241–250 of 541 posts
I'm gonna disagree on the timeline and maybe get some flak for it: phase 3 was 1995-2000ish. When the first advertisement script and web analytics were born and disseminated. That's where all the tech grifts originate.
If you haven’t met someone who is rude and inconsiderate and thinks that’s ok because they believe they are way smarter than they are, then you haven’t worked in tech.
This sort of archetype navel gazing is appealing because you can cast any story you want that way. Buy it doesn’t actually help to understand the complex problems we face, it just lets you blame some “other”.
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…
Isn't it the reddit model that absorbed them? Nerds were often seen as poorly social since "logic and reasoning" would go against socially accepted norms. This where the fedora tipping meme comes from: "everybody understands that religion is not literal, but we have to all accept the lie for social cohesion". But "nerds" would be the ones willing to take the ridicule and ostracism because truth would be more importan…
Because everyone has bias and ego and nobody has perfectly logical reasoning.
Why brag about how smart you are to people who’ll just think you’re arrogant and annoying? Why tell someone their religion isn’t real if they’ll just think you’re a heretic, or “best case” despair they’ve been living a lie? You don’t study (especially in lieu of fitness) unless you have motivation which is ultimately based on emotion. I believe it’s usually the same ego that makes alpha men, just that these nerds (usually men) are too weak to be jocks.
Nerds have always had their own social norms, with illogical conformity, groupthink, status signaling, gatekeeping, etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't agree with Paul Graham on everything but he nailed this argument: https://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html > If people can't think clearly about anything that has become part of their identity, then all other things being equal, the best plan is to let as few things into your identity as possible. Of course one can't not have any identity whatsoever, afterall ethics is a type of identity and no one should in…
As with sibling comment, it's my first time reading this, it's a great read, and author really managed to write down into words some things I have vaguely thought about before. One thing I notice, which may be the worst part of it, although I realize it might be bit too pessimistic: It doesn't matter whether A identifies with X — if B thinks A identifies with X, the discussion still breaks down and it becomes difficu…
This kind of self-reflection about identity is also very important for your own internal communication with yourself.
The gentle nerd trope was always a lie (as all tropes were). For every woz you’ve got some egotistical anti-social nerd deriding “bean counters” and “sales guys” because of some deeply held problems dealing with the outside world (especially women). If you haven’t met someone who is rude and inconsiderate and thinks that’s ok because they believe they are way smarter than they are, then you haven’t worked in tech. Th…
A lot of society is actively fucked up by hyperoptimization, especially in business.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Virtuous people become doctors I remember when I was in high school knowing a bunch of people who wanted to be doctors (and had good grades). It was strange to me so many people wanted to be doctors so I asked why. The answer was one word: Money. In my adult life I have also heard of multiple people who demand to be called “doctor” in social situations. “Virtuous” is not a word I’d associate at all with wanting to…
>“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.
It’s an incredibly stressful job with a huge rate of suicide.
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20231010-the-acute-suic...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that plenty of 'nerds' would very much disagree about that. Steering agents effectively is something that can take massive amounts of creativity and talent and be quite helpful wrt. the final result. There's no real analogue of this in traditional programming.
Sure there is, offshoring, now the chat window is with my computer instead on the other side of the planet. Not everyone wants to be a team lead not doing coding any longer.
You listen to the Radio Channel you picked. I understand the complaint, though it's like a complain that nerds featured in Cosmopolitan aren't as nerdy as they were. Musk for me was never a nerd. Many "founders" aren't nerds for me. In the end, I wouldn't classify anyone who is "money" first as a nerd - to me they are businessmen (and businesswomen) in their core. Want to see "the lost nerds"? Here, on HN there are m…
A nerd, when I was growing up, had to have a "thing", and that thing had to be unfashionable. Being a nerd was not a good thing. You loved your subject despite the stigma. (although later on people loved a subject because of the stigma)
There was a difference between a $subject nerd, and an arsehole/weirdo. To be liked, you needed to hide the nerd streak and learn to interact with people using commonly accepted rules. This is partly why the internet flourished in the 90s because you could be surrounded by other nerds and talk nerd shit.
The downside is that a lot of people felt marginalised, but you were in touch with the "normies", so still had to act like a normal high functioning member of society.
Ruthless buisness types were seen as that (at least in the UK) out to make money, and fuck you if you got in the way.
The problem for us now is, ruthless business types now own all the media, and want to shape the world in their image.