
My fellow geeks, we need to have a talk. - blhack
http://thingist.com/t/item/4372/
======
edw519
Condescending feedback says more about the speaker than the listener. It is
almost invariably about their own insecurity. This is true is almost all
fields of endeavor, not just programming.

Just a few examples of my own:

Insecure bridge player: The queen of spades was a stupid play. What's wrong
with you?

Excellent bridge player: The queen of spades would have been a great play
against a 4/2 split. But since you had a 3/3 split, what do you think would
have happened if you had played the ace instead?

Insecure public speaker: You look like an idiot playing with your hands like
that.

Excellent public speaker: You talked about a lot of cool things. I bet I would
have been even more interested if I wasn't distracted so much by your hand
gestures.

Insecure parent: If you can't keep that baby quiet, you should just stay at
home!

Excellent parent: Here's something that has really worked well for me when my
kids cried in public...

Insecure programmer: How lame. I can't believe you <insert almost anything you
could have done>.

Excellent programmer: I see that works. I have found a few ways to make it
work even better. Let me know what you think.

~~~
MrJagil
Can someone please explain the logic behind "condescending feedback =
insecurity"?

And I mean that sincerely. I have been thinking about this for a long time
now, and I just cannot come up with any supporting evidence to explain the
corelation. It might sound like a stupid request, but I think it is a hard
argument to make totally water proof.

~~~
DanI-S
I see it this way: The only reason to give condescending feedback is to
demonstrate your superiority over the person you're criticizing. If you truly
wanted to be helpful, you'd be giving helpful feedback. If you were truly
confident in your own abilities, you wouldn't feel the need to demonstrate
your superiority.

~~~
bgurupra
I think condescending feedback = insecurity is a bit of a generalization.Maybe
sometimes it is true but not all the time - for example Linus' "feedback" on
CVS was pretty condescending but I doubt that was because he was insecure

~~~
DanI-S
It's definitely a generalization; it just seems to be a reasonably reliable
one :).

I suppose the insecurity doesn't have to be about domain knowledge, either -
it could be about communication skills. Perhaps some people giving
condescending feedback don't feel like they are able to communicate in any
other way. They experience the desire to contribute, but aren't confident in
their tutoring skills and don't want to risk sounding stupid by bungling an
explanation.

This is admittedly pure speculation...

------
agentultra
It's true. I don't know how many times I've watched eager hackers get
lambasted for "reinventing the wheel," or "don't bother doing it yourself,
you'll just screw it up -- someone has probably done it already and did it
better than you could." This happens most often at the intersection of
technology and entrepreneurship.

The business advice is that it's cheaper to buy it than build it.

The engineer's perspective is that a square peg isn't going to fit in every
hole.

"Geeks," are harsh. I mean that in the very broad, general, and discriminatory
sense. We have to work with bad code all day written by bad programmers. Some
of us make a career out of saving businesses from bad technology decisions and
poorly written programs (it is NOT good work, btw. Just pays well). So when
yet another new-comer comes on board with bright, eager enthusiasm to
revolutionize the Internet (yet again) we do tend to be rather cynical.

I agree w/ the poster that the cynicism is a bad thing. We could be more
constructive. Don't stop them from writing their own web server... show them
where to look up the RFCs, reference implementations, etc. Encourage them to
learn. We could all benefit from having more knowledgeable people around.

~~~
dexen
There is reinventing the wheel and reinventing the wheel.

It's cute when a person, learning as she goes, comes up with something that's
been already invented. Only goes to show she understands the field. [1]

It's unbelievably irritating when something that was widely implemented 10 or
20 or 30 years ago (and then even improved significantly) is now asserted as
_the_ next big thing. C'mon, be serious -_-' [2]

[1] a nice guy thinks of swap (in userspace) just to hold strings of arbitrary
length, calls it ``backed by file storage'':
<http://9fans.net/archive/2011/02/94>

[2] no example I can think of ATM; but perhaps the above one could fit?

~~~
bartonfink
Garbage collection back in the 90's. Java really ran with that one.

~~~
dexen
"We were not out to win over the Lisp programmers; we were after the C++
programmers. We managed to drag a lot of them about halfway to Lisp."

\- Guy Steele, Java spec co-author

<http://www.paulgraham.com/quotes.html>

------
jaysonelliot
I would direct anyone who thinks geeks are harsh now to read chapter 10 of
"Dealers of Lightning," about the early days of Xerox PARC.

They had a weekly meeting called DEALER, where the boffins would present their
ideas to the group at large.

A quote:

"But the argument had best be carefully thought out. Anyone trying to slip an
unsound concept past this group was sure to be stopped short by an explosive
"Bullshit!" from Thacker or "Nonsense!" from the beetle-browed ARPANET veteran
Severo Ornstein. Then would follow a cascade of angry denunciations: "You
don't know what you're talking about!" "That'll never work!" "That's the
stupidest idea I've ever heard!" Lampson might add a warp-speed chapter-and-
verse deconstruction of the speaker's sorry reasoning. If the chastened dealer
was lucky (and still standing), the discussion might finally turn to how he
might improve on his poor first effort."

