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The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

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Re: The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

#41

Post by PartiallyTyped »

ilikeerp wrote: post #27
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #10

While climbing the middle ladder, something snapped in me, or perhaps covid accelerated the process. A year or so ago, I was working on my undergraduate thesis project in deep RL, I had been working on the project for 8-9 months at the time. Due to covid, lack of support and computational resources from the university, I was behind, and making progress was difficult. Shortly after I submitted the thesis, I felt an ee…

You should seek a really good therapist, you're far too young to be 'over it' already. You can live an authentic life, you just don't know how because 1, you're a kid with zero wisdom and 2, you don't yet know what is important (related to point 1).

I lack the funds to do that.

I found that reading philosophy helps, even just a little bit. The absurdists figured it out I think. Absurdism also helps with coping with the belief in determinism I guess, but I am still in conflict.

Re: The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

#44

Post by croissants »

the_local_host wrote: post #20
l3st2o wrote: post #7

This article itself is Michael Scott.

The author missed a genuine opportunity to wrap it up with "Wrote The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class ? Definitely, definitely Michael Scott."

This would kind of weaken the argument, because there's no way that Michael Scott would ever come up with a codified analysis of human class and interaction and put it on the internet. (It seems like a thoroughly Dwight move, though?)

Re: The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

#45

Post by 6chars »

redisman wrote: post #31
6chars wrote: post #29

I don't think the author really understands the characterization of Michael Scott. I can't imagine the hypothetical scene of Michael Scott taking pride in knowing how to use chopsticks. That sounds way more out of character to me than having him not know how to use them. Hard for me to take the article seriously when it has to make up character traits for Michael Scott to make its point. I believe that the type of pe…

Right, Michael Scott would tell someone he of course knows how to use them and then end up in a Japanese restaurant with that person and be found out to be the fool once again.

That I can see. Or he would fixate on the fact that someone else does know how to use them and get competitive about it, trying and failing hard to show that he's also worldly.

Re: The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

#46

Post by karaterobot »

sokoloff wrote: post #26
MilnerRoute wrote: post #4

See also "The Peter Principle," which famously argued that everyone eventually rises to their level of incompetence. The more interesting question is what do you do in response to that? The Peter Principle books actually argued you should turn down that last promotion. But how do we avoid becoming Michael Scott?

The thing about the Peter Principle is how do you know which is the "last promotion" that you should turn down? No one should turn down the first promotion (from "fresh into the workforce" to "basically competent developer" [or journeyman welder/electrician/plumber or whatever the equivalent is for your field]). After that it gets murky because everyone has their own abilities and willingness to do what it takes to c…

I've seen a few developers get pushed into a management due to their leadership on engineering teams, and do an okay job in that role, but return to development after a year or less. One of them told me he recognized he had reached the level of his incompetence and did not want to be That Guy. I suspect that was true for some of the others as well, and I wish it was more common.

Re: The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

#48

Post by H8crilA »

whymauri wrote: post #25
dash2 wrote: post #8

Meh.... This has a real "I'm 14 and this is deep" vibe. Like a teenager who thinks their dad is a loser, and that the real men are the guys at the bottom in tough blue collar jobs, or at the top in power suits being Wolves of Wall Street. Insights like this can be fun, but they're for the third beer with your buddies, not for writing down.

The degree to which I agree with this comment is inversely related to the probability that the author is just joking.

This (the OP) is absolutely not a joke.

Re: The Michael Scott Theory of Social Class

#50

Post by ditonal »

dash2 wrote: post #8

Meh.... This has a real "I'm 14 and this is deep" vibe. Like a teenager who thinks their dad is a loser, and that the real men are the guys at the bottom in tough blue collar jobs, or at the top in power suits being Wolves of Wall Street. Insights like this can be fun, but they're for the third beer with your buddies, not for writing down.

Pretty ironic take given that the site you're writing the comment on was founded by pg writing a bunch of essays breaking the world down into "nerds" vs "jocks" with VCs being "high school girls". pg decided to write those down rather than share them over a third beer and it seems to have spawned a bunch of billion dollar companies.

The author refers to michael o church who had much clearer takes on the subject, not-withstanding a lot of other craziness that undermined some of his interesting opinions. He certainly was one of the first people to publicly call out that companies like Google and VC-backed startups spend a LOT of effort on PR that they are "social good" despite being as ruthlessly money-making oriented as any conventional companies they claimed not to be. He coined one of my favorite sayings that "Silicon Valley is just Wall St for people who can't wake up early." Those takes are a little less novel in 2021 now that everyone realizes how morally bankrupt companies like Google are but credit's due where it's due so I'd recommend checking out his old blog posts.

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