What insight have you gained from you profession/education that the layman doesn't understand?

Yeh - the bones:
But when you can't think of anything else to take away.

Me too! Every business, every trade, and every industry seems to develop its own jargon. Maybe some of it is actually useful; way too much seems to evolve with no purpose but to exclude the outsider - who is frequently called the customer. We can tell the difference. If one burger is called Quarter Pounder and the other is called Big Mac, the difference better be clear. At Mickey D's, it is. That's part of the reason they sell so many hamburgers.

That's just a layman's insight.

Oh, another thing about da law:

Not just jargon (and Latin!) but big words in general can really be used to separate the men from the boys, such as it is. And I always hated it. For depositions, you want to get clear answers, so using "prior to" and "subsequent to" is just plain stupid-ass showing off. Use "before" and "after", like a normal person. For cross-examination at trial, do the opposite (usually).

I also learned from the law that a lot of it (duh!) is extraordinarily adversarial. This is good for trial; it's important. For fact-gathering, not so much -- most places have communities and you will see people over and over and over again. If you need extra time to do something, and you've consistently been a jerk to your adversary, they will not give you the time, and it will cost your client mucho bucks to get the same time extension via motion. Be sweet as pie and you'll cost the client a lot less money and actually be able to have fewer attorneys on staff, as prep for conferences and writing letters can be done by paralegals.

That's also what I learned as a legal auditor -- jerkiness begets extra costs, unless it's at trial. Then go ahead and be as passive-aggressive as your heart desires. But don't do it during discovery, which is when you actually want to - surprise! - discover information.

As for what I do now (database reporting and security, plus data loading/ETL): Robert's right, a lot of people care a lot more about prettiness than they do about architecture. But prettiness is still important, in particular when you are either dealing with the public or with high ups (director or VP level and up, which is who I've worked for, for years). Sure they want to see the correct Cleveland data, but they also want it in a lovely graph.

For this crowd, the less said, the better (she says, typing a long reply). But it's true! Short paragraphs, short sentences and visual aids if appropriate, go a long, long way. Get your message across fast because no one's gonna read a long message any way.

As for ETL, it doesn't seem to be well thought-out at times, because it's behind the scenes (although that may be a function of the system I'm using). When things are kludgey and slow on the back end, and not necessarily that sweet on the front end, it's time for a new system.

Very helpful and informative thread. Thank You to everyone.

I don't know if it's an insight but working for the telephone company for many years that the average joe on the street has no idea what the technical process involves for a person to get a phone call on a landline.

Also, if you tell someone you work for the telephone company, the first thing they ask you is "Were you a telephone operator". Then try to explain telephony.

The world's biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate. At least 15 species have gone extinct in the past 20 years and another 12 survive only in captivity. Current extinction rates are at least 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural rates found in the fossil record. Humans are the main reason for most species' declines. Habitat destruction and degradation are the leading threats, but other significant pressures include over-exploitation (for food, pets, and medicine), introduced species, pollution, and disease. Climate change is increasingly recognized as a serious threat..." - paraphrased from a recent report by the World Conservation Union.

I think humans are heading towards the end of their existence by destroying the web of life they depend on to sustain their own survival, and the majority are clueless by circumstance or choice.

I agree with you totally.

I don't. The geological and fossil record of the earth is fairly clear that all of the previous mass extinctions had a far greater impact (many orders of magnitude greater) on biological diversity than has the effect of the modern age. Each time life bounced back with remarkable efficiency.

Species and subspecies have continually been created and eliminated throughout the life of this planet. The diversity fanatics only rarely present a balanced picture of the reality in which we live.

George, Are you saying it doesn't matter how many species are eliminated humans will survive? My focus is on the extinction of humans. Some species might adapt and survive, but humans are creating their own collapse. Humans don't even know how many species they are dependent on. You don't have to agree, but I can tell you from my perch things are getting very scary.

gw,

I don't wish to quibble, but I heard somewhere that "new" species (of insects at least) are being discovered at an average rate of one per minute ! I don't know how you are measuring "biodiversity"...surely "size" doesn't matter. What about changing viruses or example ? Should we count them too ?

The general point is that I feel that humans arrogantly over-emphasize their importance in the cosmic scale of things. As a species we've just arrived, and if we're on our way out, I can visualize some wise super-ant of the future nodding in agreement at Shakespeare's comment on human existence..." full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

The customer is NOT always right.

Seems to be a law in many countries.

No. I am saying that the more or less continuous extinction and evolution of species is an observable fact of the natural world in which we live. What is observed to be happening now has been going on for as long as we can observe in the geological and fossil record.

The population data for human beings do not support your contention that we are threatened as a species. On the contrary the population of humanity has increased about sixfold in the last century or so. Moreover, current forecasts based on fairly complete demographic data suggest a levelling off of the human population sometime in the middle of the current century - not through war, disease or starvation, but rather through reproductive choice.

I studied Physics in college, and worked in Physics and engineering for many years. Learning any one of the hard science or engineering disciplines has a profound effect on one's ability to analyze situations. One's first such course has a much more profound effect on one's consciousness than the subsequent dozens of courses one may take in scientific fields. Studying science teaches you a way of thinking that it took the human race until about the 17th century to discover, and which enables you to analyze situations in such a way that you have some hope of getting the correct answer. When anyone thus trained hears people without such training try to opine about science, it is very, very apparent how profoundly they don't get it. In principle, an untrained person could come up with a correct answer to a scientific question, but the chances of someone recapituating millenia of human scientific development in his thinking are actually negligible. Formally learning science makes a tremendous change to your thinking and capacity for analysis.

Here's mine:

People will put try and improve their condition, if it's challenging and all tools are not provided. In other words people need to struggle and continuously reinvent the wheel!

And one more: there's no convincing evidence that the likelihood of long-term survival is a function of increased intelligence.

The first day of my first college course in physics the professor came into the room, turned on the light switch and said "can anyone explain the light?, no? well I can, it's magic"

That's what we learnt at high school ('gymnasium') here - and when you go to uni verity, it was expected that you've learnt how to do such.

I wish we had good science and math education here, but we don't.

What I know of science in the lab.. the not working can be as interesting as the working. The surprise, after all around are deflated, can be much more interesting than the original premise. Be open to it.