6 ms·

On Blankfaces

43 points by science4sail 5y ago

hlandau 5y ago
The term "vogon" has also gained some popularity to describe this archetype, in addition to the UK term "jobsworth".
- contravariant 5y ago
  Those sound a lot better. I especially like "jobsworth" as it's immediately obvious what its intended meaning is (beyond it being derogatory, which you can gather from context). Using the term blankface would at most get you some blanks stares in return. Unless people mishear you pronounce the "n".
flir 5y ago
Jobsworth.
amadeuspagel 5y ago
> Some people will object that the term “blankface” is dehumanizing. Indeed. > The reason I disagree is that a blankface is someone who freely chose to dehumanize themselves This sounds like an excuse that would work for almost any kind of dehumanization.
- bawolff 5y ago
  Yeah, that's a pretty unconvincing excuse he gave. Although i think in this case its a bit of a tautology - the fundamental feature of beurocracy is its dehuman-ness. Any descriptor of that is going to be dehumanizing because fundamentally that's what its describing.
- Zababa 5y ago
  Aren't they the ones dehumanizing people in the first place by choosing to follow rules instead of listening to fellow human beings?
  - amadeuspagel 5y ago
    This - the idea that it's OK to dehumanize people as long as they themselves dehumanize others (by not listening to them?) - also sounds like an excuse that would work for almost any kind of dehumanization.
    - Zababa 5y ago
      On the other hand, dehumanizing people because they refuse to follow the rules is also an excuse that would work for almost any kind of dehumanization.
      - amadeuspagel 5y ago
        No one said that it's OK to dehumanize people because they refuse to follow the rules.
        Zababa 5y ago
        Yet that's often how the people described as "blankfaces" act.
    - yeetawayhn 5y ago
      This is just a rephrasing of "it's not okay to be intolerant to the intolerant"
- MikeUt 5y ago
  But is that dehumanization inaccurate? Does it give the wrong impression? The answer to both questions seems to be "no", so he does not need an excuse - his defense is truth.
re 5y ago
Website is struggling and returning a lot of 504 errors; cached copy: http://web.archive.org/web/20210802205031/https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=5675 http://web.archive.org/web/20210802205031/https://www.scotta...
coverband 5y ago
I just use “asshole” in all the contexts he mentioned. It just fits perfectly.
- thechao 5y ago
  Malicious compliance.
artfulhippo 5y ago
> Brilliance and creativity do seem to offer some protection against blankfacedness—possibly because the smarter you are, the harder it is to justify idiotic rules to yourself—but even there, the protection is far from complete. Brilliance and creativity correlate with nonconformity, but general intelligence probably doesn’t [0]. At least, in my experience, many people apply their (higher than average) intelligence primarily to ‘hoop-jumping’—complying assiduously with the norms of the system. When people with less general intelligence are sticklers for the rules, it’s usually because they aren’t empowered to make an exception: a fast-food worker won’t give out extra sauce packets because consultants with Ivy League degrees calculated logistics and revenue projections that can’t tolerate the slippage. Given that smarter people can justify anything more easily, it stands to reason that idiotic rules would be more easily justified as one gets smarter. [0] terms defined by one's propensity to obtain useful answers to important questions (brilliance), high scores on hard tests (intelligence), and surprising solutions for typical problems (creativity).
theologic 5y ago
This is similar to Graeber "Bullshit Jobs" model. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs The wiki entry is a quick read, and he categorizes jobs that really don't improve the world, thus they are Bullshit Jobs that drain the economy. The challenge of course is where to draw the line....
908B64B197 5y ago
Reminds me of the "Karen" meme [0] that ridiculed the behavior of "speaking to the person in charge" when dealing with blankfaces blindly applying policies. The meme has become a weapon to make fun of anyone questioning the blankface's authority. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53588201 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53588201
- amadeuspagel 5y ago
  Ironic that you're angry about the "Karen" meme but accept the blankface meme without hesitation.
  - kgarten 5y ago
    I always have a bad feeling in my stomach when the Karen meme comes up. Compared to blankface, it seems misogynistic to me. I agree that blank face is problematic, dehumanizing. Yet, Karen seems worse
    - Blankenface 5y ago
