What happened to nerds? • Hacker News Board

Re: What happened to nerds?

#441

Post by vidarh » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:41 PM UTC

altairprime wrote: post #424

vidarh wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The challenge is to distinguish "think about hard problems for a long period of time, only speak up when you have something positive to contribute" from slacking. I am not arguing for bullshit metrics - I personally love working on things that may or may not pay off on a 10 year+ horizon and wish I could do more of that. But at the same time I've seen enough people coast to accept that most places that either isn't -…

A system that can’t tolerate occasional coasting is a system that can’t tolerate creative bursts. The trick is detecting “I secretly lost hope but my stream of income is very comfortable” when paying a costly salary; which would be mitigated somewhat by switching the tenure benefit of either pay enough to afford, or outright gift of, a single-family home ( looks pointedly at Stanford ) to a variation of residence hal…

Agree with this. Occasional coasting is great. Sometimes you need to recharge. Sometimes it's when you'll get inspiration or find time to do that experiment that feels like leisure because it's fun but ends up paying off massively.

Slack is important.

But so much so that you become a magnet for people who intend to do nothing, or somewhere where people who have fallen into doing nothing aren't noticed and dig their heels in and never leave quickly becomes a problem...

Re: What happened to nerds?

#442

Post by cormorant » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:44 PM UTC

I absolutely despised the game "Mafia" when my friends played it in college. Now I know I'm not alone in that.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#443

Post by zozbot234 » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:44 PM UTC

leononame wrote: post #406

zozbot234 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The intentions of your garden-variety nerd talking about atheism are pretty clear, and it's not to make some greater theological point. I agree about the underlying intentions, but I was talking about the typical, literal arguments for garden-variety 'rational' atheism. The point that these arguments tend to map quite cleanly to negative theology would usually be considered a pretty strong one as a matter of philos…

Yeah, but only if you take the arguments fully out of context and only if you view a subset of the arguments. First, the argument of your garden-variety nerd atheist don't always map so cleanly to negative theology. I've seen plenty of arguments in the realm of "The bible contradicts itself, so you're stupid if you believe in it. Checkmate", etc. You get the idea. Just some of the arguments map well to negative theol…

> there is a relatively big agreement on not taking it literally by society.

I think you're seeing a relatively big agreement where there really isn't one. It's not just the U.S. or biblical literalism, it's also about most people not really being familiar with the notion that even the strangest religious doctrines might be "true in a non-literal (but still worthwhile!) sense". From that POV, the garden variety atheist's argument is raising that very point. You don't have to take the atheism literally to understand that it's hard to believe everything about religion in a literal sense.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#444

Post by sethammons » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:53 PM UTC

TitaRusell wrote: post #96

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…

Virtuous people become doctors, social workers or kindergarten teachers. People who spend their entire life in front of computers should not be the ones with the keys to society yet here we are.

as a former teacher, a former receiver of social services, and someone who makes great money helping teams move bits efficiently, I can say most assuredly that most teachers or social workers are regular, non-expert people. My former teaching colleague thought the screen of his monitor was watching him. And my last social worker had "personal struggles balancing his faith's view on evolution and what the science says." The classic computer nerd who "can't human," but my job is aligning hundreds of people to work on the same software. Education and social work is divorced from the "real world" in many ways, not unlike how those stuck on a screen are divorced from the "real world."

Re: What happened to nerds?

#445

Post by fragmede » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 4:58 PM UTC

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #436

gnopgnip wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don’t “punish” slacking off your institution falls behind even if there is no sabotage

If an IT department doesn't appear to be slacking off it is doing a poor job. It's much better to pay someone who prevents fires and sits around appearing to not be doing much, than a team constantly running around putting out fires that are costing a tone via lost productivity but look really busy. I imagine scientific inspiration/insight comes in flashes. The ability to be honest in the job/what is going on/realist…

We pay firemen to just sit in a house and hang out! I saw them the other day, just going for ice cream!

How do we apply the perception that that's a desirable state elsewhere?

Re: What happened to nerds?

#446

Post by chongli » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 5:00 PM UTC

ang_cire wrote: post #257

chongli wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t have to go back that far. Read To Kill a Mockingbird for an example of a really nice lawyer.

I mean, it is a work of fiction .

A work of fiction which has been revealed to be semi-autobiographical.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#447

Post by palmotea » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 5:01 PM UTC

edu wrote: post #88

Discussion from 3 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48504361

> Discussion from 3 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48504361

That post:

This post:

IMHO, it's not a dup, because it's getting a lot more traction today.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#448

Post by zozbot234 » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 5:02 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #441

altairprime wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A system that can’t tolerate occasional coasting is a system that can’t tolerate creative bursts. The trick is detecting “I secretly lost hope but my stream of income is very comfortable” when paying a costly salary; which would be mitigated somewhat by switching the tenure benefit of either pay enough to afford, or outright gift of, a single-family home ( looks pointedly at Stanford ) to a variation of residence hal…

Agree with this. Occasional coasting is great. Sometimes you need to recharge. Sometimes it's when you'll get inspiration or find time to do that experiment that feels like leisure because it's fun but ends up paying off massively. Slack is important. But so much so that you become a magnet for people who intend to do nothing, or somewhere where people who have fallen into doing nothing aren't noticed and dig their h…

Academia has tenure which basically allows the most capable researchers to "coast" as long as they have previously proven their skills via their tenure-track work. It seems to work quite well.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#449

Post by fragmede » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 5:02 PM UTC

anygivnthursday wrote: post #428

jimbokun wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. As AI improves every white collar job becomes a management job. With the previous conception of an Individual Contributor role disappearing.

And isnt that management job also tomorrow's disappearing IC role? A management agent seems quite possible to me.

https://ceobench.com/

Re: What happened to nerds?

#450

Post by palmotea » Mon, Jun 15, 2026, 5:04 PM UTC

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…

> 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.

People can fall into multiple categories at the same time. A lot of them aren't mutually exclusive.

IMHO Musk can be put into both the nerd/geek bucket and the asshole businessman bucket at the same time.