Maybe it’s just my perception—and I hope it is—but I feel that the age of streamer culture, the manosphere, MAGA politics, and late-stage capitalism (whatever that means, but I’m referring to...
Maybe it’s just my perception—and I hope it is—but I feel that the age of streamer culture, the manosphere, MAGA politics, and late-stage capitalism (whatever that means, but I’m referring to equity capital, golden parachutes, pump-and-dumps, and ubiquitous grift) have created a climate that rewards people for becoming assholes. There’s any number of reasons why an individual might feel emboldened to go that route, and a single asshole isn’t significant in isolation. But collectively they’re turning the world into a hostile place to just exist in.
I agree, and what really messes my head up is that I'm my decades on this planet I've never once understood it. My social circle very much like to ooo and ahh whenever they find out somebody had a...
I agree, and what really messes my head up is that I'm my decades on this planet I've never once understood it. My social circle very much like to ooo and ahh whenever they find out somebody had a lot of money. To me I just saw hoarded wealth. I realize that's a controversial opinion, but I'm intentionally (so add to avoid debate) not defining at what point I think it becomes hoarding versus responsible financial planning.
But yes, I've only ever been turned off by the asshole brand. But it seems like overwhelmingly the people around me are drawn to it. I see it in parenting styles. I don't understand it.
The initial point of attraction to having a lot of money could be that at a certain point, it allows one to stop spending most of their waking hours working to just keep a roof over their heads....
The initial point of attraction to having a lot of money could be that at a certain point, it allows one to stop spending most of their waking hours working to just keep a roof over their heads. That’s something that on its face seems pretty innocuous and has near-universal appeal.
Some people actually manage to achieve that and not become awful people in the process. We don’t hear about those examples though, because they’re quietly enjoying a fairly normal life and keeping a low profile. The ones we always see are those who get swallowed up by the endeavor and/or lifestyle and seek wealth at the expense of everything else.
There's the trope of a person who acts nice but betrays others behind their backs (or at best, acts nice but is unhelpful). Others see that and prefer those with "asshole" personalities, because...
There's the trope of a person who acts nice but betrays others behind their backs (or at best, acts nice but is unhelpful). Others see that and prefer those with "asshole" personalities, because they don't trust anyone.
Would you rather be hurt by someone who scowls and curses, or hurt just as much by someone who smiles and sweet-talks? Ideally someone would be both nice and honest, but if they're parasitic the next best is for them to still be honest, meaning they are openly mean. It follows that, if you believe most people are dishonest, you want most people to be mean.
I agree with @Greg idea that we should teach people to be nice and trust others who are nice because of "enlightened self-interest". I'll add that we also need to teach people how to spot and prevent deception and betrayal, because that's what eroded the veneer of public "niceness" in the first place.
My theory is that people have gone so atomised that the perceived value of community reputation is very low, especially when it's directly competing against raw attention that can be directly...
My theory is that people have gone so atomised that the perceived value of community reputation is very low, especially when it's directly competing against raw attention that can be directly monetised.
I've always thought that narratives like "cheaters never prosper" are deeply damaging and counterproductive: the world isn't just, the bad guy often wins, and things can always get worse. Sure,...
I've always thought that narratives like "cheaters never prosper" are deeply damaging and counterproductive: the world isn't just, the bad guy often wins, and things can always get worse.
Sure, you might not want to push kids to deal with the full unvarnished impact of that reality, but if you teach them things that just... don't represent reality instead you're leaving them in a vacuum as they grow to realise how things actually work. Being hit in the face with reality like that is a recipe for either depression or assholery, depending on the person.
Good deeds often aren't rewarded, and are sometimes actively punished. The lazy, selfish path is almost always an easier one. Those of us cursed with in intrinsic sense of conscience will feel worse despite the material wins if we embrace that path, but plenty of others will seize it with both hands and not lose a moment of sleep. So why do good things? Because it's better to live in a society where people, on average, do good things. That's it, enlightened self interest.