      What's dehumanizing is a white woman confronting you because your PoC child is playing on the sidewalk in front of her condo and demanding you leave because your child is inside napping (by the way, Sidewalk Suzie was the executive director of a humanitarian institute.) What's dehumanizing is showing up for a BBQ in a park, and having a white woman waddle over and demand you show her your permits and then call the police, when she has literally no evidence whatsoever that you lack a permit other than your skin color and her prejudice *and it's not her job or business in the first place to enforce permits*. What's dehumanizing is being an accomplished, educated Harvard professor and getting arrested in your own home because some white woman saw you at the door of your fancy home in Cambridge and thought you were "suspicious" Maybe you should be more concerned about systemic over-policing of people of color, which seems to raaaather often be initiated by a white women minding their own goddamn business. Like, seriously: these incidents never involve PoC bringing in the police, and it's very rarely white dudes. It's damn near always white women.
astramlp 5y ago
> Twenty years ago, all the conformists in my age cohort were obsessed with the Harry Potter books …startlingly puerile and unoriginal mass-marketed wish-fulfillment fantasies. > Today, those same conformists in my age cohort are more likely to condemn the Harry Potter series … Naturally, then, there was nothing for me to do but finally read the series! I think this type of smug contrarianism is more in want of a shorthand label than the age-old trope of bureaucracy-abuse. The type of person that feels the need to spend 1/3 of an opinion piece painstakingly justifying the use of a pop culture reference that, yes, he knows, would be outrageously juvenile and plebeian for a man of his station, and must be accompanied by a warning so the sheer dissonance does not distract from his very important point. Surely a man of his “brilliance and creativity” would realize that “Blankface” will only conjure the image of an emoji in the minds of conformist plebs :|
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  He reinvented the NPC meme.
kgarten 5y ago
On a tangent: The characterization of Harry Potter is way off … I missed the whole craziness and just read it last year. I have to say it‘s amazingly well crafted and holds up as world literature. Important: Voldemort just gets his power from people who go along, who dehumanize … We need to stand together despite all of our differences. Harry is not the chosen one or has any special power. There are no clear good and evil lines (it’s complex: the most impressive, likable and heroic character after the last book is Severus Snape :) that twist really got me. Say what you want about Rowling, but her storytelling is amazing (playing with troupes and expectations). There are some cringe worthy parts, yet any of the great literature works I reread has them. (Lord of the Rings, the great gatsby, how to kill a mockingbird… )
treesprite82 5y ago
> A blankface is anyone who enjoys wielding the power entrusted in them to make others miserable by acting like a cog in a broken machine, rather than like a human being with courage, judgment, and responsibility for their actions. A blankface meets every appeal to facts, logic, and plain compassion with the same repetition of rules and regulations and the same blank stare From my (thankfully limited) experience of working with customers, it's occasionally a case of "I actually mostly agree with the rule and think you're causing a scene over nothing, but saying so directly would only make you more irate". The anecdotes given have a certain smell like they've been filtered through viewpoints distorting things in favor of the author or their family member, and that in reality there's probably a reasonable alternate side. For example I'd guess "the blankface lifeguard made up a new rule on the spot that she needs to retake the test" turns out to be something like the pool administration introducing a new ability check for under-18s, and the idea that the author's daughter "passed" but got failed by the lifeguard is more along the lines of the author thinking she deserved to pass but the lifeguard being the one actually capable of making that decision. Or the "more and more convoluted bank details" anecdote - if the *same form* is being sent back then it sounds like the author initially missed fields on it. Definitely not to say that there aren't people and scenarios just like what the author describes, and not to say it's not a real problem. But deciding that "thousands" of my interactions must have gone the way they did because the other person wanted to make others miserable feels like it's potentially taking the easy way out to avoid self-reflection or sincere attempts to understand. Reminds me a little of 18:46-21:52 in https://youtu.be/TebCHHCw9rY?t=1126 https://youtu.be/TebCHHCw9rY?t=1126
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

