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Can we flag/correct/remove the article? I am reading this as someone a little too young and too European to yet know much about Nixon, but would prefer if HN could avoid potentially making an idiot out of myself, when talking about recent history.
I may belong to that silent majority. I have learnt a lot from the discussions here in HN and other sites, but I rarely participate on them. This post made me think about being a little more active because, sincerely, most of the times it is just laziness what prevents me from commenting anything. In fact, this is my first comment here in HN. Little by little.
And at the end of the day, if you're respectful etc, who cares about being downvoted or having people argue back to you? Just take it on the chin.
> Usually, the comments on HN/Reddit are polarised by a single group of people who have the same opinion, Can't speak for Reddit, but that's not at all the case here. For example, I often speak of my hatred of microservices here. I'll get some upvotes and agreement, some people telling me it's a dumb opinion, and some people telling me we're doing it wrong and explain their right way. Believe it or not, I learn a lot…
> polarize: divide or cause to divide into two sharply contrasting groups or sets of opinions or beliefs. > "the cultural sphere has polarized into two competing ideological positions"
Hmm...
>And that’s fine, we’re all amateurs, and sometimes we can be wrong. I'm not an amateur. Or if I am than everyone is too since I have written software for project that would kill tens of thousands if it fails. Other than that the vocal minority was always my opinion on Rust. A small core of true believers who decided that convincing people they should change the world is worth more than actually doing any work in Rus…
Such a saying is what the incompetent obsessively repeat to themselves. They can't stand by the thought of people who don't need an Internet connection to program, who don't copy and paste from the fools over at StackOverflow, and the many other things they do which their betters don't. The fools over at Reddit call some things "adulting", because the idea of growing out of childhood is so foreign to them that they'd…
> Such a saying is what the incompetent obsessively repeat to themselves.
I'll take humble over arrogant.
> The “silent majority” was used by President Richard Nixon during his presidency and his campaign against the Vietnam war. He spoke to the people who were not actively voicing their opinions and who were overshadowed by the vocal few who were supporting the war. This is a shocking misunderstanding of history. The “silent majority” Nixon spoke of were folks opposed to anti-war protests . Nixon intentionally prolonged…
Fixed it. Thank you :) Just took the quote directly from Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_majority#:~:text=The%20...
Put another way, if you are not listening to the person who signs the checks, than your career will be rather short.
"Nor would a wise man, seeing that he was in a hole, go to work and blindly dig it deeper..." (The Washington Post October 25, 1911)
But there's an implication of moral purity at play. Are those who just quietly "mind their own business" a good, wholesome but misrepresented group?
On the contrary, I think that in matters with far reaching consequences, which computing is, silent majorities are the problem. Unreflectively going along with the programme becomes a kind of passive negligence which should not be lionised in a folksy way.
Try criticizing capitalism or "free markets" sometime.
There are thousands of Java developers in the US who make $80,000 a year and live a fantastic life. No leetcode, no Bay Area, no FAANG. Just people writing the code responsible for our banking, travel, supermarkets and many other systems which underpin our society.