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Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

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Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#51

Post by beefield »

That money is debt. In a very fundamental, literal and practical sense, debt or credit (i.e. someone owing somebody something valuable) is what money is. The traditional definition of means of unit of measure, means of payment and unit of value describe how money is used, not what it is.

Like, knife is a sharp edged tool used to cut things vs knife actually is steel.

(This also being my main reason objecting cryptocurrencies. Idea of current cryptocurrencies being money is to me very much cargo cultish until there is a proper way to manage credit within the cryptocurrency system.)

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#52

Post by 2rsf »

jfim wrote: post #27
makach wrote: post #19

You can always be replaced.

I'd both agree and disagree with that statement. There are people who simply cannot be effectively replaced. That does not mean that the powers that be will not replace them. For example, a startup might have a critical engineer who happens to know how everything works or holds everything together. They can be replaced, although this may have a severe impact on the startup, including the failure of the startup. To yo…

While I agree that "never" is a strong word, we usually over estimate ours and others importance and irreplaceablity.

Sometimes replacement of a critical engineer might even do good to a company by forcing them to break the silo.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#53

Post by jakobegger »

Nursie wrote: post #40

That people will take a conspiracy and run with it because they'll believe a publicised scare over any number of actual experts. I saw it with the introduction of EMV (Chip'n'Pin) credit cards in the UK, and again with contactless cards a few years later, and you still see it with Apple/Google pay. They're not safe, people will steal all your money, you shouldn't have to use your PIN in public, they'll get cloned, I…

But it seems to me those conspiracies often only affect a small (but vocal) minority of the people.

I recall a similar issue when they started to introduce a prescription database in Austria. There was a lot of fearmongering in the media, doctors spreading pamphlets against dangers of surveillance, etc.

But when I talked to people about it, nobody really cared about it. People might have read some article in the newspaper, but I don't know anybody who actually bothered to opt out of the system.

I think the problem is that journalists like reporting on controversies, so they end up writing a lot about issues that only bother a few people, and if you read the article it looks likes it's a major issue when it's really not.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#55

Post by cosmodisk »

People ready to pay stupid money for trivial things as long as the message is right. A lot of people don't know how to use Google. Finance companies staffed with tons of mediocre and incompetent people. People do need to be protected from themselves occasionally.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#56

Post by quickthrower2 »

jmpman wrote: post #23

You can burn a bridge with no repercussions. It’s a small industry, but burn that mo-fo down if it’s required to maintain your self esteem. Makes for a good drinking story afterwards, and really, that’s what you want at the end of your career.

Made me chuckle.thanks.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#57

Post by jensneuse »

People with strong opinions usually don't know enough in their field. (Mount stupid)

There's no one perfect tool/solution. It's always tradeoffs.

People are obsessed promoting their favourite tool/framework etc.. Eventually you realize it's more about the patterns behind them, not the individual solution.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#58

Post by lnsru »

twblalock wrote: post #9

The people who get the most done are not the smartest, or the most skilled, but the ones who are most familiar with the organization they work in. To outsiders it looks like they end up with compromised solutions, but to insiders it looks like they achieved the impossible.

That’s what I see everyday. Insider produce crap, I criticized it as a new guy and became enemy number one very quickly. Isolated organizations enter the Lord of the Flies state. For them everything is normal while outsider has experienced more possible solutions. So it hurts seeing how bad and primitive device is made from 6 separate printed circuit boards soldered with random wires. Every amateur can do better with KiCad in a week. But in this organizations it’s state-of-art and author of this mess got promoted to senior.

Re: Ask HN: What has your work taught you that other people don't realize?

#60

Post by Nursie »

jakobegger wrote: post #53
Nursie wrote: post #40

That people will take a conspiracy and run with it because they'll believe a publicised scare over any number of actual experts. I saw it with the introduction of EMV (Chip'n'Pin) credit cards in the UK, and again with contactless cards a few years later, and you still see it with Apple/Google pay. They're not safe, people will steal all your money, you shouldn't have to use your PIN in public, they'll get cloned, I…

But it seems to me those conspiracies often only affect a small (but vocal) minority of the people. I recall a similar issue when they started to introduce a prescription database in Austria. There was a lot of fearmongering in the media, doctors spreading pamphlets against dangers of surveillance, etc. But when I talked to people about it, nobody really cared about it. People might have read some article in the news…

Perhaps so, though I've met a few older people who just don't trust contactless payments, even after I've explained that a fingerprint protected phone is more secure than any card they might have used.

And with some things it just takes time for that reactionary impulse to wear off.

OTOH I brought up vaccines for a reason - sometimes such things don't go away.

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