[HN Gopher] Fierce Nerds
___________________________________________________________________
Fierce Nerds
Author : prtkgpt
Score : 343 points
Date : 2021-05-18 13:30 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (paulgraham.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (paulgraham.com)
| 5tefan wrote:
| A difficult topic. Everyone of us has a story to tell and a
| burden to carry. Focusses on some fierce nerds and misses all
| others. The gamut of personalties is vast. Got to try to bring
| out the best in people.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _I have some good news, and some bad news. The good news is
| that your fierceness will be a great help in solving difficult
| problems. And not just the kind of scientific and technical
| problems that nerds have traditionally solved. As the world
| progresses, the number of things you can win at by getting the
| right answer increases. Recently getting rich became one of them:
| 7 of the 8 richest people in America are now fierce nerds._ "
|
| It's good that we've gotten past the tedious "solving society's
| problems" blather.
|
| " _If you do choose the ambitious route, you 'll have a tailwind
| behind you. There has never been a better time to be a nerd. In
| the past century we've seen a continuous transfer of power from
| dealmakers to technicians -- from the charismatic to the
| competent -- and I don't see anything on the horizon that will
| end it. At least not till the nerds end it themselves by bringing
| about the singularity._"
|
| Isn't Graham a dealmaker? Isn't that exactly what Y Combinator
| does?
|
| And given Graham's comments about inequality, why am I ambivalent
| about the singularity of the fierce nerds?
| [deleted]
| capableweb wrote:
| After reading some of his books, essays and hearing people
| talking about him, I think Graham is first and foremost a nerd
| and hacker, the other stuff is secondary. At least that's how
| it looked before the last couple of years, his view on things
| seems to have slightly changed recently, so not sure anymore
| actually.
| npsimons wrote:
| Yeah, given that we're talking about the guy who wrote "On
| Lisp" I think it's fair to say he has technical credibility.
|
| He may be a dealmaker these days, but that doesn't take away
| that he is a luminary in the nerd community.
| mcguire wrote:
| He certainly started that way; his Common Lisp stuff is
| interesting, although I don't usually agree that it's the
| best approach. But as far as I know, the only technical thing
| he's done since selling Viaweb is ... this forum. You apply
| to YC for money and for contacts---exactly what dealmakers
| do.
| bombcar wrote:
| Nerds didn't spring fully formed with the invention of the
| transistor - they have always existed in various forms
| throughout history.
|
| But it has also been true that moving to a dealmaker
| provides more impact, especially once you get past a
| certain point.
| wmil wrote:
| He's done internal software to manage YC.
|
| YC itself was born out of an attempt to hack the hack the
| VC funding system. Shift things to be more friendly to
| technical types.
|
| So it was an attempt to improve a complex system as opposed
| to focussing on making deals. Systems focussed instead of
| people focussed.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| Is there _really_ that much custom software needed to
| manage YC? As opposed to the Excel spreadsheets that most
| investment banks operate with?
| dang wrote:
| There is; you'd be surprised.
| mckeed wrote:
| I think the idea is that some people are naturally
| dealmakers, and the whole idea of YC was technical-minded
| people taking over the job that would normally be done by
| social-minded people and doing it better.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| Same with artists; the ones who became famous or at least
| successful in their lifetime were good at making deals.
| And self-promotion. The ones who could not fit in
| socially, not so much.
| dang wrote:
| He worked on this for several years after leaving YC:
|
| http://www.paulgraham.com/bel.html
|
| Not sure how that doesn't count as technical.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| They said as far as they know. More likely they never
| heard of it.
| capableweb wrote:
| I think "Hackers & Painters" was after ViaWeb as well, a
| book I'd consider technical. I'm sure there are more
| technical things he been doing since ViaWeb also.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| Isn't power itself the ability to make important deals and
| decisions?
| creeble wrote:
| Agree.
|
| _"There has never been a better time to be a nerd. In the past
| century we 've seen a continuous transfer of power from
| dealmakers to technicians -- from the charismatic to the
| competent -- and I don't see anything on the horizon that will
| end it."_
|
| I think the continuous transfer is in nerds learning how to be
| dealmakers, not in some magic power shift to nerds.
|
| George Westinghouse was an inventor. So was Thomas Edison. You
| can think of both as "fierce nerds" in my book.
| thesausageking wrote:
| PG hacked the VC system so he didn't have to be a dealmaker. YC
| has standard terms so there's no haggling on price, pro rata,
| board seats, or anything else. They've automated a lot of what
| they do via software and their network. And because of the
| content they put out and the reputation they've built, founders
| from all over the world come to them and accept much worse
| terms than any normal VC would offer.
| samatman wrote:
| The big question is whether this leads to better overall
| outcomes.
|
| If the company fails, or is aquihired by the skin of its
| teeth, it doesn't matter which terms the various rounds
| offered when.
|
| YC is perceived as offering a greater chance of success, a
| combination of being plugged into a large network of alumni
| and having the halo effect which comes from getting into a
| cohort.
|
| As long as that perception is there, founders will keep
| taking the deal. If that perception is _accurate_ , then
| they're smart to: and the terms aren't worse than any normal
| VC would offer, they're better.
|
| So there's a lot riding on that being true, which I have no
| special insight into. Having to guess, I suspect it's less
| true than it used to be.
| thesausageking wrote:
| The terms are worse in the sense that they're at a much
| lower valuation than most VCs would offer, not that it
| wasn't a good deal for the startup. Almost every YC alumni
| I've talked to believes it was worth it.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I was peaved until I got to the last phrase. Well written.
|
| When the deals go away because the contract is standardized
| and non-negotiable, it's because the dealmaker got _more_
| powerful!
| airhead969 wrote:
| Impatience due to rules not applying to them. And delay is often
| some form of BS. "Strategic" impatience when patience encourages
| faster results. (Manipulating people on the highway to drive
| faster or change lanes through various techniques.)
|
| Nothing precludes actual fierceness rather than strictly fitting
| to an archetype. I used to illegally street race for cash. I can
| detail strip most Glocks, ARs, and AKs, and fire each without
| occluded aiming. Grandfathers were both competition military
| wheel gun marksmen. There are such people as nerdy bodybuilders.
|
| I took the SAT-I without any preparation (absolutely zero) and
| aced the math section, 5 on AP Calc BC with minimal preparation
| at school; no coaches, no practice tests, and no bootcamp classes
| after school. My school was supposed to be good but it sucked in
| one particular way as it picked me through testing to represent a
| math tournament but sent me completely unprepared in the fields
| and subject matter, it was embarrassing. I was usually the lone
| white dude amongst mostly Asian and Indian overachievers who had
| rich af parents with every sort of coach and social help. I road
| a steel-framed bicycle to school 4 miles each way everyday, they
| had hand-me-down BMWs and Mercedes parked in the school parking
| lot.
|
| The other issue is like BUD/S and specops, the people told they
| couldn't or were unsuited also tend to be the ones with the most
| heart. Someone can't wish to be more fluidly-intelligent, but
| they can become more relentlessly-resourceful and dog-with-a-
| bone. Wisdom, experience, and mastery trends to swamp raw
| intelligence as someone ages... plus, fluid intelligence tends to
| decline.
| [deleted]
| mcguire wrote:
| Nice flex.
| [deleted]
| graderjs wrote:
| Somewhere in a secluded underground luxury bunker, Sergey
| Mikhaylovich Brin, Larry Edward Page and Bill Henry Gates are
| fiercely nodding their heads in agreement. ;p ;) xx
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| > Fierce nerds also tend to be somewhat overconfident, especially
| when young.
|
| I wonder if that statement is overly specific. AFAIK, young
| people in general, or at least young men in general, have a
| reputation for being overconfident.
| capableweb wrote:
| Maybe it's because I'm living in a latino country, but it
| certainly seems like men start with too much confidence since
| teenage years, and slowly brings it down so everyone stop
| calling them arrogant, then there is their appropriate level.
| While for females (again, at least here in this latino country)
| it's the opposite, they start off being super humble and
| careful, and while growing up gaining more and more confidence
| until finding the right level.
|
| Of course, this is a broad generalization, but seems to fit
| where I'm living right now, but it's all anecdotal as it's
| based on my own perceived view of things of course.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Sounds right in line with my experiences and exposure to the
| "Machismo" portions of many Latino cultures. I always brought
| this up to my far leftist friends who tried to pretend that
| the cuban revolution was somehow good for the LGBT minority
| of Cuba. LOL you think that they abandoned machismo just
| because they got a hammer and sickle? They call queerness
| "capitalist decadence" there...
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| Makes sense. In the US, being queer was associated with
| communism by their persecutors.
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| I think the "fierce need" / INTJ archetype the author is
| describing takes it a step above that of young men in general
| when it comes to overconfident / arrogance. And I agree with
| the author in that it's related to independent-mindedness. I
| can reflect on memories growing up where other young men were
| much more "in tune" to the group. They more intuitively
| understood the social cost of adopting an unpopular position.
| Or they just had the sensitivity to know that a position or
| statement wouldn't be well-received within the group. Or they
| just valued social harmony in general more than accurately
| representing what they believed to be true.
|
| That's a bit different than when I think of young men in
| general being more confident than they ought to be. It has more
| to do with the goal: status within a group vs putting effort
| into finding what you believe is true and accurately
| representing that truth potentially at a social cost.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| It's a fact that all humans are overconfident. That's why we
| have biases that make us confident in what we "know", and make
| us reject information to the contrary even if the information
| is factually accurate.
|
| The overconfidence is not a trait endemic only to male "nerds".
|
| Of course, it's still helpful to concede that humans should
| recognize and be aware of that weakness in themselves.
| Overconfidence is the reason so many spend the healthy end
| years of their lives so much less well off financially than
| they spent their healthy prime years. It behooves us all to be
| on guard against our overconfidence.
| sbt wrote:
| A lot of this is just the description of an emotionally immature
| person.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > The fierce nerds are a small but interesting group.
|
| If by interesting you mean "humorless bellend", then yes, I agree
| wholeheartedly.
| sudosteph wrote:
| Only the boring ones are humorless. I actually think most
| decent satirists would match up to the fierce nerd persona
| pretty well. Voltaire comes to mind.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _There 's also a natural connection between nerdiness and
| independent-mindedness._
|
| Is it, or it's just an anecdotal projection from PGs own
| experience ("I'm nerdy and I consider myself independent minded,
| also know a few others like that").
|
| This is just extrapolating from the diminishingly small number of
| nerds who are also SV entrepreneurs.
|
| But historically nerds (e.g. 50s and 60s "propellerheads") were
| just working for companies and research labs as employees, and
| mostly on what they were told. Most still do exactly that.
| miobrien wrote:
| It's weird to read an "essay" about "nerds" from a 56 year old.
| It's like he never got over the high school caste system of
| cliques.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| My 70 year old grand-father, whose getting increasingly worse
| bouts of dementia, still remembers all the names and deeds of
| the various school bullies who tormented him in High School
| like it was yesterday. School seems like it was a very
| traumatic time for many, many people. Bullys do enormous
| amounts of damage to people and I am very happy to see the slow
| death of the "high school caste system" from the new
| generation. A lot of genuine social justice will come from
| increasing culture shaming and rejection of people who act like
| bullys.
| johnthealy3 wrote:
| To be fair, this man's job was to identify the type of person
| who is likely to succeed at startups, and by most accounts he
| was very successful at it.
|
| Understanding personality traits and how they relate to the
| people you're looking for has felt critically important as I
| work on my startup. It has come up over and over again in
| hiring (including MANY more inbound, exploratory conversations
| than I would have expected) and in client management
| (identifying the best point of contact on their side, but also
| keeping clients on track and responsive during an onboard).
| droobles wrote:
| I agree with you initially, but I tried to read it from the
| lens of someone who is reflecting on his past experiences and
| applying them to a certain archetype of people he meets
| throughout life working in tech.
|
| With computer science being one of the most popular degrees
| being held by Gen Z, the "nerd" casting will slowly fade as
| computer work becomes more and more the norm vs. traditional
| trades and fields that require higher education.
|
| Average Joe caught wind you could make Lawyer and Doctor money
| with a Bachelor's or less, makes sense to me.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| I dont understand. He grew up as a teen during the age of D&D
| and core scifi/nerd culture. How is not qualified to speak of
| this stuff?
| commandlinefan wrote:
| I've noticed as I myself get older that a lot of things that
| older people used to say, which seemed particularly out of
| touch then, are actually starting to make some amount of
| sense to me. I even find myself repeating some of those
| things. However, I try to be careful to temper that with my
| memories of hearing them from older folks when I was young. I
| think part of the disconnect is/was that older people
| actually do forget what it was like to be young or how they
| thought/felt when they were young. I'd suspect that's what's
| going on in OP's mind - he's mostly forgotten the trials and
| tribulations of youth (maybe even defensively blocked out
| some of the traumatic memories) and to him it doesn't even
| make sense for an older person to remember how important
| social interactions are to teenagers.
| morelisp wrote:
| > the age of D&D
|
| Is right now. It's orders of magnitude more popular than it
| has ever been.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Perhaps it's a generational thing, but a lot of people never
| get over high school.
|
| Fortunately for my generation, we didn't scrimmage or skate
| with helmets so we don't remember who wronged us. IDK how later
| generations manage.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It's weird to read an "essay" about "nerds" from a 56 year
| old. It's like he never got over the high school caste system
| of cliques.
|
| "Nerds" being a meaningful category isn't an idea limited to
| high-school caste/cliques, especially in tech; one of the
| reasons software flipped from being predominantly female to
| predominantly male is the popularization of the idea (IIRC, in
| the late 1960s or early 1970s) that stereotypical nerds
| (socially maladapted, querulous, technophilic males) were the
| optimal workers in the field.
|
| The idea, which best as I know was only grounded in thin
| popular management quasi-science, has become increasingly less
| popular in the last few decades.
|
| It _is_ weird, though, that Graham's affected contrarianism
| requires him to pretend that fierceness as opposed to
| diffidence is contrary to the popular stereotype, nerds lacking
| the skills to manage /moderate conflict manifesting in both
| conflict avoidance where they are uncomfortable and fierce,
| intractable, often petty conflict within their comfort zone has
| always been central to the stereotype.
| woeIsPG wrote:
| Pretty sure a lot of people's brains broke given Trump,
| environment, and coronavirus.
|
| The veil was lifted. A whole lot of the late Boomer, and Gen X
| are halfway to the end, realizing it wasn't magic, and seeing
| sentiment for their efforts turn on them.
|
| I've seen a number of folks, 40-60, meltdown over the last 2-3
| years. Most of my 20-30 something acquaintances have weathered
| it well.
|
| The older class though, has really been hit by reality not
| being as easily bent to their will given the virus, and
| sentiment turning against their generation acting as helicopter
| parents to society.
| bob33212 wrote:
| I think it relates to how he grew up in an unfragmented
| society. He talks about it here.
| http://www.paulgraham.com/re.html
|
| It applies to a lot of what is happening in society today.
| [deleted]
| HDMI_Cable wrote:
| Does anyone else feel sort of weird when Paul Graham talks about
| nerds? It feels like he's trying to deal with something on his
| end, and we're just watching him rationalize to himself.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| >It feels like he's trying to deal with something on his end,
| and we're just watching him rationalize to himself.
|
| That's the case for _all_ PG essays, isn 't it?
| flaubere wrote:
| I have found a few of his essays very good, indeed expressing
| things I haven't seen anywhere else. I think he has provided
| very good advice to young people at times.
|
| The vast majority I would say that he is trying to retcon his
| huge success and the success of some businesses he has been
| associated with into a coherent worldview. I believe that in
| 'Hackers and Painters' he actually goes through some back-of-
| envelope calculations that show that the money he made when
| Yahoo bought Viaweb corresponded closely to the real value he
| had created, in some sense.
|
| It is baffling to me why he isn't able to say "I got lucky -
| I worked hard and created something very valuable, but I was
| also in the right place at the right time." Clearly there
| were special factors at play selling an e-commerce platform
| to Yahoo in 1998. He's also done intelligent and pro-social
| things with both his money and his time since then it
| appears. I don't know what the shame is in saying "I won a
| lottery - but I have tried to do the right thing with my good
| fortune."
|
| I think if you asked Jamie Zawinski, who I think was no less
| technically skilled, nor less purposeful about working on
| interesting and important things (nor, tbh, any worse at
| writing thoughtful essays), he would readily admit to having
| been extremely lucky. I don't know what the difference is
| between these two personalities. I think I'd rather be jwz in
| similar circumstances.
| spamizbad wrote:
| I feel like the Gen-X terminology of a nerd just isn't a thing
| anymore. Being an older millennial, I fully understand what
| sort of person Graham is talking about, however I don't think
| Zoomers or even younger Millennials would describe these people
| as "nerds".
|
| Also, these days if you are a smart ambitious person looking to
| make an impact with technology you're not terribly edgy and you
| certainly aren't defying any major social norms. And that's a
| good thing.
| HDMI_Cable wrote:
| Yeah, Graham's definition of 'nerd' seems more like a social
| class, whereas today, being a 'nerd' is an adjective, and a
| pretty neutral one at that.
| marvin wrote:
| Curious question about terminology: The word 'nerd' no longer
| has obvious negative connotations. It also seem to no longer
| _apply_ to many folks who would have been branded obvious
| nerds in 2003. And vice versa - many people laughingly named
| nerd today wouldn 't qualify in 2003.
|
| Could the terminology just be in flux, and therefore create
| confusion? With woke et al., we've got _pleeeeeenty_ of
| examples of smart folks who miss the social norm du jour,
| attempt to say something true but rather say something
| unacceptable. And then they get ostracized or fired.
|
| Maybe these folks are _some_ examples of what used to be
| called nerds. Do we have a name for them?
