The Geek Shall Inherit the Earth 336
erick99 writes "With so many self-proclaimed geeks here at Slashdot, this particular article concerning geeks seems fitting. The article covers the gamut from science fiction to comic books to the "mainstreaming of geeks." The author seems to conclude the it is not such a good idea that the geek may inherit the earth. But, hey, what does he know. "
Geek Fun (Score:3, Funny)
Well if the Geeks Inheirit the Earth the place should really byte
Re:Geek Fun (Score:2)
Re:Geek Fun (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Geek Fun (Score:2, Interesting)
The story submitter refers to self-proclaimed Geek.
So, if you give people shit and tell them "Geeks find this cool", then they might consider loving this will make them better "Geeks".
I don't really like this concept as it basically promotes some kind of insulting globalization of thought.
So, well, it's cool to have some good movie from time to time but being a Geek means "ratherly looking for cleverer solution whenever any kind of problem is faced".
It's not especially more
Re:Geek Fun (Score:3, Funny)
Yes we do! Havent you heard of cloning?
Of course the geeks shouldn't inherit the earth. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Of course the geeks shouldn't inherit the earth (Score:2)
Revenge of the Nerds... (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone now realizes the difference between nerds and geeks. Geeks are the cool nerds!
Now, if we could only get the hot women...
Re:Revenge of the Nerds... (Score:3, Funny)
Geeks are nerds who possess outstanding technical skills.
And she replied: but they're still nerds, right?
I replied: Absolutely!
Re:Revenge of the Nerds... (Score:5, Insightful)
If only there were a way to metamod that mod as Funny.
Re:Revenge of the Nerds... (Score:2, Interesting)
It's okay. Once we die it'll all be over. No more pain, no more ostracision, no more oppression, no more being pushed by management through hoops and hurdles and then criticized for being a performer, no more cold, no more boring workdays... just a nice warm sleep.
At least I hope it's warm.
"geek" vs. "nerd", what is a Geek? (Score:5, Insightful)
"nerd" now denotes the tape-on-the-glasses weakling.
Personally, I think that this separation was inevitable since:
A.) Society will never maintain contempt for any class of people who make lots of money and get lots of power.
A'.) Any class with lots of money and power will achieve at least a passable baseline of nookie.
and more interestingly
B.) Real geeks are, by nature, hackers of our environment and, increasingly of ourselves. Sure, some techies seem to sincerely think that they can transcend their social cluelessness and isolation by becoming experts in yet another obscure subject (beer-making, cpu customization, wargaming) but most of us long since figured out that we can apply our skills at analysis and redesign to ourselves.
I look at my friends on
I am a geek. I am seriously fucking proud of that. I know that I am not only smarter and more capable in several dozen ways then just about anybody I have ever met, I am also more honest, ethical, and self-aware. All are geek traits.
I have also done more bed-hopping then many a guy.
Sure, we start out as "losers" but at what iteration?
I'm thirty-seven. Old enough to now see what is happening to my age cohort well beyond the baselines provided by genetics, family, and cultural mores. Most guys my age are getting sloppy, flabby, passive, and sloppy about their appearance and even their careers. I look at the geeks my age and we are all more self-assured, all working on our health, mostly getting stronger and more physically capable, and generally on the way up while those around us go down. We are stronger, fiercer, and more formidible then our non-geek equivalents and the gap is widening.
As far as I'm concerned, being a geek is defined by what I call "two and a half" variables. Firstly, being a systems-oriented thinker, seeing the world not as a random set of causeless phenomena but as overlapping groups of editable, comprehensible events. Secondly, having a brain that doesn't turn off. In other words, living with a default setting of starting to figure out "why" as soon as one is provided with the data on "what".
The "half" is that nobody becomes that passionate about understanding the world just because they felt like it. That level of involvement *always* is a consequence of something serious having been wrong when one was a child. After all, if the world gives you everything you want, then you don't question it too deeply. So all of us, each of us, were striving for something and were smart enough that we found that thinking and understanding got us closer to get what we strove for. Kids develop the tool that gets them what they want. We developed the habit of thinking. Of making sense of things.
