[noonespecial]

Many good points but missing one important observation. The cliques in school are hierarchical in nature. All groups may be exclusive toward other members but a band geek cannot make a jock's life miserable as a pastime. Members of each clique can torment those in the "lower castes" with virtually no social cost for those actions. For fun, to fit in, because daddy never hugged them, whatever.

The Nerds and programmers almost always find themselves on the bottom. Things look different when you're a Dalit.

[dasil003]

It really depends on the school. In my high school there was no dominant clique, so the situation was somewhat as the author described. Sure people made fun of nerds, mostly because they left themselves open to it by being different and socially awkward, but there was definitely no strict hierarchy amongst cliques. I think there is some truth to the idea that certain nerds create a sense of superiority as a defense mechanism (think Comic Book Guy), but that is not the root cause of the nerd's social status.

After the opening section I think the rant goes completely off the deep end with a rapid succession of wrong-headed generalizations. It reads like an 18-year-old who just finished high school and now thinks he's got it all figured out. The idea that programmers define themselves by what they are not, or by nitpicking inconsequential details is laughable. Sure programmers may be a bit more prone to nasty protracted flamewars over subtle issues, but we don't define ourselves that way. Sure our communities form around tools moreso than ideas (though not exclusively), but that's simply a matter of necessity given the detail of using any particular tool well. Personally I find the notion that "I define myself as a programmer" offensive. Programming is something I do, and I do it reasonably well, but at the end of the day it's only one of many things I do, and it's certainly not "who I am."

[rorymarinich]

Personally I find the notion that "I define myself as a programmer" offensive. Programming is something I do, and I do it reasonably well, but at the end of the day it's only one of many things I do, and it's certainly not "who I am."

I agree. As I say, that's the sort of programmer I tend to like. The problem is, that's not the sort that aspiring programmers run into when they're first learning. I joined my first coding community at thirteen; for the last five years, I've seen no community that wasn't arrogant and hostile to a fault. The closest I got to nice was the Ubuntu community, who had a tendency to respond to bug reports with "You should look at the wiki page", where the wiki page was 50 pages long.

It reads like an 18-year-old who just finished high school and now thinks he's got it all figured out.

If I had it all figured out, I wouldn't write about it. As it stands, I'm aware of just how clueless I am. As I say here: I'm not a programmer. As I imply: I've been a part of this group of nerds for most of my life. I wrote this to engender a reaction amongst certain types of people, so I could get into a discussion with them about what's wrong with my statements here and what's right. The people I was expecting wasn't the Hacker News group. The fact that this post got rated this high makes me want to stop writing things with potentially ensnaring titles, because I don't want this on Hacker News.

I know I wrote it, and so I've got to own up to it here, but this wasn't the audience I wanted with this, and I regret that it's been put here.

[Psyonic]

I don't see what's so bad about identifying with your work. Would you be equally bothered by a doctor who considers himself a doctor, as opposed to saying "I do practice medicine, but that's only one of many things I do, and certainly not who I am?" Identification with profession is as old as time (last names anyone?) and often indicates someone who is passionate about their work.

[rorymarinich]

Perhaps it's that I think the vast majority of programmers are doing meaningless work, and so their use of the term has diluted what the word means for me. But then, I'd pick the term "designer" which some people think is just as meaningless.

[HalcyonMuse]

Judging by the rest of Mr. Marinich's content, I'd be surprised if you're very far off the mark. Here's what I found particularly ironic: most of the online stuff of his I read (well, skimmed) was pretty negative, hostile and generally involved lashing out at people.

After about five minutes I couldn't help but think of Maddox.

[rorymarinich]

That's not irony. Irony would be if this piece was telling people not to be negative and hostile. I'm merely informing people that their negativity stems from bad places.

I've written an explanation as to why I write the way I do before, but unfortunately with my "unalone" account noprocrasted for the next 2 months and my blog URL and theme changed it doesn't connect with how things were before. Here's a basic summary: on this blog, I write essentially everything that comes to mind. So yesterday, I wrote blurbs about passionate argument, the importance of efficient coding, misanthropy, Samuel Beckett, this particular piece, an update on my design progress. Two days ago it was on capitalism, pick-up artists (inspired by an HN post, actually), ADD, and the problems of young people dating?

