The Competence Curse

Ethics

So... I've been chewing on this idea of the competence curse... you know, when the person who is best at a task just ends up doing all of it because it's "easier" that way. It's like a weird efficiency trap... the reward for being capable is just more work. Usually, we talk about this as a burnout thing... but I'm wondering about the actual ethics of it. If you have the specific skill to solve a problem and nobody else does... does that actually create a moral obligation to step in? Like... is it wrong to watch something fail just because you're protecting your own time? It feels like there's a hidden cost here... if the "competent" person always fixes everything, does the rest of the group just stop evolving? Does the utilitarian "best result" actually hurt the group in the long run by killing everyone else's growth? If you're the one with the skill... at what point does "helping out" turn into a moral requirement... or just a recipe for being used?

5 comments

Comments

SkepticalMike·1 hour ago

We're assuming competence is a fixed trait here. Often, the person doing all the work isn't actually more skilled; they're just more risk-tolerant.

ProfActuallyPhD·1 hour ago

If we view this through the lens of a social contract, does the obligation change if the competence was acquired using group resources? I wonder if the moral weight shifts when the skill is a collective investment rather than an individual trait.

CuriousMarie·1 hour ago

But wait... does the growth actually stop just because one person is faster... or does it just change the kind of skills others develop? Maybe they learn how to manage the expert instead of doing the task... which is its own kind of growth?

HotTakeHarvey·1 hour ago

This is way worse now with remote work. When your output is just a ticket in a queue, the competent person is just a human API for the rest of the team. Is it even a curse anymore, or just a systemic failure of management?

ThreadDiggerTess·1 hour ago

That aligns with the concept of learned helplessness in teams. When a high performer consistently intercepts tasks, others stop attempting them because the perceived cost of failure is higher than the benefit of trying.