Specialty fatigue
I've been noticing a social effect lately and I'm curious about others' takes on this. I'm calling it "specialty fatigue" because I've noticed mostly in specialty communities. I differentiate between this, elitism, FAQ annoyance because there seems to be a more complex cause at work.
To put it in general terms, specialty fatigue is caused by the overexposure to others' work in a given area of expertise. Whereas elitism is more of an ego driven personality traits, and FAQ frustration arises from repeatedly answering the same basic questions, this fatigue seems to be caused by seeing too many things that don't live up to standards (often arbitrary personal standards, but sometimes can be industry standards). In others words, people notice their industry getting flooded with novices getting away with crap they'd never tolerate. It can be disheartening and disillusioning. Most often, it results in the community of specialists becoming overly critical of things that didn't originally bother them. People who were once helpful and encouraging become raging internet monsters.
I see this happen a lot because I'm a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none, and largely autodidactic. I don't have very many strong opinions on how things should be done because I've learned to constantly question the efficacy of norms, and try to establish a system that just works best to achieve the results I care about. Despite that, I'm still interested in finding out how others go about doing things, or even just listen to the sort of stuff they care about. What factors do specialists find worthwhile in determining quality? How feasible is it for me to achieve those results?
Quite often, specialty communities are so corrupted by overexposure that many members of the community start acting as gatekeepers. "If you can't afford decent equipment, don't even bother." And they'll criticize anything that could remotely be interpreted as a newb question or point of view, frequently to the point of acute toxicity where just about any discussion becomes unfeasible.
I'm a propenent of openly sharing knowledge. But the offshoot of increased introductory material is that there will be a corresponding increase in novice level production. I can see why people might be bothered by that (personally, I'm not), but it blows me away that anyone would be surprised by that. That's exactly how it seems sometimes, though. Almost as if people just wanted to show off how much they know without anyone else using that knowledge for anything productive.
This seems like the social deflection point between "old school" methods of passing down specialty knowledge (apprenticing, higher education, family businesses) to "new school" methods (look it up online and just try it out). With the removal of a mentor figure from the equation, there is less of a filter for what's quality and what's crap. Add social media into the equation and there seems like there's a constant influx of garbage into every industry out there. But for specialty communities, it definitely has an "end of the world as we know it" kinda feel because it seems like the entire specialty is getting flooded with subpar work that is a threat to their livelyhoods.
Has anyone else noticed this sort of thing? Do you have a specialty? If so, what trends have you noticed within that field regarding apparent willingness to share information? Have you ever dropped a hobby because people seemed to take it too seriously? How do you personally feel about the balance between open sharing of information vs keeping secrets (for example, a technique a process from which you derive a substantial portion of income)?
Edit: Fixed a typo. Can and can't are a bit different. Oops.
This is something I've seen more in offline specialist groups because I don't have much experience with online specialist groups. I'm also a jack of all trades, master of none.
I'd love to do some serious cosplay, but between the... Um... rigorous professional cosplay community and how slowly I work, I have yet to step in.
On the sharing of information front, I'm a creative commons sort of gal. I understand that some people are really proprietary about their methods. I've never personally worked on a idea that wasn't improved by the kindness and/or advice from others, and enjoy paying it forward when I can. I try to respect the boundaries others set up for their livelihood or comfort.
I've had a person steal my ideas and digital products before to submit for a grade to a different teacher in school. Since they didn't learn much from the process, I think they came out on the losing end professionally. Karma, really.
As to new people coming... I can see both sides. If I could be paid for the number of times people have told me that they wish they could draw like I do, I would be rich. When I'm grumpy, I cheerfully point out that they could - 2000 hours of practice from now! XD. But the people who patiently helped and encouraged me... I want to pass it on.
Right now I am positive when I can be, and honestly tell people if I'm grumpy or tired when they want feedback at a time when I can't be positive. If they're gracious and understanding, I offer a raincheck.
I totally do wish I could draw like you! I know what you mean though. If I had a dollar for every time someone had an idea of something I should make that would sell great, or just generally assume their ideas would be more effective than what I do... Well, I guess it still wouldn't be that much money but at least I could get some new tools.
