Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

by herbertl • 4 years ago

300 211 4 years ago

This is one of the more interesting reads I have done lately. The idea isn't really all that earth shattering or novel, but I liked how Nadia articulated the whole idea. While Trump isn't mentioned I cannot help but think of him.

He also seems to get away with one crime after the other by doing them brazenly in the open. It is almost as if the voters or his followers don't think it can be that bad because after all he is admitting it openly on camera.

drc500free• 4 years ago

A lot of them love that he "tells it like it is," even when he's spouting nonsense. They've noticed that inoffensive, press-release-style messages are often bullshit. So they believe that someone being a jerk must be telling the truth.

doyouevensunbro2• 4 years ago

They listen for keywords and if the rambling speech has them then it's a match and the speech was a success.

dexwiz3• 4 years ago

Trump was a build your own candidate. He said so many things you could pick what you wanted and ignore the rest as pandering to get votes. Turns out he probably was always pandering.

newtwilly• 4 years ago

Yes, I also really enjoyed this piece. It has a nice and loose style... just throwing ideas out without trying to "prove" them, but nonetheless presenting interesting ideas and likely some useful mental models.

chitowneats• 4 years ago

Musk too.

saghm2• 4 years ago

I think the references to the "2016 presidential election" were pretty clearly meant to bring Trump to mind without having to mention him directly.

hackerlight• 4 years ago

Trump's followers forgive his behavior because he's perceived to be sticking up for them against a culture and society that they view as becoming increasingly hostile and condescending to their identity, values and way of life. Someone that plays dirty and packs a strong counter punch is a good thing.

The mindset is like this: you're an unpopular kid that feels bullied, and some bigger kid starts defending you. You aren't going to question the quality of his character.

Right-wing populism seems to always be like this. They make people who feel under siege (wounded national pride, whatever) feel safer and feel respected. That improvement in feeling swamps everything else.

mikkergp4• 4 years ago

Trump is interesting as an example of someone who is wiling to wield shamelessness in a way that others are not. He is much more shameless than almost anyone else in politics.

But the thing is, it is high risk, and this is why others are unwilling to be as shameless. You risk being a social Pariah. The one thing that seems to have eluded Trump his whole life is genuine acceptance. Even the Republican party now, it really feels like people see him as a tool more than a person. He will go down in history, but for Trumpism, not for being Trump. He'll never been see as being loved for his person the way someone like Reagan might (to a degree, I don't know that presidents can ever be truly seen as a person more than as a movement).

civilized• 4 years ago

Breaking the rules can pay if "the rules" aren't the only way to play the game.

sn41• 4 years ago

Shame is the worst self-censor there is. I often talk to myself to ignore a sense of shame while imploring for a due payment etc. Things do work that way, but I admit, it's not a happy process.

doyouevensunbro2• 4 years ago

Shamelessness doesn't have to only be used for nefarious purposes. I know engineers on my team suffer from imposter syndrome. I do not because I just always assume I know nothing :) I have no problem in a meeting or architecture review saying "Can you explain that a bit simpler for me" or something to that effect. Having the team understand the tasks at hand is way more important to me than what people think about me.

splonk• 4 years ago

I definitely agree that the ability to admit when you don't understand something is extremely helpful. My favorite coworkers are the ones that I'm sure understand things because they're very willing to say when they don't.

hyperpallium2• 4 years ago

  The beginning of knowing
  Is not knowing

munificent• 4 years ago

I do not because I just always assume I know nothing :)

What you likely do have is a sense of certainty that "knowing nothing" will not cause you to be rejected by your peers. It's easy to say you don't understand something when you don't fear that others will find your ignorance makes you unworthy.

But those with imposter syndrome feel that unworthiness directly. They don't have that intrinsic sense of belonging that allows them to reveal a flaw without fear of rejection.

openfuture• 4 years ago

What he said resonates with me. I take the same stance and there is nothing you can exclude me from that will hurt me. If I'd lose a job or the chance to get a job because of this attitude then I'd be happy to not be put into that anxiety-inducing context. Actually, I'd rather die than be a part of this coercive system that manufactures problems so I am a bit on the hardcore side (especially since this has been put to the test and I have in fact almost died for this reason).

BurningFrog• 4 years ago

Engineering is dealing with reality.

My lack of knowledge is just another part of that reality.

circlefavshape• 4 years ago

I think the difference here is identifying with your work. I have no problem asking stupid questions, because being a software dev is just a job for me, and while I'd like people to think that I'm good at it, it doesn't affect me deeply if they don't. I have co-workers whose competence at their jobs is tied up with their own sense of self-worth, and it's much more difficult for them

wanderingmind• 4 years ago

Shamelessness, if used correctly is a superpower that I will place it in the same pedastal as concentration, curiosity and tenacity. A lot of people including me seem to lose out because a sense of shame holds us back, not renegotiating our compensation multiple times, or to job hop as often as possible or to shamlessly promote and market ourselves and I can go on and on.

galaxyLogic2• 4 years ago

Well if I were to reply to you simply that "I am the best" (since I am) it would be shameless self-promotion.

But would it really be a good strategy? Would it not diminish my credibility?

There needs to be something more than just shamelessness. Blatant shamelessness does not really get us very far, I think.

luckylion3• 4 years ago

Would it not diminish my credibility?

Only with some people, but it probably works on the majority.

Blatant shamelessness does not really get us very far, I think.

Collectively, no. Individually, yes. It's like lying in a society that hasn't discovered lying yet and takes everything you say as truth. It will leave that society worse off, but it's practically a super power for you.

seer• 4 years ago

Trouble is, shame is not a decision, its an emotion. While one definitely can adjust ones emotional responses, it requires a lot of time and effort, and cannot be rushed too much.

Whenever I feel “shame” I can ignore it and perform the action anyway, but at least for me that incurs a cost - the feeling of said shame can intensify. Even if I know that it was totally justified and there’s nothing I _should_ be ashamed for - I can’t directly control my emotions.

This leads to my “rationing” of shame, where I pick my battles to make sure the outcomes are mostly good - where I feel the shame feeling was not justified. Overtime that can extend the range.

Alternatively I can “exert” myself - forcing me to perform a lot of shameful actions in succession, which can _easily_ lead to “burnout” where I don’t want to do any other action other than joy seeking and relaxation for a while.

A cute but still relevant example: I was urged and I went to a dance congress for a dance I was just a beginner of. Now I am generally an experienced dancer, just not that dance in particular.

It took me a lot of mental effort to ask partners for a dance since I know I’m much less skilled than most and I felt a bit of shame every time.

Now logically this is weird, since most dancers would prefer dancing with a beginner, rather than not dancing at all (I’m doing the leading part of the dance so I’m expected to ask followers to the dance-floor). Some would actually enjoy dancing with a shy guy and showing him the ropes. Buuut I still felt shame and each time I asked someone it became harder and harder. Two days into the event I just couldn’t force myself to do it and had to bail early.

A more shameless person would have stayed and danced and learned a lot, and thats rational. But we are emotional creatures and need to take that into account, when making rational decisions too.

So I try to be shameless when possible, but keep some “shamelessness” in reserve for when I really need it.

jvanderbot• 4 years ago

Agree, people have much more control over their emotional responses than they believe. One may not be able to turn off emotion in particular situations or exactly when they want to, but it's possible to tone down (or up) the response to similar situations over time through practice. In time, it becomes much more voluntary than we'd think.

This is the point of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Stoicism, and Mindfulness.

andix5• 4 years ago

About compensation there is an easy trick: decide on your limits before starting to negotiate and stick to them, really stick to them. Don’t be insulted if the other party doesn’t agree, that’s your price, and it’s their decision to take it or leave it. And tell yourself you deserve the compensation you decided on.

There is the risk that you fail at a negotiation, but you have to take it. If the job is not very well paid, there is probably another one just like that, you can still take as a backup.

