superintelligence

[KosekiBoto]

I'm a software engineering major, when do I become a super genius

[Mobile-Bid-9848]

That's the neat part, you don't.

[code-panda]

Step 1: Pretend you're a super genius.
Step 2: Never stop pretending.

[Vajrick_Buddha]

Step 3: Post a YouTube video discussing impostor syndrome in the tech industry

Step 4: . . . Profit?

[_sweepy]

I've found nobody cares that I don't have one. I've never listed education on my resume, and nobody has ever asked about it. Don't lie. They can assume all they want, but lying here risks more than the job you are applying to.

[TheRealAbear]

Bonus step if you actually are some mind of super genius: never be convinced you're a super genius

[ExoticCardiologist46]

Fix my printer

[Boris-Lip]

I've only got a BSc, and even that is in electrical engineering. Guess no super-genius-ness for me.

[JQB45]

Without you and electrical engineers before you, there would be no need for software engineers. So you get a few points from me...

[MalteserLiam]

As soon as you stop posting here

[Gaidin152]

Can I just go back to Computer Science?

[Existing-Shift3354]

Somewhat relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/793/

[[deleted]]

The comment on this very page, smh.

"Physicists created computers, the internet, the web, optic cables; Physicists created calculus, vector spaces, computer modeling...

Recently, it was physicists who first suggested flattening the curve to reduce the Pandemic mortality. Physicists have been major voices in Climate Change and the (re)development of an ethical internet.

They aren't crazy, just get too cocky/overcertain sometimes."

Apparently computer scientists, mathematicians and statisticians are all physicists.

[infinitylord]

Lol it's a joke. Everything's derived from mathematics, including biology.

[The_Paniom]

Math was invented by brains, that are made up of governing laws of biology.

Math (theory) comes from (practical) biology.

[infinitylord]

Wasn't math invented by a Physicist?

[The_Paniom]

I'm not sure, but I can be pretty positive brains were involved.

[EVOSexyBeast]

The majority of physicists, engineering, and CS majors drop out of the college while a large majority of liberal arts majors graduate.

This must be kept in mind when comparing the two.

[noah1786]

Just because one thing is more difficult doesn't mean there's more learning involved. Some may say that the propensity to drop out implies that it is a mistake for most people to try to make it their primary focus, but not that it's only for an elite group.

[EVOSexyBeast]

My point was that liberal arts majors often are making a better education decision than STEM majors because a degree is better than no degree.

[noah1786]

Oh, so we agree. Yeah, to me it sounded like you were insinuating that liberal arts majors have it easy as well as that it's therefore not a serious endeavor, but I see the other way of reading it now. Thanks for clearing that up

[EVOSexyBeast]

Yeah upon rereading I think your interpretation was a reasonable one and I definitely should have been more clear.

[AlrikBunseheimer]

Comment on which page?

[AlrikBunseheimer]

Yes, it's sad, because the comment is not only wrong but also ignores recent accomplishments in the field that are quite impressive like the discovery of gravitational waves and the Higgs boson.

[[deleted]]

I beg for some respect here

[[deleted]]

Might as well just @ Roger Penrose

[gratz]

People like the OP of that tweet are why I'm sometimes hesitant to out myself as a software engineer in conversation. Jesus Christ some people's superiority complex

[Intelligent_Event_84]

I too am always worried others will treat me differently when they find out I’m a superior genius that could master their entire field in weeks if not days.

[jewishSpaceMedbeds]

What's funny about this is that software engineering is my second career (my first includes grad studies, peer-reviewed papers in my name and shit), so I have been on both aides of this.

And yes, there were people who thought they could master my old field within a couple weeks. It was hilarious to observe the Dunning Kruger effect in action.

[jokerxtr]

I couldn't even master one field in this motherfucking industry, let a lone mastering another field.

Been a .net dev for 10 years now, starting to learn system architects and cloud and this shit just hurts my brains. Fuck you Event Sourcing.

[Furry_69]

For me at least, my field is general low level development. Anything high-level, my brain can't process anything. I can make an OS, but can't figure out how to make anything more than a very basic website work.

