[nlawalker]

> It's profoundly facile to think that only first order effects matter. Yet this is an incredibly popular folk belief in software. Why?

> So I think partly it's an ego defence mechanism.

I don’t subscribe to the idea that it’s a folk belief, or that it has to do with ego.

I don’t think anyone truly believes “the user doesn’t care” is sufficient justification for anything. It’s about accountability. “The user doesn’t care” is shorthand for “On this team, we’re held accountable for not delivering, not for the results of decisions that only materialize a month or two down the road. We don’t pay attention to how we got to where we are, we fight fires as they pop up.”