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PaperclipPerfector  15d ago (text post)   34187 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 17, 2025

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genius workaholics

I know a few people like this. The 2 put together is scary effective in the short term.

In my experience, it doesn't last. A large portion of them burn out at they approach their 30s and turn semi-resentful. They make money, but their management/leadersip makes more. They haven't experienced much of life. Their heath takes the biggest hit as you lose your immortality in the 30s. And then ofc, The lack of bitches comes to haunt all men.

They tend to have zero human experience, so they end up in permanent "senior" IC roles, while their savvier & stupider friends are now ascending into VP-dom. It's like working in the military. It definitely shapes you in a specific way. But, it can be hard to adjust to civilian life afterwards. The classic example is HFT. Work through your 20s, retire permanently at 30. However, in HFT, you make 10s of millions instead of just a few millions like these kids are making. Not rich enough to Fat-fire.

Now, I personally love working with these people. They are machines and other than a few turbo-autists, most of them are good people.

I knew a few models in which life works out for these people.

Option 1 - Pump and dump yourself. (bail out at the right time)

  1. Startup path: quit in mid 20s -> build startup -> succeed big time -> retire in your 30s. (closer to the HFT outcome, like Brad Pitt in BigShort)
  2. Principal Engineer: For those with people skills. Quit for principal IC role in big tech -> get promoted to your level of incompetence -> live happy but under-stimulated life.

Option 2 - Become a 70s dad

  1. Arranged marriage: Indians & jews figured this out. At 30, millionaire Ramesh gets married off to the hottest trad-wife woman you've seen. Both of them love the arrangement. He buys a house in San Jose, so parents can visit all the time. Ramesh still works his ass off, but loses out on nothing.
  2. Arranged marriage white edition: the ugliest white dude gets headhunted by a controlling Asian woman who keeps him on a leash. He is overjoyed to find his fetish match. Happy ending.

So yeah, couple of good options, but it is really easy to sleepwalk into your 30s with upper-middle class wealth and zero outside of it.

Exception to the exception - the best of them are monsters beyond understanding. Genuine ubermensch. Handsome, fit, smart, articulate and human calculators. Universally, they are either the most humble people I've met or sociopaths. No middle ground. They all love running marathons for some reason. In my experience, this group knows the perfect tipping point to start their VC funded startup or find a multi-million/yr VP role to camp at big-tech.

However, in HFT, you make 10s of millions instead of just a few millions like these kids are making

Huh, is this for the median quant? My understanding is you top out around 1-3 mil / year (at e.g Citadel or HRT), which makes “10s of millions” … tricky, especially after taxes, living in NYC, and also you have a 1-2 yr burn in period (so ~ 2 - 10 mil after a decade). Where are ppl getting these numbers??

Arranged marriage white edition: the ugliest white dude gets headhunted by a controlling Asian woman who keeps him on a leash. He is overjoyed to find his fetish match. Happy ending.

I've been laughing at this for the last 10 minutes. WMAF couples are by far the dominant demographic in my immediate social circle.

Where this gets even more hilarious is when a WM-WF sniffs around the WMAF couple to determine they're probably kinksters, invites them (the WMAF) to some sort of sex party - and then horribly out-freaks the WMAFs.

The two dudes have to join different run clubs. Sad.

Is it a stereotype if it's true ?

Yeah, nothing about stereotypes say they have to be false. In fact, stereotypes exist because they are largely true. Black people really do love fried chicken, white people really do love ranch dressing and hate spices, and so on. Every group has its members to whom the stereotypes don't apply (e.g. I'm a Midwestern white guy who loves spicy food), but they still have a lot of predictive power.

Yes, stereotype accuracy is one of the strongest and most reproducible effects in social science.

Could you please link me to some choice studies?

I remember reading a book about it a few years ago, but for the life of me, can't recall the author or title. While I can't find it, just googling yields a ton of results.

Hmm. Not that much to go on here, but thanks.

What's the kind of thing you'd like to see? Pretty sure each link will have a tone of further references.

The chapter you link to is from a book that's basically unavailable.

The book you may or may not have read is 30 years old and not easily available either.

The X post is only about gender stereotypes.

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