Business Ethics- Kak vs Dragon

[MJ DeMarco]

Being ruthless whilst being excellent is necessary (and lauded in many circles). Being ruthless without being excellent means you're taking from others, meaning you'll eventually run out of things to take.

Be ruthlessly excellent. I like that.

 

[mikecarlooch]

Just this past October, I texted my friend for some cash and here was his response. Do I get this loan without a good reputation?

View attachment 48064

Ahh.. So this is the resourcefulness @Antifragile and @Kak always talk about..

I've never seen anything like this before lol.

Thanks for the eye-opener

 

[BizyDad]

Isn't MJ's whole philosophy is that if you want to achieve 1% results, you have to do 1% things?

I don't wish to derail the thread, but I saw this comment never got addressed. No. I don't believe that that is MJ's whole philosophy.

This forum, the books, all of it is geared towards helping even the average or below average person achieve a 1% life. You don't have to begin as a 1% person, and you don't actually have to do 1% things.

There are certain principles to live by. A certain mindset that is helpful to adopt. But I believe MJ's point is that a 1% life is attainable by the vast majority, dare I say, virtually anybody...

 

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[heavy_industry]

Well said @Fox

Truth is the best long term strategy.

If you believe you can somehow bend the fabric of reality and lie your way to success, you are making a big mistake. The truth will always come to light.

And even if you were completely ignorant of the consequences of your actions and how others feel about you, don't forget that there will always be one person that will always know exactly who you are, and will know everything that you do.

And that person is you.

You cannot hide from yourself.

 

[mikecarlooch]

Doesn't @Kak have a podcast? It would be really cool to see them debate this on it, points would be way easier to understand between all of the noise of the thread.

Screw star wars, THIS would be entertainment. lol

 

[Isaac Odongo]

You start by drawing a comparison to criminality, which I think is totally off topic right off the bat. We are talking about the spectrum between what is prohibited by law and being, by the world's standard, "a saint." I am sure the audience here can at least name a couple of people in their lives they think are just awful people, that are also, not currently incarcerated or at risk of being imminently incarcerated.

Criminality, as @Antifragile said earlier, is a governmental construct. Maybe you do or maybe you don't realize that you are debating probably the most outspoken libertarian voice on the forum. I generally abhor political power and have very little respect for some "sacred" institution of political process. I view it as theater for the masses.

Now, I will set the foundations of who I am before I continue. In a lot of ways I hold myself to MUCH higher standards than the law. Obviously, I would have to in order to be discussing the aforementioned spectrum between irredeemable, yet legal, a**hole and a saint. If the law was the only bar everyone held themselves to, we would all be the irredeemable assholes. I don't consider either of us to be there.

In other ways, I follow some laws only because of the ultimate threat to my life for disobeying. Not to get too off track, if there was an outstanding parking fine of $20, non-payment will go unnoticed until likely the next traffic stop. It may be escalated at that point, or you may just end up with another fine. Eventually there will be a moment where authorities will attempt to arrest you. If you don't go willingly, they will beat you. If you defend yourself, they will kill you. Every law, at its logical eventuality is a threat to your life by someone bigger, or more violently capable, than you.

This said, criminality, for the sake of this discussion is irrelevant. A risk of incarceration or death is objectively bad for your long term business prospects. I am sure you can agree.

As a sidebar, and a weird technicality we won't fully consider, there are unenforced laws that make nearly everyone "criminal," which is just another despicable trait of political theater. You aren't free, you will be free until they don't want you to be any longer... L. Gordon Crovitz: You Commit Three Felonies a Day




Despite being a churchgoing and practicing Christian, I will take the side that it is, in-fact, a matter of intelligence. I believe it to be so. Faith is also more than a fear of hell, but that's not the point.

The existence of trustworthy and honorable, yet secular, people puts a pin in this point. They don't need a threat of hell to be an upstanding person, they did it why? I would argue that secular, self-regulated behavior is absolutely a matter of intelligence.

Some of you may recognize some of the following from my radio show. It is a completely secular point.

In a business world, I believe win-win, mutually beneficial transactions are at the heart of anything sustainable. I am not talking about sustainability in the ecological sense, but the ability to continue doing what you are doing without the fear of the music stopping. I believe building businesses to be a high-calling and an honorable pursuit.

Capitalism, not in the dark and deranged sense that the political theater has painted it, but at its core... Is this system of free exchange between willing parties that engage only by choice and consideration of opportunity cost.

Every time an exchange takes place, both parties go home improved. A customer likes their new product or service better than they liked their money. An employee likes their new job (even if they hate it) more than every alternative they had available to them. An investor likes their stock in your company better than other investments they had available to them.

It is also assumed that you, being the entrepreneur, and offering such things are going home happier too. As you value the money earned at a higher level than the inventory you sold. You value the resource of the employee more than the money you spend on them. You value the capitalization to your business at a higher level than the stock you may have traded for it.

Essentially, as an entrepreneur operating under a free market system, you are a MASSIVE force for good. You are improving selections and efficiency to customers, you are providing a livelihood to some, you are providing opportunity to others. They are choosing you over all other alternatives because your value, in each of these transactions, reigns supreme.

Ludwig Von Mises' thesis on Human Action propounds that at the core of every human's decision to act upon anything is a profit motive, which he defines, not in the financial sense, but as an improvement of their condition. Improvements are in the eyes of the beholders.

A decision to eat something satisfies hunger. A decision to do laundry gets you some of your clothes back in your rotation. A decision to spend money on a fancy car, perceived investment in their enjoyment. A decision to hire an HVAC technician and spend money you didn't want to spend on a pricey repair, again is still chosen as an improvement to the alternative, not having air conditioning.

There are also negatives... An addict believes they are improving their condition by purchasing drugs or alcohol. We know it isn't improving their health. But the condition they desire is in the eye of the beholder.

This brings me to perceptions.

I perceive that it is an improvement to my condition to be an upstanding, man-of-my-word, businessman of sterling reputation.

You perceive that it is an improvement on your condition to not hold yourself to a higher standard.

I believe there are great yet difficult to quantify consequences of that decision, that when weighed against your perceived benefits, erodes the profitability of being a low-bar businessman.



We are back to political theater. Conquerors and kingship was largely luck mixed with ego. You are putting the cart before the horse. Their position could have made them drunk on power and instilled feelings of human immortality. It probably drove them to be the irredeemable pricks they all were, look to Hollywood for a relevant modern example.

Rarely are these dictators self-made. The entire concept of self-made is relatively new anyway. If you look up the concept of The Great Enrichment, coined by Dr. Deirdre McClusky you will understand the relatively recent embrace of bottom up solutions to problems. Prior to that, everything operated in a top down way.

This is why standards of living, and technological advancement, throughout most of human history were pretty much stagnant. The average guy born in 300 BC probably had a similarly awful life to a guy born in 1500. What changed? The printing press was a catalyst to an embrace of the bottom up... Or "self made." Once humanity learned that kings and dictators weren't the only ones with good ideas, things started to change.

Technically speaking, Hitler's heinous actions were law and therefore legal, so he wasn't criminal. Putin is a criminal in Ukraine, but not in Russia. This is nonsensical and has little if anything to do with business ethics. The irony of your Jesus example is that he was tried and convicted of "crimes," he was "a criminal" in the eyes of Rome and whatever political power held by the Sanhedrin Jews. This alternative definition of criminal thing totally muddies the waters.

How does one define success in these historical terms? A meek and wimpy minimum wage Home Depot checker has a higher standard of living than everyone you listed. History is not as relevant to this discussion as you think it is.




This is a sample size of three. Three.

According to Forbes there are 2,668 billionaires in the world and there are nearly a quarter million people globally that are worth $100m+.


I do see your point here. You feel as though they ultimately get a pass on screwing people if they became successful.

I am going to turn this on its head for you. I have, more than once, argued the Elizabeth Holmes example from a much different angle. I LOVED the book Bad Blood and I would suggest it to anyone on a guide of what NOT to do.

Here was highly dynamic and sought after young entrepreneur taking over the silicon valley scene. She attracted top dollar from top investors, and top talent to work for her. She was a prodigy and her leadership in the seed stages of Theranos was epic. She, on an idea alone, built quite a company and aimed it at being able to test blood with one drop. She was, rightfully, an inspiration to many!

Cool, there was nothing wrong with this... Until...

Things just weren't working out for her. She hit roadblock after roadblock in her testing tech and instead of staying ahead of it, and eating a slice of well deserved humble pie, admitting that work is behind schedule and in need of deeper research, she lied. She, in that moment, set course for what I like to, mostly privately call, F*cksville. Instead of building her business, she started the foundation on her house of cards.

As Elizabeth Holmes currently rots in prison for what's left of her 11 years, it's hard not to wonder what could have been different.

My thoughts... If she had instead been honest with her investors, and continued to work on her machines she would probably still have a capitalized Silicon Valley company and we may have even been on the cusp of some medical breakthroughs. She would probably still be a multi-millionaire, well respected CEO taking on one of the biggest challenges in healthcare. She would still be inspiring to many.



I had my own business failure. I have talked about this on my radio show.

Ten years ago I had THE idea of the decade. At 23ish years old, it was a government technology solution to a problem the government claimed they were desperate to solve. I had the easy button, totally fixed, solution. They couldn't even debate that it wouldn't solve the problem. I made partnerships with two multi-billion dollar companies, took on some very large seed investors, and retained a major league lobbying team that also had done work for the likes of Google, FedEx, and some other VERY major names.

The numbers we were discussing on this business were astronomical. If I got the legislative movement, as it was written in committee offices, it would have meant revenues over $700 million dollars per year, just in the state of Texas.

We had a wide majority of the committee agreeing that this was THE solution and something they would work on for sure. Obviously they can't quid pro quo anything, and nor did I expect it, but I built what I thought was a solid relationship of trust with most of them and personally supported their election campaigns.

Eventually the rug got pulled out. What we expected was not the case. We went back twice over six years and ultimately ran out of money.

Throughout this process, I was nothing but completely honest with my investors, some even insisting to double down their investment with me and continue pressing. I even once told an investor that I wouldn't invest in my company if I was him, which made him write an even bigger check. Ultimately it was a failure. Of course this was a venture of unusually long odds and I made that pretty clear in the beginnings, but my evidence that this could work was never a lie or even a stretch of the truth.

