Comment by chegra | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chegra | Hacker News Reader

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[I didn't downvote you, I think you are making some valid points]

What I'm trying to point out is not paint with broad strokes. But evaluate everything and everyone independently of rules.

Flaws of people admired:

1) Gandhi - Racist

2) Martin Luther King - Copy someone's work for his phd. Also an adulterer.

3) Edgar Allan Poe - So disrespectful that he was disowned by his guardians.

4) Tesla - Hated fat people.

5) Steve Jobs - Erratic and Temperamental. Fired employees on the spot

6) Bill Gates - Monopolistic tendencies

7) Mark Zuckerberg - Used delay tactics on his competition to get facebook to market. Hacked people's profile.

8)Vincent van Gogh - Lived with a prostitute. Accused of rape. Was mentally ill. Cut his ear off.

I would say it's best to control these negative tendencies than to try to find flawless people.

Apple tried to control Steve behavior and you see what happened in his absent. While he went on to form NeXT and Pixar, Apple tank.

Sure it will be nice to have someone who isn't temperamental and abrasive but choose genius over any other qualities. I think the rest qualities can be managed. Give Steve a meditation coach(meditation= more empathetic)

Gandhi, "racist"?

Would you mind very much googling "Harijan"?

You seem to have latched on to a very strange definition of "racist". Gandhi might have believed during that early period in his life in keeping races separate, which is not surprising given his orthodox upbringing, but he did a very great deal, later, to unite people of all religions and races and motivate them to think of each other as equals, persuading them to literally call each other 'brothers and sisters'.

I cannot accept that that is the same as what is commonly understood as "racist".

"We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race."- Gandhi http://www.trinicenter.com/WorldNews/ghandi4.htm

Yes, I'm talking about the early part of his life. Well if you feel comfortable - ex-racist.

If you go back far enough, you won't find anyone who thought the way we do about race, so the label you're putting on Gandhi here is an anachronism and the moralism implicit in it is glib.

A more interesting place to look for Gandhi's shadow side is in the dynamics of his family, particularly his oldest son (IIRC) who lived out all the things his father hated; he became an alcoholic and, worse, a salesman.

But Gandhi shouldn't have had to be completely responsible for how his son turned out (assuming he turned out badly).

I might blame some but not all parents, as a class, if their kids became alcoholic, but in the case of specific individuals it's hard to say.

I agree with you on the first point.

Lots of people contribute nothing to racial harmony over their lives and yet they'd be sufficiently politically correct that you couldn't call them racist or ex-racist.

Gandhi ended up having undone the damage to an incredible, extraordinary extent. I'm no Gandhi fanboy, but I don't see how the hint of blame that 'ex-racist' implies can be applied to his life.

Maybe you are right. I was using Gandhi as an example of how evaluating ones fault is not necessary the way to judge people for a job. Sure he made these mistake, but it didn't take away from his ability to unite people. That is the point I was trying to make, whether he was a racist or not, his genius still stands.

this is the stupidest comment I've ever read anywhere. Mahatma Gandhi did a lot for people in both South Africa and India. By glibly calling him a racist you're insulting an entire country and a great man.

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You insult the whole community with your glib response. But it still stand Gandhi was racist in his early days.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/oct/17/southafrica.indi...

Thanks for not downvoting me.

Again, it's not about finding "flawless" or "perfect" people. We all know these people don't exist. It's just about paying attention to a few basic moral imperatives, namely integrity; if a person has a history of adultery, that person is not likely to be a trustworthy resource. That person is willing to destroy the lives and hearts of his family for fleeting personal sexual gain. Why do you think such a person wouldn't be willing to trade the well-being of your company or other employees if the right personal incentives materialized? An adulterer is pretty much the most selfish kind of person you can find.

Of course adulterers and other people can still do good things. Everyone is capable of doing good. I am merely saying that I wouldn't invest the resources into hiring an adulterer because adulterers prove that they are suspicious and untrustworthy by committing adultery. There are plenty of non-adulterers out there that are safer investments, even if it costs me a bit of CPU time.

All of us have our limits, I wouldn't hesitate to hire an adulterer but under no circumstances I would hire a racist, a rapist, or a murderer.

Some of these are interesting. Gandhi, for instance, may have been racist in his early life. But if he changed as he aged, does that make him a racist forever? In other words, there was a racist Gandhi, but also a non-racist Gandhi. Which one gets the legacy? Both?

Gandhi was a racist? That's news to me. Links? Citation?

"We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do, only we believe that they would best serve these interests, which are as dear to us as to them, by advocating the purity of all races, and not one alone. We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race. "- Gandhi

http://www.trinicenter.com/WorldNews/ghandi4.htm

Point taken. Thanks for pointing it out.

It's a general trend to rewrite history and present world leaders in glowing terms. The assumption is common people would loose faith if they know about their flaws.

I don't buy that. Ignorance, though bliss, isn't a solution to any problem. I would expect people to know the facts and then exercise their judgement.

I remember a slideshow a couple of days back from some startup which had a slide of a monkey saying "We don't write software for this", followed by a slide of Neil Armstrong on moon saying "This is what we write for; Humans who transcended moon and keep going higher"(paraphrasing).

The elite dumbasses at the top assume too much about common people.

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