Psychology

The Morals of Madness

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

I’m fascinated by cult dynamics, because they tell us about people, inform us of dangers, and tell us about ourselves. Trust me, if you think you can’t fall into a cult you can, and are probably in more danger if you think you can’t. Understanding cults is self-defense in many ways.

On the subject of the internet age, I was listening to the famous Behind the Bastards podcast go over the Zizian “rationalist” cult. One of the fascinating things about various “rationalist” movements is how absolutely confidently irrational they are, and how they touch on things that are very mainstream. In this case the Zizians intersected with some of the extreme Effective Altruists, which seemed to start by asking “how do I help people effectively” but in the minds of some prominent people became “it’s rational for me to become a billionaire so I can make an AI to save humanity.”

If you think I’m joking, I invite you to poke around a bit or just listen to Behind the Bastards. But quite seriously you will find arguments that it’s fine to make a ton of money in an exploitative system backed by greedy VC because you’ll become rich and save the world with AI. Some Effective Altruism goes all our into arguing that this is good because you save more future people than you hurt present people. Think about that – if you’ll do more good in the future you can just screw over people now and become rich and it’s perfectly moral.

If this sounds like extreme anti-choice arguments, yep, it’s the same – imagined or potential people matter more than people who are very assuredly people now.

But as I listened to the Behind the Bastards hosts slowly try not to loose their mind while discussing those that had, something seemed familiar. People whose moral analysis had sent them around the bend into rampant amorality and immorality? An utter madness created by a simplistic measure? Yep, I heard echos of The Unaccountability Machine, which if you’ve paid attention you know influenced me enough that you are fully justified in questioning me about that.

But let’s assume I’m NOT gong to end up on a Behind the Bastards podcast about a guy obsessed with a book on Business Cybernetics, and repeat one point from that book – obsessive organizations kill off the ability to course correct.

The Unaccountability Machine author Dan Davies notes some organizations are like lab animals who were studied after removing certain brain areas. The animals could function but not adapt to change at all. Organizations that go mad, focusing on a single metric or two (like stock price), will deliberately destroy their own ability to adapt, and thus only barrel forward and/or die. They cannot adjust without major intervention, and some have enough money to at least temporarily avoid that.

The outlandish “future people matter, current do not, so make me rich” people have performed a kind of moral severance on themselves. They have found a philosophy that lets them completely ignore actual people and situations for something going on in their heads (and their bank accounts). Having found a measure they like (money!) they then find a way to cut themselves off from actual social and ethical repercussions.

If you live in the imaginary future and have money, you can avoid the real, gritty present. A lot of very angry people may not agree, but at that point you’re so morally severed you can’t understand why. Or think they’re enemies or not human or something.

Seeing this cultish behavior in context of The Unaccountability Machine helped me understand a lot of outrageous leadership issues we see from supposed “tech geniuses.” Well, people who can get VC funding, which is what passes for such genius. Anyway, too many of these people and their hangers-on go in circles until they hone the right knife to cut away their morality. Worst, they then loose the instinct to really know what they did to themselves.

Immorality and a form of madness that can’t course-correct is not a recipe for long-term success or current morality. Looking at this from both cultish dynamics and The Unaccountability Machine helps me understand how far gone some of our culture is. But at least that gives some hope to bring it back – or at least not fall into it.

And man I do gotta stop referencing that book or I’m gonna seem like I’m in a cult . . .

Steven Savage

The Tyranny Of Time Control

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

The last few months I’d felt stressed about time on the weekends – and sometimes during the week. What was weird was I couldn’t quite put my finger on what had happened or why because there was no identifiable cause. Trying to ask “what’s my priority” over “what’s my schedule” helped, but that stress was there.

Eventually I tried just rearranging my schedule, breaking out of the usual. That sometimes relaxed me, sometimes proved to be more stressful. However, I finally realized that I was trying to align a lot of disparate schedules and opportunities – because our modern times, ironically, give us more options to manage.

We have a lot of freedom, a lot of options, and that can be a pain.

For older folks such as myself, it’s easy to remember very regular schedules of the world. You worked in this time zone. Your job was an 8 hour block. You know about time zones and that affected how you might call people. TV and news was on a schedule barring a VCR.

