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

Do not try to be the smartest in the room; try to be the kindest

jorgegalindo.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 260 posts

Re: Do not try to be the smartest in the room; try to be the kindest

#231

Post by passwordle »

BurningFrog wrote: post #118
baazaa wrote: post #77

If we tallied up all technical projects in the Western world that failed, how many would be failing due to lack of kindness versus, say, straight-forwards incompetence? Because 100% fall in the latter category in my experience. One of the problems with engineers counter-signalling engineering values (like actual technical competence) is that we live in a world where those values are extremely underrated while every m…

The biggest problem with government organizations is that they're monopolies. The lack of competition means that (1) if the organization is dysfunctional, it won't be beaten by a better one, and (2) it has little incentive to improve.

>if the organization is dysfunctional, it won't be beaten by a better one, and (2) it has little incentive to improve.

Source? Ever heard of elections? Sounds like a braindead libertarian software developer take on a topic you have no idea about to me

Re: Do not try to be the smartest in the room; try to be the kindest

#232

Post by globular-toast »

passwordle wrote: post #230
globular-toast wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trouble is "asshole" is relative. As an engineer, I value disagreeable people. I want someone to tell me I'm wrong and disagree with me whenever appropriate. But to many HR types just the mere fact you're disagreeing and not blowing smoke up everyone's arse all the time makes you an asshole. People should also feel ok with calling out incompetence which, again, can make you seem like an asshole to some.

That's what an asshole would say

Calling someone an asshole could also be considered being an asshole. See how it works now?

Re: Do not try to be the smartest in the room; try to be the kindest

#233

Post by Jensson »

lemmsjid wrote: post #174
baazaa wrote: post #77

If we tallied up all technical projects in the Western world that failed, how many would be failing due to lack of kindness versus, say, straight-forwards incompetence? Because 100% fall in the latter category in my experience. One of the problems with engineers counter-signalling engineering values (like actual technical competence) is that we live in a world where those values are extremely underrated while every m…

Huh! If I reflect back on my involvement in projects that had difficulties, there was rarely a dearth of competent people, and in fact it was often political and communication concerns that led to suffering. Look at Conway’s Law: “any organization that designs a system (defined broadly) will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communication structure.” The “kind” people are the people who…

> not be impeded by political wrangling

All that need for political wrangling was created by incompetent kind people. Getting more of those just creates more of those issues, if not at your place its at others, its an arms race.

Re: Do not try to be the smartest in the room; try to be the kindest

#234

Post by Jensson »

spacebanana7 wrote: post #91
baazaa wrote: post #77

If we tallied up all technical projects in the Western world that failed, how many would be failing due to lack of kindness versus, say, straight-forwards incompetence? Because 100% fall in the latter category in my experience. One of the problems with engineers counter-signalling engineering values (like actual technical competence) is that we live in a world where those values are extremely underrated while every m…

Opposing view - most large scale projects fail because of political and financial reasons rather than technology. Even the bad tech decisions are usually downstream of politics. If you’re wanting to build a high speed rail line, space rocket or nuclear power plant; a propaganda specialist is probably going to be more useful than an engineer.

> If you’re wanting to build a high speed rail line, space rocket or nuclear power plant; a propaganda specialist is probably going to be more useful than an engineer.

And then it runs 10x over budget due to incompetence. The propaganda specialists creates more issues than they solve, they might solve this issue but they make many other issues not get funded in its place overall increasing incompetence by moving money from competent to incompetent people.

Re: Do not try to be the smartest in the room; try to be the kindest

#235

Post by Jensson »

passwordle wrote: post #231
BurningFrog wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem with government organizations is that they're monopolies. The lack of competition means that (1) if the organization is dysfunctional, it won't be beaten by a better one, and (2) it has little incentive to improve.

>if the organization is dysfunctional, it won't be beaten by a better one, and (2) it has little incentive to improve. Source? Ever heard of elections? Sounds like a braindead libertarian software developer take on a topic you have no idea about to me

Elections replaces the government, not the state. Most people working at the state stays regardless who wins. Elections is like changing the CEO, it doesn't mean replacing the company.