~~~
zach
Did they begin every sentence with "Silence!" as well?

~~~
jaysonelliot
Haha. Possibly.

------
dkarl
What would we think of an American who walked into an Egyptian coffeehouse or
a Japanese board room and interpreted all the behavior he saw there as if he
were seeing it in a church in Iowa? It's fine to demand that geeks develop
some social sophistication, but it's also fine to expect that non-geeks will
have enough social sophistication not to rush to judgment about behavior in an
unfamiliar cultural context. Cultures vary from place to place, subgroup to
subgroup, and there's no reason people shouldn't adapt to us if they want to
join our subculture. That's the way it works.

As other people have pointed out, the argumentative, ruthless nature of
computing culture has very adaptive aspects because it mirrors the persistent,
ruthless, and logical nature of the computers we deal with. Once you're used
to dealing with _computers_ \-- once you've learned that computers don't
compromise, but it isn't personal -- you perceive computer geek behavior
differently. The only reason to enter the subculture, except as a tourist, is
to learn about computing, so it is reasonable to assume that anybody arguing
about how to program a microcontroller either gets us or is in the process of
getting us.

Obviously, different rules apply when geeks interact with non-geeks in other
contexts. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in Xerox PARC, or less
exalted forums for discussing computing, do as the computer geeks do.

~~~
kstenerud
There's a huge difference between "You're wrong and here's why", and "You did
X??? What are you, stupid? You suck and you should just gtfo because you'll
never amount to anything. You'd be so fired if you worked in my company.
Bullet. Brain. Make the connection."

Both are uncompromising. Only one is civil.

~~~
shaggyfrog
But both are personal. A better take would be "This solution/process/method is
wrong and here's why". Make it about the issue, not the person.

~~~
reinhardt
Unfortunately not even this works for many/most regular (read: non geek)
folks:

"Why prove to a man he is wrong? Is that going to make him like you? Why not
let him save face? He didn't ask for your opinion. He didn't want it. Why
argue with him? You can't win an argument, because if you lose, you lose it;
and if you win it, you lose it. Why? You will feel fine. But what about him?
You have made him feel inferior, you hurt his pride, insult his intelligence,
his judgement, and his self-respect, and he'll resent your triumph. That will
make him strike back, but it will never make him want to change his mind. A
man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still." - Dale Carnegie,
1936

Sigh.. sometime I feel I'm of a different species from people that take almost
everything personally.

------
koko775
My policy: be nice to people. Don't be nice to ideas.

IMO, ideas need harsh critique, and it's not always easy or worth it to spend
the extra time padding the conversation to soften your point - it can even be
counterproductive.

So while I won't say that someone is stupid or dumb for suggesting the idea, I
_may_ say an idea was not well thought out if it really isn't. I expect my
peers to do the same, because we're not going to see which ideas stick if we
bicker over how we iterate on them.

~~~
drinian
The real problem seems to be people who can't separate themselves from the
mistakes they make and take everything as an affront to their person.
Receiving criticism means that your idea or work is at least worth
considering.

~~~
phr
When receiving criticism, I should do as you say, and assume my mistakes are
the target, not my (oh so sensitive) self. But when handing out criticism, I
should assume the other person will take it personally. It's like that
principal for Internet robustness: be conservative in what you send, and
liberal in what you accept.

------
ZeroMinx
While I agree with this to some extent, I'd just like to comment on the the
skateboarding analogy; You were probably taking it one step at a time,
learning to stand on the board, increase your speed, make turns. Once you got
all that done, you might move on to try some tricks, perhaps trying to learn
the rock to fakie trick. What you _didn't_ do was, on your 2nd day, to scream
out "why am I not sticking my 720 kickflip?!?!".

The latter is fairly common in the world of programming, in my experience.

(There's obviously also a big difference between being physically together
with the people in a skatepark and sitting on the other end of an IRC
session.)

~~~
burgerbrain
I suspect the reason why hackers are harsh compared to skateboarders probably
has something to do with the fact that when skateboarders fuck up, it tends to
_hurt_. Bad hacking rarely carries such a strong disincentive, so we have to
create one.

------
sqrt17
There is a major difference between sports and programming: In sports,
everyone is a critic, and it is really obvious if people cannot skateboard, or
cannot throw a basketball.

Compare with programming, where overt effect and actual competence are not
always related. Criticizing programming and programmers is nontrivial, and
hence people have to do it all the time to build up a shared understanding of
good and bad practices.

Looking at visual arts, you'll probably find a similar asymmetry between
drawing (where it's difficult to get to even a barely mediocre level) and
layout/typography (where it's easy to do something that looks "good" to the
layman yet is totally horrible). Needless to say, there are more pages bashing
bad layout and bad typography than there are sites dedicated to bashing bad
drawings.

~~~
wanderful
Except there is much more to a sport than, for example, shooting a basketball.
There's offense, there's defense. There's fundamental skills, there's game
strategy, there's different sorts of matchups. It goes on and on to subtler
and more intricate detail. It's not simply whether one can skateboard or not,
program or not, and it would seem that is what the author of the article was
getting at.

In your visual arts examples, there is a much simpler explanation. The reason
there are more pages devoted toward layout principles is because the medium of
expression (i.e. the web) fundamentally uses layout principles. Drawing
doesn't express using the web. It's a selection effect, just as it's more
likely that you will find soccer players in Brazil, and hockey players in
Canada, rather than the other way around.

~~~
jhamburger
OK, but there are degrees of subtlety though. A casual fan might see someone
score 40 points in a basketball game and say "wow, he must be a great player"
while a hardcore fan might chime in and say "actually he's way overrated. He's
a poor defender, way too selfish and lazy in rebounding." but the fact
remains, if you score 40 points a game in basketball, you are at least a
'good' player at your level. I can say that categorically. Can we say "If you
X, you must be a good programmer."?

------
dools
Yep, I agree entirely. Stop being such sanctimonious fuckwits.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
If "fuckwit" adds anything to your comment, can you explain what that is?