You can claw your way to the top of the pile of assholes if you want, and there's a decent chance you'll succeed in getting close. But you're also constantly looking over your shoulder in case someone worse is running up behind you with a baseball bat, and the top of the pile is where things cap out anyway. Meanwhile the cooperative society is floating far above the pile on an anti gravity luxury barge that they figured out how to build together.
Appealing to people's better nature will only win over the people who would have been on side regardless. Pretending that there's some external force imposing justice brings complacency, despair, and/or a totally unearned sense of righteousness. We need to teach people that cooperation is what matters: for the assholes, it's still the self-interested approach; for the altruists, it's a reminder to focus on outcomes rather than actions; and for both, it's an active and demonstrably effective goal rather than just wishful thinking.
I think you're absolutely right about enlightened self interest. I want to add to this: We evolved cooperatively. For humans, cooperation is definitely on the top ten list of most favored traits...
I think you're absolutely right about enlightened self interest. I want to add to this:
Because it's better to live in a society where people, on average, do good things.
We evolved cooperatively. For humans, cooperation is definitely on the top ten list of most favored traits by natural selection.
Cooperation is survival, safety and power. Sex too. Cooperative humans pass on their genes way more often.
And like all the other really important survival traits, it's too important to leave it entirely up to the individual. There are deep drives and chemical rewards associated with cooperation, and community. Working together for a greater good equals mental health, or at least a better shot at mental health. Which is sort of the ultimate reward.
the world isn't just, the bad guy often wins, and things can always get worse.
This is a great point. It's tough to figure out how to make humanity better, or just how to be better, if you're not honest about what humanity is. It's always been a mix of grubby and noble, justice has always been as much a dream as a reality. It's not ideal, but hopefully it's ok, because it's what we've got.
I believe this kind of thing happens because of the society/circle that the individual is a part of. North America in particular has always felt very individual-centric, in that everyone is trying...
I believe this kind of thing happens because of the society/circle that the individual is a part of. North America in particular has always felt very individual-centric, in that everyone is trying to stand out or do the best for themselves. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but like the article says, it's an issue when cranked up to the maximum.
Public restrooms is a simple example of this. In Japan there is a general sense of "not causing problems for others", and that extends to how they treat public spaces. It's expected you don't make a mess of public facilities such as toilets, and you can really see the difference travelling in Japan versus North America. Conversely, here you see more people treating public spaces poorly, whether it be the restroom, food court, or public transportation.
This makes me think of one company and one person who are famous for being successful without becoming assholes. The company is Ben &Jerry’s, which is famous for remaining socially conscious while...
Exemplary
This makes me think of one company and one person who are famous for being successful without becoming assholes.
The company is Ben &Jerry’s, which is famous for remaining socially conscious while still being successful. Maybe they could be more successful by being assholes, but maybe not.
The person is President Jimmy Carter. He rose to the office of president without being an asshole. Some may argue that his morality negatively affected his performance as president. But his reputation is improving over the years and some of the negatives are bad judgment from people who incorrectly thought an asshole was needed for the job.
A lot of this has to do with how one measures success. Probably most people think of President Reagan as more successful than Carter, but that’s measuring popularity (driven largely by propaganda) and not meaningful change or negative consequences.
I watched a discussion panel with the Dali Lama on ethical investment a long time ago. He specifically called out Ben & Jerry’s as an example of ethical investment.
I watched a discussion panel with the Dali Lama on ethical investment a long time ago. He specifically called out Ben & Jerry’s as an example of ethical investment.
Competition and being an asshole are different things. I’ve seen a lot of B2B relationships where both parties are not only cordial, but will have allowances for mistakes, and where neither side...
Competition and being an asshole are different things. I’ve seen a lot of B2B relationships where both parties are not only cordial, but will have allowances for mistakes, and where neither side tries to push too hard for discounts.
It just depends on the circumstance. Being an asshole have a cost. It damages your relationship with that other party. That cost might not exist for Apple and many Chinese manufacturers because there’s so many of the latter and Apple’s orders are so large that they can afford to do so.
On the other hand, when you’re dealing with companies where there’s only 2-4 major players, it can be optimal to be play nice.
