Post: #26

(08-29-2014 04:08 AM)Dragonstone Wrote:  I would compare it in many respects to reading some of the more complex red pill writers, through there are some comments in the blog that suggest that the author would not care for the comparison.

Church is a bit of a white knight, but at least he does recognize the effectiveness of Game.

Here's one of Michael's answers on Quora:

Quote:There isn't one typical middle-class attitude toward wealth or the rich. As the answers above show, some middle-class people despise the rich and others feel the opposite, and some middle-class people believe life is fundamentally fair while others have figured out that it's not. There is, however, one very strong and prevalent misconception among the middle class: they think social class follows from money. In their view, a person who is rich becomes "upper class". It's actually the reverse. Mark Zuckerberg, for example, is not "upper class". He's very rich upper-middle. (His children will have a shot at lower-upper-class status.) Bill Gates is lower-upper, but that has as much, if not more, to do with his father (a named partner at a law firm) as with him.

Sometimes you'll hear someone describe an income range as "upper class", the threshold being set anywhere from $100,000 to $5 million per year, depending on who you ask. No such thing. Social class is about access and opportunity, and the fact that upper-class people tend to be extremely wealthy follows from that access.

Some middle-class people have figured out that "life is unfair", but very few understand how it is unfair. When they graduate out of the deluded belief that just working hard will make them rich, they progress to the equally untrue conception that economic success is "random".

Upper-class people are (unconsciously, since most of them haven't put this much thought into it) bred to exploit peoples' social biases and get favors. They have "Game", but rather than such being a set of canned skills they learn in their college years to get laid, it's so deeply bred into them that they are able to apply these principles to most social theaters. Their "work Game" accelerates their careers, for example.

From a middle-class social perspective, most upper-class people don't have the greatest social skills, but that's because the middle and upper class conceptions of social skills are very different. For the middle class, it's about not giving anyone a reason to dislike you: a first-order approximation strategy that holds you back if you want to hit the high notes. For the upper class, it's about getting information (who's powerful and important, and how those people like being approached) and exploiting landscape features in order to get what they want. Upper class people have no problem with being disliked by half the people they interact with, as long as (a) the people who dislike them stay out of their way, and (b) the people who actually matter like them.

One other thing about social class: upper-class people don't lose their class status just because they lose their money (which they often do, because, unlike middle-class rich people, most of them don't have any financial sense). When they lose their fortunes, they have to "work" to get them back, but they have access to high-paying non-jobs (e.g. board positions) so it's mostly an annoyance.

And another one on reddit:

Quote:The NDA is a power play. The business guy wants to establish that he's an alpha monkey so he makes you sign it to hear his idea. It's to start the relationship on his terms from the start. That means you're the subordinate. Framing.

The principles of Game apply to work even more strongly, but people are averse to discussing the fact because apparently scamming men with money is wrong while scamming young women with low self-esteem is socially acceptable.

Post: #27

(03-09-2014 12:10 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  Nemencine,

I am guessing you live in the U.S. right?

You ask "what are the alternatives?"

Union jobs, for one. Thats my current route, though we will see how it plays out long term.

The creation of every invention and technical convenience you use every day, including the internet we post this on, completely depended on cooperative trust between highly evolved people.

Lose that and you get shitholes like Iraq where they don't even have a reliable banking system and people trust only other blood clan members.

The idea that psychopathy is a superiorly evolved adaptive technique in general makes as much sense as the idea we should all have giraffe necks so we can munch on leaves high up in trees. It's an adaptation that works in certain settings for certain purposes.

To some degree forming alliances with others to diminish asshole power has occurred since a few "nice guys" snuck up on a bully and smashed his head in in a cave.

Unions, successfully disparaged by your owners over the last 30 years, are one way to get a fairer deal by workers banding together.

Also, the professions, which many people including me have benefitted from are a way to end-run around corporate anarchy.

In the large sense you band together with people who have higher moral standards, establish a reputation for reliability and honesty, and in some settings you can force out sociopathic impostors.

For instance, in the health care field I am in, you have to have a license, you can't game or lie or manipulate your way into my employment class.

The specific class is unimportant, it could be x-ray technician, surgeon--whatever, the point is people can and do successfully band together and raise standards.

The argument "I had to be an asshole because everyone else was" is frequently heard by me from the prisoners I do health care with, so there you go-they are the ultimate losers, living constantly from a basis of bad faith in others.

In general, in human interaction , you do get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.

Yes, sometimes Snoids steal some of your honey. But you and your happy friends can make more, and
live with trust and enjoyment with each other.

If you are in a truly sociopathic organization and continue working there, maybe you're part of the problem.

Post: #28

(08-29-2014 09:28 AM)iknowexactly Wrote:  Also, the professions, which many people including me have benefitted from are a way to end-run around corporate anarchy.

In the large sense you band together with people who have higher moral standards, establish a reputation for reliability and honesty, and in some settings you can force out sociopathic impostors.

For instance, in the health care field I am in, you have to have a license, you can't game or lie or manipulate your way into my employment class.

The specific class is unimportant, it could be x-ray technician, surgeon--whatever, the point is people can and do successfully band together and raise standards.

It's been my experience that those who spent more time in the "Professions", or organizations dominated by those in a particular profession, are less aggressive inside the organization.

Almost all of the generally recognized US Professions require much more skill than capital, many of the skills can be transferred geographically, and there can be a wide range of skill sets even inside the same profession. Once one is in the "employment class", the incentive to engage in zero-sum internal conflict isn't there to the same extent. Usually, the most productive use of effort is to either work externally for benefit of the organization, or to work to strengthen the profession.