ZeroGravitas• 4 years ago

With the payment thing, isn't the main 'shamelessness' on the side of the business that will employ people, and not pay them what they're worth so they can cream off the excess? Only offering market prices when forced to attract new staff but already planning to not maintain that unless forced to?

It reminds me of my cable company and how they advertise all these great deals that aren't available for me because I'm an existing customer, and I have no negotiaton leverage as I don't currently have two competing providers that I can play off against each other.

So, shouldn't we be aiming for more shame on that side, rather than stooping to their level and celebrating shemelessness as a way to fight fire with fire? Or at least some sensible system that better rewards people for their effort, not for disloyalty to their colleagues (and I mean that in both directions, paying less than people are worth and job-hopping for more money don't seems like socially useful behaviours) and customers?

rsaz• 4 years ago

Anecdotally, this also seems like a good strategy for dating. Being up-front and clear about your intentions rather than beating around the bush, frequent shameless flirting, and complete honesty about who you are make for a good recipe. If the person suits you it accelerates things, and if you're not compatible you can move on quickly.

I haven't seen it having a "flare" effect like the article mentions, but could see it working that way in the right circumstances.

dboreham• 4 years ago

As documented by Feynman.

btbuildem3• 4 years ago

Not sure I agree.. maybe shame and shyness are being conflated here. My read of the article was that this shamelessness was in context of society at large -- kind of sociopathic almost.

In dating, there is no shame that way -- it's a perfectly acceptable behaviour many people engage in.

VincentEvans3• 4 years ago

I am more curious to find out what is the basis of the article’s assertion that Paris Hilton’s “dumb blond heiress” was a brilliant high level strategy and not exactly what it appeared to be?

If I were a fortunate wealthy narcissist of middling intelligence I too would rather prefer for the masses to interpret my frequent displays of abject stupidity as a high-wire ploy of a stable genius.

saghm2• 4 years ago

I think the author addresses this near the end of the article:

A common critique of shameless people is questioning their intelligence. But one of the most bizarre aspects here is it doesn’t actually matter how aware that person is of what they’re doing. The concept of a “genius mastermind” is itself outdated, because it assumes that someone needs to be in control. The shameless person is simply a host for a set of ideas, which, like any virus, will continue to propagate as long as there are willing hosts to receive it.

The point isn't so much that she did or didn't fit that description, but that her actions were effective regardless of the intentions, so criticizing them on those grounds doesn't really do much to combat them.

VincentEvans3• 4 years ago

“Her actions were effective regardless of the intentions” - effective in what way? Stupid actions effective to reinforce others perception that the actor is stupid? I don’t get it.

I must have missed the “ta-da” moment at the end, the big reveal, the one where the shocked naysayers are left humbled by the surprise transformation…

ackbar03• 4 years ago

I think it does though, because the whole point of the article is shamelessness as a strategy, which means it has to be done knowingly to achieve the purpose.

If she was unaware of it but reached the end result, good for her, but it doesn't support that she herself was knowingly following the strategy, which makes a big difference

dexwiz3• 4 years ago

The second hand narrative I’ve heard is that she was emotionally abused as a child and went away to boarding school. She used the dumb blonde persona to escape criticism both from the public and her own family as she maneuvered into the life she wanted.

koonsolo3• 4 years ago

All of her classmates and close friends seem to say she is very intelligent.

There is just a very strong sentiment (including yours) that she has to be stupid. She gave you and everybody else what you wanted.

I was very relieved to find out she was intelligent, because that was my theory from the start. I could not believe someone that stupid would make it that far.

VincentEvans3• 4 years ago

Make it how far? End up in a reality show, joining the likes of Honey Booboo? Born into money with all of the trappings, benefits, opportunities it presents and likely eventually to be able to steer her life taking advantage of her situation?

This reply seems to paint me in a negative light asserting that I “expected her to be stupid”, which you will have to take my word for, I had no such expectations. Whatever impressions of her I have acquired were born of an observation of her public persona.

I am not Paris Hilton watcher, I haven’t heard of her since the show, and have made no notice of some feat of intelligence associated with her name.

I would welcome some evidence of her alleged high intelligence, but I guess I’ll look it up myself if such exists.

colatkinson• 4 years ago

I think it's ultimately because the "dumb blonde heiress" thing has made her oodles and oodles of money. She's far from a "started from nothing story," given her family. But that said, she's incredibly successful beyond that, at least in part because of her ability to generate free publicity at will.

Her perfume line brings in $2.5 billion in revenue. Her retail businesses bring in $4 billion in sales. That's on top of her music career, and being paid six figure sums just to show up at parties.

If she'd been sensible, I'm sure she could've gone off to Harvard or Wharton, taken over the family empire, and be sitting next to her vaguely-abusive father in a board meeting right now. But being a coked-out ditz is apparently very, very profitable, and has given her decades of staying power in the public consciousness.

That said, I do think it's harder to say if it was a conscious strategy (i.e. a publicity team sitting around saying, "Ok Paris, tonight you're going to throw a drink at Bill from TMZ, we've already set it up") vs the fact that one can be both a complete mess in some aspects of your life and well put-together in others. If the checks keep rolling in, and you're still having fun with it, I'm sure that "all publicity is good publicity" becomes a pretty reassuring mantra over time. Our obsession with Spectacle does the rest.

To draw a parallel: look at Elon Musk. He's built a personal brand around posting cringy memes on Twitter. Is he a moron? Possibly, in at least some senses. Has his public persona made him buckets of money and contributed to Tesla having a PE ratio that confuses the hell out of analysts? Undoubtedly. One's just targeted at twenty-something women who watch too much reality TV, and the other at twenty-something men who read too much Reddit.

Bubble_Pop_222• 4 years ago

But that said, she's incredibly successful beyond that, at least in part because of her ability to generate free publicity at will.

For an honest comparison you should compare what she did vs. the alternative scenario of her disappearing from public life after the porn video, not working a single day further at all and just scouting for a good money manager (her family know plenty for sure..both for real estate business and for capital markets at large). Compounding money in the markets is very powerful, even if her carrer made her just as much money, she still had to do some work.

EDIT: I realize people need a purpose and so not working at all could be very bad for you.

d23• 4 years ago

I’m not really sure what the long-term implications of shamelessness will be.

The best we can hope for at this point is that there will be a backlash. Otherwise, I fear it’s a form of nihilism and sociopathy that will bring down everything.

gumby3• 4 years ago

This is a good post but I wasn’t sure at first where it was going.

I have a … colleague (not actually in my organization) who is “shameless” as described. Not a Paris Hilton, but moves the Overton window in a (morally) good and useful way. He does say things I disagree with and indeed sometimes that I think are quite wrong. He’ll strike ip a conversation with anyone he thinks can help his cause. He pisses people off, and I have had uncomfortable conversations where people have said they don’t want to work with people who put up with him. But I won’t disavow him.

Actually this describes rms as well, and he’s a good example of someone who’s been willing to go to extremes to get things done, and has been quite influential. I would never disavow him either.

For both people (hmm, both males, both from the MIT “community”, and with other characteristics in common as well) I’ve admired them while simultaneously not wanting to be them. And remained friends.

_carbyau_6• 4 years ago

This is an interesting aspect I haven't seen really resolved well in modern life.

People are not good/bad. They are agents of change and some things they do will be perceived differently than other things they do.

Example, Picasso was not very nice to women in his life. And yet people celebrate his art.

Admire a person's actions without admiring the person as a whole. I would not disavow a person - but actions I disagree with.

For an employer, it has to be weighed up whether an employees actions are worthwhile on the whole.

mellavora• 4 years ago

haven't seen really resolved well in modern life.

I'm agreeing with your sentiment. It is something we used to do much better, before we got politicized into tribes which are always trying to prove that the other tribe is evil.

