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This take is so incredibly tired. What good would life be if we only had technical writers and PR people? Further, why stop at college? Why not just predeter

This take is so incredibly tired. What good would life be if we only had technical writers and PR people? Further, why stop at college? Why not just predetermine who is likely to be most successful based on their parents, and not school certain kids at all? This is beyond a slippery slope, and it's always expressed by someone with a LOT of education, like a fucking professor of economics with a PhD from an Ivy League school. My eyes couldn't be rolling harder. I have a successful career in tech of 20+ years, without a degree, and a HUGE amount of what's wrong with the culture of tech is that we are surrounded and led by folks who haven't studied sociology, political science, even economics, having HUMONGOUS impact on what those fields teach. Far more rarely will you hear people for whom higher education was always out of reach say that we think it had nothing to offer us. It's a great privilege, but I definitely think society could benefit from trying to get more education in the hands of folks who would do something with it, instead of greedy little fuckshits who think studying art and literature is a waste of time. I've been working in tech since I was 16 years old, and I can never get that time back. There are subjects which I'll never be as able to learn - particularly higher math - as I was at that age. I was excited to dive into my career when I was young, but I do not feel it yielded the best life I could have had.

dvt 9y ago
> My eyes couldn't be rolling harder. I have a successful career in tech of 20+ years, without a degree, and a HUGE amount of what's wrong with the culture of tech is that we are surrounded and led by folks who haven't studied sociology, political science, even economics, having HUMONGOUS impact on what those fields teach. Couldn't agree with this more. I'm relatively young, but I'm trying to get out of tech (and especially engineering) because of the lack of a stimulating cultural environment. The kind of conversations I like having, the kind of women I'd like to meet, and the kind of company I like to keep just don't exist in tech. Talking about video games was cool in my early 20s, but I've had 30+ coworkers that literally only talked about video games and the most recent tech stack. Yuck. Coming from having studied philosophy (at an elite school) and where most of my old classmates are lawyers now, it's kind of a bummer. As an aside, startup people/founders/investors tend to be much more eclectic, but tech, at the ground level, is an intellectual wasteland.
- grivescorbett 9y ago
  I’m glad other people feel the same as me. Sometimes it seems like if you’ve got a SDE job people think you’re the king of the hill. I’m working on an exit from tech as well.
  - tayo42 9y ago
    Exit to what? It'll be really hard to get paid anywhere near what software jobs pay?
    - hdkmraf 9y ago
      Farming
    - grivescorbett 9y ago
      The idea that software engineers are paid more than everyone is a fallacy. There are a good deal of jobs that pay significantly more, especially when looked at over the long run. It generally does require going back to school, which is a risk/reward tradeoff that must be examined.
- jschwartzi 9y ago
  I can say that the older colleagues I've had can definitely have better conversations than what you're describing. One of my coworkers and I talk about skiing form, mountain climbing, and some of his experiences growing up in the 60's. I think your experience is a byproduct of the ageism in most of the web-development companies in the bay area. You might want to consider getting in to embedded development, or some similar field that's totally unsexy and where the tools haven't changed or lost their usefulness in decades. It's a good living and none of your coworkers will talk about video games if you don't want to.
- uxp100 9y ago
  > Coming from having studied philosophy (at an elite school) and where most of my old classmates are lawyers now, it's kind of a bummer. As an aside, startup people/founders/investors tend to be much more eclectic, but tech, at the ground level, is an intellectual wasteland. Now my eyes are rolling. It must be contagious. I'm sure the famously fascinating and well loved folks known as Lawyers will be better to work with.
nugget 9y ago
What's stopping people from self-educating themselves in the humanities you mention? Formal education is far from the only way to learn.
- cryptoz 9y ago
  > What's stopping people from self-educating themselves in the humanities you mention? What's stopping me from building my own rocketship to Mars? Absolutely nothing, except for the fact I'm unlikely do it right (or at all). It's a terrible idea to look at a problem and say, "what's stopping this poor, under-educated person who has to work 10 hour days and feed a family of three from doing self-education?" Um.... a lot. Motivation, for one. A guarantee that the education will be worth anything when they're done, for two. And three, can they actually do it? Maybe they have enough self-control but that isn't all that matters. Many people can't self-educate - it won't work for them, as education is inherently a social process for some people. > Formal education is far from the only way to learn. Of course not - but it's great for a lot of people, and suggesting people just learn on their own shows that you don't really understand people. There are so many benefits to a formal education environment being accessible to you even if you don't want to use it - it helps far more people than you know with the basics of getting a real, useful education.
