Why People Don't Like Nerds or Programmers (In School)
rorymarinich.tumblr.com
rorymarinich.tumblr.com
I agree completely that nerds do this. I did this. But I never did it to be "elite", or to keep the other person "below" me. Instead, I always assumed that the cheerleader (or whomever it was) was playing a very nasty practical joke on me—that if I accepted, they'd laugh in my face and wander away, or worse, I'd show up at the party to find myself a scapegoat for some random act of civil unrest previously committed that night by the partygoers. And yes, I even made friends only with other nerds—but only because I could tell, by the fear they showed toward the other groups, that they were a prey, not a predator, species, and were thus unlikely to harm me if I associated with them.
(If you can't tell, I was bullied for my entire elementary school life before entering high-school; I imagine I would have had quite a different outlook otherwise. Thankfully, by grade 11 or so, the concept of "clique" had dissolved in my high-school, so I did get to discover what a mentally-healthy high-school experience was like.)
I remember being particularly mortified about a retarded kid who kept coming and talking to me about his chances of getting into "Hahvahd." I don't know who was messing with his head, but he honestly thought that being an Eagle Scout (honorary, I'm sure) gave him a a good shot at getting into Harvard, and he wanted to talk to me about it. The retarded kid was a bit slower with the social cues. I hated him for that. And I was smart enough to know that's how normal people felt about me, which made me hate him even worse, but I never made fun of him to his face.
I was going to elaborate upon that but decided against it. Yes: nerds don't do things to be exclusive. They're not particularly snobby people. Their reactions tend to stem from alienation and paranoia: they act like that because they either don't think that other people like them at all, or because they want to maintain an image of some exclusivity on their own part.
The problem with that attitude is that it encourages people to be nasty back and to avoid your social group. And the people in a group of nerds that do notice that tend to start getting negative attitude from the rest of the group. I wasn't alone in this. One of my friends was part of the bookworm group of pretty people who studied too much, and I thought he was a twofaced backstabbing liar. That was eighth grade, and I'd like to think I've matured since then, but I certainly understand where you're coming from.
I'd also done things that might appear like this on occasion, even though I trusted that the person asking wasn't playing some sort of practical joke or simply trying to get me to do their work for them. The reason is that the questions were often things like "How do I make a web page on geocities?" or "How do I program DOS?"
In the former case, after establishing that they didn't want me to actually sit down in the computer lab after school and give an hour or two of instruction, all I could really say is that "It's really not something I can just explain in ten minutes." That comes off as a bit of a brush-off.
In the latter case, the question actually doesn't make sense. One can't "program DOS" any more than one can "perform a photograph". People became offended more than once by my genuine attempts to figure out what they were actually trying to ask. When I do get down to it, it seems they're usually asking "how do I make a game like Wolfenstein? That's kind of an old game so it should be easy!". That is just a more egregious example of the first case.
But yeah, this is the reason geeks don't accept invitations to parties. They've been burnt by requests like this before, and are worried about being burnt again.
I like to give anyone who asks me to teach them "to make games" or anything similar this test first, though: I take a pen and put it down on a page of paper, and tell them to tell me to draw a happy face on it, without expecting me to know what a happy face, or even a circle, is. I take everything they say literally, and tell them "this is how the computer would react to that." Clears up any misconceptions pretty quickly. :)
I have had people ask me "how do you program DOS", when they were in fact looking for (among other things):
- How do I write a batch file (easy to explain)
- How do I make a simple console program (slightly tougher, but I could at least point them in the right direction, or show them if they are willing to take the time)
- How do I program my calculator to do trigonometry for me (This was my absolute favorite one, because I could actually show them the basics on the spot! Back in the day, I showed a few people how to do this, who actually turned out to really enjoy doing it!)
- How do I make a game (this is the worst one)
For that reason, it's hard to listen to what else he has to say, no matter how relevant or (potentially) awesome.
Obvious that he's never been the low end of the totem pole. It may be different now, but when I was in high school, geeks and nerds got shit on by every group -- the jocks, the actors and actresses. Everyone.
What I take away from this is the importance of growing up - you get through those stages and move into a more nurturing community of people that support what you create, not the details of how you created it.
Growing up is important. But early stress does have long-term consequences.
An outside perspective is almost always useful in figuring things out. I found this essay hit home. I was definitely in the nerd group, and if I had read this in high school, it would've helped.
I can agree with this to a point - by the time high school rolls around, yeah, the unpopular kids probably have adopted a set of behaviors that contributes to them being unpopular. However, those behaviors are probably defenses developed against some early damaging experiences. And who is responsible for those experiences? In my experience, it was those same jocks (or whatever) inflicting their damage all the way up.
Personally, I find it much more helpful not to worry about who to blame for unpopularity itself, and to focus more on what is _done_ to the unpopular. And the responsibility for that is much more clear.
Personally, I find it much more helpful not to worry about who to blame for unpopularity itself, and to focus more on what is _done_ to the unpopular. And the responsibility for that is much more clear.
To discuss a problem, you need to get to its root. The root of the problem is twofold: people on one side are too willing to ostracize themselves, and people on the other side don't want to spend time learning about people. My belief is that it's not the responsibility of others to spend time trying to understand you. I think that bullying is a problem, but frankly, if nerds were ostracized but not actively bullied I would find a hard time blaming the other kids and not the nerds. I actually discussed this problem with a professor: my solution to this problem would be twofold. First, get the other kids to realize why nerd things are cool. If people think programming is really super neato, then suddenly programmers are neato too. (It worked with math in my school: once you like math, then math geeks are pretty awesome kids. By my junior year all of the math kids hung out with the jock/class clown group.) At the same time, though, you've got to do the same in reverse. Teach the nerds to appreciate the non-nerds. Intolerance works both ways, and there are a lot of people willing to dismiss sports players or actors or musicians or artists or preps as stupid and meaningless, and what this essay's all about is that in my experience, the nerds are usually a lot less tolerant than the other people. My first day in college, when my roommate arrived, I was unpacking a virtual library, and he was carrying a volleyball, and my first impression was that we wouldn't get along because he wouldn't "understand" me. This year's taught me a lot about how you can be smart and not be a nerd, and I honestly think that the nerds are less aware of this than the other groups.
Again with this theory. Should battered wives admit that they are partially at fault because they annoyed their husbands? Should rape victims admit that they are partially at fault because they led a guy on? People are responsible for _their own actions_. No more, no less. If this means that the people you're talking about are guilty for being arrogant and annoying, then fine. I have no problem with that. But they are not responsible for the crimes committed by others.
> my solution to this problem would be twofold.
I think it's funny that you think you can solve this problem, and that we can all live in egalitarian bliss.
You know that you're the reason I wrote this article, right? This is exactly the HN attitude that made me freeze my main account away. People who take things that other people say and extend them to drastic proportions just so they can be dicks about it.
No, we're not going to have egalitarian bliss. We're human beings. We have flaws. Those flaws won't go away. My "solution" is one that I think would work better than the endless "be diverse" speeches kids get. I think that it might make a lot of smart people a lot happier. It won't fix everything, but it might at least help. But no, you won't address the ideas I put forth. You'll nitpick. You'll be an absolute snot just so that you can gain the upper hand in an argument. And so you might reach a point where I and people like me get tired of your bullshit and walk away, and then you'll declare yourself the victor because you were the last person to make a post in my comment thread, but all you're doing is making the person on the other side want to punch yourself in the face. In a microcosm, that's my essay: you're probably not a stupid person, but you're deliberately avoiding facts to paint a one-sided portrayal of what I'm saying, and it's pissing me off. If we were having this argument in real life and I was a more naturally violent person, I'd probably hit you, and then in your eyes I'd become the bully and you wouldn't be guilty of anything. That's the problem here, and it's incredibly common amongst programmers, and it sucks.