~~~
dools
It's a noun I've used to attach the adjective sanctimonious to which adds more
emphasis than the word "person" would have, and also confirms to the reader
that I disapprove of a holier than thou attitude.

~~~
crux
To be honest, I thought you were being sarcastic. OP was all about how people
ought to be less harsh, less judgmental, more open-minded, kinder and more
welcoming. 'Fuckwit' might as well be the poster child for the culture of
unquestioning, caustic certitude of which he disapproves.

~~~
dools
_"'Fuckwit' might as well be the poster child for the culture of
unquestioning, caustic certitude of which he disapproves"_

Hmm. You're right. In hindsight I _definitely_ should have said fuckTARD.

------
cydonian_monk
Fascinating post.

Coming from an Engineering background I'd like to echo what another commenter
said - Ideas must be treated harshly. If it's a bad idea then it needs to be
vetted and corrected, especially if it's likely to kill someone. You owe it to
the honor of the profession to do so. But you have to attack the idea and not
the person. When egos are involved that's not easy, because the person may
view an attack on their idea as a personal attack. Just assume the person is
as intelligent as you and had a good reason for their "bad" idea. Maybe you
can build on it without completely discarding it.

As for language, I've never understood the online "geek" community's tendancy
to be grammar and spelling "nazis." There have been times where I've been the
only native English speaker on a team, both professionally and in college. If
we spent all of our time discussing Strunk and White we would have never
finished what we were doing. Yet on the internet, where "exposure" to non-
native speakers is commonplace, these practices seem to be the norm. Boggling.
(It's one thing to be helpful, it's another to be petty. Petty strikes me as
professionally immature.)

In short: A crash-course in interpersonal communications would help everybody.

Thanks for the blog post.

------
cubtastic71
It's nice to see someone stand up and say whoa. I mean my first youtube post
of an arduino project I did - someone had to explain my miss-pronucenation of
a word and paid no attention to the project itself. User comment boxes are not
always as helpful as it might seem.

~~~
jokermatt999
As someone who occasionally finds myself nitpicking things (mispronunciation,
you're/your, etc), I don't do it out of malice. In fact, I often like and
agree with what the person was saying, I was just bothered by that minor
issue.

Just pointing out a nitpick by itself sounds harsh, though. Instead of just
posting "It's 'you're' for the contraction of 'you are'. It's easier to
remember if you think of it as just replacing the 'a' with and apostrophe.", I
always try to add my positive thoughts as well, even if I feel they add very
little. For example, 'Great post, I know exactly what you mean when you say
some people are just overly critical for no reason. One thing, though...".

Obviously, this will still make me sound like a nitpicking asshole at times,
so I try to avoid the the truly small corrections (you're/your, its/it's,
grammar/mispellings in general). The key is to point out that you aren't
dismissing or ignoring the rest of the work, and that the nitpicks you had
were really the only part you disagreed with.

~~~
smokeyj
Most critiques by grammar Nazis add zero value to the conversation and
distract from the topic at hand. Have a cookie, you payed attention in English
class, now gtfo

------
dansingerman
I disagree with this.

The difference in the examples cited is not sports vs hackers, it's
communication in real life vs over the interwebs.

In my experience most hackers are perfectly pleasant in person, happy to help
if asked, and not substantially different to how the article describes the
skaters.

Conversely, I bet if you look at some skater videos on youtube they would be
full of sarcasm and piss-taking (well they would be if youtube comments
weren't a massive fail in their own right)

Geeks and nerds more frequently use online media to communicate, but I don't
think they are otherwise more predisposed to antosocial behaviour than anyone
else.

As a datapoint, my wife uses babycentre a lot, and the disproportionate
flamewars you get there are ridiculous. Put those mothers together in a room
and I bet they'd be completely pleasant.

~~~
Wolf_Larsen
I agree with you.

One of the things to learn in life is who to listen to and who to ignore.

I can align with the author - being around people who do not accept mistakes
or shortcomings as part of a positive learning process is frustrating - but
saying that "Geeks" do this too often and more than other circles is untrue.

That idiot should just quit writing blog posts.

~~~
cullend
Not really. I hang out with homeless people, hippies, frat guys, and any group
I can work my way into.

Geeks ARE angry. They seem to have shittons of pentup rage

------
phamilton
It's a little more advantageous to firmly establish your current
language/style/concept as the standard than it is in skateboarding. The job
market is all about hype. If RoR is the latest trend, a RoR programmer is
better off. Same with Node.js. Same with HTML5 over flash.

While I doubt people actually think "I'm going to tell you that your choice of
language sucks because I want more work" I also doubt bullies on the
playground think "I don't have a lot of self esteem, so I'm going to pick on
kids smaller than me to make myself feel better".

Some communities are more harsh than others. Ask a stupid question in #perl
and compare the response with #python. The perl community is well established
and isn't trying to evangelize. Python is (or was) less commonly used. They
don't want to scare away new users because more python programmers means more
support for the language.

It's not an excuse, but it is a possible explanation.

~~~
gte910h
I was just under the impression the python community has a long tradition of
getting things done while being far from experts in the language, i.e., a far
greater proportion of non-professional programmers who just use python to make
one part of their real job go smoother.

This leads to a very high tolerance of people new to the language, and to
misunderstandings.

Ruby and perl seem to have more typical professional programmer types is all.

------
michaelbuckbee
Much of this isn't "geekdom" it's the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory in
action: [http://www.crunchgear.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/05/shitcoc...](http://www.crunchgear.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/05/shitcock.jpg)

I've been to many BarCamps, local Ruby on Rails and Web design meetups and
people are incredibly giving of their time, knowledge and patience.

It is a profoundly different thing to meet someone in person, who is
struggling with some technical issue, than to read about it (devoid of all
context) on some wall of electronic text.

------
tptacek
The author's point is well taken. But:

* Stop using comic sans

* What are you, illiterate?

* Tables? What is this, the 1990s? Ha ha ha!.

* This design looks like myspace

* You're using the default hashing algorithm in mysql instead of bcrypt?

* God I hate the arduino. It's not real hacking.

Which of these _things_ is _not_ like-the _ooooother_?

