Comments of the Week

Sigmas, Fake Sigmas, and Ejections from the Hierarchy

Several readers commented on the way in which their educations left them woefully unprepared to address challenges that required persistence, fortitude, and hard work. This was a fairly typical example, and underlines the temptation that the high-IQ will always face to simply cruise in mediocrity rather than utilize their abilities to their full capacity in order to achieve a meaningful level of success.

Schooling trained me to be lazy. Too many easy classes whose homework could be done in class, and not enough stimulus to go beyond the curriculum. Noticed that I learned best from failure, but lacked the motivation/mindset to take more risks to fail more often. Lots of good wisdom around Vox's community. I hope to pass on better lessons than I got.

As do we all. One purpose of this site is to help the younger generations benefit from the knowledge their Generation X predecessors have acquired over the last five decades. We almost certainly will not be able to leave behind a society that was better than the one we entered, but we may be able to give them the ability to do so for their children’s children.

Several people addressed their experience of dealing with the various complications of working with a Sigma, which were much more informative than the self-absorbed wannabes and never-weres helpfully providing us with the usual “if you want to know what it is like to be me” exercises in mirror-gazing.

• Man’s ability to rationalize and justify one’s bad decisions in a self-serving way often causes more pain and misery than what someone else setting out to deliberately harm said man could do to him. This is a great cri de coeur to always be self-aware and vigilant about one’s own mental traps. And above all: be humble, regardless of one’s IQ, self-perceived or actual. Related to the SSH, certain types of men, let’s call them gammas, refuse to be self-aware. They think they know everything already and they have this heavy tendency towards rationalization, due to being smarter than the average bear, but without any humility to mitigate this instinct. "Normies" within organizations spend huge amounts of energy signaling loyalty to and investment in the organization, its hierarchies, its norms and and buzzwords, etc. And they find it weird and suspicious that Sigmas don't spend any time doing that. Normies overvalue performative signaling as a litmus test for how much of a "team player" someone is. Ironically, Sigmas' disinclination to waste time on signaling or status anxiety can make them MORE effective contributors and team members. But normies are bewildered and threatened by Sigmas' lack of signaling and lack of status anxiety. A Sigma's presence also reminds other types that it is possible to be high status without having to work so hard to signal organizational belonging or rank. This somehow feels to normies like an attack on their own status, which they've worked hard to bolster via external factors like belonging to a particular organization.

• I have done well with a high-end Sigma on a very high functioning team. My work was cut out constantly adjusting the structure around him to best "align" their interest with my goals for the team. That and constantly smoothing over ruffled feathers with my other Top players who were mostly deltas with a few bravos mixed in. For me it was all about my ROI from my guy: what am I getting against what am I paying for it in terms of my time invested. I had no problems explicitly discussing that with "my" Sigma: so long as the ROI stays in the black, we are good. And it did. I also explictly covered "exiting" when and if it was time. He appreciated the arrangement. My organization got a lot out of it, he got what he needed from the org, and when he was done, he was done. It was a win-win, but make no mistake, I had to invest "sweat-equity" into making sure his Puzzle piece fit into place with the rest of my Puzzle pieces.

• The SSH has been great for identifying what happened to super talents that got ejected. I realized that Jim Shooter, greatest editor Marvel comics ever had, was a 6'7" sigma. He was brought on for the desperate mission to save Marvel, accomplished it AND made sure comics were all published on time, then was ejected and maligned forevermore. For seemingly no reason. "Despite his success in revitalizing Marvel, Shooter angered and alienated a number of long-time Marvel creators by insisting on strong editorial control and strict adherence to deadlines. Although he instituted an art-return program, and implemented a policy giving creators royalties when their books passed certain sales benchmarks or when characters they worked on were licensed as toys, Shooter occasionally found himself in well-publicized conflicts with some writers and artists. Creators such as Steve Gerber, Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan, John Byrne, and Doug Moench left to work for DC. Shooter was fired from Marvel on April 15, 1987"

Five years later, Jim Shooter was also ejected from Valiant Comics, a massively-successful startup he’d help found after leaving Marvel over “a different idea as to the direction of the company” and his departure was rapidly followed by Valiant going into a fatal tailspin. It’s very educational to observe that not even survival is sufficient to prevent a hierarchy from ejecting a Sigma who makes its members feel sufficiently uncomfortable.

A woman provided a succinct account of the intransigence of Gammas. It’s a healthy reminder that the fact no one ever comments on your behavior should never be taken as an assumption that no one notices it or takes it into account.

My brother is so gamma, he is omega. Is that a thing? The self-centered aspect is very real. He cuts off and never engages in any conversation that isn't specifically interesting to him. If he picks the movie he talks the whole way through, explaining it. If someone else picks the movie he talk the whole way through making fun of it. Most family hold him at arms length because of this self-centered, socially-oblivious behavior.

And speaking of Gammas, their attempts to pass themselves off as Sigmas can be downright comical. There were two particularly inept attempts last week, both of whom were spotted immediately by the readers here.

• Sigma is all about concentration on your work and your thoughts. If I am in the zone on a project or planning a project, a 10 could come and brush her lips against my cheek, and I'd give her an annoyed face frown. Not because I am a fag, but because, do not bother me, when I am in the zone.

• for sigmas having status through rising in the ranks is nice but they carry themselves without the status as if they already got it. they exude self-confidence others need promotions/status for. thats why girls fall for them. the sigma man is worthy without the status of social proof. non sigmas feel “uneasy” around sigmas. this can even turn into violent hostility. there must be smart sigmas that know how to defuse such feelings. what do they do? even only for a time to achieve their objectives.

I cannot stress enough how no one is ever fooled by public posturing, and this is almost certainly the very worst place on the entire Internet to attempt to present a false SSH front. It’s impressive how quickly the readers here can spot a Gamma attempting to masquerade as something else inside of a single sentence.

Behavioral patterns are difficult to hide and they are even more difficult to substantially change. That’s why knowledge of the SSH is so advantageous to those who actually seek to understand and apply it to those around them instead of obsessing over how they can use it to enhance their Delusion Bubble.