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Comment by tmshapland | Hacker News Reader

I'm always surprised to see that a large enough portion of the HN community are interested in classics that posts like this make it to the front page. Who are you all? What are you doing here?

My undergrad was in classics and viticulture, then did grad school in atmospheric science, which led me to tech and hackernews.

How did you get here?

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I read quite a lot as a kid. Fiction and non-fiction. I'm intensely curious, and the "why" and the "how" of things leads you into new subjects. It doesn't hurt that history is also filled with stories as compelling as most fiction. Much of the old stuff also holds up quite well. Meditations by Aurelius is amazing. Also, Confessions by Augustine of Hippo.

I have many interests but botany became a big one, and the scientific naming scheme is mostly Latin and Greek, which leads to some interesting word history. "Sativa" means anything "cultivated" (example, "Avena sativa" is "cultivated oats" and "Crocus sativa" is "cultivated saffron"). "Nemo" means "no one" (so the "Search for Nemo" is the search for no one, haha), the root word for "service" means "slave". There are many more interesting associations.

I find the deepest and most awe-inspiring truths within physics (out of which biology and chemistry are arguably sort of abstractions in terms of order of complexity). Behind this is a long awkward history of curious people fumbling for answers in the dark. I am an odd nut, but it is connecting in a comforting way the way I can see others have asked the same burning questions of the "how" and the "why" of things, and the myriad subjects it has lead them to.

As John Muir once said: "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe."

I was interested in astronomy as a six-year-old, which led me to Greek myths, which led me to Greek poetry, all of that in translation, as well as Gene Wolfe’s Latro books as they came out.

I was learning to program at the same time, following along A K Dewdney’s Computer Recreations column. I went into college to learn pre-med but always found myself more interested in the humanities, like my survey of Greek literature, which was supposed to accelerate my prerequisites. Also hung out with friends in the engineering labs on Sun Sparcstations playing netrek and MUDs, which did for me.

Anyway, I pivoted and started taking computer courses, like artificial intelligence, reading from Russell and Norvig, Clocksin and Mellisa, and Paul Graham.

I learned Greek while consulting for companies across the country, programming network performance tests, to have something to do in the hotels.

Fast forward to 2008, 2009, and I see that the Lispy Hackers and Painters guy had a new website. I started an account but lost it. Or did they reset it after disuse? Anyway, that’s me.

Oh, I did take Latin in Catholic high school, but did not really use any of it for reading, just vocabulary, but it did help with the old-style grammar-first Greek texts I learned from.

I'm a recently retired software nerd who got into reading 19th century literature. I was greatly inspired by characters in these novels, most of whom had the advantages of a classical education, and I lamented how poor my own was. One day I idly wondered how hard it would be to learn a bit of Latin (as I was constantly having to look up Latin references) and once I discovered LLPSI[0] I was hooked.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_Latina_per_se_illustrat...

I was always interested in human linguistics, including but not limited to understanding the classical languages of the Western tradition. In high school I taught myself some Latin from Wheelock's, and I've dabbled in trying to learn Greek from time to time as well. Someday I hope to also learn Sanskrit and complete the classical Indo-European trifecta.

At one point I was seriously considering attempting an academic linguist career. Fortunately, I was also interested in computers; and as I often tell people who ask me about it, computer programming pays much better (and I'm glad I didn't pursue a humanities academic path for other reasons). Still, it's an interest I try to keep up with when I can.

Just a general curiosity and desire to understand our world and our history. What first got me into the classics is the fact that they have influenced much of what has come after, and I figured it would be interesting to go back to the root so to speak.

I think the answer is that the past is as relevant as the future. If people here know both computer programming and classical history, I think that means they have a more rounded view of the world. (The problem in my part of the world, unfortunately is that classical education has often been class based.)

The thing that strikes me from ancient texts is not the obvious differences from our day, but the similarities.

I'd think there's a strong correlation. It's a kind of nerd stuff. Greek mythology, classics, train schedules and types, all the space probes and all the NASA stuff, Haskell etc etc. It's all very similar.

I became more interested in Latin when learning to sing the Carmina Burana, after already knowing some German and Spanish. I haven't learned much beyond that, but still fascinated by it as with all languages.

In some countries classics are still widely taught in middle school/high school (as in about 10% of the population taking up Latin). Where I was brought up (Flanders) I'd guess over 50% of people with an advanced degree took up Latin, maybe 5-10% Greek. In certain circles not taking up Latin and/or Greek means you were either not smart enough to do so or you were uncultured. So anyone "cultured" with a CS/engineering degree took up Latin.

I grew up with an awareness of Greek and Latin as part of western heritage education.

A lot of role playing games, especially from Square Enix,leverage a lot of Latin and classical education.

Philosophy and CS double major here, love reading old books. Read a lot of theology and ancient literature. Homeschooling my kids, part of the curriculum is learning Latin.

Practicing Roman Catholic family with liberal arts education

Latin in school from 6th grade onward. And a classical education with many holes and gaps that I am continually filling in.

Why are you always surprised, especially if it keeps happening?

All language fascinates me, whether that be natural or formal.

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