Sun Jul 11 18:59:31 2021
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— Academia as Company Hierarchy – LessWrong
— In The Gervais Principle, Venkatesh Rao argues that the show The Office “is not a random series of cynical gags aimed at momentarily alleviating the existential despair of low-level grunts. It is a fully realized theory of management that falsifies 83.8% of the business section of the bookstore.” In this post, I argue that viewing academia through this lens can be equally revealing. But first, we need to discuss the lens itself. Rao develops this theory of management around the comic Company Hierarchy by Hugh MacLeod: Hugh MacLeod’s Company HierarchyThe theory begins by dividing people in an organization into three categories: Sociopaths at the top, Clueless middle managers, and the average workers as Losers. For brevity we will sometimes call this system the SCL hierarchy. Because these category names were chosen for a gag comic, they aren’t great matches for the groups they describe, and can even be a little confusing. Losers aren’t losers in the normal sense, they are losers economically — they have struck a bad bargain where they labor for a paycheck. They don’t have equity. This bargain can be perfectly rational; it’s low reward but it’s also low risk. Someone without great natural talents or large amounts of capital may be smart not to take these risks, and in these cases being an economic Loser is often the right call. Most of the characters in The Office are Losers, essentially everyone who isn’t in management. Sociopaths may or may not be literal sociopaths — they are like clinical sociopaths in that they are willing to take risks in the service of rewards, and that they are willing to bend social rules to do so. This too is often rational, for people who are willing to take risks and have the ability or capital to do so. It may or may not be admirable. Bending ethical rules is often bad, but bending rules like “don’t question authority” or “don’t have original ideas” is often good. In The Office, executives like David Wallace are Sociopaths. Clueless
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— Magic of Movement
— Explore your body for the sake of unity, not just as a vehicle for vanity. Let’s play with movement in our daily lives, independent of a workout regime.