At what point did "business" become one of the great fields of human thought, like Arts, Sciences, Medicine, Law? Do you think Socrates debated tax-efficient investment vehicles with Plato?
Next time you get assigned some task on a conference call, change your voice and say "This is Joe, I can do that". Assuming your name isn't Joe. Yes, this was in Dilbert the other day.
When you come right down to it, the only thing that matters is salesmanship. Whether it's the ability to sell some poor sucker your vaporware, the ability to sell your vendor the promise that you will gladly pay him Friday for a hamburger today, or the ability to sell yourself to those who make such decisions as an incredibly valuable employee, unlike the poor shmucks who can actually do the job but have no PR skills.
It's just tribalism. People still prefer to be around people like themselves, diversity or not. Might not be skin color, but appearance still has a lot to do with it. And dress makes that plain. Skilled applicants will try to look as much like somebody who already works there as possible. Not just general style of dress alone, but specifics; if they come in with jackets but hang them on the back of the chair and go around in shirt and tie, so do you. If they lean to the casual side, so do you. They're probably not walking around the cubicles with a briefcase, more likely a manila folder; so you put your spare resumes in a manila folder and join the club and leave that snazzy attache case at home. At this percentage of unemployment, if you're already at the interview stage you have the skills for the job; you're getting hired based on whether the manager can picture you there without dissonance.
If your company promotes engineers (programmers, whatever) to fill engineering management positions because there is no provision in its job descriptions for the supercompetent, superproductive expert worker who does more by himself than he would working plus managing another worker, then you work for a company that does not respect engineers (programmers, whatever).
How do you measure productivity, once you get past the basic jobs like painting faces on wooden dolls? How do you compare writing an OS to writing a UI to writing embedded software?
That's absolutely typical; take a programmer or other skilled worker who so often has no managerial skills at all, then just when he gets really good at his job, promote him to manager, thereby not only ending his usefulness, but crippling a whole department of potentially productive programmers.
They don't know what to make of people who make decisions on things that have some absolutism involved, and frequently will not make "gut decisions" when the data is missing and they are asked to.
That's incredibly insightful. I never saw it that way before. Nonetheless, as an engineer, I've had to prove beyond any doubt that a certain problem existed to get business people to move on it. So I think there's another layer there: If the evidence goes against the businessperson's gut, it needs to be 100% iron-clad.
He's nailed it, exactly. What Kahneman calls System 1 (Intuition) and System 2 (Reasoning) thinking. Today's business environment tends to have a farm of System 2 thinkers crunching data, while somewhere up above the style changes over to System 1 to run the company. (Although in a few cases, that's reversed). Thing is, and having worked somewhere where this caused enormous friction, the two cognitive styles don't get along well at all, don't trust each other, don't value each other's decision making; pretty much nobody moves from one style to the other, and this has an effect on salaries and career trajectories, as well as general happiness.
My personal hobbyhorse is the recognition that this split has come to dominate the political spectrum in America, as well. The left still has both types of thinker, but the right has systematically purged itself of any System 2 thinkers, and is now completely inhabited by folks driven by gut level belief, with a deep suspicion of any facts, data, or analysis which doesn't reach the "correct" conclusion. And see above for the hopes for reconciliation between the two styles.
The fact is, of course, that success as an individual or a group requires a mix of both styles, each has its appropriate moment. You can't always afford the time to gather the correct and complete set of data then carefully think over the alternatives before acting; on the other hand, there are times when making the correct rational decision is more important than speed. The ultimate proof of that is that evolution has given us both instinctive and rational behavior. So, my System 2 rationed analysis tells me that any organization, whether corporation or nation, which pits the two against each other is badly handicapped.
Is there really anything in software comparable to a "real" engineer? Somebody who is trained and certified to know the basics of things like the tensile strength of materials and where to find that stuff out if you don't have it off the top of your head? What would be the software equivalent? Do any of the software certifications have the same level of warranty as certification as a "real"engineer in one of the "real" fields?
Which reminds me of an ancient Dilbert strip, back when he had a home life, and was talking to his grandmother:
Grandma: So what do you do, Dilbert?
Dilbert: I'm an engineer.
Grandma: Oh, you drive a train?
Dilbert: No, not that kind of engineer, the kind who builds things.
Grandma: Oh, so what do you build? Bridges? Buildings?
Dilbert: No, I'm a network engineer. I build networks of computers.
Grandma: Sorry, I'm still not getting it. What do you do, exactly?
Dilbert: Well, for instance, today I spent the day finding out why one of the subnetworks in the company was having intermittent problems.
Grandma: Well, I would just slap a sniffer on that puppy and look for lost packets.
Dilbert; Well, yeah, that's what I did, but, uh, it was hard, you know.
I can guarantee that if they studied the impact of various chemical spills and other impacts left behind by the tsunami, they would find orders of magnitude more 'genetic impacts' than anything they'll find due to radiation. Problem is, nobody cares to do that study because there is no agenda driving it, and no funding, and no press would care.
Yes, because there is no public suspicion of "chemicals" and no publicly funded studies of things that might pollute the environment, by some agency which might be interested in environmental pollution....
