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Comment by mrfredward | Hacker News Reader

+1 For Dietrich's version of it. He renames sociopaths, clueless, and losers to opportunists, idealists, and pragmatists, and in general tones the theory down a bit, and I think the result is something that is both more palatable and more reflective of reality.

The opportunists see the corporate world for what it is and do what is best for their careers, the idealists believe in the shared corporate myths and put in the hours to uphold the values they're taught, and the pragmatists value being home for dinner more than climbing the ladder. It describes the broken system without implying all the people in it are broken, and since the focus is really on the incentive systems that create this situation I think that's a better take.

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Is the corporate world "what it is" without the actions of these categories of employees? You may have the causation arrow pointing the wrong way, because to me, being more "reflective of reality," it's better worded as, "the corporate world is composed of the decisions, actions, and personalities of (sociopaths|opportunists), (the clueless|idealists), (losers|pragmatists)." Your choice of terminology is only a value judgement on each of the categories, but it's all the same people, working in a company, and making it a living thing. The specific words don't change the meaning of the principles being discussed.

I don't think the subjects of the Gervais categories are broken people so much as dangerous ones, careerwise (and possibly mental healthwise).

The words absolutely do change the meaning of the principles. The idea that actual literal sociopaths are common in corporations is much more contentious than opportunists being common. Losers implies that going home at 5pm because you have other things going on in your life is morally wrong, in a way that pragmatists doesn't. Clueless implies that believing in the corporation is wrong, in a way that idealists doesn't.

The existence of "actual literal sociopaths" does not depend on the words used to describe them. If you use words other than "actual literal sociopath" to describe the actual literal sociopathic acts of a person, that doesn't mean they aren't an actual literal sociopath. I mean, if I understand your stance here, you're arguing for the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis to be true, which experimentation tells us is not[1]. See also: the "euphemism treadmill."[2]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

2. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/euphemism_treadmill

I'm arguing that if you look at the actions of the group in question, "opportunist" is a better description of what they do than "sociopath". If you use the word "sociopath" then you've changed the meaning of the principle under discussion, because the language suggests "sociopaths" are real Antisocial Personality Disorder sociopaths, when that is observably not the case.

The research on linguistic relativity focuses on sensory perceptions that differ across languages. It's not applicable to the decision to claim that most of the managerial structure have a diagnosable mental illness when they clearly don't, by an English speaker in an essay read by other English speakers.

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