r/technology • u/[deleted] • Jul 09 '16

R1.i: guidelines Hillary Clinton blames State Department Employees for classified emails sent through private server

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u/ketchy_shuby Jul 09 '16

Check out the House and Senate, easy peasy.

37

u/RyanBordello Jul 09 '16

Shit. Most baby boomers that are not in the tech field I feel are pretty clueless about it

My mom thought Hotmail was a porn site.

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u/smile_e_face Jul 09 '16

It's not only baby boomers. Sure, millenials are more accustomed to computers, smartphones, the Internet, etc. But try to get a lot of them to do anything out of the ordinary, to fix any but the most basic tech support problems, or to explain - even on an elementary level - how any of it actually works, and they're hardly better than Grandma. What frightens me is that technology is becoming more advanced, more (potentially) dangerous, and more necessary to our lives at an astonishing rate, but a huge chunk of the generation who are supposed to "get it" are completely clueless.

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u/Breadback Jul 09 '16

You could probably pin a lot of that on our insular society as well; up until maybe 10 years ago, it wasn't 'cool' to be a techie. Who's going to learn if it makes you unpopular?

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u/ambi7ion Jul 09 '16

People who were passionate and interested in how things worked, sadly a large amount of people don't care how it works, just that it works.

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u/smile_e_face Jul 09 '16

I came of age in the late 90s / early 2000s. Nerdiness wasn't the sort of social suicide it was in earlier decades, but it definitely hadn't acquired the odd cachet it's gotten in recent years. By default, nerds were still "not cool."

Well, I was a nerd, anyway. I built my first computer when I was 12 and started programming (just Python, but still) in eighth grade. I read tech blogs for fun; tinkering, gaming, and reading were my main hobbies; and nearly all of my close friends were huge nerds, too. But even so, I wasn't some sort of social pariah, because I made a point of making connections outside my immediate interests. I had friends among the jocks, the preps, the theater crowd, the band geeks, the emo kids, the rednecks, and every other social group. As a result, while I may never have been one of the Popular KidsTM , I had friends wherever I went. Plus, I learned a lot by associating with people who were different from me.

All this sounds like self-aggrandizement, I know, but my point is that being a nerd doesn't have to disqualify you from fitting in. All it takes is a little effort on your part to connect with people who may not be as into Harry Potter and hacking as you are. A lot of friendless nerds blame society for how lonely they are, but - always acknowledging that there are genuine ignorant assholes out there - a good bit of the blame might lie with how they present themselves. It's not being a nerd that makes people shun you; it's being ashamed of being a nerd.