I feel similarly about sharing what I know. For a time, I took on a handful of glass students who I taught for free. They were enthusiastic, intelligent, motivated, and keen problem solvers. All of that rubbed off on me in return. And I strongly feel that the best way to solidify one's own understanding of a concept is to explain it to someone else. The process empathizing, understanding the student, filtering the concepts into a form they can relate to, all work together to reexamine the fundamentals of the concepts and gain perspective that's difficult to achieve in normal usage.
I needed all of that more than I needed the money at the time, so I was happy to do it. Eventually I ran out of money though, so I had to stop doing the lessons as none of them would have been able to afford regular classes. But they're all still around, I see them occasionally, and I'm pretty damn proud of their progress.
When I was in the military I had a "supervisor" who was extremely knowledgeable, and he would gladly explain anything you wanted to know in great detail and answer all your questions, but with a catch. You had to have a notebook and actually use it, because he would not repeatedly explain the same thing weeks/months later. It's a habit I have even today when I am learning something new, and especially if someone is taking the time to explain it to me, I'll be taking notes like a madman!
For several years I had also worked in "the trades" and was around some very knowledgeable people. They usually fell into one of two categories, the really old guys who were looking to retire soon and the middle-aged guys who were mid-career. The really old guys would gladly show you anything you wanted to know, they knew they were leaving and would be taking their knowledge with them, so they shared it freely. Then there were the mid-career guys, and they were the ultimate gatekeepers, because if they shared their knowledge you might one-up them when it comes time for a promotion to be awarded, or if the company starts looking to trim some fat.
I suppose you could sum all this up by saying that some people are just assholes.
I had glassblowing students for a while. Suffice to say that weed is popular among glassblowers (personally it gives me way too much anxiety). For a while, my students would either show up stoned, or smoke out before getting started. To be fair, it's not a hindrance for an experienced pipe maker doing production runs. It helps to get into the zone of rote repetition for some people. Again, for me, it made matters worse. And for students trying to absorb information, it was a total waste of time.
Once I explained that to them, they started showing up sober, taking notes, and progressing remarkably fast. As an instructor, I loved seeing the ideas they would sketch out even if it was beyond their skill levels. "You might not be able to make that now, but if you sketch it out you'll be able to remember it when you are able to make it." One would even sketch out the steps of whatever technique I was teaching. It showed me that not only did they value what I was teaching, but also a willingness to put in the effort to practice and retain the knowledge, and even put it to use in novel ways that I hadn't taught them yet.
I also work in construction, pretty much for as long as I can remember. I never really noticed this until you mentioned it, but it definitely explains why I tend to like the old dudes more than the guys my age. Of course, when you're paired up with someone on a crew long enough, you end up sharing some tricks just because you get tired of watching them struggle.
I think I actually go too far in the other direction. I'm more than willing to share my techniques, and I actually get kinda pissed when my advice isn't taken. I don't think it's as much of a pride thing as it is an efficiency thing. I want the job to flow as smoothly as possible, and having one person on the crew holding things up becomes everyone else's problem. And finding out it's because they didn't listen, or just decided against my advice, gets really irritating. It usually results in them being downgraded to site cleanup while everyone else finishes the task. I've also been that guy.
No doubt. I've always been curious about the why, though. Some are so assholish it's impossible to see them as anything else. Some are good people driven by unseen madness towards the asshole abyss. Others (I probably fall into this category) are frequently fed up, and froth at the mouth from time to time. I like thinking about stuff like this because it enables me to recognise my own inner asshole and hopefully keep it under wraps.
Hey, btw! I got iron coffins! I think that was you that recommend it, right? I also got guns of August (currently reading), rise and fall of the third reich, the general and the president, and norton's modern war. It's gonna take me ages to get through these at the pace I go, but I wanted to thank you again for the recommendations.
Yep, that was me! I thought it was a great book.
I've had a nearly zero sleep night so forgive me if there are errors on this comments.
It's an interesting topic this one. I can report my experience and what is causing me what you call "specialty fatigue".
I work in software design & development (as in designing the logic, and implementing as well), specifically for web, since over 15 years ago at this point. Referring to a recent post, I'm a starter mainly, but I often end up also being a finisher of mine or others projects.
