Post #3224252
2025-11-13 21:48 UTC
Replies (3)
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@PierricD@mastodon.green 2025-11-14 07:16
@saraislet@infosec.exchange I would have imagined the productivity boost to be closer to infinity. The base performance was probably quite good given the circumstances!
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@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange 2025-11-14 07:48
@saraislet@infosec.exchange In other news, I'd like to share that I measured a 100% gain in productivity after turning the lights on for a team that was previously operating entirely in darkness. I strongly suspect that this result is not transferable to some of the software engineering teams I have known.
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@mmlvx@infosec.exchange 2025-11-14 10:37
@saraislet@infosec.exchange Today I learned that my high school textbooks lied to me about yet another thing. At this rate, I probably should just assume I am misinformed or ignorant of all things. (In their defense, the textbook writers and editors probably didn't know they were lying about the Hawthorne effect.) Another personal disillusionment was how James Brussel, the Freudian psychologist who was "the father of modern criminal profiling", was full of crap. (Ca. 7th grade, I had an interest in the Mad Bomber of NY, George Metesky; and the myth was that Brussel basically invented profiling to catch him. Utter nonsense, and (surprise misogyny!) robbed Alice Kelly of due credit for identifying Metesky.) As I understand it, profiling as practiced in the U.S. remains a stinky pile of poo. (Malcolm Gladwell, "Dangerous Minds", The New Yorker, 2007-11-12). https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/11/12/dangerous-minds And yet another personal disillusionment -- the geniuses who developed modern statistical methods were mostly ardent eugenicists, and were seeking to justify their (obviously incorrect) beliefs. https://nautil.us/how-eugenics-shaped-statistics-238014/ The concept of "accident prone" was invented as a way for insurance companies to avoid paying out for claims. (Alas, I don't have that article to hand.) The concept of "jaywalking" was invented to shift blame from car drivers (and manufacturers) to pedestrians. The murder of Kitty Genovese and the N.Y. Times story about the "bystander effect", which really accelerated the U.S. fear of violent crime -- that was wildly wrong.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Witness_(2015_American_film) And now it turns out that the Hawthorne effect was b.s.? I bet my parents didn't really send our dog to live on a rural farm. I think most of what I thought I knew has to be considered suspect.