TomSwirly2• 4 years ago

Picasso was not very nice to women in his life.

"Not very nice".

No, Picasso was wildly sadistic and cruel to women in his life and talked about it endlessly as he did it and even painted it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weeping_Woman#Relationship...

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/11/09/how-picasso-b...

Marie-Thérèse Walter, Picasso’s young lover between his first wife, Olga Khokhlova, and his next mistress, Dora Maar, later hanged herself; even Roque [his second wife] eventually fatally shot herself. “Women are machines for suffering,” Picasso told Françoise Gilot, his mistress after Maar.

amelius3• 4 years ago

Picasso is a wrong example because his art was not a result of him being not nice to women.

But a person with a bad character can sometimes get things done that others can't.

Admiring that person is like saying that you hate fossil fuels but still enjoy a trip to some distant location a few times per year.

It's hypocritical in a way.

arisAlexis2• 4 years ago

Yes some people are good/bad. Its very trendy now "not to think in absolute terms". A Russian general ordering bombs at a school is bad. Very bad. Not gray, not politically incorrect. Plain bad.

Damogran6• 4 years ago

This has always been a thing I've struggled with. Not getting into the politics of cancelling famous people that behave badly...I hate that something like JK Rowling's body of work, which I really liked, has taken such a turn, and within certain circles, admitting you like the original series...is a risky thing to do.

I like Dave Chapelle, seen him live twice, and consider him a fantastically intelligent person.

I think an underlying fault of our current situation is a lack of nuance, an inability to compromise, and a desire to weaponize differences of opinion.

TomSwirly2• 4 years ago

He does say things I disagree with and indeed sometimes that I think are quite wrong.

Your whole post is completely empty of details, so how can we decide?

Are the disagreeable things disputes about some software thing? Or does this guy feel that homosexuals should die, that trans people are sick, and women inferior? Or something in between?

----

To be frank, I believe the reason that you don't even give a hint as to exactly what he's saying is because if you told the details, people would be disgusted.

RMS had a long history of saying annoying things about the computer industry, and that's a good thing - that's his job.

But when he started defending Jeffrey Epstein because one of the girls he trafficked was as old as 17 and had been pimped out to Marvin Minsky whom RMS admired!

A lot of people simply didn't want to be in the same room with him after that. "One of these girls was close to not being underage" is a terrible argument.

An example in my real life - a friend of mine called me up out of the blue during the pandemic and made a big play for the message, "There are too many old people on the planet, so many of them need to die."

I don't think she realized how old I was, but it makes no difference. We never really spoke again, because depraved indifference to others is horrifying.

mlang79• 4 years ago

But she is right. After some time, the old has to make way for the new. There is no way around this. The pandemic has taught this lesson to many people while they were forced to sit alone at home.

progre• 4 years ago

He didn't defend Epstein did he? I recall him (clumsily) trying to defend Minsky though. Basically saying "Maybe Marvin Minsky didn't know those girls were underage"

heresie-dabord• 4 years ago

depraved indifference to others is horrifying

The grievous or depraved indifference of many people cost 6.3m lives worldwide during the pandemic. The US has had > 1m deaths. Yet people had only to wear a mask, distance, and receive a vaccination.

It's easy to be brazen when others are paying for the consequences.

gumby3• 4 years ago

> He does say things I disagree with and indeed sometimes that I think are quite wrong.
Your whole post is completely empty of details, so how can we decide?

I didn't ask you to decide, and deliberately left the specifics out to avoid distracting from the point I was trying to make.

Are the disagreeable things disputes about some software thing? Or does this guy feel that homosexuals should die, that trans people are sick, and women inferior? Or something in between?

But since you ask: one of his strongly held opinions is that the global population needs to decrease and that the way to do it is not through coercion but persuasion, through an approach I consider vaguely paternalistic and reminiscent of an aspect of colonialism. I don't think he feels specifically that the population needs to decline only among a subset of people meeting some specific criterion 'X' (i.e. it's not some sort of racist belief), simply that the global birth rate needs to go down.

For my part, I don't really care much if the population goes up or down; I certainly don't see a declining birth rate as a bad thing, but I feel that making everybody richer will tend to do that anyway so let's work on that instead because it's an absolute good thing.

The problem is that when he talks about this it alienates some people.

But when he started defending Jeffrey Epstein because one of the girls he trafficked was as old as 17 and had been pimped out to Marvin Minsky whom RMS admired!

RMS's argument was absurd and thoughtless, but I have four friends who were on the island trip at the same time as Marvin and his wife who can't understand how it could have happened just from a timing POV. Plus it's pretty unlike him (though who knows anyone that deeply?). I am dubious that it occurred, but do realise: why would the woman make up the story? That seems even more unlikely. It's not like Marvin was the kind of famous person it might be even remotely worth making up a story about. So really I don't know what to think.

BeetleB• 4 years ago

But when he started defending Jeffrey Epstein

I followed the whole affair, and I don't recall him defending Epstein.

An example in my real life - a friend of mine called me up out of the blue during the pandemic and made a big play for the message, "There are too many old people on the planet, so many of them need to die."
I don't think she realized how old I was, but it makes no difference. We never really spoke again, because depraved indifference to others is horrifying.

Sorry, but this just reeks of virtue signaling.

XorNot• 4 years ago

The false dilemma in this post is this postulate: people who do bad things, must necessarily do those things so we can get valuable things they do.

This is what those people sell as their image though: and they have to sell it, because otherwise they'd have to stop doing those things - or risk it being discovered that they're just not that valuable and likely replaceable.

spoonjim• 4 years ago

Shamelessness is in fact the reason that our civilization is in freefall. The fear of shame in one's community used to keep people's behaviors in line. Now that nobody cares what anyone thinks they will do anything they fucking feel like.

cbg0• 4 years ago

The fact that society is different from what it was when you were young doesn't mean "civilization is in freefall", let's not get overly dramatic, as you're probably just having your own "get off my lawn" moment as other generations before you have.

I'd also argue that it's consequences and not shame that keeps people's behavior "in line".

BuyMyBitcoins• 4 years ago

I know the “kids these days” thing is a trope, but I can’t help but think there’s something to it. The younger generations are far more neurotic and anxious.

Yes, every generation laments how things are different but I really can’t help but think the Internet and Social Media are legitimate new factors which are fundamentally different from the kinds of concerns past generations brought up about the youths. (Things like Rock n’ Roll, letting kids watch too much TV, spanking vs. not spanking, that sort of thing).

dexwiz3• 4 years ago

Is this shamelessness or fake honesty? Both Trump and Paris constructed public personas that appeared honest, but actually had hidden motives.

Paris is probably a moderately intelligent person, that learned from an early age it was easier to play dumb. Trump is well, Trump. No further comment.

peyton• 4 years ago

He’s in the WWE hall of fame. Of course he keeps kayfabe. The reactions people have to him are jaw-dropping.

acjohnson552• 4 years ago

Trump's use of this strategy far predates Paris Hilton. In the 80s and 90s, he was a master of living rent free in everybody's head because of his ability to constantly create scandal and spectacle.

hn_throwaway_99• 4 years ago

Sorry, but spare me. Yes, it's quite obvious, in this day and age, that "shamelessness" works. But one of the reason I think it works is that most people have some sense of dignity, so if you're willing to forgo that dignity, more power to you I guess, but let's not try to pretend it's some sort of brilliant "strategy". You're just willing to scrape the bottom of the barrel that other people aren't.

Simple examples:

1. Leaking sex tapes certainly worked to get Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton more exposure. Congrats!

2. I remember seeing a couple minute clip where Lance Bass was talking to Kris Jenner about his recent (like the day before) wedding to his husband, which was of course televised. The only thing Kris Jenner was focused on was "what the ratings were". So, again, congrats, if you want to take your most intimate, important moments and hock them to the highest bidder, knock yourself out.