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Yeah that view is simply not here anymore. Thankfully
| zug_zug wrote:
| So what would the modern generation call somebody like this:
|
| In 9th grade insists "I don't see the point of these classes
| I'm going to be a programmer," takes AP comp sci as sophmore
| finds it insultingly easy [gets in trouble for going ahead of
| teacher], resents homework vocally and refuses to do it on
| principle but still gets great scores on tests, places in the
| school math competition but initially gets kicked out of the
| award ceremony for refusing for the "National Honor Society"
| performance, 12-grade gets official permission to work half-
| time coding and only take half classes.
|
| That's what I was, and I don't think anybody else has ever
| given me a word for it. I knew pedantic nerds, and intense
| nerds, and condescending nerds, but few with real conviction.
| spamizbad wrote:
| This sounds exactly like one of my friends in high school.
| He was not considered a nerd though. However, he had decent
| social skills, had a girlfriend, etc. Incidentally, he went
| on to found several companies!
| [deleted]
| scythe wrote:
| >Fierce nerds also tend to be somewhat overconfident, especially
| when young. It might seem like it would be a disadvantage to be
| mistaken about one's abilities, but empirically it isn't. Up to a
| point, confidence is a self-fullfilling prophecy.
|
| As a child I was mathematically precocious and often (to myself)
| compared my modest accomplishments to stories of prodigies like
| Gauss or von Neumann. Looking back it seems patently ridiculous,
| but I might not have spent dozens of hours per week reading math
| textbooks and Wikipedia if I had had a more realistic self-
| perception. I can't say I regret it.
| Konohamaru wrote:
| You are getting smarter and smarter every day and in every way.
| [deleted]
| goatcode wrote:
| TIL "fierce" in the nerd world means having a massive ego and a
| severe over-estimation of how awesome you are. These kinds of
| people make me sick, regardless of whether they're nerds.
| soheil wrote:
| > 7 of the 8 richest people in America are now fierce nerds
|
| I wonder if he's counting Warren Buffet as a fierce nerd, I
| would.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| He replied to a Twitter comment saying he doesn't. He said he
| didn't know anyone who knew Buffet well enough to say.
| [deleted]
| qxga wrote:
| "I'm less sure why fierce nerds are impatient, but most seem to
| be. You notice it first in conversation, where they tend to
| interrupt you."
|
| The answer is pretty obviously ADHD. Interrupting and
| "impatience" are very common traits in people with ADHD.
| smeeth wrote:
| Not a big fan of this essay. I believe quite strongly that ~what
| you are~ is a product of ~what you do~ and not the other way
| around. In this framing, "Fierce Nerd" is nothing more than an
| arbitrary categorization of a set of exhibited behaviors.
|
| Graham has observed that intelligent, competitive, inquisitive,
| and confident individuals can do well in today's economy. He has
| also identified pitfalls associated with being too aggressive,
| too confident, or lacking other skills.
|
| I am unable to find the positive value of sticking a label on
| this coincidence of qualities and strongly implying the
| quantities and characteristics of these qualities are at least
| mostly inherent (with the exception of "fierceness", which
| apparently can be "turned off"). Of course nature does play a
| role, but why ignore nurture? It must be quite depressing to
| believe you are condemned to a life of little personal
| development.
| splithalf wrote:
| This essay reminded me the thin line between constructive fierce
| nerdiness and dysfunction. It's hard to navigate the perimeters.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Nobody who knows me would call me "woke", except as part of some
| joke.
|
| But as the father of a kid with Asperger Syndrome, and as someone
| with a likely diagnosis myself (according to neuropysch testing),
| I'm a little bothered by the broad brush with which P.G. is
| painting.
| moolcool wrote:
| +1, and with all due respect to PG's technical background,
| reductive and stereotyping pieces like this kind of feel like
| he's looking at the people who thrust him into his lofty VC
| position with contempt.
| waheoo wrote:
| I can sort of get over all that, I'm not going to sit here
| and take it personally because I know it's just broad
| strokes, but at the same time, if it is broad strokes, there
| is nothing to be gained here because nothing is factual and
| everything can be dismissed because it is too general.
|
| If he focused on something more defined than a vague and
| derogatory term for smart people in general heay have had
| something worth reading.
|
| Ps. Seriously, why is the grey subtext so hard to read? Stop
| with grey text. Please.
| Permit wrote:
| > But as the father of a kid with Asperger Syndrome, and as
| someone with a likely diagnosis myself (according to neuropysch
| testing),
|
| It's not immediately obvious to me how this relates to the
| article. Can you elaborate? Is "fierce nerd" a reference to
| Aspergers?
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| I apologize, I realized too late that it wasn't PG's article
| that mentioned Asperger, it was another HN comment.
| jack_riminton wrote:
| As someone who is in the same boat, I think it'd be fair to say
| PG is too
| appleflaxen wrote:
| I don't understand what would bother you.
|
| He's talking about "nerds"; a cultural identity.
|
| You are talking about asperger's, a medical condition.
|
| PG doesn't draw any lines between them.
|
| What is your objection, specifically?
| jfengel wrote:
| Umm... just so ya know, practically everything in "wokeness" is
| about somebody saying "Please don't paint me with the broad
| brush you're using."
|
| I think most of what you identify as "wokeness" is other people
| who aren't directly affected trying to help out, since the
| affected people are usually a minority who won't be heard if
| it's just them. That can lead to its own forms of tone-deafness
| and "you're not helping" behavior, but that just leads to more
| cases of people who are sincerely and effectively helping being
| dismissed as "SJWs" out of hand. That's a cheap way of avoiding
| genuine problems with one tiny all-purpose acronym.
|
| I just wanted to point that out because what you wrote can be
| read like "I didn't care about anything except when it happens
| to me". It might give you a moment's pause the next time you
| want to deride something as "woke".
| mjburgess wrote:
| > practically everything in "wokeness" is about saying....
| Please don't paint me with the broad brush you're using.
|
| Err.. really? I mean, that's the definition of individualism
| against which many "woke" people would object. Even you say,
| "since the affected people are usually a minority". This is
| just false, if we take minority to refer to the usual
| "protected subgroups".
|
| The relevant sense of Woke here, seems to me, to be concerned
| not with people's individual needs -- but their needs qua
| some alleged _group_. Esp., as you offer, "minority" groups.
|
| It's a sort of perverse individualism. It's just substituting
| a different type of broad brush. Rather than starting with a
| maximally individual analysis (and hence construe treatment
| in terms of procedural fairness), rather, start by a group
| analysis and place individuals within those groups (and hence
| talk about aggregate distributional outcomes).
|
| The derision here is the conflict in having to raise an issue
| because you are autistic, without inviting the Woke-style
| "and autistic people are a minority who need protected". The
| latter substitutes the underlying lack of procedural concern
| for individual needs with exactly the same problem: again
| ignoring individual difference expect now substituting
| alleged "group needs".
|
| Woke analysis of this kind prescribes, a typically
| condescending, set of redresses for alleged group grievances.
| Individualism prescribes nothing of this sort, rather,
| adjusting the rules so as to maximise each person's ability
| to get what they each, as individuals, need.
|
| "Don't paint me with a broad brush" means _let me speak for
| myself alone_. This attitude is antithetical to analysis
| which begins with "minorities", which by construction, are
| not people who are each individually empowered to speak for
| themselves.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > It's a sort of perverse individualism. It's just
| substituting a different type of broad brush. Rather than
| starting with a maximally individual analysis (and hence
| construe treatment in terms of procedural fairness),
| rather, start by a group analysis and place individuals
| within those groups (and hence talk about aggregate
| distributional outcomes).
|
| > Don't paint me with a broad brush" means let me speak for
| myself alone. This attitude is antithetical to analysis
| which begins with "minorities",
|
| This is, I think "just be race blind". Wokeness, as you
| seem to be describing it is an ideology that recognizes
| that identities impact how a person is perceived. To fairly
| judge an individual, you have to take into account that,
| because of their race or gender, their work may have been
| misvalued or falsely attributed.
|
| For better or worse, society discriminates, and recognition
| of that is a part of fairly judging people as individuals.
| mjburgess wrote:
| Well I think we have to take "woke" to mean the most
| plausible _worst_ version of this ideology; or else we 'd
| just name it charitably. Ie., the OP comment is nervous
| about being associated with the type of thinking i'm
| talking about.
|
| It's entirely fair to say that _whilst_ accommodating and
| judging people individually we need to account for that
| person 's particular difficulty in _first_ being judged
| in this manner -- because we, the judger, may be unable
| to properly understand their situation; and likewise they
| may not be able to argue their case, state their need,
| etc.
|
| The problem enters when we take the _goal_ of our project
| to actually be removing such "prejudices and obstacles"
| and, not rather, the empowerment of each individual. The
| former is an often optional detour to the latter.
|
| Consider, for example, the most effective civil rights
| president in US history (LBJ) was a racist: did we need
| to solve his prejudice _first_? Would that have done
| anything positive?
|
| Wokeism, if it means anything at all, I think has to be
| identified with this ends-means confusion. It's raising
| to the status of an end in itself the elimination of
| (minority) group hatred, (minority) group prejudice, etc.
|
| This a deeply confused project; and routinely gets in the
| way of the actual end everyone cares about: each person,
| in their own particular situation, being able to live the
| way that best suits them.
|
| If I read the message here correctly, the woke-dissenter
| is saying this: "My difficulties are particular to me,
| and all I want is to be able to solve them. I don't want
| to participate or "ally" with a society-wide war against
| the possibility I will be misunderstood or mistreated;
| rather I simply want the rules (,tools, practices) in
| place to empower me when I am."
|
| Wokeism is the political incarnation of New Atheism, or
| likewise Evangelism: first we fight a total war against
| The Sins of The Mind themselves; and then, much much
| later, we help people in their particular situations.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > Consider, for example, the most effective civil rights
| president in US history (LBJ) was a racist: did we need
| to solve his prejudice first? Would that have done
| anything positive?
|
| The current iteration of the civil rights movement is
| solving a different problem than that of 1968. Due to
| LBJ's actions, minorities are equal under the law. You
| can't just pass laws to make them more equal. They
| already are.
|
| But if you look around, they clearly aren't, so the
| question becomes, well why not? If you subscribe to woke
| ideology, the answer is something like "pervasive
| cultural and systemic biases across various aspects of
| society". I'll draw a parallel to another evergreen
| topic, "cancel culture". The idea being that a large
| group of distributed people can ruin someone's life by
| changing how they interact with that person and making
| them a pariah.
|
| Well many of these systemic biases are similar, if less
| sudden. People and systems trained to see or treat people
| as lesser. How do you solve that problem? I only see one
| solution: to get the distributed group of people to be
| aware of and ultimately counteract those biases, to undue
| the incidental cancellation of these people. And what is
| that but raising awareness of and reducing those
| ingrained prejudices.
|
| All of the other approaches are things that routinely get
| called "reverse-racist" themselves, things like
| affirmative action and such which ignore the individual.
|
| > "My difficulties are particular to me, and all I want
| is to be able to solve them. I don't want to participate
| or "ally" with a society-wide war against the possibility
| I will be misunderstood or mistreated; rather I simply
| want the rules (,tools, practices) in place to empower me
| when I am."
|
| And the response to this is that while your difficulties
| are particular to you, it's likely that the best tools
| and practices to empower you when you are mistreated are
| allies who are willing to stand up for you agains the
| person mistreating you. As in the limit, if no one
| believes you are being mistreated except you, you will
| have no recourse.
|
| There's no law that says that PG isn't allowed to say
| things that make GGP uncomfortable. In fact, there's laws
| that say that we can't prevent PG from doing that. All we
| can hope for is that said mistreatment is recognized by
| others, and that people pressure him to correct his
| behavior.
|
| Wokeness is a recognition that this is a political (in
| the sense of like human-interaction, not election-
| related), not legal issue.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Thanks for raising that point. I'm only now realizing that
| the term "woke" means different things to different people.
| I'm grateful for your correction.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| I agree with a lot of what the 'woke' are trying to achieve;
| police reform, less bias (call it institutional racism,
| etc..) in government institutions, address massive
| generational wealth gaps, etc... but the 'woke' are mostly
| reductive and reactionary and are the kings and queens of
| painting with a broad brush.
| jfengel wrote:
| Thank you very much for that demonstration.
| bigmattystyles wrote:
| Touche...
| whalesalad wrote:
| This is top tier cringe. I can't read his stuff any more at all.
| waterside81 wrote:
| Try reading his Twitter feed. He went from VC visionary to
| Facebook mom.
| whalesalad wrote:
| I intentionally avoid SV/Tech/VC on Twitter. It's a parody at
| this point.
| fumar wrote:
| I've witnessed music scenes come and go. It wasn't until
| recently I noticed the startup culture or visible ethos, at
| least online, morphed into something new. Perhaps like
| music we are seeing new trends evolve or we are in a
| transition phase where the new culture leaders are yet to
| emerge. But, PG is like alternative rock in in 2020 and
| beyond, out of style.
| notacoward wrote:
| The problem with glorifying fierce nerds is that there are
| already too many of them. (Or us, perhaps, but not for me to
| say.) Sure it's great to have a few fierce nerds trying
| unconventional things, challenging orthodoxy, etc. Unfortunately,
| when there are many fierce nerds, they start to compete among
| themselves to have the _most_ contrarian ideas and often to
| establish themselves as the _earliest_ champions of those ideas
| as soon as possible.
|
| This rush, not only to be right but to be right when everyone
| else is wrong and to show them the light, is what makes people
| susceptible to bandwagons, cargo cults, and conspiracy theories.
| We see it plenty right here. Elsewhere we see it in QAnon. In
| both we see it in arguments about COVID origins and
| countermeasures.
|
| Like a chemical compound that's therapeutic in one dose but toxic
| in another, fierce nerds can be either a good thing or a bad
| thing. We're _already_ well into the toxic side, so I think this
| is a poor moment for pg or anyone else to glorify more.
| dncornholio wrote:
| If you don't let the word nerd affect you with bad feelings, the
| post is pretty OK.
|
| I don't think nerd is a bad thing to say anymore.
|
| Also I can identify me with this personality. Last few years I
| can find myself turning more into bitterness and I just started
| realising that the cause is not external.
| eplanit wrote:
| I like to be clear and differentiate between "dorks" and
| "nerds". Dorks are insufferable by definition. Nerds might
| sometimes act like dorks (ex: talking about bitcoin throughout
| a dinner), but nerds have, on balance, more redeeming qualities
| than the dork. There is a lot of overlap in the definition of
| the two[1][2]. I don't hear "dork" used much anymore -- it
| should be used more.
|
| [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dork [2]
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nerd
| iafiaf wrote:
| > The bad news is that if it's not exercised, your fierceness
| will turn to bitterness, and you will become an intellectual
| playground bully: the grumpy sysadmin, the forum troll, the
| hater, the shooter down of new ideas.
|
| I like this.
| morelisp wrote:
| It's just a twist on prosperity gospel, a way to a priori
| dismiss anyone who disagrees with him as a bitter bully.
| [deleted]
| paulpauper wrote:
| This whole things feels autobiographical
|
| _I have some good news, and some bad news. The good news is that
| your fierceness will be a great help in solving difficult
| problems. And not just the kind of scientific and technical
| problems that nerds have traditionally solved. As the world
| progresses, the number of things you can win at by getting the
| right answer increases. Recently getting rich became one of them:
| 7 of the 8 richest people in America are now fierce nerds._
|
| starting one of the 10 most successful businesses of the past 2-4
| decades business vs solving a problem are not the same thing
| though. Problem solvers on average do not make that much money.
| Look at all the problems solved everyday on stack
| overflow/exchange. How many of those ppl are making lots of
| money. Same for freelancing sites. The rates are pretty low.
| making money means a lot to PG, but it's a separate type of skill
| than solving problems. It is something that is probably harder in
| many respects because it requires not only solving problems but
| making money from it, which means competition and other aspects
| of business.
| [deleted]
| egypturnash wrote:
| "I'm not an asshole! I'm a FIERCE NERD."
| logicslave wrote:
| "If you do choose the ambitious route, you'll have a tailwind
| behind you. There has never been a better time to be a nerd. In
| the past century we've seen a continuous transfer of power from
| dealmakers to technicians -- from the charismatic to the
| competent -- and I don't see anything on the horizon that will
| end it. At least not till the nerds end it themselves by bringing
| about the singularity."
| grae_QED wrote:
| >To be a nerd is to be socially awkward, and there are two
| distinct ways to do that: to be playing the same game as everyone
| else, but badly, and to be playing a different game.
|
| Perhaps I'm mistaken, but I've always been under the impression
| that this is what it's like to be a geek. Maybe someone can help
| me understand the two. I've always identified more as a geek for
| this reason, but maybe I'm a nerd.
| wcarss wrote:
| my read on the two has always been:
|
| nerd: intellectually inclined
|
| geek: unusually interested in _some_ hobby
|
| And of course being one, or both, or none, and liking math, or
| liking star wars, or both, or disliking math, or disliking star
| wars, etc. are all valid combinations.
| est31 wrote:
| See also: Why nerds are unpopular. Feb 2003.
| http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7759892
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13475146
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24710474
| jt2190 wrote:
| [Here's my best summary of what a "fierce nerd" is, according to
| this essay]
|
| Most non-nerds think of nerds as: * quiet
| * diffident
|
| In fact some nerds are quite fierce. "Fierce nerds" are:
| * small group [subset of nerds overall?] * more
| competitive than highly competitive non-nerds *
| competition is more personal for them; they're not
| emotionally mature enough to distance themselves
| personally from competition * work in areas that are less
| random in the kinds of competition they engage in [no
| points for persuasion or style, I suppose] *
| somewhat overconfident, especially when young *
| intelligent, at least moderately so * independent-
| mindeded, see fitting it as wasted effort * annoyed by
| rules * impatient, not sure why
|
| [I'll let you draw your own conclusions.]
| dkarl wrote:
| This essay falls flat for me because I think Paul Graham is only
| talking about nerds of my generation, people who are in their
| forties and older. I don't see any nerds like myself and my
| friends in the generation that is in their twenties now.
|
| It's interesting to think about the difference, though, and he
| does nail a few things about nerds from my generation. Most
| importantly, that being socially awkward was a prerequisite,
| because functioning social instincts would have prevented you
| from ever saying anything unconventional or investing time in
| learning things that were outside the norm. Without the internet
| to expose people to a diversity of views packaged in well-edited,
| easily digestible chunks, the socially acceptable range of
| interest was limited entirely to what people heard from
| tradition, network television, and if you were "edgy," MTV. Any
| progressive ideas you got, any historical perspective you got,
| anything you learned about different cultures, any cool ideas you
| had about the future, you got from books and magazines, and you
| were a total weirdo if you treated them as part of the shared
| world you inhabited with other people.
|
| And I'm talking about pretty mainstream stuff. Like, if you
| remembered something out of a National Geographic article you
| read and repeated it in conversation, that was already letting
| your freak flag fly. So we came to identify reading, curiosity,
| and a progressive attitude with social inappriopriateness, with
| grossness, and this had an enormous impact on us. It affected the
| way we presented ourselves, the way we dressed, everything.
