[titanomachy]

“It’s possible that Scott and his friends… are Losers”

I don’t know if the term is even applicable to people who don’t work in large organizations. Scott’s a psychiatrist. A lot of doctors work in small partnerships where these dynamics might not play out.

[nostrademons]

There's a level where these dynamics operate throughout the economy, outside of the organization. Venkatesh Rao wrote another classic essay [1] where he describes a dynamic where "the 1% and the 90% collaborat[e] to prey on the 9% in the middle — the Jeffersonian middle class."

Scott in this model is a Clueless - he is part of the 9% naive enough (and yet proficient enough in their trade) to believe that they can survive on their own merits and exist in an objective reality of pure reason, outside of social reality and its fickle emotional currents. And sure enough, it ended in a member of the cultural 1% (a journalist) collaborating with the 90% (Internet mobs) to prey on the 9% (a psychologist-blogger), dox him for pageviews, and force him from his job and his blog.

You'll also notice this dynamic in a lot of populist movements, eg. Trump (1%) collaborates with his MAGA fans (90%) to own the urban libs (9%).

[1] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-economy/

[IsaacL]

I'd say people who work as solo entrepreneurs or independent contractors are usually either "sociopaths" (of a particular kind) or some kind of sociopath/loser mixture, depending on how mercenary and ambitious they are.

(In this case, as in many others, I don't really like Rao's "sociopath" label, as it has the wrong connotations. "Politician" or "machiavellian" may be better.)

The average, say, independent contractor software dev, the "mercenary" type, is a loser/sociopath hybrid. Unlike typical losers, they forgo the security of a steady paycheck and employee benefits in exchange for a (often significant) income boost and personal freedom. They forgo the slightly paternalistic employer/employee relationship and instead engage with their employer on purely capitalistic terms. On the other hand, they typically avoid internal battles wherever they work and simply follow the bidding of whoever signs the cheques.

Solo consultants who actively get involved in helping management make decisions act more like "sociopaths" out of necessity ("politician" may be a much better word for this case). Indeed there's a whole category of solo consultants/executive coaches who basically exist to act as "consigliere" for senior executives who need political mentoring (dressed up as leadership training, career coaching or whatever).

I don't know much about how Scott's industry functions. One guess: partnerships between two or more independent peers typically consist of approximately-equal "sociopaths". If they're "good" sociopaths, these can be very productive business relationships. All parties know what they're getting into, and everyone respects each other as a peer. Healthy startup co-founder relationships should be similar. (Rao's later essay, "Entrepreneurs are the New Labor", suggests that the tech startup scene was becoming filled with more "clueless" young founders as technology hype and startup boosterism attracted more naive youngsters.)

Anyway, based on many of Scott's posts, it sounds as though much of his job does involve political skills: advocating for his patients' needs against some medical bureaucracy, talking patients out of doing stupid things, and so on. All of these are examples of "good politicking" (and might illustrate why the "sociopath" label is deficient).

(I'm turning into a sightly-less-cranky michaelochurch, heh. I guess every forum evolutionary niche needs to be filled.)