On Blankfaces

43 points by science4sail 5y ago

hlandau 5y ago

The term "vogon" has also gained some popularity to describe this archetype, in addition to the UK term "jobsworth".

contravariant 5y ago
Those sound a lot better. I especially like "jobsworth" as it's immediately obvious what its intended meaning is (beyond it being derogatory, which you can gather from context). Using the term blankface would at most get you some blanks stares in return. Unless people mishear you pronounce the "n".

flir 5y ago

Jobsworth.

amadeuspagel 5y ago

> Some people will object that the term “blankface” is dehumanizing. Indeed. > The reason I disagree is that a blankface is someone who freely chose to dehumanize themselves This sounds like an excuse that would work for almost any kind of dehumanization.

bawolff 5y ago
Yeah, that's a pretty unconvincing excuse he gave. Although i think in this case its a bit of a tautology - the fundamental feature of beurocracy is its dehuman-ness. Any descriptor of that is going to be dehumanizing because fundamentally that's what its describing.
Zababa 5y ago
Aren't they the ones dehumanizing people in the first place by choosing to follow rules instead of listening to fellow human beings?
- amadeuspagel 5y ago
  This - the idea that it's OK to dehumanize people as long as they themselves dehumanize others (by not listening to them?) - also sounds like an excuse that would work for almost any kind of dehumanization.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    On the other hand, dehumanizing people because they refuse to follow the rules is also an excuse that would work for almost any kind of dehumanization.
    - amadeuspagel 5y ago
      No one said that it's OK to dehumanize people because they refuse to follow the rules.
      - Zababa 5y ago
        Yet that's often how the people described as "blankfaces" act.
  - yeetawayhn 5y ago
    This is just a rephrasing of "it's not okay to be intolerant to the intolerant"
MikeUt 5y ago
But is that dehumanization inaccurate? Does it give the wrong impression? The answer to both questions seems to be "no", so he does not need an excuse - his defense is truth.

re 5y ago

Website is struggling and returning a lot of 504 errors; cached copy: http://web.archive.org/web/20210802205031/https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=5675 http://web.archive.org/web/20210802205031/https://www.scotta...

coverband 5y ago

I just use “asshole” in all the contexts he mentioned. It just fits perfectly.

thechao 5y ago
Malicious compliance.

artfulhippo 5y ago

> Brilliance and creativity do seem to offer some protection against blankfacedness—possibly because the smarter you are, the harder it is to justify idiotic rules to yourself—but even there, the protection is far from complete. Brilliance and creativity correlate with nonconformity, but general intelligence probably doesn’t [0]. At least, in my experience, many people apply their (higher than average) intelligence primarily to ‘hoop-jumping’—complying assiduously with the norms of the system. When people with less general intelligence are sticklers for the rules, it’s usually because they aren’t empowered to make an exception: a fast-food worker won’t give out extra sauce packets because consultants with Ivy League degrees calculated logistics and revenue projections that can’t tolerate the slippage. Given that smarter people can justify anything more easily, it stands to reason that idiotic rules would be more easily justified as one gets smarter. [0] terms defined by one's propensity to obtain useful answers to important questions (brilliance), high scores on hard tests (intelligence), and surprising solutions for typical problems (creativity).

theologic 5y ago

This is similar to Graeber "Bullshit Jobs" model. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs The wiki entry is a quick read, and he categorizes jobs that really don't improve the world, thus they are Bullshit Jobs that drain the economy. The challenge of course is where to draw the line....

