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Author makes good points but suffers from “i am genius and you are an idiot” syndrome which makes it seem mostly the ranting of an asshole vs a coherent article

• bongodongobob 2y ago
  Especially since most "data scientists" turn spreadsheets into reports for the C suite, I'd argue that his entire role fits into the same arguments he makes against AI. Like he says, unless you're doing things on the cutting edge, I don't think most businesses have seen positive outcomes from employing data "scientists" or "engineers". They just take people's excel spreadsheets and make them prettier, taking approximately one quarter to implement each into Power BI. Also being 5 years into his career thinking he actually groks how it all works is adorable. I get the impression he has the idea that work is supposed to be a rewarding passion project rather than getting shit done for your boss. Give me all the cushy bullshit AI projects please. I can play with the toys for 6 months and come back with whatever and it will be perfectly acceptable. Either "this is great, super helpful for the company" or "welp, the tech isn't there yet, but at least we tried". That's called riding the gravy train.
• aakresearch 2y ago
  I've recently read through many of the author's articles and also through his LinkedIn content, and came to the opposite conclusion. The intentional "In-Your-Face-Trolling" style is intended as a cover for "Impostor Syndrome in Overdrive", which lots of us suffer. Yet he was able to fool so many! Just check the "Compliments" section on his website :) I made the following comment about him in a conversation with a coworker: " The guy who authored the article is mad. Certifiably mad. Just spewing around pure unadulterated truth. (LinkedIn link goes here) What does it tell about me (or anybody) who so far hadn't found anything in his writings to disagree about? " Krazam (search YouTube) is the other example of largely the same. But because it is visual it is a bit more obvious.
  • camillomiller 2y ago
    LOL nah, mate’s just Australian
    • aakresearch 2y ago
      Ah-ha, "Boys just havin' fun"™. Being Australian is not incompatible with impostors' or being a good troll!
    • boffinAudio 2y ago
      Tall poppy syndrome and a HUGE piling spoonful of cultural cringe.
      • phist_mcgee 2y ago
        Australian dream.
      • pcollins123 2y ago
        Just bloody shootin for bronze… lookin for a Steven Bradbury.
  • TeMPOraL 2y ago
    > What does it tell about me (or anybody) who so far hadn't found anything in his writings to disagree about? It tells they're too excited by the delivery and aren't thinking about the merit of what's being said. Same mistake people made with all those "tells it as it is" vloggers and pundits.
• pushfoo 2y ago
  TL;DR: This is intentional hyperbole and satire 1. "ludic" means playful[1]. 2. The blog's tagline implies this is satire: > "Wow, if I was the leader of this person's company I would immediately terminate them." [2] It seems like most of the comment thread failed to pick up on this. That's understandable. The post's humor is a style which won't make sense if you're not fluent in both English and online culture. Even if you understand the style, you also might not like it. 1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ludic https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ludic 2. https://ludic.mataroa.blog/ https://ludic.mataroa.blog/
  • busterarm 2y ago
    There's so much about this guy's work that just flies over most peoples' heads, but that's fine by me. Most people don't get it, regardless of what _it_ is. This is the only blog that I actively look forward to reading.
  • aakresearch 2y ago
    > won't make sense if you're not fluent in both English and online culture. I am not fluent in either and I'm in love with his style and substance!
    • theGeatZhopa 2y ago
      I also good read.
  • JasonSage 2y ago
    > It seems like most of the comment thread failed to pick up on this. At that point, is it a problem of most of the comment thread, or the way it was written? I may say something that comes across really snarky to my coworker. Just because I didn't mean it to be snarky does not mean that it won't be interpreted that way. Also, I have a feeling a lot of the comment thread are fluent in both English and online culture. This doesn't come across as a good-faith argument. It's like I say something that comes across as snarky, my coworker confronts me about it, and I say "oh don't worry about it, if you came from low-context culture you would understand." It's very demeaning. Not to mention unsympathetic.
• bdw5204 2y ago
  I think he's polarizing because he's right about the industry and everybody on both sides knows it. Many people in the industry are just selling snake oil. There's also a ton of idiots such as the people who misconfigure cloud software to waste half a million dollars of company money. A truth teller comes off as an a-hole to people who don't want particular truths to be told.
  • margalabargala 2y ago
    > A truth teller comes off as an a-hole to people who don't want particular truths to be told If someone is repeatedly threatening physical violence, as the author of this post is, that also tends to come off as an a-hole to some people even if the threats are not genuine. I agree the author of this post is saying accurate things, and that will piss people off, too. So we have two completely separate ways in which someone might think the author is an a-hole. They aren't all trying to hide some truth, like you imply.
    • pineaux 2y ago
      It is not serious. You shouldn't see it as a literal threat. It's a writing tool. Just like adding "fucking" to something doesn't literally mean that that thing is copulating.
      • emptyfile 2y ago
        Yeah but it makes you sound like an asshole, same as constantly talking about punching people.
      • margalabargala 2y ago
        I'm aware that it's a writing tool, not a literal threat. That's why I pointed out the threats are not genuine. Thank you for your explanation. The choice to use the writing tool in question makes the author come off like an a-hole.
      • deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
• ppeetteerr 2y ago
  It's a polarizing style of communication but the message is on point.
• torginus 2y ago
  Author sounds like a young person who feels like he's a god among men just for the fact that he's implemented the algortihms and understands the math and engineering behind the libraries most DS's just pip install. Which is weird coming from a generation of devs, where actually doing this work yourself was the norm. As for DS, from what little I've experienced from the field, he sounds right. Most people come in without a mathematically rigorous education, they talk fancy, but what they end up doing is pulling in dependencies from a pre-written library and using those without understanding the theory behind them. They also ignore the fact that 99% of the value in data science is created by taking good data, understanding the domain, in which case fancy algorithms are unnecessary. And the acquisition of said things needs good data engineering, not data science. But more often than not, the credit and prestige goes to folks who pull in fancy ML algorithms and run extensive experiments and build massive ML pipelines, feeding in truckloads of tangentially relevant data.