I have no problem with that. But they are not responsible for the crimes committed by others.
They're interconnected. You're like the American attitude after 9/11 that terrorists were wholly evil Satanic creatures with no motive. I'm arguing back and saying that the people on the other side are doing bad things, but that that's a separate issue from what I'm talking about. If you're guilty about being arrogant and annoying, then when you get teased and beaten up it's not causeless. You caused this. And the other side is more at fault then you are, but don't act like you're a saint.
Should battered wives admit that they are partially at fault because they annoyed their husbands?
If you get beaten and do nothing about it, it's your fault that it goes on. See, two sides of the same struggle can both be guilty. The husband is more at fault, but if the battered wife acts like there's nothing she can do then she's to blame for it going on.
Same with rape. If you get raped and do nothing about it, you're letting the other guy get away. The other guy isn't innocent. This isn't a blame game where it's the victim's fault entirely. But the victim does not exist in a vacuum, and the fact that the problem still exists suggests that in some way the victim is complicit about the problem.
Is McDonald's to blame for making people fat? Partly. But they exist to provide something for people who are asking for it. Fat people are to blame for their being fat. Perhaps not entirely 100% to blame, but they can stop themselves, and they're not, and so it's partly their fault.
One day I might write something about how much bullies suck, but other people are already doing this. I don't like being generic. So I thought I would write a little thing about how nerds are often partially to blame for their oppression, and that they refuse to take responsibility for themselves, not expecting anybody to submit it to a place where people like you would get to spray their spittle around without ever once addressing what I'm saying.
First off, on what planet do you think it's alright to hurt someone physically for anything they say? You'd actually punch someone in the face who's arguing with your stupid comments?
Second, if you get raped and do nothing about it that's your fault? I think Andrea Dworkin just ate her fist. One of the most vile offensive acts a person can do to a weaker person and you say it's the victim's fault? That they're somehow complicit?
Third, battered women deserve their beatings? Didn't you say that you wrote your stupid poorly written blog post in response to the whole Porno Ruby Conference Offending Women news lately? How in the _hell_ can you even pretend to claim you give a rat's ass about women if you think any of the above?
Alright, I gotta stop before I step into territory where I get banned from HN. However, I have one statement I'd like to see you fumble a reply to:
I can fully understand your hatred of geek arrogance, since I can't stand it myself, but even at my most obnoxious I never said that rape, beatings, torture, and abuse of the weak were defensible.
Every person who has been abused never deserved the _level_ of abuse they received. Whether it's children, or women, or just someone who's different, the abuser is always more powerful and enjoys hurting people weaker than them. Because of this, they take any tiny little offense and turn it into a reason to nearly kill another human being. Even if the victim changes every single thing about themselves to please the abuser, it's not enough.
The abuse continues, not because of the victim, but because it satisfies the abuser.
What I said was that it's the attitude above that leads to physical violence. When somebody starts wanting to punch somebody in the face, it comes from that particular level of dickery.
I am not at all a violent person. I don't fight people, I don't hit people. I don't have a personality that leads to fights. The closest I get to violence is posting angry things online. And I'm certain that writing all these responses at 7 in the morning might have dimmed my writing a bit, but I never once implied violence.
What I said, again, was this:
If we were having this argument in real life and I was a more naturally violent person, I'd probably hit you, and then in your eyes I'd become the bully and you wouldn't be guilty of anything.
That's not me threatening. In fact, the one "threat" I made was the one where I lock out my Hacker News account because debates like this are a waste where nobody learns a damn thing. The point I was making was that chairface's comment was aggravating and glossing over points in a way that was smarmy and obnoxious. (His response to the parent post clarified a lot, so props to him.) That's an attitude that's not just on Hacker News. A friend of mine had it when he'd constantly pester a violent kid just to provoke a reaction. He'd get clocked in the eye and tell us all what a savage that other kid was. The point of my stupid poorly written blog post was that this is a common attitude amongst nerds when they handle things socially. They'll do things that they know will alienate them because they think the alienation is forthcoming anyway. In doing that they give themselves some "control" over their hopeless state.
I mean, I'm certain I'm talking to somebody who knows what I'm talking about. I've seen a lot of people dismiss your blog posts because of the "ZED'S SO FUCKING AWESOME" logo or because of your many elongated, poorly written rants. I'm too lazy to search back, but I've gotten into a lot of Zed debates on this site where you get slammed because your old web site was just begging for people to call you immature. You obviously knew that would happen and you went on doing it anyway, so you fit into the category of people I'm talking about here.
You're quoting me saying a lot of shit I didn't say, Zed. Cut that out; if you're going to get pissed off at me get pissed off at me for what I believe.
I never said violence was defensible. I have friends who have been molested and harassed and hurt. I think it's one of the most terrible things there is. And this entire argument is such a loose tangent from the argument I originally made that it was stupid of me to respond in the first place. I'm aware of that. There's a difference between an abused woman and an abused nerd. Nerd abuse is largely petty in nature. I know maybe two kids in my nerd group who got into fights, ever, and neither of those was a case of random abuse: both sides wanted to pummel the other side. So when the argument sifted away from petty and towards serious, my response should have been: that's not the same thing. Abuse and rape stem from an entirely other side of human existence than things like teasing and name-calling.
Child abuse is not name-calling. If you're suggesting that calling somebody a name is child abuse, you're off your fucking rocker. If a nerd is getting hit and hurt for what he's saying and doing, there's something pathological behind that happening; when a nerd is ostracized because he acts like a jackass, he's responsible for its happening.
The point I was trying to make, half-asleep, earlier today was that people who are getting seriously abused should take action to stop the abuse. If you're getting beat up or raped then you should take action to stop it from happening, because otherwise you're letting a guilty person get away with a crime. The only blame on the other person is letting the criminal get away. They aren't responsible for the horrible things being done to them.
But now I'm just repeating myself, and to be honest I can't tell if you just flew off at me because you think I said a terrible thing or if, like your critics claim, flipping out just gets you off. If it's the former, then I've clarified myself, and I'm sorry for sounding like I meant something I absolutely do not. If it's the latter, we've got nothing left to talk about.
Or maybe he just doesn't care what people think on this matter.
If he complained about people not calling him sensitive with that logo of his, then I'd call him out for being a hypocrite. That's what I'm doing with nerds: I think that nerds go out of their way to be disliked and then complain that nobody likes them.
> You'll be an absolute snot just so that you can gain the upper hand in an argument. And so you might reach a point where I and people like me get tired of your bullshit and walk away, and then you'll declare yourself the victor because you were the last person to make a post in my comment thread, but all you're doing is making the person on the other side want to punch yourself in the face.
Point #1, disagreement means that you have the right to punch someone in the face. Although, I can't understand why I'd want to punch myself in the face if I was winning an argument against you.
> If we were having this argument in real life and I was a more naturally violent person, I'd probably hit you, and then in your eyes I'd become the bully and you wouldn't be guilty of anything.
Point #2, debate with you and your gross stupid generalizations gives you the right to be violent, AND when you commit violence on someone else they should feel guilty because they deserve it. Their accusations of oppression and violence are unwarranted because they dared to piss you off with words.
