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What the fuck happened to nerds

mrmarket.bearblog.dev

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Re: What the fuck happened to nerds

#91

Post by jltsiren »

RickS wrote: post #82

What happened was the set of available moves and rewards has incrementally changed. What has not changed is that nerds are humans, and humans are terrible at resisting increases in status, power, wealth, etc. If the glorified nerds of the past had been offered the same roads to status and power, they would have taken them. This reminds me of the way people think of the olden days when stuff was made of real wood and…

Humans are good at resisting things outside their comfort zones. Strong incentives select for people who don't have to leave their comfort zones to pursue them.

Most of the nerds I knew when I was young were nerds because they valued their interests more than the "boring mundane stuff" around wealth, status, and power. Some of them changed their minds later, but most of them didn't. Once you start seeing yourself as a "person interested in X", it gets difficult to become something else.

Re: What the fuck happened to nerds

#92

Post by littlexsparkee »

alephnerd wrote: post #37
mrhottakes wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you read the article, it's not about competition.

I read the article, but the attributes which OP views as negative are just the general traits of hypercompetitive people. The only way to win is by hook or by crook - that is what you learn in hypercompetitive environments. Edit: Can't reply > Yours is the kind of attitude that has ruined the industry If you can't compete you will be made redundant. Honestly, in some aspects that is what I appreciate about the Chines…

I can't agree with you given candidate evaluation is arbitrary, badly targeted, and privilege centered (school/company pedigree). The latter drives ability to get exposure to disciplines and tooling and often a specific stack could be picked up easily by others with a little time/training. HR looks for safe signals and is happy to ignore good talent that doesn't check all the boxes, especially in a market like this.

Re: What the fuck happened to nerds

#93

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

geraldwhen wrote: post #36
andrenotgiant wrote: post #20

I have an imperfect "canary in the coalmine" test for whether/where the principled/idealist nerds have the power vs the mercenary/cynical nerds have the power: Advertisers vs Ad Blockers - as long as the Ad Blockers are blocking the vast majority of junk, I feel like team principles is winning. Like they have more nerd power to outsmart the lesser nerds working on team mercenary. But there are places like Facebook wh…

There are currently multiple trivial ways for a layman to block all YouTube ads.

There are also multiple ways to avoid ads without "blocking"

Ingress and egress traffic is allowed, not blocked, but requests for ads, tracking, telemetry, etc., if any, fail

Re: What the fuck happened to nerds

#94

Post by shifto »

andrenotgiant wrote: post #45
geraldwhen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are currently multiple trivial ways for a layman to block all YouTube ads.

mostly true - but youtube has experimented with forcing a "loading state" for ad block users that was the same duration as the ads they would have watched. https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1l7b3c8/strange_lo...

And I didn't even mind. Rather watch 15s of black screen than an obnoxious ad.

Re: What the fuck happened to nerds

#95

Post by telesilla »

andrenotgiant wrote: post #45
geraldwhen wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are currently multiple trivial ways for a layman to block all YouTube ads.

mostly true - but youtube has experimented with forcing a "loading state" for ad block users that was the same duration as the ads they would have watched. https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1l7b3c8/strange_lo...

Is it possible that different regions have different ad experiences? I've not seen a single ad nor hint of one in a long time using the Brave browser on both android and desktop. Primarily in Europe.

Re: What the fuck happened to nerds

#96

Post by skeledrew »

plastic-enjoyer wrote: post #21
mc32 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I think that technologists are doing themselves a disservice by blaming the problems within their industry on MBAs. Many of the problems we see in the tech industry, and the reason why public opinion is not exactly positive, are primarily due to ideological factors. Whether you call it Californian ideology or whatever, many people in the tech industry think only in terms of efficiency and value. And if something isn’…

The MBAs exploited and greatly exacerbated the ideology factor by making ever increasing demands for monetary performance. In the beginning it's usually just about the tech, but soon it becomes how to make more and more money in any way possible with the tech because "the more money you have, the more tech you can buy or make".

Re: What the fuck happened to nerds

#97

Post by Millennium »

Most nerds became collateral damage from society's attempts to contain something much darker: something we mostly forgot even existed, and only fought through outdated traditions. We meant well when we tore out those countermeasures, and we did end that collateral damage. But we no longer remembered what we were keeping at bay, and so we also set the darkness free. The monsters at the top are only part of the problem, and might not even be the biggest: they have plenty of counterparts below who are in some ways even worse.

Now we have to figure out a new way forward. We need a way to put what needs chaining up back in its chains without harming the innocent weirdos. I don't have an answer. There might not be one. But it is the challenge.

Re: What the fuck happened to nerds

#98

Post by poslathian »

mbgerring wrote: post #11

I respect Moxie a lot and it greatly diminishes my opinion of him that he agreed to be part of this. I hope he got paid a lot for this, and that he’s plowing the money back into something worthwhile.

Oh yeah, his decision here updated my mental model a lot

Re: What the fuck happened to nerds

#99

Post by poslathian »

mrhottakes wrote: post #50
mc32 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are the folks leading their finance organizations? Also who compose their boards of directors? Also Google buying double click was an inflection point. Ads were kind of annoying up till then but they had not become the gross monstrosity that now exploits users and corrupts business.

Who cares? Do you think the CFO is secretly controlling the actions of Zuck/Musk/Ellison/etc.?

Sandberg built the company that polluted everything with this cynical influencer economy. Schmidt built the company that turned users into the product.

Re: What the fuck happened to nerds

#100

Post by spwa4 »

move-on-by wrote: post #66
dozerly wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly the original comment is from a mercenary nerd who has not heard of DNS blocking of ads.

I’ve been very involved with the DNS blocking scene- and it’s extremely easy to circumvent. I always wonder if there are some principled nerds on the architecture side purposely designing things to be easily blocked with DNS blocking. Or perhaps the mercenary nerds are just that inept. Maybe a mix. I also don’t think the numbers of users with DNS blocking are large enough for the mercenary nerds to care about. Howeve…

It's not. You forget the disadvantage the mercenary nerds have - they do not, and can not, trust each other. So having the same company serve ads as is serving the content can never happen because mercenaries can't resist cheating and so advertisers won't trust them (after being burned way too many times)
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