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> And at the end of the day it's just the weird nerd kids being bullied as always. This. So much. I've been a nerd since middle school and have experienced a f

> And at the end of the day it's just the weird nerd kids being bullied as always. This. So much. I've been a nerd since middle school and have experienced a fair amount of bullying while growing up. But the fact is, nothing has really changed between then and now. It has always been 'safe' to bully the nerds. No other group of people receives this level of public venomous screed. We shrug and accept it because we are used to it. We as a group need to get better about advocating for our rights to live and work as humans just like everyone else and be more deliberate about pointing out the completely bizarre policy environment of California in general and San Francisco in particular that has led to this explosion of issues.

dondawest 7y ago
> It has always been 'safe' to bully the nerds. No other group of people receives this level of public venomous screed. It’s because nerds are too busy following our interests to bother attacking back. Defending oneself in general doesn’t work: attacking back does. The maxim “Never defend, always attack” is a maxim for a reason. The only real “solution” here is to attack back and bully the people who bullied you in the first place. And is that really a solution? If as nerds, we defend ourselves, then we stay in the frame of the bully. If we attack back, we become bullying nerds. Society needs scapegoats. For decades and decades, nerds have been safe to pick on. It’s not until you get an extremely aggressive nerd like Bill Gates that a member of the “nerd class” even begins to defend themselves. And aggressive nerds are rare and generally self-interested. Rather than attacking back for the “nerd class” as a whole, they attack companies competing with theirs. What is the solution to this quandary? Everyone who’s read Girard knows we need scapegoats. If not nerds — oh wait, I mean “tech Bros” — then who else can we scapegoat as a society? The answer should obviously be Wall Street IMO, but that moment seems to have passed when the Occupy movement got culturally supplanted by in-group identity politics. IMO in order to stop the bullying, we must become bullies ourselves which poses two questions: * do we really wanna do that? * and would it even work since Occupy failed so dramatically?
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  Nerds are at best a subculture, not a social class. And usually it's not even a subculture, but a collection of different subcultures and interests and archetypes and stereotypes, often mutually exclusive and conflicting.
  - dondawest 7y ago
    The difference between a subculture and a social class is blurry at best. Many social classes are composed of different subcultures — like the nerd social class.
    - Apocryphon 7y ago
      The difference is that subcultures are not a legally protected class.
      - username90 7y ago
        Why does that matter for this discussion?
        Apocryphon 7y ago
        Because nerds are not a real class deserving protection, any more than amorphous arbitrary groups such as “SJWs” or “bros”. These are (pop) cultural designations based on folk definitions without any real basis in reality. Furthermore, being scolded in Buzzfeed News now and then does not constitute bullying and is not actual persecution. The closest thing to actual violence against “nerds” (wrt the actual subject of TFA) were rocks thrown at tech company shuttle buses a few years ago in the Bay Area, which doesn’t seem to happen anymore. And those actions can be framed as relating to real issues such as tension between different economic classes and how localities change with economic development. It’s ludicrous to claim that there’s such a thing as a “nerd class” and hold Bill Gates as an exemplar of one, when his time at Microsoft can be likewise framed as nerd exploitation- see everything about Microsoft’s monopolistic actions in the ‘90s impacting other “nerds”. Unlike classes based upon religion, race, nationality, gender, or socioeconomic status, “nerds” are a tribe that don’t actually exist beyond the schoolyard. At least, it’s far more fuzzy, even compared to other identities such as “hacker”, the latter which is at least tied to specific technical professions and activities that exist in the real world. Finally, if people are going to codify nerd identity, then we’re going to end up relitigating the tiresome “nerd culture is being appropriated” pop culture battles over comic book and sci-fi/fantasy movies and video games becoming mainstream, and that’s a very tedious can of worms.
johnpowell 7y ago
How are you bullied in your daily life? I visited your about section on your page you list in your profile and you look like a normal dude, and it says you are 29. This is my junior year picture that is in the yearbook. https://i.imgur.com/qDmYOJV.png https://i.imgur.com/qDmYOJV.png High school wasn't great for me. But by 29 I knew people had it worse and I realized nobody wants to hang out with a perpetual victim. Do you think you shouldn't have to work to get laid? Again, really curious how you are are being bullied. Are people pushing you into lockers? Or do you just equate bulling with not getting the respect you think you deserve?
- saithound 7y ago
  You implied he was premature, a perpetual victim, and asked loaded questions implying he can't get laid. By trying to belittle and demean him, you ended up strengthening his point. I can't fathom what you tried to accomplish by looking up his age. No matter what number you find, you'd dismiss him with either "you're only N years old, too young to realize that..." or "by N I was old enough to understand that..."

