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What happened to nerds?

mrmarket.lol

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Re: What happened to nerds?

#211

Post by intended »

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.

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.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#212

Post by lojban »

ph4rsikal wrote: post #208

Increasingly men have been disenfranchised over the last decade so the only way forward is to take on such titles to at least appear successful. It looks like normal behaviour to me.

Could you elaborate? In what ways have men been disenfranchised?

Re: What happened to nerds?

#213

Post by ACCount37 »

zozbot234 wrote: post #184
azalemeth wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academia is the most relevant, toxic example that I can think of. Be horrible to others on a short term contract (grad students, postdocs) and break them whilst extracting maximum value -- get more papers, more grants written -- more money -- success. Be nice, think about hard problems for a long period of time, only speak up when you have something positive to contribute -- be labelled an underperforming academic an…

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"Whenever something gets subsidized, it inevitably becomes dominated by exploitive petty politics."

I think it's just limited resources + the single most natural way for humans to compete for limited resources. This isn't actually an inevitable outcome - just the most likely one.

The "self-funding" regime requires people who are both rich enough to afford to fund science and sharp and driven enough to advance science to exist. That's a high bar. And while there is some correlation between intelligence and wealth, the tails come apart hard. People driven to pursuit wealth above all may not be driven to pursue scientific discovery.

We have plenty of billionaires, and preciously few of them actively pursue pushing the frontiers of science and technology. Even by funding the endeavors - let alone by being in the trenches themselves.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#214

Post by lou1306 »

Gud wrote: post #70
sumitkumar wrote: post #55

This happens in any industry where value/status are at a premium. Finance, Law, VC guys were good too in the beginning but when the value/status change happens it attracts certain kind of guys who are average in talent but excel in demonstrating value and social management of the value/status. Another change which has happened recently is that the economics of engagement farming have become common place wisdom as alr…

None of those categories were ever “nice”, wtf.

The "good lawyer" is/was a major archetype in modern Western culture. See "The Devil and Daniel Webster", "To Kill a Mockingbird", "Paths of Glory", just to name a few examples.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#215

Post by maxbond »

zozbot234 wrote: post #184
azalemeth wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academia is the most relevant, toxic example that I can think of. Be horrible to others on a short term contract (grad students, postdocs) and break them whilst extracting maximum value -- get more papers, more grants written -- more money -- success. Be nice, think about hard problems for a long period of time, only speak up when you have something positive to contribute -- be labelled an underperforming academic an…

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All of the low hanging fruit that could be discovered by self-funded gentlemen scientists has been picked. That doesn't scale to a supercollider or a large RCT. Funding at the whims of rich benefactors is very susceptible to petty politics.

Politics is irreducible from human affairs, privatization doesn't eliminate politics. It relocates it to a different set of actors. That could be a better set, but when it is it's because it's a more local and hands on group of people, not because those people happen not to work for the government. Governments are awkward because they are deep bureaucracies, and deep bureaucracies divorce the decision makers from the impact of their decisions. Weaker feedback leads to worse decision making. Not because there is a magic property of government that makes it uniquely bad. Large corporations, universities, and other deep non-governmental bureaucracies have similar pathologies.

That's something of an exaggeration, they are empowered to do violence and collect taxes and other things that are more problematic when abused, but still, privatization isn't a silver bullet.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#216

Post by ghtbircshotbe »

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…

"Nerd" means whatever you want it to mean. I've known people who called themselves nerds because they played d&d and smoked tons of weed. I've known other people who were really focused on technical stuff. I'm sure both types think they're smarter than everyone else, just like most people do.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#217

Post by a96 »

rando77 wrote: post #93
negergreger wrote: post #6

Nerds used to have a internet to discuss tech in, you were allowed to make an argument based on logic and reasoning. Then the ideologues and political commissars showed up, giving zero shit about tech or logical reasoning, this pulled the discourse down to the lowest common denominator and the rest is history. Why should I take the moral high ground and listen to an argument I dislike if I'm not offered the same cour…

Why didn't they build a nerd oasis somewhere? And HN isn't it...

The first rule of nerd oases is you don't talk about nerd oases.

If you belong, you'll find them and know how to get past the gates.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#218

Post by [deleted] »

aborsy wrote: post #157

Companies such SpaceX are not built primarily by CEOs, rather by thousands of engineers, staff members, and state and private funders. Many of them are top graduates of best universities in the world. CEOs play important role too, of course, but they work as hard as engineers. It’s a scam: people like Musk take credit for the work of thousands of people and even states. It’s ridiculous that a few people capture the v…

[deleted]

Re: What happened to nerds?

#219

Post by artyom »

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…

Agree. I think that the complaint is about the dominating narrative in every radio channel you could possible pick from.

It's similar to the "old Internet" argument: it's still there, but buried in layers and layers of stuff that isn't the real thing.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#220

Post by zozbot234 »

leononame wrote: post #187
woolion wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it the reddit model that absorbed them? Nerds were often seen as poorly social since "logic and reasoning" would go against socially accepted norms. This where the fedora tipping meme comes from: "everybody understands that religion is not literal, but we have to all accept the lie for social cohesion". But "nerds" would be the ones willing to take the ridicule and ostracism because truth would be more importan…

> Nerds were often seen as poorly social since "logic and reasoning" would go against socially accepted norms. This where the fedora tipping meme comes from: "everybody understands that religion is not literal, but we have to all accept the lie for social cohesion". But "nerds" would be the ones willing to take the ridicule and ostracism because truth would be more important than conformity. I don't think nerds are/w…

If "everyone understands religion is not literal", why do so many people take it literally? You could just as sensibly flip the argument and argue that the garden-variety 'nerdy' atheist is talking literally about atheism but really doing negative theology ("your idea of God is totally wrong and does not exist, because the true God is necessarily inaccessible to human reason") but that would be silly and make you look like a dork too.
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