Hackers? Techies? What To Call San Francisco's Newcomers

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/01/16/263088398/hackers-techies-what-to-call-san-franciscos-newcomers

by justhw • 13 years ago

43 43 13 years ago

dictum• 13 years ago

That prompted Sam Biddle of the Gawker site ValleyWag to suggest referring to the newcomers as "Software Americans."

What is the word when you know you shouldn't look at something, but the urge to do it is too strong? Masochism doesn't quite cut it. "Mild death drive"? Anyway, I had to check the article. Here's how it ends:

"So, the next time you see someone taking up a seat at a coffee shop to work on a cold cut delivery app at 2 pm, resist the urge to slur—instead of "techie," just call them a fucking loser dork with inconsequential ideas and a dumb life."

No, those "techies" don't make the search engine you use to find the information you need in your work and your daily life. They don't make the operating systems that run on your computers and mobile devices, nor the devices. They don't make the software that runs in your appliances, the automation systems that allow billions of people around the world to have products and services only the rich could afford in the past. They don't make novel ways to discover drugs and the origins of diseases. They don't make the communication services that allow you to stay in contact with people you know and discover people you didn't know. They don't make CMSs, blogging engines or web browsers.

They make cold cut delivery apps. Fucking cold cut delivery app making loser dorks.

BlackDeath3• 13 years ago

What is the word when you know you shouldn't look at something, but the urge to do it is too strong? Masochism doesn't quite cut it. "Mild death drive"?

I've heard the more generalized version of this phenomenon (meaning "s/look at/do") referred to as "the call of the void". Interesting and slightly haunting.

argc• 13 years ago

"The call of the void" is a beautiful (and haunting) way to put it.

On an unrelated note... Wtf is wrong with Sam Biddle... Troll extraordinaire?

stock_toaster• 13 years ago

What is the word when you know you shouldn't look at something, but the urge to do it is too strong?

Compulsion?

smtddr2• 13 years ago

Okay, that's it. Next time I have to put my ethnicity on any paperwork.... I'm now a "Software American".

- I immigrated from Softwaria.

- Our flag is a bunch of 1s and 0s.

- Our national anthem ends with "return 0;".

- All of our city streets look like logic-gates from a bird's eye view. http://doc.union.edu/PL/ee_master_gate.jpg (yeah, I know... this is more on the side of hardware)

- Our homes & buildings square footage are always divisible by X where X = 2^N, where N represents all real numbers. (what was that symbol for all real numbers again?)

klipt2• 13 years ago

I assume you mean natural numbers, for which the symbol is ℕ.

hmsimha• 13 years ago

So basically 'Software Americans' are doing to Americans what Americans did to Native Americans?

frozenport• 13 years ago

Too low level, these people write javascript for a living. They shouldn't be confused with real programmers.

pkinsky2• 13 years ago

- All of our city streets look like logic-gates from a bird's eye view

All you need is NAND gates.

Plus if you tile the NAND icon it makes a fish skin pattern. Perfect for our heraldry.

klipt2• 13 years ago

I had to check the article

I hope you used ad block. Otherwise you're basically paying them.

"Software Americans"

That's just silly. We're Wetware Americans. Software Americans would be AI!

asabjorn• 13 years ago

What you write pretty much sums it up.

People that are seriosuly interested in solving the problem with expensive housing would probably spend their effort on lobbying for taller housing and better public transit.

But hey, linkbait like this gets more hits.

pkinsky2• 13 years ago

a fucking loser dork with inconsequential ideas and a dumb life.
Sam Biddle of the Gawker site ValleyWag

pchristensen• 13 years ago

"Residents"?

e0m• 13 years ago

"I lived in Palo Alto myself for a while. It's a nice place to raise a car." - Geoff Nunberg

dredmorbius• 13 years ago

That's so true.

I've never seen a place with so many well-bred automobiles in my life.

wavesounds• 13 years ago

They always said nerds would inherit the earth, people shouldn't be so surprised.

Haters gonna hate though, especially in SF the snob capitol of the world[1].

1.http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/03/travel/snobby-cities-usa/

hornbaker• 13 years ago

"Employed"?

Alex_MJ• 13 years ago

"n00bs"?

fit2rule• 13 years ago

Hatchkies.

yetanotherphd• 13 years ago

In my high school, the preferred term was faggot.

Homophobia is passe now, but I hope the word "nerd" will serve people who want to stir up hate against us just as well.

bobbygoodlatte• 13 years ago

The title of this piece really sums up my frustration. You're trying to come up with a label for a group of diverse people? Why? So you can judge, belittle, and intimidate them without feeling guilty?

