General > General Technical Chat

Why do the big "guns" get more credits for their technical skills?

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tooki:

--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on September 26, 2022, 02:15:46 pm ---
--- Quote from: tooki on September 26, 2022, 10:58:27 am ---
--- Quote from: pcprogrammer on September 26, 2022, 10:46:21 am ---
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on September 26, 2022, 09:00:17 am ---When it comes to humans, when someone builds a good brand for themselves and becomes a "big gun", it is as if criticism of them (especially outside their field of expertise) suddenly becomes bashing/derogatory/unreasonable! 

--- End quote ---

But you got to love the hypocrisy in some, where it is ok for them to do the bashing onto whom they think deserves it, but don't you dare to bash someone they have put on a pedestal.

You can see this all around.
--- End quote ---
The problem is that it’s often not hypocrisy: one party may be much more knowledgeable about the situation, whereas the “idol”-bashers frequently come from a place of clickbait headlines and blind hatred.
--- End quote ---

No, I don't think that is the actual problem.  I actually feel that that is an emotive argument, borne from the same thing you are describing yourself...
I believe the problem is that too many humans only voice their opinions, instead of examining and explaining the basis of their opinion and reasoning.

Interestingly, this is still the exact same mechanism why one can only become a "big gun" in any career by building oneself into a brand.

--- End quote ---
Are you referring to me claiming the haters are uninformed? I have good reason to say that: they make patently false claims that are easily disproven, or are parroting dishonest headlines whose claims are similarly easily disproven (or placed into the larger context that eliminates whatever malicious intent the claim was meant to indicate).*

*Prime example of the parenthetical: the headlines claiming massive suicide rates at Apple supplier Foxconn, with the implicit or explicit claim being made that the working conditions caused a suicide epidemic. The missing context: 1. Foxconn isn’t just an Apple supplier, they supply almost every major IT company to some degree, and 2. the suicide rate at Foxconn during that period was significantly lower than that of China as a whole! Statistically speaking, there should have been far more suicides at Foxconn during the time in question. But “Foxconn installs suicide nets to reduce their already low suicide rate” isn’t as clickable a headline as “Apple supplier forced to install suicide nets to stop rash of employee suicides”.

pcprogrammer:

--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on September 26, 2022, 04:20:28 pm ---There is no contradiction.   If you do see one, it is only due to my insufficient control of the English language.

--- End quote ---

Nah, I was just teasing you a bit. I now exactly what you mean. I'm the same. Like to be with others in not to big a groups. Prefer 4 to 6 max for a dinner. It is then still possible to have good conversation without it getting rowdy. But most of the time I prefer being on my own.


--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on September 26, 2022, 04:20:28 pm ---
--- Quote from: pcprogrammer on September 26, 2022, 03:58:59 pm ---But this thread shows that it is possible to have a discussion without "overheating"

--- End quote ---
It is important to remember that any reaction to what someone writes on the net, is not based on the person of the writer, but only on their output.  We do not perceive the person themselves, except through what they write; and the perception is largely defined by our own experiences, and is fully subjective, not objective.

--- End quote ---

That is certainly true, because on the net you can only make up in your mind what a person is like based on what is written. What on this forum also has to be considered is that many are not native English writers. And that also makes a difference in what the intention of what is written might be. And errors are easily made, by both native and non native. No need to judge on that.


--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on September 26, 2022, 04:20:28 pm ---As to hypocrisy – in the "the practice of engaging in the same behaviour or activity for which one criticises another" sense –, we are all occasionally guilty of it; it too is natural.  What really matters, is whether one examines ones own behaviour the same way they examine others' behaviour, rationally.

--- End quote ---

O that is for sure, because we are all human, but some are better in seeing there own faults then others, which is also normal in human behavior. We are all individuals and differ from each other.


--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on September 26, 2022, 04:20:28 pm ---It is my hope that the same criteria and examination is extended to all, regardless of fame/brand/attractiveness/accomplishments/title, including to "big guns".  And in the same vein, that you can still appreciate a person, and/or their work, while doing that examination.

--- End quote ---

Mine too, but it is sometimes very hard to maintain some respect.

pcprogrammer:

--- Quote from: tooki on September 26, 2022, 04:26:06 pm ---Are you referring to me claiming the haters are uninformed? I have good reason to say that: they make patently false claims that are easily disproven, or are parroting dishonest headlines whose claims are similarly easily disproven (or placed into the larger context that eliminates whatever malicious intent the claim was meant to indicate).*

--- End quote ---

But that is a big problem with news reporting. It needs to be attractive to lure in the "public", and the "public" does not like to dig deep and just take it in, distort it and then talk about it and things blow up. Think back at an exercise in school, where you sit in a circle and have to tell a story to your neighbor, which in turn has to retell the story to his neighbor, and so on. At the end the story has changed.

To get the actual fact above table you have to do the work and that is what most don't want to do.

Or someone is so fixated on something in particular that only that is the truth, no matter how well you can disprove it.

james_s:

--- Quote from: tooki on September 25, 2022, 06:15:27 pm ---As a multiple citizen, I vote in two countries: USA and Switzerland. The experience couldn’t be more different.

Of course, there are duplicitous politicians here in Switzerland. The big difference is that due to the true direct democracy here, politicians can’t stray too far from what the people (all voters, not just their party’s!) want. At one place I worked here, the CEO of the company (~20 people) is also a politician in the federal parliament. And she said one thing that stuck with me, paraphrased: “If, as a politician here, you want to move things, you can’t do anything too far from what the people want, because then it’ll go to referendum and you, the politician, now have zero say”.

In USA it’s completely different: politicians say whatever their constituents want to hear, and then go do whatever the lobbies pay them to do. There was a famous study (Princeton university, I think) that found that will of the 99% has no measurable impact on policy. It’s a farce basically.

--- End quote ---

It's interesting, although I wonder how well such an arrangement would work somewhere like the USA, where there are now essentially two fairly evenly sized teams that are diametrically opposed and becoming steadily more polarized. A true democracy tends to disregard the wishes of the minority while the majority always get their way. Just what "the people" want depends on which people you talk to. I've never been to Switzerland but I suspect the population is significantly more homogeneous than that of the USA. Certainly the country is far smaller, the population of the entire nation being roughly equivalent to that of the city of New York.

james_s:

--- Quote from: pcprogrammer on September 26, 2022, 10:46:21 am ---But you got to love the hypocrisy in some, where it is ok for them to do the bashing onto whom they think deserves it, but don't you dare to bash someone they have put on a pedestal.

You can see this all around.

--- End quote ---

I'm quite convinced that this is something that is buried quite deeply in human psychology. At the root we are tribal animals and this is tribal behavior. Criticism of anything associated with the tribe is an attack on part of the identity of a member of that tribe and thus an attack on that individual.

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