~~~
blhack
One of them offers a solution (use bcrypt).

It's the delivery that matters.

~~~
tptacek
It's true, but it's also the case that that's the only non-subjective point in
the list. You can zip it on things like Comic Sans and table layout, but you
probably shouldn't hold your tongue on security flaws.

I agree, delivery counts.

------
sophacles
I'm reminded of something a wise man once told me (HNified a bit):

In every pairwise conversation there are 6 people:

1\. Alice

2\. Bob

3\. Who Alice thinks she is.

4\. Who Bob thinks he is.

5\. Who Bob thinks Alice is

6\. Who Alice things Bob is.

Perception plays an absurdly large part in communication, as do nonverbal
cues. Frequently we adjust our message based on feedback we get from the
listener. Those lacking "social graces" or communicating in just text on the
internet don't get these cues, so the message comes out "harsher".

Complicating this, there is a lot of baggage each person attaches to words,
phrases and general styles of questioning/commenting. So one person's harsh
may be another's "in to it".

One example of all this I have experienced:

One time at a vendor show, me and some colleagues were in a small demo,
presented by a sales guy and a few engineers from the company. During the Q&A,
I started questioning the engineer pretty intensely with questions like:

Does it do $X? Why not? Do you plan on adding it?

(These are actually pretty neutral questions)

Then about another aspect I was really into some possibilities of:

Can I use it for $Y? Can I make $Y happen by this? What happens if I do $Z?
How about if I work around that limitation like this and get $Y + $Z
effectively?

(these are not neutral questions, they are me geeking out)

So after the demo some people thought I broke the engineer and ripped him a
new one with the second set of questions, because I was rapid fire asking
questions towards a goal. One engineer thought it was a fun "play with an idea
time". The other engineer thought I was severely criticizing his work.

The sales guy and several of the audience members thought I was being unduly
harsh by asking about the feature $X. Apparently this was a contentious issue
that I knew nothing about. The engineers and others thought nothing of those
questions.

Similarly: I frequently get frustrated when people wrap up valid criticism in
fake nice BS. I don't want to hear "great thing, what if instead you did
this". I really would rather just hear "What about this other method? Why not
use that?" or even "Dude, 10s of googling would have shown you the flaws in
that". Because an honest self assessment includes the fact that I don't know
everything, and that many (most) of the things I come up with have also been
thought of by other people, who may have found flaws in that reasoning.

I guess my point is there is a lot more than just "nerds are mean to each
other" going on.

~~~
andywood
The enumeration at the top of your comment is the best thing I've read yet
today. Douglas Hofstadter expands on similar ideas in _I Am a Strange Loop_.

~~~
Perceval
That enumeration has its origins in Freud, if I remember correctly.

------
blhack
Hey all, I submitted this this morning, but never anticipated getting _this_
much traffic.

I _really_ appreciate all the comments :) If the site is slow to load, there
is a static version of the page here:

<http://thingist.com/static/4372.html>

------
marcos123
Coming from the same situation as the OP, only reversed (grew up a skating
every single day, got addicted to programming later on), I would like to
contribute a little context to the OP's brush with skateboarding. Sure, I
remember ollieing backpacks with my friends in the morning before school, when
we had pretty much nothing but encouraging words for each other. But I also
remember years later, being on tours/roadtrips with pro's and video deadlines
and magazine articles. In those latter years, the cynicism and shit-talking
that I'd witnessed (ok, and took part in) was unparalleled by any other sub-
culture I've ever crossed paths with. Someone with a forced/contrived style of
skating could be made to hate their own life after enduring little more than 2
min. of criticism from certain, fellow skateboarders.

My interpretation of all this is that anytime you're doing something around
the upper echelon of people that do that same thing you're doing, expect tests
of your will, whether technical or emotional. I just think of it as human
nature's way of weeding out the weaklings of any group.

Personally, I'm quite fond of and entertained by the pretentiousness I receive
on certain irc channels… brings me back to the days when and skate spots and
chicks were literally my only cares in the world.

------
jgrahamc
I don't like this generalization. I've met all sorts of geeks, nerds and
hackers. Some are horrible to each other, some are very nice. I can't see that
it's helpful to accuse all of us of being bastards.

On the other hand, I have seen code that I found horribly upsetting and I'm
sure I've expressed my opinion of it. I know that I have the patience of
something with a very small amount of patience when I come across someone who
just doesn't instantly get concepts (for this reason I cannot do family tech
support) and I did make my college girlfriend (also doing computer science)
cry once because I just rattled off an entire programming assignment without
touching the computer (she switched courses).

So, it really depends. If it was someone junior to me I'd cut them a lot of
slack, if it was someone I considered my intellectual peer they'd need to roll
with the punches.

------
lhnz
Agreed. Next time I shall condescendingly refer people to this post with one
eyebrow raised if I hear any of those 'lines'.

~~~
jergason
My sarcasm detector is beeping, but very faintly. If you are being serious,
wouldn't it kindof defeat the purpose to be condescending towards people
spouting that stuff?

------
haberman
I've had lots of moments where I let bitterness get the best of me, and
started flaming. Upon reflection, I think I understand why.

