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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?

#571

Post by downerending »

bg4 wrote: post #517
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 could not agree more strongly. Also recommend this book for anyone who hasn't read it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemantics

Seconded. It's now titled "The Systems Bible". As humor, the book is a bit dry, but as (perhaps cynical) insight, it's gold. Read this and the entire collection of Dilbert strips, and you'll know 90% of how the world works.

(Amazingly, it wasn't written by a computer guy or other engineer. IIRC, the author is/was a medical doctor or something like that.)

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

#572

Post by alexashka »

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'd rephrase it as 'most people are not systems thinkers'.

A more cynical view is that they are systems thinkers on a tiny scale of only solving for personal gain. Because they are only solving for personal gain, they don't stop and think 'who put these thoughts of personal gain into my head, why do I want to own a house and think Mercedes is better than Toyota?'. Because most people don't ask these questions, advertising works extremely well and society is constantly in a state of broken-ness - a system can't function well by the virtue of self interested jerks acting in their self interest - sorry Adam Smith.

The only way to make the system less broken that smart people have figured out is either making humans act like robots so as to limit their natural desires (personal gain) or literally create technology to do the jobs we want done.

The way forward for humanity, is to eliminate humanity as we know it. Most people don't know it because it doesn't compute when all you're concerned with is personal gain.

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

#573

Post by Scramblejams »

If you work in a field where you and your coworkers are not employed as coders, coding is frequently a superpower. When I worked in aerospace as an aircraft structural engineer, I could do a lot of things my coworkers simply could not because I could code. This translated to faster deliveries, happier customers, and good leverage for increasing my comp.

So my advice to anybody who wants to get into a not-coding occupation and really distinguish themselves is: Get good at coding.

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

#574

Post by crimsonalucard »

davnicwil wrote: post #347
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…

> Don't be angry at the people who are benefiting from a system, or at the system itself. Most just end up that way, the same way a river meanders towards the sea This is absolutely brilliant, going to favourite it and steal your quote! The only thing I'd contribute is to also think about the system from your perspective, wherever you've ended up. Zoom out. Think about how you got here. How much of it is truly delibe…

The only type of person who will like this kind of quote is someone disproportionally benefiting from the system in an unfair way.

Let me tell you absolutely that if such people exist in the system then the system is flawed, unfair and such a person is indeed exploiting the system.

Systems can be made fair or unfair, that is what you must derive from the fact that everything is a system. It is pure stupidity to accept that all systems are unfair. This is not true and is nearly an obscene belief.

Think about it. The logical consequence of people disproportionally benefiting from the system means someone must be losing. If you must accept this, then you must accept that people working 3 jobs to stay afloat or people in poverty are just part of the system at work. Don't get angry at those facts.

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

#575

Post by ploxolo »

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…

This is key! I think one thing that is missed is that the systems that exist at a given point in time tend to be successful (at least in a Darwinian sense of the word) and stable.

>The same way a river meanders towards the sea

This is something to keep in mind when trying to change it. What if the aspect you are trying to change is key to its continued existence as a successful system? It probably will resist this as it probably gravitates towards its own stability.

Of course, some people understand this and yet would like to see it be destroyed. To them the only question I would ask is: Will the system you build in its place be as stable/successful? Then again, many of them in their overconfidence will think so. But let's just say that I would bet a system that developed more or less organically and succeeded will be possibly more adaptable and resistant than one that is centrally imposed.

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

#576

Post by nkrisc »

celticmusic wrote: post #563
nkrisc wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're a specific sort of person in this scenario, literally someone who has a stake in the outcome of the situation I'm describing. Is it dehumanizing to call someone who writes code a "software developer" instead of a "person"? Generally I agree with you and I hate the term "resource" as it's used, but I really don't agree that this is one of those cases. I could have said, "people" but in this instance it would m…

resource is also more specific than people, that doesn't obviate it from being dehumanizing.

"Resource" being dehumanizing doesn't make "stakeholder" dehumanizing. Of course, everything depends on context. Do you think in this context I was trying to dehumanize the people I was referring to? To what end?

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

#577

Post by Nasrudith »

growlist wrote: post #273
PavlovsCat wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the reason the world is burning. Instead of running from where you don't see it, run to attack where you do see it. It's better to fail as a good person than to succeed as a charlatan, and a bit of money can't plaster over the faculties of the mind drying up, among that the ability to resist charlatans in other contexts, including the political. "Business sophistry" is simply sophistry, brownnosing your boss…

The forces of chaos certainly seem to be in the ascendant in the West. A British woman makes thousands a month taking her clothes off online and selling her bathwater to perverts etc., yet if I call this out I'm liable to being labelled a dinosaur, misogynistic, hateful, etc. etc. In today's society possessing what were once considered traditional morals is liable to leave one at best socially isolated and at worst d…

There is a very good reason for that - "traditional morals" frankly are full of horrifying things accepted without comment and harmless things called the great Satan.

Wars of colonialism, soldiers paid in plunder and rape, massacre of those only trying to defend their besieged home? Fine or even righteous when we do it. When others do they are foul invaders.

Meanwhile, anything remotely lurid or new culturally is treated as an apocalyptic issue and the well of all sins. A streamer making money selling bathwater and being widely mocked doesn't even belong on the map of moral problems even when compared to petty examples of actual problems like parking ticket fixing rings. While limited in impact they are a clear warning sign of growing corruption.

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

#578

Post by tombert »

pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #510
tombert wrote: post #462

Companies are not your friends, no matter how much they try and pretend they are. When your employer says "we're a family here" or something like that, that's simply untrue. I don't think that the people that say that are "lying" exactly, since "lying" implies intent, and I think most of the time when your manager tells you that they do think it's true. If being a worker at a job were really "family", they wouldn't f…

Implying families are never dysfunctional...

> Implying families are never dysfunctional...

I wrote something because I was convinced that you were saying that I implied no families are disfunctional, and I was going to explain why I didn't say that, but then I realized that you might be referring to companies that say "we're a family", in which case I think we're in agreement :)

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

#579

Post by lowercased »

totaldude87 wrote: post #491
lowercased wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thinking about it again, that's possibly closer to the mark. I did let an employee go years back, and he then filed for unemployment and I had to answer some questions from the state - did I agree, or want to deny the claim or something like that. It was for poor performance, and I was probably at fault for the poor performance on his part (not as much as he was, but still partially).

So what did you do? did you say OK to the State?

yes. I believe it caused our 'unemployment insurance' to the state to go up, but... it's been close to 20 years - I don't remember the specifics :)

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

#580

Post by seem_2211 »

celticmusic wrote: post #416
shantly wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, while I considered what the accountant guy did to be a rather low-effort incomplete job, he did exactly what was expected of him by the bank and what I needed to get my deal done. The degree to which everything runs on this sort of system is kind of horrifying, once you're exposed to enough things like this for that to sink in. Relatedly, I guess my contribution to the broader thread would be: Almos…

I disagree, in the anecdote, the bank knows that it's financials are fine and just needed to tick a box for a silly insurance paper. There are definitely games that get played, but for the most part people are playing it to get around silliness from other parties.

Surely there's a few red flags that could have come up and that's what we're preventing here?
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