4 ms·

As far as desirable traits, a job can be: 1. Interesting 2. Secure 3. Lucrative You get to pick two at most, and that's if you're lucky--most people only get t

by kyllo 14y ago

As far as desirable traits, a job can be: 1. Interesting 2. Secure 3. Lucrative You get to pick two at most, and that's if you're lucky--most people only get to pick one, or none. Jobs in academia are certainly no exception to this rule.

malandrew 14y ago
OT, but I find it amazing that the triangle of desirable traits applies in so many places. There's the obvious "faster, cheaper, better. pick any two" and yesterday I heard another one "sane, smart and beautiful, pick two", which I'm sure has a corollary like "handsome, sensitive and rich, pick two". It's as if Brook's "no silver bullet" can be applied to just about everything our life (or it's just that easy to pick three desirable traits that are often mutually exclusive of one another)
- kyllo 14y ago
  Yes, and then there are the Venn diagrams that describe the disappointing result of any combination of two desirable traits. Here's one humorous example: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7L9xAjgoZxo/ToydjJ7Hb8I/AAAAAAAABGo/RPXfXUrZ6Fw/s1600/317212_10150861168580525_787565524_21315273_1613530842_n.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7L9xAjgoZxo/ToydjJ7Hb8I/AAAAAAAABG...
  - bussiem 14y ago
    Am I the only one who flared in anger that "Smart" and "Nice" combined to be the "negative trait" of Nerd? And that according to this we cannot be "Handsome"? Inane crap like this helps absolutely nobody, and it perpetuates stereotypes that I think on HN we would be trying to avoid. Why you would post this is beyond me.
- zem 14y ago
  yeah, that fascinates me too. there are even some actual theorems, like brewer's cap theorem [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theorem] and arrow's voting paradox [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrows_impossibility_theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrows_impossibility_theorem], that take the "pick any two" form.
- javert 14y ago
  That "amazing triangle" idea is just nonsense. For example, computers have gotten faster, better, AND cheaper over time. There definitely are women who are sane, smart, and beautiful. Are you kidding me? Just walk around any research university where they're doing graduate-level research and you will see lots of them. As for the other gender triangle, pg is definitely handsome, sensitive and rich, so there's your disproof. The "no silver bullet" thing is talking about something totally different. And it's an observation specific to software engineering (or, possibly, other specific domains, considered individually). There is a silver bullet for vaccinating against polio, but not for classroom teaching techniques.
  - huherto 14y ago
    The point that breaks the triangle(rectangle?) is if you add whether or not she is interested on you.
    - javert 14y ago
      Yes and no. Yes, you're correct. No, she's not interested. :P
    - ssw1n 14y ago
      Add this point before yours: whether or not she is taken already. If you find a smart, sane and beautiful woman doing graduate research, it is highly probable that she is already married or planning for marriage with her boyfriend/partner as soon as she is out of school. (Well, this is from my experiences in Science and Engineering departments. Might be different for other fields.)
  - malandrew 14y ago
    faster, better, AND cheaper *over time*. If it happened over time, it wasn't done faster. Speed in terms of processor is synonymous with "better" (or at least one of the aspects of "better"). A better processor is a faster processor. Faster in the original expression refers to when you want something done/completed/delivered by.
- clebio 14y ago
  It might be that three traits usually represent an arbitrary number of dimensions sufficiently well (factor analysis, PCA). Or that thinking about more than three gets very hard (number of distinct combinations), so we just resort to three. For that matter, two dimensions, or even just the poles of one, are enough for most people (2-party politics, a/theist, occidental/orient, etc.).
- bcgraham 14y ago
  In general, it breaks down into "less time discount," "more of what other people want," "more of what I want". That's a simplification, but broadly speaks to the tensions in the system. I used to like this system because it helped identify the tradeoffs, but what I found most surprising about it was how often it didn't apply at all, in business/products/jobs but what was most in egregious violation of the principle were people. Some people just don't have a lot of upside to knowing; other people walk around with some nominal flaws, but for the most part are inspiring.
robrenaud 14y ago
I doubt this. Very talented people can easily accomplish all three, especially in tech. I guess the lucrative and secure part are supposed to be in tension? EG, if something is lucrative, there will be lots of competition that fights and eats away the security? But that same lucrativeness causes security, eg, golden hand cuffs.
- javert 14y ago
  Yeah. In an economy with a healthy labor system, someone skilled in a certain field (say, software engineering) can just get a new (sufficiently lucrative) job if they lose the one they have, so there's no _necessary_ tension between those two.
  - kyllo 14y ago
    Most people don't find software development "interesting" at all. And let's face it, the kind that pays well is usually rather boring, while the kind that is interesting usually doesn't pay very well, or at all in the case of open source.
- kyllo 14y ago
  Lucrative and secure are in tension only if the work is also very interesting (or fulfilling/challenging/stimulating, etc.) If a job is all 3 of interesting, lucrative, and secure, then everyone will try to get that job, and the competition will either drive the salary down, or drive the job security down, or both. A more general version of this rule is that anything desirable (or "scarce" if you want to use an economic term) in life will soon be pursued by others to the point where it becomes no longer desirable. That's the essence of how markets work. The trick to wealth is to know (through some combination of vision and luck) what is going to be desirable ahead of time and obtain it before everyone else knows they want it.

