Nerds have made themselves obsolete by inventing LLMs.
So now instead of programming it makes more sense to go to the gym.
What happened to nerds?
231–240 of 541 posts
Re: What happened to nerds?
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s related to the trope that non-rich people are more ethical than rich people, or nerds would treat women better than jocks. Confusing lack of opportunity to engage in certain behavior for lack of propensity.
That's an interesting point since in practice, athletic ("jock") women tend to be more common than nerdy women to begin with. Women being into tech or science (stereotypical "nerdy" pursuits) is something that tends to happen more in lower-income countries, which suggests a large self-interest or incentive component, while the opposite is true for athletic women. Perhaps the proper counterpart of the "nerd" among wom…
It wasn’t always that way. In 1984 almost 40% of CS grads were women.
Re: What happened to nerds?
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think nerd -> believes in science. Science -> requires honesty, curiousity, humility, persistence (i.e. admit you are wrong, accept you losses). Generally I'm not sure you'd be considered a nerd if you weren't too honest for your own good. Not that this covers all types of virtuous behavior - there do exist nasty scientists. (And there is some level of fraud/dishonesty in academia, too).
I wonder how personality forming it is, being a curious kid growing up hacking on computers. If you don't get what you expected, it's almost never the computer's fault - it means you did it wrong, and need to reconsider. There's no excuses and no dumping responsibility on anyone or anything else. I have the feeling it probably teaches you something , or at least it should. Something not too unlike epistemic humility,…
As a kid, that's what I loved about computers. They were fair in ways society wasn't. The rules were clear, and breaking the rules resulted in badness. Unlike grade school, for example, where the rules were always changing and badness would just occur randomly and capriciously.
Re: What happened to nerds?
#234This 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…
> This happens in any industry where value/status are at a premium. So, all of them?
Right? Isn’t that just tautology? This happens in industries where value is valued and status confers status?
Re: What happened to nerds?
#235"The digital commons of 2026 is defined by its grifters. So it's not purely tech's fault that its now seen as a sort of avenue for getting rich quick and amorally"
I am not so sure I agree with this take. The "nerds" are building incredibly powerful technologies (Amazon, Starlink/SpaceX, search, algorithmic social media, AI, etc.) that literally control our lives now. It isn't any great mystery that the tech titans realized they had this power, and hence are questioning whether democracy is some outdated concept. They all want to be Plato's philosopher (or in this case, technologist) kings. At the risk of sounding like an AI, it isn't just grifting (or a con game) - these guys really do think of themselves as the new feudal lords. So I don't think this author is thinking big enough...
Re: What happened to nerds?
#236This 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.
public defender lawyers who fought for workers rights and against items like company towns, abolitionists, etc. many good lawyers
finance people who invented life insurance, health insurance, car insurance, friendly societies. as much as we complain about insurance here in the US, life was immeasurably worse when there was none. there was no such thing as state health care or social security in those days
you would be surprised to find that there are many people in finance who never tried to make a quick buck, and are pretty altruistic. this is evidenced by the large amount of family owned banks
tech now going through what finance did in the 1980s, shift to greed and excess
Re: What happened to nerds?
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
Academia is the most relevant, toxic example that I can think of. Be horrible to others on a short term contract (grad students, postdocs) and break them whilst extracting maximum value -- get more papers, more grants written -- more money -- success. Be nice, think about hard problems for a long period of time, only speak up when you have something positive to contribute -- be labelled an underperforming academic an…
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> Whenever something gets subsidized by the government it inevitably becomes dominated by exploitive petty politics.
When younger I've had job in grocery stores and saw petty politics.
There's nothing particular to being subsidized or not: politics is something humans do, and the pettiness is simply a reflection of the people involved.
Re: What happened to nerds?
#238Nice shadow marketing for Kagi in there, linking to a Kagi image result page that asks you to sign up to view it, instead of the image.
Re: What happened to nerds?
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
>“Virtuous” is not a word I’d associate at all with wanting to become a doctor. Veterinarians are a different matter, though. For those that don't know, veterinarian education is just as rigorous, time consuming, and expensive as human medical education, yet the median annual wage for practicing veterinarians is $125,510.
That's a lot of money out in rural country, which is where veterinarians tend to be especially useful.
That’s also the money in the US, not everywhere, and not every veterinarian goes into it for the rural stuff. I know plenty of veterinarians who have zero interest in that, and being vegan don’t even approve of the industry.
Re: What happened to nerds?
#240It really changed when the game went from "Build the best product" to "Get the highest valuation" and the means of doing so were specifically NOT about building the best product. VC money was a factor, public exits were a factor, but even more generally, the idea became that you could become a billionaire without making anything at all.
Just create enough FOMO among the monied and you win. This is not nerd stuff... it's psychopath stuff.