[pizzafeelsright]

You're a hero of mine so here is my story.

Me in math class in 1996 - I had a TI-82 things are programmable so I have no formal education, my parents are illiterate, and taught myself to program, and I begged them to buy me one.

I spent time learning how to code on it, writing from scratch, the game Spyhunter.

I couldn't figure out how to draw with lines or pixels so I used ASCII or text.

I presented this to my teacher who told me "these aren't for games". I was crushed.

[MrBuddyCasino]

Seems like everyone has such a story about a teacher. „No you can’t read more advanced books because the current ones bore you“ etc etc

What is the matter with these people.

[abustamam]

Makes me realize how lucky I was to have teachers who pushed me to actually excel in areas I was gifted in (and also pull me back in areas I was not gifted in :))

When I was in 7th grade I was getting 100% on all my math exams so my teacher had me test into 8th grade math (algebra). Then when I was a sophomore I was supposed to take precalc but my teacher thought I obviously didn't belong there either so she put me in her Calc AB class, which was the highest math class my school offered, but had me self-study for the Calc BC AP test during class time, taking her own time to sit down with me whenever I had questions.

A couple years later I TA'd for her precalc class and I spent most of my time in that class playing with my TI 8x (can't remember the exact model, maybe 84?) and programming very basic games on it. I showed her what I made and she was so impressed she said I should study computer science.

Guess what I did? Not that. I studied something completely different in college but now I've been a programmer for ten years and wonder why I ever doubted her at all.

Just goes to show how much impact a good teacher has on a student's life.

[bloomingeek]

Some teachers, like many of us, have caveman emotions, live under near medieval systems and have access to god-like tech. (My version of a quote I read earlier this year.)

What could go wrong?

[ta988]

rigidity

[3form]

Personally betting on the "crab bucket" mentality.

[threethirtytwo]

It's typical. They're supposed have authority and be better than you. That is the purpose of their position and their identity.

Don't be so quick to judge, because most people, including you would react the same way in similar contexts, for example if you were the top engineer at a company and someone started showing you up and being a hundred times better than you.

[ndriscoll]

Not really? I've worked with people who were super productive with high quality work, and my reaction was to... gravitate toward working more with them. Some people are status driven. Some are not. Some are apparently pathologically status driven such that they'll compete with a literal child.

In any case refusing to nurture such a child (even in effectively passive ways like letting them quietly do something more advanced with no specific instruction) and not being reprimanded for it would reveal that the actual purpose of their position is daycare worker, which should be a bigger strike to the ego.

[threethirtytwo]

That’s what all people say. Everyone who is status driven will not admit or even realize they are status driven. But the fact of the matter is… it is human nature to be status driven. Everyone recognizes status symbols and possesses such a drive within them. It is also clinically tied with serotonin levels and observed in cross species behavior. To say you have no drive for status is an either a lie or delusional. The evidence is so ingrained in science.

Now. That being said, the drive can be suppressed. But suppressing the drive doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist and that you don’t feel it. Also many people feel the drive at different levels of intensity that much is true.

Anecdotally your response to me indicates to me that you have not suppressed status seeking drives completely. The key hints are you’re referring to how you’re drawn to people who do high quality work. That is orthogonal to status seeking. Your status and identity is tied to a certain type of work you do and you take pride in. Have you worked with anyone who was so powerful that their work invalidated, crushed and basically humiliated anything you did. And let’s say this person is not malicious. He’s just so much better than you that your work and identity is inconsequential and eclipsed by his work.

If you said that you wouldn’t feel anything in the face of that then I would say that you truly do not seek status. I would also say you’re not human.

That being said a teacher holds his identity as someone who is better than children. He needs to be better than children in order to transfer his betterment (aka knowledge) to children. His role in society and identity rests on that foundation. If children are better then him and know more than him then that is inadvertently an attack on his identity. His reaction is natural and expected. It’s not that he has anything against the child, it’s self protection mechanisms to protect his identity via deluding himself. Very typical.

