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Be More Unlikeable

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Re: Be More Unlikeable

#51

Post by munificent »

Another one of these articles. There is unfortunately not much real content here. The advice to be your own person just like Elon Must or Steve Jobs is oxymoronic on its face. And certainly the advice to be less likable without a concrete reasony why is unhelpful.

Here's my take:

If you place a premium on pleasing everyone around you all the time, you have effectively taken away your own agency and given to them. You are under the control of everyone else's emotional reactions. That's not mentally healthy for you, nor is it good for achieving your own goals. It also makes you a giant target for the kind of emotional vampires who prey on people like this.

At the same time, if you simply disregard the consequences that your actions have on the emotional states of the people around you, you become a selfish sociopath. Remember, for every Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, there are a million petty assholes who make the world worse every time they open their mouths. If you are unlikeable, the odds are very much not in favor of you being a visionary genius. You're probably just that jerk that no one wants on their team.

If you are choosing to be unlikeable because you think it improves the chances of you being great, I think that is a sign that you are less likely to be that. Real visionaries don't decide to be unlikeable. They are unable to be likeable because they are so consumed by their passion. Opting to be a jerk is not going to magically create space in your life for brilliance. If the brilliance is there, it will have already driven out the compulsion to be a constant people pleaser.

The advice I would give is this:

1. Surround yourself with a small group of trusted friends and family whose regard deeply matters to you. These people exist to help maintain your moral compass. If you do something they don't like, you really did fuck up and you want them to hold you accountable.

2. Try to be a good person who improves the lives of all people you encounter. Default to likeable.

3. Sometimes you will have to make choices that harm some people. Pay full attention to the cost to those people and make sure the benefits to the world and not just yourself clearly outweigh it.

4. Accept that some people simply won't like you through no fault of your own. These people are relatively rare. If you find yourself frequently placing people into this category, reflect that it may be you who is the asshole.

Re: Be More Unlikeable

#52

Post by SirensOfTitan »

I think skillful communicators are brave enough to express their opinions and endure critique of those opinions. And I certainly think those people are willing to engage in meaningful conflict to find better solutions. With that, I also believe that a person can be compassionate and cordial while engaging in conflict (and I think the people who are tend to be conductive to better solutions). It's quite a slippery slope to conclude that unlike-ability is the secret sauce here.

Re: Be More Unlikeable

#53

Post by neatze »

mdszy wrote: post #45

"Some number of successful people were assholes, therefore in order to be successful you should be an asshole." I cannot fathom how this logic even works.

Even you look from perspective of warfare evolution it does not work nor make sense.

But objectively, you can play this game of cooperation to see when to be assholes is favorable strategy.

link: https://ncase.me/trust/

Re: Be More Unlikeable

#54

Post by eat_veggies »

This article is gross, and by this point, the advice is trite and uninteresting. There have been hundreds of books and articles about the benefits of being an asshole, but the author wants to be on hacker news (pursuit of the approval of other users?), so here we are. Maybe that impression means the author is winning.

The central point: "praise by the masses won't make you successful" and within the same breath, "Movie stars, professional athletes, and a business visionaries–we all want to be them." Perhaps they're more likeable than you think? I promise you you're not alone among the legion of boys who idolize Elon Musk.

Conflating being likeable, popular, and conformist, is reductive and wrong -- but maybe it's accurate through the narrow lens of how Silicon Valley defines "success" and "progress."

It is an ideology of individualism and cancerous growth, and it is a culture that hates difference, community, and visible flaws (from the article: "Change comes from differences", "Society can't exist without collectively agreed upon rules," "Be likable and hide your 'flaws'"). Of course you'd associate the rejection of those traits with success if you've measured your self worth in units of Elon Musks.

You can be likeable, even with flaws and differences. You don't have to be an asshole about it. Be better.

Re: Be More Unlikeable

#55

Post by bena »

Like others who have posted here, I don't think you have to choose to be unlikable to be successful. And I don't think being unlikable is the key to be successful.

The advice to be more unlikable is akin to the Galileo defense. "Galileo was persecuted for his correct beliefs. I'm being persecuted for my beliefs, therefore they must be correct." They believe that something is related when it is not. Because as Sagan later said, "But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."

I think the key to being successful is to be ok with not being liked.

The big difference with people like Galileo is that he was right. Jobs may have been an asshole, but he was right more often than wrong. Gates was an asshole, but he was often right as well. They were not concerned with being liked, they were concerned with being right. And not "being right" as in "winning the argument", but "being right" as in "coming to the correct conclusion".

You don't have to be a contrarian to be successful, but you can't be afraid to be either.

