4 ms·

> It’s an indication that Yang is running a rather methodical, data-driven, science-happy campaign. Being a (1) "good grades" person trying to (2) solve "bad g

> It’s an indication that Yang is running a rather methodical, data-driven, science-happy campaign. Being a (1) "good grades" person trying to (2) solve "bad grades" problems (like things the govt. does) and (3) having essentially no personal experience in "bad grades" problems is a recipe for disaster. To keep this on topic to the forum, this cultural disconnect between good grades and bad grades society makes it really hard for giant tech companies to enter new markets. In my personal experience, a clear example of this is Google Stadia, which is all good grades people who don't really play games trying to make a product for bad grades people who play games all the time; or bad grades people who couldn't work at Google but are talented in some other way so they work for a game studio. It's also why so many investors get sucked in by "fraudsters." They have the intuitive notion that being in bad grades society makes you more effective at understanding the average person's problems. But the interface between good and bad grades involves a lot of lying! Andrew Yang is kind of a distilled example of this, talking about stuff that only people who lived in exclusively good grades society would believe is effective on the face of it. It's not quite the same as being super rich versus super poor (the typical dichotomy), because many people are super rich and got bad grades and just don't believe in the supremacy of technocracy as dearly as people who are its biggest beneficiaries. The real problem is that when you're so deep in the thick of good grades, it's so extremely hard to open up your perspective. You think you're entitled to make all the decisions, and you think wielding power safely is to do so while expressing photographed emotions between dispassionate and smiling. Meet the Zuckerberg Robot Meme the Presidential Candidate. At least Mark Zuckerberg had the good sense to look at the Facebook data and his New Jersey ed-tech experiment realize how deeply unelectable (and unqualified) he is.

stcredzero 8y ago
Being a (1) "good grades" person trying to (2) solve "bad grades" problems (like things the govt. does) and (3) having essentially no personal experience in "bad grades" problems is a recipe for disaster. I keep talking to my wife about this in her work. She can't properly manage anyone but the "A and B+ students." She tells people exactly what they should be doing, largely leaves it up to them as to how it fits in with the bigger picture, then expects them to do it. The problem comes in with her reports who are the "B-, C, and D" students. They don't follow her instructions, they're oblivious as to how what they're doing might affect the rest of the company, and she doesn't know how to change their behavior. (She doesn't have full power over hiring. I keep telling her she should work for a startup.) The real problem is that when you're so deep in the thick of good grades, it's so extremely hard to open up your perspective. You think you're entitled to make all the decisions, and you think wielding power safely is to do so while expressing photographed emotions between dispassionate and smiling. I wonder if this is what high level Chinese officialdom is like? I've often heard the quip that in the US, politicians are mostly lawyers, while in China, they're mostly engineers.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- foobar_ 8y ago
  How would you handle B-, C and D people ?
- flukus 8y ago
  If I'm following this analogy properly it sounds like your wife is telling people what to do but not the why. The good grades types got their grades by following instructions and not questioning authority and generally staying out of trouble. The bad grades people aren't necessarily stupider, but they spent a lot more time on non-academic activities (sex, drugs and whatever replaced rock'n'roll), and avoid anything that seems like pointless busy work. They will look for shortcuts and skipping certain steps is part of probing the system to see what's really necessary and what isn't. It could even be the case that your wife is circumventing their learning process by catching missed steps early, before they can discover the why.
lawrenceyan 8y ago
What do you mean exactly by “good grades” people / “bad grades” people? Are you trying to make some kind of insinuation as to people’s intelligence here? Do you literally mean people who got good grades in high school and college versus those that didn’t get good grades? Clarifying your base definitions would be very helpful in understanding the point you’re trying to make.
- doctorpangloss 8y ago
  No, I think my whole point is that I'm talking about people who got good grades as kids versus people who got bad grades as kids. Your grades say as much about your intelligence as you think it does. My point about video game developers is that there are plenty of people who are really smart but got bad grades, so they got different opportunities but turned out really successful. But if you got bad grades, you're pretty much guaranteed to not be working at Google. It's about a difference of opportunities, and how it relates to personal stories (like this candidate's), and how your opportunities / personal stories can affect your ability to lead.
  - lawrenceyan 8y ago
    Okay I see your point. You believe that “good grades” people, or people that have a led a relatively linear / easy path to success due to being naturally talented at navigating the existing systems that permeate today’s society, lack the understanding for how to properly lead the people in society who don’t integrate as well into these existing systems. Is this an accurate understanding of what you’re trying to say?
    - doctorpangloss 8y ago
      > relatively linear / easy path to success due to being naturally talented I don't really believe that. > lack the understanding for how to properly lead the people in society who don’t integrate as well into these existing systems. Not really about that either. Looking at things the way you do is a very "good grades" point of view. When I was talking about "bad grades" people problems as government problems, I meant like being a beneficiary of a social assistance program like SNAP. The only person Andrew Yang regularly interacts with on SNAP is his kids' nanny. He's never lived that life, never received government assistance, practically no one in "good grades" society has during their adult life. The nanny didn't fail to integrate into "existing systems." She doesn't lack "natural talent." An idea of "good grades" society is systemizing comparisons like that, that one person is better than another at something, whereas government leadership is fundamentally about one person-one vote and preserving the commons.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
beat 8y ago
Have you read his book? Or are you going off of news articles?
WillPostForFood 8y ago
One Stadia engineer described the indie game developers (kids with exceptionally bad grades) as the worst people to work with. Do you have a citation for this? I searched and didn't see anything.
- vernie 8y ago
  Did OP remove this line?
  - WillPostForFood 8y ago
    Yeah, he edited it out without noting that he did.
alacritythief 8y ago
The counterpoint to this argument is that Yang tried to solve the problem of automated job losses as an entrepreneur when he ran the nonprofit Venture for America, which ran in states not commonly known to be tech hubs. He's not someone that was distantly removed from the issue as he was highly aware and swimming deep in it. He realized after a while, that because he was only bringing in a few thousand jobs from starting new companies compared to the hundreds of thousands lost each year due to automation, that the only good avenue of making real change was driving national dialogue to accelerate meaningful solutions via running for president.
dragonwriter 8y ago
I think “good grades”/“bad grades” is a bad framework; the issue is really more about people with practical experience in the problem area and those with more abstract understanding.

