> I suppose the first lesson here is not to let people know you think lowly of them.
You are absolutely correct, at least from my perspective (although I don't think lowly of other people in the way you might mean). If possible, I'll edit my original post with my thoughts on this matter.
> You would have had much different replies if you rephrased your question
I know. The problem is that HN represents a small part of my interests, so it's unlikely that we share the same interests or values (especially considering I'm from a 3rd world country - I don't expect that many of you guys can relate to violence and poverty in the way that I can). The reason I chose HN is because I was hoping for responses with more signal than noise. I guess another lesson here is to choose your audience your wisely. And of course be mindful of how you address them.
Yep, that's what I was getting at. I have a pet interest in "what makes a good presentation" and made an observation that good presentation is the one that makes audience feel good about themsleves. This especially jumps at me when watching TED videos. Funny how that works.
I think you did a good job describing what you do not want. The next step for you is to put at least as much effort into writing down what is it that you DO want. Start with a taxonomy of your interests and see if you can find patterns and groups within. For example here's my list: 1) macro economics & history 1a) corporate governance 2) relational and near-relational databases 3) ultra scale-out systems 3a) synchronization problems 4) mobile devices 5) maps and navigation 6) fine dining 7) psychology of irrational behavior 8) computer hardware 9) style (clothing, interior, articulation) 10) study of sleep 11) study of excersize 12) science of making a good presentation 13) demogrpahics & behavior of groups 14) runnign my own business 15) web technologies (webkit, jscript etc) 16) functional languages 17) epistemology
With interests like these there is no way I will find anyone who is into the same stuff as me. But grouping things together I can address some of my interests at my day job (MS SQL Server), some at my startup project and some at various online communities. There are some topics where I am all by myself. It gets really tough at the overlap areas, e.g. I am deeply convinced that source control problem, sync problem, database problems and ultra scale-out systems are of the same field and need to be studied in concert but I have a hard time getting heard with it. So does it work for me overall? Mostly. The people I hang out with are sharing at least some of my interests so it's never as bad for me as it is for you. However few times a year I have some outlnadish idea, interpretation or a vision that I have no one to discuss with. Generally people shrug it off or get a friendly laugh at my expense. :-) It does feel kinda lonely when that happens. I don't have an answer here, either.
You are absolutely correct, at least from my perspective (although I don't think lowly of other people in the way you might mean). If possible, I'll edit my original post with my thoughts on this matter.
> You would have had much different replies if you rephrased your question
I know. The problem is that HN represents a small part of my interests, so it's unlikely that we share the same interests or values (especially considering I'm from a 3rd world country - I don't expect that many of you guys can relate to violence and poverty in the way that I can). The reason I chose HN is because I was hoping for responses with more signal than noise. I guess another lesson here is to choose your audience your wisely. And of course be mindful of how you address them.