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Comment by motohagiography | Hacker News Reader

What I like about this tradition is that it dignifies work and competence instead of treating it with contempt.

How exactly? You work 25 years at the company, you become one of the best at let say paintwork. You know all about the tools, the materials. You care about your craft deeply, people ask your opinion about particularly challenging tasks. You perhaps trained generations of your coworkers. But none of that matters because you can only fold a silly cat in 95s? I wouldn’t feel dignified at all.

It's gatekeeping, and no better than any other kind. I wonder how many truly excellent craftspeople they've held back or let go because they couldn't pass a test for a skill unrelated to their actual work. It calls the standing of those who do pass that test into question as well.

But some people are into gatekeeping, I guess.

Arguably, competence itself is the ultimate gatekeeper. One either did the work or didn't, recognizing when someone has done it is valuable, and offering deference to demonstrable expertise is efficient and wise. In most disciplines, there are key things you can't learn until you have the experience to understand them. There is a moral dimension to it as well, since we can't understand what we don't create, and talking about things we don't understand means bullshitting, which is both weak for everyone and ultimately deceptive.

If you want to fold the cat, work for 25 years. If you don't want to work for 25 years, don't fold the cat. Someone who folded that cat after 25 years isn't gatekeeping. The 25 years they spent before that is all the moat they need. I don't think anyone who hasn't spent that time gets to criticize it and be taken seriously.

> If you want to fold the cat, work for 25 years. If you don't want to work for 25 years

You seem to have left out the unrelated to the job part. To keep this civil, I'll just pretend I believe that you forgot and remind you. It's central to this discussion. Without it, your entire first paragraph is a non sequitur.

> I don't think anyone who hasn't spent that time gets to criticize

More gatekeeping. Also, if 25 years is the qualification for having an opinion then it applies to any opinion. Why should your defense of the practice be taken any more seriously than others' criticism?

I was saying that unless the people who have spent the time doing it, get to say what's related to the job or not. My support of the practice is based on having spent decades developing skills in a variety of fields, some from masters with several decades of experience.

Gatekeeping is an excuse people who suck at things make for not being accepted as a peer, when anyone who has been involved in a culture based on skill in any meaningful way recognizes skill is the truth, and complaints are complaints. If you want to stop gatekeeping, become great at something and become a great teacher, otherwise, find another discipline.

I feel it dignifies tradition. And that's lovely and has it's place -As a ceremonial or ritual or spiritual symbol particularly.

I feel it's the opposite of dignifying work though. Article indicates this applies to all kinds of craftsmen, many of which seem to be completely unrelated to the skill of one-hand origami-folding under pressure.

If they're allowed to practice however, I suppose it gatekeeps for comittment / "how badly do you want this"

"If they're allowed to practice however, I suppose it gatekeeps for commitment / "how badly do you want this""

Yeah, this is absolutely the most generous interpretation I can come up with, and even then I find it a bit wanting. If you are the best on the floor at task X but have a complex and stressful personal life, or even just other interests, or simply not the dexterity for this particular task, you get shut out.

I get it, excellence and all that.. I have too many hang ups from hearing people make fun of folks for bad spelling or whatever, touches a raw nerve.

Let's not forget people who only have one hand, or who have strength/motor problems that don't affect their own job in the slightest but do affect this exercise. If Lexus isn't making allowances for such things in the US, they're violating ADA and I don't have any respect for that at all.

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