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Comment by anon291 | Hacker News Reader

They almost certainly did not think anything they were doing was wrong. Effective altruism and utilitarianism is one helluva drug

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Sorry but no. They absolutely know what they were doing was wrong. They just felt right about it. Don't make excuses for white collar criminals.

Lol... I'm not making excuses. If you read my post history, you'll note I've been a constant critic of crypto and the accompanying scams. i'm just pointing out that the people who commit some of the worst crimes often convince themselves they are doing great good. Most of us believe that we would never do bad things. However, most of us are quite capable of it because we justify our actions to ourselves, and it's very easy to do bad while believing yourself good, which is what happened here.

100% this. the most dangerous situation is when people convince themselves that their goal is objectively good and thus adopt a Machiavellian attitude that the ends justify the means. i imagine the thought process goes something like "it doesn't matter how we obtain all these money, as long as we ultimately use the money to do good. the good outweighs the bad, and as long as we get away with it, people will eventually forget the bad with time."

even worse is when the people who have this attitude are extremely ignorant but truly and genuinely believe they have good intentions. they will proceed to do extremely damaging things to other people, causing extreme harm, all because they truly believe their intentions are good, but often their viewpoint is wrong due to incomplete information. these people almost see themselves as heroes and are empowered by their moral conviction from that viewpoint. i've observed this first-hand too many times in my personal life.

Until you see them buying massive mansions and hiding their money away and even that is a lie too. If you could show me one truly charitable thing they've actually done, rather than ego reinforcing projections, I'm listening.

Sure, they're justifying their means, but none of it has any actual good intentions.

also drugs are a helluva drug

Amphetamine, it’s the powerhouse of the (grifting) cell

Ellison's tweets about adderall are something else. I saw those and was like "People trust her with billions?"

The problem isnt the adderall. Its that she was clearly abusing it. She participated in the theft of billions and she felt great doing it.

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