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I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane

startingdotneprogramming.blogspot.com

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Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane

#311

Post by Pitarou »

michaelochurch wrote: post #160
pkteison wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The beginning was good, but when you claimed that smart people are certain to not get along with authority you went way out on an unsupported limb. I personally think passion and drive correlate to conflict a lot stronger than intelligence does; plenty of smart people know how to choose their battles and bite their tongues, and the suggestion that if they do they must not be super smart is just outrageous.

Around 130, you start to question and dislike authority, but you can still hold back. At 150, authority comes to you looking for fights (even if you don't do anything to it) because you make it insecure about its inherent illegitimacy and moral emptiness. Actual 150s are pretty rare: about 43 per 100,000 people. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=3.333+sigma

Bullshit.

One skill that is NOT correlated with IQ is the ability to reflect honestly on your own motivations. (If anything, the smarter people are, the better they get at rationalising.) So here's a mirror:

- you have a problem with authority

- you have a high IQ

- you have a deep-seated need to feel that you're better than other people.

Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane

#312

Post by wnight »

thelittlelisper wrote: post #184
wnight wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leak details. If nothing else, more light on the area would make it harder to screw around.

Thanks. Care to elaborate on this? It's difficult to leak details and make an impact. Academia is really screwed up. 90% of what gets published is a blatant lie, but nobody seems to care. Most researchers live in a distorted reality.

Well, I dunno what the best details would be... Whatever would make it easier for other teams to get funding instead of this organization, and thus is a proper incentive to behave.

Maybe bring up valid issues in email and once they go nowhere, make the emails public. You could potentially redact names, which would make it harder for them to attack you later...

Considering the goal is just to shape them up, perhaps you could fake or anonymously threaten a leak. Or for instance spread a rumor that you're being audited for this stuff. And if you see anyone shred anything, collect the pieces.

Or find a donor and don't "leak" anything specifically but get them calling for an audit.

With more specifics and an idea of how bad things are, we might be able to find something that would work.

I realize leaking is dangerous and burdensome for those who have to do it.

Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane

#313

Post by petit_robert »

kyllo wrote: post #252
michaelochurch wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now tell me, just how exactly are you even going to combat deeply entrenched mindsets like those, which also happen foster the usual confirmation and survivor bias dreams in most, if not all aspiring "wantapreneurs"? I don't think selling a company is a bad thing. I think building a company with the idea in mind that one must sell (because one's backers will flip out if there isn't a sale) is bad.

It sounds like a lot of what bothers you about VC startups is that they've become a way for megacorps to outsource risky marketing experiments (aka "convex work") and buy the winners while discarding the losers. But through the usual avenues of corruption it's become a rigged game where the sociopaths inside the megacorps are working with their sociopath friends in the VCs and actually picking winners instead of only…

"How do you stop any market from getting taken over by psychopaths who want to turn it into an incest-fest?"

I suggest replacing these useless leeches with open source software.

I believe that most administrative tasks in large organizations are by now routine. For instance, there is absolutely zero invention in the insurance case processing industry : get claimee's documents, validate them and check contract's term. The only thing managers do is add useless overhead that justifies their presence and aimlessly complexify software that could be written once for the next 50 years at least.

With good open-source case management software, any organization can use it readily; no need for clueless suits to come in and pretend they analyze it because they can't; no need for them to demand costly and dangerous changes without any justification (other than the inept rules they created in the first place).

There is no need for the bums any more : just use free software that will readily organize your service.

Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane

#314

Post by jodrellblank »

vsync wrote: post #284
bconway wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you sought out a mental health professional? In my experience, most incidents like the one linked have little to do with the amount of work or the politics involved, and everything to do with an untreated emotional condition. A lot of your writing above rings true in the same fashion. Please be careful.

Yes, being annoyed by unethical people is a mental condition.

... What, do you consider "being so annoyed by unethical people that you get committed to a mental institution" normal and OK?

Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane

#315

Post by jodrellblank »

michaelochurch wrote: post #174
obviouslygreen wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested to know whether this IQ conflict theory is actually based on something or whether it's coming from your posterior.

