Why Accountants are Dull and Guitarists are Glamorous | Hacker News Reader

Why Accountants are Dull and Guitarists are Glamorous

reprap.org

43 pointsmixmax29 comments

The article espouses a nice theory, but I can think of some pretty big holes, especially relating to differing cultures and indeed our own historical experience. Musicians were not always the revered gods they are today. Back in 16th century England, I can't imagine the neighbourhood bard being more of a chick-puller than, say, the rich merchant.

Culture plays a huge part too. I was speaking to one of my Chinese friends the other day and was struck by something she said about the popular boys in her school. I asked what made the boys popular - she replied that, amongst other desirable traits, they got good grades. Needless to say this does not apply in any western society I've been a member of. Rather the opposite, in fact.

In a society edging towards post-scarcity, perhaps the desirability of conspicuous displays of wasted energy, like being "cool" or whatever, move to the fore. But in a society still climbing the developmental ladder, I just don't see it. Not to say that the theory lacks any merit at all - the conspicuous waste thing could well be a big factor, like how people buy ridiculously expensive watches just to show they can. But I don't see how it "evolved" when even the west has been like this for only half a century or so.

A more likely explanation for the sexual allure of popular musicians is their perceived wealth, exciting and interesting lives, boasting rights over ones' friends, and over society in general. The same thing can be seen, mapped into a different context, in the Chinese experience - good grades at school = good university = good job = all of the above benefits. I would posit this is a more likely explanation than the "evolved waste" theory.

Yoko Ono found that Beatles dude pretty attractive. In my general experience, people from other cultures find certain loud and ostentatious Westerners with few redeeming qualities (I jest, I jest!) attractive, even when they do not find that attraction among their own.

In other words, I do not think that your observation and the post are incompatible. Context matters.

As a Chinese American guy with great grades, I believe your friend is full of BS (unless she's "Chinese" in that she actually lives in China). In HS / College, I've never seen good grades = popularity.

I believe that's precisely what he meant - in Asia guys with good grades are valued quite highly by the womenfolk. That being said, IMHO this is temporary - girls will still go for the bad biker dude (or its Asian equivalent) in the end.

Yes, she's from Shanghai. I have no reason to think she is lying.

I think it has lots to do with cultural values. I went to elementary school in Taiwan for 4 years. In an asian education environment, you need to take exams after exams to get into good schools to get a good job. Not to say it isn't the same in the states, but it's on a different level. In junior high school, it isn't uncommon to see kids stay at school for 14 hours plus to study months on end. Most schools have rankings for midterms/finals, and some give out a slap on the wrist for every point under 90 (at least when I went to school) to reinforce the importance of studying.

So being bad academically is more like losing a school wide competition, rather than the American system of being able to shrug it off as something you don't care about. In Asian countries, they don't buy the idea that people can be talented at different things, it's more a black and white "you're smart or you're not" thing. So of course people like winners more than losers.

So back to the point in the article.. I don't think it's about the actual utility of a person's skill, but the perceived successfulness within the context of societal values.

Which brings up an interesting point: other than using the societal values, how else will you know how successful a person is when real success is often based on luck and isn't apparent until ~30?

Keep in mind that Shanghai has its own local culture that is quite (in)famous throughout China and the Pacific Rim, so her experiences may not be applicable to China as a wider whole.

What else would "Chinese" mean!?

Taht's pretty much my experience. Being a musician myself, I tend not to have problems with female attention in Western countries. I also met lots of Chinese girls in my life and they looked at me like they felt sorry I couldn't do better than that.

I'd don't like to generalize but that's what happened to me. And I'd like to add that Chinese != Japanese (re: Yoko Ono).

...she replied that, amongst other desirable traits, they got good grades. Needless to say this does not apply in any western society I've been a member of. Rather the opposite, in fact.

No, I'm European, been to school in both east and west Europe, and America, and the above is true for Europe as well.

The most popular kids are always charming AND smart. Only in America does it seem like good grades are bad thing. But make no mistake socially challenged kids with straight As are NOT popular. The key is to be both socially and academically smart.

Only in America does it seem like good grades are bad thing

And the UK.

When talking to Americans I don't distinguish between the continent and the isles, but I do when talking to anyone from Europe. The UK is also the one most similar to the US, for obvious reasons. Also I think class may play a big role in who's popular in the UK, I suspect the kids at Eaton don't feel the same way.

The initial premise is wrong. Charm, looks and money are more powerful in the mating game than what someone does for a living. Poor, ugly, and boring artists and musicians don't get laid very often, even if they are good at what they do. A hot, rich bank manager is going to pull more trim than any financially struggling, mediocre looking artist. The stark reality is that the counter groups he mentioned, engineers and programmers (I know nothing about bank managers) are comprised of people who often take pride in the fact that they aren't good looking or charming and can be quite deluded about their potential for becoming rich.

His other point, that the reprap is going to make manufacturing obsolete, is very wishful thinking. The current commercial 3-D printers aren't good enough to produce anything other than models. The materials also cost $25 per cubic inch. Printing out a replica of a thermos costs $700. Costs are going to have to plummet and someone is going to need to invent a magical material that can automatically scrub out all the striations in the printed surfaces.

Poor, ugly, and boring artists and musicians don't get laid very often

http://www.buzzfeed.com/sarahmorgan/virginity-rates-by-colle...

Those stats are for a women's college.

Poor, ugly, and boring artists and musicians don't get laid very often, even if they are good at what they do.

Bum, I like most of your comments but this one is so empirically false it's ridiculous (if you take out the incongruent "boring").

I was using boring to be the opposite of charming. Maybe boorish is a better word.

