

Revenge of the nerds - rubberplant
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/02/maths-artists-school-geeks

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RiderOfGiraffes
What a vile and invidious piece. Equating mathematicians and nerds with
thieves, and touting his inability to understand another area as a positive
virtue.

Sadly, it's those who are trained and experienced in writing who help to shape
the minds and attitudes of others. The influence of the public is in the hands
of those who comment, rather than those who help to create the world that
enables their existence.

~~~
brandnewlow
I agree with your take on his piece. But understand that there are many people
out there who have seen livelihoods and futures dashed by the rapid
commodification of content. These people are afraid, angry, and looking for
someone to blame.

~~~
sharpn
Yes, there are. But if your _living_ is content, then ignoring developments in
your industry is a failure to engage in your career - and if you blithely
blame others for the result of that failing _in print_ then you diminish your
authority with your readership further.

~~~
brandnewlow
We're on the same page here, but realistically, what is he to do? What
specific advice would you give someone like him beyond "start a blog"?

It sounds like he spent his career typing down his thoughts on the issues of
the day and handing them off to an editor to publish. He's not in a good
place.

~~~
sharpn
I agree he's not in a good place & I empathise. But the awkward fact is that
his work is lowering in value because of greater transparacy, not because of a
decrease in worth.

There are several good UK writers earning decent money via newspaper readers
today - for example Alexander McCall Smith serialises fictional accounts of
ordinary lives, Robert Fisk explores international injustice, Luke Johnson
muses on small businesses and Jeremy Clarkson rails against what annoys him -
and many others.

Unfortunately, there are also many people paid to write for newspapers because
previously nobody knew which articles customers read - now that's becoming
clear, some people will lose out. Sad, but true.

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microcentury
This kind of over-simplification of complex issues really doesn't do anyone
any favours, even if it's supposed to be satire or humour (which I can't be
sure about in this case). Technology has _always_ provided a platform for art
- where do you think those guitars come from, or the paper you write on, or
the paints that people used to paint on cave walls if we want to go back as
far as we can?

People develop new things that can be used in various ways. Some of the ways
are prosaic, some are creative. Someone develops a computer, and one person
uses it to solve an equation, another uses it to create a digital painting -
both of these things are both technical and creative. And as technology
develops, it becomes more and more accessible to more and more people. I can
use a piece of paper without understnading how it was made, just as I can use
Photoshop without understanding the mathematics of its underlying algorithms.

This piece seems to spring from the same the-internet-is-killing-journalism
mentality that has become more prevalent in recent times. Traditional
journalism would be on much safer ground if it wasn't producing this kind of
rubbish in a mainstream international broadsheet.

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pg
He thinks the side he's on is the artists. Actually it's the old.

~~~
unalone
This.

Artists are not the conservatives. They're the people embracing change and
seeing what they can do with it. If anything, the artists will win even more
now, because with luck there'll be a lower barrier to entry.

~~~
dstorrs
No luck required. Most of the big well known tech companies are devoted to
making it easier for people to do their thing and/or share the results.

Google: Advertisements for your work.

Apple: Music and graphic production toolchains. The iPod / iPhone. The
AppStore (for all its many, many flaws).

Yahoo Stores / Ebay / many others: Sell your stuff online.

Free or nearly free webhosting. Social networking, blogging, Twitter, etc.

This isn't accidental. People are social animals, and many of us are creative
social animals; we want to share news and creations with our friends, and some
of us want to make a buck doing it.

~~~
unalone
I was thinking more about luck regarding people's abilities to make a living
with their work. So far nothing exists to easily facilitate an artist's growth
into profitability: That first step is still the scariest for that reason.

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hegemonicon
This is one of the worst things I've read in recent memory. Nerds rising at
the expense of artists? Plotting a world where writers and musicians are at
the mercy of mathematicians? Even the most cursory examination of this piece
shows that it's not connected to anything resembling reality. Since when did
creative types run the show? Since when were 'footballers' (athletes)
relegated to the sidelines? What fantasy world has this guy been living in?

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selven
From equating downloading to stealing to praising Lord Mandelson and his
guilty-before-proven-innocent approach to copyright to the anti-technology
sentiment, this seems like an article written by the RIAA (or local
equivalent).

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cojadate
I really don't think article is meant to be taken very seriously. I mean
dividing society into three powers, the footballers, the artists and the
nerds... is not a sociological theory that anyone is going to defend without
the aid of several pints of beer. And I'm sure that the author realizes that
top sportsmen were highly revered in the 70s (even if in the UK there were
more big-name cricketers and rugby players and less celebrity footballers) and
that 'creative types' still get plenty of cultural kudos today (which has
never been the same thing as easy money).

The only elements of seriousness I can detect are in the snipe at pirates and
the allusion to the struggles of the creative industries, but I think there
are genuinely two sides to those stories so I find it hard to get worked up
it.

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jibiki
I think he's missing a </jest> tag.

Or maybe not. British humor ("humour?") is totally inscrutable to me.

~~~
sharpn
Sadly not. I'm British & this guy is not joking. His 'career' is making
unobservant remarks about his life for a newspaper. The internet has opened up
what he does to comparison & he is discovering that the market places a low
value on his work. Rather than wonder why he is not popular he blames 'nerds'.

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JulianMorrison
There's this thing on my desk with buttons and it beeps and I don't understand
it (and the people who do wouldn't let me copy their homework) and I WANT MY
1960s BACK DARN IT. Help me, Mandelson, you're my only hope.

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albertsun
Wait... this was satire right?

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WinterAyars
Wow, a bit bitter are we?

Well guess what...

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jodrellblank
Revenge? Revenge for what?

Or, more pointedly, what have you done that you're afraid nerds would want
revenge on you for?

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cmars232
F __kin hipsters had it coming. lol, jk

~~~
unalone
This isn't at all about hipsters. Most "hipsters" aren't artists. Most of the
artists that find themselves in the hipster subset aren't hipsters so much as
they are the people who set the definition for hipster.

That aside, your comment was lame for other reasons too.

