Ask Blinders
19h
870
Why Pronouns shit captured US ? I don’t see this anywhere else
India
15h
2888
Why is it so G*damn difficult to move money out of India
Cars
Yesterday
1893
Cyber truck killer: Chinese version of EV truck
Tech Industry
Yesterday
3880
I do tech screens at Google. AMA
AMA
Yesterday
3034
I have worked at TikTok US core tech for 3 years. AMA.
PC hobbyists were rare. We were always excited about the latest products from Apple, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, etc etc. We were looking forward to things like the Star Wars sequel trilogy and the sequel of the first Avengers movie (we didn't know Disney would ruin all of the nerdy movies with a loyal fanbase) Ignoring the massive franchises, movies in general were more fun and the theater was nerd paradise Robinhood didn't exist. It was prestigious to say we were into stocks and regularly kept up with the market The last stand of television before streaming took over completely. Many great shows came out during this time (especially GoT) Tech wasn't hypersaturated. Meeting other software engineers was something that excited me. People were impressed when I told them what I did for a living. AI/ML hype was real Smartphone was relatively new. I used to mess around with it all the time. Mobile gaming was on another level then. IoT was a relatively new thing. Every nerd was tinkering with it at home Crypto was really exciting and we didn't have stupid crypto bros or major crypto scams. I remember mining bitcoin for the first time Every major tech company was always coming out with bold new ideas that actually tried to change things to make them better and improve lives. I used to keep up with all of the new devices, services, features, and even UI updates that were coming out. This is the time when FAANG was actually prestigious. Video games weren't swallowed up by microtransactions then and lots of high-quality games were coming out. This little period was so special that Hollywood even made that terrible show Big Bang Theory to draw us in. Very exciting period of human history, and a great time to be into engineering, sciences, the arts, or anything. Then this little subculture went mainstream and got ruined... or maybe I just got old
Capitalism ruins everything
It was capitalism that served as fertile ground to grow the tech industry in its infancy. You really think a socialist/communist society would? 😂 Blind has taught me one thing: there are a lot of very dumb people at Google and Meta
Not really @Netflix, they said capitalism ruins everything. It can be a fertile ground yet spread toxic fumes later (unsustainable growth) to kill
I feel the same.
Tech started making a lot of money. All the a holes from Wall Street moved to tech
No tech bros started acting like the finance bros once they became rich, they forgot their roots
lol thats nothing compared to the 90’s when internet itself was just starting & the programming era was beginning. 90’s is when the nerds were a thing
Usage and reliance on tech -> increased money, status and power -> Status seekers, TC obsessed people and wannabe power brokers got attracted like moths to a flame. People who would have otherwise gone into banking, consulting and politics have come to tech. They openly flaunt on Blind that they don’t give a shit about work, TC is all that matters. Same thing happened to nerd entertainment culture. It became incredibly popular and mainstreamed. The money and influence brought the wrong kind of people. Now it’s about making popcorn and pushing political agendas. This is just the natural order of things.
I still think PC hobbyists are rare...been building my own PCs since the 90s and feel like I meet less people with a PC now at work
Miss lugging around the old desktops to have Lan parties.
every decade seems worse 90s was sick maybe we’ll find something new and exciting again
you're not like other engineers are you?
Feeling the same. Was trying to be a "nerd" but ended up being a script kiddo on those IRCs in the 90s but friends I made were super smart and patient while teaching me stuff like 8086 instructions and Linux kernel stuff. Now trying to dive deep in this AI hype but all I see online are those "hackers" who pushed a couple LoRA models on huggingface and consider themselves expert and researchers. Hardly met any people online with the same hacker mindset back in the days.
Gatekeeping doesn’t make you special