But that "malformation" is only the starting point, not necessarily a permanent state.
Where do computers fit into all of this? Only as easy ways to make a living that are best handled by us. Built by geeks, specc'ed in part by geeks (Vannevar, we call to you!), they are logic machines, however faulty. So a lot of us have drifted there. Whatever. It's only a local and temporary anomaly. In the eighteen-fifties we would have been in the railroad business.
As for the "make-believe" thing, I call bullshit on that. I have repeatedly had to endure crowds of dim bulbs on their way to Yankees games recently and these halfwits were far more involv
Re:"geek" vs. "nerd", what is a Geek? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is an excellent quote, and illustrates why geeks turned to computers: They are complex groups of editable, comprehensible events. We grok them, and other people don't. In the past, we would have been engineers or scientists, and some of us still are.
May cut down on war (Score:3, Insightful)
War would change (Score:5, Funny)
There would still be wars. THey would not be between countries but between Windows, Linux, BSD and Mac overloards. Windows would be like the US. Big, bulky and some part of it is always screwed up. BSD and Mac would have a treaty and tag team the others.
Re:May cut down on war (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:May cut down on war (Score:5, Funny)
Re:May cut down on war (Score:3, Insightful)
Saladin & Richard the Lionhearted (Score:4, Interesting)
In Euope, on the rare occasions that monarchs were captured, they were often allowed to take whole wagon trains of stuff with them and whole bunches of servants. They most certainly did not rot in a hole, and they often ate with their captors. Leaving aside the fact that the royal families of europe were a bunch of inbred freaks and that the vanquished was probably your cousin, it makes a point. But woe to the commoner that got uppity. They would be put down hard with no courtesy.
Yeah, warrior-kings tend to take care of their own, when they aren't busy chopping eachother up. Yesterday it was a joust and a feast, today 18 holes & lunch at the Yacht club. No difference.
Re:May cut down on war (Score:2)
The meek geek (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The meek geek (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they were blaming the internet for two very specific social evils. Why would you extrapolate EVERY social evil from that?
Individualism is evil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Internet often breeds individuation and solipsism (Score:5, Funny)
That's why I browse at -1.
Re:Internet often breeds individuation and solipsi (Score:5, Insightful)
This is one of the most annoying things to me, about some of my old friends. I grew up in a relatively small community, school of about 1000 students, near a city of a quarter of a million.
The VAST majority of my old schoolmates still hang out together and shag each other and bitch about each other and steal each others partners and generally stay in the same old pond.
They put up with the same shit from the same shits for year after year because they dont want to get out there and find people with common interests.
Geeks, nerdy boys and the like are oft criticised for being anti-social / a-social but from my experience are WAY more adventurous in building social circles which, while relativly small are created from a very wide geographical pool.
Long live the geek for spreading what genes they CAN exchange with further flung chicks that your average small town wanker obsessed with tribalism and football.
Ok - rant over - Im off for a coffee!
Re:Internet often breeds individuation and solipsi (Score:4, Insightful)
The author seems mainly concerned that the spreading of geek values will result in a mass retreat from the "real world." Well, the "real world" is whatever we choose to make it. I live a pretty geeky life -- I work as a DBA, study computational biology in school, read (and occasionally write) science fiction, listen to obscure music, and hang out primarily with other people who have similar interests. But guess what? There are a lot of those people -- and yes, half of them are women, and some pretty good-looking women at that. My academic studies may be incomprehensible to the monkeys who think an MBA constitutes higher education, but my research has the potential to change lives while they're shuffling papers. And my job is interesting, challenging, and pays me enough for a comfortable life. You don't get much more real than that.
Re:Internet often breeds individuation and solipsi (Score:3, Insightful)
You are no better than them, nor they you. There's just a lot of diversity in the way humans live their lives. If everyone did what you do then there would be no communities and that would really suck.
