Are hackers too young and too busy bettering their lives?

http://kineticac.posterous.com/too-young-and-too-busy-with-bettering-your-li

by kineticac • 17 years ago

32 15 17 years ago

kineticac.posterous.com

Having worked with a startup in the valley this summer as a rising college freshman, I've come to realize this in the past 2 months. Maybe the scope of my dreams is a little too narrow. Thanks for this, it was a good reminder to diversify.

abalashov5• 17 years ago

It's a noble exhortation, but I think it's somewhat anathema to the highly specialised - and increasingly so - world in which we live, whether we think it's good or bad from a qualitative and moral perspective.

It's getting more and more that doing something in particular passably - let alone well - requires thousands if not tens of thousands of hours of practice, and complete immersion and thirst for information within that knowledge domain.

Healthy or not, it's how the world works. If you spend that much time learning to be a good hacker and developing both the passion and understanding to create interesting software products, just about anything else you do "once in a while" is something in which you're going to be no more than a mere dabbler. Of course, there are exceptions; I know several Renaissance Men that seem to be impeccably good at numerous things that constitute universes of very non-trivial complexity in themselves, and have always been omni-curious, well-read, and just generally knowledgeable about, well, just about anything. But they are the exception, and even in their case, areas of sweeping general knowledge don't have the same economic or practical utility as narrow corridors of highly specific knowledge.

It's just a trade-off of the epoch in which we live. There are only so many hours in the day, and that's just how it goes.

Personally, I have always been a person with broad interests in a variety of unrelated areas that I frequently nurse. But, I have no illusions about excelling and being truly proficient at more than one of those domains - maybe two someday, if I'm lucky - in a way that's useful and can make a meaningful impact on the world. I'd be the last to protest diversification for the sake of health and sanity, but it's important to realise that it's just that.

If you spent the last ten years intensely immersed in programming for most fruitful hours of your waking life, but also "occasionally" like to screw around with automobile mechanics, then it's a basically immutable fact that you're going to be an eminently better programmer than an auto mechanic. And while it may be fun and valuable to exercise your mind in both areas, the auto mechanic side of you isn't going to get the same kind of satisfaction that comes from the efficacy and power of competence and deep, erudite knowledge. It's being able to accomplish something concrete, nontrivial and lasting that gives programmers that high, which is why so few (outside academia) write toy code just for the fun of it that nobody's ever going to use.

The point is, I think that most intelligent people want to apply their skills and capabilities in ways that have a measurable displacement in the real world. That takes so much time, effort and devotion that it leaves tragically little time for other things. And I think that's why well-meaning people end up in the "tunnel vision" of their "narrow" professional self-concept; it's a cross we bear for being really good at what we do, or striving to be.

With regard to Relay for Life, I'm going to end with a quote from Dmitry Orlov's essay, "Thriving in the Age of Collapse," which is otherwise on the wholly different topic of his very pessimistic views of energy consumption sustainability. (http://nosedive.org/backup/orlov.htm)

I think it sums up my view of the usefulness of participating in such things, though:

"Am I being overly optimistic about the promise of a reformed American suburbia? Some people are ready to declare suburbia to be at an end. But then I know that Americans are very much driven to hyperbole, always willing to put an end to something certifiably unstoppable (war, AIDS, cancer, poverty, global warming), usually by making a small charitable donation, by wearing a colorful plastic bracelet, or by going for a walk, a run, or a bicycle ride. Below the charming, childlike confidence and optimism of such ventures lurks a culturally ingrained inability to grasp something basic: not all problems are solvable.

And thus I discern an element of wishful thinking in the idea that suburbia is going to conveniently disappear, and that everyone who lives there will simply go and live someplace else. A cabin in the woods, perhaps? Or a picturesque desert island? How about a space colony? Nor do I find it plausible that half the U.S. population will lay down and die shortly after they discover that some of their cars no longer run or that their kitchen appliances no longer work. And so I find it safe to think that most of the existing infestations of Suburbia americans are ineradicable, but that the evolutionary pressure of a chronic energy shortage will force them to evolve into something much less energy-intensive. Whether, in each case, that something will turn out to be absolutely horrible, or quite pleasant, will depend on many things."

antiform• 17 years ago

To me, the article isn't saying to abandon the road to mastery, but merely to take some detours once in a while. Dedicating a lot of time and energy to something is definitely fulfilling and has a compounding effect, but as many astute programmers have noticed, there is an echo-chamber effect if all the information you get is from programmers and the programming world. Worse, you could continue to hold incredibly inaccurate beliefs about other people like the professional photographer in the article, and make judgment calls based on that false information.

Of course you need something to bring to table in modern times, to be a productive member of society. However, that doesn't mean to specialize to the extent that you lose all context. Dig deep, sure, but come up for air sometime and take a look around. You'll be surprised at what you may discover.

abalashov5• 17 years ago

To the extent that it is possible to strike that balance, you'll get no argument from me. :-)

I think the reason every reasonable person doesn't just do this without needing to read an article to remind him of the value of doing so is that it's really hard to do in these modern times.

Before I graduated from high school and started working in tandem with college (which rapidly escalated into a full-time career development path and compelled me to drop out, eventually), I used to hold a lot of people in deep contempt for being so ignorant and narrowminded at a time of historically unprecedented access to a never before seen breadth of information; between the Internet, book sellers, public libraries, universities, etc. there's just nothing you can't learn about if you want to these days.

