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Ask HN: Does anyone else notice increased incompetence?

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Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else notice increased incompetence?

#31

Post by giantg2 »

justaguyhere wrote: post #29
d33lio wrote: post #24

The seemingly innocuous mistakes of morons in society will always cause immeasurable amounts of pain both through wasted time and anxiety. I'm not even that smart, but heck I have a college degree and for me I had to stop assuming others had the best of intentions and / or were as smart as I was. When you just double check and clarify when appropriate - you can avoid dumb pitfalls like this. For instance, "Here's my…

If there is one thing I have learned, it is this - most people don't care about anything other than themselves. At least in part, it is not their fault - they have their own crappy life to deal with, so why bother having good intentions and care for others (work or otherwise)? It is tolerable most of the time, except when it comes to powerful jobs like cops/doctors/lawyers etc where even a small mistake can wreck som…

I agree.

I think in many cases the lawyers are overpaid. I'm doing all the legal leg work for my wife - researching case law, scrutinizing statutes, combing through code, placing calls, and talking to my LEO buddies (they think the officer made a mistake).

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else notice increased incompetence?

#32

Post by giantg2 »

justaguyhere wrote: post #28
bjourne wrote: post #25

No, I notice increased competence. So much I depend on the competence others have which I myself don't. Everything from getting a haircut, to calibrating the ventilation in my apartment, to politicians holding speeches.

politicians holding speeches Curious about this. I can count on one hand the politicians I truly admire/respect, including the world leaders (among the ones I am familiar with, and I am familiar with a few). Why do you think politicians are getting better with speeches? All I see are useless, meaningless, confusing soup of words that they blabber (with few exceptions)

And even the ones typically highly regarded lie. See Obama's comment on the wage gap from the state of the union a few years back. I doubt it was incompetence, but probably a calculated lie.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else notice increased incompetence?

#33

Post by giantg2 »

vb6sp6 wrote: post #18

I don't think it is incompetence. It seems more like laziness. Everyone is on their phone or trying hard to get back to their phone and small mistakes are adding up.

I can see that. I probably should have included it.

I think the lazy part might be more prominent in low power positions. The specific example I have of these positions of power (LEO, court officials, healthcare) seem to let the power power go to their heads. In my opinion it seems they let that feeling of mastery lead to incompetence. I do think laziness is part of the equation that leads to that.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else notice increased incompetence?

#34

Post by dyingkneepad »

I am clearly much more incompetent at my job than I was in 2019. My performance is much worse and this is very noticeable to my boss and anybody who tries to pay attention.

Working from home is hard in my situation, and I have all the symptoms of depression yet I'm not treating them.

I expect a huge part of the population to be in the same position as I am.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else notice increased incompetence?

#36

Post by giantg2 »

giantg2 wrote: post #32
justaguyhere wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

politicians holding speeches Curious about this. I can count on one hand the politicians I truly admire/respect, including the world leaders (among the ones I am familiar with, and I am familiar with a few). Why do you think politicians are getting better with speeches? All I see are useless, meaningless, confusing soup of words that they blabber (with few exceptions)

And even the ones typically highly regarded lie. See Obama's comment on the wage gap from the state of the union a few years back. I doubt it was incompetence, but probably a calculated lie.

Why is this downvoted?

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else notice increased incompetence?

#37

Post by rshnotsecure »

I would like to comment on this. My real name and also email I believe are in my profile, as well as in a couple of past comments.

Incompetence is sometimes a brilliant intelligence and counterintelligence strategy.

The old saying of "don't suspect malice when stupidity is possible" or whatever was a favorite saying of Aldrich Ames. And of course that is what one would say if they were doing what he did.

It's also a great recruitment strategy for spies. The CIA realized by the mid 70's that hey didn't have to ask ppl to defect, or to pass secrets, often they would just say, "can you make sure that if this security concern ever gets filed, you just just make sure it gets lost, or that you are really confused and don't understand?"

Incompetence happened a great deal in the Soviet Union. It mentally killed people to see it everyday. People had just given up on society and accepted a corrupt incompetent way of life. Ultimately, incompetence, even if begun as a malicious strategy, eventually inspires it in others, which is tragic.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else notice increased incompetence?

#38

Post by brudgers »

giantg2 wrote: post #26
brudgers wrote: post #17

None of this sounds any different from thirty years ago. And the interaction with law enforcement sounds like high competency it’s just that high competency doesn’t look like what you thought it did. Generally I find greater competency on average. I just accept that a person can be competent at doing something I don’t like.

Why do you say the interaction with law enforcement shows competence? You mean gaming the system to increase convictions/charges by essentially lying (incorrect charges)?

They are fucking with you. Competently. They are doing so on behalf of people on the other side of the “who gets fucked with” line. You thought you were on the other side of the line but it appears you were mistaken. Behaviors premised on a belief law enforcement is incompetent won’t do much for a defendant. Defendants are even further along the “who gets fucked with” spectrum.

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else notice increased incompetence?

#39

Post by thorin »

I've got a feeling when I was younger in the 80s/90s people stayed in the same job for most of their career and had a huge hierarchy of people above them. Processes were largely manual and paper based and so completely understood by administrative staff in most business areas. Now most things are computerised and dumbed down, no-one needs to understand them. Add to that outsourcing and people moving quickly between low skilled jobs where is the incentive to care deeply about these issues?

Re: Ask HN: Does anyone else notice increased incompetence?

#40

Post by giantg2 »

brudgers wrote: post #38
giantg2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you say the interaction with law enforcement shows competence? You mean gaming the system to increase convictions/charges by essentially lying (incorrect charges)?

They are fucking with you. Competently. They are doing so on behalf of people on the other side of the “who gets fucked with” line. You thought you were on the other side of the line but it appears you were mistaken. Behaviors premised on a belief law enforcement is incompetent won’t do much for a defendant. Defendants are even further along the “who gets fucked with” spectrum.

I completely get that they can lie and do other tricks in the course of the investigation (hence subpeona the investigation file). They are not supposed to file false charges. The entire premise of our legal system is based on the idea that two equal parties in a fair contest (court) will yield the truth. Abusing the system (violating regulations) is a completely different level.

Actually, the behavior premised on incompetent law enforcement is the only way to go. If you assume they are competent, then you would plead guilty because there's no way to win. Cases are routinely thrown out over incompetent actions by law enforcement. This is all a big waste if time and tax dollars when we show up and show the judge that we don't meet the elements of the offense and he dismisses the case.

I know what competent policing looks like. I have many friends who are officers and I am state licensed/trained as a armed guard. My friends and the dog warden have also said this is odd and that he wrote it up wrong. For the record the citation was supposed to be for a dog being off leash and they instead wrote it as a dangerous dog - a big screw up.

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