|
| A hugely consequential example is our gut response to the feeling
| that we're about to say something that other people would find
| off-putting or offensive. We learned the habit of embracing that
| feeling. That was the feeling we got whenever we admitted to
| liking a book we read in English class, or talked about anything
| to do with science or math, or said, hey, did you know the last
| time that country had a democratic government we overthrew it? If
| those things were good, then it was good to embrace the feeling
| of social disapproval they generated, the way an athlete embraces
| the burning in their muscles in a hard workout. To be honest and
| intellectually engaged, we had to be weird and distasteful, and
| we learned not to trust anybody who shied away from that.
|
| The younger generations of nerds, I feel like they trust peer
| influence more. When they feel like they're about to say
| something inappropriate, their instinct is to pause and recheck
| their thinking, which, I have to say, I'm kind of jealous of
| that. They take it for granted that the people they feel pressure
| from are people they choose as their peers, people who reflect
| their own values and therefore have the potential to improve
| them.
|
| For my generation, being socially maladjusted felt like a moral
| imperative. We had to be socially maladjusted to be the people we
| wanted to be: curious, open-minded, engaged with the information
| and ideas trickling in from outside our little towns and schools.
| It was necessary, but it selected for people who already had a
| difficult time integrating socially and then further warped us in
| a way that maybe the generations after us aren't warped.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > When they feel like they're about to say something
| inappropriate, their instinct is to pause and recheck their
| thinking
|
| This is something all intellectually honest people learn to do,
| one way or the other. We're all very familiar with claims that
| are simple, mostly plausible, and totally wrong for
| $COMPLICATED_REASON. After a while, you learn to double-check
| your thinking to avoid being nerd-sniped by someone saying
| "Bzzzzzzzt, that's wrong."
| dkarl wrote:
| Inappropriate and incorrect are very different things. One
| thing they have in common, though, is that after processing
| feedback over and over again that doesn't affect your
| thinking at all because it comes from a perspective you
| fundamentally disagree with, you learn to tune it out. For
| example, if you're talking about Covid 19 vaccines and
| there's an anti-vaxxer in the group, you'll eventually stop
| engaging with the content of what they say, because it isn't
| worth your time.
|
| A significant difference is that incorrectness is context-
| sensitive in a different way than inappropriateness. Saying
| something incorrect can be a productive part of a
| conversation that serves a shared goal of achieving
| correctness. I'm not going to feel inhibited or embarrassed
| about saying something incorrect unless I haven't put in the
| appropriate level of preparation for the context. Saying
| something inappropriate cannot serve a higher shared goal of
| avoiding inappropriateness, because it spoils that goal from
| the start.
| sudosteph wrote:
| Like knows like. That description definitely fits me, my husband
| and a few other people I in my life who I care about deeply. We
| all know we're obnoxious sometimes - but we're all just trying to
| root out the truth of things and improve things as well as we
| know how. It's a little annoying that we are pushed into pursuing
| capitalist endeavors over other things right now - but
| practically speaking, you can make a lot more change in less time
| if you have the capital for it.
|
| Still, it's stuff like Andrew Yang's presidential run that really
| give me hope that we might be on the cusp of changing things
| outside of business as well. Not just in politics (obviously,
| since he lost) but at least in culture - with coherent ideas and
| platforms that can't be ignored. There have been others in the
| past who were like us and tried similar things (Huey Long comes
| to mind), but understanding technology gives our generation a
| huge economic tool that we can also use to our advantage. Of
| course, if my peers are any indication: our society and entire
| economic system seem designed for the express purpose of making
| millennials depressed. And it's not really easy to shrug that off
| and just build things when the state of so many people you care
| about is so dire.
| greyhair wrote:
| I worked with a number of brilliant people at Bell Labs through
| the 1980s/1990s. The most comfortably competent among them, the
| most productive among them, were also the least abrasive. They
| were also the most self deprecating.
|
| Not just one or two, but the majority of them. To the point that
| the aggressive geniuses stood out. And I worked for/with two
| abrasive ones as well, so I know the difference.
|
| The same was true for the two startups I worked at after that,
| and Qualcomm, and now the third startup where I work.
|
| The really productive geniuses in each situation were easy to
| work with, I think largely, because of their confidence in their
| own grasp of the subject at hand. They had nothing to prove, they
| knew that, and it showed. The difficult people were never stupid,
| far from it, but they felt like they needed to defend everything
| they did, every decision they made, and that made working with
| them less productive.
|
| With the gentle geniuses, if you thought you came up with
| something that was an improvement on what was being done, they
| would look at it honestly, and if it was not better, they would
| calmly explain why, and if it was better, they would acknowledge
| it right out and discuss how to merge that into the current work.
|
| The 'less gentle' ones would take pride in pointing out the flaws
| in your idea if you were wrong, and if you were right, would
| fight you over whether it had any real value at all, then would
| stiff arm you as far as getting it accepted as a change.
| tomcam wrote:
| Microsoft vet from 1990s-2000: same. Got to work with many of
| my programming heroes, and many of the same people influencing
| programming language design, Azure, and .NET even now. The vast
| majority were a pure joy to work with, just as you describe.
| Tomminn wrote:
| If I had to guess, I would guess these would often be "fierce
| nerds" who mellowed with age.
|
| I think this "fierceness" is an expected sign of intellectual
| dominance of your peers at 15-20. At 25+, it's a sign that
| you've either never entered a pond with genuinely big fish, or
| you've never managed to recognize that big fish are swimming
| around you.
|
| Of course, you could just be dominating big fish at 25+. It's
| logically possible. But the incident of "fierceness" is muuuuch
| higher than the incidence of that level of genius.
| mjfl wrote:
| This is like the cow talking about how they don't like mean
| other cows while Paul Graham was probably talking about the
| farmer.
| Tomminn wrote:
| Absolutely, the best people at Bell labs in the 80's were
| "like cows".
| mjfl wrote:
| I mean they oversaw the decline of Bell labs so...
| dataflow wrote:
| > The difficult people were never stupid, far from it, but they
| felt like they needed to defend everything they did, every
| decision they made, and that made working with them less
| productive.
|
| I assume the implication here is that the productive folks
| didn't necessarily defend everything they did, and thus went
| with other people's solutions sometimes even when their own was
| better? Is that what you're trying to convey? or should I be
| reading it differently? Curious how their behavior contrasted
| in your experience.
| haswell wrote:
| I interpreted this differently. My takeaway was that the
| abrasive ones constantly defend everything they do, even when
| it's not necessary, and the gentle genius doesn't feel the
| need to be defensive at every step.
|
| It doesn't have to mean that the gentle genius never defends
| their viewpoints, but highlights the key differences in how
| these personality types operate on a day-to-day basis, and
| the resulting impact on the team around them.
| novosel wrote:
| There is a Russian saying:
|
| Who is a wise man?
|
| The one that always seeks to occupy the smallest place/room.
|
| Nota Bene: I am not a Russian, but simply encountered this
| formulation several times.
| tomcam wrote:
| Wise and true. I totally agree with it in principle. *
|
| * Whoever said this didn't own a grand piano. Just saying.
| cperciva wrote:
| That saying, combined with the euphemism "smallest room in
| the house", paints an interesting picture.
| solipsism wrote:
| Yeah, it's remarkable to me that this article could be written
| to provide advice to "fierce nerds", and not include a single
| sentence about not being an asshole.
|
| I work with "fierce nerds". Some of them are self-aware, and
| try very very hard not to be assholes to the people around
| them. They do this without sacrificing their passion. And they
| are tolerable to work with only because they consciously push
| back against their inner asshole.
| bob1029 wrote:
| This is the camp I find myself in.
|
| It takes a lot of effort in some areas to stay calm and allow
| the other side to play out a their argument, and I recognize
| how critical it is in maintaining a positive attitude towards
| work.
|
| I find that minimizing unnecessary conference calls was a
| monumental step in the right direction. When a technical
| conversation is serialized through a Github issue, it tends
| to get a lot more thought and time applied. It is also easy
| to walk away from a frustrating issue, go for a run, come
| back, and write a much more reasonable reply than you
| otherwise would have if compelled to do so.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| My favourite people to work with are the gentle geniuses. I
| love to be wrong around them because I get to learn, and I love
| opportunities to present something useful I've done and know it
| will become a valuable contribution.
|
| I avoid the other kind of person like a plague now. They ruin
| otherwise excellent teams. They might be fine to have a drink
| with or something, but in day to day work, they are sand paper.
|
| Another thing I find is that the gentle variety tend to
| understand and appreciate realistic timelines. Highly
| competitive "nerds" tend to fight on timelines, or suppress
| others using them. Why wasn't that done sooner? Wait, all you
| did in 3 days was this? It's a terrible tool used to knock team
| mates down a peg on a routine basis.
| tomcam wrote:
| I know, right? It is one of the greatest things in the world
| to be the dumbest guy in a room full of really smart, secure
| people. It's like you're getting a mini postdoc education for
| free, compressed into a few minutes.
| ptr2voidStar wrote:
| I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who relishes
| being the "least smart" in a room full of geniuses.
|
| No ego here, I just absorb, absorb and absorb!
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| It's the best thing that's happened to my career by a wide
| margin. I'm 15 years in and definitely not the smartest
| person in the room on most topics, and I'm finally moving
| forward and really enjoying it after quite a stagnant
| period.
|
| I try to remind myself to show some gratitude, not just for
| my team's knowledge and insights that they share, but for
| having selected me as a person to join them as well. It's a
| real privilege to have a good team. I think they consider
| me more of an equal than I give myself credit for but I
| really do get an education pretty much every day. Life is
| interesting.
| albatruss wrote:
| If you're going to be this sort of fierce nerd, make sure you
| come from money, because you're getting fired if you pursue these
| traits in the workplace.
| dreyfan wrote:
| Assuming those traits come alongside the ability to get shit
| done, that's patently false.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Or maybe you keep quitting jobs, because you are the precocious
| one who can always see why things aren't working well long
| before anyone else. Yet nobody wants your feedback because it's
| too something. Too fierce, or scary because it's predictive, or
| they're just annoyed that you have no social skills.
|
| And socially maybe the people at work can keep you in check
| without firing you, because you can't respond well in a
| socially-clever environment for example, no matter how amazing
| your insights.
| paulpauper wrote:
| lol have bill gates' parents
| wutbrodo wrote:
| FWIW, this isn't my experience at all. There's a difference
| between being an asshole and the contrarian bent+ relatively-
| minor rough edges Graham describes. The essay touches on this,
| by saying that it's become a lot easier to thrive as this sort
| of person than it used to be. In particular, you need to find
| your way to a field and role where results matter more than
| glad-handing and ego-stroking, and where the subjectivity and
| discretion of measuring those results is minimized. This used
| to be vanishingly rare, but in my perception (and experience),
| it no longer is.
|
| In my case, my fatal flaw career-wise wasn't abrasiveness or
| asshole-ish behavior, but a strong aversion to promoting my
| work or any of the other non-goal tasks required to advance in
| an organization. I hate every minute I have to spend making it
| clear that I'm productive instead of just _being_ productive.
|
| However, this is almost unavoidable in most organizations that
| aren't tiny. You either have to "manage your brand" and play
| politics, or you have to make sure that you're fitting a
| squishy, inherently-subjective rubric. At a bare minimum, you
| need to craft a presentation of your output at performance
| review time, and hope your interpretation of the rubric matches
| the decision-makers'.
|
| My solution was to find a company with fairly objective and
| well-defined measures of output[1], where there's more than
| enough impact to go around. You can't avoid having people
| skills to get things done, but I don't mind using my people
| skills in service of getting shit done instead of internal
| organizational BS.
|
| [1] This does not mean that we're tolerant of assholes. We've
| fired people for being pathological "brilliant jerks", though
| everyone I've come into close personal contact with is well
| above the jerk bar. What this does is separate "are you toxic
| in a way that hurts your coworkers or the company" from "what
| is your output", allowing people who are awkward and well-
| intentioned to thrive on one axis and grow on the other. This
| is in contrast to the usual case, where measuring output is
| polluted by interpersonal skills that are not related to
| output, and being awkward means your work isn't recognized
| either.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| > measuring output is polluted by interpersonal skills
|
| Also, many of those 'skills' are nothing more than shared
| cultural backgrounds and/or biases.
| version_five wrote:
| This is exactly what the original essay said:
|
| > It's hard to be independent-minded without being somewhat
| socially awkward, because conventional beliefs are so often
| mistaken, or at least arbitrary. No one who was both
| independent-minded and ambitious would want to waste the
| effort it takes to fit in
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| > _Another solution may be to somehow turn off your fierceness,
| by devoting yourself to meditation or psychotherapy or something
| like that. Maybe that 's the right answer for some people. I have
| no idea. But it doesn't seem the optimal solution to me. If
| you're given a sharp knife, it seems to me better to use it than
| to blunt its edge to avoid cutting yourself._
|
| Meditation doesn't necessarily lead to a reduction in "ferocity."
| The Buddha was a fierce nerd, according to Graham's
| characterization of "fierce." He took on an ambitious goal, and
| made immense sacrifices to see it through. He could also be quite
| "fierce in his speech, post-enlightenment. E.g.
|
| > "And to whom, worthless man, do you understand me to have
| taught the Dhamma like that? Haven't I, in many ways, said of
| dependently co-arisen consciousness, 'Apart from a requisite
| condition, there is no coming-into-play of consciousness'? [2]
| But you, through your own poor grasp, not only slander us but
| also dig yourself up [by the root] and produce much demerit for
| yourself. That will lead to your long-term harm & suffering."
| strict9 wrote:
| With descriptions of social clumsiness, being independent minded,
| and difficulty navigating two-way communication (when to
| start/stop) pg's depiction of "nerds" resonates because these
| traits are frequently associated with asd.
|
| But what surprised me is that instead of washing away negative
| traits as part of the package, two options for the "fierce nerd"
| are presented:
|
| 1. use power for good
|
| 2. be cynical and embrace bitterness
|
| It's a lot easier to do #2 than #1.
| mcguire wrote:
| Can you point me to where "for good" is mentioned in the essay?
| The only end goal I remember is getting wealthy.
| davidhunter wrote:
| Although questionable as a psychometric test, he is describing
| the Myers-Briggs INTJ [1] or INTP [2] personality type here. In
| terms of the Big-Five [3], I would suggest: Moderately-high
| Openness, High Conscientiousness, Average-to-Low Extraversion,
| Low Agreeableness, Average-to-low Neuroticism.
|
| [1]: https://www.16personalities.com/intj-personality
|
| [2]: https://www.16personalities.com/intp-personality
|
| [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits
| carlisle_ wrote:
| >Although questionable as a psychometric test
|
| That's an understatement. It's meritless pseudoscience.
| fraud wrote:
| What makes you say so?
| sn9 wrote:
| Probably an awareness of the history of MB and the research
| about its utility:
| https://www.vox.com/2014/7/15/5881947/myers-briggs-
| personali...
| davidhunter wrote:
| All models are wrong, but some are useful.
|
| I have found the MBTI to be useful despite the empirical
| inaccuracy of the test itself. Even without taking the
| test, people can self-identify as one (or more) types.
| This then serves as a meaningful basis for discussion as
| well as raising awareness that people are deeply
| different in terms of their ways of thinking. It is quite
| an eye opener the first time you see someone self-
| identify as a personality type that is very different to
| your own.
|
| None of the personality theories are 'proven' of course.
| We won't get that until we have a fuller understanding of
| the brain. But it is well accepted within psychology that
| personality is a thing. And personality types (Big 5,
| MBTI, etc) are useful models for now despite their
| shortcomings.
|
| This is a fairly good post with some additional thoughts
| on the MBTI debate: https://dynomight.net/in-defense-of-
| myers-briggs.html
| csa wrote:
| Check out "the human element" which is the basis for
| firo-b.
|
| It actually has international data to support its model.
| SilurianWenlock wrote:
| > As the world progresses, the number of things you can win at by
| getting the right answer increases.
|
| What does this mean?
| teachingassist wrote:
| Using James Watson as an example is an interesting choice.
|
| When I think of James Watson, I think of someone who a) stole his
| major work (the one thing for which he is famous) from a woman
| without giving credit, and b) has been almost-literally cancelled
| for being consistently racist, also by his colleague-science-
| nerds who consistently report that they don't like him.
|
| Not someone that I want to celebrate for being a 'fierce nerd'.
| bobcostas55 wrote:
| The idea that Watson "stole" his major work from Franklin is
| absurd. Franklin was on a completely different track and
| thought Watson & Crick's approach was a dead end.
| teachingassist wrote:
| Wikipedia quotes Watson implicating himself in his own book:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Watson#Interactions_with.
| ..
| FeteCommuniste wrote:
| Interestingly, Rosalind Franklin herself may have been
| something of a "fierce nerd":
|
| > From the outset, Franklin and Wilkins simply did not get on.
| Wilkins was quiet and hated arguments; Franklin was forceful
| and thrived on intellectual debate. Her friend Norma Sutherland
| recalled: "Her manner was brusque and at times confrontational
| - she aroused quite a lot of hostility among the people she
| talked to, and she seemed quite insensitive to this."