I'm not a particularly negative person. I love the life I have and the people I know. At the same time, however, I made a pretty conscious decision a little while ago that I'm writing this blog for myself rather than for other people. Back in January I rather expected this blog to fade away and be ignored entirely, once I started basically writing lengthy pieces on impulse, several times a day. The fact that readers have increased makes me a little uncomfortable. It means that I find pieces like this one on web sites I'd rather they weren't. This is not a good piece. It's dashed out in 20 minutes and posted without a look back. And yes, it's a negative piece; yes, I find myself writing a lot of lashy things. It's by no means the majority of what I write - my average post tends to be more optimistic in nature. But those lashy things are a part of my existing, and I've learned through the last few months that a lot of people go through certain experiences I used to think were mine and mine alone.

So I write about things like young entrepreneurs in a way that could be seen as lashing out at them. I write about people with bad taste and people with no social skills and ugly people. That's a pretty big breach of polite writing, when I spend time talking about my dislike of people who aren't physically attractive. But that's kind of the point: I don't want this to be a polite blog. I'm in the process of creating a tech blog for my revised, good pieces, because I hate being put on Hacker News for shitty pieces. This is not a blog for hackers. It is a blog for myself and for every irrelevant thought that hits my head during the day, and the people who've assembled to read it are a ragtag bunch of personalities that I'd never expect to all center around a blog like mine. I'm grateful for that, and I love the people I've met through it, and I'm not going to be changing the format of the blog. Just keep in mind that what you're reading is written in a very specific style, one that leads to negativity and hostility, and that I'm very aware of the quality level of this stuff, which is why this didn't come as a link directly from me.

[Hexstream]

No, Maddox is fun to read and oftentimes insightful.

[chairface]

> After the opening section I think the rant goes completely off the deep end with a rapid succession of wrong-headed generalizations.

Hang on - there was a part without wrong-headed generalizations? The way I read it, the first two sentences tripped my generalization alarm. The guy constantly extrapolates from his tiny sample and says that the whole world is that way.

[rorymarinich]

This is the world that I know. I write about it. Very often I find that I'm wrong about something, and when I do I write about that as well.

Are you saying that a young, bright 18-year-old shouldn't write at all because he knows that most of what he says is wrong? Because that sounds kind of stupid. I'd rather more people my age write and be entirely wrong and start talking back and forth amongst one another, so they all mature and get wiser. This is merely my contribution to that.

[chairface]

> This is the world that I know. I write about it.

Except you didn't limit yourself to that. You wrote about the world that everyone experiences, and essentially told a bunch of other people that they are wrong about their own experiences.

> Are you saying that a young, bright 18-year-old shouldn't write at all because he knows that most of what he says is wrong?

I'm saying that anyone, regardless of age or intelligence, should try to avoid generalizing from their almost certainly narrow experience.

Also, the tone of your comment has certain elements of the martyr mentality that you have criticized in your essay and in these comments.

[rorymarinich]

You wrote about the world that everyone experiences, and essentially told a bunch of other people that they are wrong about their own experiences.

Is it wrong to say that when they are?

I don't know everything. I only know my specific narrow field. But I do know that everybody I know who is actually unpopular - that is to say, not somebody who lacks friends due to lack of social skills, but somebody who people actively dislike in the way that nerds seem to think happens - is counterhostile in a way that turns people off, and that that usually is the reason why they are disliked.

I'm saying that anyone, regardless of age or intelligence, should try to avoid generalizing from their almost certainly narrow experience.

But everybody does that. Paul Graham does that in his essays. The great writers of fiction wrote from their own experience. It's why they were good. Most of them also generalized: look at Steinbeck and the way he turns entire groups of people into black-and-white heroes and villains.

I'm not saying this essay is as good as Why Nerds Are Unpopular. PG put a lot of time and effort into that essay; this piece was dashed out. But I'll also point out that among the people I've shown this to that aren't the sort of people who use HN, there's a much more widespread agreement that what I'm talking about makes sense, and that I've nailed an element of nerd/programmer that's given the whole subset of people a bad name. That doesn't make me instantly correct about it - I certainly overgeneralize - but to say that generalization is a bad thing because it's generalization ignores the fact that you almost certainly like and agree with and think in generalities. Just because this one is not one you agree with doesn't make generalities in writing wholly bad.