Re:Internet often breeds individuation and solipsi (Score:5, Insightful)
obl quote (Score:2, Interesting)
" you sold us out , you sold us out!
--Strongbad in strong bad goes to jail, homestarrunner.com
Re:obl quote (Score:2)
Football players.
Hey, a guy can dream, can't he?
There is *always* someone geekier than thou... (Score:3, Funny)
I sometimes think *I'm* a geek..then I'll overhear someone discussing the relative pros and cons of a particular train, or quoting entire Star Trek episodes and I think to myself "frickin' geek"..and I know all is right in the world...
Somebody get a dictionary? (Score:2, Funny)
Call me crazy, but I thought an 'anorak' was a puffy coat? Maybe this is some obtuse slang that I don't know about...
-JT
Re:Somebody get a dictionary? (Score:5, Informative)
Courtesy of UrbanDictionary.com:
anorak
1. Cagoul; or a hooded zip-up jacket.
2. Trainspotters.
3. IT people in general, computer geeks.
Beware of couples wearing matching anoraks.
Often spotted at LAN parties.
I'm still trying to figure out whether or not being compared to a warm, puffy coat is a good thing.
Re:Somebody get a dictionary? (Score:3, Informative)
origin of 'anorak' as slang (Score:5, Informative)
As I understand it:
there is a hobby called 'trainspotting' where people hang about at railway stations, noting the comings and goings of trains (e.g. the 4723 to Wembley left the station at 0914).
since these trainspotters are often outside in inclement weather, they wear large puffy winter coats
being geeks and having no fashion sense, they choose the same sort of large puffy coats that your mother made you wear when you were a kid. (Think of the big coat George Costanza wore in that episode of 'Seinfeld' if that helps.)
in the UK, the puffy coat is called an anorak
the garment became synonymous with the sad trainspotting git who wears it.
:-)
British slang is fun.
Re:Somebody get a dictionary? (Score:2)
BUT search search Google... interesting results.
Re:Somebody get a dictionary? (Score:3, Interesting)
They tended to be male (99%), individualistic and not try to wear fashionable or nice clothes. This was due to poverty and also a greater interest in "anoraki" hobbies, like computing, chess, games like DnD, trainspotting.
Part of the reason for the popularity of the anorak was they were quite warm, and if you put one on in the morning, you could wear one al
Re:Somebody get a dictionary? (Score:2)
I had anorak armor once, and then some Level 89 asswipe named =*DRAZIW*= with two *Last Blades* killed me and stole it. Bastard.
Those old door games were great. I used to register a bunch of accounts to play Usurper, then transferred all my money to one keeper account, committed suicide on all the now broke ones, recreated a character in each, and repeated. An effective way to start with around 200k gold (or more if you're the patient type).
Remember! (Score:5, Funny)
"The meek shall inherit what's left of the Earth after we're done with it."
Re:Remember! (Score:5, Funny)
Ahead of the Curve (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ahead of the Curve (Score:2)
First computer I ever took apart had a 1.2 MHz processor. And, that makes ME a young buck!
All these newcomers are just teeny-bopping posers.
This guy is a jacket? (Score:2, Funny)
"As something of an anorak/geek/nerd myself, I must confess to deriving pleasure from our move to the mainstream."
According to this at [reference.com], an anorak is a hooded jacket. Why would he call himself that? Weird.
Re:This guy is a jacket? (Score:2)
I dunno, he must be some kind of geek.
Yeah! (Score:2, Insightful)
I want my pre-september-that-never-ended internet back! ;-)
scary... (Score:5, Interesting)
"a carnival performer often billed as a wild man whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake"
"Geek" [m-w.com]
Re:scary... (Score:5, Funny)
When your job is outsourced to India we will see what way you come up with to both feed yourself and pay the rent.
notion of a mainstream geek is an oxymoron (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect the author was just out to get a bit of cash or notorioty.