Experience and observation. Don't discount them. The first person to say the sky was blue was going out on a limb, too. What if everyone else saw an orange sky?

The first person to say the sky was blue was going out on a limb, too. What if everyone else saw an orange sky?

Then the sky colour would be called "orange" and the blue-seer would be lying or misrepresenting the facts due to miscommunication, sickness (hallucinations), disease (colour blindness), drug use, etc.

Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane

#316

Post by oz »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #296
neilk wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Five ? Is there some connection - the same industry, or the same company?

Same industry (web development) different companies. The one thing which connects them all is a developer just like in the article. Driven to perfection, willing to do whatever is asked of him, and burns the candle at three ends until he finally goes over the edge. I'm talking averaging 70 hours a week for two year straight kind of candle burning. The kind of narcissistic pursuit which is simply impossible to achieve…

I, for one, would love to hear the stories.

Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane

#317

Post by dspeyer »

blueprint wrote: post #309
dclowd9901 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (1) Of course, if you start your own company, you will be dealing with things you can't control as well. You are technically correct. When you run your own company, the things that are "out of your control" don't feel that way, because at the end of the day, you decide how you want to act on them. If a customer insists on butting his head in malevolent ways into a user experience I've created for their product beca…

> Of its an especially unruly customer, I have two: fire them or work with them. Employees have this freedom with their employers too, but not many realize it or are cowed by their personal circumstance. To compound this, one of the functions of (bad) management has been to keep them in the dark about their options outside of the company in case they get fed up with being shit on all the time.

At a much higher cost. A company with a dozen customers can drop the worst of them without taking a major hit. An employee with one employer has to risk everything. Especially since companies are often communities, so community membership is at risk too.

Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane

#318

Post by dspeyer »

philbarr wrote: post #118
mduerksen wrote: post #57

(Generalisation Warning) This is the dark side of the (otherwise desirable) trait of "getting things done" as employee. I you don't actively manage your working hours and hold yourself back , somebody else will suck you out until you have nothing left. At the end, you will be very unsatisfied for some obscure reason: You did everything you was asked for, yet somehow noone appreciates you and you still earn entry-leve…

Some of the best advice I've ever had was, "when you start at a company, it's tempting to try and work your arse off to prove how worthy you are. Don't - you're not proving anything, you're just establishing precedent. Instead, quickly determine what the absolute minimum you can get away with is and do slightly above that. Then work harder for the month before review time so you can justify a raise. The extra effort…

You're also teaching your management chain to provide the minimum reward, fire frequently, and generally be unpleasant to force you to work more. And you turn your daily life into a struggle, as you and the management feel out and try to budge the line.

Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane

#319

Post by dspeyer »

tgflynn wrote: post #101
auctiontheory wrote: post #11

Mental illness is very common. This story has nothing to do with programming, except that technically strong people are given a lot of leeway for strange behavior, meaning that folks who need treatment often do not get it soon enough. The other point, and I think by now all of us should know this, is that we are each responsible for our health and our careers - we cannot look forward to a lifetime with a paternalisti…

I don't like labeling this type of situation mental illness. That suggests that it's only the individual who is ill. It seems to me that situations like this result from a sick system as much or more than from individual sickness.

This comment really bugs me and I'm not sure why. Somehow I keep hearing in my head "I don't like labeling these gunshot wounds as 'injuries', what's really wrong is the environment full of random gunfire". It's the individual who is suffering, and that's important. Is illness supposed to be a cause, and not a result?

Re: I Knew a Programmer Who Went Completely Insane

#320

Post by dspeyer »

> It may be hard to swallow but the extra effort and hours that you put into your job as a software developer does not usually amount to someone higher up thinking you should run the company. It has been my experience that good producers are more likely to be asked to continue to produce. If they moved you to a higher position and better pay then who would produce the software?

This is why it's important to have a way to move "up" (greater reward, prestige and technical authority) that doesn't involve becoming management.

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