Comments on: Life with geeks

By: David Kernohan

David Kernohan — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 11:27:52 +0000

I think the world "top" is misleading. It's only "top" in the sense of more geeky. I'm not trying to make a talent value judgement. For example you could point at people with "geeky" attributes that are not especially technically skilled (though I'd agree that this is rare.) Love responding to an "Ockhams Shotgun" comment – it's like old times 🙂

By: ockhams_shotgun

ockhams_shotgun — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 10:38:44 +0000

So would this allow the more general summary: geekdom is a relative status reserved to the top 2% of any given talent pool.

By: sleslie

sleslie — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 22:48:52 +0000

Sad that I missed this discussion unfolding on twitter; tried to reconstruct it but twitter does not make that particularly easy.”Geeks are not technodeterminists.” Aye, but perhaps the issue is more that they are “technodeterminers,” eh? I think the notion that the time span (3-5 years in the future) is collapsing is suspect; “Half a league half a league,Half a league onward.” Also the notion that the set of norms that geeks themselves conform to is itself static seems wrong; just like with academics & engineers, these are self-affirming/reinforcing, & the longer yet get away from the formations of those norms, the more the reasons for their origins fade and they become ends in themselves. So what starts off as simply “improving” ends up being “engineering out.”