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I think a more likely reason, that for some reason, a lot of people don't want to talk about, is that these "Global Elite" aren't really that smart, creative, o

I think a more likely reason, that for some reason, a lot of people don't want to talk about, is that these "Global Elite" aren't really that smart, creative, or articulate. That they've gotten to where they are despite, not because of their communication skills. They're not being "typical unconventional / quirky entrepreneurs." They're simply C students who knew the right people.

mmooss 8mo ago
I generally agree in that I don't see them as particularly brilliant, though I think the average is higher and there is a much higher minimum in some capabilities. And corruption of power is the cause, I suspect. It has poisoned human minds in all places and times; none of us are immune (which is why we design governments that limit individual power). An early lesson in being in charge was that, having nobody to whom I reported, who would see my work and compel me to a high standard, I let things slip. Reportees rarely help you: Often they don't know what you do; when they do see it, they assume it's acceptable - you know what you want, and you set the standard of quality and establish the norms. Generally they have obvious disincentives against disapproving of you, and not just as some political tactic but for personal comfort: days are much more pleasant if your boss is friendly. They will give positive or at least non-negative responses to most substandard boss work. I had to learn to think of it in two ways: First, would I accept this work from someone reporting to me? Second, I internalized the medium- and long-term consequences of substandard leadership and management: once your organization has caught that disease, once that's your reputation, it's very hard to change.
RamblingCTO 8mo ago
or efficiency is more important because you have a high load of people you need to interact with. I was a grammer nazi back in the day but stopped caring because the ROI is minimal and I've got shit to do that's more important. so maybe it's the same for them
- hshdhdhj4444 8mo ago
  You’re right. Gotta be really incredibly efficient while planning your time on Epstein Island doing Epstein Class things to Epstein girls. These world changing guys clearly have no spare time on their hands at all.
  - cindyllm 8mo ago
    [dead]
- jordanb 8mo ago
  They're willing to boil the oceans to write better emails and, alternately, not have to read emails others have sent. So I don't think it's a lack of desire. I suspect it's more atrophying of ability to put effort into anything.
  - RamblingCTO 8mo ago
    maybe. maybe they just stopped caring what others think or something
- mihaic 8mo ago
  By your logic, you didn't put in much effort into your message. Besides not capitalizing the first letter of every sentence, everything else looks great though for me, and I'd imagine it was low effort for you. Those messages between billionaire read like the worst texts from low IQ teenagers.
  - mrec 8mo ago
    I dunno, misspelling "grammar" as "grammer" isn't a great look in context.
    - mihaic 8mo ago
      Fine, good enough. Still better than decabillionaire or top dog at the Fed.
  - RamblingCTO 8mo ago
    you should get me on my iphone since the new auto correct fucks up my bad writing even more
- maldev 8mo ago
  I think you're right. Only people trying to look up care about appearances, a millionaire CEO will reply with "sounds good - Sent From Outlook for Iphone", while the intern will write a full thesis level reply on why they need pto.
- ryandrake 8mo ago
  I've never understood the "efficiency / ROI" argument. What is the "Investment"? What's the time delta between using the shift key and not using the shift key? Does it even add up to one second per year? What's the accumulated time loss from spelling "grammar" properly? If the delta is simply "cognitive load" then we're back to the theory I already posted.
  - xnyan 8mo ago
    I'm not certain about shift deltas, but one typically can type faster at the cost of increased errors. I type quite a bit, so even small percentage decreases in total time spent typing is significant. Humins ar rpretty gdood att standing under even very mxed and grbled txt.
    - ryandrake 8mo ago
      The price is often paid by their subordinates, and ultimately the business. I remember working under a pretty inarticulate "senior leader", and he'd send these 3-word barely understandable E-mails to his directs asking them to do something. There would be a frantic scramble of meetings and discussions trying to understand what it is he actually wanted us to do, with a lot of guesswork and arguing. Nobody wanted to tell the guy he was as understandable as a pigeon, so we usually just guessed. Sometimes guessing very wrong and wasting an enormous amount of resources.
- cj 8mo ago
  And then there are people who go out of their way to disable iOS's automatic capitalization feature.
- AntiDyatlov 8mo ago
  If you have time to post on Hacker News, you definitely have time for proper grammar.
jordanb 8mo ago