3. Trump definitely saw the discontent that was boiling just below the surface in the US that the political elite ignored. But taking advantage of discontent by playing to people's worst fears, their xenophobia and racism, making it OK to always play the victim and how those bad guys on the other side are out to "replace" you - let's not pretend this is some sort of genius.

So yes, I think shameless people can be quite "successful". I'll prefer to keep my soul.

matthewaveryusa2• 4 years ago

I think Peter Thiel is masterful at this. It reminds me of my favorite poem by Rumi:

  Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
  there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
  
  When the soul lies down in that grass,
  the world is too full to talk about.
  Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’
  doesn’t make any sense.

I always thought that surrendering to the notion of categorizing right and wrong led to stoicism, but this article got me thinking: in order to be effective at shamelessness, deep inside you need to be a stoic of that shame -- without that you're just a poor player strutting and fretting.

a9h74j• 4 years ago

Cultivating ignominy can be a spiritual practice in itself. Not unlike indifference to riches, etc.

Great poem BTW.

WaxProlix3• 4 years ago

My dislike for Thiel and others like him aside, I think you should take a second to check out some of the historical context around that 'quote'.

https://thetempest.co/2020/05/23/entertainment/translations-...

barry-cotter2• 4 years ago

This attack would be much improved by referencing another translation. As written your comment is impossible to understand; if you read the linked article the implication is that the quoted poem is divorced from historical, cultural or religious context and hence in some way inauthentic. As an attack on the entire corpus of the most popular interpreters of Rumi in English it lands wonderfully. If you can’t read Farsi or Arabic you can’t translate.

But as a veiled attack on those who like the poem, why bother? The authenticity is irrelevant to whether the poem speaks to people.

synu3• 4 years ago

As an aside, that’s more of a much later creative reinterpretation of the poem. Since it’s your favorite, you might be interested in knowing a more direct translation of the original poem:

—

Beyond heresy and faith, there's another place,

we yearn for what's in the midst of that desert plain.

When the gnostic arrives there, he prostrates his face,

there's no heresy, faith, or place in that domain.

—

The originals are definitely worth checking out, and to be honest (imho) make those later reinterpretations look a little suspect because they are just so wildly different.

matthewaveryusa2• 4 years ago

very neat thanks, I’ll need to check the originals out.

dav_Oz• 4 years ago

As with a lot of classics if one wants to really dive into it there is no royal way around working your way through the references / original (critical editions). In Rumi's case the translator's stereotype of a western audience as the addressee (by trying to deliver "the spirit of Rumi") imho heavily butchers the rich culture underneath. I guess the justification is that the structure of the poem has to be broken anyways so why not "westernize" it, unfortunately that interpretation got stuck.

Here is the paragraph how it is read in Farsi[0] right to left:

از کفر و ز اسلام برون صحرائی است

ما را به میان آن فضا سودائی است

عارف چو بدان رسید سر را بنهد

نه کفر و نه اسلام و نه آنجا جائی است

Transliteration:

az kāfr-o ze ʾeslām borun sahrā-ye ast

mā-rā be mijān-ān fazā sewdā-ye ast

āref čou badān resid sar-rā benah-ad

na kāfr-o na ʾeslām-o na ānğā ğā-ye ast

Word-by-Word:

From disbelief/heresy/atheism (kāfr) and from islam/belief/faith (ʾeslām) outside desert/sahara/plain (sahrā) is

For us in the middle of that world-space/expanse (fazā) trade/ bargain/agreement/(melancholy) (sewdā) is

The knower of God/the Mystic (āref) who reaches to that, his head/top (sar) prostrates

No disbelief/heresy/atheism (kāfr) and no islam/belief/faith (ʾeslām) and no 'here' (ānğā) 'there' (ğā) is

Obviously the structure can now be appreciated in its simplicity also heavily facilitated by the fact that Farsi itself is a Indo-European language. The culturally loaded terms like کفر(kāfr),اسلام(ʾeslām),صحر(sahrā),فضا (fazā),سودا(sewdā),عارف (āref) stand more out and have different possibilities in being 'translated'.

سودا(sewdā) for example is an interesting choice, because it also could mean '(deep) melancholy' but in that context resolves to 'come to an agreement', but now with the possible undertone of an existential sadness/yearning.

Another example is reading / referencing the greek/latin originals of the stoic texts which gives a much deeper insight into the times and a more finetuned view of the 'conditio humana'. By translating into our language and our times unavoidable ambiguities arise and one has to interpret at times very heavily.

TL;DR:

I highly encourage everyone deeply impressed by those classical texts to also take a look into the references/originals.

[0]https://twitter.com/persianpoetics/status/133452148560869785...

pxue• 4 years ago

One explanation might be that it’s an expected effect of the blurring of social boundaries today. In the past, if the size of your community was finitely bounded (like a village, or an aristocratic social class), people didn’t enter or exit these communities as frequently. Under these conditions, sanctions are probably still effective, because members of the community want to be liked and accepted.

This is the center thesis of the article, we haven't evolved beyond our evolutionary physical bounds. We look at likes of Kardashians/Paris Hilton/Kanye and react with knee jerk reactions rooted deep in our biology. But it doesn't matter. Tribes exist in ways we can't see or touch, and the "shameless" understands how to harness that power.

ge962• 4 years ago

That's the crappy thing about internal comms is it's permanent (me looking like an idiot). But I'll get stuck on something/spin in circles and I'm just like "f it I'll ask" and I tell myself don't be poor/ready to be fired. I'm not a stellar dev that's a fact.

hoosieree• 4 years ago

Future devs who see your history of asking questions will benefit. They'll realize that asking questions is normal, even for people they now consider to be wise and experienced. At the very least, if you forget you can go back to that historical record and find the answer again. Knowing how to find the answer is almost as good as knowing the answer itself.

ge962• 4 years ago

Yeah that is a plus the global history search/knowledge pool.

maxverse• 4 years ago

This is may be not a productive comment, but I just wanted to chime in that Avalon is my favorite game, and it's a delight to see its strategies discussed here.

divbzero• 4 years ago

Avalon feels closely related to Mafia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia_(party_game)

wooque• 4 years ago

I haven't played it for a while, but it was one of my favorite board games.

alasdair_• 4 years ago

Take a look at Blood on the Clocktower - a true masterpiece.

RichardHeart• 4 years ago

I call it outrage marketing. I twerk, talk about my pp and spent about $20M on luxury stuff just for flex value. I bought the world's largest diamond, $10M of watches and $3M of cars. People hate it and keep watching. I wish that people cared at all about the $27M I raised for charity. They do not.

throwaway14356• 4 years ago

It reminds me of my favorite personal rpg game: One can find himself surrounded by superior minds which is quite humbling but what if this is not at all the case? You are to play the shining beacon of intellect in the room? Not much fun at all. Thus in stead one asks carefully crafted dumb questions until everyone is 100% convinced yours is the worse disposition. You still have to solve all the puzzels on the quest of live or whatever the mission your party of heroes gathered for but to avoid being discovered a nerd you quickly insert a dumb question. Is there alcohol in this beer? What day is it? etc Let them win with chess. Think deeply if you want sugar in your coffee.

People make the funniest faces. After a few reasonably dumb questions you can get away with slightly more stupid and work your way towards outlandish!

I suggested one time to take turns looking at google earth to see if someone walked out of a building.

Joel_Mckay2• 4 years ago

Part of growing up, is the epiphany people can't actually make you feel or care, as this is purely an internal choice one makes for themselves. Accordingly, one can choose to get angry about something irritating, but it is often futile in a business context.

When one meets thousands of people in a year, a very different perspective evolves on what individual behavior even means... After awhile the antics you observe people repeatably engage in become all too predictable, and wholly tiresome.

