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No, it appears the "technologists" here on HN (such as yourself) are now people who are techno-pessimists through and through, don't see the big deal in new bre

No, it appears the "technologists" here on HN (such as yourself) are now people who are techno-pessimists through and through, don't see the big deal in new breakthroughs, aren't excited about technology at all really, can't extrapolate a trend a few years into the future, and would rather quit their job and do wood working. Is there another forum where all the hackers went, I think I want to go somewhere else. Edit: I take the part about wood working, I think that's a reasonable response to the way today's tech jobs make us feel. I know many people who'd like to quit and just work on side-projects (or wood working), but they don't hate technology itself, that's the difference.

szundi 4y ago
Subscribed to the answers to this comment.
logisticseh 4y ago
Discord servers.
- api 4y ago
  What are your favorites?
JohnHaugeland 4y ago
- martindbp 4y ago
  I've been on HN since about 2012 under various accounts, mostly lurking
trention 4y ago
>can't extrapolate a trend a few years into the future It's better to not extrapolate S-curves into exponential functions when you don't know what you are talking about, yes. A good advice for both DL researchers and "techno-optimists" who haven't seen unsubstantiated hype they didn't jump on yet.
mattgreenrocks 4y ago
Thing is it gets hard to get excited about every new “breakthrough” after twenty years of paying close attention to them. This inevitably means I’m late to the party on some things, but I don’t care. Tech is a means to an end; specifically a way to make a living and hopefully buy myself out of the rat race. If that isn’t “real hacker” enough for you then that’s fine. In my book, lifestyle design is the hacker ethos applied at the meta level.
- martindbp 4y ago
  > If that isn’t “real hacker” enough for you then that’s fine. "Means to an end", "make a living", "rat race", yeah I don't think that would be considered "hacker" by any definition of the word (I think the word is "corporate"), and this site is called "Hacker News". You don't have to be excited and bullish about every single new trend, but at least be interested enough to take a closer look. I was interested in crypto a few years ago, now I don't care much about it. Still excited about VR and AI though. I mean, it's a free country, but if this pessimism is the default attitude here on anything, I think it's time to find where all the actual hackers are hanging out.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    >if this pessimism is the default attitude here on anything Ah, if only that was the case... One can dream, however... Mind you, when real hackers walked the earth (MIT, AT&T, Xerox, and so on), they weren't that hot about hypes either, and they couldn't be further from today's marketing types. Those were hackers: programmers, scientists, enthusiasts, and so on. Not today's used-car-salemen types touting AI, big data, VR, and the rest...
    - martindbp 4y ago
      > they weren't that hot about hypes either Are you really trying to convince me that the original hackers were tech-conservatives? They literally set the trends and built the future. Who are these marketing types you talk of? I don't dispute there is a lot of fluff and hype going around, but you chose yourself who you listen to. I follow true hackers like John Carmack, Jeri Ellsworth, Andrej Karpathy, George Hotz and prominent scientists like Yann LeCun. If all you find is hype and marketing that's on you. It's like people complaining that Twitter is bad, you decide who to follow!
coldtea 4y ago
>No, it appears the "technologists" here on HN (such as yourself) are now people who are techno-pessimists through and through, don't see the big deal in new breakthroughs Yes, it's called experience. After one has seen all those "new breakthroughs" hyped to high heaven and amounting to nothing, they have learned not to take salesmen at face value. Of course some people remain eternally starry eyed, as if they've just came down from a bus from Nebraska to L.A. to become movie stars. Sadly, they're still not the ones doing the real innovation. Just the ones taken for a ride by one hype after another.

szundi 4y ago

Subscribed to the answers to this comment.

logisticseh 4y ago

Discord servers.

api 4y ago
What are your favorites?

JohnHaugeland 4y ago

martindbp 4y ago
I've been on HN since about 2012 under various accounts, mostly lurking

trention 4y ago

>can't extrapolate a trend a few years into the future It's better to not extrapolate S-curves into exponential functions when you don't know what you are talking about, yes. A good advice for both DL researchers and "techno-optimists" who haven't seen unsubstantiated hype they didn't jump on yet.

mattgreenrocks 4y ago

Thing is it gets hard to get excited about every new “breakthrough” after twenty years of paying close attention to them. This inevitably means I’m late to the party on some things, but I don’t care. Tech is a means to an end; specifically a way to make a living and hopefully buy myself out of the rat race. If that isn’t “real hacker” enough for you then that’s fine. In my book, lifestyle design is the hacker ethos applied at the meta level.

martindbp 4y ago
> If that isn’t “real hacker” enough for you then that’s fine. "Means to an end", "make a living", "rat race", yeah I don't think that would be considered "hacker" by any definition of the word (I think the word is "corporate"), and this site is called "Hacker News". You don't have to be excited and bullish about every single new trend, but at least be interested enough to take a closer look. I was interested in crypto a few years ago, now I don't care much about it. Still excited about VR and AI though. I mean, it's a free country, but if this pessimism is the default attitude here on anything, I think it's time to find where all the actual hackers are hanging out.
- coldtea 4y ago
  >if this pessimism is the default attitude here on anything Ah, if only that was the case... One can dream, however... Mind you, when real hackers walked the earth (MIT, AT&T, Xerox, and so on), they weren't that hot about hypes either, and they couldn't be further from today's marketing types. Those were hackers: programmers, scientists, enthusiasts, and so on. Not today's used-car-salemen types touting AI, big data, VR, and the rest...
  - martindbp 4y ago
    > they weren't that hot about hypes either Are you really trying to convince me that the original hackers were tech-conservatives? They literally set the trends and built the future. Who are these marketing types you talk of? I don't dispute there is a lot of fluff and hype going around, but you chose yourself who you listen to. I follow true hackers like John Carmack, Jeri Ellsworth, Andrej Karpathy, George Hotz and prominent scientists like Yann LeCun. If all you find is hype and marketing that's on you. It's like people complaining that Twitter is bad, you decide who to follow!

coldtea 4y ago

>No, it appears the "technologists" here on HN (such as yourself) are now people who are techno-pessimists through and through, don't see the big deal in new breakthroughs Yes, it's called experience. After one has seen all those "new breakthroughs" hyped to high heaven and amounting to nothing, they have learned not to take salesmen at face value. Of course some people remain eternally starry eyed, as if they've just came down from a bus from Nebraska to L.A. to become movie stars. Sadly, they're still not the ones doing the real innovation. Just the ones taken for a ride by one hype after another.