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

--- 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.


--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on September 26, 2022, 09:00:17 am ---This in fact is one of the things I've suffered from my entire professional career.  All my past colleagues, clients, and immediate superiors have said they're very impressed with my skills and effort, but it has never spread any wider, because it seems my own "brand" is to make things work and then be forgotten.  I'm kind of an anti-brand, really.  However, it is what it is, and I believe I'm happier being a toolmaker and an enabler instead of a "big gun" anyway.  I admit, when I was younger, I was very bitter about this when I finally understood it, but nowadays, I just want to help those others who have the same kind of anti-brand tendencies to recognize the situation, and build the kind of "brand" they want.  Probably not into "big gun" territory, but enough so that their career is not negatively impacted by this.  My advice thus far has been mostly about communications: how to express oneself and ones work, how to use descriptive language to build mental imagery, how to defuse personal attacks by changing their perception of you, and so on –– because I had to learn, the hard way, all that myself.  Others can and will help with marketing, wardrobe, and self-expression.

--- End quote ---

When I was younger I had some dreams about making things that would make me rich, but not so much about becoming famous. During my working life I also received lots of praise for doing a good job, and earned good money, but knew I would never make something so special that it would bring me that big money. I lack the vision for such. I'm good at bringing someone else their idea to life, and that is not where the real money is. Also learned that money is not everything, but it is nice to have enough to live a comfortable enough life. Which is what I'm doing.

Allows me to do the things I like and lend a helping hand where possible. What more do you need in life?
tooki:

--- 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.  To them, any and all defense of the person is idolatry, no matter how factually correct the defense may be. The mere act of defending constitutes idolatry to them; the inaccuracy of their own accusations is irrelevant to them.

That is a very disingenuous, manipulative way to “debate”, and is essentially gaslighting the person who is actually factually correct. Unfortunately, this is very common.

And it’s often combined with “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situations, where the haters will decry every possible outcome, e.g. “Oh, they cut off old devices from the new OS? LAME!” vs. “Oh, so the new OS slows down old devices? LAME!” vs. “Oh, some of the hot new OS features are not available on old devices? LAME!”

It’s irrational hatred, and what the haters often do is assume that your “love” for the brand is as strong as their hatred of it, which I frankly don’t think is the case very often.
Nominal Animal:

--- 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.

The roots of this mechanism are in human sociology and psyche; we are hierarchical social animals, evolved to be this way.  Very few humans observe behaviour, and instead rely on "recording" the emotions that the behaviour and interactions they observe creates in them.
This is useful and works for social interaction –– and is exactly how brand-building works ––, but it isn't rational, and it does mean that human expertise and abilities are always secondary to brand-building/social skills.

As to the other thread and me "bashing" anyone, I do believe I have demonstrated here and elsewhere that I do not hate people, I hate specific behaviours.  It goes so deep for me that I can, and have, had a very heated argument where I utterly hate someones behaviour, but at the same time, in an unrelated person, am very calmly discussing something else with that same person, often even trying to help them (which surely throws them into a loop, because so few people actually argue about behaviour and opinions instead of people or persons).  (Check my past interactions with Simon the moderator, for example.)
Perhaps my characterization in that other thread was poorly worded/described, but I do see it very often and find it utterly deplorable; and do believe that pointing it out in very strong words is always warranted.  I even left StackOverflow/StackExchange because of a facet of the same behavioural cluster: "big guns" that refuse to acknowledge any error they make, and assert their "advice" is correct without any basis, even though it leads learners and others completely astray.  Instead, they concentrate on the brand-building and social gaming...

In the context of this thread, I probably should just summarise that based on everything I know, becoming a "big gun" is a matter of brand-building, and involves deep human social behaviour that we cannot change, and therefore should not rail against either, but instead accept and try to use as a tool whenever appropriate.  This does mean that when observing a "big gun" (or rather, their work product and output) rationally, the fact that they are a "big gun", an authority in their own field, really means absolutely nothing: it does not indicate anything in particular about their work product and output.
At the very core, it boils down to the same (logical) argument why popularity does not correlate with quality or usefulness, no matter how many humans (or flies) disagree.
CatalinaWOW:
Branding and quality are not orthogonal.  A bit pedantic, but if they were truly orthogonal there would be no relationship between brands and quality.  Which is reputed because there are some brands based on quality. 

The old HP.  Craftsman.  Snap On.   Rolls-Royce.  L. L. Bean.

These associations may not last (HP), but at least for some period of time the product, the brand and the marketing are all tied together.  And most important, that connection is intentional.
Nominal Animal:

--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on September 26, 2022, 03:03:00 pm ---Branding and quality are not orthogonal.  A bit pedantic, but if they were truly orthogonal there would be no relationship between brands and quality.
--- End quote ---
Incorrect.  Occasional correlation is not proof of dependence.

When you have brands that at one point in time had good products, and at another point bad products, that itself is proof of orthogonality.  It does not mean a correlation is not possible, it just means correlation is not implied.

Whether there is any correlation between a particular brand and some facet or property of its products, depends on other things, especially current leadership (humans in charge of that particular brand).

Technically:

We are using the statistical definition of "orthogonal": statistically independent, with reference to variates.  I am specifically using it across many brands, not referring to any specific brand.  The fact that there may be brands where brand value or appreciation is not statistically independent of product quality right now, does not mean it will never be.  Such occasional statistical dependence is not causation: it s the result of extraneous variables (variates neither brand value nor quality) correlating with both quality and brand value.  The main such extraneous variable is business owner long term plans for the brand.  Those plans are not available to us, therefore we cannot predict the quality of a specific brand at any given future time.
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