Nietzsche was a nutjob, but observed people that felt shame about "who they were supposed to be" often masqueraded with a deceptive persona. Thus, never really able to escape the cycle of misery they inflict, and or "playing the victim" to exploit the naive.

Have a gloriously wonderful day. =)

robotnikman• 4 years ago

When one meets thousands of people in a year

Maybe that's the key to shamelessness, or just shedding social anxiety in general. I should get out more, the thought of meeting so many people so often though seems crazy to an introvert like me.

Joel_Mckay2• 4 years ago

The introvert temperament will likely find such processes exhausting, but after a few trade-shows one may become more engaged with peers and random people. ;)

SamvitJ• 4 years ago

I'm surprised this article had no mention of Elon Musk, because he's a great example. Perhaps if this article was written today, it would.

Elon's antics, if nothing else, raise brand awareness of his companies.

acjohnson552• 4 years ago

Probably because it's from 3 years ago, and at that point, Elon hadn't yet fully crossed over into shamelessness. Not that there weren't some early signs.

HellDunkel• 4 years ago

Shameless generates attention. surprise, surprise. Does that mean we should start watching the kardashians so we learn to be more shameless, generate more attention so we become vastly more successful attention whores? Don’t we have other, more pressing matters to deal with? when will hackernews grow up? silly love affairs with boring billionaires

synu3• 4 years ago

This is kind of a romantic view of shamelessness, but really the way the examples provided seem to play out is more like a carnival barker whipping up a mob for short term ends or for a grift. I am sure we can all think of various examples like that.

Where a low level of shame is actually helpful in my own experience is when it is used along with transparency, as a way to get honest feedback early. “I’ve been working on this, and I’m not sure about it, but what do you think?” It works for creative as well as practical ends.

fellowniusmonk• 4 years ago

I may be misunderstanding.

“I’ve been working on this, and I’m not sure about it, but what do you think?”

Are you saying this statement conveys a sense of shame? Or a sense of shame is required to request feedback?

synu3• 4 years ago

That having a low level of shame means you can show incomplete work while you’re still learning, so you can get feedback, without feeling ashamed of it.

koonsolo3• 4 years ago

This article has the right facts, but the wrong conclusion.

Shamelessness by itself won't take you anywhere.

Take the Paris Hilton story for example. It was never about Paris, but always about the public. A certain perception of her made the news, so she just played along and amplified.

Same for the Merlin-as-Percival tactic. Don't try it with a bunch of kids.

Since people here like to start companies: it's never about you, your idea or product. It's always about the others, their feelings, their perceptions, and how you are able to play along an amplify.

JDEW• 4 years ago

Isn’t that what he writes in the second to last paragraph?

But one of the most bizarre aspects here is it doesn’t actually matter how aware that person is of what they’re doing. The concept of a “genius mastermind” is itself outdated, because it assumes that someone needs to be in control. The shameless person is simply a host for a set of ideas, which, like any virus, will continue to propagate as long as there are willing hosts to receive it.

koonsolo3• 4 years ago

I think this still sounds very negative, and what the author says is basically "It's not that the person is smart, it's that the followers are stupid". I don't agree with that.

For me, it's about public demand, and some smart person playing into it.

zionic• 4 years ago

I see this heavily in pretty much all big tech.

“Yeah, our policies are inconsistent. What are you gonna do about it loser?”

anigbrowl2• 4 years ago

It’s important to note that people were dismissive of Paris because validating her playbook would mean admitting that they were playing an inferior game.

This might make sense if Paris Hilton was a small town-girl who had clawed her way to the top of Hollywood with ruthless determination only to go in a quite unexpected direction - as opposed to the sole heir of a vast commercial fortune who could afford to act like a spoiled princess in public because it was going to have exactly zero impact on her future.

tl;dr if you already have a ton of money there are no consequences for being an ass because you can just buy new sycophants.

moistly2• 4 years ago

IIRC Grandpa was pissed and it cost her a fair chunk of inheritance.

Edit: IDoRC — https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-hilton-charity-idUKN26366...

anigbrowl2• 4 years ago

That's interesting context, thanks.

WalterBright5• 4 years ago

I'm not so sure Hilton's strategy is shamelessness. It seems more like "owning" it. For example, the leak of the sex tape is the first I'd ever heard of her. I expected her to be mortified and sue and hide. But nope. She owned it, turning it into an opportunity for fame and fortune.

For an example of the opposite, remember the Star Wars Kid? The video of him twirling the light sabre was leaked online, and he was humiliated and sued. Another path he could have taken would be to "own" it, say "yep, that's me". I bet he could have made a lot of money off of that, and perhaps even gotten a cameo on a SW movie out of it.

I have a friend who underwent some major abdominal surgery for cancer. She didn't want to wear a swimsuit because she was embarrassed and ashamed of the large scars. I suggested that her scars were battle scars of her triumph over cancer, and she should be proud of them and show them off. She owned it, and told me later that it transformed her to turn those scars into a positive.

Similar things happen to bald men. The ones who try to hide it with wigs and comb-overs come across rather poorly. The ones who own it and flaunt it fare far better.

WalterBright5• 4 years ago

Another example is the original Star Trek cast. We love them, but let's be honest - they are C list actors. They complained that ST had ruined their careers because they were typecast. Nimoy even wrote a book "I Am Not Spock".

It took years, but eventually they realized that ST had not cursed their careers, but had made them. They'd unintentionally struck into a lifetime vein of gold. Nimoy then wrote another book "I Am Spock". All they had to do was own it to cash in.

moistly2• 4 years ago

Hard disagree about their acting chops. I’ve been watching Star Trek original series and Shatner & Nimoy were damn fine actors. The memes and mockery are unjustified. (Some of the scripts, otoh, not good.)

lordnacho• 4 years ago

This is a really interesting take on it, because I was thinking it was the opposite of owning it. Or at least different to "owning it" in an important sense: the thing that she's owning is some attribute that isn't intrinsic to her, and it's by it not defining her that she owns it.

Traditional shame seems like some kind of permanent personal curse: child out of wedlock, feckless, poor, and so on. Having any of these qualities used to basically be an indelible part of your character, best hidden away from view.

This modern shame is like an article of clothing: wear it well and it looks good, apologize for it and it looks bad (eg jeans with holes in them). You could say the same about any of the things I mentioned, turning it around: tireless fighter for her kids, work-smart-not-hard, rag-to-riches.

WalterBright5• 4 years ago

Another example: Bob Hope owned his ski nose. He made it his trademark.

Ahnold Schwarzenegger was told he had to lose the accent. Instead he owned it.

lliamander• 4 years ago

I think owning it can be a strategy, and maybe that is what Hilton did, but I think some people just aren't strongly motivated by social disapproval - in some cases to the point that they don't even realize it's happening.

For them, it's like the low murmur of other people's conversations at a restaurant. They instinctively ignore it and are generally so wrapped up in what they are doing that someone has to actively bring it to their attention.

karencarits3• 4 years ago

This is true and also, in a sense, very unfair; how our personality and who we happen to have as friends or parents can have such deep impact in how we perceive ourselves, the eyes of others, the world, and our options in it. Perhaps I am defeatist, but "choosing to own it" looks a bit like "have you tried to not be so sad" when facing depression

My impression is that the empirical psychology hasn't dealt properly with shame yet and that we must resort to psychodynamics or -analysis to properly understand its depth and impact. Perhaps someone here are familiar with good literature on the subject? Another observation is how unevenly shame is distributed; some people seem like they simply don't get it whereas others are drowning in it

toyg2• 4 years ago

"choosing to own it" looks a bit like "have you tried to not be so sad" when facing depression

It's fundamentally a conscious choice - unlike depression, which has deep links with chemical equilibria.

how unevenly shame is distributed; some people seem like they simply don't get it whereas others are drowning in it

Shame is essentially a social concept. A child raised by wolves would have no concept of what shame is (at least not human shame). It's clearly the case that early socialization with parents and peers is what shapes one's perceptions of the subject.

watwut• 4 years ago

expected her to be mortified and sue and hide.

