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Aneesh SatheThe Plato PlateauThis post started off as a joke. I was attempting to snow clone the Peter Principle for philosophy. It led to a longer thread of thoughts. But first, the snow clone: The Plato Plateau: People philosophize to the level of their anxiety.<a href="https://aneeshsathe.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/image-from-rawpixel-id-459434-jpeg.jpg" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"></a>Smoking farmer with branches by Kono Bairei (1844-1895). Digitally enhanced from our own original 1913 edition of Barei Gakan.<ol><li>Anxiety is the realization that you have absolute choice over life – Kierkegaard. Anxiety, in this context is not nervousness. It is a positive thing when harnesses. We harness it everyday.  </li><li>Anxiety is a generative. Anxiety creates identity by locating stable places to launch exploration.</li><li>Action, exploration, and anxiety are a motor. Anxiety → exploration → action → refreshed identity. Inaction leads to identity death</li><li>Realizing you are radically free to choose can also lead to a forest of perceived signals. These can be an overwhelming inbox or simply overloaded ambition.</li><li>When anxiety overwhelms it becomes difficult to tell signal from noise.</li><li>Tools like GTD crash anxiety. When overwhelmed, GTD works well. When there is too little anxiety identity becomes ephemeral. </li><li>GTD isn’t a means to nirvana: GTD integrates 10k, 30k foot views to reintroduce future anxiety.</li><li>When your identity is smeared across too many anxieties you declare anxiety bankruptcy and crash your identity in some safe spot. Journals, sabbaticals, quitting.</li><li>Like the parable of the rock soup, vaporized anxiety needs a place to condense onto. Ideally something disposable but sufficient to let your identity create an “ordered world of meaning”</li><li>Life examination occurs with identity crashes. Philosophy provides just enough of a toehold in the abstract to spur action in the actual. </li><li>Philosophy is a way to spur action absent anxiety/identity. We pick the philosophy depending on the degree of identity loss.</li><li>Philosophy can be broadly sorted as:<ol><li>Survival – laws and tactics oriented</li><li>Social Cohesion- harmony, virtue ethics, etiquette </li><li>Systems level order – algorithms and protocols oriented</li><li>Self Knowledge and Meaning – reflecting on existing and consciousness </li><li>Meta-systems – theorizes about theories</li></ol></li><li>Most scientists and builders work best at level 3 systems level order. Going lower, i-ii, for environmental crises and higher, iv-v, for internal crises. </li><li>Complexity of selected philosophy is not superiority. A rung’s usefulness matches your identity state and environment, not some civilizational high score.</li><li>Philosophy as Periodic Maintenance: Crashing and philosophy sampling are maintenance actions on the place called identity.</li></ol><a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/action/" target="_blank">#action</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/anxiety/" target="_blank">#anxiety</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/business/" target="_blank">#Business</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/existential-anxiety/" target="_blank">#existentialAnxiety</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/existentialism/" target="_blank">#existentialism</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/exploration/" target="_blank">#exploration</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/gtd/" target="_blank">#GTD</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/identity/" target="_blank">#identity</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/kierkegaard/" target="_blank">#Kierkegaard</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/life-design/" target="_blank">#lifeDesign</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/mental-models-2/" target="_blank">#mentalModels</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/personal-development/" target="_blank">#personalDevelopment</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/peter-principle/" target="_blank">#PeterPrinciple</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/philosophy/" target="_blank">#philosophy</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/plato-plateau/" target="_blank">#PlatoPlateau</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/productivity/" target="_blank">#productivity</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/self-improvement/" target="_blank">#selfImprovement</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/stoicism/" target="_blank">#stoicism</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://aneeshsathe.com/tag/systems-thinking-2/" target="_blank">#systemsThinking</a>

1P1sces 🇪🇺<a href="https://mastodon.social/@sven_giegold" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@sven_giegold</a> Man kann mehrmals Opfer des <a href="https://mastodon.online/tags/PeterPrinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PeterPrinciple</a> werden… Leider…

Pete<a href="https://mastodon.ie/@Infrapink" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@Infrapink</a> <a href="https://mastodon.cloud/@jasongorman" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@jasongorman</a> <a href="https://hachyderm.io/@tymwol" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@tymwol</a> I think it's also related to the <a href="https://mas.to/tags/PeterPrinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PeterPrinciple</a>... that people get promoted to a level of incompetence.The chat part of <a href="https://mas.to/tags/ChatGPT" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#ChatGPT</a> is really important because it allows us to correct the LLM's output and give it another chance to completely fool us. When we're satisfied, the output is above our present ability to detect that it is BS.By "present ability" I mean we might not feel bothered to check the output, or we genuinely might think it's correct.