Yeah and it's really interesting watching people try to come up with alternate explanations. The people who rule us can't be this mid, otherwise the very concept of meritocracy is bunk. Or at the very least, the things we tell ourselves are meritorious are not what actually what causes people to rise to the top of our society. By the way I'm also astonished by their lack of taste. The Epstein properties give off a sinister vibe as one would expect, but watching -- for instance -- Architectural Digest videos you get the impression that either the property has been professionally staged with pottery barn/cb2 esthetic or it was decorated with painting-of-dogs-playing-poker levels of sophistication. Not surprising I guess but you'd think someone with essentially unlimited budget who has complete dominion over their own time wouldn't end up living in an enormous, expensive, alienating ugg boot.
- stackghost 8mo ago
  >The people who rule us can't be this mid, otherwise the very concept of meritocracy is bunk. It is bunk. Nobody who has even a modicum of critical thinking ability thinks that Donald Trump or Elon Musk are geniuses. Luck and circumstance are an immense part of success.
  - vardalab 8mo ago
    Exactly. Look at just the most recent conflict in Middle East. You think they would have freaking gamed out potential scenarios using AI or whatnot? Looks like nobody gamed out anything. It's all just seat of the pants.
    - otterley 8mo ago
      The military has performed countless simulations and “what-if” exercises and thoroughly documented each one. They knew a war with Iran without boots on the ground doesn’t end with a decisive victory. Trump chose to ignore them and press ahead anyway. You can’t really understand Trump’s decisions unless you understand that despite all evidence to the contrary, Trump himself truly believes he is the smartest person in the room, regardless of who else is in it; and he will not suffer anyone who dares to contradict him.
joe_mamba 8mo ago
>That they've gotten to where they are despite, not because of their communication skills Reminds me how I double and triple check the emails I sent out to the higher ups in the company to make sure spelling and language tone was good, while in his emails Epstein was like "wazzup retards, kiddie fiddling party at my place" and getting replies from 3 world leaders and 5 CEOs. Then him and Israel's' former PM were both struggling to spell PALANTIR over the phone. It's a big club and you're not in it.
- jordanb 8mo ago
  Neither of them could pronounce "palantir" let alone spell it. And they were talking about becoming board members.
hax0ron3 8mo ago
That may be the case. Also, a man's intelligence is usually not evenly distributed among all of his different psychological facets. One can be extremely smart in some ways and extremely incompetent in other ways. So some of the global elite might actually be extremely smart when it comes to a few key things and total morons in other ways. If your theory is correct and the global elite really isn't significantly smarter than the average population then the next question is, how are they maintaining their spots against smarter competitors?
- joe_mamba 8mo ago
  >how are they maintaining their spots against smarter competitors? Blackmail, lying, cunning, manipulation, backstabbing, machiavellianism, etc, You need to be intelligent at these, above all else.
  - hax0ron3 8mo ago
    Well, then the theory that they are stupid is false, since at the least they are very smart at blackmail, lying, cunning, manipulation, backstabbing, machiavellianism, etc.
    - joe_mamba 8mo ago
      Yep. They're stupid at what the general public considers intelligence, generally academic excellence. But they're smart at doing whatever it takes to get to the top.
- UncleMeat 8mo ago
  > If your theory is correct and the global elite really isn't significantly smarter than the average population then the next question is, how are they maintaining their spots against smarter competitors? This question is only difficult to answer if we believe that our system operates on merit. A system that operates on power, connections, and backroom favors happily maintains the status of mediocre people.
- xnyan 8mo ago
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
snikeris 8mo ago
Taking the time to craft a well-formed message requires a degree of empathy. The golden rule suggests that we write messages in a way that dignifies the recipient. The Global Elite may lack these traits and sensibilities.
- DangitBobby 8mo ago
  Same reason we all still wear suits I guess.
  - missingdays 8mo ago
    I can't relate to this message at all
  - bigstrat2003 8mo ago
    Yep. By going out of your way to dress up for an important occasion, you signify that you understand its special nature and are trying to help honor that.
    - DangitBobby 8mo ago
      Norms on that have changed over the years. Some people used to wear suits every day no matter what they were doing. It turns out that norms on formal attire and correspondence are subject to change and are no more fundamental than what time we have our clocks set to. People are free to interpret that as disrespect at their own peril. I personally do not appreciate other people's outdated notions of respect being imposed on me. I don't recall signing a waiver when I was born indicating I agreed to be subject to the fashion whims of those who came before. It's probably smart to wear a suit to a formal occasion but IMO it's quite silly to interpret casual emails as disrespectful. As long as the email respects your time with efficient communication, that should be enough, and will save everyone busywork in the long run.
