Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by zeveb 3607 days ago
I gotta ask, what's wrong with Judæo-Christian ethics and win-win solutions? What's wrong with getting along, with doing well by doing good, with honestly trying to be pleasant to others? Would that be the end of the world?
1 comments

Nothing but if the guy you're negotiating with isn't subscribing to your ethics, then you're at a disadvantage.
To go further: I don't really see a point to any negotiation that isn't a positive-sum game. And not for ethical reasons! To me, it doesn't matter if I or someone else gets more of a pie, because it's still just one pie and talking won't make more of it, so any time spent negotiating has opportunity costs that lower the aggregate ROI of our combined pie-slices. Negotiation spends pie. If the goal is to get the most pie, why waste time negotiating that you could be spending making pie less scarce?