As programmers, we are part of a giant ecosystem of software. What one
programmer does affects another, even for two people who don't directly work
together. This is unlike (say) sports. If there are other skateboarders who
have terrible form, it doesn't affect me.

On the other hand, if a large number of people make what I perceive to be a
bad engineering decision, like using SOAP (SOAP's safe to hate on these days,
right?), that affects me because I'll have to write software that interfaces
with their systems that use a terrible protocol.

And if I see a person arguing in favor of a terrible idea like SOAP, I
perceive that they are not only using SOAP themselves, but encouraging others
to do so also -- if they succeed my life gets even _harder_. If other people
seem to be agreeing that it's a good idea, instead of recognizing it for the
insanity that it is, the frustration grows. And if the person is arguing in a
self-righteous way, that makes it seem justified to be snippy back.

It's probably not the most healthy reaction, but there you have it. This is
what led me to post rants in the past like:
[http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=446030&ci...](http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=446030&cid=22346032)

------
stitchy
I think that the issue of open hostility in online communities stems from
Anonymity more than anything else. Most people are very conciliatory face to
face. Honestly, I'd prefer something between open hostility and straight up
pacification. I definitely want constructive criticism, which is why I tend to
like Hacker News. The comments that I have seen here tend to be more
constructive than other places on the intertubes.

~~~
guelo
There is something about hiding behind machines that makes people treat each
other much worse. I've noticed this in traffic jam situations, when everybody
is hiding behind a couple tons of steel people are much more rude than, for
example waiting in a human line, with everybody cutting each other off,
flipping the finger, honking horns, etc. There's been a couple times where
someone who has been rude on the road pulls up next to me at a stop and I
wave, smile, say hello, and they act completely awkward and apparently
ashamed.

------
lyudmil
I agree with the author's observation. Geek culture is incredibly unforgiving,
and proudly so. To some extent this might be just a part of hacker tradition,
but I think there's a deeper problem - it isn't always easy to tell who the
authority on a subject is in a random group discussing a highly technical
issue.

Let's take the sports analogy the author used. It is immediately clear who is
more apt at skateboarding and thus should be doling out advice. The power
relation is clear and accepted on both sides, which allows for constructive
instruction to take place.

Discussing things on HN, however is different. In general, technical
discussions amongst people who don't generally know each other are a process
of _discovering_ the appropriate power relation. We are exchanging comments
and trying to gauge who is more knowledgeable. If I were to try to teach
someone before they've acknowledged I have something to teach them, I'll come
across as arrogant and an unpleasant argument will likely begin.

I'm not sure what the answer is. Sometimes I'd like to see more humility in
the communities we're referring to here, but I also don't want to read
insecure, watered-down opinion. It would be the best of all worlds if people
stated their case as strongly as possible, confident that everyone knows
they're aware of the possibility or even overwhelming probability they're
wrong. I think that would eliminate a lot of the pain and noise in discussions
on forums such as this.

------
bane
In most cases, there's a social normative function that teaches people that
this kind of behavior doesn't work. Are you an asshole in real life? People
won't deal with you and you'll find yourself shut out of many social
opportunities. People tend to learn to stop being assholes real quick when
everybody else gets an office birthday party and they don't.

The problem with life on the Internet is that this social normative function
doesn't work. Are you an asshole that nobody will talk to? No problem! Just
invite yourself to the office parties and start running your mouth!

Admin lock out your account from your favorite forum because of flame wars? No
problem! There's a million other forums you can head to and be a complete jerk
in!

There _are_ exceptions, HN for example is fairly unique in terms of the social
environment it provides, and flaming out here can have consequences, hence
people tend to behave a bit better here in order to maintain their social
status in the group.

However, in addition to behavior and tone, down arrows represent a kind of
social normative function that includes semantics that might push people
towards a kind of consensus in group think (flags usually deal with purely bad
behavior). The problem is that it's very hard on HN to have a dissenting
opinion without getting knocked down a few points. If want to keep socializing
here, you either conform or get out.

------
jhamburger
If we were to generalize and put nerds into three broad categories-

1\. Lower-case 'n' nerds for whom coding is as much of a day job as it
possibly can be and lead rewarding and socially active lives away from their
computers.

2\. Nerds who are completely immersed in what they do because they find it to
be rewarding in and of itself.

3\. Nerds who are completely immersed in what they do because they aren't very
good at anything else, and are bitter that being good at what they do isn't
really socially rewarding.

I think most of our problems come from group #3.

~~~
forensic
1 and 2 sound like distinct personality types and 3 sounds like a neurotic
person

------
Jach
<http://lesswrong.com/lw/3h/why_our_kind_cant_cooperate/>

------
angelbob
Thank you. I don't think this will do any good, but I'm still glad somebody is
saying it loudly.

------
Dylanlacey
Honestly, I'm on the other side of the fence. I've found that good programming
shops are a bit offensive and a bit agro when discussing code, and it leaks
playfully out into regular relations. It needs to be offensive, but not about
the person themselves (like all good criticism)

"What? This sorting code is slower the a walrus walking uphill" "Dude, your
lunch STINKS, are you cooking a month-dead skunk?" "That's retarded. It won't
work. At all. Ever."

Sure, they sound a bit harsh, but they're not actually offensive because you
KNOW they're not about you, or are only peripherally about your judgment, and
it's an unavoidable fact that some people have terrible judgment.

The shops I've worked in with quiet, softly given feedback have been those
that aren't doing anything interesting, are moving slowly and don't really
have any great developers, or even better then average ones. In my mind
there's a definite correlation between boisterous shops and great ones.

------
jgroome
The old stereotype of the socially awkward nerd is just as true now as it ever
was. The points the author brings up are classic signs of lack of ability to
articulate in a social context.