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/23/sexism-in-sc...
| educationcto wrote:
| What an example to choose the same week that Paul is out
| defending Antonio Garcia Martinez's sexism on Twitter.
| zip1234 wrote:
| I didn't see it as defending sexism. It was more pointing out
| the hypocrisy of Apple for firing Martinez while selling and
| promoting 'Beats by Dre'. In both cases the creative works
| were well-known before the hire/acquisition.
| deanCommie wrote:
| Pointing out that hypocrisy is a strategy _some_ took with
| criticizing Apple, but it 's not the direction PG chose.
| [1]
|
| He said nothing about Dre, focusing entirely on saying
| "He's a good guy, actually", which is the epitome of the
| strategy taken by men historically to defend other shitty
| men.
|
| That's not "defending sexism" per se, but it is _excusing_
| sexism because of the content of someone 's character.
| "Sure he said sexist things but he is not sexist". It does
| not pass even the most baseline level of scrutiny.
|
| I think it's also worth saying here that the comparison to
| Dre is super irrelevant:
|
| 1) Musicians may write lyrics in the first person, but the
| general default for all musical content is it's
| "fictional", and not representive of their _personal_ views
| on the matter. It 's artistic license with ideas -
| occasionally problematic. That is not the case with
| "autobiographies", which is what Antonio's book was
| purported to be.
|
| 2) Dre has taken complete ownership of all of his past
| indiscretions and apologized for them [2]. Antonio double
| down.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1392756490138791937
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre#Violence_against_
| women
| The5thElephant wrote:
| Which is a poor critique considering Martinez would be
| working directly with other Apple employees while Dre is
| barely involved with Apple as far as I know. The issue
| isn't the creative work alone, the issue is the impact on
| fellow employees and the working environment.
| hamburga wrote:
| Nerds are already high-status. Look who just hosted Saturday
| Night Live.
|
| The contrarian position is to be anti-nerd and pro-charm. Taleb
| on this:
| https://www.azquotes.com/author/18869-Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb/...
|
| > Charm is the ability to insult people without offending them;
| nerdiness the reverse
| crocodiletears wrote:
| Is there any broader context to this quote?
| carapace wrote:
| To young "fierce nerds": The single best piece of advice I got
| for dealing with normals was, "Act like a dumbass and they'll
| treat you like an equal." (from the Book of the Subgenius.)
|
| - - - -
|
| There's a lot to unpack in this essay, some good some bad IMO.
|
| One thing I feel is worth mentioning: I don't think the cure for
| bitterness is success, I believe it's _helping others_.
| username90 wrote:
| Trying to help others just makes you more bitter.
| mhh__ wrote:
| It might do for you, and I'd say it does for me a little too
| (i.e. If I get the answer in less than one google search I
| need to take a breather because I'll get annoyed), but I have
| come across people who are just as clever/nerdy/knowledgeable
| (take your pick) who really derive pleasure from teaching and
| explaining things in the best way they can - so I wouldn't
| assume.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Particularly so when placed into a position where help is
| expected, but then immediately rejected once delivered. It's
| the sort of double bind that makes for a toxic environment --
| you must assist others; if you don't, you will be accused of
| hindering and hoarding, but if you do (no matter how
| generously, politely, and tactfully) you will be accused of
| patronizing or interfering.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Also don't call them normals.
| wincy wrote:
| I believe the socially acceptable term these days is
| "normies", right?
| wiggumspiggums wrote:
| "Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be
| kind?" -Jeff Bezos
|
| https://www.princeton.edu/news/2010/05/30/2010-baccalaureate...
|
| "Fierce nerds" can be valuable. Sure. But the folks who truly
| stand out in my mind are a level higher. They're the ones at the
| top of their game, who know how to demand & command excellence,
| without being jerks about it.
|
| I'm reminded of this episode of "The Chef Show" where Jon Favreau
| compliments Roy Choi behind his back. He tells Bill Burr that he
| had followed Roy around for a full day, going to all his
| restaurants and food trucks, and not once did Roy raise his voice
| to his staff. It's pretty cool to see how much admiration one
| artist/leader has for the other, not because of their technical
| skills but because they choose to be kind.
|
| I don't think we need to settle for being "fierce nerds".
| zem wrote:
| When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I
| admire kind people.
|
| -- Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
| username90 wrote:
| Once you have achieved significant status and money you no
| longer need to be fierce since people listen anyway. But most
| people worth listening to doesn't have significant status and
| money, instead we wait until they found their own companies and
| become rich before we listen to them.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > "Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be
| kind?" -Jeff Bezos
|
| That an interesting read, thanks. I struggle to square what
| Bezos is saying with what Amazon has become. He is clearly
| incredibly clever but appears devoid of any kindness toward his
| low level employees. Am I missing something?
| ping_pong wrote:
| Are you only believing what you read in the media or do you
| know people that actually work at Amazon? The fact that
| Amazon employees in a warehouse rejected unionization speaks
| volumes. And I know plenty of Amazon engineers that love
| working there.
|
| To put it in perspective, there may be employees that hate
| working at Amazon, but there are also 100,000 employees. If
| only 10% of the employees hated working there, that's still
| 10,000 employees. But a 90% satisfaction rate for any company
| is amazingly high.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| I know people who work at Amazon. Not even the people who
| like it say it's kind.
| bdavisx wrote:
| I've heard "cut-throat", but not kind.
| crocodiletears wrote:
| I've only once had an employer I would describe as kind.
| Even then, it was but for the generosity of an aberrant
| manager, and not a commercial institution.
|
| In most low-skill positions (especially the ones which
| favor physical labor over soft-skills), you are a body to
| be instrumentalized until you either leave leave or are
| disposed of. That's the reality of most work. Retention
| is as high as it needs to be to ensure continuous
| operations, and employee happiness is either incidental
| or primarily a slogan. The human element is made to be as
| irrelevant as the market will allow.
|
| The Amazon Warehouse workers I've known have described it
| as warehouse work. Little better or worse in their
| experience than working at any other distribution center,
| though some centers are naturally likely to be ran more
| poorly than others.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| 1.3 million employees a recent news article said. wow.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Are you only believing what you read in the media or do
| you know people that actually work at Amazon?
|
| I've talked with people who work there as engineers. I
| haven't any friends there.
|
| The engineers seem well looked after, but engineers are not
| what I'd describe as 'low level employees'.
|
| I'm not sure that rejection of unionisation says as much as
| you are attributing to it and if reports are to believe,
| Amazon used a few dirty tricks.
|
| Likely both sides did, but there is plenty to suggest that
| Amazon isn't a kind or benevolent employer.
| imraj96 wrote:
| That's the feel I get from reading Brad Stone's "Amazon
| Unbound" .There were multiple instances where Bezos appear
| devoid of kindness towards employees.
|
| E.g '...In 2009, Onetto's human resources deputy, David
| Niekerk, wrote a paper titled "Respect for People," and
| presented it at an S-team meeting. The paper drew from
| Toyota's proven Lean ideology and argued for "treating people
| fairly," building "mutual trust between managers and
| associates," and empowering leaders to inspire employees
| rather than act as disciplinarians. Bezos hated it. He not
| only railed against it in the meeting but called Niekerk the
| following morning to continue the browbeating. Amazon should
| never imply that it didn't have respect for people embedded
| in the very fabric of how it operated, he said...'
|
| "...Among the final straws for Onetto was a September 2011
| story in the Morning Call newspaper in Allentown,
| Pennsylvania. The paper reported that the company's warehouse
| in the Lehigh Valley had gotten so swelteringly hot that
| summer that workers were passing out and being transported to
| nearby hospitals by ambulances that Amazon had waiting
| outside. An ER doctor even called federal regulators to
| report an unsafe work environment..."
|
| "...Before the incident, Onetto had presented a white paper
| to the S-team that included a few paragraphs proposing to
| install rooftop air-conditioning units in Amazon's
| facilities. But according to Niekerk, Bezos bluntly dismissed
| the request, citing the cost. After the Morning Call article
| drew widespread condemnation, Bezos approved the $52 million
| expense, establishing a pattern of making changes only after
| he read criticism in the media. But he also criticized Onetto
| for not anticipating the crisis. Fuming, Onetto prepared to
| remind Bezos of his original proposal. Colleagues begged him
| to let it go, but he couldn't. As they anticipated, the
| meeting did not go well. Bezos said that as a matter of fact,
| he did remember the paper and that it was so poorly written
| and ambiguous that no one had understood what course of
| action Onetto was recommending. As other S-team members
| cringed, Bezos declared that the entire incident was evidence
| of what happens when Amazon puts people in top jobs who can't
| articulate their ideas clearly and support them with data..."
|
| "...Bezos didn't want another empathetic business philosopher
| to replace Onetto as the head of Amazon's operations; he
| sought an uncompromising operator..."
| deanCommie wrote:
| Sounds like a very one-sided story based on an interview
| with Onetto and nobody else...[1]
|
| > people in top jobs who can't articulate their ideas
| clearly and support them with data..."
|
| That IS a legitimate problem. Through the lens of
| Hindsight, and based on an interview with Onetto it's easy
| to retell this story as "Bezos was told upfront, had all
| the available information upfront, and chose to do nothing
| until it was too late."
|
| But another way to present the same story is "Onetto didn't
| articulate the importance of his ideas. Did not present
| data to support it. And it led to a catastrophic outcome."
|
| I'm not saying the latter interpretation is correct. The
| truth is somewhere in the middle - probably closer to the
| original telling of the story. But the key is that good
| ideas are useless unless you can convince the right people
| of them. Ultimately, Onetto did not convince Bezos of his
| ideas. The blame for that can't rest solely with Bezos,
| because clearly there is ample evidence throughout Amazon's
| history that people _can_ convince him, and situations like
| this are an outlier.
|
| [1] If his strategy for this book is anything like for his
| first: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-
| reviews/R1Q4CQQV1ALSN0/re...
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _Am I missing something?_
|
| Probably how good his publicist is.
|
| If I'm being _really_ cynical, Jeff is suggesting these
| Princeton grads be kind so that he may become clever at their
| expense.
| prtkgpt wrote:
| Interesting! I think compliments given in general to fierce
| nerds is a valid idea. General rule of not to be pissing off
| people in life.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I find this ironic coming out of Jeff Bezos. There are plenty
| of examples of people that are exactly opposite of what you
| describe as. Steve Jobs - massive jerk, but demanded and
| commanded excellence. I don't personally condone this type of
| personalities but they exist. Linus Torvalds is another
| example. There is much more to it.
| yupper32 wrote:
| > He tells Bill Burr that he had followed Roy around for a full
| day, going to all his restaurants and food trucks, and not once
| did Roy raise his voice to his staff.
|
| Sorry what are you trying to say here? It's admirable or
| difficult not to yell at your employees?
| klinskyc wrote:
| Chefs/Kitchens are stereotypically full of yelling, and
| (otherwise) well-regarded chefs definitely live up to that -
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/dining/restaurant-
| workers...
| yupper32 wrote:
| That still doesn't mean that not yelling should receive any
| sort of admiration. You don't get bonus points for doing
| what should be the bare minimum, regardless of what the
| current norms are.
| zem wrote:
| it's definitely admirable, and given the number of people who
| yell i would say it's pretty difficult for a lot of people
| too
| prtkgpt wrote:
| Bill Burr is a badass. Ruthless savage killer with words. But
| he's a comic.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| For years I've labeled this nonsense the Midas Delusion: people
| get dramatically unusual success with their startup, and then
| conclude that they somehow have superior insight into every banal
| topic they choose to opine on. They fail to properly understand
| the path dependency and sheer luck that played a roll in their
| success, nor that the biggest lesson their success should teach
| them is humility in the socratic ignorance sense.
|
| This is a very large number of words to essentially say "when I
| was a jerk in the past it was actually virtue." If you don't see
| that plainly and transparently I'm not sure what to say to you.
|
| PG deserves credit for creating YC, but from the narrative in
| this essay it's clear he does not even understand how that
| happened or his own role in it (assuming he's not being straight
| up dishonest in his writing). He's a deal making power player,
| nearly a king maker, not a technocratic nerd. No amount of essay
| writing will erase that reality.
|
| I am so very weary of this nonsense being taken seriously as sage
| advice.
|
| We already have too many reductive stereotypes in tech. Let's not
| lionize them.
| whymauri wrote:
| I'm just so tired about people like PG and Scott Aaronson (who
| I otherwise respect) talking about nerds all the time. Why is
| everything framed in this black-and-white nerds vs. the world
| narrative? I'm just going to accept that this essay and others
| incessantly talking about "nerds vs jocks"(or the more modern
| Gen-Z framing, "chads vs virgins") just isn't for me.
|
| Sorry for speaking out against The Messiah.
| kragen wrote:
| PG is not particularly "fierce" in the way he's describing.
| He's talking about what he's observed in other people more than
| in himself. He's more laid-back and encouraging and positive
| than aggressive and competitive.
|
| > _If you don 't see that plainly and transparently I'm not
| sure what to say to you._
|
| I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that
| you may be mistaken.
|
| Or, to say it differently, sometimes people might disagree with
| you, not because they're stupid, but because they know
| something you don't, or because you've made an error.
| johnsillings wrote:
| I interpret this pretty differently, and PG seems pretty well
| positioned to make claims about something like this. I don't
| think this is so much about PG's journey as a founder.
|
| PG has personally mentored hundreds, perhaps thousands of
| founders - whatever it is, a sufficiently huge sample size to
| identify some traits that correlate with founder success and
| happiness.
|
| Sure, the truth is probably more nebulous than presented here,
| but archetypes can be useful.
| judofyr wrote:
| > PG has personally mentored hundreds, perhaps thousands of
| founders - whatever it is, a sufficiently huge sample size to
| identify some traits that correlate with founder success and
| happiness.
|
| However, in this article the correlation only goes one way:
| He's not saying that most successful founders have these
| traits; he's saying that people with these traits can become
| successful founders. And the traits he talks about happen to
| perfectly match his own traits?
|
| I'm sorry, but this reads very much like someone looking at
| their own past, not the result of an extensive, unbiased
| review of successful startup founders.
| johnsillings wrote:
| > I'm sorry, but this reads very much like someone looking
| at their own past
|
| What makes you say that?
| gregwebs wrote:
| I agree that even PG at times falls prey to the Midas Delusion.
| However, I don't understand this attack on his technical
| competence given PG's history of starting starting a successful
| startup, introducing modern spam filtering, and deep-diving
| into lisp.
| psyc wrote:
| > but from the narrative in this essay it's clear he does not
| even understand how that happened
|
| I find this accusation very ironic, considering that it started
| with writing essays a lot like this one.
| junkilo wrote:
| I have less problems with stereotyping than with the hum of a
| million managers patronizing remarks, like this article from
| PG.
|
| I've grown accustomed to negs' (microaggressions) like these,
| but they do a greater injustice to actual genius. Mutual
| respect in a team will never be achieved when people treat
| others in this manner.
| mistersquid wrote:
| > I am so very weary of this nonsense being taken seriously as
| sage advice.
|
| Agreed.
|
| In fact, in the featured article, the author makes reference to
| the hard science achievement of Watson and Crick's discovery of
| the double helix structure of DNA as follows.
|
| > And moreover it's clear from the story that Crick and
| Watson's fierce nerdiness was integral to their success. Their
| independent-mindedness caused them to consider approaches that
| most others ignored, their overconfidence allowed them to work
| on problems they only half understood (they were literally
| described as "clowns" by one eminent insider), and their
| impatience and competitiveness got them to the answer ahead of
| two other groups that would otherwise have found it within the
| next year, if not the next several months.
|
| Pointing to this as an example of fierceness producing
| contrarian success completely ignores the sheer amount of luck
| that contributed to the timing of Watson and Crick's discovery.
| Given a different roll of the experimental dice, Watson and
| Crick's method might have had temporary setbacks that resulted
| in their names being relegated to footnotes.
|
| As luck and effort would have it, two of the most ornery
| scientists of the twentieth century will figure as pioneers in
| the annals of science history.
| 1auralynn wrote:
| Also ignores the fact that the "discovery" of the helical
| structure of DNA was based on the unpublished work of
| Rosalind Franklin and others
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| This. The example is particularly galling when you know
| that part of the story.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| These days, being a nerd or being "on the spectrum" is mostly
| synonymous.
|
| And now we have this attempt at describing the properties of a
| sub-category of "Fierce Nerds".
|
| In my opinion, this is a poor model, not super useful and with
| many potential drawbacks related to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism.
| zzzeek wrote:
| > Another solution may be to somehow turn off your fierceness, by
| devoting yourself to meditation or psychotherapy or something
| like that. Maybe that's the right answer for some people. I have
| no idea.
|
| I do, and I think you should invest in these things (not "devote
| your life", PG shows his deep ignorance here of these things as
| though they are black and white). if you are in the overwhelming
| vast majority of "fierce nerds" that does not become a
| billionaire, or even if you do, you will invariably have a lot of
| problems in social situations and close relationships until some
| investment is made in tempering this extreme sort of personality.
|
| > But it doesn't seem the optimal solution to me. If you're given
| a sharp knife, it seems to me better to use it than to blunt its
| edge to avoid cutting yourself.
|
| PG encouraging people to be emotionally unhealthy so that they
| can add to his pool of talent for him to profit from. The fierce
| nerd, great term btw, is ambitious and brilliant. they can do
| _all_ of these things at the same time. It might just cut down
| the full on "become a billionaire" mindset, but that's a good
| thing, since it's unethical to _be_ a billionaire.
| npunt wrote:
| Yeah this part was especially disappointing given pg's
| influence, and I think this is one of his weaker essays because
| the advice is not well thought out. If you have a chip on your
| shoulder, are insufferable, can't shut off aggressiveness, etc,
| the best thing you can do is _learn when and how to channel
| it_. That 's the missing piece.
|
| I know a lot of people that fit this mold, and for this type of
| personality there's nothing that will meaningfully dull the
| edge [1]. But, if they learn how to control it, they can avoid
| cutting their friends and themselves, and live a much happier
| life.
|
| The last thing this world needs is more emotionally stunted
| leaders alone in their suffering.
|
| [1] This point in particular seemed like pg engaging in pure
| speculation, not something based on specific examples
| pbhowmic wrote:
| With respect, has there been any social science or psychological
| studies on the "fierce nerd" and its observed characteristics as
| Graham has noted here?
