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No-one knows what they are doing

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Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#81

Post by jacquesm »

smitty1e wrote: post #40
hyperpallium2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politicians, on politicized issues, come across as children. But I was amazed to discover, in a document discussion non-politicized legislation, they were well-informed and sensible, and, as you say, supported by extremely capable members of a bureaucracy. Each conclusion was tempered by how confidence levels in its supporting material. In other words, it was just what you'd want it to be. Also, clearly written and a…

> They are only idiots on stage. Which says something about our democracy. 1. Savvy across the organization adds like resistance in a parallel circuit: the org as a whole is slightly less savvy than the biggest doof therein. 2. Restated: people scale poorly. 3. In the government case, minimizining flailing and tyranny equates to minimizing the size of government. 4. We seem to trend the opposite direction from (3).

> the org as a whole is slightly less savvy than the biggest doof therein.

I've seen about 220 'orgs' from the outside in, interviewed a few thousand people in those orgs and have done the write up on the state of affairs. I've yet to find a single example that would support this claim, where did you get this from?

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#82

Post by seaerkin »

I like this post a lot, and I can certainly relate to this working in the business technology sector as a developer and as a generalist technology consultant for a large firm. Contracts get signed, and half the time, the seller doesn't understand what they're selling, and the buyer is buying an idea and truly doesn't get it either, then it's up to the technical consultants to take their best stab at it while being billed out as an "expert."

Then you have professions that are much more black and white, mainly the trades and non-technology engineering. Their survival is contingent on knowing what they're doing, most of the time and they gain more profit by being efficient with tasks they've seen time and time again. Think of a plumber or garage door repairman whose seen your specific problem hundreds of times before. A good tradesperson will know precisely what they are doing.

I'm not sure where I'm going with these rambles, but the encouraging view of what the author is writing about here can almost be described as embracing uncertainty in the business world where the rules aren't clearly defined. Much different than the trades or non-tech engineering, where the end deliverable is something that is more concrete (no pun intended) and easily understood by the average person.

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#83

Post by Swizec »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #77

This is a very comforting fiction to tell yourself when you’re faced with new and unfamiliar challenges. However, it’s not really true. Plenty of people within an industry or field know enough of what they’re doing because they’ve gone through it before and/or done all of the heavy research to prepare for these situations. I see the “nobody knows what they’re doing” fiction brought out as an easy antidote for imposto…

> no one knows what they’re doing and all adults are just making it up as they go

IMO the most interesting software engineering happens at the edge of the adjacent possible. Where nobody knows what they’re doing. Because it hasn’t been done before. You’re adding net new knowledge to the universe.

Doesn’t even have to be a ground breaking new idea or a completely new technique. It’s already net new if you’re adapting an otherwise well-know solution to a new situation. Or dealing with a unique set of constraints that haven’t been seen before. That’s fun.

But that’s not the same as walking into a thing blind and hoping for the best. You can only do that by relying on a wealth of experience and expert intuition that’s been honed over a long series of smaller challenges.

The optimal situation is to always aim to work at the very edge of your understanding. Not so easy that it’s boring, not so hard that you don’t know where to even begin.

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#84

Post by lettergram »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #77

This is a very comforting fiction to tell yourself when you’re faced with new and unfamiliar challenges. However, it’s not really true. Plenty of people within an industry or field know enough of what they’re doing because they’ve gone through it before and/or done all of the heavy research to prepare for these situations. I see the “nobody knows what they’re doing” fiction brought out as an easy antidote for imposto…

“Expertise” is often less and more valuable than perceived, depending on the situation.

Give me a programming related question and I could have solved it a two decades ago on paper. The expertise allows me to solve it with more efficiency today.

Similarly, there are things that lack of expertise help you with. You can see different perspectives. Have to research the topics fresh (find latest frameworks, etc).

I also think expertise is far more transferable than ever. I hadn’t driving a tractor in 18 years. But I was able to watch a few YouTube videos for an hour, go out and immediately attach equipment, start one up and get to work.

The internet is still amazing. To your point though, there are things I could miss that would get me killed (using a tractor), so a neighbor helped me with some tips after watching; expertise is still very necessary.

