Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit

joanwestenberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 165 posts

Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit

#121

Post by TeMPOraL »

wasmainiac wrote: post #82
eastof wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are still falling for the evil genius trap. The truth is all of us treat our fellow humans this way, see Singer's drowning child. We're simply not wired to care as much about even large groups of people when they are not people we regularly interact with.

> The truth is all of us treat our fellow humans this way. Nah, I think it is more common of a cultural thing in individualistic societies. I know plenty of people who are worried about the future outlook of others they have never met. For example what phones and social media is doing to our children, or the state of the economy for young people.

I don't think it has much to do with individualism/collectivism. A lot of people are worried about a lot of things beyond themselves; most eventually realize it's bad for mental health and grow out of it, some pick a cause or three and act to make things better, and then there's also the lot that signal worry because it makes them look good.

Of course this is a process, so especially with younger populations, you are going to meet a lot of people worrying about random issues big and small, because it takes time to process it and learn the coping strategies.

Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit

#122

Post by TeMPOraL »

Ekaros wrote: post #60
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're not special, why do we have to pay them so much just to get out of bed?

If everyone actually came together and decided that they are not worth paying what they are paid now the compensation would likely normalize to a few multiples of other roles. But lot of compensation is just magic money out of air that is stock valuations so the stock holder just gives slice of what they think they made. So as long as they financialised system exist so will extreme compensations.

Since most of it is magic money, I'm not sure how much sense is there in evaluating them on it. I.e. if I were suddenly worth $1B, but 90% of that was in a mix of assets I can't do anything with, and some bullshit Wall Street fake money that, at this scale, disappears the moment you look at it, then the actual money I could use would be much, much less.

Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit

#123

Post by Atatator »

TonyStr wrote: post #107
lovegrenoble wrote: post #78

It wasn't the Russian winter, but Kutuzov's genius.

Kutuzov's genius of repeatedly pulling back until the Grande Armee was standing at the doorstep of their ancient capital, fighting one of the most stubborn battles in the Napoleonic era, yet loosing significantly more men than their attackers, and finally backing off, to behind their capital, allowing it to be plundered and burnt down during the occupation? (The city didn't burn down in a day, but a series of fires o…

> standing at the doorstep of their ancient capital

Moscow was neither "ancient capital" nor current capital of Russia in 1812.

Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit

#124

Post by intended »

sfink wrote: post #4

I kind of feel like people know how to human, and how the humans around them human, but someone they've never met but only heard about or seen on TV or in meme posts? No clue at all. Sure, we know the hotshot CEO of COMPANY_NAME_HERE has to put on his pants one leg at a time, but the similarity ends there. They're different, they won't fall for the stupid tricks we fall for. They don't have trouble getting out of bed…

Yaay! I get a chance to bring up IOED - the illusion of explanatory depth [1]

We kinda know how something works, but if we had to draw it out, we’re stumped. The classic example is drawing a bicycle or explaining how a flush works. (You might be able to draw it, or explain it, but that doesn’t obviate the point)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_explanatory_depth

Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit

#125

Post by tastyface »

NoPicklez wrote: post #49

Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit, because they're still a human being like all of us. It's easy to look at Musk and say, he's done some dumb shit when his dumb shit makes news. But very few of us have the same type of scrutiny that powerful people have. He's done dumb shit, but he's done a lot of pretty good shit across his lifetime. Nobody is infallible.

I mean, I've never financed or platformed violent far-right politicians, nor caused thousands to die by callously "taking a chainsaw" to government institutions. But yeah, other than that, I guess we're pretty similar.

Oh yeah, I also don't run a breeding cult. Or beg notorious sex criminals to party on their private island.

Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit

#126

Post by tonyedgecombe »

dzikimarian wrote: post #52
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're not special, why do we have to pay them so much just to get out of bed?

I was part of CEO recruitment process (sadly not FAANG-like, so maybe it wasn't "so much"-level yet). Amount of people who are both seriously willing to take the job(considering pressure) and have necessary skills is not very high. Tbh same is truth for any management job - a lot of competent people prefer calmer life. Obviously for the very top compensation is bonkers and there's fair share of frauds that ended in t…

>Amount of people who are both seriously willing to take the job(considering pressure) and have necessary skills is not very high.