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| This essay feels like it really panders to the reader.
|
| It excuses poor social skills, tells you that you too can become
| rich by simply "getting the right answer" and that it's the best
| time ever to be a nerd.
|
| I don't buy it. The only way this makes sense is in _hindsight_
| if you 're massively successful. Otherwise you're just the weird
| person who has poor social skills and is obsessed with "solving
| problems".
| pattusk wrote:
| > Most people think of nerds as quiet, diffident people. [...] In
| fact some nerds are quite fierce.
|
| That someone would think nerds are not competitive is, to me, the
| strangest thing about this article. Perhaps because I'm one, but
| whether it's Magic the gathering, Demoparties, rubics cube
| solving, chess, Counterstrike LANs, academia, or any of my tech
| jobs, every "nerdy" activity I've ever engaged with has always
| been overly competitive.
|
| The fact that so many open source projects have had to adopt
| "code of conducts" is IMO a direct reflection of the fierce
| competition that has always been inherent to software
| development. Whether it's code quality, clever hacks,
| optimization... everything about what we do has a competitive
| element.
|
| Come to think of it, I can't actually think of any nerdy activity
| that isn't, in practice, extremely competitive.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| I think its mostly due to the diffusion of what a "nerd" is.
| Being a "nerd" or a "geek" used to be a insult, now its trendy
| for some reason, and seems to mostly be a term for modern
| consumerist culture (buy lots of stuff in some sort of genre
| and be a nerd)
| munificent wrote:
| _> now its trendy for some reason_
|
| Culture follows power. Once a bunch of tech nerds became
| billionaires in the 1990s, every aspect of that subculture
| gained prestige.
| watwut wrote:
| > Perhaps because I'm one, but whether it's Magic the
| gathering, Demoparties, rubics cube solving, chess,
| Counterstrike LANs, academia, or any of my tech jobs, every
| "nerdy" activity I've ever engaged with has always been overly
| competitive.
|
| I think that is little bit you choosing very competitive things
| to engage in. People who were obsessed with start trek for
| example did not build competitive societies. And I worked in
| multiple teams that did not felt overly competitive to me at
| all.
|
| Through, I would not see Counterstrike nerdy at all. This sort
| of games is more of the most stereotypical guy pastime that
| exists.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| LAN parties are nerdy for sure.
| bredren wrote:
| It is probably because competition is so commonly attributed to
| physical athletics. Physical strength or stamina exhibited on
| the playing field is competition.
|
| Spelling bee competitors are seen positively, but also almost
| as a joke compared to quarterbacks. Mathlete? A joke in popular
| culture.
|
| There is some evidence that this is changing, but there is also
| a lot of bad art. The Social Network, and Steve Jobs the film
| portray fierce nerds that basically no one wants to know.
|
| The actual people?
|
| Zuck and Dorsey just got through extracting maximum advertising
| value from the heart of US democracy.
|
| Bezos hasn't done fierce nerds any favors with his squeezing of
| the lowest paid people in his organization.
|
| Bill Gates' reputation is headed downhill right now faster than
| ever before.
|
| Tim Cook has real potential. But the jury is still out. We do
| not know the calculus involved in compromising privacy values
| in China.
|
| It is going to take a lot more well-known, rich, fierce nerds
| that also manage to round out their personality before we see
| mainstream positive portrayal and following of competitiveness
| in intellectual exercises.
| walshemj wrote:
| to play devils advocate How much is this Amazon or its just
| the way all warehouse US workers are treated?
|
| I have heard far worse things about non amazon warehouse
| workers in the UK Sports Direct for example.
| knicholes wrote:
| Collecting comic books? Memorizing all the Star Wars and Star
| Trek quotes, and reading side fan fictions about each of the
| characters?
| mycologos wrote:
| Eh, pedantry is a form of competitiveness, and all of these
| activities seem to foster pedantry (e.g. "that's not part of
| this canon!").
| watwut wrote:
| That way everything is competitive. Pedantry does not have
| to be competitive at all.
| mycologos wrote:
| I think pedantry is often a way of asserting status ("I
| know this thing, you don't"), though I agree it doesn't
| intrinsically have to be.
| [deleted]
| moron4hire wrote:
| > The fact that so many open source projects have had to adopt
| "code of conducts" is IMO a direct reflection of the fierce
| competition that has always been inherent to software
| development.
|
| This is something that has bothered me about a lot of people's
| views on competition, whether it's sports or business or
| whatever. Being competitive does not have anything to do with
| being an asshole.
|
| I never got into trash-talking during games. It was always just
| easier for me to ignore it/use the other person's trash-talking
| as their own distraction against me running circles around
| them.
|
| And then in software, Code of Conducts are not covering
| anything about how the project interacts with other projects.
| They're covering how contributors treat each other within the
| project. You're not in competition with your project mates. The
| sorts of harassing and belitting behavior that CoCs are
| supposed to address (whether they do or not is a different
| discussion) comes about from some sort of glory-hog mentality
| that is ultimately anti-productive. Insert roll-safe meme: "If
| I drive away most of the other contributors, my own efforts
| will be a much bigger proportion of the overall whole".
| mempko wrote:
| Paul Graham, The Fierce Nerd Eater. Feed him fierce nerds. Many
| will be chewed and spit out. Some will succeed. Like highly
| competitive athletes (even more so, some become billionaires!).
| Those spit out need help with mental health.
|
| Or maybe instead of abusing mentally fragile people, we need
| something a bit more healthy.
|
| We need to make it honorable to fail and those that fail get the
| help they need. We need to make the harms as small as possible
| and the benefits as broadly shared as possible. But many nerds
| trying many things don't need to be fierce. We can have many
| experiments with cooperation not competition. We need
| decentralization not centralization.
| RobRivera wrote:
| >[1] To be a nerd is to be socially awkward, and there are two
| distinct ways to do that: to be playing the same game as everyone
| else, but badly, and to be playing a different game. The smart
| nerds are the latter type.
|
| while I value the observation and concur, I'd like to
| semantically edit it vis :%s/socially awkward/behaviorally
| atypical/g
|
| 'awkward' just rubs me as poor word choice. for instance, throw
| me into a cs:go chat and I am the norm, complete with trolling,
| voices, and other things.
| chalst wrote:
| > And moreover it's clear from the story that Crick and Watson's
| fierce nerdiness was integral to their success.
|
| I dare say PG's analysis of the psychology of Crick & Watson is
| correct, but one should not take only Watson's word for it about
| the source of their success. Rosalind Franklin was the first to
| observe the double-helix structure, a fact omitted from Watson's
| book.
|
| https://sites.psu.edu/magdaliapassionblog/2018/02/08/watson-...
| hazeii wrote:
| Very much agree on not taking Watson's word for it. As for
| Franklin, it would be nice to think the Nobol committee would
| have agonised long and hard had she lived long enough to make
| it an issue for them (given at most 3 people can share a nobel,
| her early death ruled her out - a fact often ignored).
| MyHypatia wrote:
| I met a lot of nerds in graduate school. In my experience the
| "fierce" nerds weren't smarter or successful than the "nonfierce"
| nerds. The fierce nerds were just more insecure and emotionally
| immature. They felt more threatened by being surrounded by other
| people who might smarter or more successful than them. It
| threatened their identity of being uniquely intelligent. They
| responded by lashing out.
|
| It may be that this source of insecurity is a driving force. But
| years later, when I see who is more successful I think it is the
| nonfierce nerds. The fierce nerds exhausted themselves with petty
| disagreements and arbitrary hills to die on. The nonfierce nerds
| were able to focus on the hills worth climbing and recruit others
| to work with them.
| automatic6131 wrote:
| As someone who feels like this description of "fierce nerd"
| applies to themselves, I'd agree. I'm clever, but not
| particularly so. And I'm not particularly successful either.
| And my abrasiveness has lost me many friendships and
| relationships over the years too.
|
| Perhaps it's a flattener of the bellcurve of success. If you
| only look at the right hand side you will see lots of fierce
| nerds. But you aren't seeing the many, many more who are just
| ordinary, annoying assholes.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| I heavily disagree. Any fierce nerd ive known all know they are
| VERY good at what they do (in terms of some intellectual
| persuit) and know how to assert themselves
| arduinomancer wrote:
| > exhausted themselves with petty disagreements and arbitrary
| hills to die on
|
| In a more broad sense, you can be smart but easily work on the
| wrong thing or put your energy into the wrong area.
| xondono wrote:
| Maybe it's me, but I think "fierce" has thrown a lot of people
| off. I would classify what you are describing as what PG terms
| "the bitter nerds", not necessarily "fierce".
| mcguire wrote:
| As Graham says, the difference between fierce and bitter is
| success. And given that, in a very competitive environment,
| the difference between success and failure is largely luck...
| 1cvmask wrote:
| I think we should confine this to the primarily US setting (and
| maybe parts of the English speaking world like Canada). In most
| of the rest of the world being top in academics is expected from
| everyone especially to pass standardized tests (the only way in
| many countries) to get into universities. The poor outnerd the
| rich fiercely so that they can step up. The rich try to nerd so
| that they can maintain their privilege.
|
| There are no secret backdoors (like athletics) for the rich in
| the public schooling and university realm that exist in most of
| these countries. In essence everyone is a nerd or trying to be a
| nerd.
|
| In the US system, one could make the argument that elite legacies
| and the fencing team help the manufactured diversity and lower
| the "nerd" (achievement oriented) "toxicity.".
|
| A study abroad for just a semester would be an eye-opener for
| many of us on the normalcy of nerdness in many societies. Most
| parents hope their kids become doctors, engineers etc.
| walshemj wrote:
| And force them into it - even when they don't want to do it or
| have no aptitude.
|
| The only time in a fairly long career I have seen some one
| really unsuited to working in tech was case of this.
| goldenchrome wrote:
| I think what you're describing is undergraduates. In the US we
| don't typically say that undergraduates are academics. Usually,
| people who are academics will complete a masters and/or PhD
| where they do independent study and publish a thesis.
| Afterwards, many of them hope to stay in academia for life, or
| continue their work as a researcher in a private organization.
|
| Academics have to go through undergraduate programs too, but
| most non-academics end their education with a bachelor's degree
| simply to help them get a (typically) non-nerdy job.
|
| Other countries have students who study harder than Americans,
| for sure. As someone with a multi-ethnic background, I find
| that students in lesser developed countries have fewer options
| in their future so they study hard as a student for the chance
| to make it out of poverty. Students in highly developed nations
| don't worry as much because they think they have a decent
| standard of living waiting for them regardless.
|
| I don't think that (for example) India has dramatically more
| nerds than (for example) America because being a nerd is driven
| by your personality. Nerds genuinely enjoy studying <x> in
| particular and they find ways to do just that. Nerds can end up
| as doctors or engineers but typically nerds aren't primarily
| motivated by careers. I think you notice this difference in the
| wide prevalence of cheating in poorer countries. Non-nerds feel
| the pressure to study but they're not actually interested in
| the work so they cheat to get by. Cheating exists in America
| too, but there's less risk of falling into poverty so students
| who aren't interested in a subject will more often accept a low
| passing grade.
| [deleted]
| helen___keller wrote:
| I enjoy reading Paul Graham's musings on nerds / nerdiness, but I
| can't help but have difficulty relating.
|
| Maybe it's a generational thing (born in '92), but Graham often
| seems to paint a picture of nerds similar to what you might see
| in movies and TV shows depicting the 80s, like the kids in
| Stranger Things.
|
| Even this article, while I can certainly conjure which of my
| friends growing up were the "fierce nerd", it still feels a
| little disconnected from my reality.
|
| For example, Graham begins by explaining that the concept of a
| fierce nerd is one unknown to the general public. But I'm not
| sure I agree. In the era I grew up, there was not so much social
| distinction between who is a nerd, but there was a lot of social
| distinction for those who were argumentative, or "fierce". In my
| experience, everyone knew who the "fierce nerds" were (although
| not by that name), because they were known for their awkwardness
| and combativeness - not for their nerdiness. Indeed, my own nerdy
| friend circle in high school spanned a wide range of popularities
| and I would say "fierceness" (or rather, lack thereof) was
| probably the best indicator of popularity.
|
| I see these themes spanning Graham's other musings on nerds,
| typically trying to characterize a class of kids who are hated
| for their interests and passions, but that's just never been my
| experience. I think it's a generational thing.
| moolcool wrote:
| There's definitely some eccentric people in the field, but a
| vast majority people I've met working in tech were hardly the
| Poindexter type characterized in these articles
| nzmsv wrote:
| But do they think of themselves as such?
| moolcool wrote:
| I don't think so. I saw a lot of that kind of mentality in
| university among CS students, but it faded away immediately
| once I entered the workforce.
| spamizbad wrote:
| I think after the dotcom craze, it stopped being "edgy" or
| "different" to be passionate/ambitious about technology. If
| anything, it's the most straightforward thing to pursue ideas
| or business interests with these days, especially if you have a
| "fierce" personality.
| helen___keller wrote:
| To be fair, there's a lot more to the "nerd" archetype than
| just technology. But, from my experience, it was not
| particularly edgy or differentiating to be passionate about
| video games, board games, card games, literature, obscure TV,
| fanfics, internet culture, etc.
| spamizbad wrote:
| Yeah... if anything that seems normal these days? Many
| young adults are passionate about at least one of those
| things, whereas for Gen-X (Paul's generational cohort)
| those were far more underground interests.
| shard wrote:
| Is the word "geek" no longer used for what you are
| describing? Although there a lot of overlap, I thought nerd
| referred to strong interests in academic subjects and geek
| referred to niche cultural subjects.
| helen___keller wrote:
| True, I've been conflating the two in all of my posts. As
| far as how they were used when I was growing up, the
| distinction tended to be moot because they were most
| commonly used ironically or jokingly.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| That is the problem with using labels rather than talking
| about what people are doing or what specific actions they
| are taking.
| dagw wrote:
| _there 's a lot more to the "nerd" archetype than just
| technology._
|
| I'd probably go as far as saying that technology (or at
| least practical technical skills) has become far less
| relevant as a 'nerd' marker.
|
| Many of the self identifying 'nerds' I meet might be avid
| technophiles, but it's not like most of them know how to
| code better than anybody else (or at all in many cases).
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Paul Graham himself muses in this post that the main contrast
| is between people who are "good at making deals" and those who
| are actually competent in some relevant domain. We can see this
| shift happening in politics as well.
| [deleted]
| woeIsPG wrote:
| A year ago he was musing how categorizing people into two
| groups was too basic.
|
| Xist versus Yist, and he showed us with some pretty basic
| math.
|
| Now two groups is all we need to understand the world?
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| The two group categorization is a rhetorical device
| commonly used everywhere, throughout the world, to help
| drive a point, worldview, or allegory home. In it's correct
| form, it is never intended to be a dichotomy (as this would
| make it fallacious).
|
| So perhaps the way to understand it is PG believes people
| fit in these two groups, but those are not the _only_ two
| groups you fit in, and they are by no means all-
| encompassing.
|
| It's kind of like, you are either a member of team red, or
| team blue. You may be a blue type of person, another is a
| red, but that by no means defines the entirety of your
| being.
|
| Let's try to have a little more good faith here, when
| trying to understand people's musings. The reality is, most
| of us here wouldn't have the courage to put our thoughts
| and opinions out there on the internet for the whole world
| to see, at least not to the extent PG does.
| _jal wrote:
| Well, we could certainly speak to the difference between
| those whose emotional needs are served by sharing their
| advice with the world, and those for whom they aren't.
| woeIsPG wrote:
| I'd take PG more seriously if he actually had to work to
| maintain his flock. Folks who struck it rich in the
| lottery talk about how suddenly everyone wanted to be
| their friend.
|
| I've been rummaging around the human experience for 41
| years, applying technology to problems at public uni and
| big corp, building houses, growing food, hunting, earned
| degrees in electrical engineering and math.
|
| To me that's all there is, to go do directly.
|
| All this feels like is someone who is riding off that
| lottery ticket.
|
| That is, I'm not seeing an information advantage. Just a
| political capital advantage.
|
| I thought we did away with allegiance to unelected
| political agents?
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| I am reminded of a fun idea:
|
| The reason that 4 quadrant divisions of the world seem like
| they always work is because any two vectors chosen at
| random in a high dimensional space are nearly orthogonal
| with high probability.
| mcguire wrote:
| If one were suitably cynical (and independent-minded,
| another of his bugaboos) one might suggest that it's always
| been "the kind Paul appeals to" and "the bad people".
| bluetomcat wrote:
| The article is an attempt of classifying people into neat
| groups with certain characteristics, without acknowledging
| their true inner personality as a result of the cultural
| background and the particular individual qualities. "Nerd"
| is one such classification, "fierce" is a sub-
| classification. Semantic word-play with little empirical or
| anecdotal evidence.
| HeyImAlex wrote:
| Same, born in 92 and his characterization of being nerdy and
| young seems super antiquated. "Nerdy" interests don't make you
| a social pariah, they transcend groupings all together; the
| star quarterback plays dnd, the head cheerleader builds robots
| in her basement, the stigma on having unique or "nerdy" hobbies
| and interests is mostly gone. When I think of what PG is
| describing, it's characterized by poor social skills and bad
| hygiene.
| pnathan wrote:
| You're a bit young then. I'm a decade older, and see very
| clear similarities in my age cohort to what he's describing,
| particularly when I was in my early 20s and teens. Which is
| interesting, because a _good_ theory of behavior is not
| limited that tightly in time.
| dugmartin wrote:
| I can tell you as someone that graduated college in 92 that
| being nerdy as a kid in the 70s/80s it was very different
| from that, at least in my area of the world (Midwest USA).
|
| If you want a not very distorted glimpse of what it was like
| watch the movie, "Revenge of the Nerds".
| watwut wrote:
| In that movie, nerds publicly sexually harass and worst
| their enemies girlfriend. Yes, girlfriend mocks him at one
| moment, but the response is ridiculous. Are you sure you
| want to claim that is how things actually were?
|
| Edit: in the movie nerds sell secretly taken naked pictures
| of said girlfriend to earn money. The movie is old and
| ridiculous, but when you start to claim this is how things
| were, I want to know wtf was going on in your school.
| leetcrew wrote:
| stuff like that happened at my high school, and not that
| long ago. do you not believe that kind of thing
| happens/happened, or do you just not believe that "nerds"
| can be the perpetrators?
|
| these kinds of events can fly under the radar if you
| aren't involved. I only know of the situation I'm
| thinking of because the girl found out and complained to
| the school, which ended up expelling the others involved.
| watwut wrote:
| I do not think the movie is "a not very distorted glimpse
| of what it was like".
|
| More importantly, if movie is accurate, then nerds are no
| better then evil jocks. They are just two groups of
| bullies and assholes locked in a fight where everybody
| who avoids them is doing something smart.
|
| In your school, did the girl that got her nudes public
| got together with the dude that took them and sold them?
| You can peel levels of that movie how much you want, you
| won't get meaningfull image of reality.
| riversflow wrote:
| Where are you (or GP) from? Im also '92. I grew up in
| California, but in a rural part of the state. Nerdy interests
| absolutely had a stigma. My high school didn't even have a CS
| class, no academic decathlon team, and certainly no robotics
| club. It was the "best" school in my district, too.
|
| In challenging or AP classes you had essentially two groups,
| the jocks, who were trying to follow a college track, for
| which sports were essentially requisite in our district, and
| the nerds who just liked learning stuff. The jocks(male and
| female) did their homework as a group, complained loudly
| about difficult tests/assignments and consistently used their
| relative influence to affect their grades. The nerds brought
| in their own lessons, asked questions that lead the class off
| topic, consistently read the textbook and stayed late to ask
| questions rather than negotiate.
|
| Anyway, thought I'd throw this anecdote out there for
| variety.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| Things have changed a lot since then though. In a positive
| way.
