Tech is only part of the solution. The other part is having an economic/social system that rewards organizations seeking to benefit society rather than simply existing for the sake of return for shareholders. Nothing stays cool for very long under the latter.
Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?
321–330 of 367 posts
Re: Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?
#322Earlier quoted context omitted.
My fear is that the 'All Birds Nerds' exclude 'Nerd Nerds'. 'nerd nerds' don't know what they are doing in terms of presentation or communication. If 'nerd nerds' are 'hip' it's completely by accident. I also think 'nerd nerds' just say whatever, meaning that occasionally they will say something un-PC, or lacking in empathy and be 'pushed out' for that reason. There was a time (and some people are still like this) wh…
I suspect, with no evidence, that the distinction you are making here can be described as neurotypical nerds (what you call All Birds nerds) versus neurodivergent nerds (autistic, adhd, whatever you want to bucket them under) Neurodivergent people tend to have a bit less of a social filter, they are more direct and honest, often to the point of bluntness (leading to the 'just say whatever' behavior you mentioned) The…
Neurodiversity is probably aligned with that but I suspect a lot of people are just not self aware, never learned to communicate in a political environment.
A neurodiverse, even introverted kid who went to private school then Ivy League, and had 'a lot of money / no fears' growing up ... probably will have been socialized in the political sense.
Grow up in a small town or the burbs, people are 'judgy' about some stuff, but not anything complicated or nuanced.
I'm not in any camp, but really not until I was 30 did I notice how much stock people put into small signals. Like 'likes fishing' or 'football' etc..
Especially in such a competitive environment, people are I think looking for flaws.
Torvalds, James Gosling, Wozniack, Sergei Brin - those are nerd-nerds.
(I once saw Sergei Brin walking down the street in what looked like a back brace and mime outfit. Serious. WTF? Middle of the day.
Sundar is All Birds Nerd, but he's a business guy anyhow.
I feel a lot of YC culture errs on the side of All Birds Nerds.
Re: Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you crazy? I'm from '79, so probably a bit younger than you. We can now buy an Arduino board for the price of a computer game, and make a flying drone. Even with a small camera or some sensors if you want. Or create some small robots with all the motors and sensors that you want, custom 3d printed. My son is now 13 and doing STEM. I only wish I had access to all the things that they can now do for cheap, especial…
> We can now buy an Arduino board for the price of a computer game, and make a flying drone. I'm pretty sure you could do this 20 years ago, there just hadn't been that wave of marketing around microcontrollers as a hobby that happened around the time of Make magazine. $2 for a PIC and $45 for a programmer, maybe? Waiting excitedly for the next issue of Nuts & Volts? Idly flipping through the Jameco and Small Parts c…
> I'm pretty sure you could do this 20 years ago
As a kid I sometimes went to a RC airfield here close by. Those things were crazy expensive. And then we're not even talking about model helicopters yet. Those things were not on batteries but on gasoline. As a kid I dreamed of having one, but those were just too expensive to give as a toy to a kid. Nowadays? Buy a drone 'helicopter' for $20. It's really crazy if you compare this to the 90's.
Drones that self hover were not even remotely possible. Or at least not as far as I know, unless you know more than me. And drones with camera's? No way!
> The internet is certainly an advantage, but it also ain't too new.
I remember when as a kid I got stuck programming. No internet, no StackOverflow... Good luck! In a sense it was cool to find solutions yourself, but it definitely wasn't quick! :)
Re: Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you crazy? I'm from '79, so probably a bit younger than you. We can now buy an Arduino board for the price of a computer game, and make a flying drone. Even with a small camera or some sensors if you want. Or create some small robots with all the motors and sensors that you want, custom 3d printed. My son is now 13 and doing STEM. I only wish I had access to all the things that they can now do for cheap, especial…
Well yes, but flying drones are not exciting when everybody can build/buy one.
Drones have so many applications! I know a guy who builds drones to map out farmer lands. So many applications, so little time.
Re: Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?
#325What makes tech less cool today is the ubiquity. Anything that's commonly and affordably available is almost by definition not cool. Cool stuff is that which is out of reach, around the corner, etc. We still have lots of that too but it tends to be more research oriented or of the terrifying variety. A contributor to this is how quickly a cool discovery can be developed into mass-marketed consumer products.
Re: Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?
#326Hmmm I'd say after the dotcom bust somewhere in the mid 2000s. That's when new fangled ideas, crazy dreams started getting replaced by making money. Interesting curious what-if sci-fi movies got replaced by sequels, prequels, franchises and CGI.
Yes it's partially growing older on my part, it takes more effort to surprise me now. But I also feel there has been a shift. The good news is everything has a cycle so I'm sure we'll eventually break out of the current rut and get some more excitement into science and sci-fi at some point
Re: Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?
#327Re: Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?
#328It became an TV show. Anything that reaches the point of become a meme for TV shows is already past the end of its road.
Re: Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?
#329> When did this start
Somewhere around 2008.
> and when is the drought going to be over?
Sometime after we stop bailing out the economy. When money is easy, people take the easy route. When money is hard, people have to be inventive.
If you're old enough you'll remember that is hardly the first time tech has stopped being cool. It always stops being cool when there is little incentive to build anything cool.
Re: Ask HN: When did tech stop being cool?
#330I think one main factor is privacy first thinking. Obviously security is important, and we should make software secure, but todays coders would rather just not have certain things at all(Like smart devices) than try to secure them.
The other thing is smartphones. They are better than any old gadget. But they don't have the cool factor exactly.
SaaS is the other thing. SaaS might be practical but it is never "cool". It goes away when the internet does, and can be cancelled at any time.
The other thing is set and setting, and tolerance. I know basically nothing about drugs, but any material thing that gives you a dopamine hit is often thought of like a drug.
We don't remember the amazing quality of video games, even though that was better too. We remember split screen multiplayer, staying out to get stuff on launch day, lan parties and the people we went there with, and all kinds of other stuff.
If I was into HAM, I think I'd be in it for field day, conversations with the elmers, learning about history, maybe vague ideas of preparedness, etc.
The current philosophy of products in general is minimalism. We have elegant restaurant focused entirely on the food, not rainforest cafes.
We focus on things by themselves, as isolated standalone things, trying to build the platonic ideal of a chat app or a text editor.
But... tech and food and money and drugs and clothes and everything else like that is just kind of OK. Context is everything as far as emotional impact, and it has a role in practicality too, the most useful software is often not a pure ideal of some function, it's designed around a common real world issue.
Tech is now advanced enough to do things entirely virtually. The setting is gone. You don't haul a box to a lan party.
Also, saturation and competition.
Tech used to seem like something where buying some gadget made you able to do things nobody else could. If you got a camera, you were a photographer, because they were expensive and hard to use and there was no Instagram.
The high barrier to entry made fame and success seem like it was a matter of dedication that you could achieve by saving up and studying some books, rather than random chance, being good looking, or being born with world-class talent.
You could still do something new and interesting without spending ten years and 100k on it. 99% of the startups these days seem to be an existing thing, but worse, with NFTs.
There was also almost no true clickbait. Much more of the internet content was made by users.
I believe the "Golden age" was probably from about '83(Just a guess, I wasn't here yet), to about 2006, with the transition completed by 2010.
Once endless scrolling and phones all day took over... Where's the market for any other tech? Only a few specific things are still relevant in a world where life is mostly on a screen, with just ten minute long interludes in physical space.