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Comment by luckylion | Hacker News Reader

You're just stepping into the stack at some arbitrary level and figure "everyone should know how to do (and do) this at least".

For you it's configuring email servers and compiling linux kernels. Why not dig trenches for power cables or build towers for wireless communications? If the answer is "but I don't care enough about those things, I just build on top of them", that's exactly what others think about compiling linux kernels, writing boot loader configs or configuring email servers.

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yeah but I think the context is important, if I am talking with developers/sysadmin there are some things that I would expect to be interesting, which I feel are matched when I speak with tech people in their 30s, but I have had many coworkers in their 20s that sometimes I have little in common with, but yeah I guess if I was an electrician or else I would be interested in that kind of stuff, I guess my mistake here is that I consider every one on HN either a dev or a sysadmin, but as my previous message, I was not talking specifically about that person specifically

> I consider every one on HN either a dev or a sysadmin

Again. Even if 100% of people on HN are devs and sysadmins, why do you assume that your particular interests are a must for everyone on HN?

Or that everyone on HN would be interested in spending time to set up a Raspberry Pi with a media server and IRC bouncer?

I'm a dev. I have far more interesting things to do in my spare time than that. Far more interesting to me.

I mentioned multiple interests that I couldn't match, but yeah I think you're right, but also I was wondering, so you know we are social animals and try to find connections, and most of the times I hear that things are a waste of time, so I asked what is not a waste of time so that maybe I can learn it and find something in common :D

I feel like to have something in common with my coworkers I should have to watch unlimited amount of netflix and marvel movies.. which of course every one lives the way it wants, but I am more frustrated because loneliness is bad and not being able to find common passions feed that, I guess I gone OT ^^, but yeah I got your point, you're right I guess this argument is saturated now

Common passions are great! If I’m joining a chatroom of your open source project, I’d be grateful to share in your passion for the open source project itself.

> loneliness is bad

You can say that again.

> I mentioned multiple interests that I couldn't match

> I've noticed this pattern about tech people today

> I am not sure how old are you or what is your background, but I feel that today people

> I feel like to have something in common with my coworkers I should have to watch unlimited amount of netflix and marvel movies..

Step 1: stop being condescending and assuming moral superiority just because you have an interest in a random list of things you assume everyone shold be interested in.

Your approach is the classical "kids these days" that is so classical even Aristotle and Horace have said the same things.

Step 2: Accept that people are free to do in their spare time whatever the hell they want to. Watching unlimited Netlfix? Good for them. Setting up IRC bouncers? Couldn't be happier for them.

Step 3: if truly interested, you could try and figure out what exactly interests people in tech, and why they do it. Could be it's just because it pays more than the alternatives and they are much hapier carving out wooden dolls on the weekends.

If that's not your cup of tea, there are now communities around any and all things any person could be intersetd in, no matter how bizarre or "out of fashion".

I read this long thread of complaints as "Back in my day, we were nerds that managed to find jobs that would pay us for it. Today, new hires are just here for the money." I.e. the complaint is that our field is now a "normal" industry and not an esoteric hobby that only attracts hobbyists, which is an unwelcome change to them.

Yea, my reason for not wanting to solve the problems of IRC isn’t a disinterest in solving problems. On the contrary, if I’m joining an open source project’s discord, it is most likely because

A. I’m interested in the problems that the open source project focuses on.

B. I was in the middle of solving a different problem and see the project as a path to achieve that.

My disinterest in solving the problems of IRC is because I want to avoid context-switching from my problems or your project’s problems to IRC problems I encountered over 10 years ago. If I’m forced to kerp context-switching, I lose hope that I can stay focused and get my current problem solved. I would rather have a way to pay money and get support than to try to solve an ever-growing yakstak of problems all at the same time. Progress is better than futility or overwhelm.

> if I am talking with developers/sysadmin there are some things that I would expect to be interesting

The cool thing about technology is that there is progress. We can do more, we can do it faster, easier, better, etc. Twiddling with the same shoddy tools from decades past is the opposite of that. A long time ago IRC was a cool new capability that was worth putting effort into setting up and using. These days all the hacks and workarounds involved are still required, but all they get you is an inferior chat platform. So, no. The tech that excites me are the new ideas and inventions that people are coming up with today, not some chat platform that is older than I am.

just because someone is a dev (even a good one) doesn't mean figuring out IRC is worth their time

disclaimer: i have 80 buffers in my irssi session, but i know why most people aren't me

I'm in my late 40s now, and have been using computers for nearly 40 years (yeah, one of those kids.) Installed Linux on my 386 from floppies, and now in my day-to-day I write C# and maintain the linux servers where the .NET Core business application lives.

I've set up bouncers, ran my own email for years, and at some point I just became immensely bored of doing those things. There's an ungratifying sameness to having to fiddle with self-hosted email or hunt down why my irc bouncer crashed/went offline. This kind of friction extends up and down the stack, too, which irc client works on my phone? There are a few I might choose from, do I spend time trying them out over a period of days to see which is a decent one? Oh, well I still don't have threads, even if one client or another will auto-preview image URLs. And on and on.

I am disinterested, as you say, not because I don't want to learn it, but because I have.

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