Reply to: Politician slags off IT professionals

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

It would seem that politicians can be outwitted by creatures with far lower IQ's than the average IT contractor - these comments obviously stemmed from jealousy BBC News - Badgers 'moved goalposts' says minister Owen Paterson

[vetran]

Agree AIUI Snowden saw himself as a whistle blower.

Were he a nurse in a care home or hospital watching neglect and waste that is endemic he would be hailed as a hero for bringing it to the public's attention.

This is more about discrediting the messenger.

If you found a nurse who was so empathic it ruined their personal life they would be praised as heroic, an IT worker who is too focussed to integrate and do football etc jokes is seen as weird.

[Mich the Tester]

The trouble with responding to this in a defensive fashion is that it can help to prove his point. I've been thinking about how to respond, and while I think his statement about code being 'either absolutely right, or absolutely wrong' is missing many nuances such as user expectation, suitability for purpose and the question of whether the user's wishes are really such a great idea, ethical questions and so on, I don't think it would really help to simply cut apart his story and replace it with my own rhetoric.

So I'm looking at this from another angle; I get the impression he's picked up on the Snowden story and projected it onto IT people in general. IT people, geeks or not, are members of the same societies as binmen, grocers, agents and politicians, and within those societies there is considerable anger, sometimes justified, at politics and those who practise politics. Recently we've seen wars based on lies, or 'sexed up' stories, taxes rising while government builds up debt, people feeling they recieve less and less in return for their contribution, and the growth of a huge state bureaucracy that many people feel is unnecessarily intruding in their lives. The frustration is widespread, and includes IT people. The difference is in how some IT people fight back. Most are probably as easy going and uncombattive as the next person, but some have the skills to 'take the fight back' to politicians or authority figures that they percieve, again rightly or wrongly, to be the enemy of the people. Snowden is an example. Other people might join a protest march, phone a radio show to rant or simply thump their fists on the bar while boring everyone else in the pub. The binmen can't do much more than 'forget' to empty a politician's bin, although they're now so continually controlled and observed by their managers that they probably can't even do that without being spotted.

Add to all this that people of all levels of intelligence or education sometimes try to frame what they see into an internally consistent, but nonsensical view of the world (a conspiracy theory), to try an make sense of what they see.

I think Mr Walshe should take a closer look at the attitudes that are vented by 'geeks' and then find out if those attitudes and anger are actually part of a wider set of attitudes, involving a cross section of society, instead of giving simplistic descriptions of IT people as thinking in binary and being unable to understand nuances.

[Churchill]

Control.

Now go and make me a cuppa of builder's tea, no sugar and a splash of milk.

Fck off and make your own tea.

[SueEllen]

or Fix washing machines

Those technicians don't tend to trust the UK government either it's a British affliction....

[vetran]

Engineer, the holly grail. The highest accolade that could be awarded to someone servicing the IT industry.

or Fix washing machines

[sasguru]

You only have to read CUK for half a day to see he has a point.

Or this thread.

[scooterscot]

I know Engineers who can do both, but not Politicians.

Engineer, the holly grail. The highest accolade that could be awarded to someone servicing the IT industry.

[vetran]

Nail on the head, hit.
Most IT types are hugely limited outside their narrow domains.

Many management types are severely limited outside their buzzwords.

True Polymaths are very rare, many great managers just sail on top of other people's expertise. Their skill is selecting the right people and trusting them plus their gut. Few wish or can understand the little stuff.

The people who try and fail to emulate them then denigrate the staff that understand the small stuff because they don't 'fit' into their narrow view of the world.


The real question is who would you trust to fix your life support and who would you trust to raise the money for a new one.

I know Engineers who can do both, but not Politicians.

[doodab]

You only have to read CUK for half a day to see he has a point.

[NigelJK]

Most IT types are hugely limited outside their narrow domains.

Most professionals are as that is what being a professional is all about. Try mentioning Accountants without remembering Monty Pythons assassination of them.

Now lets do a short pithy summation of your average Polico (who don't forget is NOT a professional and can get the 'job' without any certified qualifications or experience).

Their basic assumption is that if you can't win, cheat.

[scooterscot]

What sort of low-fat limp wristed builders are you using.

Lost my sweet tooth many moons ago, not to mention many lbs.

[sasguru]

"many software engineers find the nuances and ambiguity of political practice hard to understand".

Nail on the head, hit.
Most IT types are hugely limited outside their narrow domains.

[Pondlife]

Control.

Now go and make me a cuppa of builder's tea, no sugar and a splash of milk.

What sort of low-fat limp wristed builders are you using.

[scooterscot]

What's the "real" agenda?

Control.

Now go and make me a cuppa of builder's tea, no sugar and a splash of milk.