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I am very real

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Re: I am very real

#51

Post by mosburger »

essayist wrote: post #22
sosuke wrote: post #3

While not nearly as important, the idea that authors are real makes me immediately relate to my own experience that customers don't seem to understand that software is made by real people too. People with feelings, who are fallible. Several comments on blogs or reviews on the app store show to me that people don't feel they are being insulting or rude if they aren't facing the person they criticize. The more I wrote…

David Foster Wallace's take on this was that my own reality is so overpoweringly real, that it's hard to see you (or anyone else) as real. everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness, because it's so socially repulsive.... Oth…

I do something similar when I see a crazy driver in traffic... I imagine that he or she might be on their way to an emergency room to care for a loved one (or is perhaps a doctor). I try to feel sorry for them for being in a position where they are trying to hurry.

I actually read to do this in some silly self-help book (Don't Sweat The Small Stuff, perhaps?) years ago. It's helped a lot.

Re: I am very real

#52

Post by tesseractive »

peacemaker wrote: post #34
gaius wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once had a cow-orker who thought software came from "the internet" - he literally could not fathom writing a program himself.

I can't understand this logic. Did he think the internet was some magical place that created all his games and apps and so on? How did he think about manufacturing then? Or artwork? Or movies? How does someone get so far in such a technology based society without knowing that there are people behind all these things?

There are people involved in the manufacturing of Oreos and iPods and office cubicles, but if you compare it with shopping at a farmer's market or a craft fair and meeting the person who made the thing you are buying, it can all seem so abstract and distant.

Someone might rail against "all the preprocessed crap" that you can buy in a grocery store (and people do, all the time), with only the barest awareness that there are people involved in making those products, too. To people who are not software developers and don't know software developers, things like Google Search and Facebook and Microsoft Office might seem like they similarly spring up from within the bowels of huge companies, never really fully owned by any human who touches them, until they are released onto our computers as more cold, inhuman artifacts of the modern world.

Surely we here all know about the people behind the software, but most of us still don't think about the people behind the Oreos.

Re: I am very real

#53

Post by ThaddeusQuay2 »

sosuke wrote: post #3

While not nearly as important, the idea that authors are real makes me immediately relate to my own experience that customers don't seem to understand that software is made by real people too. People with feelings, who are fallible. Several comments on blogs or reviews on the app store show to me that people don't feel they are being insulting or rude if they aren't facing the person they criticize. The more I wrote…

The color of the envelope does not change the message it contains. The only difference between what I write to you online and what I would say to you in person is one of detail and quality, as I have more opportunity online to compose. The problem of rudeness and insults is not due to any inherent flaw of the Internet itself, but rather due to the fact that most children aren't taught that anonymity, although a necessity, is not for the purpose of becoming unaccountable.

"Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority ... It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation -- and their ideas from suppression -- at the hand of an intolerant society."

http://groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20051007151046741 (The First Amendment Right to Anonymous Speech - Delaware Supreme Court Ruling in John Doe No. 1 v. Cahill)(2005-OCT-15)

Re: I am very real

#54

Post by SoftwareMaven »

danso wrote: post #26
sosuke wrote: post #3

While not nearly as important, the idea that authors are real makes me immediately relate to my own experience that customers don't seem to understand that software is made by real people too. People with feelings, who are fallible. Several comments on blogs or reviews on the app store show to me that people don't feel they are being insulting or rude if they aren't facing the person they criticize. The more I wrote…

This is an interesting take that I had not expected to read when going to this comments section, but you're absolutely right. But this applies to almost everything. Every time I read a report of a sanctioned (non-criminal) or poorly evaluated public school teacher, I think of my friends who are teachers: how they've had to juggle everything in their personal lives in addition to the emotional and physical drain that…

It is unfortunate that, given how important teaching is, we still don't have good ways to evaluate which teachers are good and which are not.

Re: I am very real

#55

Post by nick_urban »

reason wrote: post #31

This submission could not have come at a better time. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been contemplating making a submission urging HNers to be human , and to recognize that everyone else who comments here is also a human , and that stories about startups and notable figures are essentially about humans - humans who all have families, friends, ambitions, desires, flaws, struggles. All too often I see people here…

Thank you. Well said.