I don't believe that. The average CEO is going to have perhaps ten direct reports. I'm willing to bet nearly every one of those is capable and up for the job.

Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit

#127

Post by TonyStr »

eesmith wrote: post #114
TonyStr wrote: post #106

The main goal of Napoleon's invasion of Russia was to beat their military in a decisive battle long before reaching Moscow, forcing Alexander to comply with the continental system - a European trade embargo created by Napoleon to weaken the British Empire who have been hostile toward France since long before the French revolution. Alexander signed this trade embargo during the treaty of Tilsit of 1807, and had been b…

> The 400,000 dead soldiers died mostly to disease. I believe that in every major war of the 1800s, more soldiers died from disease than from combat. Consider the War of 1812. "fully three-quarters of the war deaths resulted from disease, most commonly typhoid fever, pneumonia, malaria, measles, typhus, smallpox and diarrhea" - https://www.nps.gov/articles/military-medicine.htm Consider the Crimean War. "death by dis…

You are completely right. Disease has been the major killer in most military campaigns of history. The original post stated that 400,000 soldiers died "mostly from starvation and exposure", which isn't correct. However, loosing over a third of an army to disease in 52 days, before any major battle solely to disease (Allen, B. M., https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA398046.pdf), is unusually high.

Starvation became a major problem later as supply chains broke down, and exposure became a major problem on the retreat. Though the retreat from Moscow included only about 100,000 people.

Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit

#128

Post by wallst07 »

globalnode wrote: post #104
justonceokay wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did the above commenter say “genius?” Evil is boring because it is so usual. With the small power I’m given I choose not to recycle, I jaywalk, I say the “R” word in private conversation. If I were a line manager I would play favorites and skip mentorship opportunities if I were tired or busy. As a middle manager I might forget the names of some of my indirect reports and unwittingly pit teams against each othe…

whats the R word

"Retarded"

"Mental Retardation" used to be a common term signed into law and documents but was removed in ~2010. Since then, it has become more of a slur than a description.

Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit

#129

Post by TonyStr »

Atatator wrote: post #123
TonyStr wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kutuzov's genius of repeatedly pulling back until the Grande Armee was standing at the doorstep of their ancient capital, fighting one of the most stubborn battles in the Napoleonic era, yet loosing significantly more men than their attackers, and finally backing off, to behind their capital, allowing it to be plundered and burnt down during the occupation? (The city didn't burn down in a day, but a series of fires o…

> standing at the doorstep of their ancient capital Moscow was neither "ancient capital" nor current capital of Russia in 1812.

My apologies, I think I was misremembering a quote from War and Peace.

I actually went and found the passage that confused me: https://literaturepage.com/read/warandpeace-1228.html

Thank you for correcting me! Tolstoy meant it philosophically/culturally, not literally.

Re: Sometimes powerful people just do dumb shit

#130

Post by wallst07 »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #126
dzikimarian wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was part of CEO recruitment process (sadly not FAANG-like, so maybe it wasn't "so much"-level yet). Amount of people who are both seriously willing to take the job(considering pressure) and have necessary skills is not very high. Tbh same is truth for any management job - a lot of competent people prefer calmer life. Obviously for the very top compensation is bonkers and there's fair share of frauds that ended in t…

>Amount of people who are both seriously willing to take the job(considering pressure) and have necessary skills is not very high. I don't believe that. The average CEO is going to have perhaps ten direct reports. I'm willing to bet nearly every one of those is capable and up for the job.

I don't think so, not even close.

In my past I got high enough to barely touch the ceiling of a multi-billion dollar public company. I routinely had 1:1s with directs to the CEO. Not one of them would be willing or able to take that CEO job.

Just the amount of public facing interviews on CNBC would disqualify half and the other half wouldn't want to do it. They were already being paid very well.

Post reply on HN