  - nugget 9y ago
    In the spirit of debate... > It's a terrible idea to look at a problem and say, "what's stopping this poor, under-educated person who has to work 10 hour days and feed a family of three from doing self-education?" So instead we pull them out of the labor market (no income) for 4 years and tack on $100k in student loans for a humanities degree that is unlikely to lead to a high paying job? > A guarantee that the education will be worth anything when they're done, for two. Who is guaranteed this today? The reason we're having more of these debates about the value of formal secondary education is that the economy is pivoting from pedigree-based to skills-based hiring, and leaving a lot of degree chasers (and their families) underemployed and confused. > And three, can they actually do it? Maybe they have enough self-control but that isn't all that matters. If 40% of people who start secondary education fail to finish, then maybe it's appropriate to have a better filter for the motivation, discipline, and self-control needed to succeed? I know I didn't have the required inputs at 18, but I sure did by my mid 20s. > Many people can't self-educate - it won't work for them, as education is inherently a social process for some people. Self-education doesn't have to be a solitary endeavor. There's a spectrum of opportunities between isolation on one end and traditional college on the other - meetups, mentorship, book clubs, online forums and communities, interactive online courses, community groups, etc. I'm just arguing that if we want a generation that values humanities - which I agree is important - we can get it in other ways than pushing a lot of 18 year old kids into history, philosophy, english, and political science degrees at expensive 4 year universities.
WalterBright 9y ago
> greedy little fuckshits who think studying art and literature is a waste of time. Learning advanced math has definitely improved my life, often in unexpected ways. But I have a hard time seeing how studying art and literature would.
- lsc 9y ago
  >Learning advanced math has definitely improved my life, often in unexpected ways. (Emphasis mine.) My impression is that the arts is about expressing yourself, and about understanding others. It's about understanding the human condition. I think that just like how understanding technology will allow you to see this years technical fads and how similar they were to the cycle a decade back, reading history and literature will allow you to see the same cycles in politics and communication fads. Also, having a common 'culture' to draw upon aids in communication. Having a common culture of the classics, I think, does this better than most things because the classics change more slowly than most things.
  - WalterBright 9y ago
    Thanks for replying instead of downvoting me, but I still find your answer unsatisfying. I actually agree that learning a bit of history and politics is quite useful. But I mentioned art and literature. I'm a major consumer of art and books, but why would I need to study them? Let's take art, for example. There are many cases where counterfeiters have created fake "masterpieces" that fooled all the experts, even creating masterpieces that are in the style of some famous painter, but were original creations, and were sold accredited as being lost works of that painter. Once unmasked, those paintings became essentially worthless. Hence, it's "value" as art was purely based on who painted it. It had nothing to do with the artwork itself. To me that calls into question the whole purpose of the study of art, as even the experts seem ill-equipped to determine what is "great" art and what is a "hack job".
    - lsc 9y ago
      >Once unmasked, those paintings became essentially worthless. >Hence, it's "value" as art was purely based on who painted it. It had nothing to do with the artwork itself. To me that calls into question the whole purpose of the study of art, as even the experts seem ill-equipped to determine what is "great" art and what is a "hack job". One can make the argument that if society doesn't fully understand something, that makes studying that thing that isn't fully understood more valuable rather than less valuable. In fact, I think that might be the whole of our disagreement (and the larger disagreement between those who think school should be purely vocational and those who value a broader education.) I believe this is what is meant when the college people say that they are trying to teach "how to learn" - it's about thinking about problems where the answer is unknown and maybe unknowable.
auggierose 9y ago
If you want to get into higher math, now is an excellent time. You can get all of the books for free on the internet, if you know where to look (Library Genesis anyone?). If you put in 4 years dedicated to learning math, I guarantee you that you will get at least as much knowledge out of this as if you had done this when you were younger.
- newbear 9y ago
  Not only, the visualizations available today replace years of comprehending, ie 3brown1blue , I had a tenured professor who didn't know the real world applications of linear algebra
  - lsc 9y ago
    http://www.3blue1brown.com/ http://www.3blue1brown.com/ I think you meant? But thanks. I'm filing that away
  - MarkMc 9y ago
