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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   32894 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 5, 2024

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Contra @Amadan and @100ProofTollBooth, I'll say that I pretty much agree with the core of this post and I don't think it's content-free. The invective is obviously way too far over the top for this forum, but yeah, there really is a serious problem with the HRization of everything under the sun from people that have absolutely no experience with ever building anything, leading anything, or even producing anything that people would purchase of their own free will. We can see this everywhere from politics to corporations, where people earnestly believe that the relevant criteria for rising ranks is checking a bunch of boxes for titles held, HR style, rather than having actually accomplished anything of note. Having people that have never risked a penny of their own money rise to the top of the power structure isn't just accepted, it's outright lauded by people that see their own personal failures as indications of good moral character.

Sohrab Ahmari, a guy that a lot of people on the right respect as an intellectual, believes things like this:

Thinking of Galbraith’s line about how painful it is that men who made a few good financial bets are assumed to know what they’re talking about on everything else.

And how their wealth means the rest of us can’t avoid their inane views.

The absolute conceit that people who have accomplished so much less than a guy like Musk to just blithely refer to building empires of productivity and innovation as "a few good financial bets" demonstrates to me that these guys have absolutely no concept of what it takes to build a company. They're pampered, spoiled brats that truly believe that their academic credentials and journalistic output aren't just as good as actually creating value, they're better. They have fastidiously avoided taking any meaningful personal risks and have managed to imbue that cowardice with an air of smug superiority because they didn't make their money doing something as vulgar as making "a few good financial bets".

I would be forced to agree as well. Leadership is a skill set. And it takes an intuitive understanding of a whole system of psychology and power-wielding and strategy and understanding how to work with incomplete information. I think of running a company being a lot like a combination of poker and chess. Chess because it’s a game of strategy using your pieces to work to attack and defend. Poker because you actually don’t know where the other side is on the board. You can’t play a standard set of moves because you can be attacked by a piece you don’t even know you need to defend against.

Contra @Amadan and @100ProofTollBooth, I'll say that I pretty much agree with the core of this post and I don't think it's content-free.

I can't deny that this video of Kara Swisher writing off Elon for moral reasons before being reminded that Elon actually does try to build things that matter to actual people immediately came to my mind reading that post. It's definitely a thing, though the level of generalization and invective may be against Motte rules.

Contra @Amadan and @100ProofTollBooth, I'll say that I pretty much agree with the core of this post and I don't think it's content-free. The invective is obviously way too far over the top for this forum, but yeah, there really is a serious problem with the HRization of everything under the sun from people that have absolutely no experience with ever building anything, leading anything, or even producing anything that people would purchase of their own free will.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with your post expressing that idea.

Rewritten without all the "fuck you" snarling at gooners and blaqq keweens and soy autists, he could have said what you did. Some people just can't express themselves without spraying spittle and loogies, and this place isn't for that.

Yeah, to be clear, I'm not arguing with the ban, just the assessment that there wasn't any underlying content. There is an argument embedded in there! Frankly, I even agree with the level of contempt expressed for the commentariat and academic classes, but also agree that it's just not appropriate here.

The absolute conceit that people who have accomplished so much less than a guy like Musk to just blithely refer to building empires of productivity and innovation as "a few good financial bets" demonstrates to me that these guys have absolutely no concept of what it takes to build a company.

They don't, but that's not the point. The distinction is just friend and enemy, as usual. They'll absolutely gush over Warren Buffett who is a lot closer to having made his money through "a few financial bets" than Musk (though to give the devil his due, it's still quite unfair to Buffett). Or Bill Gates, who for all his sins did build Microsoft. Because they're friends and will push for lefty policies, and Musk is an enemy who won't.

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