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"Your average colleague is an idiot" is never an unpopular opinion among tech workers. "You are average," now that is unpopular opinion.
by fullshark 3y ago
"Your average colleague is an idiot" is never an unpopular opinion among tech workers. "You are average," now that is unpopular opinion.
- forward1 3y ago“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” ― George Carlin
- Mouse47 3y agoThat only applies to the median, not the average. Every time I see this quote I can't help but think that. Funny tho
- nradov 3y agoMedian is one type of average.
- catchnear4321 3y agowhat do you mean?
- DANmode 3y agoIn maths, averaging has multiple forms. Mean (what most people call "averaging"), median, mode.
- catchnear4321 3y agoyes yes, suppose you have summed it up
- cjalmeida 3y agoWell, no variance in opinions it seems.
- CamperBob2 3y agoWait just a moment here.
- Shatnerz 3y agoIn a normal distribution, like lets say a large population, the mean, median, and mode are all equal. I don't see a problem with the quote.
- foofie 3y agoThe set of people who pass the hiring bar at companies like Google are not modelled as the normal distribution of the average person you come across in the grocery store. Companies like Google are not known for hiring morons. It is a self-aggrandizing dumb comparison, and should be dismissed as such. It reads as a desperate attempt to rationalize away these layoffs as something that only applies to others.
- Shatnerz 3y agoThe quote from George Carlin, a comedian, is about the general population. The quote itself is from "Doin' It Again / Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" a special in 1990 and predates Google.
- sph 3y agoIt is on you to prove that human intelligence does not follow a normal distribution, if you find that funny and incorrect.
- anacrolix 3y agoI always point that out too. And someone always points out that with distributions average and median are the same. That still doesn't make it right. What's worse is it's a quote about intelligence, so you would think it would use the correct word. Maybe that's the joke, it's summer dumbed down and smug in the knowledge that everyone that hears it thinks "thank god I'm above average!"
- wan23 3y agoYou can absolutely use the word average to refer to the median when you are speaking in a non-academic context. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/average https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/average https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average
- leetharris 3y ago> "Your average colleague is an idiot" is never an unpopular opinion among tech workers. I actually don't hold that opinion because I think a lot of these people are actually pretty smart! They just aren't oriented to be tech experts. They are really talented at some other thing in life, but ended up in tech chasing the salaries.
- plorkyeran 3y agoYeah, that's something I've noticed. I've worked with a few people who were brilliant and really good at something, but that something wasn't writing software. Even the people who are frustratingly bad at their jobs have rarely made me think they're idiots. They're just not very good at the specific thing they're being paid to do.
- AndyNemmity 3y agoMy average colleague is smart. I work with a lot of very talented people.