Preview This you've gotta see - IGN FO3 preview

[Hazelnut]

I expect people to be honest and have integrity, I always have done since I was young. Obviously after 35 years of existence I have quite a large streak of cynicism, but when it comes down to it I still naively expect better than the world seems to deliver on a regular basis.

That's the part that I failed to understand. I've seen very few honest people with integrity and principles in my 36 years, but I've seen thousands of lying scumbags and horrible assholes fighting each for an opportunity to screw someone and make a buck or earn a free meal or please a higher-up.

Yeah, I've seen it myself quite a bit (even left IBM for related reasons - ho boy that was an exit interview and a half!), but I guess I've made efforts to limit my contact in life with people like you describe.

The recent conversations with robar and deadaris have been interesting. They obviously don't see what we see about what's wrong with the Fallout 3 coverage...

I assumed that they got used to the ways the industry works and what may shock you is business as usual to them. See the reaction to the fancy clubs, dinners, and hotels stuff - "So what? Everyone does it!"

Well, I can sorta see part of what they're saying. I worked for several years as a consultant and for a while that meant working abroad. Great in concept and at first - seeing new countries and cities, getting nice meals paid for, staying in swanky hotels etc. The reality was that I never really got to see much more than the route from the Hotel to the client, the novelty of staying in hotels (however swanky) pales remarkably quickly, flying economy class regularly on your own time sucks and not seeing your kids much is something you can't replace with anything.


EDIT:

I think it's some sort of hard-wired thing. I'm horribly cynical, yet very trusting even after having had that trust violated a lot. It's like a default setting of "okay, this person hasn't done anything wrong, they must be cool!". Obviously not everyone is this way. I can't help but wonder if it's something you develope at an early age.

Yeah that pretty much sums it up. The warning signals are much more sensitive now, but I never want to become completely bitter and cynical about others lest I become what I detest. I'd rather get fucked over and over than have that happen. In many ways I led a fairly sheltered upbringing in a small village with little TV etc, spending much of my time playing in trees and the countryside. My ideas about how the world worked were mostly based upon my pretty honest, moral and rational parents plus a healthy dose of youthful idealism based on simple social logic.