Lying flat, quiet quitting, Gervais losers

[Lemur]

I watched this short documentary this morning on Chinese “Slacker-Youths.” https://youtu.be/GJ7S-nKmAr4

Essentially the loser pandemic in China. In contrast to the clueless Chinese Boomers / Gen-X, it seems the key to reversing the problem is to somehow instill a hope that you too can rise up in wealth and social status with hard work and conscientiousness.

But maybe not so simple due to the Information Age that was not present among the prior generation as well as higher cost of living. This generation of youths is fully aware of how market systems impact not just there own cost of livings but also worldwide.

The entrepreneur, innovation, creativity, growth and youthful optimism’s - these things can be tapped into with the right message. But it won’t come from a message of “do it for the GDP.”

[Frita]

Joining in on the collective laugh!

From personal experience, the heavy demands of being a project lead on a resource depleted team pushed me forever from clueless to loser; enough to where I changed jobs to make it easier to live life as a loser as I continue to build up savings. I don't know if is possible to go back to clueless anymore at this point. Others have more courage to do this without built up financial capital.

For me, I found that I couldn’t stay clueless, nor could I be a loser. For a couple decades, most of which were FI, I lived in some type of No Man’s Land with a handful of others (hard to find, a generation ahead of me). The cognitive dissonance was brutal, and the reason why so few people hang out there (and actively dislike those who do). Education was meaningful work for me because it was toward a collective good. The system is utter BS, smoke and mirrors requiring one to be firmly in a loser/clueless/SP camp. In my search with a replacement behavior, I have found volunteer positions and non-profit gigs to be infected by the same stuff while pretending otherwise. So…I am working on accepting things as they are.

[ZAFCorrection]

The salaryman coping thread reminded me of this. I wonder if one can use the Gervais Principle to predict that increasing disenchantment with work could result in a shift to relatively smaller corporations (in organizations where the Gervais Principle is applicable). By my read of the Gervais principle, the size of large companies is often maintained by the Gervais Clueless doing culture-maintaining things and acting as a force multiplier for the policy of the Gervais Sociopaths. Without them, I would expect the company to ultimately break into smaller pieces, formally or otherwise.

[Frita]

I believe the theory is dysfunctional companies grow and experience a relative increase in clueless before dying. https://chris.improbable.org/2009/11/2/ ... principle/

[ZAFCorrection]

@Frita

I agree with you that is how Rao proposes the process occurs in general. Though, I wonder if the quiet quitting phenomenon is a previously-undescribed case where late-stage, dysfunctional companies can go in a mirrored direction of large numbers of Gervais Losers. In thinking about this, it occurred to me that the Gervais Principle mostly seems to describe what the three archetypes believe and how they interact in a fairly stable environment. Less time seems to be spent on how those interactions drive value creation, to the extent that it occurs in a dysfunctional work culture, and how changes might occur as the result of perturbations in the relative numbers of each archetype*. If the general cultural attitude towards work is that of the Gervais Loser, the model might even break down.

*Which makes sense given that the show the model is based on needed to be coherent and wasn't about selling paper.

[Frita]

@ZAFCorrection

Thanks for clarifying. So, if I understood correctly, another final stage option created by the “quiet quitters” movement could be the sociopath-loser without the large clueless layer (stage 2 of the MacLeod Lifecycle) , is that right?

[ZAFCorrection]

@Frita

Ya, that is the possibility I am seeing. I think too that this might effectively drive the MacLeod Lifecycle in reverse as management perceives a lack of cultural control in their companies and do things to get the size down to where they feel that control return. I don't expect that by itself the quiet quitting cultural change will make a huge difference because there are always more inputs and real people only kind of match the profiles of the model archetypes and change through time.

The pandemic has been pretty horrible, and a lot of the debate about work might be a one-off response to that.

[7Wannabe5]

I'm not sure if down-sizing tends to destroy the model. I can pretty easily think of example of simple triads that fit the bill. For instance, a mid-century modern dysfunctional family in which the wife is the sociopathic social climber, the husband is the loser, and their child is the clueless. OTOH, if you imagine the clueless child maturing into teen-level loser-like awareness, then when the situation becomes two losers and 1 sociopath, it's much more likely the triad will crumble. So, I think ratio is what matters.

[Frita]

I'm not sure if down-sizing tends to destroy the model. I can pretty easily think of example of simple triads that fit the bill. For instance, a mid-century modern dysfunctional family in which the wife is the sociopathic social climber, the husband is the loser, and their child is the clueless. OTOH, if you imagine the clueless child maturing into teen-level loser-like awareness, then when the situation becomes two losers and 1 sociopath, it's much more likely the triad will crumble. So, I think ratio is what matters.

Yes, the Gervais Principle/MacLeod Cycle does seem Karpman Drama Triangle-like. The triad avoids the pair resolving the issue(s) and being functional. The couple either dysfunctionally pulls in a third (most likely) or gets healthier.

[7Wannabe5]

@Frita:

Right. I think this is why I've always found the newspeak use of the phrase "job creator" to be semi-creepy Orwellian, even though I have been occasionally in that role myself. Theoretically, within any family, community, or organization, the best case scenario (likely Level Yellow)is that humans are facilitated towards self-actualization. The persecutor/sociopath becomes the VisionaryDesigner, the rescuer/loser becomes the Caring Competent Facilitator, and the victim/clueless becomes the Inspired-on-Learning-Curve.

One thing that popped out at me on my recent re-read of "The E-Myth" was the author's take that when a newly hired Lowest Level Technician is inspired by shared Vision/Mission to do their best to achieve competence following step-by-step highly prescribed low-level role, it is implied that mastery of this role would likely lead to promotion to next learning curve. However, in order for new learning curves/promotional opportunities to continue to be provided for all Technicians, the organization as a whole must continue to grow and/or Technicians must develop their internal Caring Facilitator and/or Visionary Designer to the extent that they are able to extend/create their own branch of organization or entirely new pyramid.

Of course, being your own "job creator" is what is achieved through FI, but the Vision/Mission has to then applied to Lifestyle rather than Business. In "The E-Myth", Gerber describes these two functions as being quite inter-related. Your Vision for your Lifestyle will be imagined as being financed by the Success of your Business, but they should both be in alignment with your Values/Ethics. Therefore, it follows that a purely passive approach to FI will more likely lead to a more passive Lifestyle post-FI.