Emphasis on ruthless competition. Also on surplus, actually - it’s absolutely not that everyone who succeeds at the highest level is an asshole, far from it, but I think they’re notably...
Emphasis on ruthless competition. Also on surplus, actually - it’s absolutely not that everyone who succeeds at the highest level is an asshole, far from it, but I think they’re notably overrepresented.
I’d also argue that if someone’s sole reason for playing nice is their own benefit, they’re still an asshole. That’s why I was talking a lot about self interest in my longer post above - assholes gonna asshole, so the best path is to make it clear their interests can align with the greater good.
If someone’s only being nice because they want to avoid alienating suppliers in a small industry, I’d immediately be looking at how those people treat their employees, how the welfare of those people factors into a decision that might unequivocally benefit the person at the top. That’d be a much more telling scenario for asshole identification, I think.
And just to really underline: some people absolutely succeed at the highest levels while still passing the not-an-asshole test. I’ve known and worked with more than a few, I’m not saying it’s a universal problem. But I absolutely see ruthlessness being disproportionately rewarded overall, and that pattern repeating across companies, industries, and countries.
That’s the fundamental reason people play nice ever. The reason we’re social animals is because it’s evolutionarily beneficial to group resources. All of our social behaviors in the end stems from...
I’d also argue that if someone’s sole reason for playing nice is their own benefit, they’re still an asshole.
That’s the fundamental reason people play nice ever. The reason we’re social animals is because it’s evolutionarily beneficial to group resources. All of our social behaviors in the end stems from animalistic self interest.
Being nice is being nice. I don’t think it’s worthwhile to try and police the reasons, whether that be a quid-pro-quo or because you think God will smite you into hell.
But I absolutely see ruthlessness being disproportionately rewarded overall, and that pattern repeating across companies, industries, and countries.
I mean, if you’re taking ruthless to simply be optimal in your business relationships, to even include times where you are “nice” as long as your motivations are self interested, then it’s vacuously true that being ruthless is effectively?
Again, sole reason. Being nice in situations where it benefits you doesn’t preclude being an asshole, nor does it automatically make you one. That’s why we move on to the “how do they treat their...
Again, sole reason. Being nice in situations where it benefits you doesn’t preclude being an asshole, nor does it automatically make you one.
That’s why we move on to the “how do they treat their employees?” test, because it’s one where far more often a decision can create a net harm to the many in order to reward the few, including the person making that decision.
And yes, if you class things like maximising profits even when it means paying employees a sub-living-wage as optimal simply because the laws and the market allow for it (and I’m genuinely not sure if that’s what you mean?) I absolutely class that as ruthless, and I absolutely class it as asshole behaviour.
What other reasons are there? There are a set of limited relationships where our brain chemistry has biases, like parent-child, but even then you can say that the only reason we have those...
What other reasons are there? There are a set of limited relationships where our brain chemistry has biases, like parent-child, but even then you can say that the only reason we have those inclinations is evolutionary self interest in continuing our genealogy.
But paying your employees well would ALSO count as ruthless behavior by your definition, if your motivation is “I want to keep talent in my company for the long term profitability of my enterprise”.
It’s kind of vacuously true that ruthlessness is rewarded if you have such an expansive definition.
Well… yeah? Do you really not think some people approach things from the basis of “they, as thinking, feeling people just the same as myself, deserve comfort and an equitable share of their...
But paying your employees well would ALSO count as ruthless behavior by your definition, if your motivation is “I want to keep talent in my company for the long term profitability of my enterprise”.
Well… yeah? Do you really not think some people approach things from the basis of “they, as thinking, feeling people just the same as myself, deserve comfort and an equitable share of their labour”? Do you not want to work with people who approach the world from that perspective?
This isn’t academic to me. I run my own business, have started other businesses in the past, and am looking at a meaningful chance of employing a nontrivial number of people in the coming years. I have absolutely strict constraints on myself for things like min:max salary ratio, profit sharing, and employee ownership not because I think they’ll make me more competitive in the market - they’ll almost certainly do the opposite - but because I think it’s better to distribute than to maximise.
