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I think he wasn't responsible in the sense that he was simply present for a naturally emergent phenomenon; but at the same time, he was responsible for actively
by thomastjeffery 3y ago
I think he wasn't responsible in the sense that he was simply present for a naturally emergent phenomenon; but at the same time, he was responsible for actively participating in and promoting that phenomenon.
Responsibility is relative to authority, and Spolsky ended up with a very significant amount of authority. Whether or not his behavior was good or bad, it's pretty clear that he had more responsibility than any one person really should. I wouldn't consider that his fault: he didn't really seek it out, or intentionally abuse it. I would, however, consider it what happened.
If we tack a step back, and look at this scenario as a system, we can see that it's the structure of the system itself that lead to these problems, not the intentions of any of its participants.
Now that we have the power of hindsight and objectivity, we can use that to design a better system. The big question is, will we ever get around to implementing it?
- nradov 3y agoEmergent systems can't really be intentionally designed.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoWhy not? We are able to design systems, and we are able to objectively recognize and understand emergent behaviors in arbitrary systems. Sure, we can't exhaustively find every emergent behavior, but we are not 100% blind to them, either. The only way to guarantee an emergent behavior continues is to preserve the structure of its system. That means the only strategy that can change emergent behaviors is a strategy that changes systems.
- robertlagrant 3y agoYou can use it to design a different system, but it's pretty unlikely to be better.
- thomastjeffery 3y agoYou can choose to keep the system you've got, and that is guaranteed to be as bad as it is. The only other option is anarchy. Out of the three, I advocate intentionally designing a system.
- robertlagrant 3y agoIt's also guaranteed to be as good as it is. System doesn't mean zero change. It just means not abandoning imperfect situations for terrible ones.