Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

forklog.media

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 370 posts

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#81

Post by V-2 »

CalRobert wrote: post #26

This bit at the end was the most interesting to me. "For me, I stepped out into an uncertain future. I don’t really see meaningful human interaction anymore. I see a society that is impossibly distracted by likes and selfies, smartphones, and similar technologies, and I often find it frustrating to find my place in the midst of this new interconnected world simply because I was not there to naturally evolve with it."

Has it really changed that much in 10 years, or is part of it just the sense of alienation everyone experiences getting out of jail after a long time?

I mean, 10 years ago people lamented over the exact same thing; and before that, and before the before.

I can't prove it of course, but I'd bet you might feel that "human interaction" is not quite what you remember it to be if you had only just spent 10 years behind the bars.

And that's even if the technological progress on the outside had stood perfectly still for some reason.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#82

Post by nix23 »

bootlooped wrote: post #45
nix23 wrote: post #8

Its terrible how the American system thinks about prison's. Imagine he could do/learn something good in those 10 years, when he was locked away to protect the public (and that really should be the only point for prisons (protect the public))

Giving prisoners the tools they need to flourish in free society (education, vocational training, mental health and wellbeing) after their sentence is over reduces recidivism, so I think you could put it under the umbrella of protecting the public.

Absolutely, this should be the mindset of prisons.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#83

Post by Terretta »

rootusrootus wrote: post #66
buboard wrote: post #51

The story seems off (temporally) for someone who got incarcerated circa 2010. Nothing very interesting has happened to technology since then.

That is what I was thinking, too. Hell, we had iPhones well before 2010. There hasn't been any kind of tectonic shift in technology since 2010, just mild evolution. Outside of a few specific areas (web frameworks, anyone?), skills from 2010 should still be very applicable today. Now, if the author was arguing that it's a mindfuck to be incarcerated for 10 years and it makes him feel out of place, and his mindset is n…

In Information Technology, I’d agree as well.

From ‘93 to ‘03 Internet tech got industrialized, commoditized, commercialized. After an ‘03 to ‘08 consolidation phase, from ‘08 to ‘13 it got packetized and packaged by CSPs of varying degrees of specialization or verticality. Disruptive startup or OSS changes in last few years often emerge from lessons learned in those CSPs in mid 00s.

Then this last decade has been spent on figuring out how to “declare” that infotech stack of lego bricks and wire it together. We could get to a consensus way to wire bricks and flows by ‘23 — more likely on bricks, less likely on flows.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#84

Post by nonines »

>> I stepped out into an uncertain future. I don’t really see meaningful human interaction anymore. I see a society that is impossibly distracted by likes and selfies, smartphones, and similar technologies, and I often find it frustrating to find my place in the midst of this new interconnected world simply because I was not there to naturally evolve with it.

For what is worth he's not alone in this. Being "interconnected" the way he thinks he's missing feels actually being less connected than ever. In a way he sees the right picture IMHO but he thinks he misinterprets things. I guess it's his broken ego which puts these kinds of "I-must-be-wrong" filters in front of him but if he ever gets rid of them I think that his vantage point on the current techscape will be unique exactly due to him being absent of it for so long.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#85

Post by jimbokun »

save_ferris wrote: post #35
JackFr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and that really should be the only point for prisons (protect the public) That's not true. Our prisons should protect the public, rehabilitate prisoners in so far as they can, and, to an appropriate extent, punish. Some people are skittish about the idea of punsihment. But it's abhorrent to our sense of justice that one suffer no consequences after committing a crime. Now in general I think our prisons and sentenci…

In my observations of the American public, people generally seem to be fine with the extreme sentences and punishment that the system doles out. We’re completely apathetic towards most criminals (usually unless they happen to be rich & white), without understanding the circumstances that created their situation. Take the Crystal Mason case. She’s a Texas woman of color who voted illegally in the 2016 election and got…

> In my observations of the American public, people generally seem to be fine with the extreme sentences and punishment that the system doles out.

Many thousands have been marching across the nation for weeks now, precisely because they are not fine with these extreme sentences, and other abuses of law enforcement.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#86

Post by CJefferson »

minikites wrote: post #44
JackFr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and that really should be the only point for prisons (protect the public) That's not true. Our prisons should protect the public, rehabilitate prisoners in so far as they can, and, to an appropriate extent, punish. Some people are skittish about the idea of punsihment. But it's abhorrent to our sense of justice that one suffer no consequences after committing a crime. Now in general I think our prisons and sentenci…

>to an appropriate extent, punish. What's the overall goal of punishment? We know it's not a deterrent to crime. We know it doesn't help recidivism rates. The only remaining reason I can think of is spite/hate.

How do we know punishment is not a deterrent to crime?

If there was no punishment for committing crimes, do you think the amount of crime would remain approximately the same and is there any good evidence for that?

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#87

Post by throwablePie »

> "Caging me for a decade is not rehabilitating. I may be making excuses for myself, though there is a lesson that could have been learned with the same amount of value for justice if the sentence was 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, even 6 years." From the article at: https://forklog.media/ex-convicted-hacker-ghostexodus-severi...

I don't consider myself a bleeding heart lib but I think that a decade in prison is excessive for most non-violent crimes. I'm American but I live in Asia so maybe I'm now an outsider. I'm not aware of any other country that punishes this harshly.

Serious questions: Does any other country routinely punish so severely? To what end? At what financial and psychic cost to society? If we're unique (exceptional?) why do we do this to ourselves?

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#88

Post by nyadesu »

wolco wrote: post #14

Too bad he wasn't a frontend developer would love to see his take on the changes

"I wouldn't have wasted two more days of my life trying out a new state management library that does exactly the same thing as the rest."

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#89

Post by nix23 »

JackFr wrote: post #24
nix23 wrote: post #8

Its terrible how the American system thinks about prison's. Imagine he could do/learn something good in those 10 years, when he was locked away to protect the public (and that really should be the only point for prisons (protect the public))

> and that really should be the only point for prisons (protect the public) That's not true. Our prisons should protect the public, rehabilitate prisoners in so far as they can, and, to an appropriate extent, punish. Some people are skittish about the idea of punsihment. But it's abhorrent to our sense of justice that one suffer no consequences after committing a crime. Now in general I think our prisons and sentenci…

>rehabilitate prisoners

Yes that's what i mean with do/learn, give them the tools so they can live a good and legal life after prison.

>to an appropriate extent, punish

I think that's already included in the package..when they take away your freedom.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#90

Post by juvoni »

annoyingnoob wrote: post #56

I recently had someone in a restroom ask me how to flush the toilet. The toilets had IR sensors and flushed automatically. This person had been in prison for many years and had never seen that before. I think part of the social reform that people are protesting for recently needs to extend to people in prison. Our system does nothing to rehabilitate people or to prepare them to re-enter society. We need to treat pris…

There is a non-profit called Defy Ventures[1], that aims to rehabilitate prisoner personnel who are pre-release and equip them with skills and a technical/tactical overview for entrepreneurial-minded prisoners to help them adjust and better reintegrate back into society.

[1] https://www.defyventures.org/

Post reply on HN