Comment by motoxpro

Comment by motoxpro 2 days ago

There must be a name for this bias. "Everyone else's stuff sucks but the reason my stuff sucks is because someone is keeping me from doing good work"

Other people are always the problem. It's like the anecdote that most people think they are better than average drivers. "L.A. has bad drivers, but not me. The quality of everyone's output is down, but not mine."

Ask an engineer why their code is bad and they blame past engineers or managers, ask past engineers and they blame time constraints, ask managers and they blame bad engineers, ask a CEO and they talk about boards and stock price

It's always really interesting to see.

monophonica 2 days ago

Illusory superiority - "a cognitive bias that causes people to overestimate their abilities compared to others"

We have really developed an entire culture in the US around illusory superiority. It seems like the average person in 2025 thinks they are above average in basically everything.

I think this is a big reason why sports betting has taken off the way it has in the US. Every sports fan basically thinks they are way above average in their understanding of sports.

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xigency 2 days ago

Well, we live in a punitive culture that ascribes great social value to appearances.

To your example, if I tell my friends that I had a tough day at work because the old code was broken I will get more sympathy then if I say I wrote some shitty code last week and it made my day awful.

Another example, in a minor traffic accident, it might be nice to say "oh I'm sorry that was my fault" but I would be penalized by my insurance carrier for making such a statement.

We have successfully integrated the results of capitalism and game theory directly into our language. And I believe that has a knock on effect: people's actions follow from their thoughts which are influenced by the set of things they're allowed to or not allowed to vocalize.

We have aggressively evolved away from anything like humility or empathy being expressed in this culture because we punish that behavior.

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