> If you're guilty about being arrogant and annoying, then when you get teased and beaten up it's not causeless. You caused this. And the other side is more at fault then you are, but don't act like you're a saint.
Point #3, you believe that harming someone physically and emotionally is a valid response to verbal remarks, and that this violence is "not causeless". Doesn't matter what "causes" it, it's the wrong response, therefore the cause is irrelevant. Additionally, you believe that a person does not have the right to non-violently be as weird as they want. You think they should adapt their behavior to please the more violent members of our society.
>> Should battered wives admit that they are partially at fault because they annoyed their husbands?
> If you get beaten and do nothing about it, it's your fault that it goes on. See, two sides of the same struggle can both be guilty. The husband is more at fault, but if the battered wife acts like there's nothing she can do then she's to blame for it going on.
Point #4, victims very commonly are, by definition, unable to defend themselves. Either due to psychological controls, physical domination, or economic realities. What worries me the most about this statement is that you claim both sides are guilty, which implies that you feel some women deserve the beatings. If you knew anything about abused women and children you would know that no amount of changing stops the abuse. It is entirely the fault of the abuser because they are the one with the power, and they are the ones using it.
> Same with rape. If you get raped and do nothing about it, you're letting the other guy get away. The other guy isn't innocent. This isn't a blame game where it's the victim's fault entirely. But the victim does not exist in a vacuum, and the fact that the problem still exists suggests that in some way the victim is complicit about the problem.
Point #5, you believe that victims of rape did not do enough to defend themselves, and therefore are complicit and responsible for their lack of skills. Obviously your fictionalized and trivialized movie version of rape doesn't involve nearly as much violence as it really has.
> One day I might write something about how much bullies suck, but other people are already doing this. I don't like being generic.
And with this, in one single statement, you define how much of an idiot you are. If you don't like being generic, then why the hell were you nothing but a bag of gross generalizations in your stupid little essay?
If you don't like being generic, then why the hell were you nothing but a bag of gross generalizations in your stupid little essay?
It's not an essay. It's a blog post. I write fast and I write long and I publish everything that I write because I adhere to the belief that perhaps something I write will help somebody with something. I treat my blog like a blog. It's not a professional platform. The stuff I do in my life I keep entirely separate from all the things I write. If I ever got to the point where my sole source of fame was a web site with my name on it, I'd consider myself to have done a piss-poor job with my life. Same if the only thing I had going for my name was an ill-conceived rant clustered around by people who prefer rage to straight thinking.
As it is, I've gotten responses from people to this that've thanked me for writing it. That means that for 20 minutes' work it was time well-spent. My frustration doesn't come from disagreement. It comes from the fact that my post, which is about as good as 20 minutes' worth of quick typing can get you, got put on Hacker News, which is a place where intelligent people discuss meaningful things, when this is a piece that deals in overgeneralities.
When I wrote this piece, my thought wasn't "How can I capture the high school experience?" It was "What is it about this type of programmer that really annoys me?" I hit on my conclusion, which I still stand by, and wrote all the thoughts I've got on the subject matter, typed it quickly, and put it online. I thought it would get a handful of responses. Nothing big, because it's not big or at all important. I wrote two or three things yesterday that I think are better than this particular piece.
But you just ignored the post I just made to focus on my original post, which I've already apologized for. It's obvious that of the two people I said you might be, you're the latter. You're ranting at a mindset that I don't actually have just so that you can be Fucking Awesome Zed now that your blog's been toned down. If you really want to get pissed off at me for things I don't believe, you have every right. But I'm through with this. I expected better from you.
What amazes me about you is that, despite all this ranting against nerds you feel slighted you, you are actually behaving exactly the way you claim they do.
Let's pull from your twitter:
"It took all of a few hours for me to fall out of love with Hacker News. Nerds suck."
Alright, so you wrote an inflammatory piece, people on HN fairly directly, clearly, and politely (given the topic) responded, and you react by playing the victim.
I mean, do you even read what you write Rory? You basically just did exactly what you were claiming nerds do. You acted in a fowl mean spirited way, and then proceeded to get your ass kicked, and then claimed it was all the nerds fault for attacking you.
The reason I'm pissed off about this whole thing is that it's a bad essay. It's not worthy of pulling up and discussing. And this is a crowd that's never going to agree with the things I've said, and yet because it's Hacker News I find the need to argue anyway, knowing it's going nowhere, and so it's a huge time sink over a piece that doesn't deserve this attention.
The people politely responded? I wouldn't have gotten involved at all if that was the case. The reason I got an account was because I was being called things like a "sad, angry little man," and maybe I'm thin-skinned but stuff like that really pisses me off.
I know this is a defensive thing to say, but my Twitter post was half in jest. If I was pissed off at Hacker News, I wouldn't be here. Does that make me as bad as the people I was blaming? Probably. This isn't a personality quirk that I'm entirely at peace with; it's certainly still a part of me. I don't think I'm perfect and I'd never pretend to me. The fact that I write so much about these things is because they're parts of me I still don't like. I think I've been saying that from the start.
So if you want to fly off-the-handle at me for getting annoyed because a community I really like had a huge uproad over a piece of mine I really didn't care for, feel free. I probably deserve it; I act immature at times; I say things without thinking. You're older than I am and more well-known than I am and so by all means you're probably in the right. I'd just hope you would find better things to do with your time than squabble over a 3 AM ramble by a college freshman.
Now I noprocrast this account away, because I'm finished.
Using the dual nature of the word "responsibility" is a common ploy to distribute blame to everybody equally when discussions of blame become counterproductive. That can be appropriate in some situations, especially team situations, but applying it to rape and domestic abuse is way over the line. It's repellant.
Look man, you said you had a solution to the problem. What I said is hardly a leap. You have a funny definition of "drastic proportions".
> But no, you won't address the ideas I put forth. You'll nitpick. You'll be an absolute snot just so that you can gain the upper hand in an argument. And so you might reach a point where I and people like me get tired of your bullshit and walk away, and then you'll declare yourself the victor because you were the last person to make a post in my comment thread, but all you're doing is making the person on the other side want to punch yourself in the face...
You're descending into ad hominem territory here. Please don't.
I didn't address your solution because I don't think there is one, and I don't see value in arguing about it. Perhaps I misunderstand the problem you're trying to solve.
> They're interconnected.
I never said they weren't - I limited my discussion to the assigning of blame, which I took to be your primary subject as well. But now, it seems to me that you are not separating the issues of "cause" and "blame" the same way I am.
To be clear, of course the victims are part of the cause of any particular confrontation. It couldn't happen if they weren't there, so there's at least that. What I object to is assigning _blame_ to them. Causes for these things are shared - blame is given to one side or the other for their own actions.
Your commentaries on battered wives and rape focus on what happens _after_ the incident. I am asking about the incident itself. The blame for the raping and the beating lies solely with the aggressors.
> Is McDonald's to blame for making people fat? Partly.
No. McDonald's is to blame for making fatty food. There's a difference.
I use hyperbole. I ought to have said "proposed" solution. Either way, your response was snide and still hasn't addressed what I said in that point. I think that what I proposed would help the two sides understand each other in a way they don't know, and in my experience the more people get to know each other the better they get along. The disconnect at the moment is that nerds think other people are wasting their time, and other people think nerds only do what they do because they haven't got anything else going for them. When you make people like stuff, they form bonds.
You're descending into ad hominem territory here. Please don't.