dondawest 7y ago

> It has always been 'safe' to bully the nerds. No other group of people receives this level of public venomous screed. It’s because nerds are too busy following our interests to bother attacking back. Defending oneself in general doesn’t work: attacking back does. The maxim “Never defend, always attack” is a maxim for a reason. The only real “solution” here is to attack back and bully the people who bullied you in the first place. And is that really a solution? If as nerds, we defend ourselves, then we stay in the frame of the bully. If we attack back, we become bullying nerds. Society needs scapegoats. For decades and decades, nerds have been safe to pick on. It’s not until you get an extremely aggressive nerd like Bill Gates that a member of the “nerd class” even begins to defend themselves. And aggressive nerds are rare and generally self-interested. Rather than attacking back for the “nerd class” as a whole, they attack companies competing with theirs. What is the solution to this quandary? Everyone who’s read Girard knows we need scapegoats. If not nerds — oh wait, I mean “tech Bros” — then who else can we scapegoat as a society? The answer should obviously be Wall Street IMO, but that moment seems to have passed when the Occupy movement got culturally supplanted by in-group identity politics. IMO in order to stop the bullying, we must become bullies ourselves which poses two questions: * do we really wanna do that? * and would it even work since Occupy failed so dramatically?

Apocryphon 7y ago
Nerds are at best a subculture, not a social class. And usually it's not even a subculture, but a collection of different subcultures and interests and archetypes and stereotypes, often mutually exclusive and conflicting.
- dondawest 7y ago
  The difference between a subculture and a social class is blurry at best. Many social classes are composed of different subcultures — like the nerd social class.
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    The difference is that subcultures are not a legally protected class.
    - username90 7y ago
      Why does that matter for this discussion?
      - Apocryphon 7y ago
        Because nerds are not a real class deserving protection, any more than amorphous arbitrary groups such as “SJWs” or “bros”. These are (pop) cultural designations based on folk definitions without any real basis in reality. Furthermore, being scolded in Buzzfeed News now and then does not constitute bullying and is not actual persecution. The closest thing to actual violence against “nerds” (wrt the actual subject of TFA) were rocks thrown at tech company shuttle buses a few years ago in the Bay Area, which doesn’t seem to happen anymore. And those actions can be framed as relating to real issues such as tension between different economic classes and how localities change with economic development. It’s ludicrous to claim that there’s such a thing as a “nerd class” and hold Bill Gates as an exemplar of one, when his time at Microsoft can be likewise framed as nerd exploitation- see everything about Microsoft’s monopolistic actions in the ‘90s impacting other “nerds”. Unlike classes based upon religion, race, nationality, gender, or socioeconomic status, “nerds” are a tribe that don’t actually exist beyond the schoolyard. At least, it’s far more fuzzy, even compared to other identities such as “hacker”, the latter which is at least tied to specific technical professions and activities that exist in the real world. Finally, if people are going to codify nerd identity, then we’re going to end up relitigating the tiresome “nerd culture is being appropriated” pop culture battles over comic book and sci-fi/fantasy movies and video games becoming mainstream, and that’s a very tedious can of worms.

johnpowell 7y ago

How are you bullied in your daily life? I visited your about section on your page you list in your profile and you look like a normal dude, and it says you are 29. This is my junior year picture that is in the yearbook. https://i.imgur.com/qDmYOJV.png https://i.imgur.com/qDmYOJV.png High school wasn't great for me. But by 29 I knew people had it worse and I realized nobody wants to hang out with a perpetual victim. Do you think you shouldn't have to work to get laid? Again, really curious how you are are being bullied. Are people pushing you into lockers? Or do you just equate bulling with not getting the respect you think you deserve?

saithound 7y ago
You implied he was premature, a perpetual victim, and asked loaded questions implying he can't get laid. By trying to belittle and demean him, you ended up strengthening his point. I can't fathom what you tried to accomplish by looking up his age. No matter what number you find, you'd dismiss him with either "you're only N years old, too young to realize that..." or "by N I was old enough to understand that..."