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Desrtopa comments on Notes on Psychopathy - Less Wrong
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Society needs people willing to make taboo tradeoffs and take risks with no hesitation and occasionally hurt or manipulate people. Big companies need silver-tongued managers with more than a dash of cleverness and ruthlessness. Armies need cannon fodder. Storytellers don't need, but would benefit from, some real examples of magnificent bastards and an audience that can empathize with such.
A world of Littlefingers would implode, but a world of Sansa Starks doesn't get very far without a few Littlefingers to pull the strings. And it's boring.
I'm not convinced that ruthlessness is a particularly good quality for managers of big companies to have from a societal perspective. Certainly there are ways in which it helps them compete against other companies, but not necessarily in ways that make them more wealth-productive.
I finished reading this book not too long ago, and it may be that it's primed me to be too cynical with regards to the value of ruthlessness in business, but it's certainly the case that there are a lot of ways to get ahead in the market by putting aside moral scruples that leave society as a whole worse off.