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The below-quoted replies (to combine several threads into one) are glossing over a key question, which is: What differentiates between the two factions of nerds? Again, it's not an issue of nerds vs. popular kids; it's nerds vs. other nerds. The most strident voices against techno-fascism are themselves "nerds" by any definition. Many are autistic, and will say so right in their Tumblr/Bluesky bios. (And when you meet them in person, you can tell it's true.) They have prickly mannerisms and are not exactly "people persons". They are not generally from wealthy families or from poor families. They play a lot of video games. Etc.
I've tried to capture the distinction as "computer" vs. "theater" nerds, but even that feels incomplete. Many left-wing nerds are, in fact, technically proficient and may even work for tech companies (think: Rust developer with programming socks and Blåhaj); while many right-wing nerds are well-acquainted with the humanities, art, and literature (think: this forum).
And as I mentioned, there is no obvious demographic category that explains the divide either. There are white males on both sides, and non-whites on both sides. There are LGBT people on both sides.
So, we remain in need of an explanation for why some nerds go one way and some go the other way, and in particular, why the fight feels existential to both sides, like an actual ethnic conflict where your loyalty is determined genetically and so you have to stick with it through thick and thin. But if you're a nerd and you find yourself on the losing side of the Nerd War, can't you just... switch sides?
@OliveTapenade
@The_Nybbler
@DiscourseMagnus
@FtttG
No. This is a microcosm of left vs right. That's 70% heritable when measured well and one of the two top traits people marry based on, the other being intelligence.
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I've been on this for a while. Sneers against "tech bros" from the left abound in some places. My American big tech coworkers are far out of step with the wider American population in how progressive they are. Tech bros are a thing and they overwhelmingly vote D. Based on large group chat and in person dunks on Trump, I've determined how my coworkers tend to vote. I think I've said it here before, but there are engineering teams I work with in which trans women outnumber natal women. If I ever feel like looking at pride flags, I'll walk a lap through the building. Pronouns in bios, etc.
There's exceptions. Generally older white guys. Somehow concentrated in EMI mitigation and mechanical engineering. Not to generalize too much from the sample of people I've personally worked with.
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I suspect a lot of the autistic ones are people like Ana Valens who convinced themselves they had infinite lesbian porn pass (hint: feminism is not deceived by your clever ruse).
They're like "constitution says cops can't give me a speeding ticket" guys but for social censure, so they end up in weird/suicidal places politically.
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I do not find this narrative credible in the slightest. Sure, some of them are self-hating autistic nerds turned into pathetic thralls, but this is not the demographic that leads or defines them. Quite the opposite, in fact; insofar as they're led and defined by neurodivergents with prickly mannerisms, they're hypersocial psychopaths. Sometimes they feign autism as an elaborate gambit, as they feign many other conditions like Tourette's or DID. But this infamously does not look like the actual condition. They constantly engage in elaborate and deceptive social maneuvers to destroy their enemies by petty conspiracy, and they're quite good at it; they sometimes appear incompetent at it only because they're unstable enough to frequently run up against each other. They are the opposite of autistic, and the opposite of nerdy (which never really meant anything aside from being a cruder term for autism).
They're defined by worshiping status in the Hansonian sense, which of course requires perpetually lying about it and pretending it doesn't exist, anti-autistic taqiyya. They hate truth and the idea that anyone would ever believe in truth and not act as part of an evil collectivist hivemind. They salivate over the thought of eugenically eradicating autism, which is to say the propensity to not think and talk in consummate liar.
Correction, they are hypersocial narcissists, not psychopaths. Narcissists to a T are really into status, social games, and coming out on top. Because everything is about them, truth is whatever they need it to be. It however surprises me that they want use "autism" their shield. My experience is that actually being autistic gets you negative leeway.
They're mostly not psychopaths, but the Cluster B personality disorders blend together and a lot of them look more like Anti-Social Personaity Disorder (ASPD) than plain narcissm. (you also see histrionic personality disorder, and plain old borderline)
(I am not a mental health professional, and so am not restricted by medical ethics from diagnosing these people :-) )
I am stealing this line.
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That the same word is sometimes used for computer nerds and theatre nerds does not mean there's any real confusion between the two.
The other-computer-nerd-hating computer nerds of the left do also come into it. Some of them are 'traitors' -- that is, they are cleaving to the socially more popular in an attempt to get themselves out of the despised nerd category, or at least out of the consequences of being in that category. A large category are feminists who hate only male computer nerds. Others are, to use the technical term, just 'cray-cray'.
That doesn't make them 'theatre nerds'. The theatre nerds are the ones who get into performing. Although I'm not sure the theatre nerds really are the largest category of computer-nerd hater; it's really journalist types.
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Broadly, if you want to differentiate those types of nerds, it seems like one is more about nerding out about physical reality, while the other is more about nerding out about social reality. Obviously we all have to live in both, but the "computer" nerds really do believe that humans and human society is like a really really complicated computer, one that we can test and check empirically with scientific methods in order to learn more about in order to navigate it better, while the "theater" nerds really do believe that physical reality is like a really really advanced theater, one where we can learn more about the script, the director's demands, the audience's proclivities, in order to navigate it better.
Clearly, there are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches when it comes to navigating the world better, though usually one is better than the other in specific domains, by my estimation. Why such a dichotomy exists in the nerd population, I'm not sure, maybe it's just an artifact of a general distribution of different types of personalities, which end up grouping together due to some sort of social stickiness.
Why it seems existential might be that both sets of nerds believe that the baseline of the other is just a construct of their own baseline, i.e. social reality is just physics that's really advanced vs. physical reality as humans perceive them are actually just social constructions. It's hard for these things not to conflict with each other.
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