However, although it is counterintuitive, I stand my ground. My job (until I stopped doing it) involved a weird intersection of art and technology. My roommates (when I had them) have all been artists. I know every gallery owner in San Francisco, I help set up friend's shows. Art is sort of "my thing" outside of programming. Thus I feel like I know a little bit about that world. The guys simply are not getting any. Sexual frustration is probably one of the driving factors for most contemporary art. The better the art, the less sex the artist is having. At a certain point the art becomes good enough to result in an odd sort of fame and fortune and then the artist may get to have sex again. However it's still less frequent than you'd think just because visual art does not carry the same cultural cachet as music, movies, pro wrestling or reality TV.

I know less about musicians but I used to be a really good jazz pianist and that got me nowhere with women. In fact it's taken years of heavy drinking to expunge all knowledge of jazz and piano from my system, and it still surfaces from time to time, rendering me involuntarily celibate. Have you been to a jazz show lately? It's all nerdy dudes. You'll have better luck with women by making inappropriate presentations at a ruby programming conference than you will by being a jazz musician. I snuck out to a jazz show last weekend and when I got home I lied to my girlfriend and told her I had met up with an ex for a drink. I knew she'd find that more forgivable. Of course, when people say musician these days they don't mean a jazz musician, they mean the Jonas Brothers and Dave Matthews. Sure, those guys are getting laid, probably even with similarly aged fans. But for every famous pop musician there are thousands of real musicians slaving away at their instrument with little hope of future procreation. Just read some Zed Shaw, he supposedly practices guitar 8 hours a day and you can tell by the tone of his rants that he hasn't had sex in almost a decade.

Now what about that statistic that said people who majored in studio art were 0% virgins? I'll grant that artists who go to art school definitely do get laid... while they are at art school. It's well established that art school chicks are the easiest women on the planet. I taught a "programming for artists" type course at an art school once and not a class session went by when I wasn't at least vaguely propositioned, and I was the instructor. Even the ugly fat dude who is supremely awesome at airbrushing dragons will get laid ONCE at art school. However, that's only because the messed up female artist who makes hand puppets out of her own hair decided to use the sexual encounter as the final project for her conceptual art elective. Once all these people get out of art school, the women all date gallery owners and lawyers and the guys never have sex again.

You should write a book. Seriously. I love that rare blend of guilt, frustration and bitterness. Hackers and painters. Nerds and artists. Neither one nor the other is destined to spawn. They may be lucky enough to leave their tiny mark on the planet with their ideas & creations, but not with their genes.

"You should write a book. Seriously. I love that rare blend of guilt, frustration and bitterness. "

heh heh! Just my 2 cents, but being some kind of musician does get you laid in my experience. I am a very mediocre musician (I have no "instinct" for music I play very "mathematically", but hey I enjoy the playing) and am not handsome by any means, but my guitar playing (sucky as it is) has got me (and the other members of my rather ad hoc band) laid regularly. I think of being somewhat good at music as a "hack" to take care of the getting laid part (serious relationships are a different story).. And to be somewhat at music (vs being really good at it) takes only a year or so of practice so it is a good investment. So if all you want to do is get laid without too much effort, picking up a musical instrument maybe worth your while. The guitar is easy (compared to, say, the violin). form some kind of band and play at parties.

As I said, I am not discounting or challenging your (menloparkbum's) experience. just my 2 cents. YMMV

Hmm, so maybe the hypothesis here should be "guitar playing gets you laid, jazz piano doesn't".

Damn. I just started to teach myself piano...

The music itself is irrelevant. If you're on stage performing anything and people are paying attention, then you are the de-facto Alpha Male, and that trumps every other factor for attractiveness to females (for short-term relationships/one-night stands).

I wholeheartedly agree. Too bad I can't upvote you twice. Cheers.

"Poor, ugly, and boring artists and musicians don't get laid very often, even if they are good at what they do."

How would you know?

I always thought some musicians were sexually magnetic because women felt an emotional connection with the musician, probably through their songs.

Some musicians can make music that makes people feel better. Music can affect us at the most powerful level, the emotional level.

I saw Adam Sandler play at my university once and you would not believe how many beautiful college women were coming up to him after the show, wanting just a fragment of a moment of his attention.

The Hanukkah song. His trademark. It was scary to see almost everyone cheer and sing along as loud as they could. People were connecting their lives to his maybe-not-so-silly song.

I witnessed similar things with "Hootie and the Blowfish" and the Dave Matthews Band. I never understood "Backstreet Boys" and NKOTB. But maybe musicians are a societally-accepted way for women to objectify and idealize men.

But maybe musicians are a societally-accepted way for women to objectify and idealize men.

Well said. I wish I could upmod you twice for this sentence alone!

Peacock feathers do not equate to attractiveness for peafowls. It is an assumption that was accepted without testing. Does this relate to the HN posting about how hackers are horrible at statistics?

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/03/26/peacock-feathers-fe...

Self-copying 3D printers will make it an order of magnitude cheaper again, and will finally kill the idea of intellectual property. But - just as with computers and music - they will also expand creativity, because people don't create things just to make money; the real reason they create things is to get noticed by other people with whom they want to have children...

Right, because large pharmaceutical companies spend millions in researching and developing drugs that increase the quality of peoples' lives just to impress chicks.

(Viagra aside...) :P

If you "kill intellectual property," you will kill many (not all, as the article writer so astutely mentioned, but many) incentives. Very few people or organizations are going to subsidize a few hundred million dollars worth of R&D on a drug or invention if it is just going to be given away...

You know what kind of accounting is glamorous? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_accounting

Bah - selfish gene again. People give away ideas because we are social animals that survive through our ability to co-operate and recognise that it is advantageous to share. Except for those evil selfish Peter Chamberlen brothers of forceps fame.

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