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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?

#441

Post by jmiskovic »

jstummbillig wrote: post #289
pryelluw wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a poet everything rhymes.

I don't know. Seems sound enough. Unless you put forward more specific criticism – and I'd be happy to hear your thoughts – I'll be a poet today.

My criticism can be summarized as "map is not the teritory".

The reality is messy. Sure, we can think in terms of feedback loops and interactive modules and it can be helpful sometimes. We just have to be aware we are imposing our puny models onto the infinitely complex beast.

The model will break down at some point. Recognizing the correct model and extrapolating from it is not useful unless we know the limit at which it breaks down.

It is also hard to be objective about our mental models, we tend to apply all kinds of favoritisms and observation biases when evaluating them. In machine learning (google maps) those biases are still present, but at least they are not our personal biases so they are easier to spot and correct for.

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

#442

Post by jpg_converter »

muzani wrote: post #114

Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic. You don't need math to reverse engineer a system. You just need to pay attention to it. You can say the right words to make a date happy. You can figure out which lane is the fastest route, better than Google Maps can. You don't need an app or data - your brain is a wonderful data processing machine. Don't be angry at the people who are ben…

I agree w you mostly but you extended this form of systemic analysis to "making a date happy" which I think is a fundamental misunderstanding of relationships. To everyone reading this: please don't go around treating other people as systems to be optimized!

If you wish to think about relationships as systems, you really need to understand that you are a partial component in social systems and therefore a flawed observer. It is impossible to objectively "diagnose" social systems without communication, empathy, and collaboration. It is far more than "saying the right words"

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

#443

Post by 52-6F-62 »

JadeNB wrote: post #424
52-6F-62 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet rhyming poetry is a relatively modern form. Who said that line?

It's the "every problem is a nail" statement in slightly different guise.

I'm totally being pedantic, but it doesn't work—so I was wondering if it was a direct quote from someone in particular.

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

#444

Post by mitchdoogle »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #375
mannykannot wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It works right up until it doesn't: see 737 Max, mortgage crisis... Perhaps the best thing that can be said for pro-forma processes is that they usually put people on notice that they may be held accountable for their actions -- though, of course, that is not always the case.

And look at all the planes that don't fall out of the sky and all the financial products that don't cause crisis. The "even rare failures are unacceptable" line of reasoning is simply too conservative to permit our modern society to exist. The resources we would have to dedicate to preventing these kinds of things (don't forget the 90/10 rule) in every case would be astronomical. Imagine if every bit of software had…

If a failure happens because someone ignores their clear responsibilities, then that is unacceptable

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

#445

Post by newsbinator »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #251
galfarragem wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's one of the few places where people have pissing matches over who's worked the most. Probably once the work is not intellectually challenging people need to create a challenge somehow. In my experience, when you are used to intellectual challenging work, trades feel like a downgrade and becomes unbearably boring. Conversations fall to high school level. However, if you can deal with it and the physical risk, th…

Trades are probably more measurable, if someone lays 400 bricks in a day you know they have built a wall and can quickly see whether it is straight. If I write 400 lines of code in a day it's quite hard to evaluate the quality or even if it satisfies the requirements. This is why intellectual work tends to create more political problems. People know good work can't necessarily be measured so they start engaging in ga…

Also you don't get to brag in trades that you spent the week removing 200 of the 400 bricks, and the wall is still as straight & as strong, while being easier to repair later.

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

#446

Post by ayoubElk »

nkrisc wrote: post #327

How important it is to be able to inhabit another person's viewpoint and see things from their perspective. So much time and effort is saved in doing so. Much of my job has become translating and mediating between stakeholders going around in circles, because each one believes their viewpoint represents the entirety of the issue. They can not understand one another because they assume the other understands everything…

Interesting! Can you share an example of the shortcuts you mentioned?

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

#447

Post by teadrivendev »

joseph2342 wrote: post #97
timeattack wrote: post #67

Kind of obvious one, but I wish more people knew that — critical thinking. On the one side it helps to avoid bad/stupid things in life: quackery medicine, scammers, bad investments, etc. On the other side it allows to peep deeper into things and see more choices even in ordinary life. After some practice you gain nearly magical ability to peel couple of additional layers from reality and to see non-obvious things eve…

Any Book recommendations ?

The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How To Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake by Steven Novella. There is an audiobook version, or any episode of their podcast, now over 750 episodes to choose from.

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

#448

Post by lotsofpulp »

geggam wrote: post #439
lotsofpulp wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tpxl and you are using different definitions of "work out fine". Incarceration and systemic discrimination against an entire class of people does not count as "well enough", in my opinion. And it's specious reasoning to conclude that if a society made up of untrustworthy actors committing fraud isn't starving and dodging lions, then it's worked out fined. One can go live in a country with low societal trust to see wh…

Power corrupts. Corruption erodes trust. How do you put people in power without corruption ? You give them a tight set of rules to follow and limit their power.... with something like a constitution. You see how it took a mere 200 years for that to get corrupted ?

Change is inevitable. I merely hope to slow the change caused by corruption by doing what I can to prevent it.

The only way to stop or slow corruption is by shining light on it. I support all efforts to increase transparency. Put all those spreadsheets online so people can audit each other. Perhaps it is inevitable still, but it’s the best chance we have.

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

#449

Post by slumdev »

t3rabytes wrote: post #435
slumdev wrote: post #396

Some number of years of experience is not and never will be equivalent to a CS bachelor's. I'm done explaining why an undocumented O(n^2) solution that violates most of the SOLID principles is a Bad Thing.

This smells like gatekeeping at it's finest.

If we did a little more gatekeeping and a little less bootcamping, we might have the respect and autonomy afforded to doctors, lawyers, and actual, P.E. engineers. Instead, we're just an annoyingly expensive cost center.

What we do isn't easy. We can't pretend that it's easy, that it can be learned in six weeks, or that it's possible to be truly great without earning the foundational knowledge. That pretending hurts all of us.

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

#450

Post by solveit »

jpg_converter wrote: post #442
muzani wrote: post #114

Everything is a system. The economy, society, relationships, nature, traffic. You don't need math to reverse engineer a system. You just need to pay attention to it. You can say the right words to make a date happy. You can figure out which lane is the fastest route, better than Google Maps can. You don't need an app or data - your brain is a wonderful data processing machine. Don't be angry at the people who are ben…

I agree w you mostly but you extended this form of systemic analysis to "making a date happy" which I think is a fundamental misunderstanding of relationships. To everyone reading this: please don't go around treating other people as systems to be optimized! If you wish to think about relationships as systems, you really need to understand that you are a partial component in social systems and therefore a flawed obse…

> I agree w you mostly but you extended this form of systemic analysis to "making a date happy" which I think is a fundamental misunderstanding of relationships. To everyone reading this: please don't go around treating other people as systems to be optimized!

I think people who say this kind of thing have a fundamental misunderstanding of how a certain type of people think.

Of course people are systems to be optimized! What else could they possibly be? It's like people who object to love being a chemical reaction. What else could it be possibly be? And why in the world would love being a chemical reaction and people being systems to be optimized rule out treating people with respect, empathy, and kindness? What kind of straw Vulcans do you think we are?

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