11. Are Ambitious People Inherently Selfish?
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I've seen more dogs dance the flamenco than I've seen children voluntarily give a piece of their birthday cake. I'm Angela Duckworth. I'm Steven Dubner. And you're listening to no stupid questions. Today on the show. Is it possible to be self-interested and altruistic at the same time?
What if I wanna be a drug dealer? What if I wanna be a politician? That plainly has no good effect on anyone. Yes. Also, why do we become desensitized to the most wonderful things about life? Can you imagine how blissed out I would be if every time I flushed a toilet, I thanked my lucky stars. Like, what kind of planet is this? This is amazing. Stephen I have a question for you. Sure. In your experience, would you say that ambitious and successful
People. Are also selfish. So as with every question and answer in the world that's highly context dependent. I mean ambition and success in service of what? Ambitious in the service of promoting themselves as the best blank in the world or ambitious in the service of something that's gonna be a social or a public good. So
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