2659 They Weren’t Going To Stand For This.

Ok, this is a real experience of people in this position. So the emotional consolation value is seeing this relieved on stage and in story. As such you somewhat sense. It would be strange if the character is actually smarter than the creator, but not impossible if derived from someone else’s, and so either it is the creator’s or someone they met their experience, by which it sounds like it is fully valid. In-universe many people can sense this, by way of what types of problems people get worked up about vs. just unfazed by and by proxy how nuanced their approach. This is very much sensed in their conversation and responses, so emotional intelligence, at the very least, is pretty high up there, and stringing people into your projects is also a typically sign that you can construct a reality around them and a game to play. … Ok, but apart from this situation, even so, anonymous’ posed problem and Jess’ experience is a bit more complicated if we generalize it. Who should you trust and what stance to take in a room full of smarts and not-so and dominators, leaders, followers, and egalitarians? There is at least two-three types that could be confused, those who want to be smarter but actually aren’t: let’s call them ‘the envious’. In fact, they want status or power. Those who are smarter, but only in a certain area, and they mistake that area to be more important than it is, losing sight of the big picture: let’s call them ‘the overnerdy’. Those who perform better in a bunch of areas, typically higher IQ, but more importantly applied: let’s call them the actual ‘smarties’. (there are also the honest mediocre, and honest specialist, but let’s keep it). Ok this line of actuals and wannabes bump into each other and they paired up on a second line sorted by power dynamics. And power is not just about mental faculties hierarchy, it’s (also) about calling decisions and taking charge (consistently), so that other folks get used to getting good-enough calls to action from you and seeing you as leader and outsourcing their decision-making to you. (which is nice for them subconsciously because it saves their brains energy if they don’t need to spend it thinking on their own). So, the two lines align and sometimes clash. Basically there is a tradeoff between smarts and power: If you spend more time optimizing and thinking about one decision, you get to make fewer decisions in the same time. If you have time off or are comparably faster at processing, you might still end up on par, as a smarty, but otherwise you lose the initiative to an envious power keeper – whose job may even be to put you down, in order to remain unchallenged (or successful at what they do). But the power keeper also has to make best use of their fellowship including the smarties and so needs to orchestrate some kind of collaboration (but make it look like they called the shots). If the power keeper is somewhat wise they will allow the best policy to surface, either claiming it or building up their followers (which works as another power-enhancing move). I.e., if you consider not just yourself but your whole team and side as you, it makes sense to build up everybody (as long as you remember to be seen giving value more often than the rest, it will subconsciously register, and people will defer). But if the power keeper is more dumb or anxious, they may try to limit everyone to their level of understanding and thus put a lid on the whole group. It’s best for the group if they don’t stay in power, but if they are tenacious or if there is no decisive challenger, then the group gets stuck in following the mediocre course. … Given these dynamics, what’s the best attitude? If you want your group to succeed you should take charge or help put those in charge who can best coordinate the abilities (smarts being just one of several on a team) – but in a way that’s accepted by the majority (so you can win the popular vote). That might also amount to being extremely polite, and seen as more dependable, minimizing conflict, striking agreements etc. Looks like it depends entirely on the group or society expectations. If your goal is not to advance the group, but just to get by living a comfy life on your own, you might end up shying away from conflict and direct challenges more often, and thereby being more often the target of misguided domination attempts by the envious, unless you extract yourself from the interaction or establish and defend boundaries. … Intellectual humility is a formidable trait to put others at ease, but if you are too humble when you should rather speak up for everybody’s sake, the group loses out, too. So, it’s sometimes good to give people space for their own thoughts, and sometimes it’s wasting everybody’s time by holding back. And unfortunately, we fall prey to falling into the patterns of our past training or conditioning, and rationalize that that’s the best way to be, because we’ve made it this far the same way or because we’d have to get uncomfy changing otherwise. (but we don’t have a true comparison). I don’t know of any good way and it sounds like it’s still lottery balls dynamics and anything goes. If you know what to do or have some agent-based modeling where we can play around with dummies, let me know. Else we seem to end up in the more uncomfy situation where we need to accept, that any way to show up is ok or at least in-character or the best one can do from some perspective. (Unless you try to optimize for best outcome for the group, which seem to be a bit clearer: e.g., delegate delegation to most organizationally savvy and open-minded, delegate work to most experienced on task, delegate decision-making and tradeoffs to most decisive, negotiation/solution-savvy and fair, reign in bullies but keep in stock against outgroup bullies; establish some space for tryout, and give some leeway or variety to keep people engaged and creative and an opportunities for ownership). Federate and make the swarm, sprawl out into local semi-stable groups with their own smarty-power struggles or pacified, yay. (In theory, pacifying and giving up on either power or smarts domination should yield the most pleasant results, but it’s a riddle how to get that across.) … Then, out of nowhere, bring in outgroup horde, crush prior ownership with a godmode force, because thuglife faceboot, and bask in self-reinforcing glory. hierarchy beats intricate net on short-term decision efforts, and civilizational advances are down the toilet, duh! Now restart the next cycle of the needy vs. the ones at peace (hoping to end up with a higher share of ‘at peace’ this time around). Or, alternatively, before the horde shows up, simplify or automate your decisions to an extent so the swarm can beat the horde and defend higher level. good luck. … If you play this on the long game, it gets even more fun and unpredictable. Also you can play as NPC, but with the exciting twist that you are not told so. Now you can play humble, because you don’t know if you are mistaken, because you suspect you are not but want to give others the space to realize on their own terms or because they are too tense, because you have the time and don’t mind, or you can play assertive because you sense you need to, or because you figure this is too complicated but someone has to take charge, or because you don’t get it but you’ll be damned if you let someone get the better of you. Who is right in this? I’m confident someone is, but I don’t know who. If you know, please share, so we can get comfy in taking the right stance.