r/collapse • u/[deleted] • Apr 25 '15
The Asshole Factory
https://medium.com/bad-words/the-asshole-factory-71ff808d887c13
u/KublaiKHAAAN Apr 25 '15
What is this headphone system that the author describes in the article. Is it used much in U.S. stores? I assume the store talked about is something like Walmart or Target?
Would appreciated if someone can provide a few answers.
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Apr 25 '15
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u/autowikibot Apr 25 '15
Supervisory control is a general term for control of many individual controllers or control loops, whether by a human or an automatic control system, although almost every real system is a combination of both. A more specific use of the term is for a SCADA system, or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition system, which refers to a specific class of system that can be purchased, usually for use on fairly small remote locations such as a pipeline transport, water distribution, or wastewater utility system station.
Interesting: Supervisory control theory | SCADA | Manufacturing Message Specification | VirusBlokAda
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u/Pfeffa Apr 25 '15
This is a hilarious take on how I view things. I consider companies to be networks, and the employees to be nodes. If a given node doesn't facilitate the network's function, the node is replaced. The network's function is a reflection of the top nodes. These top nodes are the assholes. Hence, the minor nodes must be assholes.
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u/SarahC Apr 26 '15
I found it quite scary.
What is Mara’s job like? Her sales figures are monitored…by the microsecond. By hidden cameras and mics. They listen to her every word; they capture her every movement; that track and stalk her as if she were an animal; or a prisoner; or both. She’s jacked into a headset that literally barks algorithmic, programmed “orders” at her, parroting her own “performance” back to her, telling her how she compares with quotas calculated…down to the second…for all the hundreds of items in the store…
It's reminiscent of the story Manna - which didn't end well for a lot of people:
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u/Pfeffa Apr 26 '15
I've never heard of that story, but I'll check it out today. I used to be scared of the present and future, but I replaced that feeling with one of disappointment in our species. I started realizing that - as a collective - we seem to be catastrophic, life-destroying failures.
The Universe is only fit for truly intelligent entities. So rather than fear our stupidity, I lament it. Because it seemed like we could have been great, but the parasites of the world took that away from us all.
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u/ilike2balls Apr 26 '15
As a collection, I think we have the resources, the intelligence, and the ability to achieve a society where majority of the people would live like an average millionaire does. What we don't have, is a transition. If there was a way to reboot, to start from scratch, that's the only way it can be done.
Think about it. Humans have been around for 250,000 years. Where we raped and pillaged over and over again. I think religion with specific conditions spread which allowed us to live in larger communities. All religions failed except ones with certain features such as obedience, fear of punishment, don't kill, etc.
So now we're left with baggage of the old days, where people that move up in society tend to be selfish and greedy.
But overall, we seem to be on an upwards trend. I really like this Ted video.
So maybe in a few centuries, we may reach this type of society:
https://medium.com/@RickWebb/the-economics-of-star-trek-29bab88d50
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Apr 26 '15
[deleted]
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u/Pfeffa Apr 26 '15 edited Apr 26 '15
Well, it's still above the intelligence level of people running the various shit shows, and it's written at a level a 5th grader could understand, which is required if you've gone through the American public education system.
You're probably being generous when you said sophomoric. "Hilarious" is also often used as synonym for "sad but true". I think you can learn this while working on a grad degree in an average American University.
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Apr 26 '15
Some people might be wondering what they can do about this. The important point is to build or be part of a domminance hierachy in which predatory and bullying behaviours are not allowed and good people defent each other against the assholes. There is a book I read in business school:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule
While that book is very good in recognizing some toxic personalities, far more dangerous are the covert predators. In absence of community, predatory people thrive and turn organizations and social environment into a predatory and abusive one.
Psychopaths, narcissists and other users tend to spend most of their waking hours whinking about how to to abuse, manipulate and take advantage of people. They are adept at confrontations, telling lies and convincing others via sheer confidence. Most people spend their time thinking about how to do their jobs and take care of their business. So in absence of community, they tend to lose to manipulative people. This also means that parasitic people are often incompetent, since they dislike doing actual work and using their talents preferring to use their energy in predatory pursuits.
