Comment on Everyone in Seattle Hates AI — Jonathon Ready

• AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  People using the word “grok” has always been a red flag. The people who read stranger in a strange land and identified with it so much they started using the word are fucking weirdos. The book is about a child adopted by Martians who inherited their reality-bending mind powers, comes back to earth as an adult and creates a nudist sex cult. Basically Jared Leto. I’m not joking, that’s the book.

  It was always elder developers who didn’t wear shoes and had trouble with personal space.

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  • toynbee@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    hackersdictionary.com/html/entry/grok.html

    I read it in my early twenties, almost twenty years ago. I am not a developer but am in the same area. I always wear some form of shoes when I leave my house unless I enter someone else’s house. I don’t think I have trouble with personal space but I don’t really see anyone other than my wife and kid.

    I remember liking some of the themes of the book but, reflecting on it now, yes, Heinlein can be problematic.

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    • AWistfulNihilist@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      There is no problem with having read the book, there’s no problem with liking it. I did both, the first time i read it I thought it was cool. I’m more taking about people who made the nude sex cult book part of their personality enough to use the word grok unironically.

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      • vithigar@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        It’s a useful word with no direct equivalent in English. You don’t need to integrate the cult aspect of the book into your identity to understand that.

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  • kat_angstrom@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I read it as a teenager and wasn’t particularly impressed. As an adult I reread it after hearing it was a “classic” and I couldn’t even make it halfway through. Absolutely agree that liking that book is a red flag

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