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Fierce Nerds

paulgraham.com

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Re: Fierce Nerds

#311

Post by randcraw »

marvin wrote: post #142
HeyImAlex wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, born in 92 and his characterization of being nerdy and young seems super antiquated. “Nerdy” interests don’t make you a social pariah, they transcend groupings all together; the star quarterback plays dnd, the head cheerleader builds robots in her basement, the stigma on having unique or “nerdy” hobbies and interests is mostly gone. When I think of what PG is describing, it’s characterized by poor social skills…

I'm just five years older than you and strongly relate to these descriptions of being a nerd, having academic interests not shared by young peers and consequently caring very little for social games. Even in adulthood, unless I carefully choose who I hang out with. And I'm from Europe, not the US, so it's not a thing local to the US either. If it's truly a generational change, that would be a very interesting develop…

How old is PG? Born in 1964, so age 56, according to Wiki. I'm from the same era. Being young and nerdy in the '60s and '70s was pretty isolating.

Computers weren't available until the early '80s, and weren't affordable for another decade, so few kids had easy access to them, and networks didn't arise until about 1990. So if you were born before '80-'85, you had a tough time rallying around tech toys with other nerds/geeks to share your enlightened world view.

Stewing nerds in their own juices through adolescence tends to foment fierceness, which is just another word for not understanding or tolerating non-nerds very well. With today's omnipresent social connectivity, isolation should be less a problem in 2021, since tech content and cool devices are everywhere today.

What I would have given to play around with RPi or robots in my teens...

Re: Fierce Nerds

#312

Post by notacoward »

The problem with glorifying fierce nerds is that there are already too many of them. (Or us, perhaps, but not for me to say.) Sure it's great to have a few fierce nerds trying unconventional things, challenging orthodoxy, etc. Unfortunately, when there are many fierce nerds, they start to compete among themselves to have the most contrarian ideas and often to establish themselves as the earliest champions of those ideas as soon as possible.

This rush, not only to be right but to be right when everyone else is wrong and to show them the light, is what makes people susceptible to bandwagons, cargo cults, and conspiracy theories. We see it plenty right here. Elsewhere we see it in QAnon. In both we see it in arguments about COVID origins and countermeasures.

Like a chemical compound that's therapeutic in one dose but toxic in another, fierce nerds can be either a good thing or a bad thing. We're already well into the toxic side, so I think this is a poor moment for pg or anyone else to glorify more.

Re: Fierce Nerds

#314

Post by yupper32 »

klinskyc wrote: post #309
yupper32 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He tells Bill Burr that he had followed Roy around for a full day, going to all his restaurants and food trucks, and not once did Roy raise his voice to his staff. Sorry what are you trying to say here? It's admirable or difficult not to yell at your employees?

Chefs/Kitchens are stereotypically full of yelling, and (otherwise) well-regarded chefs definitely live up to that - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/dining/restaurant-workers...

That still doesn't mean that not yelling should receive any sort of admiration. You don't get bonus points for doing what should be the bare minimum, regardless of what the current norms are.

Re: Fierce Nerds

#315

Post by whatshisface »

getpost wrote: post #294

Since pg's essay is of a psychoanalytic nature, I'll reply in a psychoanalytic frame, for the sake of conversation, not criticism. [Protip: never psychoanalyze anyone! This likely applies even to psychoanalysts.] During the last year or two pg has written more than a few essays and tweets which appear to be of a defensive nature. People like him contribute more than other people, it's alright to to be fierce, can't s…

PG, if you asked him, might describe himself as defending people who do real work from a larger culture that all too often prioritizes serving the status quo over accomplishing the goals that the status quo was established to accomplish. One example of that would be SpaceX doing the launch vehicle design work that the NASA/Boeing/Big Government Contractor complex was established to do. At the same time, SpaceX works its people extremely hard and is lead by a billionaire with abnormally unsophisticated PR. So there you have cultural and business forces set against a new company that has nothing going for it except the fact that it actually does stuff. Actually doing stuff is a surprisingly small advantage in a world that is interested in so many other qualities.

