It’s Not What You Know
Repeating favorite quote: “A Mentat needs data”. Dune.
The most valuable aspects for computer-science guy is not just what he knows how to do in terms of code. It is a combination of (A) what you know about everything, (B) what you can infer and absorb, and (C) the logical transformations and intuitive leaps you can make on that data to arrive at new conclusions. Familiarity with certain code or tools? Irrelevant — all of these things can be learned. It is logic that is important. That is hopefully why you have a job. This is why you think you can come up with better plans than many of the business guys you know — you probably can (though you might not be good about talking to customers). But wait? That’s not about code, right? Right. It is about logic and knowing how to apply that logic.
In other words, ideally, you are (whether you like or not) becoming a human computer by having too much proximity to the real thing. While you went to school to learn how to program, what is happened is that the computer has learned to program you, and as a result you really learned something completely different. The code you work on is only a practice ground where this process is accelerated. I think this is why some software companies can become intensely political — smart folks start wanting to program their own reality. Anyway, what is happening is the computer is teaching you to think differently — and you are also more sensitive to noticing ways that things perform sub-optimally — logical problems MUST be fixed! (And this leads to total failure when the logical engines of different smart folks conflict… they think both sides are illogical! BOOM! What really needs to happen is a reset to first principles and a re-evaluation of all logic; but group-think does not usually arrive at this! Decree is actually better in these instances than attempting consensus — though you’ll only be able to lead those that agree with you, so choose wisely).
Think of this the next time you feel incredibly frustrated because your parents don’t understand “Correlation Does Not Imply Causation”, or why the US House and Senate don’t understand “Nash Equilibrium” — this pain you feel is there because the computer is programming you. It is not because you learned these concepts and they didn’t … it is because these concepts are now burned into your brain at a level beyond mere recall and understanding. You didn’t used to be that way. Other folks would just be content with chaos or error — because they wouldn’t /see/ the chaos or error.
I think the world would be really interesting if more Computer Science folks focused a bit less on code and focused on applying logic directly into politics, business, and other models — where they seem (to me) to be less applied. After all, code is just a mechanical transformation on an arbitrary construct. Politics, Business, other things, are just similar transformations on different storage mediums. Businesses? Do value your C.S. folks as more than just coding machines. They want to think and improve arbitrary problem-spaces. There is no other outlet. It is an occupational hazard.
Logic. It’s what’s for Dinner.
(Also: don’t let the machine eat your soul … that would also be bad)