Marquis de GeekSo,1. Always a good reason. When I was at MS, it was management layers that destroy two projects2. Usually bad. If a company is making money, then firing your staff that made it happen is poor optics and makes for disgruntled ex-employeesBut 1+2 mean you'll have ex-MS managers entering the job market where they're likely to do significant damage to smaller companies, that can't take the financial hit of their inabilities.<a href="https://ohai.social/tags/MicrosoftLayoffs" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#MicrosoftLayoffs</a> <a href="https://ohai.social/tags/PeterPrinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PeterPrinciple</a>

usmu 🍋🏳️‍🌈🤟Het Peter principe: "In een hiërarchie stijgt elke werknemer tot zijn niveau van onbekwaamheid". Je maakt namelijk promotie tot je niet goed genoeg bent om promotie te maken. Als mensen dat niveau bereiken, gaan ze, in plaats van het werk dat ze zouden moeten, maar niet kunnen doen, op zoek naar werkzaamheden waarmee ze zichzelf alsnog kunnen rechtvaardigen. Zie ook: Minister van Asiel en Migratie Faber; lintjesregen; activiteitenbudget COA<a href="https://kind.social/tags/politiek" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#politiek</a> <a href="https://kind.social/tags/asielbeleid" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#asielbeleid</a> <a href="https://kind.social/tags/peterprinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#peterprinciple</a>

CubeRootOfTrue🧠 Categorical Peter PrincipleLet’s model the Peter Principle as a (somewhat playful) functor:Covariant Peter Functor: Let C be the category of competence levels. Let R be the category of responsibility levels. Then a functor F:C→R maps increasing competence to increasing responsibility.But (here’s the punchline): This functor preserves structure only up to the breaking point.At each step, you’re promoted to a position requiring slightly more competence than you currently have. The mapping continues until the functor fails to be faithful—you get promoted past the limits of your competence, and the correspondence breaks.(by now you know who wrote this)<a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/peterprinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#peterprinciple</a> <a href="https://mathstodon.xyz/tags/categorytheory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#categorytheory</a>

Dr. Peter Ranzinger<a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/AgileCheese" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#AgileCheese</a> is rooted in the brilliance of the Peter Principle—why stop at your level of competence when you can rise above it? 🧀 In <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/agile" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#agile</a>, we embrace the idea of reaching for positions beyond our abilities, stretching those limits until we outgrow them. And it’s no accident that my first name is Peter—I’m here to take you beyond the point of no return, where <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/cheese" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#cheese</a> meets unstoppable excellence! 🚀 <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/PeterPrinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PeterPrinciple</a>

michaelIn a hierarchy, everybody rises to the level where they are incompetent. John Crace's sketch references the <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/PeterPrinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PeterPrinciple</a> - but I'm not sure how widely it is still known ... <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/28/rise-of-chris-philp-tests-the-limits-of-the-peter-principle" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/28/rise-of-chris-philp-tests-the-limits-of-the-peter-principle</a>

रञ्जित (Ranjit Mathew)When I first read it, it was depressing 😥:“Born In Vancouver, The Peter Principle Explains Why Your Boss Is Incompetent. Here’s Why It Still Resonates”, CBC News (<a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/peter-principle-vancouver-history-1.7415994" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/peter-principle-vancouver-history-1.7415994</a>).Via HN: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42575200" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42575200</a><a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/PeterPrinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PeterPrinciple</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/Books" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Books</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/Work" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Work</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/Incompetence" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Incompetence</a> <a href="https://mastodon.social/tags/Career" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Career</a>

Paul Wermer, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0<a href="https://mastodon.social/@GottaLaff" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@GottaLaff</a> I sense the intersection of the <a href="https://sfba.social/tags/TechnocraticMeritocracy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#TechnocraticMeritocracy</a> chnocraticMeritocracy with the <a href="https://sfba.social/tags/PeterPrinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PeterPrinciple</a>.<a href="https://sfba.social/tags/WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong</a>?