AdamN 8mo ago
There's some of that but I remember 15 years ago this investor in our startup emailed the founder and misspelled the name of the startup that they had just pumped a significant amount of money into :-) The founders said it was very 'senior' of him and laughed about it. But it's also kind of indicative of seniority because senior people aren't wasting time looking up the correct spelling of a company name - they get the email out with the salient details with the right amount of time invested into it. You want to be dialed in but also if you're doing lots of stuff at scale it doesn't really matter what the name of the startup is. Ideally you did the right diligence before the decision to invest was made but then at that point only a few key things matter and are worth keeping in hot memory any more - things like where the founders went to college (in case it helps with a future connection), what the market is (in case it helps with a future connection), what they need help with (in case it can be brought up with a connection), etc...
- NooneAtAll3 8mo ago
  ...is it possible to do typosquatting on investment targets?
dathinab 8mo ago
this isn't wrong but spelling and grammar still isn't a good indicator for expertise, intelligence or anything like that even in an academic context Mainly: 1. Dyslexia doesn't make you dump, just likely to misspell and a less likely to notice your misspelling. 2. When speaking about neurodivergence people mainly think about Autism or ADHD but sometimes just mean that your brain thinks in very different patters, this can make grammar hard. Especially if it's not your native language. 3. Sometimes people had shitty situations earlier in their live, leading to incorrectly learning parts of languages. This is hard to fix. But isn't really representative in any way for their expertise in any topic which isn't the given languages grammar. 4. English grammar and pronunciation to spelling mapping aren't exactly well designed. People not wanting to bother with it is not really related to intelligence, or excellence in other topics. 5. Some kinds of expertise are unrelated to general intelligence, expertise, education. So even if spelling and grammar where related to intelligence, it wouldn't be meaningful to judge expertise.
- philipwhiuk 8mo ago
  Trying to decide whether the mistakes in your response are deliberate or accidental.
  - aduty 8mo ago
    Pretty grate either way.
- ryandrake 8mo ago
  I think the grammar/spelling is just one (perhaps low-signal) sign. But a lot of these people really are not that intelligent. And not just the GlobalElite™. Think of the guy who owns the local car dealership or owns 20 laundromats in the surrounding 3 counties. These guys are not geniuses, either. They just happen to own things that make them rich. I worked with a tech founder at one point in my life, and I once happened to get a glance at his undergrad college transcripts which were, for reasons unknown, just sitting out on his desk. It was all Ds and Cs. He barely graduated! Yet his networth was more than the combined net worth of all of his employees.
rdevilla 8mo ago
It's more just selection for sociopathy and backstabbing. Don't even get me started on technical ability; the engineering standards at even the highest echelons are at times apppalling.
CM30 8mo ago
This. People seem way too keen to assume every questionable decision or random mistake is part of some super complex 4D chess game, while the real answer is probably a whole lot more mundane. They write like this because that's how a lot of people write in general, elite or not. I see all these example emails and such and my first thought is "oh, so how many of my relatives write emails and text messages then". It reminds me of the whole "scammers use bad English to find easy marks" concept. Yeah, maybe some do. But again, it feels like people giving them way too much credit for what could easily have been an accidental situation. Like, you suck at writing English because it's not your first language and you've got no professional reason to do so, and try scamming someone on the other side of the world with those skills. If the recipent is smart or internet savvy, they'll ignore your message. If they're not smart/are overly greedy/aren't internet savvy in general they'll fall for it. So, why would you try and improve your English skills in that situation? As far as you know, they're good enough to get you money from gullible folks elsewhere. You're succeeding at what you want to suceed at, so you don't really think twice about it. You can certainly try and find some psychology related reason behind every random disrepetency and questionable decision, or assume that people are often pretty dumb and do pretty dumb things, and that they won't stop doing those things unless they've given a reason to.

