Extroverts destroy the world (2012)
nypost.com
nypost.com
I think we do value surface traits too highly - "magnetic, fascinating, stunning, attractive, glowing, dominant, forceful and energetic" - as the article illustrates.
Why not, I mean they are positive and nice and not to be condemned in any way, but they are just a bit too valued over other better traits - the downgraded "citizenship, duty, work, golden deeds, honor, reputation, morals, manners and integrity".
A society which lauded the quiet achievers, or simply the concept of diligent accomplishment, would be nice I think.
Sound familiar? :)
It certainly gave me a lot of encouragement to try to develop more of the traits shown by those great captains.
There is just something good that gets delivered sustainably into society with this approach, and over time it shows. Self-feeding circle. I sure hope future decades don't destroy it too much with immigration, I think Swiss have the best approach for this, staying away from EU certainly benefited them for independent decisions (come here if our society needs you, stay if you respect rules, learn language and don't break law seriously... a lot of far right movements in the world would be marginal if this was followed by politicians diligently). And yet they have by far the highest immigration in whole Europe.
I recently came across a post asking Irish what was one American thing they were happy about had not yet seeped into Ireland much and one of the answers was the seeming fake-ness and exaggerated excitement
Recently had some American friends visit. They were yelling across a nice restaurant at each other. It was so embarrassing, especially because I'm originally American.
How'd it get to this point?
Why was the early internet great? Number one reason was its exclusivity and lack of these base elements. Internet for all gave everyone equal access including those who should not have.
> When the less vocal people put out ideas, those ideas were discarded. The ideas that were rejected would have kept us alive and out of trouble, but they were dismissed because of the conviction with which the more vocal people suggested their ideas.”
That's like our society discuss "the most important topics" today. There are some groups screaming some agenda, which 99% doesn't care, but because they are loud and everywhere, they are able to enforce some crazy ideas
It was well covered in Taleb - https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
premise 1: all manipulative people are bad
premise 2: some manipulative people are extroverts
conclusion: all extroverts are bad
The author does strike me as the caricaturish Hollywood movie nerd, whiny, full of self-pity, bad faith, envy, and repressed narcissism, putting down everything to do with the "popular kids" or jocks while craving all the same things. Either own up to it and saddle up, or take a good hard look at your contradictions, disingenuousness, and self-deception. Pick up Nietzsche and Scheler and learn about ressentiment because this is a textbook example.
Take this revealing quote:
> The school’s emphasis on networking above studious reflection makes outcasts of, for instance, many brilliant but introverted Asian students who feel out of place in this cheerleader hell.
Why would this be a cheerleader hell? If the networking milieu is superficial, thoughtless, and crass, why the desperate desire to fit in with them? To be accepted by them? (Or, later on, play the game of sour grapes?) After all, aren't they worse off? Aren't they less desirable? This is incoherent. You say these introverted students are "outcasts" who feel out of place with these glad-handing extroverts. But if that is the case, then why would it ever be their goal to fit in with people you believe are so deserving of scorn and contempt? Why do you put them up on a pedestal and pout about not being accepted or even adored by them? If you were being honest, then they would never feel the need or desire to join their ranks, to receive their affection and approval.
Fortune favors the bold. Hiding in your basement and expecting the world to come to you, to appreciate your ostensible greatness, while denying that of others, is perhaps the height of arrogance and egocentrism. Everyone is busy living their own lives, dealing with their own problems, just like the introvert, yet the latter expects special treatment.
One of the greatest lessons I've learned in life is that it is a waste of time complaining about the state of the world. It is a waste of time blaming the world for your dissatisfactions, thinking all the while that if only the world would be a certain way, THEN I could finally flourish. This is the creed of the effeminate procrastinator. But life is a meat grinder. Waiting for it to be easy, for it to be comfortable, for the stars to align before you make a move is to waste precious time and to wait for one's death. Life is struggle. Do not pity those poor, immigrant students, dear author, because they are still better at bearing the pains and discomforts of life than the brats of the first world who can only survive in the rarefied confines of their warm, padded cells. Their children, however...
Presumably because one would still like to pass, even in a school with supposedly "emphasis on networking above studious reflection"
> [extroverts] may not be responsible for all the evil in the world, but they did give us such pernicious results as Enron, Hollywood, the financial crisis, Washington, infomercials and Harvard Business School.
