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Silicon Valley’s geeks are trying to turn themselves into jocks
- herbst 10y agowhat a random pile of shit
- dudul 10y agoGood way to put it yeah.
- wmeredith 10y agoThis is bizarrely low brow for The Economist. What the hell? I can't tell if it's satire or human interest or what.
- bllguo 10y agoEmbarrassing. This tripe gets published on The Economist these days? A piece on the fitness trend in SV without the trash psychoanalysis would have been somewhat interesting.
- thesimpsons1022 10y agosad actually because the economist is a good publication otherwise
- bllguo 10y agoexactly, that was my impression. Now I'm not so sure.
- n00b101 10y agoCould it be related to Pearson PLC selling off its 50% equity stake in The Economist Group in Aug 2015 for £469m?
- seizethecheese 10y agoHighly unlikely. Pearson PLC is a publicly traded company whereas the buyers of the equity stake are private families. The families are a lot more likely to act in a way that maximizes long term value over short term profit than Pearson.
- ConfuciusSay02 10y agoIf by good publication you mean establishment propaganda then you'd be right. You just need to look at what the Economist was pushing in the lead up to the Iraq war and the 2008 meltdown.
- serg_chernata 10y agoFunnily enough, at the same time I've seen some really nice pieces coming out of Buzzfeed as of late.
- vannevar 10y agoNot to mention the assumption that all of Silicon Valley nerd-dom is run exclusively by men.
- seizethecheese 10y ago> Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, gets on the treadmill by five in the morning. Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s boss, is a fan of squats, push-ups and jogging. Brian Chesky, a co-founder of Airbnb, was once a competitive bodybuilder. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk both reportedly have “pecs to die for”. Tech executives are the celebrities of this community, and this is gossip-rag level reporting.
- golergka 10y agoTypical Buzzfeed article.
- fbonetti 10y agoExcept it's in the Economist. Bizarre.
- cylinder 10y agoMy general rule on trend pieces: ignore them all.
- sandworm101 10y agoA junk article, but I would add that there is one aspect to the word "jock" that the silicon valley elite aren't respecting. They are not competing in heavily-regulated sports. For all the talk of clean living, drugs and "sups" are common. A jock is someone who works at being competitive, regardless of look. These guys are only interested in projecting an image.
- sulam 10y agoYou're being downvoted heavily, and I thought I might mention possible justifications for that. You have an impressive density of third-rail-steppage on your way down the karma hole! :) 1) every sufficiently regulated sport seems to have frequent violations of these regulations. Clearly "nerds" (a term I find nearly as demeaning as "jocks") are not the only ones trying to hack the body. 2) Talking about people's health activities as both you and this article have done is reductionist to the point of absurdity. There are many ways people try to improve their health, some are performance minded but plenty are looking to improve base metrics like weight, body fat percentages and such. You can't describe all of silicon valley in a sweeping statement in such a basic area of human activity. 3) The false dichotomy between "nerds" and "jocks" is silly and false, at least in my experience. Anecdatally, I worked with an extremely competitive rugby player who was also a great functional programmer, and he's far from the only example I could provide. This is an 80's stereotype and seeing it perpetuated by the Economist (and then echoed) is disappointing.
- sandworm101 10y agoFunny, I'm not being "heavily" downvoted (-1) nor did I mention any dichotomy. I work with these guys. I exercise with them (personally, I'm a swimmer). They are in it for the body image, not to compete in regulated sport. With no rules forbidding them, the use of substances legal or otherwise is common. Jocks aren't image people. That term is associated with sport, for those who compete rather than simply exercise for purposes of health/fitness/look.
- redler 10y agoThe real submission here should be a thought piece along the lines of "what the hell is going on over at the Economist?", providing this link as evidence of its decline.
- ipozgaj 10y agoFor a moment I thought I was reading Buzzfeed, not the Economist.
- cloudjacker 10y agoAs someone that recently submersed himself in the Bay Area and its resentment of change: WTF is a tech bro? That's not a thing