I remember my first boss who is now a higher up at >100 person company used to pick his nose just blatantly while talking to you. I had a number of interpretations of it lol.

Reminiscent of LBJ dictating to aides while on the toilet. A power play.

I don't know really anything about LBJ but different people come from different backgrounds. My father was raised that it was not important to close the door while pooping and he didn't. It wasn't a power play. It was just normal to him. Both his parents did it.

If you don't like something, but tolerate someone doing it because they're your manager, then it's really a manifestation of power whether or not that manager is aware of it. The alternative between equals is that they either viscerally disagree or they decide to not associate with each other.

Or they tolerate it.

I have a friend who breathes heavily when he eats. I fucking hate it. But he's been my friend since I was 16 (I'm now over 40).

Is my friend exhibiting a power play, am I being subservient, or is it just two humans getting along with each other?

Not everything is power politics.

He was a busy guy

Empathy deficiency and psychopathic tendencies seem to be strong enablers of rapid management ascent.

https://www.sakkyndig.com/psykologi/artvit/babiak2010.pdf

https://hbr.org/2015/09/empathy-is-still-lacking-in-the-lead...

https://hbr.org/2015/04/becoming-powerful-makes-you-less-emp...

All virtuous people / groups are swiftly overrun by those who would act in their own interest.

This has been going on for at least some time, and likely confers at least some evolutionary advantage.

"The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies."

Who said this? It's hilarious

Robert Conquest, a British historian specialized in the history of the Soviet Union.

Where do you think 'virtue' comes from, and why do you think we value it? It's an evolutionary advantage like any other.

That's a good point.

Virtuosity tends to extend less than self-interest, which seems to be approximately boundless.

Having said that, I guess ones perspective on that particular duality is Hugo influenced by ones mood in any given moment ;)

Looking at this from another angle: even though our self-interest is strong, we live the majority of our lives under social rules that promote virtue (or rather, virtue is defined by the social rules). The number of humans who can actually pursue their self-interest in any real way is limited. Most of us have to work for many years, and surrender most of our lives to the broader world.

In fact, true psychopaths never seem to occupy more than 1% of the population. They are the self-interest pros because they do not feel fear or stress the same way we do and can make the most of it. But at the same time they find themselves limited by society even if a few of them succeed enormously.

All this to say, I'm not sure virtue is that limited. These are competing forces that have reached an equilibrium but most of the fabric of our lives IS virtuous.

I strongly suspect that this is based on the size of the company. I've seen this over the shoulder of my corporate friends; but in small companies I think these kinds of people have a harder time hiding their negative attributes.

Yes, and for countries too: most large countries are controlled by psychopaths, eg Putin, Xi, Erdagon, Bolsonaro, Trump if the coup had succeeded (maybe next time).

Whilst smaller countries are more often somewhat well functioning democracies.

The more layers of power one has to climb to get to the top, the more beneficial it is to "be able to" happily manipulate, step on and destroy others

psychopaths are in a class by themselves and only a small percentage thank goodness

Why "thank goodness?"