by kyllo 14y ago

malandrew 14y ago

OT, but I find it amazing that the triangle of desirable traits applies in so many places. There's the obvious "faster, cheaper, better. pick any two" and yesterday I heard another one "sane, smart and beautiful, pick two", which I'm sure has a corollary like "handsome, sensitive and rich, pick two". It's as if Brook's "no silver bullet" can be applied to just about everything our life (or it's just that easy to pick three desirable traits that are often mutually exclusive of one another)

kyllo 14y ago
Yes, and then there are the Venn diagrams that describe the disappointing result of any combination of two desirable traits. Here's one humorous example: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7L9xAjgoZxo/ToydjJ7Hb8I/AAAAAAAABGo/RPXfXUrZ6Fw/s1600/317212_10150861168580525_787565524_21315273_1613530842_n.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7L9xAjgoZxo/ToydjJ7Hb8I/AAAAAAAABG...
- bussiem 14y ago
  Am I the only one who flared in anger that "Smart" and "Nice" combined to be the "negative trait" of Nerd? And that according to this we cannot be "Handsome"? Inane crap like this helps absolutely nobody, and it perpetuates stereotypes that I think on HN we would be trying to avoid. Why you would post this is beyond me.
zem 14y ago
yeah, that fascinates me too. there are even some actual theorems, like brewer's cap theorem [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAP_theorem] and arrow's voting paradox [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrows_impossibility_theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrows_impossibility_theorem], that take the "pick any two" form.
javert 14y ago
That "amazing triangle" idea is just nonsense. For example, computers have gotten faster, better, AND cheaper over time. There definitely are women who are sane, smart, and beautiful. Are you kidding me? Just walk around any research university where they're doing graduate-level research and you will see lots of them. As for the other gender triangle, pg is definitely handsome, sensitive and rich, so there's your disproof. The "no silver bullet" thing is talking about something totally different. And it's an observation specific to software engineering (or, possibly, other specific domains, considered individually). There is a silver bullet for vaccinating against polio, but not for classroom teaching techniques.
- huherto 14y ago
  The point that breaks the triangle(rectangle?) is if you add whether or not she is interested on you.
  - javert 14y ago
    Yes and no. Yes, you're correct. No, she's not interested. :P
  - ssw1n 14y ago
    Add this point before yours: whether or not she is taken already. If you find a smart, sane and beautiful woman doing graduate research, it is highly probable that she is already married or planning for marriage with her boyfriend/partner as soon as she is out of school. (Well, this is from my experiences in Science and Engineering departments. Might be different for other fields.)
- malandrew 14y ago
  faster, better, AND cheaper *over time*. If it happened over time, it wasn't done faster. Speed in terms of processor is synonymous with "better" (or at least one of the aspects of "better"). A better processor is a faster processor. Faster in the original expression refers to when you want something done/completed/delivered by.
clebio 14y ago
It might be that three traits usually represent an arbitrary number of dimensions sufficiently well (factor analysis, PCA). Or that thinking about more than three gets very hard (number of distinct combinations), so we just resort to three. For that matter, two dimensions, or even just the poles of one, are enough for most people (2-party politics, a/theist, occidental/orient, etc.).
bcgraham 14y ago
In general, it breaks down into "less time discount," "more of what other people want," "more of what I want". That's a simplification, but broadly speaks to the tensions in the system. I used to like this system because it helped identify the tradeoffs, but what I found most surprising about it was how often it didn't apply at all, in business/products/jobs but what was most in egregious violation of the principle were people. Some people just don't have a lot of upside to knowing; other people walk around with some nominal flaws, but for the most part are inspiring.

robrenaud 14y ago

I doubt this. Very talented people can easily accomplish all three, especially in tech. I guess the lucrative and secure part are supposed to be in tension? EG, if something is lucrative, there will be lots of competition that fights and eats away the security? But that same lucrativeness causes security, eg, golden hand cuffs.

javert 14y ago
Yeah. In an economy with a healthy labor system, someone skilled in a certain field (say, software engineering) can just get a new (sufficiently lucrative) job if they lose the one they have, so there's no _necessary_ tension between those two.
- kyllo 14y ago
  Most people don't find software development "interesting" at all. And let's face it, the kind that pays well is usually rather boring, while the kind that is interesting usually doesn't pay very well, or at all in the case of open source.
kyllo 14y ago
Lucrative and secure are in tension only if the work is also very interesting (or fulfilling/challenging/stimulating, etc.) If a job is all 3 of interesting, lucrative, and secure, then everyone will try to get that job, and the competition will either drive the salary down, or drive the job security down, or both. A more general version of this rule is that anything desirable (or "scarce" if you want to use an economic term) in life will soon be pursued by others to the point where it becomes no longer desirable. That's the essence of how markets work. The trick to wealth is to know (through some combination of vision and luck) what is going to be desirable ahead of time and obtain it before everyone else knows they want it.