[rgifford]

Sociopaths, the clueless and losers. This great essay analyzing The Office argues that in a modern business context you're one of the three. [1]

Those "functional elites" you mentioned? Usually they're working 20-50% more for 0-25% percent more pay. They're called the clueless because they've been conned into working more for less, usually under some clever guise like company being family or company values or the promise of a promotion that's always a cycle or two away. The essay then goes on to argue that losers are really just the clueless once they "get it." Losers understand the treadmill and lean into the tedium always aiming to save their time by playing dumb as needed. Sociopaths break out of the cycle by operating only with concern for power and switching up how they talk to folks based on whether they're clueless, losers or fellow sociopaths.

Sociopaths speak in powertalk -- an exchange of information on clear terms. It's usually veiled because the clueless and losers listen in and it makes them feel uncomfortable. If it weren't veiled it would probably sound like lawyer-jargon with lots of plausible deniability, conditions, arguing and explicit shared definitions.

Losers and clueless speak in their own languages based on who they're talking with. It's basically just lots of trying to feel okay... except for when it comes to losers speaking with sociopaths. There the only communication is straight talk, which is basically just direct requests of a master-slave dynamic (i.e. "do this"). The essay is well worth the read!

1. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/11/11/the-gervais-principle-...

[vasco]

Not every place in life is a place of struggle and fight. Some people actually enjoy their work. This just sounds like "class struggle" and "proletariat and bourgeoisie" under different names. Also thinking of your colleagues and people as "elites", "losers" and the "clueless" gives me some understanding to the state of mind of who writes this.

To keep it lighter, in the companies I've worked in the architypes of people were more like:

- The "anger problem that shouts every once in a while" guy

- The "chronic nervous person that is paralyzed by impostor syndrome"

- The "i find more problems than solutions" guy

- The "i'm here to socialize, make friends, maybe get married"

- The "i gave up 10 years ago and just want my paycheck"

- The "i'm a kid learning everything I can and am just excited to be here"

- The "i'm working on my true passion outside of work while hanging out here with you guys" etc etc

People have their own lives, not everything is just a power play of losers and elites.

I'll be honest, even if the world was exactly as you described, which it isn't, I'd choose to not see it that way so that my life wouldn't be such a bleak existance. Rather be a naive happy fool than enlightned and depressed.

[j-bos]

The article uses struggly words like sociopaths and losers, but defines them very differently from common use, often the 'losers' have the most fulfilling and rounded lives, i.e. true winners

- The "chronic nervous person that is paralyzed by impostor syndrome" - clueless

- The "i find more problems than solutions" guy - clueless

- The "i'm here to socialize, make friends, maybe get married" - loser

- The "i gave up 10 years ago and just want my paycheck" - loser

- The "i'm working on my true passion outside of work while hanging out here with you guys" etc etc - loser

It's a rough model of org interactions with poorly named categories.

[krapp]

>The article uses struggly words like sociopaths and losers, but defines them very differently from common use, often the 'losers' have the most fulfilling and rounded lives, i.e. true winners

They're "losers" from the point of view of capitalism and corporate hierarchy. If you're not committing your life to ruthlessly climb the ladder to grasp at wealth and power by any means and you don't buy into the game or its rules, you're basically a defective cog, a useless part of the machine.

If you're unaware that success is a rigged lottery designed to find and promote sociopaths and actually believe that reward comes with hard work, determination and passion, you're clueless. A mark. A rube. If you're smart enough, with enough abuse you'll eventually wake up and become a loser.

[robertlagrant]

> They're "losers" from the point of view of capitalism and corporate hierarchy. If you're not committing your life to ruthlessly climb the ladder to grasp at wealth and power by any means and you don't buy into the game or its rules, you're basically a defective cog, a useless part of the machine.

You have too narrow a definition of capitalism and of corporate hierarchy. What you describe is one outworking of them, but not the outworking.

[harimau777]

It's BY FAR the most common outworking. Most people won't be lucky enough to find a job that doesn't work that way.

[robertlagrant]

Can you cite where you know this from?

[j-bos]

yes.

[KirillPanov]

> Sociopaths break out of the cycle by operating only with concern for power

There are other ways to break out of the cycle. Keep looking.

[aleph_minus_one]

> There are other ways to break out of the cycle. Keep looking.

What are these ways (besides founding a startup or something similar)?

[sph]

Working for oneself is how we're meant to work, not to be a cog in someone else's machine. It is sad that for the past ~100 years it has become the norm and we idolize entrepreneurs, as if they are mythical creatures.

[harimau777]

Many people lack the business skills, resources, or temperament for starting their own business. So this is certainly an option but not a panacea.

[sph]

Not every business has to become a billion dollar startup. A fishmonger is more of an entrepreneur than any FAANG employee.

[Draiken]

I hard disagree here. That's what capitalism wants us to evolve into: individual enterprises. But no, there's nothing inherent in the universe or human nature that determines individualism as the true way of working.

You don't have to go far to see people contributing to bigger causes that are not owned by someone else. Open source is a great example of this.

The main reason people idolize entrepreneurs is because they symbolize capitalism's perfect individual. There's a reason society today wants everyone to be an "entrepreneur", but it's not some higher meaning. It's just capitalism.

[sph]

> The main reason people idolize entrepreneurs is because they symbolize capitalism's perfect individual

That's some deep revisionism right there. Humans have worked for themselves, for no master, since before we became Homo Sapiens.

The big societal achievement of capitalism is killing any entrepreneurial spirit and telling you you need to go to a good school and then find a good employer that takes care of all of your needs.

[Draiken]

> Humans have worked for themselves, for no master, since before we became Homo Sapiens.

Sure, humans worked for themselves, but that was not what ultimately got us here. Humans only survived and thrived by working together. Homo Sapiens won the evolution race because they managed to grow tribes more than others, not because of more individualism compared to other species.

I get that working alone is an absolute joy and for many tasks that's the most efficient way of doing something (I certainly prefer that for programming). But that's not true for every task or the way it was "meant" to be, like I refuted in the first place.

> The big societal achievement of capitalism is killing any entrepreneurial spirit and telling you you need to go to a good school and then find a good employer that takes care of all of your needs.

That's one aspect of it. But capitalism is inherently paradoxical and also would LOVE to not think of humans as... humans. If everyone was an enterprise they can profit a lot more. It's what we see today with the gig economy. A race to the bottom where everyone is their "own employer" with zero benefits, all the risks and easily replaceable. It's a wet dream for pretty much every capitalist. How many startups we have/had describing themselves as "Uber for X"?

Another aspect is that fostering entrepreneurial spirit is actually profitable. Whoever already has capital will pretty much always win, so if a naive person wants to bet all of their savings in a business that fails, that capital is transferred to the existing capitalists. It's a win for them. If they somehow succeed, the most likely outcome is that at some point this enterprise will be acquired by a larger company. It's a win/win for them.

IDK if we live in very different bubbles (it certainly seems like it) but I see an extreme amount of push from society towards entrepreneurship, not against it. It's simply a very good way to funnel money from the bottom to the top.