Would you believe me if I told you that despite this failure rocking my personal confidence level for the better part of the last 10 years of my life, I have a good relationship with every single person that was involved in that venture? The politicians not so much.

My point is, I actually have a uniquely large and totally contrarian example to your claims. I am the parallel example to what would have happened if Elizabeth Holmes was just honest. I am what happened when Kyle Keegan was honest.

I don't admire Jordan Belfort and don't agree about Elon. My VERY REAL experiences run contrary to this.



Don't conflate dominance and and strong leadership with unethical behavior.

Creative destruction is not unethical. For those of you that don't know what this is, look up economist Joseph Schumpter.

Challenging the status quo is not unethical. Per @thechosen1 continued use of the George Bernard Shaw quote about unreasonable people.

I am 100% all in on unreasonable. Literally one of my most recent shows I recorded was making the case that it is unreasonable to be reasonable as an entrepreneur.

Unreasonable isn't unethical.

Unagreeable isn't unethical.

Ambition isn't unethical.

Hard hitting people that don't mince words aren't unethical.

Screwing people is and a reputation for screwing people is not good for your long term business prospects. I intend to ultimately prove it to the forum.


The following is a quote about Brinkley from Wikipedia: "At the height of his career he had amassed millions of dollars, but he died nearly penniless as a result of the large number of malpractice, wrongful death and fraud suits brought against him."

Dying penniless doesn't prove your point. It proves mine.

Buying credibility amounts to lying, it's nothing more than building that house of cards.


I have at the end of my show details a message for listeners. It says: DISCLAIMER! I am NOT your financial advisor or business consultant. Do YOUR OWN research. I advocate heavily that you should make intelligent and informed decisions based on YOUR OWN understanding or hire someone that does this for you. Don’t take me out of context and make dumb decisions. Always consider YOUR OWN SITUATION before implementing strategies shared on KKRS. When in doubt, remember Kyle is conservative and will always choose to live another day over imprudent “YOLO” decisions.

The bold above is exactly what this amounts to. Choosing to live another day rather than take an imprudent, all or nothing, risky "lunge."

I don't have a wake of pissed off people in my past. Do you? It isn't too late to nock down your house of cards and start building your personal influence and reputation on something more solid. How you are talking about operating continuously puts you form of debt. The longer this goes on the more of this “debt” you accumulate. You are robbing your future self for a temporary gain today.

Adam Grant's book "Give and Take" (one of @Andy Black favorites) describes three types of people: givers, takers, and traders. Givers are people who prioritize helping others and contribute to the success of their colleagues without expecting anything in return. Takers are people who prioritize their own interests and seek to gain as much as possible from others while contributing as little as possible, you. Traders live out quid-pro-quo everything.

I'm not perfectly aligned with Grant on a lot of his ideas, as I think a true capitalist naturally embodies a high level of ethics and also holds value creating for others as foundation to his efforts.

Grant does however have endless examples of "givers" ironically taking the majority of the Forbes list. I believe a good entrepreneur is basically always a giver and that's why this notion of "giving back" rubs me wrong. Giving back implies the entrepreneur took from society. An entrepreneur gives value and made the world a better place before he strokes a single check to a charity.

So should you be meek? Hell no. Call people out in a public forum if you feel like it!

Dynamically lead. Inspire others with your boldness and action and uphold the importance of your name and reputation to everyone you do business with. Finally give... What is this thread and the participation in an important discussion like this if it isn't giving?

I only have two questions for you…

True or False: The market ultimately decides who is and isn’t wildly successful?

True or False: The market is comprised of people who have opinions and perceptions of you?

From the word go of this thread, I knew @Kak had something huge and indispensable to say in rebuttal to these claims by BD, despite @Kak initially seeming aversive on it.

Thanks for this @Kak.

Now the debate is taking place.

 

[Kevin88660]

Everyone that feels negative thoughts towards @Black_Dragon43 and saying they would not do business with him..

It’s because you do not want to do business with conscious, intelligent, selfish and savage people.

You actually don’t. It’s not smart for you.

It’s better for everyone else to be simple, not that ambitious, gullible, a pushover, etc. The same way I WANT simple minded and not selfish employees.

I would argue he is not Machiavellian.

He is in the middle of being redpilled. Where he understands but is not implementing it yet.

A true one would be saying socially acceptable, “be a good person” BS that virtue signals.

Imagine bill gates, a politician, or any other bastard got on this forum and wrote posts…

They would say the most inoffensive and polite things, meanwhile doing unspeakably evil shit.

@Black_Dragon43 will realize this someday. You will start to see that he is a “changed man”. He will be polite and say socially acceptable things. He will be loved and that’s when he would actually be evil. When he cares more about getting a result than telling you the truth.

I am infinitely more scared of people who artfully virtue signal. They are the true evil people. You can be a good person, but when it’s too perfect…you know it’s designed. And you can only smell it when you have figured it out for yourself a bit too.

I think he is just going through a phase where he is red pilled and sharing his realizations.

When he is someone you would put on your board of directors, someone you would give your life savings to, someone you would vote for…

That’s who you should be afraid of.

That is the great irony of morality and public opinion.

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

Adam Smith

 

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[Black_Dragon43]

That is a great response @Kak, and I will have to really push myself to be able to match you. And I certainly hope that I will be able to, because just as you said yourself, the matter we are discussing is very important to ourselves as individuals, but also to society. And it's important that all of us learn from each other and become better able to see the truth. I am certainly learning from your responses, and I hope you are also from mine.

I am happy to see that we agree on a few very important points: our stance on politics/politicians and the vast difference between what is legally right vs what is morally/ethically right.

I will make a few comments on these matters before getting to the meat of the argument.

In my previous post, I have used the word "criminal" extensively, and I made it a point to show that the richest and most successful people are usually criminals. As you and @Antifragile have observed, I haven't used this word the same way we use it in everyday language, or how it is defined in the dictionary. And I am not attempting to persuade you to change the everyday definition of that word.

But I do need a single word that I can use to mean:

someone who will do whatever it takes to succeed in the long run, even if succeeding involves hurting other people, cheating, lying, stealing or breaking other ethical norms. In other words, someone who chooses worldly success over his own soul and integrity. That person is a criminal, even if they may have committed no crimes yet.

I propose that for the sake of this discussion, you allow me to use the word "criminal" to refer to a person that matches the description above. If not, by all means feel free to propose a different word, but until then, bear in mind that when I write criminal, I refer to what is described above, NOT to our everyday dictionary definition of the word.

Therefore not all people who break the law are criminals in the understanding of the term used above. And furthermore, not all criminals break the law. This is a very important point, because we're using the word to refer to a person who has no regard for ethical norms beyond his self-interest (and I am aware that you being a libertarian quite possibly equate ethics with the pursuit of rational self-interest and we're going to come to that at some point).

In fact, I will say that the smartest criminals very rarely, if ever, will break the law, and that is precisely what makes them so efficient as criminals.

About this, @Antifragile tagged me in a different thread about a scam his company fell prey to. I don't view those people as great criminals. They are low-level scum. So for the purposes of this discussion, let's create an example of a great criminal, which is realistic, and shows the position at its peak strength.

Suppose you run a business that teaches people how to day-trade the stock market. You pay a marketing company to get you fake, but approved testimonials, that look indistinguishable from real ones. You focus on promoting the lifestyle and telling people they can live like millionaires, just from their laptops. And let's say 0.1% who join your training, actually do end up living like that. And you get them on camera, and to promote you. Your course and its content is great, you put a ton of effort to make it pretty much the best in the market but people don't get very big results. At least 99.9% don't. And you promise people a 30-day guarantee, if they do their best and work hard and don't get results in 30 days. But in practice, no one gets the guarantee, because you'll always claim they didn't work hard, and come up with some reason such as "you only started going through the training on day 20. We expect people to start from day 1, immediately"... a reason that in a court of law would hold. And you have customer service to placate customers and make them feel guilty when they fail, it's their fault... which probably isn't far from the truth. And you also request a written testimonials 5 days into the course right on the video platform... because you know that most people will fail to get results, but you can still extract great testimonials early on. People are excited, going through, so they leave glowing reviews. You get 5/5 feedbacks all the time. And every now and again you get a great testimonial that says "WOWW!! Made $10,000 yesterday from $500!". And maybe every now and again you do honor the guarantee, not to draw any suspicion if you're ever taken to court. And every week you place 10 trades from 10 different accounts, and you only show one of them in your marketing, which is successful. You're not making money by trading, in fact, you're losing money, but your customers see and think that you're winning. And you make $100M+/year doing that.

Now THAT is a real, smart criminal. Do you think that that guy will be "caught" for anything? I don't. He can always turn around and say that it's all real... he has a good alibi for everything. And he's maximising his rational self-interest, which is to keep as much money as possible. You'll almost never be able to demonstrate his intent. And if he's very smart, he'll even have invoices and contracts for completely different services, not fake testimonials for the providers he works with.

So what do you think @Kak? Do you think the guy we described above would be a criminal, in my definition of the term, or an honest businessman, providing value to the market?

---------

Also the point you made is very valuable. Our laws are made in such a way that if the Stooges want to get you, they don't even need to invent something... it is usually sufficient to put the state's magnifying glass on you. And we will come back to this later.

But suffice to say at this point that we both agree that the people who rule over us, the people who control the laws and have a monopoly over physical violence, these people aren't worthy of our respect, on average. And that they really are running a "theater for the masses" as you call it.

I will take the side that it is, in-fact, a matter of intelligence.

This will be a very interesting discussion. I will take the side that, for most people, being good is not a result of intelligence, but a result of upbringing, ultimately a matter of ingrained habit. And making this argument will serve another purpose as well... to discourage our readers from pursuing the criminal path, even though, as I will show, it is this path that the most successful, and also the wealthiest people have followed to attain their wealth & success.

In order to be a successful criminal (bear in mind the definition I'm using) you need two attributes:

1) Extremely high intelligence. By which I mean the ability to foresee far into the future what the consequences of certain actions will be, how other people may react, and how to engineer situations to be to your advantage, so that, as the saying goes, you always fall on your feet rather than on your face.

