Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by largbae 64 days ago
Do unto others as you would have done to you.

Or its simpler corollary: Don't do to others what you would _not_ want done to you.

Everything else derives from this.

2 comments

Ah the golden rule, classic, but it is so simplistic that it could encourage bad behavior. You can never assume that something you want or don't want applies to anyone else.
I think a better formulation is the so-called "platinum rule", i.e. to treat people as they want to treated (with the important qualification that you ∈ people). But even then it's not without issue (what if someone's wants are harmful to them, e.g. a child refusing to eat anything but candy?), and it's still a far cry from illuminating "objective moral principles" and fairly useless as a calculus for balancing different people's competing interests.
How about passing a job interview better than someone else?