A better summary of the article is contained within the article itself:
> Susman noted that the qualities most often lauded in the advice manuals of the 19th century were “citizenship, duty, work, golden deeds, honor, reputation, morals, manners and integrity.” In the post-Carnegie era, these concepts were replaced by words such as “magnetic, fascinating, stunning, attractive, glowing, dominant, forceful and energetic.” Substance, then, was being replaced with surface, and the era of B.S. had begun. Fast-forward a hundred years and you can see Carnegie’s descendants trained in the highest BS — HBS, or Harvard Business School.
So a fairer reading of the argument is, tongue in cheek, "not all extroverts are harmful bullshitters, but most bullshitters causing systemic problems are (at least trying to be) extroverts".
Quite accurate, but this had nothing to do with Carnegie and everything to do with the society-wide disaster that was WWI and WWII. If anything, Carnegie tried to avert the damage with his philanthropy and promotion of culture. The author is grasping at a strawman.
It is not meant to be analyzed like a formal logic paper. There is no real data to verify since it concerns abstract values over trillions of human interactions, yet that does not mean it is not a worthwhile contribution. There are plenty of articles like this but there's nothing inherently wrong with employing this discursive style.
Metaphor, understatement, hyperbole, irony, satire, all verboten.
I'm pretty sarcastic/satirical, and the number of times people say that it is "impossible to tell" sarcasm and satire in written form amazes me. Yet, there are always some people who do understand, so I know it isn't me, and I know that people do understand satire and sarcasm and all the other wonderful literary devices that are available.
It's a cross to bear if one uses the full range of language.
- John Carmack
https://twitter.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1551587190395789312
If only there were a way to encourage these extraverts to focus only on the value..
We have all seen the damage that some extroverts can do to meetings, where they shamelessly namedrop half understood concepts that need to be refuted one by one.
We have all seen open source projects being taken over by a mediocre, loud-mouthed politician cabal, who slowly become the project's public face on Twitter and quash dissent with lies and persistence.
Of course extroverts are needed in diplomacy, etc. But how to keep them honest is an unsolved problem.
But oh well, you can never stop humans from putting other humans in boxes.
General public very noticeable does not. The myriad of stereotypes still existing today despite empirical evidence of the opposite couldn't speak louder. If not 'all', certainly 'most'.
Surely someone on HN would know a thing or two about generalizations and their adoption as stereotypes when repeated often enough.
I have an alternative suggestion: don't try to put people in just two, distinct categories.
We're not red/blue, (pardon the racist terminology)"of color"/white, left/right.
We're at least fifty shades of everything in between.
This whole introvert/extrovert debate to me seems like a yet another attempt at "us vs them".
Those who're used to be vocal or were born vocal, they couldn't stop being vocal.
That's the fundamental issue which has very little to do with extraversion. The world rewards loudness, and most attempts at making the world slower and more silent are actively thwarted.
But them they do not think the same
Fundamental issue, people are 'stupid' (not always actually stupid, just exhausted, tired, unwilling to care, don't know enough, misunderstand), and society rewards individuals for taking advantage of others as long as it doesn't break the law. And even breaking the law can be profitable.
For example closing a restaurant because they have hygiene issues is only going to be temporary unless the issue is massive. They will have 2 or 3 shots to get it right. Calling out on somebody doing scam calls (typically to the elderly or to vulnerable people) to sell them massively overpriced services (for example 50k€ for a window replacement in their home) is virtually impossible. He told me he investigated a guy who managed to change his identity every year for 10 years, was able to travel internationally, made millions from various scams and frauds, and is nowhere near to get caught ; and they know his identity, his various scam sites and call centers, and so forth. But to enforce anything is just too complicated.
One extrovert can easily ruin an entire room of introverts' experience. One introvert will have zero impact on a room full of extroverts.
Edit-if you want to say I’m wrong. Don’t say it. Live it. Show with your actions that humans don’t destroy but instead create. Create, cultivate, and generally reinforce life and diversity.
Otherwise the sentence stands.
The mere fact that these are seen as valuable by humans is already a good indication that humans do these things or help them along.
They can certainly have consequences though, and consequences can lead to meaning.
> Their value is determined by humans.
On one level of reality, but there are many different layers happening at the same time.
But the point is that you do need an observer capable of perceiving that meaning. It doesn't make sense that the observer would be the source of the values, but at the same time antithetical to their existence as the OP claimed.
>On one level of reality, but there are many different layers happening at the same time.
Sure, but we then operate on an entirely different basis that precludes the terms such as 'value' that we are currently using. If the layer is different, then the concepts will be different to. And if we can't point to those concepts, what exactly are we discussing?
Too true....and this is no small feat! (I could tell stories until the sun came up...)
> It doesn't make sense that the observer would be the source of the values, but at the same time antithetical to their existence as the OP claimed.
