This article seems to hinge on a rhetorical flourish whereby the literal meaning of 'you are not your job' is substituted with a criticism of 'you are not what you do'. Well, of course it doesn't make sense and isn't true if you redefine it like that - the original aphorism is instead more literal: your identity should not be conflated with the identity of your employer. The substituted argument leads to some fascinating philosophy, but doesn't deal with the more literal fact that plenty of things you can do for value to the world are still negatives, either net negative for the world or to the individual. Conflating one's identity with an employer is the latter, since the employer and the employee almost always have different requirements for well-being (in the case of a corporation then of course the employer in that sense has no requirement for well-being at all).

That article is crating the ground for manosphere, incels and culture wars. It tells the men they have no value and don't really matter as people. Have young men read that article, believe it and you will end up with them joining manosphere, incels and culture wars.

Also, it does in fact matter whether a guy is nice.

I think the article's central point is that being nice is the bare minimum. In fact, probably less than that. If you needed life-saving surgery, it would be great to have a nice surgeon, but you're still going to pick the arrogant surgeon at the top of his field rather than a random nice guy. I will say that I in fact agree that people are innately valuable, but that's more of a philosophical/religious debate here.

I think there might be that aspects, but not really the central point. On the niceness, the article claims that being nice or honest does not matter. And also that they are completely common. Neither are true.

I did not liked the surgery argument either. Of course you should not operate if you do not know how ... but that is issue of overblown ego and arrogance. Not of the niceness. No matter how awesome you are, there will be things you cant do. And framing a guy into as a useless idiot because he is a carpenter rather then surgeon and thus cant operate right there in the street is nonsense. The surgery issue simply wont happen with honest nice guy. That guy will call an ambulance which is certainly better then trying to operate.

Read article again: it literally tell guys that yes, they should be sociopathic and go get some money. That is manosphere in nutshel.

> If you needed life-saving surgery, it would be great to have a nice surgeon, but you're still going to pick the arrogant surgeon at the top of his field

In around about way, the automatic assumption that arrogance = capability did allowed quite a few cranks skate. The manosphere is fully into that point.

It matters to me. Therefore I try to be nice. I know it costs me some opportunities and some “success”. But I sleep well at night.

I think this perspective is false. You have no way of knowing how many more opportunities and success you would cost yourself by being not nice.

The author directly confronts and scolds incels in #4 and also plainly says that it isn't about money there so you clearly have the wrong impression of what the essay is about.

Well... it was 2012 so makes sense.

> they fall for those jerks because those jerks have other things they can offer.

Ha! That reminds me that I, somewhat unknowingly, in the past have emulated the good parts of a jerk to be more attractive myself.

What are the good parts of a jerk?

They are: adventurous, spontaneous, in the moment, doesn't take everything too seriously, thrill seeking and confident. It made me much more pro-active as I'm a fairly passive person (romantically speaking) normally. Oh and I still was nice too. And I emulated those things because they sounded fun as well, I just never thought of amping it up a bit.

> Oh and I still was nice too.

That is a judgment reserved exclusively to third parties, I’m afraid.

In part, but my intent of being nice didn't change. It stayed the same. Also some women explicitly called me kind and nice, not all of them to be fair. I definitely had some women being like "I normally don't go for nice guys but", but I was the exception :)

Which is why a lot of people are called jerks when in truth they're not actually doing anything wrong.

> before the manosphere, incels and culture wars took over.

Those are convenient boogeymen that give basically the same advice, just sometimes in very crass and very rude forms.

The advice stood 50 years ago, in 2012, and still stands today. What doesn't seem to stand is that american culture seems to have abandoned holding people accountable and responsible for anything ever.