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Careless People

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Re: Careless People

#281

Post by rsynnott »

mwigdahl wrote: post #216
rsynnott wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have the elites through history always been this insecure or is it a modern phenomenon? I don't think _all_ the superrich _are_ this insecure. Like, the obvious examples of this sort of behaviour are Trump (golf, in particular), Musk (video game nonsense), Zuck (this). But all three of those are very obviously fucked-up, socially maladjusted people in _other_ ways, too. Potentially the issue is more that being very…

That phenomenon is certainly not exclusive to men. All it takes is someone insecure enough to feel that losing a game threatens their sense of worth as a person.

Nah, definitely not exclusive to men, but you do see it more from men. I think possibly at least partially because it _is_ seen as somewhat more socially acceptable from men than from women; the boy who never grew up is viewed more favourably than the girl who ditto.

> All it takes is someone insecure enough to feel that losing a game threatens their sense of worth as a person

You also need them to think that they'll get away with this behaviour, whether it be just being very rich, or because there is some societal tolerance of Homer Simpson-esque emotionally immature men, or for some other reason.

Re: Careless People

#282

Post by zzzeek »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #9

> There's Zuck, whose underlings let him win at board-games like Settlers of Catan because he's a manbaby who can't lose (and who accuses Wynn-Williams of cheating when she fails to throw a game of Ticket to Ride while they're flying in his private jet). Why does this seem to be a recurring pattern among the modern ultrawealthy? Does anyone who fails to bend over backwards for them just end up getting exiled? Have th…

you're getting the order of events backwards. it's not "Become a billionaire, then become a baby who insists they be allowed to win board games". The order is, first you're an entitled, manipulative jackass with absolutely no bottom for unethical behavior and zero tolerance for "losing", then become a billionaire by being so brazenly shitty in all areas of life and getting people to go along with you. Caveat, you have to be a white guy for this to work and it works much better if you already inherited millions from your dad.

As an exercise, apply this rule to all the other billionaires you know.

Re: Careless People

#283

Post by Joker_vD »

achenet wrote: post #222
sokoloff wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to some degree they believe that hard work and talent are related to success Does anyone actually believe that hard work and talent are either zero or negatively correlated to success? I don't think the correlation is 1.0, but I firmly believe that it's positive for both.

"if hard work was all you needed to get rich, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire". The clothes I'm wearing right now were probably made by a sweatshop laborer working 12 hours a day under awful conditions, getting paid something like 1% of what I make in my tranquil 7 hour workday sitting comfortably at a computer. I therefore think that just hard work has an almost zero correlation to success by itself. If…

"The horse was the best worker in the kolkhoz, but never became its chairman". Heck, there is an entirely too depressing to read (but probably mostly correct) theory about how the office politics work [0] and I imagine it roughly translates to the other fields as well. Putting lots of efforts into some random thing most likely won't make you rich and/or powerful. It's putting the effort into becoming rich and powerful that gets you there — but that takes a rather particular personality and skill set.

[0] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

Re: Careless People

#284

Post by JeremyNT »

sokoloff wrote: post #190
lordnacho wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've won the lottery, but you don't want to acknowledge that you won the lottery. You want to feel they you deserve your position through hard work and talent. You're living in a society where people are credulous, to some degree they believe that hard work and talent are related to success. So what will happen? Everyone you hire ends up patting you on the back, telling you what a great guy you are.

> to some degree they believe that hard work and talent are related to success Does anyone actually believe that hard work and talent are either zero or negatively correlated to success? I don't think the correlation is 1.0, but I firmly believe that it's positive for both.

My take: "winning the lottery" in a Facebook sense requires a floor of talent and work at the early stages, but the odds of winning don't correlate with how much talent and work exists, nor are continued talent and work required once a critical mass of success has occurred. External factors - being in the right place at the right time, having some cushion of familial wealth, etc - dominate once you're over the floor.

Re: Careless People

#285

Post by rsynnott »

remus wrote: post #220
rsynnott wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of amazing that people still hit this, really. Like, if you're Facebook's lawyers, how are you not telling them "don't talk about this; anything you say or do will only promote it further"? The lawyers must _know_.