Re:notion of a mainstream geek is an oxymoron (Score:3, Insightful)
It's generally accepted that a geek or a nerd is someone somewhat obsessed with technology/science/etc. The difference between the two varies a lot. Often one is attributed with the separateness and awkwardness, while the other is allowed to be a normal person that likes technology. The author of this article says that "geek" is good but "nerd" is bad.
Personally, I go with the view that a geek is more social. They get stigmatized more because they're out in public acting we
Bit of an odd article (Score:2, Insightful)
Coming from a guy with not one, but two planned sci-fi conventions coming up. I think he's lost any rights to be casting the first stone at someone because they liked lord of the rings.
Re:Bit of an odd article (Score:2, Insightful)
This shows just how upbeat he isn't,
It's not what geeks do (Score:4, Insightful)
Cute Girl + Dorky Outfit != Geek (Score:5, Funny)
"When did it become cool to be a dork? You know that shifty-acting guy or libertine-looking gal who's always all, "I'm captain punk-rock-opolis," crying "culture-stealer" whenever the opportunity makes itself available? That's me, except with geeks."
"Am I not justified though? Am I to idly watch the tyrants streamline my identity for mass consumption; our folklore exploited and assimilated by wannabe societies? Eccentricaly-dressed girls using their cuteness to conceal their embarassing ignorance, actually thinking that Wolverine's mutant powers are those metal claw thingies? People who haven't paid their dues; who couldn't tell you the difference between a D6 and DOS? Guys who've never carried out torrid--though imaginary--love affairs with Ensign McKnight, trading knowing smirks and grins across the Ten Forward lounge?"
The standards for geek initiation have been lowered too far. Too many times have I seen my dork friends embrace a cute girl as their own, just because she has a mild familiarity with Magic: The Gathering [inthegray.com] cards.
Re:Cute Girl + Dorky Outfit != Geek (Score:5, Funny)
Too many times have I seen my dork friends embrace a cute girl as their own, just because she has a mild familiarity with Magic: The Gathering cards.
Hell, I'd embrace a cute girl any day, Magic: The Gathering or no Magic: The Gathering!
Re:Cute Girl + Dorky Outfit != Geek (Score:2)
When did it become cool to be a dork?
I know it is not your question, but to answer it: it became cool to be a dork/geek when Bill Gates topped the Forbes 500 list and married a hot chick. He proved any dork/geek could do it.
Re:Cute Girl + Dorky Outfit != Geek (Score:2)
At the cost of being reviled and attacked with pies (both in effigy and in person) by other geeks everywhere.
Re:Cute Girl + Dorky Outfit != Geek (Score:5, Funny)
I never noticed (Score:2)
People still look at me funny when I tell them I've read LOTR thrice.
Or when I carry around a book by Heinlein, or maybe Clarke, or Gibson.
Even though its becoming more accepted, I still wouldn't call it mainstream.
Re:I never noticed (Score:5, Funny)
Although, I have been trying to bring back the expression "Ods bodkins!" so I don't have much room to talk.
Re:I never noticed (Score:2)
Re:I never noticed (Score:2, Insightful)
Fifty years ago, what is now mainstream would have been geeky. Color TV, more than one TV, more than five TV channels, more than two radios, media other than plastic audio records, remote controlled anything, microwave oven, dishwasher, identical potato chips, non-aspirin painkiller, pocket tissue, velcro, airbags, seat belts, FM radio, cupholders, fuel injected engine, anything near steering wheel other than turn sig
LOTR isn't "mainstream"??? (Score:5, Informative)
People still look at me funny when I tell them I've read LOTR thrice.
Even though its becoming more accepted, I still wouldn't call it mainstream.
All-time worldwide box-office rankings:
2. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
8. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
Tell me again how the trilogy that dominates the top-10 all-time worldwide box office rankings isn't "mainstream?"
Source. [boxofficemojo.com]
Re:LOTR isn't "mainstream"??? (Score:3, Funny)
2. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
8. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
Tell me again how the trilogy that dominates the top-10 all-time worldwide box office rankings isn't "mainstream?"
