Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Egoless Engineering

egoless.engineering

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 309 posts

Re: Egoless Engineering

#121

Post by sfink »

dpc_01234 wrote: post #34

The stab at Musk seems out of place. You might not like him, or his politics, but he took over and reformed a slow and bloated place, and despite all the doomsayers Twitter is still working and IMO better than before. And he has a solid track record of delivering: finance app, electric cars, rockets. Sure he over-promises and under-delivers, sometimes borderline lies, etc. but there is a huge amount of wisdom behind…

It was illustrating narcissistic personality disorder. Debating whether or not Musk delivers, or what personality traits might be behind delivering or not, is irrelevant to whether or not Musk illustrates NPD. It is easy to find examples of his behavior that matches [a layman's understanding of] NPD, so it seems fair.

Saying that Musk's personality resembles NPD doesn't say whether he is or is not effective at some tasks.

Re: Egoless Engineering

#122

Post by MrMcCall »

Aloisius wrote: post #112
MrMcCall wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ego is, indeed, referred to in a negative sense because most people do not sublimate it to serve the group. It's natural state -- and, therefore, our natural state -- is to be selfish to oneself and one's in-group. There are 19 pairs of vice/virtue pairs in the ego. We can only decrease our ego's vice-eous tendencies by increasing our consciously manifesting compassion to everyone we encounter. It also helps to c…

Huh. I thought it was thought of negatively because people confuse the word ego (self) with egotism/conceit (exaggerated sense of self-importance). The same sadly has happened with confusion of the word selfless (having no concern with self) with unselfish (concerned with others before oneself) and altruistic (unselfish concern for others' well being). Personally, I don't see any incompatibility between having a sens…

Selflessness merely means understanding that selfless service to others' happiness is a fundamental element of the spiritual path. We do not have to love them more than ourself, just equal, but we must take the chances we get to serve their happiness as much as possible.

You're right about the negativity of the ego's self-important nature via conceit and egotism. Those are negative traits of the self. The goal of self-improvement is to become a consciously virtuous person who puts the needs of the whole in its proper place, and doesn't indulge their selfish vices, which always cause unhappiness to those around them.

Positive self-esteem, when due to being a compassionate person, is a necessary component of the self-evolving person, because honesty in grokking the truth of ourselves is an important part of our growth.

And, remember, universal compassion also includes being compassionate to our own self, and as we increase our virtuosness, we are ever more beloved by the universe, itself. The happiness on that path is not known by but a small minority of the world's cultures/societies.

Sorry I'm not writing so clearly this late in the day, but know that the ego we have a birth is mostly selfish. It takes a definite turn towards the light to begin the process of purifying it by degrees from egotist to self-actualized bearer of compassion. It's a true fight, fighting against our own fallabilities and weaknesses and selfishnesses. But it's the most worthy struggle we will ever undertake.

Re: Egoless Engineering

#123

Post by zdw »

Dansvidania wrote: post #54

I did not finish yet to read, but "Executives are well-adapted to insisting on fundamentally contradictory goals" Is so well worded (and also so hilariously true) that I wanted to symbolically tip my hat at the author in case they read here.

This is pretty close to what's espoused in the Jim Collins books which are descriptive of specific companies but get turned into proscriptive nonsense by people who don't get that.

Specifically, in "Built to Last" the ability to hold two contradictory goals is praised as "Genius of the AND", as opposed to "Tyranny of the OR".

Re: Egoless Engineering

#124

Post by robswc »

xyzzy4747 wrote: post #95
srid wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last paragraph is the interesting one, and here's the full quote in context: One of the reasons Communism eventually failed is that it assumed that we could all accept the philosophy "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." The assumption that we could all subjugate our needs to those of others is about as faulty as the assumption that we can subjugate our egos for the betterment of th…

One of the reasons Communism failed was because of incentives. People were not rewarded with more compensation for working harder.

I know its getting off topic but I never understood why people seemingly couldn't accept that.

Current systems don't have a 1:1 with "hard work" and success/comp but its about as close as you can get, IMO.

Re: Egoless Engineering

#125

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF »

nox101 wrote: post #19
datadrivenangel wrote: post #2

The part about intentional team values is very good: • Digs ditches. Nobody is too good for any task. • Returns shopping carts (even if nobody's watching). We leave things better than we found them. It's amazing how most teams don't set norms/values at all!

Western society (or at least USA society) seems to me to foster the idea of "not my responsibility". My example would be, going to a fast food place and not cleaning your table even though there are trashcans and places to put your tray. Spilling something and not even attempting to clean up after yourself. Unions have this in spades. "My job is X, I don't do Y, in fact I'm not allowed to do Y as that takes a job awa…

If there's a country that doesn't speed and litter please get me a visa so I can go home

Re: Egoless Engineering

#126

Post by tbrownaw »

spuds wrote: post #43
aylmao wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently, I was thinking plenty about trust within organizations, and it resonated with me too. I've worked at a few startups and have seen high-trust environments lead to a lot of productivity, comfort and success— and the opposite for low-trust startups. In general, I think startups tend to lean towards high-trust, especially when they're small and early, but I was part of a 15-person one that was quite the opposit…

Yeah, I think there's almost always a point where a company decides they need to stop generally trusting their employees. Then all the trustworthy ones start getting more and more frustrated, or just start checking out. Agreed that most startups lean towards trust. Need to keep that going as long as possible, and stay away from hiring managers who think their primary job is "protecting" the company from anyone who mi…

> Yeah, I think there's almost always a point where a company decides they need to stop generally trusting their employees. Then all the trustworthy ones start getting more and more frustrated, or just start checking out.

$employer has formal separation of duties between development and build/release for some things, which deal with other people's money. I'm pretty sure it's mandated by customer contracts.

Re: Egoless Engineering

#127

Post by tbrownaw »

MrMcCall wrote: post #11

The success of any organization depends upon each member behaving selflessly to meet the needs of the group. Selfishness in any organization is a parasitic drain on energy and productivity. Embracing compassion for all those who drift into our orbit is the only way to improve oneself in all dimensions. Compassion is the common factor in virtue, and the cure for selfishness. It is also the measure of every person, so…

> The success of any organization depends upon each member behaving selflessly to meet the needs of the group.

This is false. A well-designed system will align individual self-interest with what's beneficial collectively.

> Embracing compassion for all those who drift into our orbit is the only way to improve oneself in all dimensions.

What does compassion look like towards someone who's trying to mug me?

> It is also the measure of every person, so once you begin orienting yourself in the moral compass' proper direction, you can begin to see how others are aligned or misaligned.

I do not subscribe to your religion.

Feeling positively towards others, and acting beneficially to others, are not the same thing.

Re: Egoless Engineering

#128

Post by choonway »

the opposite of an egoistic programmer, is the anonymous one.

then how do you credit those who do produce results? Just put money into the anonymous one's bank account.

Re: Egoless Engineering

#130

Post by luxuryballs »

hahaha they gave the designer keys… to deploy to prod!

as a lead engineer this is something I don’t even want… as soon as you have keys to deploy to prod, guess what you’ll be asked to do? and always at the worst times!

Post reply on HN