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What happened to nerds?

mrmarket.lol

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Re: What happened to nerds?

#61

Post by locknitpicker »

negergreger wrote: post #6

Nerds used to have a internet to discuss tech in, you were allowed to make an argument based on logic and reasoning. Then the ideologues and political commissars showed up, giving zero shit about tech or logical reasoning, this pulled the discourse down to the lowest common denominator and the rest is history. Why should I take the moral high ground and listen to an argument I dislike if I'm not offered the same cour…

> Then the ideologues and political commissars showed up

I think you're seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses. In some FLOSS circles the discussions were dominated by ideologues, to the point some discussions seemed like Monty Python skits. I mean, your choice of window manager, let alone Linux distro, was something you'd be judged by.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#62

Post by ehnto »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #35
TrackerFF wrote: post #14

Money happened. Wherever there's big money to be made, will also attract ambitious people hungry for money and power - it's that simple. Now that FAANG jobs aren't looking all that attractive, many such people have set their sights on AI research/dev and quant finance jobs. The latter one has exploded in popularity / virality the past years. Previously a niche profession within finance which, frankly, most had no clu…

> What's more, many nerds discovered that with enormous amounts of money, comes enormous amounts of power. You can now actually lobby for your sci-fi dream world, which is what some of the billionaire nerds are doing. > The money and power corrupted them. Actually accomplishing things in the world that constitute building a sci-fi dream world requires significant amounts of money and power, and any person or institut…

It would be fair to reflect for a moment, perhaps you are not impacted by the negative aspects of the corruption making this a much easier stance to take.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#65

Post by _n_b_ »

cedilla wrote: post #44
whstl wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I remember Usenet in the 90s being 50% interesting conversations mostly about niche topics and 50% randomly devolving into flame wars in larger communities. Even "Eternal September" as a concept was something from around 1993/1994 right? Same for the 2000s era online-bulletin-board. I often go to thegearpage.net and am appalled at the amount of shilling, dismissals and disrespect, but then I remember that in…

Discussion quality is, in my experience, mostly a function of group size. Online discussions scale better than in person, but there's a limit.

One thing I do miss from the early internet was less anonymity being the norm on Usenet/forums/etc. Discussions tend to stay more civil when both parties know there's a "real" person on the other end.

Otherwise, my memory of early 90s internet supports exactly your conclusion. There may have been better opportunities for small discussions, but big ones devolved the same way they do today.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#67

Post by mablopoule »

amarant wrote: post #49

Maybe identity is the root of all evil? Hear me out: back in the day founding a company wasn't an identity, it was just an action, a verb. Stuff started going sideways when people started thinking of themselves as "founders". Suddenly the product wasn't the top priority anymore, instead it was second to defending their identity as a "founder". Seemingly stupid decisions followed, but seen from the perspective of a CE…

I agree with your take, most of it boils down to ego, I believe.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#68

Post by satisfice »

whstl wrote: post #37
simonh wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't different.

Indeed. I remember Usenet in the 90s being 50% interesting conversations mostly about niche topics and 50% randomly devolving into flame wars in larger communities. Even "Eternal September" as a concept was something from around 1993/1994 right? Same for the 2000s era online-bulletin-board. I often go to thegearpage.net and am appalled at the amount of shilling, dismissals and disrespect, but then I remember that in…

I am remembering the same Internet. I got into lots of flame wars on comp.software-eng and before that on Compuserve and various FIDO boards.

It was never a very placid or friendly place. There was more tolerance for vigorous debate than there is now. The debate didn’t change many minds, I suppose.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#70

Post by Gud »

sumitkumar wrote: post #55

This happens in any industry where value/status are at a premium. Finance, Law, VC guys were good too in the beginning but when the value/status change happens it attracts certain kind of guys who are average in talent but excel in demonstrating value and social management of the value/status. Another change which has happened recently is that the economics of engagement farming have become common place wisdom as alr…

None of those categories were ever “nice”, wtf.
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