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Twin brothers wipe 96 gov't databases minutes after being fired (arstechnica.com)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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A case study in why credentials are revoked before firings.

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[–] 17 points 3 months ago (1 child)

Knowledgeable and smart are not the same thing. These two are very knowledgeable about the systems they worked on and database manipulation, believe it or not these are not hard skills to learn. But they were incredibly dumb regardless given every single action they took at every point in their lives.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Fun fact. In psychology assessment this are being called hard skills: very technical abilities for doing specialized tasks; and soft skills: social and emotional abilities to navigate social contexts, manage conflict and self regulate emotions.

    Hard skills are easier to teach, while soft skills are very hard.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Hard skills are easier to teach,

    Hard skills are either easy to teach or virtually impossible. It depends on the person. That isn't to say most people are incapable of learning: its that most people are fundamentally incurious or unmotivated, and teaching an incurious person is fucking impossible unless money is on the line for them.

    while soft skills are very hard.

    Most people have very little difficulty getting very good at soft skills very early on in life. If you haven't learned them, you are in a minority. These two are likely in a minority psychological/neurological profile.

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  • [–] 4 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Well, curiosity, openness to new experiences, motivation to both learn and meet new people, tolerance to frustration and failure. Or at least be amicable enough to successfully navigate a learning setting, they are part of soft skills. In my professional experience, these are far from universal traits. Lack of soft skills is definitely not a minority, but it is also a gradient.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 child)

    Humans literally evolved highly social minds entirely to rapidly develop soft skills.

    You think most people lack soft skills because you placed additional effort into developing them and likely had the head start most average human beings get. Its rare that people start at zero, but some very much do.

    I did.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 child)

    You think most people lack soft skills

    Here's an interesting example you just gave me. I don't think that and never said as much. As I said, my impression, while anecdotal, was developed doing psychological evaluations professionally. Our understanding is that soft skills are not a given, there are actually several dimensions and degrees of different soft skills involved. Some people might be very good conversationalist, but completely emotionally inflexible at work at the same time, for example. Certainly, different social advantages derive into different opportunities to develop different soft skills. This complexity is exactly why I said that soft skills are hard to teach and learn. Also, why some people on the field are calling to rename them something else. The soft adjective is perhaps inaccurate.

    Now to the example. It's extremely frowned upon in a conversation to affirm what others think, when they haven't explicitly expressed so themselves. Specially when the other person is still a complete stranger. It could be interpreted as hostility or an attempt to misrepresent other people's positions in order to attack them.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 child)

    Here’s an interesting example you just gave me. I don’t think that and never said as much.

    It was more or less said when you stated the very premise of "Soft Skills are hard to teach". But sure, I took a very unnuanced interpretation, that's my bad.

    Now to the example. It’s extremely frowned upon in a conversation to affirm what others think, when they haven’t explicitly expressed so themselves. Specially when the other person is still a complete stranger. It could be interpreted as hostility or an attempt to misrepresent other people’s positions in order to attack them.

    I'm not on lemmy to practice soft skills. To be clear: I'm not exactly hostile, just cynical and impatient.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago* (1 child)

    I appreciate the honesty, however, cynicism and lack of patience can be challenging for others to deal with in communication. However, I believe very thoughtful of you to keep it on the internet. Even if it makes the internet more toxic, at least you keep real life more sensible and that's very considerate. I can see how it can be challenging, as I struggle with civility and empathy online as well.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    The cynicism is not based on nothing. I don't crave being toxic. I crave intellectual challenge and general positivity.

    The cynicism is born of experiencing reality. Particularly one where I'm a neurological minority among incurious people, people who engage in motivated reasoning, and people so motivated by avarice that they simply lie.

    The following quote applies to my offline experience in an allistic dominated world: “I was ashamed of myself when I realised life was a costume party and I attended with my real face” ― Franz Kafka

    I now simply play the game now, and fairly well. I still hate it though.

    Online, I don't need to worry about playing allistic games or worry about catastrophic social consequences of being my blunt and honest self. I can dissect things, and try my best to learn how far the ugliness goes.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 months ago

    Thanks for the honest insight. I will not be contrarian to what you said. But I do want to point out that honesty without emotional responsibility is cruelty. It might be a costume party, but it's not always born out of malice, often it is self preservation. After all dissecting living beings usually kills them.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    There are certain positions I would probably be very good at from a technical perspective that I avoid because I know my myself. I could never work for the CIA or FBI for example. I don't want to know their secrets because they could have me weigh a duty to execute my job and protect my family against my duty to humanity. I don't know which principle I would betray, if grappling with it didn't kill me first. Some might think that's an easy choice but the personal cost is extreme — look at Snowden.

    No, keep me far away from that shit. Let me grapple with intellectual problems all day long, but moral quandaries paralyze me.

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