She did sued and got money.

WalterBright5• 4 years ago

I stand corrected.

shkkmo• 4 years ago

She settled with an agreement that made sure she literally owned it and that it would get published so she would get royalties.

So while the "sue" part matches, it is hard to describe that behavior as "mortified and hide".

alxlaz• 4 years ago

I expected her to be mortified and sue and hide.

She did, and she also got counter-sued: https://people.com/celebrity/hilton-salomon-end-sex-tape-leg... .

"Owning it" worked fabulously for her for a whole lot of reasons, not the least of which are that she is rich and has an army of well-paid lawyers behind her. If you're rich and get laughed at and humiliated by the staff of a high-class restaurant, you have a ton of options. If you're Star Wars kid and you get laughed at and humiliated at a hiring interview, your options basically amount to "move on".

Having that kind of legal and financial backing shields you from most negative consequences of unwanted fame, and leaves you only with the good parts -- the attention, at least. Without that backing, you get to deal with all of it, and some kinds of fame have very little to show in the way of good parts.

Star Wars kid could have just stopped being poor (lol) of course but that's easier said than done :-).

K0balt• 4 years ago

You can own it without money or cred backing you up, but it requires courage and a willingness to go all in and double down in the face of the inevitable pushback.

Money just makes it so you can own it even with weak character. Owning it has always been an option for the courageous, the wealthy can pay instead of having to risk everything.

dspillett4• 4 years ago

I expected her to be mortified and sue and hide. But nope. She owned it

Ish. She went for the sue and own it combo.

mikkergp4• 4 years ago

How would you define the difference between shamelessness and owning it? I guess one could be seen as passive and one as active, but they seem like they're basically the same thing to me, or maybe two sides of the same coin. I guess you could be void of the emotion of shame without taking a resulting action.

lazide• 4 years ago

The difference I think is future behavior.

You can own it by saying, ‘yup that’s me’ but not doing it again/ensuring that was the last one that got out.

Shamelessness is keeping doing it, even afterwards, intentionally.

So for example, sex tape wise - owning it would be acknowledging it and not hiding from it. Good, bad, etc.

Shamelessness would be turning it into a porn brand and making a series of them for sale.

mathewsanders• 4 years ago

Paris shared in a 2020 interview that her “Barbie airhead” was a defense mechanism and act to hide childhood trauma. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-real-paris-hilton/

I think she’s savvy to be able to use it to her advantage, but I get the impression that if she could change her history she wouldn’t choose the path that she experienced.

When it aired I was a big fan of The Simple Life (and later Paris Hilton's My New BFF) so I guess you could say I was a fan.

In TSL so much focus was on the comedy of Paris and Nicole being put in ‘everyday’ situations, but what strikes me was how she treated every person she met with respect and (IMO) humility and without any sense of irony. Despite the persona, I think we saw a lot of who Paris is, which I think makes TSL unique in the genre of reality TV.

paganel2• 4 years ago

Had me until almost the end:

The shameless person is simply a host for a set of ideas, which, like any virus,

I think equating ideas we don't like with a "virus" is very, very counter-productive, at the limit even dangerous when it comes to societal bounds.

Otherwise an interesting article, I think it has been posted in here before at least once.

anonymoushn• 4 years ago

Where did the author limit this to only some ideas?

paganel2• 4 years ago

I was going for her explicit enumeration of ideas he/she, presumably, didn't like, and which ideas got equated to a virus.

gsatic• 4 years ago

"Employing it as a strategy" implies the person involved is capable of employing other strategies.

xhevahir• 4 years ago

I think what the discussion around "narcissism" and "shamelessness" in recent years (apparently occasioned by the rise of Trump) consistently misses is that narcissism as understood by psychologists isn't characterized by lack of, or imperviousness to, shame; rather, the narcissist's acute and formative experience of shame is thought to be at the very core of the disorder, with the subject's pathological behaviors all aimed at suppressing or hiding that emotion.

mbakke• 4 years ago

This is accurate in my experience, coming from an unloving household where shame was the name of the game.

My coping mechanism became to ignore shame and shaming attempts, first in defiance, later "on principle", at any cost (so what if I don't get that toy I always wanted, I won't be manipulated in this way). Obviously this has caused some social problems in adulthood, as I struggle to be critical to myself and others without invoking feelings of shame. Or give a friendly advice without thinking I will hurt someones feelings (because they are doing it "wrong").

That said, I'm not sure whether the distinction matters in practice. It's certainly frustrating for my friends who can't playfully shame me into action, without me becoming all fight/flight, pretending to be oblivious, or outright ignoring them for months after...

I'm lucky enough to have found friends and (other) family that taught me positive reinforcement and nonviolent communication, as I'm seemingly incapable of handling negative feedback (at least openly).

btbuildem3• 4 years ago

These things can often be a mirror image / opposites of each other -- like for example people with abandonment issues can often sabotage relationships by abandoning their partners. Seems counter-intuitive but it makes perfect sense once we see the fear that drives it, and the coping mechanism of "I will abandon you so you cannot abandon me".

Simon_O_Rourke• 4 years ago

Zuckerberg’s strategy makes him increasingly unlikeable and untrustworthy

It's not his strategy that makes him unlikeable, but his personality and his actions. Especially that quip of his in the last all-hands where he basically said staff attrition through overwork was OK.

mikpanko• 4 years ago

Most known examples of “shamelessness” today, as defined in the article, are probably Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The strategy worked incredibly for both.

Bubble_Pop_222• 4 years ago

For Trump maybe, he got 4 years as the POTUS by saying crazy things in a crazy manner and with a crazy delivery.

Musk net worth however peaked before he started saying crazy things. What got him there was selling pie-in-the-sky ideas which never come to fruition, BS-ing investors and the ever powerful Us v. Them (oil companies, Wall St. shortsellers, hedge funds etc.)

benreesman• 4 years ago

Shameless seems like a strange way of putting it. As a cursory read of my comment history shows I struggle with keeping my lips zippered when someone is aggressively “wrong on the Internet”, which is immature and I work on it.

With that said, I’m one of those heretics who believes that openly aggressive is dramatically less bad than passive aggression.

It’s better to just not be an asshole ever, but if you’re going to slip up, own it. I post under my real name precisely because I know I lack sufficient discipline to be world-class polite and diplomatic, and if there were no consequences, I’d try way less hard to improve.

Our community/society is beginning to develop “plausible” deniability around snark and condescension and sucking up to powerful people to an art form.

neh_89• 4 years ago

I think there's more to it than meets the eyes. Shamelessness is interpretative. Today's celebrity culture is rampant with it. Art is not celebrated for its symbolism but more like a PR strategy. For example, Ranveer Singh the Indian actor went ahead and published his nude pics for a magazine. He calls it 'baring it all' but is it a strategic move to showcase himself and create controversy. In fact, controversy is the other name of shamelessness. So yes, it is strategic.

andix5• 4 years ago

The shamelessness of asking whatever you need or need to know, is quite powerful. I have a friend, that has the strategy to always ask for help. Whatever he needs to do, he just asks friends, coworkers, strangers, and whoever is around for help.

Of course he is blown off most of the time, and that’s fine for him, he doesn’t hold any grudges if you refuse to help him. He just keeps asking, until he finds someone.

I don’t want to be a leach like him, who just lives on other peoples good faith. But it’s really impressive how well this strategy works. And what kind of things he got out of it already.

amelius3• 4 years ago

I think it is because asking people for help is giving those people meaning.

tartoran2• 4 years ago

The meaning is to build a trusty connection and normally it would be a great benefit for both parties. But the shameless breaks the ballance, takes advantage and wins in the short term and in their minds of course. But I am not sure they’d fare well in the long run.