    There are actually two reasons why 3blue1brown video lectures are superior to old fashioned professor-and-blackboard lectures: 1. A video with animation and clear text and colours can be far more effective than chalk on blackboard. For example, watch 60 seconds of this video on Fourier Transformations: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=spUNpyF58BY&t=2m20s https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=spUNpyF58BY&t... Such an effective, efficient presentation simply could not be done with chalk and blackboard. 2. The internet provides a way to watch the best of the best lectures in the world. Grant Sanderson, the guy behind 3blue1brown, is a Khan Academy talent search winner: https://www.khanacademy.org/about/blog/post/125876900000/meet-our-talent-search-winners https://www.khanacademy.org/about/blog/post/125876900000/mee...
- lsc 9y ago
  >If you put in 4 years dedicated to learning math, I guarantee you that you will get at least as much knowledge out of this as if you had done this when you were younger. This is... not the majority view? But I am attempting to teach myself math right now, as an older (late 30s) person with a job. The best tools I've found are Serge Lang's books (Basic Mathematics) and Khan Academy. I would be super interested in recommendations for better tools and resources; Money isn't really an object, at least at student scale, but time is limited. Khan academy, for me, is useful mostly in that it feeds me problems to solve, and I think that's the important part? At least for the 'give me problems and grade them' part, Khan is way better than a tutor, from experience. I think for the "explain things to me" either Lang's book or talking to a friend works well; My problem with local tutors is that most of them couldn't really help me with proofs for the basic math I was learning, and I think that's essential to actual understanding. I've had much better luck imposing on friends for that. But I don't know. I'm only 60% done with Khan's "world of math" and that is somewhere near the end of what my co-workers did in 8th grade, as far as I can tell. I've been putting a low level of effort into this for about a year, while working full time, so that's not quite as embarrassing as it sounds? Still kinda embarrassing. I certainly have improved my arithmetic and attention to detail, though. But that's been the hard part for me; most of the other things I've learned, I could just go and read the books. With math? I mean, books are fine, but it seems like I have to spend a lot of time writing things out, doing problems.
spraak 9y ago
Did you read the same article as I did? It seems like your bitterness or regret is preventing you from understanding the author's point.
solidsnack9000 9y ago
...a HUGE amount of what's wrong with the culture of tech is that we are surrounded and led by folks who haven't studied sociology, political science, even economics, having HUMONGOUS impact on what those fields teach. Most of those people have educations, nominally balanced by things like Common Core. Treating the study of each art, or of literature or of each branch of history as the work of a lifetime is as much a problem as treating them as a waste of time. We need a way to be educated without it having anything to do with making a living, so that we can bring critical thinking to bear however we make our living.
lend000 9y ago
The grass is always greener on the other side. Goes both ways, but I think the data is stacked against you. Plenty of people just don't fit the college mold and should go work or study in a different way (vocational school, certifications, boot-camps, self education, etc.)
bfung 9y ago
Quite a tangent topic to the article. The article uses the first 3 paragraphs to setup the premise that schooling is not translating directly to job skills. The article is not about "we should get rid of non tech subjects". The real TL;DR summary is in the last sentence of a very long article: My thesis, in a single sentence: Civilized societies revolve around education now, but there is a better—indeed, more civilized—way. If everyone had a college degree, the result would be not great jobs for all, but runaway credential inflation. Trying to spread success with education spreads education but not success. On topic for the whole article please.
ineedasername 9y ago
Absolutely. Even leaving aside less tangible benefits, broad education of this sort allows for broader range of lateral thinking, more frames of reference. And on the argument: yes, the degree is "signaling". That's why there's a filter at the 4 year mark, because those who dont get there are less likely to have the same traits as those who do. But folks who should know better throw around "it's signalling" as though nothing was under the signal, just the signal itself. Saying the impact of senior year is disproportionately high also ignores that its when students tend to take the most advanced topics and add a capstone to their undergrad career. It's like saying the last quarter of a of a game is way overated and athletes are over paid for winning because most of the work was done earlier in the game. I. just. can't. even.
late2part 9y ago
Your second sentence suggests lacking a college degree condemns one to those fates. What % of your peers at your company lack a college degree?
hzhou321 9y ago
It is not arguing for elliminating educations. It is arguing that we don't need force every one education. It is arguing that a forced education is not a really a good education.
dang 9y ago
You make a good point, but could you please not rant like this on Hacker News? I mean, "greedy little fuckshits"? Come on. The good part of your comment talks specifically about your own experience. It's natural to have strong feelings based on that, and Hacker News threads are a fine place to talk about one's own experiences. Just don't make generic rants out of them or sling mud at people you disagree with. For example, your sentence that begins "Far more rarely" is a fine contribution to the thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html p.s. Please don't use allcaps for emphasis. That's in the guidelines too.