I need to apologize to the people I've argued with in this thread, because I've been much angrier and snappier in these responses than is appropriate for Hacker News. This morning I woke up to find a bunch of emails from people telling me my blog was broken in IE and I found this on the top of Hacker News. I've been writing a post for a little while now that I was going to submit here; I only submit things here if they're quality things. This is part of my daily writings, where I spill out a bunch of things on my mind without thinking about them, admitting all the while that I'm not putting careful thought into my writings. So to find that sort of thing here and discussed by people calling me a sad angry little man really just isn't a good way for me to start the day, and it's not how I want to approach my work. So I'm mad because I'm finding myself seriously debating something I wasn't exactly serious about in the first place, but I've got a sense of propriety about my writings and so I refuse to let people dis what I've said without defending myself. You've stood out to me as one of the people who's most deliberately ignoring the things that I'm saying, though this response was a lot better. Again: apologies.
Causes for these things are shared - blame is given to one side or the other for their own actions.
Okay. By that standard I'm blaming the nerds for deliberately setting up a situation wherein they're persecuted, when they could easily avoid the entire situation by not being so deliberately hostile. Does that work?
Well, for what it's worth, I wasn't trying to be snide. If the problem was solved, it really would be egalitarian bliss. I really don't know how this could be taken as "dickery".
My response to your proposed solution, if you're interested, is that it's unworkable. I actually skipped most of it my first time through, because the first thing you said about it was "First, get the other kids to realize why nerd things are cool" with no explanation as to how this could possibly be done. Convince me that you can dictate what is cool and what is not on a large scale, and then I'll give some weight to your plan.
See, even now, my talking about this comes off as confrontational, to no effect. I still think it was better for the original conversation to leave it out.
> You've stood out to me as one of the people who's most deliberately ignoring the things that I'm saying
Have I ignored something else that annoys you?
> By that standard I'm blaming the nerds for deliberately setting up a situation wherein they're persecuted, when they could easily avoid the entire situation by not being so deliberately hostile. Does that work?
Sure. The way it's written, it seems like you are referring to all nerds, but I will assume that this is not the case.
Anyway, apology accepted.
Nah, that's a completely sensible point. I don't think it's hard to make programming seem cool, though: there are some very awesome things that've been made. WeFeelFine comes to mind. Talk about how something beautiful like that was made and it'll at least make people realize more that programmers can be artists, too. (Not the best example, but it's what first comes to mind.)
Have I ignored something else that annoys you?
Nope.
Sure. The way it's written, it seems like you are referring to all nerds, but I will assume that this is not the case.
Yeah. I could revise this, but I don't think it would be worth it. It wasn't a major piece of writing, in any event.
When I say it's more helpful to focus on what is done to the unpopular, I am speaking as a parent and an authority figure. And in that position, that focus is well within my locus of control, when it comes to children under my charge. I should have made it more clear that I was speaking from my current point of view.
Furthermore, I spent plenty of time in my youth blaming myself for being beat on, as the author seems to want us to. I assure you, this behavior is also pointless and psychologically damaging. So, to me, there is plenty people can learn from somebody saying "You are not at fault when someone hits you". I am glad you have learned this lesson. But I assure you that not everyone has.
My gut reaction to you, as a parent, taking part in this discussion is that people put in a position of authority over children seem to instinctively start denying their own human weaknesses. I'm interested to hear what you would say about that. When it comes to social bullying and exclusion, in my experience, adults never acknowledged that we were going through a difficult process of learning adult behaviors. Implicitly, they pretended that there was no grown-up way to do what we were doing, because social divisions and inequalities did not exist in the adult world.
I think we could have regarded adults as valuable sources of coaching if they had just been honest instead of trying to be perfect, inhumanly pure role models. You know, even socially dominant teenagers are clumsy and self-conscious. They would probably appreciate some tips on how to enforce social boundaries without being jerks about it. That would benefit everyone. As a parent, could you even do such a thing, or would it compromise your authority too much to admit that adults do the same things that teenagers do, only much more subtly and gracefully?
Anyway, I'm not too concerned with compromising my authority as a parent. I'm currently more concerned that my kids will be more on the aggressor end of conflicts, and my approach to that has been to tell them parts of my own story, and how I felt when people did mean things to me (they're pretty young, it doesn't get too involved). I suppose they could eventually come to see me as a weakling or something, but I don't really feel that this is a danger right now.
I have a feeling that I might start to feel the need to hide my weaknesses as my kids get closer to their teenage years, but at least for now, I think you and I are pretty much on the same page.
Everyone's mileage varies. I went to a decent public school in the suburbs, and most people in my social circle belonged to a couple of others tribes as well - I was pretty active in the business competitions (as well as programming). Most other "nerd elites" were in marching band, actors, singers, swimmers, fencers, jugglers, etc. Sure, there were plain old jerks, but they were a certain a minority, and easy to ignore.
As was said by another commenter, perhaps it's different everywhere you go. I was in a place where I realized later on in high school that all of the torment and suffering towards nerds had some sort of a logical pull. And my school wasn't some sort of utopia: one dweeby kid in marching band had a bag of shaving cream smashed against his face during lunch as part of a hazing routine. What I noticed from that incident was this: while perhaps that one thing was inevitable, a lot of the sympathy I had towards that poor bullied kid dissolved away when he turned that one single incident into a sort of theater for discussing how unloved he was - particularly since that was the sort of thing I did when I was younger, too.
I wish I'd focused more on the programming aspect of this thing, though, because to be honest high school isn't worth talking about in my mind, not in this context. This was a response to an article titled "Rails is (still) a ghetto", where the author took a similarly hyperobnoxious approach to looking at a problem that didn't require anything obnoxious, and the larger problem is that the world of programming is highly inaccessible to non-programmers.
Do I approve of nudity in a presentation? No. But at the same time, even if I found it offensive, I wouldn't turn it into a huge argument and the focal point of a rant against a community.
I'm really, really in the minority with this statement, but I find it very easy to deal with intolerant people. I have friends who are almost certainly racist. A lot of the people I know are casually homophobic. I think that's sickening, but I don't turn that into a rallying point of a campaign. The attitude that I was taught as a kid was that the best way to change things is to lead by example.
Now, being upset over using nude women to draw attention, that makes sense. Voicing displeasure makes sense. But there's a line between that and turning that issue into one that directly attacks the community. When you're part of a community about coding, you'd best be focused on the code. If you don't like DHH, you ignore him. If you don't like Obie Fernandez, you ignore him. The language is what matters, and it's a large enough language that if you know what you're doing, you can find people who are willing to help.
Now, look at the attitude of the Rails community towards beginners: they are incredibly kind and cool and open about it all. (This extends to what parts of the Ruby community I've interacted with.) If you don't know a thing about programming, they'll help you, and they usually come across not as nerds but as socially normal people. I don't know if they really are, but their leaders certainly are: they have their priorities straight. I've never been party to a group of programmers that seemed as normal as the Ruby bunch.
So when DHH applauds the presentation, the message he's giving isn't "RoR approves of this." He's just saying this as a leader. He's saying this as DHH, a rude dude who loves to be crude. The fact that he's the leader is entirely apart from the fact that he's saying this. That's why he's so interesting to read. That's why 37signals is such a good blog. It doesn't matter that they're rich and successful and in charge of stuff: they're a good blog because they write good posts, and all that other stuff is an aside. Meanwhile, in the rest of the programming world people are all-too-quick to judge a person as a single, solid entity. Steve Jobs is evil because iTunes has DRM. Bill Gates is stupid because Windows is ugly. Jason Fried is a jackass who never does work because other people waste their time reading SvN archives. Ruby on Rails is bad because their developers are immature. It's the same approach of solidarity that leads nerds to decide all jocks are stupid, all different people are meaningless, and anything that looks nice can't be nice because it's coming from non-nerds.
