321–330 of 337 posts
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I'm amazed at the responses and downvotes to this comment. Is everyone terrified of small talk with their neighbors?
I live in a big city in the Northeast and 90% of my neighbors barely speak English. I really don't see the point.
I just hope people don't think the working class somehow has this all down pat and that this is merely a case of bourgeois overconsumption. As someone who comes from a ghetto and became a software engineer, I can tell you now that a lot of people I grew up with engage in combinations of racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. The working class are only this candyland of authentic relations if you also accept all the so…
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Your reading of that hierarchy is different from what I got out of it. Clueless are people buy into the "Arbeit makt frei" idea. In the linked article, the majority of people in the office (not even considering the warehouse) are losers. Stanley is the quintessential "loser", and he precisely optimizes for "slower-paced, less stressful". In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's the "worker bees" that are clueless. Dwigh…
I agree that many worker bees are “clueless” but that breaks the GP heuristics. My reading seems similar but different to yours. I agree that it has nothing to do with social status outside of work: to me it’s about emotional processing. I can’t recall the specific passage but I remember Venkat talking about how clueless people seek absolution in collective emotional processing. That’s what leads me to believe the du…
Stanley isn't middle management, he's an aging sales guy who is too old to justify switching jobs; he's close to retirement, and the "run out the clock" quote in the article is spot on about it being his whole life at this point -- he's killing time until he retires.
He's a loser because he doesn't have the willingness or ability to be a ruthless sociopath -- why bother, he's out in 2 years or less -- and has no illusions about how the company feels about its employees.
I just hope people don't think the working class somehow has this all down pat and that this is merely a case of bourgeois overconsumption. As someone who comes from a ghetto and became a software engineer, I can tell you now that a lot of people I grew up with engage in combinations of racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. The working class are only this candyland of authentic relations if you also accept all the so…
Removed some emotional language The part where you condemned the people you grew up with? Oh, you left that in. What on earth did you remove--something about kicking dogs?
Why?
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the creepy part is going to a public place and sexualizing it by explicitly seeking out "pretty girl"s and buying them drinks. Going out and seek genuine connections with people instead of buying "pretty girl"s drinks is not creepy.
You don't go in a bar for a deep conversation, you have the library and local groups of interests for that. A bar is just for relaxing and socialization, you can talk anything you want as long as you find someone to listen (or ignore) you.
Philosophy, religion, music, software, politics etc.
Maybe the lack of depth you are finding is down to the people you are with, or yourself.
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I'm jumping ahead on the timeline, yes. Early Roman Empire had a polytheistic religions in common. It expanded its power after monotheism. Obviously it's possible to have a large, shared polytheistic religion. We still have those today. The religion being a common denominator is more in the spirit of the point I was trying to make. Using a single God as a means to unite people was more palpable to some leaders. Muham…
> Early Roman Empire had a polytheistic religions in common. It expanded its power after monotheism. No, it didn’t “expand its power after monotheism”. The Roman Empire didn’t even begin its official flirtation with Christianity until well into the 4th century CE. However, most historians consider the Roman Empire to have been in its waning days then, as it never fully recovered from all the shocks of the 3rd century…
The Origins of Political Order does a better job of conveying what I was attempting to convey.
Ants don't meet at the bar at the end of the day to chill with each other. It isn't necessary. And their society isn't unraveling. The more connected the human ant hill gets the more we will behave like ants. Disconnected because we don't need to be as connected. Connected because that is the only way to survive. Those that can't handle the change...wont. This is a process of societal metamorphosis whose tracks have…
I think the ant brain and the human brain are extremely different. I bet the ants are not capable of feeling loneliness, they don't have enough neurons for that.
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I agree that many worker bees are “clueless” but that breaks the GP heuristics. My reading seems similar but different to yours. I agree that it has nothing to do with social status outside of work: to me it’s about emotional processing. I can’t recall the specific passage but I remember Venkat talking about how clueless people seek absolution in collective emotional processing. That’s what leads me to believe the du…
Wanted to chime in that I think you are conflating working in the office as being higher on the ladder than working in the warehouse. They are two different departments. The warehouse is definitely blue-collar, and the office white-collar, but that doesn't mean the warehouse workers are inferior to the office workers. Further I checked and Stanley is a sales rep, not middle management. I really enjoyed reading throug…
Stanley is a sales rep and that is absolutely a part of the clueless layer. He provides buffer between the masters and the slaves in the warehouse dude: he is clueless. Not a loser like Darryl in the warehouse, not a sociopath like Robert California or Ryan the Temp, but clueless.
I am a clueless loser sociopath so take from that what u will :)
Thanks for the interesting discussion. :)
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You don't go in a bar for a deep conversation, you have the library and local groups of interests for that. A bar is just for relaxing and socialization, you can talk anything you want as long as you find someone to listen (or ignore) you.
Relaxing and Socialization != Sexualizing a public place and solely trying to pick up women. Women want to go to a bar to relax too. Do you think they can relax when men are constantly trying to buy them drinks and calling them "pretty girls"? Genuine connection != deep conversation. I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here, beyond being an advocate for harassment.
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I agree that many worker bees are “clueless” but that breaks the GP heuristics. My reading seems similar but different to yours. I agree that it has nothing to do with social status outside of work: to me it’s about emotional processing. I can’t recall the specific passage but I remember Venkat talking about how clueless people seek absolution in collective emotional processing. That’s what leads me to believe the du…
Directly from the article: """ The minimum-effort Loser Stanley tells him coldly, "this here is a run-out-the-clock situation." The line could apply to Stanley’s entire life. """ So either you are pulling your info from some more-original source than I am, or you're mis-remembering what the article says.
He states clearly that middle managers provide the buffer between the sociopaths and losers. Thus, Stanley is clueless.
Venkat’s description of Stanley as a “loser” completely destroys his own heuristics that only clueless are in middle management.
So congratulations, you’ve found a flaw in Venkat’s logic. He contradicts himself. However, I still think the general heuristics he lays out are valuable (as you seem to).
Thanks for the quote man — you made me realize the issue isn’t quite as cut-and-dry as I thought it was. I see your point now. Thank you.