Yes, these are all good examples. Some other ones that come to mind are:
Traffic rules: the ones that other drivers expect you to follow and cops actually enforce are significantly different from the formal ones. (For example, speed limits.)
Dealing with bureaucracies, both governmental and private ones. Their real operational rules are usually different from the formal ones, and you can use this not only to save time and effort, but also to exploit all kinds of opportunities that theoretically shouldn’t exist at all.
Excusing your offenses and failures by presenting them as something that, while clearly not good, is still within the bounds of what happens to reasonable, respectable, high-status people. If you pull this off successfully, people will be much more forgiving, and the punishments and reputational consequences far milder—and you can be much bolder in your endeavors, knowing that you have this safety exit if you’re unlucky. This basically means exploiting people’s unwritten practical rules for judgment, which may treat very differently things that are theoretically supposed to be equally bad.
The exact bounds to which you can push self-promotion without risking being exposed as a liar and cheater. This is essential since if you’re not an extraordinary achiever whose deeds speak for themselves, you’re stuck in a nasty arms race in which everyone is putting spin and embellishing the truth. However, it’s far from clear which rules determine in practice where exactly this stops being business as usual and enters dangerous territory.
Excusing your offenses and failures by presenting them as something that, while clearly not good, is still within the bounds of what happens to reasonable, respectable, high-status people. If you pull this off successfully, people will be much more forgiving, and the punishments and reputational consequences far milder—and you can be much bolder in your endeavors, knowing that you have this safety exit if you’re unlucky.
By the way, my thoughts on this matter were at one point stimulated by this shrewd quote by Lord Keynes:
A ‘sound’ banker, alas! is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional and orthodox way along with his fellows, so that no one can really blame him.
Yes, these are all good examples. Some other ones that come to mind are:
Traffic rules: the ones that other drivers expect you to follow and cops actually enforce are significantly different from the formal ones. (For example, speed limits.)
Dealing with bureaucracies, both governmental and private ones. Their real operational rules are usually different from the formal ones, and you can use this not only to save time and effort, but also to exploit all kinds of opportunities that theoretically shouldn’t exist at all.
Excusing your offenses and failures by presenting them as something that, while clearly not good, is still within the bounds of what happens to reasonable, respectable, high-status people. If you pull this off successfully, people will be much more forgiving, and the punishments and reputational consequences far milder—and you can be much bolder in your endeavors, knowing that you have this safety exit if you’re unlucky. This basically means exploiting people’s unwritten practical rules for judgment, which may treat very differently things that are theoretically supposed to be equally bad.
The exact bounds to which you can push self-promotion without risking being exposed as a liar and cheater. This is essential since if you’re not an extraordinary achiever whose deeds speak for themselves, you’re stuck in a nasty arms race in which everyone is putting spin and embellishing the truth. However, it’s far from clear which rules determine in practice where exactly this stops being business as usual and enters dangerous territory.
By the way, my thoughts on this matter were at one point stimulated by this shrewd quote by Lord Keynes: