The Emperor has no clothes

[Bear Bibeault]

As someone dripping with Imposter's Syndrome:

[Jan de Boer]

Mmm. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut, but....:The first thing that comes to my mind if you say: "The Emperor has no clothes", is Agile/Scrum.

[Tim Moores]

If that's the first thing that comes to your mind, I would say your aversion is becoming a bit unhealthy.

[Jan de Boer]

It is actually something I read somewhere. The comparison is not mine. I found the metaphor striking though. Yes. :-)

[Tim Holloway]

Now Jan, we've covered that elsewhere. Agile can be good when it's applied in a co-operative manner. It's not our fault that it's too often used as a blunt instrument of torture by clueless management.

I used to get depressed about how incompetent I am. Then someone would come to me with a totally idiotic problem or solution. And by comparison it made me feel so much better.

[Jan de Boer]

Tim Holloway wrote:Now Jan, we've covered that elsewhere.

Sure, sure, I will keep my mouth shut again.

Tim Holloway wrote:Agile can be good when it's applied in a co-operative manner. It's not our fault that it's too often used as a blunt instrument of torture by clueless management.

No I do not believe that anymore. Anyway, that is what they said about communism. In fact, in my last job interview I compared the agile manifest to the communist manifest. That comparison has my copyrights! No I did not get the job. I made that Russian girl laugh though.

[Tim Holloway]

The interesting thing about the Communist Manifesto is that it starts off by anticipating a time when raw labor would be largely obsolete and that there needed to be a way to keep people from starving or revolting when their efforts were no longer needed. Granted, it descends into other areas which are questionable, but as we approach the post-scarcity singularity, it seems remarkably prophetic.

Communism is a rather schizophrenic philosophy. Marx talked about "workers", but the popular conception isn't really about people who want to work and be productive and get properly compensated, it's about layabouts who want to steal ("seize the means of production") and then do nothing. It's also full of cant that's incomprehensible and boring to most people. I doubt 1 American in 10 knows what a "bourgoise" really is (and even I can't reliably spell it), and only thinks of the "proletariat" as impoverished non-Party people in 1984 (as opposed to the impoverished Party members). It pre-supposes that there's a "boss" gene and a "worker" gene and that if you exterminate the bosses, all will be well (something Orwell saw through when he conceived Animal Farm). And, like Libertarianism and laissez faire that the number of altruistic members of the population would more than offset the deplorables.

Neither here nor there. Agile is supposed to be a co-operative effort where everyone works towards a common goal by progressive steps and I'm really sorry that you've never experienced a shop where that actually occurs. It's by absolutely no means the only worthwhile discipline that's been subverted to torment the workers, though. Once long ago, Structured Programming was similarly abused, for example.

[Randy Maddocks]

At the risk of insulting Americans, this syndrome reminds me of the US government (Dems and Reps). Specifically, after seeing Bear's posting, I looked up the meaning of Impostor Syndrome, and one such source describes it as:

"Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a concept describing individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud"."

Politicians being exposed, for various reasons, seems to have "exploded" in the U.S. especially. That's not to say it is something new, nor is it unique to the U.S., but it seems to have gotten much worse since Donald Trump became President. And before this opens a can of worms, I am by no means implying anything about Donald Trump.  

[Tim Holloway]

Impostor Syndrome is characterized by a successful person secretly thinking that they are a fraud - that their success isn't actually due to talent, abilities or accomplishments, but more to simply being lucky and not having (yet) had their true incompetence exposed.

That's got little to do with politicians, whether of the old style or the "21st Century" style. They're not merely thinking fraud....  

[Randy Maddocks]

Tim Holloway wrote:Impostor Syndrome is characterized by a successful person secretly thinking that they are a fraud - that their success isn't actually due to talent, abilities or accomplishments, but more to simply being lucky and not having (yet) had their true incompetence exposed...

Hmm, point well taken. However, aside from the fact that most politicians never secretly think that they are a fraud, I think most would agree that the remainder of the description of someone with impostor syndrome could fit that of a politician. In other words, how their "success" (and I use that word lightly - how many politicians can really say their time in office was a success, at least by voters' standards) isn't actually due to talent, abilities, etc...

[Tim Holloway]

It's hard to over-estimate people's capacity for self-delusion, but the actions of the current bunch of clowns strains the barrier between wishful thinking and outright derangement. After all, they've managed to revive trickle-down economics of all things. We've had literally decades of different types of administrations, changing economic conditions and even international landscapes and I've yet to hear anyone declare that TDE has ever been the panacea that it proposed to be. Any political or economic theory that so consistently fails in both unfavorable and favorable conditions should reasonably be scrapped permanently in favor of something with a better track record.

We've got one political party running almost everything, yet it accomplishes almost nothing. They proved that "government doesn't work" by forcing it to stop working. About the only thing that they have succeeded in doing is pass a tax cut whose primary benefits to the majority of the citizenry are timed to expire just about when a new set of officials will be taking over - and hence taking the blame.

Polls routinely put lice and STDs at higher favorability levels than politicians, so if they can feel successful, I pity them. The things that they have been successful at are things that the majority of the nation hates. I don't think success is what they're after. Just the purely physical rewards that come from doing their masters' bidding. That's something that one cannot fraudulently pretend to have or to lack, because bank accounts don't lie.

[Randy Maddocks]

I think we both have the same perception of politicians Tim, you just put it more eloquently than I would have.    

I have heard it said that if businesses ran their operations the way a lot of governments run a country the rate of bankruptcies would be astronomical.

Further, someone once said there are generally 3 things you will never hear a politician say:

1. I lied.
2. I failed.
3. I am sorry.

[Knute Snortum]

1. I lied.
2. I failed.
3. I am sorry.

You never hear politicians say this because they would be perceived as weak.  Politicians are a reflection of the electorate.  If you don't like what you see, look to yourself.

[Randy Maddocks]

I certainly don't pretend to believe that a political career isn't stressful, or that it doesn't carry a lot of responsibility, and that it is easy for me to pass judgment from my side of things, but I have seen enough over many years of voting to become disheartened of politics in general.

[Tim Holloway]

Randy Maddocks wrote:
Further, someone once said there are generally 3 things you will never hear a politician say:

1. I lied.
2. I failed.
3. I am sorry.

Fun as it is to rag on politicians, that's really not so. It's just that given any other choice...

Now for real things politicians won't say:

1. We can do it but only if we raise your taxes.
2. This isn't a problem with a simple answer.
3. The ideology of my party says one thing, but I know that one-size-fits-all solutions are impossible, so I'm not going to go along with this.

[Randy Maddocks]

Tim Holloway wrote:Fun as it is to rag on politicians, that's really not so. It's just that given any other choice...  

I can't argue with that.  

I am going to stop here. If I continue any further I am afraid I will be dropped into the Rattlesnake Pit for my blunt opinions on politicians.

[Bear Bibeault]

Randy Maddocks wrote:I am going to stop here. If I continue any further I am afraid I will be dropped into the Rattlesnake Pit for my blunt opinions on politicians.

This can be moved to the Pit at your request if you'd like to pursue the discussion.

[Randy Maddocks]

Bear Bibeault wrote:This can be moved to the Pit at your request if you'd like to pursue the discussion.

That's ok Bear. I don't think I want to tread any further into a sensitive subject like politics, even in a relatively open-ended forum as the Pit.

Besides, I respect coderanch too much to risk offending anyone on this site.

But thanks anyway Bear.