3 ms·

The first time I leraned about this book I giggled about the title. But in the modern world of the conformity and a learned helplessness it's a quiet reminder

The first time I leraned about this book I giggled about the title. But in the modern world of the conformity and a learned helplessness it's a quiet reminder what you can't do better if nobody says you unpleasant things.

estebank 3y ago
> But in the modern world of the conformity and a learned helplessness it's a quiet reminder what you can't do better if nobody says you unpleasant things. I fight a lot against learned helplessness, trying to get people to actually report bugs, to complain about papercuts they encounter in tools that I can change. But because people are used to having their complaints fall on deaf ears, they don't, so I seek them out in places like here and some time back, Twitter. But that also brings up a dredge of non-constructive unactionable complaints that end up doing nothing more than make me shake my head and close the tab. There are ways of complaining without being nasty to the people doing the work. Being a dick is not a personality type.
zokier 3y ago
> But in the modern world of the conformity and a learned helplessness it's a quiet reminder what you can't do better if nobody says you unpleasant things. But UNIX continues to dominate and have problems, so I don't see Unix-Haters Handbook being very good example of saying unpleasant things making anything better; its more of a counter-example, demonstrating how annoying rants get easily ignored
spit2wind 3y ago
It turns out passivity to shock is the default. Learned helplessness doesn't exist. It's less about saying unpleasant things and more about assisting others towards control. Of course, less is more, right :) https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/learnedhelplessnessat50.pdf https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/learnedhelples...
tedunangst 3y ago
Nothing about unix got better as a response to this book.
mcguire 3y ago
Huh. When I first saw it (in about 1996?), I flipped through it and decided they were trolling. I put it down and have never read more than the X section.

estebank 3y ago

> But in the modern world of the conformity and a learned helplessness it's a quiet reminder what you can't do better if nobody says you unpleasant things. I fight a lot against learned helplessness, trying to get people to actually report bugs, to complain about papercuts they encounter in tools that I can change. But because people are used to having their complaints fall on deaf ears, they don't, so I seek them out in places like here and some time back, Twitter. But that also brings up a dredge of non-constructive unactionable complaints that end up doing nothing more than make me shake my head and close the tab. There are ways of complaining without being nasty to the people doing the work. Being a dick is not a personality type.

zokier 3y ago

> But in the modern world of the conformity and a learned helplessness it's a quiet reminder what you can't do better if nobody says you unpleasant things. But UNIX continues to dominate and have problems, so I don't see Unix-Haters Handbook being very good example of saying unpleasant things making anything better; its more of a counter-example, demonstrating how annoying rants get easily ignored

spit2wind 3y ago

It turns out passivity to shock is the default. Learned helplessness doesn't exist. It's less about saying unpleasant things and more about assisting others towards control. Of course, less is more, right :) https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/learnedhelplessnessat50.pdf https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/learnedhelples...

tedunangst 3y ago

Nothing about unix got better as a response to this book.

mcguire 3y ago

Huh. When I first saw it (in about 1996?), I flipped through it and decided they were trolling. I put it down and have never read more than the X section.