Comment by milesf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by milesf | Hacker News Reader

Because this is an old post and not someone who is recently deceased, I do not feel what I am about to say is in poor taste.

I don't want to see the idea of the loner computer hacker be idealized any longer. Mr Robot, while a clever and more accurate representation of tech than its predecessors, still leans on the troubled genius trope. My main gripe is how software developers are dehumanized into masochistic agents of hyper productivity. It's unhealthy, it's exploitive, and it's simply not true.

Silicon Valley loves stories like Phil Katz because it gives them a pass to treat up-and-coming coders horribly. 90+ hour workweeks, death marches, and insane deadlines not only leads to burnout, it results in poor work.

Longevity and balance and much more noble pursuits in the tech world. As DHH used to say, put away the Superman cape. We don't need heroics, we need sane, well-rested creatives who enjoy their work. If you want real heroes, look at men & women who are in their 70's and 80's who are still banging out lines of code.

Katz's story is perhaps actually an antidote to that: he worked crazy hours much of the time, and ended up dead at 37.

What's interesting for me is that many geeks I've worked with have real issues in some regard, in a way that non-geeks seem to find a way to make entertaining (IT Crowd, Big Bang Theory), or simply think is disturbingly sad (the loner in the basement stereotype).

The truth is the things that make us great geeks can also make us a little self-destructive, and we should probably as a community talk about that some more.

Spending your formative years as an outsider and then finding yourself as an adult a highly in-demand insider is potentially damaging. It's compounded when - as many of us do - we realise that social anxiety can dissipate with alcohol and use of other drugs.

We've all watched it. Some of us have done it. We need to be a bit more open about discussing it, I think.

Thinking about going first and writing a blog this weekend, but man, it'll be emotionally raw for me, and possibly cringe-inducing for others...

A lot of us are probably undiagnosed as being on the spectrum. At any rate, alcohol is one of the things that make managing interpersonal relationships easier - and for someone with ASD it can actually be a big benefit socially. It doesn't take a genius to see that there's a big down side potentially waiting to happen too.

I definitely get the sense that this was a situation where a guy made too much money way too fast. Like almost overnight.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like he had been pent up, and when an effectively unlimited budget reared its head, it open the floodgates for so many bottled up urges.

By the time he had graduated to drunk driving convictions, other habits had been so firmly established that he was never going back to his old life.

It reads like a medical study of addiction models in animals. When granted unlimited push-button access to an addictive stimulus they push the button compulsively, without stopping and kill themselves from sheer lack of self control.

And about that writing of the tell-all cringe blog. I'd reconsider if I were you. Definitely do some writing. Write on paper. Not on a computer. Not on the internet. Lock it away, and then proof read it when you're in the best possible mood, and try to imagine how it would change your mood to realize others had read it, and cringed over it.

strongly agree. i think we should replace the trope with that of a master craftsmen. sure they work long hours, but i think what stands out is their wisdom, dedication, pacing, far-sightedness, and mastery. i think the best engineers i know resemble the best craftsmen, rather than indulgent narcissistic fanatics.

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