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I'm an occasional lurker here but I created this account because of this comment as it represents what is so annoying about this community sometimes.

What exactly are you aiming to achieve with this comment? Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all.

> In my early days, I had also this urge but it's wrong. The whole post is wrong. Ask yourself WHY you want to speak at tech conferences. What's the aim of your speech? Most of the times and most people don't have an answer.

Who are you to say it's wrong? Even if people are doing it for the wrong reasons, the fact that they are doing it means that this post is relevant to them. To call the post "wrong" is so arrogant and adds nothing to the contribution. All it does is give you a useless delusion of grandeur that makes you think you know better than this author, or those that find value in the post.

> - To increase your personal market value? You think one speech is enough? Not at all. You need so much more. A topic, more than your vim config or some Github repo which got five stars. You need achievements, first. You need a damn story, a sharp profile. Then go out and hold 10 talks/year, shotgun Google's video search with your talks.

This makes no sense. If you're still advocating for eventually going to give talks, why did you start off by calling this post wrong when it gives advice to people that want to speak?

> And be aware that public talks don't necessarily improve your market value. One so-so talk on Youtube about your vim config at some third-class conference is worse than nothing. Besides, most tech conference are third-class.

This sounds like a personal problem for you. And no, one so-so talk on Youtube about your vim config at some third-class conference isn't necessarily worse than nothing

> Public speaking skills are overrated. It's enough to be able to moderate a meeting/standup for 10-50 people. To do proper speaking, you need to do it frequently, you need to understand entertainment, sometimes you need script writers, media trainers, etc.

If you're moderating a meeting with 10-50 people, good public speaking skills will go a long way into making the meeting worthwhile for the attendees.

I have no relation to the author of this post, but it's jarring seeing comments like that throw away nuance and kindness, and let out arrogant statements all under the guise of intellectualism.

Long term lurker as well, but your comment comes off in bad faith. When you decide to try and break apart each point piece by piece to address, instead of his whole argument as a whole, it signals that you're only trying to argue for arguement's sake. Please don't do this, because it ruins the vibe.[0]

In one enormous post, you have managed to tip-toe the line of civility with passive aggression, but also outright hostility "so arrogant," that it comes into question whether or not the GP's comment was directed at your specific demogrpahic: people that do things because they feel they want to, and not because they have thought it through.

Perhaps you should ask yourself the same question: "What exactly are you aiming to achieve with this comment?"

From an onlooker's perspective, it comes off as needlessly aggressive, but without clear motive. One could say the only purpose of your comment was to express that aggression, and not to spur interesting or novel dicussion.

In that likely case, you are posting in bad faith, and as you said "sometimes the best thing to say is nothing at all."

[0] I've been around message boards since usenet. This behavior isn't new, and neither is it appreciated.

If your assessment is that my comment was to express aggression, that would be correct. I thought about what I was trying to achieve and I felt that I didn't owe the OP any grace, since he failed to extend grace to the author of the post. My goal was to express how I felt about the OP's comment as directly as I could, so they could perhaps consider it the next time they want to make another comment like that. Whether or not being less aggressive would make my point more useful is a separate discussion, but at the time of writing the comment, I opted for a bit of aggression.

And FYI, I've not spoken at any conference and I have no interest in speaking at one, so I don't think the comment was directed at my demographic, I just found it to be distasteful.

I thank you for expressing self-awareness and civility in your reply.

Emotions are what make us human. Complex expressions of neural impulses that manifest as many different feelings which move us to action. However, like any other impulse, the understanding of and their proper utilization, always brings greater utility to one's life.

We can all agree that unbridled emotional expression -- that is the actions those emotions move us to do -- can become harmful by their unchecked nature. We can also all agree that emotions have a purpose, and to repress them is not the best of decisions.

Then perhaps there is a useful middle ground. Call it, "emotion, but in moderation." That by stepping back and analyzing our emotions, what caused them to appear, and why we feel the way we feel, we can in-turn make better, more productice decisions.

What flowers from this post, is of no concern of mine, but I felt moved to plant these seeds.

> Otherwise just don't. Public speaking is a profession and imagine a public speaker who wants to pair-program with you in C++. I mean why not? If you can hold a speech he should be able to write some kernel code.

I hereby make a standing offer to work with any professional public speaker to pair with them to write kernel code. Like public speaking, it's a learnable (and teachable) skill, and if you're interested in it, nobody should stand in your way and say it's not worth your time or that it's pointless.

(You, meanwhile, should put a name to your comment so that we can swear never to hire you. You're a 0.1x engineer: your presence on a team will demotivate other people in the organization.)

Are you ok?

Seriously are you ok and fulfilled in your life?

I know some "normies" get on our nerves Like "Jared" but the thing is: Jared is nice, has some friends and more people want to be around him so his chances of happiness are greater.

I really wish you expose your work on Hackernews you seem a very good and intelligent (did not mean wise).

Please show your skills and work it may improve your market rate or even maybe people can contact you and exchange information.

I am looking forward to your contributions.

This is incredibly negative. You could make the same comment about any public form of communication. Speeches, articles, heck even a Twitter post.

This is an absolutely destructive viewpoint in particular for all those brilliant people who do interesting stuff but never think they are ready to share their story just because they are no Jimmy Fallon. Being bad at things in the beginning is part of every journey.

That was my initial reaction as well. Basically, never be a first-time speaker because you might not be perfect, at which point you might as well get out of the field.

I'm sure I'd cringe to see early talks I gave at events. (To say nothing of more recent ones that just didn't come together as I intended. Or, heck, even IMO good ones that aren't as good as awesome speakers give.)

> I'm sure I'd cringe to see early talks I gave at events.

Maybe that's the reason you are not making 500k/yr because those videos are still out.

Would you please stop taking this or any other HN thread further into flamewar? That's not what we're after here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm an obstinate lurker of HN, but I felt moved to create an account to address your post -- and another's.

It was a breath of fresh air to read your experiences, and the way you decided to put into writing what your intuition had surmised from said experiences. I read forums religiously to keep my own worldview fresh and to stave off the natural human inclination to bring myself into a homeostatic perception bubble.

Uncannily, one of the most common things I've found is the exact type of person you've described: one that doesn't think about what value their post will bring to others, but only to post for posting's sake. You and your post are an exceptional delight, and I thank you for sharing.

The world -- and by extension the internet, a microcosm of said world -- is overrun with wishy-washy expression that only appears to express a lot, but when stripped of all it's fat, manages to express nothing at all (f.e speaking a lot, but saying little).

As an addendum, my apologies for coming off in the same manner as the subject of your ire. Appearances are important, after all.

The problem with this is you'll end up with just TED talks. Very entertaining soundbites by super-professional speakers. But the guy with all the technical knowledge who works on code all the time doesn't speak because he's not Tony Robbins. That'd be a shame.

Are there many talks about a single person's vim config? That seems like a poor topic to me, and I'm not sure how many people would consider it a good idea.

It just a lazy analogy for many useless talks. Btw, I LOVE talking about my vim config in a small setting like a 10 person meetup just because I LOVE vim and like to be with like-minded people. But I'd never do a public speech on it because it's no achievement and more important: my vim config is not my identity (maybe a bit ;)