6 ms·

I kind of feel like people know how to human, and how the humans around them human, but someone they've never met but only heard about or seen on TV or in meme

by sfink 6mo ago

I kind of feel like people know how to human, and how the humans around them human, but someone they've never met but only heard about or seen on TV or in meme posts? No clue at all. Sure, we know the hotshot CEO of COMPANY_NAME_HERE has to put on his pants one leg at a time, but the similarity ends there. They're different, they won't fall for the stupid tricks we fall for. They don't have trouble getting out of bed or ever worry about what their kids are up to. They have CEO spouses that don't ask them to take out the trash or think about which yogurt to buy. On the flip side, if they do something bad, that's because they're evil. A deep dark evil totally unlike the banal lameness of the people around us. They don't do stupid shit when someone jerks their chain and they get all worked up. Why would they, they're surrounded by money and other powerful people and have servants feeding them brilliant insights all day long. Everything they do is planned and calculated and they think through the damage they're doing to people in excruciating detail. There's only one species of humans on Earth, and we're all dumb as shit.

mitthrowaway2 6mo ago
If they're not special, why do we have to pay them so much just to get out of bed?
- sfink 6mo ago
  That's a good question, and although I think I have a good answer, I fear it would be too much of a tangent to speculate on here.
  - jamauro 6mo ago
    If we're not speculating, what are we even doing here?
- dzikimarian 6mo ago
  I was part of CEO recruitment process (sadly not FAANG-like, so maybe it wasn't "so much"-level yet). Amount of people who are both seriously willing to take the job(considering pressure) and have necessary skills is not very high. Tbh same is truth for any management job - a lot of competent people prefer calmer life. Obviously for the very top compensation is bonkers and there's fair share of frauds that ended in the position for various reasons, but if you want someone reasonable pool shrinks quite fast.
  - BLKNSLVR 6mo ago
    > a lot of competent people prefer calmer life I may not be _that_ competent, but the calmer life is worth sacrificing a fair few dollars for. For each job I've changed, I've gone to a lower paying position, such that I'm currently still on $10k (around 8%) less than I was earning... 5 years ago, two jobs ago, which was probably about the same as the job I left 6 years before that. All previous jobs were worth leaving. Parenting, maintaining a long-term relationship, playing (two, kinda) sport(s), home-labbing, keeping up with the state of the world, all take time and I enjoy all of them. It allows me to enjoy the work I do too, to not resent it for all the other things I could have been doing. I'm in a position of privilege to say any of this, but I've also been careful and relatively well planned with my finances in order to reach this point. I'd be kinda f'd if I was out of work for longer than 6 months, but I'm sure I could re-plan and re-organise priorities and spending to minimise the damage (but we'd definitely be f'd if we both were out of work...).
    - mitthrowaway2 6mo ago
      Have you considered being paid $20 million for one year, and then staying home with family for the next ten years? Even after taxes, you'd still have much more of both time and money than a career in, say, air traffic control.
      - cindyllm 6mo ago
        [dead]
      - BLKNSLVR 6mo ago
        Maybe, if that was even offered as an option. I doubt I'm that competent, however, and just the fact I have that doubt probably excludes me from the possibility.
        mitthrowaway2 6mo ago
        Oh don't worry, even if you fail at the job, you can still receive a golden parachute worth more than your employees will earn in their whole careers. https://www.manufacturing.net/aerospace/news/21109798/boeing-ceos-golden-parachute-was-62-million https://www.manufacturing.net/aerospace/news/21109798/boeing...