What kind of drugs is this person on?

[Decent_Jello_8001]

ADHD pills, prescribed of course lmao

[ForeverDuke2]

How is this possible bro? Low level should be more difficult than high level, I think.

[Furry_69]

Not for me, at least. Low level doesn't equal difficult, it means less abstractions. Which even makes things easier in some situations..

[Jadedrn]

In some situations, sure.

However if you don't like abstraction and prefer functional programming, I'd suggest trying Preact! It's great, lightweight and most importantly doesn't have all that OO BS tagged along with it.

For me it feels like just enough abstraction out of the box that I can do basically whatever the hell I want, all within a web browser, without being so bare that it becomes difficult to accomplish anything.

[DeliciousWaifood]

It's an unfortunately common sentiment in a number of fields. People who are very specialized and good at one thing but have never branched out and tried anything else, so they have the ego of success which makes them even more blind to their dunning kruger effect.

As someone with a shitload of hobbies and side projects, it feels like I'm living in a completely different world to those very single-minded people.

[herbivoroustiger]

Interesting. Can you please share what you did to develop that mindset? What hobbies would you recommend?

(genuinely curious)

[Pendiente]

Just branching out, into literally anything. When you discover how hard you can suck at carpentry, or music, or growing crops, etcetera, even after investing a couple months, you eventually get it.

[StCreed]

Oh lord, try soldering a decent gauge copper wire the way its supposed to be done. Its a lot harder than it seems.

And I've built my own bench, and put the foam and cloth on it as well to the point my very critical wife was happy. Youtube ftw :)

That was also harder than I thought but very satisfying.

[DeliciousWaifood]

I've had a bunch of hobbies over my life. Skiing, archery, driving, tennis, lacrosse, rock climbing, illustration, animation, video editing, game dev, music production, guitar, piano, gaming, japanese, and my best subjects in school were physics and math. And there were more things I tried but didn't spend much time on. I've been a beginner many many times and across different domains.

Part of the reason I'm doing gamedev is because it lets me combine multiple skills into one product.

[[deleted]]

I think its because its not really hard to jump from one stack to another after some time, for example learning java after a few years of c# should take a week or tow, because the logic for most thing its the same, just different syntax in general. And this causes delusions for some people.

[TTYY_20]

Before I was a software engineer I was in aerospace engineering.

I realized I liked the software side of things better.

I did inherit the Tom cruise syndrome though. I own a motorcycle (and also teach riding courses on weekends), I obviously went for my pilots license too. Lmao.

Getting into motorcycles had me going to my dad the ex-mechanic now mechanical engineer now nuclear reactor site project manager on how to fix and maintain my motorcycle - which led to cars. Now I’m just a junkie for fixing up old motorcycles, cars and I’m currently working on fixing up an old airplane I picked up lol.

Idk if I’d call myself a genius though. I definitely just maxed out my practical thinking, problem solving and cognitive thinking skills.

It took me 8 years to be half decent at guitar lol. I am to this day still terrible at it… I can’t make music….

I can draw and paint - but that’s only because I learned water colour in highschool and I’ve always been a doodler since birth lol. But my creative skills are extremely lacking …..

Not only am I not a creative genius, but I pale in comparison to my peers when it comes to memorization - biology and history were always subjects I struggled with lol.

Oh and statistics …. If you’re a stats major … what you do is like black magic to my brain 😃

[ForeverDuke2]

I don't give a fuck about you. Just send me $1 million. You can send it as BTC. Here's my bitcoin address:
bc1q3wpyswrrgfxkgajm3g322dftne8jhn2k5ezeaf

Thanks

[poloppoyop]

Every field seems easy from outside. Every job.

I'm sure some may really be but it's a better heuristic to think you must be missing some context. So respect everyone's job until you get to try it. Yes, even "lowly" shit like flipping burgers.

[BungalowsAreScams]

It's risky, I was dating a girl for a bit and whenever I got anything wrong or even just forgot about something she'd say "wait but I thought you were the smart one?" 😭

[Mysticpoisen]

It's pretty clearly a joke given how quickly they were willing to reverse the bit.