SilverBirch• 4 years ago

That strategy works well up to a point, but the big limitation on that is in iterative scenarios. If you come across a stranger and ask them for help, they'll probably help, at worst they don't. If you continually ask for help as your first move at work you'll quickly develop a reputation, people will start avoiding you, offering help less, refusing help when you actually need it, and give bad feedback about you when it comes to promotions/salary discussions.

andix5• 4 years ago

Sure. But it still gives more impressive results as you would think.

If you’re smart, you use this strategy much more rarely, and just in the cases it’s really needed. But a lot of people forget to use the „please help me card“ in those situations, because they feel ashamed.

ls15• 4 years ago

Whatever he needs to do, he just asks friends, coworkers

They say "Asking doesn't cost us anything.", but if I recognize a pattern of repeatedly asking for help without offering something in return (emergencies excluded), it may cost them my sympathy.

andix5• 4 years ago

Sure, but the risk of losing sympathy is not as big as many people expect it to be. And maybe much less relevant.

tartoran2• 4 years ago

Absolutely. Shameless friends asking for help repeatedly with nothing in return become irritating and perhaps avoided after some time. Contrast that with someone who is shameful and know they can’t return the favor and don’t abuse their position because they’re ashamed to.

blitzar2• 4 years ago

I have seen this pattern before. It works, especially when it works.

Leech off someone, have a small degree of success. Future victims of ones leeching are then drawn in because this person is a winner. Repeat and rinse.

andix5• 4 years ago

To some extent both people can be winners. It tends to collapse quite fast though.

suby2• 4 years ago

The Jack Dorsey comment in the article was very strange. Fasting and meditating are not "obviously stupid", and I doubt Jack was playing some twisted meta game for social clout. If one finds themselves thinking like this, they should perhaps pause for thought and try to be more open minded and maybe less cynical.

More likely is that Jack was under an enormous amount of stress and pressure given his position, and he found those practices to be actually helpful.

the_gipsy• 4 years ago

You're just being shameless right now.

suby2• 4 years ago

Oh no, they're on to me!

feintruled• 4 years ago

Observed this tactic in more mundane circumstances - our kids school has punishing traffic access, leading to gridlock and frustration when dropping them off. Certain parents however just drive right up to the access strictly forbidden zone in front of the door and park there, despite all the complaints and stares. For them, drop off is a breeze. I've often thought how much easier life must be if you don't care what others think of you.

rmbyrro• 4 years ago

Shamelessness [1] [2] worked very, very tragically [3] for John MacAfee, for example.

Please think three times before you follow these ideas as advice for your life choices.

Analyzing implemented shamelessness strategies can easily lead to some biases. You don't see, for example, many winning strategies that are the opposite: based on discretion.

In today's world, being discreet about everything has the best "cost-effectiveness". Shamelessness is too risky.

[1] https://mobile.twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/10809531369...

[2] https://www.foxnews.com/us/john-mcafee-trashes-irs-in-series...

[3] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/software-entrepreneur-j...

snikeris• 4 years ago

Another cool game of hidden identity and deceit is Coup.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/131357/coup

H8crilA• 4 years ago

Nobody does it better than the Russian propaganda, specifically the export version. This is perhaps best summarized in the statement "don't believe anything until the Kremlin denies it". And it works so well, there is a non trivial portion of the population that believes obvious nonsense such as "Ukraine is west/NATO fault". It's amazing.

Say your nonsense and it will resonate with people. Some people.

papito• 4 years ago

Let's not confuse shamelessness with confidence. Modesty and humility is the glue of civilization. We are already seeing how things fall apart once people collectively decide that "nothing matters", the rules are not for them, and that shamelessness is a superpower.

Sporktacular5• 4 years ago

"They’d look silly if they were to admit [shameless people] had found a better way of doing things."

This isn't true. When someone cuts in line no one thinks 'oh, they found a better way - wish I thought of that'.

And better for who? It's not better for anyone, including the cheater, when society ultimately becomes less functional. And it is cheating, just applied against social convention. As more and more people employ shamelessness the returns will diminish. If one football player cheats they score some points for a while and make a name. When all players cheat the game is over and fans stop watching.

thebeastie• 4 years ago

you only need to look at the effect this is having on politics to see that it can drag us towards a miserable equilibrium where cheating happens because it gives an advantage even though the outcome is worse for everyone.

afarrell• 4 years ago

It depends crucially on the game you want to play instead.

The problem with this article is the example. When the article says:

It’s important to note that people were dismissive of Paris because validating her playbook would mean admitting that they were playing an inferior game.

It has failed to establish conviction that Paris was playing a superior game.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suppose however you are working on a design team for the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Missouri. You've found yourself taking longer than expected on verifying the structural properties of the walkway.The game your boss wants to play is "get this project done on-time and under-budget". The game you want to play is "do respectable reliable engineering work."

You could feel ashamed about your work being behind and over-budget and take actions to wrap up the project. Or you could decide that your game is superior and act shamelessly to get more time/budget. Shamelessness as a strategy relies on well-founded conviction that you are playing a superior game.

HPsquared• 4 years ago

Life, the game of games. Which is the best game to play?

Sporktacular5• 4 years ago

That's an interesting way to look at it. I took it to mean ignoring the shame imposed for choosing a selfish path that makes things worse for everyone else.

In your sense, sure, since shame is not serving a greater purpose.

NoGravitas• 4 years ago

Well, it's a prisoner's dilemma, innit? Shamelessness (cheating) is always the ideal immediate option, even though it would be better if everyone cooperated. And given the high-stakes, winner-takes-all elements of life under late capitalism, no one can afford to not take the immediate win, even though it will make things worse in the long run, even for them.

qubex2• 4 years ago

Economics actually teaches that the most efficient queuing system involves people joining at the front, because that way they endure the wait in proportion with their internal system of preferences. Societal sense of propriety literally leads to an inefficient outcome across the board because for cultural reasons we pretty universally join a queue at the back.

sojournerc• 4 years ago

Because a queue is about fairness, not efficiency, we join at the back.

me_again• 4 years ago

But then if you are in a queue already the most efficient response is to leave and rejoin at the front. Quite soon you don't have a queue, you have a brawl.

Perhaps I'm missing something.

mikkergp4• 4 years ago

Is this one of those purely theoretical economics thing or Does this assume there is a different queuing stage from a moving stage? Otherwise it seems like there are too many physical mechanics at play, like should I be able to join the line as soon as I see the line for the roller coaster start moving. How are ties broken if everyone tried to join the line at the same time.

yifanl• 4 years ago

Queueing at the front would imply that there's a possibility of never being served. Queueing at the back never has that being the case.

It seems to me that the math about the queueing isn't properly weighing that scenario.

Sporktacular5• 4 years ago

Huh? Who prefers to stay longer in line?

With enough queue jumpers the line collapses into a crowd shouting for service - a crowd that is bigger than the line. Meaning the average service rate has fallen - that is, a less efficient system.

jodrellblank2• 4 years ago

"This isn't true. When someone cuts in line no one thinks 'oh, they found a better way - wish I thought of that'."

Somebody does; "inspirational speaker" Simon Sinek has a talk[1] segment where he's praising himself for how great he is because, after a charity run event when there were free bagels for the participants, he pushed through the queue and took two bagels and nobody stopped him.

And he is trying to teach queuejumping to the audience as some kind of "think outside the box" concept.

[1] https://youtu.be/K-E_KFDWMog?t=12

Sporktacular5• 4 years ago

Well, I guess there's one in every crowd.

But still, it's not like everyone in the line failed to consider queue jumping. It's an obvious strategy, they just forgo it for everyone's benefit. Hence the outrage.