Re: Fierce Nerds

#316

Post by nitrogen »

bidirectional wrote: post #202
dragonwriter wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there’s a difference between the sort of subject-matter-preference driven obsessiveness that characterizes nerds and the one-of-the-few-visible-though-high-odds-of-failure-ways-out-of-a-miserable life that drives a lot of black kids to a focus lots of time and energy on basketball.

Very odd comment. Jordan and Kobe did not grow up miserably at all. Jordan grew up in a stable middle-class home and Kobe's dad was an NBA player-turned-coach.

I don't think they were talking about Jordan or Kobe specifically. There does seem to be a kind of seductive lie (not just in black communities) that sports or other long shots are a viable career path for the dedicated kid. Where I grew up, there were plenty of kids who believed they would be famous basketball players one day as a matter of fact, skaters who believed a fat sponsorship was in reach if they just got that kick flip down tight, even culinary artists who think they can join the ranks of the rich by catering their private dinners.

It's probably the same with startups -- most startups fail, mine included, but either we delude ourselves into thinking that it's just a matter of putting in enough effort, or we are in situations where we really can't see any other option to escape the gravity well of our situations. Not so far off from someone obsessively playing ball to try to get out, except for the broader applicability of the skills gained if the long shot doesn't pay off.

Re: Fierce Nerds

#317

Post by darepublic »

getpost wrote: post #294

Since pg's essay is of a psychoanalytic nature, I'll reply in a psychoanalytic frame, for the sake of conversation, not criticism. [Protip: never psychoanalyze anyone! This likely applies even to psychoanalysts.] During the last year or two pg has written more than a few essays and tweets which appear to be of a defensive nature. People like him contribute more than other people, it's alright to to be fierce, can't s…

I see what you are saying. I mean the topics do have something of a defensive nature. Though arguably PG could just be making a valid point on topics that are contentious and widely misunderstood

Re: Fierce Nerds

#318

Post by themacguffinman »

pwinnski wrote: post #162
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we really want to go in this direction and criticize other people calling famous tech businessmen assholes, at least give credit where it's due - Jobs deserves this much more than Gates. Gates documented unethical behavior was mostly against other companies, not so much individuals, with a few notable exceptions.

I doubt Jobs--who died nearly ten years ago--was as likely a trigger for this essay as Gates, who is currently in the daily news due to his alleged bad behavior.

On the other hand, Gates' recently reported "bad behavior" seems to be largely stuff like infidelity and inappropriate sexual relationships which is not what the essay touches on at all. Jobs' assholery is exactly business & engineering related in the way that PG is talking about.

Re: Fierce Nerds

#319

Post by bumby »

getpost wrote: post #294

Since pg's essay is of a psychoanalytic nature, I'll reply in a psychoanalytic frame, for the sake of conversation, not criticism. [Protip: never psychoanalyze anyone! This likely applies even to psychoanalysts.] During the last year or two pg has written more than a few essays and tweets which appear to be of a defensive nature. People like him contribute more than other people, it's alright to to be fierce, can't s…

>Whenever there is dichotomous thinking, cognition has moved away from clarity.

Can you expand on this?

Re: Fierce Nerds

#320

Post by sudosteph »

Like knows like. That description definitely fits me, my husband and a few other people I in my life who I care about deeply. We all know we're obnoxious sometimes - but we're all just trying to root out the truth of things and improve things as well as we know how. It's a little annoying that we are pushed into pursuing capitalist endeavors over other things right now - but practically speaking, you can make a lot more change in less time if you have the capital for it.

Still, it's stuff like Andrew Yang's presidential run that really give me hope that we might be on the cusp of changing things outside of business as well. Not just in politics (obviously, since he lost) but at least in culture - with coherent ideas and platforms that can't be ignored. There have been others in the past who were like us and tried similar things (Huey Long comes to mind), but understanding technology gives our generation a huge economic tool that we can also use to our advantage. Of course, if my peers are any indication: our society and entire economic system seem designed for the express purpose of making millennials depressed. And it's not really easy to shrug that off and just build things when the state of so many people you care about is so dire.

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