Story #800. What are my values and principles?

#800 is a nice round number so I thought I’d honor it in the title of the story.

This topic came up recently in a chat with my close friends. We were discussing the video with some young Russian government official and debated whether he was lying or genuinely believing what he was saying. The exact context doesn’t matter. This discussion transitioned into a deeper debate about values.

My friend wrote this (translating from Russian):

You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about this in the last two years. I decided that my system of values must be based on several basic principles. I defined two such principles. 1) Always be honest, b) To kill (unless someone is actively trying to kill you) is bad.

I’m not claiming that these principles are right or wrong. They are just mine and they determine my moral compass.

Unrelated, I had one of my professional contacts ask me this the other day:

Let me ask you something — politically, are you left or right of center? There is actually a deal-related reason I am asking — no judgment.

It’s different from the values topic but it’s in the same plane — it makes you think about your values and views.