I think those people are still coming from a position of self interest. The reason why they believe those ethics is that that is the kind of world where they would want to inhabit themselves....
I think those people are still coming from a position of self interest. The reason why they believe those ethics is that that is the kind of world where they would want to inhabit themselves.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but yes I still think it comes from self interest.
In that case it sounds more like we’re misunderstanding each other than disagreeing! I talked about self interest at length above, I don’t see it as an inherently bad thing, my only significant...
In that case it sounds more like we’re misunderstanding each other than disagreeing! I talked about self interest at length above, I don’t see it as an inherently bad thing, my only significant distinction is between decision making to benefit “me” (maybe coincidentally benefiting others, maybe not, but it being an irrelevance either way), vs decision making to benefit “us” (acknowledgement that strengthening the community as a whole is likely to lead to better outcomes for everyone, even when presented with a choice that could be a gain for oneself at the expense of a net loss for everyone else).
Every time this discourse comes up, I feel obligated to post the online game, The Evolution of Trust, which uses game theory to demonstrate how we behave when the world is comprised of a mix of...
Every time this discourse comes up, I feel obligated to post the online game, The Evolution of Trust, which uses game theory to demonstrate how we behave when the world is comprised of a mix of nice people and assholes.
Assholes proliferate when they're allowed to, and their behavior encourages non-assholes to imitate them for survival.
Maybe it’s just my perception—and I hope it is—but I feel that the age of streamer culture, the manosphere, MAGA politics, and late-stage capitalism (whatever that means, but I’m referring to equity capital, golden parachutes, pump-and-dumps, and ubiquitous grift) have created a climate that rewards people for becoming assholes. There’s any number of reasons why an individual might feel emboldened to go that route, and a single asshole isn’t significant in isolation. But collectively they’re turning the world into a hostile place to just exist in.
I agree, and what really messes my head up is that I'm my decades on this planet I've never once understood it. My social circle very much like to ooo and ahh whenever they find out somebody had a lot of money. To me I just saw hoarded wealth. I realize that's a controversial opinion, but I'm intentionally (so add to avoid debate) not defining at what point I think it becomes hoarding versus responsible financial planning.
But yes, I've only ever been turned off by the asshole brand. But it seems like overwhelmingly the people around me are drawn to it. I see it in parenting styles. I don't understand it.
The initial point of attraction to having a lot of money could be that at a certain point, it allows one to stop spending most of their waking hours working to just keep a roof over their heads. That’s something that on its face seems pretty innocuous and has near-universal appeal.
Some people actually manage to achieve that and not become awful people in the process. We don’t hear about those examples though, because they’re quietly enjoying a fairly normal life and keeping a low profile. The ones we always see are those who get swallowed up by the endeavor and/or lifestyle and seek wealth at the expense of everything else.
There's the trope of a person who acts nice but betrays others behind their backs (or at best, acts nice but is unhelpful). Others see that and prefer those with "asshole" personalities, because they don't trust anyone.
Would you rather be hurt by someone who scowls and curses, or hurt just as much by someone who smiles and sweet-talks? Ideally someone would be both nice and honest, but if they're parasitic the next best is for them to still be honest, meaning they are openly mean. It follows that, if you believe most people are dishonest, you want most people to be mean.
I agree with @Greg idea that we should teach people to be nice and trust others who are nice because of "enlightened self-interest". I'll add that we also need to teach people how to spot and prevent deception and betrayal, because that's what eroded the veneer of public "niceness" in the first place.
My theory is that people have gone so atomised that the perceived value of community reputation is very low, especially when it's directly competing against raw attention that can be directly monetised.
I've always thought that narratives like "cheaters never prosper" are deeply damaging and counterproductive: the world isn't just, the bad guy often wins, and things can always get worse.
Sure, you might not want to push kids to deal with the full unvarnished impact of that reality, but if you teach them things that just... don't represent reality instead you're leaving them in a vacuum as they grow to realise how things actually work. Being hit in the face with reality like that is a recipe for either depression or assholery, depending on the person.
