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I'm an "engineer" but I am still concerned with the prices of things and dislike overpaying. It's not that uncommon for engineers of some product or other to no

I'm an "engineer" but I am still concerned with the prices of things and dislike overpaying. It's not that uncommon for engineers of some product or other to not personally use it. And, generally, engineers don't design things, they just build them. I'm perplexed as to why your target is, specifically, engineers. Why not product managers? Designers? VPs? CEOs? They tend to be much closer to making actual decisions and, as well off as engineers are, CEOs are on a whole other level. > too wealthy to empathize as well This is not a thing. Wealth doesn't reduce someone's capacity for empathy. What wealth is likely to do is simply make the individual less acquainted with a certain range of situations, which is something a person can rectify if they wish. Many people don't, and are clueless, but that's another matter, and not limited to wealth. I don't think it's fair to say that, say, a person who's pushing accessibility at a company is unable to empathize because they're too well off. You're basically blaming people for not having worse lives. How dare they have more GB than most people. This is just crabs in a bucket syndrome. And Seattle is not in Silicon Valley.

flukus 8y ago
> I'm an "engineer" but I am still concerned with the prices of things and dislike overpaying. So do I, but unless you're carrying around a spreadsheet with the historical prices of every item you will be over paying for some things. I'm much less sensitive to the daily fluctuations than many/most though because I don't have to watch where every cent is going. > I'm perplexed as to why your target is, specifically, engineers I'm not targeting anyone, just pointing out that the empathy line for Joe Average is much lower than the billionaire level. > What wealth is likely to do is simply make the individual less acquainted with a certain range of situations, which is something a person can rectify if they wish. Correct, any person can rectify it if they want to, but it would take a concerted effort and even then there are many things they would likely not understand correctly, like the physiological effects of poverty. "Not knowing what you don't know" is also something many from wealthy backgrounds would experience in this regard, making it harder for them to empathize. Perhaps "too wealthy to empathize naturally" would be a better way to say it but I wasn't expecting this level of pedantry. > You're basically blaming people for not having worse lives. How dare they have more GB than most people. I'm not blaming anyone for having more GB, I'm blaming them for not knowing what a typical amount is. As software developers would should have some idea what our hardware constraints are shouldn't we? Otherwise we end up with terrible glorified IRC clients using GB's of RAM that our users don't have.
- projektir 8y ago
  > I'm not targeting anyone, just pointing out that the empathy line for Joe Average is much lower than the billionaire level. Most engineers are not billionaires. Not even close. Not even in the same ballpark. It's really not beneficial to lump up these groups together like this. > Perhaps "too wealthy to empathize naturally" would be a better way to say it but I wasn't expecting this level of pedantry. "Too wealthy to empathize well" is a statement that deserves pedantry. It implies that wealth just makes people incapacitated, but the reality is much more complicated and distinguishing levels or sources of of wealth, something that you are not doing here by lumping engineers and billionaires in the same bucket, is very important here. If "too wealthy to empathize well" was a realistic statement, the average poor person in the US would have very little empathy because they're technically more wealthy than the majority of the world population, but that is an utterly ridiculous statement to make. > I'm not blaming anyone for having more GB, I'm blaming them for not knowing what a typical amount is. As software developers would should have some idea what our hardware constraints are shouldn't we? Otherwise we end up with terrible glorified IRC clients using GB's of RAM that our users don't have. Slack seems to be more popular than the average IRC client, so I am not even sure if this statement makes sense. If anything, resource hogging seems to be mostly an engineering concern, while for the average person, it's much more important that the UX experience is good, which Slack offers and old IRC doesn't, so all these people who you say don't have enough RAM seem to go to Discord and Slack while IRC remains too difficult to use. Which isn't to say that engineers shouldn't push for better resource utilization, it is after all kind of our job, but it's often an uphill battle against those very users with low RAM.
annabellish 8y ago
Sure, but, do you know how much a packet of oreos is, without looking it up? Despite having bought them more times in the past than I'd be willing to admit, I only have a vague perception. I know they're under my "this is too cheap for it to be worth me agonizing over the price" filter.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  Oreos are a "too expensive to bother looking at" item for us. Any major brands that does a lot of advertising fits there. They also taste terrible, but the kids still want them - advertising doesn't appeal to our taste buds after all.
- projektir 8y ago
  I don't buy Oreos, but I pretty closely know the various /lb prices of some potato varieties. And also that asparagus is surprisingly expensive. I am not saying that the group of people whom it influences more will not be more aware of things, I'm saying engineers are not really yet the group where ignoring prices to the point of letting a computer arbitrarily buy things makes sense, and I think the "this device is just out of touch because it got designed by rich engineers" holds little water. It seems, rich or poor, nobody really likes using the device that way, and I concur with some of the other posters that maybe this wasn't the ultimate purpose of the device.
dwallin 8y ago
> This is not a thing, Wealth doesn’t reduce someone’s capacity for empathy. There are actually a number of studies that indicate it might indeed be a thing. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduce...
- projektir 8y ago
  Ah, yes, cogsci studies, the ultimate source of truth.

