What the fuck happened to nerds
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What the fuck happened to nerds
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Re: What the fuck happened to nerds
#2It's a shift in mindset and feels a bit "man yells at clouds". I think this really underestimates how jarring Jobs and his peers were to the older generation of techies who themselves were jarring to the even older ones (eg. remember all the hate Jobs and Gates would receive from Stallman types?).
I also think OP fails to understand how much more competitive tech culture is now.
Visit and talk with undergrads at a top CS program like Stanford, Cal, UIUC, MIT, etc. The culture is different because this is a much more competitive generation. When the acceptance rate into a top CS program is in the 1-5% range and laurels like being a Valedictorian, NHS member, JV or Varsity team member in HS, and taking 6-7 APs are viewed as table stakes, you get a degree of viciousness, competitiveness, and steel-eyed execution that older Americans just aren't used to.
Honestly, I like it. It reminds me of the culture and mindset I'd find amongst my Chinese peers in the 2000s and 2010s when they built China.
Re: What the fuck happened to nerds
#3100% agreed. I saw it somewhere else that the tech industry has burned all the transformative good will it had earned over the years and is now seen as the key villain in joblessness, societal discord and loneliness. What the fuck did happen? Edit: this isn't just an old man thing, this is the new generation saying this
Re: What the fuck happened to nerds
#4'Humans have Limited capacity to pay Attention to anything but Unlimited capacity to receive Attention'. Nerds included.
Attention Economy/Social Media platforms exploited that piece of human nature. Its not just nerds trying to capture Attention but everyone. I have a cop buddy complaining about how top people in the police dept are competiting with each other for likes and views. Everyone gets trapped cuz pool of Attention to fish in is finite.
How do we get out of this situation? Platforms including HN have to be forced to show people that 1 View they get is actually a fraction because that viewer is going and reading 20 other things. By not showing it reality warps.
Re: What the fuck happened to nerds
#520 years in and my coworkers are about the same. What's changed is the public perception.
Arguably because of the media
Re: What the fuck happened to nerds
#6>Charming nerd to terrifying overlord
If there was this shift, it was always superficial. To a certain degree, nerds were always 'terrifying overlords'. It’s just that once they accumulated enough power, there was no longer any point in maintaining that façade
Re: What the fuck happened to nerds
#7100% agreed. I saw it somewhere else that the tech industry has burned all the transformative good will it had earned over the years and is now seen as the key villain in joblessness, societal discord and loneliness. What the fuck did happen? Edit: this isn't just an old man thing, this is the new generation saying this
To be terse but generalizing a bit, technologists used to want to solve problems and make things easier. At some point, under the influence of MBAs it became how do we make loads of money leveraging technology’s network effects?
Re: What the fuck happened to nerds
#8100% agreed. I saw it somewhere else that the tech industry has burned all the transformative good will it had earned over the years and is now seen as the key villain in joblessness, societal discord and loneliness. What the fuck did happen? Edit: this isn't just an old man thing, this is the new generation saying this
To be terse but generalizing a bit, technologists used to want to solve problems and make things easier. At some point, under the influence of MBAs it became how do we make loads of money leveraging technology’s network effects?
Fucking MBAs
Re: What the fuck happened to nerds
#9>Charming nerd to terrifying overlord If there was this shift, it was always superficial. To a certain degree, nerds were always 'terrifying overlords'. It’s just that once they accumulated enough power, there was no longer any point in maintaining that façade
The "Revenge of the Nerds" movie series follows this arc too - when them being oppressed to becoming the oppressors.
Re: What the fuck happened to nerds
#10Wealth inequality.