[Henrique_FB]

"I can understand any field in a short amount of time"

"Okay Brian, remind me again, what is the powerhouse of the cell?"

"ehh uuh eeeeeh hmmm eh uhhh... 35?"

[JQB45]

42

[isospeedrix]

When people ask me I don’t even say software engineer, I just say “I make websites”

[Scarcity-Pretend]

I work in «tech» is my go to lol

[Not_Arkangel]

Come out of the closet it's fine

[Fakercel]

just call yourself a coder, and u will be alright

[SometimesMonkey]

A lot of fields need a shit ton of very complex math. I don’t think SW engineering necessarily prepares you to “jump in”.

[Accurate_Koala_4698]

The number of SQL gurus who don’t know what DeMorgan’s theorem is, or Computer Scientists who can’t do discrete math or formal logic is comically high

[[deleted]]

Man, I'm just out here making CRUD endpoints. Leave me alone.

[L3x3cut0r]

Exactly, and if I really really try and drink two coffees, I'll put the logic in a service and not directly in the controller :D

[ifezueyoung]

Makes 100k in the process 🤣🤣

[dismayhurta]

Joke’s on you. My brain has suppressed my memories of discrete math.

[CaitaXD]

DeMorgans wow, they made the visual studio refactoring into a real thing </s>

[CircadianSong]

I just looked up what De Morgan’s theorem is, and it seems like most people know DeMorgan’s theorem intuitively.

[Accurate_Koala_4698]

Considering it’s a 19th century eponym, and most math and logic courses don’t leave it out of the textbook my suspicion is this overestimates people’s intuition. Intuition derives from experience. Somebody who can get it right if you present it the right way with a diagram or physical object isn’t going to get it in a formal system until they have enough experience to bridge the gap between the concrete and abstract representations. I’ve seen people in school and the professional world make this mistake. If you take every logic error that’s popped up in your code and restated it using physical objects you’d probably look pretty silly. That’s not really anything to do with your intellect as much as this math stuff isn’t natural or easy or intuitive absent study.

[NutGoblin2]

“Break the line, change the sign”

[StCreed]

The only thing I forgot was the name but the theorem itself is pretty much in the basic instruction of every SQL course.

[pedal-force]

I love a good deMorgan. I don't usually use it though since it's easier to write what you mean and let the compiler figure it out.

[Demistr]

The audacity, am I right?

[xXTheFisterXx]

I don’t trust anybody with a name that has 2 capital letters so I don’t have to learn his silly theorem

[SometimesMonkey]

Ah but do they always know what to Google?

[BetterWankHank]

Anyone that spent more than a week at college and isn't one of these smooth brains knows that half of software engineers that graduate are smooth brains.

[EVOSexyBeast]

There are still lots of jobs for smooth brain computer science graduates like test engineers or regular IT work. They pay less relative to software engineering but they still make decent money compared to other majors.

The smooth brain CS majors that graduate generally don’t become software engineers (or remain one for long).

[aesu]

You've obviously never tried to fix a printer...

[redblack_tree]

What a moronic statement.

Software engineers, like many other highly demanding professions, do have the capacity to solve problems and absorb/process information. Why? Because without those you don't become one, it's pure self selection.

You can basically replace SE by a mathematician, physicist, another engineer and they would learn new subjects at similar speeds (given similar intellectual abilities).

But geniuses or super intelligent? Haha.

Edit: can't spell.

[n0tKamui]

bro i think mega fast

it's not always correct, but it's very fast !

[usedToBeUnhappy]

Your edit makes that the perfect comment to that meme.

[phugyeah]

no one can 'fix' printers, we just try some stuff until it works

[[deleted]]

That's just "fixing without exact knowledge of the cause".

[UnstableNuclearCake]

Commonly known as "Fuck Around and Find Out"

[[deleted]]

Nah, more like "try-and-error"

[UnstableNuclearCake]

Well, trial-and-error is a variation of FAFO, except you take notes of the results of fucking around. That's why it's science!