| HeyImAlex wrote:
| I was in a semi-rural suburb of San Antonio, Texas. We had
| a CS class, our academic decathalon team team placed 6th in
| state (I was a C but placed 3rd in individual), and I took
| a lot of AP science and math so I spent a lot of time with
| the top people in our class. It was... a great time. Non-AP
| classes were hit or miss, but AP physics C, calculus B/C,
| and art history were some of my all time favorite school
| experiences. I feel very lucky to have had the time I did.
| sharker8 wrote:
| If there are star QBs that play DND (somehow I doubt there
| actually are that many) this is just proof that DND has gone
| mainstream and is therefore being commercialized as nerdy
| while actually not nerdy any more. This is known in some
| parlances as 'nerd-chic'.
| marvin wrote:
| I'm just five years older than you and strongly relate to
| these descriptions of being a nerd, having academic interests
| not shared by young peers and consequently caring very little
| for social games. Even in adulthood, unless I carefully
| choose who I hang out with. And I'm from Europe, not the US,
| so it's not a thing local to the US either.
|
| If it's truly a generational change, that would be a very
| interesting development. Especially if it happened in just
| the five years between when we were teenagers - I had no
| impression that people a few years younger than me had a
| wildly different experience than me. But I could certainly be
| mistaken.
|
| Do you find no familiarity at all in these descriptions?
| Meaning some of the following - Being more interested in
| reading than gossiping, liking technical projects more than
| team sports, being uninterested in popularity contests and
| social status games to such a degree that you barely care
| about losing them, prioritizing learning over number of
| superficial acquaintances, having ideas and thoughts that you
| assume to be true but for which you experience lashback for
| stating out loud. Potentially experiencing some loneliness or
| hostility over this, not necessarily making _that_ part of
| your identity, eventually seeking a small number of like-
| minded folks...
|
| Has the world really changed this much? From my perspective,
| it seems likely that you're just not the target demographic
| for this essay.
| SilurianWenlock wrote:
| I think that a total disinterest in politicking is why so
| many people on here complain about how software engineers
| are treated at non tech companies
| randcraw wrote:
| How old is PG? Born in 1964, so age 56, according to Wiki.
| I'm from the same era. Being young and nerdy in the '60s
| and '70s was pretty isolating.
|
| Computers weren't available until the early '80s, and
| weren't affordable for another decade, so few kids had easy
| access to them, and networks didn't arise until about 1990.
| So if you were born before '80-'85, you had a tough time
| rallying around tech toys with other nerds/geeks to share
| your enlightened world view.
|
| Stewing nerds in their own juices through adolescence tends
| to foment fierceness, which is just another word for not
| understanding or tolerating non-nerds very well. With
| today's omnipresent social connectivity, isolation should
| be less a problem in 2021, since tech content and cool
| devices are everywhere today.
|
| What I would have given to play around with RPi or robots
| in my teens...
| HeyImAlex wrote:
| I knew many people who fit that description, but with even
| a little social intelligence it seemed to me their
| experiences in highschool were pretty great; they weren't
| nerds, they were just smart and studious and many were very
| well liked. Our homecoming king was on the academic
| decathalon team. Im not saying that smart, introverted
| folks with underdeveloped social skills don't exist, just
| that they don't exist opposite to bros and jocks and cool
| kids (and weren't mercilessly bullied for being
| themselves).
|
| On the other end, nerd-culture had permeated all levels of
| the social strata, and my very popular friends who partied
| every weekend were also semi-pro halo players and avid
| anime fans and didn't hide either of those facts.
|
| It's only six years, but it could have been wide exposure
| to the internet? Also very possible I'm seeing the past
| through rose colored glasses.
| nitrogen wrote:
| There is a pretty wide variance from school to school,
| town to town, and state to state/country to country.
| Maybe you were in a particularly well-adjusted school,
| and other schools and communities are still more
| judgmental of non-blessed interests? Or maybe the nerds
| remain, but they had different interests from the new
| main-stream. I'd hardly call Halo a nerd thing, for
| example.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Halo isn't a nerd thing. Pro gaming is.
| sharker8 wrote:
| Maybe it was a well adjusted school, or maybe it was a
| school in which achievement culture and college
| application stacking and reverse engineering had fully
| run their course. After all, 'well rounded' on paper
| people get into elite colleges, and people from elite
| colleges have a better shot at becoming rich. Nothing
| less nerdy than wanting to be rich.
| [deleted]
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Maybe it 's a generational thing (born in '92), but Graham
| often seems to paint a picture of nerds similar to what you
| might see in movies and TV shows depicting the 80s, like the
| kids in Stranger Things._
|
| Graham's characterizations of nerds reminds me of the "They
| don't know" meme[1] guy.
|
| [1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/kristatorres/they-dont-know-
| twitter
| version_five wrote:
| I see the description he puts forward as essentially fitting
| contrarian types.
|
| Speaking as a contrarian myself, I think the biggest challenge /
| trap is it's easy to point out things that are wrong or stupid,
| but tougher to do anything positive about it. I think this
| equates to the idea about avoiding becoming bitter.
|
| Also, something he missed, and the curse of the contrarian, is
| "the market can stay irrational long enough for you to lose all
| your money". This happens all the time with unorthodox ideas, you
| can be right but if the mainstream doesn't shift in your favor
| before too long, you get ignored, discredited, or worse. I'd
| argue this is a bigger problem now, there is more polarization
| and a shorter feedback cycle so ideas get shot down and people
| fall out of favor much more quickly. Popular but wrong ideas,
| once they have "network effects" are much stickier than they once
| were. All this is tougher on the contrarian, or "fierce nerd".
| wutbrodo wrote:
| >This happens all the time with unorthodox ideas, you can be
| right but if the mainstream doesn't shift in your favor before
| too long, you get ignored, discredited, or worse. I'd argue
| this is a bigger problem now,
|
| If I'm understanding you correctly, he doesn't miss this. He
| addresses it directly and comes to the opposite conclusion.
|
| > The good news is that your fierceness will be a great help in
| solving difficult problems. And not just the kind of scientific
| and technical problems that nerds have traditionally solved. As
| the world progresses, the number of things you can win at by
| getting the right answer increases. Recently getting rich
| became one of them: 7 of the 8 richest people in America are
| now fierce nerds....In the past century we've seen a continuous
| transfer of power from dealmakers to technicians -- from the
| charismatic to the competent -- and I don't see anything on the
| horizon that will end it.
|
| Im sure all of us see ourselves in this essay, in part because
| it's ego catnip. But this part resonated very strongly with me.
| I was in my early 20s when I realized how crucial it was for me
| to work somewhere where my work was measured as objectively as
| possible, which has finally led me to hone in on small/mid-
| sized co applied research[1] as the path that fits me.
|
| It's definitely my perception that the world supports this more
| now than it ever used to. You can't ignore people skills
| entirely, but the path to success through technical work
| instead of management has never been better (eg the IC ladder
| at my co easily goes up to $1M/yr).
|
| > Popular but wrong ideas, once they have "network effects" are
| much stickier than they once were. All this is tougher on the
| contrarian, or "fierce nerd".
|
| I'm not convinced that this is __worse_ than it once was.
| There's too much heterodoxy, too much pluralism, too low
| barriers to entry, and too much opportunity for the quiet
| dissenter to build their niche and wait out the irrationality
| longer than they could ever have dreamed in the world of 50 or
| even 20 years ago.
|
| [1] driven by well-defined problems instead of product people's
| beliefs about the market, or the politics and bureaucracy of
| academia. It's actually been very useful ground for me to
| practice my political skills, since the impact of rubbing
| people the wrong way while figuring it out is heavily mitigated
| by the clear and measurable impact of my work.
| spamizbad wrote:
| The biggest problem facing contrarians is how more people are
| people stake out contrarian positions for the express purpose
| of building personal brands, despite any genuine conviction. A
| contrarian used to be dependably passionate. Now it's just
| another tool for audience building. As such, all contrarians
| now have an uphill battle of gaining trust because not only do
| you have to convince people of your views but you also have to
| convince them you're not just some charlatan on their latest
| grift.
| hazeii wrote:
| In the tech world, it also seems to stem from insecurity (I'm
| sure many here have held their tongue in meetings when
| someone with little experience talks well above their level
| of competence in the subject).
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Fwiw, I have the opposite perspective (maybe because I used
| to be one of these people!). All of the people I've worked
| with who go out on a limb in technical discussions and
| engage with their technical seniors are independent-minded
| and intellectually curious. Anybody can reason (albeit not
| as well) about a system they're working on, and a good team
| is able to foster this type of growth in their more junior
| engineers. This includes knowing ones limits, but does not
| include being perfect at knowing ones limits from day one.
| chmod600 wrote:
| I'm not convinced that it's a bigger problem now. In many ways,
| the ancient world was much stickier. A king could have a bad
| idea, and it could persist through generations before it falls
| to better ideas.
| FooBarBizBazz wrote:
| Are we talking about the Bronze Age, or about the early '00s?
|
| In the '00s, before the FAANG giants had arisen, I would say
| things were more dynamic than they are now, and there was
| more room for smaller players.
|
| If we're talking about the Bronze Age then this is a
| different conversation entirely. Then there was more
| continuity in each place with the past, but more difference
| between different places.
| toyg wrote:
| I'm not convinced that there was "more room for smaller
| players" in the '00s, the mobile switch created a lot of
| work for small players. The desktop-web atrophied a bit,
| particularly in areas where FAANG expanded, but the web and
| IT as a whole continues to grow and create opportunities
| for small players to emerge.
| FnControlOption wrote:
| Regardless of the ancient world, a lot of people today would
| say that there's more polarization with the advent of social
| media.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >As the world progresses, the number of things you can win at by
| getting the right answer increases.
|
| Either that or in history there are certain junction points in
| which a number of hard problems arise and if you are good at
| solving hard problems at that point you are going to do well for
| yourself. After which there is a period of consolidation until
| the next rise of hard problems. Probably Mr. Graham wouldn't like
| to consider that idea though.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| So, this is the second installment of Paul Graham's analysis of
| the various unwelcoming reactions to the MightyApp announcement a
| few weeks ago.
|
| Especially the last part.
|
| He is not completely wrong, but also visibly bitter.
| waheoo wrote:
| Someone made an app / service that remote desktops chrome on a
| server to avoid the bloat?
|
| Instead of using Firefox?
|
| Was that an April fools?
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| Nah, this is the future of Internet, according to PG :)
| moshmosh wrote:
| The punchline was that, IIRC, it's an Electron app.
|
| Also PG and others were evidently very upset that, aside from
| just laughing at the obvious humor of the situation, lots
| people expressed wishes--for a bunch of reasons; e.g its most
| viable business models all seem to involve spying or other
| shady behavior; it's just a bad sign for where the Web is at
| so it would be sad to see that become normal--that the
| company doesn't do very well.
| stephc_int13 wrote:
| I was modestly part of the haters, with a few more vocal
| and visible guys such as Jonathan Blow or Casey Muratori.
|
| Fierce Nerds :)
| Nasrudith wrote:
| The success and bitterness footnote seems very off. In my
| experience and observations bitterness seems to be more driven by
| "scarring" than current success. A bad situation doesn't help but
| a good one is no antidote.
|
| There is the "one who made it out" archetype for one example. The
| kind who left a very unsuccessful community and have even less
| sympathy for them than those taking a priveledged background for
| granted.
| henning wrote:
| You can have a good career and a good life without being a macho
| asshole bully. Grow up.
| shalmanese wrote:
| PG gets dunked on on Twitter for defending Antonio Garcia
| Martinez but he knows he's right even though everyone is making
| fun of him so his natural defense mechanism is to go back and
| create an elaborate framework to prove he's right and it's just
| that nobody else can see he's right.
|
| You see, AGM isn't a misanthrope misogynist, he's fierce! He says
| the things everyone else is afraid to say and thinks the things
| everyone else is too afraid to think because he's an
| Unconventional Thinker (TM). Everyone else is simply just too
| threatened to acknowledge this and that's why they're bullying
| PG.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| For anyone who isn't currently on Twitter, AGM is the guy who
| publicly called Bay Area women "soft, weak and full of $#!+"
| and was recently canned from a management role at Apple when
| people pointed out that his performance assessments of
| subordinates might not be free from bias. Sucks to be him of
| course, but what's the alternative?
| slibhb wrote:
| He wrote a gonzo book full of insensitive over-the-top
| passages, like the one you're referencing, in order to sell
| books. It worked. He created a literary persona that people
| loved or loved to hate.
|
| It's a huge leap to go from "you wrote x passage" to "you may
| be biased against women". If you want to fire someone for
| bias, you need evidence of bias, not a theory that someone
| might be biased.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Did his literary persona harass Heidi Moore?[1]
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/moorehn/status/1392533753768128513
| mchanson wrote:
| You don't actually "need evidence of bias". You can let
| someone go if they are not an asset to the company. This
| guy certainly wasn't once the amount of annoyance and upset
| his words had caused others in the company was pointed out
| to management.
| slibhb wrote:
| It's always lovely to see people who, I'm sure, are
| staunch defenders of "workers rights" turn around and say
| "yeah just fire anyone who isn't currently an asset to
| the company by whatever criterion".
|
| The difference between "can" and "should" is the entire
| moral universe.
| flaubere wrote:
| I think if you write something which says 'I am biased',
| the burden of proof is now on you to show hiring managers
| that it was all a bit, rather than on them to demonstrate
| that it wasn't.
| slibhb wrote:
| Well you're wrong. The burden of proof is to show
| examples of bias.
| westernmostcoy wrote:
| This feels like an unreasonable expectation for the
| people who would be reporting to him.
|
| If someone in your future/present management chain wrote
| a "I think people like slibhb are bad at this job"
| missive somewhere, would you then feel the need to wait
| for examples of bias?
| wvenable wrote:
| You can be a big success either being or pretending to be a
| big asshole but what is the argument that this should be
| consequence free?
| def_true_false wrote:
| _> Sucks to be him of course, but what 's the alternative?_
|
| Uh, not firing people over Twitter drama? I swear America is
| getting more insane by the day. It's even more obvious if you
| take a break from social network sites and then come back
| after a while.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| This wasn't even Twitter drama. He wrote that in a
| published book, that then went on and on and on demeaning
| women in all sorts of "fun" ways (i.e. this isn't a single
| throwaway statement that might be misunderstood; the
| misogyny is core to what he was saying). His girlfriend is
| "special" of course, but he still manages to say very not-
| nice things about her.
| def_true_false wrote:
| The book is like 5 years old... So, why now? Because of
| Twitter drama?
|
| Edit: Well, it seems that, according to Wikipedia, the
| impetus might have been an article in tech media (which
| seems to mean anti-tech media these days).
| rovolo wrote:
| He also was hired at Apple in April. ~2k Apple employees
| then signed a letter condemning his hiring after excerpts
| of his book circulated. This wasn't so much a Twitter mob
| resurfacing an old book, as a group of Apple employees
| using a published work to criticize the hiring of a new
| manager.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/13/tech/apple-antonio-garcia-
| mar...
| zip1234 wrote:
| Why does Apple still sell Beats by Dre if they are taking
| a stand against misogyny?
| flaubere wrote:
| I don't think that Dr Dre gets to evaluate the
| performance of Apple employees who are women (or Korean,
| etc) simply because they have a JV making headphones.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| To be fair, his comments (and the entire book) is pretty
| gonzo, and he sets up a contrast with his romantic partner
| based on the theoretical other women of the Bay Area.
|
| It's a literary device, and it's sad that it's biting him in
| the ass (I don't know him, but know lots of people who do,
| and they mostly seem to think he's OK).
| getpost wrote:
| Since pg's essay is of a psychoanalytic nature, I'll reply in a
| psychoanalytic frame, for the sake of conversation, not
| criticism. [Protip: never psychoanalyze anyone! This likely
| applies even to psychoanalysts.]
|
| During the last year or two pg has written more than a few essays
| and tweets which appear to be of a defensive nature. People like
| him contribute more than other people, it's alright to to be
| fierce, can't speak the "truth," etc.
|
| Whenever there is dichotomous thinking, cognition has moved away
| from clarity. If it were me, I'd be asking myself, What is being
| defended? (This kind of question can be a multi-decade inquiry.)
|
| Although most of us are easily baited into self-justification or
| self-promotion, I think going down that path it is ultimately a
| distraction from doing real work and knowing who you are.
| altonzheng wrote:
| > Protip: never psychoanalyze anyone! This likely applies even
| to psychoanalysts.
|
| Beside your point, but wondering if you could expand on this. I
| have a tendency to do this, and while it's fun, I'm starting to
| get the sense that it's a bad habit, possibly because I sense
| I'm overly confident on something that might be 100% wrong and
| it feels... invasive?
| prtkgpt wrote:
| I agree on not calling out anything psycho. Not sure about
| invasive though.
| m_fayer wrote:
| I've asked myself the same question. While I don't go as far
| as "never", I do it much less than I used to.
|
| Thinking this way can certainly lead to worthwhile and
| actionable insights. But I think any skilled amateur will
| overestimate their abilities. Therapists build their insights
| on top of huge amounts of biographical information that they
| gather in intense, concentrated sessions. Their observational
| skills are trained, and they use them to gather as much
| information from posture, tone, and expression as they do
| from narrative. Even if an amateur's observational skills are
| good, they won't have the right context (the session) to
| gather that kind of information. So the amateur will be
| lacking in both theory, and information - compared to the
| pros. And yet the amateur often has more confidence than the
| pro - leaping at the first theory that "clicks", not
| considering alternatives, and with an unwillingness to
| revise.
|
| The next pitfall comes if/when you decide to act on your
| insights. And once you have those insights, it becomes
| tempting to act on them. Then, when you do act, you're almost
| by definition being manipulative. Your behavior towards the
| other person is no longer a straightforward reaction to what
| they're sending your way, but is instead following an agenda
| constructed to fit a diagnosis that is unknown to them. If
| they knew what you were up to, they would most likely object,
| even if your agenda was "for their own good." At best it's
| paternalistic. Therapists do act on their insights in opaque
| ways (and often screw up despite all their training) but the
| particulars of the patient-therapist relationship resolve the
| ethical violations that us civilians are likely to stumble
| into.
|
| So, I would say that the tendency to psychoanalyze needs to
| come with heaps of humility, openness to revision, and a
| reluctance to act on the resulting insights in 9 out of 10
| cases.
| noumenized wrote:
| "Therapists build their insights on top of huge amounts of
| biographical information that they gather in intense,
| concentrated sessions."