You see much of the same stuff with LLMs and programmers. A huge portion of HN was in denial for the longest time about the capabilities of LLMs calling these things stochastic parrots and thinking it’s impossible for the AI to take over. HN was just completely wrong about that and they were also wrong about driverless cars. The reason why they were so wrong is not because they’re making a logical and rational prediction… no they are choosing the prediction that most aligns with protecting their identity and skill set as programmers which is in the process of being replaced by agentic ai.

[ndriscoll]

Again, I think you're entirely off base here. Maybe you are status driven enough that you can't wrap your head around someone who isn't, but I'm really just not interested in it. I want to give my family a comfortable life and spend time with them. That's it.

To color that a little, I've literally told the last 4 managers I've had very explicitly that I'm not at all interested in career advancement. When I was asked to lead my current team, I said "I've done it in the past and can if you want, but check with A and B first to see if they want to". I literally do not care about it. Work is a means to provide, and it does well enough that I don't need to chase it anymore. Actually the marginal pay for the increased responsibility kind of doesn't make it worth it, but like I said I'll do it if they need that. And so my focus is generally thinking about "how do I get one of my team members in a place where they can replace me?"

If we're talking about who's more human, I'd put forward that caring about who's best seems less humanizing than seeking to spend time with people you care about, remembering how lucky you are to have that time, and ignoring outside noise.

Especially when it comes to teaching, if your identity is "better than child" instead of "person who helps children reach their potential" I'm not sure what to say. Sounds like a narcissist.

On LLMs, I found them to be useless but interesting right up until December, at which point I started a hard push for my team to adopt it (and get excited about it). I'm very explicit that my mental framing with them is "how do I get it to do my job". I'm well aware that "programmer" per se is not going to be a job in the future. That much seemed obvious as far back as the original chatgpt release. That's fine, and just means we have to ask ourselves what else needs doing. If we ever get to the point where the answer is "nothing" then I guess we're all doing pretty well.

[threethirtytwo]

>Again, I think you're entirely off base here. Maybe you are status driven enough that you can't wrap your head around someone who isn't, but I'm really just not interested in it. I want to give my family a comfortable life and spend time with them. That's it.

Read carefully the part about science. Status seeking is inherit in biology... it's tied to serotonin levels in your blood. When you say you don't seek status it is not only false, it is unscientific. You're a liar or delusional. End of story. I can literally cite science around this.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-022-01378-2

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11275287/

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1606800113

This tracks not only in humans, but across multiple species including the lobster. Status seeking is in built into biology and society. Saying you don't status seek is like saying you never felt the emotion of sadness or happiness. At your job, in society, the social hierarchies are everywhere and we are ALL wired to recognize and respond to these things and to SEEK it.

Additionally there is extremely high correlation with women and status. Men with the highest status tend to get the most women. And women are attracted to the men with the highest status. It's directly tied to sexual selection and evolution. Like... this isn't even just a measurable thing via serotonin... it's tied to the theory of evolution and anthropological origins of humans. You literally have no argument other than a pathetic attempt to counter science with anecdotal bullshit.

Saying you don't seek status is in itself status seeking. You're claiming to be holier than thou but it's all just bullshit status signaling because it flies in the face of scientific reality. I think you're more of a person who is unable to obtain status in the human social hierarchy... you're probably among the lowest of society so you might've just given up and called yourself a person who never felt the emotion to status seek. Understandable... but again not realistic.

Also when I say you're pathetically on the bottom of the barrel in terms of status. You shouldn't be offended... because you don't seek status... it's not intrinsic to your character.. You should feel nothing when I call you an utter social outcast with no status whatsoever.

>To color that a little, I've literally told the last 4 managers I've had very explicitly that I'm not at all interested in career advancement. When I was asked to lead my current team, I said "I've done it in the past and can if you want, but check with A and B first to see if they want to". I literally do not care about it.

Bro this is another form of status signaling. "Everyone wants me to be their manager but I don't care for it." lol. It might be true but then again it very well might not be since your statement is a bit braggy here. If you could share with me something people and society will find pathetic and shameful about you... that's more solid proof that you don't care about status. Something like, "Everyone hates me, I've tried to be manager all my life but nobody likes me." That's a more true signal of zero status seeking. But I don't see this in you at all.