I would say, though, while you are deliberately choosing not to ostracize the Rails community, they are deliberately ostracizing people who don't like porn, or at least people who don't like porn at their tech conferences.
Is this any better than a nerd insulting a cheerleader for asking an unsophisticated programming question? Implicitly, they are saying if you aren't cool or hip enough to not be offended by a pornographic presentation, stay away from our conferences.
A little elitist, no?
It also depends on what you mean by "insulting." Frankly, if a cute girl asks me to program, then I will almost certainly tease her as I help out. I think the porn thing was an attempt at tease that ended up being a bit too insulting. There's definitely a line, but usually if you cross that line people will understand so long as you do.
The Nerds and programmers almost always find themselves on the bottom. Things look different when you're a Dalit.
After the opening section I think the rant goes completely off the deep end with a rapid succession of wrong-headed generalizations. It reads like an 18-year-old who just finished high school and now thinks he's got it all figured out. The idea that programmers define themselves by what they are not, or by nitpicking inconsequential details is laughable. Sure programmers may be a bit more prone to nasty protracted flamewars over subtle issues, but we don't define ourselves that way. Sure our communities form around tools moreso than ideas (though not exclusively), but that's simply a matter of necessity given the detail of using any particular tool well. Personally I find the notion that "I define myself as a programmer" offensive. Programming is something I do, and I do it reasonably well, but at the end of the day it's only one of many things I do, and it's certainly not "who I am."
I agree. As I say, that's the sort of programmer I tend to like. The problem is, that's not the sort that aspiring programmers run into when they're first learning. I joined my first coding community at thirteen; for the last five years, I've seen no community that wasn't arrogant and hostile to a fault. The closest I got to nice was the Ubuntu community, who had a tendency to respond to bug reports with "You should look at the wiki page", where the wiki page was 50 pages long.
It reads like an 18-year-old who just finished high school and now thinks he's got it all figured out.
If I had it all figured out, I wouldn't write about it. As it stands, I'm aware of just how clueless I am. As I say here: I'm not a programmer. As I imply: I've been a part of this group of nerds for most of my life. I wrote this to engender a reaction amongst certain types of people, so I could get into a discussion with them about what's wrong with my statements here and what's right. The people I was expecting wasn't the Hacker News group. The fact that this post got rated this high makes me want to stop writing things with potentially ensnaring titles, because I don't want this on Hacker News.
I know I wrote it, and so I've got to own up to it here, but this wasn't the audience I wanted with this, and I regret that it's been put here.
After about five minutes I couldn't help but think of Maddox.
I've written an explanation as to why I write the way I do before, but unfortunately with my "unalone" account noprocrasted for the next 2 months and my blog URL and theme changed it doesn't connect with how things were before. Here's a basic summary: on this blog, I write essentially everything that comes to mind. So yesterday, I wrote blurbs about passionate argument, the importance of efficient coding, misanthropy, Samuel Beckett, this particular piece, an update on my design progress. Two days ago it was on capitalism, pick-up artists (inspired by an HN post, actually), ADD, and the problems of young people dating?
I'm not a particularly negative person. I love the life I have and the people I know. At the same time, however, I made a pretty conscious decision a little while ago that I'm writing this blog for myself rather than for other people. Back in January I rather expected this blog to fade away and be ignored entirely, once I started basically writing lengthy pieces on impulse, several times a day. The fact that readers have increased makes me a little uncomfortable. It means that I find pieces like this one on web sites I'd rather they weren't. This is not a good piece. It's dashed out in 20 minutes and posted without a look back. And yes, it's a negative piece; yes, I find myself writing a lot of lashy things. It's by no means the majority of what I write - my average post tends to be more optimistic in nature. But those lashy things are a part of my existing, and I've learned through the last few months that a lot of people go through certain experiences I used to think were mine and mine alone.
So I write about things like young entrepreneurs in a way that could be seen as lashing out at them. I write about people with bad taste and people with no social skills and ugly people. That's a pretty big breach of polite writing, when I spend time talking about my dislike of people who aren't physically attractive. But that's kind of the point: I don't want this to be a polite blog. I'm in the process of creating a tech blog for my revised, good pieces, because I hate being put on Hacker News for shitty pieces. This is not a blog for hackers. It is a blog for myself and for every irrelevant thought that hits my head during the day, and the people who've assembled to read it are a ragtag bunch of personalities that I'd never expect to all center around a blog like mine. I'm grateful for that, and I love the people I've met through it, and I'm not going to be changing the format of the blog. Just keep in mind that what you're reading is written in a very specific style, one that leads to negativity and hostility, and that I'm very aware of the quality level of this stuff, which is why this didn't come as a link directly from me.
Hang on - there was a part without wrong-headed generalizations? The way I read it, the first two sentences tripped my generalization alarm. The guy constantly extrapolates from his tiny sample and says that the whole world is that way.
Are you saying that a young, bright 18-year-old shouldn't write at all because he knows that most of what he says is wrong? Because that sounds kind of stupid. I'd rather more people my age write and be entirely wrong and start talking back and forth amongst one another, so they all mature and get wiser. This is merely my contribution to that.
Except you didn't limit yourself to that. You wrote about the world that everyone experiences, and essentially told a bunch of other people that they are wrong about their own experiences.
> Are you saying that a young, bright 18-year-old shouldn't write at all because he knows that most of what he says is wrong?
I'm saying that anyone, regardless of age or intelligence, should try to avoid generalizing from their almost certainly narrow experience.
Also, the tone of your comment has certain elements of the martyr mentality that you have criticized in your essay and in these comments.
Is it wrong to say that when they are?
I don't know everything. I only know my specific narrow field. But I do know that everybody I know who is actually unpopular - that is to say, not somebody who lacks friends due to lack of social skills, but somebody who people actively dislike in the way that nerds seem to think happens - is counterhostile in a way that turns people off, and that that usually is the reason why they are disliked.
I'm saying that anyone, regardless of age or intelligence, should try to avoid generalizing from their almost certainly narrow experience.
But everybody does that. Paul Graham does that in his essays. The great writers of fiction wrote from their own experience. It's why they were good. Most of them also generalized: look at Steinbeck and the way he turns entire groups of people into black-and-white heroes and villains.
I'm not saying this essay is as good as Why Nerds Are Unpopular. PG put a lot of time and effort into that essay; this piece was dashed out. But I'll also point out that among the people I've shown this to that aren't the sort of people who use HN, there's a much more widespread agreement that what I'm talking about makes sense, and that I've nailed an element of nerd/programmer that's given the whole subset of people a bad name. That doesn't make me instantly correct about it - I certainly overgeneralize - but to say that generalization is a bad thing because it's generalization ignores the fact that you almost certainly like and agree with and think in generalities. Just because this one is not one you agree with doesn't make generalities in writing wholly bad.
Also, the tone of your comment has certain elements of the martyr mentality that you have criticized in your essay and in these comments.
