The virtual curmudgeon | Hacker News Reader

The virtual curmudgeon

economist.com

41 pointsicco16 comments

"We’re losing track of the vastness of the potential for computer science," he says. "We really have to revive the beautiful intellectual joy of it, as opposed to the business potential."

This article speaks volumes about how many sheep there are in today's tech scene. We need more lions. They are the ones who challenge the leaders and actually move things forward.

I sense some bias in your username.

ahem.

Why must we revive the 'intellectual joy' of it? What does that mean - he wants to prescribe how people should behave so they/we are doing something he finds joyful? If not that meaning, what meaning?

And if not for the business potential, then to what end must we have more undirected churning through the potentials of CS? I'm guessing that most of the 'potential' will be the digital equivalent of earwax cake - potentially doable but so what?

Guess I'll have to read his book to find out. :/

- It's not bias. It's life purpose.

- CS is an extension of physics. If Newton didn't write Principia, America would not have happened, nor would have Apple Computers. CS attracted me because of the possibility to improve civilization for the better by advancing science.

- Money is freedom to an extent, then it becomes a fetter.

- You don't even have to read his book. Just think for yourself.

> If Newton didn't write Principia, America would not have happened

That made me curious. What is the chain of causation here?

Do you know how much Newton's work impacted Jefferson? It was almost as much as Bob Dylan's influence on Steve Jobs.

The guy takes the other side of every single technological debate out there that doesn't have an official pundit for the other side, often with amusing results. For instance, I really enjoyed watching him tell all the singularity guys what a bunch of science fiction obsessed delusionals they were at a panel discussion a few years back.

However, I often find that he is the go-to-guy for people who can't come up with a good sounding argument for why they don't like this or that new technological trend.

His ideas have less to do with 'this or that new technological trend' and more to do with the overall trajectory of human progress. Just look at the bigger picture...

Having not read Jaron's book, this article piqued my interest in doing so - along with the good Amazon reviews. http://amzn.to/bn1Xyj. Probably the best book to challenge my preconceived notions of tech.

Try this one too:

"Hamlet's BlackBerry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age"

http://amzn.com/0061687162

Where do you get those shortened amazon links?

If you are an amazon referrer they give you a twitter link for every page with your referrer code, so you get 4% of all sales from that link.

bit.ly makes 'em.

That's not a bit.ly domain, though. It redirects to amazon.

bit.ly has a number of domains specifically for shortening the URL of major sites like Amazon. The New York Times is another one that, if you put it in bit.ly, will use a NYT-specific domain. Maybe these sites have their own URL shortening APIs that bit.ly is leveraging?

For some reason, Jaron Lanier always reminds me of Magical Trevor: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/magical+trevor/

Is anyone else bothered by the economist magazine's lack of bylines? It's like 4chan for free-trade capitalists.

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