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Comment by j2kun | Hacker News Reader

This essay seems to say, "people don't matter; all that matters is truth." And that all the policy decisions should follow from that assumed value.

Yikes. I fear for what mathematics will become if that becomes the majority viewpoint.

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I think that if you had hiring policies that allowed people not to worry about whether they got credit for an achievement, you'd have people significantly more OK with transitioning to an "egoless" approach.

I've always found the colleagues that were less focused on credit, recognition, awards made better colleagues. Fundamentally it's about who you'd rather be holding you in high regard - people who've worked with you or people reading your LinkedIn profile.

Yes, they are better colleagues. They do not get promotions, pay raise or any other recognition or reward from management. Even from colleagues who hold them in high regards, they do not get praise on meetings as much either.

However, people with ego end up being praised more, in front of bosses or others, because people want to be on their good side. And that makes them look better, they end up promoted and seen as higher performers.

I don’t think this is true in general, but I would admit it depends on the quality of leadership, and their ability to recognise this dynamic. I don’t think you can have a high functioning company if you reward people who focus on signalling over the company’s actual goals.

If you're in a field with fierce competition the ones who focus on credit/recognition/awards get some sort of boost above their actual potential. Meanwhile those who don't will get punished, the ones who end up doing well despite it likely just had better aptitude (or something else advantageous) on top of having more pleasant characteristics. It's some sort of Berkson's paradox.

The counter to this is if those in leadership positions recognise this dynamic and actively seek to counter it by focusing on core competencies during advancement discussions.

How would the hiring committees decide who to hire if not based on achievements? Flip a coin?

Besides for the extra-ordinary performers I think at some point flipping a coin might be better for this sort of problem, and there's some precedent. It actually be more fair than trying to find differences in the sub-top, actually more often than not introducing bias, when there's a lot of competition. Just put the top 3, top 10% or top 20% of those who fulfil a set of requirements in a raffle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funding_by_lottery

Racial bias

The future of mathematics is outlined in this amusing quasi-satire (satire tends to become reality in Silicon Valley):

https://proofsandprompts.com/2026/10/31/lean-me-softly-a-sat...

That is literally what some tenured people are pushing for.

Tbh, this was so heavy handed/poorly written that I couldn't get past the first six paragraphs or so. If this is supposed to be good satire, it's coming off more as "Epic Movie" than "Brazil"

That was a great read.

Thanks for sharing. It is well written.

loved reading this

I don't understand how making policies based on the truth is wrong. What did you mean by that?

Don't worry, it's far from the majority viewpoint, it's largely an 'AI' industry viewpoint that's being screamed at peak volume to drown out the ongoing economic reality that this period of insane overinvestment is drawing to a close. Who knows what the future holds for this tech, but I suspect in a year or two with the money no longer blinding everyone, we'll have much more realistic conversations.

For now unfortunately we're doomed to an endless retread of "AI boosters vs AI haters" with very little humility and thought on either side.

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