But humans didn't evolve to be the fittest organism through strength or individualism. We're in our position through social cohesion and cooperation.
The most successful people I've seen got there through cooperation, coalition building, and community development. Some jerks also succeed, and are used as examples of why being a jerk is necessary or easier, but it's fallacious to think every local jerk is following the footsteps of bezos or musk.
So the next time you find yourself thinking, "the best engineers are jerks, because it's a social Darwinian landscape", remember that the strategy that seems to be winning today is "strength through social cohesion".
imo: They're just really good at driving outcomes for themselves.
That can be seen a selfish and often manifests as "that person is a jerk" - but if you follow along next to or behind them, you're in for a great ride with more often than not, good people.
I absolutely do not believe that "nice people finish last" as a rule, and I know people who have been very successful in part because they are good people.
However, I have also absolutely seen many cases where people do get ahead because they are jerks, or corrupt.
There are still third cases where I don't think the people are bad people, but I think the system rewards bad behavior, which they take advantage of without necessarily even being aware of the consequences. Or they benefit from a broken or random system, and then don't recognize how they got to where they did, or something.
I guess as I've become older I've become more upset at systems that reward bad behavior than the persons doing it. It's not that I don't care about them, it's more so that I think a well-functioning system should have checks and balances and structures to prevent it, and in every case where a "jerk" got ahead, I've come to realize I was more upset with the people around them who condoned it, rewarded it, or took advantage of it. There's also cases like the third case, were I don't know anyone should be punished, and they're not meaning to do harm, but they do it anyway, and should be prevented from being in that situation.
I think there's some corollary or something to "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" that's along the lines of "corruption seeks power". People who are corrupt, or who do corrupt things, don't do things that aren't in their self interest, or are self-sacrificing, almost by definition. They might fail, but they still move in the direction of power or money. So on average, even if there are good deeds that are rewarded, if the system isn't tight enough, corruption or unnecessary harm will slip in. It's like some gas or thermodynamic law or something: sure you can find enough of one moiety somewhere, but the flow goes one way and not the other.
However over the years, I did find good people who made it. In my experience, you can be a good decent person and become wealthy and successful, but even more importantly, when you adopt this style, you make friends along the way.
The people that I know that have been predatory yet successful have found themselves alone at the top. As you get older, you realize that all the money in the world isn't worth sacrificing good relationships with good people.
In many ways, one is heaven and the other hell.
I think if you live in America, this is lost on many of us and many of us have drifted into hyper-selfish, "i got mine fuck you" worldviews, and our communities have suffered for it.
Next article: You Don't Have to Take Popular Culture Messages Seriously to Succeed
Then again, I don't define success as merely having a lot of money. Financial independence is one facet, but any money beyond that doesn't contribute to overall success.