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Ask HN: Is everyone on Hacker News super charismatic?

38 points by ZhangSWEFAANG ↗ HN
I see the ideas on here, and the complexity of the arguments present, and I think "Holy shit" everyone on here is probably a great conversationalist and insanely emotionally smart. I know the trope of programmers being low IQ, but this just seems wrong.

75 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 134 ms ] thread
anshumankmr
> everyone on here is probably a great conversationalist and insanely emotionally smart

Definitely not me.

MattPalmer1086
Me neither. I like hanging out here because the quality of thought and curiosity is high. My emotional intelligence is a lot better than it used to be, but it doesn't come naturally to me.

Put me in a room with other ideas focused people and I have a great time. Mostly that is not the case :)

jstx1
Wait what? :D

Written comments are very different from verbal communication which is different from charisma. So no, they definitely aren't all charismatic, far from it probably.

Also, "trope of programmers being low IQ"?

paullth
"trope of programmers being low IQ", I've never heard of this, but then maybe I'm just another low IQ programmer
tjpnz
I think op meant the opposite. Makes more sense in context.
satysin
I think OP may mean: trope of programmers having low social IQ (aka EQ)?

There is certainly a stereotype (reinforced by the media of course) of programmers being awkward, geeky, poor communicators to non-experts, emotionally a bit “weird”, etc

As OP is talking about charisma this is what I assume they meant anyway. I could wrong so hopefully OP can clarify.

jbreckmckye
Remember that social media is built by definition to show you other people at their most interesting, most entertaining, most articulate, most impressive. Otherwise it would be boring.
MrVandemar
Well, I think there's a higher barrier to participation than, say, reddit, and clear rules discouraging flippant or other low-value contributions, so you're shaving off the bottom 10-20% (guestimate) of worthless posts with that alone. Meaning the average is higher.

And then I speculate there is a high percentage of people here of at least minnium tertiary education (or equivalent), and furthermore people who are engaged and relentlessly self-educate. That's a literate bunch of people with strong skills in generating and critiquing ideas and philosophies in an arena where there is more "signal" and less "noise".

It'd be interesting to see the demographic breakdown of HN actually.

sshine
There is a critical mass effect: If the average reader of my comment is smart, I don’t get away with ventilating my anger; it’ll just get pointed out and downvoted. So I might as well behave.

And there is a no-duplicate culture: If I have a point that I want to make, and someone always expressed it in a comment, I just upvote.

20% of my comments are discarded with the interrupt handler in my brain going “Wait, is someone wrong on the internet?” Hitting Ctrl+W just discards the message. It’s a feature for letting go.

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v3ss0n
When in the world Trope of programmer being Low IQ?? Do you mean Low EQ ?

Regarding charismatic , i am quite blunt in verbal communication , ok at written.

sshine
Yes, OP means low EQ.
throwaway0asd
Sometime comment replies scream unintentionally I can’t read. In that case it’s energy in search of attention and social validation, which is the opposite of smart. This is why I abandoned my HN account using my name and only post anonymously now. For some strange reason the same comments from anonymous accounts deflect a lot of trolling.
overlisted
It's easier to phrase your speech in a charismatic way when it's written. Plus, you're probably not reading a lot of downvoted/ignored comments, which actually represent most HN readers.
oneoff786
I would wager there’s a negative correlation between one’s charisma and the complexity of their arguments
club_tropical
Yes. Truth is manifest, instinctive, and potent. Complex arguments are desperate labyrinth constructed to hide a big lie in the middle of the maze, attempting to ensnare and exhaust the interlocutor.
gyulai
The world is made up of phenomena that mostly are pretty complex and require explanations that are equally complex.

Unfortunately the world is filled with people who lay on others the responsibility to "explain complex things in a simple way" or else be labelled bad communicators. Those are mostly people whose minds can't handle complexity and who are engaging in cognitive dissonance reduction. They don't like to think of themselves as dumb, so they'd rather think of their opposites as bad communicators.

But there is no such thing as a "complex thing explained simply". There are only the kinds of explanations that H. L. Mencken speaks of when he says:

"Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong." [1]

[1] https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken

club_tropical
> The world is made up of phenomena that mostly are pretty complex

The word “made up” is doing a lot of work there. Do you mean like a butterfly wing makes up the world around you or central banking?

One of these is not so much “complex” as it is mysterious, alluring, captivating, and we have no explanation for it, complex or otherwise.

