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Comment by wolvesechoes | Hacker News Reader

It is funny. Well-socialized person doesn't need this kind of guide, as unwritten rules of social play are learned in the process of growing-up.

But it is clear for "nerds" and "hackers" social is impenetrable, thus preference for interacting with the machine and towards techno-solutionism. What, by the way, the main reason FOSS movement will never liberate anything.

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It's more than that, some of us actually believe in a thing called "good work."

The idea that powerful manager saying untrue things shouldn't be contradicted may seem like "obviously correct" to you, but actually at the places where 80% of engineers call that shit out that political manager probably gets booted from the company.

But many people genuinely believe politicians are a net negative on the company as a whole, and in startups many people are willing to do/say what's best for the company without expecting some individual return.

> actually at the places where 80% of engineers call that shit out that political manager probably gets booted from the company.

Congrats, you will soon discover that politics is about realizing your goals by influencing other people and their decisions. And it is easier when you end up in the group that share your set of values.

Cool bro, only 20 years into my career, can't wait to soon discover that!

Gonna be so awesome to try hard to keep a mental model of every single director's desires and kiss their ass and make a bunch of fake projects and fake announcements all to not get promoted anyways! An introvert's dream.

Can't wait to do that instead of remote working chilling in my hammock!

> unwritten rules of social play are learned in the process of growing-up.

Could you elaborate. Under which circumstances does one learn these things. Family, surely not. I hope so.

I learned this best in university clubs that had elected positions

Ah ! Makes sense. Those places seemed quite toxic and I kept my distance from those.

OOC, if you accept the premise that they would have been a good place to practice/understand this sort of thing, and got a chance to “do over,” would you still keep your distance?

Difficult to answer because I find some of the machinations so distressing. Perhaps it is the way I am wired.

Given the benefits of the knowledge that became apparent later in life, I might have preferred looking on from a distance to understand how things work.

But good question. You made me re-evaluated a choice I had made.

Oh family as well, when going beyond the one household, into the remainig family branches especially if money, property are involved, or going against the house culture and expectations for one's life choices.

> Family, surely not. I hope so

School, workplace, sports club, but yes, family as well.

Children learn how to influence their parents to get what the want, which parent they should put pressure on, which parent should be first to be told about some issue etc.

We don't call it politics as it is just a natural thing, but the principle is the same.

I recently had a conversation with some friends, and one mentioned that she hates office politics and tries to stay out of it. It clicked for me: people who hate/abstain from office “politics” are just clueless about the social/organizational hierarchy.

Absolutely there is some real political nastiness that can happen, but 98 3/4% of what’s described as office politics really just seems like a) make decisions that are aligned with the company and b) make someone up your management chain look good.

The problem is those rules aren't the same across the world, so what works in one place doesn't apply to the next.

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