Good deeds often aren't rewarded, and are sometimes actively punished. The lazy, selfish path is almost always an easier one. Those of us cursed with in intrinsic sense of conscience will feel worse despite the material wins if we embrace that path, but plenty of others will seize it with both hands and not lose a moment of sleep. So why do good things? Because it's better to live in a society where people, on average, do good things. That's it, enlightened self interest.
You can claw your way to the top of the pile of assholes if you want, and there's a decent chance you'll succeed in getting close. But you're also constantly looking over your shoulder in case someone worse is running up behind you with a baseball bat, and the top of the pile is where things cap out anyway. Meanwhile the cooperative society is floating far above the pile on an anti gravity luxury barge that they figured out how to build together.
Appealing to people's better nature will only win over the people who would have been on side regardless. Pretending that there's some external force imposing justice brings complacency, despair, and/or a totally unearned sense of righteousness. We need to teach people that cooperation is what matters: for the assholes, it's still the self-interested approach; for the altruists, it's a reminder to focus on outcomes rather than actions; and for both, it's an active and demonstrably effective goal rather than just wishful thinking.
I think you're absolutely right about enlightened self interest. I want to add to this:
We evolved cooperatively. For humans, cooperation is definitely on the top ten list of most favored traits by natural selection.
Cooperation is survival, safety and power. Sex too. Cooperative humans pass on their genes way more often.
And like all the other really important survival traits, it's too important to leave it entirely up to the individual. There are deep drives and chemical rewards associated with cooperation, and community. Working together for a greater good equals mental health, or at least a better shot at mental health. Which is sort of the ultimate reward.
This is a great point. It's tough to figure out how to make humanity better, or just how to be better, if you're not honest about what humanity is. It's always been a mix of grubby and noble, justice has always been as much a dream as a reality. It's not ideal, but hopefully it's ok, because it's what we've got.
I believe this kind of thing happens because of the society/circle that the individual is a part of. North America in particular has always felt very individual-centric, in that everyone is trying to stand out or do the best for themselves. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but like the article says, it's an issue when cranked up to the maximum.
Public restrooms is a simple example of this. In Japan there is a general sense of "not causing problems for others", and that extends to how they treat public spaces. It's expected you don't make a mess of public facilities such as toilets, and you can really see the difference travelling in Japan versus North America. Conversely, here you see more people treating public spaces poorly, whether it be the restroom, food court, or public transportation.
This makes me think of one company and one person who are famous for being successful without becoming assholes.
The company is Ben &Jerry’s, which is famous for remaining socially conscious while still being successful. Maybe they could be more successful by being assholes, but maybe not.
The person is President Jimmy Carter. He rose to the office of president without being an asshole. Some may argue that his morality negatively affected his performance as president. But his reputation is improving over the years and some of the negatives are bad judgment from people who incorrectly thought an asshole was needed for the job.
In any event he’s misunderstood. Here’s a recent article that talks about that: Jimmy Carter Was the Most Successful Conservative President of the Last Five Decades
A lot of this has to do with how one measures success. Probably most people think of President Reagan as more successful than Carter, but that’s measuring popularity (driven largely by propaganda) and not meaningful change or negative consequences.
I watched a discussion panel with the Dali Lama on ethical investment a long time ago. He specifically called out Ben & Jerry’s as an example of ethical investment.
Possibly this observation applies for suppliers of electronic components in China (I wouldn’t know), but less so in other places or other industries?
Do you not notice a surplus of ruthless competition in the upper tiers of business success? Because I sure do.
Competition and being an asshole are different things. I’ve seen a lot of B2B relationships where both parties are not only cordial, but will have allowances for mistakes, and where neither side tries to push too hard for discounts.
It just depends on the circumstance. Being an asshole have a cost. It damages your relationship with that other party. That cost might not exist for Apple and many Chinese manufacturers because there’s so many of the latter and Apple’s orders are so large that they can afford to do so.
On the other hand, when you’re dealing with companies where there’s only 2-4 major players, it can be optimal to be play nice.
