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Comment by atomicnature | Hacker News Reader

I think the author gets it utterly wrong.

My argument would be - greater the complexity, higher level of personal initiative and responsibility is needed.

This is not an arm-chair assertion. For example - read the works of Admiral Rickover - https://govleaders.org/rickover.htm - in buidling and managing nuclear facilities

You'll see the enormous focus on individual initiative and personal responsibility.

Heavily regimented processes are too brittle for dealing with complex problem-solving end of the day.

In fact, one way I differentiate sophisticated leader from a less sophisticated one is via the understanding of this fact: do they value individual initiative or not?

If they do not, they're not in a great position to lead complex initiatives.

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Spot on! It seems to be one of those things where the left and right sides of the bell curve both value individual initiative, creativity and responsibility, while the middle appears to believe systems are a panacea.

Once you've built enough systems and seen the tradeoffs and understood the raw high dimensionality of the problems, one may come full circle and realize yes, good systems are great, and some are table stakes, but only insofar as they add rather than subtract value relative to humans who are invested with great personal responsibility, mastery and creativity.

Rather than turning everything into a dreadful machine where humans are but a cog (ala the matrix), build systems which are more like force multiplying exoskeletons (edge of tomorrow)

I agree that "lived experiences" in highly regimented environment can be extremely harmful.

But my point is on the efficacy of it. I think regimentation doesn't work well in fields where there's complex problem-solving involved.

That's what practicing a profession stands for - that you cannot be dictated by laymen, etc and that you're held accountable to results.

I mean, hospital management cannot come in and dictate how the surgeon should wield his knife (but they can & must keep track of his success rate, and question if they see red flags). Or lay administrators cannot come in and dictate how a dam should be designed or what calculations are to be performed to get a working engine.

Regimentation works only for the simplest of things. Beyond that - it's hopeless.

I think we are violently agreeing?

A hospital could try to dictate such things to a surgeon at its absolute peril. No talented surgeons would work in such an environment.

Its a straw man because it's absurd, but there are some tech companies which do cross the line of dictating things that are genuinely hopeless and pointless to dictate, in the mistaken belief that systematic uniformity is better. And they do progressively pay a steep cost for doing so.

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