Submitted 3 weeks ago by TheReanuKeeves@lemmy.world to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Maybe, but it also means that you’ll be alone for eternity and will never have true friends or cammaradie, and that by itself will consume you.
There is only so many people you can do that to before everyone else catches on and shuns you. All the evil people in the world don’t have any friends and are subject to betrayals and threats in their lives constantly. To me, that’s not a bearable existence.
That doesn’t seem to bother the kind of people being described
Does Muskrat seem like a happy and balanced individual to you? What about Coked up Bezos or AI Zuckerberg?
you’ll be alone for eternity and will never have true friends or camaraderie, and that by itself will consume you.
I AM a morally decent person who makes efforts to do the right thing. And that last part is STILL true!
I just don’t like most people.
Most people are selfish and amoral. When people like that encounter a decent person they will do what they can to silence them so they aren’t given the ability to expose corruption.
You probably don’t like most people because most people are walking sacks of shit who would throw you under the bus if it means benefiting themselves
There are plenty of corrupt people who are never caught, or even caught and let go with little to no consequences due to their influence and money. As much as I want to live in a world where karma exists and assholes get what they deserve, that is unfortunately not the reality we live in.
You can be selective with this power; works well for a lot of folks. Have a smallish in group where you’re always upstanding, enjoy all the benefits that our tribal brain craves, and also enjoy the material benefits.
Hey, you just described church!
Yeah it really depends on what you consider success. For a lot of people, money & power isn’t necessarily the marker for success, and finding meaning and joy in life is more important. And I know that sounds like capitalist “money doesn’t buy you happiness” bs, but striving towards money and power consistently is the most capitalist thing you can do.
I think people who are able to attain a good amount of money to survive and still maintain their morals and find joy, that’s success.
This is only true in a world that is mostly full of people with morals. A society built on lying and manipulation inevitably collapses - look at what is happening to the United States. They elected an amoral lying manipulator and in just six months their society is unraveling. They just passed a law that took money away from hungry children and sick people so that their psychopathic leader can better persecute his enemies: that is, anyone who opposes him. ICE just became the best-funded “law” enforcement agency ever created. It is obvious to everyone except a handful of naive idiots that ICE will be used against US citizens to consolidate MAGA’s power in an attempt to create a permanent regime. These states always collapse sooner or later, though, because morality is the foundation of law. No one is going to invest in a country where their assets can be seized and they can be imprisoned on the caprice of a senile madman. You can’t have trade without trust - all that is left in places like the US are predators and prey.
This unraveling has been going on a lot longer than just six months. It’s been accelerating hard since the Patriot Act after 9/11. And even before that, Republicans had been lying about their support of free markets for generations.
Published in 2014:
Sure it has. It’s been going on since the 70s and CEOs making 300 percent of the workforce. It is exactly the same as nobles and their taxes of the poor in almost every Empire’s history. And it always leads to a purge that changes things. We could be on the cusp of a Roman takeover. We could be on the cusp of a total collapse. Hard to say which way it’s going.
Whatever it is, this will not last forever.
Yes and i would choose to have morals anyway
You’ll still be a shit person, likely with no meaningful friendships. That’s gotta factor into the equation somehow.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yay capitalism! Perfect reasoning not to feel bad lying on a resume.
If they can lie about the company and position, I can lie about my experience and fit.
I’m starting to think of writing down the specific things job recruiters tell me, and bringing it to the interview. The last recruiter that reached out (and succeeded in hiring me) told me things that didn’t end up being true. When I got hired and was told contradictory information, the company said, “Oh, that is still true, but this particular case is an exception. We can get you a different case where that is true,” and then they didn’t get back to me for weeks. In that time, I’d applied, interviewed, and accepted a job elsewhere. Fuck lying employers.
It may seem this way at times, however, it really depends on the system you’re participating in.
Have a play around with: The evolution of trust - ncase.me/trust/
That was amazing and highly informative!
One doesn’t do the right thing to be rewarded or to ‘get ahead’. One does the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. Selfishness only leads to insecurity and loneliness.
Yep. That’s what the selfish ones have been telling us for thousands of years.
By some definition of “further”, sure. Mainly the definition someone with no remorse would have.