mmooss 8mo ago

I generally agree in that I don't see them as particularly brilliant, though I think the average is higher and there is a much higher minimum in some capabilities. And corruption of power is the cause, I suspect. It has poisoned human minds in all places and times; none of us are immune (which is why we design governments that limit individual power). An early lesson in being in charge was that, having nobody to whom I reported, who would see my work and compel me to a high standard, I let things slip. Reportees rarely help you: Often they don't know what you do; when they do see it, they assume it's acceptable - you know what you want, and you set the standard of quality and establish the norms. Generally they have obvious disincentives against disapproving of you, and not just as some political tactic but for personal comfort: days are much more pleasant if your boss is friendly. They will give positive or at least non-negative responses to most substandard boss work. I had to learn to think of it in two ways: First, would I accept this work from someone reporting to me? Second, I internalized the medium- and long-term consequences of substandard leadership and management: once your organization has caught that disease, once that's your reputation, it's very hard to change.

RamblingCTO 8mo ago

or efficiency is more important because you have a high load of people you need to interact with. I was a grammer nazi back in the day but stopped caring because the ROI is minimal and I've got shit to do that's more important. so maybe it's the same for them

hshdhdhj4444 8mo ago
You’re right. Gotta be really incredibly efficient while planning your time on Epstein Island doing Epstein Class things to Epstein girls. These world changing guys clearly have no spare time on their hands at all.
- cindyllm 8mo ago
  [dead]
jordanb 8mo ago
They're willing to boil the oceans to write better emails and, alternately, not have to read emails others have sent. So I don't think it's a lack of desire. I suspect it's more atrophying of ability to put effort into anything.
- RamblingCTO 8mo ago
  maybe. maybe they just stopped caring what others think or something
mihaic 8mo ago
By your logic, you didn't put in much effort into your message. Besides not capitalizing the first letter of every sentence, everything else looks great though for me, and I'd imagine it was low effort for you. Those messages between billionaire read like the worst texts from low IQ teenagers.
- mrec 8mo ago
  I dunno, misspelling "grammar" as "grammer" isn't a great look in context.
  - mihaic 8mo ago
    Fine, good enough. Still better than decabillionaire or top dog at the Fed.
- RamblingCTO 8mo ago
  you should get me on my iphone since the new auto correct fucks up my bad writing even more
maldev 8mo ago
I think you're right. Only people trying to look up care about appearances, a millionaire CEO will reply with "sounds good - Sent From Outlook for Iphone", while the intern will write a full thesis level reply on why they need pto.
ryandrake 8mo ago
I've never understood the "efficiency / ROI" argument. What is the "Investment"? What's the time delta between using the shift key and not using the shift key? Does it even add up to one second per year? What's the accumulated time loss from spelling "grammar" properly? If the delta is simply "cognitive load" then we're back to the theory I already posted.
- xnyan 8mo ago
  I'm not certain about shift deltas, but one typically can type faster at the cost of increased errors. I type quite a bit, so even small percentage decreases in total time spent typing is significant. Humins ar rpretty gdood att standing under even very mxed and grbled txt.
  - ryandrake 8mo ago
    The price is often paid by their subordinates, and ultimately the business. I remember working under a pretty inarticulate "senior leader", and he'd send these 3-word barely understandable E-mails to his directs asking them to do something. There would be a frantic scramble of meetings and discussions trying to understand what it is he actually wanted us to do, with a lot of guesswork and arguing. Nobody wanted to tell the guy he was as understandable as a pigeon, so we usually just guessed. Sometimes guessing very wrong and wasting an enormous amount of resources.
cj 8mo ago
And then there are people who go out of their way to disable iOS's automatic capitalization feature.
AntiDyatlov 8mo ago
If you have time to post on Hacker News, you definitely have time for proper grammar.