stcredzero 8y ago

Being a (1) "good grades" person trying to (2) solve "bad grades" problems (like things the govt. does) and (3) having essentially no personal experience in "bad grades" problems is a recipe for disaster. I keep talking to my wife about this in her work. She can't properly manage anyone but the "A and B+ students." She tells people exactly what they should be doing, largely leaves it up to them as to how it fits in with the bigger picture, then expects them to do it. The problem comes in with her reports who are the "B-, C, and D" students. They don't follow her instructions, they're oblivious as to how what they're doing might affect the rest of the company, and she doesn't know how to change their behavior. (She doesn't have full power over hiring. I keep telling her she should work for a startup.) The real problem is that when you're so deep in the thick of good grades, it's so extremely hard to open up your perspective. You think you're entitled to make all the decisions, and you think wielding power safely is to do so while expressing photographed emotions between dispassionate and smiling. I wonder if this is what high level Chinese officialdom is like? I've often heard the quip that in the US, politicians are mostly lawyers, while in China, they're mostly engineers.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
foobar_ 8y ago
How would you handle B-, C and D people ?
flukus 8y ago
If I'm following this analogy properly it sounds like your wife is telling people what to do but not the why. The good grades types got their grades by following instructions and not questioning authority and generally staying out of trouble. The bad grades people aren't necessarily stupider, but they spent a lot more time on non-academic activities (sex, drugs and whatever replaced rock'n'roll), and avoid anything that seems like pointless busy work. They will look for shortcuts and skipping certain steps is part of probing the system to see what's really necessary and what isn't. It could even be the case that your wife is circumventing their learning process by catching missed steps early, before they can discover the why.

lawrenceyan 8y ago

What do you mean exactly by “good grades” people / “bad grades” people? Are you trying to make some kind of insinuation as to people’s intelligence here? Do you literally mean people who got good grades in high school and college versus those that didn’t get good grades? Clarifying your base definitions would be very helpful in understanding the point you’re trying to make.

doctorpangloss 8y ago
No, I think my whole point is that I'm talking about people who got good grades as kids versus people who got bad grades as kids. Your grades say as much about your intelligence as you think it does. My point about video game developers is that there are plenty of people who are really smart but got bad grades, so they got different opportunities but turned out really successful. But if you got bad grades, you're pretty much guaranteed to not be working at Google. It's about a difference of opportunities, and how it relates to personal stories (like this candidate's), and how your opportunities / personal stories can affect your ability to lead.
- lawrenceyan 8y ago
  Okay I see your point. You believe that “good grades” people, or people that have a led a relatively linear / easy path to success due to being naturally talented at navigating the existing systems that permeate today’s society, lack the understanding for how to properly lead the people in society who don’t integrate as well into these existing systems. Is this an accurate understanding of what you’re trying to say?
  - doctorpangloss 8y ago
    > relatively linear / easy path to success due to being naturally talented I don't really believe that. > lack the understanding for how to properly lead the people in society who don’t integrate as well into these existing systems. Not really about that either. Looking at things the way you do is a very "good grades" point of view. When I was talking about "bad grades" people problems as government problems, I meant like being a beneficiary of a social assistance program like SNAP. The only person Andrew Yang regularly interacts with on SNAP is his kids' nanny. He's never lived that life, never received government assistance, practically no one in "good grades" society has during their adult life. The nanny didn't fail to integrate into "existing systems." She doesn't lack "natural talent." An idea of "good grades" society is systemizing comparisons like that, that one person is better than another at something, whereas government leadership is fundamentally about one person-one vote and preserving the commons.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

beat 8y ago

Have you read his book? Or are you going off of news articles?

WillPostForFood 8y ago

One Stadia engineer described the indie game developers (kids with exceptionally bad grades) as the worst people to work with. Do you have a citation for this? I searched and didn't see anything.

vernie 8y ago
Did OP remove this line?
- WillPostForFood 8y ago
  Yeah, he edited it out without noting that he did.

alacritythief 8y ago

The counterpoint to this argument is that Yang tried to solve the problem of automated job losses as an entrepreneur when he ran the nonprofit Venture for America, which ran in states not commonly known to be tech hubs. He's not someone that was distantly removed from the issue as he was highly aware and swimming deep in it. He realized after a while, that because he was only bringing in a few thousand jobs from starting new companies compared to the hundreds of thousands lost each year due to automation, that the only good avenue of making real change was driving national dialogue to accelerate meaningful solutions via running for president.

dragonwriter 8y ago

I think “good grades”/“bad grades” is a bad framework; the issue is really more about people with practical experience in the problem area and those with more abstract understanding.