2) A hardened heart. By which I mean the ability to behave unethically with impunity, without having sentiments or emotions or compassion holding you back. Without experiencing guilt for what you have done, or the pangs of conscience. Notice that in the speech I quoted initially from Machiavelli's Florentine Histories, the soldiers to which the general was talking to were admonished for their conscience, for their guilt, because they did not want to be criminals anymore.

Most people will lack both. Perhaps 90%+ of the world's population lacks both. Now from the remaining 10%, perhaps 9%+ will lack the hardened heart. Some of our readers here may read that criminals are able to attain the highest peaks of success and undiscouraged by the moral arguments you and @Antifragile have put forward against that sort of life, want to launch into the endeavour of actually becoming these successful criminals.

Therefore I want to put forward some practical, non-moral arguments against this...

Look at someone like Andrew Tate. He has attained the peak of worldly success: ability to travel anywhere, own mansions and private jets, have millions of fans, a huge collection of the most expensive luxury items in the world, beautiful women and complete and utter fame, being the most Googled man on the planet, right? Yes, this was recently taken away from him, but the trial is ongoing, who knows, he may even be able to take it all back.

What did he have to do to attain this? He describes it himself. It all started when he called four of his girlfriends who did not know about each other to his place to show their bodies on the internet for money. Two left immediately, and two stayed. Out of those two, one left soon after and there was only one left.

And what happened is that Andrew would type, and the girl would act. And they would get men on camera, and get those men to send their money to them. Telling them that the girl is in love with them, or she wants to move in with them and so on. And like this, they were able to create from a single girl $50,000-$100,000/month.

They also soon learned that with this sort of money the girls did not want to work 8 hours per day. 1 hour was enough. They would buy the guccis that they wanted, and after they'd want to have fun, go on holidays, etc. And they would also want to do it themselves, take all the money. So some way had to be found to restrict the girls. To make sure they don't betray. Get them to tattoo their names on their body, take their passports, don't let them go out on their own, threats or even actual physical violence, there were many methods taken into consideration. Of course that the girls who were recruited would be girls who agreed with this. A great criminal is not an alchemist, but rather a sifter - he sifts for the marks, for the victims, and only invests his time into those, because manipulation is always to be preferred over force.

Now most ambitious young men may look at Andrew and want to replicate what he did. The problem is that they won't be able to. First of all, most simply lack the intelligence. As one guy said in this thread, when he lies, you can read it all over his face. He cannot do it. He simply lacks the ability.

And second of all, even if they do have the intelligence, they will not have the heart. Imagine taking your girlfriend and asking her to show her body on the internet for money. And maybe you get her to do it, because you're a smart guy. But a point will come when she no longer wants to do it. When she starts crying, and when she wants to kill herself because she feels tortured. Will you have the heart to keep going at that point? To lock her in the house, beat her, make her do it, day after day after day? Most people will not. They may have the ability, but they lack the will.

And this brings us to the heart of the matter. The reason why most people will NOT have the heart to do it isn't because they're more intelligent than others as you wish to argue. It is because of compassion, something that was bred into them through the way they were raised. Because intelligence may very well say go ahead and beat the girl, she will do it in the end, you know she won't really commit suicide.

Now intelligence and compassion are not always aligned. The Greeks did not understand compassion as a moral feeling. The story of the good samaritan is an ethical nonsense for the Greeks. If a stranger is dying right outside your house, lying on the floor, not moving, and you happen to see him, the Greeks would correctly argue that intellectually, it's not immoral to ignore him and let him die. It is only the Christian faith that introduced compassion into the ethical mix. Because the Christians say that you should help the man if you can. He is your brother or sister in Christ.

And Christians would actually argue that it is your DUTY to help the man out. I will not go that far, because I know libertarians often argue against this concept of duty. So out of respect for you, I will ignore duty for now. And say that I'm not interested in whether it's a duty or not. But what I am interested in @Kak is in what you would do in that situation. And my bet is that you would help the man more often than not.

And you're helping not to pursue your rational self-interest -- there literarily is nothing for you to gain. Maybe the man is a homeless guy, you'll never come across him again. But you're helping because you were raised to be compassionate. And that is what makes you a good man... you pursue your rational self-interest with compassion.

There are ways to pursue your rational self-interest without compassion, and that is what criminals have perfected. And this will maximise your rational self-interest even more, compassion is a break.

In a business world, I believe win-win, mutually beneficial transactions are at the heart of anything sustainable. I am not talking about sustainability in the ecological sense, but the ability to continue doing what you are doing without the fear of the music stopping. I believe building businesses to be a high-calling and an honorable pursuit.

Capitalism, not in the dark and deranged sense that the political theater has painted it, but at its core... Is this system of free exchange between willing parties that engage only by choice and consideration of opportunity cost.

In theory, this is how it is. But in practice, capitalism always gets political. Meaning that force, deception, threats, violence of one form or another is introduced into the equation. Otherwise just ask yourself one simple question: why do the Stooges, who are less able, less intelligent than us, why is it that they rule over us? And set our laws? And, just as you said, if they wanted to, they could accuse us tomorrow of breaking some law or other and put us in jail? Why isn't the "free market" taking over them?

And this is at the heart of my disagreement with libertarians. Principles and morality work if everyone follows them. But in the real world, people don't. It is exactly as Machiavelli has said: "Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good."

And it is not as simple as deciphering who are the matchers/takers/givers of the world to use Adam Grant's terminology. Because a great criminal will more often than not act as a giver, until he doesn't.

I perceive that it is an improvement to my condition to be an upstanding, man-of-my-word, businessman of sterling reputation.

You perceive that it is an improvement on your condition to not hold yourself to a higher standard.

Depends what the criteria is my friend. If the criteria is living an ethical life, your way is correct. If the criteria is landing on the cover of Forbes, it's probably not.

I believe there are great yet difficult to quantify consequences of that decision, that when weighed against your perceived benefits, erodes the profitability of being a low-bar businessman.

This is a point we disagree on. Since as I have illustrated before, the most successful people have generally been the most unethical. What I think you may be trying to say is that being good has less variance... meaning that if you are good and also able on average you'll do well. Whereas if you are a criminal, very often you'll get in trouble, but if you don't and you do well, then you'll do a whole lot better, from a worldly point of view, than the ethical man does on average.

So being unethical is a high risk, high reward strategy. While being ethical is a low risk, more certain reward kind of strategy. And if this latter is your point, then I agree with you.

We are back to political theater. Conquerors and kingship was largely luck mixed with ego. You are putting the cart before the horse. Their position could have made them drunk on power and instilled feelings of human immortality. It probably drove them to be the irredeemable pricks they all were, look to Hollywood for a relevant modern example.

Yes, indeed we are my friend. Because political theater is precisely why the good man is not as successful as the criminal. If there was no political theater, the good man would be more successful than the criminal.

The political theater is an essential part of business, that cannot be separated so that we create the "ideal" capitalism, where politics is removed from economics. And the wonderful example you shared of your own story illustrates this.

The Stooges in a certain sense won. Your invention did not see the light of day. The political theater won over the markets.

Of course, you also won. You're a respectable business leader. You're friends with many of the people involved. And we're now going to need, at some later point, to explore the differences between power, ambition and pride between the good man and the criminal. Because they both have them, but they're not the same thing. And most often we assume these to be the same.

The real heart of our disagreement is that you see ethics & success as aligned, such that what is ethical is also always the best move on the chessboard from a worldly point of view. And my point is that that's not true. And this is precisely why we have a political theater. After all, the political theater did not appear by itself. We are creating it as a society, and the reason we are creating it is because we see many more unethical but stronger moves than ethical ones.

Don't conflate dominance and and strong leadership with unethical behavior.

Creative destruction is not unethical. For those of you that don't know what this is, look up economist Joseph Schumpter.

Challenging the status quo is not unethical. Per @thechosen1 continued use of the George Bernard Shaw quote about unreasonable people.

I am 100% all in on unreasonable. Literally one of my most recent shows I recorded was making the case that it is unreasonable to be reasonable as an entrepreneur.

Unreasonable isn't unethical.

Unagreeable isn't unethical.

Ambition isn't unethical.

Hard hitting people that don't mince words aren't unethical.

Screwing people is and a reputation for screwing people is not good for your long term business prospects. I intend to ultimately prove it to the forum.

These are very important points. So now I'm going to go into a lot of depth into the differences in the power, ambition and pride of the ethical man vs the same attributes of the criminal.

What is power for the criminal? It is the ability to dominate others and extract from them exactly what you want, whether through force or deception.

What is ambition for the criminal? It is the desire to be better than your fellow man.

What is pride for the criminal? It is the knowledge that they are more successful than their fellow man.

And I think @Kak that we will agree that these previous sentiments are fundamentally unethical and immoral, since they corrode the brotherhood of man, and pit one man against another, like to bulls in a cage, forced to fight each other to the death. And I do not think this is what you mean by power, ambition and pride.

Rather I think that what you mean is as follows:

Power for the good man: the ability to actualize himself and flower to his full potential. To become his own master, the master of his own destiny, to reach the peaks that only he can reach.

Ambition: The strong desire to reach his full potential. To discover what he is most capable of.

Pride: The knowledge that he has done his best to actualize his potential, pride in his work and the mastery he has attained.

I'd say it is these definitions that you are referring to. Are they not?

So the good man also has a form of power that he has access to. But notice, that it's not the power of dominance. It's not the power of great intelligence or great force.

It is rather the power of meekness. And before you jump to my throat, listen to what I mean by that word. I do not mean weakness and bowing your head. Rather I mean finding and fulfilling your role in the greater whole. The power of the good man comes from the whole that supports him, not from himself. It comes from the people who trust him, the people who are loyal to him, the people who love him.

The power of the criminal comes from his great intelligence and great force. It is the respect that we hold for an Alexander -- we are in awe of his great power, the ability to play the politcal theater and get what he wants. The ability to crush others that stand in his way.

Listen to this short clip, because it illustrates the difference between the two:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk9MzFD9T-Q


(and the whole show is great at exploring the difference between good vs evil when it comes to worldly success. These differences are more easily seen in drama -- in human action.)

Dying penniless doesn't prove your point. It proves mine.

It proves that being ethical has less variance. You were ethical, you didn't end up a billionaire at any point, but you also didn't end up in the poor house. Dr. Brinkley and Elizabeth were unethical, they ended up wealthier than you, but they also ended up in the poor house.