- Ekaros 6mo ago
  If everyone actually came together and decided that they are not worth paying what they are paid now the compensation would likely normalize to a few multiples of other roles. But lot of compensation is just magic money out of air that is stock valuations so the stock holder just gives slice of what they think they made. So as long as they financialised system exist so will extreme compensations.
  - TeMPOraL 6mo ago
    Since most of it is magic money, I'm not sure how much sense is there in evaluating them on it. I.e. if I were suddenly worth $1B, but 90% of that was in a mix of assets I can't do anything with, and some bullshit Wall Street fake money that, at this scale, disappears the moment you look at it, then the actual money I could use would be much, much less.
tw04 6mo ago
> Sure, we know the hotshot CEO of COMPANY_NAME_HERE has to put on his pants one leg at a time, but the similarity ends there. That’s probably because we know consciously or subconsciously that in order to get and maintain a position of power at a multibillion dollar firm the person either never had a moral compass or quickly had to find ways to justify ignoring or compromising it. Any one of us who has worked for one of those companies is pretty confident the person running it views other humans not in the way you describe, but as numbers in a spreadsheet who can either justify their continued employment by other numbers in a spreadsheet or not. Most of us can’t imagine viewing and treating our fellow humans that way.
- eastof 6mo ago
  You are still falling for the evil genius trap. The truth is all of us treat our fellow humans this way, see Singer's drowning child. We're simply not wired to care as much about even large groups of people when they are not people we regularly interact with.
  - wasmainiac 6mo ago
    > The truth is all of us treat our fellow humans this way. Nah, I think it is more common of a cultural thing in individualistic societies. I know plenty of people who are worried about the future outlook of others they have never met. For example what phones and social media is doing to our children, or the state of the economy for young people.
    - da_chicken 6mo ago
      I really don't think the collectivist societies are that far ahead. People just invent out groups. India's castes, China's Uyghur's, Japan's castes and treatment of Korea and China, etc. Religious out groups, ethnic out groups, cultural out groups, linguistic out groups, etc. The list is just as long.
      - wasmainiac 6mo ago
dv_dt 6mo ago
They are just humans, but if they wield more power, more responsibility should be expected of them. Not just for the business they represent, but also for the society they have an outsized influence upon.
gobdovan 6mo ago
> They have CEO spouses that don't ask them to take out the trash or think about which yogurt to buy. From 'Curb your enthusiasm', I've learnt that that's actually the only thing they ever do.
intended 6mo ago
Yaay! I get a chance to bring up IOED - the illusion of explanatory depth [1] We kinda know how something works, but if we had to draw it out, we’re stumped. The classic example is drawing a bicycle or explaining how a flush works. (You might be able to draw it, or explain it, but that doesn’t obviate the point) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_explanatory_depth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_explanatory_depth
hackable_sand 6mo ago
... no... you are just incredibly condescending.
scarecrowbob 6mo ago
It's almost like our material relations to others defines our primary concerns and thus our class interests and thus how we exist among other folks. But that's just, like, such a 19th century communistic view on things. We may all be in the same storm but we're not all in the same boats.