  • pineaux 2y ago
    You start quite condescending but then basically acknowledge what the author is saying. Most DS's, even "from your generation" probably don't write their own tools. I bet you are even guilty of this too. No need to do some implicit grandstanding.
  • camillomiller 2y ago
    Americans not getting Aussies is the best part of this thread
    • bozey07 2y ago
      I'm Australian and concur that OP sounds full of himself. Telling self-righteous... friends, to wind their neck in is far more Australian than OP's behaviour. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome Edit: To clarify, I have no problem with his style of writing, which is great, but "I am clearly better than most of my competition"? Lord, get a grip.
      • 2y ago
• throwaway984393 2y ago
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• intended 2y ago
  Author has a writing style that he likes to use, which gives him the ability to speak about certain topics with less struggle. Its getting into the art/performance category of code blogs.
  • charles_f 2y ago
    And that makes it enjoyable to read if you are inclined to that style
• torginus 2y ago
  > “i am genius and you are an idiot” syndrome which is a weird thing, since I think in fields where most people can be assumed to be smart, there's usually not that much differentiation in cognitive ability. Just for reference, if we take IQ as a proxy measure for intelligence, an average group of people (say, a high school class, a council meeting), the worst 10% will have an IQ of <80 with the best 10% will have an IQ of >120. That's the difference of 40 points, and its a common enough scenario for most people to get a feel of what it's like. In contrast, lets say you have a room of professionals, who have been screened to be in the top 10% of the population (not a huge stretch) as a cutoff. In this scenario, you'd need 100k people in this hypothetical room to get a similarly large IQ gap. While I think the author might be a sharp guy, and probably studied his field deeper than most, to say there's an insurmountable chasm between him and the rest of his readers might be a bit of a stretch. But hey, if you want to sell your unique genius as your upscale consulting brand, I guess this is how you market yourself.
  • pineaux 2y ago
    I don't think that is the goal of this blog. I think he is bragging a bit because he is afraid people will ask: "Who is this nobody that talks about AI as if he knows anything about it?" He is trying to qualify himself to give this opinion. He uses a hyperbolic style. I for one like it. But I like style and care less about the background of people to be honest. I think a good analysis is a good analysis regardless of who makes it.
• ehnto 2y ago
  I don't disagree entirely, but there is a pretty strong hint of the self-aware dry humour typical of Australians. I think he believes what he's saying, but they're probably not taking themselves that seriously or literally.
  • boffinAudio 2y ago
    >humour The word you should have used is authoritarianism, which this writer has, alas, in spades. Your users are more important than your sense of self worth, in this industry. Nobody ships ego. We ship working software: to users who find it valuable.
    • kelnos 2y ago
      > We ship working software: to users who find it valuable. I agree that's what's most likely to bring you financial and reputational success, but I also think there are a lot of things people can and do sell that are various incarnations of snake oil, at best. This perhaps gets a little philosophical, but: is it ethical to sell someone something they don't need, and doesn't actually help them, even if they believe they need it, and over time even believe they've been helped by it? I think a lot of the applications of "AI" today can fall under that umbrella, given the "right" customer.
      • boffinAudio 2y ago
        > is it ethical to sell someone something they don't need It would only be unethical to remove their agency over the decision, in my opinion.
    • ehnto 2y ago
      Apologies, I posted my reply on the parent comment.
  • ehnto 2y ago
    I am talking about people, not politics. Unless you think individual Australians, are well known for their personal authoritarianism? I don't find myself conducting much authoritarianism but admittedly I do keep a pretty tight grip on the movements of my budgies. It's for their own good you see.
• andrei_says_ 2y ago
  I feel his frustration with the grifters, the kool aid drinkers and makers. For me the writing felt authentic and entertaining. Emotionally charged but rightfully so. It is incredibly disturbing to see people lying with a straight face and getting insane investments.
• matrix87 2y ago
  > but suffers from “i am genius and you are an idiot” syndrome But he's still nowhere near as unhinged as the rabid AI bullshittery shitting up the airwaves for the past year Not a lot of room for nuance when the subject matter is this polluted. Typical HN convention of preferring nuance to outright dismissal is bad at filtering BS
• soraminazuki 2y ago
  When I see people getting hyped up about AI, I just roll my eyes and move on. But now, quite a few people in the anti-AI camp are getting more hyped up than its promoters, jumping at the throats of anyone who dares mention the term. The recent harassment campaign from Mastodon folks toward the iTerm2 dev was a particularly disturbing one. I personally would stay far far away from either of these two camps.
• CyberDildonics 2y ago
  suffers from “i am genius and you are an idiot” syndrome which makes it seem mostly the ranting of an asshole vs a coherent Very true. A thread about it here is a hat on a hat.
• Gormo 2y ago
  It seems like “I am genius and you are an idiot syndrome" and "ranting of an asshole" are on opposite ends of the spectrum, and directly in opposition to each other. The very sort of hypemongers and grifters the author complains about often hide unsustainable claims behind complicated language and opaque terminology, with the intent of portraying themselves as experts and making clear-headed criticism seem uneducated or uninformed in comparison. The author here is making a deliberate choice to use a ranty tone to cut through that sort of bullshit, and in doing so, successfully expressed his frustration with the pervasive level of hype in AI discussions.