Because the same 10,000 people saw it 1,000,000 times.
-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
I've set my sights higher.. (Score:3, Funny)
I'm aiming for Mars myself...
- Byzandula
No, you got that wrong .... (Score:3, Funny)
It is the Greek who will inherit the Earth.
(Obligatory Brian quote)
What did I miss? (Score:2)
Since when has anorak become synonymous with geek? This is the first time I've seen it.
Re:What did I miss? (Score:2)
I for one... (Score:5, Funny)
Sorry, I just had to.
YES!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Does the article contradict itself? (Score:2, Funny)
Are we sure this isn't a bitter jock turned gym teacher who is upset that the guy he bullied in high school is Bill Gates?
Oh great what about me? (Score:2, Funny)
Not a good idea? (Score:5, Funny)
This guy obviously didn't get the universal truth as portrayed in "Revenge of the Nerds".. that inside every geek is an automaton of burning passion powering a pile-driving love machine.
So why the fuck shouldn't we rule the earth?
another symptom of the tech revival? (Score:2)
it's a terrible idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Want proof? Bloggers. Give even a cursory look at the personal "blogs" out there and you realize none of these people have even a semblance of a life.
Re:it's a terrible idea (Score:5, Funny)
hikikomori - anyone know someone who has this? (Score:2)
Re:hikikomori - anyone know someone who has this? (Score:2)
It's mentioned in the article, I know a guy who's like this. It's like a Geek disease or something. He used to come hang out but now he NEVER leaves his bedroom. He's been like that for the past 3-4 years. Last year it got even worse, he doesn't even socialize on IRC anymore! Anyone else know someone like that?
I think, to a certain extent, we all go through phases like that, although not so extreme in the majority of cases. For me, this period was 1994-1995, two of the worst years of my life. My grades s
Re:hikikomori - anyone know someone who has this? (Score:2)
Ever since I broke up with my last g/f two years ago, I've buried myself in online games and virtual worlds, cutting off nearly everyone who I couldn't contact through those environments.
I still have to leave home occasionally to work to pay my share of the bills, but I spend nearly the whole day thinking about getting back to my seclusion, and back in-world and away from t
Trendy (Score:5, Interesting)
See, here in NYC, geekdom has become...trendy. It's now cool to know tons about comic books, to be an IP wizard, to be able to pull odd things from teh intarweb. If you're a mac geek, you're even better off.
The problem with this is the fucking hipsters of the geek wannabe persuasion. They manage to effectively mimic geek behavior but are much smoother (excuse me - smoover), much nicer looking and infinitely better at getting laid. So now all the look-alike "hey look, I can setup iTunes networking. I'm awesome and lovable and single! Bed me!" are stealing the small portion of women endowed by god with a geek-love gene. JUST when we're acceptable to the outside world, we get screwed by the trendiest people on EARTH. AGAIN.
But the worst part of it is, you turn into, like, that guy. You know, that guy who always grumbles about being ahead of the trend. The "I was listening to them when they were indie and they suck now" guy and everyone thinks YOU'RE the poser.
Please. Take me back to obscurity. At least I was getting laid when I was on the fringe.
Triv
Individually, geeky things aren't geeky (Score:3, Insightful)
When people talk about traditional "geeks", a lot of people think a lot of different things. People think of computer programming, for one thing. But are all programmers geeks? Cobol programmers, or SAP programmers, or other "corporate" programmers, including to a large extent many of the modern-day "business app" programmers (Java, Delphi, VB, Clarion, etc), for example have been around for a long time, and typically they don't have all of the same qualities traditional geeks are supposed to have: they don
Deconstructing the article (DTFA) (Score:2)
Society will be poorer if it goes geek? Talk to billg buddy.
It's not like geekdom will replace Da Vinci, Michelangelo or Picasso. Geek culture will take over the WWF, soap operas and budget-busting hollywood films most of which end up losing money because nobody likes them in the first place. Society won't be poorer or richer if we replace the rock with aragorn. gimme a break.