It's not a popular thing to say but programming and hacking is, at the end of
the day, a mostly solitary endeavour. Why would someone who spends most of
their time stuck in their own head know how to converse about technical
matters, especially when it's online and behind a wall of anonymity?

I'm not saying all geeks are antisocial. I'm saying that the kind of person
who would call another an idiot over a minor disagreement isn't demonstrating
a lack of confidence but rather an inability to communicate in a friendly way.

------
Tycho
The worst part is the practice of _deliberately trying to make someone feel
bad about themselves_ over a discussion about iPods or something. What sort of
person does that? Thankfully I hardly ever see it on HN, but elsewhere it's
rife.

~~~
huertanix
You see it a lot between iOS and Android camps. I get flak from Android
fanboys constantly and I _don't even use an iPhone_. If each system was so
perfect, there wouldn't be a need for anyone to prove anything. We're pitted
into camps of imperfect systems in which each side is perfectly aware of their
side's flaws but avoid the geek-sin of admitting they use something less than
perfect by only pointing out everything wrong with the "other side" rather
than admitting that everything is broken and telling Google and Apple about it
instead.

~~~
Tycho
I know one guy who used to actually reply saying, 'read what you just wrote,
and feel bad about yourself.' One of the main problems though is that half the
people on these forums are 10-18 year olds. I mean even Hacker News has a
median age of only 25 (according to a recent poll), and it seems super-grown-
up.

------
BoppreH
I think there's two main problems here at play: excessive criticism and
discouragement.

I actually like the first one, and most hackers I know do too. I've seen geeks
take (possibly harsh) critics very well, way better than "normal" people.
Personally, I find it useful as a route to self-development, but it's
certainly more frequent than in other places.

About discouragement, I think the author is just visiting the wrong
communities. Or maybe I've been really lucky all this time. Either way, I
don't see evidences of this behavior being more common in our circles.

------
dctoedt
Getting in the habit of _kindly_ offering _constructive_ criticism will pay
off big-time when and if you raise kids -- at least if you want them to like
you when they're adults.

------
Semiapies
Ehn. There's a reason he rhetorically asks whether we're back in high school -
this isn't just _geek_ behavior. I've experienced this attitude from plenty of
people who aren't at all geeky, and I've encountered some very nice geeks.

Under certain sets of circumstances, people just tend to be dicks - and the
internet contains many cases of those circumstances.

<http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/>

------
csomar
That happens everywhere; however, the author is comparing two different
places: The Internet and a skate-park.

He just find a good place and also people don't tell strangers and guests "you
are an idiots" in your face. On the Internet, it's different. That applies to
a skateboard forum, just search and you'll find out!

End of the story: Work on improving yourself and forget about what sh*t the
others say.

------
PakG1
I'm glad that HN is a place where people are normally really helpful to each
other, but I see it even occasionally here.

On the other hand, let's not take it too far. It's nice for people to have a
little bit of backbone. They don't need to endure jackasses unnecessarily, but
there are times when criticism is rightly required and backbone is rightly
needed to respond well.

~~~
gte910h
Yes, however the criticism the author is complaining about it not any
criticism at all, it's about the low order, non substantive, non-topical type.

Spolsky or PG wrote up a piece on this a bit back.

~~~
blhack
>Spolsky or PG wrote up a piece on this a bit back.

