I still used to frequent it all the way up to last month, for some interesting discussions. But now… it’s really become AI-pro[1] and any post that even hints about AI existentialism gets immediately cut down.
I find it hard to browse the site anymore, and lament the loss of expert tech discussion in my weekly routine.
Yes, I know it’s been that way for a while, but either I’m feeling it more or the bots have gamed the website to the point that all you see are announces from big tech companies or people going on about their AI solutions ↩︎
I stopped visiting when I came across some bigoted discussions there. They really live up to the ‘STEM techbro’ stereotype.
Yeah… I mean it’s not a monolith in that respect, you do get the hippie crowd speaking up every now and then and sometimes shouting the techbro’s down, but it’s far and few between these days.
God I remember when I first got into programming and ran into the different communities and just assumed that all programmers were left-wing liberal artists expressing their individuality and building a shared common future that all would benefit from.
And then I had the culture shock of meeting programmers who… had different ideas about the purpose of what they were creating, and somehow it never crossed my mind that some people just… really love money. Not need it – they have their investments, they’re comfortable, they wouldn’t need to work a day in their life at their present rate – but it’s not enough, and they want more, and programming is a means to achieve that and are happy to sponge off the collective efforts of others to further that goal.
And that was the day I learned exactly what the purpose of the MIT license was for
The MIT license? Care to explain?
“Do whatever you want, fuck you” kind of mentality – great for rugged individualism, bad for building something bigger than yourself that persists
Every time i see a non-technical political discussion there (for example immigration related) i just get majorly racist and bigoted vibes from the comments.
Their view is understandable if majorly flawed.
They were people who rolled the dice on their interests early on, picked the winning combo of CS + Finance, and then just raced ahead in the career ladder over their peers as software work consumed the world.
Now it’s ten years later, those ladders have disappeared, many of them are seeing the writing on the wall, and are wondering whether they were anything special at all.
The answer of course is no, but it’s a tough pill to swallow. So cling on desperately to the idea that they can “bootstrap” themselves back into success
In a roundabout way, I guess what I’m saying is that for the last few decades they have never needed to have any shred of sympathy for others, and believed that their success was derived purely from their own efforts and not from opportunities that existed at the beginning of their careers
well put, thank you :)