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Greentea
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06 Aug 2009, 3:09 am

Meta wrote:
Difference of opinion is only allowed in some


You then agree with me that it's intentional.


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06 Aug 2009, 3:29 am

Greentea wrote:
Meta wrote:
Difference of opinion is only allowed in some


You then agree with me that it's intentional.
Not really. I do think some make intentionally use of this situation but the situation itself has come in to existence unintentionally.

It's more an ontological problem then anything else: In a monoculture people do not wonder what someone really means with the words they say. They expect other people to think and feel the same way as the media has told them people to think and feel. And the more people do indeed learn to think and feel like this the more easier it becomes for the media to present this view of the world.

Nobody intended this. The media just followed the path of least resistance toward mass production and economies of scale. Elections are mostly popularity contests which also follow this path. The politicians that fit this pattern come to power and it will seem natural to them, without even being aware of it, that maintain this pattern is a good thing.

[I usually tell people that in a true democracy elections would be illegal and the separation of church and state would be reciprocal.]

Ever had the experience that when the media has an article about Asperger's you get the comment that YOU don't seem to fit this profile? Fitting in some pattern is the most important thing. Individualism commercialised, you can buy your patterns individualism at the nearest shop like the millions other people who also fit that same pattern.

Everyone is feed the same ontological view of the world which shapes how people are able to think and reason and behave and they do.



Greentea
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06 Aug 2009, 4:16 am

According to the Organizational Counselors I've been having workshops and personal meetings with, who are the responsible for influencing companies management to go in new recruiting directions, the basis for the change in priorities from "hard skills" (IQ, training and experience) to "soft skills" (politics, charm) was introduced by Organizational Counselors themselves, based on research. The new trend (planned and enforced since the nineties) claims that:
1. you can teach a worker the skills he needs for his job, but personality is unchangeable.
2. a project's success is mostly dependent on how well the team communicate and cooperate between them - which can only be achieved with best results by people liking each other, which in turn is best achieved by everyone being extremely similar in values, outlook, behavior, thought, dress, habits, lifestyle
3. it's easier to control/manage a group of workers the more predictable and similar they are


Whether this is a rationalization (excuse to select and hire people who are "nice and easy"), a truth about company success, or a mistaken theory that will be discovered as such in the future, I don't know.

But the selection is highly conscious and intentional.


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Greentea
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06 Aug 2009, 4:37 am

When Michelangelo was 13 years old, he went to the best master in his city and asked him for a few minutes to show how well he could draw. He was indeed good, so the master accepted him to work and develop in his workshop. Michelangelo became the greatest sculptor of all times.

Now imagine Michelangelo had been born in the 21st. century. The master would've accepted him to work and develop in his workshop, on condition that he pass successfully a 40-minute interview with a 25-year old girl who knew nothing about anything except how someone must sound, smell, dress, smile, to look like everyone else on Facebook. Michelangelo would've flunked the "soft skills" interview, gone home, gotten disability money all his life, slept his life away, and my neighbor's child (whose idea of art is calling in the designers to do something on his walls, whatever, provided it looks expensive) would've become the greatest artist of all times.


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Last edited by Greentea on 07 Aug 2009, 12:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

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06 Aug 2009, 4:39 am

I guess it's true that management prefers predictable outcome (not originality) and team performance (not individual performance)? Which would create a market for people who can screen against originality and individualism? Which would tickle down to the education system because they need to produce workers that are employable? And for the next generation parents expect no different from their children after which a new culture starts to emerge.

Note by the way that modern employees is a new invention. A free romain was an entrepreneur: Even a soldier owned his own tools.

[Well, lets add that to the list then: In a better world with real democracy there would not be any immortal corporations and any private business that becomes too big to fail would be forced to break up into at least 3 competing new businesses.]



Aoi
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06 Aug 2009, 8:50 pm

Fascinating ideas in this thread. I've long thought of my job as similar to the "craft" of old, even though I'm a complete geek. Still, I work alone on a freelance basis, fully aware that I have no "soft skills" and would never actually land a job (in over 20 years of trying on and off, I essentially never have).

New clients never interview me for my soft skills. They want to see sample work (similar to the Michaelangelo story), and occasionally a reference. If my sample suffices, I get work. If I do good work, I get more work. It's that simple, except for things like a recession or financial meltdown.

When I consider other work possibilities for myself, I think about things like watch repair, telescope repair or construction, or similar work that resembles the guild/trades of old.

I've read extensively about the history of watchmaking, and one point worth noting is that it tended to be a family business. I don't know if this holds true for other trades or crafts. Either way, since AS/ASDs have a genetic component, the business would stay in the family as the family stayed in the business, so to speak.



Greentea
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07 Aug 2009, 12:06 am

Yes, I love this thread. Pity it's in the "Members Only" forum, I don't see why. But the OP hasn't been in, so I can't ask them to move it to the General Discussion.


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07 Aug 2009, 7:28 pm

Oh yes I agree with the observations of others in this topic! Social skills, personality type, teamwork, these things are valued nowadays much more than the actual ability to do the work.

I'm not merely speculating based on my observations. I'm aware of the interview strategy employed by corporate HR people. I've worked in corporate America for 15 years.

In decades past, employers used to ask direct questions pertaining to the job at hand. Then in the 80s and early 90s they switched to asking questions that exposed not just what the applicants knew but how they knew it and what their thought process was like. Logic puzzles, for example. I think that the idea was to find someone smart, with prior relevant experience. They could then be trained to do the job.

