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When Nerds Collide (2014)

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Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#91

Post by lucio »

modfodder wrote: post #31
angersock wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that we even have a collective shared-ideal of "we judge you by your work" is an achievement worth celebrating and continuing, even if we individually fail at it, or even fail at it a lot. And that's the problem I've got with a bunch of the attacks I'll commonly see that are based on privilege: the entire idea is that "well, no, that cool hack doesn't count somehow, because you're a member of $MALIGNED_GROUP…

"we aren't against diversity"..."they should make their bones, same as we did" sounds like it could come from any all white male institution. The problem is, we as humans prefer to surround ourselves with people just like us, sometimes that means same race, sometimes same religion, or gender, or political views, and often it happens subconsciously, choosing the person closer to our ideal without us even realizing we'…

No, and this distinction is essential: You're welcomed based on what you can do and not on what you are. "white male" is un-meritocratic, is something you "are", and not something you can "make" by talent and effort. "code" is cold, hard, unforgiving ("you can't argue with a root shell"), and meritocratic. She's saying: Nevermind who you "ARE", you're welcomed if you can "PRODUCE" (great code). That's exactly the antithesis of what you're implying with "white male" or "black female" or "$X $Y". The mere fact of using "$X $Y" or $MINORITY should give you a hint of how much this concepts are considered. If something fits in a variable, is waaay less important than the algorithm, it is just content, a parameter, "Lorem ipsum" if you like it.

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#92

Post by bottled_poe »

pseudoplatypus wrote: post #24
Yhippa wrote: post #15

The brogrammers and geek feminists won. There's no turning back.

... and with that victory, they have given rise to generations of new weird-nerds that no longer feel as much as outsiders. Ok, I went there for the sake of the quote, but as someone who spent most of high-school maintaining an online forum about nerd topics on a Hardened Gentoo[1] Pentium III[2] server in the floor of his own bedroom; I still find I cannot quite empathize with the fear of "insiders"/"normals" that t…

It is a shame this comment is all the way down the page. It summarises my reaction to the article fairly accurately.

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#93

Post by dropit_sphere »

hueving wrote: post #77
jf wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to meet people "talking hacker-speak" in the Bay Area, then I would suggest that you go to events that would only attract that sort of person. In general this will mean shying away from events about technological pop-culture and instead focusing on the events that cover very specific and "boring" topics. In your particular case, I would suggest going to events that focus on building things ("project night…

We need a meetup group dedicated to strategies for writing parsers. There is nothing 'hip' about that so it should flush out the standard meetup cruft (e.g. "my name is X, i'm a non-technical person looking for a technical cofounder").

I would come. I'm in the middle of a project involving a lot of parsing. Heck, I'd even speak.

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#94

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

dagw wrote: post #71
hyperion2010 wrote: post #26

This article is so spot on and covers many of the things that have bothered me for years about people who try to join nerd communities and then immediately start complaining about "inappropriate behavior" (eg the dongle thing). Yes, there are cases where there is real inappropriate behavior surrounding positions of power in corporate or workplace settings, but in the community at large and in the communal and public…

The dongle thing didn't take place at a "nerd community" event, but at a professional conference. The problem, as it where, is that computers and programming is no longer the exclusive domain of the so called "nerd" and I don't think we should make joining a subculture a prerequisite for joining a career path.

I think you got it backwards. The "dongle thing" is about a feminist bully, not about two guys making a harmless joke. The consensus is that Adria was the problem here, how anyone could come to a different conclusion is beyond me.

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#95

Post by calibraxis »

hyperion2010 wrote: post #26

This article is so spot on and covers many of the things that have bothered me for years about people who try to join nerd communities and then immediately start complaining about "inappropriate behavior" (eg the dongle thing). Yes, there are cases where there is real inappropriate behavior surrounding positions of power in corporate or workplace settings, but in the community at large and in the communal and public…

I'm in "nerd culture". If it's too brittle to fit the needs of people in it, to hell with it. Change or die.

I'm reminded of Grigori Perelman's critique of mathematicians: "But almost all of them are conformists." "It is not people who break ethical standards who are regarded as aliens. It is people like me who are isolated."

If anyone of us is a nerd and can't improve their own culture, GTFO. And take your "dongles" and Big Bang Theory goofiness with you. No special privileges for those who simply preceded others temporally. Dinosaur.

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#96

Post by samastur »

blfr wrote: post #89
Argorak wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see anything what you describe as inherent and necessary to nerd culture. What you want is an abrasive culture and I oppose that. I certainly never "left the world" and certainly not because I found all those things useless or oppressive. I can still nerd out on a multitude of subjects from music to board games to digital culture and I do prefer to do it with people that don't use this culture as a reason to…

What you want is an abrasive culture and I oppose that. Why? Why can't hyperion2010, or anyone else, have an abrasive culture if they want to? There is nowadays some controversy about, best as I can tell, gamers who like abrasive gaming, ie. shoot and insult each other. I can see how one might not want to participate, but why the need to force them to stop? Wouldn't leaving them to it be a reasonable solution? If som…

The problem here is that hacking, gardening or whatever else people do is not "owned" by those who practice it currently or did before others and neither should it be. If they wanted to start their own Abrasive gardening club, where they would be abrasive to each other, then not many people would complain. I don't think it would be healthy, but they are free to do so.