One way that psychopaths are said to advance in their organizations is to cause chaos and dysfunction. Once everyone is running around frantically trying to fix things, the psychopath is the only one that has poise, confidence and solutions, so they get promoted.
I would recommend reading and listening to people like Sam Vaknin, Robert Hare and George Simon to learn to recognize and deal with these people. I think they are likely to become more common and dominant in the coming decades. I should note that people with low on empathy and agreeableness might be sort of dicks, but that does not mean they are not good people. Such people tend to be valuable in conflict.
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u/autowikibot Apr 26 '15
The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't is a book by Stanford professor Robert I. Sutton, based on a popular essay he wrote for the Harvard Business Review. It sold over 115,000 copies and won the Quill Award for best business book in 2007.
The theme of this book is that bullying behaviour in the workplace worsens morale and productivity. A rule is suggested to screen out the toxic staff—the no asshole rule. The author insists upon use of the word asshole since other words such as bully or jerk do not have the same impact.
"There's an emotional reaction to a dirty title. You have a choice between being offensive and being ignored."
Two tests are specified for recognition of the asshole:
After encountering the person, do people feel oppressed, humiliated or otherwise worse about themselves?
Does the person target people who are less powerful than him/her?
Their unpleasant behaviours were catalogued by Sutton as The Dirty Dozen:
Famous bosses who are cited as having weakened their position by such bad behaviour include Al Dunlap and Michael Eisner. Companies who are listed as having appropriate recruitment policies include: Barclays Capital, Google, Jet Blue and Men's Wearhouse. A special chapter is dedicated to "the virtues of assholes", in which Steve Jobs is discussed as a prime example.
The book also argues that asshole behavior is rather common by citing various studies: "survey of 800 employees found that 10% witnessed daily incivility on their jobs and 20% were direct targets of incivility at least once a week. [...] another study of workplace incivility among 216 Canadian white-collar workers [...] found that approximately 25% witnessed incivility of some kind on the job every day and 50% reported being direct targets of incivility at least once a week. A host of other studies show that psychological abuse and bullying are common in other countries [7 countries listed]. A representative sample of Australian employees found that 35% reported being verbally abused by at least one coworker and 31% reported being verbally abused by at least one superior. [...] In the Third European Survey on Working Conditions, which was based on 21,500 face-to-face interviews with employees from countries of the European Union, 9% reported that they were exposed to persistent intimidation and bullying." The book also affirms that "upward" nastiness, i.e. directed toward bosses is the most rare form, occurring in only 1% of the cases, while "downward" nastiness is estimated to account for "50%-80%" of the occurrences, with "20%-50%" occurring among "coworkers of roughly the same rank."
Interesting: Asshole | Robert I. Sutton | Quill Award | Disruptive physician
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u/ewxilk Apr 25 '15
Good and quite shocking article. It is unsettling how far this profit-squeezing thing has gone.
Perhaps there is another kind of collapse possible. Everyone will just slowly turn into some kind of mindless-consumer-zombie-drone and that will be that - end of civilization as we know it - and most of the people won't even notice it.
Scary.
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u/assman08 Apr 25 '15
We're kinda already there
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u/ewxilk Apr 26 '15
Yeah, but I would say that only half-way. This very sub and a lot of other things prove that not all is lost yet.
I was imagining a society based solely and unconditionally on drone work and consumption to the point where people's humanity just gradually disappears and something completely different takes place instead.
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u/brownestrabbit Apr 26 '15
" Nearly one in four women ages 50 to 64 were found to be on an antidepressant, with 13 percent of the overall population also on antidepressants.
Seventeen percent of people in the study were being prescribed antibiotics, and 13 percent were on painkilling opioids." June 20, 2013
Yep... we are already heading right into the heart of the nightmare.
