Having gone to college and knowing this guy personally from then, you would have a much different opinion... Maybe he has grown up, but back then... yeeesh
I mean, he's obviously not a normal guy. I don't know what you expect. From a recent profile:
> Apart from a criminal streak, Hotz shares with Raskolnikov, Dostoyevsky’s antihero, a predilection for instrumental reason and an urge to test his own mettle, to know himself by knowing his limits. As a young adult Hotz allowed himself to become addicted to prescription opiates almost as an experience in self-mastery. “I did it, I was addicted, and I quit,” he told me. “I think I had to have that experience. I don’t think I ever could have been the type who never tried it. Because in some ways I feel that if I’m not strong enough to defeat that and overcome it…” He paused for several beats before assuring me he’d never want anyone to follow his example. “In order to quit,” he continued, “it required me to rethink what I wanted out of life. After that, one of the biggest things that changed is I stopped caring about money.”
As someone who somewhat went down that path, the answer for me was "no, I can't quit on my own and man this 'experiment' has done some serious damage to my life"
I'm doing better now! The buprenorphine injection has made my life so much better.
Of course my trauma was one of the real driving forces behind that "experiment" and thought process. Really, my "lets find out what its like" was a rationalisation it seems.
I've heard that real serious addictions are never just about the drugs, but also about underlying issues. It makes sense that someone without those issues would have an easier time quitting.
I'm in a similar situation, but not with opioids.
I don't think that this is a crazy idea at all. We're just testing our limits and seeing if we as smart as we say.
I have gone to college with similar overachievers/braggers, and now that you mention it if they were in the spotlight as much as him I'd roll my eyes pretty hard. Still though, having not gone to college with this particular one somehow I can stand it.
I cannot take this criticism seriously unless you are more specific than “yeesh.” If you aren’t willing to be specific then better to not say anything at all.
If he's being held up as some shining beacon of the "hacker-ish culture" as the grandparent poster is doing, it would be nice if he weren't also a jerk.
Everyone should kill their heroes. They almost never live up to the pedestals people place them on. They are all just people and have flaws. They don’t have to be some perfect person to do cool things we can respect.
I respect geohotz' achievements (generally). I would never hold him up as an example of hacker culture, or his persona as one to emulate. There is a difference between these things.
Linus used to be a massive jerk until he fixed his attitude. Hackers can grow.
I've got massive respect for everybody who addresses their own problems and fixes them. Way too many people only look for the problem in other people, but it's never that simple.
They are mostly the people you never hear about in mainstream media. The quiet engineers and tinkerers of the world. Guys like Fabrice Bellard, jaquesm of hn fame, Stuff Made Here (YouTube). There are a lot of prolific hackers out there that have made or are making contributions.
The poster probably meant that "«it would be nice» - yet largely irrelevant". You can abstract from those "personality traits" as long as """he is one who delivers""" - respectfully saying, as he is not obliged: he provided us with another tool, for our use, for free: he is a benefactor.
I don’t think of him as shining. I like that he’s a real person, flaws and all. Not someone to idolize. Many great hackers that I know and in general are total jerks (I suspect the trait helps wrangling a machine somehow but idk). I wouldn’t find it accurate to my experiences if we had some polished perfect optics guy as representative (not that that’s what he is)
> Apart from a criminal streak, Hotz shares with Raskolnikov, Dostoyevsky’s antihero, a predilection for instrumental reason and an urge to test his own mettle, to know himself by knowing his limits. As a young adult Hotz allowed himself to become addicted to prescription opiates almost as an experience in self-mastery. “I did it, I was addicted, and I quit,” he told me. “I think I had to have that experience. I don’t think I ever could have been the type who never tried it. Because in some ways I feel that if I’m not strong enough to defeat that and overcome it…” He paused for several beats before assuring me he’d never want anyone to follow his example. “In order to quit,” he continued, “it required me to rethink what I wanted out of life. After that, one of the biggest things that changed is I stopped caring about money.”
https://return.life/2022/03/07/george-hotz-comma-ride-or-die...