Martyr? I'm saying that I have a right to write what I think is right, and that a lot of this criticism that's aimed at me rather than at this piece simply because this piece is a poor one offends me. I'm not defending its being on Hacker News. I wish you all would flag it and remove it. It's not worthy of this site. Criticizing that is fine. But the criticism against me for writing this piece in the first place offends me, and I don't think I'm being an asshole martyr for saying that.
Paul writes brilliant essays, but I find that if he has a weakness as an essayist, it is probably in over generalization. Many of his essays have pretty sweeping generalizations, but a dearth of data justifying them. His brilliance is that he usually overcomes this by appealing to his reader's intuitions, and it usually works. But there are times when I find myself wondering if he is just extrapolating from his own experience to a larger scale than is warranted.
Your thesis is probably just as defensible as Graham's, but the way you supported it was scattershot and just plain unconvincing to anyone who's been out of high school a few years. I'm not saying it shouldn't have been written or even that the style is bad (it was quite readable), just that the argument could be better made if you cut it down by half and built up the thesis with more solid (or solid-sounding) claims.
No. But your essay reads like they _all_ are.
> But everybody does that.
That's no excuse.
> Martyr?
Yes. Here's another example: "I'm saying that I have a right to write what I think is right". Nobody ever tried to take that right away from you, least of all me. All I did was say that you were wrong, but you have decided to carry on like I am persecuting you by attempting to take away your rights. Martyr.
> But the criticism against me for writing this piece in the first place offends me, and I don't think I'm being an asshole martyr for saying that.
Again, I never called you an asshole or criticized you as a person, as opposed to something specific that you said. Now you're being a martyr in response to me saying that you are writing with a martyr mentality.
The correct response to such a generalization is just to present counterexamples. Your comments seem to express the idea that it's wrong to present a generalization in public. That's just silly.
Further, I would submit that it _is_ wrong to let a generalization masquerade as a general truth in public.
A desired group can basically set the hierarchy by what they define as attractive.
Most people don't actually want to leave the social group that they're in, as pg observed in one of his essays. The one exception is when their group is specifically a lesser version of another, usually the hangers-on.The nerds may really like programming and have no desire to play sports -- but they would love to date the attractive girls from any group.
The verbal and physical abuse in the system comes from members of a group which has attractive members of the opposite sex trying to keep down the others. For example, the jocks know that the nerds would like to date the cheerleaders, and so the jocks act to keep their supremacy.
It's high school, it's all about sex, what did you expect?
The difference between a jock and a band geek is that the jock will resort to violence to defend himself. I've pranked jocks before with groups of band geeks. It often leads to a scuffle. When band geeks are strong enough to fight back, they don't get bullied either.
You don't torment people because of your own psychological past. Usually it's done out of irritation. The meek, quiet type usually gets ignored in favor of the one who talks too much in class, not because people hate smart people, but because there are certain sorts who are really jerks about it and that irritates people. That's also why bullies tend to be on the smarter side of the spectrum. I knew kids in the studies (low-level) courses and kids in the advanced courses, and the ones who were more likely to mock a kid was all in the advanced courses. I've been in the mocking situation before, so it all works.
Okay, wait a second. First off, I have a hard time picturing how someone can be that much of a "jerk" by answering a teacher's question. And secondly, are you honestly siding with a bully who beats on a kid for that kind of behavior? I mean, I understand that it can be irritating to hear from the same kid all the time, but frankly, the onus is on the bully to deal with this incredibly minor irritation in a less destructive way. Your implication that those being tormented are more at fault than the tormentors sickens me.
Of course I don't agree with bullying. I'm not a huge fan of violence, particularly not for stupid shit like school. But there's an attitude amongst this type of person that says they are entirely not to blame for the harassment they get, just because they act smart or whatnot. I don't think that's the case. I used to get mocked a lot in school and looking back on it, I think that I deserved it entirely. Similarly, some people go out of their way to invite harassment, and they use that as a point about how people who harass other people suck. I'd even go so far as to call it reverse harassment. I certainly did that as well: I'd provoke people into making fun of me by going out of my way to be eccentric. It's stupid behavior and while it might not be as bad as actually harassing a person, it's still inexcusable.
First off, I have a hard time picturing how someone can be that much of a "jerk" by answering a teacher's question.
In one of my courses this semester, there's a kid with an irritating laugh and a loud voice who refuses to stop making comments about how Microsoft is dead and dying, how Linux is going to be huge by the end of 2009, how Apple is evil, how Firefox is the best web browser and adheres the best to web standards. Every discussion we have he jumps in on, interrupting students and advocating his own misinformed, sensationalist, frankly stupid opinions, under the guise that he's being a good participant by doing so.
In one of my senior-year courses, there were honors students, kids ranked in the top 10 for our year, who, in round-circle literary discussions, would say things like "I think the pig on the stick is symbolic. I don't exactly know what it's for, but it seems like there's a reason for it being there." In that particular discussion, after I talked about how the pig's head represents in some ways an attempt at order that pretends to itself that it has meaning, that particular person jumped in saying, "Precisely what I was saying. It's that it's symbolic. And there was a reason, just like Rory added on."
There is answering questions because you know the answers - and some people do that, and they're completely fine, and no matter how many they answer nobody seems to mind - and there are the people who are jerks about it. The obnoxious popping-up hand, the calls of "Ooh! Ooh!", the smarmy attitude about all of it. It's a jerk thing to do. It's just as bad as the snobby girl who makes fun of fat kids, or the fashion guru who sneers at people who wear Gap (or whatever fashion gurus sneer at). And just like I don't think teasing and sneering is stuff that deserves violence, being a jackass in class isn't something that you should be beaten up over - but neither is it completely harmless and mild. Being somebody who likes to be scathing at times, I find that I go after those wannabe teacher's pets just as much as I go after other sorts of people.
Your implication that those being tormented are more at fault than the tormentors sickens me.
Just to be entirely clear: my implication is that there is blame to be found on both sides. That is nearly always my implication in these scenarios. I think the tormentors are more at fault, in this case, but I can't bring myself to side entirely with the tormented.
They _are_ entirely not to blame for what they get. What they _are_ to blame for is their own behavior.
I don't have a problem with you saying that some people are irritating and do annoying things. What I have a problem with is the suggestion that they _share in the blame for what others do to them as a result_. There is a difference there, and it is an important one.
To be clear, I am going on the principle that a person is alone responsible for their actions, and not for those of others.
I agree. You are responsible for yourself but nobody else. You seem to imply, however, that others' actions dwell in a void entirely uninspired by your own actions. I hold, on the other hand, that everything influences everything else, and so nerds should be responsible for their social hostility because that's what's influencing their persecution.
In any case, I think what I wrote in the other thread about how I'm separating the concepts of "cause" and "blame" should clear this up.
Somehow it seems that all these stories tie into that theme: the expectations, the sense that one must live their High School role thenceforth, the contemporary judgments made based on factors from High School and so on.
[1] Adolescence is obviously formative just like anything else; I trust you can make the distinction.
Hell, programmers argue over web browsers. There is an elitist and closed-off system among hardcore coders that says certain things are better than others, usually for no reason, often for bad reasons.
Or in other words, so-called nerds have different interests than the rest of the population, and they act completely normal about those interests within their peer group.
Despite the massive popular appeal of celebrities and fashion, I've never been stuck in a one-on-one conversation with somebody who couldn't figure out that those topics bored me. I've been stranded in group conversations as the lone person who wasn't interested, but that's entirely different. People even figure out pretty quickly that I don't know anything about "Lost" despite how improbably that is. You have to give "normal" people credit for being much, much better than the average computer nerd when it comes to talking your ear off about stuff you don't care about.
