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The first non-bullshit book about culture I've read

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Re: The first non-bullshit book about culture I've read

#141

Post by perl4ever »

teddyh wrote: post #134
perl4ever wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Trump is skilled at being convincing" Isn't that an odd thing to say, from a completely objective, dispassionate, and non-partisan perspective? Perhaps it just seems obvious to me because I am familiar with the page on 538[1] where they track approval ratings in parallel with (I think) every other administration that was heavily polled. Every other president has had their ups and downs, no matter how controversial o…

Well, that’s like saying “Trump lost the popular vote”. Sure, he did. But that wasn’t the game Trump was playing. Trump was aiming for the electoral college, which is the actual game that matters. In the same way, (Scott Adams claims) Trump is skilled in convincing the people who matter for each issue, Trump is not trying to convince all people in general.

Trump did not in fact win the most electoral votes by convincing the electors. They normally vote for the winner of their respective states, and 2016 was no different.

If the electors for states he won had been persuaded to vote for the popular vote winner, that's what would have taken convincing.

Re: The first non-bullshit book about culture I've read

#142

Post by perl4ever »

belorn wrote: post #136
perl4ever wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Trump is skilled at being convincing" Isn't that an odd thing to say, from a completely objective, dispassionate, and non-partisan perspective? Perhaps it just seems obvious to me because I am familiar with the page on 538[1] where they track approval ratings in parallel with (I think) every other administration that was heavily polled. Every other president has had their ups and downs, no matter how controversial o…

It might look odd but to me it is no difference in saying that charismatic religious leaders are good at convincing people, even if the vast majority that represent non-believers think that the person is nuts. I am sure that I am not the first person looking at the polarization of US politics and finding similarities to religion, and with religion it makes sense that the more conflict there is between religions, the…

People make similar comments a lot, but something sounds off to me about this sort of summary.

We haven't been gradually moving towards this quasi-religious situation, as evidenced by past polling, which I linked to. It's just this administration.

So I think the evidence suggests that something about the current president is fundamentally different, maybe that he is for most people a symbol or placeholder and not a person.

Although, looking again at the polls from 2008-16, it might be that the current situation is something that happened gradually during that time period, and 2016 was not really a discontinuity.

Edit: Also, my point was it doesn't seem like he's changed people's minds. Being a religious leader may or may not mean you converted people.

Re: The first non-bullshit book about culture I've read

#143

Post by teddyh »

perl4ever wrote: post #141
teddyh wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that’s like saying “Trump lost the popular vote”. Sure, he did. But that wasn’t the game Trump was playing. Trump was aiming for the electoral college, which is the actual game that matters. In the same way, (Scott Adams claims) Trump is skilled in convincing the people who matter for each issue, Trump is not trying to convince all people in general.

Trump did not in fact win the most electoral votes by convincing the electors. They normally vote for the winner of their respective states, and 2016 was no different. If the electors for states he won had been persuaded to vote for the popular vote winner, that's what would have taken convincing.

> Trump did not in fact win the most electoral votes by convincing the electors.

That’s not what I meant. It was really just an analogy. I meant that Trump aimed to win the actual election as performed by the electoral college, not the popular vote, since the popular vote does not determine the election. Trump convinced the states that mattered, not the electors. In the same way, Scott Adams would have it, Trump is skilled at convincing people who matter to the issue currently at hand, not the popular opinion of all people in general.

Re: The first non-bullshit book about culture I've read

#144

Post by perl4ever »

teddyh wrote: post #143
perl4ever wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump did not in fact win the most electoral votes by convincing the electors. They normally vote for the winner of their respective states, and 2016 was no different. If the electors for states he won had been persuaded to vote for the popular vote winner, that's what would have taken convincing.

> Trump did not in fact win the most electoral votes by convincing the electors. That’s not what I meant. It was really just an analogy. I meant that Trump aimed to win the actual election as performed by the electoral college, not the popular vote, since the popular vote does not determine the election. Trump convinced the states that mattered, not the electors. In the same way, Scott Adams would have it, Trump is s…

Arguing that Trump's success is due to his personal qualities is very controversial. I think Adams is trying to emulate Trump's purported persuasive abilities, so whether people are convinced by Adams is evidence for or against what he is claiming. I think this is the attraction of the whole thing - magical things might happen because he believes in them.

Re: The first non-bullshit book about culture I've read

#145

Post by perl4ever »

yannis7 wrote: post #20

as @gexla mentioned down below, I prefer looking for leadership/culture advice on historical / biographical books. For example, "Making of the Atomic Bomb" was recommended to me, for examples of how on earth did the US manage to get a bunch of primadonna scientists to finish a megaproject on time (though this is not the main scope of the book) -- I haven't read it yet, but I would it put forward as a suggestion.

"primadonna scientists"

Feynman's shenanigans at Los Alamos are famous due to his memoirs, but at the time, he was not an important person, was he? Is it possible that peoples' viewpoints are distorted by this?

Also, the Apollo program seems more impressive and worth studying than the atomic bomb to me. Like, in one case, they produced unprecedentedly large explosions, and in the other, they did that and balanced people on top and got them to the moon and back.

