The Anatomy of Assholes (2020)

I love the term asshole circumplex.

I disagree on the usage of agency here and the entire post really. Being an introvert SWE (70% of HN?) a lot solo consultants would be placed between quiet asshole and nice, but not often extroverted. Are these people low in agency? Is the traditional "nerd" low on agency? hardly.

agency per the article: "self-protection, self-assertion, separation, and isolation"

Written by judgemental asshole.

Since this article is about labeling other people as assholes, I hope it's OK that I did the same.

I, for one, was hoping for an anatomical analysis of the evolution of the universal sphincter. This article is about assholes in life/the workplace.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assholes:_A_Theory

Today on the train I saw some bullies. Kids wouldn't let the quieter kid sit with them.

What I could see immediately in their eyes is the knowledge that they can just do that. There are no repercussions. There is nothing anybody can do. This works. The bully just lashing out because of his own issues is a myth. This is just how humans work and certain societies are able to mitigate the blow.

There is a social hierarchy, we reward those who enforce it and we respect those who create it - which is good (agency), even if they behave like assholes - which is bad.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but there are people who take what isn't theirs. Even just in the physical realm policing doesn't seem to work that well. There are just societies with more trust and thus less thievery.

What to do about our psychological world?