Comment by an_aparallel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by an_aparallel | Hacker News Reader

mimetic theory is an interesting lens to look through for that question. Rene Girard in particular sheds some light on this - it's quite compelling (lifted from wikipedia):

The name of the theory derives from the philosophical concept mimesis, which carries a wide range of meanings. In mimetic theory, mimesis refers to human desire, which Girard thought was not linear but the product of a mimetic process in which people imitate models who endow objects with value. Girard called this phenomenon "mimetic desire", and described mimetic desire as the foundation of his theory:

    "Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires."

There seems to be some of kind of bias in establishing trust when it comes to quality. If someone sees a high quality work, the judgemental fuse gets triggered and the person who is judging probably tries to give them priority compared to someone who hasn't.

I had a discussion with a friend and he gave a good example. There are some people (A) who do 55% of the work (5% more than the expected) and display that in really good quality. Then there are others (B), who want to achieve 95% plus but end up getting 45%. Now from the perspective of someone who doesn't know what is going on, the 55% seems to be doing better than the 45%. Therefore, the person A will now snowball into a more opportunity, while person B gets discouraged because they wanted to do hard thing.

So, instead if B did what A did in a good way, the trust and judgement of B would have increased. There is no reward in society for trying and "failing". There is only reward for taking risk and succeeding. Probably it incentivizes people to follow into a path that can attract others.

Disclaimer: These are my opinions and they have their own biases.

the first time i read this comment - i didnt quite get what you were saying. I've read it a few times...and i appreciate you taking the time to write that out :) It just clicked...Great observation!

This one is really good

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