Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs

#311

Post by gzread » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 2:57 AM UTC

jghn wrote: post #107

domga wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A decent chunk of OOP patterns was due to lack of language features, notably passing and returning functions

It's both. The *concept* of patterns makes sense. A shared language that developers can use when building things. The *reality* of patterns has been much less useful. The original ones were indeed a reaction to warts in the popular languages of their era. And as we tend to do in our industry, these have been cargo culted along the way and for some reason I still see people talking about them as first class citizens 3…

A pattern is exactly what the word "pattern" implies; something that lots of people seem to have found useful, so you might find it useful too.

If you are a language designer and you see lots of people writing the same boilerplate, it behooves you to put it into the language. A pattern is a desire path - pave it. In that sense, they are missing language features.

Re: Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs

#312

Post by gzread » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 3:05 AM UTC

hmokiguess wrote: post #199

Reminds me of how a Plumbus is made https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWMGd_rzRdY

I heard the script was an impromptu speech they wrote down and had the voice actor read in one take, and then just handed that to the animators to do their best.

Re: Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs

#313

Post by gzread » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 3:08 AM UTC

Intermernet wrote: post #45

andai wrote: post #26

I found this title amusing, since I'm actually synergizing paradigms, i.e. trying to find the commonalities between different models of human behavior. (There are dozens of us!)

Yes, but have you decoded the ontological kerygma of the gestalt. No point synergizing paradigms unless you've got the kerygma sorted.

kerygma is not a management bullshit word. I have never heard a manager say kerygma. Or anyone, for that matter. I've heard a non-manager say gestalt at least once... And the last time I heard "ontological" was someone trying to explain "lowkirkentologicalockedinlowstate" which is not manager BS but merely tiktoker BS.

Re: Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs

#314

Post by gzread » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 3:17 AM UTC

gherkinnn wrote: post #129

johnsillings wrote: post #44

SOCIOPATHS │ SOCIOPATHS WITH MBAs │ SOCIOPATHS WHO LIKE POWERPOINT │ OVERWORKED DOERS │ CONFUSED PEOPLE │ LOSERS

I am growing comfortable with bouncing between the confused and the losers. In this model, anybody between the losers and sociopaths are the true suckers. I am no sociopath so I better make myself comfortable at the bottom of the barrel. More time for my own problems.

That's the definition of a Loser in the Gervais model - someone who realises the system is BS, does the bare minimum to survive in it to save energy for other things outside the system.

The part that confuses me though ia the Clueless being the ones who do good jobs. If you're paid to be there 8 hours anyway you might as well sharpen your skills by working as well as you can. There is no speed limit. Unless your job is developing algorithms for aircraft with incapaxitated pilots to safely landed at airports with total power failures.

Re: Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs

#315

Post by thenobsta » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 3:37 AM UTC

Paracompact wrote: post #306

mikrl wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a martingale you’re thinking of

Actually, I think he's referring to the resplendent angel of the Kabbalah, Metatron. In the Jewish canon, Metatron is a big film buff.

Megatron is also a film buff and the enemy of Optimus Prime. Optimus Prime flies well above the mezzanine.

Re: Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs

#316

Post by zmgsabst » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 4:02 AM UTC

jjk166 wrote: post #269

jvanderbot wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from TFA: > “Corporate bullshit is a specific style of communication that uses confusing, abstract buzzwords in a functionally misleading way,” said Littrell, a postdoctoral researcher in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Unlike technical jargon, which can sometimes make office communication a little easier, corporate bullshit confuses rather than clarifies. It may sound impressive, but it is semantically empty.” I'…

But they're not semantically rich. People who speak the code aren't doing it to more efficiently communicate, such that a long and complicated message can be expressed quickly. They are taking a short simple message, stripping away all the details, then padding it such that it becomes more verbose and vapid. This makes the real message harder to decipher for the uninitiated, it removes information even for those who…

In exactly the sense my HTTPS packets are semantically emptier than my HTTP packets.

Re: Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs

#317

Post by zmgsabst » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 4:07 AM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #294

jjk166 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the test these weren't coded language, they were randomly generated phrases. The finding is that the people who don't know how to decipher the code are easily impressed by it and have poor analytical skills.

yeah, this is frankly isn't really showing what people think it's showing. The " not bullshit" examples are all manager-speak and coded phrases like "We plan to right-size our manufacturing operations to align to the new strategy and take advantage of integration opportunities." What the study actually shows is that less skilled people find it harder to distinguish this sort of way of saying jobs are being lost or pu…

Or that those “nonsense” phrases are not actually nonsense when spoken by a manager.

The conclusion they’re nonsense comes from the random generation and the technical perspective on semantics; but it’s entirely possible they’re generating phrases that do have semantic meaning when said by a manager… and hence their whole study is flawed.

They quietly assume their conclusion, when assuming their generated phrases are vacuous rather than contain coded semantic content.

Re: Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs

#318

Post by thfuran » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 4:47 AM UTC

zmgsabst wrote: post #316

jjk166 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they're not semantically rich. People who speak the code aren't doing it to more efficiently communicate, such that a long and complicated message can be expressed quickly. They are taking a short simple message, stripping away all the details, then padding it such that it becomes more verbose and vapid. This makes the real message harder to decipher for the uninitiated, it removes information even for those who…

In exactly the sense my HTTPS packets are semantically emptier than my HTTP packets.

It's not even meaningfully similar, let alone exactly that way.

Re: Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs

#319

Post by georgefrowny » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 5:58 AM UTC

jvanderbot wrote: post #215

jjk166 wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the test these weren't coded language, they were randomly generated phrases. The finding is that the people who don't know how to decipher the code are easily impressed by it and have poor analytical skills.

from TFA: > “Corporate bullshit is a specific style of communication that uses confusing, abstract buzzwords in a functionally misleading way,” said Littrell, a postdoctoral researcher in the College of Arts and Sciences. “Unlike technical jargon, which can sometimes make office communication a little easier, corporate bullshit confuses rather than clarifies. It may sound impressive, but it is semantically empty.” I'…

I'm always reminded of Asimov's Lord Dorwin: "[the linguistic analyst] after two days of steady work, succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications—in short all the goo and dribble—he found he had nothing left. Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn’t say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed."

Re: Workers who love ‘synergizing paradigms’ might be bad at their jobs

#320

Post by georgefrowny » Sat, Mar 07, 2026, 6:03 AM UTC

zmgsabst wrote: post #316

jjk166 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they're not semantically rich. People who speak the code aren't doing it to more efficiently communicate, such that a long and complicated message can be expressed quickly. They are taking a short simple message, stripping away all the details, then padding it such that it becomes more verbose and vapid. This makes the real message harder to decipher for the uninitiated, it removes information even for those who…

In exactly the sense my HTTPS packets are semantically emptier than my HTTP packets.

I think it's more like that you are signalling by your use of HTTPS at all, and the packet body itself is encrypted nonsense.

Hiding information in the protocol layer while the bulk content that is "supposed" to contain the meaning is present but actually meaningless. Or for a physical analogy the payload of the envelope vis a decoy and the real information is hidden in the way the flap is sealed.