Unix stumbled (or reasoned) his way into a really insightful observation in a discussion in the private section. This was a side point, not the main purpose of his post, but the idea is interesting enough that it deserves its own thread.
...the problem is squarely that IT people are just utter, sheer imbeciles by and large with very little business or survival sense. Very low political awareness and zero interest in personal growth. CNN is their medium of choice. Washington Compost is the other one.
yeah, they know IT stuff but outside of that very small bubble, they know beans.
and I am describing just the DC area, maybe it's radically different outside of my (very small) bubble. There is no Silly Valley vibe here at all.
After much reflection recently I think this is a more accurate statement: I don't believe that IT people are uniquely clueless. I think that:
IT people excel at seeming more wise and worldly than they actually are in most cases. Partly that's due to sheer intellect and partly due to an inflated sense of their "rightness".
The almost inevitable disappointment at finding that most IT people have world class smarts but in MOST cases below average to middling wisdom - the disconnect between those two attributes of wisdom and knowledge/talent - leads to our frustration with our own kind, our "facepalming".
How can you be SO SMART and yet be SUCH A BLEEPING RETARD about normal things?We're not willfully stupid. We just all look that way to others.
This opinion flies completely in the face of my rants and vents over the years here and on related boards.
IT people (this includes current board members here) are uniquely intelligent compared to the general population. But in general, intelligence is
never a reliable or even highly correlated proxy for wisdom or insight.
Our tribe's failing, which is my own also, is that intelligence clutters up survival skills and intuition. That is what I really believe. You may have instincts, a conscience, an ability to "read" people, but high IQ and the ability to do complicated worldly things well can clutter up your ability to draw accurate conclusions from an analog world.
Example ... I "went native" on Facebook and joined a few groups there, one of which gave me the stupidest clients by far I have ever suffered with, including the fraudulently useless narcissist owner. The members were all aspiring freelance copywriters.
Those people on that FB group,
unlike just about ANYONE here - generally had:
NO logic; NO real skills; NO talent; and almost everyone I ran into there had a Walter Mitty complex about becoming wealthy based on a prosaic skill like "travel writing". Also, inflated ideas of self-worth and generally incredibly high senses of entitlement.
I'm using that group as a case study. Those people were generally literate, although tending to be "Facebook retards" (social lives revolving around Facebook), and many were college educated. I would peg them as upper half of the population in terms of IQ and cognitive ability.
They were still pretty stupid and herd-following. For all of these "professional copywriter's" hubris about being top of the heap - all most of them were qualified to do well was post on Facebook.
So, compared to technology people like us, the presumed "aspie retards":
Non technical people, "normies", are cannon fodder and are by and large much lesser people overall than the average technology professional.
Our peer group can build such complex, useful stuff. Our peer group can also neglect basic facts such - almost everything else having to do with operating a business, becoming a well-rounded human, encouraging one's fellow man, being social, applying REAL common sense, understanding and appreciating real life tradeoffs such as "cheap, fast, excellent - pick any two."
My calling programmers or IT people "aspie retards" is the expression of my frustration that really smart individuals don't "get" normal stuff, common sense, office politics, etc, which FAR less capable people do fairly well to awesomely with.
As far as Unix implying that a "Silly Valley vibe" might indicate smarter tech people... I don't agree and I believe that the issue/problem of tech people being world/analog reasoning-illiterate is pervasive and part of our makeup as technology "thing" experts.
Let's take apart the current brouhaha over social media and cloud services deplatforming as an example. The tendency for high tech providers of social media, payment systems, and ancillary technology services to lump all conservative/right leaning people together as scum needing to be suppressed...
I see the Silicon Valley SJW fad as a clear sign of technology peoples' inability to see past their idealistic cerebral constructions. Deplatforming is a case in point.
I'll bet that every 20 to 30 year old anointed Google or Facebook or Twitter employee believes that their unique programming, development or admin background
also gives them exceptional, Godlike personal insight into human nature. And that all they need to do is use their technical powers to persecute their enemies, and then the world will be perfect.
Silicon Valley is also socially unique because hundreds of thousands of these technology wizards live in a fairly small geographic area, about the size of several medium cities put together. So a tech geek in the Valley assumes that the norm for all of humanity is to be geek, woke and liberal.
Deplatforming makes absolutely no sense if want to marginalize your opponent. It makes it likelier that they will despise you even more, and that they will come back with even more resolve. So there's an example where geek desire results in a "negative" outcome.