Subject: Re: The Next Generation of Lisp Programmers
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Date: 26 Aug 2002 20:48:04 +0000
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3239383684345231@naggum.no>

* Bulent Murtezaoglu
| Is it just me getting old or were ingorant and incompetent people more
| apologetic in the 80s?

  Whatever competence they had got them there to begin with, so they had some
  sense of accomplishment and skill and self-esteem and knew they could learn
  on the job.  Todays's ignorants and incompetents know that they were not
  hired for their competence, but for their replaceability.  If they learn new
  skills, they are expected to seek other employment.  If they are discovered
  as frauds, they are expected to be looking for other employment.  When the
  managers do not value their employees as people, they get worthless people
  as employees.  Note that a healthy reward for some random accomplishment
  does more harm than good to a person's sense of worth, especially the very
  dangerous feeling that they will not be able to repeat the accomplishment.

  Today's incompetents are arrogant for a reason.  It is both fear of the dire
  consequences of any realization of just /how/ incompetent they are.  Like
  people with inflated self-esteem will turn to violence when their egos are
  threatened, and that could be nothing worse than bringing it down to
  realistic levels, people who believe they are something because they hold a
  job better than they are will consider /any/ sign of not doing this job well
  as a threat to their very livelihood.  A competent man wants to learn when
  someone points out a flaw or error.  An incompetent will defend himself.
  This is how they became what they are.

-- 
Erik Naggum, Oslo, Norway

Act from reason, and failure makes you rethink and study harder.
Act from faith, and failure makes you blame someone and push harder.