Have you taken into consideration what implements "it doesn't make sense"? Are you not running into the very problem you noted in your prior sentence?
> Sure, but we then operate on an entirely different basis that precludes the terms such as 'value' that we are currently using.
Surely, often and to varying degrees. But then, to what degree is all of this speculation? How might one know?
> If the layer is different, then the concepts will be different to.
Exactly!!
> And if we can't point to those concepts, what exactly are we discussing?
Perspectives upon reality? The output of human consciousness? A dream world of some sort?
Being personally ingratiating is simply an ability, like the ability to lift heavier objects or mentally rotate shapes. It has utility, but is not a moral force.
I was surprised to see this quote:
> Historian Warren Susman said that a “culture of character” gave way to a “culture of personality” and “every American was to become a performing self.”
Given today's obsession with personality, Carnegie seems fairly character driven in comparison!
I've never understood the hate for HTWFaIP... sure it's folksy and seems phony on the surface, but his core message works across time and generations - take an interest in the people you meet, as that becomes the basis of relationships. I'm an introvert, I stutter when I get nervous around people, but internalizing the core message of that book has helped me throughout life to connect with people and step outside my comfort zone consistently.
I understand how a psychopath could take the book and do damage - but the core message seems to be genuine and solid advice.
People are living an experience just like you. And, likely just like you, most seem to want others to be invested in that experience. Going on that journey with them makes making friends easy - you learn fascinating stuff every day and they feel good when they walk away from the conversation.
I do think there are technological and social ways of at least lessening this issue. For instance the secret ballot might qualify. Planning poker is somehow similar, everyone commits to a secret opinion, but in this case they are then later revealed and used as a starting point for a discussion. Maybe Roberts Rules of Order. And for a big curveball, I think capitalism is actually also a countermeasure. By having parallel competing organizations, it means that if group-think hold takes hold in one of them, other organizations with different ideas can overtake it.
In the scenario described, the problem wasn't people not choosing the better ideas because they were afraid of retaliation. It was them thinking the louder ideas were better because they were louder.
It's very hard to solve problems like this with fancy procedures. IMO what's needed is a cultural shift to respect people's opinions and not lionize the loud and flashy.
The tendencies towards binary "us vs them" thinking and using magnitude as an estimate of correctness seem to me to be instinctual social reactions, the type of thing that needs training and constant self-reflection to recognize and consciously avoid succumbing to or exploiting. It's unreasonable to expect anyone to constantly be on guard against themselves or to avoid using every available tool to achieve success, especially when we are so good at rationalizing our positions on anything.
What's required might be a technical solution (not necessarily technological) - arranging meetings and discussions so that everyone can be seen and heard, using formats that promote reasoned discussion, greater expectations of formality and politeness, etc. A change of rules could kickstart a cultural change, but would certainly change how people behave in the fora where they were implemented.
For example if you have a group of 20 or so people discussing an issue the best thing you can do is establish rotating, randomly selected groups of 4 or so people. People discuss together in these smaller groups then you bring everyone together to share some of the conclusions, rinse and repeat.
Another thing that you can do is actually time interventions and establish a table that prioritises the people who have spoken the least to be given the word over those who have spoken the most.
These measures help greatly with moderating discussions and this way everyone gets to hear other people's opinions. I think a big problem comes from the fact that when we have such discussion groups they tend to be led by extroverted people who don't really care (or understand) about moderating discussion in such a way that it lifts everyone's voices. But also at least in the political discussion groups I've been participating in the past few years, minority voices are usually lifted.
But yeah, I think maybe an easy to use technology, say, an app; could aid in making discussions more balanced.
What is described sounds far more like someone with bipolar, sociopathic or some other well established mental illness in that they have no conscience or empathy.
and/or
people with average to below average IQ who are just smart enough to know how to crime well but not smart enough to realize or use more productive non-criminal methods to gain what they want/need.
Historically we used mental asylums and prisons to keep such people away from the broader population. Those methods worked pretty well but have largely been abandoned. Going for the root cause and obvious mistakes that removed amelioration of those root causes are the way to solve the problems that result.
The author paints a tired straw man and puts himself and all other introverts in the role of a victim. The former is unhelpful and the latter downright harmful.
Sincerely, a so-called introvert.
There were plenty of times being as vocal as people are today would be incredibly stupid at best, and paint a target at worst. Being outgoing has little to do with sheer volume or pushing others out of the picture.
Also, amount and frequency of contact is far higher than before. I find it more plausible loudness is a bandaid among a society trying to continue at breakneck speed, than being inherently more charismatic.