To put it in perspective, I think I believe you don't actually want to be manager... but that has nothing to do with not caring for status. It's more likely you're balancing "status" with the extra responsibilities that come with higher status. You can't handle the price that needs to be paid to reach that level so you "settle". Again, very common. You maintain a baseline level of status high enough to keep your wife around (she will leave if your status goes low enough as your status is tied to your ability to raise your family) but it doesn't demand to much out of you. If status was given to you without cost... you would take it without hesitation because... again... you seek status, like all humans do.

>Especially when it comes to teaching, if your identity is "better than child" instead of "person who helps children reach their potential" I'm not sure what to say. Sounds like a narcissist.

No. You're just someone who can't face reality. You have to talk about everything in idealist terms. If a teacher thinks all children are smarter, more educated or better than him, what identity does he have left? How is he even qualified to teach children? A teacher or any human does not think of his job as some selfless charity to society where he is at the utter whim of sacrificing himself for the class room. He has identity and gains status from the role as a "teacher" and that is a huge part of it. It's the same with being a doctor... if you think people become doctors solely just to save people and that it has nothing to do with status... you're out of touch with basic reality.

You not only fail to empathize from the teachers perspective but you succeeded in twisting your response into a direct attack on me. Manipulative. But pointless. This is just an internet forum... winning the crowd doesn't mean shit. This is one of the few opportunities you have to say things that are True and real with no affect on your status.

Anyway what I present is CLEARLY not a narcissistic concept. I am clearly not a narcissist and neither are you. It is a basic concept of basic intelligence. Something you're lacking.

>If we're talking about who's more human, I'd put forward that caring about who's best seems less humanizing than seeking to spend time with people you care about, remembering how lucky you are to have that time, and ignoring outside noise.

When I referred to humans I was more trying to illustrate how your claims don't make sense. Humans seek status period. End of story. If you don't seek status, you're not a human... you're an alien... you clearly aren't an alien... so you're clearly wrong. That was the point.

I'm talking from a hard scientific perspective. You're well outside of that right now and you're only thinking from the perspective of your family. But status seeking is still there, but it's more passed to the status of your children which is still inline with natural selection and biology.

You care for the status of your children, do you not? If your children grew up poor and homeless but extremely happy with their life style would you be content? Or do you care about the status of your children and not want them to grow up ending up in the lowest possible strata of status in human society?

[throw10000]

> That’s what all people say. Everyone who is status driven will not admit or even realize they are status driven. But the fact of the matter is… it is human nature to be status driven. Everyone recognizes status symbols and possesses such a drive within them. It is also clinically tied with serotonin levels and observed in cross species behavior. To say you have no drive for status is an either a lie or delusional. The evidence is so ingrained in science.

Isn't that just a kafkatrap?

Consider the following exchange where a sane man finds himself in a psychiatric ward:

John: I'm telling you, I'm sane. I don't have any delusions of grandeur and I don't think that I'm Jesus.

Evaluator: I see, your subconscious delusion and erroneous insistence upon sanity are more pervasive than I thought. Your repeated attempts to assert that you're not Jesus is clearly a defense mechanism. I'm afraid I cannot recommend your release.

Something went wrong here.

Or to rephrase: suppose that a person existed who was not status driven. Would you be able to detect such a person if they existed?

[threethirtytwo]

Change your example too John saying he doesn’t have experience the emotion of fear. He has never experienced such an emotion in his life.

The thing many people do not understand is how ingrained status seeking is in not just human biology… but biology altogether. Even the lobster has serotonin and is status seeking. It is also in built into our society. Practically every facet of every culture across time has status seeking imprinted into it. Among academia and people who study the biology and behavior it’s unequivocal that people are status seeking.

Basically to help you understand where I’m coming from it’s like this guy is claiming he’s never felt jealous before. “I’ve never cared that someone has more than me or covetted what another man has. It’s just illogical! I’m baffled that other humans act so illogically”.

