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Eugine_Nier comments on How to deal with someone in a LessWrong meeting being creepy - Less Wrong
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What I find really annoying is the following dynamic:
1) not allowed into existing groups, people without social skills form their own group
2) said group acquires higher status (largely because people without social skills frequently have other useful skills)
3) people with social skills notice the new group with rising status and start joining it
4) said high-social-skills people use their skills to acquire high positions in the group and start kicking the original low-social-skills people out
This more-or-less describes the history of geek/nerd culture over the past several decades.
Do you find this more annoying than other patterns where people lacking X trait and thereby excluded from valuable X-having groups form their own groups, create value within those groups, and then lose control of those groups (and the associated value) to X-havers who appropriate it?
Because it seems to me there are a great many Xes like this. Wealth is an obvious one, for example.
I don't know enough about geek culture to tell how closely that model fits reality; but it looks plausible. I have some doubts about step 4), I prefer explanations that don't involve malice.
An alternative model is that people with social skills tend to be used to subtle and implicit modes of interaction (guess culture vs. ask culture), and the group's explicit modes of interaction makes them uncomfortable (giving rise to this thread).
Yet another model that skips step 1): small groups with a homogenous membership will have simple norms; as the group gets successful it grows and attracts more people and more diversity (in age, sex, nationality, and interests), and the simple norms don't work as well, and "success" in the group depends more and more on being able to handle social complexity ("social skills" and "politics" in the office politics meaning).
I never said step 4) involve malice.
"Malice" may have been a bit strong; maybe it's something like "I prefer explanations that don't imply moral blame for one of the parties involved".
I only provide the explanation, assigning blame or other moral elements is up to you.
Whining about it doesn't strike me as the thing to do. Trying to adapt to it in the short term and/or to fix it in the long term would be better IMO.
Well, one component of fixing this dynamic is drawing people's attention to it. Especially people who may be unknowingly perpetuating it.
Yes.