Nowadays, it is all about the personality type. How well the employee fits in a team environment. Are they short tempered, impatient, indifferent? This really works against us, even though the aspies are very good at their chosen careers.



Greentea
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07 Aug 2009, 9:26 pm

But are people nowadays so spoilt in the Western world that the only way to motivate them to do their jobs is to bring them other people whom they'll find it FUN to work with???? How come in the workshop belonging to Michelangelo's master everyone worked and developed without the need for their colleagues to be chosen according to how well they'd fit in with, and be fun to, each other socially?

Someone please explain this to me, because I'm flabbergasted...

It's true that people are more productive when feeling comfortable and fun communicating with each other. I'm not denying this. But.....to make it the ONE AND ONLY criterion to choose an applicant? We were told by the specialists that nowadays "fitting in socially" is given 90% importance in any company! 8O


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08 Aug 2009, 2:05 am

I think it's also the idea of replaceablity?

People are frequently seen as replaceable parts of a replaceable team of a replaceable department. Any individual unique ability can not be utilised, to do so would make the enterprise dependent on this one individual.

Eg. In my experience and several experiments concur that programmers write similar, faster and less buggy code in programming languages which support higher level abstractions like Common Lisp has (eg. functional programming, macros, etc). Still, most managers will not choose these languages for their projects. Managers will choose much lower level "popular" languages. Nobody will fire you for selecting what is popular, also one has more programmers to choose from, there are standard tests for popular languages and to get anything done in lower level languages you need to be able to work together. [Some may disagree with my assessment]



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08 Aug 2009, 11:07 am

Oh I see what you mean! The more similar everyone is, the easier it is to keep a high turnover and invest in human resources according to the state of the market that very week. This sounds very logical to me. I was looking for an answer that'd somehow be connected to the fact that there's been a parallel change to the one we've been talking about: 10 years ago I was seen as suspicious in job interviews because my CV said I'd worked 2-3 years at each job. Nowadays, 2-3 years is the longest an employee is expected to remain at the same job. 8O

I love it when everything starts to make sense.


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08 Aug 2009, 2:14 pm

Greentea wrote:
I love it when everything starts to make sense.


I get frightened when that happens :lol:



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08 Aug 2009, 5:45 pm

DaWalker wrote:
Greentea wrote:
I love it when everything starts to make sense.


I get frightened when that happens :lol:
Idd.

Often it means that you now understand something that other don't understand, most often because their job, influence, power, position, or reputation depend upon them never understanding it.

Language, definitions, are much more important to us then to NTs. We need precise language to understand society and culture, NTs don't. To understanding is not important if one is able to do without out understanding. NTs are generally very good at doing without understanding.



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08 Aug 2009, 6:49 pm

Another thing which would have been unthinkable in the past, is making people reapply for their OWN jobs! This is another way in which misfits and those who are inclined to disagree with the status quo will miss out. I know a number of technical officers in our institution who have been working there for seven years or more on a contract. Now if they want to gain permanency, they not only have to front up for one of those HR type interviews with all the open questioning, but they have to also do useless courses which have nothing to do with their jobs at all. One of these is a Turkish man whose spoken English is poor, and he has a heavy accent, yet he can express ideas very well. He was a tool maker in Turkey, and is a very hard worker and helpful as well. He will no doubt find it very difficult in the type of interview that they give today.

I went for one of these courses about selecting staff (on merit), just to observe the unfair way that it works. I was doubly disgusted with the whole procedure. Not only do they denigrate educational qualifications (having a doctorate in a relevant discipline does not count), but they also suggested ways of writing the job descriptions to exclude people who did not fit in, as it were.

Seniority and experience is not counted any more.

Another problem is that in education, students do not respect the teacher in the same way as we did when we were students. I am not so much talking about discipline, but referring to knowledge and experience. As one colleague told me, a professor had spoken of the fact that most students want to do is to get all the factual and routine knowledge about software from you, and then go their own way and will not take any advice concerning the quality of their work (design). This has been a fact in where I work, and not only in my classes.



Last edited by hilofoz on 08 Aug 2009, 7:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

pandd
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08 Aug 2009, 6:54 pm

CerebralDreamer wrote:
In pre-industrial times, your best chance of winning an apprenticeship was by showing a deep unwavering interest in a topic.

Are you are able to substantiate this claim?
Quote:
Best way to win an apprenticeship in ancient times: dive right in, showing a deep willingness and desire to learn.

Better than a favourable introduction from just the right person? I find this very unlikely.

Your comments are not consistent with my understanding of pre-industrial apprenticeships, and I find your hypothesis rather unlikely on the basis of what I do believe I understand/know. Do you have some sound basis for your interpretations/assertions regarding pre-industrial apprenticeships.



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08 Aug 2009, 7:33 pm

hilofoz wrote:
Another problem is that in education, students do not respect the teacher in the same way as we did when we were students. I am not so much talking about discipline, but referring to knowledge and experience. As one colleague told me, a professor had spoken of the fact that most students want to do is to get all the factual and routine knowledge about software from you, and then go their own way and will not take any advice concerning the quality of their work (design). This has been a fact in where I work, and not only in my classes.
I kind of agree and disagree?

Students today also have very different teachers then students had in the past? Most of the teachers I had would have been very uncomfortable with even being called Mr of Mrs. Surname, most wanted you to use their given name, some even adopted a nick name.

Also, society and the culture has change a lot. When so many politicians, religious leaders, bankers, scientists, and other authority figures demonstrate quite publicly that they deserve no respect for the example they set then one should not be surprised to discover that respect becomes something that is earned and that no one has any inherent right like they may have had in the past.