Exactly. OPs logic only works if your definition of happiness is money and going from being the oppressed to the oppressor.
From the perspective of a rich abusive CEO, they probably are happy. They get off on having power over people, and they do. Plus they can make more money than they can ever spend.
People who become wealthy naturally seem to have some sociopathic traits, but generally they also don’t know how to stop working. They get everything they want by doing things they enjoy doing.
I have a brother who is the CEO of a fairly successful business. He loves bragging about what he’s worth, and went from watching Silicon Valley and laughing extra hard at the bit where a bunch of companies in the show are pitching how they “want to make the world a better place” to giving me those words verbatim after bragging about how much money he has. He talks about how hard his job is and he wouldnt wish it on anyone… But I have worked with him on previous businesses, and he quite literally can’t stop working (even when high and drunk at 2am). I mean he literally CAN’T turn it off.
Throughout my childhood (and still now), this person used extremely obvious domination tactics on the people around him. One of his favourite moves is to either start texting or talking to someone else while I am in the middle of speaking to him. I am willing to guarantee that having the ability to use obscene wealth to dominate people makes him slightly fucking hard.
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.
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.
I still don’t sleep well, knowing the state of the world
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.
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”.
I so wish
You could do it and then give me the money
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.
I would be alright with ICE getting fake armor plates, defective bullets, and boots with thin soles.
Eh, I bet the pay is shit
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.
A system designed by psychopaths benefits psychopaths? No way…
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.
Yup and add intelligence to the list as well. Smart means nothing if you can’t back it up with being an amoral pile of shit that takes advantage of people every opportunity you get.
If you are smart, you can afford the luxury of not being a complete piece of shit if you get into the right career.
I feel like that has got to be pretty difficult unless you include jobs where you are personally isolated from and ignorant of the harmful things the company you contribute to is doing
I know plenty of moral smart people who are doing very well in life.
It might mean money and success.
Depends on how you define “further”. I’d like to leave this earth knowing I had a positive impact on those i met while I was here. I can sleep easy at night, even dispte all the hardships in my life atm, knowing I’m doing the best with what it is I have. Also, in my early 30’s, I started to really internalize the, “having nice things means keeping things nice” i.e. you don’t need new shiny things all the time. Take care of what you already have and you’ll never be without.
I can’t lie and manipulate my way into being a kind and honorable man, friend, son and brother. Me achieving those things brings me greater peace of mind and satisfaction than anything I’d ever need to lie my way into to get.
I disagree, other than a few notable counter examples most times folks are only successful when they build reliable business relationships. Most relationships will dissolve if one party is playing games.
On average it’s more effective to follow “The No Assholes Rule”. There’s plenty of studies (referenced in the book Good To Great) that indicate that humble business leaders produce build more stable and long term profitable companies.
Lying manipulators can sometimes get ahead but just as often they get found out and blackballed.
I think it might be like a game theory type situation where if everyone is honest, then the first liar might get ahead a lot (although I suspect in that situation they’d immediately be shunned by all honest folk if found out). If everyone is a liar then honest folk have nothing to hide and probably will just be really defensive in their dealings.
Business relationships are almost always purely transactional. When you stop being able to supply someone with what they want or at a good price then they will find someone else. The average CEO is not a friendly selfless person, which is why sociopaths find success in the business world.
Do you believe that the majority of people who hold power and influence are genuine philanthropists?
I think power and money corrupts people. Plenty of people who started out as honest business people turn into monsters.
As you move up the ladder, less and less people are honest with you. Some are climbing the ladder because they are unhappy and that definitely makes things worse, they think money or power will make them feel better, when actually I’ve found living with less and doing things yourself is ultimately more satisfying.
Anecdotally, I personally felt how wealth corrupted me - when my economy car was totaled and my insurance rental gave me a Mercedes because they were out of reasonable models . After a week of driving it I started feeling like I was better than other people on the road. Luckily I got a replacement crappy hatchback and became a normal person again.
Business owner here, even if not a very good one. These kinds of CEOs exist, but there are far from the norm. And they usually act that way because the owners of the company expect them to lead that way. There is a crowd mechanic of many people owning some of the stock of a company. It leads to some psychopathy as nobody feels responsible and everybody wants to earn some extra Money. Look into a documentary called “cooperation”.
