> I stated that there are correlations The funny part, the reason it's called a paradox, is that the correlation can be fake or can even be reversed. We cannot

> I stated that there are correlations The funny part, the reason it's called a paradox, is that the correlation can be fake or can even be reversed. We cannot know either way just from our personal experiences, the selection effects are too strong. And the anecdote you tell, the part about smart programmers being smart enough to get away with being a little messy, and dumb programmers being obsessed with cleanliness to reduce cognitive load, are exactly the sorts of situations that can cause the paradox. It's like when you are casually dating a bunch of people and find that the good-looking ones tend to have bad personalities because they are attractive enough that they can get away with it. It is a real correlation from your perspective, but on a global scale the correlation is opposite. Good looking people tend to be more charismatic in real life, we just can't tell while we are on the dating market because the ones who are both good looking and charismatic are out of our league, and as for the ugly/mean ones, we are out of their league.