Anil DashOne thing I think about sometimes is the time a decade or so ago when the editor of the MIT Tech Review scolded me for being critical of Milo Yiannopolis because Milo “went to a good school” (some British shit that probably means a lot to them but I can’t even remember what it was) and therefore couldn’t actually be awful. That was one of those turning points where I realized I would never actually get elevated to a certain level of culture or visibility, and I was quite content with that.
Matt Wilcox@anildash "He went to a good XYZ" is always a red flag about the values and critical thinking capability of whoever is talking.
John Ryan 👨🏻💻☸️🐾 🐘@mattwilcox @anildash James Carse in "Finite and Infinite Games" wrote about the nature of "titles." These are tokens one holds from "winning" a finite game.
When someone says to me, "...came from a good school..." I try to remind myself that's someone attempting to cash in a token: attempting to exchange privileged circumstances for a belief that they themselves are "better" than others.
Their fear of those who aren't playing that game is evidence that deep down, they know.
@mattwilcox @anildash It's a kind of evil because it *is* a finger on the scale. Those not having to fight all those *active* obstacles get a windfall of compounding "success."
The "comes from a good school" is just one such interest payment.