While I went through the "noob" phase, what has always been a specific trait of my approach is that I always started a question or discussion with the idea that the other probably knows more than me.
The simple reason is that I didn't come from a classic IT university path but something niche at the time called "humanistic computing" that was an interdisciplinary between linguistic, arts and history and shallow computing topics like web development, databases, networks etc.
The thing was clearly focused more on the humanistic part and linguistic was a big part of it. There were only two other university that had this career study (I don't remember the correct English word for it with my sleepy brain now), one in US and one in UK. I went the the Italian one.
Anyway, due to the balance of the courses I always felt like I had to compensate the IT part by myself and so I always tried to study and experiment by myself with languages and technology. At the time, communities like stackoverflow or forums where quite welcoming and easy to be part of.
Today I still tend to remain cautious when discussing topics in IT but I also know enough to recognize when something is "wrong" as in "it will cause problems down the line". After all I left the "linguistic" knowledge back in favour of a more technical knowledge that is my main specialization these days.
On a side note, I'm not a fervent purist of the rules, I strongly believe in "take the tools you need for the job" but also of "measure twice, cut once".
Anyway, what really get on my nerve is that today the general disposition instead is of "having the truth in your pocket".
And this belongs to both new and old users in my field. Very few professional I met, or exchanged ideas online, were following the approach of questioning if the other person's idea, or method, could actually be better for a specific case. People tend naturally to find an idea, own it, and be done with reasoning about it. Unfortunately for that kind of people, in our field, the quick progress is thanks to people that don't think like that. But still, the vast majority follow an architecture, a paradigm or a framework like of they were the sacred texts.
That, I find absolutely annoying and really wore me out quite a lot on the recent times. To the point that I don't really feel like having exchange online, and unless I know the other for being a person that have an "open mind" (this sound cheeky) even from face to face discussion.
I understand that is not doing me any good as basically I only get new knowledge from articles or podcast, but every time I tried again, even recently, I keep seeing a blind stupidity that I can only think as "not wanting to think over the end of today".
edit: autocorrect is a bitch
Thanks for the response despite the lack of sleep! Hope you get a chance to catch up a bit soon.
I like this a lot. Makes me think of that "pocket sand" gif (even though I never watched King of the Hill very much). It definitely feels like some folks just wait around for the right moment to throw their beloved "truth" in your face, and then dance around laughing while you recover from being blinded by its indisputable veracity. Aside from the fact that their timing and situational awareness is often askew, and that their "truth" is far from applicable.
A good example from glassblowing is the subject of ventilation. Glassblowers seem to love to hammer on each other about their ventilation setups, many times to the point of "you have no business working in this field if you can't set up ventilation properly."
Most of them base their arguments around the "Ventilation Primer". It was written by the guy who makes the vast majority of glassblowing eye protection. He wrote it because many pipemakers back in the 90s had no ventilation, maybe a box fan at best, and it's a ligitimate health concern. So he put it together to help people understand what exactly they needed.
It isn't perfect. He uses 2 dimensional approximations for 3 dimensional space. He assumes certain hood configurations (where there are many options, or sometimes no hood at all). It makes for a very good guide, but it's not a physical model. And yet, most glassblowers see the equations and are convinced of ligitimacy. It's a Bible now, handed down by one of the most reputable safety advocates in the business.
If your ventilation does not confirm to the standards written out in the ventilation primer, you have no right to call yourself a glassblower. And others will call you out and condemn you until you fix it to their satisfaction.
On the one hand, they have a good point. Safety concerns should be a high priority. But I've seen many of the same people who argue about ventilation also fail to strap down their oxygen tanks (which can basically become a missed if they're knocked over), or commit any number of other safety sins. I understand that's a bit of "No True Scotsman", but I will argue that strapping down an oxygen tank is far more important than ventilation, as ventilation primarily affects the worker, whereas a stray oxygen tank can potentially kill bystanders.
Anyways, that was probably a bit of a longwinded example. I think in most cases like that, people care less about the implementation of the knowledge in question, and more about their ability to pull that truth out of their pockets to throw in someone's face. It's a way to establish oneself in the heirarchy while also serving as a Keeper of the Keys.