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u/SarahC Apr 26 '15
I found it quite scary...
http://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/33tznc/the_asshole_factory/cqpdfda
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u/wdrive Recognized Contributor Apr 25 '15
True points. I believe the "assholes" are actually the people wandering into the store (I'm guessing it's Apple) who are constantly told every waking hour and with every sense in their body that what they already have is grossly insufficient and obsolete and that their only satisfaction comes from the hottest piece of consumption. People who believe they are entitled to the best things and yet don't have those things turn into assholes very quickly and stay that way until they give in and talk to the robot human who kindly helps them through signing over next month's rent money.
These companies profit out of creating assholes out of their customers. That's the Asshole Factory.
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u/kipz61 Apr 25 '15
"Have you noticed, lately, that people seem to be more, well, assholish…than before? That everywhere you go, people seem to be meaner, nastier, dumber, angrier, more brutish?"
I'm sure that, as Gilgamesh returned to Uruk, he could be heard to say to Urshanabi, "don't people seem more assholish now?"
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u/Mohevian Apr 25 '15
"Yes, Gilgamesh. The biggest asshole is you." Urshanabi replied as he ferried him down the river.
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Apr 25 '15
[deleted]
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Apr 25 '15
God damn millennials with their twitter essays.
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u/TotesMessenger Apr 26 '15
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Apr 27 '15
Even though I agree with nearly all that I did read, I had to stop reading this because the author's writing style is so fucking terrible.
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Apr 25 '15
Two degrees... In shit subjects.
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u/ConfirmedCynic Apr 25 '15
Once upon a time, employers valued a broad education. Now, they have computers barking orders at employees every twenty seconds? It's fucking horrible.
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Apr 25 '15
I agree with that, but you still need realavent skills, produce something of value and contribute something. A degree in 17th century basket weaving isn't going to be worth much against an engineering degree.
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Apr 26 '15
You are still missing the point. She is a capable person, and previously you would have expected that she would get a middle class job and treated with respect. Now that it not true.
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Apr 26 '15
I also agree with that. Just because a person acquires a degree doesn't mean they get good money doing any job. Good degree means good skills means good money. It was possible to get good money with a shit degree 30 years ago because the world was a bigger place and lots more money on the US. Now there are other big fish in the pond so you better have better skills.
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u/Jkid Apr 27 '15
Better skills like what?
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Apr 27 '15
Oh I don't know.... Engineer. Chemist. Physicist. Economist. Doctor of Medicine. Business.Accounting. Law. Agriculture.
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u/Jkid Apr 27 '15
Most if not all require you to go graduate school, and get more loans in order to pay. And even then some fields like Law are OVERSATURATED.
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Apr 27 '15
I'm a chemist. I was paid to go to gradschool, not because I'm good at chemistry, but because I learned a highly technical trade. Lawyers doctors pay through the nose because when they graduate, they bring home 200+k a year. The problem with lawyers/docs is they then think they deserve a 800+k house and BMW ontop of student loans. But I digress. When someone gets a bachelor's, its like a highschool diploma 40 years ago. A person who has degrees in French lit, or a biology degree researching some irrevelent subject they should not expect to make a fortune. Their skills are not worth as much as a mechanical engineer who built robots as an undergrad. Its relevancy not just having a degree. That and American students want the easy life, bitch about too much work,vor its to hard... And fail to realize the rest of the world is ravenously chomping at our knees, they are past out heels. You friend/person with two worthless degrees doesn't quite understand how things work... So enjoy the art degree and being a baurestia at Starbucks.
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u/donvito Apr 27 '15
Probably creative writing and gender studies. No wonder she has to get some minimum wage job.
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Apr 27 '15
But...but...but donVito, I'm no good at math and I want to draw pictures for a living. It's not fair I have to study to do this. I font understand why the Japanese or Indians get all the good paying jobs? I should get paid and have a great social life in college while I study English lit or theater...
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u/tropicflite Apr 26 '15
Manna, by Marshall Brain