Applejinx• 4 years ago

If you look at the opposite, shame as a strategy, it's basically 'whatever you're doing must be understood and accepted by your peers or it's worthless'.

That's a kind of heuristic, yes, but it's got problems.

I do an open source project called Airwindows. It's basically coding, but I'm not much of a coder. It's a (long) series of DSP effects put out as MIT open source, and I'm branching out into creative commons sample libraries: been doing this for years.

Sometimes the stuff I do sounds amazing, but it doesn't have visual interfaces or marketing etc to properly productize it, and it raises a lot of eyebrows. The thing is, I'm a designer, not a programmer. I struggle with porting tasks and keeping the coding environments working properly, and don't have the training for many things, but I have intentionality and a direction to go in, so I've made hundreds of plugins for people to use (or indeed re-work into their own things: MIT license). I also save a lot of time and energy not having to make each plugin meet particular standards or look spiffy, and that turns into workflow.

So the shamelessness question becomes, 'should I be so ashamed of my work not acting like other people's developed products, that I should stop doing it?' and the answer is nope: and I've learned a lot of interesting things about that, not least the fact that people will pay for the polish and chrome of a thing way out of proportion to functionality, and will pay for your effort to meet them where THEY are at. To do stuff that is where I am at is sustainable, but it's not a big marketing win. This is an acceptable trade-off when I cannot produce the same kind of results others (in proper companies, with dedicated programmers etc) are able to produce.

I guess shamelessness is genuinely good when there are some aspects of your stuff that are worth having, and you're not capable of following through and making ALL aspects exactly the way society expects them to be. You also get the bonus of eccentricity: when everything's the same, it's boring, but willful difference is often just annoying. When it's authentic, that becomes kind of a nice thing to have around :)

amelius3• 4 years ago

Glad to see that the shamelessness tactic didn't work for Boris Johnson.

the_biot• 4 years ago

Are you kidding? It's made his entire career, right up into 10 Downing Street.

nibbleshifter• 4 years ago

Its worked flawlessly. I'd not be surprised if he ends up back in cabinet before the next GE.

And if he is eventually voted out of his fairly safe seat? He's an ex-PM, he has the speaking and consultancy circuit for life.

winReInstall• 4 years ago

Shamelessness == Societal Decomplexification. Simplify a industrial society and you arrive after a mass death back in a rural community, were shame controls everything. To celebrate Decomplexification is to celebrate the downfall.

seydor• 4 years ago

It started with reality shows in the 90s, then on to digital reality shows (facebook) and now it's normalized. Old moral codes are being abandoned, as technology allows people to be more individualistic, more free to act. This was inevitable as technologal change is monotonic, and has been subject of books like brave new world. The idea of "community" as a moralizing entity is nice but also very limiting and newer generations will have a very ambivalent relationship with it.

btbuildem3• 4 years ago

I think yes, the technology is the enabler -- but the driver isn't a need to be individualistic, if anything the opposite is happening (memes and echo chambers). I think what really enables this turbo shamelessness online is the relative lack of consequences, combined with a disconnect between user/avatar as a representation and the real human on the other side.

lordfrito• 4 years ago

This article really resonated with me. I've worked 25 years in a small startup for a guy who was maddenly successful in everything he did. He was a technically smart, expert leader, charismatic, drew a following, could motivate a team etc. The problem was that he broke every single rule. Brazenly. When I first met him I couldn't stand him, but in time I began to appreciate him and his skillset, and eventually (now) I admire him and consider him one of my closest friends.

After watching him for a long time I finally figured out that his secret was his ability to brazenly break social norms - totally unashamedly. This gives him the power to change the rules of engagement on the fly. It's incredibly disorienting, as internally your brain asks itself "did he really just do that?". Doing so essentially "stuns" the counterparty, like a deer in headlights they're caught up trying to figure out exactly what is going on. You now have two choices: 1) call out his behavior and escalate, or 2) capitulate.

I'll share a story demonstrating how this works in practice. Early on in the startup 4 of us shared a small office and we all overheard everything. We all shared the same phone line, and would answer as "hello, <company name>". So one day we're sitting there and the phone rings and he answers the phone in his regular voice "hello <company name>". Pause as the other person talks. He then changes his voice and says "let me get you to accounts payable". Without skipping a beat he switches back to his regular voice and says "hello this is <name>". He did it so quickly it's obvious to anyone he didn't transfer the phone call at all. There was just no time. It's also obvious he's is pretending to be two people! I remember my colleage and I looked at each other with the "did that really just happen?" face and "who is he kidding?" The genius of it is that I know for a fact the person on the other line was just as disoriented and now had to stop and take stock of the situation.. They're now second guessing themselves, which puts them at a disadvantage for the rest of the "accounts payable" conversation. It's a great disarming technique. It's genius.

His brazenness also made him an expert of being unapologetic, and I've learned you are very unlikely to win by escalation... He will continute to break norms until you reach a point where it's too uncomfortable (and exhausting) for you to continue calling him out. So in the end it's far easier just to pretend "whats happening" isn't really happening, and (as the article says) you don't want to publicly acknowledge and expose that you are in fact playing an "inferior game".

It's maddening at times, but it definitely gets results. I've never seen anyone beat him at his game, we're all too caught up playing by the rules.

The most amazing thing is that he's not a "bad person" otherwise, he's one of the most kind, generous and ethical people I know, which is odd because at face value it wouldn't appear to be that way. He's sucessfuly built and sold a company that is currently taking care of 400 people. I've long since given up trying to "win" and his close friends simply tolerate the behavior, we love him in spite of it.... I'm not even sure he's concious of it. It's a skill I admire and recognize my own shame is often a deficiency.

So yeah, the strategy of shamlesness definitely has it's advantages.

2-718-281-828• 4 years ago

nobody here able to shift this up on a meta level?

society has rules. sub-criminal behavior breaking rules is responded to with open dismissal by some observers. the unfolding situation triggers shame in most people. those people will avoid these situations and stay in line. those who are shameless can break rules of sub-criminal relevance and if they do so intelligently can benefit from it.

this obviously only works if only a small subset acts shameless. otherwise reaction to rule breaking might also be more shameless and by that more painful.

there you go. have a nice day.

ps: the intro with parcival is total nonesense by the way and serves no relevant purpose illustrating the concept.

havaloc• 4 years ago

"Never Forget What You Are. Wear It Like Armor, And It Can Never Be Used To Hurt You." - Tyrion Lannister

tepitoperrito2• 4 years ago

"Today, it seems like punishing shamelessness only increases social rewards to the transgressor. What’s changed?"

Welcome to the Aeon of Horus, we've been expecting you; we just weren't sure when. In the vocabulary of the Native American Hopi's the signs of the times point toward the fourth world.

linguistbreaker• 4 years ago

There's some debate in the comments about the validity of the strategy and whether so and so was using the strategy in earnest. I think what's more interesting is the recent and current relevance of such strategies in a world of increased media, decreased privacy etc.

The term 'based' is currently used by de youths to refer to a person who employs this strategy.

Nevermark• 4 years ago

I worked with someone who obviously put little effort into understanding things, and shamelessly and "tirelessly" asked others to help him do things, help him make decisions, etc. no matter how incompetent or illiterate it made him look.

The coin he paid for unending assistance was charm, humor and a posture of humbleness and appreciation.

This strategy was such a constant, that the people around this person ended up self-selected to be people who genuinely liked to help others, and who had a deficit of positive recognition of their value that they appreciated being filled.

Counterintuitively to me, this occasionally involved some good things coalescing around this person - as there are a lot of talented under appreciated people and bringing them together can spark serendipity.

There were also some major downsides at times.

tpoacher• 4 years ago

This article needs a liberal sprinkling of phrases like "my opinion is", "it is possible that", "one could speculate that" etc to counter all the shameless assertio-- oh, I see what she's done there.

Shamelessness as a strategy (2019)

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