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Lol on being downvoted. I was a writer and editor for Wired for a decade, including writing the first story ever about YC, covering security and breaking news o

Lol on being downvoted. I was a writer and editor for Wired for a decade, including writing the first story ever about YC, covering security and breaking news on the NSA and AT&T's spying of Americans. But sure, what journalism needs is "neutral reporting of facts." F*ckin' engineers should spend less time debating React vs. Vue.js and try the humanities some time.

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flexball 8y ago
F'ing engineers can read just fine, the humanities are not the bastion of enlightenment and hard work that its graduates think it is. That was already clear to me in college when their weekly course and work load was approximately half of ours. I have since then read a book or two, yes. A better question is: how many journalists know how to code? Because that's the skill necessary to make sense of the world today and the massive volume of data it throws your way. I don't expect completely neutral reporting, but I do expect some basic data literacy rather than anecdotes spun into narrative and repeated breathlessly from outlet to outlet. Plus, if we are awash in manipulation, I'd prefer to find that out from an independent source rather than a three letter acronym with a long rep sheet of human rights abuses. The GDPR cookie debacle revealed this better than anything: what really drives the news industry now is tech, they're beholden to it. Plus, it's all third party. They no longer own their beat, the beat owns them. All the griping about FB and Twitter is exceedingly amusing to me for this reason. It's the news industry that capitulated, but is now chiding the rest of us for not having stood up, using the giants as a scape goat. We need journalism more than ever, but journalism needs to get its shit together first.
rossdavidh 8y ago
Speaking as someone with an engineering degree, I am all for having engineers know something of the humanities. I'm not sure that your comment is demonstrating the kind of communication skill that is often improved by some time studying the humanities. I have gotten comments downvoted as well (on this very thread), and I can't say that I see a whole lot of correlation between which of my comments get downvoted and which were ill thought out. But, if a typical humanities prof were grading a reply that was written in the style of yours, I'm not sure they would think, "aha, this shows the benefit of a humanities education". But, it's annoying to get downvoted, and not always deserved. It's just not usually helpful, in my experience, to respond to it directly. You said something, others didn't like it. Either: 1) you said something true, but painful, in which case you don't need to repeat it, and responding just distracts from your original point, or 2) you said something that wasn't on target, in which case again complaining about the downvotes isn't constructive.
debatem1 8y ago
I see your time studying the humanities has given you a fine grasp of the art of persuasive writing. Why you wanted to pursuade people to downvote you is a mystery to me, but perhaps a more careful study of Vue.js will yield the understanding I so long for...

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flexball 8y ago

F'ing engineers can read just fine, the humanities are not the bastion of enlightenment and hard work that its graduates think it is. That was already clear to me in college when their weekly course and work load was approximately half of ours. I have since then read a book or two, yes. A better question is: how many journalists know how to code? Because that's the skill necessary to make sense of the world today and the massive volume of data it throws your way. I don't expect completely neutral reporting, but I do expect some basic data literacy rather than anecdotes spun into narrative and repeated breathlessly from outlet to outlet. Plus, if we are awash in manipulation, I'd prefer to find that out from an independent source rather than a three letter acronym with a long rep sheet of human rights abuses. The GDPR cookie debacle revealed this better than anything: what really drives the news industry now is tech, they're beholden to it. Plus, it's all third party. They no longer own their beat, the beat owns them. All the griping about FB and Twitter is exceedingly amusing to me for this reason. It's the news industry that capitulated, but is now chiding the rest of us for not having stood up, using the giants as a scape goat. We need journalism more than ever, but journalism needs to get its shit together first.

rossdavidh 8y ago

Speaking as someone with an engineering degree, I am all for having engineers know something of the humanities. I'm not sure that your comment is demonstrating the kind of communication skill that is often improved by some time studying the humanities. I have gotten comments downvoted as well (on this very thread), and I can't say that I see a whole lot of correlation between which of my comments get downvoted and which were ill thought out. But, if a typical humanities prof were grading a reply that was written in the style of yours, I'm not sure they would think, "aha, this shows the benefit of a humanities education". But, it's annoying to get downvoted, and not always deserved. It's just not usually helpful, in my experience, to respond to it directly. You said something, others didn't like it. Either: 1) you said something true, but painful, in which case you don't need to repeat it, and responding just distracts from your original point, or 2) you said something that wasn't on target, in which case again complaining about the downvotes isn't constructive.

debatem1 8y ago

I see your time studying the humanities has given you a fine grasp of the art of persuasive writing. Why you wanted to pursuade people to downvote you is a mystery to me, but perhaps a more careful study of Vue.js will yield the understanding I so long for...