Re: Be More Unlikeable

#56

Post by Supermancho »

jariel wrote: post #43
hrktb wrote: post #5

Money quote: > Personally, I've long idolized Steve Jobs and Elon Musk. But most of our heroes got to where they are by being unlikeable, not likable. I fundamentally disagree with that view of being an asshole as an important part of success, but I also feel it has been rehashed an incredible amount of times already. A slightly different take on this is the "don't rock the boat" mentality. This is usually a counter…

'Unlikable' and 'Asshole' are different things. A lot of people are just cold, unsociable, not charismatic, don't buy into the latest social trend - and are therefore 'unlikable' to many. It's possible to be 'perfectly good' and yet perceive as 'unlikable'. Personally, I like those people, but the mob turns on them quickly. Being needlessly callous, or mean, lording over people, excess egoism i.e. 'asshole' - this is…

From the people I know who worked with Jobs, he was more than 10% asshole.

Being unwaveringly decisive (eschewing discussion) is often considered antisocial (although it's admired by some). Brutal honesty is considered "unnecessary" in the corporate environment. I believe this culture contributes to bureaucracy far and above the risk it mitigates.

For example, nobody wants to look at evidence that an long-established process is an unnecessary cost-sink. It's safer to leave it alone. Participants (and their allies) will perform all kinds of political and process acrobatics to defend their known knowns.

If you are jumping from company to company (which you should every few years outside your stock options), you can see how established companies have internal structures that prevent innovation and shoot themselves in the foot until whole departments are dismantled. At that point, most of the participants look at each other like "what happened?" or "this asshole came in and tore the dept apart".

It's a pain point of mine. The more money you make, the more you see this stuff and I'm usually the asshole brought in to break up the status quo (without much political support). I've been successful as often as I have failed. Jobs had much better positioning and was better at identifying the people and tools necessary to inspire change.

Re: Be More Unlikeable

#57

Post by diffrinse »

ngngngng wrote: post #8
ny2ko wrote: post #3

The only grime I have to pick with this article is it's applicability to all groups. The ability to behave as a jerk or be unlikeable without experiencing retaliation (not simply push back) is a privilege that a lot of underrepresented minorities don't have

> underrepresented minorities To paraphrase Brene Brown, any conversation on privilege that excludes class is bullshit. The ability to be unlikable without it ruining your life (never mind using it to your advantage) is largely a privilege of class. No one in 2020 is immune to being "cancelled". But if you have money, it won't ruin your life.

Ehhh, it's specifically the case that the fall from middle-class to poor is steeper for Black folk for what should be obvious reasons. Most of our middle class comes from our working class rather than inheriting the position [0]

[0]https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2015/01...

Re: Be More Unlikeable

#58

Post by elgfare »

It's a bit imprecisely worded, but the message isn't very controversial I would say.

To get things done you can't be afraid of disagreeing with people. You can be a jerk about it or not. If you're a jerk you likely free up resources for getting things done since you're not spending energy being sensitive to other people's feelings. On the other hand, if you're a jerk, people might work against you just because they don't like you. Also, it's easier to effectively lead if you're not a jerk, which is more effective than working on your own.

Most people can be adults about it, disagreeing civilly, and laughing about it afterwards. But the people who change the world are the ones who care enough to risk becoming jerks over the things they care about.

Re: Be More Unlikeable

#60

Post by MrLeap »

bserge wrote: post #49
MrLeap wrote: post #2

It's 404ing for now, so maybe the contents actually defy the title when I finally will get to RTFA. I have to say, I'm amused by a lot of the contrarian articles showing up on HN recently. There seems to be a growing tendency to shed a lot of the saccharine optimism of the last decade. "Work on unimportant problems" "Be more unlikeable" "How to cope with " "Why you should kill your parents" I wonder if these are port…

> the saccharine optimism of the last decade You and I must've hung out in completely different circles, including online :D But yeah the media is like this because once some "trend" gets oversaturated, someone starts another one (or more likely, revives an old one) and soon everyone jumps on that ship. Actually, it applies to most things. Personally I can't wait for flat design to die out.

Probably so! Just HN/Youtube as far as my media consumption goes for the last while. HN has tended very much towards the optimistic entrepreneurial advice end of the spectrum for a decade, for understandable reasons. My youtube channels are nearly devoid of the shrill screech of contemporary political discourse. It leaks in occasionally, like witnessing an occluded star by gravitational lensing. I don't know how people stand the unoccluded version.

I've been doing my part to help kill flat design by pitching depth and shadows every chance I get.

I'm nearly in the stockades. :D

Also, down with the cult of monochrome!

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