Most business people, especially the more successful ones are the classic boys club people. They get good deals by being friends and knowing people that give them access. It leads to a culture where what you earn has more or less nothing to so with what or how good you work. If you know the show billions, watch it and look for the making of episodes. There is a lot of real world experience in the writing.
The world actively rewards bad behavior.
“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.
It’s true. Still, I can’t lie for some reason.
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.
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.
It makes a lot of sense. Lying and manipulation are done specifically to achieve goals. A defining characteristic of morals is that you’re supposed to follow them even if it’s neutral or disadvantageous for you. If someone follows “morals” to achieve a personal goal, they’re not actually following morals, they’re just acting in a way that incidentally looks moral.
Absolutely true and stating otherwise is just crowd control.
See, we used to exile those types. Modern society lost that ability and now we have CEOs.
That’s where Luigi enters the stage!
I’ll die poor with morals rather than rich and evil. I’m okay with that.
House MD Pilot
I mean, yea, that’s how the economy is kinda designed.
In the employee-employer relationship, the better you are as an employer at manipulating others into working for you while you retain ownership of the revenue, paying employees out percentage of what they generated as a wage while keeping the excess value as profit, is how you make a successful business.
The business-consumer relationship boils down to a transaction where you want to be the one who has the advantage on the transaction. Sellers want to sell their products for more than they’re worth while the consumers want to buy those products at a discount of their perceived value. The seller’s entire job is to manipulate the consumer into perceiving more value in their products than the base material value of the product to generate a revenue that exceeds the cost of its production to generate profit. That’s like the basis of advertising and marketing.
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.
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.
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.
That depends on how much people with morals stick together. People are isolated so that they can be manipulated.
hitmyspot@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
I’ve got 2 kids in primary school. We teach them to be kind and caring, that cheaters never win. That bullies are bullies because they are not happy.
However a study came out that compared bullies and non bullies. Bullies kids are more likely to be successful financially and socially based on studies. I was sad for humanity when o found out.
It makes sense, in the same way that it makes sense that CEO’s are more likely to be sociopaths. Human brains are made for small societies. When it’s a larger society, negative traits can be helpful to get ahead. It’s likely part of the reason we experience wars and famine and billionaires.
Saleh@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
That is unless the bully messes with the wrong person and gets the shit beaten out of them.
TheReanuKeeves@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
And then they become adults and find different ways to mess with people, hire bodyguards, expensive lawyers, group up with other corrupt people who find joy in people suffering, shit in their diapers under their suit, etc.
TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
The human brain really seems to be built for small communities. Once the village you live in is bigger than about 150 people, all sorts of weird things begin to happen. Some people no longer feel like they’re a part of the same group as everyone else. They begin to feel like they can get away with anything, maybe even steal something, or hurt other people. Being greedy doesn’t feel wrong any more, altruism feels like a weakness etc.
I’ve been thinking about these things, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the world we live in is not optimized for the human mind or physiology. We’ve specifically designed a world that is bad for us in a number of ways.
olafurp@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’d also want to see the same methodology when assessing being happy, have many close friends you can trust etc.
blarghly@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
And also how they assessed “being a bully”
brachiosaurus@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
Going around with a machete makes you more successful predator. Being successful financially doesn’t mean shit and neither does having followers on social media.
datavoid@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
Believe it or not, social interaction isn’t limited to social media. Or so I’ve been told…
TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I was curious about the studies. The only thing I came across about outcomes was this BMJ review that says:
TheReanuKeeves@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They’re probably referring to this study
…com.au/…/25305-bullies-earn-more-later-in-life-w….
blarghly@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Or the other option: all kids are equally capable of being dicks to each other. It just depends who has social capital. Kids who have the traits necessary to gain social capital - intelligence, athleticism, attractiveness, confidence, etc - end up on top of the social hierarchy in school and also end up going farther in life.
hitmyspot@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
Theoretically, all people are capable of being president, but I ky very few get there, irrespective of ability.
You’re right about their attributes being a guide. I reckon it’s down to the confidence, more than anything. Bullys are typically seen as acting out due to their own insecurity. However, the skills learned in putting themselves above others likely helps to achieve personal goals. It’s likely similar for attractive people and confidence. Confidence is a drug that affects other people.