Re: Do not try to be the smartest in the room; try to be the kindest

#236

Post by lotsofpulp »

navane wrote: post #197
lotsofpulp wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand the relevance of this example. Without the hazard light, there’s a 99% chance the person is simply looking at their phone, needlessly delaying everyone else, hence the honking to alert them to move. What else is another driver supposed to do? A hazard light means there is a problem that can’t be solved with honking.

Nice people wouldn't honk at the stationary car without it's hazards on.

I would not categorize that as a “nice” people thing to do. Unless nice somehow means quiet and willing to be walked all over.

Re: Do not try to be the smartest in the room; try to be the kindest

#237

Post by toomanyrichies »

globular-toast wrote: post #155
sidcool wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible to be technically competent and kind. They're not mutually exclusive traits. One doesn't even need to be kind. Just don't be an asshole.

The trouble is "asshole" is relative. As an engineer, I value disagreeable people. I want someone to tell me I'm wrong and disagree with me whenever appropriate. But to many HR types just the mere fact you're disagreeing and not blowing smoke up everyone's arse all the time makes you an asshole. People should also feel ok with calling out incompetence which, again, can make you seem like an asshole to some.

One can disagree without being disagreeable. “From my experience, this approach will have the following downsides…” is disagreeing. “Only an idiot would suggest that approach” is being disagreeable.

Too many engineers take the 2nd approach, and then tell themselves that everyone else is the problem when they get labeled as “disagreeable”. At best, they mean well but are sorely lacking in social skills. At worst, the cruelty is the point, and “I’m just telling it like it is” is their attempt at gaslighting others.

Re: Do not try to be the smartest in the room; try to be the kindest

#238

Post by baazaa »

CM30 wrote: post #146
baazaa wrote: post #77

If we tallied up all technical projects in the Western world that failed, how many would be failing due to lack of kindness versus, say, straight-forwards incompetence? Because 100% fall in the latter category in my experience. One of the problems with engineers counter-signalling engineering values (like actual technical competence) is that we live in a world where those values are extremely underrated while every m…

And how many would be from incompetence in terms of execution vs poor planning and a lack of knowledge about what's actually needed to complete the project? Feels like the majority of those well-known failures (the 'we spent $5 billion+ and spent 10 years on something that should have taken a few years and maybe a tenth of that budget ones) come from either management who has no idea what they want, planning that has…

I didn't mean to imply that engineering-values only pertain to things like code-quality. Project management emerged from engineering and it was a lot better when it was done by engineers who embraced engineering-values.

If you look at mid-century project management, when it was engineering-based, a lot of the focus was on things like optimising resource inputs, identify the critical path so scheduling could be done to minimise blocking, figuring out approaches to accurately calculate time and money estimates (i.e. making sure estimates were not uniformly biased towards being underestimates as that demonstrates a failure to make empirically-informed predictions).

While I totally agree that nowadays most projects fail due to bad management, I'd go further and say they fail because management is HR-values based. None of the above has anything to do with kindness, or indeed social skills in general.

Engineers, having systematically deprecated engineering-values, now have their projects managed by non-engineers who go around screwing things up.

Re: Do not try to be the smartest in the room; try to be the kindest

#239

Post by anotherevan »

My two favourite quotes regarding kindness:

“Choose being kind over being right, and you’ll be right every time.” — Richard Carlson

“When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people.” — Abraham Joshua Heschel

Re: Do not try to be the smartest in the room; try to be the kindest

#240

Post by elteto »

ozim wrote: post #217
elteto wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Knows about everything yet understands nothing.”

Spanish version is much more compact and can be pronounced quicker so it can be used as pun. This English version, you cannot just punch it, there has to be a pause like after "yet" or a comma before yet and then punch is delivered but still "understands nothing" is a mouthful compared to "pero de ná entiende" even though my Spanish is non existing, still feels like I could pronounce it much faster or much easier.

Funny, to me this English translation is very close in form and spirit to the Spanish one. I don’t know if I agree that “understands nothing” is comparatively a mouthful, considering that it’s 2 vs 4 words. But I do agree that the Spanish one packs a punch that is hard to get in translation. Part of that is the short words with strong accents, and a certain rhyming to the whole phrase.

I enjoy a lot the process of translating very idiomatic phrases, one way or another. I feel like I get to know both languages better.

Post reply on HN