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So is your competence judged by your customers, your peers, or random outcomes outside of your control? To put this in software terms. This is like a person in

So is your competence judged by your customers, your peers, or random outcomes outside of your control? To put this in software terms. This is like a person in a support organization being provided buggy software and being fired on the number of bugs that get through. They have no control over the developers (parents) and students don't go through QA. Even if the developers were trying their best, if they are constantly distracted and pulled in multiple directions, what do you expect that the result of the software would be?

AmericanChopper 8y ago
This is such a perverse view of what competence is, but I can understand where it comes from, since to support unions, you pretty much have to believe that competence doesn’t exist and that life is just a random series of outcomes. I know that I’m competent, because I have enough experience to understand the problems that exist in my field, as well as how to effectively solve them. There is no randomness or luck involved.
- cannonedhamster 8y ago
  Life is entirely a series of random outcomes. You have no choice of who your parents are, you have no choice of what month you're born, what socioeconomic stratum you're born into, your inherent intellectual capacity, your genetic propensity, or your gender, and this is all just at birth. While hard work can certainly allow you to capitalize on opportunities that come along, you have almost zero ability to create opportunities yourself. My current economic status is exactly because I randomly received an offer and worked my butt off to achieve success. Someone I know who is just as competent as myself isn't nearly as successful simply because he hasn't had the same lucky break. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs both worked hard, but both had random chance heavily weighed by who their parents were at birth which allowed them access to computing in a way that wasn't generally available.

AmericanChopper 8y ago

This is such a perverse view of what competence is, but I can understand where it comes from, since to support unions, you pretty much have to believe that competence doesn’t exist and that life is just a random series of outcomes. I know that I’m competent, because I have enough experience to understand the problems that exist in my field, as well as how to effectively solve them. There is no randomness or luck involved.

cannonedhamster 8y ago
Life is entirely a series of random outcomes. You have no choice of who your parents are, you have no choice of what month you're born, what socioeconomic stratum you're born into, your inherent intellectual capacity, your genetic propensity, or your gender, and this is all just at birth. While hard work can certainly allow you to capitalize on opportunities that come along, you have almost zero ability to create opportunities yourself. My current economic status is exactly because I randomly received an offer and worked my butt off to achieve success. Someone I know who is just as competent as myself isn't nearly as successful simply because he hasn't had the same lucky break. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs both worked hard, but both had random chance heavily weighed by who their parents were at birth which allowed them access to computing in a way that wasn't generally available.