[woahAcademia]

I think one of the biggest issues is that tech people are "know it alls".

They make lots of money, they must be smart right? So when a friend disagrees the person doesn't consider it.

And unlike their Engineering counterparts they won't search for proof. If you need to see real world examples, look at who buys brand name. It's telling.

[strken]

Tech people are pretty smart, on average. It's a somewhat demanding professional career. There's a hell of a lot of difference between "smart" and "infallible".

[seppin]

They have one specific ability, which doesn't require much math at all.

Death to the halo effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect

[strken]

They can solve complex open-ended tasks, and formulate long term plans that take into account information from multiple sources.

I understand that this is not a very high bar to set in comparison to other working professionals, but nearly everyone in the tech industry, and most other people who have a desk in a company's head office, are working at a level above the average person. Many of the posters on HN are biased by their personal and professional contacts and have an incorrect impression of what an IQ of 100 looks like, or how smart the average person is.

Going back to what I said originally, being smart is not the same as being infallible. Smart people can get themselves into all sorts of trouble that everyone else would have the humility and common sense to avoid.

[seppin]

If you are implying those attributes are unique to coders, or that all coders have them, i'd have to politely disagree with both points.

Coding might imply a capacity to do other complex jobs, but not to become an expert in said field. There's only one way to do that, with time and effort.

[strken]

They're attributes that are common in somewhat demanding professional careers, and related to having an above-average IQ, e.g. being smart.

My main problem with the original comment was that it implied tech people aren't actually smart, when they are usually well above average. The problem is confusing general intelligence with knowledge in specific areas, not that they're secretly stupid. I think this is close to what you're saying as well.

[seppin]

I would respectfully disagree with your premise that there is such a thing as "smart". Ie. if you can do one thing well that requires a specific skillset, you can do another thing well too.

That's why Elon Musk got asked about COVID and Kayne about foreign policy. We need to stop doing that. Musk is great at building companies, knows nothing about virology. Kayne is a good at music, end of list.

[AlwaysRock]

Smart, tech people, and average are all terms that need context. There are a lot of dumb programmers out there. There are a lot of really smart ones.

[samatman]

If you're defining "dumb" as "below average" then no, there really aren't.

If you're defining "dumb" as "below average for a programmer" then yeah that's... about half of us, turns out.

Programming isn't physics, but it is a profession that starts around +1 SD. Below that you're gonna wash out.

[woahAcademia]

My limited understanding of the brain is that programmers are able to put the pieces together by combining their memories and short term memory.

But that's drastically different than Engineering where calculations are done methodically.

[escape_goat]

I think we all remember which group of people green-lit Soylent.

[opportune]

Soylent is actually not a bad idea IMO, and it kind of spawned a small industry of competitors (e.g. Huel), the problem there is that entrepreneurs have a tendency to make products that only appeal to other people in their techy/"product"/entrepreneurial bubble isolated to a small number of US cities. And I say that as someone who really likes Coffiest (or whatever they call it know)

[seppin]

They can code, yet many remain painfully ignorant about people and the world.