jordanb 8mo ago

Yeah and it's really interesting watching people try to come up with alternate explanations. The people who rule us can't be this mid, otherwise the very concept of meritocracy is bunk. Or at the very least, the things we tell ourselves are meritorious are not what actually what causes people to rise to the top of our society. By the way I'm also astonished by their lack of taste. The Epstein properties give off a sinister vibe as one would expect, but watching -- for instance -- Architectural Digest videos you get the impression that either the property has been professionally staged with pottery barn/cb2 esthetic or it was decorated with painting-of-dogs-playing-poker levels of sophistication. Not surprising I guess but you'd think someone with essentially unlimited budget who has complete dominion over their own time wouldn't end up living in an enormous, expensive, alienating ugg boot.

stackghost 8mo ago
>The people who rule us can't be this mid, otherwise the very concept of meritocracy is bunk. It is bunk. Nobody who has even a modicum of critical thinking ability thinks that Donald Trump or Elon Musk are geniuses. Luck and circumstance are an immense part of success.
- vardalab 8mo ago
  Exactly. Look at just the most recent conflict in Middle East. You think they would have freaking gamed out potential scenarios using AI or whatnot? Looks like nobody gamed out anything. It's all just seat of the pants.
  - otterley 8mo ago
    The military has performed countless simulations and “what-if” exercises and thoroughly documented each one. They knew a war with Iran without boots on the ground doesn’t end with a decisive victory. Trump chose to ignore them and press ahead anyway. You can’t really understand Trump’s decisions unless you understand that despite all evidence to the contrary, Trump himself truly believes he is the smartest person in the room, regardless of who else is in it; and he will not suffer anyone who dares to contradict him.

joe_mamba 8mo ago

>That they've gotten to where they are despite, not because of their communication skills Reminds me how I double and triple check the emails I sent out to the higher ups in the company to make sure spelling and language tone was good, while in his emails Epstein was like "wazzup retards, kiddie fiddling party at my place" and getting replies from 3 world leaders and 5 CEOs. Then him and Israel's' former PM were both struggling to spell PALANTIR over the phone. It's a big club and you're not in it.

jordanb 8mo ago
Neither of them could pronounce "palantir" let alone spell it. And they were talking about becoming board members.

hax0ron3 8mo ago

That may be the case. Also, a man's intelligence is usually not evenly distributed among all of his different psychological facets. One can be extremely smart in some ways and extremely incompetent in other ways. So some of the global elite might actually be extremely smart when it comes to a few key things and total morons in other ways. If your theory is correct and the global elite really isn't significantly smarter than the average population then the next question is, how are they maintaining their spots against smarter competitors?

joe_mamba 8mo ago
>how are they maintaining their spots against smarter competitors? Blackmail, lying, cunning, manipulation, backstabbing, machiavellianism, etc, You need to be intelligent at these, above all else.
- hax0ron3 8mo ago
  Well, then the theory that they are stupid is false, since at the least they are very smart at blackmail, lying, cunning, manipulation, backstabbing, machiavellianism, etc.
  - joe_mamba 8mo ago
    Yep. They're stupid at what the general public considers intelligence, generally academic excellence. But they're smart at doing whatever it takes to get to the top.
UncleMeat 8mo ago
> If your theory is correct and the global elite really isn't significantly smarter than the average population then the next question is, how are they maintaining their spots against smarter competitors? This question is only difficult to answer if we believe that our system operates on merit. A system that operates on power, connections, and backroom favors happily maintains the status of mediocre people.
xnyan 8mo ago

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

snikeris 8mo ago

Taking the time to craft a well-formed message requires a degree of empathy. The golden rule suggests that we write messages in a way that dignifies the recipient. The Global Elite may lack these traits and sensibilities.

DangitBobby 8mo ago
Same reason we all still wear suits I guess.
- missingdays 8mo ago
  I can't relate to this message at all
- bigstrat2003 8mo ago
  Yep. By going out of your way to dress up for an important occasion, you signify that you understand its special nature and are trying to help honor that.
  - DangitBobby 8mo ago
    Norms on that have changed over the years. Some people used to wear suits every day no matter what they were doing. It turns out that norms on formal attire and correspondence are subject to change and are no more fundamental than what time we have our clocks set to. People are free to interpret that as disrespect at their own peril. I personally do not appreciate other people's outdated notions of respect being imposed on me. I don't recall signing a waiver when I was born indicating I agreed to be subject to the fashion whims of those who came before. It's probably smart to wear a suit to a formal occasion but IMO it's quite silly to interpret casual emails as disrespectful. As long as the email respects your time with efficient communication, that should be enough, and will save everyone busywork in the long run.

