Comment by paulpauper
4 years ago
A problem is the media hyping things too much. If not for media hype, maybe this paradox would not be such a problem or prevalent. People's expectations are in part formed formed by the media.
4 years ago
A problem is the media hyping things too much. If not for media hype, maybe this paradox would not be such a problem or prevalent. People's expectations are in part formed formed by the media.
I see this all the time in software development. No media hype involved.
I worked with a senior engineer who had a brilliant knack for finding design flaws in review (usually security or performance issues) and would put in heroic efforts to fix them before they went to production. Someone privately called him out as an obstructionist - "He's constantly worried about BadThing happening, but it never does! He's just wasting time.". I politely corrected them - "Did you ever consider that BadThing never happens BECAUSE he's constantly worried about it?"
Related: https://web.mit.edu/nelsonr/www/Repenning=Sterman_CMR_su01_.... "Nobody Ever Gets Credit for Fixing Problems that Never Happened" by Repenning and Sterman.
I'm getting a 404, is there an archive link elsewhere?
Edit: It's been fixed.
2 replies →
No doubt this existed before the media. Think of when you were a kid, and your parents were always making you pick up your things, saying people would trip on them. But you knew how dumb they were, because nobody ever actually tripped on your things...what you didn't realize is that was largely because your parents made you pick them up.