5 ms·

> 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

by 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
      This sounds like a big whataboutism, or at least oversimplification. The opposite of individualistic society could be western socialism. > Religious out groups, ethnic out groups, cultural out groups. Yeah, unfortunately seen this on all corners of the political spectrum, hidden or not.
  - TeMPOraL 6mo ago
    I don't think it has much to do with individualism/collectivism. A lot of people are worried about a lot of things beyond themselves; most eventually realize it's bad for mental health and grow out of it, some pick a cause or three and act to make things better, and then there's also the lot that signal worry because it makes them look good. Of course this is a process, so especially with younger populations, you are going to meet a lot of people worrying about random issues big and small, because it takes time to process it and learn the coping strategies.
    - wasmainiac 6mo ago
      Sure people worry regardless. If it’s not A it’s B. Im talking about societies for example that ignore homeless and poverty, vs societies that have social welfare systems at the expense of high tax rates.
- justonceokay 6mo ago
  Where did the above commenter say “genius?” Evil is boring because it is so usual. With the small power I’m given I choose not to recycle, I jaywalk, I say the “R” word in private conversation. If I were a line manager I would play favorites and skip mentorship opportunities if I were tired or busy. As a middle manager I might forget the names of some of my indirect reports and unwittingly pit teams against each other. As my power increases, the fallout of my human actions has larger and more “evil” sounding consequences. Remember that 99.9% of people do not consider themselves to be the bad guy, yet more than 0.01% of people are bad guys. Almost no one identifies with evil, yet evil is a string that runs through every beating heart.
  - globalnode 6mo ago
    whats the R word
    - wallst07 6mo ago
      "Retarded" "Mental Retardation" used to be a common term signed into law and documents but was removed in ~2010. Since then, it has become more of a slur than a description.
  - colinb 6mo ago
    >Remember that 99.9% of people do not consider themselves to be the bad guy, yet more than 0.01% of people are bad guys. Almost no one identifies with evil, yet evil is a string that runs through every beating heart. "estimate the prevalence rate of psychopathy in the general adult population at 4.5%." [0] You do most of humanity a disservice by lumping them in with that cohort that may or may not identify themselves as evil (I have no idea) but are certainly capable of deliberately and with calculation behaving in ways that most of us would label with the "E" word. Sometimes being judgmental is ok. [0]https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8374040/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8374040/
  - da_chicken 6mo ago
    > Where did the above commenter say “genius?” It's the transparent subtext. Like, blindingly transparent. GGP's comment is talking about how CEOs are special or different than we are. That is, that they're not just evil, but that they're evil geniuses. It's just Great Man Theory with a Snidely Whiplash costume.
- Swenrekcah 6mo ago
  Two people see an opportunity to make money. One of them recognizes the venture would harm the people involved and decides not to. The other either does not see the harm (so not a genius) or simply doesn't care (sociopath?). That person does the thing and makes the money. That person is either some level of naive, some level of evil, but certainly not an evil genius.
- salawat 6mo ago
  Uh, no. That you believe that is more indicative of your proclivities than anyone else's, and also indicates the people around you are such that haven't challenged you to disabuse you of the notion. It isn't normal. It isn't okay to treat people as just numbers or means to an end, and Dunbar's number is not a license to be a psychopath to people beyond the handful we actively maintain relationships with. You should treat people empathetically. You should treat the failure to do so by people as something noteworthy and concerning. The fact we as a society seek to optimize for elevating psychopaths for personal gain is part of the problem we've created for ourselves, and to be quite frank, was probably hijacked as early as the founding of the United States into a really problematic, if value creating cornerstone of society that could probably use a good deal of sunlight being shone on it for disinfection and rot clearing purposes.
- PsylentKnight 6mo ago
  I think you'd need to present some stats that compare how much the ultra-wealthy and normal people donate to altruistic causes (adjusted for income) to make that argument
sfink 6mo ago
> 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. Maybe. But I suspect that we tend to view those people that way because they play the I Am A Special Human game in public, especially around those they want to impress / are afraid of, and they really aren't very different from the rest of us at any time. We do the same shit when we're around people we want to impress / are afraid of. I do agree that the situations such people are in will influence them. They'll have to get used to making decisions that make a big impact on a lot of people's lives, and they'll start thinking that such things are more normal than you and I ever will. I just don't think it changes them all that much. > 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. Okay. But I would do the same, and I'm farther from being a CEO than anyone I know. I can afford to care. If I were thrust into such a position, I would have to squash that caring in order to not cause a great deal of harm to those people I care about. Don't let a doctor operate on his/her own children. But get me and the CEO sitting in comfy chairs and shooting the shit after work, and I don't think there'll be much of a difference between us. My jokes will be a little funnier, and he'll be more confident and less awkward. But that's just me, not blue CEO blood. Tell you what. Give me a billion or two dollars and I'll go to a billionaire's hangout. I bet they'll make the same stupid wisecracks, talk about basically the same crap the rest of us do, and get indigestion from eating the too-rich food. I don't exactly disagree with you. Power changes people. It is tempting and easier to become amoral and accustomed to some pretty messed up stuff. It just doesn't change everything about them. In particular, they have the same dysfunctional thought patterns, they make the same sort of cognitive errors, they struggle with the same shit. > Most of us can’t imagine viewing and treating our fellow humans that way. I can. Perhaps it's not that I have a higher opinion of the CEO/billionaire class, it's that I have a lower opinion of all of us. Nazis were not uniquely evil. I think that's become even more obviously true of late. (Did I just invoke Godwin's Law? So be it.)
- ptsneves 6mo ago
  [flagged]

