Otter's Journal: "Why you should never listen to geeks..."

"...and in fact should despise them..."

Someone linked this fairly funny piece. I have to say that something similar to

He will naturally assume that whatever skills he has are indications of genius or heroic mental endurance (or both), but that skills exhibited by members of other professions are easily learned rote tasks which one might entrust to a child or mutant ape, or else that have no value whatsoever.

crosses my mind whenever I read that the failure to find a miracle cure for cancer is proof of a malicious conspiracy, but building a data-driven website is just so goshdarn hard that we should be impressed that it can be done succesfully 30% of the time.

Not just geeks

[Shadow Wrought]

Airline pilots, engineers, and lawyers are all famous for having all the answers, all the time. Just ask them. Though that would require getting a word in;-)

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[jci]

I work with pilots and engineers and sometimes it can get real interesting.

It took a little getting used to to be able to say "I don't know," or "I know it's wrong," but it's a relief instead of trying to defend against something that I know I can't win at.

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[HomelessInLaJolla]

That depends wholly on how hard they smack you in the lip when you say "I don't know". If you're with people you like then they'll work with you and the conversation will venture to reach common ground. If you're with people who don't like you then every "I don't know" or "I know it's wrong" will be met with the most derisive and scornful editions of,"Then STFU and quit talking in the first place!"

It sounds like you're in pretty good company. That's great. Out of some miraculous coincidence of bad luck

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[HomelessInLaJolla]

You're the one posting AC... and you're just jealous that Jesus loves me enough to give me coffee every day while you have to go out and work for yours.

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[HomelessInLaJolla]

What do you have against people who live on the street? Are you better than they are? How prideful do you have to be to judge a man by where he lays his head?

Why do you need three meals each day? I've had fewer than ten real meals in the last year and I haven't dropped a stone under one hundred and ninety pounds and springtime only brought me a mild respiratory cold--no different than the wealthiest of citizens around me. If you need more than that then you're probably a glutton.

As much as you deny your

Jesus loves me and you are a chemosh

[HomelessInLaJolla]

You're a liar. You can quit your job and become homeless at any time. There is absolutely nothing at all stopping you. Nobody has you chained to your job. Instead you choose to continue to talk down to me as if you know what's best for me, as if you're somehow better than I am, as if I should want to be like you and do what you tell me to, just because you have a home and three meals each day (whatever would you do if, some day, you could only have two? You would fall down weeping and wailing and beggi

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[Otter]

A few weeks ago, a study was linked here that found that IT people are arrogant and obnoxious and use jargon to intimidate and belittle users. The prevalent response was "Yeah, well, surgeons are like that also!" Which may or may not be true, but seems to miss the point that rebooting servers doesn't entitle you to the same degree of arrogance that being a surgeon (or airline pilot) does!

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[Shadow Wrought]

To a certain extent surgeons have earned their arrogance. And, given the number of life or death decisions they make, having to always be right isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Airline pilots also need to make critical decisions, but far more so in the past than in the present (I have three close friends who fly 737's and 757's).

There's a great story about a British Air captain who was the epitome of arrogance some years back. Back then there was a strict demarkation between "Captain" and "First-Officer.

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[iminplaya]

A 747 made a bone jarring landing, and one of pilots waiting to take off said over the radio, "I didn't know you let the stewardesses land those things."

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[iminplaya]

I tend to associate pilots with hunters and fishermen more than engineers or lawyers. If you get my drift :-)

-- private pilot ASEL

Ehhh... not really funny at all.

[bersl2]

It's just a standard rant piece. Sure, he points out probable character traits, and he does so in great detail and is thus somewhat insightful, but he makes no effort to understand what he observes. I realize that the writer was probably just blowing off steam, but (and correct me if I'm wrong in my perception) his condescending attitude makes him no better than those whom he writes about, at least according to him.

The explanation I would have given if I had been him (and I do give it, lest I be a hypocrite

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[Otter]

I don't know if you followed the link to Why do geeks have such bad taste? [udolpho.com] which goes into the sort of theorizing you demand.

My own guess, at least as regards geeks in IT (which is who he's talking about, and in my experience geeky types in other fields don't have nearly the same obnoxiousness) is that it results from the fact that computers are complicated, but ultimately completely controllable and knowable. IT people have no sense of the fact that other jobs have to deal with factors outside one's contro

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[Kymermosst]

My own guess, at least as regards geeks in IT (which is who he's talking about, and in my experience geeky types in other fields don't have nearly the same obnoxiousness) is that it results from the fact that computers are complicated, but ultimately completely controllable and knowable. IT people have no sense of the fact that other jobs have to deal with factors outside one's control, and instead decide that they're geniuses and everyone else is a bunch of morons.

Computers are completely controllable with