Now wipe your nose and go finish your homework.
Re:Deconstructing the article (DTFA) (Score:2)
So far it looks like it's still going the other way.
Didya happen to notice who was hosting the americanized Robot Wars? Some wrestler guy! (no I have no idea what his name is)
Just when something suitably geeky and new comes on TV, they dumb it down and add some trash-talk^H^H^H^H yelling jock.
If they had to have a host with no 'funny accent' why not stay with the theme and get someone likeBrent Spiner or John DeLancie?
And Junkyard Wars too. In the more recent s
The author has it backwards. (Score:5, Interesting)
Computer geeks are now in the same position automobile geeks were when the auto was coming into its own. Automobiles used to be considered an oddity at best and a nuisance at worst. Few owned them and the majority didn't understand the attraction for the noisy smelly things. Horses required little maintenance and performed the same functions better. Motoring enthusiasts formed clubs in order to be with others who understood their peculiar hobby.
Fast forward to today. A knowledgeable mechanic is virtually guaranteed an audience when discussing his profession. Everyone has a car and everyone has a story or a problem for which a mechanic's expertise provides a welcome addition to the conversation. Nobody thinks of auto mechanics as isolated geeks.
It makes all the difference in the world when the others in a party are interested in hearing what you have to say, whether it's the details of automatic transmissions, the pros and cons of DSL versus broadband or the differences between the movie and the comic.
iChick (Score:2)
So mine is not escapism, I'm investing my time on a possible (hot and sexy) future.
Diego
prejudices prejudices (Score:3, Insightful)
- Geeks are fantasy fans
- Geeks are socially inapt
- Geeks are a consistent subculture
- Intarwebby will make you less social
None of these are true -whatsoever-.
c'mon guys, dont let some markedroids push you over in a stubborn prejudice label.
"/Dread"
Author displays his American provincialism (Score:2, Insightful)
That is really only true in the US... comics/graphic novels are considered to be art just like literature and the cinema in most of the rest of the world; they are particularly popular and respected in Japan and France. The attitude of many Americans towards comics is rather similar to what people first thought of movies, that they are not "Serious Art." Of course most of the people who think that know rather litt
What a crock. (Score:5, Insightful)
But the criticism of science fiction and fantasy fans - that we are infantile and escapist people, and socially inept to boot - sadly has a little more truth to it.
Yeah, and people who are obsessed with Survivor, American Idol or any of a dozen soap operas are less escapist then fantasy fans.
As long as science fiction and fantasy fandom remained a fairly marginal subculture, then while certain fans may have pursued their passion to an unhealthy degree, the existence of the subculture was harmless. But when society as a whole starts to become obsessed with the otherworldly, then society as a whole threatens to go hikikomori - to become more interested in whiling away its time dreaming, than in addressing the real problems that confront it.
When society as a whole becomes obessed with anything, it becomes a problem. The existence of a few people obsessed with the genre does not imply that society as a whole will become obesessed with it if if becomes popular. Yes, there are some very obsessive fantasy fans, but the majority are quite capable of functioning in a normal society. And to suppose that all society will become obsessive fantasy fans because a few are is ridiculous.
Nothing quite like taking an exaggerated stereotype and applying it to everyone.
Nerd and proud (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know about you, but my heart swells up and I brim with pride when someone calls me a nerd (okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration...). But seriously, I enjoy being recognized for my mental abilities in a world where you can get paid hundreds of millions of dollars for hitting a ball with a stick or throwing a dead pig 70 yards. Who would you rather be, the all brawn no brains guy jacked up on designer steroids hitting 75 homeruns a season, or the mastermind that designed the drug and made it all possible?
Personally, I feel to doing quality research and being published in a scientific journal or writing code for a new program is much more of an accomplishment than throwing a 95 mile an hour strike. Call me a nerd all you want.