When I was a student of software engineering, I felt strongly that there was not enough emphasis given to what effect the use of computers has on humans, and what sort of software we ought to make to benefit humans. This is related to Tim O'Reilly's call to "Work on Stuff that Matters" (http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/01/work-on-stuff-that-matters-...). It's not about the machine or the money -- we must add value to people's lives.

This is a different issue than that of being kind to each other on Hacker News, but I happen to think it is deeply related.

In some circumstances, I am spontaneous, playful, and extremely open to my environment and aware of other people. When I spend a lot of time programming, however, I tend to become more cautious, analytical, and insensitive. Partly this is because any time spent programming is, generally speaking, spent away from people and in ignorance of our bodies (and hence, our environments). This is one reason why I think it is so important for engineers to have diverse interests.

It's not just so that we will be kinder to each other on Hacker News. We are, in a very significant way, the people building the future. We need to make sure that we are in the right frame of mind to build a future we want to live in, and not one that is anti-social and inhumane.

Perhaps the reason dystopian sci-fi has so much resonance is because we are already experiencing, unconsciously, the dehumanizing effects of technology.

Re: I am very real

#56

Post by phren0logy »

My favorite part:

>Perhaps you will learn from this that books are sacred to free men for very good reasons, and that wars have been fought against nations which hate books and burn them. If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.

Thanks again, Vonnegut.

Re: I am very real

#57

Post by vajrabum »

silentscope wrote: post #42

"And no copies of this letter have been sent to anybody else. You now hold the only copy in your hands. It is a strictly private letter from me to the people of Drake..." What happened?

I'm guessing like most people who write for a living that he had a carbon (assuming this is before word processing) or a disk file found in his papers after his death.

Re: I am very real

#58

Post by kevinf »

reason wrote: post #31

This submission could not have come at a better time. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been contemplating making a submission urging HNers to be human , and to recognize that everyone else who comments here is also a human , and that stories about startups and notable figures are essentially about humans - humans who all have families, friends, ambitions, desires, flaws, struggles. All too often I see people here…

So true! Your comment really struck a chord with me. Amazing, how we stop treating each other as human beings in so many contexts: work, school, online, etc.

The #1 value of the company I am starting (Cojourneo) is: "Treat people as human beings first." http://cojourneo.com/about/values

Here is a great post the reminds people of how human we really are underneath our entrepreneur facade: http://www.themonsterinyourhead.com/2011/11/13/connect-think...

So, thank you for this reminder. I'm so happy to know there are people like you out there. :-)

Re: I am very real

#59

Post by jiggy2011 »

reason wrote: post #31

This submission could not have come at a better time. Over the past couple of weeks, I've been contemplating making a submission urging HNers to be human , and to recognize that everyone else who comments here is also a human , and that stories about startups and notable figures are essentially about humans - humans who all have families, friends, ambitions, desires, flaws, struggles. All too often I see people here…

You think it's worse here than on other boards?

Most internet boards are worse than this one, I see lots of comments elsewhere of people saying "you must be a retard" , "kill yourself" etc

Re: I am very real

#60

Post by hencq »

johngunderman wrote: post #49
peacemaker wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't understand this logic. Did he think the internet was some magical place that created all his games and apps and so on? How did he think about manufacturing then? Or artwork? Or movies? How does someone get so far in such a technology based society without knowing that there are people behind all these things?

In my experience there is a large class of people who lack basic curiosity about how things work. They are content to believe that things just "exist". I haven't done much research into this, but I would be interested in seeing if this is considered more an education problem, or if some people simply don't have the capacity for curiosity.

Yes, I've noticed this as well. Growing up as a kid I was always interested in how things worked. Luckily my dad was an engineer and was more than happy to answer all my questions. In university I was also surrounded by people who were fascinated by how things worked. Because of that I'm still very surprised when I meet people who show no such interest. That said, I now know quite a few people who fall in that category. They're all very smart people, with good educations, but they're just okay with the fact that things exist.

The dangerous thing about this attitude though is that these people often underestimate what it takes for something to be created. You see this when politicians are eager to cut on education or when someone looks for a programmer to 'quickly implement their briliant new app'. Note that these people aren't necessarily dumb, but they've just never thought about what it takes for things to be built or designed.

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