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What happened to nerds?

mrmarket.lol

361–370 of 541 posts

Re: What happened to nerds?

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s related to the trope that non-rich people are more ethical than rich people, or nerds would treat women better than jocks. Confusing lack of opportunity to engage in certain behavior for lack of propensity.

That's an interesting point since in practice, athletic ("jock") women tend to be more common than nerdy women to begin with. Women being into tech or science (stereotypical "nerdy" pursuits) is something that tends to happen more in lower-income countries, which suggests a large self-interest or incentive component, while the opposite is true for athletic women. Perhaps the proper counterpart of the "nerd" among wom…

> Perhaps the proper counterpart of the "nerd" among women is engaged in very different, more traditional crafts or intellectual interests which aren't highlighted as "nerdy" by mainstream culture.

This is it.

Nerdy women are in fiber arts, fandom (especially generative fandom), etc. Nerdy women definitely exist, they just tend to take their penchant for nerd/obsessive/systems thinking to more 'appropriately female' areas. (For example, things like indie perfume houses, or my obsession with the mechanics of bra manufacturing and fitting). They also tend to pick apart relationships instead of objects: This is why female fandom is so dominated by tropes and boxes to shove characters into. They like the organization and clean categories just like male nerds do, they just apply them to different domains.

They also usually have a different but related stereotype. We're pathetic shut in cat ladies instead of pimply nerds. It's also not usually considered a problem until we hit ~25 (or whatever age the culture at the time considers a woman ready for motherhood) since a shy, obsessive, escapist woman who doesn't want to engage with people can make a fine wife/gf. Most of the grief is directed at us for not caring about our appearance enough more than anything else.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#362
The mafia game aspect is something I had not thought of. Have science fiction / dystopian novels focused on propaganda like that? Novels seem to have cartoonishly evil societies but the real world has stuff like this.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#363

Wow, this comment section alone speaks to how much things have changed. As someone who started to read this forum because it was y-combinator startup-friendly, business-friendly and investor-friendly, I never would have imagined the anger and ridicule on display here. Obviously, the nerds have left the building--or at least this forum. Did anyone read this article? "There is no reason founders should disappear from p…

I think the ire is from people who were nerds pre 2000. Before software was a way to wealth. People who made weird stuff because they wanted to. Then some of those people made weird stuff that made them wealthy, leading some people to make boring stuff that made them wealthy. Then the phrase startup started being common and people entered the field with wealth on their mind. It is the complaint you would hear from any niche career if suddenly it became lucrative. Your advice is solid though. Ignore all those people and keep making weird stuff that you love without worrying about whether it will pay for more than food and shelter. Not with you on the overlord thing though, there are plenty of people looking to control, oppress and pull up ladders.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting point since in practice, athletic ("jock") women tend to be more common than nerdy women to begin with. Women being into tech or science (stereotypical "nerdy" pursuits) is something that tends to happen more in lower-income countries, which suggests a large self-interest or incentive component, while the opposite is true for athletic women. Perhaps the proper counterpart of the "nerd" among wom…

I was referring to the "Revenge of the Nerds" trope, which involves nerds who are men. But as to your point, the "nerd" characterization arises not only from the field of interest, but the hyperfocus nature of the pursuit. Hyperfocus behaviors get coded as "nerdy" in men but don't get coded as such in women. For example, my daughter, my wife, and I have the same personality. My hyperfocus interests as a teenager, suc…

Nerd-dom in women is also only judged if we don't adhere to the social requirements of womanhood. You can be as obsessive as you want as long as you're bubbly, socially adept, and take care to look pretty. Our interests aren't considered a necessary component to our identity culturally in the same way men's are.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with Paul Graham on everything but he nailed this argument: https://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html > If people can't think clearly about anything that has become part of their identity, then all other things being equal, the best plan is to let as few things into your identity as possible. Of course one can't not have any identity whatsoever, afterall ethics is a type of identity and no one should in…

That was a great read! Thanks for linking it! Paul certainly has a way with words that I simply don't, and he expresses the same idea I had, only much more clearly. I wonder if being "engaged by identity" can be automatically detected somehow? Would be a cool experiment to build a automatic moderator that just hides identity based responses. Also makes me wonder if there's a reliable way to detect it in yourself? If…

I can't find it now, but I distinctly remember dang talking about his moderation philosophy being based on what he's read about the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system

Re: What happened to nerds?

#366
It’s not a “nerds” thing.

Most CEOs are completely private.

Most people don’t post their thoughts on Facebook on random topics either.

Because when most people post all their private thoughts on matters publicly, it’s kind of embarrassing.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#367

Julian Assange and Mark Zuckerberg were two nerds on either side of the privacy spectrum in the twenty-teens. One was framed and tortured, the other was given an empire. The message was received. We now only have the Zuckerberg type.

I don't think Assange was overly concerned with privacy, transparency was more his wheelhouse.

potato potatoe

Re: What happened to nerds?

#368
> Phase three (2015 to now): the tech industry as grift-adjacent... Elon Musk is the most absurd example of this

Elon? Grift? Give me a break. He's the greatest true technologist of all time.

I couldn't fine even one other defender in either discussion. Maybe its true that HN has been BlueSky'd and Twitter is the new HN

ps. Great post aside from this

Re: What happened to nerds?

#369
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Most of them had quarter/midlife crises and got partners/children/mortgages etc. and no longer care. The next generation know nothing else other than the current internet.

Yeah sadly that's it. The great forums all died off when it was no longer doing ridiculous stuff to entertain internet friends, and instead having super lame adult responsibilities.

Speaking for myself, kids even with a hands off parenting approach are a ridiculous amount of work.

Re: What happened to nerds?

#370

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…

I don't think being nerdy makes someone virtuous, that's true. However, I think SV of 20-40 years ago had a distinct culture (best symbolized by Woz) that's basically been lost to the MBA-types and the hustle culture bros. Sometimes they wear it around like a creepy skin suit but it comes across as deeply inauthentic.

This is a common refrain but my point is that it's nonsense. Most of the people running top companies do not have MBAs and are technical, aka nerds. This trope is a false narrative designed to portray one group as pure, ethical people that were corrupted from outside.
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