During a discussion today about the bizarre "can't get crap done" phenomenon that afflicts large fractions of our community, the suggestion came up that most people can't do anything where there is a perceived choice that includes the null option / "do nothing" as an option. Of which Michael Vassar made the following observation:
In a monkey tribe, there's no verbal communication - they can't discuss where to go using language. So if you get up and start going anywhere, you must be the leader.
And if you're not the leader, it is not good for your reproductive fitness to act like one. In modern times the penalties for standing up are much lower, but our instincts haven't updated.
Interesting to reconsider the events of "To lead, you must stand up" in this light. It makes more sense if you read it as "None of those people had instincts saying it was a good idea to declare themselves the leader of the monkey tribe, in order to solve this particular coordination problem where 'do nothing' felt like a viable option" instead of "nobody had the initiative".
Really? It seems to associate the null action rather directly with low status of the visceral masculine kind. ie. "If you aren't getting stuff done it might be because you are a supplicating pussy!"
Well, leaving all the status-signaling and meta-signaling aside, I do think this is basically true of me at least sometimes.
When I end up in leadership positions, an enormous amount of my energy gets wasted in managing the resulting anxiety around who I have, or will, inadvertently or unavoidably challenged. Because I am in fact a supplicating wimp, who is nevertheless often (for reasons that have always been unclear to me) treated by those around me as a leader.
And that anxiety is a major contributor to my not getting stuff done.