I'd love to see it if you can remember the title...

~~~
gte910h
Found it: <http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html>

------
ilovecomputers
That's it, I'm admitting it.

"Tom, no, not among the hall of nerds."

No, it's the best time. Everyone, I have an announcement to make! I...am kind
of like a hipster.

 _reveals fedora hat and threadless shirt_

<<My word! They do exist!>>

No longer will I be prosecuted for enjoying a cultural product that is making
it's first appearance in the cultural scene.

I also speak for every newbie who dislikes dealing with the console and I
speak for every newbie who doesn't posses the skills of a sysadmin, but wants
to understand their way around unix. I also speak for every CS major who
thinks caustic arguments, over which programming language sucks, are a waste
of time.

And yes, I am currently learning Haskell, not because it is underground but
because I enjoy recursively declaring functions. Now who here will help me
understand side effects?

------
skurland78704
"...give people constructive criticisms. If their design is bad, tell them
what they can do to improve it. If there code is bad, offer to help them patch
it and make it better. If there spelling or grammar is off, just let it go."

I perceive a profound inconsistency.

------
lloeki
This seems like someone just discovered that once you consider a large enough
group of people, a bunch of them happen to be narrow-minded people thinking
they know The Truth and feel they have a Mission to teach Gospel. The best
thing to do is to actually ignore them lest one risks engaging into void
arguments. Once you learn to get over the empty side of the Internet you
discover that you can also find a bunch of open-minded, constructive people
(of which hackers are - by the idealistic definition - a subset).

Trains can be late and one can be quite vocal about that, but few talk about
those that are actually on time.

Also, <http://xkcd.com/386/>

------
grishick
Partially responsible for the situation is the fact that many (if not most) of
us (nerdy geeks) are to some extend autistic, or rather "aspergerish". Go read
about Asperger Syndrome (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome>) and
tell me that you don't recognize your own traits. Not only we enjoy being
abrupt and critical, but we are also better fit for being around people who
are like us and so we don't mind it as much as other people do. That said, it
wouldn't hurt to learn some human interaction skills.

------
biturd
Aged skateboarder here. Been a few years since I have even rode one. The
nature of skateboarders is something that I am glad the blog author got a
taste of. I seem to compare every "culture" that I get involved in to
skateboarders. I don't think you will find the same camaraderie in many other
places.

It's very hard to explain. For something that is rather competitive, it is
also very much a competition with yourself. Just the act of truly wanting to
be a part of it will make you part of a family so to speak.

------
squasher
I see a lot of threads go by on HN along the lines of "why aren't there more
women in technology?" and then lots of replies along the lines of "I guess
they are just allergic to keyboards. Too bad!"

This article, particularly the section about attitude towards noobs, is all
tied up in why some women never go deep into programming. There are lots of
other reasons too, but this one is especially well articulated by the OP.

If you are in the keyboard-allergist camp, ponder this one long and hard.

------
edanm
I'm happy to point out one thing: this is less true on Hacker News. More
broadly, this is less true in the "Startup Scene".

Even though a _lot_ of us come from an engineering background, I've always
seen people get _great_ feedback, helpful and not condescending at all. This
is even more true for people's "Review my startup" posts, which usually
present a pretty early beta, but tend to get great responses.

------
rbarooah
What the poster misses is that many people don't come to online forums for
just polite intelligent discussion. You might as well tell football fans to be
quiet so everyone can concentrate on the game better.

Is he comparing online forums with in-person experiences?

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y&feature=youtu...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player)

------
wturner
I really enjoyed this post, and skateboarding has been one of my greatest
teachers in life (which probably isn't saying much). I do believe in
Machiavellian criticism, but progressive Machiavellian criticism with the
intend of doing whatever you're focused on better.Not for the sake of the
critic feeding their own ego, although the two can mutually interact. :)

------
jedbrown
As a related matter, harsh criticism sometimes makes it easier to distinguish
good products/people from those that are not worth your time. I tend to
appreciate the opinion of people who do not hold back criticism, certainly
their praise is a lot more meaningful. Reading between the lines is not the
most efficient way to discern quality.

------
joliss
I don't think it's true in general that hackers (or geeks) "are jackasses to
one another". Rather, it seems to depend a lot on the community. For example,
I tend to work with Rails software, and the communities that I've encountered
have (without exception!) been very friendly.

Though pessimism aside, I think the post is spot-on with its argument!

------
usmanity
I recently started working at a startup and before that my perception of
criticism was what I saw on tv and heard from people. Fortunately, my coworks
and seniors give me some good feedback.

But I myself still can't have the patience to listen and learn, after reading
this, I feel like there's an incentive for me to change my behavior :)

------
samlevine
From my comment on the post on Thingist:

>I don't think you can fight human nature, only work around it. Ignore the
haters that don't get $x. Ignore the haters that think what you've made sucks,
or doesn't do $x and is therefore useless. Build shit. Write about how to do
shit. Let them know you by the trail of OC you leave behind.

------
coreyhaines
This is a great idea. A bunch of us in the software craftsmanship community
engaged in what we called "Positivember" last fall in a similar vein:
[http://programmingtour.blogspot.com/2010/11/positivember.htm...](http://programmingtour.blogspot.com/2010/11/positivember.html)

------
alvarosm
But Arduino fanboys really deserve it :P

------
localhost3000
i started learning to code in December/January. I've been pleasantly surprised
by how helpful I've found people to be in places like #rubyonrails, #jquery,
...

I come across a random jerk here or there, or just some snarky, passive-
aggressive commentary from time to time from otherwise OK people. I find if I
am nice, humble, and honest about my abilities/intentions, people are
generally nice in response.

Sarcasm has proven to be pretty successful on the web, which doesn't help your
cause. How many successful blogs were built on a glib and critical tone? Being
a jackass is an easy way to differentiate...I think this influences the
general discourse on the web, especially among the savvy. That said, from what
I remember, "web people" were far more ruthless 15 years ago.

------
donniefitz2
I have to say, as a former sk8er (too old now), this is typical. Skateboarders
have been social Switzerland for decades. Often un-critical of ones appearance
and always deep into their sport, I'm not surprised by Steve's attitude.

------
Trufa
Made me remember this: [http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/9953/could-we-
please...](http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/9953/could-we-please-be-a-
bit-nicer-to-the-noobs)

------
etherael
Damn straight, all intolerant people should be taken out and shot.

------
xentronium
While I generally agree with the statement, my personal experience says that
hardcore drilling is the most effective way of teaching sometimes.

------
NathanKP
_If there spelling or grammar is off, just let it go._

I'm not sure if we are being trolled here or whether it was an actual mistake.

------
Limes102
Meh. It isn't actually that important at the end of day.

There are the geeks that help out and the geeks that criticise.

~~~
nowarninglabel
It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.

------
ddelphin
Could not have said it better though I doubt things will change. I hope so
though!

------
peterwwillis
Everyone (in the world) should just be less critical and stop thinking their
shit doesn't smell. But as far as hipsters are concerned, I won't ever respect
someone who trades their individuality for conformity.

------
saidulislam
all of you guys missed the big one... RTFM!

------
jhuni
I hate haters.

------
ignifero
still, i think hipsters are wannabes, and clothes don't make the man

~~~
jokermatt999
To further my attempt at inserting George Orwell's Politics and the English
Language into every conversation, I think this quote applies. :-)

 _The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have
each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one
another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed
definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides._ \- George
Orwell, Politics and the English Language
(<http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm>)

I think "hipster" is generally one of those meaningless words in a lot of
cases. Often times it's not pointing at what should truly be denouncing IMO
(doing things for "irony", hating on popular things for no reason, being
elitist, etc), but simply as a way of just generally denouncing people.

"Oh you listen to bands I haven't heard of? You fucking hipster." as if
there's no way the person in question _truly_ likes that band regardless of
their popularity.

That's just an example from the cases where there's a specific objection other
than "hipster". It's just become a popular nebulous term to hate on, and I've
gotten tired of seeing it everywhere. I luckily rarely come across "hipsters"
so I'm not too annoyed by them, but "hipster-haters" are constantly bitching
about whatever "hipsters" do.

