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What happened to nerds?

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Re: What happened to nerds?

#271

Post by saidnooneever »

locknitpicker wrote: post #191
zozbot234 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Whenever something gets subsidized by the government it inevitably becomes dominated by exploitive petty politics. Your US-blend of anti-state brainwashing is showing. There is nothing inherently different in the for-profit status of an organization that prevents the occurrence of "exploitive petty politics". You see those from any organization from homeowners organization to full blown FANGs. I mean, have you ever…

the only ingredient needed is humans

Re: What happened to nerds?

#272

Post by Avicebron »

BoxOfRain wrote: post #222
maxbond wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the low hanging fruit that could be discovered by self-funded gentlemen scientists has been picked. That doesn't scale to a supercollider or a large RCT. Funding at the whims of rich benefactors is very susceptible to petty politics. Politics is irreducible from human affairs, privatization doesn't eliminate politics. It relocates it to a different set of actors. That could be a better set, but when it is it's…

>Politics is irreducible from human affairs, privatization doesn't eliminate politics. It relocates it to a different set of actors. We ideologically privatised the water sector into regional private monopolies in the UK, and anyone who's had experience with the water monopolies knows this is the truth.

We in the US did the same with PG&E (gas and electric utility) out in California. It goes as well as expected, which is to say poorly.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#273

Post by leononame »

zozbot234 wrote: post #220
leononame wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 important than conformity. I don't think nerds are/w…

If "everyone understands religion is not literal", why do so many people take it literally? You could just as sensibly flip the argument and argue that the garden-variety 'nerdy' atheist is talking literally about atheism but really doing negative theology ("your idea of God is totally wrong and does not exist, because the true God is necessarily inaccessible to human reason") but that would be silly and make you loo…

As for the why, I don't have an answer, but I thought I addressed it with this:

> I'll admit that there are also groups of Christians that take the bible very literally, as I'm sure there are for other religions as well. From what I can see, these don't make up the canon of religion, and I kind of believe they're mostly concentrated in North America, but that might be my skewed perspective.

There will always be people falling off on one side of the spectrum or the other. Personally, I haven't met anyone who takes the bible literally, and I know a _lot_ of Christians, including pastors and priests. Some people simply just believe that there is something more, others have a feeling that you can sense that, some just need this believe to feel safe, etc. I guess it depends on where you're from, I believe biblicism is more common in North America, or at least more visible.

Additionally, the "everyone understands religion is not literal" was citing my parent. Usually, "everyone" is kind of understood not to mean "exactly 100%". It's a device to communicate intent.

> You could just as sensibly flip the argument and argue that the garden-variety 'nerdy' atheist is talking literally about atheism but really doing negative theology ("your idea of God is totally wrong and does not exist, because the true God is necessarily inaccessible to human reason") but that would be silly and make you look like a dork too.

Yeah, it'd make you look like a dork because it'd be obviously incorrect. The intentions of your garden-variety nerd talking about atheism are pretty clear, and it's not to make some greater theological point. When you talk to people who talk down on religion and believers, it's usually really easy to tell whether it's because only they themselves understand the True Intention Of God or whether they just think Christians are stupid and if you're smart you have to be an atheist. Said garden-variety nerd is the latter.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#274

Post by boringg »

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…

How do we remove that? Those are the exact kind of people most intelligent people find quite grating in an organization - though because they self-promote so much its difficult to unpack the truth until they have kind of weaseled their way into an entrenched position (normally they are reasonably good at politics).

I'll use the All-in podcast as a perfect example of the type of person described. They have some value in that they have palace intrigue + arguably asymetric access to information.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#275

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

meindnoch wrote: post #69

They let in non-nerds. That's what happened.

You comment is probably one of the most important here. The gate keepers (generally the nerds) who produced useful products/services allowed the non-nerds in (to management), and from then on it's a slippery slope.

You will see similar dynamics where a bunch of people are involved.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#276

Post by boelboel »

conwy wrote: post #251
boelboel wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who's been in both engineering school and medical school, I would say you're very wrong. Most doctors aren't in any way virtuous, most are in it for status or money and plenty don't care one bit about humans (some just like the thrill of being in charge of someone their life). There's only a small minority that's extremely virtuous. This might've been different 50 years ago but it's the number one striver…

Admittedly this is anecdotal, but I've visited many doctors over the years, as a patient, and pretty much all of them treated me well, practiced their jobs professionally and gave me good advice and treatments. I never had a doctor give me advice that turned out to be wrong or ill intentioned. Again ... maybe it's just my experience. None of these were super life threatening conditions. However I did go under the ope…

Being non-virtuous doesn't all of a sudden turn them into some kind of evil monster. It's just a job for most of them, one that pays well. Being professional and giving treatment like they should (basically following orders) is the easiest way to avoid problems for doctors.

This all changes when they get more difficult patients. As someone who's been told bogus by doctors, even lightly pushing back many will completely change demeanor, you're no longer some easy money but a risk/annoyance. So your good experiences basically just show doctors in their 'perfect state'.

This isn't the same in every country as you say it's a regulated field and the regulations differ wildly from country to country and so does the view and behaviour of doctors.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#277

Post by spongebobstoes »

TrackerFF wrote: post #132
keiferski wrote: post #78

I don’t know why you’d think “being interested in nerdy stuff like computers” would somehow translate into virtuous behavior. They seem like entirely different things to me, in the sense that I wouldn’t expect a writer, or a baker, or a chef to have typical ethical behaviors as a group. “What happened” was just that some people got rich and powerful and their real personalities showed through. This is not a new thing…

People have made "nerdiness" a premium because other nerds view it as passion. The rationale is that if you craft something out of passion, it will somehow be better than. I think it also comes down to the fact that many tech nerds view engineering more as a art than cold engineering, and they view themselves as artists and artisans. There's also this age-old belief that if you do something out of passion, you're wil…

all the best coders and engineers I've worked with have been nerds and very passionate about computers

passion is necessary but not sufficient to be the best. you can be top 20% without passion, but you can't be top 1%

Re: What happened to nerds?

#279

Post by mrhottakes »

abstractcontrol wrote: post #158
TrackerFF wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have made "nerdiness" a premium because other nerds view it as passion. The rationale is that if you craft something out of passion, it will somehow be better than. I think it also comes down to the fact that many tech nerds view engineering more as a art than cold engineering, and they view themselves as artists and artisans. There's also this age-old belief that if you do something out of passion, you're wil…

> Probably one of the most ego-crushing realizations (if you're a nerd) is to discover that there are people out there MUCH more talented and higher performing than what you'll ever be, but with none of the obsession or pride. In other profession that's not really a topic. You can be a top performer in other professions, without a deep interest, clock out 4 daily, and never think about work outside work. You could cl…

> Everything you've written here has to be wrong.

This is certainly incorrect.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#280

Post by rayiner »

zozbot234 wrote: post #166
rayiner wrote: post #135

Earlier 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…

I was referring to the "Revenge of the Nerds" trope, which involves nerds who are men. But as to your point, the "nerd" characterization arises not only from the field of interest, but the hyperfocus nature of the pursuit. Hyperfocus behaviors get coded as "nerdy" in men but don't get coded as such in women. For example, my daughter, my wife, and I have the same personality. My hyperfocus interests as a teenager, such as computers, got coded as "nerdy." My daughter, meanwhile, hyperfocuses in the same way on knitting or drawing, but those don't get coded as "nerdy" at all.
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