by tw04 6mo ago

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
    This sounds like a big whataboutism, or at least oversimplification. The opposite of individualistic society could be western socialism. > Religious out groups, ethnic out groups, cultural out groups. Yeah, unfortunately seen this on all corners of the political spectrum, hidden or not.
- TeMPOraL 6mo ago
  I don't think it has much to do with individualism/collectivism. A lot of people are worried about a lot of things beyond themselves; most eventually realize it's bad for mental health and grow out of it, some pick a cause or three and act to make things better, and then there's also the lot that signal worry because it makes them look good. Of course this is a process, so especially with younger populations, you are going to meet a lot of people worrying about random issues big and small, because it takes time to process it and learn the coping strategies.
  - wasmainiac 6mo ago
    Sure people worry regardless. If it’s not A it’s B. Im talking about societies for example that ignore homeless and poverty, vs societies that have social welfare systems at the expense of high tax rates.
justonceokay 6mo ago
Where did the above commenter say “genius?” Evil is boring because it is so usual. With the small power I’m given I choose not to recycle, I jaywalk, I say the “R” word in private conversation. If I were a line manager I would play favorites and skip mentorship opportunities if I were tired or busy. As a middle manager I might forget the names of some of my indirect reports and unwittingly pit teams against each other. As my power increases, the fallout of my human actions has larger and more “evil” sounding consequences. Remember that 99.9% of people do not consider themselves to be the bad guy, yet more than 0.01% of people are bad guys. Almost no one identifies with evil, yet evil is a string that runs through every beating heart.
- globalnode 6mo ago
  whats the R word
  - wallst07 6mo ago
    "Retarded" "Mental Retardation" used to be a common term signed into law and documents but was removed in ~2010. Since then, it has become more of a slur than a description.
- colinb 6mo ago
  >Remember that 99.9% of people do not consider themselves to be the bad guy, yet more than 0.01% of people are bad guys. Almost no one identifies with evil, yet evil is a string that runs through every beating heart. "estimate the prevalence rate of psychopathy in the general adult population at 4.5%." [0] You do most of humanity a disservice by lumping them in with that cohort that may or may not identify themselves as evil (I have no idea) but are certainly capable of deliberately and with calculation behaving in ways that most of us would label with the "E" word. Sometimes being judgmental is ok. [0]https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8374040/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8374040/
- da_chicken 6mo ago
  > Where did the above commenter say “genius?” It's the transparent subtext. Like, blindingly transparent. GGP's comment is talking about how CEOs are special or different than we are. That is, that they're not just evil, but that they're evil geniuses. It's just Great Man Theory with a Snidely Whiplash costume.
Swenrekcah 6mo ago
Two people see an opportunity to make money. One of them recognizes the venture would harm the people involved and decides not to. The other either does not see the harm (so not a genius) or simply doesn't care (sociopath?). That person does the thing and makes the money. That person is either some level of naive, some level of evil, but certainly not an evil genius.
salawat 6mo ago
Uh, no. That you believe that is more indicative of your proclivities than anyone else's, and also indicates the people around you are such that haven't challenged you to disabuse you of the notion. It isn't normal. It isn't okay to treat people as just numbers or means to an end, and Dunbar's number is not a license to be a psychopath to people beyond the handful we actively maintain relationships with. You should treat people empathetically. You should treat the failure to do so by people as something noteworthy and concerning. The fact we as a society seek to optimize for elevating psychopaths for personal gain is part of the problem we've created for ourselves, and to be quite frank, was probably hijacked as early as the founding of the United States into a really problematic, if value creating cornerstone of society that could probably use a good deal of sunlight being shone on it for disinfection and rot clearing purposes.
PsylentKnight 6mo ago
I think you'd need to present some stats that compare how much the ultra-wealthy and normal people donate to altruistic causes (adjusted for income) to make that argument

sfink 6mo ago

> 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. Maybe. But I suspect that we tend to view those people that way because they play the I Am A Special Human game in public, especially around those they want to impress / are afraid of, and they really aren't very different from the rest of us at any time. We do the same shit when we're around people we want to impress / are afraid of. I do agree that the situations such people are in will influence them. They'll have to get used to making decisions that make a big impact on a lot of people's lives, and they'll start thinking that such things are more normal than you and I ever will. I just don't think it changes them all that much. > 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. Okay. But I would do the same, and I'm farther from being a CEO than anyone I know. I can afford to care. If I were thrust into such a position, I would have to squash that caring in order to not cause a great deal of harm to those people I care about. Don't let a doctor operate on his/her own children. But get me and the CEO sitting in comfy chairs and shooting the shit after work, and I don't think there'll be much of a difference between us. My jokes will be a little funnier, and he'll be more confident and less awkward. But that's just me, not blue CEO blood. Tell you what. Give me a billion or two dollars and I'll go to a billionaire's hangout. I bet they'll make the same stupid wisecracks, talk about basically the same crap the rest of us do, and get indigestion from eating the too-rich food. I don't exactly disagree with you. Power changes people. It is tempting and easier to become amoral and accustomed to some pretty messed up stuff. It just doesn't change everything about them. In particular, they have the same dysfunctional thought patterns, they make the same sort of cognitive errors, they struggle with the same shit. > Most of us can’t imagine viewing and treating our fellow humans that way. I can. Perhaps it's not that I have a higher opinion of the CEO/billionaire class, it's that I have a lower opinion of all of us. Nazis were not uniquely evil. I think that's become even more obviously true of late. (Did I just invoke Godwin's Law? So be it.)

ptsneves 6mo ago
[flagged]