The other is exactly like the giant labyrinth constructed around a lie. Complex for its own protection - synthethic complexity that you can skip if you know the shortcut to the heart of the maze.

gyulai
I don't believe that no explanation exists for the "butterfly wing" kind of complexity, I merely believe that such an explanation is not yet known to any human, owing to the large magnitude of that kind of complexity, and so we frequently use terms like "randomness" to brush over those kinds of gaps in our ability to explain things and impose boundaries between what's known and what's unknown.

I agree that some complexities in the area of culture like law, religion, political institutions etc. are self-referential and ultimately serve no purpose or are even counterproductive relative to their presumed purpose.

The important thing is that I wouldn't attach a negative value-judgment to complexity, like saying complexity is always evil or bad or serves nefarious purposes. It is precisely the unwillingness to engage with complexity that perpetuates it.

club_tropical
> The important thing is that I wouldn't attach a negative value-judgment to complexity, like saying complexity is always evil or bad or serves nefarious purposes.

I would and I do.

> It is precisely the unwillingness to engage with complexity that perpetuates it.

No. It is the chimpout, the excessive disproportionate and cruel response of labyrinth-makers against those who dare to cut to the heart of the maze, that perpetuates the artificial complexity through intimidation.

They would LOVE for you to “engage with complexity” - that means walking into the labyrinth of their construction, a turf they fully control. Nothing gives them more joy than seeing you squirm around the maze, wasting away trying to “understand” Modern Monetary Theory or why The Court upheld starre decisis here but created a new precedent there, like these things are emergent properties of nature like butterfly wings.

ccbccccbbcccbb
Super charismatic, no.

Agenda-supportive, virtue-signalling, hype-bandwagoning, karma-worshipping, high-horse-scornful, cowardly-downvoting, way too many.

Snowflake-fragile, even more.

low_tech_love
ITT: lots of people clearly explaining, with perfectly timed, concrete, and objective arguments, why they are not really very good at clearly explaining things with great arguments!
exolymph
That's not what charisma is though. Charisma isn't cogency, it's being charming and likable.
togaen
That’s the impression you get?? I read HN and more often than not think, “man, these people sound like insufferable pseudo-intellectual know-it-alls.”
club_tropical
Amen- I am generally like “I hope they are not sending their best... because that would be depressing”
rjh29
Yeah, that is HN's reputation according to Reddit anyway. Truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
mkl95
There is a big overlap between charismatic people and self-censors. Some topics that are regularly discussed on HN can get you fired if you bring them up at work and they rub someone the wrong way. Generally, the industry does not provide a healthy framework for non technical conversation.
pjc50
Well .. yes? Obviously picking what you say for your audience and only saying that is a basic requirement for getting social respect, and blurting out what you think regardless of impact will get you regarded as boorish.

You have to have a lot of charisma to play being an asshole for laughs and credit, and that only works in-person and not on the internet.

mkl95
It is largely a cultural thing. At my current place I can discuss endemic industry issues with relative freedom without fearing for my job. At some places mentioning tech debt is enough to bother some higher up with a chip on their shoulder.
Semaphor
The more moderation, the more sensible the community seems. On Reddit, check /r/askhistorians.

For lower quality HN discussions check threads about cryptocurrency or many about Europe. Oh and enable showdead to see even deeper depths.

bloqs
This is largely it
andrewstuart
Everyone is sitting in the tracksuit pants at their computer with the lunch dishes still on the table. Or at least I am anyway and I assume everyone else is too. Maybe you're right, maybe everyone else on HN is clever and charismatic and looking stylish and also suave and sophisticated in person. And well dressed.

Nah they're all in their tracksuit pants.

lrvick
Most do not even bother with the pants.
sandworm101
The ones at work this morning are wearing pants. Most of them.
TrueGeek
Standard WFH outfit: button up shirt (freshly dry cleaned), underwear (optional).
sandworm101
Technically, I dress code at my work is army boots and camo. But it is the weekend and so I'm in jeans and running shoes. But then I look out the window at the snowstorm and wonder whether army boots might have been the better choice.
pjc50
Yeah, even to the extent that we have "written charisma" that's a very different thing from personal charisma. People who have "spoken charisma" become Youtubers. You can make decent money that way by starting a cult that pays you money.

We can also edit here. That makes a huge difference. Can't do that live or in person.

For very high levels of in-person charisma think Steve Jobs. His ability to convince people was called a "reality distortion field", it diminished once he left the room .. but he'd already got you to commit to building the impossible.