Also, the tone of your comment has certain elements of the martyr mentality that you have criticized in your essay and in these comments.

Martyr? I'm saying that I have a right to write what I think is right, and that a lot of this criticism that's aimed at me rather than at this piece simply because this piece is a poor one offends me. I'm not defending its being on Hacker News. I wish you all would flag it and remove it. It's not worthy of this site. Criticizing that is fine. But the criticism against me for writing this piece in the first place offends me, and I don't think I'm being an asshole martyr for saying that.

[jimbokun]

"Paul Graham does that in his essays."

Paul writes brilliant essays, but I find that if he has a weakness as an essayist, it is probably in over generalization. Many of his essays have pretty sweeping generalizations, but a dearth of data justifying them. His brilliance is that he usually overcomes this by appealing to his reader's intuitions, and it usually works. But there are times when I find myself wondering if he is just extrapolating from his own experience to a larger scale than is warranted.

[chairface]

> Is it wrong to say that when they are?

No. But your essay reads like they _all_ are.

> But everybody does that.

That's no excuse.

> Martyr?

Yes. Here's another example: "I'm saying that I have a right to write what I think is right". Nobody ever tried to take that right away from you, least of all me. All I did was say that you were wrong, but you have decided to carry on like I am persecuting you by attempting to take away your rights. Martyr.

> But the criticism against me for writing this piece in the first place offends me, and I don't think I'm being an asshole martyr for saying that.

Again, I never called you an asshole or criticized you as a person, as opposed to something specific that you said. Now you're being a martyr in response to me saying that you are writing with a martyr mentality.

[jibiki]

> I'm saying that anyone, regardless of age or intelligence, should try to avoid generalizing from their almost certainly narrow experience.

The correct response to such a generalization is just to present counterexamples. Your comments seem to express the idea that it's wrong to present a generalization in public. That's just silly.

[chairface]

At the time I posted this, plenty of others had posted their counterexamples. Mine would have just added to the noise.

Further, I would submit that it _is_ wrong to let a generalization masquerade as a general truth in public.

[chacha102]

Once you eliminate the jocks and cheerleaders, the hierarchy actually seems to disappear. The nerds still try to be alienated for the most part, but the without the focus on sports, I find that all the other cliques just become 'different' instead of one being higher than the other. That might just be at my school though.

[GavinB]

It all has to do with the perceived attractiveness of the group members, especially those composed primarily of females. If they attractive people are spread out among groups, the cliques are separate but equal. If they're concentrated, the cliques become hierarchical.

A desired group can basically set the hierarchy by what they define as attractive.

Most people don't actually want to leave the social group that they're in, as pg observed in one of his essays. The one exception is when their group is specifically a lesser version of another, usually the hangers-on.The nerds may really like programming and have no desire to play sports -- but they would love to date the attractive girls from any group.

The verbal and physical abuse in the system comes from members of a group which has attractive members of the opposite sex trying to keep down the others. For example, the jocks know that the nerds would like to date the cheerleaders, and so the jocks act to keep their supremacy.

It's high school, it's all about sex, what did you expect?

[rms]

That's a good point. My high school was oddly non-hierarchical and the reason was the attractiveness was diversified across cliques. The cheerleaders were actually regularly mocked for being ugly.

[rorymarinich]

Are you so certain it's hierarchical in nature?

The difference between a jock and a band geek is that the jock will resort to violence to defend himself. I've pranked jocks before with groups of band geeks. It often leads to a scuffle. When band geeks are strong enough to fight back, they don't get bullied either.

You don't torment people because of your own psychological past. Usually it's done out of irritation. The meek, quiet type usually gets ignored in favor of the one who talks too much in class, not because people hate smart people, but because there are certain sorts who are really jerks about it and that irritates people. That's also why bullies tend to be on the smarter side of the spectrum. I knew kids in the studies (low-level) courses and kids in the advanced courses, and the ones who were more likely to mock a kid was all in the advanced courses. I've been in the mocking situation before, so it all works.

[chairface]

> The meek, quiet type usually gets ignored in favor of the one who talks too much in class, not because people hate smart people, but because there are certain sorts who are really jerks about it and that irritates people.

