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What happened to nerds?

mrmarket.lol

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Re: What happened to nerds?

#301

Post by newaccountman2 »

nerdsniper wrote: post #287
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…

Law was good people when? During the era of the 3/5ths compromise? Dredd Scott? Plessy? Lochner v NY? Buck v Bell? Korematsu? Finance was good people when? When Swiss banks captured all the war spoils of WW2? When they ran Penny Auctions during the Great Depression? When they financed slave ships? When the Medici financed endless war across Europe? I’m not saying people are all awful, but I don’t think there’s any “b…

> Law was good people when? During the era of the 3/5ths compromise? Dredd Scott? Plessy? Lochner v NY? Buck v Bell? Korematsu?

All of those are only things because there were lawyers willing and eager to sue the government over the evils at issue, so your point is much weaker than you think.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#302

Post by initramfs »

azalemeth wrote: post #178
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…

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…

And the Xerox Alto had a budget for 10 years. Unthinkable in today's "What did you publish?? Publish or it didn't happen. No R01 for you! (2 year funding)" culture.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#303

Post by rurban »

All fine and dandy, until I found out how others talk about us nerds. When I was interviewed once on TV (about some sports I was representing), the TV folks constantly joked about me as the "pulli-guy" (guy wearing a pullover). You are certainly not considered serious, if you just don't dress like them. Or talk like them.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#304

Post by macintux »

leononame wrote: post #273
zozbot234 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 loo…

As for the why, I don't have an answer, but I thought I addressed it with this: > I'll admit that there are also groups of Christians that take the bible very literally, as I'm sure there are for other religions as well. From what I can see, these don't make up the canon of religion, and I kind of believe they're mostly concentrated in North America, but that might be my skewed perspective. There will always be peopl…

> There will always be people falling off on one side of the spectrum or the other. Personally, I haven't met anyone who takes the bible literally, and I know a _lot_ of Christians, including pastors and priests.

I grew up, and still live, in a conservative state and a conservative family. That hasn't been my experience at all: I know a lot of people for whom the bible is a literal truth.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#305

Post by dooglius »

a96 wrote: post #217
rando77 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm skeptical of your second claim; being able to find such places ex nihilo would seem to require precisely the skills nerds lack

Re: What happened to nerds?

#307

Post by the__alchemist »

maxbond wrote: post #215
zozbot234 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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…

I am suspicious of this fruit-altitude analogy due to its long history of use, and 100% failure rate.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#308

Post by win311fwg »

dolia wrote: post #15
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…

I feel that too many people are confusing arguments they agree with with logical arguments. Most of people, when they claim that something is rational or logical, actually mean that it's a position that they agree with. I have no reason to believe that back in the day when internet was only for nerds the situation was different.

Your interpretation of behaviour is slightly off. Nerds use discussion to explore what they don't understand. There is no value in discussing something you already know everything about. What could you learn from that? If someone claims that something is rational or logical, they are seeking feedback to see if others can poke holes in where it is not rational/logical. Think something akin to Cunningham's Law.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#309

Post by buckle8017 »

BoxOfRain wrote: post #222
maxbond wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>Politics is irreducible from human affairs, privatization doesn't eliminate politics. It relocates it to a different set of actors. We ideologically privatised the water sector into regional private monopolies in the UK, and anyone who's had experience with the water monopolies knows this is the truth.

Can't really compare a natural monopoly (water utility) that should be the government with something that isn't a natural monopoly (research).

Re: What happened to nerds?

#310

Post by danaris »

zozbot234 wrote: post #126
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. It's pretty hard to describe Elon Musk's ventures in space exploration, robots and human-like AI as anything other than prototypical, "core" nerd culture. Especially when it turns out that the very word 'Elon' shows up in obscure magazine excerpts from the 1950s as the leader of a science-fictional Martian government, and apparently this somehow pla…

His "ventures" started out with PayPal. Not exactly nerd culture.

For the nerdy ones, he bought his way in; he never actually founded Tesla.

Everything you think you know about him, at least as expressed in this post, is a result of his carefully crafted PR propaganda.

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