Have our leaders lied to us? Is it lying if they believed what they said? Did they believe it? How do we know?

How do we metabolise generations of assumptions that are being revealed to be untrue? Some of it seems benevolent and generous. Some of it is clearly evil and self-serving. A lot of it seems like a weird mixture of both.

Who can help us wrestle with any of this at the scale needed?

#CredibilityCrisis

Oops.

#politics

If the GOP really cared about the USA, they would not have chosen such a controversial character as their frontrunner.

There is no benefit for the republican party, or for the country, in them elevating a person who is so polarising that he is distateful to elements of their own party who are not part of the cult.

This should have been more of a talking point back in 2016.

It has only become more obvious and extreme since, as his (moral and legal) degeneracy has become increasingly public.

@corlin Yes, well, stifling and stagnation are the best-case scenario.

From what I've witnessed, the efforts to shame -- and the resistance to being shamed -- are likely to all-of-a-sudden become the entire focus!

Whatever the initial problem was can start to look really small compared to the enormity of the resultant power struggle.

In a low credibility/accountability environment, insecurity is high, which makes any clash like this highly volatile.

It can get so much worse than stagnation!

@corlin I'm around some people who are trying to resuscitate shame as a positive thing.

To me, that ship has sailed, and needs to keep sailing.

Shame is what happens when accountability has jumped the shark.

Problems have solutions. We don't have to get into mud-slinging to find them. In my experience, shame doesn't actually work to solve problems, it only contorts and complicates them.

Indeed, when shame is used as a tactic, it ends up pushing a problematic hierarchical power dynamic.

I view the credibility crisis as one of the largest pieces of the polycrisis. Credibility and accountability share a strong bond.

In even the smallest ways, people are culturally predisposed to make policies to protect themselves from human accountability.

When (any) words on (any) paper are used as a shield to protect themselves from (any) consequences, we're already in danger.

And this isn't new; it's an advanced, sophisticated phenomenon.

Once you see it, you can't stop seeing it.

@NorCalCherylLyn From what I've gleaned, the whole contemporary flat-earth movement actually did start as a joke.

Then Poe's law lit the afterburners and went supersonic.

@StevenSavage Just, y'know, please don't recommend it to any opportunists. 😬

@StevenSavage This is a massively compelling read! Thanks again for recommending it.

@allin @th3j35t3r It's almost like if your platform doesn't reward pandering, reactionary thoughtlessness you get less pandering, reactionary thoughtlessness.

"Everything's made up and the points don't matter" is actually a solid motto for life.

Just finished Space Cadet on Prime. It's way more fun than its premise would indicate.

I'll be looking out for writer/director Liz W. Garcia's next project.

@tyghebright One of my interview questions was asking what the candidate could initiate to foster a sense of team. (In this context, I was proud of the question.)

I could see the wheels turning already, even though the answers were a bit tentative. I sense that there is a mutual ownership of this concern, so I *think* we're in decent shape.

@tyghebright @whonat We're generally *pretty* good at that, but it definitely happens more around the water-cooler than in our online meetings.

Being extra intentional about this is going to be crucial.

@tyghebright @whonat That's great advice!

This person is social -- it's really important to me that they feel part of the team, not just like they're a cog in a distant machine.

@StevenSavage Thank you! I haven't heard of this before, but now that I have, I'm super-intrigued!

@whonat There will be a couple of weekly online meetings that this person will be a part of. I think that will give us the bulk of integration we need.

We are conversant with multiple online channels, too.

But you raise a good point with the phone bit -- I need to research if we can use our internal office phone system to reach out to a private line as an extension. There must be a way.

@northernbassist This is good -- there is a staff day coming up in a bit that we can cover travel costs for. I actually think that's a crucial piece, especially for the way our office is wired.

We can do remote, but there is a felt need, in my office especially, for in-person relationships.

@MookyTroubadour This person is actually tasked with assembling those details; that's going to be their role on my team.

Considering my other colleagues, I think we're going to have to develop a code word for whenever ambiguity shows up. 🙂

Fellow cosonauts: my office is hiring someone to be on my team who will be joining us remotely. I strongly believe in the candidate, but this is a new experiment for me/us.

What advice do you have for me as team lead for on-ramping a remote teammate?