This is also why it's useful to hire new people once in a while and pay attention to what they think. A new, junior hire will note many of the same things as an expensive consultany. With the difference that people actually listen to the observations of the consultant , while they expect the junior dev to get used to things.
Creeping normality
41–50 of 78 posts
Re: Creeping normality
#42Interesting, frogs boiling etc, but... What is up with all of these wikipedia entries making the front page of hacker news? Has it always been so and I’m mis remembering thinking this is something new?
At least since I've been browsing HN, it's been this way and I quite enjoy it. Lot's of Wikipedia pages I would otherwise not stumble upon. Usually, they are quite relevant to something happening in current events.
Same for me. I've been conditioned in a way to expect Wikipedia posts on HN to be interesting, and I'm rarely let down.
Probably my all time favorite: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
Re: Creeping normality
#43This is presented mainly in a negative context but from my experience almost all change happens this way. You slowly get used to it. I still remember when people were saying that a mobile phone was a luxury item normal people don't need or that they would never do online banking.
Oh, there are still people who are indignant, or at least puzzled, that a poor person could possibly own such luxuries as a mobile phone or a flat screen TV.
I was amazed when seeing this in India. Until I learned that a phone plan with unlimited data costs the equivalent of $3 a month there.
Suddenly it becomes like the best investment ever. Even if you have nothing else, you can still be connected to the internet and all it’s joys.
Re: Creeping normality
#44Flooding in Miami and Venice.
“In late November of 1968, I spent a few days in a hotel just off the Piazza San Marco in Venice. At 6 one morning, hearing the loud warning bells, I jumped out of bed, grabbed my camera and rushed to see the famous Venetian flood. I stood in the empty and as yet dry Piazza and looked out toward the Gulf, for I expected the flood tides to come in from the open water. Many minutes passed before to see that the Piazza was flooding, not directly from the Gulf, but up through its own sewers. The indented gratings in the pavement had all but disappeared under the calm, flat silver puddles, which grew slowly and silently until their peripheries touched and the Piazza became a lake. That morning I experienced vividly, if almost subliminally, the reality of change itself: how it fools our sentinels and undermines our defences, how careful we are to look for it in the wrong places, how it does not reveal itself until it is beyond redress, how vainly we search for it around us and find too late that it has occurred within us.”
The under-appreciated Robert Grudin in Time and Art of Living.
Re: Creeping normality
#45I think the bulwark against it is a society being clear on what its moral axioms are. Like in the US, "all men are created equal", where we understand "men" to mean "people". There are certainly forces in the US that do not want to accept this as true, but the existence of the stated value and national identity helps to defend it. Same with the bill of rights. And on a personal level, identifying ones own values and…
Smoking in the public places was just few decades ago, very common and it seemed like impossible to move. Now even thinking about going back is absurd idea.
Today people defend 'basically harmless stuff like:
1. Force physical mutilation of children crazy reasons is OK if there is not much physical harm. Circumcision of boys is seen as OK in countries where it's common and normal. Others can see it as crazy cultural thing.
2. Physical punishment of children is OK because I turned out just fine.
Re: Creeping normality
#46This is also why it's useful to hire new people once in a while and pay attention to what they think . A new, junior hire will note many of the same things as an expensive consultany. With the difference that people actually listen to the observations of the consultant , while they expect the junior dev to get used to things.
Agreed. A helpful exercise is to ask them to keep a log for the first 30 days. Ive always found incredibly useful information in there.
Re: Creeping normality
#47I think the bulwark against it is a society being clear on what its moral axioms are. Like in the US, "all men are created equal", where we understand "men" to mean "people". There are certainly forces in the US that do not want to accept this as true, but the existence of the stated value and national identity helps to defend it. Same with the bill of rights. And on a personal level, identifying ones own values and…
Smoking in the public places was just few decades ago, very common and it seemed like impossible to move. Now even thinking about going back is absurd idea. Today people defend 'basically harmless stuff like: 1. Force physical mutilation of children crazy reasons is OK if there is not much physical harm. Circumcision of boys is seen as OK in countries where it's common and normal. Others can see it as crazy cultural…
> Today people defend 'basically harmless stuff like:
I'm sure there are people (where n > 1) in the world who defend that, but here in The Netherlands this is not OK except for Jewish boy circumcision. Which is in a different league than the removal of the clitoris.
Physical punishment of children went from 'normal' before 1970 to 'not acceptable' throughout 1980 and 1990. It is now 'very much not acceptable'. In fact, I'd argue this one, like smoking, fits the 'creeping normality' definition although keep in mind I talk about The Netherlands only. I do not know how this developed throughout the rest of the world.
Re: Creeping normality
#48The standard american meat based diet is a good example. Centuries ago the absurd scale of meat production and consumption could never have been imagined.
Agriculture is another good example. Ice-age hunters (and their guts) could never fathom musli or noodles (or even just gruel / paste of pounded seeds).
I wonder if genetic mutations in general are an example of this.
Re: Creeping normality
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Smoking in the public places was just few decades ago, very common and it seemed like impossible to move. Now even thinking about going back is absurd idea. Today people defend 'basically harmless stuff like: 1. Force physical mutilation of children crazy reasons is OK if there is not much physical harm. Circumcision of boys is seen as OK in countries where it's common and normal. Others can see it as crazy cultural…
> Today people defend 'basically harmless stuff like: I'm sure there are people (where n > 1) in the world who defend that, but here in The Netherlands this is not OK except for Jewish boy circumcision. Which is in a different league than the removal of the clitoris. Physical punishment of children went from 'normal' before 1970 to 'not acceptable' throughout 1980 and 1990. It is now 'very much not acceptable'. In fa…
I'm speaking to HN audience that is not similar to north European audience.
https://www.brookings.edu/research/hitting-kids-american-par...
> More than 70% of Americans agreed in 2012 that, “it is sometimes necessary to discipline a child with a good, hard spanking.”
I was talking about boy circumcision and why in a different league than the removal of the clitoris. Infant body modification for religious reasons is barbaric custom even if it is mostly harmless. You would only few decades of banning boy circumcision and Jews would recognize it as a normal and new generations would think it was silly stupid practice not deeply related to Jewish identity after all.
Re: Creeping normality
#50This is presented mainly in a negative context but from my experience almost all change happens this way. You slowly get used to it. I still remember when people were saying that a mobile phone was a luxury item normal people don't need or that they would never do online banking.
This is true also for social changes. Homosexuality, at least in my country, is an example. When I was a kid at school, 20-30 years ago, it was frowned upon and used as an insult. Now it's totally normal and no one except fringe extremists would use it as an insult. And as far as I know, there wasn't any Rosa Parks-like event that triggered the change (factually or symbolically), it just creeped in.