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The social obligation to be bad at things

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Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#231

Post by leroy_masochist »

cutemonster wrote: post #209
kubanczyk wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ahh hello there, good'ol FOMO. Let me show you a little trick: I don't think there's anything wrong with not wanting to participate in silly games like that all the time, and if you never try to step out of your comfort zone in a public setting, I don't think you're missing out on an opportunity to grow as a person.

Not fomo IMO. Rather, experimenting and discovering new things, incl about oneself.

That can happen outside of attention-seeking exercises organized by extroverts, FYI.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#232

Post by kerkeslager »

gnramires wrote: post #228
kerkeslager wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you're right that business talk is depersonified and implies a lack of respect for the human you're dealing with. And this is an assertion backed up by lots of other business talk--referring to humans as "resources" is probably the worst I hear often. And this assertion is further supported by the frequent, sociopathic behavior of businesses which goes beyond how they communicate. But surely the fact that they a…

There is such a thing as a hacker ethic. To me the core is something like "Try to save the world through math, science, understanding, and making cool things." The term has much more history than startup culture, although the goals of startups (many YC funded) can be in line with those ideals (if imperfectly).

This seems a bit off-topic, but is more interesting to me than the topic, so I'll roll with it. :)

I don't think the hacker ethic is necessarily about saving the world, and I while I can hypothesize a startup that aligns with a hacker ethic, I have not in practice seen any examples.

The hacker ethic is about gaining a deep functional understanding of a system, and then using that deep functional understanding to make that system do something unexpected or cool.

As soon as you bring money into the equation, it causes people to do all sorts of predictable and boring things. There are certainly people with hacker cred who have gotten rich, but the money was incidental to the hacking. For example, Woz has it because he designed computers he wanted to use and that happened to turn out to be very profitable.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#233

Post by thewebcount »

will_pseudonym wrote: post #40
evmar wrote: post #12

I found that, as a person who (sometimes) creates things, my attitude towards other people who create things has significantly shifted. When I was younger I would just see the fault -- the typos, the narcissism, the pointlessness, the already-been-done-better-by-others -- of people's work. But after trying a bit, it sometimes (for the same reasons the OP talks about) creating anything new ends up being really hard in…

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the d…

There's no shame in trying and failing, but at the same time, criticism is a completely valid thing. It can, of course, be presented in a poor way, or it can just be poor criticism. But you don't have to be a professional opera singer to know that a professional opera singer gave a poor performance and there's absolutely nothing wrong with pointing it out.

If you're trying to entertain or inform me and you failed to do that, I will absolutely say that I was not satisfied with the result (especially if I paid for it!). Criticism is the only consistent way the world moves forward. We all need it in our lives. I don't know Mr. Roosevelt's context for that quote, but seeing it in isolation, it does not resonate with me at all. It sounds like a child trying to justify why they did win the race even though they came in last.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#234

Post by thewebcount »

dorkwood wrote: post #112
qznc wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you expand on "I completely see where they're coming from"? I kind of learned this over time. So when someone shows off something lame, I just keep quiet. Sometimes I try to find something praiseworthy. Personally, I do post stuff online to get feedback and I am willing to take vicious criticism. My stuff is not art. Well, maybe that small fanfic a while ago [0]. It is certainly lame compared to some but feedba…

I think if you're posting your work with the goal of getting feedback, then that's totally fine. I'm not trying to say that all critique has to sound nice (I actually don't believe this at all). But if you are going to seek out critique online, I would like to offer some advice. Something I see a lot of beginners doing after they post up a piece of work is say "if anyone has any critique or feedback, I would love to…

> 1) You should be able to discern what's wrong with your own work. In order to improve, you need to complete the feedback loop of 'making an attempt, recognising where improvement is needed, studying how to improve that thing, and then making another attempt'. You need to learn to identify your own weaknesses, as well as your strengths, and not expect other people to do it for you.

That's a pretty insane thing to expect from someone trying to learn. It's something you eventually get to, but to get there, sometimes you need help finding the way. This is like saying, "I'm not going to teach you to read until you can read this sentence." Um... Thanks? You often don't know what you don't know.

> often with beginners, the list is far too long to even know where to begin

That's a pretty defeatist attitude. You don't have to tell them everything that's wrong with their work. You wouldn't tell a small child who drew you a picture that their light logic is wrong. You can pick a single thing that you think is the biggest problem and explain that.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#235

Post by gnramires »

kerkeslager wrote: post #232
gnramires wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is such a thing as a hacker ethic. To me the core is something like "Try to save the world through math, science, understanding, and making cool things." The term has much more history than startup culture, although the goals of startups (many YC funded) can be in line with those ideals (if imperfectly).

This seems a bit off-topic, but is more interesting to me than the topic, so I'll roll with it. :) I don't think the hacker ethic is necessarily about saving the world, and I while I can hypothesize a startup that aligns with a hacker ethic, I have not in practice seen any examples. The hacker ethic is about gaining a deep functional understanding of a system, and then using that deep functional understanding to make…

> I don't think the hacker ethic is necessarily about saving the world, and I while I can hypothesize a startup that aligns with a hacker ethic, I have not in practice seen any examples.

I guess it's more of a particular interpretation, of me growing up with a 90s idealism of saving the world. It's a bit naive of course, but a naivety of the hopeful kind, not of ignorant kind.

Orgs that come to mind are Wikipedia, Khan Academy, various Open Source projects and foundations, etc. I do think maintaining a good, coherent mission is still an open problem with successful companies, but many do help one way or another. For example, Dropbox was quite revolutionary in the way everyone uses and shares files I think. Reddit changed internet discourse (in some valuable, and in some complicated ways), though its trajectory is uncertain.

