The "lose their jobs" principle

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The "lose their jobs" principle

Allen
If some field of endeavour is genuine, you would take it as a given that the people working in it would lose their jobs in a relatively short amount of time if they veered off into complete bullshit. For example, if buildings are still being built, we can surmise that the field of structural engineering isn't a complete hoax, since if it were the buildings would collapse. This would not fit into the plans of people with the power to fire those responsible, so they would be fired.

If this is not the case, and the field can continue without such an objective test, then most likely it is all bullshit, since it is easier to bullshit people for money than do anything useful.

We could apply this test to various current industries to see whether they pass, for example space exploration, cosmology generally, evolution theory, paleontology, pre-history etc.
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Re: The "lose their jobs" principle

OmegaKV
In software you have small pockets of productive people (like the ones who created ChatGPT), but the overwhelming majority is bullshit. Google for example, which is a large and prestigious company, has failed to create anything of value within the last 10 years.
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Re: The "lose their jobs" principle

Allen
Yes, software is an intermediate case because intellectual property law and other factors mean that you only need a little additional functional code and a few competent people, while the general thrust of what they are doing can be bullshit for a long time. That isn't quite the same as other industries such as astrophysics, which could in principle be complete bullshit from start to finish.
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Re: The "lose their jobs" principle

fschmidt
Administrator
In reply to this post by OmegaKV
Part of this is declining expectations from customers.  Instagram was down for nearly two hours yesterday.  In the past, this would have been considered unacceptable and people would have lost their jobs over this.  When customers care about quality, people lose their jobs for screwing up.  But customers no longer care.