Emphasis on ruthless competition. Also on surplus, actually - it’s absolutely not that everyone who succeeds at the highest level is an asshole, far from it, but I think they’re notably overrepresented.
I’d also argue that if someone’s sole reason for playing nice is their own benefit, they’re still an asshole. That’s why I was talking a lot about self interest in my longer post above - assholes gonna asshole, so the best path is to make it clear their interests can align with the greater good.
If someone’s only being nice because they want to avoid alienating suppliers in a small industry, I’d immediately be looking at how those people treat their employees, how the welfare of those people factors into a decision that might unequivocally benefit the person at the top. That’d be a much more telling scenario for asshole identification, I think.
And just to really underline: some people absolutely succeed at the highest levels while still passing the not-an-asshole test. I’ve known and worked with more than a few, I’m not saying it’s a universal problem. But I absolutely see ruthlessness being disproportionately rewarded overall, and that pattern repeating across companies, industries, and countries.
That’s the fundamental reason people play nice ever. The reason we’re social animals is because it’s evolutionarily beneficial to group resources. All of our social behaviors in the end stems from animalistic self interest.
Being nice is being nice. I don’t think it’s worthwhile to try and police the reasons, whether that be a quid-pro-quo or because you think God will smite you into hell.
I mean, if you’re taking ruthless to simply be optimal in your business relationships, to even include times where you are “nice” as long as your motivations are self interested, then it’s vacuously true that being ruthless is effectively?
Again, sole reason. Being nice in situations where it benefits you doesn’t preclude being an asshole, nor does it automatically make you one.
That’s why we move on to the “how do they treat their employees?” test, because it’s one where far more often a decision can create a net harm to the many in order to reward the few, including the person making that decision.
And yes, if you class things like maximising profits even when it means paying employees a sub-living-wage as optimal simply because the laws and the market allow for it (and I’m genuinely not sure if that’s what you mean?) I absolutely class that as ruthless, and I absolutely class it as asshole behaviour.
What other reasons are there? There are a set of limited relationships where our brain chemistry has biases, like parent-child, but even then you can say that the only reason we have those inclinations is evolutionary self interest in continuing our genealogy.
But paying your employees well would ALSO count as ruthless behavior by your definition, if your motivation is “I want to keep talent in my company for the long term profitability of my enterprise”.
It’s kind of vacuously true that ruthlessness is rewarded if you have such an expansive definition.
Well… yeah? Do you really not think some people approach things from the basis of “they, as thinking, feeling people just the same as myself, deserve comfort and an equitable share of their labour”? Do you not want to work with people who approach the world from that perspective?
This isn’t academic to me. I run my own business, have started other businesses in the past, and am looking at a meaningful chance of employing a nontrivial number of people in the coming years. I have absolutely strict constraints on myself for things like min:max salary ratio, profit sharing, and employee ownership not because I think they’ll make me more competitive in the market - they’ll almost certainly do the opposite - but because I think it’s better to distribute than to maximise.
I think those people are still coming from a position of self interest. The reason why they believe those ethics is that that is the kind of world where they would want to inhabit themselves.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but yes I still think it comes from self interest.
In that case it sounds more like we’re misunderstanding each other than disagreeing! I talked about self interest at length above, I don’t see it as an inherently bad thing, my only significant distinction is between decision making to benefit “me” (maybe coincidentally benefiting others, maybe not, but it being an irrelevance either way), vs decision making to benefit “us” (acknowledgement that strengthening the community as a whole is likely to lead to better outcomes for everyone, even when presented with a choice that could be a gain for oneself at the expense of a net loss for everyone else).
I'm not in a position to notice such things from direct observation, and what I read in the newspapers is a biased sample.
Every time this discourse comes up, I feel obligated to post the online game, The Evolution of Trust, which uses game theory to demonstrate how we behave when the world is comprised of a mix of nice people and assholes.
Assholes proliferate when they're allowed to, and their behavior encourages non-assholes to imitate them for survival.
I think this has always been true on the international stage. Countries don't have friends, they have interests.