[dahart]

> It is just plain ago and pettiness […] Why else would Zuck cheat on a board game

Recently I felt somewhat enlightened on this point, specifically in regards to Trump cheating at golf and some of his bald-faced lies, but I’d speculate it applies here too. Others pointed out to me that while it might look petty and ridiculous to normal people, it’s a social power move to get away with things, and serves the purpose of testing what can be gotten away with, and practicing or exercising the push dynamic. It may have little to do with winning a board game, and a lot to do with seeing what people will tolerate and what the thresholds are for being called out; it’s a test of one’s intimidation factor. It may be somewhat important that the cheating is visible. It can also be social signaling to see who comes to their defense when called out, which is an effect that has been playing out on the national stage with obvious lies being repeated, defended, or excused. It’s not about what’s true, but about people showing the rule breaker who’s on their side, and giving them the power to break rules.

This, BTW, to me is a depressing and pessimistic view of power and politics and humanity, and I don’t think these kinds of power moves are something to aspire to, nor do they always work. But as a framework I have to admit it has a lot of explanatory power.

[notahacker]

Whilst make outrageous claims to assert power is definitely a thing, I think the null hypothesis is less that they're playing 4D chess and more that people who constantly get away with stuff and constantly get told they're geniuses like spoiled children end up behaving like spoiled children. It's like for every "van Halen wants the brown M&Ms removed to audit the venue staff's attention to detail" anecdote there are 100 stars making extravagant demands who are just divas.

Zuck cheating at board games me of Elon buying a claim to being a great Path of Exile and Diablo player. Nobody believes he is, and nobody is loyalty tested into praising his ability at computer games, not even people who work at his companies. He gets mocked for it on his own website. The few people that would actually be impressed by a claim of being good at Path of Exile and Diablo know exactly how bad he is at it and find it pitiful; ironically it actually dents his reputation with a demographic disproportionately likely to be impressed by other things about him. Other people aren't inclined to think highly of him for playing those games in the first place, never mind paying others to boost his account. The reality is simply that when he's interested in a game he can't abide the idea of not being really good at it, and cheating and getting others to do stuff for you is the easiest way to appear really good at it. Especially when you're used to ignoring people calling you out...

[joquarky]

> playing 4D chess

Also, narcissists don't need 4D chess levels of awareness and discipline to behave that way. It just emerges naturally from their base motivations.

[chistev]

Like Marlo with the security guard.

[jordanb]

This is called "Fuckery:" I tell you a lie. You know it's a lie. I know you know it's a lie. But you have to pretend that you believe it because of the power I have over you.

The Fuckery is a demonstration of that power.

[raincom]

It is called sycophancy. That's how the powerful and the wealthy are enabled by underlings.

[simianparrot]

Like how the government operated during covid.

[bluefirebrand]

Yes. It serves to identify the people who will go along with lies and bullshit and who won't speak out

It's a test of loyalty via a show of power

[noisem4ker]

Brazen lying.

[menloshark]

This is really common at his company btw, this shit trickles down from leadership.

For example, a director wrote a post internally solely with AI, didn't review it at all, directly plagiarized a bunch of stuff that other people wrote, and left a bunch of typos like [[link]]. It was just a post about why we need to use more AI or some bullshit like that.

I had a direct manager who did shit way worse than this on a regular basis. Once people just learn to expect constant psycho head games and shit testing 24/7, the lost good will is not recoverable.

I think the weird thing with meta is that this type of weird bullshit is a company-wide phenomenon. Like them turning around and forcing 8k people to do data labeling work. A lot of the victims were super late in their careers and highly specialized. And the same guy who forced this thing on everyone (the CTO) has now turned around and publicly criticized MZ for messing up morale.

Funnily enough, my manager did a lot of the same thing, maliciously creating a problem and then trying to blame it on someone else. A lot of these little games trickle down. As a company, they tend to select for people like Elizabeth Holmes

[johnvanommen]

> It may have little to do with winning a board game, and a lot to do with seeing what people will tolerate and what the thresholds are for being called out; it’s a test of one’s intimidation factor.

It’s one of the most famous scenes in The Wire: when Marlo steals a lollipop.

[deepfriedchokes]

What you are describing is Narcissistic Personality Disorder behavior. It is psychological abuse.

[TheOtherHobbes]

I doubt it's as calculated as that. Trump literally has no concept of truth, so he doesn't lie for strategic reasons. He says whatever makes him feel best about himself moment to moment.

This is textbook narcissism - confusing to those who expect some kind of object constancy who can't deliver it, but predictable from the syndrome.

He also intimidates and threatens more directly, but that doesn't get reported on the news.

Zuckerberg seems similarly fragile, but in a less overt way.

When you have insane levels of wealth your world revolves around your self-image and your desires, your peers are all at similar levels of dysfunction, no one else is likely to challenge you for obvious reasons, so you become socially unmoored and drift into Wealth Induced Psychosis.

[ElProlactin]

> Zuckerberg seems similarly fragile, but in a less overt way.

Give him time. He's only 42. Trump at 42 had more "charm"/"charisma" in his pinky finger than Zuck has in his entire being.

[mindslight]

I don't know how much this applies to cheating at Catan. Regardless of social standing, few people are going to stop you from cheating at Catan because it helps everyone's goal - to be done with the game of Catan. Although perhaps repeatedly making people play Catan is itself that social power move.

[WarOnPrivacy]

> everyone's goal - to be done with the game of Catan

Is it possible you're confusing Catan with Monopoly or Pictionary or any party game ever?

[topgrain2]

Nah, Catan's among those. It's very common for an initial set-up to leave 1-2 players with no realistic path to victory by turn 2 or so, even if they've made the best choices available to them. Once you learn to spot it, the game kinda sucks. It's not fun to play a game as one of those players, and it's not fun to play a game where some of the other people at the table are just filling space less than 25% of the way through the game. It's not as bad as some others for early player elimination (as world-domination-mode Risk is infamous for) but it also doesn't officially eliminate them, which is arguably even worse.

[mindslight]

Spot on. I think I tried playing it with a 1d12 a few times, but that merely fixed the most glaring part of the problem and wasn't enough to redeem inevitable-slow-loss dynamic. Perhaps some expansions give more breathing room and different dynamics to specialize in.

[deaux]

Catan is Monopoly for those who want to look a little smarter. Lots of party games are much better than Catan.

I think most people who like board games would choose pictionary over it. At least that can fulfill a quick warmup role to move on to something better.

[triceratops]

Boardgames catching strays

[api]

Liars like to lie, and you often see them express what's called "duper's delight" at fooling people. Dark triad types (narcissists, sociopaths, psychopaths) will often lie about petty things just to get off on their ability to mislead people.

It's also a form of gaslighting. It makes people doubt their sanity, because nobody would lie about such a thing. It creates an aura of reality distortion around such people and inside that aura they can define reality as they see fit.

Until we learn to see through this stuff and stop elevating such people to positions of extreme power, we deserve what we get.

Unfortunately there’s a pretty large number of people who actually think we need people like this to “do things.” It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. If you stack the ranks of power with dark triad types, then of course that’s the only kind of person who can work in that world. You create a world where only toxic people can get things done and then are surprised that only toxic people can get things done.

[martythemaniak]

This is a good observation, because this tactic is a hallmark of Putin and authoritarianism in general. What he does just lie about something where he knows it's a lie and the audience knows it's a lie, and he knows that the audience knows that he's lying, but the audience is powerless to correct him, so it is his way of demonstrating his power over the audience. He is saying to them that he is so powerful and dominating that he is in charge of their reality.

Masha Gessen has written a fair bit about this.