However, I think "narcissist" is probably closer than "sociopath".
While there's a lot of overlap, a narcissist sees people as an audience rather than prey. They are more preoccupied with manipulating people into validating him (or her) as a smart, successful, powerful, rich, etc. individual.
That's really what this blogpost always keeps returning to, IMO. Even the "downer" points are flavored with "but some people believed I had potential" and "the other people were still too blind to notice my potential".
I think the shark-jumping moment is when he sent an impromptu autobiography to a prospective employer... and did it again as an audiobook "in case they didn't have time to read"! While he admits that it was a tactical mistake, he never addresses why it ever seemed like a good idea, and his next sentence basically says "I would have been an amazing employee but their hiring system is broken."
It's because he sees the corporate world as a game to be beaten, exploited, and hacked for profit, the same as he did with MMORPGs.
There's truth about the hiring system being inefficient, and there are clever folks who find ways around it to gain entrance to a world that might be otherwise inaccessible. However, it makes me uneasy when those things are done with a narcissistic edge, i.e. to fulfill a grandiose sense of your worth and value.
See: "Until I prove otherwise, consider me a 'nobody' trying to accomplish great things."
I didn't express myself well when I said, "I truly would've been a great employee at Google[x]." What I should have said was something more like, "Even if I weren't great at first, I'd do whatever I could to improve because that was a profession I passionately wanted to try."
Please. Games that introduce economies will always have people exploiting them, in various shades of gray. WoW trading sites (gold, accts) are against ToS, but there is no other recourse for a player to "cash out" of WoW when they've decided they've had enough.
How about the other side of the coin? Most ToS in these games reserve the right to cancel your account at any time, and are explicit that you don't actually own any of the stuff that you paid for, either with money or time. Is that kosher according to your, functioning, moral compass?
And to make a more abstract point, I would suspect that the majority of users here have had to make compromises between their moral ideals and what was reasonable/necessary to be done. (example: knowing that if your company fails, your userbase's data could end up with the highest bidder and whatever morals they might have; or growth hacking techniques that are as annoying as they are effective).
Edit* (premature post) ---
Things are rarely black or white. We tend to draw the lines ourselves, and in this case it is interesting that you've put him on the black side because (a) he's gaming the game (albeit without destroying it) and (b) participating in affiliate marketing.
My line would fall far further than yours, it seems.
I spent nearly every day helping him out. I couldn't bear to see him worry about me
That's not "me, me, me", nor does it lack emotion, and certainly it refutes the (already self-refutingly silly) diagnosis of sociopathy. I wonder if there may be some crossed cultural signals here. Montana is not a place where people effuse.
> > I couldn't bare to see him worry about me
> That's not "me, me, me", nor does it lack emotion
Switch the emphasis around, and he couldn't bear his future success being doubted.
The story being told still comes back to the author's same universal preoccupation, which involves his own validation as a famous and successful person, or failing that one who is destined for it.
No, I wouldn't call it sociopathy, but narcissism is definitely in the cards.
People who create dupes and sell them for real money are exploiting naive players and putting them at risk while ruining the game for legitimate players. They're human filth.
> In my online game hacking history to that point, I'd had seven dupe methods patched across four different games, but never had an account closed.
He doesn't specify what the other 3 (or more) games were (other than one is the "next most popular online game"), or if he exploited them as well.
Assuming these posts are even true that is, they come off as quite hokey. I wouldn't be surprised if they turned out to be caricatures to see just what HN readers will celebrate.
In life you need to know when to jump through hoops to get ahead. But his ego and ideology prevent him from making the choices necessary to be successful.
I feel bad saying that, but ... I feel like it needs to be called out. Something ain't right.