AdamN 8mo ago

There's some of that but I remember 15 years ago this investor in our startup emailed the founder and misspelled the name of the startup that they had just pumped a significant amount of money into :-) The founders said it was very 'senior' of him and laughed about it. But it's also kind of indicative of seniority because senior people aren't wasting time looking up the correct spelling of a company name - they get the email out with the salient details with the right amount of time invested into it. You want to be dialed in but also if you're doing lots of stuff at scale it doesn't really matter what the name of the startup is. Ideally you did the right diligence before the decision to invest was made but then at that point only a few key things matter and are worth keeping in hot memory any more - things like where the founders went to college (in case it helps with a future connection), what the market is (in case it helps with a future connection), what they need help with (in case it can be brought up with a connection), etc...

NooneAtAll3 8mo ago
...is it possible to do typosquatting on investment targets?

dathinab 8mo ago

this isn't wrong but spelling and grammar still isn't a good indicator for expertise, intelligence or anything like that even in an academic context Mainly: 1. Dyslexia doesn't make you dump, just likely to misspell and a less likely to notice your misspelling. 2. When speaking about neurodivergence people mainly think about Autism or ADHD but sometimes just mean that your brain thinks in very different patters, this can make grammar hard. Especially if it's not your native language. 3. Sometimes people had shitty situations earlier in their live, leading to incorrectly learning parts of languages. This is hard to fix. But isn't really representative in any way for their expertise in any topic which isn't the given languages grammar. 4. English grammar and pronunciation to spelling mapping aren't exactly well designed. People not wanting to bother with it is not really related to intelligence, or excellence in other topics. 5. Some kinds of expertise are unrelated to general intelligence, expertise, education. So even if spelling and grammar where related to intelligence, it wouldn't be meaningful to judge expertise.

philipwhiuk 8mo ago
Trying to decide whether the mistakes in your response are deliberate or accidental.
- aduty 8mo ago
  Pretty grate either way.
ryandrake 8mo ago
I think the grammar/spelling is just one (perhaps low-signal) sign. But a lot of these people really are not that intelligent. And not just the GlobalElite™. Think of the guy who owns the local car dealership or owns 20 laundromats in the surrounding 3 counties. These guys are not geniuses, either. They just happen to own things that make them rich. I worked with a tech founder at one point in my life, and I once happened to get a glance at his undergrad college transcripts which were, for reasons unknown, just sitting out on his desk. It was all Ds and Cs. He barely graduated! Yet his networth was more than the combined net worth of all of his employees.

rdevilla 8mo ago

It's more just selection for sociopathy and backstabbing. Don't even get me started on technical ability; the engineering standards at even the highest echelons are at times apppalling.

CM30 8mo ago

This. People seem way too keen to assume every questionable decision or random mistake is part of some super complex 4D chess game, while the real answer is probably a whole lot more mundane. They write like this because that's how a lot of people write in general, elite or not. I see all these example emails and such and my first thought is "oh, so how many of my relatives write emails and text messages then". It reminds me of the whole "scammers use bad English to find easy marks" concept. Yeah, maybe some do. But again, it feels like people giving them way too much credit for what could easily have been an accidental situation. Like, you suck at writing English because it's not your first language and you've got no professional reason to do so, and try scamming someone on the other side of the world with those skills. If the recipent is smart or internet savvy, they'll ignore your message. If they're not smart/are overly greedy/aren't internet savvy in general they'll fall for it. So, why would you try and improve your English skills in that situation? As far as you know, they're good enough to get you money from gullible folks elsewhere. You're succeeding at what you want to suceed at, so you don't really think twice about it. You can certainly try and find some psychology related reason behind every random disrepetency and questionable decision, or assume that people are often pretty dumb and do pretty dumb things, and that they won't stop doing those things unless they've given a reason to.