As I was saying before... higher peaks, lower lows. So with both of them, we're seeing exactly what we're expecting to see.

I did look at 3 billionaires in particular, I am well aware this is a very small sample size. We can add a few more. Larry Ellison from Oracle (another ruthless guy), Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos. All have been extremely ruthless in their quest to acquire & maintain power and wealth. These are the people who rise to the pinnacles. None of them I'd describe as GIVERS, without laughing in the same sentence.

Of course that, statistically speaking, if what I was saying before is true, that criminals will have higher highs and lower lows, we expect to see a lot more of them both at the top and at the bottom.

I don't have a wake of pissed off people in my past. Do you? It isn't too late to nock down your house of cards and start building your personal influence and reputation on something more solid. How you are talking about operating continuously puts you form of debt. The longer this goes on the more of this “debt” you accumulate. You are robbing your future self for a temporary gain today.

I will use this clear up a few comments from both yourself but also other people.

First to answer your question: I don't. I don't think you can find a single person here or elsewhere who will say that I cheated them. I have gone out of my way for clients many times in the past, and that's actually one of the reasons why I'm not richer and I haven't made more money.

Some have said above that the world is changing. And being unethical worked until now, but not anymore. The internet is changing the game.

I call this the Daniel Pink argument, because he makes it in his To Sell is Human book.

And I think it's exactly the opposite.

We have gone from seeing maybe 1,000 advertising messages a day to 10,000+ today. The flow of information is too much for our brain. And you know what that means? Most informtion becomes invisible.

So I will argue that it's the exact opposite. It's a LOT easier to be a criminal today, than it was 100 years ago. 100 years ago, you were restricted to a small community with a relatively small flow of information, and if your reputation was destroyed there, you were pretty much F*cked. Nowadays, your reputation getting destroyed is masked in the barrage of information.

Nobody has time to even find out.

So that's one reason.

The other reason is that nobody apart from yourself has an interest to worry about your reputation. Not even your victims. They may post a few negative reviews or whatever... but you can control and work on your reputation every single day! You can even pay companies to get negative reviews removed. So which version of reality will win out through the noise? The version YOU craft, spending a lot more time doing it, or the version that your victims do?

Just look at Jordan Belfort. The narrative that comes out of his mouth is winning. He's as rich as ever today. You'd have expected his reputation to have destroyed him. It did the EXACT opposite. Reputation simply doesn't matter as much, because people take decisions much more quickly, and there is simply too much information for them to be as analytical about it as before.

And I will add another point. Far from moving away from the political theater, we are moving ever more fully into it. Too much information, and people are confused. They don't know what to do anymore. And this is what they want. My guess is that the metaverse will be the perfect "solution" for the struggling, poverty-striken areas in India and Bangladesh.

Hook them up to the Metaverse so they can escape their horrible reality, let them live a fantasy, while they're producing whatever they'll be producing for us in the West through their computing power.

Far from the political losing influence, it is gaining. All the technology means they have more data then ever on us. They can monitor us more than ever. They can control us more than ever. They can see how quickly messages propagate more easily then ever. They can deceive more easily than ever by creating the impression of fake social proof.

So far from the world becoming non-Machiavellian, it is becoming MORE Machiavellian than ever.

So this is my question for you @Kak. How do we fight back?

True or False: The market ultimately decides who is and isn’t wildly successful?

Yes.

True or False: The market is comprised of people who have opinions and perceptions of you?

Yes.

That is precisely why a criminal is busy at work crafting the perceptions and the opinions the market will have. Microsoft for example has been busy at crafting the perception the market will have about Windows PCs for decades. This is precisely where politics, deception and force come into play.


----------------------------------

I wanted to add one more thing. Someone above has mentioned Robert Greene. I detest Robert Greene and find his books too boring to read, though they have been recommended to me many times. But, I've never read any of his books except parts of one on seduction many many years ago.

To the accusation that I'm using this to gain attention, I have removed all links leading back to my website from my signature.

It's true that I've made money off the forum, but you guys are greatly exaggerating about it. Probably I've made $25,000 at most over 3 years from the forum. I've probably given back in monetary form alone to the forum or members of the forum around $10,000 of those. Plus whatever I've given back to all the people I've helped in a non-monetary way, of course.

So selling on the forum has been more of a hobby for me. The truth be told, there is no money to be made from the forum. And I have collected a lot of information on the audience, so I know.

I think @Fox 2 years ago was making around $100K/year from the forum. And I think that's the most you can reach if you do this full-time.

The forum is separated between those who are BROKE, which is 80%+... and when I say broke, I really do mean broke... I don't mean $75K/year income kinda broke. They can't pay $1K/mo to work with my company.

And those who aren't broke aren't usually running an agency. And even if they are, they usually are so successful that they wouldn't need my service (ie, @BizyDad ).

So the forum is a terrible place for me to advertise my main business on.

At the moment, out of 39 active clients, only 1 is from the forum, and I don't even know his username here actually, I've spoken with him for many months through LinkedIn before he joined, but I know he's a member here.

 

[biophase]

Are you sure that this is what you meant? I think it should read "you will actually make LESS money". Otherwise it doesn't seem to fit with the rest of your post...
Or did you mean in the short term?

Sorry don’t know how the word Not got in there. Will fix it.

 

[Amogh]

Here's what I'm able to understand. MJ sir's forum and books basically empower a person with a mindset and guidance to earn a living and eventually achieve financial freedom, starting from nothing.
When a person is starting out as a nobody, lying will just harm his personal branding. So definitely it seems logical to be as truthful as possible at this stage. (I'm at this stage so i know. Personally when i tell a lie it's written all over my face. Definitely there will be some hardcore liars for whom it's as easy as breathing, so ya not me)
Black Dragon sir essentially seems to be telling that if you want to reach the very top, there may be situations when you have to compromise on your ethics. Since most people probably don't/won't do that for a number of reasons, they don't have what it takes is his argument if I'm right.
Basically there are other means to the end.
But one thing I'm not able to process is this argument that they did whatever it took and that's why they reached there.
You mentioned Elizabeth Holmes (i think the Theranos lady if I'm not wrong). She probably did whatever it took too. And yet she failed. As a student of MJ, i don't find it hard to reason why it was the case. It was because she didn't deliver on what she promised.
She lied. Wouldn't have been "wrong" if she delivered on it. But wouldn't it have been simpler for her if she had just spoken the truth.
Essentially this argument is trying to open up a reader's head to people who became successful while being "not so ethical". But the point is this has always been there anyway and all of us know about it so i don't see how it's relevant to this forum in the first place. (I joined this forum to earn money as legitimately and truthfully as possible)
The argument seemed irrelevant to my life for the following reasons :
1. You said in one point that we admire Jordan Belford because he is successful. Ya maybe that was me when i was immature and hadn't read MJ's books. After watching the movie depicting his "life story", that's what i wanted from my life too. But after some thought, (and exposing myself to MJ's works) i understood maybe that isn't a smart way of doing things. The movie was entertaining ok? But in my eyes Andy Black sir is superior to that guy.
So i do feel that your observation that we only admire people based on their external achievements definitely relevant to people who go by appearances. But if i talk for myself it's only a factor.
I don't admire Elon Musk just because he's a billionaire but because of the kind of passion that he has to make the impossible possible. It's that mindset of a doer i admire and that I'm inculcating in my life as well.
2. You took examples of what Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Phil Knight did "wrong" to reach where they did. But most of their success is attributed to what that did "right". If even one of them hadn't delivered on their promises time and time again they wouldn't have achieved what they did. So essentially their success was because of the many right things they did which you conveniently ignored to highlight what they did wrong. I feel we should just learn from what they did right and move on.
3. Good people are usually NOT drawn to success. Yes, because being good automatically gives us money to cure a family member's chronic illness.
4. You argued about how "we" boycotted people like Socrates, Jesus, Buddha - firstly these were people who were opposed by the people of their space time because their argument was against the status quo.
And we aren't following their ideals now in order to wash off our sins but rather coz it makes sense to us at this point in time. Would you consider that success? Being understood even if not immediately. I would.
5. We remember Hitler, Alexander or some thing you mentioned.
I'd like to end this post with a quote from the anime Attack on Titan.

Armin Arlert: "I Don't Like The Terms "Good Person" or "Bad Person." If my actions are in accordance with what you expect, you say I'm good and if they're not you say I'm bad."​

What I've understood is we tell people as good or bad based on our convenience.
Say some people enjoy a success that we covet, we try to find ways to tell people how the person is a bad person (I've been guilty of doing this too) when if given on a platter we will take that life without any hesitation. So most of the time, it's just us cooking up stories as feel good. Good for children but not useful once someone decides to take ownership of their life (Thank you dear MJ sir, Andy Black sir and Kak sir for inspiring me to take ownership of my life)

 

[BizyDad]

Especially since nobody here has any firsthand knowledge

I'm not entirely sure this is true...

---

This next comment is not directed at you or anyone I particular, but more generally, I'd appreciate people if people don't accidentally thread jack.

The thread is called Kak vs BD. Let's keep this primarily a discourse between them.

Make your points, but if you want to directly "debate" or "civilly discuss" directly with someone, I suggest perhaps engaging in your own threads.

Don't let this turn into a pile on either way.

As a pro tip...

Discuss an idea - good.
Saying I believe X - good.
Showing the point you agree with - good.
Discussing a person - less good
Saying "I have a problem with you" - not good.

And I'll repeat Kak's request to avoid emotionally charged language.

Again, not saying anyone is doing anything wrong. This has just been a friendly public discourse announcement from your neighborhood Bizydad.

Carry on.

 

[S.Y.]

This would be a lot more valuable if we let @Black_Dragon43 and @Kak debate, one on one.

Other people's opinions, although valuable in general, are taking away from their debate on ethics at this stage. It can become one of those meetings where too many people have a say on a subject, taking away from what could have been valuable time for exchange.

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

Doesn't @Kak have a podcast? It would be really cool to see them debate this on it, points would be way easier to understand between all of the noise of the thread.