908B64B197 5y ago

Reminds me of the "Karen" meme [0] that ridiculed the behavior of "speaking to the person in charge" when dealing with blankfaces blindly applying policies. The meme has become a weapon to make fun of anyone questioning the blankface's authority. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53588201 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-53588201

amadeuspagel 5y ago
Ironic that you're angry about the "Karen" meme but accept the blankface meme without hesitation.
- kgarten 5y ago
  I always have a bad feeling in my stomach when the Karen meme comes up. Compared to blankface, it seems misogynistic to me. I agree that blank face is problematic, dehumanizing. Yet, Karen seems worse
  - Blankenface 5y ago
    What's dehumanizing is a white woman confronting you because your PoC child is playing on the sidewalk in front of her condo and demanding you leave because your child is inside napping (by the way, Sidewalk Suzie was the executive director of a humanitarian institute.) What's dehumanizing is showing up for a BBQ in a park, and having a white woman waddle over and demand you show her your permits and then call the police, when she has literally no evidence whatsoever that you lack a permit other than your skin color and her prejudice *and it's not her job or business in the first place to enforce permits*. What's dehumanizing is being an accomplished, educated Harvard professor and getting arrested in your own home because some white woman saw you at the door of your fancy home in Cambridge and thought you were "suspicious" Maybe you should be more concerned about systemic over-policing of people of color, which seems to raaaather often be initiated by a white women minding their own goddamn business. Like, seriously: these incidents never involve PoC bringing in the police, and it's very rarely white dudes. It's damn near always white women.

astramlp 5y ago

> Twenty years ago, all the conformists in my age cohort were obsessed with the Harry Potter books …startlingly puerile and unoriginal mass-marketed wish-fulfillment fantasies. > Today, those same conformists in my age cohort are more likely to condemn the Harry Potter series … Naturally, then, there was nothing for me to do but finally read the series! I think this type of smug contrarianism is more in want of a shorthand label than the age-old trope of bureaucracy-abuse. The type of person that feels the need to spend 1/3 of an opinion piece painstakingly justifying the use of a pop culture reference that, yes, he knows, would be outrageously juvenile and plebeian for a man of his station, and must be accompanied by a warning so the sheer dissonance does not distract from his very important point. Surely a man of his “brilliance and creativity” would realize that “Blankface” will only conjure the image of an emoji in the minds of conformist plebs :|

pseudalopex 5y ago
He reinvented the NPC meme.

kgarten 5y ago

On a tangent: The characterization of Harry Potter is way off … I missed the whole craziness and just read it last year. I have to say it‘s amazingly well crafted and holds up as world literature. Important: Voldemort just gets his power from people who go along, who dehumanize … We need to stand together despite all of our differences. Harry is not the chosen one or has any special power. There are no clear good and evil lines (it’s complex: the most impressive, likable and heroic character after the last book is Severus Snape :) that twist really got me. Say what you want about Rowling, but her storytelling is amazing (playing with troupes and expectations). There are some cringe worthy parts, yet any of the great literature works I reread has them. (Lord of the Rings, the great gatsby, how to kill a mockingbird… )

treesprite82 5y ago

> A blankface is anyone who enjoys wielding the power entrusted in them to make others miserable by acting like a cog in a broken machine, rather than like a human being with courage, judgment, and responsibility for their actions. A blankface meets every appeal to facts, logic, and plain compassion with the same repetition of rules and regulations and the same blank stare From my (thankfully limited) experience of working with customers, it's occasionally a case of "I actually mostly agree with the rule and think you're causing a scene over nothing, but saying so directly would only make you more irate". The anecdotes given have a certain smell like they've been filtered through viewpoints distorting things in favor of the author or their family member, and that in reality there's probably a reasonable alternate side. For example I'd guess "the blankface lifeguard made up a new rule on the spot that she needs to retake the test" turns out to be something like the pool administration introducing a new ability check for under-18s, and the idea that the author's daughter "passed" but got failed by the lifeguard is more along the lines of the author thinking she deserved to pass but the lifeguard being the one actually capable of making that decision. Or the "more and more convoluted bank details" anecdote - if the *same form* is being sent back then it sounds like the author initially missed fields on it. Definitely not to say that there aren't people and scenarios just like what the author describes, and not to say it's not a real problem. But deciding that "thousands" of my interactions must have gone the way they did because the other person wanted to make others miserable feels like it's potentially taking the easy way out to avoid self-reflection or sincere attempts to understand. Reminds me a little of 18:46-21:52 in https://youtu.be/TebCHHCw9rY?t=1126 https://youtu.be/TebCHHCw9rY?t=1126

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]