|
| Agreed with all of your post, I think this is the most
| crucial point here. Genuine, skilled psychoanalysis is less
| about being some master discerner of psychological motives,
| and instead being very good at giving the subject of
| analysis a lot of psychological safety to express their
| innermost thoughts and most personal life experiences.
| Unless you build that kind of (responsible and
| professional) intimacy for lack of a better term, you're
| largely just projecting imo.
| kixiQu wrote:
| I think you have to detach to get value out of it -- not
| "what's the reason this person is like this" but "what are
| three different mechanisms by which a person might become
| like this". A bit like how a history student of a certain
| level isn't asked "why did WWI happen" but "contrast the
| materialist and post-revisionist explanations for the origins
| of WWI".
| noumenized wrote:
| Not OP, but as someone who holds this view (who also used to
| engage in the practice): a lot of armchair psychoanalysis is
| based less on a genuine understanding of the other person's
| life and circumstances, and more on the assumption of what
| their life and circumstances must be combined with a surface-
| level knowledge of psychoanalytic practice.
|
| Armchair psychoanalysis ostensibly seeks to understand the
| subject of analysis, but rarely makes the effort to first
| understand the subject on their terms or in a way where they
| can articulate their own experience; instead, someone usually
| has their presumptive conclusion about the subject in mind
| ("they're just doing this because they haven't gotten over
| being bullied as a kid" or whatever), and tries to wrangle
| the limited information they have about that person into
| their conclusion.
| darepublic wrote:
| I see what you are saying. I mean the topics do have something
| of a defensive nature. Though arguably PG could just be making
| a valid point on topics that are contentious and widely
| misunderstood
| bumby wrote:
| > _Whenever there is dichotomous thinking, cognition has moved
| away from clarity._
|
| Can you expand on this?
| getpost wrote:
| This is a deep topic worthy of an essay, the kind of essay pg
| might write! The concise reply is, when you catch yourself in
| dichotomous thinking, you should assume you have
| misunderstood or oversimplified.
|
| Sometimes you have to go with your misunderstanding or
| oversimplification to make a decision or to make progress,
| but keep in mind you are doing so based on beliefs which are
| unlikely to correspond to reality.
|
| It's striking that so many mental health difficulties are
| characterized by dichotomous thinking. [1]
|
| Rationality itself can be profitably critiqued at the meta-
| level.[2] So, don't be an asshole, unless you need to be. Do
| you see the world as consisting of assholes and non-assholes?
| How does that feel? What are the advantages of that view?
| What are the disadvantages? Is considering that question
| worth your time?
|
| [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/she-comes-long-
| way-b...
|
| [2] https://metarationality.com/introduction
|
| EDIT: Fixed link, spacing
| [deleted]
| getpost wrote:
| Clarity is about seeing how things are, not how you've chosen
| to divide things up.
|
| (I added this as an edit to my other reply, but it seems the
| edit is lost.)
| eloff wrote:
| Do you think he's defending himself, or the entrepreneurs he
| funds, befriends and admires?
| pseudalopex wrote:
| I think he perceives criticism of them as criticism of him.
| breck wrote:
| I'm speculating, but perhaps with all the YC IPOs in the past
| year they are now liquid billionaires, and he is thinking it
| through, out loud, via essays, which is how he figured out
| things from Lisp to startups to investing?
| whatshisface wrote:
| PG, if you asked him, might describe himself as defending
| people who do real work from a larger culture that all too
| often prioritizes serving the status quo over accomplishing the
| goals that the status quo was established to accomplish. One
| example of that would be SpaceX doing the launch vehicle design
| work that the NASA/Boeing/Big Government Contractor complex was
| established to do. At the same time, SpaceX works its people
| extremely hard and is lead by a billionaire with abnormally
| unsophisticated PR. So there you have cultural and business
| forces set against a new company that has nothing going for it
| except the fact that it actually does stuff. Actually doing
| stuff is a surprisingly small advantage in a world that is
| interested in so many other qualities.
| ziziyO wrote:
| Why can't we have both? A job where we can "actually do
| stuff" without getting mistreated by psychotic billionaires.
| There's a lack of compassion in tech.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| Maybe there is something wrong with our society that tends
| to cause organizational dysfunction and make it hard to do
| stuff. Perhaps it takes someone seriously atypical (maybe a
| little psychotic) to manage to build an institution that
| can actually accomplish things at scale in this
| environment. If there are 10000 well-adjusted bureaucrats
| standing between you and your aspiration to build electric
| cars and rockets, it will take some serious force of
| personality (a personality disorder?) to defy all of them.
| elteto wrote:
| Assuming you are in the US: I'd say that, if anything, tech
| is a fantastic little bubble when compared to the rest of
| corporate America. We, the "nerds", exert a level of
| control over our work/careers that is unparalleled in other
| industries. We have plenty of opportunities available if we
| dislike our current situation. Tech companies provide
| excellent benefits and compensation. Maybe only doctors
| have the same level of mobility/compensation.
|
| You will always be mistreated by someone if you work for a
| corporation. We have it easier than almost everybody else,
| really.
| b3morales wrote:
| Speaking as someone who has come to my tech career later
| in life (and after another career), this is absolutely
| correct. All industries have their problems: software is
| no exception, there are things that could be better.
| There are bad days, even bad months.
|
| But at nearly 6 years in I still wake up every day amazed
| that I get paid as much as I do to do this thing that I
| really enjoy. With overall reasonable hours. Without
| having to deal with the general public. Considered an
| asset despite the fact that I cost so much and write
| bugs. And with people banging on my door constantly to
| get me to work for them. I feel extremely fortunate.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I would like people to stop believing that this is a real
| example, at least around here (I'm close to a few NASA
| missions). SpaceX was selected by NASA for some lunar lift
| services, and everyone I know is quite excited by US's
| expanding lift / launch capabilities. I think that I and
| those around me exist in these roles to serve the needs of
| the nation and priorities of congress and the scientific
| community, and will use any tools at our disposal to do so.
|
| Other companies may fight this, sure, but stop throwing NASA
| (an exploration agency) in with those who would benefit from
| suppressing SpaceX.
|
| Personal opinion.
| whatshisface wrote:
| SpaceX + vendor-agnostic NASA contracts are a world away
| from the cost-plus launch vehicle design projects with
| heavy involvement from NASA engineers that got us to the
| moon, built the ISS, and also spent a long time going
| nowhere once the corruption caught up with the system.
| shmageggy wrote:
| I don't see the point in inventing some arbitrary social
| category, when it's only backed by what seems like little more
| than speculative drivel.
|
| > _Another solution may be to somehow turn off your fierceness,
| by devoting yourself to meditation..._
|
| Huh? Lots of highly successful and effective people (who he would
| probably call fierce) cite meditation as a crucial tool for
| increasing their focus and mental discipline. This is just a
| bizarre take.
| fallat wrote:
| Awww did someone get their feelings hurt?
|
| The more this Paul Graham person writes the more I realize they
| are just another regular person.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Why would you use "they" when talking about someone you know
| for sure is a man? Aren't you supposed to "respect peoples'
| pronouns"?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Knowing that someone is a man doesn't mean knowing their
| pronouns; gender identity and pronoun preference are
| correlated but not 1:1 tied. It is somewhat inconvenient that
| the long traditional use of "they" for semantically singular
| cases where the correct pronoun is unknown has become blurred
| by "they/their/them" becoming a reasonably common preferred
| pronoun (especially among the nonbinary but also among some
| who identify as men or women), so its use to avoid the risk
| of an incorrect specific pronoun can be misread.
| Grustaf wrote:
| Has PG, or anyone else, ever referred to him as anything
| but a "he"? Since 99.9% of men refer to themselves as men,
| that would seem like a useful default.
| postit wrote:
| Most of us doing tech for more than 20 years grew up as a fierce
| award nerd.
|
| Them somewhere aroud early 2010s being a nerd was the new cool
| and paid off. Tech teams had more non-nerd competent engineers,
| and suddenly nerds are a target for complains and a bad example
| of teamwork.
| nashashmi wrote:
| > The bad news is that if it's not exercised, your fierceness
| will turn to bitterness, and you will become an intellectual
| playground bully: the grumpy sysadmin, the forum troll, the
| hater, the shooter down of new ideas.
|
| Can't stress this enough. Some reach for what others have. Others
| reach for what they need but get trolled into thinking they have
| nothing and start reaching for what others have.
|
| This is the equation for misery. And the opposite is the equation
| for success. But I admit this is just one dimension and datum on
| the look of life.
| AS_of wrote:
| This was not too bad considering PGs latest writings, which have
| been various degrees of underwhelming and tone deaf. This is
| like, at least, a rally call or something. But I'm just a bitter
| forum troll so...
| fungiblecog wrote:
| I think the problem with Paul Graham's writing is that it always
| comes down to talking about getting rich.
|
| A lot of people - including very intelligent people - have other
| things they'd rather do than play such a stupid game.
| Unfortunately the world is pushing everyone in that direction
| which will create a lot of bitterness because most people
| necessarily lose that game.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I still fail to understand how we've organised society so that
| the losers of a particular game _don 't eat_. It's virtually
| decoupled from helping other people with stuff (which is what
| the economy purports to represent); you have old money, and
| nth-generation new money, and people working two jobs to afford
| rent.
|
| "Invest" in the stock market in X way, and you can stop working
| earlier - that is, if you had enough _savings_ to do so.
| Bukhmanizer wrote:
| A lot of this essay feels a lot like cold reading of tech
| workers. PG brings up the 8 richest people in America, but if you
| look at the top like 10-15, the VAST majority are tech CEOs. So
| that's who we're talking about here.
|
| First, "independent-mindedness". I'm guessing that if you survey
| people, approximately 95% of people would consider themselves
| "independent-minded".
|
| Then he talks about social awkwardness and intelligence. I would
| say about 90% of tech workers would consider themselves both of
| those things.
|
| And competitiveness? Probably any CEO could be considered
| somewhat competitive. Just to succeed at that scale probably
| requires some competitiveness.
| nindalf wrote:
| Almost anyone reading this would think "oh wow, he's talking
| about me!" Like you point out, his criteria and statements are
| vague enough that anyone would think it applies to them. Such
| only need to follow PG's advice - be "fierce", ie, be an
| asshole to people to get ahead.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Nobody is going to change their basic personality because of
| an essay they read online. I doubt it's even possible.
| thisisbrians wrote:
| I wouldn't quite equate "be fierce" with "be an asshole". My
| take: PG is suggesting that smart people who are formidable
| and stick to their guns are more likely to change the course
| of things. If you are overly 'kind' and allow all of your
| good ideas to be dismissed by others, you aren't going to be
| as successful. This doesn't mean you have to intentionally
| hurt others in the process. It could mean you take your
| ferocity and point it at starting your own company because
| you believe you have a better way and are tired of trying to
| convince others to your way of thinking.
|
| Edit: a word.
| betageek wrote:
| PG essays === Tech Horoscopes
| moolcool wrote:
| This article reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer goes
| to college and expects it to be exactly like Animal House and
| Revenge of the Nerds.
| [deleted]
| MikeTaylor wrote:
| > In the past century we've seen a continuous transfer of power
| from dealmakers to technicians -- from the charismatic to the
| competent
|
| ... writes a man who was evidently not paying attention to the US
| presidential election of 2016 or the UK Conservative Party
| leadership election of 2019.
| Grustaf wrote:
| > In ordinary social situations they are -- as quiet and
| diffident as the star quarterback would be if he found himself in
| the middle of a physics symposium
|
| I don't think a QB is ever "diffident". I bet he'd feel a lot
| more confident there than the nerd on a football field, or really
| anywhere.
| mikekij wrote:
| Random question about PaulGraham.com: I noticed that the header
| of his blog posts are always images; not text. e.g. "fierce-
| nerds-1.gif". Does anyone have any idea why he renders the title
| as an image? And do we think this happens programmatically? Or is
| he firing up ImageMagick every time he posts?
| Communitivity wrote:
| Expertise with people, technology, and finances could be view as
| three legs of a startup. Each has their own form of fierceness.
| As a casual observer, it seems to me that the ideal founder
| formula is a fierce networker/marketer, a fierce nerd, and a
| fierce businessperson.
| mikece wrote:
| I can't help thinking that "fierce nerd" and Asperger syndrome go
| together. There will be some random Steve Jobs assholes as well
| but I think they are the exception.
| vbsteven wrote:
| Exactly my thoughts as well. Almost all fierce nerd traits PG
| describes are signs typically seen in Asperger/ASD/Gifted. I
| recognise myself in the article, as well as a number of my
| friends/colleagues who are all diagnosed with one or more of
| the above.
| langitbiru wrote:
| > There has never been a better time to be a nerd. In the past
| century we've seen a continuous transfer of power from dealmakers
| to technicians -- from the charismatic to the competent
|
| What happens if a nerd learns how to be charismatic? It's a
| winning combo, I guess.
| javajosh wrote:
| The first rush of comments are all negative, mostly of the _ad
| hominem_ sort, accusing PG of publicly psychoanalyzing himself.
| And yet, I really liked the essay because it reads like a
| lifeline to those who doubt themselves, perhaps profoundly. To PG
| the same qualities that alienate a "fierce nerd" in so many
| contexts are precisely the same qualities that could lead to
| success (even dominance) in other contexts.
|
| The useful follow on to this essay, I would think, is to give a
| list, as long as possible, of places where "fierce nerds" are
| wanted, demanded, needed - both well-known institutions and
| startups.
|
| Another useful follow up would be to give better advice about
| achieving harmony. Everyone deserves peace; to put it another
| way, progress that requires a human to sacrifice love isn't worth
| making.
| moolcool wrote:
| >The useful follow on to this essay, I would think, is to give
| a list, as long as possible, of places where "fierce nerds" are
| wanted, demanded, needed - both well-known institutions and
| startups.
|
| "How to Deal with Difficult People on Software Projects" is a
| pretty good read in this vain
| https://neilonsoftware.com/difficult-people-on-software-proj...
| Bukhmanizer wrote:
| > And yet, I really liked the essay because it reads like a
| lifeline to those who doubt themselves, perhaps profoundly
|
| Do they? I mean one of the define characteristics is an
| overconfidence in themselves.
|
| I think PG is trying to justify some kind of assholish
| behaviour in his past by reframing it as a virtue.
|
| Really, I think the "fierceness" is incidental. Do immensely
| successful people need to be somewhat competitive? Sure. Do
| they have to interrupt everyone, lack social awareness, etc?
| Probably not.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > I think PG is trying to justify some kind of assholish
| behaviour in his past by reframing it as a virtue.
|
| I couldn't help but read part of it as a response
| to/rationalization of the recent pushback he (and other
| "fierce nerds") have been receiving lately...the former
| underdogs are now the establishment.
|
| _The bad news is that if it 's not exercised, your
| fierceness will turn to bitterness, and you will become an
| intellectual playground bully: the grumpy sysadmin, the forum
| troll, the hater, the shooter down of new ideas._
| ryandrake wrote:
| I think "shooter down of new ideas" is getting unfairly
| lumped in with those other actually-bad traits. If there's
| one thing a lot of "idea guys" and optimistic entrepreneurs
| tend to lack and need, it's a skeptical partner who keeps
| them grounded in reality. Someone who is experienced, seen
| it all, constructively critical. Someone who will say "Wait
| a minute, this was tried in the '80s, and it won't work.
| Maybe try this instead." If you lump "people who push-back"
| in with haters and trolls, you're going to end up
| surrounded by yes-men.
|
| The tech landscape is littered with failed projects that
| could have been stopped early if the idea person had a
| sounding board that keep him/her realistic.
| abnry wrote:
| Yes, it is true that new ideas need criticism. However,
| if one is almost always critical of new ideas, especially
| ones that push beyond your wheelhouse, then that is a
| problem because you'll never innovate. PG lumps it with
| haters and trolls because that's what being a negative
| person entails. The point is the extremity. There is
| nothing wrong with being a hater, proportionately, as you
| can only love something if you hate its opposite.
| flaubere wrote:
| Absolutely agree. The best and most creative environments
| I have worked in have been full of people who you could
| turn to and say "What if we did X?", and they would
| immediately come up with reasons that X would fail or be
| impossible. If your idea hadn't been absolutely
| annihilated after 5 or 10 minutes of this, it was
| probably pretty decent.
| tchalla wrote:
| > I think PG is trying to justify some kind of assholish
| behaviour in his past by reframing it as a virtue.
|
| I wonder how much Bill Gates triggered this write up.
| microtherion wrote:
| PG also recently came to the defense of Antonio Garcia
| Martinez:
|
| https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1392756490138791937
|
| It appears he sees himself as the shop steward for the
| Silicon Valley Asshole Union.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| If we really want to go in this direction and criticize
| other people calling famous tech businessmen assholes, at
| least give credit where it's due - Jobs deserves this much
| more than Gates. Gates _documented_ unethical behavior was
| mostly against other companies, not so much individuals,
| with a few notable exceptions.
| kragen wrote:
| Wozniak was the nerd. Jobs was just a manipulator. As a
| nerd he never progressed beyond assembling circuit
| boards.
| pwinnski wrote:
| I doubt Jobs--who died nearly ten years ago--was as
| likely a trigger for this essay as Gates, who is
| currently in the daily news due to his alleged bad
| behavior.
| themacguffinman wrote:
| On the other hand, Gates' recently reported "bad
| behavior" seems to be largely stuff like infidelity and
| inappropriate sexual relationships which is not what the
| essay touches on at all. Jobs' assholery is exactly
| business & engineering related in the way that PG is
| talking about.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| Overconfidence and self-doubt can go hand-in-hand:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulnerable_narcissism
| serverholic wrote:
| Wow this describes me to a T. My parents were constantly
| praising me and making me feel like a genius. Yet in the
| real world I'd estimate I'm around 120 IQ. So definitely
| not genius level.
|
| It's almost like a positive form of gaslighting which
| unfortunately still has negative consequences like you've
| pointed out.
| Bukhmanizer wrote:
| Is there a clear definition of self-doubt that doesn't
| overlap with underconfidence? Because if the terms we're
| using are so broad that a person can both be described as
| overconfident and underconfident, then as I say elsewhere
| this just looks like cold reading.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| It's the difference between feeling and acting. A person
| can feel a lack of confidence and feel doubt and still
| act confident or overconfident.
|
| Lots of people, like artists, visionaries, and weirdos
| who make strides to live a unique life have to act
| confidently to get to that life yet many also have a lot
| of self doubt. They just do the brave thing to move ahead
| with their vision even though it could likely end in
| failure. For many it does, whether they are remembered
| posthumously or not.
