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curiousgeorge | 15 years ago
Alnayyir isn't criticizing your desire to hire a friend. He is saying that the entire topic is judgmental and crass since it starts from an assumption of superiority over others. And I respectfully agree.
If the defining quality of friendship is wishing the best for others, it is hardly an act of friendship to think about one's friends in this fashion ("how can I dump them", "how can I exploit them"). The very possibility is paradoxical: how could a genuinely good person do anything but help his friends to the utmost of his ability? It is your conflating friendship with other dynamics that is being criticized, not your giving someone a job.
lsc|15 years ago
The point I was attempting to make was that quite often, helping those who are not as good as you are at making money can be profitable for all involved. Hell, even from a "help the most people" point of view, finding a job with a path for advancement for a person is doing a lot more good than giving them resources. Even avoiding the issue of the recipient's self-worth, if I give away resources, I will eventually run out, but if I make money off helping people? that scales.
Perhaps what I should have said was: "If you feel that your friends are holding you back, you are doing it wrong."
the thing of it is, I believe statements like "person x is better than person y" are largely without content without context. I mean, if we are talking about money, you can say "Person X is better at making money than Person Y" and that makes sense, or "person X is better at lifting weights than person Y" or even "person X is better at writing essays without coming off like an arrogant asshole than person Y" -
I don't know if it was the authors intent or not, but I read this essay as "I am better at making money than my friends, and this is causing some of my relationships to end."
alnayyir|15 years ago
Thank you, I didn't have the patience to sway someone who seemed hell-bent on misinterpreting what I was saying.