I wonder if anyone has done studies on the affect of low level nuclear industry radiation on paranoia and feelings of persecution?
To say such profoundly and monumentally stupid things, you *must* be a programmer.
Because programmers have never had the experience of having their managers promise some ridiculously complex product in some ridiculously short period of time, or having their managers accept such promises, often deliberately in the hope of scoring the default penalty from the vendor without actually having to do anything?
Who in the world expects that a nuclear plant could be built on schedule and under budget? You're lucky if you can get a roof on the garage on schedule and under budget. And nuclear power plants contain software these days. Software is code for "i dunno what will come out, what it will do, or when it will appear"
Yes, I would definitely state that, looking at sports, there is no evidence that blacks have a GENETIC advantage over Asians. Show me a gene which is linked to athleticism and differs in frequency between blacks and Asians.
Meanwhile, I'll show you probably a thousand or more pages of studies of the lingering effects of slavery on opportunity in America, plus Yao Ming and the pigmy of your choice, plus Yao Ming and the pigmy of your choice, plus decades of Olympic results where the African nations somehow do not seem to overwhelm the Asian nations.
From that Wikipedia article:
"This leads to the conclusion that the similarities between twins are due to genes, not environment, since the differences between twins reared apart must be due totally to the environment."
How does that make any sense? How does "no differences due to genetics" imply "all similarities are due to genetics"? If it turns out they both speak English, that's genetically determined? Dumb.
A parable:
The automobile columnist for a major newspaper interviews a bunch of mechanics, who agree that if you're towing a heavy load up a hill, it's okay to shift your automatic transmission into a lower gear, and publishes a book saying that experts agree that it's okay to drive a car in first gear all the time.
All the mechanics he consulted say, "That's not what I said! ", but the rightwingers dismiss them as just being politically correct.
"And inherited traits are NOT racist if they primarily fall along skin color or ethnic lines."
They don't, of course, but they wouldn't be racist if they did. Is that deep thought what the self consciously non PC are trying to teach us? Wow, my mind is blown.
No, some people are mad that somebody did a quick study of their life's work and published a book that says that it proves the exact opposite of what it proves, because that says what everybody who thinks like you do thinks everybody else is secretly thinking.
Slashdot Mirror
At what point did "business" become one of the great fields of human thought, like Arts, Sciences, Medicine, Law? Do you think Socrates debated tax-efficient investment vehicles with Plato?
Next time you get assigned some task on a conference call, change your voice and say "This is Joe, I can do that". Assuming your name isn't Joe. Yes, this was in Dilbert the other day.
And that's why businesses never fail, because they are run so rationally by qualified people.
When you come right down to it, the only thing that matters is salesmanship. Whether it's the ability to sell some poor sucker your vaporware, the ability to sell your vendor the promise that you will gladly pay him Friday for a hamburger today, or the ability to sell yourself to those who make such decisions as an incredibly valuable employee, unlike the poor shmucks who can actually do the job but have no PR skills.
It's just tribalism. People still prefer to be around people like themselves, diversity or not. Might not be skin color, but appearance still has a lot to do with it. And dress makes that plain. Skilled applicants will try to look as much like somebody who already works there as possible. Not just general style of dress alone, but specifics; if they come in with jackets but hang them on the back of the chair and go around in shirt and tie, so do you. If they lean to the casual side, so do you. They're probably not walking around the cubicles with a briefcase, more likely a manila folder; so you put your spare resumes in a manila folder and join the club and leave that snazzy attache case at home. At this percentage of unemployment, if you're already at the interview stage you have the skills for the job; you're getting hired based on whether the manager can picture you there without dissonance.
How did the hipster burn his mouth? Drinking coffee before everybody else was drinking it because it had become cool.
If your company promotes engineers (programmers, whatever) to fill engineering management positions because there is no provision in its job descriptions for the supercompetent, superproductive expert worker who does more by himself than he would working plus managing another worker, then you work for a company that does not respect engineers (programmers, whatever).
How do you measure productivity, once you get past the basic jobs like painting faces on wooden dolls? How do you compare writing an OS to writing a UI to writing embedded software?
That's absolutely typical; take a programmer or other skilled worker who so often has no managerial skills at all, then just when he gets really good at his job, promote him to manager, thereby not only ending his usefulness, but crippling a whole department of potentially productive programmers.
They don't know what to make of people who make decisions on things that have some absolutism involved, and frequently will not make "gut decisions" when the data is missing and they are asked to.
That's incredibly insightful. I never saw it that way before. Nonetheless, as an engineer, I've had to prove beyond any doubt that a certain problem existed to get business people to move on it. So I think there's another layer there: If the evidence goes against the businessperson's gut, it needs to be 100% iron-clad.
He's nailed it, exactly. What Kahneman calls System 1 (Intuition) and System 2 (Reasoning) thinking. Today's business environment tends to have a farm of System 2 thinkers crunching data, while somewhere up above the style changes over to System 1 to run the company. (Although in a few cases, that's reversed). Thing is, and having worked somewhere where this caused enormous friction, the two cognitive styles don't get along well at all, don't trust each other, don't value each other's decision making; pretty much nobody moves from one style to the other, and this has an effect on salaries and career trajectories, as well as general happiness.