This wasn’t ideal, but I think we all had a sense of other people’s schedules. If you were watching X show, it was probably Y time. We knew this timezone was ahead, this one behind. There was an unspoken schedule we were on.

As technology advanced we got more freedom from the constraints of time and even space. You could chat with anyone online in MIRC, them chat programs, then Discord. You could timeshift communications quickly with emails. You’d work with people in other countries. Entertainment and information wasn’t in any schedule, but was at your fingertips at all times.

We had more options and I think it can be overwhelming because of two reasons – we have options but still have constraints, and everyone else has options too.

Yes you can chat with people anywhere any time – except there are still time zones. We may have control over our work schedule, but we’re still all on different schedules anyway. You can order groceries any time – but have to check store schedules and delivery times. You have a lot of freedom that suddenly careers into harsh reality.

But we still have options, enough options to become overwhelmed. With so many opportunities, we can become overwhelmed (or underwhelmed if we want to overdo it). More options means more work put into choices and priorities – that collide with the above limits.

But the freedom you have is also freedom others have. So the schedules for people become more unpredictable. One friend is on a gaming binge when another is eating dinner. Another can timeshift their day two hours ahead but they’re in the same timezone. Don’t even start on the fact your family is in three countries, four timezomes, and everyone thinks everyone else is always available.

I don’t think we’ve entirely adjusted to all the options we’ve got AND all the limits we still have or created with time. I’m very sure we’ve become worse at coordinating with people to judge by the complaints I’ve heard. That’s before we take a look at the political, environmental, and economic chaos of the world.

Right now I’ve decided it’s time to do two things.

First, I’ve tried shaking up my schedule. That’s helped me find out what works – and is how I got this insight. Trying new things helps me break out of my habits and challenge ways of doing things.

Second, I’ve tried blocking time out more. By thinking in terms of blocks of time, minimizing distractions, and a bit more planning I feel more focused and get things done. The act of blocking time in turn also makes me think about my schedule.

So far this has helped me. But I wonder how the world is doing . . .

Steven Savage

Thinking With Different Minds

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

As noted many times, I’m interested in history, especially the history of religion and project management. Fortunately my interest in such things has focused on China, which has a long history of written records, and preserved writings on management advice over a thousand years old. We Project Managers have been here forever, everyone needs some anal-retentive worrier who can’t stand to leave things undone.

You think you got canals and great temples without someone like me?

Often in my readings I find how much I relate to people a thousand, two thousand, or more years gone. The same observations, the same issues, the same human condition – and human solutions. There’s so much similar, to the point where I can read about some guy charting grain storage and go “yeah, my man, great job, you update those records, you keep that thing running!”

But among all those similarities, I’d like to talk about differences in how we organize, get things done, and indeed just live with each other.

Yes, I can relate to people thousands of years ago, but they also led different lifestyles than mine. They probably didn’t live thousands of miles away from their family. The seasons meant different things to them with less transport for food and different dwellings. The people I read of might pass by a slaughterhouse casually, or eat food that literally came from next door. They operated on different schedules. NONE of them had to learn what an “Influencer” was or become bitter about it.

They had different minds than me. Yes, we have much in common, but it’s important to remember the differences too.

When I think of this, I think how different we can be sometimes. Now that’s easy to think of the differences between people now and a few thousand years ago. In fact it’s probably good as a lot of us have ideas quite out of date that got handed down over the centuries we don’t question. But there’s more.

Do we have the same minds as someone born a hundred years earlier than us? Fifty? Even ten? How many of us are running around this world trying to interact with people who have different minds than we? How many of us haven’t adapted to the present? For that matter how many lessons are we trying to apply to our current crises that may not be old, but are from different times and different minds?

As we try to solve the problems we face, we may want to ask if we have the wrong minds to do it. If I can speculate on using Agile in pre-Industrial China, we can ask if we are literally the wrong people for the job of running and probably saving the world.

It’s OK. The world has changed a lot. We’ve done some very stupid things in hindsight. It’s OK to admit it. But we have to become different people and that means recognizing we need different minds.

We can reach back and time and learn from people different yet similar to us. We can ask who we need to be now. We can see who we used to be. We can become who we need to be, to have different minds.

Because I’m not sure current us is ready for the job, and we cling mightily to ourselves.

Steven Savage