Why not judge newcomers as individuals? They're people first. Some of them are assholes. Others are awesome people who are positive for the community. Same as any group.

Rents are going up. It sucks, and something should be done about it. The city should permit more construction. The Ellis act should be repealed.

One thing I'm pretty certain won't make rents go down: labeling a group of people and pressuring them to leave.

fennecfoxen2• 13 years ago

The Ellis act should be repealed.

Communist.

garrettdreyfus• 13 years ago

Duke Ellington's ultimate compliment was to call someone beyond category.

avis2• 13 years ago

The nerds come to live in the vibrant and cool city so that they could have some of its "coolness" reflected on them. Little they know the (fairly new) pretentious residents are everything but cool, SPECIFICALLY in the mission area, where large percentage live their lives believing they are unique & progressive, while in reality they are prisoners of their conceptions - the ones that got seeded in their heads by the companies the nerds are working for.

the truth is that this city is: dead at nights. have a lame hipster wanna-be community. too expensive.

p.s older san francisco residents are extremely nice!

fennecfoxen2• 13 years ago

The city is kinda dead at nights, but it's more alive in the Mission Area than most other areas. It is too expensive, but the software engineers can afford it readily enough.

But I don't think it's about the "coolness" reflecting on you that these software developers are actually going for. I think it's more along the lines of having a store nearby that sells liquid nitrogen ice cream during the summer. Which is pretty cool. (And other establishments including night life and dining establishments, naturally.)

avis2• 13 years ago

Summer you say ..... :-)

lowglow• 13 years ago

Definitely call us Techies. -Dan Gailey

tomkarlo• 13 years ago

Here's a few: "Taxpayers", "Customers", "Voters"

freefrancisco• 13 years ago

"the private language of the nerds' table in the high-school cafeteria, where the kids cared more about being smart than being popular." Damn right!

enjalot• 13 years ago

"I still use it as an amiable label for the nerdy guy who comes to my office and rolls his eyes when I ask why my computer won't talk to the printer down the hall."

why does this piss me off so much? it was all well and good when we were servin' you, and now we make something of ourselves and you mad?

while I can see that change is happening a little too fast for most people, I do believe it was society that set us up to be nerds at the unpopular table. WELL ITS MY CAFETERIA NOW BITCHES! WHAT?

supersystem• 13 years ago

Uhm? There's plenty of people on HN that look down on people in tech who aren't "(real) programmers".

hoprocker• 13 years ago

Well, then, I refer you a few sentences on:

'"Techie" used to suggest a computer whiz with no social skills, now it suggests one with no social conscience.'

This article boasts several choice phrases: "chronic obliviousness", "hermetic subculture", "techie theme park". I'd venture Mr Nunberg has visited our golden city some.

neotoy• 13 years ago

Hackies.

penrod• 13 years ago

I hate hipster hackers as much as anyone, but what we have here is a case of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Cultures

The arts and culture establishment, with their refined humanities backgrounds, and accustomed to being the social elite, are disturbed to see that not only are vulgar techies making lots of money, but that nerds are now being seen as cool. This is simply too much to bear.

kickingvegas• 13 years ago

"Three year natives."

bowlofpetunias• 13 years ago

"Actually, though, the distinctive feature of tech culture isn't arrogance so much as a chronic obliviousness, which is why some tech people can't even understand the resentment they engender."

Besides the linkbait title, this article is full of painfully accurate observations, which will ironically be completely ignored by most of HN's SV population.

dfraser992• 13 years ago

I left SF after the first Internet bubble burst - I needed a vacation from IT and went to film school. I finally ended up in London, which is a MILLION times better than the entire Bay Area. As expensive, but far more livable, interesting, and varied than a IT centric socio-ecosystem. Not that I hated SF, I'd probably still be there if I'd sold all that NSOL stock at the right time... The first bubble was something - it really felt like something new was being born. Now, it seems like everyone is just trying to get rich.

Based on everything I've read about this new bubble and how SF is changing even more, I doubt very much I'd want to live there. Any sort of 60s vibe that I did 'pick up' (that was one of the attractions for me) seems to have faded away. $250K for new grads at Google? God almighty. There is too much money sloshing about in the Bay Area now and money always changes things.

The fruits of IT are useful, at the top commenter points out, but I think some humility needs to be learned. Then more effort will be spent on useful stuff, and not making cold cut apps or figuring out how to manipulate users into clicking more ads. Man is a tool making animal, but happens when one's ego becomes tied up in those tools?

Hackers? Techies? What To Call San Francisco's Newcomers

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