Two different types of sidekicks need to be distinguished: second in command, and assistant.
A second in command is someone who can at need temporarily take charge when the leader is absent or incapacitated, and at other times be engaged with the leader doing the same work, but leaving most of the initiative to the leader. Samwise is a second in command.
An assistant is not in the chain of command. Nick Bostrom is looking for an assistant, not a second in command.
Hmm. That’s true. I’m not sure how much this is actually a dichotomy in practice, as opposed to a gradient where some sidekicks are more assistant-like, some are in the middle, and some are more second-in-command like. I’m also not sure to what degree the same people are attracted to both second-in-command and assistant roles, and whether it’s for the same reasons. That would affect whether it makes sense to classify them together for this purpose. I can come up with imaginary characters who would only be interested in second-in-command, or only in assistant roles, but they both appeal to me for many of the same reasons.
I kind of feel like it has to do with the sidekick’s competence and also the scale of the project. If the project is of a scale where it’s possible for the hero to make most of the decisions, and the sidekick is new to it and finds assistant-work hard enough, it’ll tend towards that role. If the sidekick and hero keep working together, as they both learn and grow, the hero will want to move on to larger-scale projects, and at some point there will be too many high-level decisions for the hero to make all of them, and at this point the sidekick will have been working with them for a long time and learned a lot, and it seems like it might naturally turn into a second-in-command role. But this would only happen in a situation where roles are fluid; if it were a standard case of a CEO and their executive assistant, the role would be unlikely to change that much. (Although EAs do have quite a lot of decision-making power.)
I have a strong desire to be a ‘second-in-command’ type of sidekick.
Backing up slightly, this post resonated with me very strongly. All internal fantasy, from childhood to adulthood has been about me entering the world of the hero and suborning myself to them to act as a sidekick. I didn’t realize others felt differently for quite some time.
I feel the second in command style works better for me because I am attracted to heroes with slightly different preference weightings than myself. In places where the task conflicts with the heroes preferences, I could step in and relieve their distress by performing it instead. I don’t know that this specifically distinguishes it from an ‘assistant’ however.
Going with my intuition, I would suspect that there are people who would feel drawn to the different roles. For instance I would not like to be an assistant because I’m an excellent emergency back-up leader and would be wasted in that capacity.
Two different types of sidekicks need to be distinguished: second in command, and assistant.
A second in command is someone who can at need temporarily take charge when the leader is absent or incapacitated, and at other times be engaged with the leader doing the same work, but leaving most of the initiative to the leader. Samwise is a second in command.
An assistant is not in the chain of command. Nick Bostrom is looking for an assistant, not a second in command.
Hmm. That’s true. I’m not sure how much this is actually a dichotomy in practice, as opposed to a gradient where some sidekicks are more assistant-like, some are in the middle, and some are more second-in-command like. I’m also not sure to what degree the same people are attracted to both second-in-command and assistant roles, and whether it’s for the same reasons. That would affect whether it makes sense to classify them together for this purpose. I can come up with imaginary characters who would only be interested in second-in-command, or only in assistant roles, but they both appeal to me for many of the same reasons.
I kind of feel like it has to do with the sidekick’s competence and also the scale of the project. If the project is of a scale where it’s possible for the hero to make most of the decisions, and the sidekick is new to it and finds assistant-work hard enough, it’ll tend towards that role. If the sidekick and hero keep working together, as they both learn and grow, the hero will want to move on to larger-scale projects, and at some point there will be too many high-level decisions for the hero to make all of them, and at this point the sidekick will have been working with them for a long time and learned a lot, and it seems like it might naturally turn into a second-in-command role. But this would only happen in a situation where roles are fluid; if it were a standard case of a CEO and their executive assistant, the role would be unlikely to change that much. (Although EAs do have quite a lot of decision-making power.)
I have a strong desire to be a ‘second-in-command’ type of sidekick.
Backing up slightly, this post resonated with me very strongly. All internal fantasy, from childhood to adulthood has been about me entering the world of the hero and suborning myself to them to act as a sidekick. I didn’t realize others felt differently for quite some time.
I feel the second in command style works better for me because I am attracted to heroes with slightly different preference weightings than myself. In places where the task conflicts with the heroes preferences, I could step in and relieve their distress by performing it instead. I don’t know that this specifically distinguishes it from an ‘assistant’ however.
Going with my intuition, I would suspect that there are people who would feel drawn to the different roles. For instance I would not like to be an assistant because I’m an excellent emergency back-up leader and would be wasted in that capacity.
(Pedantic correction; read on only if you prefer being right to not being corrected.)
“Suborn” doesn’t mean what I think you think it does. You mean “subordinate”; to suborn someone is to bribe them to do something bad.