It’s like that. It’s fake and it’s posing a bit. A lot of HNers like to position themselves as super intelligent people who are incapable of being status seeking or jealous or even feeling scared because it’s “illogical”

[clamprecht]

The fact that you made a game on a device that "wasn't for games" is even cooler.

[a96]

The essence of hack.

[anthk]

You can write a game in almost every language. Check these ones written even on really low specs VM's:

https://codeberg.org/luxferre/mu808

This could be adapted https://codeberg.org/luxferre/scoundrel-ports

More info at https://luxferre.top

[noworld]

One time I wrote a game in English.

[anthk]

With Inform7 targeting the ZMachine VM you can literally say that =).

Inform6 it's a 'small' OOP language where with the English library the syntax it's dumber than VB6, Lua or anything else. Basically the objects and logic describe themselves as a dumbed down config file. You create a meta-object for rooms and light, and then copy and paste to create rooms, containers and tools based on atributes (again as if it were a simple config file).

Inform6 example:

https://jxself.org/git/?p=cloak-of-darkness.git;a=blob_plain...

Inform6 compiler:

https://jxself.org/git/inform.git

(cc -o inform src/* )

Inform6 lib

https://jxself.org/git/informlib.git

To compile Cloak...

       inform +lib  cloak-of-darkness.inf

Lib should be the English library, you can get it with

      git submodule update --init --recursive 

or copy informlib to lib/

To play the game:

       frotz cloak-of-darkness.z5

Or LectRote under Mac... or WinFrotz under Windows, it will work the same.

With Inform7 you just write clauses in English, the interpreter will write IF6 code for you and then call the inform6 compiler to create a Z5-8 game ready to run.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inform#Inform_7

As you can see, no AI needed, no LLM's, no huge GB sized software, just a Pentium MMX could be enough for i7, a 8-16 bit machine for Puny Inform games (kinda like Inform6 'lite'), a 16 bit machine for z3-z5 games and maybe a 'high end' 16 bit computer for Z8 games. A 386 PC would be enough to run 'complex' text adventures. And consistent enough unlike LLM's where the objects' enviroment is lost everytime.

[mlry]

Irony is lost on this guy ... :D Edited to add: I comment on the guy you commented on, not you. Just in case. I did not want to reply to them to not give offense.

[mal10c]

I have an almost identical story. I wrote a few games: snake and a choose your own adventure fantasy thing. And likely others that I can't remember, but yeah, I had a teacher tell me basically the same thing. I was pretty sad because those really took a lot of time.

[andai]

I relay to you a nugget from my ancestor: "Man, this teacher sounds like a real shithead!"

[clamprecht]

In high school our computer class was in BASIC. They taught us to swap two variables A & B like this:

  h = a
  a = b
  b = h

But I knew the BASIC we used had the SWAP command. On an exam, I used SWAP A,B instead of the above. I got the lowest passing score, a 70%, and the teacher wrote, "Do it our way please". No thanks Mrs. Mott, I'll take the 70.

[cardiffspaceman]

Those folks can FRO. The teacher my wife would have had for a Pascal class in high school refused to let her apply, saying it was not for girls. Her father said, you can take it at community college.

[balex]

Now that's a tattoo right there. Never forget.

[Sardtok]

What a shit teacher: "No, don't be creative and learn. Do only as you're told."

[abustamam]

I do not learn from textbooks at all. I learn from playing. I played with all my toys "wrong" when I was a kid, or so I was always told. I always turned to the last chapter of a math book to see what I'm going to learn or to see if I could figure it out from what I already knew (what I would now call "first principles"). I took appliances apart and tried to put them back together. If I failed to do so my dad would help me put them back together, as long as I didn't tell my mom he was encouraging that behavior :) I watched my older sister play piano and learned the songs she was playing by ear, then asked her to teach me to read music.

This behavior often came out as rebellious or prodigy behavior in grade school but I don't think it's any of that. I think it was just a matter of giving a curious kid space to play and learn and grow. kids like me often don't thrive in rigid environments not because we don't like rules or think they shouldn't apply to us but because our brains just don't work completely linearly.

I'd wager that most kids actually learn better like this but it's not super efficient to cater to 30 different curious kids wanting to learn 30 different things.