The Glade 4.0

Indirectly. It was the "loaded language." Xequecal's statement isn't horseshit because of what he's implying, but because of the apparent position that somehow being competitive and trying to get ahead of others is 'wrong.'

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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Well ... isn't that rather obvious?

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No.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I think we may have different metrics for obvious.

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There is so much missing that prevents conclusions from being drawn from this study. The study, for instance, seems to indicate that becoming wealthier turns one into an *******. While this may be true or false, even if the data is correct and complete, they may be mixing cause and effect. Perhaps getting rich encourages one to be a greedy *******, but maybe being a greedy ******* helps one get rich. Correllation does not equal causation.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I'm interested in how you guys think that "ethics" can in any way be an advantage in business. Being "unethical" doesn't mean acting like a cartoon supervillain, it just means you sociopathically evaluate every decision in terms of risk/reward for yourself, without ever considering how it effects others. This doesn't mean you have to be an ******* or untrustworthy. If you've evaluated that being honest is better for your business, then you're honest.

An "ethical" person in my view is someone who will in at least some cases forego a profit opportunity because they think it's "wrong" to do what is needed to get that profit. This doesn't make it impossible to succeed, but you're always going to be at a disadvantage to someone who acts "unethically."

Same reason it is advantageous for countries to maintain "rules of war" or other such items. Playing by the rules levels the playing field. If you are unscrupulous, someone else might be also, and better at it. Creates uncertainty. Uncertainty is bad for business.

Except in this case you're still not doing it because it's the "right" thing to do, you're doing it because it's ultimately good for your business. It just doesn't make logical sense for an ethical person to perform better than an unethical person. All else being equal, how can one that places monetary gain over all other concerns be worse at monetary gain than another who does not?

It makes perfect sense, actually; your belief that being unethical and mindful only of profits should produce the better business person is faulty.

"opportunity cost"

If everyone understood that word the same way they understood breathing, we'd never have jailed Jesus to a tree.

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That reminds me ...

If your position was true, the U.S. government would be turning a profit.

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Because all else isn't equal, and the game never ends, so someone who is unethical or only opportunistically ethical will often develop a negative reputation among potential commercial partners. I've literally seen hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business go to company X instead of company Y because the deal sponsor thinks the guy who would be running the project for company Y is an *******.

That said, I have found that folks in the big-business world I work in now tend to be more like Player A in my earlier post while people I know from the middle- and working class world I grew up in tend to be more like Player B.

If the unethical person/company has a bad image that costs them money, then it's because they failed to correctly evaluate the consequences of whatever action they took to give them that image. People can't read minds, they don't know why you do things, they can only guess based on what you have done.

It is completely illogical to have two entities, where one has every possible action available to them, while the other is constrained to a smaller set of possible actions, and have the second entity have the advantage. In every case where the ethical entity came out on top of the unethical entity, the unethical entity could have at least broken even by just mimicing the actions of the ethical entity.

Saying the ethical entity has the advantage is essentially arguing that the "ethical" decision is ALWAYS the best one for the business, regardless of market conditions or what those ethics actually are.

It's virtually impossible for shitty people to consistently and convincingly trick others into thinking they're nice/ethical, so simply mimicing the ethical folks' choices isn't really an option. Thus, whatever advantages being unethical might bring in any given situation are often cancelled out in the long-run by the reputational hit that comes with being perceived as unethical.

While this is true, most "scummy people" are also not sociopathically disconnected from the people they're screwing over. They act the way they do not just for money, but for the sadism, power trip, feeling of victory, etc. The few people who really can act like real sociopaths do really well for themselves. Madoff was a perfect example, the vast vast majority of people thought this guy was a saint until his scheme fell apart. If it wasn't for the financial collapse in 2008, he likely would have died filthy rich before anyone caught on.

Best boss I ever worked for was a fantastic people person. Looked out fr his guys. We worked HARD for him.

Business does not have to be Lone wolf syndrome.

Hire for nice.

Not at all. The unethical entity can get away with a certain level of unethical behavior. Where that level is, however, is unknown. They can guess, but since it's impossible to be sure the unethical business must weigh the possibility of stepping over an unseen precipice of public or customer disgust every time they do something unethical, and the bigger the unethical behavior, the greater the chance it will be A) noticed and B) arouse ire (to say nothing to the possibility of prosecution).

In other words, while the ethical choice is not always the best choice in terms of the bottom line at any given point, it is the best choice in terms of risk because it contains vastly less risk of public ire. The business that behaves ethically never has to worry that their unethical move that generates a great profit right now might be even more harmful in the long term.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You guys really have no idea what the word "opportunity cost" means, do you? Seriously ...

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It means that opportunity costs money, which is why only rich people ever succeed.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

The tycoons in the industrial era were never poor. The guy that started Wal-Mart never started as a simple clerk. Only the Kardashians can suceed.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Considering how esoteric and arcane your average post is, well, that much is obvious.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Sorry I posted and disappeared. Work and life has been kinda hectic lately.

Considering the many socio/economical dynamic here at the glade, I just thought this article was interesting.

Personally I have not thought about this link, however having now seen and gave it some thought, it does actually fit well into the world model around me. But then my family are a bunch of sharks that would eat their young to get ahead.

Just was curious on other people’s thoughts on the matter.

I take it to mean the lost opportunity to do thing B because you are instead doing thing A, which consumes time/resource/expertise/whatever that would have permitted B, C, D...

You mean something else?

I mostly mean "something else" in the sense that "something else" is more complete than the definition you gave, which is certainly adequate for most purposes. My comment was mostly directed at anyone who thinks unethical practices will actually increase your bottom line.

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While unethical and illegal do not necessarily mean the same thing, illegal practices can increase your bottom line. Selling booze was a far more lucrative business under prohibition. You could cut the drug cartels off at the knees by legalizing their product. The best way to make something highly profitable is to ban it.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

No, Taly, you're wrong. Crime doesn't pay.