The Cult of Microsoft
www.wheresyoured.at
Soundtrack: EL-P - Flyentology At the core of Microsoft, a three-trillion-dollar hardware and software company, lies a kind of social poison — an ill-defined, cult-like pseudo-scientific concept called 'The Growth Mindset" that drives company decision-making in everything from how products are sold, to how your on-the-job performance is judged. I am

Spooky stuff that helps explain a lot of the dysfunction flowing out from Microsoft.

  • TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.worldEnglish
    118·
    26 days ago

    I’m all for criticizing large, unwieldy corporations bloated with layers of management who deliver limited value, engage in cutthroat politics, and promote slogans over real connections with people through sustained work efforts. But this article rubbed me the wrong way from the get go. The difficulty of developing a culture is never examined away from Microsoft. Most large companies have a c-suite who are so far removed from the average worker and their daily goals that they think pithy slogans are what it takes.

    But I really became skeptical when they tried to summarize the findings of growth mindset and quickly dismissing it without couching in the ongoing reproducibility issue in psychology and failing to clearly show the controversy with growth mindset, the good, the bad, and the unclear. Which large company isn’t peddling bullshit to get more out of their workers without deliver respect and wages?

    I am hard pressed to find an example of a large company where executive management isn’t oblivious to the real needs and desires of the average worker and middle management isn’t flooded with back stabbing and petty politics. The most honest will tell you it’s about market dominance and profit maximization and if happy workers help they do that as long as it doesn’t cost too much and doesn’t undermine their access to power.

    • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
      17·
      26 days ago

      this post gave me a couple rounds of whiplash but this was the hardest turn on the rollercoaster:

      when they tried to summarize the findings of growth mindset and quickly dismissing it without couching in the ongoing reproducibility issue in psychology

      do you people come off a factory line like this?

        • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
          11·
          26 days ago

          the poster themselves would have to answer but generally I find the answer to be no

          a rather particular form of inductive reasoning. not quite induncetive, but close

              • o7___o7@awful.systemsEnglish
                13·
                26 days ago

                Being so aggressively mid will frequently get you the mean.

                Edit: Before you pedantically argue that the median != mean, I’d suggest that your posts plainly fall on the normal curve because they are all typically boring, standard deviations.

                • self@awful.systemsEnglish
                  17·
                  26 days ago

                  it’s fucking amazing the volume of these guys who think we have a rule about tone (we don’t, we never will, spaces with rules like that end up using them against justifiably angry marginalized people) because it’s what they’re used to using as a weapon in the politics sections of reddit and lemmy, but don’t bother to see what our only written rule is (because they don’t fucking read, there’s no room for that when your whole personality is cosplaying as the smart adult in the room)

          • self@awful.systemsEnglish
            15·
            26 days ago

            you’re about to waste my fucking time but:

            Mindset theory itself is incredibly controversial for a number of reasons, chief of which is that nobody can seem to reliably replicate the results of Dweck’s academic work.

            Ed links an article that talks about elements of the replication crisis in enough detail for an article where the replication crisis isn’t anywhere near on-topic, and I don’t think the article would be better if it included that detail

            feel free to include evidence in your reply that you aren’t here to be a debate shitlord

            • YourNetworkIsHaunted@awful.systemsEnglish
              12·
              25 days ago

              I’m also confused as to what the takeaway was supposed to be here. Like, because a whole bunch of different famous psych studies fail to replicate maybe this one is less invalid?

              Also, were they expecting Ed Zitron of all people to not write a polemical?

              • RandomgalEnglish
                1·
                25 days ago

                Yes. That’s literally what it means. If your science is not reproducible it’s not science.

            • froztbyte@awful.systemsEnglish
              11·
              26 days ago

              (as usual) I made the mistake of looking at their posting history

              three internet cookies if you know what’s behind door number one

                • gerikson@awful.systemsEnglish
                  15·
                  26 days ago

                  I will never forget the dude who argued online that the sealion is the real victim here (a victim of the “disgruntled female”)

                  • self@awful.systemsEnglish
                    12·
                    26 days ago

                    amazingly, I’ve seen (and I think banned) people who’ve tried to sealion about the sealion comic. these assholes really are shameless public masturbators

                • TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  112·
                  26 days ago

                  I’m familiar with the original comic. If every attempt to engage in sincere conversations across different points of view on the internet is interpreted sealioning, then there’s no room for sincere engagement.

                  But this is a matter of perception. Am I a troll or some who sincerely disagrees. I had an honest critique of the article so I expected some heat, but I was that there would be some sincere criticism of the idea. Rather, and shame on me for thinking otherwise, I’ve been called names and my criticism has been dismissed whole cloth. I’m a little surprised that this is as hurtful as it is and that I’m surprised that I am this pricked. Not exactly sure why I continue. Any case, that’s my reply. Good day, sir!

                  • self@awful.systemsEnglish
                    13·
                    26 days ago

                    I’m a little surprised that this is as hurtful as it is and that I’m surprised that I am this pricked

                    yeah let me help you out with that

                    we’ve been on the internet long enough to know how a debate shitlord says “go fuck yourself” and you came in fucking swinging

                    who in the fuck introduces themselves to strangers like this? of course people are hostile

                    anyway you failed to prove you’re not a debate shitlord so

                    ban reason: debate shitlord

                    bye

      • TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.worldEnglish
        113·
        26 days ago

        I don’t know how to read this as a bad faith question, but I’ll respond with sincerity in hopes that we can have an honest discussion.

        First, I’m not sure who “you people” and why my sentence is “off a factory line”. When I reference the reproducibility issue it’s the reproducibility issue in the field of psychology. Couching it in this crisis would temper the polemical tone.

        So what exactly gave you whiplash?