What I had no concept of is that after you come home from a 10-hour day at an intense job, even a technical white-collar job that seems physically undemanding from a superficial perspective, all you want to do is just veg out; even then, there are too many other bullshit errands to do. It's not just strictly a matter of time being available logically; it takes energy, mental and spiritual, to come home at 7 PM and then compose symphonies until bed time.

Some people are more insistent than others at doing what they want to in spite of what they have to, but it's not reasonable to expect most people to do that even if the availability is technically there. We may have it easy compared to our ancestors from many economic and physical points of view, but that doesn't mean we aren't plagued with some of the problems existentially perennial to the economic man.

EDIT: Also, I am not sure that the "echo chamber" that characterises Valley web startup culture is any more sealed or myopic than the echo chambers of other comparably specialised combinations of professional endeavour. Ever seen what financial instruments traders breathe, eat, snort, etc. 24/7? People who participate in insurance industry MLM schemes? People "tracked" for "blue-collar" skilled trades? People who love and excel at working on cars or motorcycles? Realtors, mortgage brokers? I'm talking about the folks that are on top of their game in those respective sectors - the "hackers" - not the most bromidically average, uninspired 9-to-5ers. It's very similar.

dasil003• 17 years ago

My overall response is sort of meh. I say do what you love. If you're driven to do something you might as well do it rather than always second guessing yourself, or imagining what might have been.

On the other hand, there is a sort of frenzied mania that exists in the valley that I think is very limiting if you buy into too much. For the cool stuff that happens here there exists the same sort of herd mentality that geeks often decry in places where they don't fit in, the only difference being the fads here are more to our sensibilities.

FWIW I spent my teens and early twenties being a total slacker, and I don't regret it one bit. I went to public school and I got to know people from all walks of life. I did not move to the valley until I was 30. It's all been valuable experience, and not a detriment to mastering web development, because a regular 9-5 job on a good team was plenty of time to master the craft and still live life like a normal 20-something. The great thing about the Web is that all the best info about it is on the web itself, so physical location does not directly put you at a disadvantage.

As far as I'm concerned being young is about possibilities. Opportunities come up and you should take advantage of them. You shouldn't get bogged down with too much planning for the future, because the world we live in now is not the world of the future. Maybe that means hammering it out at a startup when you're 18. Maybe it means going into the Peace Corps. Maybe it means trying your hand at cat burglary. Whatever you do just don't let you or anyone else stick you in a box.

TomOfTTB• 17 years ago

From the opposite side of the spectrum consider these facts…

1. Studies have shown it becomes harder for your brain to learn as you age. So there is some logic to burying yourself in your chosen profession when you are young and learning as much as you possibly can.

2. Thanks to the beauty of compound interest the money you make in your 20s and 30s is worth several times more than the money you’ll make in the entire rest of your life. So it make sense to get as good as you can at what you do, make a decent amount of money and sock it away when you’re young

3. When you’re young your body is generally in the best shape it will ever be. I personally think everyone should have the experience of partying all night or picking up potential mates at a bar. That’s really only possible when you’re young (or at least it gets harder the older you get).

4. You’re more useful to society if you take the skills you do well and find a way to contribute with them. What’s better, a programmer spending his day hammering nails badly or a programmer who donates a day’s wages and hires 3 guys who have worked construction and know what they’re doing?

I’m not against public service. But if you focus on yourself until you’re say…40…you’ll still have a good 50 to 60 years to go out and do as much public service as you want. There’s nothing wrong with using your youth to establish yourself in the world and then turning your attention to bettering the world once you’re settled in.

abalashov5• 17 years ago

I think it's reasonable to ask, philosophically, whether the kind of values society and the socioeconomic system as it is configured encourages us to express are the kinds we really want to have as a species, etc.

But, as you in effect point out: From a capitalistic perspective, total, narrow commitment of the sort being chastised here is much more desirable and stands a higher chance of being amply rewarded than being a jack of all trades and a master of absolutely none.

Whether we want that kind of world is one question. But there is no question as to whether hackers participating in this world and structuring their lives to follow its built-in incentives are doing the best they can for themselves, in terms of the parameters of "success" as espoused by this system. They are.

pyre• 17 years ago

On the other hand, being highly specialized can be a bad thing. Look at all of the skilled laborers that went straight from highschool to working on the assembly line making $70k. Now that all of that work has been undercut by outsourcing to Mexico or China, what options do they have? (other than dropping their profession and learning a new one)

keyist• 17 years ago

Apropos:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

-Robert A. Heinlein

middus• 17 years ago

"(This is in reference to The Allegory of the Cave by Plato)"

I think that it is pretty weak of him to mention it this way. I get the impression that he says "look at me, I'm so clever".

abalashov5• 17 years ago

I don't think it's intentional. But, I think it would've been more rhetorically graceful to just have alluded to the cave allegory without then saying, "Look, I just referred to the cave allegory!"

kineticac• 17 years ago

well, didn't want to get into explaining what the heck the cave reference was all about, hoping people who were confused about all of that could get some more insight to the basic ideas.

srn• 17 years ago

Yeah, I'm not one to speak but the valley is living in a bubble, most likely as LA or Washington DC or NYC is. That has upsides and downsides, the downsides probably being really out of touch with what people outside of a 2 hour drive radius want from their technology.

I spend time around being very geeky people who are in very different domains than I am. It's entertaining the knowledge I'm assumed to have of people and companies and technologies , as though web and mobile technologies are the only game in town here.

Are hackers too young and too busy bettering their lives?

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