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No-one knows what they are doing

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Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#91

Post by 10000truths »

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…

As with other things, quality matters more than quantity. A village elder or city mayor are just as fallible as a parliament, or a king and his council. The mechanism of corruption may vary with historical circumstance, culture, and/or technology. But at the end of the day, if the "people in charge" are unaccountable and have no desire to exercise their power for the common good, there is no system of checks and balances that will save such a government from collapse.

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#92

Post by sickcodebruh »

nahuel0x wrote: post #63

Can you remember when you first started to read? Doubtless you thought that some day you would find in books the truth, the answer to the very puzzling life you were discovering around you. But you never did. If you were alert, you discovered that books were conventions, as unlike life as a game of chess. The written word is a sieve. Only so much of reality gets through as fits the size and shape of the screen, and i…

See, that will all make sense when I am older

So there’s no need to be terrified or tense

I’ll just dream about a time

When I’m in my age of prime

‘Cause when you’re older

Absolutely everything makes sense

- Olaf the Snowman, Frozen 2

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#93

Post by highwaylights »

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…

* Except politics.

It's verifiable that no politician can possibly be qualified for whatever they're doing at any point in time as there exists no threshold of experience for doing any job to which they might be assigned and it (at least in democracies) actively ignores experience and selects for pandering.

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#94

Post by bluefone »

ben_w wrote: post #21
alvperez82 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely true, the most realistic post about business that I've red in time you are complaining about Boris, you have to see here in Spain to Pedro Sanchez, it's a completely mess

Given even just Johnson’s COVID history — banned unnecessary gatherings under penalty of fines with a large publicity campaign, attended at least eight of the at least sixteen unnecessary gatherings at No. 10 (including his birthday and a Christmas party), caught COVID and almost died from it, repeatedly asserted that there had not been any party and that if that no rules wrote broken, was fined for breaking the rule…

What's this fuss about parties and rules? If these are biggest issues you worry about, then your country is being run by some very good politicians who ensured that there are no other bigger problems for you to worry about.

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#95

Post by highwaylights »

lettergram wrote: post #84
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…

I feel like "find latest frameworks" as a positive might get you downvoted here. I get what you mean, unless I don't, in which case.. really?

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#96

Post by bluefone »

ben_w wrote: post #21
alvperez82 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely true, the most realistic post about business that I've red in time you are complaining about Boris, you have to see here in Spain to Pedro Sanchez, it's a completely mess

Given even just Johnson’s COVID history — banned unnecessary gatherings under penalty of fines with a large publicity campaign, attended at least eight of the at least sixteen unnecessary gatherings at No. 10 (including his birthday and a Christmas party), caught COVID and almost died from it, repeatedly asserted that there had not been any party and that if that no rules wrote broken, was fined for breaking the rule…

first world problems. lol

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#97

Post by quickthrower2 »

LeonM wrote: post #54

I stopped reading the original article when the OP started including politics. Invoking anger by reminding your audience that some 'current' government of $random_country that they are not 'having a clue' is a really cheap trick to grab attention of lesser informed people. Of course it only applies to the 'current' government, because everything was obviously better in the past. It makes me sad, and angry at the same…

There is a kind of subtle clickbait title style well suited for the HN audience and this article had it. Appealing to intellectual curiosity to read more, promising something like a PG essay but not delivering anything like that. It is the one weird trick of the HN world.

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#98

Post by lettergram »

highwaylights wrote: post #95
lettergram wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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…

I feel like "find latest frameworks" as a positive might get you downvoted here. I get what you mean, unless I don't, in which case.. really?

Just mean you don’t have any preconceived notions

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#99

Post by stef25 »

highwaylights wrote: post #93
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…

* Except politics. It's verifiable that no politician can possibly be qualified for whatever they're doing at any point in time as there exists no threshold of experience for doing any job to which they might be assigned and it (at least in democracies) actively ignores experience and selects for pandering.

Do you think of president Zelenskiy of Ukraine is an exception?

Re: No-one knows what they are doing

#100

Post by ZephyrBlu »

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'm pretty junior in terms of YOE, but I hate when I see people say things like "don't worry, I have no idea what I'm doing and I have x YOE. You're fine!" to people on the internet.

I have a decent understanding of what I'm doing, but I worked for it by doing exactly what you described in your last paragraph and then synthesizing that knowledge into an explicit process.

If you don't know what you're doing you're either bad or don't have a conscious understanding of your process. Both are not good.

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