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There’s no such thing as a tech expert anymore

wired.com

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Re: There’s no such thing as a tech expert anymore

#21

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

andersco wrote: post #9

This seems to imply that “tech expert” is someone all-knowing regarding tech. In my mind “tech expert” is about literacy. You may not know the specifics of all technologies but you have the mental toolkit for understanding them conceptually. But it is also about context. If you are the person who people ask for help with tech stuff, well, then you’re an expert, at least in their minds.

I agree, and will add:

An expert in any field must also be well connected so they know who to call / ask / refer to when they don’t know how to proceed.

Re: There’s no such thing as a tech expert anymore

#23

Post by mrmonkeyman »

goatinaboat wrote: post #20
andersco wrote: post #9

This seems to imply that “tech expert” is someone all-knowing regarding tech. In my mind “tech expert” is about literacy. You may not know the specifics of all technologies but you have the mental toolkit for understanding them conceptually. But it is also about context. If you are the person who people ask for help with tech stuff, well, then you’re an expert, at least in their minds.

This seems to imply that “tech expert” is someone all-knowing regarding tech No one was ever literally all-knowing but tech people never used to be as micro-specialist as is common now. In the 90s it was quite normal for one person to understand everything from the hardware and networks up to how to make HTML look pretty. In the early days of Google they probably did have guys who really did understand it all. But no…

They still exist in massive numbers. Jesus. It's not _that_ hard.

Re: There’s no such thing as a tech expert anymore

#24

Post by ElFitz »

Lazy so-called journalist, I'd like to present to you... drums rolling... Ben Thompson of Stratechery[1]! Followed by.... rolling drums... John Gruber of Daring Fireball[2]!

And quite frankly, these two are just the ones I thought of, from the top of my head.

And, I couldn't say why, I think nowadays the Financial Times could write pieces on the matter more interesting than nearly anyone at Wired could.

[1]: https://stratechery.com/

[2]: https://daringfireball.net/

Re: There’s no such thing as a tech expert anymore

#25

Post by bubblethink »

>Last week’s effort by the antitrust subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee was no exception. "The technological ignorance demonstrated by our elected officials ... was truly stunning,"

I skimmed through parts of the hearing, and I found most of it alright. I don't remember anything glaringly bad. There was a minor gaffe about twitter v/s facebook, which everyone mocked on the internet, but even that wasn't so bad. The efficacy of the hearing wrt any outcome is a different matter. What's the author talking about ?

Re: There’s no such thing as a tech expert anymore

#26

Post by opportune »

djcapelis wrote: post #12

US society, discourse, media, and government structures have sidelined experts to the extent we’ve finally managed to forget they exist. Instead we’re left with reporters who write articles that bemoan that since they’re lost and unable to determine truth in a sea of technology, we all must be.

Yeah, to me this just looks like a journalist complaining that they shouldn't be expected to understand the things they write about. There are hundreds of people who more or less understand any given product or project with large impact. Society just doesn't care what they think.

Why listen to an accomplished engineer who might very well have lots of opinions on the impact of technology, when we can complain that our graduate degrees in American studies [0]didn't prepare us to understand the complex systems in the technology industry?

[0] Not trying to strawman here, but since the author of TFA thought it was relevant to include, I think it's fair game

Re: There’s no such thing as a tech expert anymore

#27

Post by mlazos »

This author appears to think that you need to understand the intricate details of a search algorithm, distributed computing, and machine learning before you understand what their general use is? I don’t need to understand how a car engine works before I can understand how to drive or how cars have changed society. The only argument this article proves is that google and Facebook have lowered the bar on journalism so far that this is considered publishable.

Re: There’s no such thing as a tech expert anymore

#29

Post by sien »

mdoms wrote: post #18
sien wrote: post #4

Yes there is. It's everyone on Hacker News! Just post about about some Unicorn here and at least half a dozen people are pretty confident they know more about the company in question than the founders or the people running it. In the future Congress can just post questions here.

I will never stop being amused by the original post about Dropbox here on HN, where a large contingent of the audience was so critical of it, it was destined to fail. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/Apple-releases-i...

Re: There’s no such thing as a tech expert anymore

#30

Post by hurrdurr2 »

mlazos wrote: post #27

This author appears to think that you need to understand the intricate details of a search algorithm, distributed computing, and machine learning before you understand what their general use is? I don’t need to understand how a car engine works before I can understand how to drive or how cars have changed society. The only argument this article proves is that google and Facebook have lowered the bar on journalism so…

Totally agreed. What drivel. I couldn't even finish reading the article.

We have senators grilling tech CEOs that don't understand the difference between an iPhone and an Android device. This is unacceptable to say the least.

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