(Since I have 80k HN karma, and 80k karma plus eight dollars buys you a cup of coffee, I've been thinking of doing a data-driven "how to get upvoted on HN" thing. But I'd have to finish writing my scraper.)

roenxi
Being good looking isn't that important for being charismatic. It helps, sure. Persuading people is harder for someone who looks funny. But charisma isn't about how someone looks or what they wear.
magic_hamster
You mean, you're not constantly looking out the window of your skyscraper corner office wearing a top tier suit with a glass of pricey cognac in your hand?

Looking down at the plebs walking in the streets, articulating the best way to sell them all on Rust?

No? It's just me then.

Just kidding. Rust is too good for the common man. *sips*

Barrin92
Personally I think I can articulate myself clearly but it isn't the result of IQ or EQ but rather because I've almost my entire adult live worked at foreign companies speaking English which is my second language. It makes you conscious about how you express yourself and how others hear you.

I think the observation is right though that people who can express themselves well are often perceived as charismatic. It's not necessarily a good thing though. Plenty of people stutter or are a little bit disorganized but still have important things to say. Just because someone has difficulty communicating doesn't mean they're not smart, emotionally or otherwise.

magicalhippo
It's quite a lot easier to write something nice and coherent when you have 5-10-15 minutes to do so, rather than having to answer on the spot...
xdfgh1112
Using big words and quoting Godwin's Law != intelligence :P
howscrewedami
I'd argue there's some selection bias going on. You're more likely to participate in a technical discussion if you're familiar with the topic. Or else you risk getting downvoted.
davidkuennen
I often find HN rather detached from the "real world". ;-)

But there's certainly lots of smart people here.

synu
And quite handsome as well.

On a more serious note I think people on HN tend to be way more pedantic than anyone I would want to spend time with in real life.

maccard
It's a site for technical discussion, it's important to get the details right (/s)

Agreed. Personally, I tend to be far more detail focused on discussions here than on Reddit, my work Slack or in real life, and it definitely crosses over the line into pedantry sometimes. I'm nowhere _near_ as pedantic in person.

synu
It is a site for technical discussion, so it’s important to start with the assumption that nobody except yourself has any idea what they are talking about and go from there. :)

Joking aside, I do think it’s a bit to be expected in an anonymous forum. It’s quite at a tolerable level here, even if it’s not what I’d look for in my irl friends.

vehemenz
I agree, but sometimes HN folks misinterpret pedantry for subtle but necessary distictions that can make or break an argument.

In real life, people tend not to tolerate either.

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rjh29
Good point. Pedantry is tolerated here and there is a culture of upvoting nitpicks because it fits in with the 'engineering ethos'. I have similar experiences at work too. But Reddit for example, while low quality in many ways, downvotes most pedantry as socially unacceptable and mirrors 'real life'.
ok_dad
In person I’m extremely uncharismatic, and have a poor grasp of the English language, my mother tongue. I write better than I speak most of the time, though.
recuter
Most of the web is angsty teenagers, shills, bots (rare footage of one in the wild: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5dauIYZTs4) - normative people, especially charismatic ones have better things to do with their time than post online.

Since outrage drives clicks websites are incentivized to turn into the jerry springer show. HN is not ad supported and the focus is mostly on technical subjects, too boring for the riff raf with underdeveloped emotional control.

Relative to this sad state of affairs we shine, I suppose. You could do a lot better just maybe not on the internet. If you want to see how this community is not immune to turning into a zoo look at any thread where anything remotely political crops up.

Compare and contrast with old timey talk shows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_PUUHLknDI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz7tiBZdGvE

Deeming the awkward nerds here as 'super charismatic' really just shows how far we have fallen as a society. People used to be a lot more civil and eloquent. Some still are just not in any public sphere.

unpopularopp
I mean when you are rich [0] easy to be like that. HN is most detached from real world crowd that I saw. Just read the comments in every thread about homelessness or social services, public health etc.

0, This is another topic for sure but a lot of people make here top 5% money (nationwide and probably even higher global) which doesn't make you middle class

soVeryTired
If there was a similar forum for doctors, lawyers or other professionals you'd probably see the same level of discourse.

As others have pointed out, the voting system means you only see the best of the comments. And even then when HN strays "off topic" (i.e. away from science and tech) the commentary is far less on point.

And don't get me started on the "middle-brow dismissal"...