5 ms·

In some ways, these businesses are akin to the CCCP: they want to own our hearts and minds. They want our whole selves. They want every drop of what they can g

In some ways, these businesses are akin to the CCCP: they want to own our hearts and minds. They want our whole selves. They want every drop of what they can get out of us. This is so often what they mean when they say that they want people who are "passionate" about the work. They want us obsessed and fixated. So they want to more than own us. This isn't all businesses but increasingly this is becoming normalized.

infamouscow 3y ago
This only happens because people allow it. If these same businesses all decided they were going to take your first born as collateral, I suspect a lot of CEOs and chairmen would be swinging from lamp posts (as they should) within a week. Personally, I would do far worse to such scumbags -- things that are not only (somehow) illegal to describe, but would likely get plenty of downvotes by the most milquetoast and pathetic. Things that up until the last 100 years, would have been regarded as normal for the entirety of recorded human history.
- sleight42 3y ago
  Sure. Now. It's an Overton Window. Business executives and their big investors are the feudal overlords who are decreasingly benevolent liege lords. What is abhorrent now slowly becomes normalized. Look at CEOs who said, shortly after some of the more brutal start opining about how everyone needs to RTO or GTFO At least one of those CEOs said they needed a bit more Elon in them. They meant his ruthlessness with his employees. And the window moves.
  - thesuavefactor 3y ago
    > Sure. Now. > > It's an Overton Window. Business executives and their big investors are the feudal overlords who are decreasingly benevolent liege lords. > > What is abhorrent now slowly becomes normalized. Look at CEOs who said, shortly after some of the more brutal start opining about how everyone needs to RTO or GTFO At least one of those CEOs said they needed a bit more Elon in them. They meant his ruthlessness with his employees. > > And the window moves. Exactly. I was browsing LinkedIn this week when I stumbled in this gem: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/samfjacobs_last-month-i-was-at-an-event-with-130-ceos-activity-7161743298146091009-WU9J https://www.linkedin.com/posts/samfjacobs_last-month-i-was-a... So what he's saying is that he got together with 130+ other CEOs, who combined will probably make millions if not billions, bitching that the people who do the actual grunt work (and make a couple of thousand a month) aren't putting in extra hours or looking at their work mail on weekends. This is so far from reality it's staggering. I work with, and among young developers every day. I'm in my forties and I've done so for most of ny career. Beyond a healthy work life balance they are just sick of working without a fair share of the benefits. These people aren't less prone to work hard, they just don't want to work hard to make extremely wealthy people more wealthy. Some are working less for their employer, and in the meantime are working for themselves to create new disruptive startups. The article says CEOs are "worried", but it also states that these workers should fear for their jobs because they are going to be made obsolete by AI. The reality is that small companies can get much more work done in less time than big ones, I have worked for both. The bigger a company gets, the slower it becomes.
- hakfoo 3y ago
  I blame a lot of it on the mass adoption of stock-based investment and retirement plans. With defined-benefit pensions and even traditional bond-based investments, the narrative is "The company has an obligation to me for very specific deliverables, even if that means reduced investor return." There's an appropriately adversarial relationship there, which keeps everyone behaving better. With stock investments, people conclude "my personal success- even survival- is inextricably linked with how good the company looks to Wall Street." This incentivizes sycophantism.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    I think that's a very tech-centric (and specifically FAANG-centric) mindset, most people are not getting RSOs or options and aren't under any impression their fate is entwined with the stock price. on the other hand you are right that the idea of corporations as independent, self-directed profit-seeking entities with no other social responsibilities or responsibilities to their employees etc has finally subsumed us totally. Corporations are living entities, they are are social organisms. Just like a single bee is not (itself) a living organism (cannot reproduce or shelter itself, etc), but rather the bee colony is the life-form there. Corporations are living systems of rules and incentives - memeplexes. Paperclip maximizers already exist, and the outcome we have given them is "stock price goes up". Until something is changed about allowing the existence of unrestrained paperclip maximizers, they will continue to maximize and do their best to eat society and turn it into paperclips.

infamouscow 3y ago

This only happens because people allow it. If these same businesses all decided they were going to take your first born as collateral, I suspect a lot of CEOs and chairmen would be swinging from lamp posts (as they should) within a week. Personally, I would do far worse to such scumbags -- things that are not only (somehow) illegal to describe, but would likely get plenty of downvotes by the most milquetoast and pathetic. Things that up until the last 100 years, would have been regarded as normal for the entirety of recorded human history.

sleight42 3y ago
Sure. Now. It's an Overton Window. Business executives and their big investors are the feudal overlords who are decreasingly benevolent liege lords. What is abhorrent now slowly becomes normalized. Look at CEOs who said, shortly after some of the more brutal start opining about how everyone needs to RTO or GTFO At least one of those CEOs said they needed a bit more Elon in them. They meant his ruthlessness with his employees. And the window moves.
- thesuavefactor 3y ago
  > Sure. Now. > > It's an Overton Window. Business executives and their big investors are the feudal overlords who are decreasingly benevolent liege lords. > > What is abhorrent now slowly becomes normalized. Look at CEOs who said, shortly after some of the more brutal start opining about how everyone needs to RTO or GTFO At least one of those CEOs said they needed a bit more Elon in them. They meant his ruthlessness with his employees. > > And the window moves. Exactly. I was browsing LinkedIn this week when I stumbled in this gem: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/samfjacobs_last-month-i-was-at-an-event-with-130-ceos-activity-7161743298146091009-WU9J https://www.linkedin.com/posts/samfjacobs_last-month-i-was-a... So what he's saying is that he got together with 130+ other CEOs, who combined will probably make millions if not billions, bitching that the people who do the actual grunt work (and make a couple of thousand a month) aren't putting in extra hours or looking at their work mail on weekends. This is so far from reality it's staggering. I work with, and among young developers every day. I'm in my forties and I've done so for most of ny career. Beyond a healthy work life balance they are just sick of working without a fair share of the benefits. These people aren't less prone to work hard, they just don't want to work hard to make extremely wealthy people more wealthy. Some are working less for their employer, and in the meantime are working for themselves to create new disruptive startups. The article says CEOs are "worried", but it also states that these workers should fear for their jobs because they are going to be made obsolete by AI. The reality is that small companies can get much more work done in less time than big ones, I have worked for both. The bigger a company gets, the slower it becomes.
hakfoo 3y ago
I blame a lot of it on the mass adoption of stock-based investment and retirement plans. With defined-benefit pensions and even traditional bond-based investments, the narrative is "The company has an obligation to me for very specific deliverables, even if that means reduced investor return." There's an appropriately adversarial relationship there, which keeps everyone behaving better. With stock investments, people conclude "my personal success- even survival- is inextricably linked with how good the company looks to Wall Street." This incentivizes sycophantism.
- paulmd 3y ago
  I think that's a very tech-centric (and specifically FAANG-centric) mindset, most people are not getting RSOs or options and aren't under any impression their fate is entwined with the stock price. on the other hand you are right that the idea of corporations as independent, self-directed profit-seeking entities with no other social responsibilities or responsibilities to their employees etc has finally subsumed us totally. Corporations are living entities, they are are social organisms. Just like a single bee is not (itself) a living organism (cannot reproduce or shelter itself, etc), but rather the bee colony is the life-form there. Corporations are living systems of rules and incentives - memeplexes. Paperclip maximizers already exist, and the outcome we have given them is "stock price goes up". Until something is changed about allowing the existence of unrestrained paperclip maximizers, they will continue to maximize and do their best to eat society and turn it into paperclips.