Comment by stuartjohnson12
19 hours ago
I think what people miss about indexing on social signals is that convincing social performance is hard. My suspicion when people say things like "ah but if you index on a social signal then everyone will just perform the social signal" are themselves feeling as though they do not naturally signal that thing, and ironically are frustrated by the effort that it takes to appear as though they do.
Why is that your suspicion?
The context on this one is that we've gone from an environment in which kids were mocked for having curiosity and passion about nerdy things like systems, and it didn't pay that well as an adult, and those people would go home at the end of the day and also write open source code...
To one in which it's now a high-paying career, and a bunch of interview prep manuals coach on faking that, doing open source to promote your career, etc.
So if OG nerds look around at the environment and see the dynamics, of people who just want well-paying jobs (nothing wrong with that) seeming to do a performative dance with interviewers who also just want well-paying jobs (nothing wrong with that), and everyone is being told to project passion and curiosity (when they really just want well-paying jobs) and to look for it in others...
You think the problem is that OG nerds, for example, feel that they do not naturally signal that?
They may signal that just fine, but merely be questioning all the performative theater by people who aren't here for that, but some management fashion told them they should pretend to be.