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  1. n 14/12/1635 min
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    9.6
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    • Alexa4 years ago

      Reviving an old one that I think hit Readup before I did... her book with the same name as this piece just came out and it is making the rounds again. Definitely looking to get my hands on that book.

      • bill
        Top reader of all time
        4 years ago

        Update: this

      • bill
        Top reader of all time
        4 years ago

        Upvote. I want her to write about Readup one day. :) Her piece on the guys behind Hacker News was awesome.

    • p_scaal4 years ago

      I remember reading this when it was first published. Still as relevant as ever. Has anything changed?

    • Kiki4 years ago

      After reading this essay I can only say that I am so grateful to be out of the job market. What have we become, as a culture, that encourages such idiotic, soulless and empty behavior?

    • bill
      Top reader of all time
      4 years ago

      WHOA. That was one of my favorite reads of all time.

      • jeff4 years ago

        Awesome find. Captivating story telling and fascinating insight into a seriously disturbing culture/lifestyle. Also A+ title.

        • bill
          Top reader of all time
          4 years ago

          +1 re: title. I wrote an essay in college about uncanny valleys in the literature of Charlotte and Emily Bronte. I'm pretty sure the paper was trash (fake work, fake thinking) but the term -- uncanny valley -- has definitely stuck with me. I love it.

      • erica4 years ago

        I live in the Silicon Valley and work in tech. I laughed at some parts because they're so real. For example, "In this environment, my lack of interest in learning JavaScript feels like a moral failure" and "I chatter on about Paleo adherents and people who do CrossFit and practice polyamory" and "a normal event in the Burning Man off-season — whippits, face paint, high-design vaporizers". I wanted to cry at other parts for the same reason. These hurt: "This city is changing, and I am disgusted by my own complicity" and "It will take almost a year to realize I was gaslighting myself, that I was reading from someone else’s script." The most shocking (and 100% real) part was when she asks what the guy wants to do with his tens of millions of dollars, and her friend says, "I don’t think he wants to do anything.”

        • bill
          Top reader of all time
          4 years ago

          Yup. "I don't think he wants to do anything," was one of the best lines of the whole story!

    • Pegeen
      Top reader this weekReading streakScoutScribe
      4 years ago

      I found this extremely disturbing, difficult to get through. Sounds so soulless and sad.

      • Pegeen
        Top reader this weekReading streakScoutScribe
        4 years ago

        I would also like to add that this was very well written. Captivated me against my will!

        • bill
          Top reader of all time
          4 years ago

          This is one of the most accurate depictions of the culture behind tech that I’ve ever encountered. No wonder we’re producing the kind of tech we’re producing! I agree re: disturbing, soulless, sad. In a few decades, we’ll look back on this time in much the same way that we’re now looking back on the banking/finance - Wolf of Wall Street, etc.

          Humans are funny/strange creatures. Especially the white-collar ones. They’re strangest of all.