(I guess there's another stereotypical dork: the middle-aged businessman who only know how to talk to other middle-aged businessmen, and who talks obsessively about cars, golf, or politics. I only encounter him at weddings, but you entrepreneurial types might run into him more often.)
Reading the comments, I guess I don't care and aren't missing much.
Finding flaws is valuable if you're doing a startup or figuring out a good design, but if you're in any sort of social situation, it will instantly turn people off to you 100%.
I wrote out a thoughtful little thing explaining why it was currently redirecting, then got a complaint from an IE6 tester that that page wasn't displaying, and decided "Fuck it, I'll wait until later to make my blog respectable." I'm in the middle of a big redesign/name change/shebang, and since this isn't the blog that'll be the center of that redesign, I'm not focusing very much on it until the other pieces are more ready.
The real problem seems to be school violence and bullying, and it seems that in the U.S., at least, this is a non-trivial problem.
Dicks you can just ignore are one thing. Dicks who beat up kids smaller than them or pick out kids to ambush with their buddies, cannot be ignored. Sounds like this was not the case at your school, which is great. But it changes everything when violence is involved, and explains why unpopular "nerds" could display exclusion and paranoia, literally as a survival mechanism.
In schools where violence is not widespread, I think Rory's comments have more validity.
I want to read it, so far I've just used the audio book and enjoyed it, but didn't really focus on it as much as I would have if I had read it.
I forget who said this but it's true: "The secret to success is no secret."
When I developed the attitude I've got now, the one that accepts my faults and doesn't immediately get nasty, the change in people was almost immediate. Most people really would rather like you than dislike you, and the instant you start accepting them, they start liking you back. The people who are real jerks and tormentors drop it after it stops affecting you - and that doesn't mean your responding harshly or ignoring it, it means your ignoring the fact that they're attempting to be tormentors. If you ask a bullying jock a question about his sports team, and start just talking to him about the stuff he does, they're completely nonplussed, and after just a little bit, they start treating you like a normal human being.
There is an imaginary risk, and I agree with you that it's terrifying as hell to think that people are against you. I've been there. But it's not a real risk, and once you overcome that nonexistent worry - and that's absolutely not an easy thing to do - you realize that nobody is any more at risk than anybody else.
The risk, of course, is that they'll screw something up and the tormentors will continue to torment. These are generally socially awkward people we're talking about. You're being rather silly to suggest that someone who isn't at home in social situations to begin with and has been ostracized for pretty much their entire life is not at risk of real failure in a social environment.
I'm glad that you were successful in your social ladder climb. But you are pretending that _everyone_ will be successful. It's simply not a foregone conclusion - there are losers in this game, even among those who try their hardest not to be.
> you realize that nobody is any more at risk than anybody else
This is so very false that I don't even know where to begin. Are you saying that there are not real advantages and disadvantages in social situations? Can you not see that the captain of the football team is way less likely to be harassed than the math dweeb?
Can you not see that the captain of the football team is way less likely to be harassed than the math dweeb?
I'm saying that if math was cool and football wasn't, the captain of the modern football team would probably still be really popular. He might be really into math. I know the sorts of people who were football captains, and they're inherently likable partly because they're not obnoxious assholes in the same way. They're the sorts of assholes people like.
As I said earlier: when a football player joined a group of nerds he'd start talking to us and we'd all start to really like him. If I joined a group of football players I would turn quiet and snappy. If I was willing to risk being more social, I have no doubts that I'd have been accepted.
Everybody who attempts to climb the social ladder succeeds, because people above you really would prefer you climb up.
This is not the same as "Everyone who attempts to climb the social ladder succeeds", what you are saying here is more like "Everyone who succeeds at climbing the social ladder attempts it". The latter is true, the former is what I objected to. You are ignoring the people who attempted and failed.
I generally found many of my peers boring as hell.
I tried going to a "get hammered in the middle of the woods" party (yes, it was that kind of high school), but I didn't drink, and no one was doing anything especially interesting, or saying anything especially interesting, and it was boring as hell, but everyone else being inebriated were oblivious to the dumbfounding level of boredom surrounding them, making it all the more frustrating.
So, I guess it really comes down to my not wanting to drink that resulted in my anti-social nerdiness. It was not until college that I found actually interesting people doing actually interesting and fun activities, without benefit of mind altering substances.
I'm still at the point where I just don't like most people, especially in groups. It's a problem that I struggle with. I hope to figure out how to make things better - some people I know can find interesting parts of anybody - but I won't pretend like I know the solution to this problem.
The posters here generally are taking some kind of offense to this, and feel the need to shoot it full of holes. In the meantime, this behavior is only reinforcing the point to anyone who happens to not be a programmer.
It's actually quite striking.
Or would it mean that he just may be wrong.
Show me the person who makes an active attempt to stop being hated - not by being "cool" but by starting to act friendly towards people - and fails after a few weeks' effort and I'll consider your experiment a potential refutation.
Would the multitudes of people coming to refute his points confirm his point that there is a conspiracy to hide the truth?
I said "Nerds are in denial" and a lot of people jumped on board to deny it. I'm not saying that proves it either way, because I don't presume to judge people by their comments online, but it's not exactly evidence of my wrongdoing.
I know lots of people who are hated simply because they try to hard to be liked. Annoyingly friendly to the point of aggravation. They wind up being hated because they don't want to be hated.
And of course if I say something like "Nerds will deny their love of the music stylings of Britney Spears", I will get a ton of "nerds" who don't like Britney Spears at all and say so. But that isn't proof that they secretly like Britney Spears because you correctly predicted the response to an inflammatory statement.
A lot of people are coming up to say that they weren't assholes, that when they were nice they were still victimized, etc., etc. But to you that is only proof of your statement that they are in denial. You are refusing to consider that maybe, you are just wrong, extrapolating from yourself conclusions that don't hold in the larger context.
Mark Zuckerberg is the CEO of Facebook. His coding abilities cannot be judged unless it is known how much of the Facebook code he actually wrote. I assume the majority of it was not written by him.
I think Facebook is one of the best-looking sites that's ever been, though the last two redesigns haven't been too tight. The original layout, with the links on the side and the two-column profile, was one of those things that vastly inspired me when I was younger. The level of order it forced on its users was stunning, especially compared to MySpace. Now it's been tuning down some of the things I liked - especially the "How do you know this person" syntax - but it's still more usable than any other site that huge. The fact that people can intuitively figure out how to post photos, videos, events, groups, notes, friend people, fan pages, add applications, all without any advice - my grandfather figured it all out without help - is one of those things that's so impressive that it's easy to ignore because you take it for granted. Meanwhile, a lot of the things that have become common in sites - the thing that stands out to me is the resizing textfields - were first popularly used in Facebook. When I wrote for AllFacebook my main interest was scouring the site, clicking everything I could, looking for those finesses. So it's beautiful in terms of dedication to usability if nothing else.
Edit: Not to seem too negative, but I have just run into this attitude in most people that aren't introverts. There are advantages and disadvantages to both sides of that coin, but I feel like the introvert side gets labeled as the bad one.
In places like the US, extroversion is accepted and liked. However, in places like Germany, introversion is well respected and as an equal to extroversion.
I asked why and he said that he really didn't know. It's just the difference in culture.
