The Myth of Commoditized Excellence

For years now I have been consciously limiting my enthusiasm when presenting things I&#x27;ve learned to others after being bitten by this problem. Some personal examples:<p>* linux - the freedom it gave me to build my own computing astounded me. I praised it in every direction only to find people that want all the benefits with no effort. I had to configure their systems to prove linux was any good. When I started telling them the benefits require personal tinkering I was attacked for &quot;being an elitist&quot; and linux was said to be actually full of things that don&#x27;t work. Now I present it as a geek thing that is of no relevance to the general public.<p>* motorcycles - I now have the following presentation when people ask me about my experience riding: &quot;It&#x27;s not like on TV, when it&#x27;s hot you sweat, when it&#x27;s cold you freeze, when it rains you&#x27;re wet and it&#x27;s quite dangerous on top of it.&quot; That&#x27;s after my enthusiasm convinced some people to buy motorcycles and crash because they didn&#x27;t take riding seriously enough. They thought they where cool toys.

Good description of this particular lifecycle. I&#x27;m new to Hacker News and I remember reading (when I joined) about how the platform is taking steps not to become too hip for its own good.<p>It&#x27;s mentioned below but boy did Agile fall into that trap. I now cringe when I hear the word.<p>It sounds like Six Sigma is also in a self-destructive part of the cycle.

Really interesting article. Resonated with me.<p>Some thoughts<p>1) Consultancies have created a business model around that carrying excellencies from client to the next<p>2) The most obvious concept coming into mind which was completely abused through this is of course the whole agile (and increasingly OKRs...) movement<p>3) I still think it does make sense to generalize (not commoditize) concepts and spread them, however there needs to be big disclaimers about context etc<p>4) A big part of management’s responsibility is to improve the organization continuously, which can be done by getting inspiration how others have been successful

This has broader application than just technology. I think in all contexts it is good to have a firm grasp of first principles and how to trace back any commoditized excellence back to them. Also a good understanding of when to apply &quot;beginner&#x27;s mind&quot; to check if a bit of &quot;expert knowledge&quot; is actually relevant

I especially enjoyed the meta recognition that the act of writing this article and giving it a name itself possibly perpetuates the myth.

&quot;need to belong&quot;...&quot;The tendency of people with this need is to weaponize The Thing, and to wield it against those outside the movement and those they do not deem as worthy of inclusion in the movement.&quot;<p>So many examples of this in daily life. People do amazingly vicious things to validate their membership in a movement&#x2F;tribe&#x2F;religion&#x2F;cult&#x2F;etc.

This description fits so perfectly with middle-management-driven org-wide busywork exercises. &quot;[Thing] is important and will take our work to the next level. That is why we are implementing [naive approximation of Thing that misses the point]. Given [Thing]&#x27;s importance, we expect you to prioritize this and take it seriously.&quot;

A good article. Perhaps ironically, I would summarize the pivotal point of the article as, &quot;be sure your lies will find you out&quot;. You could rephrase it as &quot;deceitfulness will come back to bite you&quot;.<p>This applies even if you have good intentions. Honesty often comes with an initial cost that makes people turn away.

Reminds me a lot of &quot;Geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths in subculture evolution&quot;[0], which portraits very similar dynamics on a subculture level.<p>[0]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;meaningness.com&#x2F;geeks-mops-sociopaths" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;meaningness.com&#x2F;geeks-mops-sociopaths</a>

There are truths that hold across cultural barriers. We call them “Mathematics”. It’s the only commoditized excellence I know of.

This article gets close to coining a new term in its description of a lifecycle.<p>The front-end landscape is filled with these once-honest charlatans.

Isn&#x27;t it a mistake to conclude it can be avoided? To do so would be to fall into the same trap.

This is the exact trajectory of Rust.