitler smiled as he killed himself?
TheReanuKeeves@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Everyone knows his body was a double and Hitler fled to Argentina where he changed his name to Mateo González to pursue a career in dog breeding and pastries for diabetics
el_eh_chase@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
You’ll still be a shit person, likely with no meaningful friendships. That’s gotta factor into the equation somehow.
matlag@sh.itjust.works 8 months ago
Yeah, that’s what the rest of us try to convince ourself so that we can cope with it. That or the idea that these people must sleep very poorly thinking about what they’ve done, while we’re actually the ones who have poor sleep thinking about what they’ve done and feeling powerless.
TheReanuKeeves@lemmy.world 8 months ago
People with low empathy don’t see people as companions, but more as tools to benefit themselves. So they don’t really care as long as they have enough money and pawns to take care of themselves.
LadyButterfly@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I’m a domestic abuse outreach worker and I see it a lot in clients. Abusers are always selfish and generally manipulative and liars. They have little or no empathy for their partner and rarely care how the partner feels. They’re often highly successful in their field, because they have such great manipulation skills.
Eknz@lemmy.eknz.org 8 months ago
Reducing other people to mere tools is a symptom of psychopathy rather than simply low empathy. Yes, psychopaths are within the set of people with low empathy, however, shouldn’t be confused with the set itself. It’s also specifically a lack of affective (warm) empathy that’s more of the problem than a lack of empathy in general, as some psychopaths do have cognitive (warm) empathy, and so do understand others (albeit to a limited extent), however, just use it to be more exploitive rather than less. This is by contrast with autistic people who often struggle with cognitive empathy but not with affective empathy, i.e. they don’t know how they’ve hurt people but they know they’ve hurt people and try to avoid doing so.
ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Maybe, but not in the next one.
SomeSphinx@lemmy.world 8 months ago
There is no “Next one” We get one life on this planet.
Personally, I’d rather spend it in the company of good people and do good things.
ArgumentativeMonotheist@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I agree entirely with your second sentence!
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 8 months ago
I’ve been self-employed for about 30 years, which puts you rubbing elbows with other self-employed business people.
I have learned that while MOST people want to run a friendly, moral, legal business, and would never cross the line, there are a plenty of amoral businesspeople who don’t have any problems crossing the line.
Furthermore, they are well-aware that many businesspeople won’t cross the line, so that makes their willingness to act illegally or immorally their personal competitive edge, and they absolutely look at it that way.
They watch for decent, moral businesses, and they target them in various ways, either as a competitor, a supplier, a contractor, etc.
electric_nan@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
It’s because we live in a system with perverse incentives. It’s practically designed by psychopaths, for psychopaths. Still, we only get one life, don’t spend it going against your better nature.
Bloomcole@lemmy.world 8 months ago
And water is wet
mitexleo@buddyverse.one 8 months ago
It’s true. Still, I can’t lie for some reason.
WildPalmTree@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Try the game Warewolf (same concept goes by many other names). Most people find it really hard to lie, even if it is about nothing important at all and part of the agreed “social” rules.
Michal@programming.dev 8 months ago
It’s easier not to lie. Remembering all the lies is too much effort, and being caught can be particularly embarrassing especially if you already have social anxiety.
FreakinSteve@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I so wish
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 8 months ago
Go to work for ICE, and be the worst worker in the history of America. Then you earned your money gumming up the works of an evil organization, and you can feel good about taking their money to hurt them.
blarghly@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Eh, I bet the pay is shit
SabinStargem@lemmy.today 8 months ago
I would be alright with ICE getting fake armor plates, defective bullets, and boots with thin soles.
vivalapivo@lemmy.today 8 months ago
Yes and i would choose to have morals anyway
vane@lemmy.world 8 months ago
It depends where you want to go. Knowledge is always bigger than power, power gives money but knowledge gives depression and suicide thoughts. The fast escape path is obvious.
DahGangalang@infosec.pub 8 months ago
datavoid@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
I live my life to spite these people :)
thevoidzero@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Sure but it’s lonely at the top. If you rise to the top by backstabbing people, you’ll end up exactly how some people right now are, and you keep trying to accumulate more and be great or whatever messing up everything else and being hated.
While a simple life with your loved ones will give you satisfaction. And satisfaction is the key to happiness. Rather satisfaction is the ultimate happiness.
thatradomguy@lemmy.world 8 months ago
House MD Pilot
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Depends what you mean by “further”. It is a trait that definitely serves well in some very lucrative areas like business or politics. But it very easy to ruin other aspects of your life like your relationships, your public image, and can run you afoul of the law. In areas of work where your image is paramount, being a liar and manipulator usually only gets you so far because it’s very hard to maintain those lies and hide the manipulation under massive public scrutiny, particularly if you’re doing illegal stuff in addition to it. Of course the wealthier you are, or the more fanatical your following, the more you will have others lie and manipulate on your behalf, so… accountability can decrease that way.
MangoCats@feddit.it 8 months ago
it very easy to ruin other aspects of your life like your relationships, your public image, and can run you afoul of the law.
Not when you succeed to the level that you can ignore the laws - which isn’t just one man in the US, not by a long shot.
kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world 8 months ago
That’s why I included the last bit. The law is more relevant when you are not someone too special. The higher you get, the less it matters, if only because more people have fallen for your manipulations or are cognizant of them but support them for whatever reason, and will defend you no matter what from actual justice.
JackbyDev@programming.dev 8 months ago
plyth@feddit.org 8 months ago
That depends on how much people with morals stick together. People are isolated so that they can be manipulated.
Griffus@lemmy.zip 8 months ago
That depends on how shallow you want your life to be.
blarghly@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Really depends on where you are. These people won’t get as far in stable communities where people know and talk to each other. If you are doing these things habitually as a way to get ahead, eventually everyone will figure out what is going on and will, at the very least, exclude you from the group.
This pattern is the case with most people who are especially dickish or unpleasant in one way or another. Sure, a very small number of them gain power and influence in the world at large. But most of them live shitty lives. They have few friends, and the friends they do have are shitty like them. They have no money, because they have trouble getting and keeping jobs - even low paying ones. When they manage to find romantic partners, the relationships tend to be tumultuous, since the only people they can attract are just as shitty as they are.
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Especially in today’s sociopolitical climate
Jack_Burton@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
Especially in today’s sociop
oliticalathic climate
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 8 months ago
Unless you meet someone like me, who does not wait for aithorities to resolve things.
My co-workers did that literally hours ago, admited everything within moments.
EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 8 months ago
The world actively rewards bad behavior.