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What happened to nerds?

mrmarket.lol

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Re: What happened to nerds?

#411

Post by jimbokun »

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…

> I don’t know why you’d think “being interested in nerdy stuff like computers” would somehow translate into virtuous behavior.

Whatever tenuous link there was between the two, only existed as long as computers were not really seen as a path to wealth and power. Because then a smart person with the capability to enter fields traditionally associated with wealth and power choosing computers reflected putting personal curiosity and interest over pursuing wealth and power as the sole objective.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#412

Post by leononame »

macintux wrote: post #304
leononame wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 peopl…

> 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. I grew up, and still live, in a conservative state and a conservative family. That hasn't been my experience at all: I know a lot of people for whom the bible is a literal truth.

That's fair. Experiences have a great influence on opinions you form, and everyone's experience is different. You live in a different part of the world than I do and know different people. I even conceded that in North America, the amount of people that take the bible literally might be higher or at least more visible than other parts of the world, and I'm going to assume you are from the USA because you said "state".

According to one survey I found[0], around ~20% of Americans (25% of Christian adults) say the bible is the literal word of god. Not exactly a huge amount of people, but a very considerable number nonetheless. I didn't find any numbers for other regions, but maybe it would help to see number of followers by denomination and try to derive some data from that. The official stance of the Catholic Church e.g. is that the bible should not be taken literally. Most protestants in Europe also don't practice much fundamentalism, but there are an estimated 25 million Evangelicals in Europe, around 2.5% to 3% of the population. There's probably more people preaching biblicism than only fundamental evangelicals, but I just wanted to look up two examples real quick.

[0]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/394262/fewer-bible-literal-word...

Re: What happened to nerds?

#413

Post by jimbokun »

m_fayer wrote: post #108
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…

Nerd-dom has also somehow merged with the world of fantasy and fandom. These are subcultures obsessed with hero journeys, morality tales, escapism, and cartoonish black-and-white ethical systems. I don't expect such people to handle fame and wealth well at all.

> These are subcultures obsessed with hero journeys, morality tales, escapism, and cartoonish black-and-white ethical systems.

Which subcultures do not tend to value these things?

Re: What happened to nerds?

#414

Post by jimbokun »

shermantanktop wrote: post #398
m_fayer wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nerd-dom has also somehow merged with the world of fantasy and fandom. These are subcultures obsessed with hero journeys, morality tales, escapism, and cartoonish black-and-white ethical systems. I don't expect such people to handle fame and wealth well at all.

Obsessed fans will talk your ear off about the amazing scene where the superhero had to choose between saving humanity and the magical macguffin as though it were the most sophisticated storytelling ever created. Their frame of reference is very narrow. I’m sure there are lots of sophisticates on here who enjoy that stuff along with a wider variety of literature. But the ones I know who love it are almost exclusively…

It's not just the nerds who enjoy lowbrow culture.

It's almost tautological that most people enjoy middle brow or low brow cultural products. Reality TV shows, soap operas, romance novels, professional wrestling, etc.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#415

Post by tim333 »

lioeters wrote: post #229
RaSoJo wrote: post #204

Apart from Woz, I don't consider the rest of the individuals as nerds at all. Those are loan sharks in the garb of nerds. Capitalizing the work of others, Cannibalizing smaller entities, creating monopolies, controlling the government and the narrative.

The way of Woz is how you earn the respect of fellow nerds. The way of Jobs is how you "earn" a billion dollars.

Though Woz did ok there.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#416

Post by jimbokun »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #263
intended wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Nerd-dom was always merged with fantasy and sci-fi? Star Trek, Star Wars, Dune, LOTR, Asimov, Clarke, Hobbes, are all nerd-dom mainstays, like D&D.

Back in those times we made a distinction between nerds and geeks, with geeks really being a sort of subset of nerds that was just interested in the technicals.

I think that distinction was invented post-facto. For most people they were pretty much synonyms in every day usage.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#417

Post by jimbokun »

boelboel wrote: post #168
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…

Bill Gates was always a POS, reading about his behaviour earlier on doesn't make him seem in any way virtuous. The whole 'charity' persona he put on afterwards is just PR.

> The whole 'charity' persona he put on afterwards is just PR.

What do you mean by "persona"? Do you mean he's not really giving money away?

Re: What happened to nerds?

#418

Post by initramfs »

jimbokun wrote: post #399
initramfs wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the Xerox Alto had a budget for 10 years. Unthinkable in today's "What did you publish?? Publish or it didn't happen. No R01 for you! (2 year funding)" culture.

Why is publishing papers an unreasonable expectation? Isn't that the primary mechanism for exchanging knowledge and driving discussion among academics? If not, what should replace it?

I have published all my papers since 2023 on the web. None were peer reviewed, but on pre-print servers.

Einstein's 1905 papers were published without peer review.

I still get spam emails asking me to pay for papers I've already uploaded to public servers years ago.

Here's one from this morning- already deleted by Google's spam filter: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h8YVu5-DEx-1mOibiLpfJHrErvX...

The actual article was intended as a joke: https://vixra.org/abs/2405.0051 yet fraudulent publishers continue to treat it as a serious article.

It would be nice if publishing a fake paper every now and then could serve like a sinkhole for scammers, but I would be too optimistic or naive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNS_sinkhole

Re: What happened to nerds?

#419

Post by fridder »

xlii wrote: post #28

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…

AKA Woz vs Jobs

Re: What happened to nerds?

#420

Post by jimbokun »

rayiner wrote: post #280
zozbot234 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, suc…

I think hyper focus on anything is more likely to be classified as "nerdy" today. People will say "I'm a huge guitar nerd" or "I'm a huge gardening nerd" or whatever.
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