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Comment by matwood | Hacker News Reader

I don’t think it’s dark, but I’ve been told that my similar attitude can rub some people the wrong way. I’m not a jerk about it, but I always show up prepared to get to where I think we need to be. If that rubs people the wrong way so be it.

EDIT

The downvotes are interesting. Do people think the world will just give them things? I'm reminded of a quote I keep nearby from a book I read many years ago.

“His mother had often said, When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.”

― Lois McMaster Bujold, Memory

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I think your edit shows why people are reading your comment in a different light than yours.

When you see that quote, you apparently focus on the "if I want X to happen, I need to create the circumstances that will lead to it".

When I read that quote, I immediately think of a long list of people who choose actions with complete disregard to the consequences of those actions. Mass unemployment? Destroy local communities? Poison the environment? Surveillance states? Hey, as long as they got what they wanted...

That's the VC mindset tho, rat fucking the commons to make a buck.

It is the classic justification of the big bad evil guy.

When you reduce it to that tagline, what other people want or need is an obstacle.

> Do people think the world will just give them things?

No. But just that more and more people are more and more fed up of collectively paying/enduring the consequences of the ambition of a few people that do. not. care. about. their. fellow. humans. neither. the. planet.

> When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action.

Indeed. And if you act "regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way", without discernement, that tells something about you that you may, or may not realise.

> without discernement

You added this part. In my mind I add discernment to do right by others among other things.

Unfortunately when we distill things down to quips nuance is lost. Maybe it's my optimism, but I tend to read things charitably. Nothing I've ever accomplished has been without obstacles, some that were seemingly impossible to pass at the time.

"Without discernment" is implied in "regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way". Many of us would consider excessively exploiting others to be an obstacle.

There is at least one obvious company in the list where the founder does not advertise the slightest discernment in his public discourse (about the tech, about the business and about the impact on society).

We do not have to be charitable with people that have such financial and industrial (hence political) power over our lives, and that do not display obvious and verifiable signs of charity upon the human kind either.

The last I checked your body was given to you without any of your effort.

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