My personal hobbyhorse is the recognition that this split has come to dominate the political spectrum in America, as well. The left still has both types of thinker, but the right has systematically purged itself of any System 2 thinkers, and is now completely inhabited by folks driven by gut level belief, with a deep suspicion of any facts, data, or analysis which doesn't reach the "correct" conclusion. And see above for the hopes for reconciliation between the two styles.
The fact is, of course, that success as an individual or a group requires a mix of both styles, each has its appropriate moment. You can't always afford the time to gather the correct and complete set of data then carefully think over the alternatives before acting; on the other hand, there are times when making the correct rational decision is more important than speed. The ultimate proof of that is that evolution has given us both instinctive and rational behavior. So, my System 2 rationed analysis tells me that any organization, whether corporation or nation, which pits the two against each other is badly handicapped.
Which reminds me of an ancient Dilbert strip, back when he had a home life, and was talking to his grandmother:
Grandma: So what do you do, Dilbert?
Dilbert: I'm an engineer.
Grandma: Oh, you drive a train?
Dilbert: No, not that kind of engineer, the kind who builds things.
Grandma: Oh, so what do you build? Bridges? Buildings?
Dilbert: No, I'm a network engineer. I build networks of computers.
Grandma: Sorry, I'm still not getting it. What do you do, exactly?
Dilbert: Well, for instance, today I spent the day finding out why one of the subnetworks in the company was having intermittent problems.
Grandma: Well, I would just slap a sniffer on that puppy and look for lost packets.
Dilbert; Well, yeah, that's what I did, but, uh, it was hard, you know.
There are no janitors. Only sanitary engineers. So they are exempt from overtime. I see them at lunch, with their sanitary napkins.
You are an incompetent idiot.
Ambiguous. Is an incompetent idiot somebody who is incompetent at being an idiot, so that the intelligence keeps showing up?
I can guarantee that if they studied the impact of various chemical spills and other impacts left behind by the tsunami, they would find orders of magnitude more 'genetic impacts' than anything they'll find due to radiation. Problem is, nobody cares to do that study because there is no agenda driving it, and no funding, and no press would care.
Yes, because there is no public suspicion of "chemicals" and no publicly funded studies of things that might pollute the environment, by some agency which might be interested in environmental pollution.... I wonder if anyone has done studies on the affect of low level nuclear industry radiation on paranoia and feelings of persecution?
So to extrapolate from the TFA: The laws of physics do not exist in a vacuum...
There's a difference between 'a vacuum' and 'nothing'.
\ Nothing is emptier than a vacuum!
Reminds me of the old saying "Existence is pain. It is better not to exist at all. But how many people are that lucky? Maybe one in a hundred."
Judy Tenuta, of course, has her own religion, Judyism.
It's Obama's fault.
Al Gore and the fabulously wealthy and all-powerful climatology cartel. They do it because they hare our freedom.
To say such profoundly and monumentally stupid things, you *must* be a programmer.
Because programmers have never had the experience of having their managers promise some ridiculously complex product in some ridiculously short period of time, or having their managers accept such promises, often deliberately in the hope of scoring the default penalty from the vendor without actually having to do anything? Who in the world expects that a nuclear plant could be built on schedule and under budget? You're lucky if you can get a roof on the garage on schedule and under budget. And nuclear power plants contain software these days. Software is code for "i dunno what will come out, what it will do, or when it will appear"
And this is why America will not be leading the world in genetic medicine.
Yes, I would definitely state that, looking at sports, there is no evidence that blacks have a GENETIC advantage over Asians. Show me a gene which is linked to athleticism and differs in frequency between blacks and Asians. Meanwhile, I'll show you probably a thousand or more pages of studies of the lingering effects of slavery on opportunity in America, plus Yao Ming and the pigmy of your choice, plus Yao Ming and the pigmy of your choice, plus decades of Olympic results where the African nations somehow do not seem to overwhelm the Asian nations.
From that Wikipedia article: "This leads to the conclusion that the similarities between twins are due to genes, not environment, since the differences between twins reared apart must be due totally to the environment." How does that make any sense? How does "no differences due to genetics" imply "all similarities are due to genetics"? If it turns out they both speak English, that's genetically determined? Dumb.
A parable: The automobile columnist for a major newspaper interviews a bunch of mechanics, who agree that if you're towing a heavy load up a hill, it's okay to shift your automatic transmission into a lower gear, and publishes a book saying that experts agree that it's okay to drive a car in first gear all the time. All the mechanics he consulted say, "That's not what I said! ", but the rightwingers dismiss them as just being politically correct.
"And inherited traits are NOT racist if they primarily fall along skin color or ethnic lines." They don't, of course, but they wouldn't be racist if they did. Is that deep thought what the self consciously non PC are trying to teach us? Wow, my mind is blown.
No, some people are mad that somebody did a quick study of their life's work and published a book that says that it proves the exact opposite of what it proves, because that says what everybody who thinks like you do thinks everybody else is secretly thinking.