dvt 9y ago

> My eyes couldn't be rolling harder. I have a successful career in tech of 20+ years, without a degree, and a HUGE amount of what's wrong with the culture of tech is that we are surrounded and led by folks who haven't studied sociology, political science, even economics, having HUMONGOUS impact on what those fields teach. Couldn't agree with this more. I'm relatively young, but I'm trying to get out of tech (and especially engineering) because of the lack of a stimulating cultural environment. The kind of conversations I like having, the kind of women I'd like to meet, and the kind of company I like to keep just don't exist in tech. Talking about video games was cool in my early 20s, but I've had 30+ coworkers that literally only talked about video games and the most recent tech stack. Yuck. Coming from having studied philosophy (at an elite school) and where most of my old classmates are lawyers now, it's kind of a bummer. As an aside, startup people/founders/investors tend to be much more eclectic, but tech, at the ground level, is an intellectual wasteland.

grivescorbett 9y ago
I’m glad other people feel the same as me. Sometimes it seems like if you’ve got a SDE job people think you’re the king of the hill. I’m working on an exit from tech as well.
- tayo42 9y ago
  Exit to what? It'll be really hard to get paid anywhere near what software jobs pay?
  - hdkmraf 9y ago
    Farming
  - grivescorbett 9y ago
    The idea that software engineers are paid more than everyone is a fallacy. There are a good deal of jobs that pay significantly more, especially when looked at over the long run. It generally does require going back to school, which is a risk/reward tradeoff that must be examined.
jschwartzi 9y ago
I can say that the older colleagues I've had can definitely have better conversations than what you're describing. One of my coworkers and I talk about skiing form, mountain climbing, and some of his experiences growing up in the 60's. I think your experience is a byproduct of the ageism in most of the web-development companies in the bay area. You might want to consider getting in to embedded development, or some similar field that's totally unsexy and where the tools haven't changed or lost their usefulness in decades. It's a good living and none of your coworkers will talk about video games if you don't want to.
uxp100 9y ago
> Coming from having studied philosophy (at an elite school) and where most of my old classmates are lawyers now, it's kind of a bummer. As an aside, startup people/founders/investors tend to be much more eclectic, but tech, at the ground level, is an intellectual wasteland. Now my eyes are rolling. It must be contagious. I'm sure the famously fascinating and well loved folks known as Lawyers will be better to work with.

nugget 9y ago

What's stopping people from self-educating themselves in the humanities you mention? Formal education is far from the only way to learn.

cryptoz 9y ago
> What's stopping people from self-educating themselves in the humanities you mention? What's stopping me from building my own rocketship to Mars? Absolutely nothing, except for the fact I'm unlikely do it right (or at all). It's a terrible idea to look at a problem and say, "what's stopping this poor, under-educated person who has to work 10 hour days and feed a family of three from doing self-education?" Um.... a lot. Motivation, for one. A guarantee that the education will be worth anything when they're done, for two. And three, can they actually do it? Maybe they have enough self-control but that isn't all that matters. Many people can't self-educate - it won't work for them, as education is inherently a social process for some people. > Formal education is far from the only way to learn. Of course not - but it's great for a lot of people, and suggesting people just learn on their own shows that you don't really understand people. There are so many benefits to a formal education environment being accessible to you even if you don't want to use it - it helps far more people than you know with the basics of getting a real, useful education.
- nugget 9y ago
  In the spirit of debate... > It's a terrible idea to look at a problem and say, "what's stopping this poor, under-educated person who has to work 10 hour days and feed a family of three from doing self-education?" So instead we pull them out of the labor market (no income) for 4 years and tack on $100k in student loans for a humanities degree that is unlikely to lead to a high paying job? > A guarantee that the education will be worth anything when they're done, for two. Who is guaranteed this today? The reason we're having more of these debates about the value of formal secondary education is that the economy is pivoting from pedigree-based to skills-based hiring, and leaving a lot of degree chasers (and their families) underemployed and confused. > And three, can they actually do it? Maybe they have enough self-control but that isn't all that matters. If 40% of people who start secondary education fail to finish, then maybe it's appropriate to have a better filter for the motivation, discipline, and self-control needed to succeed? I know I didn't have the required inputs at 18, but I sure did by my mid 20s. > Many people can't self-educate - it won't work for them, as education is inherently a social process for some people. Self-education doesn't have to be a solitary endeavor. There's a spectrum of opportunities between isolation on one end and traditional college on the other - meetups, mentorship, book clubs, online forums and communities, interactive online courses, community groups, etc. I'm just arguing that if we want a generation that values humanities - which I agree is important - we can get it in other ways than pushing a lot of 18 year old kids into history, philosophy, english, and political science degrees at expensive 4 year universities.