| ModernMech wrote:
| > A person can feel a lack of confidence and feel doubt
| and still act confident or overconfident.
|
| This is essentially the pathology of a narcissist.
| playpause wrote:
| People are really complex systems, they don't just have
| one emotion, even at one time. I know several people who
| seem to swing between overconfidence and self doubt,
| sometimes very suddenly. Maybe some will eventually
| settle in the middle. But if someone has something in
| their psyche that just keeps pushing them back into an
| overconfident mindset, then it's hard to see how they
| _wouldn't_ also experience regular injections of
| humiliation leading to growing self doubts over time.
| username90 wrote:
| Everyone who says they suffer from impostor syndrome are
| both overconfident and underconfident, unless they are
| lying.
| Bukhmanizer wrote:
| I'm not saying you can't be both under- and
| overconfident. I'm saying that if you're using terms so
| broad and vague, you could probably describe anyone that
| way.
| kevmo314 wrote:
| Maybe their fierceness has turned into bitterness and they've
| turned into an intellectual playground bully.
| mcguire wrote:
| Or perhaps they're too independently minded, but not in the
| right way.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > The first rush of comments are all negative, mostly of the ad
| hominem sort
|
| Happens on every PG post.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Any fierce person can be overconfident, productive, and a giant
| douchebag. With fierceness, you can "win" even if you're stupid.
| (Recent worldwide national political appointees make this a
| fact.) The "Nerd" part just means this fierce person lacks social
| awareness.
|
| It's good to be fierce and intelligent, but it's really important
| to be compassionate and empathetic too. IQ without EQ is wealth
| without health. If you truly want to enjoy life, if you don't
| want to make other people miserable, and you would like other
| people to raise you up in good company, you need to work on how
| you treat and think about other people. For nerds I think this is
| as difficult a problem to solve as any other they could attempt.
| eggbrain wrote:
| For me, as much as I am competitive, I feel like it only drives
| me when the odds of what I am competing for feel somewhat fair.
|
| To give an example, a lot of my friends have been into Magic the
| Gathering for many years, and I recently tried to get into it
| myself, but the asymmetric gaps were too large for me to enjoy it
| -- they had way more knowledge, more cards, had spent more money,
| and had more time to spend playing outside of work hours,
| resulting in me getting crushed again and again.
|
| There was two options I could take: 1) Try to catch up on years
| of accumulated knowledge, or 2) Change tactics, and see if
| instead I could play a game we all were more similarly matched
| with. I chose the latter.
|
| In entrepreneurship, I feel like it's no different. For me,
| fighting a large startup on common ground is a losing game --
| they have the money, the manpower, the knowledge, the social
| proof, and more. As competitive as I am, and as hard as I push,
| it's not going to be a fair fight to begin with. So instead, it's
| about me finding a battlefield where the odds change more in my
| favor -- perhaps something that doesn't scale, something I have
| innate knowledge in, etc.
|
| Not sure if that lines up perfectly with what PG is saying here,
| but it's worked well for me.
| ronyeh wrote:
| [1] To be a nerd is to be socially awkward, and there are two
| distinct ways to do that: to be playing the same game as
| everyone else, but badly, and to be playing a different game.
| The smart nerds are the latter type.
|
| PG probably agrees with you, as that's the first footnote from
| his article above.
| eggbrain wrote:
| D'oh, this is what I get for not reading the footnotes
| closely!
| swinnipeg wrote:
| "The best way to beat Tiger Woods is to play him at something
| other than golf."
|
| I think I am paraphrasing Buffett here, this can apply to so
| many career/business decisions.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Why do we need to _reclaim_ nerd? A lot of us have painful
| memories associated with the term, can we just let it fade into
| well deserved obscurity?
| shohpanhandler wrote:
| Plus it's not as though people don't still make fun of nerds.
| They just don't throw the term itself around anymore. Twitter
| (not that we should be paying any attention to the thought pit
| anyway) is rife with jabs at smart/technical people and some of
| our more common idiosyncrasies.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| The butthurt at our (collective) success is also obvious from
| a wide variety of sources. My gun-loving red state relatives
| have impressed upon me multiple times about how the high pay
| that engineers get and general cushy life that they get is
| really bad for society and that eventually when the power
| turns off due to a solar flare we will be essentially their
| slaves. There's even a comic of this exact scenario that gets
| posted all the time on 4chan which I cannot for the life of
| me find but documents this exact scenario happening.
|
| It really sucks I guess to make 45K fixing tractors all day
| with demanding managers hearing all about how the person half
| your age is making 4x what you make by writing yaml files
| with basically no stress and good WLB.
|
| The right answer to "how do I stop getting exploited" for
| many is unironically "learn to code" (yes, including to many
| of those coal miners in WV), but they HATE when you say this.
| Kinda sad too since most of the hate is from people that
| never even tried it. They seethe at our success, and would
| take it away from us in a heartbeat if ever given the chance.
| Just look at the culture war being waged against "big tech"
| right now.
| fouric wrote:
| Because others of us have _good_ memories associated with the
| term.
|
| Given the choice between having more language available to use
| or less, I don't see a reason to want less.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Do you think young African-Americans lucky enough to have
| never had the N word used as racial epithet against them
| ought to ignore other parts of the community that tell them
| this is a very painful term and they should not throw it
| around causally?
|
| What right do you have to reclaim something that was never a
| source of harm for you to begin with? Doesn't that make you
| just another set of bullies metaphorically shoving people
| into lockers?
| joshuamorton wrote:
| No. Generational reclamation of words is fairly common. The
| best examples aren't actually race (comparing how "nerd"
| and the n-word are reclaimed doesn't really work, for
| reasons that should be obvious in that I'm censoring one).
|
| On the other hand, within the LGBT community, tons of terms
| have been fully or partially reclaimed. Most notably
| "queer". That also isn't without controversy (and queer has
| been in the process of reclamation for longer than "nerd"
| has been an insult in its current context), but almost no
| one seems to think that by self-identifying as something
| (in good faith) you're bullying someone else.
| [deleted]
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Very good. One thing I'm surprised wasn't mentioned (or at least
| I didn't catch on the first read) -- IMO, on average, this kind
| of person will have much better experiences on the bitterness to
| invigoration spectrum at startups vs. bigco.
| lvs wrote:
| Is this not just a broad ad hominem against people with whom this
| venture capitalist has had prior disagreements? If only you
| choose to do risky things that are (inexplicably in many cases)
| capital intensive -- i.e. engage investors in ways good for them
| -- then you will be a good nerd. Investors will make you rich.
| Everyone will be happy. But if you don't engage investors, then
| you will become a bad nerd! Bad nerd! Bad!
| question000 wrote:
| This feels weirdly like someone working out emotional issues by
| describing them in an emotionally distant "rational" way. Like
| what does this have to do with anything other then the thoughts
| in Paul Grahams head?
| mdorazio wrote:
| Nothing. PG's recent writing has increasingly been for no one
| other than PG, which is fine. I just wish it didn't always get
| upvoted on HN.
| s_kilk wrote:
| It's a classic refrain in a petty "revenge of the nerds"
| mindset. All the "haters" are wrong, unconditionally, and
| acting like an asshole is excused as being very special and
| brave.
|
| It's a siege mentality designed to shore up one's sense of
| superiority, and ensure that one doesn't need to do very much
| soul-searching.
| Edman274 wrote:
| When you have to justify to yourself why you're a millionaire
| or a billionaire and "dumb luck, some modicum of skill, and
| being first" isn't a satisfying reason, you have to rationalize
| to yourself that you deserve it because you've got something
| that those ivory-tower eggheads and non-nerdy simpletons don't.
| And that thing is fierceness.
|
| I've never seen a blog post more worthy of a good old fashioned
| fisking. I mean come on - "confidence is a self-fullfilling
| prophecy" - are we being serious here? It's only self-
| fulfilling because of survivorship bias. Maybe he's running
| with a crew of super successful founders and that's true, but
| from my point of view, I remember the dudes at my place of work
| that could very confidently talk my ear off about something
| that they half-understood (or very confidently describe an
| unworkable solution to a problem) and then got fired a month
| later because they weren't productive enough to meet even the
| super-low requirements of software development at a car
| insurance company. It's easy to spin narratives about
| confidence and restlessness and intelligence when you've
| surrounded yourself with the winners. Less visible are the
| people who go all-in on a fintech startup and end up broke a
| year later. Those people have all the same traits and end up in
| the same boat as all the other un-fierce nerds.
| typon wrote:
| What are personal blogs for?
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Fierce nerds read this and say "that's totally me!"
| oreally wrote:
| That's a pretty good description, and many of the posts here are
| about fierce nerds with petty issues which I think the essay is
| not about.
|
| I've grown into that fierce nerd. Being in forced conscription in
| my 20s has made me wary of the 'wait to rush for nothing
| meaningful' culture. Then I joined companies and it feels like a
| ton of my time is wasted by processes, norms and ideologies. I
| did break out once to try and make a business but that hasn't
| worked out. So now I'm in employment just to earn/invest to have
| enough for a certain level of financial independence and I'm
| feeling that bitterness rise up again.
|
| I'm very likely destined to burn out of industries/companies that
| aren't my own quickly, and this could cascade into bad looking
| resumes. It feels like a do or die situation sometimes.
| ziggus wrote:
| "...a ton of my time is wasted by processes, norms and
| ideologies."
|
| So, all the stuff that helps society function?
| oreally wrote:
| Have you done mine prodding drills over 50 square meter
| fields? Sure it'll fulfill some superior's KPI but it's not
| very useful nowadays with all that modern military equipment.
| A good majority of these prescribed processes, norms and
| ideologies just aren't useful in the individual's growth.
| jfengel wrote:
| Sounds like an excellent analogy: "We've been doing all
| these mine-detecting drills, but nobody ever gets blown up.
| We should stop doing mine-detecting drills." It's wise to
| take advantage of changes, but it's also wise to ensure
| that you're not taking down Chesterton's Fence[1] without
| knowing why the fence was put up.
|
| Some processes, norms, and ideologies exist for reasons
| that aren't obvious. It's often not difficult to find
| somebody to explain them to you, but you have to be
| prepared to genuinely listen to the answer. It's easy to be
| impatient when you see them as getting in your way, and the
| first explanation you get may not actually be a very good
| one. (If you don't know why the fence was put up there's a
| good chance others won't either -- but that doesn't mean
| that an unsatisfactory explanation implies that there isn't
| a satisfactory one.)
|
| That does slow you down, and that's hard when you're not
| the one who gets harmed by violating those norms,
| processes, and ideologies. But that doesn't mean nobody
| gets hurt, and such harms have a way of making society
| around you worse though mechanisms you don't see -- even
| though they do end up affecting you, too, eventually.
|
| [1] https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Chesterton%27s_Fence
| marchenko wrote:
| Joel Spolsky used the dilemma of being ambushed on a
| minefield (to make a different and almost orthogonal
| point) in a way that illustrates how norms that are not
| individually useful -- or even rational -- can be
| essential for group survival.
| [1](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/08/08/the-
| command-and-co...)
| jfengel wrote:
| A ton of _his_ time his wasted by other people trying not to
| waste _their_ time. If we all just agreed to do everything
| his way, it would be a huge time saver... for him.
| sangnoir wrote:
| _He who pays the piper calls the tune_ - if he 's not doing
| what he's paid for, he'll soon find himself not being paid
| for.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation
| of what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| sidlls wrote:
| There are plenty of people in the tech industry who abhor
| _any_ process, norm, or ideology (most often, especially if
| it's not one _they_ created). I don't think it's
| uncharitable to simply take the comment at its word, and
| adding an implied "excess," "unnecessary," or whatever
| constructs a different--and more ambiguous--argument to
| comment on.
| prosaic-hacker wrote:
| Being an ordinary success is fine too. Been there, done that,
| more than once. Being fierce worked sometime and not others.
| Found the sweet spot in some companies, fired in others.
| Moderate success as a consultant (made a living for 7 years),
| failed at other business(lost a years salary). Learned how to
| write resumes out of that pastiche so I am still working on
| nerd stuff 3/4 time, enough to save money, leaving me time to
| play with other fun nerd stuff.
|
| Heard a "rockstar" lamenting he would never win Grammy because
| of his niche but was not unsatisfied with the 60 year arc of
| his career.
|
| Retrospectively, I see I could have been a contender several
| time but me then (brash) nor me now (wiser, possibly) could
| have been capable of elevating myself from a working nerd to a
| famous rich nerd.
| passivate wrote:
| >Then I joined companies and it feels like a ton of my time is
| wasted by processes, norms and ideologies.
|
| I work in biotech and I smiled when I read this. The entirety
| of our business relies on people following processes, norms and
| ideologies. Once the "thinking" stage is done - the rules and
| framework are now in-place. You need to trust them and follow
| through to produce results for the company.
|
| In tech so many nerds are constantly sharpening their tools or
| creating new ones and chasing some mythical 'perfection' that
| they lose sight of the results - the thing that matters the
| most to the company. Being entirely result oriented has changed
| my outlook completely, and made me a happier person. I am much
| more respectful towards people who produce actual results using
| any tools rather than judging someone who uses Java or Perl or
| whatever other language/tool that is not the flavor of the
| month. And working in biotech has made me value long term
| reliability over everything else. The single most thing that is
| important to me is that the tool be reliable and ready for me
| to use to produce results.
| slibhb wrote:
| In the essay, nerds are identified as socially awkward, not
| necessarily quiet but out of their element in social situations.
| And sure, Crick rubbed people the wrong way, because he was loud
| and overly-sociable. But wasn't he, by Watson's account,
| absolutely in his element in social situations? Isn't the main
| complaint about Crick the fact that he was too loud (especially
| his laugh), too willing to solve other people's problems?
|
| And was Watson a nerd at all? I think the magic of The Double
| Helix is that Watson tells the truth (or "his truth") to a fault.
| That's necessary for good biography and it's very rare but I
| don't get the sense that Watson is unaware of what he's doing or
| what the consequences will be. It seems like a conscious decision
| to write down everything he thinks and, as they say, publish and
| be damned.
|
| Anyway, I think the essay is making a semantic error here by
| identifying the usual heroes (odd men out, innovators, people who
| refuse to go along, people who do their own thing) as nerds.
| There's no doubt that going against the grain is almost a
| prerequisite for being an admirable person and also for being
| someone who changes the world. I just don't see that as
| nerdiness.
| tomp wrote:
| Thanks, Paul, for writing this. It really puts a few of my traits
| into perspective, including being rude (interrupting people...
| _just get to the point, dammit!_ ) and being awkward (yeah, I
| just don't care about the game of "emotions" or whatever most
| people are playing)...
| [deleted]
| hardwaregeek wrote:
| Surprisingly, I'd argue that athletes are an example of fierce
| nerds. I think people vastly underestimate how nerdy top athletes
| are. They're people willing to devote their entire lives to
| obsessively analyzing a single game. Somebody like Jordan had to
| spend hours, days, years of their life just constantly shooting a
| ball at a basket. Not to mention the obsession with meta and
| strategy.
|
| We like to see people like Jordan or Kobe as normal people who
| happen to be really good at basketball. I disagree. They're nerds
| who happened to do a profession that doesn't seem nerdy to the
| public.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Once, the YouTube "algorithm" led me to video featuring a
| bodybuilder that explained that being a professional
| bodybuilder = being a professional eater.
|
| To bodybuilders (and I assume, also athletes), eating in a
| methodical and structured way is an important part of their
| job. The guy grew his own vegetables and spent a lot of time
| selecting food at markets, ate at very specific times, etc.
|
| That, combined with supplements, experimenting with different
| training regimes, etc... it's a lot of experimentation and
| certainly there's a lot of cognitive work behind all of that.
|
| I found this very interesting.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| I think there's a difference between the sort of subject-
| matter-preference driven obsessiveness that characterizes nerds
| and the one-of-the-few-visible-though-high-odds-of-failure-
| ways-out-of-a-miserable life that drives a lot of black kids to
| a focus lots of time and energy on basketball.
| bidirectional wrote:
| Very odd comment. Jordan and Kobe did not grow up miserably
| at all. Jordan grew up in a stable middle-class home and
| Kobe's dad was an NBA player-turned-coach.
| nitrogen wrote:
| I don't think they were talking about Jordan or Kobe
| specifically. There does seem to be a kind of seductive lie
| (not just in black communities) that sports or other long
| shots are a viable career path for the dedicated kid. Where
| I grew up, there were plenty of kids who believed they
| would be famous basketball players one day as a matter of
| fact, skaters who believed a fat sponsorship was in reach
| if they just got that kick flip down tight, even culinary
| artists who think they can join the ranks of the rich by
| catering their private dinners.
|
| It's probably the same with startups -- most startups fail,
| mine included, but either we delude ourselves into thinking
| that it's just a matter of putting in enough effort, _or_
| we are in situations where we really can 't see any other
| option to escape the gravity well of our situations. Not so
| far off from someone obsessively playing ball to try to get
| out, except for the broader applicability of the skills
| gained if the long shot doesn't pay off.
| flaubere wrote:
| By redefining anyone who has worked very hard and enjoyed
| success as a 'fierce nerd', you make the term meaningless, and
| the supposed payoff from being one into a tautology.
| mhh__ wrote:
| One of the traits of top footballers in the modern game is that
| their teammates are pretty much - and keep in mind these are
| already some of the best players in the world by a long way -
| in disbelief of how hard and how efficiently they train. That's
| how Cristiano Ronaldo is as good as he is at an age when many
| have already retired.
| nradov wrote:
| This is especially true in endurance sports. The level of
| competition is so high now that now one can succeed just based
| on talent and grit. In order to win you need to understand
| physiology, psychology, nutrition, aerodynamics, equipment
| maintenance, etc. Elites even run their own informal private
| scientific experiments with detailed data analytics to
| determine empirically which techniques deliver the best
| results.
| kodah wrote:
| Jordan is an incredible athlete and an incredible person. Not
| long ago a friend sent me a recording of Jordans last game
| against the Jazz, and man, I was seriously impressed at his
| tactical prowess. Two really amazing teams playing a game of
| human chess with some might and force of will mixed in was awe
| inspiring all over again. Watching Jordan rise to the occasion
| on top of that gave me goosebumps. I'm quite proud to have
| grown up watching his games.
| rdiddly wrote:
| Absolutely, why do you think the first jock called the first
| nerd a nerd for the first time? He was projecting!
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