Okay, wait a second. First off, I have a hard time picturing how someone can be that much of a "jerk" by answering a teacher's question. And secondly, are you honestly siding with a bully who beats on a kid for that kind of behavior? I mean, I understand that it can be irritating to hear from the same kid all the time, but frankly, the onus is on the bully to deal with this incredibly minor irritation in a less destructive way. Your implication that those being tormented are more at fault than the tormentors sickens me.

[rorymarinich]

My implication is that the tormented as not wholly innocent.

Of course I don't agree with bullying. I'm not a huge fan of violence, particularly not for stupid shit like school. But there's an attitude amongst this type of person that says they are entirely not to blame for the harassment they get, just because they act smart or whatnot. I don't think that's the case. I used to get mocked a lot in school and looking back on it, I think that I deserved it entirely. Similarly, some people go out of their way to invite harassment, and they use that as a point about how people who harass other people suck. I'd even go so far as to call it reverse harassment. I certainly did that as well: I'd provoke people into making fun of me by going out of my way to be eccentric. It's stupid behavior and while it might not be as bad as actually harassing a person, it's still inexcusable.

First off, I have a hard time picturing how someone can be that much of a "jerk" by answering a teacher's question.

In one of my courses this semester, there's a kid with an irritating laugh and a loud voice who refuses to stop making comments about how Microsoft is dead and dying, how Linux is going to be huge by the end of 2009, how Apple is evil, how Firefox is the best web browser and adheres the best to web standards. Every discussion we have he jumps in on, interrupting students and advocating his own misinformed, sensationalist, frankly stupid opinions, under the guise that he's being a good participant by doing so.

In one of my senior-year courses, there were honors students, kids ranked in the top 10 for our year, who, in round-circle literary discussions, would say things like "I think the pig on the stick is symbolic. I don't exactly know what it's for, but it seems like there's a reason for it being there." In that particular discussion, after I talked about how the pig's head represents in some ways an attempt at order that pretends to itself that it has meaning, that particular person jumped in saying, "Precisely what I was saying. It's that it's symbolic. And there was a reason, just like Rory added on."

There is answering questions because you know the answers - and some people do that, and they're completely fine, and no matter how many they answer nobody seems to mind - and there are the people who are jerks about it. The obnoxious popping-up hand, the calls of "Ooh! Ooh!", the smarmy attitude about all of it. It's a jerk thing to do. It's just as bad as the snobby girl who makes fun of fat kids, or the fashion guru who sneers at people who wear Gap (or whatever fashion gurus sneer at). And just like I don't think teasing and sneering is stuff that deserves violence, being a jackass in class isn't something that you should be beaten up over - but neither is it completely harmless and mild. Being somebody who likes to be scathing at times, I find that I go after those wannabe teacher's pets just as much as I go after other sorts of people.

Your implication that those being tormented are more at fault than the tormentors sickens me.

Just to be entirely clear: my implication is that there is blame to be found on both sides. That is nearly always my implication in these scenarios. I think the tormentors are more at fault, in this case, but I can't bring myself to side entirely with the tormented.

[chairface]

> But there's an attitude amongst this type of person that says they are entirely not to blame for the harassment they get

They _are_ entirely not to blame for what they get. What they _are_ to blame for is their own behavior.

I don't have a problem with you saying that some people are irritating and do annoying things. What I have a problem with is the suggestion that they _share in the blame for what others do to them as a result_. There is a difference there, and it is an important one.

To be clear, I am going on the principle that a person is alone responsible for their actions, and not for those of others.

[rorymarinich]

If I act like an asshole, then when people get mad at me for being an asshole I'm to blame. If I reject people for not being smarter than I am, then if they get mad at me I'm to blame.

I agree. You are responsible for yourself but nobody else. You seem to imply, however, that others' actions dwell in a void entirely uninspired by your own actions. I hold, on the other hand, that everything influences everything else, and so nerds should be responsible for their social hostility because that's what's influencing their persecution.

[chairface]

I am very close to agreeing with your first paragraph. Yeah, in those situations, you're to blame for being an asshole or rejecting people. But if they respond by beating you over it, the blame for _that_ falls on them.

In any case, I think what I wrote in the other thread about how I'm separating the concepts of "cause" and "blame" should clear this up.