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The Myth of Commoditized Excellence
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- socceroos 7y agoA good article. Perhaps ironically, I would summarize the pivotal point of the article as, "be sure your lies will find you out". You could rephrase it as "deceitfulness will come back to bite you". This applies even if you have good intentions. Honesty often comes with an initial cost that makes people turn away.
- phnofive 7y agoI wouldn’t call this kind of creep necessarily deceptive, but failing to manage expectations has essentially the same effect as intentionally creating hollow ones.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ptah 7y agoThis has broader application than just technology. I think in all contexts it is good to have a firm grasp of first principles and how to trace back any commoditized excellence back to them. Also a good understanding of when to apply "beginner's mind" to check if a bit of "expert knowledge" is actually relevant
- bjornsing 7y agoThere are truths that hold across cultural barriers. We call them “Mathematics”. It’s the only commoditized excellence I know of.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y agoMath "proofs" and empirical "evidence" mean that all humans who take an interest in these things have compatible experiences. Thinking they give us access to truth in some explicit objective universal sense is naive - because we could just be cataloguing our most persistent cognitive and perceptual habits.
- kragen 7y agoThe thing is that when people from totally different cultures do math, they come to compatible conclusions. The algorithms in the Rhind Papyrus still work, the ones we understand, anyway. And that's from 1000 years or more before Euclid. This is not true of cooking, fashion, law, childrearing, painting, or religion. So maybe there isn't an underlying objective truth people observe mentally in math, but there's something that has some properties shared by objective truth and not by other human inventions.
- L_Rahman 7y agoI especially enjoyed the meta recognition that the act of writing this article and giving it a name itself possibly perpetuates the myth.
- pezo1919 7y agoHah, let's create the essence in a tldr to make it available for the masses!
- blaser-waffle 7y ago"Get Rich Now By Reading My Book!" Book Advice: write books on how to get rich; sell books.
- hobofan 7y agoReminds me a lot of "Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution"[0], which portraits very similar dynamics on a subculture level. [0]: https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths
- marcus_holmes 7y agoYeah, that same identity dynamic at work. "I identify as a member of this tribe", whether "this tribe" is about The Thing or anything else, leads to weird human social stuff.
- baxtr 7y agoReally interesting article. Resonated with me. Some thoughts 1) Consultancies have created a business model around that carrying excellencies from client to the next 2) The most obvious concept coming into mind which was completely abused through this is of course the whole agile (and increasingly OKRs...) movement 3) I still think it does make sense to generalize (not commoditize) concepts and spread them, however there needs to be big disclaimers about context etc 4) A big part of management’s responsibility is to improve the organization continuously, which can be done by getting inspiration how others have been successful
- trabant00 7y agoFor years now I have been consciously limiting my enthusiasm when presenting things I've learned to others after being bitten by this problem. Some personal examples: * linux - the freedom it gave me to build my own computing astounded me. I praised it in every direction only to find people that want all the benefits with no effort. I had to configure their systems to prove linux was any good. When I started telling them the benefits require personal tinkering I was attacked for "being an elitist" and linux was said to be actually full of things that don't work. Now I present it as a geek thing that is of no relevance to the general public. * motorcycles - I now have the following presentation when people ask me about my experience riding: "It's not like on TV, when it's hot you sweat, when it's cold you freeze, when it rains you're wet and it's quite dangerous on top of it." That's after my enthusiasm convinced some people to buy motorcycles and crash because they didn't take riding seriously enough. They thought they where cool toys.
- yoz-y 7y agoPresenting things as they are and stating limitations first seems like a good way of avoiding the issues mentioned in the article. Rather than hooking people with benefits and then disappointing them with the cost, only those who remain interested after they are familiar with the downsides will stay and listen. It also serves as a good time saver for both parties.
- afarrell 7y agoIt also lets people set themselves up to engage with the thing in a way that works well for them. If they go into it thinking "oh, this is like installing windows" and then their expectations violated, they will be frustrated. If they go into it thinking "oh, this is a way to get more out of a computer, if I'm willing to do some debugging." then they can think "well, I'm the type of person that does things best when I've got a solid theoretical grounding. Let me go get a book first." or "well, this could be a puzzle, let me get a sandwich before I attempt this." Working with Linux is indeed frustrating at times, but it can be well-worth mustering the frustration-tolerance. But to do that, you've got to know yourself and know what you're getting yourself into.
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- bpyne 7y ago"need to belong"..."The tendency of people with this need is to weaponize The Thing, and to wield it against those outside the movement and those they do not deem as worthy of inclusion in the movement." So many examples of this in daily life. People do amazingly vicious things to validate their membership in a movement/tribe/religion/cult/etc.
- mikelyons 7y agoThis is how we survive. Survival is an incredibly deep topic, things people typically think of as unnecessary like hatred are actually done for survival. (not condoning it)
- benogorek 7y agoGood description of this particular lifecycle. I'm new to Hacker News and I remember reading (when I joined) about how the platform is taking steps not to become too hip for its own good. It's mentioned below but boy did Agile fall into that trap. I now cringe when I hear the word. It sounds like Six Sigma is also in a self-destructive part of the cycle.
- closeparen 7y agoThis description fits so perfectly with middle-management-driven org-wide busywork exercises. "[Thing] is important and will take our work to the next level. That is why we are implementing [naive approximation of Thing that misses the point]. Given [Thing]'s importance, we expect you to prioritize this and take it seriously."
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 7y agoIsn't it a mistake to conclude it can be avoided? To do so would be to fall into the same trap.
- hitekker 7y agoThis article gets close to coining a new term in its description of a lifecycle. The front-end landscape is filled with these once-honest charlatans.
- nigrioid 7y agoThis is the exact trajectory of Rust.