The Introvert: introversion => social isolation => perceived snobbery => social challenges
The Nerd: socially challenged => social isolation => pretense of snobbery or introversion
There are introvert athletes and actors and musicians, but they're more popular in society. One of the quote-unquote coolest kids I know is a drummer who just never talks. He's incredibly shy. He smiles when people talk to him and says nothing, and for whatever reason people just absolutely love him. So introversion in and of itself isn't the issue.
Off topic, but please fix.
Agree with you about the leading. This is the first thing I've written where the title has dropped to two lines, and it looks icky compared to with one. This theme is very much a work in progress - just started coding it in early last week - so I'll tidy those things up.
This isn't my writing about a dislike of nerds. This is my writing to certain nerds explaining why their situation is what it is.
This is a wrong assumption, because there are people who are smart but are not (computer) nerds.
"Cheerleader come over and ask about programming? Shot down. Invitation to a study group? Rejected. The most bitingly ironic comes when a person in a group of nerds gets an invitation to a party. If you’re one of the more social people in your scene, try it. Invite an anime person or a programmer - one of those people - out to an event. Chances are you’ll be declined. There’s every possibility you’ll be rejected impolitely. The whole concept of the nerd clique is based on elitism: you need to be smart in order to be a part of the group."
I've read once about a cheerleader who became a rocket scientist.
The article is based on wrong assumptions. People don't reject you because you belong to a "smart" group but rather because "computer nerds" tend to lack social skills (at some point in their early life at least), that make seem akward. or themselves reject specific attitude/people who they don't feel combatible, so it's a human behaviour thing that you should expect that those you reject they will reject you.
I mean, considering I'm criticizing the nerd social atmosphere in a lengthy post, it's unlikely that I'm saying nerds suck because they're smart.
Now that you've insulted me and called me both angry and sad, I'd like you to explain yourself further so I can respond in kind.
We all wern't made fun of in high school. Some of us even had plenty of jock friends and stayed away from the "introvert hate everybody clueless programmers group".
And there's one really cool thing about being a "nerd": You learn a lot about a multitude of subjects. Because of that, you can learn of the interconnectedness between subjects. It's what I did, and I was able to help, say, a few cheerleaders on their advanced chemistry course, or watch a film while "critiquing" it.
I also taught a few of these students biology... no no no, not sex (no, that would be a bit later). Winemaking. I mean, if you want to be popular, you stand out. Even if it is a 'little bit', you make yourself memorable. People of all sorts will look past general quirkiness if you're a cool guy.
The toughest group to join was that nerd group, at least in my HS. I assume it was a mixture of not trusting or they thought I was too stupid. My SO however had a completely difference experience, in which there was really no real cliques (there were, in name usually).
The toughest group to join was that nerd group, at least in my HS. I assume it was a mixture of not trusting or they thought I was too stupid.
That's what I was trying to say. If "popular" really meant "exclusive", then nerds would be the most popular people around.
As I said in my essay: everybody nowadays is a nerd. Doesn't matter what you get involved in, you're a nerd. I suspect that was true 50 years ago, because Lennon/McCartney were as nerdy brilliant as they come and they still became sex icons. So when I refer to nerds I refer not to people who do nerdy things, but to the nerds that aggressively classify themselves as nerds and invite persecution and antagonizing by doing do.
In what planet did you grow up?
No no no. That's me, but it's not because of anything to do with spotting "a sign of weakness".
Let me try to use a non-car analogy: Imagine I'm a carpenter (I'm not) and you come up to me and ask "how do I build a staircase?". The kinds of thoughts going through my head might be:
1) A staircase is obviously wood, cut to shape, then fixed together. It's also obviously quite a big thing. There's no need to answer with the low level "obvious" things like "you will need a large workshop", if you want to build a staircase you probably already have woodworking tools and experience and now want a bigger project, so an answer telling you basic outline steps would be insultingly patronising and unhelpful.
Also, an answer covering enough steps from scratch would take far too long for a forum post or discussion reply, so if I make the judgement that you don't have any of the experience and haven't considered it at all then you might get a dismissive "with a lot of work" reply.
(OK, maybe if we met informally and you asked, you might be just making conversation, but nobody goes to a technical forum and asks how to build a website just to make friends, do they, so that doesn't apply).
2) On the other hand, if you have spotted the obvious then you're asking one question but meaning another - maybe what kind of wood can I use to make it look nice, what building regs must it comply to, how can I reinforce it, what fireproofing treatments work well? What styles of bannister were popular in Victorian times?
There could be a lot of fun stuff, but again too many directions to go in all in one answer - this is where you get the "it depends what style you want" answer. It's not bullshit, it's better than that, it's skipping straight to acknowledgement, acceptance and directed at whichever obstacle or major design consideration comes to mind first.
So, "how do you build a website that people can join" leads me to think something like:
A website people can join means giving them a form to fill in, keeping their details, and providing a login prompt later. This is obvious to anyone who has used a couple of websites with signup forms.
So either you understand the steps of a site you can signup to and would have Googled until you found out more about those steps and asked a more specific question (What's HTML? What's a webhost? What happens to information in a form once I click submit? How can I keep it around?), or you're really asking for design and obstacle avoidance suggestions, e.g. scaling, security, server load, etc.
Hence the replies: You haven't Googled for the basics, that suggests you aren't ready for the amount of work involved, or you aren't really asking such a basic question so you don't get a basic answer.
I wouldn't go to an exotic plant center and ask how to grow a sequoia tree and when they ask if I have any gardening experience, say no. Have any tools? No. Have anywhere to grow one? No. Do I want to read a book on them? No. I don't want to go through all this growing a tree bullshit, I just want to grow a sequoia tree! It'll need a lot of space. Don't give me this scaling crap. It'll need a tropical soil makeup. I don't care about soil chemistry you nerd, I just want to grow a big tree!
If I wanted to jump into a big project, why not? I'd research to find out where they normally grow, where seeds for unusual plants can be obtained, how to germinate and care for similar (tree, tropical, whatever) seeds and what kinds of soils and watering they might require, and arrange a big space to grow it in - then I'd contact someone appropriate and describe my plan, make it clear I was determined and ask for their advice.
I'm having trouble putting my finger on what's annoying me, it's not the request for free code - you can have it. It's not the asking for help - I'll help when I can (if I'm interested).
There's something about the questioner being unwilling to help themselves. Not a lack of understanding about a topic, but a lack of understanding about understanding in general. A kind of feeling that some people think things are literally magic, not just a chain of connections that anyone learn about and manipulate.
It's probably because I'm a nerd who likes details (in areas I'm interested in, at least), but it's puzzling.
There's something about the questioner being unwilling to help themselves. Not a lack of understanding about a topic, but a lack of understanding about understanding in general. A kind of feeling that some people think things are literally magic, not just a chain of connections that anyone learn about and manipulate.
That's not the vibe I get from a lot of the more arrogant types. If somebody asks "How do I make a custom forum" and somebody says "Well, you're going to need to know a lot of things, so if you don't know X Y and Z it's going to take you a lot of learning", that makes a lot of sense, agreed. But the attitude that comes off of a lot of programmers is "Yeah, you can't, don't bother," and I feel that hurts a lot of curious-but-ignorant people.
Exactly. I run a tutorial site for younger webmasters so I get a lot of requests for help. I wouldn't do it if I objected (although it's far too out of date now) but there's a huge difference between someone who's been on my site, searched on Google, constructed some code that they think is on the right lines and struck a wall, and then someone who has thought "hmm, she codes, I'll just get her to do it".