Sometimes I see people making confident claims about the decision-making process inside companies I’ve never worked at, and I have no way to know better so I assume they are right.
Then I see them making confident and totally wrong assertions about how Apple works and make decisions. And I wonder if I should put any stock in the rest of it.
@donmelton It is indeed, unfortunately the Apple omertà prevents me from pointing out just how full of shit some people are.
@othermaciej Thankfully I no longer have that limitation. 🤣 Seriously, feel free to DM me about egregious bullshit and I'll call it out. Publicly. 👌
@othermaciej kind of reminds me of what Michael Crichton called the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect.
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“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
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In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
– Michael Crichton (1942-2008)
@jadeonly @othermaciej People always cite Gell-Mann on Hacker News and normally I hate it, because in its original form, it misses the fact that politics and government are the core area of expertise of national newspapers, unlike physics or tech. But the effect is surely real when it comes to random internet commenters talking about companies. On the other hand, I think insiders tend to risk missing the forest for the trees...
@othermaciej I'm pretty confident that it's a shit show everywhere and I'm amazed that most companies can stay in business.
@paulhmason Lots of variation in exactly how and why and to what extent companies are a shit show though!
@othermaciej in my experience this is unfortunately often true for many topics in journalism.
@othermaciej Hard to tell if you're coming out against feature engineering, transfer learning or just all of social media. :)
@counternotions Do I only get to pick one?
@othermaciej Which goes to prove my point: Apple people are so indecisive!
@counternotions Hmm, I'm not sure if I agree with that or not.
@othermaciej I have similar issue about my own areas of expertise - I think Gell-Mann amnesia is the name for the general phenomenon. However, I have found recognition of it can engender a deep cynicism, so be careful!
@othermaciej To be fair, Apple is more secretive than most organizations about their decision making process. Media likely gets Apple reporting wrong a bit more than other companies.
@Gregnee @othermaciej nature abhors a vacuum. So do cats and journalists.
@othermaciej It's always a great litmus test for bullshit opinions as far as I'm concerned. 🤣