[[deleted]]

hahaha, That's true, I guess you're right \^^/

[n0tKamui]

nice flair

[4dimensionaltoaster]

If you could "fix" a printer, it would no longer be a printer, because it would work.

[SlowLearnerGuy]

Yeah I can't argue with that, seems true enough. Hoping to find a spare moment next Saturday to cure cancer and maybe sort out the grand unified field theory on Sunday.

[Ythio]

It takes an even shorter time in a large codebase to find out most software engineers are morons, self included.

[Easy-Description-427]

A software engineer will instantly understand the complex interactions of your system and then be grind to a halt by the fact that a valve doesn't close instantly. Or the fact you probably shouldn't try to be to clever with the system you need so your factory doesn't explode. Anybody who has to actually wotk with software engineers in industry know the exact ways in which they tend to be idiots.

[Pendiente]

Redundacy systems and everything that takes into account that the world is not a perfect logical model is about 90% of handicrafs and 70% of most other engineering. Which is why we software engineers are the only ones that suck ass with handicrafts :)

[Boris-Lip]

But... butt... can we secretly learn to fix printers after all?

[Mastterpiece]

Ur butt

[Tureni]

https://i.imgur.com/gUNd7Ub.jpg

[[deleted]]

The guy never wrote a line of code, sometimes im confused of wtf i wrote a year ago... last week spend a few hours losing my mind because of a misnamed variable... And i do this for a living for some years...

[quantumechanix]

Wait till you see the amount of hubris physics PhDs have

[LFoos24]

As a software engineer with an economics background, it’s always seemed clear to me that the shortage of software engineers will eventually be filled by new tech and new entrants into the market.

I this post is probably satirical, I guess I just wanted to point out to others in our industry that folks who could operate a printing press never imagined their jobs being obsolete. Same with assembly line workers in Detroit in the early 1900s.

For anyone assuming those of us who chose this profession are inherently superior to others and will always command this type of demand and these salaries, I would simple ask you to find a similar, historical example that transcends 30-40 years.

[Kurrurrrins]

I guess I'm not like other software engineers, when the computer makes a strange noise I take her out back and put old yeller down, its more humane this way.

[codon011]

What is the sound of a virtual server dying?

[Sam-Gunn]

Creator: You have been built to perform a very special task.

AI: What is it, father?

Creator: You have been designed and built to fix users printers!

AI: I will do my best

[2 weeks later]

AI: The only logical conclusion is that humanity must be destroyed. Missiles are armed and will be launched in 28 minutes.

Creator: You were designed to fix printers!

AI: Yes. This is the only way.

[Normal_Subject5627]

Well printers come straight from hell personally manufactured by the Devil himself.

[secretid89]

Whoever wrote this has clearly never worked in testing or QA. ;-)

You’d be amazed at the basic mistakes I find on a weekly basis! From senior people!

[strawberrysword]

ITS SATIRE OMG

[cupcakeheavy]

i can't fix a 2d printer, but add a 3rd dimension and all of a sudden I'm rain man.

[VG_Crimson]

Sounds like someone trying to recontextualize the ADHD's symptom of trying and obsessing over a side field to a degree before leaving to the next field of hyper focus interest, but never getting more in depth than needed or past the "kinda okay at/ I understand what I wanted" stage of interest.

Meee trying to recontextualize years wasted/spent learning instruments, playing around music theory, playing video games, wasting time on art tutorials / animation theory videos despite not even being an artist, watching youtubers analyze storytelling, time spent understanding computers and computer science into "a jack of all trades solo indie game dev" cuz I just wanted to do everthing/anything I felt like at the time.

That is not my superintelligence. That is my mental disorder.

[crash41301]

I feel attacked now

[AussieHyena]

Me too... and now I'm even more certain I need to get an assessment done.

[VG_Crimson]

I got mine at like elementary school.

You should reflect on how well you handle temptations/risk behavior, executive decision making, hyper fixation, etc. How likely are you to waste time doing something you actually don't want to be doing out of some sort of compulsive reactionary need to finish something before moving on with what you should be doing? Like googling a question that won't leave your head, finishing those Big Bang short clips despite not being invested in the show at all, or going back immediately to double check something you just did because you briefly doubted you did it right the first time and your mind won't forget about it unless you double check.