by sfink 6mo ago

mitthrowaway2 6mo ago

If they're not special, why do we have to pay them so much just to get out of bed?

sfink 6mo ago
That's a good question, and although I think I have a good answer, I fear it would be too much of a tangent to speculate on here.
- jamauro 6mo ago
  If we're not speculating, what are we even doing here?
dzikimarian 6mo ago
I was part of CEO recruitment process (sadly not FAANG-like, so maybe it wasn't "so much"-level yet). Amount of people who are both seriously willing to take the job(considering pressure) and have necessary skills is not very high. Tbh same is truth for any management job - a lot of competent people prefer calmer life. Obviously for the very top compensation is bonkers and there's fair share of frauds that ended in the position for various reasons, but if you want someone reasonable pool shrinks quite fast.
- BLKNSLVR 6mo ago
  > a lot of competent people prefer calmer life I may not be _that_ competent, but the calmer life is worth sacrificing a fair few dollars for. For each job I've changed, I've gone to a lower paying position, such that I'm currently still on $10k (around 8%) less than I was earning... 5 years ago, two jobs ago, which was probably about the same as the job I left 6 years before that. All previous jobs were worth leaving. Parenting, maintaining a long-term relationship, playing (two, kinda) sport(s), home-labbing, keeping up with the state of the world, all take time and I enjoy all of them. It allows me to enjoy the work I do too, to not resent it for all the other things I could have been doing. I'm in a position of privilege to say any of this, but I've also been careful and relatively well planned with my finances in order to reach this point. I'd be kinda f'd if I was out of work for longer than 6 months, but I'm sure I could re-plan and re-organise priorities and spending to minimise the damage (but we'd definitely be f'd if we both were out of work...).
  - mitthrowaway2 6mo ago
    Have you considered being paid $20 million for one year, and then staying home with family for the next ten years? Even after taxes, you'd still have much more of both time and money than a career in, say, air traffic control.
    - cindyllm 6mo ago
      [dead]
    - BLKNSLVR 6mo ago
      Maybe, if that was even offered as an option. I doubt I'm that competent, however, and just the fact I have that doubt probably excludes me from the possibility.
      - mitthrowaway2 6mo ago
        Oh don't worry, even if you fail at the job, you can still receive a golden parachute worth more than your employees will earn in their whole careers. https://www.manufacturing.net/aerospace/news/21109798/boeing-ceos-golden-parachute-was-62-million https://www.manufacturing.net/aerospace/news/21109798/boeing...
Ekaros 6mo ago
If everyone actually came together and decided that they are not worth paying what they are paid now the compensation would likely normalize to a few multiples of other roles. But lot of compensation is just magic money out of air that is stock valuations so the stock holder just gives slice of what they think they made. So as long as they financialised system exist so will extreme compensations.
- TeMPOraL 6mo ago
  Since most of it is magic money, I'm not sure how much sense is there in evaluating them on it. I.e. if I were suddenly worth $1B, but 90% of that was in a mix of assets I can't do anything with, and some bullshit Wall Street fake money that, at this scale, disappears the moment you look at it, then the actual money I could use would be much, much less.

tw04 6mo ago

> Sure, we know the hotshot CEO of COMPANY_NAME_HERE has to put on his pants one leg at a time, but the similarity ends there. That’s probably because we know consciously or subconsciously that in order to get and maintain a position of power at a multibillion dollar firm the person either never had a moral compass or quickly had to find ways to justify ignoring or compromising it. Any one of us who has worked for one of those companies is pretty confident the person running it views other humans not in the way you describe, but as numbers in a spreadsheet who can either justify their continued employment by other numbers in a spreadsheet or not. Most of us can’t imagine viewing and treating our fellow humans that way.

eastof 6mo ago
You are still falling for the evil genius trap. The truth is all of us treat our fellow humans this way, see Singer's drowning child. We're simply not wired to care as much about even large groups of people when they are not people we regularly interact with.
- wasmainiac 6mo ago
  > The truth is all of us treat our fellow humans this way. Nah, I think it is more common of a cultural thing in individualistic societies. I know plenty of people who are worried about the future outlook of others they have never met. For example what phones and social media is doing to our children, or the state of the economy for young people.
  - da_chicken 6mo ago
    I really don't think the collectivist societies are that far ahead. People just invent out groups. India's castes, China's Uyghur's, Japan's castes and treatment of Korea and China, etc. Religious out groups, ethnic out groups, cultural out groups, linguistic out groups, etc. The list is just as long.
    - wasmainiac 6mo ago

dv_dt 6mo ago

They are just humans, but if they wield more power, more responsibility should be expected of them. Not just for the business they represent, but also for the society they have an outsized influence upon.

gobdovan 6mo ago

> They have CEO spouses that don't ask them to take out the trash or think about which yogurt to buy. From 'Curb your enthusiasm', I've learnt that that's actually the only thing they ever do.

intended 6mo ago

Yaay! I get a chance to bring up IOED - the illusion of explanatory depth [1] We kinda know how something works, but if we had to draw it out, we’re stumped. The classic example is drawing a bicycle or explaining how a flush works. (You might be able to draw it, or explain it, but that doesn’t obviate the point) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_explanatory_depth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion_of_explanatory_depth

hackable_sand 6mo ago

... no... you are just incredibly condescending.

scarecrowbob 6mo ago

It's almost like our material relations to others defines our primary concerns and thus our class interests and thus how we exist among other folks. But that's just, like, such a 19th century communistic view on things. We may all be in the same storm but we're not all in the same boats.