Comment by m0zzie | Hacker News Reader

Comment by m0zzie | Hacker News Reader

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> Is this how people communicate technically in the newer generations?

I suspect this question is in bad faith but I'll answer anyway: this live tweeted thread is more like someone's thought stream, it is not a technical report.

Many humans are capable of both technical writing, free of cursing, and also of dumping a swear-filled thought stream right into their favourite medium - especially when excitedly reverse engineering, or doing anything they're passionate about.

This has been happening for a long time and is not about "the newer generation". You could've found me writing in a similar way on IRC in the late 90s, also talking about reversing.

FWIW your comment feels valid enough up until your final sentence, you just didn't need to attack "the newer generations".

>FWIW your comment feels valid enough up until your final sentence, you just didn't need to attack "the newer generations".

Why not? He's exactly right, in my experience. It's definitely been my experience that the newer generations (of Americans) are much more likely to casually use swear words, usually the f-word, in regular conversation, even at work. I hear it all the time with my American colleagues. When I was their age, no one talked like that at work, or really in general except maybe in private with their closest friends.

Another big difference is mass media: when I was their age, American TV did not allow swear words. But in the last 10-20 years, it's completely changed, and it's pretty common to hear the f-word on regular TV. So of course the "newer generations" are going to reflect this in their casual speaking.

When I say young generations I don’t mean they are incapable, but that the tools they use and influences they are subject to, are new. This seems to lead to a normalisation of personal communication rituals that are often at odds with previous norms and conciseness.

Courtesy used to be a fallback protocol in society that allowed people of different sensibilities to communicate more efficiently and without personal contexts getting in the way of subject matter. It was also non threatening and the effort put into it was a sign someone was taking the counter part seriously.

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