Maybe there could be a stronger version of a Mission statement? Something like companies committing to a mission statement, and being liable somehow to acting inconsistency with it (who would monitor this though? should be some kind of external entity), and shareholders/board members should not be allowed to modify it in a manner gravely inconsistent with the original vision.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#236

Post by justincredible »

itronitron wrote: post #121
ajzinsbwbs wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some of these pieces, I feel like the hard part is going to art school, obtaining notoriety, etc. The art is part of a larger endeavor in which I haven’t invested the necessary work, or experienced the luck to have it pay off. When I see a piece where “I could do that”, part of what I’m feeling is that nobody would care if I did it. From my perspective, it seems like the artist is cashing in on some status they o…

Some writers become comedians and are famous for their one-liners.

How much effort goes into creating a one-liner?

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#237

Post by kerkeslager »

gnramires wrote: post #235
kerkeslager wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems a bit off-topic, but is more interesting to me than the topic, so I'll roll with it. :) I don't think the hacker ethic is necessarily about saving the world, and I while I can hypothesize a startup that aligns with a hacker ethic, I have not in practice seen any examples. The hacker ethic is about gaining a deep functional understanding of a system, and then using that deep functional understanding to make…

> I don't think the hacker ethic is necessarily about saving the world, and I while I can hypothesize a startup that aligns with a hacker ethic, I have not in practice seen any examples. I guess it's more of a particular interpretation, of me growing up with a 90s idealism of saving the world. It's a bit naive of course, but a naivety of the hopeful kind, not of ignorant kind. Orgs that come to mind are Wikipedia, Kh…

> I guess it's more of a particular interpretation, of me growing up with a 90s idealism of saving the world. It's a bit naive of course, but a naivety of the hopeful kind, not of ignorant kind.

I think you're missing the critical disconnect between startups and hacker ethic.

There's no conflict between hacker ethic and saving the world. Wikipedia in the early days is a great example of that, but I'd really hesitate to call Wikipedia a "startup" at that time. Hacker ethic isn't about saving the world, it's about doing something cool. But saving the world can be cool.

The conflict between hacker ethic and startups is money, and Wikipedia as it has grown is a great example of that too: as Wikipedia started taking on more projects, they started needing funding. In order to get that funding, they needed respectability, because donors wouldn't donate to some weird offbeat hacker project. This caused the rise of deletionism: a respectable encyclopedia doesn't have a separate article for every Pokémon. Wikipedia did originate with the hacker ethic, but that hacker ethic became irrelevant as soon as money became a motivating factor.

And that's also the thing about open source: yeah, open source software (and moreso free software) are part of hacker culture. People who hand-wring about how open source isn't profitable don't get it: that's not why a lot of open source developers write open source software.

If you want to make money off writing code, you don't create an open source project, you create a startup: create a platform, track your users, find the thing they value the most about the platform, and monetize that. Oh, and while you're doing that, you've made enough ethical compromises that you can't really be said to be saving the world any more, but that wasn't really ever the goal, now was it?

The people in the world who need saving the most are the ones who can't pay to be saved--if they could pay to be saved they would have done it already. There isn't money in saving the world.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#238

Post by justincredible »

derivativethrow wrote: post #145
arexxbifs wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your works are displayed in a museum, you're not a struggling amateur. You're supposed to have some kind of ability and that ability shouldn't have to be defended by pointless platitudes. "Modern" "Art" is very far from someone actually creating something out of passion or curiosity. Last time I visited the Guggenheim, there were three different "works" from three different "artists" on display - all of them were…

> I could have done that, but I didn't - because I'm not sufficiently full of shit. It sounds like you're disparaging the art (and in fact the artists for producing it) because you think it's not sufficiently technically difficult. It also sounds like you believe the artists are trying to present it as more than it is. But tell me if I've misunderstood you. This is a very antagonistic attitude. You're approaching art…

> three different "works" from three different "artists" on display - all of them were plain, white canvases.

> In that sense, plain white canvas in a museum is actually pretty original.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#239

Post by zadkey »

zelly wrote: post #23

Stop caring what other people think of you. The ego is the problem.

I agree this works on an individual level. But if other people few insecure by your confidence, security or success, they may try to sabotage you. You still need to be aware of this dynamic so that you aren't blindsided people jealous or angry over your success and their own relative failure by which they are comparing you to even you are not comparing them or judging them yourself.

Re: The social obligation to be bad at things

#240

Post by arexxbifs »

jryle70 wrote: post #184
arexxbifs wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your works are displayed in a museum, you're not a struggling amateur. You're supposed to have some kind of ability and that ability shouldn't have to be defended by pointless platitudes. "Modern" "Art" is very far from someone actually creating something out of passion or curiosity. Last time I visited the Guggenheim, there were three different "works" from three different "artists" on display - all of them were…

Presumably you're talking about Agnes Martin, who had an exhibition at Guggenheim a few years ago. If you aren't my apologies. She had a lot of paintings that look like empty canvas from afar but show lot of details up close [0] You don't have to like her work, but dismissing her paintings as "full of shit" is, well, remarkably full of... Minimalism was her artistic choice that spanned many decades, and who knows how…

This was a mixed exhibition 11 years ago. The blank canvases were by three different artists. At least one of them had white primer on it, though. There were other paintings by other artists on display, too. I believe the main exhibition was designer clothes, can’t remember what brand (LV or Gucci or something like that).
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