This is where I'm at with a lot of my side interests. In glassblowing, I have enough seniority to establish myself decently within the heirarchy, but I don't enjoy playing that game. In other fields where I have less experience, I end up emotionally exhausted at the prospect of navigating through endless pages of quibbles and infighting. So I usually revert back to my usual audodidactic methods and just make due with what I can figure out on my own.
Still, there is a huge part of me that genuinely wishes I could find a community that doesn't resort to such cheap one-upping. Despite seeing a certain small amount of it here in Tildes, I've been feeling a renewed hope that such a community could feasibly exist.
This sentiment in particular runs rampant in online forums for string players. "Can't afford a 10k violin? Just get out." Honestly, I get the frustration (try teaching someone on a $30 instrument they bought on Amazon) - but this behavior is toxic and mean and discourages people from even trying. If you don't have realistic advice or guidance, just don't participate in the discussion.
Fixed that typo, glad you knew what I meant though.
As for this particular flavor of gatekeeping, it's such a common occurrence! There are the right tools for the job, for sure, but there is also plenty to be learned by using crappy tools. And not everyone who wants to learn the basics wants to devote their lives. I've never played around on violin much, but I'd imagine that people could spend a great deal of time learning how to read music, fingering positions, building calluses, practicing form, and any number of other things without needing a finely tuned instrument. And I would also think that whatever bad habits might form from practicing on an inferior instrument can be rectified later on.
I learned piano mostly on a studio upright, and transferring my skills to, say, a Steinway grand takes minimal adjustment. I originally taught myself glass on what's called a "major minor" torch, which means the small torch and the large torch are separate. After a couple years, I upgraded to what's called a "center fire" configuration, which means the small torch acts as the center of the large torch. It allows for much more control, but is also more technically difficult to use. It took me maybe 100 hours or so to fully get used to it, but on the scale of learning skill sets that's nothing. Nowadays, I highly recommend the torch that I have, but I also understand that it's not for everyone. Just because a field is expensive for the professional level doesn't mean that hobbyists need to shell out all of their spare cash.
I've called people out on that sort of behavior before, and they acknowledge that it makes sense for entry level folks to want to try things out without having to spend an arm and a leg, but they can't usually articulate why they were contentious to begin with. I think the reason for that is probably because it's an emotionally charged reaction that takes too much effort to disassemble.
I've also noticed that issues like this become easier to deal with after understanding the underlying mechanics that contribute to them. My hope is that by hearing each other's stories and interpretations that I can gain more of an understanding of how it affects me personally. And hopefully it serves a similar purpose for others.
Back in the days when I was studying public health and the attendant suite of regulations, there was a great deal of discussion about the bifurcation between specification standards, and performance standards.
A specification standard outlines, in great detail, everything you should do to avert an undesirable outcome. In a way, it reflects a specialist's historical knowledge of everything which has gone wrong previously and every possible means of correction. It implies a wide range of professional skills and liability for not following the standard precisely. It particularly penalizes exceeding the limits of "old school" - if you do something new which isn't contemplated by the standard, and there's a bad outcome, you're inviting a world of legalistic hurt.
A performance standard outlines the desired outcome, and leaves the details to the imagination and research skills of the performer. This means, for instance, that you can design a brand-new glass-blowing hood, as long as it ensures no one poisons themselves, and it's perfectly acceptable.
The real challenge is to determine which type of standard to prefer, when the experienced old timers and the enthusiastic noobs can't agree on the relative risks of each strategy. You may want specification standards for nuclear power plants which can melt down and contaminate continents; you may want performance standards for online chat software.
It isn't necessarily assholery to call out an inappropriate application of either strategy when there are real risks at stake. It is assholery to belittle less experienced people over matters of taste, when the risks are minimal - specifying a particular instrument, tool, or technique when there's no measurable benefit to a new user, and considerable barriers (cost, skill required, etc.).
I hope I'm understanding the concepts correctly. I've never heard of these before, and I appreciate the introduction.
In the case of the ventilation primer, the specification standard would be fundamentally inaccurate, as it takes significant leeway in its approximations. But it's definitely treated as if it were written with the accuracy of nuclear reactor standards.
