[joshmarlow]

I actually think this is the core cause of a lot of current popular hate of capitalism - shitty managers (I'm thinking the /r/antiwork sort of sentiment). People conflate shitty managers with how the system intrinsically works, which is an over simplification.

Now there is an argument that operating in our 'capitalist' system introduces incentives to be a shitty manager (I think this is approximately Chomsky's perspective).

[travisgriggs]

The problem that seems to expose to me, is why do we have so many (shitty) managers. Are managers just prone to be shitty?

Part of me thinks so. I think if you renamed every managers title to other titles like “clerk” and “facilitator” and basically reset what it means to be a manager, it feels like things would be different. At least for a while.

But then my theories swing back the other way. I have observed that many of my peers want to be “managed.” What they like about the arrangement is the feeling of isolated from responsibility and liability. Do as told. It’s sort of an “anti self reliance” thing. An attempt to be, as an adult, in a relationship that looks more like a subservient child-parent relationship.

[thewebcount]

> I have observed that many of my peers want to be “managed.” What they like about the arrangement is the feeling of isolated from responsibility and liability. Do as told. It’s sort of an “anti self reliance” thing. An attempt to be, as an adult, in a relationship that looks more like a subservient child-parent relationship.

What a bizarre take. I like programming, I don't like dealing with all the people stuff. I've run my own business and it involved focusing on all the things I find uninteresting and focusing very little on the things I find very interesting. So for me it's just a matter of not liking that position. This belief that everyone who isn't in management is some sort of troglodyte who can't pick their own nose is very childish.

[nradov]

Management is a skill like any other. Very few people are born competent managers but most people can be trained as such. The trouble is that most organizations promote their top individual contributors to management without giving them additional training. You'll see a lot of snarky comments on HN about MBA programs but the good ones do instill at least some basic level of competence.

Of course training alone is insufficient. The organizational culture and incentives also have to be aligned. The US military puts a major focus on training officers to be effective leaders, and yet the results have been mixed. Toxic leadership is one of the main problems driving their current retention crisis.

[bluefirebrand]

> You'll see a lot of snarky comments on HN about MBA programs but the good ones do instill at least some basic level of competence.

I strongly disagree with this. MBA programs are part of the problem in my opinion. They train people to be good "managers" for a company's interests which is often actively hostile to the people who report into that manager.

The MBA-ification of management and companies is to treat people like units of work not humans.

[MisterBastahrd]

Managers? Define "managers."

We just saw multiple banks collapse with zero financial penalty for those who were in charge when it happened, even as they were collecting tens of millions in bonuses.

When your compensation is structured in such a way that you can be a monumental failure at your job and you STILL make hundreds of times more than the rank and file employee, then the system is broken.

This is an ownership class problem, not manager class. The owners and their lackeys are the ones approving and justifying these insane compensation packages even as companies lay people off.

[r00fus]

What you’re describing is an Oligarchy. Which is technically what the US is.

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/cbo-american-wealt...

[concordDance]

Note that reddit in general, those whose posts rise in particular and posts that rise to the top of that subreddit even more in particular, is extremely unrepresentative of actually common sentiment.

To get an a less biased view you can chat to people on public transport (in Europe) or talk to your neighbours (in the USA).

[Eisenstein]

> Note that reddit in general, those whose posts rise in particular and posts that rise to the top of that subreddit even more in particular, is extremely unrepresentative of actually common sentiment.

Why?

[concordDance]

A whole bunch of different effects, present on most forms of social media:

Evaporative cooling (if an environment appeals to people they'll join and if an environment gets more extreme those who least like that direction will leave). The presence of visible up votes and downvotes magnifies this effect.

Founder effects. Reddit in general and any given sub in particular was initially populated with people who are a bit unusual in some fashion. E.g. the initial reddit population was very techy. This effect also applies to any Internet forum (both in that Internet forums are used by somewhat odd people like us and that an Internet forum on Thing will pull people interested in Thing and interest in Thing very likely correlates with many other factors, such as socioeconomic status, culture, gender, subculture)

General interest in going online to talk about things. The vast majority of people do not go online to talk and argue with strangers, those who do are different along a number of axes (such as a lack of young kids or higher disagreeableness) which in turn correlate with other traits and beliefs.

In Reddit case there's also an element of active moderation, mostly due to founder effects, but also due to them being the only ones actually caring a lot (being activist) the main subs are policed by a bunch of supermoderators (who are mods in hundreds of subs) with similar views on issues such as trans rights and as a moral duty will actively attempt to remove people who express other viewpoints to keep the place tidy (without the viewpoints that are offensive and wrong).

[Eisenstein]

> the main subs are policed by a bunch of supermoderators (who are mods in hundreds of subs)

This is easily evidenced and is not true. You can check for yourself. Parroting this talking point shows that you do not check your facts.

Top 100 subreddit moderators and number of subs moderated:

* https://gist.github.com/bspammer/d6059d2bfa222a0f340353ae0be...

[concordDance]

Your list seems incorrect. Merari01, for example, moderates 243 subs[1]: https://www.reddit.com/user/Merari01/

For example, r/GetMotivated and r/ContagiousLaughter which are not in that gist.

I picked a couple of other users on the list at random such as Sunkisty, TreKs and Blank-Cheque and they're also all over 100.

Where did you get the gist from?

[1] https://imgur.io/a/8KoGyGv

[Eisenstein]

> the main subs

The list is the top 100 subs.

Anyone can create a sub to moderate, so one person having 200+ is going to be mostly squatting -- almost all of those subs are going to be empty.

I got the list from someone who made a script to get the info and posted the results in the github I linked to.

[giantrobot]

Reddit has a severe astroturfing problem. Any subreddit that gets any attention (or ends up in /r/all) gets hammered with socket puppets and astroturf campaigns. Groups can very cheaply buy upvotes for pretty much anything.

Reddit has shown little appetite for combating this issue because their value is the number of eyeball-seconds they receive every day. They want to report huge eyeball numbers you investors and advertisers.

[JohnFen]

Because the population of Reddit users is not representative of the population in general. This is true for all such places (including HN).

[goodpoint]

> People conflate shitty managers with how the system intrinsically works

When the system intrinsically works by producing shitty managers the problem is in the system, by definition.

[joshmarlow]

> When the system intrinsically works by producing shitty managers the problem is in the system, by definition.

Is bad management intrinsic though? Wouldn't that make the presence of good management surprising?

It seems to me that people work better when they enjoy their job and nobody likes working under a bad manager, so bad management is a sign of incompetence and degrades operations.

The presence of bad management is an opportunity to optimize operations; treating people well is generally good for the people and the business.