A Loss of Sincerity #
The AQI in New York has been bad this weekend, and the gloomy weather it brought with it has got the gears in my head spinning with weighty topics. One in particular has come up around sincerity. I recently watched an exposition of why Lord of the Rings holds up so well even today, and the word “sincerity” rang loudly and clearly throughout the video. Even though the moral calculus of characters in LOTR is relatively straightforward (good and evil are clearly demarcated), they point out that characters in LOTR are sincere. Sam is sincere, Frodo is sincere, Gandalf is sincere. This sincerity shines through in other movies I love, most notably, Top Gun: Maverick (which also makes a fleeting appearance in the video).
At the other extreme, it’s a lack of sincerity that rubs me the wrong way with the majority of Twitter grindset content.
recently i started telling candidates right in the first interview that greptile offers no work-life-balance, typical workdays start at 9am and end at 11pm, often later, and we work saturdays, sometimes also sundays. i emphasize the environment is high stress, and there is no tolerance for poor work. it felt wrong to do this at first but i’m convinced now that the transparency is good, and i’d much rather people know this from the get go rather than find out on their first day. curious if other people do this and if there’s some obvious pitfall i’m missing
— Daksh Gupta (@dakshgup) November 9, 2024
I can’t quite put my finger on why this doesn’t feel sincere - the most compelling explanation I’ve heard is: this would be a fine way to work with people who accept this deal, except there’s no real reason to post about it unless the core of the reason you’re doing it is to gain platitudes from the Twitter masses (that mostly backfired). To play devil’s advocate, if you did want to adopt this strategy, but were unsure about it, maybe you post on Twitter to get advice? I still think that’s a terrible idea if you really want advice on whether this is a good thing to do, but mysterious are the ways of the founder.