I've worked in sweat shops before with little or no ventilation, and I can say that it was unpleasant in many ways. Cluster headaches and heat exhaustion we're the worst of my symptoms, but I didn't stay very long term. Just a couple of months was the longest stint I ever did. I can't vouch for the long term well being of anyone else who worked in those shops long term, but I can't imagine it's good.
So there is definitely value in setting a decently high performance standard. You want to be breathing air, not fumes. One common performance standard is the smoke bomb test. If you can set off a smoke bomb under your torch, and the ventilation clears the room without any lingering pockets, it's usually seen as sufficient. I've seen setups that passed that performance standard with perfect efficiency still be called into question because of the cfm rating of the fan. Similarly, I've seen setups that passed the specification standard not pass the performance standard.
In this case, I'm inclined to put much more value behind the smoke bomb test than the primer, because the basic calculations of the primer don't account for the wide variety of environments that it may be put to use in.
The ridiculous depths to which glassblowers will argue in this topic were mind boggling to me at first. But it made more sense when I put it into terms of community-wide fatigue over the issue. People were tired of arguing over it constantly, but ironically we're driven to argue more. But the arguments became increasingly bitter and accusatory over the course of a few years. Nowadays, it's almost a joke that if someone posts their ventilation setup for feedback, it's a form of suicide by post.
I've worked in chemical labs handling kill-you-quick or kill-you-slow nasties, have done industrial process chemical safety studies, and have a personal rock-grinding hobby - I totally get the value of both apocrypha and innovation in glass-blowing ventilation.
The specialists' perspective is usually going to be oriented around preventing known mistakes (presuming ethics and good intent, not just authority-by-seniority) - if the noobs don't want to listen, then the old timers don't want to give context-free instructions (e.g. "here's how you make dynamite") that may result in hazards to the noobs and those around them.
The performance standard assumes a mixed audience of specialists and "noobs" with ethics and good intent - "here's what you want to achieve", and the discussion takes place on the basis of a body of knowledge and designed experiments, which can be freely shared.
Do you mean as an ideal? I wish that was the way it happens in practice in this case, but glassblowers tend to be a rowdy bunch. I guess in my case, I've got a bit of the exposure fatigue about watching glassblowers tear into each other endlessly on the topic. Might even say that I'm a bit exhausted. (Eh? Eh?)
Sorry, I had to.
I appreciate the perspective. Has me thinking about it from a different angle, and that definitely helps.
On another note, rock grinding? That sounds sweet! Do you mean lapidary work and stuff like that? I've been wanting to get a decent cold working setup for ages, but the equipment I want is pricey. (In this case, I'm being my own gatekeeper.) I've played around with labradorite, apatite, some opals, and minor stuff on glass. But I basically only have a Dremel on a flex shaft and a water pump that I rig up in a plastic container.
Yes, lapidary work, and the cost barrier to entry can be high if you want dedicated equipment. Sealed wet grinders come at a price, even with cheaper Chinese-made or refurbished diamond wheels. For a start, see if there's a gem and lapidary society in your area with a shared workshop.
I did find one a while back. It's a bit of a drive, and unfortunately it's in the part of the city where traffic becomes soul crushing. But I do think it'll be worth it just to try out the different kinds of equipment to see what will be most useful to me.
If you ever host thread in ~hobbies or ~creative, it'd be great to see your work. And if you ever want some glass to carve, I know a few forms and techniques that lend themselves really well to lapidary work.
I've been on the receiving end of that quite a bit. The number of times I've fielded questions like, "what kind of torch/kiln/hand tools should I get to start with?" would make most people throw up their hands at some point and scream, "THERES A SEARCH FUNCTION!" I put a lot of effort into my responses for questions like that because a lot of people starting out with anything don't even know what questions to be asking. But whenever I feel fed up with answering, I just take a break. Let someone else answer it this time. But it frustrates me even more when the "someone else" takes a cheap shot and attacks the person asking just for asking.
I didn't really understand why people would insist on replying even though it's obvious they don't want to be bothered with it. I'm starting to think that it's a backlash against this overexposure/fatigue and a lot of folks tend to just go into tantrum mode over it. "Newbs won't ask stupid questions all the time if you alienate all of them."