I love the title...it makes me want to just keep the rhyme going...
"Others are just nay sayers, but on HN we just rhyme sayers, but I'll just get down voted by a bunch of HN-taking-things-too seriously player haters.
We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators
191–200 of 236 posts
Re: We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those jobs are gone these days. I grew up mostly in an upper middle class neighborhood, but for high school, we were bussed to a school in a more lower class area. There were a lot more trailer parks in the area and the auto body program at my high school was pretty popular. Just last week I was driving through that area and saw business after business with signs outside looking to hire CNC machinists, HVAC installer…
They're getting harder and harder to fill because they don't pay anything anymore. A friend of mine quit his apprenticeship as a machinist because he can make more money doing phone tech support for a cable company.
More money than an apprentice machinist or more money than a professional? I would guess the former, which is a pity.
Re: We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators
#193It was going OK until he said to get a 40 and drink it on the curb. Fuck you, whatever the fuck your name was.
Re: We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators
#194> A few months ago, a startup developer friend said to me "I don't understand why poor kids, ghetto kids, don't do startups to get out of poverty." I've got just about zero tolerance left for people who don't acknowledge their privilege.
But they do. Let me explain. I grew up in a barrio , which is a latin ghetto. Junked cars in front lawns, domestic disturbances every night, shootings, drugs, all of that stuff. Every kid in there made money by pure hustle. There were no jobs available for any of us. Some kids cut hair (then went on to become barbers), others worked on cars, but most sold drugs. There were startups, but all were of the illegal variet…
I'm a middle class guy but for whatever reasons for the past 20 years or so I've lived largely in poorer communities. It's not some charity thing either. I just like to save money. And this dude is right, drug dealers don't make much money. They really lack options, like most people in their situation of being poor, minority, and young. The jobs like mowing lawns barely exist (often because there aren't many lawns). They sell drugs mainly because wealthier people are willing to drive into the area to buy drugs. The liquor stores even sell things like nickel bags and smoking gear. Gangs offer credit. The product kind of sells itself, the same way that laptops used to sell themselves, or that big screen tvs used to. When I looked like a dirtbag, people always asked me where to buy drugs. Middle class college kids were the ones asking. I usually didn't know. (I wish people would come up to me and ask to write little utilities for Unix.)
One other thing I notice, too - there's just a ton of stress, and nothing harms learning like stress. I once shared an office in a gangland type area, and it was impossible to work at night because the gunfire and helicopters really stopped any flow of ideas.
Re: We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those jobs are gone these days. I grew up mostly in an upper middle class neighborhood, but for high school, we were bussed to a school in a more lower class area. There were a lot more trailer parks in the area and the auto body program at my high school was pretty popular. Just last week I was driving through that area and saw business after business with signs outside looking to hire CNC machinists, HVAC installer…
They're getting harder and harder to fill because they don't pay anything anymore. A friend of mine quit his apprenticeship as a machinist because he can make more money doing phone tech support for a cable company.
he or she should stick it out. a machinist is a good job, especially if you can do the trad and the cnc.
Re: We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators
#196I'm a 'ghetto' kid. Grew up in LA and El Salvador.
The reason I haven't done a startup is because i simply don't have the monetary support. I have to pay for my mom and family, pay rent, etc. We don't have the privilege of a circle of people with money.
Our parents couldn't afford to send us to college, in fact it's better for them that we start working as early as possible. Our past generations weren't scientists, lawyers, etc. They were immigrants, mostly farm and home workers. So, we're one of the first generations to even have the opportunity to be lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc.
The author is right, and a lot of people can't relate or even think about those types of problems.
But, the problems he listed are still pretty dear in our hearts and perhaps the next few generations will tackle it.
Re: We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators
#197> A few months ago, a startup developer friend said to me "I don't understand why poor kids, ghetto kids, don't do startups to get out of poverty." I've got just about zero tolerance left for people who don't acknowledge their privilege.
I've got just about zero tolerance left for people who don't view other people as people , instead of embodiments of their socioeconomic-racial-gender status. A person is not their balance sheet, their skin color, or their preferred type of partner. The truth is that--barring sheer crazy--anyone would play the cards dealt to them as well as they can muster. This "Check your privilege" stuff, once a useful exercise in…
70% chance angersock is a white male.
Re: We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators
#198Completely agree, great article. There are a lot of companies working on a lot of very small problems these days. It's natural, since the economic imbalance makes it more worthwhile to solve small problems for a large number of people who have disposable money to pay for small solutions. But there are big problems out there that we should be inspired to solve. Let's solve the meta-problem: what's holding us back from…
It's easier to sell things to people with spending money than to sell things to people without spending money.
Re: We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's no need to be confrontational. I agree with the suggestion that wealth is generally not the aim that drives the more knowledgeable minds to long-term effect in our industry. My theory is that that's because once you have enough to get by, the problem of money goes away and is replaced with competing concerns (ie. curiosity to create, learn or experience new things).
> There's no need to be confrontational. I disagree, I think that the 'real' anything meme is harmful and should be stopped immediately. > I agree with the suggestion that wealth is generally not the aim that drives the more knowledgeable minds to long-term effect in our industry. I agree with this as well, I just didn't like the idea that if you are driven by money then you aren't a hacker. EDIT: added missing word.
If there are some people who make art for various reasons, and a subset of those people are so driven by the desire to make art that it's almost a compulsion that is more important to them than other things - perhaps even things necessary for survival like eating - and I want to distinguish this subset, how should I do so?
Lots of people would choose to say 'artist' and 'true artist' for those sets of people, and while that might be slightly unfortunate terminology (since those who are not 'true artists' may still be exceptional 'artists'), there is a definite subset of 'artist' that it is useful to identify.
I think the same is true of 'hacker'.
Re: We call ourselves innovators, but most of us are really just iterators
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Having enough surplus capital that we can take a three day trip to the Moon seems pretty First World to me. Today, perhaps, but in retrospect our first manned moon mission probably bdid more for 20th-Century technology than any other single project.
Going to the moon not only proved that we can leave our planet. Galvanized the nation. Space created a culture and made us think about the future. Thank you NDT.
It also proved that we could accurately launch a rocket that could also be used to blow the USSR to smithereens.