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The fact that so many people on HN dislike this proves hacker culture died in programming..
by dj_mc_merlin 3y ago
The fact that so many people on HN dislike this proves hacker culture died in programming..
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- grzeshru 3y agoI don’t even understand what there is to dislike. This person lives in misery
- badpun 3y agoHe stole a $4k suit out of a store, for one thing.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- logicprog 3y agoThe store will be fine.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- badpun 3y agoHow about he steals your suit next, you'll likely be fine as well.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoBarney's new york is now closed, it was not fine.
- smackeyacky 3y agoThere is a great deal to dislike. Primarily he is clearly from an affluent family and all his misery could be solved with a phone call.
- grzeshru 3y agoWhat makes it seem like, from this piece anyway, that he is from an affluent family? (I don’t know the author/artist whatsoever.) Describe to me the phone call you think ought to take place.
- pyrophane 3y agoI read HN almost daily and comment here often, but I don't like the name. I wish they'd chosen to call it something more like "startup news" instead, as that feels like a more accurate representation of the site and its community and standards.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- yoyohello13 3y agoMore like “capitalist porn.” Mostly seems to just be people salivating over how much wealth they can extract with the next big tech advancements.
- linguae 3y agoI don’t think hacker culture is dead. Rather, computing entered its Eternal September; a career in software engineering, especially in the United States, now carries a similar cachet to being a doctor or lawyer, and the startup world has attracted those who want to make a fortune. The geeks, nerds, scholars, artists, and other varied misfits who once dominated the field have been outnumbered by those looking for money. This is the price of computing’s success. It’s not all bad or all good, it just is a natural consequence of computing becoming an integral part of modern society.
- nothercastle 3y agoIt’s not just money they made so much money they actually dislodged and eliminated the conditions and opportunities that created hacker culture in the first place
- linguae 3y agoAs a researcher, I concur. I’m a 80s/90s kid who got into computing through seeing the technological changes around me and who got inspired by the stories of Steve Jobs, Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, Alan Kay, and other pioneers. I wanted to pursue a career where I was given the freedom to explore and to create technologies that made an impact. Unfortunately what I’ve found in the past decade of working in the field is that we are no longer in the exploration era of computing. There is still much to explore, but the problem is that the metaphorical frontier has been largely bought up by large corporations and funding agencies, and thus exploration has been restricted. The days of unfettered research at places like Xerox PARC and Bell Labs are long-gone; it’s all about quickly delivering results in areas that promise to have a direct, immediate impact on the bottom line. Academia is no better with its “publish-or-perish” demands. Even working as a software engineer has less exploration today than it did in the past. The developed world is jeopardizing its future by relentlessly pursuing short-term gains at the expense of the long term. It’s disappointing to see computing “colonized” by business interests who have no love for computing and who don’t understand that research and software engineering are creative endeavors that cannot be treated like an assembly line, but I’ve come to terms with this recently and started rethinking my career. I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to separate my passion for computing with making a living; trying to make money from research leads to pressure from funders. I need to pursue my true research callings the way an artist pursues art. But a thought just occurred to me when typing all of this. In a way, though, hackers and artists are back to the days of the Homebrew Computer Club of the 1970s, where hobbyists pursued their craft and showed off their work without any expectation of monetary reward. These hackers were distinct from the stereotypical IBMer. The rise of Apple and Microsoft changed this, but something interesting happened in the past decade; working for Apple, Microsoft, and other Big Tech companies today is akin to working for IBM in 1974. What was once the counterculture has become “the man.” It’s not a perfect analogy; AT&T and Xerox were definitely “the man” 50 years ago, yet they ran research labs that offer levels of freedom that cannot be found today. But I believe that us hacker/artist types should take inspiration from the hobbyist communities of old. I’m unqualified to take on modern capitalism and its effects on research and the software industry, but if I could make a lasting contribution to society by doing great “artistic” computing, then I could die satisfied.
- wavemode 3y agoMeh. I think it's just endemic of online gatherings of programmers that the discussions seep with a strong sense of intellectual and moral superiority. We are the type to feel like we have life and the world figured out.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- strken 3y agoI liked it. I also think he sounds like a dick and a tiring man to know, and I'm confused by the people who themselves confuse dislike for the person with dislike for the writing.
- dj_mc_merlin 3y agoOh he's definitely a bit of a dick, even if parts of the story are probably exaggerated. A pretty clever one though.
- int_19h 3y agoIf anything, the hacker culture equivalent would be someone who is desperately trying to project the "hacker vibe" without much to show for it.