My view is that expecting humans to stop making mistakes is much less effective than fixing the systems that amplify those mistakes into large, irreversible impacts.
I am always shocked by usage of “back then” and “good old days” and the like. What does it even mean Men were Men. Comparing the past that seemed harder than the hardships of the present day is so one sided and a simpletons way of looking at things. People suffered back then. People suffer today. Rich suffer and poor suffer. Suffering is suffering doesn’t matter the source and if it makes sense or not. You may fall sick eating an apple or eating fish and ce could argue all day long which suffering was more justified but it still dosnt change the nature of suffering a sufferer undergoes. The still feel the suffering despite the source.
Sorry for the digression but just had to make the point about men being men
At age 35 I was diagnosed with ADHD. Woah! I try to minimize medication.
A few tricks..
1. An ADHD diagnosis looks at 5 areas, Activation, Effort, Memory, Attention and Affect. I struggle with Activation and Effort.
If I am inactive, I now know enough to say, "Activate!" And this gives me a trigger to change my behavior.
2. ADHD folk oft describe a phenomena where they excel under pressure or when doing tasks for others. There was a recent thread on /r/adhd where people offered to clean other's houses because they recognize they don't do things well for themselves!
As a mental trick, I externalize myself. I create myself as a person I want to do things for. Part of this is recognizing that when we do things for others, like cook a great meal or do a spring clean, we don't expect them to appreciate every detail of our work. We just want to impart a feeling of deliciousness or well-being. Similarly, do not ask your future self to marinate in every detail of your work- the goal is the overall feeling.
3. Thanks to life experiences, medication, and a lifelong infatuation with builder games like Factorio, I know what I am like and what I can do when a project engages me and I give it my full effort. Identify, Organize, Create/Act, Debug, Repeat. I now understand that moments of inspiration, medication, and grit & discipline are different paths to attain this state. Thus I have some control over summoning that state directly.
4. I now understand there is an emotional signal sent by the cerebellum that facilitates executive function- the impulse to get stuff done. Physical exercise, eating well, sleeping well, core things that reduce depressive feelings are correlated with improving executive function. Embrace it, treat your body well.
4. ADHD research & brain scans have identified two key mental states. The first is DMN, a passive-receptive state where memories and stimuli flow more freely. The second is TPN, when we become focused on tasks and the brain inhibits these stimuli. In people with ADHD, the DMN rarely quiets down. So now I can recognize that engaging with memories, good and bad, and various stimuli, are a part of how I function. I can somewhat identify that function, accept that its happening and maybe interfering, and politely ask it to relax.
I've just tried several of your challenges and they're all painfully accurate for real-world scenarios. I will definitely point people at these next time I'll get asked how I learned to fix <random Linux configuration problem>!
As for suggestions, here are some random things I needed to do recently:
- resize the boot partition of an OS (don't know how doable this is with your vserver setup, maybe use one of those WASM Linux emulators?)
- set up a systemd service/timer/socket that starts at the right time and responds correctly to reloads/restarts
- set up IPv6 correctly
- troubleshoot why a device wasn't connecting to the WiFi (DHCP service problem!)
- set up a VPN (wireguard/openvpn/etc). Expert mode: make the remote endpoint have an A/AAAA record that the server isn't listening on
- troubleshoot why some of my devices couldn't ssh into a server despite the pubkeys being in the authorized_keys folder (old sshd version didn't understand the most recent key algorithm!). Bonus problem: ~/.ssh had the wrong permissions so the authorized keys weren't loading.
- renew an ACME/letsencrypt certificate in nginx in proxy mode (location / was proxied but location /.well-known/... shouldn't have been!)
- check your preferred smtp daemon to see if it's set as an open relay
- upgrade postgres from an old version to a new version without data loss (hard mode: the partition postgres uses by default doesn't have the free space to make a copy and migrate the data)
- figure out why the firewall isn't blocking port 1234 despite UFW being enabled and a block-all rule being present (it was because of Docker iptables rules overriding UFW rules)
- update a package that has some kind of dependency issue (i.e. an external repository that is no longer needed)
- make Ubuntu shut up about Ubuntu Pro and stop it from fetching ads on ssh login
- alter a systemd service file so that it no longer runs as root (hard mode: set up dynamic users and other hardening features)
I have experienced leaderless teams in my career (46 years) a handful of times.
They formed around a problem that was unrecognized by Management (thankfully) but need to be solved. My best example was at a large SW dev firm in the late 80s. World wide electronic communications was need and faxes and leased lines connected to Decwriters were not good enough. I was assigned to the task as just one of my responsibility. A Single 1200 baud access to internet email at a university solved the problem. The problem expanded many people wanted the same service so we need someone (team member 2) who had access to a UNIX systems. Eight serial ports and 2400 internet connection to the first local ISP.
Rinse repeat 5 years later 10 people, part time, supported all internet connections and intranet/internet web-servers including application without management sanction. Everyone had a service role in there own department. Being connected to the others meant we performed at a high level. We didn't have a leader per se but we all moved in a common direction.
It lasted 8 years and finally several Directors discovered we existed as a team. Like sharks they each took a bite out of us, each one trying to become the dictator of the internet. Procedures were imposed. We were not allow to speak to each other with out going through the directors. Our individual productivity dropped. Angry internal clients screaming for the old way. Nothing got done.
Three months later the director that won got half the people back together but we were not the same any more. I still found interesting work for 2 more years before finally leaving.
Leaderless teams can work under the right conditions. I have tried to create them when I moved into management and it worked to some degree a few times. I did not lead or participate in the teams I just suggested people talk to each other know that the might click. I fed them problems (and resources) that I knew that they could solve that I knew would take more effort/time if we did it though channels.
The individuals got recognition and I got my problems solved.
https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error...
My view is that expecting humans to stop making mistakes is much less effective than fixing the systems that amplify those mistakes into large, irreversible impacts.