flukus 8y ago

> I'm an "engineer" but I am still concerned with the prices of things and dislike overpaying. So do I, but unless you're carrying around a spreadsheet with the historical prices of every item you will be over paying for some things. I'm much less sensitive to the daily fluctuations than many/most though because I don't have to watch where every cent is going. > I'm perplexed as to why your target is, specifically, engineers I'm not targeting anyone, just pointing out that the empathy line for Joe Average is much lower than the billionaire level. > What wealth is likely to do is simply make the individual less acquainted with a certain range of situations, which is something a person can rectify if they wish. Correct, any person can rectify it if they want to, but it would take a concerted effort and even then there are many things they would likely not understand correctly, like the physiological effects of poverty. "Not knowing what you don't know" is also something many from wealthy backgrounds would experience in this regard, making it harder for them to empathize. Perhaps "too wealthy to empathize naturally" would be a better way to say it but I wasn't expecting this level of pedantry. > You're basically blaming people for not having worse lives. How dare they have more GB than most people. I'm not blaming anyone for having more GB, I'm blaming them for not knowing what a typical amount is. As software developers would should have some idea what our hardware constraints are shouldn't we? Otherwise we end up with terrible glorified IRC clients using GB's of RAM that our users don't have.

projektir 8y ago
> I'm not targeting anyone, just pointing out that the empathy line for Joe Average is much lower than the billionaire level. Most engineers are not billionaires. Not even close. Not even in the same ballpark. It's really not beneficial to lump up these groups together like this. > Perhaps "too wealthy to empathize naturally" would be a better way to say it but I wasn't expecting this level of pedantry. "Too wealthy to empathize well" is a statement that deserves pedantry. It implies that wealth just makes people incapacitated, but the reality is much more complicated and distinguishing levels or sources of of wealth, something that you are not doing here by lumping engineers and billionaires in the same bucket, is very important here. If "too wealthy to empathize well" was a realistic statement, the average poor person in the US would have very little empathy because they're technically more wealthy than the majority of the world population, but that is an utterly ridiculous statement to make. > I'm not blaming anyone for having more GB, I'm blaming them for not knowing what a typical amount is. As software developers would should have some idea what our hardware constraints are shouldn't we? Otherwise we end up with terrible glorified IRC clients using GB's of RAM that our users don't have. Slack seems to be more popular than the average IRC client, so I am not even sure if this statement makes sense. If anything, resource hogging seems to be mostly an engineering concern, while for the average person, it's much more important that the UX experience is good, which Slack offers and old IRC doesn't, so all these people who you say don't have enough RAM seem to go to Discord and Slack while IRC remains too difficult to use. Which isn't to say that engineers shouldn't push for better resource utilization, it is after all kind of our job, but it's often an uphill battle against those very users with low RAM.

annabellish 8y ago

Sure, but, do you know how much a packet of oreos is, without looking it up? Despite having bought them more times in the past than I'd be willing to admit, I only have a vague perception. I know they're under my "this is too cheap for it to be worth me agonizing over the price" filter.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Oreos are a "too expensive to bother looking at" item for us. Any major brands that does a lot of advertising fits there. They also taste terrible, but the kids still want them - advertising doesn't appeal to our taste buds after all.
projektir 8y ago
I don't buy Oreos, but I pretty closely know the various /lb prices of some potato varieties. And also that asparagus is surprisingly expensive. I am not saying that the group of people whom it influences more will not be more aware of things, I'm saying engineers are not really yet the group where ignoring prices to the point of letting a computer arbitrarily buy things makes sense, and I think the "this device is just out of touch because it got designed by rich engineers" holds little water. It seems, rich or poor, nobody really likes using the device that way, and I concur with some of the other posters that maybe this wasn't the ultimate purpose of the device.

dwallin 8y ago

> This is not a thing, Wealth doesn’t reduce someone’s capacity for empathy. There are actually a number of studies that indicate it might indeed be a thing. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduce...

projektir 8y ago
Ah, yes, cogsci studies, the ultimate source of truth.