First of all, maybe I’m an optimist, but I think there aren’t many truly evil people in the world. Maybe there are some and they get their fair share of publicity. I think much more damage is caused by people who are afraid. This is a much bigger problem I think for society in general.
Let me give you an example. People who are afraid will do things that they know are wrong. For example, when people cheat on assignments, in most cases, it’s when people are up late the night before an assignment is due and they get desperate and afraid and made a silly decision to steal somebody else’s work. In industry, CEO’s are afraid to announce that their company had a bad quarter, so they allow their salespeople to report sales from the next quarter. Then in the next quarter, they have to cheat even more and eventually it all comes tumbling down.Check out the lecture by Professor John Ousterhout.
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The question is, how are you going to keep fear from damaging your life? You’re not going to eliminate fear—you might not even want to do that: life is pretty dull if you have no fear at all. A couple of things to think about...
Thanks, +David Freed