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#85

Post by OtmaneBenazzou »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #77

This is a very comforting fiction to tell yourself when you’re faced with new and unfamiliar challenges. However, it’s not really true. Plenty of people within an industry or field know enough of what they’re doing because they’ve gone through it before and/or done all of the heavy research to prepare for these situations. I see the “nobody knows what they’re doing” fiction brought out as an easy antidote for imposto…

If you really know what you're doing, are you learning anything?

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#86

Post by ZephyrBlu »

OtmaneBenazzou wrote: post #85
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #77

This is a very comforting fiction to tell yourself when you’re faced with new and unfamiliar challenges. However, it’s not really true. Plenty of people within an industry or field know enough of what they’re doing because they’ve gone through it before and/or done all of the heavy research to prepare for these situations. I see the “nobody knows what they’re doing” fiction brought out as an easy antidote for imposto…

If you really know what you're doing, are you learning anything?

Knowing what you're doing doesn't mean you're omniscient. In an unbounded domain it might mean you have very good intuition for what to do and you're often directionally correct. There's still a lot of room for learning there.

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#87

Post by Gravityloss »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #77

This is a very comforting fiction to tell yourself when you’re faced with new and unfamiliar challenges. However, it’s not really true. Plenty of people within an industry or field know enough of what they’re doing because they’ve gone through it before and/or done all of the heavy research to prepare for these situations. I see the “nobody knows what they’re doing” fiction brought out as an easy antidote for imposto…

Yes, it also degrades the possibility of getting higher confidence from practice and training.

I can recommend Kathy Sierra's book "Badass - Making your users awesome" on a refreshing perspective on learning, teaching and communication https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24737268-badass

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#88

Post by MobileVet »

OtmaneBenazzou wrote: post #85
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #77

This is a very comforting fiction to tell yourself when you’re faced with new and unfamiliar challenges. However, it’s not really true. Plenty of people within an industry or field know enough of what they’re doing because they’ve gone through it before and/or done all of the heavy research to prepare for these situations. I see the “nobody knows what they’re doing” fiction brought out as an easy antidote for imposto…

If you really know what you're doing, are you learning anything?

Absolutely. There is a massive spectrum between knowing what you are doing and knowing everything there is to know about a subject. We are all constantly adding to our knowledge base… no matter our starting point.

In addition to the base knowledge is the ability to do something well. I know how to do a lot of home maintenance tasks. Due to a lack of practice, I don’t have the skill to do them all very well.

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#89

Post by enkid »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #77

This is a very comforting fiction to tell yourself when you’re faced with new and unfamiliar challenges. However, it’s not really true. Plenty of people within an industry or field know enough of what they’re doing because they’ve gone through it before and/or done all of the heavy research to prepare for these situations. I see the “nobody knows what they’re doing” fiction brought out as an easy antidote for imposto…

I think the problem is that people will optimize for a task they are incentivized for. Many people are just incentivized to appear competent enough to get a promotion or some sort of reward: votes for a politician, sales for a salesperson, a promotion for a manager. This means they don't actually have to be competent, they just have to have the appearance of competence to who ever is doling out those awards. These also happen to be the most visible professions. These things combined create the impression that no one knows what they are doing, and everyone is faking it.

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#90

Post by rayiner »

audunw wrote: post #56
smitty1e wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are only idiots on stage. Which says something about our democracy. 1. Savvy across the organization adds like resistance in a parallel circuit: the org as a whole is slightly less savvy than the biggest doof therein. 2. Restated: people scale poorly. 3. In the government case, minimizining flailing and tyranny equates to minimizing the size of government. 4. We seem to trend the opposite direction from (3).

> 3. In the government case, minimizining flailing and tyranny equates to minimizing the size of government. Whoa there. There are plenty of very small governments that have plenty of flailing and tyranny. In the limit, if government is just one guy, he clearly won't have clue about 99% of what he's doing, and will be extremely easy to corrupt since he has no-one else to hold him accountable. If you want to have even…

> What's really scary these days is how many people think we'll solve all our problems if we just make government smaller and smaller.

And what’s really really scary is how many people, at least in the US, worry about government being too small when in reality it has been almost monotonically growing since the 1960s. Non defense federal spending as a share of GDP is bigger than the 1960s. And state and local government spending has grown twice as fast as GDP since 1960.

I think people confuse Reagan’s rhetoric with the reality that Democrats controlled the House, and thus spending bills, his entire presidency. The Reagan era was a period of government retrenchment in the same sense as Biden is the second coming of FDR.

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