This is an EPIC idea!!! (My bad for using the forum guys lol)

Edit: a forum doesn't really work as a place for two users to have a 1-1 conversation for all to read and not reply to, unless mods lock it for other users. If replies are allowed, replies will be made. That's my philosophical contribution to this philosophical thread... haha

 

[Oso]

I'm definitely not here for the debate, but this is some wild timing.

I've never been one for television as I've always found it boring... Until I encountered a show on Netflix called "The Food That Built America."

Interestingly enough, I learned about a cereal creator by the name of "C.W. Post." Wanna know how he got his start in the cereal business? As an employee of what would eventually become Kellogg's, he simply walked into their little office one night, and stole their OG recipe. He then created a cereal by the name of "Grape Nuts." What's even crazier is you can still buy that shit to this day.

While I won't debate the ethics of it (that's for y'all to decide as individuals), it does make one ask a couple of questions. Despite the fact he delivered a solid product to a hungry market, knowing he got his start via crime, should his legacy still be worth billions? Should he still be considered one of the "founding fathers of breakfast/cereal," when in all reality, he founded neither breakfast nor cereal? After-all, it was Kellogg's that created the original recipe, and it was the government that would eventually make a deal with Kellogg's to push the very idea/concept of "breakfast."

Personally, I do hold myself to rather high personal standards, but I also very much believe in the idea of almost everything in life is a gray area.

Humans truly are a special type of creature.

 

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[BizyDad]

But I do need a single word that I can use to mean:

There is a good point that there is no word for this. Which in and of itself is a fascinating idea.

The closest I can think of is Faustian, one who trades their soul for worldly pleasures or gain. Faustian certainly is not the same thing as you say, but I also needed a word separate from criminal to say the next part.

So below, I use Faustian to replace BD's use of the word criminal and use the word criminal in its traditional sense.

So what do you think @Kak? Do you think the guy we described above would be a criminal, in my definition of the term, or an honest businessman, providing value to the market?

This person is Faustian and a criminal.

And based on laws in this country, he has exposed himself to potential future legal liability.

Now perhaps that's as far as he gets in life, and he never gets legally reprimanded. That person is rich. Fine.

But there are whispers. His course wasn't so great after all. And the whispers occasionally kill his chances at some future deals.

Is this a trade a Faustian would make? Probably. But in this example an honest business would like get farther because the story continues beyond your arbitrary stopping point.

You present your example as if there will be no consequences... But there are.

Anyways, just wanted to illustrate an alternate use case of a word in case you guys want to further distinguish between proper criminals and BD's version of proper criminals. (Puns definitely intended)

To the accusation that I'm using this to gain attention, I have removed all links leading back to my website from my signature.

@Johnny boy was right about you! It's happening before our very eyes! He is Machiavellian. Or is he?

Sorry. I thought we could use a little levity. Carry on lovers of truth.

 

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[BizyDad]

His strategy of selling focuses on getting the customer to commit to a low commitment offer, over delivers it, and then tries to up sell a higher ticket item. It might not applicable to all businesses.

Sales people generally sell in a way that is convincing to themselves. His high energy personal style is effective to other people who is receptive to getting influnced and inspired. It could backfire on other personality types.

Right out of prison he went on taking sale management roles specifically selling products with strong selling proposition. Selling home owners refinancing plans with lower interest packages and selling government sponsored training packages to farmers.

I would like to point out that you are beginning to derail a good conversation about business ethics to discuss the merits of one person.

I refer you to my previous post.

If you gentlemen would like to continue this, perhaps do so on any number of Jordan threads probably already in existence on this forum.

 

[Kevin88660]

@Black_Dragon43 I’m calling you out for a civil discussion if possible.

I’ve seen your point made several times that lying, half truths, and ruthlessness are helpful in business. I’m a bit taken aback that these posts are getting the likes they are getting.

I think this is a dangerous thing to be teaching impressionable new entrepreneurs.

I am going to make the claim that honesty and man-of-your-word business practices are not only ethically superior to scorched earth, anything goes stuff… But also, eventually, more financially rewarding.

I have said before, reputation is a form of currency. A good reputation is a massive business asset you can lean on as time goes on. I believe a business person should be as squeaky clean as humanly possible and that we should build our empires not at the expenses of our reputation, but while also building a better and better reputation.

Another reason- I want to set my kids up with the family name.

Another reason- I don’t want be a part of the socialist narrative.

I believe any idiot can win today at the expense of tomorrow. It takes self control and intelligence to have longer term horizons and consider your future even at the expense of today.

I stand by the quote that you should do something today that your future self will thank you for. Nuking your future prospects doesn’t adhere.

I evidently don’t have the same kind of time in the day to write giant a$$ dissertations like you to every post, so please be patient with my responses.

I don’t think anyone argues that you can get far in business lying, cheating, and screwing people.

Most likely if anyone starts their business that way they are not going to have any initial gain from any victim.

The big bad guys you see in TV ending up in jail abused the trust of their clients, had at least did years of honest business to gain the trust. It took years of hard work.

Small fraudsters can just cheat their family members and best friends.

On the other hand I don’t think anyone can survive in business being obsessed with following every rule and social norm uncreatively.

The really debatable tactics are the following example.

*Violating platform rules by signing up multiple accounts with bot to do growth hack for your business
*Use AI to write blogs to fool Google SEO to drive traffic to your business
*Set up a final expense insurance agency hiring fresh out if college girls targeting boomer generation men with assess to their retirement accounts
*Meta lobbying congress to kill competitor Tiktok
*Having made in China products assembled at Vietnam for the last step to avoid U.S. import tariff

Most business in the traditional industries like have many rules to follow due to regulation.

If you have an honest conversation with the small businesses you will realise 80 percent of the profitable companies would not have any margin if they followed everything comprehensively and religiously.

 

[MitchC]

I think this podcast from Hormozi is relevant. Just replace the word branding with reputation because they basically mean the same anyway.

MARKETING - Branding vs Direct Response (Alex Hormozi Podcast Discussion)

I was just sent this podcast episode by a friend who I’ve had a similar conversation with before. I really enjoyed it and think it could be interesting to discuss here. I remember when I first learned about direct response thinking that all these big brands were stupid and were wasting their...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

[Robdavis]

The crazy thing is that by not putting honestly and integrity first, you actually will make more money. A few years ago I was short $200k on a deal and 2 members wired me $100k each, I paid them back in a few months. Profit on that deal is easily $500k. Without trust, that deal wouldn't have closed.

Are you sure that this is what you meant? I think it should read "you will actually make LESS money". Otherwise it doesn't seem to fit with the rest of your post...
Or did you mean in the short term?

 

[kommen]

I'm not rich yet. But it doesn't take a genius to see that lying, dishonesty and betrayal are thinkings from the 95%.

Isn't MJ's whole philosophy is that if you want to achieve 1% results, you have to do 1% things?

 

[Kevin88660]

No problem @Kak, because you are my friend and I am a lover of truth, I will engage in this discussion with you. I also appreciate @MJ DeMarco 's message in the other thread and I have spoken to MJ and mentioned that I will tone down my aggressive style because, truth be told, I like you guys, and I don't want to be kicked out. Also appreciate @Antifragile 's message.

Some preliminaries:
• A true criminal and dishonest person would never discuss what I am about to discuss with you publically. Because, a true criminal knows that crimes are committed in the shadows, and never in the light. In the light it is exactly as you say @Kak in the message below. Therefore, a true criminal would be saying that you should always be honest & ethical.

• Second @biophase says that nobody here would lend me even $1,000. I certainly hope that that's not the case, because over the years I have paid you guys way more than $1,000 whether to MJ/the forum, people I've hired from here, people I've paid for their advice, etc. Perhaps more than $10,000 if we add all of it up. So if that were true, I think that wouldn't speak very good things about you.
• Third - I don't expect likes and agreement, because exactly as you say @Kak most people are too afraid to cover their behinds and reputations rather than investigate the truth, regardless of what it may cost them in terms of personal reputation. Not to mention that now the social dynamics, due to the message from MJ are entirely against me, and most people prefer to be on the side of the winners, regardless of whether they are right or not.

So @Kak here's what I will argue:


I will argue that being unethical & dishonest is more financially rewarding in the long term, and that the most successful people in the world are usually also the biggest criminals. In fact not only will I argue that, but I'll also argue that this has been the case all through human history.

What I will NOT argue is that it's preferable to be a criminal so long as you can get away with it. And the reason I won't argue that is because it presumes that the good life is a life where success is maximized regardless of the sacrifices that have to be made OR the risks that have to be assumed. That success is the only criteria by which to judge a life. And if one succeeds, then all is well. In other words, the health of your soul, sleeping well at night, doesn't matter at all. And that's not a claim I'm willing to make.

So my argument is about the facts -- criminals are the most successful people in the world. It's not about what SHOULD be the case, an idealism, but about what actually IS the case.

Now what do I mean by criminal? Someone who breaks all laws? A psychopath? Someone who has no moral values and who parks in the spot for handicapped people? Someone who screws over 80-year old grandmas?

No.

What I mean is this: someone who will do whatever it takes to succeed in the long run, even if succeeding involves hurting other people, cheating, lying, stealing or breaking other ethical norms. In other words, someone who chooses worldly success over his own soul and integrity. That person is a criminal, even if they may have committed no crimes yet.

Let me start by quoting a speech quoted by Machiavelli in Florentine Histories:


With that as an introduction, here's the first easy argument. I call this the argument from morality.

1) If it were true that worldly success and ethics go hand-in-hand, then we wouldn't need morality or religion, it would simply be a matter of intelligence. If you are intelligent, you behave ethically, because you don't want to be cutting the branch of the tree that you're sitting on. We wouldn't need to teach our kids about the importance of ethics, since it would be most obvious -- it would be aligned with their existing, natural, selfish tendencies. But that's not the case is it? We need to teach our children ethics, and we need religion and laws precisely because without them a lot more people would be taking liberties that may be beneficial to them, but would be harmful for the rest of us.

Ask yourself... why do people need the threat of hell to behave? Not you, but the masses of mankind? Why not just tell them you'll be punished in this life? Why have the Eastern faiths introduced the concept of reincarnation? Why not just tell people that karma will come and bite you in the a$$ in this life?

Because we know that many times that doesn't happen, and karma never bites you in the a$$ (at least not in a worldly sense... in a spiritual sense, anything unethical that you do WILL affect you).

Now, the second argument.