Re: The first non-bullshit book about culture I've read

#146

Post by teddyh »

perl4ever wrote: post #144
teddyh wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Trump did not in fact win the most electoral votes by convincing the electors. That’s not what I meant. It was really just an analogy. I meant that Trump aimed to win the actual election as performed by the electoral college, not the popular vote, since the popular vote does not determine the election. Trump convinced the states that mattered, not the electors. In the same way, Scott Adams would have it, Trump is s…

Arguing that Trump's success is due to his personal qualities is very controversial. I think Adams is trying to emulate Trump's purported persuasive abilities, so whether people are convinced by Adams is evidence for or against what he is claiming. I think this is the attraction of the whole thing - magical things might happen because he believes in them.

> Arguing that Trump's success is due to his personal qualities is very controversial.

That never occurred to me. I simply assumed that everyone thought that Trump won the election by somehow being different from the other candidates. I mean, an election is a competition; One would normally assume that a winner had something personally to do with actually winning, you know?

But now that you mention it, it’s clear why it indeed is very controversial to assume this; the popular explanation (in many circles, at least) instead assumes an incompetent Trump and/or external electoral influence, and anything which detracts from this view (including alternative explanations) would therefore obviously be controversial.

I’ll try to not make this unwarranted assumption in the future. It was only an analogy, anyway, and since I have no stake in whether or not Trump has personal qualities, I hope I’ll be able to refrain from ascribing such where not warranted.

Also, good point about the correctness of Adams’ explanation somewhat hinging on itself being successful.

Re: The first non-bullshit book about culture I've read

#147

Post by vosper »

throwaway2048 wrote: post #79
vosper wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When your internet points on HN exceed some threshold you may be able to downvote. I’ve heard there’s also a thing called a supervote. (I have neither of these privileges)

This is not true, no matter how much karma you have, you can never downvote stories on HN, only flag. Super down voting is something only mods can do (maintains the story, but it gets nuked off the site index)

You may be correct, though you have a lot fewer internet points than the person who was talking about downvoting ;)

Also, I was referring to a super upvote, not a downvote, sorry if this was unclear. I’m pretty sure this is a thing, I have it mentioned by an extremely high karma HNer.

Re: The first non-bullshit book about culture I've read

#148

Post by perl4ever »

teddyh wrote: post #146
perl4ever wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguing that Trump's success is due to his personal qualities is very controversial. I think Adams is trying to emulate Trump's purported persuasive abilities, so whether people are convinced by Adams is evidence for or against what he is claiming. I think this is the attraction of the whole thing - magical things might happen because he believes in them.

> Arguing that Trump's success is due to his personal qualities is very controversial. That never occurred to me. I simply assumed that everyone thought that Trump won the election by somehow being different from the other candidates. I mean, an election is a competition; One would normally assume that a winner had something personally to do with actually winning, you know? But now that you mention it, it’s clear why…

"the popular explanation (in many circles, at least) instead assumes an incompetent Trump and/or external electoral influence,"

There is also a view that he won because of luck. Not that he won the lottery against incredible odds, but that he had about a 1/3 chance of winning enough electoral votes on the eve of the election, and also his polling followed a cyclical pattern that happened to have just peaked a few days before.

It's hard to say what governed that cyclical pattern, but if it was skill at convincing people, it seems like it wouldn't have been cyclical. It would have gone up and stayed there.

Re: The first non-bullshit book about culture I've read

#149

Post by teddyh »

perl4ever wrote: post #148
teddyh wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Arguing that Trump's success is due to his personal qualities is very controversial. That never occurred to me. I simply assumed that everyone thought that Trump won the election by somehow being different from the other candidates. I mean, an election is a competition; One would normally assume that a winner had something personally to do with actually winning, you know? But now that you mention it, it’s clear why…

"the popular explanation (in many circles, at least) instead assumes an incompetent Trump and/or external electoral influence," There is also a view that he won because of luck. Not that he won the lottery against incredible odds, but that he had about a 1/3 chance of winning enough electoral votes on the eve of the election, and also his polling followed a cyclical pattern that happened to have just peaked a few day…

Sure, that also fits. The problem with “it was just luck” is that it’s essentially the null hypothesis; it’s always a possible explanation, but unprovable except by eliminating all the other explanations.

Re: The first non-bullshit book about culture I've read

#150

Post by beardbound »

proc0 wrote: post #122
henrikschroder wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If leading people is so goddamn easy compared to software engineering, why do so few engineers want to move into people leadership, and why do so many of them absolutely suck at it? I think you are severely discounting the skills it takes to lead people, and you are also making an extremely optimistic assumption that companies in the future somehow would be magically more meritocratic than existing companies, when th…

Maybe I should have clarified, but leadership will have to be an additional requirement on top of knowing how to develop. If you look at the history of software development in enterprise, software developers have increasingly had to work multiple overlapping roles, the more recent of which, in my experience, is making developers be testers as well. It used be QA was a separate role, but now it has evaporated because…

That's an interesting point. I worked in QA for years and was out of the country for a few years. When I returned my old role (QA and process development/project management) didn't exist. The industry had moved on and those roles were handled by SDET/automation engineers and product managers respectively. I had to do a bit of retooling of my skillset.

Every QA person I've worked with that is still in the industry has moved on to almost pure test automation. A few years ago that was more like 30% of the role. Now I rarely do almost any manually testing, except for exploratory purposes and to design the test plan. Also for certain things that don't automate well. These days I do more pure development than I have at any other point in my career. It's been super fun, but still quite a change. I've seen colleagues that were more the business analyst flavor of QA get pushed out of the industry when they couldn't/wouldn't adapt.

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