WalterBright 9y ago

> greedy little fuckshits who think studying art and literature is a waste of time. Learning advanced math has definitely improved my life, often in unexpected ways. But I have a hard time seeing how studying art and literature would.

lsc 9y ago
>Learning advanced math has definitely improved my life, often in unexpected ways. (Emphasis mine.) My impression is that the arts is about expressing yourself, and about understanding others. It's about understanding the human condition. I think that just like how understanding technology will allow you to see this years technical fads and how similar they were to the cycle a decade back, reading history and literature will allow you to see the same cycles in politics and communication fads. Also, having a common 'culture' to draw upon aids in communication. Having a common culture of the classics, I think, does this better than most things because the classics change more slowly than most things.
- WalterBright 9y ago
  Thanks for replying instead of downvoting me, but I still find your answer unsatisfying. I actually agree that learning a bit of history and politics is quite useful. But I mentioned art and literature. I'm a major consumer of art and books, but why would I need to study them? Let's take art, for example. There are many cases where counterfeiters have created fake "masterpieces" that fooled all the experts, even creating masterpieces that are in the style of some famous painter, but were original creations, and were sold accredited as being lost works of that painter. Once unmasked, those paintings became essentially worthless. Hence, it's "value" as art was purely based on who painted it. It had nothing to do with the artwork itself. To me that calls into question the whole purpose of the study of art, as even the experts seem ill-equipped to determine what is "great" art and what is a "hack job".
  - lsc 9y ago
    >Once unmasked, those paintings became essentially worthless. >Hence, it's "value" as art was purely based on who painted it. It had nothing to do with the artwork itself. To me that calls into question the whole purpose of the study of art, as even the experts seem ill-equipped to determine what is "great" art and what is a "hack job". One can make the argument that if society doesn't fully understand something, that makes studying that thing that isn't fully understood more valuable rather than less valuable. In fact, I think that might be the whole of our disagreement (and the larger disagreement between those who think school should be purely vocational and those who value a broader education.) I believe this is what is meant when the college people say that they are trying to teach "how to learn" - it's about thinking about problems where the answer is unknown and maybe unknowable.

auggierose 9y ago

If you want to get into higher math, now is an excellent time. You can get all of the books for free on the internet, if you know where to look (Library Genesis anyone?). If you put in 4 years dedicated to learning math, I guarantee you that you will get at least as much knowledge out of this as if you had done this when you were younger.