2) Who are the most admired & successful people in history? The Buddhas, Jesuses, and Socrateses of the world, or the Alexanders, the Napoleons, the Tamerlanes, the Caesars? And who are the most successful of the bunch? Is it not the second group, every single time?

Aren't we human beings very twisted? We've put the biggest criminals in history into our history books. We accord them the highest respects. Their statues don the surface of the earth. Mass murderers who have killed millions of people to satisfy their desire for power. And far from considering them psychologically sick, we accord the highest praise to them. It is almost a fact that to enter the history books, you have to do something very very nasty. Because if you don't, you're not remembered. More people know today of Adolf Hitler than of Charles de Gaule. Think about that. In India they even respect Hitler. They have Hitler clothing, Hitler ice-cream, Hitler stores and so on.

On the other hand, what happened to the Buddhas, Jesuses, Socrates and our saints? We either killed them, or they lived in poverty and little renown during their lives. Only for the guilt to overwhelm us after they were dead, and for us to make them saints, as a way to wash over our sins, to make up for our crimes, to forget that it was us who ignored them or worse who persecuted and killed them.

Do you think Putin is a criminal @Kak? And do you think being a criminal is precisely what allowed him to rise to the most powerful position in Russia AND to hold it for 20+ years? Do you think by being ruthless Putin nuked his future prospects, OR do you think that he only held on to power for 20+ years PRECISELY because he was ruthless? That if he were a bit more decent, if he were less cold-blooded, he would never have reached the top and if he had, he would never have remained there for long?

The third argument.

3) Who are the most successful people in business? It is people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Phil Knight of Nike. What did these guys do?

Steve Jobs lied to Woz about one of their first sales, and took most of the money for himself. When Woz found out 10 years later, he broke down in tears. He refused to acknowledge responsibility for his daughter and never recognized her, because she intervened between him and his ambition. He treated his suppliers and partners like crap and made sure to always twist their arms to get a good deal.

Bill Gates monopolized software, stole from Xerox, IBM and others without any qualms.

Phil Knight LIED to the Japanese at Onitsuka that he had an existing business to get them to sign him, a no-name, as a distributor of Tiger shoes. When he feared Onitsuka would turn against him, he called their representative in his office, had someone distract him, and then lunged for his bag to search through his papers and personal items to find out if his hunch was right. In other words, he did whatever it took. I don't see you @Kak lunging for someone's bag to search through their personal belongings because you fear they may replace your company. You're too decent and well-behaved to do that.

But these guys are not. These guys are willing to do WHATEVER it takes. Regardless of how morally awful it is. And these are just the things we know about. Often the things that they reminisce about, probably with some pleasure, that they are happy to share. Just imagine how many we don't know about.

Next.

4) The argument is made that being unethical destroys your reputation, and clearly your reputation impacts your success. I will argue that it is not being unethical that destroys your reputation. It is failure that destroys it. We spank the failures and ruin them, but we elevate the successes into gods.

Elizabeth Holmes's only crime, in the eyes of the world, is that in the end, her machine didn't work. Just imagine just one small difference. Somehow, or other, the machine worked. Then we would be celebrating Elizabeth. Today she would be in the top 10 richest people on the planet. Even though she clawed her way there by lying, cheating and stealing, none of it matters in the eyes of the world, because she's a success. You wouldn't even hear about that in fact.

Imagine that Elon Musk went bankrupt with Tesla and SpaceX. He would've been taken to court and hanged, the same way we have hanged Elizabeth. The only difference between him and Elizabeth is that in the end, the product worked out for him - something that he could never have known from the beginning, but he had to convince people to bet on it.

5) Your reputation is most often a function of your success. Again, all that matters is that you succeed. If you succeed, you'll have a great reputation. And if you fail, you'll have a terrible reputation. We still admire Jordan Belfort today, because he's a success. He screwed people out of millions if not billions, so what? He's paying the victims something like $4000 per year or whatever, so what? Right? That's how the world thinks. We don't care. The only real thing we care about, is is he successful?

Same for Elon Musk. If Elon Musk lost all his money tomorrow, 70%+ of his connections would no longer know him. They'd cross on the other side of the street if they saw him. They wouldn't answer his calls. This is how people are. Doesn't mean there aren't some decent people who would be loyal and still appreciate him. But not the vast majority, who are just self-interested.

6) Good people are usually NOT drawn to success and power. Because good people don't need success and power to manifest what they need. They do it through their friends. Through their network. Through their honest work. And they're happy to provide for their family, help a few other people, and live a decent life. They do not aspire to be the richest people in the world. Most often they don't, of course, there are a few exceptions.

So by and large who is drawn to success and power? Those who want to dominate others. They are most attracted to it, because without success and power, how can you dominate? They want to rise to the top. They want to become your Presidents, your CEOs, your Prime Ministers and so on.

Therefore the higher you go, the more criminals you'll meet, just because they're the only ones who want to be there. Imagine how hard it is to be President. You can't go with your woman anywhere because everyone is following you. You can't take a walk through the park. You can't take a day off. Why would you put yourself through that pain and suffering? Because you love the world? Maybe, but very unlikely. Most of the time, you do it because you want to dominate others.

7) Credibility & respectability is manufactured. A smart criminal will manufacture them in a legal way. Dr. John Brinkley was at one point the richest doctor in America. He had privates jets, huge mansions his own radio stations. You know what made him rich? Goat testicle replacement surgery. He would cut your ball sack open if you struggled to have kids, and put a goat testicle in there.

Here's what you guys think "Ohh but it doesn't work right?! Word will go out that it doesn't work!!"

And that's where you're wrong. Because a smart criminal will collect evidence that it works even if it doesn't. Because the whole process is engineered. In Dr. John's case the rumor has it that it was just cherry picking the success stories, and having the balls to operate on famous people. The successes are presented, every failure is hidden. Maybe for some of the huge successes like politicians and so on... their wives maybe got pregnant with someone else even. Doesn't matter to John, because his surgery is now a success. That's how dumb the world is. Success is all they see... like flies to shit, they to blind towards success.

That's one way. But there are other ways. Udemy collects feedback as soon as you buy a course almost. That makes no sense, you'll say... you have no way to know if it's good that early. Right. And that's the point. How do we get people great feedback? Collect it early. Almost everyone is ecstatic after a purchase and will speak about how amazed and happy they are.

A trading operation I knew about... what they did was simple. Have 10 accounts. Place 10 trades. One of them will be a winner, just show that one, and hide the rest in their marketing. Boom, you made them believe. And of course, a percentage of your clients will be mega successful millionaires... get them on a stage, get them to show their earnings, don't show the masses who failed.

Right?

I was speaking with one of these big hitters at one point, just having a conversation. And I asked him, how would you build credibility if you started from nothing? And he looked at me weirdly, and asked "Are you an altruist? Credibility is bought". This is how they think.

Another case, another business owner I know of. He had 100 clients in a new business, e-commerce. "I got us into a magazine for veterans. I'm sure we have some veterans amongst our clients, but there's no time to search for them. Let's create something representative". And lo and behold, the story got published with fake veterans.

This is the other thing you guys think... that these criminals would tell you "we're here to screw people over and take their money"... no they won't. They'll be like Elon Musk "we want to save the world!!!" That's what they'll say. And you don't need to know about the dirty stuff if you work for them. That's their business. You just do your job.

And final comment.

Joe Girard, still in the World's Guiness Book of Records as the world's best salesman. He wrote a book. It's called "How to Sell Anything to Anyone". Great book.

In that book you'll find a very interesting chapter.

It's called: "HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY"

And irony of ironies is that the chapter is actually about how to lie effectively. Of course we can't title a chapter in a book how to lie effectively. What would they say about us right?! So we title it with something that most skim-readers will agree with right?

And it starts by saying honesty is the best policy. But it's not a law. In other words, you need to know when to break it.

And Joe then tells you how if the customer asked for a Blue car, and he had no blue car, he told him he has it ready come and take it. And then he'd make something up and apologise and sell him a Black one instead once he was on the premises. Because, how big is that lie right? I mean he wants a car, and he still gets a car, does it really matter it's not blue? Most of his desire is satisfied! Very tiny lie, right?

Or if your aunt was from Missouri, then his uncle was from Missouri. If you liked fishing... he liked fishing. And he became the most successful salesman in the world.

And of course you should never lie about stuff like the engine of a car. Can't tell a customer it has 8 cylinders when it has only 4 right? Any intelligent person would figure that one out. So honesty is the best policy.

So I rest my case. The most successful and the richest people in the world are usually unethical, and even more, they MUST be unethical to rise to the very top in most cases.

I think it has to do with how you view past events and history.

Successful people often are pushed to the top by the tide of history as we need them. In other words they are able to satisfy the selfish needs of their supporters.

In other words being unethical is not the cause of their success.

Even if you look at villians like Hitler and Goebbels, people were rooting for them because they believed they are “their version” of bastards. Right after great depression the big business and industrialists are scared that the communist will rise in power. Meanwhile Nazi pivoted their strategy by promising not to nationalize all industries.

The English and Americans are rooting for Hitler to go east to attack Soviet Union and turned a blind eye towards German rearmament, until Stalin signed a deal with Hitler.

The world before 1945 was not so internationalized and globalized as today. So whenever if there is a economic depression the default option for politicians is to practice trade protectionism. The common wealth, the U.S. and the French with their colonies had large markets to fall back on when declaring tarriffs on foreign imports. This means Japan and Germany are hit hard the most in the depression.

This is the time that the two nations went towards the path of military expansion, because they were late to the party of colonisation and every pie has been divided. The only way to break this cycle is to “flip the table”.

Military expansion provided opportunity for young men to rise above the ranks. People who belong to the marginalized groups saw greatest opportunities. The German military power had its internal ranks structure where the connected prussian elites hold on to the power. That’s why the most fanaticals joined the SS and fought to the last men (also committed most atrocities) till the collapse of the Reich. It consists of average men without connection who desperately want to flip the fortune of their life through war.

When the war is over everyone just pushed the blame on Hitler and Nazi. “We were brainwashed.” was the excuse. In fact people just used “evil leaders” as an excuse to do what they always wanted to do.

 

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[socaldude]

It takes self control

This.

We all have these mechanisms and life puts our faith in truth to the test. You win if you have faith in truth.