~~~
chrisrhoden
The anti-hipster culture is hilarious.

It is impossible for me to read this without pointing out that after a very
well-reasoned and largely accurate argument against the completely irrational
spite, you close with a (admittedly small) taste of the very disgust you just
denounced. "I _luckily_ rarely come across 'hipsters'."

It's pervasive, even in the group itself. Hipster doesn't actually mean
anything specific to anyone, it simply means, "a member of the counterculture
which I find offensive at the moment." And, shocker, the people who you would
consider, "hipsters," are just as guilty of this.

The problem with this, from my perspective, is that it's also a catch-all for
people who are difficult to categorize. Even before the word was co-opted to
be a generally negative term, it was nebulous at best, referring generally to
young people who are interested in culture or art or food or music or, really,
anything.

As a result of this, people get lumped into this group based on these very
general terms, and then assumptions are made about their character by
regurgitating every complaint anyone has slapped the word "hipster" after, as
though it's representative of everyone who wears sweaters. No, not everyone
who has a moustache is an elitist. Not everyone who smoked pot in college
loves Bob Marley, do they?

I encourage people to stop using this word at all. It's just stupid,
meaningless, and devoid of positive connotations for most of the world.

~~~
arcwhite
Well, by that logic, we should abandon all labels altogether. Down with
identification of groups of people! Cast off the oppressive shackles of
classification!

Down here in Australia, "Hipsters" are an easily recognizable and quite
specific cultural subgroup: Thick-rim glasses, no actual vision impediment to
justify them, Impractically skinny jeans, Borderline offensively cliched
facial hair (ie. Hercule Poirot-esque moustaches) and - most importantly -
Irrational dislike of anything "mainstream" or "commercial" (with little/no
other justification)

It's no longer meaningful counter-culture, it's become a very specific
subculture in and of itself (at least down here) - a culture I would describe
not as counter-culture, but anti-culture. It's ceased to be productive and
meaningful, and simply become (like Monty Python's Argument Clinic) the
automatic gainsay of anything "mainstream".

I've no tolerance for it, because (in my opinion, at least) it's highly
pretentious and offers very little in the way of positive change. I find that
subculture to be, in general, very negative (often for very little reason).

When I talk about Hipsters, I'm generally referring not to the dress, but to
the attitude. Maybe you're right, and I should be referring to those specific
attitudes as what I take issue with - but sometimes convenient (if inaccurate)
labels make communication faster.

~~~
chrisrhoden
Frankly, we _have_ made efforts for quite a while to eliminate classifications
which are used solely to put people down. While it is true that hipster is not
as offensive as some other classifying words and carries none of the
historical baggage, it has become a slur, nothing more.

What you've described sounds like a caricature. While it is possible that the
more nuanced culture formed elsewhere and was made extreme on it's way to your
shores (and, indeed, there is evidence of this having happened in many other
cases), I am not sure that is what is going on here. The specific attitude you
describe is one I see commonly attributed to hipsters, and only in very rare
cases a fair characterization. I think that The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Radiohead
(to throw something out there) are examples of incredibly commercial,
mainstream bands which most of the people you are describing would be into.

Saying that you don't like the new Shins album because it is very mainstream
doesn't actually mean that you don't like it because people are buying it
(they aren't), it means that it doesn't seem challenging or interesting to
you. It seems designed for mainstream appeal.

In the US, the word is not applied solely to the group that you describe,
either. It's used to describe people who live in particular areas, people who
ride bicycles, people who shop at thrift stores, people who listen to public
radio, people who see lots of live music, and people who listen to records on
vinyl, and this is by no means an exhaustive list. The most important thing is
that people seem to have flipped your description of the attitude on it's
head; It's not about whether or not you dislike "mainstream" or "commercial"
things, it's about whether or not you like something which _doesn't_ fall into
one of these categories.

I agree that your description of this group doesn't make me want to hang out
with anyone in it, but it certainly doesn't make me feel like I shouldn't
tollerate it. If there is a group of people who want to be very bad at
conversation at parties, more power to them.

If I believed that most people made these judgements on a case by case basis,
that would be one thing, but that's not the case in my experience. The
assumption seems to be that if you match one of these very superficial and
general categories, I can mantle your personality and judge you (with
little/no other justification, see what I did there?)

~~~
arcwhite
Mmm. Thinking about it, I can't think of a positive connotation of the word
"hipster", or even a neutral one, so given that; you're right - it's become a
slur, and probably worth abandoning as a term.

I realise what I'm describing sounds like a caricature. I wish I was simply
being snarky, but spend 10 minutes at a bar on Brunswick Street in Fitzroy,
Melbourne and you'd definitely witness what I describe. There are quite a
significant proportion of people in that area who do indeed dress as described
(for whatever reason) and who will hold conversations - at length - about the
invalidity of any artistic endeavour that gives itself over to financial
motivation.

I neither agree nor disagree with them on that point, but I feel I certainly
have more productive things to talk about!

I think the usage of the word has probably varied within Australia from its
usage in the US. Certainly when I read articles in Wired about 'hipster'
culture, I'm left scratching my head (behaviours or purchasing patterns they
describe therein tend to amount to the local use of the word 'trendy', which
is rarely construed as an insult).

There's probably a PhD in sociological studies to be gained from the
comparative usage of that word in Australia vs. the US. :P

