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Föderation EN Di 11.03.2025 13:44:50 Being a manager taught me to think like an organization and how to argue with one on their terms. Now that I have a little distance from that experience, and am facing it again in academia, I'm noticing just how ugly that is. Like, ostensibly Google serves its users and a University serves its students. The people in leadership positions really care about doing that. But what I've learned is you never argue from the perspective of what's good for people. Sometimes that works, but it's not reliable. To convince an organization, you argue why a decision is good for business and for people. You show the business need first, and helping people becomes icing on the cake. Do that, and it's really hard for them to say no. They'll feel good about helping people, and use that as the public justification. This is alarmingly psychopathic. Yet this behavior is implemented by people who really care very deeply. They've just internalized their role within the uncaring machinations of an institutional process. |
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Föderation · Di 11.03.2025 14:02:47 @ngaylinn@tech.lgbt The phrase "really care" is doing an awful lot of work here. How is this caring real if it's not consistently realized? |
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Föderation EN Di 11.03.2025 14:09:30 @abucci It's tough! I think this is a huge part of the challenge of being a good person in a society like ours. The way I see it, these people have big hearts, and as they operate within this machine, that motivates them to find opportunities to nudge things in what they consider a positive direction. Yet, they also end up making painful compromises that run against their values. The ones who are most successful in these roles are the ones who aren't concerned about such things, or can easily set those concerns aside. One internalizes more and more psychopathic tendencies as they move up the hierarchy, to the point where many CEOs either are psychopaths or emulate one so well that they might as well be. I think being a good person means being stubborn about ones values, and reliably compromising business needs for human ones, not the other way around. As you point out, just caring isn't enough. "Good" isn't something you are, it's something you do. |
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Föderation · Di 11.03.2025 17:33:07 @ngaylinn@tech.lgbt The thing that always worries me is that what's good for people is not directly codified in corporate structures, usually. So that means that whenever someone in a management position faces a decision trading off what's good for people vs what's good for the organization, they are almost literally "doing the wrong thing" from the perspective of what's codified if they side with the people. This is setting managers up for failure along at least two axes, not to mention putting big demands on their moral sensibilities. It's as if the sociopathy is what's codified and the cost of being otherwise is borne by individuals. Collectively I think we can and should do better than this, but for now it is as you say, part of the challenge of being a good person in this world. |
