Poverty and the Professional class

I think it's funny when people think professionals are the rich people ... and want their kids to become lawyers, doctors, engineers, accountants, architects, etc. The professional class is actually in the middle, and it is the poor who look up to their affluence. Many people simply don't recognise how poor they are.

Notice Periods are Often Underpriced

Notice periods in employment are a funny thing. On one hand, employers need to be reminded that if they want things done over a long-term period, they have to budget for longer notice periods, succession process, etc.. on the other hand, employees need to be reminded ... some of you are paid a 4uck ton for a measly 60-days-rolling attention span ... !

The "Good Boy" in Governance

 "Good boy/girl/person," memes are inherently toxic. The endorphin rush of approval ... is relief from stress, which stems from trauma. In a simpler world, approval and disapproval of facts would not result in systematic reinforcement of socio-emotional memory. However, the fact of the matter is that humans have evolved to be such systems. There is no avoiding it, without further traumatising many people.

The Agora is The Opiate

Public markets are essentially displays of silent music. The liberal arts tradition introduces the nature of music as harmonic theory ( theory of ratios ). Timbre, rhythm, and melody all apply. This is a contemporary opiate of the masses. Many are entertained, only to be made tame, submitting their liquidity to higher powers. Beware of who is taking.

The General Form of Human Problems

Most human (and by extension, organisational) problems come from false-positive confidences, in statements of the form "personX understands stuffY". Business management in general, is greatly affected for better or for worse by decisions about whom is allowed to act on such statements. 

Management is a subset of ethics, which regards the form of "what should Z do?", and ethics depends on ontology, which is knowledge management. So the crux of decision-risk management is to focus on every assumption of statements of these forms.

Emotional Labour, and the Consulting Business Model

My friend was complaining about their boss. It was a common pattern - the sort of imbecile that gives business to consultants, because they did not bother to hire staff who were capable of being their therapists. 

(1) Many bosses are not good with language yet, (2) they are unaware of their deficiency ... they cannot explain to staff what they want in detail. (x1) A staff will produce details, but the deficient boss will be frustrated because they did not get what they want - (x2) and if that boss is unaware of their deficiency, they will simply tell the staff they made a mistake. (x2.1) This kind of waffling criticism is of no use to any staff. 

But a consultant is someone who is willing to deal with such bosses -  they are merely therapists who exist to sooth the subconscious confusions of a client. The business model is the performance of therapy for business leaders.

It is a popular trope ... some people would rather do XYZ than go to therapy. Therapy by any other name is what it is. 

Addendum : this also illustrates nicely why you don't often see me working as a consultant. I'm primarily a technician, and people who think I'm a consultant actually don't understand what to use me for. LOL

Sometime my colleagues call me a consultant. That's probably inaccurate because I'm primarily a technician. But many parts of the world are lacking in management resources ... even a technician ends up taking over the management of people. First things first ... get good managers first, get good technicians later. This is why my technical hobbies will probably remain at home for a while. I have been doing this for about 14 years now.

Sentimentalism in Gory Movies

Trite : zombie movies, where people explore the emotional depth of personally killing their zombified family members

We need this : hostage/war movie, where people explore the emotional depth of having to personally kill strangers (humans), who are threatening their family members; without the oversimplification of how killing happens ... it's a messy, slow, business ... unlike what many fictional accounts depict. I mean, you have Saw, but that's a bit of a hyperdramatisation also. Movies can be more realistic than these.

Protocol for therapies to alleviate post-trauma stress / PTSD

It is not sufficient to administer the mental state of relief, rather the contemplation of trauma and its antecedent causes during the administered state of relief is critical. Without association of the same, the subject may acquire a positive feedback loop (bad) of an addictive sort (check relevant neurotransmitters). When the protocol is adhered to, the subject may instead acquire a negative feedback event (good), which is antagonistic to the formation of positive feedback loops - the antecedent sources of trauma are cognitively dissociated from memories of trauma/stress, and the subject is relatively, "healed".