From the lawyer's point of view I guess you're making a risk judgement, presumably they thought the chance of getting a successful court order outweighed the potential increase in press of they happened to fail.

Even if they got a court order (they did get partial bars on publicity AIUI) it would _still make the problem for Facebook worse_, tho.

Re: Careless People

#286

Post by jajko »

llm_nerd wrote: post #253
sokoloff wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to some degree they believe that hard work and talent are related to success Does anyone actually believe that hard work and talent are either zero or negatively correlated to success? I don't think the correlation is 1.0, but I firmly believe that it's positive for both.

Enormous numbers of humans work hard and are talented at the things they do. Hard work and talent gets you a middle-class existence, at least if you were born in the right country and with the right resources to go to university, etc. In the case of Zuck, he basically did play a lottery ticket, and a perfect confluence of being in the right place at precisely the right time yielded some success. A million other progr…

> The overwhelming predicate of significant business success is sociopathy

Bingo. Now good luck getting such message into heads of star-stuck young folks who dream of faang and similar jobs thinking there is some respect to get there in 2025, when its all about money.

I work in banking, much better job than startup/faangs could offer here in Europe, at least people aren't so naive when joining. Had a discussion with my boss recently and we figured we have around 40% of management visibly falling under various sociopathic definitions. Not requirement per se but certainly helps thrive up there.

Re: Careless People

#287

Post by onion2k »

scruple wrote: post #272
sokoloff wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to some degree they believe that hard work and talent are related to success Does anyone actually believe that hard work and talent are either zero or negatively correlated to success? I don't think the correlation is 1.0, but I firmly believe that it's positive for both.

I have no idea. What I do know is that there's no degree of hard work or talent that will make me a billionaire.

I'd argue that every billionaire has a talent for persuading capable people to join them on a journey.

Having that skill alone isn't enough because you also need to pick the right journey at the right time, but not having that skill definitely means you won't be a billionaire.

Re: Careless People

#288

Post by hermitcrab »

Compliments to the author of this piece, Cory Doctorow, who I believe coined the useful term "enshittification". He has consistently championed consumer rights (presumably at a significant risk of having powerful people come after him) and lots of other worthwhile causes. And his writing is excellent.

Re: Careless People

#289

Post by jonplackett »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #9

> There's Zuck, whose underlings let him win at board-games like Settlers of Catan because he's a manbaby who can't lose (and who accuses Wynn-Williams of cheating when she fails to throw a game of Ticket to Ride while they're flying in his private jet). Why does this seem to be a recurring pattern among the modern ultrawealthy? Does anyone who fails to bend over backwards for them just end up getting exiled? Have th…

There’s a podcast I love called Real Dictators.

It looks at loads of dictators from history - Stalin, Hitler, Saddam Hussein.

What they all have in common is a love for loyalty and subservience. And they demand loyalty and subservience be constantly proven. Often in very weird and trivial ways.

Eg. Saddam Hussein liked to have a BBQ where he would cook (but not eat) and make the food inedible spicy. Then he would force his top people to eat it while he laughed at them.

They of course had to keep up the pretence that the food was delicious and pay him lots of compliments.

Re: Careless People

#290

Post by vintermann »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #225
vintermann wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also no shortage of people willing to tell Zuck and Musk (from a relatively safe distance, like in public here at HN) that they're insecure manbabies born into wealth who don't deserve a fraction of the power they've managed to claw themselves. I suspect that we, and the desire to show us wrong (or at the least spite us) are also part of the equation for why the current crop of billionaires are as they are. N…

Here on HN, we're not telling Zuck and Musk anything. We're telling each other things about Zuck and Musk. Zuck and Musk aren't dropping by to find out what we think of them, ever.

Figuratively speaking, we're telling them, since we're saying it loudly in public. You bet they know people are saying it. They might even peek in - we know some of their friends (arguably friends) who do, and Musk is among other things famous for being a bit of a social media addict.
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