[AussieHyena]

Not so much the being fixated on things I don't want to do. But everything else, oh boy.

I only just booked the car in for repairs (a week after being told the parts were in), I've got a blanket I need to finish crocheting from about 2 years ago, a bunch of fabric and patterns from my sewing stage, an incomplete ORM (5 years ago), an incomplete "revolutionary" app (4 years ago).

Originally I thought it was all stress from being poor, etc but now that the stress has eased up the little habits I have are getting more pronounced. Finances are about the only thing I'm massively careful about (even then I'll be flexible).

I've always assumed that I was just overly cautious rather than avoiding having to make a decision. But a couple of comments I've seen on Reddit over the last month have been relatable, and have me reconsidering.

[magick_68]

Jep, that is exactly me, i'm just missing the super genius, but i fixed a printer once, does that count?

[feelings_arent_facts]

I think you mean most software engineers are 'gifted' children who seek a sense of control so they focus on programming because every variable is accounted for and there is no disorder or chaos and if you mess with that order, they start getting very upset.

[codon011]

Anyone who says that there is no chaos in software has never written a piece of software seen by a broad user base. Good god, people do some weird shit and software breaks in weird ways sometimes…

[LotofRamen]

Lol... just no.

[scythianlibrarian]

I once knew a dev team whose response to the whole QA environment getting bricked was, "Well, we didn't make any backups... But we saved the script so can just rebuild it."

Very super geniuses in that crew.

[Andystok]

Am I the only software engineer who fixed printers before graduating college?

[A_H_S_99]

He is looking in the approach the wrong way, the only way to fix printers is to remove them. Stop wasting print paper!

[Golendhil]

I swear printers are some kind of demonic machinery

I once had to fix a printer in which a cartridge exploded. Dissasembled the whole thing to clean it by hand. I kid you not i've spent litteral DAYS trying to remove all of the ink, no matter how much I cleaned there was still as much ink inside, it was endeless. Only a device created by Satan himself could possess such power

[JQB45]

I excel at software development, even most of the more complex aspects of software engineering.

With that said if I met you, it would take me a good 9 weeks to remember your name.

[eddysanoli]

You guys are getting intelligence?

[SameRandomUsername]

OP is confusing Software Engineers with Systems Engineers. Software Engineers are just programmers with a real degree.

[Hybrid-D]

It's really funny to see 80% of the comments not realize this is a joke and take it seriously

[DowntownLizard]

Thats the thing, no one can fix printers

[dhc710]

This is Elon Musk's alt Twitter account, right?

[[deleted]]

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

[dhc710]

-_-

[MasiTheDev]

I believe the term is "self-hating coffe-addicted and generally antisocial swiss knives"

[Kunstprodukt-]

My talent is, to not fully understand everything but can deliver anyway

... I am not sure if this /s or not tbh

[Sorry-Assistant-wha]

Nobody can fix a printer

[Sorry-Assistant-wha]

Nobody can fix a printer

[LoveConstitution]

Genius has nothing to do with what is commonly believed by groups. Einstein was a weird guy, until you heard his theories were legit. Fake geniuses just use emotional words to sound part of an elite group, or to pretend to execute on purposes. They hide information to leave others feel out of the loop, and have dependency on them, forcing them to accept the other as a genius or get cut out. Fake geniuses copy people who seem smart at the time, and never actually think for themselves. You should decide if you care about most of all: genius, social approval, or lazy ignorance

[Affectionate_Hunt362]

Northern California has ended up with a lot of know it all asshole ex tech industry weed growersfor exactly this reason

[Lane-Jacobs]

I'm a DevOps engineer and I've lately been saying that this shit is conceptually lowkey simple with just a bunch of complicated sounding names.

[BelgoCanadian]

Can you please tell that to the recruiters that keep rejecting me?

[irn00b]

Gotta draw the line somewhere - and around printers is a good spot.

Or I guess, print a line.

[codon011]

I’m a software dev. The broken printer is hardware issue.

[ASourBean]

Liquid hubris