What they aren't free to do without push-back is to tell others who want to do gardening that they should tolerate their abuse. I agree with Angorak that there is nothing in what we do that would require people being assholes which is why I, too, find it unacceptable.

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#97

Post by lucio »

Kalium wrote: post #37
djcapelis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I happen to agree with him. Her, for whatever it's worth.

For an interesting experiment, show this article to the sort of people it's about. Don't tell them the author is an autistic woman. Observe their reactions. Then provide them that background and repeat observations.

That's a GREAT experiment. A hacker will not change his opinions on the article, either good or bad. He might even ask "so?". A non-hacker hating the article will mutate opinion, and now regard the piece as an inspiring essay from a challenged minority.

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#98

Post by sgift »

samastur wrote: post #96
blfr wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you want is an abrasive culture and I oppose that. Why? Why can't hyperion2010, or anyone else, have an abrasive culture if they want to? There is nowadays some controversy about, best as I can tell, gamers who like abrasive gaming, ie. shoot and insult each other. I can see how one might not want to participate, but why the need to force them to stop? Wouldn't leaving them to it be a reasonable solution? If som…

The problem here is that hacking, gardening or whatever else people do is not "owned" by those who practice it currently or did before others and neither should it be. If they wanted to start their own Abrasive gardening club, where they would be abrasive to each other, then not many people would complain. I don't think it would be healthy, but they are free to do so. What they aren't free to do without push-back is…

> What they aren't free to do without push-back is to tell others who want to do gardening that they should tolerate their abuse. I agree with Angorak that there is nothing in what we do that would require people being assholes which is why I, too, find it unacceptable.

The real problem is that there is no coherent definition of abuse and people who are better at playing the social game use that skill to define everything as abuse which they do not like / undermines their status. And that is what the article calls out in the context of 'nerds', 'nerd culture' and 'newcomers' (or at least that is my interpretation of it)

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#99

Post by bad_user »

A_COMPUTER wrote: post #27

One of the biggest frustrations to me, and I do believe this is a new thing, is people with evangelistic universalist worldviews joining these groups and expecting everybody to conform to it. I feel like "nerd culture" was partially defined by being made up of the parts left out of mainstream, inherent heterogeneity, rather than a positive set of things, so arguing you're right and I'm wrong and that's that, is highl…

My disdain has always been for social rules that never made sense - i.e. in order to be liked, you have to look good, dress in a certain way, talk in a certain way, belong to certain groups. I don't want to be different, it isn't my desire to be seen as a geek, however it pisses me off that people judge books by their covers and in order for me to follow rules, well, those rules have to make sense.

For the project I'm working on, I often go in dressed with jeans and teeshirts or hoodies in rooms filled with black suits and ties. I do not have fashion preferences, all that I desire is for the clothes I wear to be comfortable. And I don't give a fuck about the company's dress code, because in the grand scheme of things, they hired me to produce value and not to look good.

To me your comment, the article and these trends with cool/weird geeks, nerds, hipsters or what have you, do not make sense. It's because if there are two things that define me is (1) that I have an obsession with building software and (2) that I don't really give a fuck about anything else, to the point that it actively hurts my personal life. Am I a cool geek, a weirdo, a nerd? Point is, I don't really care, never did.

Re: When Nerds Collide (2014)

#100

Post by Argorak »

sgift wrote: post #98
samastur wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem here is that hacking, gardening or whatever else people do is not "owned" by those who practice it currently or did before others and neither should it be. If they wanted to start their own Abrasive gardening club, where they would be abrasive to each other, then not many people would complain. I don't think it would be healthy, but they are free to do so. What they aren't free to do without push-back is…

> What they aren't free to do without push-back is to tell others who want to do gardening that they should tolerate their abuse. I agree with Angorak that there is nothing in what we do that would require people being assholes which is why I, too, find it unacceptable. The real problem is that there is no coherent definition of abuse and people who are better at playing the social game use that skill to define every…

That's exactly the reason why I put up CoCs for example - we define what is inacceptable in a certain space and put it in clear writing to avoid gaming. It binds the organizers as much as the attendees. It cuts out the play. For example, CoCs for dating environments look very differently then those for confs. (did you know there are cuddling meetups and they have very strict rules to ensure people feel comfortable?)

There are many abusers that are quite good at the "social game" you describe, by exploiting insecurities about rules, especially in their absence. Saying they are "bad at the game" is actually one of the standard plays (and terribly harmful to those that are _actually_ "bad at the game").

The solution is not "there are no rules", but "we have rules here and others here". We need more spaces with with different sets of rules, where everyone can nerd out in their fashion, not chaos.

The problem about society is that you can't cut out social interaction from humans. Any attempt to do so is doomed in my opinion.

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