The Software Developer's Career Handbook

Chapter 28. What We Lost

At the end of Rogue One, the big reveal is that we see Princess Leia. She’s just received the plans to the Death Star and is about to kick off the franchise, except you don’t see Princess Leia, you see a CGI rendering of her.

That’s not Princess Leia.

Now, fire up your favorite browser, search for Carrie Fisher in her Princess Leia outfit. Chances are that your brain can tell the difference between the CGI and the real person.

How does our brain know it’s CGI? It doesn’t. Your brain knows that something is strangely off about this image. The eyes are a little too big. They lack life. The smile isn’t a Carrie Fisher smile. My brain is fully aware this image is intended to look like Carrie Fisher. Still, my brain also instinctively raises a red flag alerting me “something is wrong” because my brain is shockingly good at receiving and parsing visual information when it comes to the human face. It is essential that I can gather and process signals from the humans around me. Quickly and efficiently.

The dissonance you sense staring at this image is a part of a rich, more significant problem we humans were collectively experiencing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This Is Not a Meeting

Let’s start with disclaimers:

• I’m pro humans working together. Always have been.

• Distributed work has been and will continue to be required.

• There is no doubt in my mind that distributed work works. I believed this before the recent pandemic, and I believe it more now.