4 ms·

"A calm river of nerditry"

• mambodog 16y ago
  I really resent this. I don't know about you guys but I don't think of myself as a 'geek' or a 'nerd'. Having a high level of domain specific knowledge doesn't mean you need a label, it just means that you are good at what you do. I am a creator, I don't feel the need to define myself in terms of my tools (and how well I know them). When I first ran across HN I was refreshed by how little of these terms I saw.
  • mambodog 16y ago
    Wow, anyone care to reply rather than just downvoting?
    • aeontech 16y ago
      I didn't downvote, but I understand why people did. Both the parent comment and your reply add more or less nothing to the discussion. The problem isn't your comment, the problem is the parent comment, but if you feed the trolls, well, you know what happens :)
  • whimsy 16y ago
    This is all well and good. You don't need labels. In this case, however, labels serve a purpose - they identify someone as a member of an ingroup. There is, unequivocally, a "nerd culture." (What that is, of course, is a matter for much debate.) Identifying or presenting as a nerd communicates that the signaler considers themself a part of that culture or community. Finding communities amongst each domain can be difficult. Luckily, there is a culture that embraces and celebrates domain specific knowledge regardless of the domain. Members of that culture signal to each other by identifying as "geek" or "nerd." Doesn't this make the voluntary label okay?