"This, I suspect, is one of those truths so horrible that you can't talk about it in public. This is something that reporters must not write about, when they visit gatherings of the power elite.

Because the last news your readers want to hear, is that this person who is wealthier than you, is also smarter, happier, and not a bad person morally. Your reader would much rather read about how these folks are overworked to the bone or suffering from existential ennui. Failing that, your readers want to hear how the upper echelons got there by cheating, or at least smarming their way to the top. If you said anything as hideous as, "They seem more alive," you'd get lynched.

But I am an independent scholar, not much beholden. I should be able to say it out loud if anyone can. I'm talking about this topic... for more than one reason; but it is the truth as I see it, and an important truth which others don't talk about (in writing?). It is something that led me down wrong pathways when I was young and inexperienced.

I used to think—not from experience, but from the general memetic atmosphere I grew up in—that executives were just people who, by dint of superior charisma and butt-kissing, had managed to work their way to the top positions at the corporate hog trough.

No, that was just a more comfortable meme, at least when it comes to what people put down in writing and pass around. The story of the horrible boss gets passed around more than the story of the boss who is, not just competent, but more competent than you."

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/CKpByWmsZ8WmpHtYa/competent-...

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I'm not sure I buy this model of the world wholesale, but I think its important to at least have this model as a competing hypothesis as to how the world is organized

i think it's important to leave the door open for the perspective you quoted here.

there's no guarantee of even distribution of traits. on average, traits are somewhat evenly distributed, however. without both understandings it's easy to get the wrong idea about the world.

I do think traits are somewhat evenly distributed, but some traits are multiplicative towards a person's net competence in a certain role. I imagine the distribution is a fat-tailed one.

Great writing there, though I can't really get past the repetition of 'sparkling with life force' as the most apt description for extraordinary people. Surely there's more to be observed?

The correlation could also be reversed.

We certainly know that scarcity and deprivation encourage negative feelings and behaviors.

In terms of personality being fixed: I think it's important to differentiate between ability and preference. I am perfectly able to do social interaction, but never the less I prefer less of it than some people. This can be either a strength or weakness depending on my role and tasks. Extremes in either direction tend to be a weakness, although again there are roles which suits these personalities.

I've noticed that whenever anybody says that they're an introvert, or that they prefer quiet spaces to work in, somebody else comes along and says, "just deal with it, you whiner!" This attitude suggests that _everybody_ is naturally "introverted" and _everybody_ would prefer a quite space to work in, but we're not going to get that, so we have to make do with what we have.

Yes, exactly. Do you think this is untrue? Why?

Well, these articles seem to suggest that there are two types of people: people who love to be surrounded by people and "energize" from the noise around them, and "introverts". I just wonder why there seem to be so few of the former.

> More generally speaking, I think people model positive and negative personality traits to balance out. Like a fixed skill cap in an RPG. 10 points on charisma means you have to be lacking in some other field. I don't believe this to be true in the real world.

This reminds me a lot of the stereotypes about nerds and jocks in TV shows and films, or the articles online about why nerds are unpopular. You can definitely see an assumption that 'popularity' or 'attractiveness' is somehow negatively correlated with 'intelligence' or 'being a nice person'. Half of the school tropes on TV Tropes seems to be based on that one.

That said, from my experience (anecdotal I know) and what I've heard from others, it seems the correlation between introversion/extroversion and being better/worse at various things is basically non existent. There are as many unskilled introverts and 'nerd' type individuals as there are extrovert ones, and vice versa.

Agreed, not a zero-sum game. The goal of equality falls apart the moment you include people in the equation! We'll be stuck with that at least until everyone has access to genetic engineering.

> I've invested in overcoming social anxieties

How?