In a lot of ways business is about alleviating certain scarcities in how resources are in equilibrium. It isn’t always “The art of War” by Sun Tzu or “The Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli.

Just how relevant is “competition” if you know the truth of utility?

I’ve seen the damage that dishonesty, half-truths or tricks do to human interaction and commerce.

 

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[Kevin88660]

The problem with making reference to Jordan Belfort is that many assumptions about him are wrong.

First of all he did many years of legitimate business selling blue chip stocks in the trading and wealth management business. Did a good job in honest way.

That’s how he gain a lot of trust of a lot of clients.

1) Rule number one: to able to “steal”
millions of dollar from many people you must work hard and honestly for years first.

2) Then the second misunderstanding is that he didn’t “steal” the money technically.

What he did was he recommend penny stocks to his clients. He did stock market manipulation through pump and dump.

A lot of crypto projects founders used to recently do this “legally” because crypto are not securities hence they don’t fall under the laws of securities and futures trading act.

Jordan was not the only one doing this. He was the one was chosen to be made as an example.
Jordan in interview said he regretted doing that and he could be richer if he has not chosen the get richer quick option.

In the movie it was portrayed that he didn’t quit after SEC investigation. In reality he quit, tried to run things behind the scene but was not let off.

3) Jordan belford was already rich before he got involved in stock market manipulation. He went greedy to make more money fast and it cost him dearly. He is currently in negative net wealth territory. Although it is common knowledge that he has control to some form of hidden assets overseas. He is still paying back the compensation but not in the pace that the victims wanted.

So if you a young man thinking that you can. Get rich doing things unethically you are very mistaken.
1) You have not worked hard enough to accumulate trust to rip people off yet.
2) Once you have completed step one, it is foolish to walk in Jordan’s Belford’s path. As he has told you.
3)Jordan Belford is a very competitive individual and that explains his earlier success. He is the short guy in the class and he feels the need to prove himself. His tennis coach said he will train repeatedly to get the motions right and he is insanely obsessed with training.
4) He also has earlier success and failure in selling ice creams. He has expanded a profitable business too fast and went bankrupt/almost bankrupt. That was before him going into security advisory. The earlier lesson taught him to take baby steps and not go all in too fast.

When you study the details, Jordan Belord’s story is not about lying your way into millions.

 

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[Lyinx]

Respect the deal that you've made with the customer/vendor/employee (don't lie/cheat/use fine print to finagle something/etc) If I want my business to be in operation in 200 years from now, there is only one choice.

You can drive a hard bargain and still respect your customer/vendor/employee, as long as you respect the deal and don't screw them around their back. You can pay your employees in meth and crack, as long as you give them what they asked for you are being respectful. (ie: they buy 1 kilo of meth, you give them 1 kilo) If you respect them, and the deal, they'll be there for you. Give them horse terds mixed with their juice and they probably won't stay very long.

 

[ZF Lee]

@Black_Dragon43 I’m calling you out for a civil discussion if possible.

I’ve seen your point made several times that lying, half truths, and ruthlessness are helpful in business. I’m a bit taken aback that these posts are getting the likes they are getting.

I think this is a dangerous thing to be teaching impressionable new entrepreneurs.

I am going to make the claim that honesty and man-of-your-word business practices are not only ethically superior to scorched earth, anything goes stuff… But also, eventually, more financially rewarding.

I have said before, reputation is a form of currency. A good reputation is a massive business asset you can lean on as time goes on. I believe a business person should be as squeaky clean as humanly possible and that we should build our empires not at the expenses of our reputation, but while also building a better and better reputation.

Another reason- I want to set my kids up with the family name.

Another reason- I don’t want be a part of the socialist narrative.

I believe any idiot can win today at the expense of tomorrow. It takes self control and intelligence to have longer term horizons and consider your future even at the expense of today.

I stand by the quote that you should do something today that your future self will thank you for. Nuking your future prospects doesn’t adhere.

I evidently don’t have the same kind of time in the day to write giant a$$ dissertations like you to every post, so please be patient with my responses.

Thanks for the thread, although I'm taken aback at the sudden turn.

I'm all for being honest and straightforward with the people we work with.
It's less exhausting that way.

Imagine having to craft so many 'stories' about yourself, while working on your Fastlane!
Only a master politician could do that. And most of us don't have that kind of finesse.

I've been tempted before to 'puff' up my credentials, when I applied for my first 9-5 jobs or even my copywriting work.

Then I realised I was doing it from a place of fear.

Fear that I wouldn't get picked for the work ahead, because I didn't have X credential or Y achievement that they were asking for. Neediness.

For me, the way to overcome this was not only to be open about your weaknesses (at least, with the customers or partners you work with), but you tell them HOW you are working on remedying them. Even better if you have some progress already.

I DON'T pretend I know everything and can be Superman.

I could also look closer if what they are asking for is TRULY what they need...

I give you an example:

For one of my last email marketing jobs, I was asked if I had any 'advanced' experience in creating online sales funnels from scratch.

I could lie around and use my existing portfolio to trumpet up something.

I just said, "I haven't created an entire sales funnel from scratch yet. What I've been tasked to do so far, was to just write sales copy for key milestones of the funnel, like the emails, bonuses and the bullets. But you shared earlier that you were still making money from your current sales process...and you just needed to 'resurrect' your largely inactive email list.

Perhaps MOST of your funnel is fine...it's just that you need to get your email responses going.

I can help get a few drafts sent out first, and we'll see how they respond to the rest of your funnel."

We started working the next day.

On ruthlessness though, what I understand from it is that at one point, we do need to take a firm stance.
If someone is purposely trying to steal our time or ruin our businesses...he must be dealt with.

 

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[James Klymus]

I’ve seen @Black_Dragon43 posts lately, specifically the one about ego.

I get the sense that he’s being provocative on purpose, similar to Andrew Tate.

There is some truth in the things black dragon posts, as well as the things @Kak posts. Although, I think kak argues his points in a more eloquent way. I look forward to this discussion.

 

[Private Witt]

What about a scorched earth division campaign destroying your competition and enemies, creating an industry civil war through divide and conquer but not lying at all, using truth and justice, in fact telling them exactly what gonna happen letting their own corruption to add to their implosion.

Is this frowned down upon?

 

[Vigilante]

Doesn't @Kak have a podcast? It would be really cool to see them debate this on it, points would be way easier to understand between all of the noise of the thread.

Podcast or INSIDERS call.

 

[Kevin88660]

Making money may be black and white for some people, but when it comes to the overall arc of life, making money with questionable morals with be minus EV for most.

I just had a "friend" today send me a text that said, "don't tell them our products are made in China, they want made in the USA." Honestly, just this text made me not want to be his friend any more.

Take this tiny example and multiply it by thousands of interactions within your life and see how many true friends you have at 40, 50, 60. How do you trust someone as a friend when you know they aren't trustworthy in business?


This is so true. As we get older, we tend to gather with like minded peers. How you've conducted yourself in the past is how others will continue to see you. Once you damage your rep, it is pretty much irreparable.

Nobody here is lending BD $1,000 because he's putting money above friendship. When times get tough, his last $1,000 is going to benefit him, not to pay you back. At least this is the narrative he is creating.

The crazy thing is that by not putting honestly and integrity first, you actually will make more money. A few years ago I was short $200k on a deal and 2 members wired me $100k each, I paid them back in a few months. Profit on that deal is easily $500k. Without trust, that deal wouldn't have closed.



Just this past October, I texted my friend for some cash and here was his response. Do I get this loan without a good reputation?

View attachment 48064

There are companies who have made in china almost finished products to have the last part of assembling done in Vietnam to bypass the tariff.

It is harder to spin made in China goods as made in U.S.

 

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[Kevin88660]

No problem @Kak, because you are my friend and I am a lover of truth, I will engage in this discussion with you. I also appreciate @MJ DeMarco 's message in the other thread and I have spoken to MJ and mentioned that I will tone down my aggressive style because, truth be told, I like you guys, and I don't want to be kicked out. Also appreciate @Antifragile 's message.

Some preliminaries:
• A true criminal and dishonest person would never discuss what I am about to discuss with you publically. Because, a true criminal knows that crimes are committed in the shadows, and never in the light. In the light it is exactly as you say @Kak in the message below. Therefore, a true criminal would be saying that you should always be honest & ethical.

• Second @biophase says that nobody here would lend me even $1,000. I certainly hope that that's not the case, because over the years I have paid you guys way more than $1,000 whether to MJ/the forum, people I've hired from here, people I've paid for their advice, etc. Perhaps more than $10,000 if we add all of it up. So if that were true, I think that wouldn't speak very good things about you.
• Third - I don't expect likes and agreement, because exactly as you say @Kak most people are too afraid to cover their behinds and reputations rather than investigate the truth, regardless of what it may cost them in terms of personal reputation. Not to mention that now the social dynamics, due to the message from MJ are entirely against me, and most people prefer to be on the side of the winners, regardless of whether they are right or not.

So @Kak here's what I will argue:


I will argue that being unethical & dishonest is more financially rewarding in the long term, and that the most successful people in the world are usually also the biggest criminals. In fact not only will I argue that, but I'll also argue that this has been the case all through human history.

What I will NOT argue is that it's preferable to be a criminal so long as you can get away with it. And the reason I won't argue that is because it presumes that the good life is a life where success is maximized regardless of the sacrifices that have to be made OR the risks that have to be assumed. That success is the only criteria by which to judge a life. And if one succeeds, then all is well. In other words, the health of your soul, sleeping well at night, doesn't matter at all. And that's not a claim I'm willing to make.

So my argument is about the facts -- criminals are the most successful people in the world. It's not about what SHOULD be the case, an idealism, but about what actually IS the case.

Now what do I mean by criminal? Someone who breaks all laws? A psychopath? Someone who has no moral values and who parks in the spot for handicapped people? Someone who screws over 80-year old grandmas?

No.

What I mean is this: someone who will do whatever it takes to succeed in the long run, even if succeeding involves hurting other people, cheating, lying, stealing or breaking other ethical norms. In other words, someone who chooses worldly success over his own soul and integrity. That person is a criminal, even if they may have committed no crimes yet.

Let me start by quoting a speech quoted by Machiavelli in Florentine Histories:


With that as an introduction, here's the first easy argument. I call this the argument from morality.

