zlacker

>>moored+(OP)
> There's an ongoing debate over whether or not people skills are undervalued, and perhaps for many people they are, but it's hard to deny that there are many, many more ways for someone who doesn't like social interaction much to get rich. If ads and sales are on the same continuum, then the world's best salespeople are engineers, data scientists, and product managers.

This seems completely wrong to me. If you look at who is the top 0.1% it's either inherited wealth, a few professionals (lawyers, certain medical specialties, etc.) who own their own practices, or people who've managed large groups of people (i.e. business executives). The third group is overwhelmingly full of people with good social skills, and skilled professionals are almost always personable too.

>>jeffre+km
I wouldn't go as far as to say business executives have good social skills. They are often ruthless, cunning, and deceiving, which makes them successful. If by good social skills you mean the ability to convince (read deceive) a lot of people, then sure they have good social skills. But who wants to have a beer with their CEO, VP of Sales, or other top exec? They are often depicted as wolves or sharks for a reason. It is true that they are good at networking with other people like them, but not really good at empathizing, helping, or caring for others.

>>neutra+Sq
They're persuasive, which is probably the most important social skill. Having a beer may be a means to that end, but it usually isn't.

Politics, law, finance, the arts, advertising, religion, and the media all rely on persuasion. And because narcissists and sociopaths are so much more credible and charming than introverts and tech nerds, these professions are full of people who make a living selling stories - about themselves, others, and related brands and products.

This is why we have such problems with the constraints of physical or social reality. These people believe their stories. They experience any suggestion they're objectively wrong as an unreasonable threat to their status and self-image.

They feel the same way about any suggestion that other people's stories matter. To them, they don't. If they did matter they'd show some hesitation and nuance, and the persuasion magic would evaporate.

>>TheOth+4v
> narcissists and sociopaths are so much more credible and charming than introverts and tech nerds

A big part of this comes down to practice. Anyone who practices chitchat (or "persuasion") all day gets pretty good at it, at least in a narrow niche. Those "tech nerds" who spend a lot of time going to parties can also get good at it; however, many of the introverted tech nerds would rather be writing code or reading a book or whatever, and end up not practicing these skills starting from a young age, and by the time they reach adulthood are far behind. (In just the same way that someone who never spends time exercising ends up far behind in playing sports, or someone who never spends time solving technical problems ends up far behind in technical skill/expertise, etc.)

Beyond that, if the main goal incentivized is just to "make the sale", the methods used aren't going to necessarily ethical. There's a reason that pick-up artists, used car salesmen, carnival barkers, and social-climber middle managers use deception and burn people in the process of getting ahead: it works. If you have a system that selects for "what works" and doesn't negatively select away "causes collateral damage", then you end up (a) making ethical people play with a huge handicap, and (b) chasing them out of the field.