6 ms·

Who cares if he’s a nice guy?

bri3d 5y ago
If he's being held up as some shining beacon of the "hacker-ish culture" as the grandparent poster is doing, it would be nice if he weren't also a jerk.
- bitexploder 5y ago
  Everyone should kill their heroes. They almost never live up to the pedestals people place them on. They are all just people and have flaws. They don’t have to be some perfect person to do cool things we can respect.
  - bri3d 5y ago
    I respect geohotz' achievements (generally). I would never hold him up as an example of hacker culture, or his persona as one to emulate. There is a difference between these things.
    - recuter 5y ago
      Is hacker culture not filled with "weird jerks"? Linus doesn't qualify? Who does?
      - mcv 5y ago
        Linus used to be a massive jerk until he fixed his attitude. Hackers can grow. I've got massive respect for everybody who addresses their own problems and fixes them. Way too many people only look for the problem in other people, but it's never that simple.
    - nextlevelwizard 5y ago
      Out of curiosity who would you show as an example of hacker culture?
      - bitexploder 5y ago
        They are mostly the people you never hear about in mainstream media. The quiet engineers and tinkerers of the world. Guys like Fabrice Bellard, jaquesm of hn fame, Stuff Made Here (YouTube). There are a lot of prolific hackers out there that have made or are making contributions.
- aantix 5y ago
  Why the need to conflate personality traits with skill? If I have a rare disease, I don't care if the doctor is nice. I want them to get the diagnosis correct. Van Gogh painted brilliantly. And he cut off his ear. Eminem is a great rapper. His themes can be violent.
  - bri3d 5y ago
    The post I replied to was one about personality traits, not skill.
    - mdp2021 5y ago
      The poster probably meant that "«it would be nice» - yet largely irrelevant". You can abstract from those "personality traits" as long as """he is one who delivers""" - respectfully saying, as he is not obliged: he provided us with another tool, for our use, for free: he is a benefactor.
- hwers 5y ago
  I don’t think of him as shining. I like that he’s a real person, flaws and all. Not someone to idolize. Many great hackers that I know and in general are total jerks (I suspect the trait helps wrangling a machine somehow but idk). I wouldn’t find it accurate to my experiences if we had some polished perfect optics guy as representative (not that that’s what he is)
  - Tao331 5y ago
    > I suspect the trait helps wrangling a machine somehow Disruptiveness, for lack of a better term. These are people who are well-acquainted with finding the boundaries of systems and barreling through them.
- Tao331 5y ago
mhh__ 5y ago
Talented but bad people breed a new generation of unnecessary untalented bad people.

If he's being held up as some shining beacon of the "hacker-ish culture" as the grandparent poster is doing, it would be nice if he weren't also a jerk.

bitexploder 5y ago
Everyone should kill their heroes. They almost never live up to the pedestals people place them on. They are all just people and have flaws. They don’t have to be some perfect person to do cool things we can respect.
- bri3d 5y ago
  I respect geohotz' achievements (generally). I would never hold him up as an example of hacker culture, or his persona as one to emulate. There is a difference between these things.
  - recuter 5y ago
    Is hacker culture not filled with "weird jerks"? Linus doesn't qualify? Who does?
    - mcv 5y ago
      Linus used to be a massive jerk until he fixed his attitude. Hackers can grow. I've got massive respect for everybody who addresses their own problems and fixes them. Way too many people only look for the problem in other people, but it's never that simple.
  - nextlevelwizard 5y ago
    Out of curiosity who would you show as an example of hacker culture?
    - bitexploder 5y ago
      They are mostly the people you never hear about in mainstream media. The quiet engineers and tinkerers of the world. Guys like Fabrice Bellard, jaquesm of hn fame, Stuff Made Here (YouTube). There are a lot of prolific hackers out there that have made or are making contributions.
aantix 5y ago
Why the need to conflate personality traits with skill? If I have a rare disease, I don't care if the doctor is nice. I want them to get the diagnosis correct. Van Gogh painted brilliantly. And he cut off his ear. Eminem is a great rapper. His themes can be violent.
- bri3d 5y ago
  The post I replied to was one about personality traits, not skill.
  - mdp2021 5y ago
    The poster probably meant that "«it would be nice» - yet largely irrelevant". You can abstract from those "personality traits" as long as """he is one who delivers""" - respectfully saying, as he is not obliged: he provided us with another tool, for our use, for free: he is a benefactor.
hwers 5y ago
I don’t think of him as shining. I like that he’s a real person, flaws and all. Not someone to idolize. Many great hackers that I know and in general are total jerks (I suspect the trait helps wrangling a machine somehow but idk). I wouldn’t find it accurate to my experiences if we had some polished perfect optics guy as representative (not that that’s what he is)
- Tao331 5y ago
  > I suspect the trait helps wrangling a machine somehow Disruptiveness, for lack of a better term. These are people who are well-acquainted with finding the boundaries of systems and barreling through them.
Tao331 5y ago

mhh__ 5y ago

Talented but bad people breed a new generation of unnecessary untalented bad people.