I feel like this is the key reason why the worst people are the most successful. I cannot count the number of opportunities I’ve passed over in life that would have just required me to lie to someone, to inflate my worth, to take something that I haven’t earned, and so on. It’s so natural for me to think in terms of morality and equity behind my decision making that I don’t even consider alternatives.
And thus I’m over 40 and broke and will die working.
edit: just in retrospect, I figured I would mention my father. He was a man who was remarkably similar to our current president/king. Same hair and everything, the only difference was he drank like a fish. He had ZERO qualms about lying, he carried bizarre lies to his grave just to keep anyone the satisfaction of calling him out on even the smallest things. Lying came so easily to him that he built a multi-million dollar empire on lies, on borrowing money from one lender to pay another, of drug dealers and gangs and organized crime, of the very worst people in the world following him around like scavenger jackals hoping to catch a shred or crumb from the waste and excess my father surrounded himself with. I watched millions of dollars pass through his hands (and up his nose) and he never felt anything about it, he felt like it was never enough, that he deserved more and the people who suffered for it deserved their pain. I am telling this story because a lot of people think it’s not real, that there are not truly dishonest people in the world, and everything we’re all so contentious about is just misunderstandings and differences of perspective.
NO. There are lying liars who will look you in the face and tell complete falsehoods to you and smile as they do so, and they will delight in it. You are not aware of human darkness and you need to get it together. You NEED to understand how bad people can be, and how much people really LIE.
Exactly. It’s not some cosmic battle or any of the other shit some people will use to grift, but some people are liars who more or less don’t give half a shit who they hurt to get what they want (or maybe they do, some might, just not enough to not do it). And I’m not calling for cruelty or anything to them (many of them will be the first to advocate cruelty to “bad people”), just awareness, caution, and caring for your fellow humans.
There are other types of evil out there too. The banal variety has been made famous, but there’s an evil made of fear, an evil made of self righteousness without reflection, an evil made of tribalism… I also think distance from the consequences of one’s actions is a contributer. Power makes you a less moral person and all that.
Also, your father’s life sounds miserable and exhausting. I bet he thought people who did things honest and built community were fools despite us often being happier than folks like him
I bet he thought people who did things honest and built community were fools despite us often being happier than folks like him
I see you’ve met him (or his archetype) because yes, his favorite past-time was condemning the “sheep” for living their lives in suburbia, paycheck to paycheck, how useless education was, how worthless so many kinds of people are, how miserable life would be living like so, so many people in the world who are happy and loving with their families. He railed against the “spoils of babylon” while sipping champagne and brandy from his private restaurant booth.
He was crushingly miserable and blamed everyone and everything else for it and became physically violent at anyone who dared to challenge his assertions that he was the perpetual victim. He drank himself to death alone and broke because he had burned every bridge in his life and squandered a fortune.
I feel like this is the key reason why the worst people are the most successful. I cannot count the number of opportunities I’ve passed over in life that would have just required me to lie to someone, to inflate my worth, to take something that I haven’t earned, and so on. It’s so natural for me to think in terms of morality and equity behind my decision making that I don’t even consider alternatives.
And thus I’m over 40 and broke and will die working.
edit: just in retrospect, I figured I would mention my father. He was a man who was remarkably similar to our current president/king. Same hair and everything, the only difference was he drank like a fish. He had ZERO qualms about lying, he carried bizarre lies to his grave just to keep anyone the satisfaction of calling him out on even the smallest things. Lying came so easily to him that he built a multi-million dollar empire on lies, on borrowing money from one lender to pay another, of drug dealers and gangs and organized crime, of the very worst people in the world following him around like scavenger jackals hoping to catch a shred or crumb from the waste and excess my father surrounded himself with. I watched millions of dollars pass through his hands (and up his nose) and he never felt anything about it, he felt like it was never enough, that he deserved more and the people who suffered for it deserved their pain. I am telling this story because a lot of people think it’s not real, that there are not truly dishonest people in the world, and everything we’re all so contentious about is just misunderstandings and differences of perspective.
NO. There are lying liars who will look you in the face and tell complete falsehoods to you and smile as they do so, and they will delight in it. You are not aware of human darkness and you need to get it together. You NEED to understand how bad people can be, and how much people really LIE.
Exactly. It’s not some cosmic battle or any of the other shit some people will use to grift, but some people are liars who more or less don’t give half a shit who they hurt to get what they want (or maybe they do, some might, just not enough to not do it). And I’m not calling for cruelty or anything to them (many of them will be the first to advocate cruelty to “bad people”), just awareness, caution, and caring for your fellow humans.
There are other types of evil out there too. The banal variety has been made famous, but there’s an evil made of fear, an evil made of self righteousness without reflection, an evil made of tribalism… I also think distance from the consequences of one’s actions is a contributer. Power makes you a less moral person and all that.
Also, your father’s life sounds miserable and exhausting. I bet he thought people who did things honest and built community were fools despite us often being happier than folks like him
I see you’ve met him (or his archetype) because yes, his favorite past-time was condemning the “sheep” for living their lives in suburbia, paycheck to paycheck, how useless education was, how worthless so many kinds of people are, how miserable life would be living like so, so many people in the world who are happy and loving with their families. He railed against the “spoils of babylon” while sipping champagne and brandy from his private restaurant booth.
He was crushingly miserable and blamed everyone and everything else for it and became physically violent at anyone who dared to challenge his assertions that he was the perpetual victim. He drank himself to death alone and broke because he had burned every bridge in his life and squandered a fortune.
I was worried there wasn’t going to be a happy ending.
They aren’t the most successful, they just have the most money.
I guess our compensation is being able to be content with what we already have, and not having to constantly worry about someone finding out.
Cheers to good conscious. Also, grab any chance to lead a good change