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Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

scientificamerican.com

311–320 of 336 posts

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#311

There could be something else at work here. My father told me that con men preferred to go after smart people, like doctors. The reason is that smart people thought they were too smart to get conned, and hence were more gullible. He was also an economist, and told me that there wasn't an economist born who could stand the idea that the economy would run better (i.e. free market) without their "help". And I've noticed…

The poor get conned the most, but it's done in bulk to make it worthwhile. Scam emails, phone calls, TV priests, and so on. You'd probably lose money if you scammed them one at a time.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#312
post #257
post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain more what your second paragraph means? I think I’m missing some background information. But, I’m really interested in what you have to say. As for your last paragraph, which things in the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index don’t you buy? I just just read though the list of items in the PCE, and it seems like stuff we all buy. https://www.bea.gov/about/pdf/1106_ACM_PCE.pdf Also, I’m not cl…

First I’ll address inflation measures as they apply to me, then I’ll just air some fringe views that hopefully you will enjoy reading. EDIT And thirdly I'll extensively change what was written because I'm pretty sure it misrepresented the monetarist theory of inflation. I’m happy to be corrected on this, but ‘inflation’ in the US is usually the CPI-U series; less Food and Energy when the Federal Reserve sets monetary…

Thanks for the reply.

I didn't know what 'core inflation' meant so had to look at the wikipedia page. Assuming that wikipedia is correct, it looks like the fed has used PCE since 2000. Apparently, CPI is mainly used for social security benefits. CPI weighs 'shelter' costs as 40% of total whereas PCE weighs it at 18%. To test out their values, I viewed the 2016 value for DC (where I have a home and mortgage), and it looked relatively accurate. However, my mortgage for that property is less than 18% of my total expenses.

I'm kind of ignorant about monetary policy, so had to google some things. But, I don't follow your statement about the relationship between M2 and inflation. Are you saying that M2 should be directly related to inflation? I would expect that M2 would only have a moderate influence over inflation because prices are based on supply and demand, not how much money there is.

For instance, let's say this year there are 200 coins distributed evenly to 10 people. You produce 10 widgets, and each of the 10 people are willing to pay 10. You make the exchange and get 100 coins, and they're left with 10 each.

The next year someone new shows up and has 20 coins making the total money supply 220. You produce another 10 widgets, but only the new guy wants a widget (the others already have one). He is not willing to pay 10 coins, but you and him agree that he can pay 1 coin. Money supply went up, but prices went down. Then the following year, all 11 people want widgets, but you're way more efficient and are now producing 20. I'd expect prices to stay less than 10 but probably higher than 1 even though the money supply didn't change.

I'm probably wrong about all of this stuff, of course. But, either way, it seems complex and data intensive enough to require a specialist.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#313

>The study’s lead author, John Antonakis, a psychologist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, suggests leaders should use their intelligence to generate creative metaphors that will persuade and inspire others—the way former U.S. President Barack Obama did. “I think the only way a smart person can signal their intelligence appropriately and still connect with the people,” Antonakis says, “is to speak in char…

If you're a local mayor or something, that might work. Above that level you need the press to communicate it, and they won't bother communicating your carefully thought out message. At best you get a one sentence sound bite.

I went and read some Obama speeches back in my university days. Some of them were quite well thought out, but they mostly got zero press coverage. And that's at the presidential level.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#314
post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it is not an accident. It is mostly a matter of money applied with some precision. Brand recognition helps.

So who was responsible for applying the precision and maintaining brand value?

The several companies Trump spent large sums of money on who do that as their job?

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#315
post #103

My takeaway was that people don't like leaders that can't relate to them. Obama related well to one part of the country, and Trump related well to another part of the country. Trump's case being more surprising since he's tries very hard to come off as a class traitor. ex. Notice his love of the peoples food (fast food)

Question is why do we need a leader we relate to? We're not living in tribes any longer. The president of a country isn't likely to sit down and have a beer with us.

Why do developers often wish a manager/superior had technical knowledge? We hope they understand what we're doing and will make decisions with that in mind. We can also accept "hard decisions" as being more carefully considered rather than simply not understanding the situation and costs.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. You're more than welcome to risk your own weekend over trivialities. The rest of us only ask that you please keep us out of your plans.

You never were. And there was a reason for that. Maybe you are not the person to put his 150% on the line when needed. It is ok. You do not have to be. Then you get paid accordingly. You also didnt ask what could prompt before weekend pushes. It could be money, reputation or or compliance. Certain projects are out of your control and you have to implement in weeks notice, or have a deadline imposed by laws. Some are…

The problem isn't the day of the week but the fact that it is the day before time off.

If you work weekends then by all means push on Friday evening. However, don't push anything the before your next vacations.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know. Why do we push files to production on a Friday evening? Why do we snipe hot-fixes into production via FTP? Because we are all crazy & lazy bums, I would guess.

if you have the monitoring in place, and you have done proper canarying, friday evenings are not terrible

monitoring only helps detecting a problem. and even with canarying there could still be a bad thing in production. it happened everywhere, even the big ones had akward problems. it's human to make errors, so if you do not have luck such a problem could occur on friday evening/night.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on what’s wrong with his comment? The Peter principle looks like it has some legs (after a couple minutes of searching), and the analogy sounds reasonable to me.

Sure. Just heads up, I won't comment on the Peter principal, as I view both the definition of leadership and the complexities surrounding it far too complex to sum up in a simple parable, though I'm sure anyone with real world experience thinks it has some legs. Paragraph 2, about the person being promoted until failure, I can't gleam any explanatory content from, myself. Then there's this sentence: "If P and Q are q…

The statement is saying the P and Q are independent, not unrelated.

P + Q = L (leadership score)

For a group of candidates with equal L, a higher P does indicate lower Q.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#319
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you have the monitoring in place, and you have done proper canarying, friday evenings are not terrible

monitoring only helps detecting a problem. and even with canarying there could still be a bad thing in production. it happened everywhere, even the big ones had akward problems. it's human to make errors, so if you do not have luck such a problem could occur on friday evening/night.

There is no doubt, but you see, there are legitimate reasons to do it.

Re: Why People Dislike Really Smart Leaders

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course. You're more than welcome to risk your own weekend over trivialities. The rest of us only ask that you please keep us out of your plans.

You never were. And there was a reason for that. Maybe you are not the person to put his 150% on the line when needed. It is ok. You do not have to be. Then you get paid accordingly. You also didnt ask what could prompt before weekend pushes. It could be money, reputation or or compliance. Certain projects are out of your control and you have to implement in weeks notice, or have a deadline imposed by laws. Some are…

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