newbear 9y ago
Not only, the visualizations available today replace years of comprehending, ie 3brown1blue , I had a tenured professor who didn't know the real world applications of linear algebra
- lsc 9y ago
  http://www.3blue1brown.com/ http://www.3blue1brown.com/ I think you meant? But thanks. I'm filing that away
- MarkMc 9y ago
  There are actually two reasons why 3blue1brown video lectures are superior to old fashioned professor-and-blackboard lectures: 1. A video with animation and clear text and colours can be far more effective than chalk on blackboard. For example, watch 60 seconds of this video on Fourier Transformations: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=spUNpyF58BY&t=2m20s https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=spUNpyF58BY&t... Such an effective, efficient presentation simply could not be done with chalk and blackboard. 2. The internet provides a way to watch the best of the best lectures in the world. Grant Sanderson, the guy behind 3blue1brown, is a Khan Academy talent search winner: https://www.khanacademy.org/about/blog/post/125876900000/meet-our-talent-search-winners https://www.khanacademy.org/about/blog/post/125876900000/mee...
lsc 9y ago
>If you put in 4 years dedicated to learning math, I guarantee you that you will get at least as much knowledge out of this as if you had done this when you were younger. This is... not the majority view? But I am attempting to teach myself math right now, as an older (late 30s) person with a job. The best tools I've found are Serge Lang's books (Basic Mathematics) and Khan Academy. I would be super interested in recommendations for better tools and resources; Money isn't really an object, at least at student scale, but time is limited. Khan academy, for me, is useful mostly in that it feeds me problems to solve, and I think that's the important part? At least for the 'give me problems and grade them' part, Khan is way better than a tutor, from experience. I think for the "explain things to me" either Lang's book or talking to a friend works well; My problem with local tutors is that most of them couldn't really help me with proofs for the basic math I was learning, and I think that's essential to actual understanding. I've had much better luck imposing on friends for that. But I don't know. I'm only 60% done with Khan's "world of math" and that is somewhere near the end of what my co-workers did in 8th grade, as far as I can tell. I've been putting a low level of effort into this for about a year, while working full time, so that's not quite as embarrassing as it sounds? Still kinda embarrassing. I certainly have improved my arithmetic and attention to detail, though. But that's been the hard part for me; most of the other things I've learned, I could just go and read the books. With math? I mean, books are fine, but it seems like I have to spend a lot of time writing things out, doing problems.

spraak 9y ago

Did you read the same article as I did? It seems like your bitterness or regret is preventing you from understanding the author's point.

solidsnack9000 9y ago

...a HUGE amount of what's wrong with the culture of tech is that we are surrounded and led by folks who haven't studied sociology, political science, even economics, having HUMONGOUS impact on what those fields teach. Most of those people have educations, nominally balanced by things like Common Core. Treating the study of each art, or of literature or of each branch of history as the work of a lifetime is as much a problem as treating them as a waste of time. We need a way to be educated without it having anything to do with making a living, so that we can bring critical thinking to bear however we make our living.

lend000 9y ago

The grass is always greener on the other side. Goes both ways, but I think the data is stacked against you. Plenty of people just don't fit the college mold and should go work or study in a different way (vocational school, certifications, boot-camps, self education, etc.)

bfung 9y ago

Quite a tangent topic to the article. The article uses the first 3 paragraphs to setup the premise that schooling is not translating directly to job skills. The article is not about "we should get rid of non tech subjects". The real TL;DR summary is in the last sentence of a very long article: My thesis, in a single sentence: Civilized societies revolve around education now, but there is a better—indeed, more civilized—way. If everyone had a college degree, the result would be not great jobs for all, but runaway credential inflation. Trying to spread success with education spreads education but not success. On topic for the whole article please.

ineedasername 9y ago

Absolutely. Even leaving aside less tangible benefits, broad education of this sort allows for broader range of lateral thinking, more frames of reference. And on the argument: yes, the degree is "signaling". That's why there's a filter at the 4 year mark, because those who dont get there are less likely to have the same traits as those who do. But folks who should know better throw around "it's signalling" as though nothing was under the signal, just the signal itself. Saying the impact of senior year is disproportionately high also ignores that its when students tend to take the most advanced topics and add a capstone to their undergrad career. It's like saying the last quarter of a of a game is way overated and athletes are over paid for winning because most of the work was done earlier in the game. I. just. can't. even.

late2part 9y ago

Your second sentence suggests lacking a college degree condemns one to those fates. What % of your peers at your company lack a college degree?

hzhou321 9y ago

It is not arguing for elliminating educations. It is arguing that we don't need force every one education. It is arguing that a forced education is not a really a good education.

dang 9y ago

You make a good point, but could you please not rant like this on Hacker News? I mean, "greedy little fuckshits"? Come on. The good part of your comment talks specifically about your own experience. It's natural to have strong feelings based on that, and Hacker News threads are a fine place to talk about one's own experiences. Just don't make generic rants out of them or sling mud at people you disagree with. For example, your sentence that begins "Far more rarely" is a fine contribution to the thread. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html p.s. Please don't use allcaps for emphasis. That's in the guidelines too.