1) If it were true that worldly success and ethics go hand-in-hand, then we wouldn't need morality or religion, it would simply be a matter of intelligence. If you are intelligent, you behave ethically, because 2) Who are the most admired & successful people in history? The Buddhas, Jesuses, and Socrateses of the world, or the Alexanders, the Napoleons, the Tamerlanes, the Caesars? And who are the most successful of the bunch? Is it not the second group, every single time?

Aren't we human beings very twisted? We've put the biggest criminals in history into our history books. We accord them the highest respects. Their statues don the surface of the earth. Mass murderers who have killed millions of people to satisfy their desire for power. And far from considering them psychologically sick, we accord the highest praise to them. It is almost a fact that to enter the history books, you have to do something very very nasty. Because if you don't, you're not remembered. More people know today of Adolf Hitler than of Charles de Gaule. Think about that. In India they even respect Hitler. They have Hitler clothing, Hitler ice-cream, Hitler stores and so on.

On the other hand, what happened to the Buddhas, Jesuses, Socrates and our saints? We either killed them, or they lived in poverty and little renown during their lives. Only for the guilt to overwhelm us after they were dead, and for us to make them saints, as a way to wash over our sins, to make up for our crimes, to forget that it was us who ignored them or worse who persecuted and killed them.

Do you think Putin is a criminal @Kak? And do you think being a criminal is precisely what allowed him to rise to the most powerful position in Russia AND to hold it for 20+ years? Do you think by being ruthless Putin nuked his future prospects, OR do you think that he only held on to power for 20+ years PRECISELY because he was ruthless? That if he were a bit more decent, if he were less cold-blooded, he would never have reached the top and if he had, he would never have remained there for long?

The third argument.

3) Who are the most successful people in business? It is people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Phil Knight of Nike. What did these guys do?

Steve Jobs lied to Woz about one of their first sales, and took most of the money for himself. When Woz found out 10 years later, he broke down in tears. He refused to acknowledge responsibility for his daughter and never recognized her, because she intervened between him and his ambition. He treated his suppliers and partners like crap and made sure to always twist their arms to get a good deal.

Bill Gates monopolized software, stole from Xerox, IBM and others without any qualms.

Phil Knight LIED to the Japanese at Onitsuka that he had an existing business to get them to sign him, a no-name, as a distributor of Tiger shoes. When he feared Onitsuka would turn against him, he called their representative in his office, had someone distract him, and then lunged for his bag to search through his papers and personal items to find out if his hunch was right. In other words, he did whatever it took. I don't see you @Kak lunging for someone's bag to search through their personal belongings because you fear they may replace your company. You're too decent and well-behaved to do that.

But these guys are not. These guys are willing to do WHATEVER it takes. Regardless of how morally awful it is. And these are just the things we know about. Often the things that they reminisce about, probably with some pleasure, that they are happy to share. Just imagine how many we don't know about.

Next.

4) The argument is made that being unethical destroys your reputation, and clearly your reputation impacts your success. I will argue that it is not being unethical that destroys your reputation. It is failure that destroys it. We spank the failures and ruin them, but we elevate the successes into gods.

Elizabeth Holmes's only crime, in the eyes of the world, is that in the end, her machine didn't work. Just imagine just one small difference. Somehow, or other, the machine worked. Then we would be celebrating Elizabeth. Today she would be in the top 10 richest people on the planet. Even though she clawed her way there by lying, cheating and stealing, none of it matters in the eyes of the world, because she's a success. You wouldn't even hear about that in fact.

Imagine that Elon Musk went bankrupt with Tesla and SpaceX. He would've been taken to court and hanged, the same way we have hanged Elizabeth. The only difference between him and Elizabeth is that in the end, the product worked out for him - something that he could never have known from the beginning, but he had to convince people to bet on it.

5) Your reputation is most often a function of your success. Again, all that matters is that you succeed. If you succeed, you'll have a great reputation. And if you fail, you'll have a terrible reputation. We still admire Jordan Belfort today, because he's a success. He screwed people out of millions if not billions, so what? He's paying the victims something like $4000 per year or whatever, so what? Right? That's how the world thinks. We don't care. The only real thing we care about, is is he successful?

Same for Elon Musk. If Elon Musk lost all his money tomorrow, 70%+ of his connections would no longer know him. They'd cross on the other side of the street if they saw him. They wouldn't answer his calls. This is how people are. Doesn't mean there aren't some decent people who would be loyal and still appreciate him. But not the vast majority, who are just self-interested.

6) Good people are usually NOT drawn to success and power. Because good people don't need success and power to manifest what they need. They do it through their friends. Through their network. Through their honest work. And they're happy to provide for their family, help a few other people, and live a decent life. They do not aspire to be the richest people in the world. Most often they don't, of course, there are a few exceptions.

So by and large who is drawn to success and power? Those who want to dominate others. They are most attracted to it, because without success and power, how can you dominate? They want to rise to the top. They want to become your Presidents, your CEOs, your Prime Ministers and so on.

Therefore the higher you go, the more criminals you'll meet, just because they're the only ones who want to be there. Imagine how hard it is to be President. You can't go with your woman anywhere because everyone is following you. You can't take a walk through the park. You can't take a day off. Why would you put yourself through that pain and suffering? Because you love the world? Maybe, but very unlikely. Most of the time, you do it because you want to dominate others.

7) Credibility & respectability is manufactured. A smart criminal will manufacture them in a legal way. Dr. John Brinkley was at one point the richest doctor in America. He had privates jets, huge mansions his own radio stations. You know what made him rich? Goat testicle replacement surgery. He would cut your ball sack open if you struggled to have kids, and put a goat testicle in there.

Here's what you guys think "Ohh but it doesn't work right?! Word will go out that it doesn't work!!"

And that's where you're wrong. Because a smart criminal will collect evidence that it works even if it doesn't. Because the whole process is engineered. In Dr. John's case the rumor has it that it was just cherry picking the success stories, and having the balls to operate on famous people. The successes are presented, every failure is hidden. Maybe for some of the huge successes like politicians and so on... their wives maybe got pregnant with someone else even. Doesn't matter to John, because his surgery is now a success. That's how dumb the world is. Success is all they see... like flies to shit, they to blind towards success.

That's one way. But there are other ways. Udemy collects feedback as soon as you buy a course almost. That makes no sense, you'll say... you have no way to know if it's good that early. Right. And that's the point. How do we get people great feedback? Collect it early. Almost everyone is ecstatic after a purchase and will speak about how amazed and happy they are.

A trading operation I knew about... what they did was simple. Have 10 accounts. Place 10 trades. One of them will be a winner, just show that one, and hide the rest in their marketing. Boom, you made them believe. And of course, a percentage of your clients will be mega successful millionaires... get them on a stage, get them to show their earnings, don't show the masses who failed.

Right?

I was speaking with one of these big hitters at one point, just having a conversation. And I asked him, how would you build credibility if you started from nothing? And he looked at me weirdly, and asked "Are you an altruist? Credibility is bought". This is how they think.

Another case, another business owner I know of. He had 100 clients in a new business, e-commerce. "I got us into a magazine for veterans. I'm sure we have some veterans amongst our clients, but there's no time to search for them. Let's create something representative". And lo and behold, the story got published with fake veterans.

This is the other thing you guys think... that these criminals would tell you "we're here to screw people over and take their money"... no they won't. They'll be like Elon Musk "we want to save the world!!!" That's what they'll say. And you don't need to know about the dirty stuff if you work for them. That's their business. You just do your job.

And final comment.

Joe Girard, still in the World's Guiness Book of Records as the world's best salesman. He wrote a book. It's called "How to Sell Anything to Anyone". Great book.

In that book you'll find a very interesting chapter.

It's called: "HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY"

And irony of ironies is that the chapter is actually about how to lie effectively. Of course we can't title a chapter in a book how to lie effectively. What would they say about us right?! So we title it with something that most skim-readers will agree with right?

And it starts by saying honesty is the best policy. But it's not a law. In other words, you need to know when to break it.

And Joe then tells you how if the customer asked for a Blue car, and he had no blue car, he told him he has it ready come and take it. And then he'd make something up and apologise and sell him a Black one instead once he was on the premises. Because, how big is that lie right? I mean he wants a car, and he still gets a car, does it really matter it's not blue? Most of his desire is satisfied! Very tiny lie, right?

Or if your aunt was from Missouri, then his uncle was from Missouri. If you liked fishing... he liked fishing. And he became the most successful salesman in the world.

And of course you should never lie about stuff like the engine of a car. Can't tell a customer it has 8 cylinders when it has only 4 right? Any intelligent person would figure that one out. So honesty is the best policy.

So I rest my case. The most successful and the richest people in the world are usually unethical, and even more, they MUST be unethical to rise to the very top in most cases.

This post is gold. You have nailed the entire debate right here.

Kyle is right about business. This is a business forum though, and that's pretty much it.

The rest of it (the good parts of what BD is saying) can be summed up with Kyle's signature (a quote I share a lot too):

This is a George Bernard Shaw quotation: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

All the weird little details about bribing third world despots and manipulation are unnecessary and off topic. Especially since nobody here has any firsthand knowledge of any of that stuff, afaik, just speculation, cynicism, and bitterness. This is not a forum about taking over political power through unethical means. It's a forum about business.

So yeah, achieve your goals with laser-like focus. Be a badass.

There are actually similarities between business and life outside business. And it could be used to show that some of Black dragons thinking is based on a flawed view of history.

Black Dragon said that people worshipped “historical leaders” more than Jesus. Absolutely this is not the case. The Vatican city has more than a Billion devout followers. Napoleon? No one outside France cared except military history fans.

It is also not about just being good or bad but being valuable and useful. Jesus didn’t have a large follower-ship until a few hundred years later when Christianity has made major pivots that deviated against early teaching. You are not required to be a jew and don’t have to follow many of the dogmatic laws of the old testament. The Roman emperor also saw that an inclusive monthesitic religion is a good tool to bond an empire (people of different ethnicities who speak different tones together). It took Christianity a few hundred years to find the right tweaks to gain “viral growth”.

It is just like business. The first MVP does not always succeed. It takes in this case generations of fine tuning and with some luck it expands like a wild fire.

 

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