Hierarchy Blindness

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Remarkable. I read your post as per the link you provided A really brilliant post. I'm very interested in the part about how innovators have little or no control over their innovations. We are all both empowered and limited by our social, political and economic contexts. We are not born into a level playing field. I'm truly grateful that I happened to be born to a position of reasonable opportunity.

To quote you, we are "the glue between the concrete physical world and the abstract social world of primates". In this, we have a purpose and a mechanism to survive. We are unlikely to ever rise to the top of society but we are indispensable at the same time. I can live with that because I don't really care for fame or fortune. In my view, the most famous of us will be unknown in the vastness of cosmic time. Our purpose is not about fame, fortune or acccumulating wealth and status in this life. What matters to me is that I'm not tortured, imprisoned or unduly stopped from "Being".

I think the power of information technology to free us from the yolk of the social tyranny is really just a temporary phenomenon. What Edward Snowden leaked suggests a harnessing of that exact same technology to control society to an extent never experienced before. If all ends badly and I'm likely to recede to the hills ,learn how to manufacture paper (the opposite of electronic media) and distribute politically explosive diatribes on paper (the old way).

I'm a pure egalitarian. I don't believe in hierarchy, whatsoever.

am completely blind to hierarchy and see all people as the same object and worth, am also blind to other things as well including race which am unable to visualy process and discriminate between another person of a different colour,different topic though.

This autistic perspective gives me hope.

I believe strongly that in humans, social hierarchies evolved first in females, being one of the first and primary roots of the "hive-mind", the set of imaginary algorithms that control almost every aspect of our society today.
Why did this happen?
For the purpose of reproductive control.
In our species females have ultimate reproductive control.
We don't always see this ultimate control on the surface, but it is there.
Hierarchies are a development and inevitability of binary logic used to sort both things and possibilities (imaginary things).

Because males learned to also strive for control from their mothers, other females, or other males, the process quickly followed suit within males, though at a secondary level that is more obvious, though less powerful ultimately.

I'll use just one quick example.

In a certain sub-culture, males compete aggressively to acquire possessions such as certain types of automobiles and large shiny wheels in order to advance within imaginary hierarchies. This is ultimately tied back to the reproductive control of the female.

It is obvious in the male peacock that the male has compromised his own individual survival for a gamble of advancing within a female determined hierarchy. Dawkins describes this process in "The Selfish Gene" in terms of genetic algorithms. Later Dawkins describes a very similar process in terms of memetics, that are algorithms contained completely within the human imagination.

A quote from the movie Scarface

fixed.

... Pretty much.

Generalising somewhat... but basically there is just me... and then there is everyone else.
And on the whole I'm indifferent to everyone else as long as they don't interfere in my business. They usually do. I consider them scum for doing so.

+1

I have this, and is deeply problematic when you have an insecure or egotistical manager who INSISTS that everybody respect the hierarchy. I was made redundant because of it last month. Deeply frustrating that somebody would think a job title entitles them to be spoken to or dealt with differently from somebody else.

At the factory where I worked in the first half of 2011, I had a nasty run-in with an older lady who had worked there for nigh 20 years and who held a lot of authority on the workfloor despite not holding any rank like 'floor manager' or anything like that.

At the end of our shift, I wanted to make peace with her, and I said to her: "We're both strong-willed individuals, but I still respect you a lot. This will not be the last time we butt heads."

Guess what? It was the last time we butted heads! A week later, I was told that I only had 2 more weeks on the job! My contract was not being renewed.
The excuse they made for this was that my "production output was insufficient". I call BS!

I wish you were my boss!! ! You would have a line of us around the block to work for you with your outlook on the workplace - and I still believe we would could the job done.

The most enjoyable thing about having hierarchical blindness is when you get to be in charge because people think you are a 'cool boss'. There are some pitfalls involved because those that report to you can be really crafty and as a person with all manner of social blindness, you have no idea its happening.

Very true, I hadn't really thought of that. Mind you if we were all the same, it wouldn't be an issue

To pick up on the post from Olympiadis, interestingly, I have always worked better in a female led workplace. I guess I don't really fit the macho stereotype so maybe I don't challenge them; or more likely women use their brains better than men!! ! They haven't been as bothered about hierarchies as the male bosses and have appreciated my work far more.

Is that something others have found? I ask as it is something I am going to take into account when looking for my next job.

I'm tired of Queen Bees. It's exhausting having to suck up to someone just because they're older and uglier.

I think the second worst thing done on all of us is the concept of hierarchy.