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Why does almost everyone act as if the world they live in is perfect, or is supposed to be perfect?

This is about approaching IT infrastructures, but goes way beyond IT, into daily lives.

Daniel Kahneman wrote about the "Econs" - a mythical creature that behaves according to rules and rational thoughts, that everybody is guided by, as opposed to Humans, who are irrational, intuitive and emotional.
My beef is with a wider perception, beyond economical analysis, profit, investment and so on.

Examples:
Organization A uses a 15 year old system that is crappy beyond description, but any recent attempt to replace it have failed. Josh thinks that this is a crappy organization, any problem lies within the replacement of that system, and all resources should be devoted to that. Josh lives in a perfect world - where shit can be replaced, where people don't have to live with crappy systems. Josh is stupid, unless he can replace that old system with something better. Don't be Josh. Adapt to the fucking reality, unless you have the power to change it.

Peter is a moron who downloads pirated software with cracks, at the office. He introduced a ransomware that encrypted the entire company NAS. Peter was fired obviously, but Sylvia, the systems administrator, got off easily because Peter the moron was the scapegoat. Sylvia truly believes that it's not her fault, that Peter happened to be a cosmic overgrown lobotomized amoeba. Sylvia is a fucking idiot, because she didn't do backups, restrict access, etc. Because she relied on all people being rational and smart, as people in her imaginary world would be.

Amit finished a project for his company, which is a nice modern website frontend. Tom, the manager says that the website doesn't work with Internet Explorer 8, and Amit is outraged that Tom would even ask this, quoting that IE8 is a dinosaur that should've been euthanized before even hatching. Amit doesn't give a shit about the fact that 20% of the revenue comes from customers that use IE8, what's more important to him is that in his perfect imaginary world everybody uses new hardware and software, and if someone doesn't - it's their fault and that's final. Amit is a fucking asshole. Don't be like Amit.

React to the REAL world, not what you WANT the world to be. Otherwise you're one of them.
The real world can be determined by looking at all the fuck ups and bad situations, admit that they happen, that they're real, that they will keep happening unless you do something that will make them impossible to happen or exist.

Acting as if these bad things don't exist, or that they won't exist because someone would or should change it, is retarded.

Comments
  • 7
    I don't like the real world, but that's where my money comes from.
  • 4
    I get what your saying and fully respect it, but i also feel the world wont progress of we dont push forward. If we dont try and strive to improve it and settle for what it currently is then we will be stuck with it forever. Im not saying we should all run off and pretend we are living in a perfect world where, for example, no one uses IE8, but im saying there is a balance and we should, again for example, encourage uses to upgrade to modern browsers instead of leaving the problem to linger. Just my opinion tho, im open to subjective opinions and see what other people think ?
  • 3
    @InterferenceObj pushing the world forward, and acting as if the world will push forward on itself or that it has already done that, are 2 different things.

    The reality is that it didn't. It is what it is. And there are a ton of people who make decisions, and work, as if they already live in that world.
  • 4
    I'm Amit
    Lol
  • 2
    This is so weird, I'm reading a book about Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky right now.
    But yes, I agree.
  • 1
    @RememberMe if you're talking about "The Undoing Project" - I fucking loved it, which is why I continued with "Thinking, fast and slow", which I referenced here.
  • 0
    @AndSoWeCode yes! The Undoing Project.
    Ah, I'll put Thinking, fast and slow on the list, thanks.
  • 1
    This is a important thesis, but I disagree partly.
    The problem here isn't only people living in their perfect world, its not asking, being blind and deaf to real problems / necessary adaptions.

    You can have the best product in the world, if youre not asking about the circumstances, its almost worthless.

    I also find this post slightly dangerous, saying "dont be intuitive, live with old crappy systems".
    This is bad. You should be intuitive and get rid of old / crappy shit.

    *BUT* The first step of replacing something old is analyzation, asking WHY it has some necessary drawbacks, features, but also ask yourself if its even worth investing money/time in a replacement. If the system does not pose a very negative factor or a high risk, investing your resources into something else is a lot more progressive overall.

    What this all condenses to is turning on your head and think before you do something.
  • 0
    @beggarboy i am not against progress. I hate old stuff. But I also see people that waste tons of money uselessly, developing stuff for a hypothetical scenario that they wish would be true, that is definitely not true, while doing absolutely no effort to change the situation themselves.
  • 0
    @AndSoWeCode Glad we are on the same page.
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