Re:Nerd and proud (Score:3, Interesting)
Geek, Defined (Score:3, Interesting)
It's easy to throw out the term "geek" to describe anyone who plays video games or understands what a computer is. However, for any definition to have meaning, there has to be a limitation. We can't all be geeks, per se...some of us may just be geek-compatible, or geek-like.
I think geekness changes with the times, of course. In my youth, I experimented with making my own batteries, assembling logic circuits, signal amps, lightwave communicators, and oscillators on breadboards. I launched model rockets, and gazed at the stars, and could tell you anything about the space program and its history.
So, a geek, in my mind, is a person with a deep fascination in the technological aspects of life and his world, and whose social nature and recreation frequently revolves around such aspects of science and technology.
Frequently, geeks are so involved with their interests that it supplants their social life--but this is common to anyone who gets too wrapped up in something, foregoing sex just to enjoy more of the diversion. Drug addicts do this all the time--doesn't make them a geek just because they are antisocial due to their addictions.
Gamers, for instance, can be geeks, but not all gamers are geeks. They're just kids who obsess over game playing. Now, you find me a guy who not only can play games AND assemble his own computer (an ability that was geek-elite, but now commonplace), but is also so knowledgeable in a scientific or technical topic or two to the point where you just know this guy could get a job in it someday (despite the fact that he learned all the stuff just for fun), then you have, in my mind a True Geek.
Does being able to recite lines from "Star Trek" or know the nuances between the Lord of the Rings book and movie characters count? Not really, in my mind. That's just a variation of appreciating fantasy. We used to call that "being a nerd." Girls and their imaginations of fairy tales and castles have been doing that for quite a while. But if you can attach a real-world component to that fantasy (such as research into the ability to, say, build a lightsaber replica that simulates the "real thing", then you approach the criteria of the Geek.
Being a Geek is not a passive activity, like gaming. Geeks explore, conquer, criticize, and hang out on
A Geek is a nerd with applied application of his knowledge in the real world.
I for one... (Score:2)
one geekless field left (Score:2)
pr0n.
If there is one thing I havent seen yet, it's geek-looking geeks starring in pr0n movies. There's plenty of home made ones with mullets though.
Differerent levels of geekdom (Score:3, Insightful)
Other people aren't geeks. People who own and use a digital camera or PC or scanner or keychain drive...those are every day people! They have tools, then use them. It's when you get obsessed with your tools that you're a geek.
Bearing gifts? (Score:3, Funny)
Beware of geeks bearing GIFs.
Life, the universe and everything? (Score:2)
Sci-fi has already provided us with the answer to life, the universe and everything. It's 42. So much for this guy.
One problem is where... (Score:2)
Not to mentiion that around here, you are expected to know EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING and get paid nothing for it. But working that way is good for expanding your capabilities.
I need to get back to Raleigh... Sigh, the good old days, before the dot-bomb, when lived somewhere where my Linux fish on th
Who are the geeks??? (Score:2, Insightful)
The definition of geek that I employ is more "technological elite" than "nose stuck in a fantasy book". In fact, with very few exceptions, I can't stand science-fiction/fantasy. I even go so far as to define the sci-fi/fantasy kids as "nerds" (shock and awe!).
Actually, my definition of geek is essentially "someone who knows a lot about a subject." For example, I fall into the following categories:
Great the Earth (Score:2)
James
Obligatory Bob Dylan Quote (Score:2)
And go watch the geek,
Who immediately comes up to you,
When he hears you speak,
And says, 'How does it feel to be such a freak?'
what's the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see the problem. What is socially inept is defined by the prevailing culture. By 1950's standards, almost all of today's socially respectable, well-adapted individuals are "socially inept" as well--they know none of the behavioral norms, dress norms, or skills that any respectable member of society was expected to know back then; culture and social standards have already shifted radically.
Will social norms shift even further? Who knows. But which set of social norms we get depends on the norms we prefer, and to the degree that those preferences are subject to change, the norms can change. If enough people find a geek lifestyle acceptable for others and maybe for themselves, then that lifestyle will become more mainstream.