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I found myself in this maybe 10 years after the author did. The idea I have gotten from it (and my own life) is that "big movements" (zeitgeists) don't really

I found myself in this maybe 10 years after the author did. The idea I have gotten from it (and my own life) is that "big movements" (zeitgeists) don't really end up meaning much personally. They are created by the media and historians, either before or after things happen. This guy got into tech by getting a temp job. He needed the money, and Apple needed somebody to enter data. I guess a moral of the story is, if you want to be a part of the "future", you are better off entering data for a company actually building the future, rather than hanging out with people who sit around talking about what it might be like. Even if there are nothing to be learned here, very enjoyable and it's old enough that I think I may have read it before 15+ years ago.

pwdisswordfish0 6y ago
> I guess a moral of the story is, if you want to be a part of the "future", you are better off entering data for a company actually building the future, rather than hanging out with people who sit around talking about what it might be like. Corollary: spend less time reading and writing comments on HN.
- lollmao 6y ago
  I found the comic very ammussing and insightful, likewise for some of the thread. But I am impressed at how well I delude myself into thinking that this was, at all, time well spent.
Mc91 6y ago
> I guess a moral of the story is, if you want to be a part of the "future", you are better off entering data for a company actually building the future, rather than hanging out with people who sit around talking about what it might be like. I read once Google makes one hire for every thousand applications. He lucked out getting into a FAANG company when he did (albeit at a lowly position). Someone of his means can not snap their fingers and get a gig in FAANG. With those gates up, he is just marinating in the culture which is accessible. Also, being in that culture, he sees opportunity when he lands at Apple. Plenty of other people who worked alongside him qprobably saw it as just a data entry opportunity to pay rent. While Mondo 2000, Wired etc. may have been forced, I don't think they were completely fraudulent. The people and subcultures they covered already existed, they just kind of cobbled them all together. Of course the editorial biases put a slanted tint on things - the average hacker is not as libertarian as Louis Rossetto envisioned or as into extropianism as RU Sirius imagined. But those magazines put people on their covers who were not on magazine covers before as far as I know (example - free open source pioneer and Cygnus founder John Gilmore). The zeitgeist was created by the media, but not out of whole cloth, there was something going on and raw materials to work with. In retrospect, the media in the center of it got some things right and some things wrong.
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  I feel like your numbers for google are wrong, or at least they look a lot more rosy for candidates, but I couldn’t find anything concrete. Google apparently have ~3 million applicants a year and hire 0.2%, or 6000 people, though I would guess that the chances for an average HN reader would be better than 1 in 500.
qqn 6y ago
> (zeitgeists) don't really end up meaning much personally. Similar story with friends and family who struggled against communism behind the Iron Curtain. Some wish they'd just gotten good careers set up instead.

pwdisswordfish0 6y ago

lollmao 6y ago
I found the comic very ammussing and insightful, likewise for some of the thread. But I am impressed at how well I delude myself into thinking that this was, at all, time well spent.

Mc91 6y ago

> I guess a moral of the story is, if you want to be a part of the "future", you are better off entering data for a company actually building the future, rather than hanging out with people who sit around talking about what it might be like. I read once Google makes one hire for every thousand applications. He lucked out getting into a FAANG company when he did (albeit at a lowly position). Someone of his means can not snap their fingers and get a gig in FAANG. With those gates up, he is just marinating in the culture which is accessible. Also, being in that culture, he sees opportunity when he lands at Apple. Plenty of other people who worked alongside him qprobably saw it as just a data entry opportunity to pay rent. While Mondo 2000, Wired etc. may have been forced, I don't think they were completely fraudulent. The people and subcultures they covered already existed, they just kind of cobbled them all together. Of course the editorial biases put a slanted tint on things - the average hacker is not as libertarian as Louis Rossetto envisioned or as into extropianism as RU Sirius imagined. But those magazines put people on their covers who were not on magazine covers before as far as I know (example - free open source pioneer and Cygnus founder John Gilmore). The zeitgeist was created by the media, but not out of whole cloth, there was something going on and raw materials to work with. In retrospect, the media in the center of it got some things right and some things wrong.

dan-robertson 6y ago
I feel like your numbers for google are wrong, or at least they look a lot more rosy for candidates, but I couldn’t find anything concrete. Google apparently have ~3 million applicants a year and hire 0.2%, or 6000 people, though I would guess that the chances for an average HN reader would be better than 1 in 500.

qqn 6y ago

> (zeitgeists) don't really end up meaning much personally. Similar story with friends and family who struggled against communism behind the Iron Curtain. Some wish they'd just gotten good careers set up instead.