Inside non-Professional organizations, there is a stronger incentive to engage in zero-sum conflict to gain higher status, pay, or access to the organization's capital and resources. At a certain point, it's far more productive to an individual to compete internally for their own benefit than work externally to benefit the organization.

Two managers at a sales company have far more incentive to engage in conflict with each other than two teachers in the same school.

There's the entire other issue of the culture that some organizations produce, but that's beyond the scope of this post.

Post: #29

(08-29-2014 12:46 PM)Dragonstone Wrote:  It's been my experience that those who spent more time in the "Professions", or organizations dominated by those in a particular profession, are less aggressive inside the organization.

Michael O. Church has also written some interesting things on the professions:

Quote:Professionalism, as I define it, is more about ethical obligations that supersede immediate managerial authority. Doctors are doctors and answer either to their own, to the profession, or society at large. Same for attorneys: lawyers are lawyers. But programmers work for businessmen.

The lines get blurry in practice, of course, and there are plenty of unprofessional pressures put on doctors by hospitals and insurance companies (and don't get me started on law) but at least the theory favors them, and that actually matters.

I don't want to shut people out based on degrees either. That's total bullshit, especially because almost everyone good (with a few notable exceptions) started programming before finishing high school.

(source)

Quote:The distinguishing trait of a profession is that it involves ethical obligations that supersede managerial authority. (...) (However, I've become convinced, later in my career, in the value of having some representation, like a Hollywood writer's union.) If you're a professional, "I was following orders" is no excuse.

The flip side of that, which professionals tend to enjoy, is that your boss's power over you must be limited. Thus, the profession gives credibility to all members. If you get fired because your boss doesn't like you, you're still a doctor. The AMA wants it to be this way, because if the boss held as much power as in most jobs, professionals wouldn't have the autonomy under which that responsibility (don't harm patients, even if ordered to do so) makes sense.

The professional organization also, at least in theory, looks out for its membership. If doctors are autonomous (i.e. can always find jobs) and wealthy enough that they have the resources to keep up with lifelong duties (e.g. keeping abreast of medical advances) then the risk that they are compromised against their obligations is low.

A doctor can say, "I won't do this, because I believe it will harm the patient." A software engineer can't. That's the difference.

(source)

Post: #30

My perceived low status of software development drove me away from the field despite teaching myself to code at a young age.

I was familiar with the Gervais principle but hadn't read much else of his work. I spent the past few hours digging in and the guy's thoughts on the venture-backed startup industry are spot on. He's also very aware of the socioeconomic class structure and believes that a day of reckoning is coming.

Post: #31

(08-29-2014 02:20 PM)Icarus Wrote:  Michael O. Church has also written some interesting things on the professions:

.......

Quote:The distinguishing trait of a profession is that it involves ethical obligations that supersede managerial authority. (...) (However, I've become convinced, later in my career, in the value of having some representation, like a Hollywood writer's union.) If you're a professional, "I was following orders" is no excuse.

The flip side of that, which professionals tend to enjoy, is that your boss's power over you must be limited. Thus, the profession gives credibility to all members. If you get fired because your boss doesn't like you, you're still a doctor. The AMA wants it to be this way, because if the boss held as much power as in most jobs, professionals wouldn't have the autonomy under which that responsibility (don't harm patients, even if ordered to do so) makes sense.

The professional organization also, at least in theory, looks out for its membership. If doctors are autonomous (i.e. can always find jobs) and wealthy enough that they have the resources to keep up with lifelong duties (e.g. keeping abreast of medical advances) then the risk that they are compromised against their obligations is low.

A doctor can say, "I won't do this, because I believe it will harm the patient." A software engineer can't. That's the difference.

(source)

I think Church seems to be angling for much more than just a "profession", at least going by the blog post linked to in the reddit link.

Quote:3.Technologists do not disparage another’s performance to a non-technologist. Ever. All people with managerial authority are considered “non-technologists”, in the context of this item. Put simply: we don’t sell each other to outsiders. People who break this policy are fired for life from the profession. We handle our own affairs, period. If we need to remove a technologist from our team for reasons of incompetence or non-performance, we have the right to tell a non-technologist that this person cannot continue as a member of the team, and we are neither obligated nor allowed to give further reasons. We handle matters among ourselves, and do not attempt to use managerial warlords for personal gain. It’s up to us to form and disband teams, and to expel problematic members.
4.Technologists choose their own leaders. It is not for non-technologist meddlers to decide who are the leaders of our groups. We shall not answer to stooges selected by executives. We choose our leaders, typically through democratic processes, and leaders who fail to serve the groups they are supposed to lead shall lose that distinction.

http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012...rofession/

While I appreciate that he's looking at this situation through the lens of some fairly serious intra-corporate warfare, his advocacy in this post seems to be for handing over all matters to a self-appointed elite, and barely answerable even to those who are paying for services.

I have some sympathy for where this argument is coming from, having seen related circumstances in other fields, but I have a hard time envisioning a realistic set of conditions that would allow for the profession of "Technologist" envisioned by the writer.

Post: #32

(09-07-2014 05:42 PM)Dragonstone Wrote:  While I appreciate that he's looking at this situation through the lens of some fairly serious intra-corporate warfare, his advocacy in this post seems to be for handing over all matters to a self-appointed elite, and barely answerable even to those who are paying for services.

The fact that most technologists have zero social skills only makes it worse.

Post: #33

That ribbonfarm post is excellent. It just further illustrates being nice gets you nowhere.