Christine Sætre-esqueEven when your org employs thousands of extremely well educated and charismatic experts in all the right fields …… many org decisions will NOT be made by experts. Or the well informed.<a href="https://techhub.social/tags/peterprinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#peterprinciple</a> <a href="https://techhub.social/tags/committees" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#committees</a>

Flipboard Culture Desk"The Peter Principle" is a term coined in 1969 by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull — it was the name of their book exploring the idea that employees are often promoted beyond their level of competence. Big Think's Jonny Thomson says this is often a consequence of rewarding good followers with leadership positions. "What Hull and Peter point out is that it makes no sense at all to assume that someone who’s lived their career in unoriginal subordination would suddenly become Abraham Lincoln with a corner office," he writes. Here's his story for Big Think about what we can learn from the theory — and how we can avoid its pitfalls.<a href="https://flip.it/QN3-fX" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://flip.it/QN3-fX</a><a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/Work" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Work</a> <a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/Lifestyle" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Lifestyle</a> <a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/PeterPrinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PeterPrinciple</a> <a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/HumanResources" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#HumanResources</a> <a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/Business" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Business</a> <a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/Philosophy" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Philosophy</a>

Jason Pettus :blobrainbow:<a href="https://mastodon.cloud/tags/TodayILearned" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#TodayILearned</a> about the <a href="https://mastodon.cloud/tags/PeterPrinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PeterPrinciple</a>, a business philosophical theory that states that low-level corporate employees often get promoted simply for being nice and showing up every day, eventually reaching a position they're simply unqualified to handle, which is why large corporations tend to become more and more incompetent the longer they exist. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle</a>

Animated Short Of The DayPeter's Principle (2007) [5 min] by Jim Lacy and Kathrin Albers | <a href="https://socel.net/tags/Germany" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Germany</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGhTBqLkrZ4" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGhTBqLkrZ4</a><a href="https://socel.net/tags/StopMotion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#StopMotion</a> <a href="https://socel.net/tags/AnimatedShort" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#AnimatedShort</a> <a href="https://socel.net/tags/AnimatedShortOfTheDay" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#AnimatedShortOfTheDay</a> <a href="https://socel.net/tags/Animation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Animation</a> <a href="https://socel.net/tags/Incompetence" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Incompetence</a> <a href="https://socel.net/tags/Theory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Theory</a> <a href="https://socel.net/tags/PeterPrinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PeterPrinciple</a> <a href="https://socel.net/tags/Satire" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#Satire</a>

Jonathan DresnerMy institution is going through some changes... Our org chart is like the Mad Hatter's Tea Party, "Move down, move down! Clean cups, clean cups!" Or maybe it's a <a href="https://spore.social/tags/PeterPrinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PeterPrinciple</a> experiment: everyone gets promoted to their level of incompetency. [For the record, all of the new and interim candidates I know, and participated in open forum/feedback or committees, I heartily approve of. I just don't know what comes next...]<a href="https://www.pittstate.edu/gorillaconnection/2024/05/university-announces-academic-leadership-changes.html" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://www.pittstate.edu/gorillaconnection/2024/05/university-announces-academic-leadership-changes.html</a>

William Canna-bassRemember when Venture capital bought CompUSA and RadioShack and used the <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/PeterPrinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PeterPrinciple</a> ? Both companies quickly went bankrupt! Sure, the oligarchs saved in short term labor costs, but both companies brand models' were experts helping customers.

William Canna-bass"Jim McNerney, came into power at a certain business around the year 2005, where he operated on the principle that companies “overvalued experience and undervalued leadership.” Literally the <a href="https://kolektiva.social/tags/PeterPrinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PeterPrinciple</a> in action here! <a href="https://docseuss.medium.com/the-biggest-threat-facing-your-team-whether-youre-a-game-developer-or-a-tech-founder-or-a-ceo-is-8cd1ad359508" rel="nofollow noopener" translate="no" target="_blank">https://docseuss.medium.com/the-biggest-threat-facing-your-team-whether-youre-a-game-developer-or-a-tech-founder-or-a-ceo-is-8cd1ad359508</a>

David MegginsonAs someone else's experience has just reminded me, becoming a manager isn't a promotion; it's a job change.It's a broken workplace that forces a talented engineer (or aid worker, or writer, or whatever) to become a mediocre manager just to keep their career from stalling.C.f. the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Peter Principle</a><a href="https://mstdn.ca/tags/PeterPrinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PeterPrinciple</a> <a href="https://mstdn.ca/tags/management" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#management</a> <a href="https://mstdn.ca/tags/careers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#careers</a>

Cory DoctorowLong thread/41

The Skeptic's Book of Lists<a href="https://mastodon.social/@scalzi" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">@scalzi</a> He could have spent the rest of his life as a senior partner at a white shoe law firm, being paid $500K or more a year to take prospective clients to lunch. But he chose the path of madness. ____________ <a href="https://c.im/tags/PeterPrinciple" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#PeterPrinciple</a>

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