@iris_meredith I would also add that while definitely many loud people jump on hype trains in tech -- maybe because of some internal malleability as you propose, maybe out of cynical financial tactics -- it's not been my impression that _most_ people follow along, not really. Most people seem to just keep doing their jobs; keeping your head down and letting the hype pass is in many ways safer (and easier) compared to voicing loud disagreement with the Cool Kids.

Come to think of it, _that's_ a lesson nerds learn in school, isn't it? Go along, shut up, or be isolated.

@iris_meredith Can confirm considerable cognitive dissonance between what I think creates value in the world and what "tech" is asked/made to build most of the time.

Can also confirm strong conflicts of this line of work with needs of body and soul. Some of that applies to any desk job, I think. On top of that, there's definitely many people who invest most of their free time to "stay on top" of developments (which of course normalizes that behaviour and creates expectations of techies to always know their way around the new stuff).

And _of course_ we make up narratives in an effort to make all of that make sense. How could we go on otherwise?

Are these narratives more malleable in tech than elsewhere? Interesting thought. "Strong opinions loosely held" _is_ a meme, and adjusting opinions in the face of evidence _is_ a strength (imho).

Problem is: There's so little science behind software "engineering" it's almost embarrassing. I can see how in a field of low-evidence best practice, any new idea can shift opinions with little evidence in turn. Not sure how that's necessarily related to the cognitive dissonance / dysphoria line of thought, though.

@vowe Of course, GenAI also generates shiny shit from golden data.